Free Republic

As the White House was gearing up to sell ObamaCare to the American people last summer, Valerie Jarrett, the president’s pointwoman on a host of issues, phoned Oprah Winfrey. She invited the Queen of All Media to join celebrities, including Amy Poehler, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys, to meet with President Obama and discuss how they could generate publicity for his health-care law. Oprah refused. Obama had been counting on Oprah’s immense persuasive powers to help enroll millions in ObamaCare. But as the rollout turned into a disaster, Oprah didn’t lift a finger to help.

PUT YOUR CAR KEYS BESIDE YOUR BED AT NIGHT Tell your spouse, your children, your neighbors, your parents, your sisters, everyone you run across. Put your car keys beside your bed at night. If you hear a noise outside your home or someone trying to get in your house, just press the panic button for your car. The alarm will be set off, and the horn will continue to sound until either you turn it off or the car battery dies. This tip came from a neighborhood watch coordinator. Next time you come home for the night and you start...

ALTA LOMA (CBS) — A case of campaign vandalism is under investigation Friday in Alta Loma. Someone keyed the word “Obama” into two cars and slashed seats in another outside a residence that had Mitt Romney campaign signs. CBS2 and KCAL9 reporter Rob Schmitt spoke to Ken Slown, owner of one of the keyed vehicles. Slown actually supports President Obama! He explained to Schmitt that he and his wife — both currently unemployed — are staying with her parents and it’s her parents who support Romney. “I don’t know if they were trying to get a point across, to vote...

Candidates square off at forum Republican pledges support for medical marijuana, reproductive choice The two candidates vying for the Florida House District 120 seat took turns Monday night espousing support for gay rights, including the right to marry and adopt babies. One spoke up for the value of legalizing medical marijuana in Florida, a conservative Republican-led bastion in the deepest South. "As a pastor and member of the community, I've walked a number of individuals through the travesty of cancer," said Morgan McPherson, a former two-term mayor of Key West, at a forum held at the Conch Flyer restaurant and...

Garland wants to be your boss, your big brother, your nanny, your wet nurse and your house sitter all rolled into one. Heather Fazio, Texas Libertarian Party Membership Coordinator, issued the following Action Alert about Garland's city council meeting scheduled for November 14: Council is requested to consider the recommendation of the Building and Fire Code Board and the Plumbing and Mechanical Code Board to adopt the 2009 International Fire, Residential, Building, Energy Conservation, Plumbing, Mechanical, Property Maintenance and Fuel Gas Codes along with local amendments. What this means, Fazio explains, is that the city wants to make it mandatory...

Seven years ago the Cedar Falls City Council passed an ordinance requiring lock boxes on commercial buildings and larger apartment complexes. Hardly a soul made a peep about it. On Monday the council voted 6-1 on a third and final reading to expand the ordinance to include more apartment buildings. In the days leading up to the vote, they received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails from people all over the country from people upset about the issue. Some calls came in the middle of the night. Some writers threatened them and called them scumbags, or worse. The issue had...

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. -- Gunmen stormed a Kissimmee home and put two families' lives in danger. But deputies said a set of car keys led to their arrests. The suspects were arrested a short time after the home invasion. Deputies said they ransacked a home on Sample Street Wednesday night, armed with guns and aimed them right at the victims. However, they made a crucial mistake that led to their capture. One of the women, who lives in the house, was sitting out on the patio Wednesday night, when a group of men, armed with guns forced her back inside....

A small island in the middle of a big ocean, Key West has always made a virtue of its isolation. In 1982, for example, an onerous Border Patrol checkpoint on U.S. Route 1, which links the Keys to mainland Florida, resulted in the island's declaring itself the autonomous Conch Republic. This was, of course, mostly a joke ("We Seceded Where Others Failed" was its e pluribus unum), but the mayor's declaration of independence did include a twinge of real anger and a vow that "we have no intention of suffering in the future at the hands of fools and bureaucrats."

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL): Andrea we’re looking into something new right now, that there’s reports of oil that’s seeping up from the seabed… which would indicate, if that’s true, that the well casing itself is actually pierced… underneath the seabed. So, you know, the problems could be just enormous with what we’re facing.

When it comes to computer technology, thin is always in. It’s indisputable that the thinner, lighter, clearer, the better when dealing with the latest computer gadget. This keyboard is the epitome of the high standards expected of the technological version of the fashion industry. It’s based on image as well, that is, image recognition technology.

What are the "keys of the kingdom" referred to in Matthew 16:19? What authority did Jesus Christ give to Peter and the New Testament Church of God? The Bible uses a key as a symbol of authority. In Isaiah 22:22, we see Eliakim the priest receiving "the key of the house of David…on his shoulder." Revelation 3:7 uses similar symbolism. A trusted servant to the king wore the key to the king's house on a hook on his shoulder. Therefore, he had the authority to open or close the king's house. Assuming Jesus was addressing Peter in Matthew 16:19, some...

EPA fugitive who shot at officers expected to change plea A Utah fugitive critically injured March 10 during a shoot-out with law enforcement officers in a Marathon trailer park is expected to avoid a trial by pleading guilty today.Larkin Baggett, 54, formerly of Salt Lake City, was shot in the neck and buttocks after he allegedly pointed an assault rifle at a Monroe County Sheriff's Office deputy and three U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agents.Baggett was the first man shot by EPA officers in that organization's history.A change of plea hearing is scheduled today in the courtroom of U.S. Judge Michael...

When the United States Border Patrol set up a check point at the Last Chance Saloon in Florida City effectively cutting off the Florida Keys at the confluence of the only two roads out; Last Chance owner, Skeeter Davis, was immediately on the phone to his old pal Mayor Dennis Wardlow of Key West. Meanwhile a seventeen mile traffic jam ensued while the Border Patrol stopped every car leaving the Keys supposedly searching for illegal aliens attempting to enter the mainland United States. Residents and visitors attempting to leave the Keys were puzzled about what illegal aliens could be hiding...

A Tentative Ruling is not final and counsel for parties will be afforded an opportunity for oral argument tomorrow, if they so request. But in practice, it is extremely rare for California Judges to deviate from tentative rulings, and the very detailed statement of law include in this ruling will probably be incorporated in the final order. /snip/ MOTION TO QUASH OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, AND 55 CALIFORNIA ELECTORS OR, IN THE ALTERNATIVE, FOR AN ORDER THAT THE DEPOSITION OF THE CUSTODIAN OF RECORDS OF OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE NOT BE TAKEN. Respondents President Barack Obama, Vice President...

UC San Diego computer scientists have built a software program that can perform key duplication without having the key. Instead, the computer scientists only need a photograph of the key. "We built our key duplication software system to show people that their keys are not inherently secret," said Stefan Savage, the computer science professor from UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering who led the student-run project. "Perhaps this was once a reasonable assumption, but advances in digital imaging and optics have made it easy to duplicate someone's keys from a distance without them even noticing." Professor Savage presents this...

I should never be shocked by the bad manners on the left but this stunt just might haunt them more than Wellstone's funeral. There is a key rattling stunt/taunt growing in popularity amongst the Democrats. Some may try to play it off as mocking him for having so many houses but the truth is that the jingling keys are to imitate the prison guards at the Hanoi Hilton. Whatever they're thinking they better stop it soon because even apolitical types will side with McCain out of sympathy if for no other reason. I learned the true meaning of this key...

HOW TO START YOUR CAR WITH A DOG (A breakdown patrol man who came to the rescue of a woman motorist has managed to get her car started using her dog.) How do you start a car with a dog? I guess you can stick its tail in the ignition and see if it starts or maybe attach the car to the dog like a rickshaw and pop it into gear when it gets rolling fast enough. What other solutions could there be? (Juliette Piesley, 39, had changed the battery in her electronic key...

Today eight colleagues and I are releasing a significant new research result. We show that disk encryption, the standard approach to protecting sensitive data on laptops, can be defeated by relatively simple methods. We demonstrate our methods by using them to defeat three popular disk encryption products: BitLocker, which comes with Windows Vista; FileVault, which comes with MacOS X; and dm-crypt, which is used with Linux. The research team includes J. Alex Halderman, Seth D. Schoen, Nadia Heninger, William Clarkson, William Paul, Joseph A. Calandrino, Ariel J. Feldman, Jacob Appelbaum, and Edward W. Felten. Our site has links to the...

Singer Alicia Keys, left and former U.S. President Bill Clinton participate in The Clinton Global Initiative & MTV's 'Giving - Live At The Apollo' Saturday, Sept. 29, 2007 in New York.

FLORENCE, Ore. --A woman was arrested and charged with arson and burglary after police say she set fire to the home of a neighbor she thought had stolen her keys. Sgt. Clint Riley of the Lane County Sheriff's Office said the 23-year-old woman later found her keys hanging from her pants pocket. The woman was being held in the Lane County Jail in lieu of $350,000 bail. According to a police report, the woman told a deputy that after discovering her keys missing, she broke into her neighbors' trailer, and began trashing the place.