FReepathon: Our new Donation System is Ready to Roll! -- Thread Three

John has programmed a great new donation system for us. It can accept credit cards or PayPal donations and will eventually also accept electronic checks. We have installed a new secure server system and have contracted with Authorize.net to do the actual credit card processing, and, of course, PayPal will process the PayPal donations through their system.

If you have bookmarks to the old system, please update to the new. The old system will be discontinued.

Take a test drive through the new system if you haven't already, and notice that it has several new features and reports available, including scoreboard, current stats, our budget and a faq. It's live now, so if you enter a donation it's for real (and thank you very much if you do).

John will continue making enhancements to the new system as we go, but the basic program is ready to go, and is live, and on the air.

We've decided to roll out our 4th quarter fundraiser with the new system on a late Saturday afternoon, as Saturday's are slow days and we might as well be gentle while breaking in the new system.

Thank you BadJoe, WillaJohns, WIMom and all of the dedicated hardworking volunteers on the fundraising team who have helped us so much with these FReepathons in the past.

And thank you all for your continuing efforts! Without your dedication and hard work, FR could not stay on the air.

And thank you FReepers! Without your continued participation and financial support there would be no Free Republic!

A note to current monthly donors: We will need you to re-enter your recurring monthly donation to the new system, but please do not do it yet. Joe just processed your September donations on the 20th of September. The new system processes your donation on the day it is entered, so please wait until later in October to start your monthly on the new system. Also, please let BadJoe know via FReepmail (and please include your real name so he can match it with your credit card info in his file) after you re-enter your monthly donation so he can take you off his list. At the end of October, he will email all of those on his list who have not contacted him to remind them of the new system. Thank you very much for your continued support.

A note to prospective new monthly donors: We have included a list of our fixed monthly expenses as well as an estimate of our non-recurring expenses on our budget page of the donation system. We've also included an estimate of our current recurring monthly donations from our monthly donors. If and when the total of the recurring monthly donations ever meets our monthly expenses, there will no longer be a need for these FReepathons. It can happen someday. Thank you for considering a regular monthly contribution.

Note to all: We are looking forward to an exciting and rewarding election cycle. I know that we are not all in full agreement on this, but I sincerely believe that we have an excellent opportunity with this election to set the liberals back many years. And I also believe that winning this election in a big way for the conservatives will be the spark that allows our fight to return the Constitution to its rightful place as the Supreme Law of the Land to really get off the ground. I sincerely believe this is essential in our fight to secure our Liberty!

We hold the White House and the House of Representatives. If we re-take the majority in the Senate, it will be one of the very rare times in our history that the conservatives have held the majority control in all departments.

I see this as a gift from God. A majority means that the conservatives will chair the various committees of Congress and can set the legislative agenda. And, perhaps more importantly, a majority in the Senate will make it much more likely that President Bush's appointments will be confirmed.

This means we will be able to start replacing some of the liberal judicial activists on the bench with conservatives (don't tell Daschle & Co. that) and perhaps we will finally have a real shot at actually overturning some of the liberal bunk that has been foisted on us over the last century or so. How about overturning Roe vs Wade? With the current mood of the populace and with a conservative Senate, I think it can be done!

Remember, the liberals have controlled all or most of our government for at least 80 of the last 100 years. No wonder we are in such a mess today. This is the best opportunity we've ever had to reverse it in a big way. Kick the liberals out! Take control of the Senate and replace the liberal judiciary. This alone will set liberalism back thirty to forty years!

We must not fail to take advantage of this opportunity. Daschle and Company sense their days are numbered and are in a panic. Now is the time to redouble our efforts and throw these bums out!

I expect the volume on Free Republic to pick-up substantially as we head into the final weeks and days of the campaign season. And I expect exciting things will be happening for for all of us!

I love this story and cannot find anywhere else to post it, so here it goes!

Senate candidate has blue-gray complexion from silver supplement

Wed Oct 2, 5:11 PM ET

GREAT FALLS, Mont. - Montana's Libertarian candidate for Senate has turned blue from drinking a silver solution that he believed would protect him from disease.

Stan Jones,a 63-year-old business consultant and part-time college instructor, said he started taking colloidal silver in 1999 for fear that Y2K disruptions might lead to a shortage of antibiotics.

He made his own concoction by electrically charging a couple of silver wires in a glass of water.

His skin began turning blue-gray a year ago.

"People ask me if it's permanent and if I'm dead," he said. "I tell them I'm practicing for Halloween."

He does not take the supplement any longer, but the skin condition, called argyria, is permanent. The condition is generally not serious.

Colloidal silver dietary supplements are marketed widely as an anti-bacterial agent or immune-system booster, but some consider it quackery.

Jones is one of three candidates seeking to unseat Democratic Sen. Max Baucus ( news, bio, voting record) in November. The others are Republican state Sen. Mike Taylor and Green Party candidate Bob Kelleher.

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