Free Republic

The San Francisco Unified School District is moving toward renaming some schools in the city amid a moment of national reckoning on race and history. From the toppling of statues honoring controversial figures who were tied to slavery in Golden Gate Park this weekend to a push to rename Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Marin County, the Bay Area is changing its views on honoring controversial figures of the past. *** The Black Lives Matter movement that has erupted in recent weeks following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has amplified a push to rename schools in the...

Barack Obama promised his administration set a new standard in transparency: I will also hold myself as president to a new standard of openness .... Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency. Obama even issued a memo My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government. He declared his to...

Guy Bechor reports that Egypt is in the process of destroying all remnants of its ancient, non-Muslim cultures. It was barely mentioned in the Israeli and global media, but the following event pertains to the whole of Western civilization: Last Saturday, violent groups of Islamic-Salafi radicals burned the famous scientific institute established by Napoleon in Egypt after its first encounter with the West. Some historians consider it the start of modern times in the Middle East. The site, L’Institut d’Egypte, held some 200,000 original and rare books, exhibits, maps, archeological findings and studies from Egypt and the entire Middle East,...

Soaring jet fuel prices are wiping out profits at the nation's biggest airlines. The world's biggest airline company, United Continental Holdings Inc., said Thursday that it lost $213 million in the first three months of the year after it paid nearly $600 million more for fuel than in the year-ago quarter. American Airlines posted a $436 million loss. Like other airlines, American uses complex financial transactions to hedge against rising fuel prices. But these hedges only do so much to control the airlines' single biggest cost. Hedging saved American Airlines $100 million in the first quarter, but its fuel bill...

Among the greatest ironies of history is that during the first part of the twentieth century two World Wars and a "Cold War" were fought on the European continent, for the specific purpose of preventing its consolidation under one governing authority. Yet by the end of the century Europeans had acquiesced to just such a fate. Though not imposed with the imperiousness of the Kaiser or the brute force of the Reich, the concept of the "European Union" runs contrary to traditional ideas of nationalism or patriotism. Such crass sentiments are the realm of commoners, thus making them counterproductive to...

Tax records, resumes, photo albums--the modern hard drive can keep increasingly larger volumes of information at the ready. But that can turn into a problem when it comes to effectively erasing the devices. There are a number of options for cleansing the drives of unwanted computers, from special wiping software to destruction services to manufacturers' recycling programs. But what many PC owners don't realize, experts say, is that these methods are often not enough.