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Remember the boy who was on a school bus talking to his friends and said that he wishes he had a gun to protect them? The bus driver over heard him and took back to the school, where the principal suspended him for just saying the word gun. Or what about the six year old boy that pointed his finger at another kid and acted like he was shooting him? He was suspended also. Then there was the 5 year old girl that threatened to shoot another kindergartner with her Hello Kitty Bubble Gun when they got home from school....

A lot of FReepers tend to blame Baby Bomers for the ills of the world. The fact is that the Baby Boomers didn't originate a lot of the counter-culture activities of the 60s, they learned them from the Beatniks. So, to help clarify where the Hippies came from, you have to know and understand who the Beatniks were. Here is their story: Beatnik History Imagine it is the year 1959. You are seated at a table with a bottle of cheap red wine, a cigarette glows red in the ashtray. The place; a smoky, dimly lit, seedy, little bar in...

I'm not a fan or Mitt Romney and, as the campaign has dragged on, I have become increasingly disenchnted with him. It has become more clear that Mitt Romney is NOT a viable alternative to Obama and, in fact, is more like Obama than he is different. But, we have known from the outset that Romney was the choice of the establishment Republicans - Michael Steele and the like. As staunch conservatives who believe in the principles of government laid down by the Founding Fathers and memorialized in the Constitution, we believe in the democratic process of selecting our leaders...

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Libya and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada. The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to...

I just finished watching the DVD of "Atlas Shrugged - Part 1". I was prepared to dislike the film but was pleasantly surprised that the producers chose to portray the book relatively accurately. They made some upgrades, such as placing the story in late 2016 versus the mid-50s when the book was actually written. Aside from contemporary items like diesel trains, cell phones and modern automobiles, though, the film held up. I was very surprised that the producers chose to portray the rot, decay and corruption of our present-day society as accurately as they did. The actor portraying politician Wesley...

Now that the Republicans have made significant inroads into the Congress, what's next? Expectations are high that the new Republican majority in the House and the improved Republican representation in the Senate will stop and reverse the Obama agenda. Would that that were the case. Obama has already signaled that what has been done in the Congress is not debatable. While telling America that he is prepared to work with the Republican majority in the House, the fact is that he has indicated that he plans to pursue his radical agenda unabated. Too many Republicans are too willing to "reach...

Snipes' prison sentence postponedWENN, August 24, 2010 Wesley Snipes has been spared jail for now; he's been granted a postponement ahead of his looming prison term. "The Blade" star lost an appeal against his three-year jail sentence in July, after a 2008 trial found him guilty of willful failure to file his income tax returns to the U.S. government. He was due to surrender to authorities to begin his stint behind bars on September 2 but on Monday a U.S. District Court judge granted him an emergency stay, according to Variety.com. A new date for Snipes' surrender will not be...

In a stunning decision, US President Barack Obama was awarded the Stanley Cup, Ice Hockey's most prestigious award!! Responding to news of the award, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, "Uh . . . . er . . ah . . well, . . it uh . . . . the president . . . um . . . "

<p>In the sixth month of his presidency, Obama has turned an economic downturn into an economic disaster, taking over and trashing entire companies, and driving the nation deep into deficit spending expected to pass 10 trillion dollars.</p> <p>Abroad, Obama seems to have no other mode except to continue on with his endless campaign, confusing speechmaking with diplomacy. It is natural enough that Obama, who built his entire campaign on high profile public speeches reported on by an adoring press, understands how to do nothing else but that...</p>

Woo hoo! I just had a warning pop up on this computer (not mine) from something called "Net Nanny" that Freerepublic.com is a source of hate and violence!!!

. . . honor, integrity, honesty, ethics, morals, character, judgement? Recently, rumors at the company where I work have started proving true. Our building will be sold and the manufacturing facility sold to another company. Something new; unusual? Market downturn? No, not really. Just greed. Greed likely performed by an officer of the company who thought it would be okay to misreport our earnings. In other words, they "cooked the books". I'm sure they thought that no harm would come as a result of lying; it made their quarterly earnings look better than they were and earned them a higher...

In the recently concluded presidential campaign, we have ended up with (apparent) nominees Barak (Burp) Hussein Obama on the far left and John McCain on the center left. Both have introduced programs that will cost America a lot of money in tax increases. Many have of have forgotten that the Bush tax cuts will expire in the next two years, effectively increasing taxes by $43 Billion. On top of that, Henry Wexler has his pet Global Warming (hoax) bill that will add approximately $3 TRILLION in new taxes. On top of gas prices that have temporarily stabilized, the burden on...

I have been reading "Atlas Shrugged" again for about the 6th or 7th time, mostly because I like the book and I always learn new things. This passage leaped out at me and struck me with Ms. Rand's precience: "Then you will note the rise of the men of the double standard - the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money - the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you...

Nagin, Blanco and the Lessons of the Nanny State In the wake of all of the Hurricane Katrina coverage, a stark reality exists. Somewhere along the line, something failed. The processes that should have been in place to ensure that people were safe above all else didn’t work. Oh sure, we can point our fingers at the Bush Administration and blame George for not personally going to New Orleans and evacuating people himself. We can blame FEMA, claiming that they failed to act quickly and, when they finally did, it was too little and too late. But, the blame game...

We stood in lines, our voter registration clutched in hand and waited. And, it didn't happen. Some of us stood, sweating in the heat; others shivered in the cold or the snow or the rain. And it didn't happen. It didn't happen today, or yesterday, or over the weekend. It was something many of us expected, and it didn't happen. The al-Qaieda terrorist attack that many of us felt certain was headed toward America, DIDN'T happen. The blood didn't run in the street as had been promised. There were no bombs, no attacks; nothing but election lines and snafus. If...

Please forgive if this is an inappropriate post. I am trying to locate an old Navy buddy whose last known address was in the Boulder, Colorado, area in the early 70's. David Terry Nelson was an Ordnanceman in VP-19 and we flew together for a couple of years in P-3Bs. Dave met and married his wife, Nancy, in Mountain View, CA, where we were stationed at NAS Moffett Field. After Dave left the Navy, he and Nancy moved to Boulder and Dave went to work at the Coors Brewery in Golden, CO. I lost touch with him long ago and...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 — Even as Congress was unanimously approving a law aimed at reducing the flow of junk e-mail, members were sending out hundreds of thousands of unsolicited messages to constituents. The spasm of activity is aimed at attracting voluntary subscribers to the lawmakers' e-mail lists, which would not be subject to House rules that normally impose a 90-day blackout before an election for taxpayer-supported Congressional mass communications. In September, the House Administration Committee voted, 5 to 3, along party lines to allow e-mail messages to the subscribers to be sent in the blackout period, but maintained the ban...