Free Republic

Motley Fool A Dubious Sign of the Times Tuesday March 7, 3:17 pm ET By Tim Beyers I've long wanted to own stock in New York Times (NYSE: NYT - News) for several reasons. I love the paper. I'm a big fan of About.com. And then there's sentimental angle: I'm a New York native. But there's one big reason why I'm not buying the stock. A check of the proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday reveals that chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and CEO Janet Robinson both received hefty bonuses despite meeting less than 60%...

Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. apparently was given quite a chilly reception in his annual state-of-the-Times address..... Newspaper Guild members have already had to give up their raises for the year to rescue their embattled healthcare coverage, and 500 employees are losing their jobs. Floyd Norris, a business columnist, was said.... to be particularly intense in grilling Sulzberger on why (Pinch) would not give back his hefty million-dollar bonus this year to save jobs. "He kept ducking [the question]," ......"It was lame, lame, lame."

Hawaii residents paid more state taxes in 2004 than residents of any other state in the country... Hawaii residents paid an average of $3,050 per person in 2004, while Texans paid the least — an average of $1,368. Every state but one collected more taxes per person in 2004 than it did a decade earlier... State taxpayer burdens increased by an average of 41 percent from 1994 to 2004. Only Alaska saw the amount it collects per person decline. Even when the numbers are adjusted for inflation, the individual tax burdens increased in 43 states. Rising education and Medicaid costs...

Taxes were up in the past 10 years for Maryland and Virginia residents, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, disappointing both lawmakers and anti-tax advocates. The tax burden in Virginia increased by 55 percent in that period, with a per capita amount of $1,903 in 2004. In Maryland, the tax burden increased by 46 percent, with an individual tax burden of $2,214 in 2004. The District's tax statistics are computed with cities' and local governments' financial data, which won't be available until April, the Census Bureau said.

LOS ANGELES, November 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Top celebrities released strong endorsements for the YES on 73 campaign today during the final push for Prop 73, the "Parents' Right to Know" initiative on California's special election ballot next Tuesday, November 8th. Ben Stein, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Patrick Warburton, Laura Ingraham, and Patricia Heaton are all running radio spots in California encouraging support for Prop 73. If passed, Proposition 73 will prevent an abortion from being performed on a minor girl until 48 hours after her parent or guardian is notified. Patricia Heaton says, "As a parent, I can't think of...

The Hidden Truth About Joseph McCarthy Daniel J. Flynn     For generations of American students, the name Joe McCarthy and not Joe Stalin has been synonymous with evil. A practitioner of “black arts,” a “demon,” “ogreish,” and a “seditionist” are a few of the descriptions of him handed down to us from his first major biographer. The passage of time hasn’t tempered these hysterical reactions.    The late senator, the story goes, created a climate of fear in the early 1950s by conducting a witchhunt that called liberals “Communists” and Communists “spies.” We now know better. The witches were real. Today,...

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court tossed the conviction of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm, saying that the judges instructions to the jury were not defined well enough. Unfortunately, there isn't anyone at Arthur Andersen to celebrate the victory. Almost all of the accounting firms employees lost their jobs following Andersen's demise over the shredfest at Enron. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote "The jury instructions at issue simply failed to convey the requisite consciousness of wrongdoing, It is striking how little culpability the instructions required."

What the liberal obits missed: Miller as willing Soviet pawn... "Arthur Miller, Moral Voice of American Stage, Dies at 89." The New York Times' adulatory front-page obituary was typical. Indeed, within hours of Miller's passing February 10, the famed playwright was receiving rousing reviews for his prodigious literary output that won him a Pulitzer, four Tony awards and a flock of other honors. The man who had once married Marilyn Monroe was lavishly celebrated for several important dramas, including All My Sons (1947), Death of A Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953) and A View From the Bridge (1955). He had...

Just got through watching what I feel was one of the most underrated movies of the Summer of 2004. It was the Jerry Bruckheimer version of KING ARTHUR. This film had an entirely new take on the Arthurian Legend and it was probably the most interesting I have ever seen. You can go to the link I left for Internet Movie Database and read up on it. The acting was great and the storyline just as great. It dealt with the age old qualities most of us admire, Truth, Honor & Country. I would urge you that if you were...

Actress and singer Liza Minnelli was taken to a hospital after falling out of bed and hitting her head in the early morning hours of December 27, 2004 People Magazine reported. 'She was sleeping and she rolled out of bed,' People quoted a police source as saying in an article on its Web site. Minnelli sings at a benefit near Cannes, France in this May 20 file photo. Photo by Vincent Kessler/Reuters

The new information places the construction of the dyke within the shadowy period that began with the formal withdrawal of the Roman administration (AD 410) and ended with the absorption of the area into Mercia. The report concludes: 'The dyke should therefore be regarded as being contemporary with that other great fifth-century linear earthwork, the Wiltshire Wansdyke, rather than Offa's Dyke, and should be considered as an achievement of the post-Roman kingdom of the northern Cornovii, rather than the work of seventh- or eighth-century Mercia.'

Jerry Bruckheimer's most recent rendition of King Arthur raises a fascinating question: is the political correcting process implemented intentionally, or does such revision simply occur by momentum once patterns of thought start heading in a certain direction? The newest King Arthur purports to tell the "real story" that inspired the legend of Camelot. The Cliff's notes version is this: King Arthur was really the Roman commander named Lucius Artorius Castus, leading a group of conscripted "eastern knights" charged with repelling Rome's enemies at Hadrian's Wall in Britain. These "knights" are pagan cavalrymen from the Central Asian region that lies between...

I have an idea: let’s send Michael Moore with his camera in a time machine back to fifth-century Britannia, decades after the Romans have stopped replenishing troops there, so that he can reveal the tragic consequences of Britons befriending Saxons (à la the Bushes and the Saudis with bin Laden clan) initially in order to fight off nasty Picts descending from Scotland to the north. (“Pict” is Latin for “painted.”) Imagine the conspiracy theories Moore could conjure up for our viewing pleasure, e.g., Unocal in cahoots with the Picts actually funded the building of Hadrian’s Wall — he has the...

American playwright Arthur Miller was not in Israel on Thursday night to receive the Jerusalem Prize for literary achievement, but his highly charged, political acceptance speech in a pre-recorded video message from the US resounded loudly with the few dozen people at the 21st Jerusalem International Book Fair event. In what he characterized as a "terribly troubled moment" in Israel, Miller, 87, made a passionate appeal for justice in Israel. "Without justice at its center, no state can endure as a representative of the Jewish nation," he said. Justice, upon which Israel was founded, must be at the center of...

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