Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record)'s call for censuring President Bush appears to have paid dividends for the senator's political action committee. Feingold's leadership PAC, the Progressive Patriots Fund, pulled in $282,000 last month, according to a report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission. In February, the PAC raised $105,000. Feingold, D-Wis., announced in March that he introduce a resolution to censure Bush over the administration's eavesdropping program. "I bet that really did stimulate contributions a lot," said Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The censure resolution, and lack of any...

The Stanford University Symbolic Systems Program and the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence announced today the Singularity Summit at Stanford, a one-day event free to the public, to be held Saturday, May 13, 2006 at Stanford Memorial Auditorium, Stanford, California. The event will bring together leading futurists and others to examine the implications of the "Singularity" -- a hypothesized creation of superintelligence as technology accelerates over the coming decades -- to address the profound implications of this radical and controversial scenario. "The Singularity will be a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its...

Options for a coming singularity include self-destruction of civilization, a positive singularity, a negative singularity (machines take over), and retreat into tradition. Our urgent goal: find (and avoid) failure modes, using anticipation (thought experiments) and resiliency -- establishing robust systems that can deal with almost any problem as it arises. In order to give you pleasant dreams tonight, let me offer a few possibilities about the days that lie ahead—changes that may occur within the next twenty or so years, roughly a single human generation. Possibilities that are taken seriously by some of today's best minds. Potential transformations of human...

Director Spike Lee, known for his stylish and controversial films, said Mississippi should get rid of the state flag during a speech at the University of Mississippi's Black History Month celebration. Lee said Mississippians cling too tightly to what he considers symbols of oppression. "You've gotta do something about that flag," he said. "I know people say its representative of history. Well, so's the swastika."

HOUSTON -- The southwest corner of this city is one sprawling low-rise apartment complex after the next, once-hot real estate area that died with the 1980s oil bust only to be reborn in the '90s as a low-income, high-crime neighborhood. Now it's Katrina turf. New Tony's Express, neighborhood convenience store, is sold out of T-shirts and caps stenciled with the numbers 504, 985 and 337 -- the area codes for New Orleans and southern Louisiana. The emergency room of West Houston Medical Center is so busy treating Hurricane Katrina evacuees the staff jokingly calls itself "Charity West," a reference to...

At the onset of the twenty-first century, humanity stands on the verge of the most transforming and the most thrilling period in its history. It will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged, as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity. For over three decades, the great inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic...

By Robert Burns ASSOCIATED PRESS 7:42 a.m. September 8, 2005 Associated Press U.S. Navy pilot Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher, above, was shot down over Iraq in January 1991. A Navy report concludes members of the former Iraqi government "know the whereabouts" of the officer. WASHINGTON – A Navy pilot shot down over Iraq in January 1991 may have been captured by Iraqi forces, and members of the former Iraqi government "know the whereabouts" of the officer, the Navy has concluded. A Navy board of inquiry concluded that there is no credible evidence that Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher is dead, and...

Spike on Target By L.¯. 9 March 2005 The modern Spike-LR anti-tank guided missiles, bought by the Polish Ministry of Defense for the Polish Army from the Israeli company Rafael, underwent further tests on a training site near Toruñ at the end of February. The first missile tested destroyed the armor of a tank from a distance of almost 3 kilometers. The long-range Spike-LR is a new generation lightweight, Fire & Forget PLUS multi-purpose missile system with a range of up to 4 km. It takes antitank technology to a whole new level. The basic operation of the missile is...

With one in four families fatherless these days, this two-hour special takes the position that it takes a real man to be a ``True Dad.'' If you think bringing home the bacon and tossing the ball around is enough, think again. In the 21st century, real men change diapers, help with homework and nurture their kids. With the exception of Nascar driver Kerry Earnhardt, the six subjects profiled in this two-hour special are not well known. Shorter and less substantive interviews with celebrity dads such as actor Alec Baldwin, New York Yankee catcher Jorge Posada and ``Today'' show host Matt...

On Target By Leszek Żmijewski 15 December 2004 In a third large arms delivery contract—after those for aircraft and armored modular vehicles—the Polish armed forces have received the first batch of modern Spike-LR anti-tank guided missiles from the Israeli company Rafael. The contract calls for the purchase, in 2004-13, of 2,675 shells (with a 20-year shelf life), 264 launchers—chiefly mobile—with Command and Launch Units and two training and simulation devices. It was signed on Dec. 29, 2003 at the headquarters of Zakłady Metalowe Mesko in Skarzysko-Kamienna. The plant will produce Spikes under a license granted to the Bumar Group (which...

Anecdotal stories of individual government officials who game the system to secure outrageous pensions, combined with troubling stories of government budgets pushed to the brink because of excessive public-sector benefits, are propelling the pension issue onto the front burner, especially in California, where abuses are rife. Orange County has, in recent weeks, been debating a recent vote by the Board of Supervisors to dramatically spike pensions for all county workers, even though the county pension system is $1 billion short of meeting its current promises, and even though a new report shows increasing liabilities for retiree medical benefits. On Thursday,...

Twelve years before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, an F/A-18 Hornet piloted by Lieutenant Commander Scott Speicher during the first night of the first Gulf War exploded into a fireball. The following day he was named as the conflict's first casualty and his wife quickly remarried. Evidence was later discovered indicating Speicher, call sign "Spike," had ejected and may have survived. Eyewitness accounts emerged of a Navy flier held in an Iraqi hospital who was not repatriated at the end of the first Gulf War causing Spike's status to be reclassified from Killed in Action to Missing in Action. Then another...

Orange County Treasurer John Moorlach, who was vilified by county leaders when in 1994 he predicted, correctly, dire financial consequences from the county's investment policies, is once again being vilified by county leaders for pointing out the shaky financial situation underlying a retirement plan proposed for county employees. The Board of Supervisors is likely to approve a pension spike - already overwhelmingly approved by the county employees - at today's board meeting, even though taxpayers eventually will be left to pick up the pieces. This is the latest proposal in a mad rush by public employee unions statewide to spike...

Comdey Central, a network included in our basic cable in Maryland, has a show called "Insomniac with Dave Attell" that starts at 9pm EST. I've learned that the show is basically about a guy who goes out late at night to interview people who are working or are out and about in late night hours. I caught a few seconds of tonights show while channel surfing. The host was apparently in a porn production company (ok, I guess we can expect this from cable) and proceeded to ask about a prop on a desk. He held up a sex toy...

NEW YORK (AP) - Al Sharpton, who failed in his last bid for a new job - president of the United States - now has a job on a reality TV show that guides people on career makeovers. Spike TV, the Viacom cable channel that targets a young male audience, said Sharpton will host ``I Hate My Job,'' premiering in the fall. ``I like the concept of trying to have people discover their purpose in life, and not have the world define them or settle for less than who they want to be just to pay their bills,'' Sharpton said...

A Home for a Gay Channel By BILL CARTER Published: May 30, 2004 EXECUTIVES of MTV Networks seemed to be caught a bit off guard by the hostile reaction to their announcement last week that they intend to create the first cable entertainment channel devoted to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender viewers, called Logo. Religious groups, including the Traditional Values Coalition, denounced the idea as amounting to "moral anarchy" and promised to organize a boycott of companies that advertise on the channel. But the executives behind the project remain convinced that MTV Networks will be able to overcome any impediments....

The Associated Press has spiked reporting on the press conference this morning in Washington, D.C. by John O'Neill and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth where they accused fellow Vietnam veteran and Swift boat unit member Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the presumed Democratic party nominee for president, of being "unfit to be commander in chief."The stunning revelation was confirmed by the AP's Washington bureau this evening. A spokeswoman for the AP stated that the wire service had sent a reporter to cover the press conference. However, she said the AP decided against running a news article about it because, "It does...

Does anyone else here get a big kick out of "This Just In" On Spike TV? I love this cartoon!! It is so Republican it's fantastic! Oh, and I just found a tick on my leg from Mtn. Biking this evening :)

President Bush is facing increasing dissent among leading conservative politicians and pundits in the face of mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq. The war has become the long slog that some Republicans feared. Since Sunday, 32 Americans have been killed in fighting across Iraq. American body bags are on the front page of major U.S. newspapers. The Washington Post and The New York Times brandished images of charred U.S. civilian remains last week. The networks are leading their nightly news broadcasts with stories of dead Americans. "If we have two or three more weeks of this you are going to start...

Red, white and blue colors cover the screen on MTV's website as the words appear, "The last election was decided by 500,000 votes nationwide. In some states it was decided by 50,000 or 5,000 or 500. In the last election, 18 million young people voted. What if that were 20 million? Who's swing voting now?" The same network that has given us "The Osbournes," "Punk'd," and "Total Request Live" also contributes to the seriousness of politics by delivering "Choose or Lose," the current MTV campaign to mobilize 20 million young voters in November. "Choose or Lose," launched in 1992, brought...