Free Republic

I usually offer PC help, not ask, but... I having a problem reinstalling MS Office 2003. It's looking for MT561403.CAB, which doesn't appear to be on the install disk. I've seen copies online, but I have no idea how trustworthy any of those are. I haven't seen a solution.

There's a Lautenberg/gun bill thread at digg.com. It seems that there are more pro-gun people on it that anti-gun nuts. That doesn't happen often over there. FReepers should digg it up. http://digg.com/politics/UPDATE_Lautenberg_gun_show_bill_as_bad_as_expected

LOS ANGELES – "SpongeBob SquarePants" might get squeezed off Time Warner Cable. Media giant Viacom Inc. said its Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and 16 other channels will go dark for 13 million subscribers at 12:01 a.m. Thursday if a new carriage fee deal with Time Warner Cable Inc. is not agreed upon by then. The impasse would mean "SpongeBob" and other popular shows like Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert Report" will be cut off on the nation's second-largest cable operator.

Friends, Will you please take the time to read this, and if you think it worthwhile, pass it along to your email list, and ask them to read it? Even if they voted, with all good intentions, for Mr. Obama? I am a student of history. Professionally. I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied it all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a...

I haven't asked this in a while, but what webcomics do you read? There are thousands of them out there these days, and little time to go through them all to find the good ones.

There's a Palin wink website with some nasty comments attached, and a few defending Sarah. Apparently, anonymous posts are allowed and pretty much encouraged, so go put in a few good words.

Many are very familiar with the classic visual tool that explains priorities and time management. One is given some sort of container and a mess of rocks of various sizes to put inside. After several strategies fall flat, the answer is revealed: the largest rocks should be inserted first, then the medium-sized ones, and finally the pebbles are scattered therein, slipping down to fill up the spaces. Voila – everything fits! ... For women in particular, it becomes obvious that arranging priorities varies widely from one person to another. When applying these thoughts to the riveting choice of Gov. Sarah...

What was your favorite book in 2007. It didn't have to be published in 2007, as long as that's when you read it. Was there anything that you were looking forward to that turned out to be disappointing? My apologies for not pinging the list in a long time. I've been waiting to get my computer back from being fixed and I've been waiting ... anyway ...

Dramatic new pictures have revealed the unseen side of Mercury in detailed images taken from a Nasa spacecraft orbiting the planet. Astronomers saw firsthand the clear image of the Skull & Cross Bones of Mercury, a sure sign that Space Pirates have been to the planet closest to the Sun. "It all makes sense," says one astronomer, asking not to be named. "Mercury is poisonous, and the symbol represents poison. Mercury is known as Quicksilver, and Long John Silver was a pirate. Pirates wanted pieces of eight, and there are eight planets." The Space Pirates obviously didn't recognize Pluto as...

Have you ever wondered what it is that your kids are texting to each other? Here's a list of 50 that you need to know. Warning: mature language is being used. Click on the link for the list.

We can see in hindsight how incumbent parties get blamed and creamed in federal elections, as Republicans did in 1932 during the Depression and Democrats did in 1994 after the failure of health care. We rarely see disaster in advance. But with 13 months to go, current trend lines indicate that a perfect storm is gathering force and will likely decimate Republican strength in federal and state races in November 2008. Not one but four separate seismic events together will - short of another terrorist attack or a new war against Iran - alter the electoral terrain of America. Iraq:...

When there hasn't been a new post on FR for an entire five minutes, which webcomics do you check out? Are they humorous? Political? Geeky? All of the above? I used to read Dork Tower and Irregular Webcomic when I still had a subscription to Pyramid Online. IWC has pointed me to The Alterverse War, which just started, so I don't know if it'll be any good or not. And recently I discovered XKCD, which occasionally relies on the use of math and science knowledge for its humor (and it does it quite well). (There are some favorites on the...

The countdown is on! We're all waiting. Let's talk about it while we're waiting. This countdown ticks down the time to both the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix film. Countdown clocks can be found at http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/#static:countdowns

The Free Republic Book Club is an informal gathering of readers and lovers of all genre of books, which meets on an irregular basis, which would whenever I remember to post something. The last meeting, Free Republic Book Club: (1/16/07) What's on Your Reading List for 2007? was quite a while ago. Sorry about that. If you would like to be on this ping list -- or if you are on it and wished to be removed -- please send me mail. This "week's" topic: What's your favorite Book Series? For the sake of argument, let's define a "series" as...

FReepers have come through to help me before, and I'm hoping that you can do it again. I have a school webpage, and I'm trying to improve their default layouts a little bit. Basically, I have a script that I found in a tutorial to open up a popup window. I want to use the same popup window for a bunch of different vocabulary words, so that the student doesn't wind up with 15 windows open. Here's my problem. The first window pops up. After that, the new page will go into the same window, but it doesn't get the...

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- The musical "Dreamgirls" led Academy Awards contenders Tuesday with eight nominations, but surprisingly was shut out in the best picture category after being considered a potential front-runner. The sweeping ensemble drama "Babel" was close behind with seven, including best picture and acting honors for two newcomers to U.S. audiences, Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi. Other best-picture nominees were the bloody crime saga "The Departed," the World War II spectacle "Letters From Iwo Jima," the road-trip comedy "Little Miss Sunshine" and the monarchy-in-crisis chronicle "The Queen." Going into nominations day, the best-picture competition looked unusually wide...

The Free Republic Book Club is an informal gathering of readers and lovers of all genre of books, which meets on an irregular basis, which would whenever I remember to post something. The last meeting, "What did you read in 2006?" was a big success with over 200 posts over the week. If you would like to be on this ping list -- or if you are on it and wished to be removed -- please send me mail. If you already sent me mail wishing to be removed and you were pinged anyway, oops, my apologies, please request again....

The Free Republic Book Club is an informal gathering of readers and lovers of all genre of books, which meets on an irregular basis, which would whenever I remember to post and have a copy of the ping list available. Actually, the last time we "met" was July of 2005. Sorry about that. If you would like to be on this ping list -- or if you are on it and wished to be removed -- please send me mail. If you already sent me mail wishing to be removed and you were pinged anyway, oops, my apologies, please request...

This is too funny. I logged into my original Internet account, which I rarely use anymore, to clean out the spam from the email. Now, I occasionally get messages from the Young Democrats club/list/group/whatever. I don't know how I ever got on that mailing list, but I find the fact that they send it to me of all people somewhat amusing. Well, on November 30, someone else who was pondering how she got on the list sent a reply to unsubscribe. Well, that was it. The flood gates opened. I had about 100 or more reply messages containing unsubscribe messages,...

Advice needed from the Brain Trust: I'm hoping some computer geeks better than I can find an answer to this Excel problem. Basically, I've used Excel to calculate grades before, and that's fine. I usually have 3 exams and I drop the lowest score. Again, that's easy. However, this marking period, I have been informed that I should give a cumulative grade for the first and second marking periods. (It is math, after all, which builds upon itself.) Now, to be fair to the students, I would like to drop their lowest two tests out of the six, not just...