Free Republic

Microsoft offered Mac fans both good news and bad news on Thursday, and it all depends on which version of Office for Mac one is using. The software maker said that it plans on March 11 to deliver the first update to Office 2008 for Mac, delivering several key fixes. At the same time though, it has again pushed out the release of converters needed by users of Office 2004 to read documents saved in the new XML file formats used by Office 2007 for Windows. "The team is mobilized to get Office 2008 updates out as soon as possible,"...

No hugs for thugs What police did this week downtown was more than public relationsBy IAN ROBINSONThe great New York City journalist Jimmy Breslin was assigned to cover the funeral of President John F. Kennedy. While every other reporter was following the funeral procession and getting the identical story, Breslin was at Arlington National Cemetery ... interviewing the Irish-American gravedigger who'd dug Kennedy's grave. In that great newspaper columnist tradition of finding the angle that wouldn't occur to anybody else, my colleague Rick Bell went out with the cops on Operation Riverwalk, the much-ballyhooed response of the Calgary Police Force...

Development of the solar energy industry in Texas would have a significant economic impact for consumers, the environment and workers, according to a study released by the IC2 Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. Opportunity on the Horizon: Photovoltaics in Texas finds the benefits of nurturing the solar energy industry will stimulate the state's economy, reduce the cost of power for consumers and minimize greenhouse gas emissions. "Worldwide, the cost of converting sunlight to electricity is rapidly decreasing. The right public policies, combined with emerging and increasingly efficient technologies in solar power, would create a solid opportunity for...

Zero tolerance could nip crime careers in the bud 14 March 2006 Several titillating newspaper columns have recently been devoted to bail rules, rising prisoner numbers, jails, and the lack of criminal rehabilitation. The killer of Hinewaoriki "Lillybing" Karaitiana-Matiaha boasts she is not reformed. Special pleaders push pet theories. However, no journalist seems game to tackle the cause of the growing problems faced by the police, the justice system, and the wider community that relies on their protection. Why do gangs fight openly in suburban streets and small towns? Why do the police fail to follow up on most burglaries...

A crime-fighting theory that says stopping major crimes begins with stopping small ones has influenced policing strategies in Boston and elsewhere since the 1980s. But scholars are starting to question whether fixing broken windows really fixes much at all. ON THURSDAY, Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced a new initiative. The Boston Police Department, he said, will be cracking down on misdemeanor offenses, including loud parties, unleashed dogs, public drinking, and even littering. ''Today we are addressing what may sometimes appear to be smaller issues," the mayor said at a press conference, ''but for those of us familiar with the 'broken...

DOES ANYONE DOUBT [Jonah Goldberg ] That if 1,2,3... a dozen looters had been shot the first day New Orleans would be a better place today? (And again, I'm talking about the actual thieves not the people trying to survive). One thing that confuses the objections to the "shoot on sight" policy is that it sounds like looters will be getting shot day after day after day. You don't have to shoot on sight very long before would-be looters realize "hey, I might get shot on sight." We've now heard of multiple outrages as a result of people being stranded...

Expect to see a lot more buildings with patches of mismatched paint on the walls around Yakima. The City Council amended Yakima's building ordinance Tuesday to include a $400 fine for property owners who are uncooperative in helping clean up graffiti. Currently, the city gives property owners 15 days to remove or paint over graffiti or be charged for the cleanup. Starting in mid-March, anyone who ignores notices to clean up graffiti and doesn't allow the city's free paint-out program crew to cover the tagging will be charged $400. To escape paying the fine, property owners can paint over the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — When soldiers of Company B, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment take to the streets in southern Baghdad, they’ve got a unique weapon in their arsenal. In addition to machine guns and rifles, they’re armed with cans of spray paint. That’s because the battles that the soldiers of the 3rd Platoon fight aren’t limited to bullets and tank rounds. They’re also fighting a psychological war against anti-U.S. or anti-interim government graffiti. The graffiti come from a variety of sources, Staff Sgt. Bryce Rigby said. “Most of it is kids,” he said. “You can tell it’s kids because they...

In 2001, New York Times... liberal columnist Anthony Lewis was asked: "Have you changed your views on socialism?" Lewis' answer: "I'm still for it. But it doesn't work." ...Never underestimate "the power of bad ideas." No matter how successful some of the policies... since the early '90s have been, they'll always have critics on the left who treat accountability, self-reliance and high standards as the enemies of the downtrodden.... Welfare reform: One of the biggest successes of the Giuliani administration was its program of welfare reform, launched long before the federal Welfare Reform Act of 1996. When Giuliani came into...

“The news for New York City is spectacular," New York’s Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told a City Hall press conference on May 24. He and New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly [Email him] were claiming credit for new FBI crime stats showing major crimes—murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, car theft, larceny and arson—dropping 5.8% in the city in 2003. New York’s crime rate now ranks it 211th of the 230 U.S. cities with 100,000-plus population—behind Omaha, Nebraska and Wichita, Kansas. Unfortunately, there must have been at least one skeptic at the press conference. Hizzoner reportedly “bristled” at suggestions that...

We are Family When I was a teenager, it never would have occurred to me to blame the police, if I committed a crime or otherwise got in trouble, much less sue them. That´s probably because my mother never taught me to blame the police, and beat the hell out of me when I got in trouble; because I personally knew hero cops; and because no community of solidarity awaited me, if I sought to blame my troubles on the police. A substantial proportion of the adults in most urban black neighborhoods today – in some areas, the vast...

Toogood Reports [Wednesday, April 16, 2003; 12:01 a.m. EST]URL: http://ToogoodReports.com/ Weeks before Saddam Hussein was toppled — in person and symbolically, in the form of statues — the New York Times started its campaign for the postwar defeat of the American military. Columnists Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman, and the Times' editorial writers, insisted that virtually immediately after victory, America would have to turn over control to the democratic will of the Iraqi people, and get out of the country. Our rivals and enemies (take your pick) in France, Germany, and Russia, have informed us that the U.S. enjoys neither...