Free Republic

THIS GUY IS HAVING THE TIME OF HIS LIFE. Looks like at a Best Buy.

A popular website that hosted more than 70,000 bloggers was shut down suddenly last week after the FBI informed its chief technology officer that the site contained hit lists, bomb-making documents and links to Al Qaeda materials, it was reported on Monday. When the WordPress platform Blogetery.com went dead, the initial explanation from the site's host, Burst.net, was that “a law-enforcement agency” had ordered it to shut down, citing a “history of abuse.” The explanation caused a wave of conspiracy theories in the blogosphere. But according to a report on CNET Monday, Burst.net shut down Blogetery.com when it became spooked...

After the U.S. Government took action against several sites connected to movie streaming recently, nerves are jangling over the possibility that this is just the beginning of a wider crackdown. Now it appears that a free blogging platform has been taken down by its hosting provider on orders from the U.S. authorities on grounds of “a history of abuse”. More than 73,000 blogs are out of action as a result. Hot on the heels of recent threats from Vice President Joe Biden and Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel directed at sites offering unauthorized movies and music, last month U.S....

Over the last few days, a wholly preventable scandal has metastasized for the GOP in Illinois that could very well cost Republicans the Governor’s mansion and “president” Obama’s former Senate seat: both were winnable races, if Republicans had learned from mistakes of the past and gotten in front of a potential problem before it was allowed to yet again reveal the GOP in Illinois to be a myopic boys’ club that protects its own while covering-up anything that could potentially upset their cucumber-and-mayonnaise soggy sandwich cocktail parties. “Romney Republicans” have gotten conservatives into an untenable position yet again.

SNIPPET: "The federal prosecutor's office said in a statement that the accused, identified only as Hussam S., had been detained Sunday in the western German town of Montabaur."The accused is strongly suspected of working to recruit members or supporters for Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb and the Islamic Jihad Union," the statement said." SNIPPET: "Hussam M. is believed to have used Internet forums and blogs belonging to the German section of the "Global Islamic Media Front" and the "Al-Ansar Media Battalion" since 2007 to attract militants to the various Al-Qaeda groups. And since February 2009, he allegedly...

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro made his first known public appearance since falling ill four years ago in a visit this week to a Havana scientific facility, a blog reported on Saturday. Photographs taken with a cell phone and posted with the pro-government blog showed a smiling Castro, 83, chatting with people said to have gathered around him as he was leaving the National Center of Scientific Investigations. ... The blogger, Rosa C. Baez, wrote that Castro was spotted making a "surprise visit" to the center on Wednesday and stopped to greet and "throw kisses" to the...

NOTE The following text is a quote: News Release July 8 2010 OPP lay charges for hate crimes TORONTO, July 8 /CNW/ - Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) have charged a Mississauga man under a seldom-used section of the Criminal Code of Canada governing hate crimes. At a news conference in Toronto, Commissioner Julian FANTINO and members of the Provincial Operations Intelligence Bureau's Hate Crimes Extremism Unit outlined details of the charges against 25-year-old Salman An-Noor HOSSAIN. A five-month investigation revealed that a website and blog operated by Mr. HOSSAIN contained information that, among other things, wilfully promoted hatred and advocated...

China has issued regulations banning its 2.3 million soldiers from creating web sites or writing web blogs, adding to the nation's existing Internet curbs, state press said Saturday. "Soldiers cannot open blogs on the Internet no matter (whether) he or she does it in the capacity of a soldier or not," Xinhua news agency quoted Wan Long, a political commissar of the People's Liberation Army, as saying. "The Internet is complicated and we should guard against online traps," it said, citing concerns about military "confidentiality". The new rules are laid out in revised PLA Internal Administration Regulations and went into...

Conservative blogger Pamela Geller says she has been threatened with discontinuation of her online payment account by PayPal, the most widely used service of its kind. On her popular Web site, Atlas Shrugs, Geller posted the text of an e-mail notice she received Saturday morning from PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy Department. "[A]fter a recent review of your account, it has been determined that you are currently in violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy," the PayPal e-mail said. "Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance...

After profiling the different types of blog commenters recently, I had some requests for advice on how to be the good kinds of commenters, rather than the bad.  Here are some dos and don’ts that might help: 1) Be charitable. If you are not making a comment out of love, you have no reason to make it. 2) Do not comment when you’re angry. You’ll probably regret it and won’t be able to undo it.  Anything good to say will still be good in a few hours when the anger has worn off a bit. 3) If you quote part...

Over the past two weeks what President Barack Obama dubbed "the Sestak issue" has focused national attention on the shady (and possibly illegal) backroom dealing by the current administration. But what has garnered little attention until now is the effect the issue has had on Representative Joe Sestak (D-Pennsylvania) himself.

House Republicans launched their "America Speaking Out" project yesterday, an election-year gimmick intended to help give the GOP a policy platform to run on. One of the key problems, as we talked about yesterday, is that the party is asking taxpayers to foot the bill for this.

1:53 PM 5/25/2010 — There will come a day when the mad people will look at the normal people and say, "Look at these mad people because they are not like us" (St. Anthony the Great). We (I mean, me) regret to announce that the Priestly Pugilist© has been closed. There is no cabalistic reason for the site's termination at this time; and any you may come up with on your own will be the products of your own paranoia. Suffice it to say, the reasons are personal, which means they're none of your business. For the benefit of some...

Note: The following text is a quote: Former FBI Contract Linguist Sentenced for Leaking Classified Information to Blogger WASHINGTON—U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams sentenced former FBI contract linguist, Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, aka Samuel Shamai Leibowitz, age 40, of Silver Spring, Md., today to 20 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for unlawfully providing classified documents to the host of an Internet blog who then published information from those documents on the blog. The sentence was announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Rod J. Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland; and...

The same sloppy legislative writing that created so many unintended consequences in ObamaCare also plagues the DISCLOSE Act, the effort in Congress to tighten spending rules in the wake of the Citizens United decision — and that’s the generous take on the situation. Reason’s Bradley Smith and Jeff Patch warn that the perhaps-unintended consequences of legislative language will allow the FEC to regulate political speech online. The fact that media entities like the New York Times have specific exemptions built into the bill makes the intent, or lack thereof, rather murky: Last week, a congressional hearing exposed an effort to...

"Gun registration is largely unknown in the United States, but for several years Canada has been squandering public resources on a budget busting privacy invasion scheme called the “long gun registry.” OpenCarry.org is pleased to join not only rank and file Canadian police officers, but also an apparent majority of Parliament members, in opposing continued expenditures on “feel good” public safety measures that are in reality “public safety theater.” But unfortunately there are disturbing reports that the Liberal Party’s Michael Ignatieff will “whip” any member of his party who votes again to shut down the long gun registry. Ignatieff’s bullying...

Abu Talhah al-Amrikee, avowed South Park critic, American hardline jihadi-Salafi, who admins The Mujahid Blog, contributes to RevolutionMuslim.com and a reader/interlocutor of this blog recently published a piece to his website entitled, “Fomenting Disunity in the Counterterrorism Movement.” I can appreciate the overall thrust of Abu Talhah’s approach (seeking to divide and conquer) as it’s one that I’ve embraced in my own writings and thinking about how degrade al-Qaida movements. The approach was actually the conceptual backbone of the “Stealing AQ’s Playbook,” article that I co-authored in 2006, which has been cited now several times by Ayman al-Zawahiri specifically because...

SNIPPET: "He now likes to be called Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, and his primary interest in this world appears to be Islamic radicalism. Last week, Chesser, 20, posted a warning on the website RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of "South Park," which included a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad disguised in a bear suit." SNIPPET: "In a separate post on RevolutionMuslim.blogspot.com, which now serves as the group's main website since RevolutionMuslim.com has been shuttered, Chesser quoted Usama bin Laden when referencing why reactions are required when anyone insults or belittles the Prophet Muhammad. "As Usama bin Laden said with regard to...

One of the better stories we've seen about the world watching the U.S. election. There are complicated -- and conflicting -- feelings out there: JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- When Sri Murtiningsi asked her third graders what they wanted to be when they grew up, the answers ranged from doctors to a pilot. One boy in the class raised his hand: Barack Obama said his dream was to be president of the United States. Forty years later Murtiningsi -- like the rest of the world -- is watching closely as Americans prepare to head to the polls Tuesday. "Barry was the...

SNIPPET - quote: HE HAD A BLOG... ...he said a lot. Then he went to Somalia to join the jihad, and now he's dead.