Free Republic

Firefox uses like myself used to use a cool tool called "view selection source" to steal text from article to post on FR. View Selection Source let you highlight the text you wanted to steal and you could right click your mouse and select that option and it showed JUST that part you highlighted in HTML form... You could then just copy and paste an article (or whatever text you wanted) to FR to post. This saved me tons of time instead of wading through tons of HTLM on the page just to see the simple HTML I wanted to...

NEW YORK, April 23 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc's (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Sam's Club warehouse division said on Wednesday it is limiting sales of several types of rice, the latest sign that fears of a rice shortage are rippling around the world. Sam's Club, the No. 2 U.S. warehouse club operator, is limiting sales of the 20-pound (9 kg), bulk bags of rice to four bags per customer per visit, and is working with suppliers to ensure the products remain in stock.

Curry Treats Dems as Victims, NBC Obsesses Over 'Swift-Boating' By Brent Baker | April 22, 2008 NewsBusters.org | NBC's Ann CurryOn Tuesday's Today, NBC's Ann Curry treated both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as victims of unfairness -- worrying Obama will be “swift-boated” by Republicans and she asking Clinton if she agreed “the playing field has been not level because you are a woman?” (Mark Finkelstein's posting this morning, “Curry Concerned About GOP 'Swift-boating'; Hillary: I'm Like Ginger Rogers,” highlighted these two questions.) My addition: This was at least the third time an NBC News host or anchor has fretted...

I don't post a lot of vanities, but today, I just had to rant. Someone posted an article this morning and entered the SOURCE URL where the SOURCE should have been. No big deal? Well, it is to me, at least on my computer. When someone does that it totally screws up the INDEX page, and instead of seeing a list of articles AND the material in the sidebars, all I get to see is (depending on how long the url is) a portion of the header and none of the sidebar. It makes it impossible to read Free Republic....

“Gravity,” goes the slogan on posters and bumper stickers. “It isn’t just a good idea. It’s the law.” And what a law. Unlike, say, traffic or drug laws, you don’t have a choice about obeying gravity or any of the other laws of physics. Jump and you will come back down. Faith or good intentions have nothing to do with it. Existence didn’t have to be that way, as Einstein reminded us when he said, “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” Against all the odds, we can send e-mail to Sri Lanka, thread spacecraft...

Litroenergy is a patent pending designed light source material that emits light for 12 plus years- without electricity or sun exposure! Our development/design of long-life, self-luminous micro particles called Litrospheres (non-toxic) emit light continuously for 12 plus years (half-life point) without any exposure to a light or other energy (not effected by cold or heat). This extremely low cost material offers 24/7 light, which can be injection molded or added to paint. It is 5,000lb crush resistant, stable and constant light source (gives off no U.V. rays). It is designed to give off almost any color of light desired. Our...

The defendant is accused of stealing source code for Alibre Design, three-dimensional solid-modeling software for creating virtual prototypes of products. Alibre Design competes with products by SolidWorks Corp. and Autodesk Inc.. Mr. Voznyuk allegedly offered it under the name RaceCAD Design Professional for download on the Internet.

A campus magazine at Tufts University has been found guilty of "harassment" by a disciplinary board, a decision that could establish "a terrifying precedent," according to an academic-freedom group. The Primary Source, a conservative monthly published by Tufts students, commemorated "Islamic Awareness Week" last month on the Medford, Mass., campus with a full-page "supplement" headlined "Islam -- Arabic Translation: Submission," that cited facts about Muslim history. That unsigned article, along with a satirical "Christmas carol" in the magazine's December issue mocking the university's affirmative-action program, was cited as a violation of Tufts's "nondiscrimination policy." "From now on, all material published...

Today, FIRE announced the decision by a disciplinary panel at Tufts to find the conservative student newspaper, The Primary Source, guilty of “harassment” for, among other things, publishing a satirical ad that listed less-than-flattering facts about Islam during Tufts’ Islamic Awareness Week. You can see the ad here, and Eugene Volokh has also published it with excellent commentary over at his blog, but, just to make sure people see the ad for themselves, I have reprinted the full text: Islam Arabic Translation: Submission In the Spirit of Islamic Awareness Week, the SOURCE presents an itinerary to supplement the educational experience....

There have been many complaints about how our media reports the stories from Iraq. Countless articles have been written about the selective nature of reports from the field – focusing on the negative and completely ignoring the positive. Documents uncovered in Iraq have demonstrated how the insurgents use the American media for propaganda dissemination. Now I have uncovered something even more shocking and disgusting. Our media is using pro al-Qaeda, pro Iraqi insurgency organizations as the basis for their reports – more importantly as sources of information that is damning to our soldiers. While researching the claims of US soldiers...

We wonder if the folks over at Truthout.org are rethinking their affiliation with reporter and serial fabulist Jason Leopold. Leopold, you may recall, is the freelance reporter who was caught making stuff up in a 2002 Salon.com article, self-admittedly "getting it completely wrong" in pieces for Dow Jones, and had his own memoir cancelled because of concerns over the accuracy of quotations. Leopold's latest addition to his application for membership in the Stephen Glass school of journalism came on May 12 of this year, when he got what appeared to be the scoop of a lifetime. Now writing for Truthout.org,...

WASHINGTON - CIA Director Porter Goss has resigned, a senior administration official said. President Bush, who has been making staff changes at the White House to reinvigoriate his second term, was making another personnel announcement Friday. Bush's new chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, has made several changes since taking over last month. Recently, longtime Bush adviser and confidant Karl Rove had the policy-making portion of his portfolio taken away so he could focus on the midterm elections and White House press secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation. McClellan has been replaced by Fox News commentator Tony Snow. McClellan's last briefing...

by Joe Pacuska Other Articles by Joe Pacuska Teach Us! 07/16/05 This past Sunday my wife arrived at Mass to find a fairly full house and we were lucky to get a seat in the third or fourth pew from the back. Although I’d prefer to be closer to the altar, I don’t find sitting in the back objectionable. I figure I’m as close to Jesus there as anywhere else. Except, of course, when the Consecration takes place and when it comes to Communion. With Jesus real and present in our midst, I’d like to be as close as I can...

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) said Wednesday it will license its Windows source code to comply with a European Union antitrust ruling. The source code provides the building blocks of the operating system that competitors need to make products compatible with Windows. The company's chief counsel Brad Smith said called the move "a bold stroke." Microsoft has refused to license the source code in the past. Software developers still will have to pay for the code, which open source advocates will not be allowed to "publish for free," Smith cautioned. The company had "just started to provide this...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Jan. 19, 2006 – Coalition forces are installing windmills across southern Afghanistan to provide farmers with water 24 hours a day. "Windmills for the farmers provide an easy energy source to a rural area," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Andrew Mazerik, a civil affairs officer with Task Force Bayonet of the coalition's Combined Joint Task Force 76. "There's not a lot of maintenance needed for the windmills, and this effort shows that the Afghan government is doing something for the people." The program began with the installation of a test windmill at Kandahar Airfield three months...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HIT, Iraq (Jan. 10, 2006) -- From his vantage point in the front passenger seat of his armored Humvee, Sgt. Ernest Twigg keeps his head on a swivel. Leaning forward on the thinly-padded seat, his head is in constant motion as he scours the roadway ahead for anything out of the ordinary. Such vigilance is well worth the effort. Only days earlier, Twigg and his fellow infantrymen in the Combined Anti-Armor Team (CAAT) of Battalion Landing Team 1st Bn., 2nd Marines came upon a patch of suspicious roadway and upon investigation, discovered a large artillery shell planted...

WASHINGTON - Lawyers for Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff are in discussions with the Justice Department about his possible cooperation in a congressional corruption probe, a person involved in the investigation said Tuesday night. The probe involves a number of members of Congress as well as staff. A former aide to ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, has already pleaded guilty. Abramoff would plead guilty under an arrangement that would settle a criminal case against him in Florida as well as potential corruption charges in Washington, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the...

Tony Blair is believed to be convinced over the need for nuclear power to tackle the UK energy crisis.The government is to announce a review of energy policy, including nuclear power, after being urged by business leaders to tackle the UK energy crisis. Concerns have been growing over future power supplies and rising gas costs. The BBC's Nick Robinson said despite the prime minister's support, no decision has yet been made on Britain's nuclear future. Tony Blair's spokesman said: "The prime minister's view is that we need to look at all the options and everybody knows that is what we...

WASHINGTON - Vice President Cheney's former top aide, indicted last month on perjury and obstruction charges, reviewed documents Wednesday at a federal courthouse. Accompanied by his legal team, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby walked into the courthouse without the crutches that he'd been using during a court appearance two weeks ago when he pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the CIA leak investigation. Libby's visit to the courthouse came hours after The Washington Post reported that at least one senior Bush administration official — who was not identified — told editor Bob Woodward about CIA operative Valerie Plame about a...

Anyone know a good source on the web for political quotes, transcripts, etc? Specifically I want to find Joe Biden's comments to Condoleeza Rice during her confirmation hearings.

BAGHDAD – After a rocket attack in east Baghdad Oct. 31 killed one Iraqi and wounded three others, U.S. Soldiers arrived at the scene to determine from where the rocket may have been launched. Local Iraqi police evacuated the wounded and secured the site as Iraqi firefighters doused fires caused by the explosions. Task Force Baghdad Soldiers investigated the scene and questioned local residents at the suspected launch site of the rockets. “The Iraqi Police responded very quickly to this terrorist attack,” said Lt. Col. Edward Chesney, deputy commanding officer, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division. “It is impossible...

WASHINGTON - New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified before a grand jury Friday, ending her silence in the investigation into whether White House officials leaked the name of a covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame. Miller, out of jail after 85 days, said, "I was a journalist doing my job, protecting my source until my source freed me to perform my civic duty to testify." Escorted by her lawyers and New York Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., Miller met with reporters for several minutes after spending more than four hours inside the courthouse, most of it behind closed doors...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., revealed Friday that two years ago he discussed the blown cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame with then CIA director George Tenet and that Tenet "was furious." Tenet promptly called the Justice Department to demand an investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak, Schumer said at a hearing held by House and Senate Democrats. Novak revealed Plame's identity in July 2003 in a column in which he said she played a key role in having her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sent to Niger to investigate...

I am thinking about writing a letter to my local fish wrap because editor was crying about the Rove nonsense and the fact that Judith Miller was a hero to all for standing up for the press and their "First Amendment Rights" and protection of confidential sources. The jest of my letter is going to focus on why we shouldn't feel sorry for Ms. Miller and the rest of the press because they (the liberal press) are the first ones to applaud when the First Amendment protections to free speech during federal elections was attacked (McCain/Feingold) and when a court...

In journalism, the definition of “leak” suggests that it is applied to government officials who purposely give reporters secret or confidential information in order to publicize something they do not like so that it can be defeated before being voted upon. “Outing” a CIA agent is only a crime if the agent is under cover overseas or has been during the past five years. This law was created to prevent the assassinations of CIA agents on foreign shores as had been caused by Philip Agee in 1978 who listed CIA agents undercover in foreign cities, causing the murder of some....

The buzz is that all of the fun-loving Dims are having "Rovegate" parties to trash Karl Rove and GWB over the CIA outing controversy. We need to show we can have fun too......by having a Wilson-Plame Look-Alike Contest. Post here your choices for the look-alikes.

Was it really a secret that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA? It's the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA? What also might be worth asking: "Who didn't know?" I believe I was the first to publicly question the credibility of Mr. Wilson, a retired diplomat sent to Niger to look into reports that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium for his nuclear-weapons program. On July 6, Mr. Wilson wrote an...

Now I read that Matt Cooper’s (the journalist who received Rove’s so-called ‘leak’) wife is Mandy Grunwald; media consultant and campaign advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton......

David Corn responding to Clifford May's column in National Review. Blah, blah, blah. Unconvincing. Those of you following this closely will want to read it for clues, but I'm only going to post what (to me) was the big news: Here's another fact that may interest anyone who thinks May might have a point:Number of times I've been contacted by Patrick Fitzgerald, interviewed or contacted by his investigators, and called before the grand jury: 0. What the h*ll is this? David Corn published an article only two days after Novak's column that exposed Plame in far greater detail than Novak...

An interesting post by Cliff May: "This morning, I have a piece up elsewhere on NRO showing that The Nation’s David Corn--not syndicated columnist Bob Novak--was the first to reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover operative. It further suggests that David did so based on information provided to him by none other than Joseph C. Wilson IV. While working on that piece, I had an exchange with David and, with his permission, I thought I’d share that with you. Dear David: I have a question--one you may not be willing to answer but I’m curious so let me try:...

Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's "cover" (even if she had not been a covert CIA agent at the time of the alleged "leaks")? It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press. Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a...

PROVO - There is a new coffee shop in town, but it's no Starbucks. The entry is framed with little white Christmas lights, there are half-a-dozen couches to go along with a few tables, and the walls are yellow, red, green and purple. Opposite a faux-brick wall there is a wall dedicated to nonsense. "Girls are like ladders," one customer wrote. Another scribbled: "I love yellow people." It's all the same to owner Christin Johnson. She's just happy the people who jotted down the messages wanted to stick around in her Vermillion Skies De-cafe and Lounge long enough to pen...

Accuracy in Media (AIM) said today that revelations that former FBI official Mark Felt himself had other sources in the Watergate scandal mean that the real identity of Deep Throat has not been fully disclosed. AIM editor Cliff Kincaid said that a Brendan Lyons story in The Albany Times Union (N.Y), also published on the front page of today's Washington Times, identifies Felt as only one of several FBI officials who fed information to The Washington Post during the scandal that brought down President Nixon. "Felt's role as Deep Throat diminishes day by day," said Kincaid. "It seems clear he...

CHICAGO - Gov. Rod Blagojevich's office has received subpoenas from a grand jury investigating allegations that his chief fundraiser traded jobs for campaign contributions, a source close to the investigation said Monday. The governor refused to say if he had been subpoenaed, insisting it would be illegal to discuss the matter while it is before a grand jury. Subpoenas were also sent to Blagojevich's major fundraisers, his political committees and some agency heads, seeking records related to hiring, contracts and appointments, the source told The Associated Press, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The list of people receiving subpoenas included...

Project Harmony =============== Motivation ---------- There is a clear need for an open-source version of Java 2, Standard Edition (J2SE) runtime platform, and there are many ongoing efforts to produce solutions (Kaffe, Classpath, etc). There are also efforts that provide alternative approaches to execution of Java bytecode (GCJ and IKVM). All of these efforts provide a diversity of solutions, which is healthy, but barriers exist which prevent these efforts from reaching a greater potential. Proposal -------- We propose that we create a new Apache project, Harmony, that will achieve the following goals : 1) create a Compatible, independent implementation of...

Gasoline prices are high, and we need to make them go down! I have started a petition that can be downloaded at http://www.biggreenfish.com/gaspetition. This petition asks that the United States Congress do everything within its power to lower gas prices to a bearable level, and that it set the initiative for scientists and engineers to find the best alternative fuel source to gasoline and discover the best way to convert our nation to that new fuel source. Download it and pass it on to all your friends. I will turn the signed petitions for my area over to my congressional...

For anyone who is interested, here's a useful (free) utility from Microsoft that integrates with IE5+. When you select text/images on a web page (as though you were going to edit/copy them) then right-click, you'll have a 'View Partial Source' option in the popup context menu. Choosing this option will show you the HTML source in notepad. I've used this for a couple years and it's VERY useful for determining the URLs of pictures you might want to link & also for answering 'how'd they do that?' if you see interesting stuff on a page. Again, free. Very fast download....

Not having anything worthwhile to say for himself, John Kerry has his surrogates out starting nasty rumors about the Bush administration. Our liberal national media doesn't seem to mind when Kerry minions spout obvious mistruths. The large media news organizations never bother fact-checking and questioning Democrats about even the most blatant lies, so Democrats babble on with impunity. We, however, prefer to take notes and lie in wait until the actual candidate starts feeling confident the trial balloon sent up by minions is safe to follow. John Kerry, of course, is libel to say anything. So, it didn't take long...

OK, we shouldn't be surprised by now that Burkett is exposed as a fraud, but I found this contradiction so glaring I can't believe the press hasn't picked up on it: Burkett is claiming that he was given the documents by someone named Lucy Ramirez (or her shadowy courier). From USA Today: "Burkett said he arranged to get the documents during a trip to Houston for a livestock show in March. But instead of being met at the show by Ramirez, he was approached by a man who asked for Burkett, handed him an envelope and quickly left, Burkett recounted."...

Exerpt: NYT article on Bill Burkett; "In it, (a letter) Mr. Burkett complained of "severe retaliation" from General James for what he said was reporting "illegal acts" within the National Guard. He also complained about the government's failure to pay for his medical care after suffering from a tropical disease after a military assignment to Panama in 1997. Before finally winning medical benefits in July 1998, he said, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for depression." ENDIT

The Houston Chronicle takes a long, tough look at Bill Burkett, who has emerged as a possible CBS source for disputed memos about President Bush's Guard service. Read the whole thing. Also, many, many readers are pointing me to Burkett's op-ed from August 25th of this year in which he says that he had "reassembled" Bush's TANG file and specifically called out the years 1972 and 1973 - the same years that the Killian forgeries were purportedly written.

WASHINGTON - Bill Burkett, who has emerged as a possible CBS source for disputed memos about President Bush's Guard service, has a long history of making charges against Bush and the Texas National Guard. But Burkett's allegations have changed over the years, and have been dismissed as baseless by former Guard colleagues, state legislators and others. Even Burkett has admitted some of his allegations are false.

September 16, 2004 Ex-Guardsman Is Said to Be a CBS SourceBy RALPH BLUMENTHAL OUSTON, Sept. 15 - Bill Burkett once said his job was to make Gov. George W. Bush a hero. As a lieutenant colonel working on the readiness of the Texas National Guard, Mr. Burkett, a lay preacher's son from Portales, N.M., was brought in with a high commission in 1996 to work on mobilization plans that would make the Guard shine. "I was very supportive of Bush," he said in an interview this year.But it was not long before Mr. Burkett, whom colleagues call a stickler...

We, the people, the "guys in pajamas" can force the Rathergate forger into the open--if we only have the will to try. We can start a campaign that focuses on the two media outlets--ABC and USA Today--who got the same information as CBS. Apparently they have come around to the view that the documents probably are bogus. Therefore any confidentiality arrangement with the source is void.Our arguments should be the ethics rules of the Society of Professional Journalists. We can use their own rules against them. Go to the Society of Professional Journalists http://www.spj.org/ethics_code.asp and then to their ethics page....

I was listening to Scarborough Country and Howard Fineman said that they were looking into whether Bill Burkett was the source of the forged papers. from http://michael-friedman.com/archives/000139.html Who is Bill Burkett? Former Lt. Colonel Bill Burkett is the man who claims that Bush and the Texas National Guard cleaned out any damaging information in Bush's National Guard files in 1997. As Kevin Drum explains in an exhaustively researched post, Burkett has a major axe to grind - he blames Bush for the military denying him medical care during an illness in 1998. However, there is another reason to be skeptical...

Italian Mummy Source of 'The Scream'? By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News Sept. 7, 2004 — An Inca mummy kept in a Florentine museum might have been a source of inspiration for Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream," an Italian anthropologist claims. The Inspirational Mummy. Bearing a striking resemblance to Munch's now stolen painting, the mummy was rediscovered as Florence's Museum of Natural History began to carry out scientific investigations such as CT scans on its collection of Peruvian mummies. "It"s the strong resemblance that struck us. Basically, the images of the 'The Scream' and the mummy can be overlapped," Piero Mannucci...

As Bill Clinton hit the operating table at 6:45 a.m. at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia in upper Manhattan, MSNBC almost simultaneously was preparing a video package of the former president's obituary -- just in case. From: Hitchins, Charles (NBC Universal, MSNBC) Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 6:25 AM To: @MSNBC Newsforce Staff Subject: Clinton Obit Just in case it's needed Mitchell Obit on Clinton C1052 Trt 3:47

Finding open source software on the Internet can often seem like searching for a needle in a haystack. But with the development of a new search engine called AMOS, finding code has just become easier. Aimed at programmers and system integrators, but with the potential to be used by a broader public, the AMOS system applies a simple ontology and a dictionary of potential search terms to find software code, packages of code and code artefacts rapidly and efficiently. 'There is so much open source code and program elements available today that people often don't know what's available or where...