Free Republic

Points, the Sunday viewpoints section edited by Rod Dreher, had an excellent series of articles and short takes on a wide range of subjects. It quotes Republican Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska as saying: "This party that sometimes I don’t recognize anymore has presided over the largest growth of government in the history of the country and maybe even the history of man." I second Chuck Hagel’s concerns about the spending excesses of the Administration and Congress.

Every walk of life and field of endeavor generates its own insiders' lingo. Those of us in the MSM — that's the superannuated, archaic mainstream media — have our own jargon, of which the first sentence of an article is the lede, the early edition is the bulldog and the guys working into the wee hours make up the lobster shift. Some of our special vocabulary is being stolen from us by the denizens of the world of Web logs. Above the fold — the top half of a standard-size newspaper page, where the major stories begin — now, in...

Time for the last post By Trevor Butterworth Published: February 17 2006 14:01 | Last updated: February 17 2006 21:54 On a winter-cold morning last autumn, before the leaves could summon up the energy to burn and fall, the barbarians entered the gate. A group of feisty young writers, known only to millions of readers by their blog names - Gawker, Gizmodo, Wonkette and Defamer - were in a soigne studio in New York’s Chelsea district to be photographed for the February issue of Vanity Fair magazine. ADVERTISEMENT They represented the cream of Gawker Media - a mini-empire of clever,...

Muslims are hypocrites! NOT! It seems fitting to start a blog that will most likely deal a lot with religion and politics with a topic that spans both. One comment one reads and hears a lot in right-wing commentary on 'the Cartoon Wars' are 'Muslims are such hypocrites!' I'd like to take exception. Devout Muslims, like devout Jews or devout Christians of any confession, take seriously their belief that their religion is true, a reflection of the one, existing God and grounded in His decisive self-revelation, the Qu'ran. I, too, believe that my religion--Orthodox Christianity--is true and grounded in...

People are making a living, or a decent chunk of one, by blogging. Some are warbloggers in the Middle East, like Michael Totten, who blogs from Beirut, with occasional sidetrips to Egypt, Turkey, and Iraq, or Michael Yon, who served as a war correspondent via blog, or Bill Roggio, who embedded himself for a while with a U.S. combat unit in Iraq. Back here in the States, there are plenty of people making money the older-fashioned way, without being shot at. Andrew Sullivan has moved in-house at Time for a presumably pretty penny, Josh Marshall is running a blog-collective, and...

Is Google censoring the blogs? First do no evil right? Thinking and communicating thoughts is the essence of humanity. Example #1---here is a posting on JihadWatch today Egyptian editor who printed cartoons has left the country Egyptian Sandmonkey, who has done such important work during the entire cartoon rage episode, and was the first to reveal that the Egyptian paper Al Fagr printed the cartoons in October, now tells us that the editor responsible has left Egypt -- not surprising, since editors who printed the cartoons in Jordan and Algeria have been arrested. 1. Search Google with the phrase “...

I apologize to those readers who were looking forward to my latest hit piece. Things are kind of busy on this end...

HH: Joined now by Jonathan Chait, editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times. Jonathan Chait, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show. JC: Thanks. By the way, I write columns, not editorials. So I don't write any of those editorials, so your readers know. HH: Are you on the editorial board there? JC: No, I'm not. HH: Okay. And do you live on the West Coast now? Or are you on the East Coast? JC: I live in D.C., Washington, D.C. I just write a column that appears every week. HH: Jonathan, to get some background for people to anchor them...

While I was checking out www.pittsburghkilts.com and it's latest photo gallery I came across this pic. and this... In the byline to the pics it mentioned "Baghdad Jay" is on a second tour in Iraq, and wears his two-tone (Khaki with Desert MARPAT) kilt only when off duty. (His M-4 rifle, he points out, goes with him on or off duty). Jay keeps a fantastic blog, which is a fascinating and powerful read. If you want to know what it's like to be in Iraq, forget the news channels and read Jay's blog! I checked it out, and thought it...

COMMONWEALTH of VIRGINIA Office of the Attorney General Richmond 23219 Robert F. McDonnell 900 East Main Street Attorney General Richmond, Virginia 23219 804-786-2071 804-371-8947 TDD For Release: February 7, 2006 Contact: J. Tucker Martin Website: www.vaag.com Phone: 804-692-0552 Email: jtmartin@oag.state.va.us Attorney General to Participate in “Live Blog” Could be First “Blog Hosted Town Hall” by Virginia Statewide Office Holder Richmond- Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell will participate in a unique media event on Wednesday, February 8th. McDonnell will take to the information superhighway from 5-6p.m. to participate in a “live blog” on the popular Virginia blog, Commonwealth Conservative (www.vaconservative.com). This...

Friday, February 03, 2006 CARTOONS IN THE NAME OF GOD THE COMPASSIONATE THE MERCIFUL Hi, Those who have been following my blog should know that I am a practicing believer in the religion of Islam; so naturally I consider it offensive to show disrespect to Islamic religious symbols or any religious symbols of any kind, for that matter. However there is more to this than meets the eye. It seems to me quite suspicious that this storm is created at this particular time. To start with this is certainly not the first time that insults and affronts of this nature...

Shankar Vedantam of the Washington Post believes Republicans are racist down to their very core. White Republicans especially. Now while Vedantam may now have an "Employee of the Month" privilege with the liberal Washington elite and can go to a couple of parties via the back door, one can see the obvious flaws in his piece and his attempts to place another wall between white-and-everyone-else America.

SEATTLE (AP) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) says it is setting new policies on shutting down Web journals after its much-publicized squelching of a well-known Chinese blogger at the request of Chinese officials. The Redmond software company, operator of a popular blogging technology called MSN Spaces, said Tuesday that it will endeavor to make blogs available to users elsewhere even if Microsoft decides it is legally obliged to block them in a particular country. The company also pledged to provide users with a clear notice that it has shut down a Web site when the decision to do so stemmed from...

Newsvine.com, a new type of news site created by four former Disney/ABCNEWs.com employees, is now up and running in beta. CyberJournalist.net has been invited to join the beta and is impressed with what it's seen so far. The site is a slick combination of some of the trendiest news-related tools online now, incorporating news aggregation, social networking, citizen journalism, blogging, user ratings and online discussions. Think of it as one-part Slashdot, one-part del.icio.us and one-part Google News, with a few other neat features thrown in. The site is built around four general actions: reading, discussing, writing and seeding the news....

PSYCHO RUMOR GOING AROUND... ...that Cheney is resigning tomorrow. Remember: I said psycho.

Iranian blogs debate nuclear row Iranian bloggers are commenting extensively on the nuclear row between Iran and the West. A significant number of bloggers seem to blame President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in particular for the crisis and suggest that he has taken Iran to the brink of war. The sports lovers are worried that the Iranian team may be expelled from the World Cup because of the nuclear issue and Mr Ahmadinejad's comments on Israel and the Holocaust. Below are some blog entries: (goto story for more)

Newsvine.com, a new type of news site created by four former Disney/ABCNEWs.com employees, is now up and running in beta. CyberJournalist.net has been invited to join the beta and is impressed with what it's seen so far. The site is a slick combination of some of the trendiest news-related tools online now, incorporating news aggregation, social networking, citizen journalism, blogging, user ratings and online discussions. Think of it as one-part Slashdot, one-part del.icio.us and one-part Google News, with a few other neat features thrown in. The site is built around four general actions: reading, discussing, writing and seeding the news....

Dave Barry is one funny guy. His column, which has run in the Miami Herald for more than 20 years, has appeared in more than 500 newspapers. He's written more than 20 books, all of them big sellers. So when he came to town last Friday to promote his latest effort, "Dave Barry's Money Secrets -- Like: Why is There a Giant Eyeball on the Dollar?", and to speak at the Commonwealth Club, I made an appointment to chat with him at his downtown hotel. I figured I'd write down his clever quips, repeat them in a column and make...

Blogging from Death Row An American blogger answers questions from readers around the world on his death row blog from a Baltimore prison. But with his execution date now set for the first week of Febuary, his Internet Q&A site may be short-lived.Vernon Lee Evans has been sitting on death row in Baltimore, Maryland for more than 20 years. He doesn't have a computer or Internet access in his prison cell, but he's still managed to become one of the most-talked about people in the blogosphere. His Web site, meetvernon.blogspot.com, describes his final days on death row before his planned...

*** Free Republic member 'JustAWoman', Lores Rizkalla *** I have some very exciting news, my friends! In about two weeks (on February 5), I will be on the air at KRLA 870AM in Los Angeles. The show will air on Sunday nights (into Monday morning) midnight-2am. I am thrilled and am in the process of planning programming now. So much to talk about. My biggest problem right now is what to talk about on the FIRST show. I'm open to suggestions :) P.S. For those outside the Los Angeles area, you can listen to the show online at http://www.krla870.com/ Lores...