Free Republic

AOL News has obtained two plays a classmate says were written by Cho Seung-Hui. Ian MacFarlane, the former classmate and current AOL employee, provided us with the plays. A note from Mr. MacFarlane and links to the works appear below......

In what appears to be a case of outrageous censorship by publicly-funded PBS, a documentary film, prepared by a partnership including the estimable Frank Gaffney, on the struggle between moderate and radical Muslims has been deep-sixed. We print below a statement prepared by Mr. Gaffney on the situation. Read the linked article and the statement and decide for yourself whether PBS is behaving as the even-handed non-partisan entity it is supposed to be. The statement: Background ... Frank Gaffney was among those invited to submit a proposal for a documentary film about the world post-9/11 to the CPB... Shortly thereafter,...

When Attorney General Janet Reno first announced the blanket dismissal of about 70 United States Attorneys who are Bush Administration holdovers, her aides said she might exempt those needed to wrap up significant investigations. But yesterday the White House, making clear once more that Ms. Reno is not fully in charge at the Justice Department, removed most of that fig leaf of an exception. President Clinton's spokesman, George Stephanopoulos, said that some top prosecutors who are tied up in trials would be allowed to complete them, but most others would have to go. Their investigations would be continued by lower-ranking...

What to do? That's the only thing left to ponder now that the hot mess that was NBA All-Star Weekend has left us with no choice but to deal with a problem that has been fomenting for 20 years. Prison culture swallowed hip-hop culture, turning party music into a celebration of violence, hostility, disrespect and drug-dealing. Prison culture created the Black KKK and negated much of the progress won by the civil-rights movement. We can no longer afford to live in denial of these realities, and we must formulate a game plan to combat the self-destructive culture that is influencing...

Liberals' head-in-the-sand urge to pull troops out of Iraq is nothing new. Western democracies, entranced with liberal Progressivism, have failed repeatedly to preserve social and political stability.   In words that apply to public opinion today, Walter Lippmann, in The Public Philosophy (1954), described his dismay in the summer of 1938, when war in Europe seemed inevitable.  ...there was no sure prospect that France and Great Britain would be able to withstand the [German] onslaught that was coming. They were unprepared, their people were divided and demoralized. The Americans were far away, were determined to be neutral, and were unarmed........

You knew this was coming. The strange saga of the astronaut who traveled 900 miles to allegedly try to murder a rival for the affections of a fellow astronaut will be turned into a movie. Granada America has optioned the film rights to a New York Times article on Lisa Nowak, 43, who was arrested Monday and charged with attempted murder. Nowak, a Navy captain and mother of three, wore diapers during her trip so she wouldn't have to stop for bathroom breaks. Once in Orlando, she confronted Colleen Shipman, whom she believed was involved in a relationship with Navy...

One of the saddest, cruelest stories I’ve heard in a while. Larry Nahay and a few buddies went rabbit hunting in Westmoreland County, PA, one day last week. Nahay cut loose his 3 prized beagles and off they went.  The little dogs soon caught the scent of their game and took off baying, filling the valley with that sweet hunting dog music. Then the hunters heard a shot…and another…and five more.  Nahay’s dogs went quiet so he took off running up the hill, calling their names, "Millie! Maddy! Minnie!" He found the little gals dead, lying next to each...

BEIJING (Nov. 16) - Elaine Loke is shutting down her dog boutique and will spirit her golden retrievers Hippy and Bally out of Beijing to escape the city's sweeping anti-rabies campaign. Dog owners like Loke have been scrambling to hide their pets in the face of a new crackdown which allows only one dog per household and bans breeds taller than 14 inches. Fears have been fueled by graphic Internet pictures and witnesses who say police are beating to death strays and dogs that run afoul of regulations. "I can't believe this is happening," said Loke, 33, who keeps the...

Today, it seems that legions of people – growing legions – are falling victims to ideas and beliefs that on the face of it are patently false…things that are so clearly and obviously nuts that you really have to wonder what deep, mighty engine of emotional need could possibly drive a brain so deep into a hole. Seriously now, there are millions and millions of people on this planet who will torture logic and reason to mind-bending extremes in order to believe monumentally ridiculous “theories” … theories drawn from an emotional need so warped and debased that you are catapulted...

On the same day that Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, outraged voters of all political persuasions with his comments made at a rally in support of California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides that military personnel were uneducated, National Public Radio followed KerryÂ’s lead when they aired a segment by correspondent Mandalit del Barco during their Morning Edition program, claiming that Puerto Rican military recruits are being duped into military service by unscrupulous recruiters using promises of huge signing bonuses.For her report, del Barco traveled to two small Puerto Rican towns, Mayaguez and Quebradillas, both of which have lost...

Green Bay - Living isn't sitting in front of the TV all night after work, watching sports. It's going to his sons' games to support them. Living is using his expertise as a psychologist to help troubled kids at Ranch Ehrlo, a non-profit treatment center. Living is simple moments like laughter at the dinner table. So when the doctors told Bob Ryan he would need half his body amputated, more tumors removed from his lungs and who knows what else just to stay alive, Ryan could not agree. "He said he wanted to live, not survive," said his son, Jon...

November 1, 2006 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLinenews.org - ABC has proclaimed the matter settled "Kerry Apologizes as 'Stuck in Iraq' Firestorm Rages," as if the networks still control the flow and content of news. But the controversy is far from over, it rages on not only because of the very real harm that Senator Kerry's troop bashing remarks have caused, but because Mr. Kerry has not - despite opinions to the contrary by the MSM who is acting in the capacity of press agent for the beleaguered Senator - apologized. He has however authorized his stooges to place...

Yes, it’s the political silly season, when media experts hyperventilate over oddly assorted, often trivial controversies (George Allen’s “Macaca”-gate; the allegedly racist Harold-Ford-at-the-Playboy-Party ad; Rush Limbaugh’s “insensitive” mockery of Michael J. Fox) that loom large in the run-up to a major election but stand little chance of qualifying for long term historical significance. The explosive dispute over John Kerry’s dismissive, insulting comments about our troops in Iraq may, however, constitute an important exception and could mark a notable turning point in the vicious, decades-long battle between Democratic and Republican image-makers. For several reasons, Kerry’s crack matters. Those reasons are:

I love the tone of this article. When Republicans make their case, they're "attacking" Democrats. When the Dems bid, it's called "countering." The verbage throughout the article is very enlightening. Here's a few highlights of clever word association by author Espo. Republicans: attack, criticizing, battle...waged, protect seats, Bush's script, mocked, reeling, ridiculed, accusation. Democrats: undeterred, countered, change, winning, usher in a new era of divided government, poised to win, decade of struggle, projected confidence, competitive, gained the endorsement. You can see that the author paints a bleak outlook for Republicans almost characterizing them as cornered animals, lashing out at the...

Is anyone keeping track of all these generalities, and while we’re at it, all the unsubstantiated characterizations? Republicans are morons, the Christian Right runs everything, Republicans are drowning in scandal, white men are angry, troops in Iraq are a bunch of dimwits…Cheney is unscrupulous and Bush is a putz.I remember a generation ago that a “liberal” was someone who was fighting a Good Fight against generalizations. It started out with an intellectual combat waged against half-assed unthinking statements like “black people are lazy” — the liberal would be there to say, hey, there’s lazy & hard-working white people, there’s lazy...

November 1, 2006 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - John Kerry's ill-considered statement that the 140,000 U.S. troops who are serving in Iraq are there because they are too stupid to have gained admission to Ivy League schools, has become in the fevered prose of NY Times scribblers Adam Nagourney and Jim Rutenberg, a reprehensible attack by President Bush on the left's favorite anti-war warrior whom the authors almost tearfully point out, "is not [sniff...] running for office this year" therefore demonstrating their firm mastery of grade school civics. "President Bush...attacked Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts over the war...

How stupid does Rod Blagojevich think the voters of Illinois are? There's a concept called "conflict of interest" which the public understands pretty well and most politicians treat with a certain amount of seriousness. Entering public life doesn't mean that a person and every member of their family has to quit everything else or stop doing business altogether, but it does mean that they should reevaluate any business relationships that might be called into question or give off the appearance of impropriety. So it's especially insulting that Rod Blagojevich, who is careening his way to reelection amid a flurry of...

Pakistani helicopter gunships have destroyed an Islamic school allegedly used as an Al-Qaeda-linked training camp near the Afghan border, killing up to 80 suspected militants. Local leaders however insisted that most of the dead were teenage students, many of whom were "reduced to bits and pieces", and protests erupted against the Pakistani government and its ally the United States.The airstrike that targeted a madrassa in the troubled Bajaur tribal agency was one of the biggest ever in Pakistan's frontier region, where many Al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents have sought sanctuary since 2001."Information we have received from certain local sources and intelligence...

There are polls and there are people. Polls are relatively straightforward. When compiled reliably they are supposed to tell a story in digits. That story may be contradictory (people say they want more social services and less tax), but even the contradictions are clear. Polls provide the pillars for the mega-narratives - the broad brush strokes that draw the big picture. People, on the other hand, are anything but straightforward. They dissemble, evade and lie - even to themselves. They confuse what they want to be true with what they know to be true. A person who does not contradict...