Free Republic

...So what happened? Some of it is pretty obvious. About a dozen years ago the Phoenix switched from paid to free distribution, which might have made sense at the time but which proved disastrous given the advertising collapse that was to come. Craigslist, of course, had a devastating effect on a paper that depended on pages and pages of classified ads -- college students looking for roommates, bands looking for musicians and, yes, people from all walks of life looking for sex. National advertising from cigarette companies and record labels dried up. But beyond those factors, the community that sustained...

Following the FCC approval of its sale to Clear Channel, 101.7 WFNX Boston has reportedly moved up its farewell to Friday, July 20 at 7:00pm. TJ Connelly, one of WFNX’s former DJ’s returning for a farewell shift, has blogged that his farewell shift has been moved up due to the new end time for the station. The station had originally planned to say goodbye on Saturday evening. We also know that when Clear Channel begins operating the station it will be under the WHBA calls. What we don’t know yet is what format will accompany those call letters or when...

Jeez, I go away on vacation and you guys go all Obama on me ("Obama's Rebirth," Talking Politics; "Taking the Long View," editorial, both May 6). If Obama sucked 10 days ago, why does a 40-minute Seal-team mission make him a hero? All he did was say "Go" when presented with information about the possible location of Osama bin Laden. I think any red-blooded American would have said the same thing. Your noses are so far up the president's arse, it's hard to see your Birkenstocks. We should "engage in talks with the Taliban about cooling the war." Really? Obama...

It's time to reclaim the man we put in the White House (snip) We voted for the Barack Obama we fantasized — the progressive miracle worker. We voted for Change. (snip) And now, we have reason to worry that Change is not coming to America after all. For nearly two years we were encouraged to "Be the Change you want to see in America." It is now obvious that we have a ways to go toward Being that Change. And so does President-elect Barack Obama. And that, above all else, needs to Change. It was not the Democratic base, nor...

>>23) PHILIP ANSCHUTZ, MULTI-BILLIONAIRE Anschutz is probably the most important among the ultra-rich funders of the super-conservative movement. >>20) THOMAS WINTER, PRESIDENT AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, HUMAN EVENTS Winter is also vice-chairman of the ultra, mega, uber, ur, super-crazy right-wing American Conservative Union. (His online editor, Jed Babbin, is also worthy of this list.) >>18) MICHELLE MALKIN, BLOGGER Her defense of the US’s internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II set the stage for conservative backing for Bush’s constitutional abuses in Guantánamo and elsewhere. 12) SARAH PALIN, GOVERNOR, ALASKA There is talk of recruiting the Pentecostal moose-killing miracle mom to be the...

It certainly seems as though the right wing of the blogosphere will be kept quite busy over the next three-and-a-half weeks -- so little time, and so many Obama scandals to investigate!Over at National Review Online's blog, The Corner, Mark Hemmingway suspects -- based on, um, nothing -- that Tony Rezko may be telling the feds about nefarious dealings with a bank where Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias once worked. And we care because? Because Giannoulias has connections to Barack Obama! Hemmingway concludes: "Maybe there's nothing there, but it's worth looking into right?" Um, right. At American Thinker, Jack Cashill has another bombshell: he...

There’s a foul wind blowing off Cape Cod. The clean-energy project known as Cape Wind makes more sense than ever, what with the mess in the Middle East and the earth getting warmer by the minute. But resistance to the proposed wind-farm — which would place 130 windmills in Nantucket Sound and provide up to 75 percent of the Cape’s energy at any given time — proves that it really isn’t easy being green. Since Cape Wind was first proposed in 2001, the project has made plenty of powerful enemies (see the sidebar “Enemies in High Places”), including Ted Kennedy,...

Six years after TV video of her infamous outburst on the bench thrust her into controversy, former Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez is back in a black robe - and in front of the TV cameras. But now, controversy is welcome. She’s a TV judge. The syndicated show “Judge Maria Lopez” debuts Monday on 210 television stations nationwide, including Boston’s TV38. Lopez, 52, resigned from her Superior Court judgeship in 2003. She made headlines in 2000 when TV cameras captured her shouting at prosecutor David Deakin to “sit down now” after she handed a light sentence of house detention to...

The voice of the AFLAC duck has been named the Unsexiest Man in the World. Comedian Gilbert Gottfried tops the list compiled by the Boston Phoenix's Web site. The list is a mix of entertainers, sports stars, even terrorists. Osama bin Laden is number eight on the list. Of Gottfried, the Phoenix says "The parrot-voiced, pickled-face comic is to sexy what Kryptonite is to Superman."

The Boston Globe is going through its biggest shake-up in 30 years. What will it mean for the paper, the editor, the remaining staff, and the city itself? There were more lumps of coal than holiday cheer at 135 Morrissey Boulevard this Christmas season. The invitation to the Boston Globe’s December 8 "Combination Christmas Party/Survivor Celebration" included the gallows-humor header: "Do We Ever Need a Party!" Editor Marty Baron’s year-end congratulatory e-mail opened with its own somber greeting: "I’m tempted, probably like many of you, to say good riddance to 2005." The proximate reason for the Yuletide pall was the...

Many argue that communism will never be possible because of "human nature". The essence of this false argument is the belief that a communist society would consist of an all-powerful central government that would tell everybody what to do--and would therefore undermine the creative initiative of individuals and the search for happiness. • This argument is based on two false assumptions: (1) It assumes that a communist society will look like the former Soviet Union, or the current China, North Korea, etc (ie: corrupt police states with a feudal-style ruling class) (2) It assumes that people will only work in...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cmp/20050715/tc_cmp/165702500 UN Panel: No Single Nation Should Control Internet Addresses Aoife White Thu Jul 14, 9:38 PM ET BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP)--A U.N. panel created to recommend how the Internet should be run in the future has failed to reach consensus but did agree that no single country should dominate. The United States stated two weeks ago that it intended to maintain control over the computers that serve as the Internet's principal traffic cops. In a report released Thursday, the U.N. panel outlined four possible options for the future of Internet governance for world leaders to consider at a November "Information...

Here is the list so far for sponcers to this hate America fest: ANSWER Code Pink UFPJ NION Al Awda World Workers Party Ruckas Revolutionary Communist party Moveon.org ACORN Campus Antiwar Network International Socialist Org Greens Party Muslim Student Association CPUSA

WASHINGTON — Megan Watson, leader of Mainstream Moms, is so angry at military recruiters for invading schools to sign up unwary youth for combat in Iraq that she and her group launched an online movement, “LeaveMyChildAlone.org.” “They offer these trinkets to lure our children to enlist,” Watson said in a phone interview from her home in Bolinas, Calif. “This is very aggressive, demographic targeting to have conversations with our kids that should not be happening.” All branches of the military are falling short of recruiting goals as parents say, in effect, “Hell no! My kids won’t go!” Watson blasted the...

A.N.S .W.E.R.'s response to Bush:Hit the Streets September 24!Recognizing that the people of the United States have turned dramat ically against the war and occupation of Iraq, Bush went on national televi sion tonight to defend his imperial foreign policy. He repea tedly invoked September 11 as a pretext for the criminal and illegal war ag ainst Iraq. Bush took to the airwaves tonight because the antiwar m ovement is growing in strength. Our power poses a major poli tical obstacle to the continuation of the war and occupation. Now Bush has taken on the additional role of Recruiter-in-Chi ef, urging young people to sign up for military...

Boston communists say they want a revolution. Now they just have to agree on how to bring it about. A pimple-faced teen with Coke-bottle glasses and a self-satisfied smirk stands near the doorway of Harvard Square’s tiny Revolution Books. He’s skinny and draped in a large black T-shirt adorned with a full-color portrait of Joseph Stalin, the iron-fisted despot responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of millions. "Stalin is my friend," the kid says, at once cockily and geekily, as he stares at the floor. "Yeah, yeah, but we can do better than Stalin," says the guy behind the...

I have received several e-mails about Dennis Miller spewing hatred on The Tonight Show a few days ago. From what I’m told, he expressed great contempt for the French and total disdain for the well-being of innocents in Iraq. I believe the letters because I have seen him express similar Jurassic views on other programs. We thought he had bottomed out when he became the sportscasting equivalent of William Shatner/lounge singer, but it now appears he won’t be happy until he gets a show on the Fox News Channel. I used to write for Miller in 1992, when he had...

On Tuesday afternoon (2/18/03), I got a phone call from a representative of the National Public Radio show On Point. She told me she got my name from a friend of mine. She asked if I could do a brief piece on the burgeoning field of aspirants for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination for a portion of the show called Radio Diaries. Because I am a professional and only torch bridges when absolutely necessary, I refrained from telling her that I didn't need to have my time wasted by NPR. Again. More often than not, when NPR producers have asked...