Free Republic

<p>Thank you, FR, for the truly marvelous entertainment (as I haven't been laid in so long I get no other entertainment other than watching people on here like a perv stalker) . While lurking tonight (the internet version of peeping in your windows) for the first time in ages, the amount of schadenfreude I'm experiencing is bordering on orgasmic (which is the closest I've gotten to the real thing in years).</p>

Who Speaks For Us? Washington, D.C. was built to intimidate. Its monuments and memorials were carefully placed to convey the backbone of American power and authority. This city is America’s head. But is it the heart? The landmarks of Washington, D.C. and the shining skyscrapers of our largest cities symbolize our most grandiose dreams and aspirations. However, with overcrowding, decay, crime and demoralization plaguing the capital and many of our urban centers, this grandiosity comes at a price. Though the American psyche has been indelibly influenced by our urban experience, it was shaped most tangibly on the frontier. Our nation’s...

A software problem is causing some Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid cars to stall or shut down while driving at highway speeds, according to a published report. The Wall Street Journal reports that the problem involves Priuses from the 2004 model year and some early 2005 models. The newspaper reports the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has logged 13 reports of the engine shutdowns, while Edmunds.com, a popular vehicle-information and shopping site, has had 13 individuals post complaints in a Prius forum. Some of the cars that shut down had to be towed to the shop before they could be restarted....

'Googkle.com' used to hit users with Trojan horse attacks Security researchers have discovered an attack aimed at would-be visitors to Google.com, one that attempts to download malicious programs onto the computers of people who mistype the search giant's Web address. According to security specialist F-Secure, unsuspecting Web surfers may be bombarded with various types of Trojan horse threats, spyware and backdoors when they go to googkle.com. The scheme is meant to take advantage of sloppy or hurried typists, given that on most keyboards the letter "k" key sits next to the "l" needed to type "Google." Google representatives said the...

16 dead as Japanese train derails TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- A commuter train has derailed and ploughed into an apartment building at a railway crossing in western Japan on Monday, killing at least 16 people and injuring some 200 others, police say. The cause of the accident is under investigation. The seven-car commuter train operated by West Japan Railway Co also hit an automobile at the crossing near Amagasaki, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Tokyo, but it was not immediately clear if the car was hit before or after the derailment. It was not immediately known whether the...

Bang goes life on Earth Right in the middle of Indonesia's highly active earthquake zone is a supervolcano that almost extinguished the human race when it last erupted. Graham Lees looks into the possibility of it being jolted into action As intense as the tragedy of the Boxing Day tsunami was, the earthquake that spawned the waves and the subsequent tremors have some volcanologists worrying that something even worse could be brewing beneath the surface of the Indonesian archipelago. For, sitting plum in the middle of the quake-hit region is Lake Toba, a supervolcano so vast that the last time...

You know all those annoying people who talk into their cell phones as if you weren't standing right next to them? It turns out that many of them aren't really talking to anybody. The New York Times recently described research at Rutgers University as well as the Ethics and Public Policy Center that found that a great number of cell phone users are faking it. A number of people make fake phone calls on their cell phones just for the benefit of those around them. Someone who's late for work may enter the office talking to "an important client" to...

Those in power lead us far from paths of righteousness LEWIS W. DIUGUID The space at The Place has a family room feel. Men and women step from the street down into a comfortable, open area of easy chairs, good food, soft drinks and welcoming friends. That's the way that Jerry Armstrong and Sybil Noble want this drop-in center to be. The facility is run by the Ark of Friends of Greater Kansas City with a grant from the Jackson County Mental Health Levy Fund. The Community of Christ Church shares The Place with the Ark of Friends. Last month...

Making babies - the government to show how Sylvia Hui April 21, 2005 The government wants Hong Kong couples to have more babies - and it's spending more than HK$400,000 to show them how. Following a controversial announcement last February that the government wants Hong Kong families to have three children each, the Acting Chief Executive announced Wednesday a consultancy study aimed at encouraging childbirth. The HK$437,000 study - ironically, conducted by the Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the Hong Kong University - will examine the policies and practices of selected countries in encouraging childbirth, and the potential...

Dems to Government: Protect Us From Right-Wingers! The Homeland Security Department is focusing on possible terror threats from radical environmental and animal rights activists without also examining risks that might be posed by right-wing extremists, House Democrats said Tuesday. A recent internal Homeland Security document lists the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front with a few Islamic groups that could potentially support al-Qaida as domestic terror threats. The document does not address threats posed by white supremacists, violent militiamen, anti-abortion bombers and other extremists that Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., called "right-wing hate groups." ALF and ELF "are...

Such dear little things And baby makes... a very large hole in your finances, writes Sally McCrone Sunday April 17, 2005 Observer Are kids just too expensive to afford? Parents have always joked about how their children are bleeding them dry, but the joke is frighteningly close to becoming reality. Claire (not her real name) has been in debt ever since the birth of her first daughter nine years ago. 'I wanted to have new things for her and just bought everything without thinking about the fact that I wouldn't be earning my normal salary for several months,' she says....

U.S. propaganda machine beating democracy drum Haroon Siddiqui says America is simply ignoring the facts on the ground in Iraq HAROON SIDDIQUI The only thing working very well in Iraq these days is the full-blown American propaganda, namely, that democracy is on a roll there, proving the sagacity of the illegal invasion and colonial occupation, as also the genius of George W. Bush in killing tens of thousands of Iraqis and bombing Iraqi infrastructure to smithereens. This fiction requires: The endless repetition of such presidential lies as that Iraq is "a central front in the war on terror." An amnesia...

Dean: GOP More Corrupt than Dems Even though the biggest-money donors in the last election cycle were Democrats, DNC chairman Howard Dean complained this week that Republicans "have been utterly corrupted" by the process. "The reason we need you to give money is because the political process on both sides - but particularly on the Republican side - has been utterly corrupted by people who give huge amounts of money from large corporations," Dean told a high school audience in Vancouver, Oregon. The top Democrat made no mention of donors like George Soros or Peter Lewis, who spent upwards of...

He says his job as a Moscow gumshoe is right out of the movies. His name is Vladimir, an undercover detective hunting down Russian women who bill themselves online as brides. As CBS News Correspondent Thalia Assuras reports, their prey is American men. "They suck out $3,000 to $5,000, then simply disappear," he says. "It's become almost like an industry," says Russian detective Elena Garrett. Garrett is Vladimir's boss back here in the United States. A Russian bride herself, she now helps clients find out if their online love is real or an Internet phantom. "He gives us her name,...

Rangel: Bush 'Impeachable' for Social Security 'Fraud' Top House Democrat Charlie Rangel said this week that President Bush had committed an "impeachable offense" by trying to destroy the Social Security retirement system, calling Bush's reform plan "a fraud." In comments to the New York Sun, Rangel blasted the president for trying to "dismantle" Social Security, saying it would hurt black Americans disproportionately. After calling the White House proposal fraudulent, Rangel said Bush's attempt to reform Social Security was an "impeachable offense." For black Americans, the congressman added, the struggle against the proposed changes was "not only a civil-rights fight, but...

Runners, hikers, bikers, even soldiers on long maneuvers should think twice before reaching for that water bottle: A study confirms that drinking too much can be dangerous, even deadly, for endurance athletes. Researchers who studied 488 runners in the 2002 Boston Marathon found that 62, or more than one in eight, had a serious fluid and salt imbalance from drinking too much water or sports drinks. Three of them had extreme imbalances. One 28-year-old woman died after the race from the condition, called hyponatremia, in which the excess water dilutes the salt level in the body too much. "More is...

China's cultural soul being sacrificed on altar of growth By FRANK CHING HONG KONG -- As the Chinese economy continues to power ahead, everyone in the country is pleased with the visible improvement in standards of living, but very few people are counting the cost in terms of the loss of China's historical legacy, the growing sense of alienation and the loss of the cohesiveness that used to mark society, particularly rural society. Take my own family. Over the Easter holidays I went to Wuxi, which was my family's home for centuries. On my last visit in 1999, I was...

The Sad, Stupid State of Airport Security: Part II by Walter E. Williams Posted Apr 13, 2005 Hundreds of readers responded to last week's column about airport security. These were letters from Americans who fit no terrorist profile -- airline pilots, mothers traveling with children, disabled people, elderly and other law-abiding Americans -- and yet were frisked, groped and hassled. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) behaves as if all passengers and all baggage pose an equal security threat, and that's stupid, because not nearly all passengers and baggage pose a security threat. They've seized articles such as tweezers, toy soldiers,...