Free Republic

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Surfing the Web the other day, I came across an interesting article. It seems a man in West Bend, Wis., is looking to sue Charter Communications because they provided him with free cable for four years. According to the Fond Du Lac Reporter, Timothy Dumouchel claims that he asked for his cable to be turned off in 1999. Charter stopped billing him but the cable continued to work. Personally, I fail to see the problem. If Adelphia gave me free cable, I for one wouldn't call a lawyer. In fact, when I finally dropped their subpar service...

The United States said Cuban intransigence and not US opposition was to blame for the cancellation of a planned round of immigration talks this week. The State Department said Washington was prepared to go ahead with the talks -- which the Cubans had proposed for Thursday -- but only if Havana would agree to address five areas of US concern in the immigration area. "The United States is willing to reconsider the scheduling of the next round of migration talks when Cuba informs us that it agrees to a productive agenda, including a commitment to discuss these five issues," spokesman...

The Democratic Party is dead, presidential candidate Rev. Al Sharpton said Thursday. And it's Bill Clinton's fault. Launching into a tirade against Democratic centrists during an interview on Washington, D.C. TV station WJLA, Sharpton complained that's it's been all downhill for Democrats since Mr. Clinton took over ten years ago. "Bill Clinton won, the party didn't," railed the radical reverend. "And Bill Clinton may not have won if it had not been for Perot." "That is my point - centrism killed this party," he insisted. "We didn't regain the Congress in 1998. . . In 2000 we lost it all....

Pat Buchanan, the man who some say contributed to the election of Bill Clinton by challenging incumbent President George H. W. Bush, is trying to screw things up again for the GOP. His statement that, “his [George W. Bush’s] spending is making his father look like Barry Goldwater, and my view is that domestic social spending is exploding.” Buchanan continued, “He's not vetoed a single bill, he has gone south on affirmative action. And I think he's gone AWOL on social and cultural issues." This type of rhetoric is playing into the hands of the Democrats and Buchanan’s intention, no...

Sept. 11 Panel: Bush, Clinton Not to Blame Sept. 11 Commission Chairman Says There's No Evidence to Blame Clinton or Bush Administrations The Associated Press WASHINGTON Dec. 18 — The chairman of a federal commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks said Thursday that mistakes over many years left the United States vulnerable to such an attack, but he resisted pinning blame on either of the last two presidential teams. "We have no evidence that anybody high in the Clinton administration or the Bush administration did anything wrong," chairman Thomas Kean said in an interview with ABC's "Nightline" taped for...

Though an alleged teen killer claims a popular violent video game had nothing to do with his murdering a young girl, the victims father and others are convinced Grand Theft Auto III inspired the boy to bludgeon and stab his friend to death. Dustin Lynch's mug shot Dustin Lynch allegedly stabbed JoLynn Mishne in the side with kitchen knife after bashing her with a bedpost. Her father, Mickey, found her in a pool of blood on her bed with a pile of clothes heaped on top of her. The then-15-year-old Lynch, a runaway, had been staying with the Mishnes in...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has challenged the "conventional wisdom" that China's manipulation of its currency provides a huge advantage against U.S. companies that has cost thousands of American jobs. "The story on trade and jobs, in my judgment, is a bit more complex, especially with respect to China, than this strain of conventional wisdom would lead one to believe," Greenspan said in remarks prepared for the World Affairs Council of Greater Dallas. America's besieged manufacturing sector, which has suffered 40 straight months of jobs losses, has been...

Obesity in America: How to Get Fat Without Really Trying Dec. 8 — Americans want to be thinner — yet they are getting fatter and fatter. Nearly two-thirds of Americans are overweight and almost one in three Americans is obese, according to the federal government. Who's to blame for America's obesity? Is it bad eating habits or poorly executed exercise regimes? Could the government and the food industry also be to blame? "We're besieged," said Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Wherever we go, we're encouraged to eat junk food." Some say that personal...

Nearly two-thirds of Americans are overweight and almost one in three Americans is obese, according to the federal government. Who's to blame for America's obesity? Is it bad eating habits or poorly executed exercise regimes? Could the government and the food industry also be to blame? "We're besieged," said Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Wherever we go, we're encouraged to eat junk food." Some say that personal health and well being are a matter of personal responsibility. But the processed food industry and the government know what is happening — and they are...

Saudi official blames 'foreigners' for terror Prince implies al-Qaida not responsible for recent attacks Posted: December 1, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Prince Abdul Rahman, Saudi Arabia's deputy minister of defense and aviation, says "foreign hands" are behind the Riyadh bombings that left scores dead – implying the attacks were not the work of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network but rather nations opposing the country's strict adherence to Islamic law and which want to impose foreign domination upon the kingdom. He called on the armed forces to be ready to defend the country against foreign interference with all...

A disputed European Union study on anti-Semitism blames mainly Muslim immigrants, pro-Palestinian leftists and the extreme right for a rising tide of hostility to Jews in Europe, according to published excerpts. The rise in anti-Semitism is linked to the surge in Middle East violence since 2000 and made European Jews "hostages of Israeli politics". The confidential study, parts of which were quoted by a European Parliament deputy and the Paris daily Le Monde, echoes official explanations often heard in France that attacks rose along with Middle East violence as angry Muslims in Europe took revenge on their Jewish neighbours. The...

Nov. 30, 2003 Shevardnadze blames Soros for his downfall By ASSOCIATED PRESS Former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze accused multibillionaire philanthropist George Soros of donating millions of dollars to an uprising earlier this month that forced him to resign. Shevardnadze said in a newspaper interview that he could not point to specific countries that had backed the uprising. Instead, international groups, such as the Soros Foundation, had financed the opposition, he said. Three weeks of protests culminated in Shevardnadze's resignation on Nov. 23. Shevardnadze has previously accused U.S. ambassador Richard Miles of encouraging the opposition, an allegation U.S. officials denied. In...

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Democrats are likely giving thanks that the Senate session is drawing to a close. Since losing the majority in the 2002 elections, their influence in the body has been reduced to obstructing legislation and judicial nominations. Through repeated use of the filibuster, where the minority only needs to assemble 2/5 of the members' votes to prevent a floor vote on most anything, the Democrats have fought to remain relevant. The peril of always being on defense is beginning to take its toll. A circular firing squad is already taking shots at the Democrat leadership that had...

WASHINGTON - The nation's worst blackout began with three power line failures in Ohio and should have been contained by operators at FirstEnergy Corp., a three-month government investigation concluded Wednesday. The report by a U.S.-Canadian task force said the FirstEnergy operators did not respond properly, allowing the Aug. 14 outage to cascade, eventually cutting off electricity to 50 million people in eight states and Canada. The task force also cited outdated procedures and shortcomings at a regional grid monitoring center in Indiana that kept officials there from grasping the emerging danger and helping FirstEnergy deal with it. "This blackout was...

<p>THE blood that the bombers of al Qaeda shed in the Saudi capital of Riyadh belonged primarily to Lebanese, Egyptian and other Arab families observing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. They were victims of a well-planned mass murder that has brought al Qaeda's war home, where it will be won or lost. The U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have put a misleading veneer on the overlapping political and civil wars that have roiled the Persian Gulf region for three decades. These conflicts swirl within Islam and within individual nations of the greater Middle East, which must finally come to terms with the direct dangers posed by al Qaeda and its loose network of nihilistic terrorists.</p>

The two liberal panelists on FNC’s Fox Newswatch over the weekend credited/blamed the MRC for CBS’s decision to move it’s The Reagans mini-series to Showtime. Neal Gabler asserted of the decision by CBS Chairman Les Moonves: “He pulled this because right-wing pressure from the Media Research Center, from Matt Drudge, from a number of radio talk show hosts, you know, made this just more trouble than it was worth. And it gave the right-wing veto power over broadcast television.” Jane Hall, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who now teaches journalism as American University, echoed: “There was genuine outrage and...

<p>SAN DIEGO (AP) - The Southern California wildfires have been vanquished, but the second-guessing is in full swing.</p> <p>Politicians and residents have a lot of questions about how the wildfires managed to do so much damage, scorching more than 740,000 acres, burning about 3,600 homes and killing 22 people. They were the most destructive wildfires to ever hit California.</p>

Special Dispatch Series - No. 605 November 7, 2003 No.605 Arab Liberal Writer: Blames Arab Media for Hatred of the U.S. An op-ed by Abd Al-Bari Atwan, editor of London Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, claiming that the U.S. is to blame for the Arab world's hatred of it,(1) sparked a debate in the Arab press. Munir Al-Mawari, a Yemenite journalist and columnist for the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, wrote several articles responding to Atwan's claims. The following are excerpts from two of Al-Mawari's articles:The Arab Media Fans Hatred of the U.S.In an article titled, "False Interpretation of the...

<p>"Our forests are detonating like napalm bombs. We need to remove dead and dying bug-killed timber," said Rep. Wally Herger, R-Chico.</p> <p>Is this Monday-morning quarterbacking spurred by the wildfires now raging in California? Hardly.</p> <p>The Northern California congressman uttered those words in August 1994 as part of his demand that Congress declare a state of emergency in federal forests to permit quick removal of dead trees, fallen branches and other debris that fuels wildfires - like those that burned 3 million Western acres and killed 14 firefighters that year.</p>

The Associated Press CAIRO, Egypt Oct. 15 — Iraq's former information minister on Wednesday said the main reason the Iraqi army collapsed so quickly during the U.S. invasion was widespread confusion after American troops captured the Baghdad airport. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, speaking to Abu Dhabi Television, acknowledged that some Iraqi officers told the soldiers who were trying to regain the airport not to fight and to leave their units. "Our troops were confused, there was a wide desertion by the soldiers and several units were destroyed," al-Sahhaf said, describing the battle around Baghdad airport when U.S. troops reached it on...