Free Republic

When Google first announced it would be shutting down Google Reader, I was very disappointed. I had come to rely on Google Reader to keep up with my favorite blogs. I went about trying to find a replacement RSS reader and had settled on The Old Reader. I really didn't like it as well as Google Reader, but it worked. Then, I came across NewsBlur. I couldn't use it at first because the free account signup had been disabled. This was mainly due to the sudden onslaught of former users of Google Reader. When the growing pains were finally worked...

Greetings and felicitations to all. Yesterday I posted a thread asking for help with Google Chrome. Certain web pages were freezing up entirely and many of my fellow Freepers said they had similar problems with Chrome and offered good suggestions - but none worked for me. Thank you to all for those suggestions nevertheless. I think I figured it out and maybe this solution will work for you if you're having the same problem. I deleted Chrome entirely and then reloaded it. I would normally change the font to Arial from the default Times New Roman font, but this time...

SNIPPET: "A genuinely inspiring issue of AQAP's flagship English language publication. This is what pages 1, 2, & 3 look like:" SNIPPET: "The remaining pages were rendered intentionally blank by person or persons unknown."

43. Investigators requested an independent review of our findings in respect to the long-form birth certificate image that fell within his field of expertise. 44. Upon the conclusion of our expert’s examination he issued an independent 40 page forensic report in which he verified our investigational finding and validating conclusion in full agreement with the finds of investigators. He concluded: • “…based on my observations and findings, it is clear that Certificate of Live Birth I examined is not a scan of an original paper birth certificate, but a digitally manufactured documented created by utilizing material from various sources.” and...

Oh, Mark. Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark. The Benghazi Lie A failure of character of this magnitude corrodes the integrity of the state. That’s true, sure, but…the integrity of this State? Really? The State that rammed Obamacare straight up the ass of its subjects against their will, clearly expressed in the 2010 anti-Ogabe landslide? The State that jails dissident film makers for clumsily insulting the not-quite-official-yet State religion? The State that routinely pisses over its own Constitution, whose satraps and autarchs merely laugh dismissively when questioned on their routine abuses of power and attempt to provoke their opponents into violence...

Everyone please send whatever you are able to, whether it is $10, $100 or $1,000+. Maybe you can donate as a memorial for a lost loved one, a servicemember who never made it home or was disabled defending our country. Perhaps you'd like to give to keep free discussion alive and to show them that we're not knuckling under. I'm sure a well thought out or prayerful meditation will lead you to see the need and how you can help. If every registered FReeper and our lurkers would each just help out with a fin or a sawbuck, or better...

Will these 3D printed guns be used in the commission of crime? Undoubtedly. But will they also be used for self-defense? Equally surely. If you ban 3D printed guns, how does this change? With law-abiding citizens obeying the law, only criminals will be the ones who get these relatively inexpensive guns. Is this a civil liberties issue? To me this is a way to lower the cost of people obtaining guns -- a big benefit given that it is poor minorities who live in high crime urban areas who benefit the most from owning guns. Yet, it looks as if...

does anyone know where to get some that are legit? it seems lately that ones bought locally in Spain or Greece work for 5 minutes when they were allegedly loaded with 30 minutes worth of time to be able to call the US. are there ones that can be purchased at a legit source here in the US ? do they have any that allows my actual cell number to come up on caller ID so people will know it is me?

Taxed Enough Already? This new tax increase – the internet sales tax – must be stopped in the House. The Senate just passed it, and many Senators want to justify their tax increase vote by claiming that it will somehow “level the playing field” for brick and mortar retailers. This isn’t legit. This is actually a boon to the big online powerhouses like Amazon who can afford the insane paperwork that comes with complying with government’s newest tax. The smaller mid-size online operations and smaller brick and mortar businesses, many family-owned with small staffs, who want to have larger online...

Yesterday when I saw the picture of the first fully 3D printed gun (I realize the firing pin is a nail and was not printed) I almost wept for joy. This is a first important step away from the dominance of the state over their citizens in many parts of the world. Americans enjoy the protection of Second Amendment, but many places that purport to be free countries have banned all guns outright or have made ownership so restrictive that getting a firearm is almost impossible. Other parts of the world are not so free as even that. Firearm ownership...

During an “Ask Me Anything” event on Reddit today, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow admitted that she was a fan of FOX News anchor Shepard Smith citing his “anchorman gravitas.” Maddow was asked by a Reddit user if she admired any anchors from other cable news channels. “I really like the way Shep Smith balances anchorman gravitas… with a willingness to put the artifice aside and acknowledge what it really going on,” Maddow explained. “Some of us can pull off seeming like human beings on TV, some of us can pull off V.O.G. (Voice of God) authority, but Shep is really very...

A speaker at the National Rifle Association convention advised parents to keep an extra gun safe in their children’s room — a suggestion that quickly made its way around the liberal blogosphere. Rob Pincus, the owner of self-defense training company I.C.E., told the audience at his seminar on home defense Saturday that if they hear an intruder, their first instinct will be to run to their kids. Therefore, that’s where their gun should be as well. “In the middle of the night, if I’m in the bathroom or getting a glass of water or I’m in the bedroom or watching...

Back in 1993, I watched the Clint Eastwood movie, 'In The Line of Fire' and pondered the plot line of the crazed assassin building a handgun out of wood in his machine shop, capable of delivering a fatal bullet. It struck me as far fetched at the time. It turns out it was prophetic, with the exception of the wood and the machine shop and the assassin. They say that Necessity is the Mother of Invention. No, that wasn't Frank Zappa – I believe it was Plato. Well, invention may have leapfrogged necessity by a few feet here, but an...

The IRS is going to spy on our shopping records, travel records, social interactions and health records for “auditing” purposes. US News reported via Washingtons Blog: The IRS’s next phase in high-tech tax collection will be to create a “real-time” check of tax returns to “match them to third party information,” said U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George in testimony before Congress. Starting this year, the IRS tools will be able to track all credit card transactions, for starters. The agency has also instructed agents on using online sources such as social media and e-commerce sites...

Located in central Stockholm is the headquarters of Bahnhof, a Swedish Internet Service Provider and host with one of the coolest data centers on the planet. It gained notoriety a few years back as the former home of Wikileaks. Named Pionen White Mountains, it is located 30 meters (100 ft) under the granite rocks of the Vita Berg Park in Stockholm. The location was a former nuclear bunker and command center during the Cold War. It took more than two years to blast out the 141,000 cubic feet of extra space that Bahnhof needed to fit its backup generators and...

Sarah Palin's totem is the mama grizzly, and her admirers are as protective of her as the fabled bear is of her cubs. Their target today is the resurgent Netflix (NFLX), which reported its first quarter results earlier this week. Twitchy -- conservative commentator Mchelle Malkin's Twitter monitor/controversy generator -- reports that the hashtag #SarahPalinFilms arose on Tuesday night, attributing it to "lefties" whose apparent dismissiveness towards Palin is belied by their purported obsession with her: "You know, because her 15 minutes have come and gone and she's totally not living rent-free in their heads." #Sarcasm. Sensing an opportunity to...

MoveOn.org has started a petition to get ESPN reporter Chris Broussard immediately suspended from the network for comments he made regarding Jason Collins's homosexuality, which Broussard said was a sin according to his personal Christian beliefs. The group said Broussard was engaging in "gay bashing." The petition reads: Chris Broussard's hateful attack on Jason Collins for being gay was an unacceptable misrepresentation of the Christian faith. ESPN must immediately suspend Chris Broussard and guarantee that their network will never again be used for gay bashing. In its "petition background" statement, the left-wing organization says that after Jason Collins "emphasized the...

Former Alaska Governor and Nuclear Football Near-Miss Sarah Palin joined the predictable chorus of bitter White House Correspondents’ Dinner non-invitees Saturday night by tweeting her ass-heavy misgivings about the event, inviting an even more predictable revelation of her own hypocrisy. On Monday’s Martin Bashir show, host Martin Bashir pointed out that Palin had smeared her own kin with assclownery, but also added a bit of canny career advice for the fading pit bull. In case you missed it, Governor Resignate Palin sent a charmingly profane tweet Saturday night, informing her followers that “That #WHCD was pathetic. The rest of America...

Apple has tens of billions of dollars of cash.  So why is it considering a $10 billion bond issue? Despite its huge cash stockpile, Apple plans to issue debt to help fund dividend payments and stock buybacks in part because much of its cash is overseas. Raising money in the debt market would help Apple avoid the big tax bill that would come from bringing the cash back to the U.S The US is the only major company I know of that double taxes foreign income of its corporations.  Outside the US, the general principle is that a company pays...

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When the George Zimmerman case dominates the local and national news, one of the places you'll be able to get in-depth information will be in the palm of your hand! Download the Local 6 News Zimmerman Case app now. This breakthrough app will take you inside the courtroom of one of the most captivating criminal trials in Central Florida -- The People vs. George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin. Not only will the app allow you in-depth information on the case, it will also provide unlimited access into the trial. Its features include livestreaming from inside the courtroom...

It's almost as if some in Congress forget that we've been down this path before. Garbage legislation, now under the moniker of the Marketplace Fairness Act, has been discussed in various guises and masks over the last 20 years or so. Streamlined Sales Tax. Remote Sales Tax. Distant Sales Tax. They've been tried, debated and debunked each time before. But it's funny how larger than ever state budget deficits perk up the ears of slimy congressmen on the umpteenth attempt at an Internet sales tax. While proponents like J Marra, writing for BetaNews this week, are in favor of this...

Headline 1: Anthony Weiner Creates New TWITTER Account... Headline 2: Goldberg: Welcome To 'The Era Of The Suspicious Package'...

Boston and the nation have gone through a trauma and a degree of catharsis over the attack in Boston, and now the battle to define how we discuss that incident and the perps is underway. Media progressives openly hoped and predicted the perp would turn out to be a white male who followed Sarah Palin on Twitter, and are now trying to recover from the awful truth that Islam and jihad look like the motives. Yesterday in these pages, J. Robert Smith accurately predicted how the progressives would frame the accused: The Brothers Tsarnaev grew up in an environment of...

The almost non existent Obama during all this will suddenly show up and parade all the cops and investigators involved with this terror strike around DC town. The Media will gush about how well Obammy handled this situation, just like he had been there and caught the guy himself! Comparisons will be made between Bush's 9/11 and Obammys. Then the media "analysis" of what is wrong with America and how it turned an innocent little boy into a radical. Ive stocked up on Gin and antacids for the coming gushing media blitz about Obammy and his leadership.

The country if not half the world is on edge Friday morning after a deadly all-night chase through Cambridge and Watertown left one of the Boston bombing suspects dead and one at large. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old immigrant from Kyrgyzstan, is the suspect on the loose, and his apparent ties with Chechnya are stirring up the region's struggle for attention over the course of the past few decades. The predominantly Muslim region in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia has been fighting for its independence since the fall of the Soviet Union. It's been a bloody fight, too. Though it...

A lot of gun control advocates are upset about what happened in the Senate on Wednesday as a (mostly) Republican minority filibustered gun regulations that the majority of Americans support. Everybody probably knows by now how President Obama feels. Standing next to Gabrielle Giffords who is "furious" at the White House, the president scolded the Senate for failing to move forward with gun control reform and said it was "a pretty shameful day in Washington." A very vocal group of gun control supporters echoed the sentiment in the minutes that followed — more on that in a second. But conservatives...

SNIPPET: "ALBA is the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América, an alliance of Latin American countries started by Cuba and Venezuela, who share a combination of hostility towards the United States and willingness to do business with Iran." SNIPPET: "Soheil Assad is not with the IRI Foreign Ministry - he's an IRGC operative. And there he is, accompanying ALBA ambassadors & their staff on a visit to Qom."

Moments after news broke that the Senate rejected Toomey-Manchin, Governor Palin sent out a congratulatory tweet to free and law abiding Americans. Sarah Palin ✔ @SarahPalinUSA Politicians' expanded gun control effort fails in the Senate today. Count this a victory for the 2nd Amendment and law-abiding citizens. 4:53 PM - 17 Apr 2013 1,376 Retweets 461 favorites In response, the ever so petulant Piers Morgan sent out the following: Piers Morgan ✔ @piersmorgan Imagine crying 'VICTORY!' as those poor Sandy Hook families weep inside the Senate. Just revolting. @SarahPalinUSA #NewtownBetrayed 5:00 PM - 17 Apr 2013 1,131 Retweets 344 favorites...

Sarah Palin, using the only platform she has after Fox News declined to renew her contract, turned to Facebook to strike out against the recently proposed bipartisan bill that expands background checks on some gun purchases by closing the gun show loophole and prohibiting Internet sales, while exempting sales between friends and family members. She threatened to oppose any Republican who votes to move the bill forward. On Monday, Palin posted her personal interpretation of the bill in a “fact sheet” laced with erroneous and conspiratorial platitudes, similar to the fear-based “death panel” details she used to describe Obama’s health...

AVALON PARK — A little more than a year ago, Sharon Bryant moved from public housing and into her own apartment in Englewood. Bryant said she owes it all to the Internet. "I never really knew much about the Internet, so I didn't bother to learn how to use it until I needed a job," said Bryant, 22. "That's when I discovered that most jobs require that you submit your resume or fill out an application online. And if you don't know how to log onto the Internet, you're in trouble." Growing up in the Harold Ickes public housing complex,...

While the liberal media goes out of its way to steer clear from blaming Muslims for the Boston Marathon bombings, jihadists online are praying an Islamist is behind the blasts. SITE Institute reported, via Religion of Peace: Amidst ongoing media reports of two explosions in the American city of Boston, Massachusetts, near the finish line of the marathon race on April 15, 2013, jihadists expressed their joy and hoped the blasts are acts of jihadi terrorism. One forum member noted that over a week ago, a jihadist announced his desire to plan bombings in the United States, but was chastised...

The majority of Americans have now filed their taxes. And the majority of Americans have done so incorrectly. There is one mistake, in particular, that lots of people made: They bought tax-free things online or in another state — and they failed to pay tax on their purchase in their home state. It's called a use tax. As far as I can tell, accountants and tax lawyers are some of the only people who pay it. Forty-five states have a use tax. About 1.6 percent of the taxpayers in those 45 states actually pay the use tax. So I figured...

Republicans have been so busy attacking each other lately that little attention is being paid to the antics of the left. The far left activists, including the Occupy movement and Anonymous, have been quite busy. The Occupiers are helping fast food workers strike for higher wages and a union. Their targets include Wendy's and Burger King in New York City. If they really wanted to help those workers, they would encourage them to attend college and find higher paying jobs. The founder of the Occupy movement, Adbusters, is organizing Occupiers to protest Goldman Sachs banks around the world. They would...

If you are old enough to have experienced it, you probably had that moment in the ’90s or early 2000s when you realized everything was about to change. The sweeping Internet was changing music, reading, how we processed information, even the words we used to communicate. The change was fundamental and it happened so quickly, many of us had to catch our breath and keep ourselves from getting dizzy when we realized its significance. It may sound like hype, and I’ll try to avoid overstating it, but a lot of us who write about where technology is going are starting...

An Internet friend relayed this experience to me: A Moment Of Glee I got a phone call today from a true believer, paid for by Mayor Bloomberg. Supposedly from the “Gabby Giffords Campaign Against Gun Violence”, asking me to contact my congressman and senators to demand gun control. I about hurt myself trying to keep cool and reel him in. Such opportunities are very rare. So many ways to mess with their heads. Probably the best zinger was when I asked how Gabby Giffords *husband*, Mark Kelly was doing. What do you mean? Well, he confessed to committing a serious...

The National Council on Aging (NCOA) today launched JobSource, a new online portal to help older adults assess their work skills, identify job training opportunities, and find employment. Last month, 1.8 million adults aged 55+ were actively seeking employment, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nearly half of older workers looking for jobs have been without employment for over a year. “For many older Americans, employment is necessary to remain financially secure, healthy, and independent,” said Nora Dowd Eisenhower, senior vice president of economic security at NCOA. “But as industries and workplaces evolve, it is vital that older adults...

"The borderline acrimonious columns on Reed Hastings and Netflix seem to be approaching their January levels. One only need scan the NFLX headlines for the past week for some samples of writers demonstrating their emotional involvement. I'm not going to focus on the personal jabs but when one single column contains "charade"... "dog & pony show" "glorified bootlegger" "that's typical Hastings"... "creepy" - to describe Hastings and/or Netflix - maybe someone is getting frustrated. To address the fundamental arguments in the..." (continued)

(snip) Considering this deluge of aggressive and costly security breaches, it’s no wonder that some people are getting frustrated enough to contemplate striking back directly against our attackers. While giving cyber criminals a taste of their own medicine certainly sounds appealing, most forms of so-called "Strikeback" have no place in private business. ...... What’s Wrong With Strikeback?Unfortunately, direct strikeback measures have huge inherent risks:. Targeting: The biggest problem with strikeback is that the Internet provides anonymity, making it very hard to know who’s really behind an attack. It's all too likely that strikebacks could impact innocent victims. For example, attackers...

You’re probably heard by now about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ solicitation for a massive new database. It will essentially figure out everything there is to know about you, and your friends too. It’s potentially a massive invasion of privacy on a grand scale. The folks at Wired tends to be leftists. Let’s take a look at how they’re reacting to what looks like a fabulous tool for an electronic police state. Primarily, the ATF states it wants the database to speed-up criminal investigations. Instead of requiring an analyst to manually search around for your personal information, the...

This has not been a very good cyber war for Anonymous hackers against the Jews of Israel. As we reported earlier, their own site was humiliatingly hacked just hours after declaring their cyber war, dubbed #OpIsrael. Now, the apparently not so Anonymous hacktivists have been arrested in Jordan. Weasel Zippers has the story. Jordanian security forces arrested several youths who are suspected of attacking Israeli internet sites as part of the large scale cyber attack on Israel declared by the group called Anonymous. This has really upset the hacker community, who is now threatening to attack Jordan. They’ve also declared...

John Woodman is a one time author, a self proclaimed computer expert who decided to take it upon himself to get recruited, according to CCP Investigator Mike Zullo, and write a book debunking the claims that Obama has a forged birth certificate and that he is not a natural born Citizen. On Friday, April 5, 2013, Lt. Mike Zullo took calls from listeners for one hour on a radio program. As expected, a caller who has been revealed to be a Obama supporter called in and asked Zullo why he didn't consult with John Woodman on the criminal fraud investigation....

I am not, certainly, the first to consider this. It came to me as a bolt from the blue. Speech inserts can be an effective tool for deeper communications. What is involved in creating an audio link that will automatically play when selected?

Lady Gaga has been named as the most popular women on web. COED Magazine has compiled a list based on Google search results, sporting some surprises-Justin Bieber comes in at No. 7, ABC News reported. The list also includes Washington's famous women like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at No. 18, first lady Michelle Obama at No. 21 and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at No. 32. Here are the top 50: 1. Lady Gaga 2. Kesha 3. Madonna 4. Beyoncé 5. Rihanna 6. Britney Spears 7. Justin Bieber 8. Miley Cyrus 9. Paris Hilton 10. Avril Lavigne....

Defense Distributed has released a video of a 3D printed AK-47 type magazine. The exact capacity of the magazine is not specified, though it appears to be about 30 rounds. In the video, I did not see more than 10 rounds fired from any particular magazine. The video was released a few hours ago on April 5, 2013. I embeded the video, and it worked fine, but on a retest a few minutes later, the video was labled as "not found". I found the same response at the Defense Distributed site. Update: The video is available again. I checked the...

I've got dbx files retrieved from my computers after several strategically-timed computer crashes. A lot of data has been scrubbed from the internet so I need to get what was lost from my email files. When I try importing them I'm told that there either aren't any records in the folder(s) or else another application is using them. What I've read says to make sure the files are not read-only; I've made sure of that and get the same problem. One time it said it imported all the files but only imported the spam folder. Other times it said it...

I run Windows XP. For some reason, the down arrow/function is malfunctioning. If I press it, instead of simply moving the text down a line it drops to the bottom of the page/screen. How can I reset it to just drop a line at a time? Thanks.

Maybe just because I'm a bit of a trainspotter/planespotter geek, I really dig this site: charts all commercial aircraft in the air worldwide in real time (except unfortunately US carriers on 5 min. delay due to unique American security concerns). Elsewhere -as I recently did in Europe- you can glance at FlightRadar24 when you hear a roar, get the flight #/carrier online and bingo there it is on the tailfin overhead 30 seconds later. Users can click on any plane (moving) over any chosen worldwide flight radar map and get flight #, carrier, plane type, basic stats, flight info,...

It’s an oppressive spring afternoon in Austin, Texas. Low clouds threaten to unleash a gullywasher. After a couple of emails and phone calls I’m at an apartment complex off to the west of the University of Texas campus. A pair of young men pull up and pop the lid on the trunk of their car. One pulls a flat metal case from the trunk and I jokingly ask, “Is that a gun or a guitar?” The lead man could blend in with the musicians and hipsters all over Austin who recently dominated the city during SXSW, but he isn’t one...

We've already detailed the cognitive dissonance created by DHS head Janet Napolitano's statements on email usage. Last September, she blithely pointed out that she doesn't use email "at all," and in fact, "avoids many online services." She went on to say that some would call her a "Luddite" and seemed to present the incongruous situation as comical. Hilarity ensued. Powerful government official says, "What, me internet?" LOLS at 11. So, we all had a good, if disbelieving laugh at her our own expense (we're still paying her salary), and Janet Napolitano went back to not checking the email account she...