Free Republic

When Caren Berg told colleagues at a recent staff meeting, "There's new people you should meet," her boss Don Silver broke in, says Ms. Berg, a senior vice president at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., marketing and crisis-communications company. "I cringe every time I hear" people misuse "is" for "are," Mr. Silver says. The company's chief operations officer, Mr. Silver also hammers interns to stop peppering sentences with "like." For years, he imposed a 25-cent fine on new hires for each offense. "I am losing the battle," he says. Managers are fighting an epidemic of grammar gaffes in the workplace. Many...

There have been few languages in world history that were spoken by more people as a second language than as a first. English has had that distinction for several decades already. Now, there are more people learning it in a given year than it has native speakers The second President of the United States, John Adams, predicted in 1780 that “English will be the most respectable language in the world and the most universally read and spoken in the next century, if not before the end of this one.” It is destined “in the next and succeeding centuries to be...

Neutrinos are having a moment. They’re speeding across Europe (just how fast is under review), they’re changing flavors in China and, now, they’re carrying rudimentary messages through bedrock in Illinois. A team of physicists encoded a short string of letters on a beam of neutrinos at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., and sent the message to a detector more than a kilometer away. On the journey the neutrinos passed through 240 meters of solid rock, mostly shale. What was the word they transmitted in the preliminary demonstration? “Neutrino.” The experiment is described in a paper posted to the...

.........In 1995, Gingrich, then speaker of the House, wrote a memo for GOPAC, which trains Republican candidates, citing language as "a key mechanism of control used by a majority party." In his inimitable, insufferable fashion, he went on to say that his videotaped GOPAC courses had elicited a "plaintive plea: 'I wish I could speak like Newt.' "That takes years of practice. But we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases,".. He went on...

What usually is a treasured opportunity for cross generational chit-chat became a silent car ride as a luminescent glow eerily lighted his facial features in the back seat. My grandson has mastered a hand-held electronic thinga-ma-jig which muted what had previously been a casual forum for conversations about life-in-the-now and even life-everlasting. No knock-knock jokes. No “Hey, look, a horse trailer and it has horses inside!” No seemingly insignificant queries such as, “Justin says there is no God. Is that true?” Where once we easily conversed about hurt feelings, roadside beggars, birthdays, bullies and the like, this day the unilateral...

20 or so people in there, half of them under 30 going for their technician. I was one of 2 in there to upgrade to general, and one showed up for the highest class, amateur extra. Anyways, I ask this kid (22-25yo) "Why are you getting into ham radio"? He matter-of-factly said, "For the upcoming zombie apocalypse". I laughed and half the room turned around, glad to proclaim the same, hell even bragging about it! A couple more admitted that they were embarrased to say that but essentially that is why they were there. I found out with a little...

Prayer stands as a key component of a Christian’s life. When a Christian prays they share their gratefulness, reverence, thoughts, concerns, and needs with the Eternal Father. Even non-Christians talk to God at times in their lives. However, prayer represents only one side of communication with God. Men need to let God talk. Unfortunately, the wide majority of the world refuses to give God the opportunity. If they would let Him talk, they would be much better equipped for the lives that they have been given.Those who give God the chance to talk to them learn: God created the heavens...

Remember Ronald Reagan the Great Communicator. In my opinion, he was a great leader, because he was a great communicator. I the GOP primaries, Newt Gingrich is by far the best speaker, orator, and communicator. Since he espouses the conservative values, methods and action plans that we mostly agree with and since he does give the best, most interesting and easy to listen to speeches, he has the potential to be the best candidate against Obama and to be the best president to help we Americans to clean up the mess made by the Obama administration. Also, Gingrich is not-only...

SOPA is legislation designed to regulate how digital communication is used. SOPA will be voted on this month.

A lot of preppers are talking about Ham radio as a communications system during and after an SHTF event. The ability to listen and even talk with people vast distances away in real time is powerful tool. For a very long time I’ve wanted to get an Amateur Radio license (“Ham”). For one reason or another I never undertook the study and the test. Until now. I have just passed my Technician’s license exam! (as of writing this) While it will still be a couple of weeks before I get my official station call sign, I’m very excited and already...

.....5. Rick Perry had the most publicized communication failure of the year with his brain freeze in remembering his third point in a very public setting. The Rule of Three is good, but you don’t want to say “There are three things…” in advance in a very public forum such as a Presidential Debate unless you know you will remember them. Or have them in your notes. So he could have topped the Worst list with that faux pax along with his early amateurish debate performances, marked by halting mannerisms, jerky style and hostile attacks. But he’s here in the...

The university hands down a new edict about punctuation -- but the world's grammar nerds will never back downGrammar lovers today were saddened, shocked, and mightily displeased at the news that the P.R. department of the University of Oxford has decided to drop the comma for which it is so justly famed. As GalleyCat reported, the university's new style guide advises writers, "As a general rule, do not use the serial/Oxford comma: so write 'a, b and c' not 'a, b, and c'." Cue the collective gasps of horror. The last time the nerd community was this cruelly betrayed, George...

ARRL Field Day Overview ARRL Field Day is the single most popular on-the-air event held annually in the US and Canada.  Each year over 35,000 amateurs gather with their clubs, friends or simply by themselves to operate. ARRL Field Day is not a fully adjudicated contest, which explains much of its popularity.  It is a time where many aspects of Amateur Radio come together to highlight our many roles. While some will treat it as a contest, most groups use the opportunity to practice their emergency response capabilities.  It is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate Amateur Radio to local elected community...

Think of what it will be like one day if we wake up one morning, turn on the television and find out the Internet and cell phone networks have been shut down due to a financial meldown or some other inconceivable event. Despite having formed "tea party" and similar groups all around the country, we find ourselves isolated and unable to mobilize anyone. With no way to communicate, millions would find comfort in the prospect of gathering somewhere with all those local patriots once again. But where do we meet? What day? What time? It is exactly THAT scenario that...

WITH a tin can, some copper wire and a few dollars’ worth of nuts, bolts and other hardware, a do-it-yourselfer can build a makeshift directional antenna. A mobile phone, souped-up with such an antenna, can talk to a network tower that is dozens of kilometres beyond its normal range (about 5km, or 3 miles). As Gregory Rehm, the author of an online assembly guide for such things, puts it, homemade antennae are “as cool as the other side of the pillow on a hot night”. Of late, however, such antennae have proved much more than simply cool. According to Jeff...

According to Republican strategist Frank Luntz, Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992 "because he, more than any other political figure, understood what was happening in the country at that time, and had an innate ability to communicate it right back." Luntz analyzes this victory and others in his new book Win: The Key Principles to Take Your Business from Ordinary to Extraordinary As a longtime media strategist, Luntz has helped craft many sound bites and political phrases during his career, from "death tax" to the "Contract with America." In Win, Luntz argues that careful messaging is as essential to...

Just as the Egyptian government recently forced the Internet to go dark, U.S. officials could flip the switch if the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset legislation becomes law, say its critics. Proponents of the bill, which is expected to be reintroduced in the current session of Congress, dismiss the detractors as ill-informed - even naive. The ominously nicknamed Kill Switch bill is sure to be a flashpoint of discussion at ..." [snip] The debate is sure to intensify after the 0bama administration announced Tuesday a new policy on Internet freedom ..." . . . . . . . ....

So much for objectivity. One of the FCC stipulations of the Comcast – NBCU merger was the incorporation of non-profit journalism centers into NBC newsrooms. They are charged with maintaining and increasing local news coverage, the regulation based on the relationship between KNSD-TV and VoiceofSanDiego.org. KNSD airs the segments, but really can’t take all the credit for them. They are largely the work ofVoiceOfSanDiego.org, a local nonprofit journalism center that has been sharing news tips, co-producing and supplying content to the station for several years. [...] Under the terms of the FCC order approving Comcast’s takeover of NBCU, at least...

Seeing what has happened in Egypt and their ability to quickly shut down the internet got me to thinking about the possibility that at some time in the future OUR Government may try the same with us. Therefor I thought that to prepare for such an event should be planned by us (the citizens who would most likely to be effected as well as the people most likely to need alternatives to internet connections to stay in communications and keep upraised of events not being reported accurately (and intentionally). We would have to depend upon our telephones but that can...

— Africa can feed itself. And it can make the transition from hungry importer to self-sufficiency in a single generation.The startling assertions, in stark contrast with entrenched, gloomy perceptions of the continent, highlight a collection of studies published December 2 that present a clear prescription for transforming Sub-Saharan Africa's agriculture and, by doing so, its economy. The strategy calls on governments to make African agricultural expansion central to decision making about everything from transportation and communication infrastructure to post-secondary education and innovation investment.