Free Republic

Why does my cheapo Dell Inspiron netbook have continuous hard disk activity when idle ? Not only during actual usage, but ALL the time - like now ? I've been an MS OS user since DOS 3.3. But with MS's current massive invasion of privacy (Windows 10) and seeing constant, non-stop disk activity when there's no reason for it, I don't trust Windows 7 either. What gives ?

I wanted to buy my wife a new wifi enabled blue ray player. As I have for many hundreds of successful purchases before, I went to ebay. Under the search for "blue ray player wifi" further restricting selections were available to narrow the search: brand, features, price, etc. One was NEW or USED. I clicked NEW. 541 listings came up. Among those were many whose listing titles described them as "new other". WTF ? Turns out these items are REFURBISHED or REMANUFACTURED or just plain USED in the original box. They are NOT NEW. Have we become so corrupted (largely...

Fellow Texans, this is the first time I can recall we've been ahead of the pack in supporting Free Republic ! You know you love FR or you wouldn't be here. If you love liberty, our American way of life and our state, let's set an example by keeping Texas ahead. Yee ha !

Connoisseurs of democratic decadence can savor a variety of contemporary dystopias. Because familiarity breeds banality, Greece has become a boring horror. Japan, however, in its second generation of stagnation, is fascinating. Once, Japan bestrode the world, jauntily buying Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach. Now Japanese buy more adult diapers than those for infants. America has its lowest birth rate since at least 1920 — family formation and workforce participation (which last year hit a 30-year low) have declined in tandem. But it has an energy surplus, the government-produced overhang of housing inventory is shrinking and the average age of Americans'...

A new government report finds that the country is heading toward fiscal ruin, and the only way to avoid that is to make deep cuts in entitlement programs; tax hikes can't fix the problem. In other words, what's needed is the opposite of what the Obama administration and congressional Democrats propose as part of the fiscal cliff talks. The Government Accountability Office report found that, even using optimistic assumptions about spending, the government is "on an unsustainable long-term fiscal path" that will lead to debt exceeding the economy within a few decades. The report puts the blame squarely on entitlement...

There is a proud and long history of American hispanics in the United States. The highest honor an American can win is the Congresional Medal of Honor. General officers stand at attention when a CMH recipient enters the room. A CMH winner deserves our highest honor because they were unusually brave (saw the danger and disregarded it) or showed exceptional valor (in spite of the odds, kicked ass) in the performance of their duties or both. There have been 43 men who have won the Congressional Medal of Honor who were "hispanic". Of those, 3 men were named "Jose". That...

The residents of North Queensland are assessing the damage after cyclone Yasi, the largest tropical storm to strike Australia since Europeans first settled there, created winds of 186mph and waves more than 9m high. As meteorologists predicted, it was midnight when the destructive core of the category five cyclone crossed the coast at Mission Beach, a small resort where two World Heritage sites meet, 30 miles south of the town of Innisfail. Thousands of the 400,000 people living in the path of the 300-mile wide cyclone spent a sleepless night in hot and crowded emergency evacuation centres set up in...

A U.S. Marine recon squad was marching north of Fallujah when they came upon an Iraqi terrorist, badly injured and unconscious. On the opposite side of the road was an US Navy Seabee in a similar but less serious state. The Seabee was conscious and alert and as first aid was given to both men, the squad leader asked the injured petty officer what had happened. The Seabee reported, "I was heavily armed and moving north along the highway here, and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent. We saw each other and both took cover in the ditches along...

Children in poverty I can still recall conversations between my mother and father that took place when I was just a child. We lived in a small, close-knit town, and there was always a lot of gossip, especially when one of the local women announced that she was expecting a baby. A neighbor's impending blessed event would almost always get my parents talking about whether or not the expectant parents could afford another child. Times were tough, and everyone understood that an additional-child put demands on household income. The prevailing attitude was that parents who had a decent sense of...

Smoking ban eyed for Houston Councilwoman researches a plan to target eateries and workplaces By JUSTIN GESTCopyright 2004 Houston Chronicle SMOKING RESTRICTIONS The city of Houston has not banned smoking in most workplaces and businesses, but city ordinances do set restrictions. • Ventilation : Enclosed, public areas that permit smoking in designated areas must be equipped with ventilation systems for those areas that provide a complete air exchange every 15 minutes, and exhaust the air to the outside of the building. • Accommodation of non-smokers: Employers must maintain written smoking policies that accommodate the preference of any nonsmoker to work...

Open Borders ? As a Libertarian, I understand the open borders concept. However, as a practical manner it is killing us in the political arena. We have a long way to go towards reducing "free" social services and other incentives for immigration before we can allow open borders. Too many of us are caught in the trap of maintaining philosophical purity and are thus unable to appreciate the practical realities of environmental damage, property damage, and overwhelemed social services that the southwestern border states currently suffer. Opening the borders to all is the last step in creating a libertarian state,...

County sued over court Bible display Alabama case sparks local call for removal By ALLAN TURNERCopyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Citing concern over what she perceives as growing religious fundamentalism, a Houston woman filed suit Monday in federal court against Harris County, demanding it remove a King James Bible from a monument near the Fannin Street entrance of the civil courthouse. The Bible, tattered and waterstained, has occupied the lighted display case since 1995, when an employee of then-state District Judge John Devine's court undertook an effort to refurbish the neglected monument. The 4-foot-tall pedestal was erected in 1956 to honor...

April 15, 2003 AOL Files Spam SuitsBy Brian Morrissey America Online has expanded its legal assault on unsolicited commercial bulk e-mail flooding its 27 million members' in-boxes, filing a handful of lawsuits against spammers the company says are responsible for 8 million customer complaints. The five suits are against 12 companies and individuals and seek a total of $10 million in damages. They are the latest move in the AOL Time Warner (Quote, Company Info) unit's aggressive fight against spam, which ranks as the ISP's No. 1 customer complaint. AOL has also provided buffed-up tools to allow customers to identify...

Col. Hackworth on CNN is putting forth some very defeatist concepts of the war for Iraqi freedom. He said that this current conflict was a parallel with the war in Viet Nam. There were other defeatist comments, but this is the most important.

March 10, 2003, 12:29PM New DNA test casts doubt on man's 1999 rape conviction By ROMA KHANNA and STEVE McVICKERCopyright 2003 Houston Chronicle New DNA tests have proven that Josiah Sutton could not have committed the rape for which he has served four and a half years in prison after evidence originally processed at the Houston Police crime lab incorrectly linked him to the crime. "The results found essentially that he was not an assailant," said Sutton's attorney, Bob Wicoff, today confirming the results of DNA retesting conducted last week. "They found the DNA of two assailants, neither of...

Jan. 17, 2002, 12:27PM THE FALL OF ENRON Andersen was warned of Enron woes Employee alerted auditor in August to improprieties By JULIE MASON Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- Arthur Andersen auditors were warned as early as August by an Enron Corp. employee about potential improprieties in the energy giant's accounting methods, congressional investigators said Wednesday. Sherron Watkins, vice president for corporate development at Enron, called Andersen with her concerns five days after sending a a memo to Enron chairman Kenneth Lay that she suspected the company was hiding its losses in a series of questionable ...

Forced out into in the open Al-Qaida an easier target By MICHAEL HEDGES Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle WASHINGTON -- Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida fighters are being forced out of hiding by the pressure of America's bombing campaign and then attacked in the open, officials said Thursday. And some of the Taliban troops allied with bin Laden are responding to broadcast warnings to surrender or die, top Pentagon officials said. "We have seen movement of what we believe to be the al-Qaida forces, and they have been specifically targeted while they were moving," said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Asked about a ...

McALLEN -- A border retailer who initially decided not to sell pinatas made to look like terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden has changed his mind. Rene Karam, owner of JJ's Party House in McAllen, said he's going to sell the papier-mache bin Ladens but at least 10 percent of the proceeds will go to New York firefighters, who were some of the thousands killed when two hijacked airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center Sept. 11. To avoid offending anyone locally, the pinatas won't be sold in the store, but Karam said he will sell them over the Web and ...

-- The party's over. Mayor Giuliani is proposing a new citywide booze ban that would outlaw liquor at all outdoor events - from the popular Feast of San Gennaro to tiny block parties. Giuliani has quietly broadened his stance from last summer, when he reduced the number of vendors who could sell liquor at some events. "We were going on a case-by-case basis, but we quickly realized that was too arbitrary," Deputy Mayor Rudy Washington said. "We decided to make it [the ban] permanent." The proposed ban would dry up liquor at all events that require a street closing, including ...

For immediate release May 25, 2000 Contact: Judy Thornton Communications Officer On May 23, 2000, the Willis Independent School District received notice of a federal lawsuit alleging that a teacher at the district confiscated Bibles from students and threw them away. The suit also alleges that students were asked to remove book covers that recited the Ten Commandments. The district has investigated these allegations and determined that they are unfounded. Students at Willis Independent School District have not been told they cannot bring Bibles to school, and Bibles have not been confiscated or thrown into the trash. Furthermore, students have ...