Free Republic

Asking few questions makes a difference. There's a change of mentality that started to occur in Iraq even before the 9th of April, but toppling Saddam marked a surge in the change process that made it transfere into an active form and spread wider than before. I think one of the main problems in Arab-Muslim communities is that the vast majority from the illiterate to even highly educated people do not ask enough questions. On the other hand, I've noticed (mainly through blogging ) that westerns in general and Americans in particular always have so many questions to ask and...

I have always wanted to start a journal of some kind. A place where I could dump some overly serious brain usage onto some white space with minimal worry or guilt. I have always had an active mind in that it is constantly working on some piece of information that flew in either arbitrarily or directly. It's the arbitrary ones that usually have me worked up by the end of the day. The ones that may not really affect me personally but appeal to my emotion or sense of reason. Kind of like the anniversary of the Murrah building bombing...

Yesterday, Drudge linked to a nasty anti-Tom Delay t-shirt being hawked at Cafe Press. The shirt urged the GOP congressman to commit suicide. Sold by artist Christopher Godwin, the product has now been removed (though you can still see it on Cafe Press's search engine complete with the caption "We can dream, can't we?"). Not to worry. There are plenty of other hate-filled, liberal knick-knacks and apparel items still on sale. Like this "Kill Bush" magnet depicting the president holding a gun to his head with the caption "End Terrorism Now:" And before the "everybody does it" apologists pooh-pooh this...

HOW MANY AMERICANS READ POLITICAL BLOGS, PART II By Michelle Malkin   ·   April 13, 2005 09:19 AM If there are 120 million Americans adults online, this survey suggests that 31 million Americans read a political blog at least once a month and 6 million Americans read a political blog at least once a day. This would mean that Instapundit is read by less than 3% of those who read political blogs on a daily basis. I don't believe it. I suspect the survey results would be quite different if respondents were informed that the Drudge Report, Slate, Free Republic, Democratic...

Daly's Thoughts bring us a story of supposed GOP trickery. Summary: The GOP is handing out "misleading" awards for 'Physician of the Year' and then charging for them. ABC reported this using Dr. Rudolph Mueller as an "innocent victim" of such trickery. I want to blow the lid off this because I sensed something wrong. I looked up Mueller's book - "As Sick as it Gets" and this is a short description, "The shocking realities of raging high costs, untold human tragedy and blatant greed are the basis of this compelling case for universal, single payer healthcare in the United...

This time, the hoax was on them. Still gloating over their role in unmasking CBS's faulty National Guard memo story last September, right-wing bloggers launched a new memo-based crusade against the so-called liberal media last month, one that turned out to be completely phony. But unlike CBS and its tarred former anchor, Dan Rather, who eventually admitted their mistakes in the Memogate affair, these bloggers (many of whom were also involved in the CBS campaign) haven't had the guts to apologize for their blunder. When the Terri Schiavo story became national news in mid-March, a curious subplot revolved around a...

This is a call to tech minded Freepers (everyone from software engineers to hobbyists) to contribute in some way to make FR better than it already is from a technical standpoint. FR (i think) uses a from scratch proprietary system so any improvements to the system would have to first have to suggested then petitioned to JimRob to look at the code. Bandwidth and other issues could most likely addressed by updating the FR system with valid W3C code and implementing various caching tricks. THIS IS NOT A CRITICISM OF HOW FR IS RUN NOW. We all enjoy FR and...

On-line journal provokes a firestorm By JANE TABER Tuesday, April 5, 2005 Page A1 SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER OTTAWA -- An unassuming 42-year-old call-centre manager and Star Trek fan from Minneapolis, Minn., has provoked a political firestorm in Canada. Ed Morrissey -- Captain Ed to his friends -- published on the weekend what no Canadian is allowed to print or broadcast. On his Internet blog, he posted testimony before the Gomery commission that is subject to a publication ban. Yesterday, after the story of his blogging exploits broke in the Canadian media, Mr. Morrissey saw the traffic on his website increase...

In a move unlikely only because it's taken this long to happen, pundit-about-town Arianna Huffington is extending her hosting largess to the blogosphere. This month the wannabe California governor is launching a Slate-like Web site where a cast of bigwigs, including Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), David Geffen, Barry Diller, Larry David, Tom Freston, Ari Emanuel, Jim Wiatt Tina Brown and Harold Evans will each have their own blog from which to spout Big Thoughts about politics. Huffington wouldn't comment, but it was confirmed that a soft-launch of the Huffington Report would be up and running before the end of April....

Sophie Maxwell, member of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, has decided to take on the Internet and free speech. Sophie announced yesterday that The Board of Supervisors will soon vote on a city ordinance, which she filed, that would require local bloggers to register with the City Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate.  Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits, according to Chad Jacobs, a San Francisco City Attorney.  However,...

Lessons from Terri Terri death is one of those issues that clarify many things. There is a significant group of people in this country, mostly on the left, but this issue does across party lines to some extent both ways, who believe that ultimate power in this country rests, not with the people or their elective representatives, but with Judges. While they may not refer to it in this way, in their view a judge is effectively royalty. Perhaps the Judges on the lower courts are Lords and those on the Supreme Court the Kings, but they are royalty. Just...

CFP Canadian Conservative Blog

By ELLEN SIMON, AP Technology Writer GREENSBORO, N.C. - It's a journalist's job to ask questions, but they're usually aimed at outsiders. At the News & Record, a 93,000-daily circulation newspaper in Greensboro, reporters and editors are asking tough questions about the paper itself. The biggest questions: If the paper needs to change to survive, what changes should be made? What can it do, especially online, to make itself the electronic equivalent of a town square? Seeking the answers, the paper has launched an audacious online experiment. The News & Record's Web site features 11 staff-written Web journals, or blogs,...

As a conservative blogger, I must take exception to Tamara Baker's assertion that the conservative blogosphere and the liberal blogosphere have different agendas (Counterpoint, March 19). Baker's take appears to be that liberal bloggers like Kos (Markos Moulitsas Zúniga) are honest and trustworthy heroes while conservative bloggers like Charles Johnson are vicious villains. Baker goes so far as to use quotes that suggest conservatives attack free and independent press and aim for the destruction of all objective reporting. Baker herself refers to Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler in describing the conservative blogosphere's attempt to discredit independent journalism. I will be...

3/24/05 0626 The Terri Schiavo case The case of Terri Schiavo is both one of the strangest and most troubling cases in quite sometime. I teach Critical thinking and Decision making, and thus this case has come up in class from time to time. Based on the news reports, my view was that this was not really a case about passive euthanasia (i.e., withholding treatment so that a patient dies), as that issue had pretty much been decided decades ago. While I have always been troubled by the inclusion of food and water as “medical treatment” I can understand the...

DENVER - Conservative Internet blogger Hugh Hewitt says he would like the opportunity to be the next President of the University of Colorado. Hewitt says CU needs a president who can do a good PR job for the school. "I've been a professor for 10 years at Chapman University Law School so I know about faculties, but I think the most important thing is that you listen to the public," Hewitt said. "You be aware of what they expect out of the university and you communicate that to the people who make up the faculty and you take care of...

http://www.blogsforterri.com/

Trying to Extract a Drama From the Blog of an Iraqi By JASON ZINOMAN "Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog From Iraq" is not a very good play, but it's worth your attention for two reasons. It's the only political drama in New York written from the point of view of an Iraqi who lived through the American invasion, and, for better or worse, it inaugurates an entirely new (and seemingly inevitable) theatrical genre - the blog play. Melding two chic cultural forms, the documentary drama and the blog, the Six Figures Theater Company has turned the online writings of Riverbend, the...

Tomorrow I will be broadcasting from a "blogfest" at Borders at the Colorado Mills Mall. Many of the Rocky Mountain Alliance of Blogs will be on hand to introduce the interested to the platform, and to help flog Blog. Come by and say hello. It would be especially great if any lefty bloggers dropped in to add to the fesitivities. I guarantee a link blizzard for the adventurous lefties. http://www.coloradomills.com/

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