Free Republic

Excerpt - SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 5 — For the last 14 months, high-tech insiders have been eating up the work of an anonymous blogger who assumed the persona of Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive and one of the world’s most famous businessmen. The mysterious writer has used his blog, the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, to lampoon Mr. Jobs and his reputation as a difficult and egotistical leader, as well as to skewer other high-tech companies, tech journalists, venture capitalists, open-source software fanatics and Silicon Valley’s overall aura of excess. The acerbic postings of “Fake Steve,” as he is...

Here’s an endorsement that few Republicans ever get: Trial lawyers strongly supported Fred Thompson when he was in the Senate. "We viewed him as someone we could work with, particularly given he had been an advocate in court for individuals and corporations, and had an innate understanding of what went on in a civil jury," Linda Lipsen, the chief lobbyist for the American trial lawyers lobby group, told the Washington Post. That’s the same group that most Republicans love to hate. Thompson’s background as an attorney made him more understanding of the concerns of trial lawyers and less willing to...

Left-leaning The New Republic (TNR) gained new notoriety in recent weeks by publishing of a trio of columns by the “Baghdad Diarist,” an American soldier who was serving in Baghdad and who wrote under the admitted pseudonym “Scott Thomas.” The stories written by Thomas were shocking and distasteful, telling of actions by soldiers in his unit, such as the exhumation of children’s skeletons (and the wearing of one of their skulls “like a crown”), the purposeful running over of dogs with armored vehicles, and the ridiculing of a female contractor for her disfigured appearance, which was purportedly caused by an...

School textbooks used by Israeli Arabs will henceforth embrace the new historians’ version of history: the 1948 Israeli War of Independence is now officially “al-Naqba” (the Catastrophe), in books vetted by Israel’s Education Ministry. Education Minister Yuli Tamir defended her decision by saying that “the Arab public deserves to be allowed to express their feelings.” The Minister is entitled to believe, of course, that textbooks are the natural conduit for the expression of collective feelings—rather than the preferred instrument of instruction in history. But the real question is not whether Israeli Arabs—or a guilt-ridden minister—should be allowed to “express their...

The US Department of Elections has released the Selected Presidential Reports for the 2007 July Quarterly, and there are a few surprises. No surprise, of course, is that people in the armed services and veterans overwhelmingly support the Republican Party. However, after digging through individual candidates’ contributions by employers, we find an elating (or disturbing, if you’re rooting for Rudy McRomney) trend. The breakdown? Here you go. Direct FEC data

Tuesday, July 03, 2007 Fat People are Killing the Polar Bears Two recent gems from New Scientist magazine... First up, Climate Change Sceptics Criticise Polar Bear Science, a story about some bad scientists, funded by bad money, who have apparently published some bad science in what is presumably a bad science journal, for bad reasons. As the poster child for the climate change generation polar bears have come to symbolise the need to tackle climate change. But their popularity has attracted the attention of global warming sceptics funded by the oil industry, who have started to attack polar bear science....

[Before I begin this posting, I want to stress and make absolutely clear that at no time have I ever accepted any money from Mitt Romney or Romney for President, Inc. for my endorsement, nor is it solicited by them. These are my views as a registered voter of the Great State of New Hampshire in the First in the Nation Primary.] Until yesterday I was an undecided Republilcan voter in the New Hampshire Primary. Yesterday was when I had the opportunity to see Governor Romney in an intimate setting at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. The occasion: an...

Who were the winners and losers tonight? The list of losers does not exist. The top tier candidates all did well. There were no testy moments between Romney, McCain and Giuliani. But the way I see it, they should have company in the top tier after tonight...and I'm not talking about Fred Thompson. It’s appropriate that Tuesday night’s Republican debate took place in the Granite state because tonight Mike Huckabee was solid as a rock. This is now the third debate where he has done well but tonight he cranked I up to another level. There was a passion in...

Paul Burka’s blog has a nice update on the legislative efforts to de-rail Gov. Perry’s Trans Texas Corridor project. It hasn’t been stopped yet (reference to bills are bills to halt the TTC): So here’s where we are. HB 1892, the original bill, has been vetoed. SB 792, Carona’s bill, is in conference committee. The governor’s office, through former senator Ken Armbrister, is trying to round up enough votes in the Senate (11) to block an override of the veto. If he is successful, then the governor holds all the cards. He can veto 792 as well, with the calendar...

If you think about it, all of our laws – and indeed, the very idea of respect for and equality under the law – are written to protect Tit-for-Tat, because Tit-for-Tat produces the best results. You may sell your product at a profit, but if you lie about what it does we will call that fraud and you will go to jail because successful societies start nice but retaliate against those that decide to Screw the Other Guy. The punishment of fraud is what gives us confidence in the claims made by other products. Retaliating against Screw the Other Guy...

Today's installment of CQ Radio (2 pm CT) welcomes Michael Zak, author and blogger. He has a message for the Republican Party and that message is Back to Basics. He blogs at the Grand Old Partisan and joins us in the first half to discuss how the Republicans need to proceed in order to regain power.

Don Imus – The Language of Race by Rick Vassar (13 April 2007) “From the outset, I believe all of us have been deeply upset and revulsed by the statements that were made on our air…” - CBS President And CEO Leslie Moonves The level of Les Moonves’ revulsion grew as Imus advertisers began to pull out in droves. American Express, Sprint/Nextel, Proctor & Gamble, GM, and Staples all announced that they were disassociating themselves from Imus and the fray, and Moonves’ outrage grew as the bottom line began to shrink. MSNBC – well that’s a no brainer. Nobody is...

The doctrine of comparative advantage is perhaps the only settled doctrine in the discipline of Economics. It makes sense - if a country can produce something with less inputs relative to another country (note that comaparative advantage is relative, you can be better at producing everything, and it still works), if it specializes in producing that good or service, and other countries specialize in producing their goods or services, then they trade them back and forth, everyone's better off. But economists seem incapable of reading Ricardo's actual essay. Ricardo notes that because capital was relatively immobile in his time, relative...

A California blogger has been released after serving more than seven months in prison for refusing to hand over a video to a federal grand jury. Josh Wolf, 24, struck a deal with prosecutors allowing him to publish out-takes of the video of a 2005 San Francisco street demonstration on his Web site, the Los Angeles Times reported

Amyone really watching the development of politics in America today must see that Fred Thompson is really President-Elect Fred Thompson. I say that as someone who thinks Rudy Giuliani would make a great wartime president and who would also do many of the good things for America that he was able to do for New York. The reality, however, is that even the shadow candidacy of Thompson is casting a huge shadow indeed. The online Sean Hannity poll showed Thompson getting, as an unannounced candidate, more votes that all other Republican candidates combined. Fred Thompson, as an unannounced candidate, is...

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How can you not love those secular progressives. They've taken a human condition that has bedeviled mankind for centuries and solved it in one fell swoop. Various cultures deal with sin and guilt in vastly different ways. Certain Arab cultures flagellate themselves till they draw blood and thus achieve cleansing. Catholics are given proscribed penance and absolution. Christians, thank God, have Jesus who died for their sins. Secular progressives, having chosen man over God, are thus left in a peculiar situation. The closest the left comes to religious observation is obeisance to 'Mother Earth,' so they have had to figure...

If you've gotten the impression there is more foul language on the left blogosphere than on the right blogosphere, it turns out you're right, at least if this blogger's Google search is correct. By his count, George Carlin's seven words you can't say on television are used 18 times more often in the most popular left blogs than in the more popular right blogs.

EXPLORING THE NEW MEDIA'S EVOLUTIONARY PATH -THE BIRTH OF THE FLU BLOG - Every beginning is a consequence - every beginning ends some thing (Paul Valery) In February of 2003 newspapers, cable news and radio were the interface between the American public and breaking news. It had long been such. No one set out to destroy the relevancy of these institutions. Like so much change it just happened. Passion and thirst mixed with a witches' blend of electronic gadgetry created a new paradigm. A paradigm where power was snatched from the media elite and taken by the citizenry - and...

Folks, with all the hoopla surrounding the issue of global warming and the overwhelming, undeniable scientific proof that will soon be coming, dissident voices are being raised. One comes from an unexpected quarter. Australian Cardinal George Pell is one of them. In a recent column, he wrote:We have been subjected to a lot of nonsense about climate disasters as some zealots have been painting extreme scenarios to frighten us. They claim ocean levels are about to rise spectacularly, that there could be the occasional tsunami as high as an eight story building, the Amazon basin could be destroyed as the...