Free Republic 2nd Qtr 2024 Fundraising Target: $81,000 Receipts & Pledges to-date: $22,916
28%  
Woo hoo!! And we're now over 28%!! Thank you all very much!! God bless.

Posts by kaylar

Brevity: Headers | « Text »
  • CNN Poll: Support rises for health insurance mandate

    11/14/2011 1:14:08 PM PST · 29 of 31
    kaylar to JrsyJack
    Haven't seen the actual questions but the headline states that more are in favor of mandatory healthcare, or requiring that everyone have it. No mention of who pays for it. I suspect the poll is equally silent on that little fact and that what has risen is the expectation of another government hand-out. No news there.

    I daresay you're right. BTW, WaPo has a widget on their site that shows what obamacare will do to its victims. A single person with no dependents is subject to fines if s/he doesn't purchase government approved health insurance if s/he has an income as little as $9,500 yearly GROSS. I wonder if the folks thinking they're about to get blue cross/blue shield insurance paid for by "rich folks" realize this?

    That said, I agree with those who say the poll is bogus. Too many states have passed anti mandate referendums for me to believe anyone outside regular CNN viewers are in favor of the mandate. My own state, Missouri, led the way by passing its anti mandate proposition by a 70%+ vote and massive turnout. And does anyone really believe that a majority of American citizens , in a time of very high unemployment and economic turmoil, believe the government should force people to spend hundreds of dollars they may not even have on ANYTHING ????

  • Ron Paul: Obama Presidency On The Verge Of Being A "Dictatorship"

    11/09/2011 12:17:26 PM PST · 29 of 38
    kaylar to Absolutely Nobama
    "That is arrogant," Paul said of Obama frequently using the executive order function as of late. "It is flaunting the Constitution and the whole principle of how we’re supposed to operate. The idea they can just do this and take over the legislative function and brag about it -- and Congress does nothing and the courts do nothing about it, it's very, very bad."

    I don’t vote for people who have Stormfront raise money for them. I don’t vote for people who are endorsed by Code Pinko. I don’t vote for people who calls OWS “victims”.

    I don't disagree with Paul's sentiments or beliefs in this paragraph, but I really don't want to vote for someone who confuses "flaunt" and "flout".

  • Netflix Abandons Plan to Rent DVDs on Qwikster (Hallelujah!)

    10/10/2011 6:21:28 AM PDT · 26 of 89
    kaylar to USMCWife6869
    It was never the price change that made me leave, it was the attitude from Netflix that if you didn't like the changes you could go you-know-what yourself. I won't give money to a company that thinks they are doing me some kind of favor by taking my money. They increased the price but not any services. I will NEVER give Netflix another dime, no matter what they do.

    Agreed I knew netflix (eventually) planned to go to streaming only, and I took for granted that they would have to raise their prices to do so.THAT was no problem. But that snotty little press release, with that ending statement about how easy it is to go to your netflix account and cancel if you disagree with the price hike-??? THAT raised my blood pressure, and I WOULD have happily cancelled except it's not my decision alone and I was outvoted. :-(

  • Netflix Abandons Plan to Rent DVDs on Qwikster (Hallelujah!)

    10/10/2011 6:16:37 AM PDT · 23 of 89
    kaylar to upchuck
    "I’ve been using Netflix’s by-mail DVD service for several years. Their customer service is without peer. I wish every company I deal with was as good as Netflix."

    Say what-???!!!?? Their "customer service" is to call their 800# and to sit on hold till a minimum wage drone picks up and reads from a script. They *HAD* excellent customer service a few years ago, when if you had a non immediate problem or question you could e mail their tech/CS department and get an answer via e mail, within 1-24 hours depending. THAT was convenient and useful. Having no way to contact Netflix save by phone is a PITA. And I will never believe that self serving BS statement Netflix released about their customers "overwhelmingly preferring the personal touch" of phone contact only. Every site I saw that discussed that change (eg Hacking Netflix) was furious about it. (I *think* Blockbuster still allows e mail contact, but I discontinued BB when DH bought a Blu Ray that was netflix enabled...HUGE mistake. The Sony player is OK for older streaming videos, but it times out constantly on HD videos.)

  • Hugo Chavez to Seize Private Homes and Hotels to Give Vacations to the Masses

  • What Are You Reading Now? - My Quarterly Survey

    10/03/2011 10:56:17 AM PDT · 64 of 129
    kaylar to SMARTY

    I just finished that a few days ago! I was going to read all of the Barchester Chronicles (they, and all the Palliser novels, are available for free kindle download at Amazon) but after suffering through the atrocious Doctor Thorne , I gave up on that idea. (How can someone who wrote books as good as BT, The Way we Live Now, and even The Warden write something so horrid?) So I am going through Page Smith’s 8 volume history again (the first 3-4 books are pretty good IIRC) and Can You Forgive Her? , the first book in the Palliser series. I hope it’s better than Doctor Thorne, and there’s no way it can be worse.

  • Actress Daryl Hannah Arrested Outside White House[ Keystone XL Pipeline]

    08/31/2011 7:40:37 AM PDT · 40 of 57
    kaylar to laweeks

    A critic once described her as resembling a “linebacker in a Lorelei wig”. He was reviewing Splash, and that phrase has stuck in my mind all these long years, as it was at once so mean and so accurate.

  • If Rick Perry Wins The Primary...(Vanity/Straw Poll)

    08/31/2011 4:52:43 AM PDT · 61 of 102
    kaylar to danielmryan
    I loathe Mitt Romney, but if he's the nominee , I will vote for even him....Reluctantly and sadly, because you know TPTB in the media and the government will proclaim that this (Romney being the nominee and (hopefully..) elected president) "proves" that opposition to Obamacare was based not on legitimate objections to a federal power grab of breathtaking proportion (the personal mandate & the seizure of a huge % of the economy by the federal government) but rather on "racism", since Romneycare is so similar. I can see that one coming a mile away.

    I will vote for Romney or anyone, in the hopes that getting rid of BHO means getting rid of the worthless affirmative action beneficiary Eric Holder. Heck, just getting rid of MO is reason enough to vote for any Republican nominee.

  • Giant rat caught, killed with pitchfork

    08/28/2011 10:10:50 AM PDT · 38 of 73
    kaylar to AHerald
    Unknown Origin is a great film, but I have a soft spot for Canada's Deadly Eyes. I remember watching the movie , and upon seeing the classroom scene, I thought how refreshing it was to have college age actors portraying college students-the actors were obviously all 20-25 or so. Then the dialogue revealed the classroom was supposed to be in a High School...The big climactic scene had a bunch of giant rats run down a subway staircase, and eat alive the passengers. Now, I already knew the "rats" were dachshunds in rat suits, and as a dachshund victim owner, that's what I was waiting to see. So the "rats" run down the steps with that unmistakeable wangling gait, it's supposed to be terrifying , and we're laughing because the wiener dog origin was too obvious!
  • Taking dogs from their litter too young 'makes them aggressive'

    08/28/2011 7:40:56 AM PDT · 103 of 126
    kaylar to hope
    Pups learn a lot the from their mom in the first 2 months

    I read that mama dogs know which puppies are preset to be alpha dogs, and they are sterner with them than with the less dominant pups : Growling at them when they get too pushy and so forth. Humans see this and think the mama dog "hates" that puppy, and so "rescue" it-making sure the alpha puppy never learns good dog manners as it would have if left with the mama dog, and so becoming more likely to be a discipline/behavior problem for their human family.

  • MLK Memorial Is Both Moving And Powerful

    08/27/2011 7:20:43 AM PDT · 66 of 88
    kaylar to lbryce

    I doubt those making the comparison are talking about FACIAL resemblance, but rather the way both men appear to be emerging out of a mass of solidified substance.

  • MLK Memorial Is Both Moving And Powerful

    08/27/2011 6:40:18 AM PDT · 55 of 88
    kaylar
    Some have compared this memorial to " Han Solo in carbonite":

    Han Solo

    MLK Memorial
  • Author Stephen King offers left-leaning talk show

    08/23/2011 1:45:02 PM PDT · 59 of 102
    kaylar to SJSAMPLE

    I wonder if he’s even writing the books being published under his name now? I have read virtually every novel he wrote from Carrie to From a Buick 8, Bag of Bones...about the year 2000-2002. While he’s no Tolstoy, his works show a steady improvement in professionalism and polish : Even Salem’s Lot and The Shining are incomparably better written than Carrie. And then I got The Cell...I really don’t believe for a second that SK wrote that book . It read almost like a parody of SK’s writing style, written by a person with marginal at best writing ability, trying to imitate the tropes and idiom’s of SK’s work. And getting those tropes wrong : What was with the ALL CAPS listing for brand names? And his male protagonists ...They have never been stupid or neanderthal/macho, but they also haven’t burst into tears constantly , sometimes more than once in the same chapter. And suddenly SK is writing about a 20something artist, when his protaganists have been aging along with him, sometimes being older than is SK himself? And SK’s done gay characters before, but this one (a male secondary named Tom IIRC) seemed oddly tacked on, like his gayness was part of a checklist system of writing a Guaranteed Blockbuster. I checked out the reviews at various sites, and I was gratified to see that others had had the exact same thought : As one reviewer put it, “I don’t know who wrote this book, but it wasn’t King, and whoever wrote it sucks!” There have been rumors that Tabitha King has written some of SK’s works (Rose Madder and Gerald’s Game , maybe a few more ) and the sheer number and size of the books ( sometimes three huge ones in one year) have seemed suspicious to some, but The Cell is the first work of SK that I’ve read which didn’t seem to be written by the same person (whoever s/he is...) who wrote The Stand , The Shining, The Dead Zone, or even the last (and least) novels in the Gunslinger series.

  • The 75 Books Every Man Should Read (Esquire Magazine)

    08/21/2011 9:43:11 AM PDT · 59 of 100
    kaylar to CanaGuy

    Much better list . 45/101 here. Guess I have some reading to do.

  • The 75 Books Every Man Should Read (Esquire Magazine)

    08/21/2011 7:09:08 AM PDT · 32 of 100
    kaylar to flowerplough

    10/20. I did like that the ‘man’ list included Jorge Luis Borges; he’s been one of my favorite writers for 3 decades now. And Wide Sargasso Sea from the ‘woman’ list deserves its listing, and also was made into a splendid film.

  • The 75 Books Every Man Should Read (Esquire Magazine)

    08/21/2011 6:45:42 AM PDT · 17 of 100
    kaylar to InvisibleChurch

    15/75. (Not a man BTW, so I guess I am excused from reading the other 60.)

  • 'Cat Army' Unleashed Against Rat Menace in China

    08/21/2011 5:33:37 AM PDT · 32 of 39
    kaylar to nickcarraway
    Cats aren't ratters, cats are mousers . Dogs are ratters-RAT terriers were bred for the purpose, and I can vouch for a dachshund's sheer and utter astonished delight at the opportunity to tackle a rat.("Long tailed badger! Long tailed badger! Yay!!!") A cat will rarely go after a rat that is more than 6 months old-it happens, but they really aren't bred for it as are certain dog breeds.
  • Stalker for 17 years — since 8th grade — faces long prison term (Washington State)

    08/20/2011 5:48:43 AM PDT · 32 of 60
    kaylar to Stoat
    I think this may have been one of the cases covered on Stalked: Somebody's Watching, an ID/Discovery channel program (that I think may be on hiatus till 2012). If this *IS* the same case I watched, the guy's a real freak: The show broadcast actual police video of the perp being questioned , and he sounded so smug and so self confident as he explained that sooner or later his victim was going to 'end up dead'. Then the perp looked utterly shocked and stunned when the police responded by arresting him for making a death threat! I think the freak really and truly thought he could tell the police he intended to kill the victim, that the victim would sooner or later die, and that he'd be allowed just to walk out of that police station a free man. Too many "Our hands are tied" soliloquey scenes in 'police procedural/revenge vigilante' movies?
  • Toronto religious leader charged in sex assaults

    08/18/2011 9:53:31 AM PDT · 3 of 9
    kaylar to bayouranger
    Members of the mosque were especially upset that the allegations come during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast during daylight hours. “For a Muslim, this is very shameful. We really condemn it,” said Muti Mughal. “I still don’t believe it.”

    Very cryptic comment...I honestly can't tell if the speaker is upset over the assaults, people coming forward to make allegations during ramadan, or charges being filed during ramadan.

  • 'Mum, the bear is eating me!': Frantic final phone calls of woman, 19, eaten alive by brown bear

    08/17/2011 9:57:03 AM PDT · 64 of 115
    kaylar to kaylar

    How did I mistype her name TWICE??? That’s Cynthia Dusel-Bacon, and she’s apparently gone on to have quite a distinguished career as a geologist...I see quite a few papers and books she’s published, via google.