Free Republic

SALEM, Massachusetts (Oct. 31) - She brews potions, wears flowing black caftans and says she can speak with the dead and cast spells with a gentle wave of a wand. Laurie Cabot is a proud witch , and she's fighting for her civil rights. At age 73, the official witch of Salem says her craft is stronger than ever, as she sits in an overstuffed chair behind a pink table where she does psychic readings -- and where, she says, spirits of the dead often "pop through." "I can't see them with my eyes, I just know they are there,"...

SADDAM HUSSEIN ended his 19-day hunger strike last Wednesday with a meal of beef, rice and Coca-Cola, but he had little to show for his starvation. Iraqis in particular, living day-to-day with brutal sectarian violence, viewed Mr. Hussein’s self-sacrifice as an insult. “Saddam’s hunger strike didn’t work because it came from someone who is finished in Iraq and has no political or personal value for the Iraqi people,” said Fauwzya al-Attiya, a sociologist at Baghdad University. “Most of us wish he was executed just to end this problem so we can face our other problems.” But if Mr. Hussein tarnished...