Free Republic

Google co-founder Larry Page is expected to marry his girlfriend this weekend on Sir Richard Branson's Necker Island. Sources say Page - who is estimated to be worth around $20 billion - will tie the knot with Lucy Southworth on Saturday. The couple will hold the ceremony on an island enclave owned by Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of Virgin Group... They are being flown in on private jets ... Page is also providing private planes to fly in guests from around the globe. "Planes are leaving from all over," ... Page and his Google internet search engine co-founder Sergey...

So there I was, standing with about 30 other hikers in boots and backpacks, jammed into a room no bigger than a double-wide in a one-story beige government building in a destitute moonscape otherwise known as southern Utah on a warm Friday morning....After a few minutes' rest, we headed south, looking to a tall, gray ridge on the horizon for a huge vertical crack that marked the entrance to the Wave.

WASHINGTON - A Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for The Washington Post has apologized for sending an angry e-mail in which he called District of Columbia Council member Marion Barry a "crack addict." Tim Page wrote to Barry's aide last week after receiving a press release about the former mayor's views on the financially troubled Greater Southeast Community Hospital. "Must we hear about it every time this crack addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new — and typically half-witted — political grandstanding?" the e-mail said. "I'd be grateful if you would take me off your mailing list. I cannot think...

Page County Supervisor Charles Hoke is looking into what other counties in Virginia have done to curb illegal immigration. But this supervisor says local governments can't take this issue on by themselves. Hoke says there is a legal way for immigrants to come into the country. They just need to follow the immigration laws. However Hoke says, many aren't following those laws. "Why should someone else come to this country, and disregard our laws and be treated better than the people that are here as far as the immigration system," says Hoke. "We do have a good immigration system, we...

Google's decision to censor its search engine in China was bad for the company, its founders admitted yesterday. Google, launched in 1998 by two Stanford University dropouts, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, was accused of selling out and reneging on its "Don't be evil" motto when it launched in China in 2005. The company modified the version of its search engine in China to exclude controversial topics such as the Tiananmen Square massacre or the Falun Gong movement, provoking a backlash in its core western markets. Asked whether he regretted the decision, Mr Brin admitted yesterday: "On a business level,...

PIERRE, S.D. - A state senator accused of sexual misconduct with an 18-year-old page resigned Tuesday rather than be judged by his colleagues, but said he intends to show up for the new South Dakota legislative term that begins in January. Democrat Dan Sutton's lawyer said the lawmaker did not want to be judged by a lame-duck Senate in a special session led by some of his political enemies. The session had been scheduled for Nov. 27 to look into allegations that Sutton groped a male high school student who served as a page. Lawmakers could have expelled, censured or...

PIERRE, S.D. -- While the U.S. House investigates ex-Rep. Mark Foley's sexually explicit instant messages to former Capitol Hill staffers, South Dakota is dealing with its own page scandal. The Senate is scheduled to convene in a special session Nov. 27 to look into allegations that Sen. Dan Sutton, a Democrat from the eastern town of Flandreau, "sexually groped" an 18-year-old page in this year's legislative session. After hearing evidence, the Senate could take actions ranging from imposing no punishment up to expelling Sutton, a 36-year-old insurance agent. Sutton, who is seeking re-election, has not responded publicly to the allegations,...

He is on the ballot for re-election in three weeks, but a South Dakota state senator's career is in jeopardy because of an accusation that's been brewing for eight months. The father of an 18-year-old male page says democrat Dan Sutton sexually groped the young man while the two roomed together during the legislative session. Now state senate leaders are asking Sutton to resign or face legislative action. We won't identify the page because he is a potential victim. But his father is involved in politics and Sutton's lawyer Mike Butler says the father and Sutton were long-time friends. Butler...

After interviewing some 40 former congressional pages, FBI agents have yet to turn up any evidence of direct sexual contact between underage pages and former Congressman Mark Foley. Instead, according to law enforcement officials and several former pages, a pattern is emerging of seduction by Foley that began when the boys were 16 and 17. In cases where actual sex followed, it was not until the boys were at the legal age of 18.

WASHINGTON - A congressman who is a key figure in the House page scandal conceded Friday that Republicans have mishandled the matter. "I think there's stuff that everybody would have done differently" in hindsight, said Rep. John Shimkus (news, bio, voting record), R-Ill., after he testified for more than three hours before the House ethics committee. The panel is investigating former Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record)'s sexually tinged Internet communications with teenage pages over several years. Shimkus chairs the board that oversees the House page program, and he intervened last fall to stop Foley from e-mailing a former...

New Testimony May Pose Problems for GOP Leadership By JAKE TAPPER, JOHN YANG and AVERY MILLER Oct 10, 2006 — - House speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., tries to change the subject. But the accusations about Hastert subordinates who were apparently told about Congressman Mark Foley's questionable behavior keep coming. Hastert spoke to reporters Tuesday, insisting that he and the GOP House leadership had done nothing wrong in the House page scandal involving ex-Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. The speaker heralded the economy: "We've lowered people's taxes. They have more money in their pockets to spend," he said. Meanwhile, ABC News has...

Fox News on Air Story

The scandal over Mark Foley's sexual advances to male pages on Capitol Hill is likely to put paid to a programme of teenage work experience that has been running since 1829.Congressmen are reviewing the scheme after concluding that the close proximity of teenage aides – including girls, since 1971 – is too dangerous a temptation for the more lascivious among them. The first pages were employed to stoke fires and fill inkwells, and their duties have remained lowly, from running messages to holding doors open for politicians. The age limit was raised to 16 in 1983, after two congressmen admitted...

On the 4pm hour of CNN’s The Situation Room, correspondent Brian Todd was questioned about “internet suggestions” that recent Foley IM conversations were a prank or hoax by anchor Wolf Blitzer. The lawyer of one of Foley’s victims called it a “piece of fiction”. ABC News also commented and said the report is not true.

As time passes, it is increasingly clear that the ABC News report which started the Foley firestorm is odorous—and I’m not talking Chanel. (1) It dealt with the emails which the FBI and many media organizations considered as innocuous as the Republican leadership did. Who circulated these reports is not yet clear.Foley’s spokesman said his opponent, Mahoney had been shopping the story to the media for some time....(much more)

ENID, Oklahoma (CNN) -- A former congressional page who was reportedly told in an instant message from former Rep. Mark Foley to "strip down and get relaxed" likely will talk to federal agents investigating the scandal next week, his lawyer said Friday. Jordan Edmund, now a 21-year-old aide to Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Oklahoma, was among the pages to whom Foley wrote e-mails and allegedly sent lurid instant messages. Foley resigned September 29 as a series of correspondences between him and teenage male pages became public. (Watch what other pages say about their interactions with Foley -- 2:02 ) The six-term...

The House ethics committee on Thursday launched an investigation of a congressional page sex scandal that has imperiled Republican election prospects, approving dozens of subpoenas for documents and testimony. The committee's chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said a newly formed subcommittee's investigation "will go wherever our evidence leads us." Asked if embattled House speaker Dennis Hastert was among those subpoenaed, Hastings would not comment. "We are looking at weeks, not months," said the committee's senior Democrat, Rep. Howard Berman of California. A House GOP official said that Hastert, fighting to save his job, will take responsibility for the unfolding scandal...

JEFF GANNON LIVE! 10.05.2006 Jeff Gannon, the former gay male escort/White House Corespondent, is scheduled to be on live with Randi TODAY in the 3rd hour of her show (5:30pm ET, Thursday).

Istook aide may be victim in page scandal By Chris Casteel, Nolan Clay and Michael McNuttThe Oklahoman A former U.S. House page working on the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Rep. Ernest Istook may be a part of the scandal involving former Congressman Mark Foley, The Oklahoman has learned. The former page, a Californian named Jordan Edmund, on Wednesday hired Enid attorney Stephen Jones to represent him, the attorney confirmed. Jones would not say exactly why he was hired, but did say, “I understand the FBI and the House Ethics committee have an interest in the matter ... the allegations concerning...

New fireworks in that scandal involving a 16-year-old former page: a senior congressional aide says he came forward two years ago, telling senior staffers in the House of Representatives about Congressman Mark Foley's troubling behavior with teenaged boys who worked as capital pages. One of the boys worked for Louisiana Congressman Rodney Alexander. In Monroe today, Alexander sat down with WAFB's Jim Shannon complaining this scandal has quickly become all about politics, and not about helping the boys involved. "At this point it's a feeding frenzy. It's a political hot bed," Louisiana Rep. Rodney Alexander says of the recent e-mail...

So, everyone knows that Kirk Fordham claims "he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office about worrisome conduct by his former boss, Rep. Mark Foley, toward teenage pages more than three years ago, long before officials have acknowledged becoming aware of the issue." AP Story posted at 4:00pm EDT Strange because in an AP Story from 9:46am EDT this morning it quotes: “I was still pretty shell shocked myself,” Fordham said of the day he learned about the messages. “This was someone I had worked for 10 years. I had no inkling that this kind of blatantly reckless - just obscene...

Mark Foley is a scumbag! Mark Foley is a scumbag! Mark Foley is a scumbag! Now that that is out of the way I will reveal how I (and a few others) discovered Jordan Edmund was one of the former house pages that participated in sexually explicit instant messages with Rep. Mark Foley. Also I will explain to you why I believe it necessary to reveal Jordan Edmund's identity. You may not agree with my decision, but I hope to explain my reasoning by the end of this story. Read More HERE!

Excerpts From Committee Report on Rep. Studds and Male Page The Washington Post, First Section; A10 July, 15 1983 1015 words Excerpts From Committee Report on Rep. Studds and Male Page Following are excerpts from the report of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct regarding Rep. Gerry E. Studds' (D-Mass.) relationship with a male page: "One former page testified under oath that he had heard a rumor that Rep. Studds had traveled overseas with a congressional page. He could not recall the name of the page who allegedly made the trip. In another deposition, another former page provided...

The facts of the disgrace of Mark Foley, who was a Republican member of the House from a Florida district until he resigned last week, constitute a disgrace for every Republican member of Congress. Red flags emerged in late 2005, perhaps even earlier, in suggestive and wholly inappropriate e-mail messages to underage congressional pages. His aberrant, predatory -- and possibly criminal -- behavior was an open secret among the pages who were his prey. The evidence was strong enough long enough ago that the speaker should have relieved Mr. Foley of his committee responsibilities contingent on a full investigation to...

Rules: link only http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061003/NEWS01/610030310/1002

Hey y'all...happy Saturday to you. :) I am in need of some help with my FReeper page, specifically, how to place something on it. I'd like to know...how do I place a running timer or countdown on my FReeper page? How do I get the Amber alert banner to display real-time information as their website says we can do? Are we able to post a visitor counter on our FReeper pages? These are some of the things I've attempted to do in the past, but haven't been able to figure out. Can anyone help me? Thank you for your help...

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the low-key co-founders of Google Inc., set tongues wagging last year when they bought a used Boeing 767 widebody as an unusually large private jet. The 767-200 typically carries 180 passengers and is three times as heavy as a conventional executive plane. Brin and Page "had some strange requests," including hammocks hung from the ceiling of the plane. At one point he witnessed a dispute between them over whether Mr. Brin should have a "California king" size bed Larry, you can have whatever kind of bed you want in your bedroom. Let's move on." Mr....

Google launched on Thursday a service that lets people create their own Web pages hosted by the Internet giant. Google Page Creator, which is in beta, has sample layouts and lets people type in content, upload images and publish their pages, without knowing HTML. People can create multiple linked pages and are allowed 100MB of storage on the service. The free service requires a Gmail account and supports either Internet Explorer 6.0 or Firefox 1.0, or higher. With Google Page Creator, the company has drawn a distinction between Web sites and Web pages, saying that a page is a "single...

Page raises the collective IQ of the show!

I'd like to add music to my freerepublic home page at Khashayar . Any one can help with that? I appreciate!

Jones soda has a contest where you submit pics and if enough people vote for the pic then they pic it to put on a label for jones soda so I submitted a pic of my dog brutus for the contest so if you would like to see brutus and vote for his picture you can here http://www.jonessoda.com/gallery/view.php?ID=406982&offset=27 all votes would be greatly appriciated and i will let you know if my pic was selected for the label in here

Kerry's Latest Attacks on Bush Borrow a Page From Scripture By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and DAVID E. SANGER Published: October 25, 2004 FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Oct. 24 - Appealing to late-deciding voters in explicitly religious terms, Senator John Kerry used the Bible on Sunday to accuse President Bush of trying to scare America, and said his own Catholicism moved him to help those in need but not to "write every doctrine into law." "The Scripture teaches us - John says, 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,' " Mr. Kerry said, alluding to Mr. Bush's strategy...

A full-page DNC ad in today's New York Times (p. A13) states hat "America Needs New Leadership for three reasons": "First, Balancing Budgets And Meeting The Bottom Line." And "Third, Restoring American's Respect Abroad." WHO IS ON SECOND?

In 1997, Kerry questioned the size of the intelligence community during a speech on the floor of the Senate:

Yale sex claims brings out knives for Wolf By Marcus Warren in New York February 21, 2004 The American feminist Naomi Wolf has accused a noted Yale University professor of sexually harassing her while she was an undergraduate, and alleged a long history of such events at Yale. According to advance "tasters" of her magazine expose, Wolf describes herself as a victim of harassment and names Harold Bloom, a prominent literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale, as her tormentor. Her denunciation of alleged sexual misconduct at the Ivy League university has drawn a furious response from one...

American soldier Maj. Bryan Luke of Mobile, Ala., 2nd in command of 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry keeps at the ready during a night patrol in Tikrit, Iraq (news - web sites), Friday, Sept. 12, 2003. Patrols are an ongoing exercise in Iraq as a show of force to attempt to reduce the activities of possible Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) loyalists. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith) Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean (news - web sites) rolls up his sleeves before taking the stage to babble to supporters during a campaign stop at Plymouth State College, Friday, Sept...

Click on the words "See Video Honoring The Military" at the top of the Bush Country website at http://www.bushcountry.org to see the best pro military video you have ever seen. I could not stop my wife from crying when she saw it.

Thanks for asking, but no, I did not get the nomination to be a Republican Page. I know there were many of you who made phone calls and wrote letters to Congressman Nick Smith on my behalf. I felt I was the best canidate for the job, but unfortunately this state(Michigan) is very liberal. The people running the selection process here in Jackson were closet democrats and told me I was too Republican to get the job. Even Nick Smith felt I should not get it. Another teen from Jackson did get it,and unfortunately his family is very well known...

The technology behind Google's great resultsAs a Google user, you're familiar with the speed and accuracy of a Google search. How exactly does Google manage to find the right results for every query as quickly as it does? The heart of Google's search technology is PigeonRank™, a system for ranking web pages developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University.Building upon the breakthrough work of B. F. Skinner, Page and Brin reasoned that low cost pigeon clusters (PCs) could be used to compute the relative value of web pages faster than human editors or machine-based algorithms....