Free Republic

SIOUX FALLS, SD (LifeSiteNews) - On Monday, July 21, eight women arrived at the Planned Parenthood office in Sioux Falls in South Dakota for abortions, but were instead met with locked doors and a hand-written note indicating the only abortion clinic in South Dakota was closed. Planned Parenthood closed its doors after their abortionists, who are flown in from other states, refused to work under the new law that went into effect last Friday. The law orders abortionists to inform patients of the humanity of their babies and that the procedure could affect their mental health two hours before the...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq that President George W. Bush ordered last year has ended after the last of five additional combat brigades left the country, a U.S. military spokesman said on Tuesday. The remaining troops from that brigade departed over the weekend, leaving just under 147,000 American soldiers in Iraq, the spokesman said. "The final elements of the surge brigade have now left, getting out a few days ahead of schedule," he said. The U.S. military had 20 combat brigades in Iraq at its peak in 2007, with troop levels around 160,000-170,000.

Excerpt - Redmond, WA (AHN) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is pulling the XP operating system from its product line come Monday. The move comes 18 months after the company launched the Vista operating system. Although Microsoft will not sell the XP program any longer, they will still generate revenue from providing support for the software as it will no longer be free. Microsoft will offer extended support packages for XP until at least 2014. ~ snip ~

Even as Sen. Hillary Clinton campaigned in South Dakota, giving no signs of conceding, speculation built that an election-night rally Tuesday in New York could mark the end of her long fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. Facing a steady stream of superdelegates flocking to Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Clinton called on her top donors and supporters to attend her speech in Manhattan, seen by many as a sign that she will withdraw from the race. Campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee denied that Sen. Clinton will withdraw Tuesday. "We do not expect that a nominee will be clear tomorrow night," he...

WASHINGTON (AP) - There's been a Clinton running for the White House or living in it for approximately forever. Bill, it could be said, was born to run. Running became Hillary's destiny, too. One quarter of Americans have never known life without a Clinton trying for or having the presidency. Millions have gone from diapers to diplomas in the time of the Clintons. When Hillary Rodham Clinton finally exits the 2008 Democratic presidential race, she will end a decades-long, power-couple streak of unique political energy, savvy ideas, colossal policy flops and raw ambition dressed in pants suits and briefs, not...

Oy. And furthermore, I've been to dozens and dozens of African-American church services over the years, including the investiture of one of my friends as an AME minister two years ago, and I have very rarely, if ever, heard the kind of rants that are part of Reverend Wright's canon. Yes, as many have pointed out, Martin Luther King Jr. gave some angry, angry sermons--especially about the obscenity of the war in Vietnam--but for Wright to say the attacks on him are an attack on the black church is to offer a straitened and solipsistic view of that grand institution....

U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-OH, blamed labor unions and partisan politics for a U.S. House vote this week rejecting an amendment that could have kept the Delta Queen riverboat from having to phase out its overnight cruise packages. The historic riverboat has been operating with a special Congressional exemption from the federal Safety at Sea Act since 1968, an exemption that has been renewed eight times. The safety act bans the use of wooden vessels for overnight cruises. Backers of the exemption claim the Delta Queen deserves special treatment because of its historical significance and recently upgraded fire-safety systems. With...

Rene Magritte, the celebrated Belgian surrealist painter, once painted an apple and wrote on it, "This is not an apple." He did the same on a pipe. Today, he could as well paint his country, Belgium, and certainly Kosovo, the youngest nation in the world, and write, "This is not a country." Belgium is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions, with its majority Dutch-speaking, many French-speaking and few German-speaking citizens unable to decide what and for whom the state stands for. Kosovo is a self-inflicted pain and the world will not be able to withstand it given the...

The US must be a melting pot – not a salad bowl. Future generations may look back on Iraq and immigration as the two great disasters of the Bush presidency. Ironically, for a conservative administration, both of these policy initiatives were rooted in a multicultural view of the world. Since the 1960s, multiculturalism has become a dominant feature of the political and intellectual landscape of the West. But multiculturalism rests on a frail foundation: cultural relativism, the notion that no culture is better or worse than any other – it is merely different. When it comes to democratic continuity, social...

Stony Stevenson writes to point out that Netscape has finally reached end of line with the release of version 9.0.0.6. A pop-up will offer users the choice of switching to Firefox, Flock, or remaining with the dead browser, but no new updates will be released. "Nearly 14 years after the once mighty browser made its first desktop appearance as Mosaic Netscape 0.9, its disappearance comes as little surprise. Although Netscape accounted for more than 80 per cent of the browser market in 1995, the arrival of Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the same year brought stiff competition and surpassed Netscape within...

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio (AP) -- Antioch College, known for inspiring quirky academic programs that produce students with a passion for free thinking and social activism, has no choice but to close for the 2008-2009 academic year, trustees of the parent Antioch University said yesterday. Operations will be suspended June 30. Antioch and Yellow Springs, tie-dyed and liberal-leaning, fed off each other. Students were encouraged to create their own programs for learning. Famous alumni included Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, Coretta Scott King and evolutionary scientist Stephen Jay Gould. After two days of meetings in Los Angeles, trustees reaffirmed their June...

doomed to fiery end, experts predict By Darren Osborne February 23, 2008 01:00am Article from: The Daily Telegraph OUR planet faces a fiery doom inside the sun unless future generations work out how to change its orbit. New calculations by University of Sussex astronomers predict the Earth will be burnt to a cinder then swallowed up by the sun in about 7.6 billion years. Emeritus reader in astronomy Professor Robert Smith and his team thought they calculated that we may escape destruction but new figures take into account the effect of drag caused by the sun's outer atmosphere. "We showed...

A NASA-released ultravilet image of the sun. The big news: Earth is doomed to fry and then be gobbled up by the dying Sun. New calculations by University of Sussex astronomers predict that the Earth will be swallowed up by the Sun in about 7.6 billion years unless the Earth's orbit can be altered. Dr Robert Smith, Emeritus Reader in Astronomy, said his team previously calculated that the Earth would escape ultimate destruction, although be battered and burnt to a cinder. But this did not take into account the effect of the drag caused by the outer atmosphere of...

Allow me a dose of hardened market realism concerning Barack Obama’s landslide victory in Wisconsin. The race is over. Hillary Clinton is over. Her electability is over. Bill Clinton’s political invincibility is over. The Clinton Restoration is over. It’s over. Obama got to the far left faster than Hillary did. He out-organized her, out-fundraised her, out-speechified her, out-hustled her, out-dressed her, and out-presidentialed her. He outbid Hillary for votes, one promised government check at a time. His 17-point margin of victory in Wisconsin was incredible. It says he can’t be stopped. Outside of the whacko ultra-left Madison college population, which...

Fidel Castro Steps Down...

Conservatives are a gloomy bunch at the moment. Many believe that their party—the Republican Party—has lost its way and that it has done so by abandoning its principles. Aside from his foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments, conservatives find little to love about George W. Bush. His signature domestic policies include a vast expansion of government-financed health care (prescription-drug benefits), and increased funding for education while halfheartedly promoting vouchers and school choice. Bush also signed into law campaign-finance reform and supported a proposed immigration bill that would have allowed illegal aliens a path to citizenship. The Republican Congress is even...

Afternoon Paper To Cease Daily Publication In April MADISON, Wis. -- The Capital Times, Madison's 90-year-old newspaper will stop printing a daily newspaper, reduce staff and focus on Internet operations, according to an article posted online Thursday. In an announcement on captimes.com, newspaper publisher Clayton Frink said the paper will end its six-day a week publication and instead offer readers a tabloid-style insert in the Wisconsin State Journal twice weekly. Frink said Cap Times will print a news and opinion section on Wednesdays and an arts, entertainment and culture section on Thursdays. The article also said that staff cuts will...

<p>Fox news just reported that Mark Halprin, from Time Magazine, has information that Mitt Romney will be ending his campaign sometime today.</p>

Just breaking now -

Carl Cameron says it'll become offical sometime later this week. Oh well, we're doomed. Let's hope it'll be minimal damage until 2012.

Cleveland Congressman Dennis Kucinich is dropping out of the Democratic race for president. Kucinich will make the announcement Friday at a news conference in Cleveland.......

Longtime Hollywood publicist Julian Myers will turn 90 soon. And he worries the end may be near ... for Hollywood. Myers frets that the WGA stalemate -- with all of its acrimony, vitriol and job losses -- is a harbinger of ill things for the industry. "The strike impasse is speeding the end of Hollywood filmmaking and television production," says Myers, who has been working in the biz since 1939 and is still an IATSE member. "There are more union contracts coming up for renewal, and already unionists are crossing union lines. IATSE is urging its members to go right...

David Bendeth, a producer who works with rock bands like Hawthorne Heights and Paramore, knows that the albums he makes are often played through tiny computer speakers by fans who are busy surfing the Internet. So he's not surprised when record labels ask the mastering engineers who work on his CDs to crank up the sound levels so high that even the soft parts sound loud. Over the past decade and a half, a revolution in recording technology has changed the way albums are produced, mixed and mastered — almost always for the worse. "They make it loud to get...

After months of protesting Columbia’s smoking ordinance and spearheading a failed campaign to have it repealed, Joel Thiel, co-owner of Otto’s Corner Bar & Grill, said he decided this week to close doors for good. Julia Robinson photos Above, Brett Wisman, left, and Kristal Allen smoke cigarettes after dinner last night at Otto’s Corner Bar & Grill in downtown Columbia. Below, Otto’s co-owner Joel Thiel works yesterday in the restaurant. Otto’s will close next week, a move Thiel blamed on the city’s smoking ban. He said sales have been down 30 percent since the ban took effect in January. "Our...

All that for one stinkin' delegate? Final totals won't be known until Jan. 31, but Sen. Christopher Dodd easily spent more than $10 million on his vanity presidential campaign and comes home to Connecticut today, his tail between his legs after his Iowa Waterloo, with a single delegate (out of 2,501) to the Iowa Democratic convention, and this understated headline Friday in The Day of New London: "Dodd A Dud In Iowa." According to his Federal Election Commission filings, Sen. Dodd had raised $13.6 million through Sept. 30, more than a third of which he got by shaking down the...

Dodd, Biden End Presidential Bids DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden abandoned their bids for the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday after a poor showing in Iowa's precinct caucuses. The veteran lawmaker was to announce his decision to supporters at a post-caucus party in Des Moines, according to advisers speaking on the condition of anonymity. He was expected to travel to Connecticut Saturday with his family to thank friends and supporters. Biden was expected to announce his decision to withdraw from the contest at his campaign caucus rally in Des Moines, according...

2008 – The Beginning of the End of Terror?Col. Jeff Bearor (USMC, ret.) I have a prediction – 2008 will be the year the combined power of the West. Led by the U.S., the West will finally break the back of al Qaeda. Independent al Qaeda cells and fellow-traveler organizations will continue to spring up around the world and Islamofascist terrorism won’t be over by any means, but the main protagonist organization that is al Qaeda will be substantially defeated by the end of the year. Despite the fact that terrorists in Iraq can still stage intermittent large attacks in the country...

CINCINNATI The Post newspapers in Cincinnati and Kentucky printed their final editions yesterday, ending a 126-year run. The front-page headline in the last Kentucky Post proclaimed "-30-," a symbol used by journalists, printers, and telegraphers to signal the end of a dispatch. It rolled off the presses about an hour after its sister Cincinnati Post ended publication. The two papers, which were published in the afternoon, have been struggling for decades, part of a national trend. E.W. Scripps Co., of Cincinnati, owner of the two papers, decided in July to close them when a joint operating agreement with Gannett Co....

In the newsroom of The Cincinnati Post, neither Champagne corks nor beer can tabs will be popping on Monday after the paper is put to bed — and not just because of a ban on alcohol that day. The Dec. 31 issues of the paper and a companion title, The Kentucky Post, will be the last for both newspapers, which are part of a dying breed of afternoon dailies. Fewer than 10 cities still have two or more daily newspapers, and Cincinnati was the last two-paper town in Ohio. The demise of The Post, which is 126 years old, leaves...

Excerpt - Soon, Netscape Navigator - the first highly successful graphical web browser (yeah, yeah, I know Mosaic came before Netscape, but I don't remember seeing Mosaic floppy-disks bundled with my PC World and Macworld magazines in 1995, at least not under the name "Mosaic") - will be nothing more than a footnote in Internet history. Let's take a moment of silence for the big N. OK, that was long enough. AOL, the parent company of this blog and Netscape, has announced that they will cease support for the current version of Netscape as of February 1, 2008. Netscape, which...

"Whoops!" Just weeks after claiming she would reshape her faltering radio program to focus on a New York City audience, Whoopi Goldberg has now been cancelled even there. According to press and trade reports today, Wake Up With Whoopi was yanked from WKTU-FM today without warning, other than a brief note sent to staffers mere hours before the change. Poor ratings were cited by the station.Recently, after similar results led to terminations in Chicago and Philly, your Radio Equalizer speculated that Whoopi’s radio days appeared numbered. Now, one can easily expect the syndicated program to be shut down, perhaps in...

Last British Jaguar shows off and bows out By David Learmount On 20 December the only flying UK military-registered Sepecat Jaguar left in service bowed out, showing off to RAF personnel at several of its old bases to celebrate. The 32-year-old Qinetiq-owned Jaguar T.2A, (XX833), which has been operated in conjunction with the UK Ministry of Defence as part of the Aircraft Test and Evaluation Centre operation, was used for trials flights, at the end of which the airframe was out of certificated hours. The final flight was piloted by Sqn Ldr Andy Blythe, accompanied by Wg Cdr Paul Shakespeare,...

Lazy ceiling fans rearranged the 80-degree air Friday as a Christmas songster crackled out of patio speakers about snowy scenes and Yuletide bliss. But the two-fisted diners slouched around tables littered with napkins pulled from beer-carton dispensers and half-empty hot sauce bottles, paid the cultural amenities no mind. This was Otto's Barbeque and Hamburgers, and these guys — and maybe a few gals — had come to eat. To eat and, perhaps, to mourn. Otto's, famed as former President George Bush's favorite barbecue eatery, is heading for the last roundup.

CHICAGO (CBS) ― A true Chicago classic is disappearing from the city's landscape, effective at 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon. As CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman reports, it is the last day of production at the Jays Potato Chip plant at 825 E. 99th St., and 220 union employees will be left out of work. As of the late morning hours, the smell of potatoes, corn oil and salt permeated the air at 99th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. But for the first time in about 40 years, that smell will be absent from the area when the afternoon comes. It was...

In the Palestinian territories, the U.S. knows that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will never be a serious partner for peace and that he is politically impotent. Yet, the Bush Administration continues to fund Fatah knowing the organization has absolutely no intention whatsoever of ceasing its terrorist activities, controlling the anti-Semitic hatred in its media, promoting anything resembling democratic change in its political infrastructure or becoming more moderate towards Israel. It knows that the organization is vying with Hamas to see who can field the most suicide bombers and that it continues to plot the vanquishment of "the Zionist occupiers." Yet,...

End of an era for TBS, Braves, fans For three decades, Braves games have been beamed around the country on TBS. They became America's Team — but Sunday, America will watch for the last time. All across America Sunday, thousands of people like Bill DeArmond of Winfield, Kan., will say goodbye to an old friend. For three decades, they have watched the national telecasts of Braves games on TBS, turning Atlanta's baseball team into — at least for a while — "America's Team." Today, America will watch for the last time. The Braves' season finale at Houston marks the end...

The local radio in Midland home of the Confederate Air Force just announced that they have changed their name. The CAF states that the change is due to loss of corporate sponsors. The new name will be announced later today nothing follows.

Cincinnati Enquirer articles cannot be posted here, but that's where the article is located. I guess, call this a vanity post, with a referenced link, instead. Cunningham goes national

The "feminist” radio company whose founders include Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem failed to attract an audience and it signed off the air for good on Friday. When the talk-radio network, called GreenStone, officially launched in September 2006, NewsMax reported that it was a "new left-wing radio network that plans to appeal to women listeners and counter the dominance of conservative talk radio.” GreenStone claimed it would deliver "de-politicized, de-polarized talk radio by women hosts for female listeners,” and Steinem said it would offer an alternative to current radio talk, which she described as "very argumentative, quite hostile, and very...

Thousands of people in northern Norway were left without telephone and internet connections earlier this week after a clumsy moose destroyed a switching station.

There have been numerous reports since late Friday afternoon (Aug. 3) suggesting that female-targeted talk syndicator GreenStone Media could be closing its doors as early as Aug. 17. High-profile feminist activists, author Gloria Steinem and actress Jane Fonda, were among a group that financially backed the network, which launched less than a year ago and has been struggling to gain a solid foothold in the affiliates arena. R&R reported last week that GreenStone executive VP/COO Nancy Vaeth-DuBroff left the company several weeks ago to attend to some family matters that needed her full attention. She had only joined network in...

Majestic America Line Announces Farewell Celebration Throughout 2008 for the Legendary Delta Queen. Congress has decided not to enact legislation to grant the historic ship a statutory exemption; Ship will continue sailings through November 2008. Click on link above for full press release.

As Washington Post Radio often says: “There’s always more to the story.” What it won’t say is why the Post’s attempt to expand its brand to the airwaves seems to be failing. Word around the Post newsroom is that listener ratings are so low that the newspaper will close down its radio operation this fall at the end of the Washington Nationals baseball season. Post Watch could not confirm the rumors. “No hard decisions have been made yet,” says Jim Farley, head of news and programming for Washington Post Radio and sibling station WTOP. Both are owned by Bonneville International,...

The US has lost its position as the world's primary engine of technology innovation, according to a report by the World Economic Forum. The US is now ranked seventh in the body's league table measuring the impact of technology on the development of nations. A deterioration of the political and regulatory environment in the US prompted the fall, the report said. The top spot went for the first time to Denmark, followed by Sweden. Innovation Countries were judged on the integration of technology in business, the infrastructure available, government policy favourable for fostering a culture of innovation and progress and...

Levels of greed and hunger for risk in world markets have soared off the scale, according to stark research which warns of an impending slump. The alert tempered news that the FTSE 100 index of leading UK shares has hit a new six-year high, while the FTSE 250 has soared to a fresh peak. Dresdner Kleinwort said its fear and greed index - a measure of the global market's appetite for risk - had just hit an all-time high.... The research is the latest evidence that markets may have become over-complacent about the possibility that their assets are overvalued or...

Arnold Schwarzenegger has ditched his beloved $950,000 fleet of Hummer cars in a bid to save the environment. The actor-turned-California governor is devoted to the sport-utility vehicles for their "precision." He was the first person to own one of them in 1992 after persuading manufacturers to make them for non-army purposes. But Hummers emit three times more carbon dioxide than a regular car - and after the State of California announced it was suing carmakers Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Honda, Chrysler and General Motors over greenhouse gas emissions, Schwarzenegger felt it was prudent to make the change. Eco-aware campaigner Al Gore...

Chattanooga’s oldest radio station, WDOD, has ended its 11-month experiment with progressive talk radio. At 10 a.m. this past Monday, the station switched to a format featuring musical oldies and standards from the late 1950s and the 1960s and 1970s, according to Danny Howard, director of programming and operations for WDEF and WDOD. The new format, which is locally controlled, is known around the station as Ruby AM 1310. Who’s Ruby? “It’s kind of funny,” Mr. Howard said with a laugh. “When we started talking about doing this, it turned out that everybody had an Aunt Ruby or a grandmother...

The economy's growth has never before been so driven by real estate. Now that engine is sputtering. Jiany Massad isn't quite ready to throw in the towel on his fledgling career as a Miami real-estate tycoon. But if the local housing market continues to head south, the 30-year-old real-estate broker is already making alternate plans. "I might restart my old business," he says of a home decorating company that specialized in high-end window treatments. "At least it's real-estate-related." With home sales down by nearly a third in Florida last quarter, thousands of those who hoped to cash in on the...

When Jesus was living, he did not align himself with the Jewish religious parties, then called Saducees and Pharisees, nor the secular authorities: King Herod and Rome. He obeyed the Mosaic law and even paid tribute. He told Nicodemus, an old man that he had to be born again to be saved. Jesus meant born spiritually. Jesus preached that this spiritual new baby would be then, dead to the world, living in the world but not of it. He pointed out that worrying about the future was not what a Christian would be doing because tomorrow has enough worries to...

Let me go on record as saying I like Hyundai. For the record, I personally own a Sonata, and it's a great car. That said, will someone from Hyundai's advertising department kindly explain what you were thinking when you authorized the latest commercial for the 2006 Sonata? "Rethink Everything" involves the concept of the Hyundai Sonata turning the world upside down. You can access the commercial online with this URL: http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/projects/f/commercials/6702.html The spot starts out innocuously enough: a rather cliche scene of a Sonata cruising along a city street. Quickly the spot kicks into high gear: An office located in...