Free Republic

Not sure on excerpt policy, but recall something about Guardian being bad, so no excerpt.

Over the years I have read stories on FR about reports of muslim males buying huge numbers of pre-paid cell phones, often triggering calls to law enforcement. While I don't generally discount reports from local media outlets (remember the OU bombing?), it seems crazy that this would be going on with nary a peep from other sources. Here is my odd story about this. ~3 months ago I was in New Orleans, and purchased a prepaid cell phone at a story on Royal street almost at canal (quarter-side). The store proprietors were obviously muslim, don't know if pak. or arab....

BILOXI, Miss. -- Court records showed through ties to attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, P.L. Blake will earn $50 million. The Sun Herald reported Blake is earning that money for clipping newspaper articles and alerting Scruggs to maneuvering in political "cloakrooms," as Scruggs put it, from Mississippi to Washington. Scruggs has said that Blake will earn $50 million in fees over 20 years from Scruggs' share of tobacco settlements. Mike Moore, who as Mississippi's attorney general guided the tobacco litigation, has said he was unaware Scruggs is paying Blake such a large sum. Accounts of how Blake earned the money are...

Word on the street ... they’re listening POLICE and councils are considering monitoring conversations in the street using high-powered microphones attached to CCTV cameras, write Steven Swinford and Nicola Smith. The microphones can detect conversations 100 yards away and record aggressive exchanges before they become violent. The devices are used at 300 sites in Holland and police, councils and transport officials in London have shown an interest in installing them before the 2012 Olympics. The interest in the equipment comes amid growing concern that Britain is becoming a “surveillance society”. It was recently highlighted that there are more than 4.2m...

Residents of the city’s Virden Addition tell the Jackson Free Press that they saw Mayor Frank Melton and a team of young men partially demolish a duplex at 1305 Ridgeway Street last Saturday night. Unlike at least some of the dilapidated homes that Melton has been regularly burning down in the city, this home was privately owned and occupied, they say. Michael Smith, of Jackson, is among residents near Bailey Avenue claiming that the mayor and a team of young men took sledgehammers to a home owned by Jennifer Sutton, hours after the mayor cut his hand during a crime...

Israel Cabinet Endorses Jerusalem Barrier By MARK LAVIE The Associated Press Sunday, July 10, 2005; 5:30 PM JERUSALEM -- Israel's Cabinet on Sunday affirmed a plan to surround Jerusalem with a barrier, despite protests by Palestinians, who say the Israelis are unilaterally redrawing the disputed city's boundaries and shifting its demographic balance in favor of Jews. The Israeli ministers acknowledged about 55,000 Palestinian residents in four neighborhoods will eventually be cut off from their city by the separation barrier, meant to stop Palestinian bombers, and promised to come up with a plan by Sept. 1 on how to alleviate some...

The Sunday Times - Britain July 03, 2005 Forget cameras - spy device will cut drivers’ speed by satellite Dipesh Gadher, Transport Correspondent IT IS the ultimate back seat driver. Motorists face having their cars fitted with a “spy” device that stops speeding. The satellite-based system will monitor the speed limit and apply the brakes or cut out the accelerator if the driver tries to exceed it. A government-funded trial has concluded that the scheme promotes safer driving. Drivers in London could be among the first to have the “speed spy” devices fitted. They would be offered a discount on...

Ross Perot fined for speeding in his boat By Coggie Gibbons (News from 2005-07-01 Edition) American billionaire and sometime Bermuda resident Ross Perot was fined in Magistrates’ Court this week for two marine offences. Former U.S. presidential candidate Mr. Perot, 75, of Tucker’s Town, pleaded guilty to operating a power craft without reasonable consideration on July 24 last year in western waters and speeding in a restricted area where the limit was five knots. Inspector Philip Taylor, prosecuting, told the court that a member of the public in a boat in waters off Watford Island, Somerset saw Mr. Perot’s 38-foot...

Cigar sellers argue for a smoking ban exemption WILLIAM LYONS wlyons@scotlandonsunday.com SCOTLAND’S independent cigar merchants have written to Health Minister Andy Kerr in a last-minute bid to have their shops exempted from the impending ban on smoking in public places. The letter, signed by Phillip Shervington, the chairman of the Association of Independent Tobacco Specialists, argues that it is essential for their business that clients are able to taste their products before buying. There are only 18 specialist tobacco shops in Scotland and it is hoped the small number can persuade the health minister to grant an exemption. The letter...

Microphones in lamp posts to catch noisy neighbours By Mark Prigg, Science Correspondent, Evening Standard 3 May 2005 Noisy neighbours have become a scourge of modern life, resulting in stress, sleepless nights and even violence. Now Westminster Council hopes a new wireless microphone could help tackle the problem. It plans to attach the device to lamp posts outside houses, allowing inspectors to monitor sound levels. If neighbours make too much noise, council officials will “This could make a really big difference to cutting down on noise,” said Steve Harrison of Westminster Council. “At the moment the problem is that by...

SEC IS SAID TO EXAMINE STOCK PRICING BY BIG BROKERS /// Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating dozen brokerage firms -- including Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Ameritrade, Charles Schwab and E Trade Financial -- on suspicion they failed to secure best available price for stocks for customers... Developing...

The ancient split between the English and Scots is older than previously thought, an Oxford don said today. Traditionally the difference between the English and Scots, Welsh, Irish and Cornish was attributed to the foreign influence of invading forces such as the Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Vikings settling in different areas of Britain hundreds of years ago. But Professor Stephen Oppenheimer of Oxford University, believes the difference originates much further back in history. In a book tracing humankind from its origins in Africa 80,000 years ago, Prof Oppenheimer develops a theory of the original inhabitants of Britain. The professor of clinical...

Dr. Dean And Dixie Dr. Howard Dean was born in New York City and has spent his life there and in Vermont. I guess he's about as Yankee a Yankee as you can get. Yet he reached out to Dixie and got burned by his fellow Democrats. The thing to note is that Dr. Dean first made his remark about wanting the votes of guys with Confederate decals on their pickup trucks at a meeting of national Democrats about three months ago. His remarks drew thunderous applause. It was only after he became a front-runner that his tag-along rivals decided...

Phooey On Tough Talk I would feel better about President George Bush's tough schoolboy rhetoric if he were in Baghdad, Fallujah or Tikrit instead of lolling about on his ranch or at Camp David in between fund-raising trips and photo ops. He ought to go to Iraq to see what his policy has wrought. Dwight Eisenhower went to Korea during that war. Why shouldn't President Bush go to Iraq? He could even stop by Ramallah and the Gaza Strip on the way back to see what his Palestinian-Israeli policy has wrought. The president has said that the "terrorists and killers"...

Choose The Right Gun If you saw the recent video of "Old Mr. Grump" shooting the "Lucky Lawyer" in Los Angeles, you can learn a valuable lesson about which firearm to choose for self-defense. The press rarely reports what kinds of guns are used in crimes, and usually gets it wrong when it tries. Nevertheless, I have concluded Mr. Grump used a .22-caliber pistol. Otherwise, the Lucky Lawyer would not have remained on his feet for so long. Now, a .22, a .25 and a .32 will kill you, provided the bullet strikes a vital organ. Sometimes the person will...

Dumb, Dumber And Dumbest The positions of most urban liberals on firearms are dumb, dumber and dumbest. It is dumb to suppose that the way to decrease crime is to make sure all potential victims of violent crime are disarmed. It is dumber yet to believe that a criminal will obey a gun-control law. No bank robber or rapist has ever set out and then stopped and said, "Gosh, I don't have a permit for this weapon, so I guess I'd better not rob that bank or rape that girl." No serial killer has ever said: "Gosh, I can't kill...

Roman brooch find in Shetland extends ancient travel routes STEPHEN STEWART AMATEUR archaeologists may have found Britain's most northerly ancient Roman artefact, it emerged yesterday. The fibula, or brooch, which has been dated to between 50BC and 50AD, could have belonged to an islander returning to the area around Norwick on Shetland after serving in the Roman army. The archaeologists made the find when they were called in after bulldozers unearthed items while extending the graveyard at Norwick. It is highly unusual to find Roman goods so far north and the item gives a revealing insight into trade routes and...

Road Map To Nowhere The president's "road map to peace," which is blowing up in his face even as I write this, was riddled with defects to begin with. It does not recognize the basic facts of the conflict. It ignores the rule of law. It turns normal human behavior upside down. The basic facts of the conflict are that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip is illegal. Israel was ordered to withdraw from those territories by the United Nations Security Council in 1967, when Israeli forces in the Six-Day War captured them....

One can't help but admire the young men and women in the armed forces. It's not only their courage and competence in the military arts that sparks the admiration, but their basic goodness and compassion, which are not to be found in any other army in the world. Clearly, they are better people than their political leaders. One also has to sympathize with the almost unendurable pain experienced by the families who have lost loved ones. As of this writing, 123 young Americans have died in Iraq, and, unfortunately, as long as they stay there, more of them will die....

Poor Sean Hannity Sean Hannity, a radio talk-show host and Fox News whiner, has a one-rut mind. Every criticism or dissent, no matter what the subject, the topic or the source, is a left-wing attack against his hero, George W. Bush. Well, what can you expect from an immature groupie? Every time he tries to think, his face reflects the pain of the effort. But he really showed his emptiness recently when he said that criticism of the United States failing to guard the Iraqi National Museum was — you guessed it — just left-wing soreheads who are mad that...