Free Republic

Forty percent of the messages on Twitter are "pointless babble" along the lines of "I am eating a sandwich now," according to a study conducted by a US market research firm. Pear Analytics, based in San Antonio, Texas, said that it randomly sampled 2,000 messages from the public stream of Twitter and separated them into six categories. The categories were: news, spam, self-promotion, pointless babble, conversational and pass-along value. Pear said "pointless babble" accounted for 811 "tweets" or 40.55 percent of the total number of messages sampled. Conversational messages -- defined by Pear as tweets that go back and forth...

Candidates lining up to replace longtime Travis County district attorney. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who has led that office since 1977, told his staff today that he will not seek re-election. He was expected to issue a statement later. Earle, 65, will serve the one year remaining on his term, but his retirement will end an era. "Is the district attorney's job an elective office?" Ken Oden, a former county attorney, once quipped about his friend's long tenure. Earle, a Democrat, might not be done with politics. By retiring, he would be available for a gubernatorial bid in...

No, I'm NOT being metaphorical nor am I kidding. If I wasn't having so much fun laughing at Ronnie Earle, I might even wish that it weren't true. Evidently Travis County DA Ronnie Earle - who is once again back in the running for most politically-driven DA in the nation now that Mike Nifong has been disbarred - is involved in this New Age, "re-discover your masculinity" cult called the ManKind Project. That's according to the liberal Houston Press. And boy does this outfit sound scary. Forty men at a time strip down and do tribal dances and beat cooked...

Web site pits Ebert against salty sandwich Move over Mickey Mouse, Ham Sandwich is working on a write-in campaign. Prince William area Republicans didn't offer a candidate for Commonwealth's Attorney this year, but that hasn't stopped a conservative write-in campaign for Hamilton "Ham" Sandwich, Esq. ... Regarding the candidate's qualifications, one local expert - Mary Ann Kauchak, food columnist for the Potomac News and Manassas Journal Messenger - said that a decent ham sandwich should be "good and smoky." "The Cuban sandwich is the hottest thing in the deli world, right now," Kauchak said. "I'm not really crazy about Virginia...

Ham Sandwich (Candidate for PWC Attorney) has a commercial up on YouTube:

WRITE-IN CANDIDATE FOR PWC COMMONWEALTH’S ATTORNEY LAUNCHES WEB SITE; CHALLENGES EBERT TO SERIES OF DEBATES PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, VA – Republican write-in candidate for Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney, Hamilton “Ham” Sandwich, Esq., has launched his new campaign web site. The site, located at http://www.votehamsandwich.com/, provides voters with background information on the candidate, his rationale for running, a critique of his opponent’s record of failure in the job, information on the write-in process and a list of endorsements among other items. Unlike the current office holder, Paul Ebert, whose campaign does not yet have a web site, Sandwich is...

A thoughtless adolescent joke is being investigated by local police as a hate crime. If you need proof that hate crimes and state-run schools are two government projects that should never mix, look no further than Lewiston, Maine. According to the Maine Sun Journal, "On April 11, a white student placed a ham steak in a bag on a lunch table where Somali students were eating." The Somali students were Muslim and believe pork to be unclean. The offender, who is now being investigated as the perpetrator of a hate crime — albeit a calloused and thoughtless one — was...

"Neither Denmark nor Norway has a prohibition on sex with animals, as long as the animals do not suffer. On the Internet Danish animal owners advertise openly that they offer sex with animals, without intervention from police or other authorities, Danish newspaper 24timer reports. In correspondence with the animal owners, the newspaper was told that the animals involved have many years of experience and that the animals themselves wanted sex. The cost to the client varied from DKK 500-1,000 (USD 85-170). ... According to the 24timer report, Germans, Dutchmen, Swedes and Norwegians visit the Danish bordellos, and a web site...

DEMOCRATIC FASCISM [beware hillary clinton] Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler Friday, 04 November 2005 Lying to a Grand Jury is a very serious crime. We know this because when Bill Clinton lied under oath to a Grand Jury, he was sentenced to 30 years in a federal penitentiary. His fellow Democrats, putting patriotism before party, all agreed that perjury and obstruction of justice were inexcusable violations of law, and that no one, not even the President of the United States, was "above the law." What's that? Bill Clinton willfully perjured himself and impeded the special prosecutor's investigation but got...

Earlier today, Tom DeLay's lawyers moved to dismiss Ronnie Earle's conspiracy indictment on the ground that Texas's conspiracy statute had no application to the election laws until it was amended in 2003--subsequent to the 2002 election cycle that is the subject of the indictment. The Austin Statesman notes that the term of the grand jury that Earle used to indict DeLay expired last week, and the statute of limitation may have run in the meantime. DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, adds an interesting observation: DeLay's lawyer Dick DeGuerin said "rumors are flying" that prosecutors were trying to find a sitting grand...

Following the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, conservatives are left wondering what to make of the charges. The answer is simple. The charges are absurd and should be thrown out of court. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has charged DeLay with conspiracy to make a contribution to a political party in violation of the Texas Election Code. The alleged violation involved a money swap between the now-defunct Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), which DeLay helped found but never managed, and the Republican National State Elections Committee (RNSEC). TRMPAC sent a check for $190,000 to RNSEC,...

From The Ohio InJustice Files:JoeClarke.Net Clarkence Elkins was convicted of raping and killing his mother-in-law and raping his 6 year old niece and then put away in the slammer to rot. The prosecution evidently coached the 6 year old to identify Clarence at the scene of the crime, although he had 19 witnesses saying that he was in another city - many miles away - at the time of the crime.Appeal after appeal was turned down. A praying wife and other supporters (such as the stalwarts at Innocence Project in Ohio http://www.truthinjustice.org/ipcontacts.htm) did not give up . New twist in...