Free Republic

So, my daughter thinks she lost her favorite D.S. games in the back of the car. It either went behind the seat, or down that little hole where the seatbelts come out of. Is there a way I can get it back short of shoving my hands down blindly in there?

The son of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has taken control of the militia being used to crush the protest movement, according to a senior Iranian source. The source, a politician with strong connections to the security apparatus, said that the leading role being played by Mojtaba Khamenei had dismayed many of the country's senior clerics, conservative politicians and Revolutionary Guard generals. But these conservatives are reluctant to challenge the Khameneis openly out of fear that any conflict would destabilise the Islamic Republic and weaken Iran in the region. Instead they will use their positions in the organs of...

Evidence continues to mount that events in Honduras have all been the result of a coordinated Venezuelan offensive. The Honduran newspaper El Heraldo finds additional signs of direct Venezuelan interference in Honduras. Chavez’s Telesur coverage of Zelaya’s attempted landing in Tegucigalpa shows Chavez next to a whiteboard with the following text: “051345JUL09 Enjambre de abejas africanas, Tribuna Presidencial, heridos por picadas y desesperación de las personas” Translation: “051345JUL09 Swarm of african bees, Presidential Gallery, wounded by stings and desperation/confusion of the people” El Heraldo notes the military notation for time and date (1:45pm on July 5) that corresponds to the...

See? Government economics isn’t difficult. If you enter the discussion with the assumption that the government is going to lie, cheat, and/or steal from you, you won’t be disappointed. The following video is, as they say, better than my 1,000 words. Enjoy! [VIDEO PLAYS ON ORIGINAL ARTICLE] Fortunately for those who support Mitt Romney, there was no mention that Obama’s Massachusetts model was signed into law by then-Gov. Romney, who subsequently bailed out. As an editorial note, I find it amazing how many Romney supporters are speaking out against nationalized health care, ignorant of the fact that their man was...

South Korea is still struggling to shake off the legacy of decades of government-led industrial policy. So it's disappointing to see these ideas reinvigorated by the Lee Myung-bak administration under the cloak of "green growth." Seoul announced this week that it would spend 107 trillion won ($84 billion) over five years on environmentally related industries. That's on top of 50 trillion won pledged in January's Green New Deal and several hundred trillions more promised over the past year to chaebol bailouts and loan guarantees to small- and medium-sized businesses. The government says the spending plan will create 1.56 to 1.81...

It will be fast and less memory-intensive, enabling users to access the Web in a few seconds, Google said. The new operating system is based on open-source Linux code, which allows third-party developers to design compatible applications. "The operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web," Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google, said in the blog post. The Chrome operating system is "our attempt to rethink what operating systems should be." Google said the operating system was a new project, separate from its Android mobile operating software found in...

The National Park Service says gays and lesbians have been neglected by a lack of historic landmarks and trails to honor their struggle for equal rights, according to advance testimony to Congress. The statement, obtained by the Washington Times, has been submitted to Capitol Hill for a hearing about Missouri Democratic Rep. William Clay’s bill to create a civil rights themed park trail. Mr. Clay, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in his bill the trail should mark "historically significant events related to struggles for civil rights based on racial equality, including signage or printed materials (or both)...

If there is one set of polling data that must be sending chills down the spine of President Obama and his political aides, this is it:

Councilwoman Arrested, Car Confiscated MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons announced Wednesday that a state grand jury had indicted Memphis City Councilwoman Janis Fullilove-Chalmers on charges related to allegedly submitting false information to receive a duplicate Tennessee driver license and allegedly driving while her license is revoked. The grand jury returned an indictment for unlawfully using a state issued driver license and fraudulently obtaining a driver license. Both are misdemeanor offenses. The Tennessee Highway Patrol filed these charges against Fullilove-Chalmers last October. A judge in general sessions criminal court sent the case to the grand jury following...

A military strike to thwart Iran's nuclear weapons capability remains on the table but could have grave and unpredictable consequences, the top U.S. military officer said Tuesday. "I worry a great deal about the response of a country that gets struck," said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "It is a really important place to not go, if we can not go there in any way, shape or form." Iran is perhaps one to three years away from getting the bomb, leaving a small and shrinking opening for diplomacy to avert what he said could be...

ZURICH -- Switzerland has vowed to prevent UBS from handing over client information to U.S. authorities, in an attempt to defend bank secrecy, saying a tax case targeting its main bank is souring diplomatic ties. Wealth management giant UBS is facing a court hearing in Miami next week after refusing to disclose data on 52,000 Americans holders of secret Swiss bank accounts to U.S. tax authorities. The Swiss Justice Ministry said on Wednesday that Swiss law prevents UBS from handing over client information and the government would seize UBS client data, if necessary, to stop that happening. The case, which...

First it was a PBS station, and now Comcast has moved its MSNBC news channel from 42 to higher channels that require a digital cable box. While some subscribers are claiming it smacks of an anti-liberal conspiracy, Comcast officials disagreed. They said that it is all part of the digital revolution in television, and that it is only designed to give the cable company's viewers better service. MSNBC was available only to subscribers with the full basic service, so those who have the limited basic service would not have noticed because they never had the channel. Those who have full...

The other day I was driving behind a car with a “Friend of Tibet” Virginia license plate. That’s great and I’d like to be a “Friend” myself, but with the job and the family and cutting the lawn … Can I just become a “Facebook Friend of Tibet?” If so, am I entitled to the same preening as Tibet’s actual Friends? It got me wondering whether we’d see “Free Iran” paraphernalia anytime soon, and whether we’d see it on the same Volvos and Priuses as those “Free Tibet” bumper stickers. Somehow I doubt it, since Obama could barely fit any...

I hate drivers that refuse to follow the law. The other day I was driving to work down a busy street; I had just passed under the freeway, and was approaching an intersection, where there were a lot of people waiting to turn left. To my right I saw a car exit the freeway, zoom past me, cutting me off, and pull in front of all the cars waiting to turn left, cutting them off and turning left himself. I was dumbfounded that anyone could be so reckless and irresponsible. It occurred to me, if this person cares so little...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is gearing up to handle a large number of bank failures expected as a result of bad mortgages, both in residential and commercial real estate, an economist said Tuesday. “They know they’re going to take down a large number of banks and they can’t do it until they’re staffed up,” said Mark Dotzour, chief economist and director of research for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. Dotzour expects federal regulators to establish an agency, similar to the Resolution Trust Corp. that disposed of assets belonging to insolvent S&Ls in the late 1980s...

The powerful attack that overwhelmed computers at U.S. and South Korean government agencies for days was even broader than initially realized...

German police called to clear a road of a dead badger found the animal in question had in fact gorged itself on over-ripe, fermented cherries and, blind drunk, staggered out into the middle of the road. "The animal's stomach had turned the fruit to alcohol and the badger was, to put it crudely, drunk as a skunk," said a police statement on Wednesday. "In addition, the badger was suffering from diarrhoea studded with cherry stones." Prodding the reluctant beast with a stick, officers managed to persuade it to leave the road near the town of Goslar in northwestern Germany and...

In order that Freepers have direct access to it, I am re-posting this link to yesterday's report "The Role of Government Affordable Housing Policy in Creating the Global Financial Crisis of 2008" from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The link has been noted in at least two other threads today, however I believe that because it's (a) timely, (b) important, and (c) comprehensive, that it warrants its own thread. And this version will get you straight to the report without having to wade through the snark of those other threads. By the way, this...

Academia in the United States has long been dominated by the left, creating “free speech codes” on campuses that only protect the kind of speech with which they agree. They control the clear majority of news outlets in this country — a situation that began during the Vietnam War. They own the environmental movement, set the curriculum in public education, and have successfully fought to alienate “certain inalienable rights” enumerated by our Founding Fathers. And if all this isn’t enough, they currently control the House, the Senate, and the White House, which means they’re positioned to use the government’s leverage...

Snopes, Wikipedia, and Obama himself have given differing accounts of which hospital he was born in. In order for this story to break out, I need you to go to the link and Digg this story. The underlying WND article is here, the FR thread on the WND article is here, and my coverage (that deals with Wikipedia) is here.