Free Republic

    Buyers Scour eBay For Data-Rich Hard DrivesThey're looking for drives that haven't been wiped clean and contain valuable data.By Gregg KeizerTechWeb News Jan 30, 2006 02:40 PM Buyers on eBay troll the online auction site for used drives in the hope that the platters haven't been wiped clean and contain valuable data, including credit card numbers, a researcher said Monday. Simson Garfinkel, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard's Center for Research on Computation and Society, has been buying used hard drives on eBay since 2001, then analyzing the data he finds on some of the devices. Of the...

$10,000 hot dog on sale on ebay. Seattle Seahawks SUPER DOG! NFC Championship hot dog!    

I just finished watching "The Book of David" and I found it tedious and vapid. However, I did not find it sacreligous. The conversations the main charactor has with Jesus is perhaps the most believeable of all the plot twists. With the exception of Jesus, everybody in the whole series are either drug dealers, druggies, racists, homosexuals, crooks, having an affair or screwed up. Most seem to be a combination of all the above. I probably will not watch it again, however, you never know.

Hollywood Madam to open Nevada 'stud farm' Thu Nov 17, 2005 10:11 PM ET   By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss, whose previous career running a call-girl ring landed her in prison, is returning to the world's oldest profession -- to open a Nevada brothel catering to women. Fleiss said on Thursday she has struck a deal with a licensed brothel owner in Nevada, where prostitution is legal, to turn one of his three establishments, the Cherry Patch, into a glitzy new bordello that she will rename "Heidi Fleiss' Stud Farm." She plans to...

The powerball lottery next Wednesday will be for $340 million. Thats more than 1/4 of a billion (with a B). The cash option is 164.4 million, which means that the winner, AFTER TAXES, clears approximately $100 million. Now my question is: what would you do with $100 million?

KATRINA THOUGHTS Involved in a political discussion tonight, one of the other folks did a quick estimate of how much hurricane Katrina is going to cost each tax payer. Using 100 million tax payers, and 60 billion dollars, it comes to $600 each tax payer. Admittedly, his figures are not accurate, just a quick guess, but a couple of things jumped out to me.First, it is amazing at how marvelous this country is. That we as a country can absorb this kind of devastation and it not bite deeply into our gross national product tells of the economic strength of this...

Has the tone of FNC reporting changed?   A couple of days ago, Shep Smith and all the other Fox reporters  in N.O., when they  were talking about conditons there, were factual, and somewhat upbeat.  they would say things like "help is coming", and " it has to get better"..   The last few hours, Greta Van Sustern and Steve Harrington have become doom and gloom, even when reporting about good things.   A couple of examples:   Greta has continuously said "Things are good in the Astro Dome, BUT, how long can it remain good".   Harrington: "It is like...

Armed Forces Retirement Home hard hit by Katrina.   Armed Forces Retirement Home Hurricane Katrina Fact SheetAFRH-Gulfport residents who left the local area do not return to the campus until further notice.AFRH-Gulfport residents (independent living) are in route to the Washington, DC. Arrival time TBA. Assisted living residents will be airlifted from Maxwell AFB and arriving at Andrews AFB in the near future. Long term care residents are located at Lynnwood Nursing Home in Mobile, AL. A resident list and location will be released at a later time. Please contact AFRH at 800-422-9988 for more information. AFRH is concerned about...

$93.4M Winner Comes Forward! (powerball lottery goes to an AF Sgt.)   John San Cartier August 10, 2005New Mexico Albuquerque, NM – A master sergeant assigned to the 58th Training Squadron at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque has claimed a $93.4 million Powerball jackpot. John San Cartier correctly matched all six numbers drawn on August 10. It was the New Mexico Lottery's third Powerball jackpot, the second-largest prize in the state, and the largest claimed by an individual. The winning numbers were 13-31-36-38-49 and the Powerball was 2. San Cartier chose the $52.2 million lump-sum option. After federal withholding taxes...

          Thunderbirds performance cut short after object falls from plane August 20, 2005 — The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds canceled an aerial performance Sunday because of safety concerns following a midair accident at the Chicago Air and Water Show that sent an object on one of the group's F-16s plummeting into Lake Michigan.   The aerial acrobatic team cut short their performance Saturday when two of the jets made contact while they were flying in formation and a missile rail was dislodged. On Sunday, the team announced that it would not perform again until an...

    Nerve agent destruction wraped up at incinerator       Written by by Mark Watson    Tuesday, 02 August 2005 The U.S. Army wants Tooele County residents to know there is no longer a threat for a chemical nerve agent leak at Deseret Chemical Depot south of Tooele. Weapons containing those agents no longer exist. The U.S. Army wants Tooele County residents to know there is no longer a threat for a chemical nerve agent leak at Deseret Chemical Depot south of Tooele. Weapons containing those agents no longer exist. After nine years of hard work from 1,500 employees,...

My Space Story Folks ask me why I am so high on NASA and going into space. The reason is that during the 60’s, I was involved in the man mission to the moon. It was quite a story:November 1965 I was assigned to White Sands Missile Range as a weather observer E-4. My section chief called me in and told me that I and another GI (Bob Snyder) were being assigned to an important project, the “Little Joe II”. The little Joe II was the escape rocket on top of the Apollo capsule. If something went wrong, the Astronauts...

I predict that we will have 2 earthquakes with a magnitude between 1.5 and  2.0 one to two hours apart at lat 41.1 N long  -112.9 W (+/- .1 degree) wednesday (29 JUN 05) somewhere between 11:00 to 2:30 PM.   This prediction is based on Bob Seismic (BS) prediction models.

Tropical storm weather watchers:   You can watch the wave heights and wind speed / direction from the sea buoys here.      

ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) - About 700 volunteers joined police, soldiers and FBI agents on Monday, combing scrubland and beaches on Aruba's southeastern tip in an unprecedented search for an Alabama teenager who vanished a week ago on a trip to the Dutch Caribbean island. Aruba's government let 4,000 civil servants off work early at 2 p.m. to hunt for Natalee Holloway, 18, of Mountain Brook, Ala. The expanded search began a day after police charged two men in her disappearance. The honors student vanished May 30 while on a five-day trip with more than 100 classmates celebrating their high school...

 Monday, April 18, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m. Freak wave damages cruise ship, injuring 4By The Associated Press CHARLESTON, S.C. — A seven-story wave damaged a cruise ship returning from the Bahamas over the weekend, smashing windows, flooding more than 60 cabins and injuring four passengers. The Norwegian Dawn was diverted from its route when the ship ran into rough weather on the way back to New York on Saturday. The 965-foot-long vessel docked in the Charleston harbor for repairs, and departed for New York early yesterday after a Coast Guard inspection, officials said. It was expected back...

    eBay Fights State Internet Auctioneering Regulationby NinoeBay Staff Member Michelle Peacock states the eBay Community’scase to lawmakers across the country When the state of Ohio enacted a law in February 2005 that extends licensing requirements to include traditional auctions conducted online or over the phone, it resulted in widespread confusion among eBay sellers as well as regulators.The Ohio bill was the latest in a series of moves in state legislatures around the country aimed at extending state auction licensing requirements to the world of online auctions. These legislative moves could potentially affect the lives of millions of eBay...

    Avalanche Control Round Lands in BackyardUDOT admitting today that a howitzer shell that exploded in the backyard of a Pleasant Grove home was from one of their avalanche control cannons.   (KSL News) -- A 105 howitzer round that exploded in a Pleasant Grove backyard came from an avalanche cannon in Provo Canyon. UDOT Deputy Director Carlos Braceras says they shot eight shells Wednesday afternoon in the canyon, but the last one appears to have been over packed with gunpowder. UDOT says they'll take full responsibility and compensate the homeowners for all damage caused. They're also suspending indefinitely...

Magnitude 6.4 - SALTA, ARGENTINA 2005 March 21 12:23:52 UTC Preliminary Earthquake Report U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center World Data Center for Seismology, Denver A strong earthquake occurred at 12:23:52 (UTC) on Monday, March 21, 2005. The magnitude 6.4 event has been located in SALTA, ARGENTINA. (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)

   Pentagon delegation arrives in Taipei for talks with militaryBy Rich ChangSTAFF REPORTER Thursday, Mar 17, 2005,Page 1 A US military delegation arrived in Taipei yesterday, and will discuss the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities with Taiwanese military officials. A member of the delegation, who requested anonymity, told the Taipei Times that the US saw the possibility of China's launching an attack using asymmetric warfare tactics against Taiwan as increasing. "The US is concerned as to whether the PLA would be able to start an asymmetric war against Taiwan and whether there exists a fifth column of infiltrators in Taiwan," he...