Free Republic

First there was her truly absurd disclaimer that she didn’t know the party affiliation of the people behind the “Romney killed my wife” ad. Then her contradictory statement that of course she did; she had actually meant something else that she clearly didn’t mean and clearly didn’t say. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s back-and-forth statements have been so obviously preposterous that they prompt this question: who is Wasserman Schultz, and how did she get to be such a transparent party hack? What was her training, education, and experience prior to becoming a member of Congress and then the DNC head? The first...

Sodus, N.Y. - New signs warning drivers of frogs crossing the road in Wayne County aren't sitting well with local officials. "During these economic times, this is just absurd," says Sodus Town Supervisor Steve LeRoy. "New York State is laying people off and we're trying to find money for water, and construction projects. It's ridiculous." LeRoy says the new "Frog Crossing" signs are the result of a new state ordinance by the New York State Parks and Recreation Department. "I just can't imagine anybody stopping their vehichle for a frog," he adds. The signs, much like moose or deer crossing...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A supreme court judge says New York must immediately halt the sale of outdoor wood boilers that violate new air quality rules set by the Department of Environmental Conservation. The new regulations were supposed to take effect April 15 but DEC wanted to extend the deadline to July 15 to give retailers time to sell off the older boilers. The judge ruled Tuesday that the sales must stop now. The American Lung Association, Environmental Advocates and Earthjustice sued to enforce the deadline.

Any Republican who serves in any kind of leadership capacity receives hate emails. A lot of hate emails are anonymous, but many are not. On Wednesday, Margi Helschien, president of the Boca Raton Republican Club and vice-chair of the Republican Party of Palm Beach County, received the following email: From: To: Sent: Wed, May 18, 2011 4:47:53 PM Subject: re: get lost you are all so nervous about our wonderful President Obama winning again, that you are doing every kind of dance known to mankind. all you want to do is get rid of the middle class, and poor. if...

Flood waters have receded in the Ontario County village of Honeoye, but not before flooding Main Street for a few hours. Early Friday morning, officials with the Town of Richmond noticed ice jamming in Mill Creek. Because the ice cannot be broken up without a DEC permit, an officer was called to see the problem for himself. By the time the permit was granted, John Chrisman's insurance agency was flooded up to the outdoor windows. Damage is estimated at $10,000 to $20,000. Chrisman does not have flood insurance. He says if the DEC acted faster, the business could have been...

Ken Olsen, founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation, died on Super Bowl Sunday. Coders of a certain age have been reminiscing about their first times with a PDP-8 and getting a PDP-11 to really sing. Me too. I wasted millions of ratepayers’ dollars at AT&T Bell Labs on VAX 11/780s. Woo-hoo. DEC was a great company. But Ken Olsen made a classic mistake. He idolized IBM. Wanted to be them. DEC was the same vertically oriented company as IBM. They designed chips, wrapped plastic around them, wrote operating systems, wrote applications, and then marketed, sold and serviced their minicomputers....

Obituary Ken Olsen, the founder of minicomputer and client/server company Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) died on Sunday. He was 84 years-old. Olsen started out a maverick, pioneered and drove the minicomputer and supermini revolutions, and then became a dinosaur. But unlike many other senior DEC executives he remains a much-loved and revered figure based on what he did and even taking into account what he stopped DEC from doing. His legacy lives on at HP, which bought Compaq, which bought DEC, and at Xiotech, where Steve Sicola's ISE team started at DEC. Ken Olsen was an engineer first and foremost....

Dear Digital Family of Friends: It is with great regret that I inform you that our beloved CEO Ken Olsen passed away, yesterday in Indiana, with his immediate family all around him. Ken had been in ill health for the last few months and was in Hospice care. Sad time for their family now, but Ken and Alliki had a wonderful life. It's sad to know that they both have now passed. More information will follow in the Boston Globe obituary sometime this week. I do believe there will be a Memorial Service (open to the public) to celebrate Ken's...

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Environmental groups and energy companies both claimed victory after Gov. David Paterson ordered a seven-month moratorium on some natural gas drilling in the state, although environmentalists would have preferred the broader ban that the Legislature had approved. The outgoing Democratic governor vetoed a bill on Saturday that would have suspended all new natural-gas drilling permits until May 15. Instead, he issued an executive order prohibiting high-volume hydraulic fracturing of horizontally drilled wells, such as those in the Marcellus Shale region of southern New York. The order stands until July 1...

The Democrat Executive Committee of Palm Beach County wants change allright, spare change that is. Local Democrat activists found out at last week’s DEC meeting that the local party is flat broke. As of last week's meeting the Palm Beach County DEC had $33,444.70 in cash on hand and $53,347.49 in unpaid bills, according to the info handed out at the meeting. Most are placing the blame on former DEC Chairman Wahid Mahmood for leaving the party in such a wretched state of affairs when he left office in December of 2008. The party is in crisis mode and despair...

NY officials want older trucks fitted with emission-reducing equipment; cost put at $195M ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- New York is taking steps to reduce diesel emissions in its construction fleet. The Department of Environmental Conservation is floating proposed regulations requiring trucks made before 2007 to be fitted with emissions-reducing equipment and to use ultra-low-sulfur fuel by 2011. The new regulations would apply only to state-owned trucks or trucks used for state contract work. The DEC estimates it will cost $195 million to retrofit about 30,000 state trucks. The New York State

When Christian actor Eduardo Verastegui devoted his career to serving God, he had no idea what might come out of his decision. He certainly couldn’t have imagined that his widely acclaimed movie Bella would literally save lives and souls. But that’s the story that author Tim Drake tells so well in his book Behind Bella.As the book shows, God’s hand was on Eduardo and on the making of the movie from the very beginning. To prepare for his role in Bella, Eduardo wanted to find a real-life Nina—the co-lead in the film struggling with her unwanted pregnancy. So Eduardo...

We, the undersigned, pursuant to God-ordained human liberties as established throughout time immemorial, and as recognized and codified in the founding documents of this great nation, and in accordance with the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the First and Fourteenth Amendments thereto, now petition the federal government of the United States of America for a Redress of the following Grievances: 1. The federal government of the United States of America has only an authority ordained by God, and a legitimate claim to govern in accord with the consent of the governed pursuant to its founding Declaration of...

The Alan Keyes Legal Team will hold a press conference tomorrow Mon. 12-15-08 12:30 PM at the CA State Capitol in Sacramento, CA. Please help spread. Attendance is needed for media coverage. Official Info is as follows: Location: CA State Capitol - Corner of “L” and 11th Streets, Sacramento, CA 12:30 PM 1. Attend 2. Bring signs with out sticks. 3. Bring your birth certificate and show it to the media. Official Press Release Follows: RE: AIP/Electoral College Capitol Press Conference set for Monday For Immediate Release - Event Notice - Press Conference Time: Mon 12-15-08, 12:30 PM Place: California...

December 14, 2008 Obama eligibility question -- nonsense or a possible reprieve? By Michael Bresciani Anyone in this country who mentions the legal suits now being brought before state and federal courts about Barack Obama's citizenship question is seen as a fluke. The most common retort is "the American people have spoken" but have they? In fact the sixty seven million people who voted for Barack Obama make up only twenty two percent of the entire population of this country. Regardless of how they voted seventy eight percent of the country remains largely in the dark due to a mainstream...

Would like to hear some thoughts on why Rush, Sean and Mark Levin don't talk about this issue. It has obvious merit from the point that Obama has fought to keep it secret.

Spam turning 30 this month; no gifts, please Thu May 1, 2008 12:33PM EDT See Comments (131) Buzz up!on Yahoo! The date: May 3, 1978. The culprit: Gary Thuerk, a marketer for the old Digital Equipment Corporation. His crime: Sending a sales e-mail to 393 users on Arpanet (then a U.S. government computer network and the predecessor of today's Internet). Little did Thuerk know that he'd just become the world's first spammer. That first piece of junk e-mail (which wasn't called "spam" until about 15 years later) has been memorialized over at Brad Templeton's Web site (Templeton is a Net...

Digital’s venerable VMS just keeps going and going and going.... 01/09/2006 By Keith Parent and Beth Bumbarger MASS HIGH TECH : JOURNAL OF NEW ENGLAND TECHNOLOGY New Englanders old enough to have worked in the region’s computer industry in the halcyon days of the mid-to-late 1980s participated in one of the great entrepreneurial periods of our nation’s history. Those were the days of the Massachusetts Miracle, when technology titans such as Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), Wang Laboratories, Data General and Prime Computer Inc. employed tens of thousands of high-tech professionals in what then Gov. Michael Dukakis described in a famous...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2005 – U.S. and coalition aircrews flew combat and support missions Dec. 27 in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, U.S. Central Command Air Forces Forward officials reported. In Iraq, coalition aircraft flew 36 close air support missions. U.S. Air Force F-16s destroyed enemy positions and vehicles near Hawijah with precision-guided munitions. F-15s and F-16s provided close air support to coalition troops near Balad. The F-15s struck an enemy mortar location, and the F-16s hit an insurgent building. Eleven U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flew missions in Iraq. British Royal...

BAGHDAD, Dec. 11, 2005 – Almost 90 percent of Iraqis want to vote in Dec. 15 national elections, according to an Iraqi poll. A total of 89 percent of respondents to the poll indicated they want to vote in the election of a permanent democratic government. The intent to vote is strong across ethnic and religious lines. The Kurds have the highest percentage, with 95 percent telling pollsters that they want to vote. Sunni Arabs have the lowest percentage, but that is still pegged at 87 percent. A total of 91 percent of Shiite Arabs, the largest religious group in...