Free Republic

On the cover of today's Huntington Beach Independent (a local weekly published by the Los Angeles Times) there is a photo of over 200 hundred miniature crosses placed on the sand south of the HB Pier. In the accompanying article, it mentions that the crosses are placed there each Sunday morning by volunteers from 'Veterans for Peace' and are meant to represent soldiers KIA in Iraq. While the campaign is called the 'Arlington West Project', the whole thing comes off as something decidely more suspicious other than patriotic Americans honoring our combat dead. Knowing of the vast resources available from...

Nine days after grocery clerks across Southern California went on strike, third-year Japanese student Irene Chen crossed their picket line for the first time to buy some fruit at the Westwood Ralphs on Tuesday. "We tried to avoid it, but we just needed some fruit," Chen said, as she handed a bagged papaya to her visiting boyfriend. Chen said alternative stores such as Whole Foods Market did not have the variety of fruit she wanted for reasonable enough prices. With no end in sight for talks between the United Food and Commercial Workers union and the major supermarket chains, many...

Safeway's chief executive said Thursday that striking Southern California grocery workers won't get a better contract offer as the Pleasanton grocer reported another quarter of lackluster sales. The nation's third-largest supermarket chain said it is willing to take a temporary hit at its 289 Vons stores -- where picketers are turning customers away -- in exchange for cheaper labor costs in the long run.

Closing out his campaign in the same city in which he launched his bid for California governor one month ago, Arnold spoke in front of an energetic crowd of approximately 5,000 supporters Monday afternoon in Huntington Beach. Surrounded by members of the Kennedy clan, including his wife Maria Shriver, her mom Eunice Shriver, and a couple of her brothers, Arnie made a concerted effort to include Democrats in his stump speech by addressing such issues as off-shore oil drilling and education reform. Appealing to centrists and business leaders alike, Arnie promised to immediately address the looming concerns of the 300%...

With a long business trip back East coming up shortly and my hair beginning to look a little shaggy, I figured lunch would be a good time to get my hair cut today. My barber is up a couple of blocks from the beach on upper Main street in Huntington Beach. As he cut my hair, he casually mentioned that Arnie was having lunch at the Inca Grill down the street. I remarked that perhaps I would take a drive by as I was leaving to take a look; the other barber said that would be a bad idea, since...

The next few months promise to be a tabloid treasure for cable news networks and magazines that feed off the sensational. Kobe Bryant and his accuser will be front-page news until the case ends. While it plays out, you'll hear evidence leaks from both sides, character assassination and an endless stream of alleged "experts" who know nothing about the real facts but get paid to pontificate. So, they'll dissect every shred of every rumor thrown out there. It will not be pretty. The charges were less than 48 hours old when the first news came out claiming the victim recently...

<p>Sacramento -- Opponents of the move to recall Gov. Gray Davis are asking their supporters to intimidate signature gatherers and complain of harassment at stores where recall petitions are circulating, stepping up the political battle taking place in front of Wal-Marts and Home Depots across California.</p>

TIME MAGAZINE</FONT COLOR> SEPTEMBER 15, 1975THE GIRL WHO ALMOST KILLED FORD</FONT COLOR> Her name was Lynette Alice Fromme, and she was the first woman ever to attempt to kill a President of the U.S. Her manner was gentle, and while she was pretty in a freckle-faced, red-haired, little-girl sort of way, she would turn few heads on the street. But the 27-year-old woman behind this innocent facade was anything but normal. In her way, Lynette Fromme was as much a social aberration - an amoral freak - as Lee Harvey Oswald, the killer of John F. Kennedy, or Sihan...

With the news that the USS Abraham Lincoln will be returning to its home port from Iraq and will, in all likelyhood, be receiving a huge welcome home party, I was wondering if those in FReeperland are gearing up to plan and/or participate in the homecoming parades that we will certainly be seeing in the next few months. I remember the parade that was held in West Hollywood (yes, even in LA!) after GWI that was put on by the city. Since the respective cities/communities around the country will be sponsoring these parades (ie police/crowd control, street closures, etc), how...

Has anybody else been watching CNN? They have a reporter embedded within the 7th Cavalry. After watching Aaron Brown literally pray that God be with these troops, I had a revelation: the psych ops of this campaign go beyond dealing with our foreign enemy; they extend to our domestic ones as well. It is clear that CNN was allowed to have their reporter embedded within this group because our leaders realized that the reports would be positive once the emotion of battle caught up with the reporters. Anybody else watching CNN instead of Fox (who seem to be further back)?

PROTESTORS ARE BIGOTS! by: man_of_the_arts (31/M/Olympia, WA) HEY ALL YOU PROTESTORS, where were you in 1998? HUH? ANSWER ME YOU hypocritical bigots! In 1998 BILLY CLINTON launched an all-out "unofficial war" on IRAQ (as if there is such a thing as "unofficial war") 30,000 troops 40 ships 300 planes 400+ tomohawk missles 600+ sorties with untold amounts of precision bombing Clinton did not ask nor obtain permission from congress. he did not seek diplomacy with US allies and did not bring the issue before the United Nations. He acted on his own claiming the reason was because planes were...

The police just found Christi Johnson's body in the Santa Monica mountains. She was the pretty 21 year old that was abducted in the Century City mall parking lot after meeting a supposed 'photographer'.

Fifty years to the day from the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of its co-discoverers has caused a storm by suggesting that stupidity is a genetic disease that should be cured. On 28 February 1953 biologists James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA - the chemical code for all life. The breakthrough revealed how genetic information is passed from one generation to the next and revolutionised biology and medicine. But in a documentary series to be screened in the UK on Channel 4, Watson says that low intelligence is an inherited disorder and that molecular...

NEW YORK, Sept 19 (Reuters) - The executive who oversees Walt Disney Co.'s (NYSE:DIS - news) Go Network of Internet sites was arrested after soliciting sex online from an FBI agent posing as a 13-year-old girl, a spokesman for federal prosecutors said on Sunday. Patrick Naughton, 34, of Seattle, was arrested Thursday on the Santa Monica Pier, an entertainment area near Los Angeles, after he met a female officer who had arranged to meet him there, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. He was charged with interstate travel with the intention of having...

The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal lead with the three separate investigations that have been launched into Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt and his choice of William Webster to head up the SEC's new accounting board. (The WSJ tops its worldwide newsbox with a reefer to its front-page story). Webster once served as a director on the auditing committee of a company that has been accused of fraud and poor accounting practices. He informed Pitt of that fact in advance of the SEC's vote last week to approve him as head...

Washington, D.C., October 25, 2002 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the selection of Judge William H. Webster to be chairman, and Kayla J. Gillan, Daniel L. Goelzer, Willis D. Gradison Jr., and Charles D. Niemeier to be founding members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The Board, established by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, will oversee the audits of the financial statements of public companies through rigorous registration, standard setting, inspection and disciplinary programs. The Act requires the Commission, in consultation with the Secretary of Treasury and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, to select...

WASHINGTON — Pop-up advertising from outside merchants will disappear from America Online as the company attempts to regain the affections of its 35 million subscribers by minimizing the annoying screens. The announcement Tuesday that the company will stop selling third-party ads coincides with the launch of the latest version of AOL software and is in line with other industry moves to shield consumers from pop-up ads. The change is intended as a mark of AOL's "back to basics" return to focusing on its customers, AOL Chairman CEO Jon Miller said. "Pop-up ads aren't the way we're going to go," Miller...

You -- with the 401(k). Yeah, I'm talking to you. AUSTIN, Texas -- We just lost the whole ballgame on corporate reform -- without the news even making it to the front page. The sick, sad tidings were tucked away discreetly on the business pages: "SEC Chief Hedges on Accounting Regulator." Now there's a sexy headline. All of you who were shafted by Enron, shucked by Worldcom, jived by Global Crossing, everyone whose 401(k) is now a 201(k) (I think that's Paul Begala's line), you just got screwed again. They're not going to fix it. They've already called off the...