Free Republic

“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong” (Voltaire). Some twenty-five years ago, a discussion arose in the seminary about when a priest should or should not be dressed as such. All manner of examples were thrown out for consideration: restaurants, movie theaters, baseball games (with and without altar boys), etc. One of our professors, Msgr. William B. Smith, STD, whose obituary your M. Div. wrote last year and will post here eventually, had the most lucid comment: “Whenever a priest is in a situation where being known as a priest would...

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...

TUESDAY, MAY 04, 2010 "U.S. Treasury Site Compromise Linked to the NetworkSolutions Mass WordPress Blogs Compromise" SNIPPET: "UPDATED: Saturday, May 08, 2010: 5 new domains have been introduced by the same gang, once again parked at 217.23.14.14, AS49981, WorldStream."

A bunch of leftists (who hate Sarah Palin) are trying to hijack the Bloggers Choice Awards. But a good FReeping can change that. To vote, you have to register, which is no big deal. To vote for FR as Best Political Blog (even though it iosn’t a “blog”) click on “Best Political Blog.” FR was on page 5 last I checked. To vote for FR as Best Blog of All Time, click on “Best Blog of All Time.” FR was on Page 36 . To vote for Daily Kos as Worst Blog of All Time, click on “Worst Blog of...

Bloggers Choice is a site that gives out awards for "best" sites in various catagories. Voting is going on right now and the leading sites in the best political blog category are sites that exist solely to smear, post lies about and to denigrate Sarah Palin. http://bloggerschoiceawards.com/categories/19 Also, there is also a worst blog site category and wouldn't you guess, that Conservatives4Palin is leading. http://bloggerschoiceawards.com/categories/2 I believe in order to vote that you have to register. We can turn this around by giving this a good freeping.

Vuz Vuz 2 is a discussion board of, by and for the English-speaking residents of Kiryat Arba, Israel. It is a place where the curious may find out more about Kiryat Arba, Judah and Shomron, and Israel generally, and those already living or just visiting our town may share their personal observations, advertise job opportunities/seeking employment, property for sale/rent/looking to buy/rent (both personal and real), news, political shmoozes, humor, and generally get together and talk. When the shortcomings of Google web sites made it unrealistic to continue using in the original Vuz Vuz site, I decided to start from scratch...

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

SNIPPET: "A buddy just sent me this link to RevolutionMuslim.com’s Abu Talha al-Amriki attempting to refute a report by West Point’s CTC in his recent essay, ”A Refutation Of The Claims Of West Point Saying That Al-Qa’ida Kills Mostly Muslims.” For background, RM is a pro-jihadist group of online guys – jihobbyists if you will – that used to be ‘e-mired’ (get it?) by Yousef al-Khattab. If you read my blog, you’ll know al-Khattab recently handed the reigns to Abdallah as-Sayf Jones. There are a number of other contributors to the site, including this “Abu Talha al-Amriki” (I guess his...

This sentence contains a provocative statement that attracts the readers’ attention, but really only has very little to do with the topic of the blog post. This sentence claims to follow logically from the first sentence, though the connection is actually rather tenuous. This sentence claims that very few people are willing to admit the obvious inference of the last two sentences, with an implication that the reader is not one of those very few people. This sentence expresses the unwillingness of the writer to be silenced despite going against the popular wisdom. This sentence is a sort of drum...

As for what Obama reads online, his advisers said he looks for offbeat blogs and news stories, tracking down firsthand reporting and seeking out writers with opinions about his policies. Obama was particularly interested in Atlantic Online's Andrew Sullivan's tweeting of the Iranian elections last year, said an aide, who requested anonymity to discuss what influences the president. When they spoke for attribution, administration officials played down the notion of a Googling commander in chief. "I don't think time permits him to be surfing all the time," Axelrod said, adding that the president reads "magazines like crazy," including the New...

Right-Wing Flame War! By JONATHAN DEE Published: January 21, 2010 Charles Johnson has been writing a blog for almost as long as the word “blog” has existed. A bearish, gentle-voiced, ponytailed man who for three decades enjoyed a successful career as a jazz guitarist accompanying the likes of Al Jarreau and Stanley Clarke, Johnson has always had a geek’s penchant for self-education, and in that spirit he cultivated a side interest, and ultimately an expertise, in writing computer code. His Web log, which he named “Little Green Footballs” (a private joke whose derivation he has always refused to divulge), was...

Conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, it really doesn’t matter; pretty much the topic of conversation today is the special election being held in Massachusett(e)s to fill the seat left by the passing of Ted Kennedy. It’s a real barn-burner, it is, what with a stolid, leaden Democrat candidate woefully trailing a vibrant and optimistic Republican front-runner (I know, it’s almost unbelieveable). Television, newspapers, blogs are all covering the race with either despair or indifference (Democrat party hacks and the MSM) or breathless admiration and excitement (pretty much everyone else). Except one blog. This particular race doesn’t seem to have hit the...

SNIPPET: "I had an interesting demonstration this evening from a hacker who goes by the handle “The Jester” or in so-called l33t speak, th3j35t3r which is his Twitter ID. Since January 1, The Jester has been systematically wreaking havoc with several websites he associates with Al Quiada and Jihadists via a Denial of Service attack delivered over the web through an anonimizer service. The Jester has been documenting his attacks against www.alemarah.info, www.radicalislam.org, islamicpoint.net, www.almaghrib.org, www.as-ansar.com, www.islamicnetwork.com, www.islamicawakening.com, www.ansarnet.info, since the beginning of 2010." SNIPPET: "So my message to The Jester (I know you are reading this since I sent...

A new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism says that when it comes to reporting new news, old media wins hands down over new media. From Journalism.org Where does the news come from in today’s changing media? Who really reports the news that most people get about their communities? What role do new media, blogs and specialty news sites now play? How, in other words, does the modern news “ecosystem” of a large American city work? And if newspapers were to die—to the extent that we can infer from the current landscape—what would that imply...

Some of you have asked us to further explain the difference between Concern Trolls and Eeyores. Well, here goes. Concern Troll = someone who posts on a board, forum, or article and says things like: * “You know, I really like Scott Brown, but it’s Massachusetts, and even though he’s had a surge, it’s Massachusetts, so we should stop phone-banking or working hard and just give up. It’s Massachusetts”. * “Oh, I’ve been so proud of how hard Hillary Clinton has been fighting, but there’s no way she’s going to win Ohio. This is the best board ever, and we...

SNIPPET: "Hakeemullah Mehsud (left), the Leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. and Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al Balawi (right), the suicide bomber who carried out the attack at Combat Outpost Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan. The al Qaeda operative who killed seven US CIA operatives and guards, and a Jordanian intelligence official, was on a martyr's videotape with the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al Balawi, a Jordanian Islamist who was thought to have been turned against al Qaeda, appeared on a videotape with Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of...

With the explosion of opinionated blogs on the web, and any of a number of sites that will give anyone a chance to blog for free, I was wondering how many Freepers have a blog. If you have one, would you mind sharing your URL address and a little blurb about the theme of your blog. Many here know that I have two blogs, one for my political beliefs and one for my religious beliefs. For me I use the political one as a repository for the articles I write for my local news paper, the Enterprise Record. My religious...

As Sarah Palin’s popularity grows so do the number of blogs about Palin, or perhaps Palin’s popularity grows due to the number of blogs available. These blogs now play a vital role in delivering news and information about Sarah Palin and conservative thought that has been abdicated by the mainstream media in the United States.

As some Houston leaders called on Sunday for measures to help guard against future terrorist attacks, others questioned why the Nigerian man charged with trying to destroy a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit spent time last year in Houston. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is believed to have traveled to Houston in 2008, but no details of the trip were available Sunday. U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston declined to discuss any connection Abdulmutallab might have to the city, saying details of the investigation remain classified. U.S. government officials did confirm that they are looking into his travel itinerary, but the FBI...

Stack cakes, go-devils, and Abner, the wild monkey of the Smokies.