Free Republic

The Pentagon, still infamous for buying high-priced hammers and big-ticket toilet seats, has dropped another bomb on the American taxpayer. This time, it's evidence of government-issue credit card abuse by military and civilian employees at two California naval bases. More than 500 incidents of credit card fraud -- items enough to fill a C-130 -- were uncovered in the past two years alone. The General Accounting Office and congressmen offer a few examples: $3,100 charged at a nightclub by a party-hearty soldier; $13,000 charged by a reservist's wife in a Puerto Rican shopping spree; And don't forget the Marine ...

Dwayne Brown Headquarters, Washington, DC July 31, 2001 (Phone: 202/358-1726) RELEASE: 01-154 REVISED -- SUSPENDED IN SPACE: RESEARCHERS MAKE IMPORTANT DISCOVERY ABOUT MATERIALS A NASA-funded study in materials science has yielded a discovery that may significantly change the way electronics, paint, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries develop products. Researchers discovered a new approach for suspending fine particles in fluids. Such collections of particles, called colloids or colloidal suspensions, may help researchers better understand how to manipulate small particle assemblies found in fluids such as water or organic solvents (e.g., ethanol). According to a paper co-authored by a NASA researcher at ...

SITIAWAN: The residents of Manjung thought they had found a new source of income when they converted their pre-war shophouses and homes as nesting places for swifts. Having to cope with an economic slowdown last year, they made good money selling birds' nest. But the good fortune came with trouble. The 300-odd residents, involved in the trade, were soon the target of a violent gang, Gang 24 or Ang Beng Hui. The gang, based here, is said to have been terrorising residents ever since its income from illegal gambling and slot machines was cut by the authorities. Residents said they ...

Matthew 5: 14 You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, who is in heaven.

A half-century ago, in a classic exchange between two men on opposite ends of the moral and political spectrum, Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev bragged to American Patriot and Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson: "Your grandchildren will live under communism!" To which Secretary Benson enthusiastically replied: "If I have it my way, your grandchildren will live free!" Khruschev, undeterred, fired back: "Oh you Americans! You’re so gullible! We’ll spoon feed you socialism until you’re Communists and don’t’ even know it. We’ll never have to fire a shot!" (1) Ironically, history has to some degree vindicated both men. A greater degree ...

Jack Cashill to be on CNN's The Point with Greta Van Susteren. Thursday, August 2 at 8:30 PM EDT. Cashill and James Sanders created SILENCED, the video that has opened America's eyes to the most brazen cover-up of our time. SILENCED Flight 800 And The Subversion Of Justice http://www.cashill.com

Top adviser's $1 million in Enron stock Oversight board member denies conflict of interest Bill Wallace, Chronicle Staff WriterThursday, August 2, 2001 A key member of the state regulatory panel that oversees California's deregulated energy market owns stock worth approximately $1 million in one of the state's largest power producers, The Chronicle has learned. The disclosure is the latest in a series of revelations that top state energy officials and government advisers own stock in energy companies doing business in California. Those investments have prompted watchdog groups to raise concerns about possible conflicts of interest. Bruce Willison, who was appointed ...

In a brief appearance on CSPAN this morning, Ethan Wallison, a reporter from Roll Call, described a nasty internecine cat fight going on among congressional Democrats in the race for House Whip. Seems that whip candidate Rep. Nancy Pelosi might be using strong arm tactics to threaten Ellen Tauscher, a fellow Calif. Dem. Essentially threatening to redistrict her out of existence. In any case, I went to the Roll Call web page to read the article, and found that Wallison had alluded to Tauscher as a "centrist".Smelling a rat, I checked out Tauscher's ratings from various interest groups, available via ...

Lawmaker Uses Own Law to Seek Kids by MARK R. CHELLGREN Associated Press Writer FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) -- Kim Stacy, who has battled to keep custody of her three children for the past two years, faces a new challenge -- a change in Kentucky custody laws that was prompted by her ex-husband, a state legislator. Rep. John Stacy arranged for the change in the law during a late-night conference committee meeting near the end of the General Assembly session in March. There was no public discussion or debate on the provision, which was added to an unrelated bill. The new ...

Lucianne.com just shut down the Novak-lacey- Mary Jo White thread immediately http://www.lucianne.com/threads2.asp?artnum=125037 and she calls others "SPIKEY" ? Just one more reason to love FRee Republic. .

S.African Papers Blast U.S. for Racism Meet Stance By Steven Swindells JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African papers rounded on the United States on Wednesday for Washington's threat to boycott a United Nations (news - web sites) racism conference if it equated Zionism with racism and urged reparations for slavery. The U.N. racism meeting starts in the South African city of Durban on August 31, but its agenda is mired in controversy after the United States balked at attempts by Arab states to equate Zionism and Israeli settlement policy with racism. Washington, also fearful of opening up domestic claims if the ...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--By any method of reckoning, we have entered an age of nearly unbridled biotechnological expansion. Futurists almost universally claim that the 21st century will be what Jeremy Rifkin has called "The Biotech Century."Richard Oliver, professor of business management at Vanderbilt University, has announced, "The Bioterials Age will complete the triumph of economics over politics, which was begun in the Information Age. It will unleash forces stronger than nationalism and more powerful than the combined armies of the world." To coin a word, Oliver's characterization of this new age sounds extraordinarily "Technopian," and the list of technologies which are ...

Last summer, in the midst of his campaign for President, George W. Bush made an interesting statement that produced an even more interesting result. While at a campaign stop in early June, Bush called on the Senate to approve the next President's executive and judicial nominations within sixty days. The next month, he called on Republicans in that last Congress to do the same for the then-President's nominees, as well.That startled a few people, mainly because Democrats had been successful at distorting the Republican record on confirming Bill Clinton's judicial nominees - though when Clinton's term ended, he was actually ...

Scientists hope to reduce the effects of hurricanes A company in the United States claims it has invented a powder that can be used to remove clouds from the sky and even stop the development of hurricanes. They say the new product could help many areas of the world that are subject to extreme weather conditions. The powder absorbs water from storm cloudsThe Florida based company, Dyn-o-mat, used a military aircraft to drop four tonnes of its powder on to a developing storm cloud. The cloud disappeared from radar screens, which were monitoring the experiment. Officials from the company, ...

(CNSNews.com) - The Senate Commerce Committee Thursday will likely become the first panel under the new Democratic-controlled Senate to reject one of President Bush's nominations. That opposition, according to a presidential historian from the Heritage Foundation, appears to be an attempt "to blackmail the administration."Although she is not a member of the Commerce Committee, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has led the fight against the nomination of Mary Sheila Gall to chair the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Clinton criticizes Gall for voting, as a member of the CPSC, against tougher standards for the manufacturers of bunk beds, baby bath seats ...

(CNSNews.com) - When the Senate goes into August recess next week, it will leave unprocessed more than half of President Bush's nominations to cabinet and agency positions, effectively ensuring that the Bush administration will govern in name only for the foreseeable future.The confirmation process was moving at a snail's pace since Bush's inauguration six months ago. But the defection from the Republican Party of Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont, which resulted in a changeover in the Senate leadership from Republican to Democratic control, brought the process practically to a halt, said Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs at the ...

I think that our children ought to be left totally alone, and allowed to have a private life."--First lady Laura Bush, in an interview Monday with Judy Woodruff on CNN's "Inside Politics." "MAGAZINE DEPICTS BUSH DAUGHTERS AS JAIL BIRDS; TINA BROWN DECLINES FIRST LADY'S REQUEST TO BACK OFF."--Headline in Wednesday's Drudge Report. * * * Quick: What has Tricia Nixon Cox been up to lately? How about Amy Carter? Jack Ford? Patti Davis and Ronnie Reagan Jr.? Eleanor Mondale? The Gore girls? Anybody have an idea? Anybody? Anybody? That's all right. It's not as if I know that much about ...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Jennifer, calling from Alexandria, was primed when she was put through to Gov. Jim Gilmore in the control room of Washington's WTOP radio Tuesday. The Republican gubernatorial campaign of Mark Earley had gotten off to a rough start, Jennifer said. There had been that $50,000 campaign contribution from a high tech company with links to online pornography, a couple of issue flip-flops, and, she added, campaign staffers who ``have made a series of misstatements ...'' ``Have you expressed concern to Mr. Earley that he really kind of get his act together?'' Jennifer asked Gilmore, who moonlights ...

Imagine my suprise this morning when I get to work and wanted to quickly check Free Republic for news and I could not. We use a product here at work called SmartFilter from Secure Computing. This product is a URL filtering package that allows the company to block URL's by categories that we can select, such as sex, sports, religion, etc. We implemented this product a couple of years ago mainly to protect the company from sexual harassment lawsuits due to people browsing porn sites. We only have the following categories blocked: Sex, Extreme/Obscene, and Useless. We allow everything else ...

A top campaign official for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark R. Warner was reprimanded yesterday for posing as a constituent caller and making confrontational remarks about Mr. Warner's Republican opponent during a radio call-in show. Communications Director Amanda Crumley will keep her job but has written a letter of apology to Gov. James S. Gilmore III and WTOP radio for a prank call she made Tuesday to the monthly "Ask the Governor" show, in which she criticized Mark L. Earley's campaign.