Free Republic

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Instead of highlighting New Mexico's picturesque desert landscapes, art galleries or centuries-old culture, a new tourism campaign features drooling, grotesque office workers from outer space chatting about their personal lives. The 30-second TV spots — which lead in roundabout fashion to the tag line that New Mexico may be "the best place in the Universe" — are provocative, funny and bold. But to increasingly vocal critics, the state-financed ad campaign is a possible threat to the well-being of the state's $5.1 billion tourism industry. In other words, while the ads may yield a chuckle or two, the...

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leftwing candidate in Mexico’s presidential elections, refused on Thursday night to accept defeat at the hands of his centre-right rival, Felipe Calderón. He called instead on his supporters to gather for a mass rally in the capital on Saturday. “It is clear that there was manipulation [of the counting],” Mr López Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution party (PRD), said, hours after Mr Calderón had taken a wafer-thin lead. “We are not going to sit back with our arms crossed.” With 99.9 per cent of the vote counted last night, Mr Calderón, of the ruling National...

BOSTON - Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts raised cash for his campaign committee on Monday in what is shaping up as enemy territory — the home state of potential 2008 presidential rival John McCain of Arizona. Romney held a fundraiser in Phoenix, a foray that Romney's staff says highlights his ability to compete in Southwestern and Mountain states. They are home not only to McCain and a coveted bloc of Republican-leaning voters, but also many of Romney's fellow Mormons. It is McCain whom Romney singled out when the governor announced in December he would not seek a second term...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - An Israeli missile obliterated a vehicle in crowded Gaza City, killing two Palestinian militants inside — a common sight these days. But the attack also killed three boys, provoking grief and rage among Palestinians and criticism from Israelis. Israel's air force commander defended the strikes against Islamic Jihad, which has carried out daily rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel as well as all six suicide attacks since February 2005. On Wednesday, Islamic Jihad threatened to hit Israeli leaders in retaliation for Monday's killing of its militants. "The Zionist enemy leaders should know that they definitely...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — In the "Cowboy State," where guns are present in more than half of all homes, an unlikely battleground is forming in the fight over the appropriate use of firearms. Flush with victory in its push for state laws allowing concealed handguns, the National Rifle Association is lobbying lawmakers here and in 11 other states, including Arizona, to make it easier for people to defend themselves with deadly force. The NRA, backed by a growing membership of about 4 million, wants legislation specifying that people have no duty to retreat from an attacker before using deadly force. About...

Miss Run Amok stirs up a storm at America's most famous paper By Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 24/10/2005) Civil war erupted at America's most famous newspaper yesterday, with senior staff exchanging public recriminations over the actions of a controversial reporter nicknamed "Miss Run Amok". The reader representative of The New York Times, a senior figure in the paper's hierarchy, roundly criticised both its editor and its publisher for their "deference" to the reporter, Judith Miller. ‘Misleading’: Judith Miller Ms Miller recently spent 85 days in jail for refusing to reveal sources in the affair of the leaked name of...

<p>Nine months before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, three emergency-preparedness officials from Louisiana were indicted, accused of obstruction and lying in connection with the mishandling of $30.4 million in disaster-relief money. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has tried unsuccessfully to recover the money following an investigation of a program to buy out homeowners in flood-prone areas.</p>

HOUSTON – Hurricane Rita closed in on the Texas Gulf Coast and the heart of the U.S. oil-refining industry with howling 145 mph winds Thursday, but a sharper-than-expected turn to the right set it on a course that could spare Houston and nearby Galveston a direct hit. The storm's march toward land sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the nation's fourth-largest city in a frustratingly slow, bumper-to-bumper exodus. "This is the worst planning I've ever seen," said Judie Anderson, who covered just 45 miles in 12 hours after setting out from her home in the Houston suburb of LaPorte....

New analysis of pottery stirs Olmec trade controversy Clearing -- or perhaps roiling -- the murky and often contentious waters of Mesoamerican archeology, a study of 3,000-year-old pottery provides new evidence that the Olmec may not have been the mother culture after all. Writing this week (Aug. 1, 2005) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team of scientists led by University of Wisconsin-Madison archeologist James B. Stoltman presents new evidence that shows the Olmec, widely regarded as the creators of the first civilization in Mesoamerica, imported pottery from other nearby cultures. The finding undermines the...

ESCONDIDO, Calif. - Laid out in rows stretching longer than a football field, 1,513 pairs of black military boots gave a sunsplashed park the quiet, somber mood of a cemetery. The traveling exhibit, a reminder of the U.S. troops lost in Iraq (news - web sites) , arrived on the West Coast this week as divisive as the war itself — especially for the families of the fallen men and women. To some of the families, it is a cathartic, fitting memorial in a nation they say seems largely anesthetized to the pain of a distant war. For others, it's...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Egypt's coming trade agreement with Israel and the United States is stirring a debate in Egypt, with business executives saying it could create 250,000 jobs in a year and politicians saying it favors Israel. As part of an accord scheduled to be signed Tuesday in Cairo, goods produced in certain areas in Egypt with a minimum Israeli content will gain tariff-free access to the United States. The deal is one of several moves that signal hopes of reviving the Mideast peace process after the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat last month. The secretary-general of Egypt's...

Find stirs Sleeping Buddha talk By Maseeh Rahman THE WASHINGTON TIMES BAMIYAN, Afghanistan — French archeologists searching for the colossal Sleeping Buddha in Bamiyan province have uncovered what could be the long-missing statue's foot, raising hopes of a major new discovery from Afghanistan's ancient Buddhist past. Ever since the fundamentalist Taliban destroyed Bamiyan's 1,500-year-old Standing Buddhas in 2001 because they were "un-Islamic," attention has been focused on the hunt for the much larger Sleeping Buddha, described in the travel diary of the seventh-century Chinese monk Xuan Zang and depicted in cave paintings at the historic site in the Hindu Kush...

FRESNO, Calif. - A plan to increase freshwater pumping from the delta is pitting Central Valley farmers who want the water for their crops against environmentalists and delta farmers who fear the move will undermine years of fishery and water quality restoration efforts. The proposal would increase the amount of water pumped out of the San Joaquin-Sacramento river delta, a fragile ecosystem that already supplies water for 22 million Californians as far south as Los Angeles and irrigates millions of acres of Central Valley farmland. The increased flow would help stabilize the amount of water delivered to farmers in the...

SAN ANSELMO, Calif. (AP) - A downtown property owner protesting President Bush's re-election raised a furor in this small Northern California town when he placed an upside down American flag on his two-story building. Ford Greene has stirred anger previously with controversial signs, including one before Tuesday's election that read "Take the thug out," an apparent reference to defeating Bush. After the election, he replaced it with an upside down American flag, prompting more than a dozen angry telephone calls to San Anselmo Town Hall and the police department. "It's a First Amendment right, but he feels the U.S. is...

Hoping to decipher the state's perplexing ballot propositions, a coalition of advocacy groups has published an unprecedented ``immigrant voters guide'' for tens of thousands of foreign-born citizens across California. But while the coalition claims to be non-partisan, its guide might create a different impression: The recommendations side 100 percent with the official position of the state Democratic Party. ``It's ridiculous,'' said Nhut Ho, an alternate member of the Santa Clara County Republican Central Committee, and Vietnam native. He said the guide incorrectly characterizes all immigrants as Democrats. Some local and state Republican leaders are questioning how the coalition came to...

WASHINGTON - Ten years after it was adopted to cool a conflict over logging of old-growth trees, the Northwest Forest Plan still provokes hot debate. The Clinton administration signed the landmark plan on April 13, 1994, to settle lawsuits brought by environmentalists and bring a level of peace in a battling region. The plan sharply reduced logging on 24 million acres of federal land in Washington, Oregon and northern California to protect the northern spotted owl, salmon and other threatened species. At the same time, it promised a sustainable supply of timber — including some from older, more commercially valuable...

America stirs hornet's nest of revenge (Filed: 08/11/2003) Angry Iraqi villagers are supporting resistance to the occupying powers, writes David Blair It is unlikely that a Pentagon official will ever visit the Iraqi hamlet of al-Hussai on the western bank of the Euphrates river, but if he did he would find the views of 19-year-old Bashar Hashim Abdullah deeply troubling. As he gathered the maize harvest from a lush field lined with palm trees, Bashar expressed a settled opinion of the US soldiers who patrol near his mud-brick home in central Iraq. US soldiers clear up the remains of the...