Free Republic

Good evening, I've been reading up on alternatives to contract cells. Does anyone use Page Plus Cellular? If so, any comments/recommendations? If you haven't, any recommendations? I've read about Ting and Republic Wireless, but there's no coverage in our area. Thanks, TJI

Around a year ago, this column ran a piece entitled “Whatever Happened To Science?” As Baby Boomers will recall, during our early youth, our little heads were crammed full of the promise of Science: Abundant cheap electrical power; the discovery of the structure of DNA would (somehow) lead to curing every disease, and the polio vaccine seemed to demonstrate this; our soaring postwar economy could easily fund ever more dramatic breakthroughs. But then, as the 1960s dawned, reality set in. An extraordinary number of people were dying of heart disease, and good old Watson & Crick (or Salk & Sabin)...

No stranger to controversial statements, NBA Hall of Famer turned sports commentator, Charles Barkley, blamed stagnation in the Black community on “brainwashed” Black people too “unintelligent” to choose education over street credibility. During an appearance on Philadelphia’s “Afternoons with Anthony Gargano and Rob Ellis” radio show, Sir Charles responded to a Bleacher Report article claiming that teammates of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson felt that he wasn’t “Black enough.” Seahawks’ cornerback Richard Sherman denied the locker room racism, telling CBS Sports, “Nobody in here said that. It’s made up.” Wilson also brushed off the story, saying, “Black enough? I don’t...

A media source in Omaha is breaking a story.   Students can pose with guns for their senior portraits. The school board members did not think this was a controversial decision, along with 90 percent of the American public.   They voted for it 6-0.   I am surprised that it even came up for a vote. Perhaps I should not be, in our ever increasingly politically correct public schools, where nearly all initiative and responsibility have been taken from school boards and teachers by teachers unions and federal and state regulations.   Administrators are terrified to make any decision that might run...

We live in dangerous and stressful times. The margin for error in our fight for the survival of America is very small. The number of people willing to surrender their genuine freedoms for a little faux security is growing. We are a strong and resilient people but even the strongest die eventually. We who pull the American wagon and recognize that nothing worth anything is free, especially our precious liberty, can only go on just so long. The whiney and the greedy are not our friends regardless of who they are or claim to be. It is, therefore, an unfortunate...

dis·arm·en·ter (ds-ärmn-tr) n. 1. A political operative who works to disarm political opposition through the use of irrational and/or emotional arguments. 2. A person who believes that disarming citizens will reduce crime or unjustified violence, in spite of contrary evidence or facts. 3. A person who wishes to disarm others because they do not trust themselves to bear arms responsibly. I have long considered various descriptions of people who push to disarm others, in spite of facts, logic, and historical evidence.  Several titles have been used; none have been completely satisfactory.  To be useful, the nomenclature cannot be so...

What are we to do with this latest school shooting tragedy?  Unlike the killings in Oklahoma City and Ottawa, Canada, this was no terrorist or self-proclaimed warrior carrying out a religious fatwa.  Jaylen Fryberg was a 14-year-old boy.  He could be my son, or anyone’s.  This is really a tragedy, every bit as much as the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary almost two years ago.  Except that by all accounts, Jaylen Fryberg was no mentally ill recluse.  He was an outgoing, smart, athletic boy who was named freshman homecoming king at his school. There are no words to erase the...

Brighton teacher Adam Neuman went to Afghanistan to fight for freedom. Now he simply wants to exercise it back home. As a combat veteran who served in the Kandahar Province for nearly a year, the civics teacher regards attacks on his liberty as a personal affront. So, when the teachers union and his employer told him they were taking money from his paycheck to pay for a teacher to leave the classroom to work on union business, Neuman felt he had no choice but to sue. In August, Neuman quit the Michigan Education Association and its local affiliate, the Brighton...

Are you ready for the new America? Are you worried about your children and grandchildren? Do you love them? "Of course I do," you say. Well, what’s on the horizon for your kids and grandchildren is bleak indeed if we continue on the path Washington D.C. has set for us. There are so many areas of concern, it’s a, “Where do we start?” The whole appeasement foreign policy strategy of the Obama administration has us all worried. History shows appeasement has always led to war. The cutting of the defense budget, attitude towards the military, the VA scandal, Benghazi, the...

OCTOBER 23, 2014 Berkeley Taps Bill Maher for Graduation Speaker The ultra-PC school names him grad speaker. By Katherine Timpf The University of California–Berkeley has announced that polarizing TV host Bill Maher will be its winter graduation speaker. “The host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, comedian Maher is known for his political commentary and satire,” writes The Daily Californian, the official student newspaper. Other things Maher is famous for include calling Sarah Palin a “t**t” and a “c**t” (comments that offended even the liberal National Organization of Women), saying Christians are schizophrenics, and comparing “retarded children” to his...

I do not know where the above picture was taken.   I recall that I saw many empty holsters on police in Panama at shift change.   The practice was that the police did not keep a pistol with them; they were issued one at work, and turned it in at the end of the shift.  I vaguely recall seeing a banana or plantain in a couple of them. I understand that Mexican police generally keep their firearms with them, but several other countries in Central and South America have the same policy as I saw in Panama.   Police in...

It is difficult to decide which is the more infuriating – those who persist in advancing a lie or those who stubbornly ignore the possible means of combating it. The State of Michigan is spending more state tax dollars on K-12 education than the $6,844 per pupil it was spending the final budget year of former Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s administration. At the beginning of this year it was spending $7,545 per pupil. Beginning Oct. 1, that amount was increased again by $50 to $175 per pupil, with the lowest funded school districts receiving the largest boosts. As students of propaganda...

Matt Dorschel, on the left Last Wednesday, 15 October, the University of Idaho held a forum on "guns on campus".   The main presenter was Matt Dorschel, university executive director for public safety and security.  While the forum attracted only a few students and faculty, the policy presented was radical.   From the Lewiston Tribune (pdf): Dorschel said any firearm sighting is grounds to call 911 even if a person is not purposely showing their weapon. He said firearm holders have a responsibility to conceal their weapons and they are violating the university's policy if they don't.  Despite this strict interpretation...

You have to see it to believe it. A student of Kurdish descent has submitted a resolution to the UK's National Union of Students (NUS) to condemn the Islamic State, but the motion has been rejected because it offended the sensibilities of the Union’s Black Students Officer (BSO) who led a voting bloc to defeat it. The NUS considers the ongoing conflict with ISIS to be “Islamophobic”. You couldn't make this up. At least they recognise that ISIS represents Islam, and is not some totally extraneous group that for some hard-to-fathom reason has decided to associate itself to the "religion...

By law, Michigan school districts are allowed to impose a maximum of 18 mills for operating expenses. So when current school millage authorizations are due to expire, how is it that some districts can ask for more? St. Joseph Pubic Schools this year asked for and received a 19.6292 operating millage authorization. Voters in Adrian approved 18.2517 mills. Coldwater Public Schools got approval for 19.234 mills. “You are correct. We can legally only levy the 18 mills,” said Ben Engelter, former chief financial officer for Coldwater Public Schools, but he explained the higher rate is for “possible reductions.” “Possible reductions”...

The Democratic Party depends on voting blocs of less educated, less wealthy, more knee-jerk voters than the Republican Party, As this is being written, Rasmussen Reports says that 48% of likely voters approve of President Obama’s performance in office while 50% disapproved. Other polls indicate far more unhappiness with Obama, but in general one must conclude that half the voters are idiots. He is an enormous failure domestically and with his foreign relations. In early July, a Quinnipiac University national poll found that Obama was regarded as “the worst president since World War II.” The only poll that counts will...

Good day. I downloaded the new and improved OS, OS X Yosemite. At first blush, there are some features I miss about Mavericks, but I need to waste.....I mean, spend more time with Yosemite. It's too early to say "yay" or "nay", or perhaps the conclusion won't be so black and white, unless you're a "I HATE! all things Apple...including those snobby Mac Users", of course. What say you about OS X Yosemite? Any pointers/advice/recommendations by you techies out there?

House Democrats have introduced legislation as a measure to place a moratorium on any new charter public schools opening in Michigan. However, the pro-school choice Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP) reads the bill differently. According to GLEP Executive Director Gary Naeyaert, as drafted, House Bill 5852 would eventually spell doom for all of the charter public schools in the state. “What we have uncovered is that the legislation they claim would just push the pause button on increasing the number of charter schools would, in reality, close every charter school in the state over time,” Naeyaert told Capitol Confidential. “Language...

I was aware of FDR as a left-leaning, communist sympathizer and worse but still this story really illustrates the extent in which it really brought home how far he would go to demonstrate his political sympathies towards his left-leaning communist affiliation. Unfortunately most FREEPERS will not get to see this post and won't get to know the extent in which FDR demonstrated his political proclivity as American dictator during his 'reign' as president. I reminded myself of this terrible page in American history after coming across this article in the Washington Beacon today, details of which are reminiscent of events...

No matter how high they raise taxes in liberal Illinois, it will never be high enough. This gives an indication of why: In 2011, the Chicago Tribune exposed a pair of Illinois teacher union lobbyists, Stephen Preckwinkle and David Piccioli, who substitute taught for one day and stood to collect nearly $1 million [each!] in state teacher retirement pensions from a severely underfunded system. The five Illinois pension systems have a $100 billion liability and the teachers fund may run out of money as early as 2029. Newspaper editorials, elected officials, the governor and citizens cried foul. Legislation was quickly...