Free Republic

BUBBA STEPS OVER THE LINE By DICK MORRIS November 22, 2005 -- By traveling to Dubai, just a few hundred miles from the combat zone, to denounce the American involvement in Iraq as a "big mistake," Bill Clinton has made a big mistake of his own. Normally, a top leader of the Democratic Party and the spouse of a presidential candidate can and should feel free to say anything he chooses. But a former president of the United States should be more careful before he tells hundreds of thousands of young men and women, many of whom served under him,...

Just to give a heads up to everybody... a major amount of spam just hit the system I administer - if you get anything with a zip file or that claims to be from the CIA or FBI or any other government agency DO NOT OPEN IT! Delete it right away! These spam items may not be caught by current spam filtering.

Thousands Powerless After Manholes Explosions Traffic Detoured, Businesses Evacuated (New York - WABC, November 18, 2005) - Underground electrical fires in Morristown, N.J. Friday morning exploded manholes across the downtown area, knocking out power to thousands and prompting evacuations and traffic detours. The fires erupted in underground conduits in the Morristown Green area along Park Place, Speedwell Avenue and other streets downtown, officials said. The explosions clogged local streets and had police scrambling to set up detours. At least 2,000 customers in Morristown were without power, particularly around the Morristown Green and along South Street, according to police. Police were...

As Republican Members of the House of Representatives and as citizens seeking to join that body we propose not just to change its policies, but even more important, to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives. That is why, in this era of official evasion and posturing, we offer instead a detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print. This year's election offers the chance, after four decades of one-party control, to bring to the House a new majority that will transform the way Congress works. That historic change would be...

BRUSSELS, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Vandals set fires in Belgium for a third straight night in what authorities called copycat violence patterned on the rioting in France. Cars, trucks and at least two cellars were burned in Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent, Expatica reported Wednesday. Federal officials said Tuesday night's incidents were isolated, and cautioned against equating the violence in Belgium with the situation in France, where rioting has continued nearly two weeks. Ghent Police Commissioner Steven de Smet said authorities would take the unrest seriously, but would not overreact. "But we must not panic either. For now, we cannot say...

PARIS - The French government is faltering as the flames of urban warfare spread from Paris to over 300 towns. Schools, warehouses, gymnasiums, bus depots, restaurants and shopping malls are being sacked and burned. Journalists, ambulance personnel and firemen are being attacked. Even armour-clad riot police now fear for their lives, as some of the protesters have equipped themselves with guns. President Jacques Chirac, supposedly recovered from a stroke suffered in August, is out of commission. His dauphin, Dominique de Villepin, makes pompous proclamations while trying to roast his arch-rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, in the flames of immigrant rage....

Medieval Sourcebook: Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts [Davis Introduction] The following opinion was expressed about the Franks by the emir who conquered Spain, and who---had he not been recalled---might have commanded at Tours. It shows what the Arab leaders thought of the men of the North up to the moment of their great disillusionment by "The Hammer."From an Arabian Chronicler Musa being returned to Damascus, the Caliph Abd-el Melek asked of him about his conquests, saying "Now tell me about these Franks---what is their nature?" "They," replied Musa, "are a folk right numerous, and full...

Charles Martel Born about 688; died at Quierzy on the Oise, 21 October, 741. He was the natural son of Pepin of Herstal and a woman named Alpaïde or Chalpaïde. Pepin, who died in 714, had outlived his two legitimate sons, Drogon and Grimoald, and to Theodoald, a son of the latter and then only six years old, fell the burdensome inheritance of the French monarchy. Charles, who was then twenty-six, was not excluded from the succession on account of his birth, Theodoald himself being the son of a concubine, but through the influence of Plectrude, Theodoald's grandmother, who wished...

BY JILL ZUCKMAN Chicago Tribune WASHINGTON - Despite the heated response by a group of liberal Democrats to Judge Samuel Alito's Supreme Court nomination, opponents would face long odds in killing his chances to join the court with a filibuster. Interviews with moderate Republican and Democratic senators Tuesday indicated that most do not expect to find anything so alarming in his record or background to merit such a drastic parliamentary tactic. At worst, many said that they would like to wait and see how Alito fares during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on his nomination. ...

Dear Team, Because of the evolving needs of our departmental processes, the additional workload of ongoing projects, and the fact that we are, for the moment, short-staffed, I am introducing a new status for our task management database: "Bush's Fault". Henceforth, any problem whose cause cannot be explained from a cursory inspection of the situation shall be declared to be "Bush's Fault", which shall end any further investigation into the matter. Once determined to be "Bush's Fault", it will be each team member's obligation to mask as well as possible the unpleasant consequences of the issue, and hope nobody notices....

Today I got an invitation to attend diversity training. I politely declined, noting that "diversity", in my past experience, is merely a euphemism for politically correct discrimination (against me). In response, I was admonished for jumping to conclusions. Since I did jump to that conclusion - it was based on experience - I did not want to be unfair. I did some research on the company policy. Here are the criteria for the policy: * Age * Work Background * Marital Status * Race * Gender * Education * Ethnicity * Physical Ability * Geographic Ability * Sexual Orientation *...

A man arrested when police showed up to break up a New Year's Eve party at a friend's house has filed a lawsuit, arguing he had a constitutional right to get drunk on private property as long as he didn't cause a public disturbance. Eric Laverriere, 25, of Portland, Maine, was taken into protective custody by Waltham police and locked in a cell for nine hours until the effects of the alcohol wore off. Legal experts said his lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Boston, is the first to challenge a state law allowing police to lock...

A formula for unchecked power By James P. Pinkerton Special to Newsday For the most part, conservatives and libertarians have cheered the decline of the liberal media establishment over the past two decades. But if that liberal establishment falls completely - if reporters are threatened with jail for doing their jobs - there will be occasion for second thoughts, as we are reminded that the ultimate enemy of freedom is the unchecked power of the state. Beginning in 1969, with Vice President Spiro Agnew's attack on ''nattering nabobs of negativism,'' the right has seen the media - epitomized by two...

We thought they didn't have a plan, but they had one all along, it was just hidden. We searched and searched and searched for years - John Kerry claimed that it existed, but we knew better than to believe him. But could John Kerry - this one time - have been teeling the truth, when he said he had a plan? Thanks to the industrious efforts of this FReeper, the Democrat Party's plan for America is now revealed!

World's Thinnest Books ~~@~~ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ FRENCH WAR HEROES by Jacques Chirac HOW I SERVED MY COUNTRY by Jane Fonda MY BEAUTY SECRETS by Janet Reno HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN AIRPLANE by John Denver MY SUPER BOWL HIGHLIGHTS by Dan Marino THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BILL by Hillary Clinton MY LITTLE BOOK OF PERSONAL HYGIENE by Osama Bin Laden THINGS I CANNOT AFFORD by Bill Gates THINGS I WOULD NOT DO FOR MONEY by Dennis Rodman MY WILD YEARS by Al Gore AMELIA EARHART'S GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC AMERICA'S MOST POPULAR LAWYERS DETROIT: a Travel Guide A COLLECTION of MOTIVATIONAL...

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR News With Views By DON HEWITT Published: April 20, 2005 BECAUSE all three of the networks' early-evening newscasts, as good as they are, generally follow an hour or so of local news and are fed into households already saturated with news from CNN, Fox or MSNBC (which they didn't use to be), and because the adults the broadcasts are aimed at probably know all they want to know from the all-news radio station they listened to in the car coming home from work, and because their children are more interested in the Internet than they are in television...

[I received this today in my email, figured it would be worthwhile to give everyone the heads up - thoughtomator] You are getting this email because you (or someone you know) registered your email at www.junkfax.org. I promised we would rarely contact you. Most of you have NEVER been contacted. But now we need your help URGENTLY because Congress plans on passing a bill TODAY that will render your fax machine useless. Congress wants to turn your fax machine into a printing press for advertisers. If you don't call BOTH your Senators to complain, they will think nobody minds, and...

I'm in the final steps of securing a new consulting contract, and it looks like I'll be moving to the Washington, DC area. I could use some advice for getting myself settled from those who are familiar with the area. The job site is in Lanham, MD, near where the eastern side of the Beltway crosses route 50. I have a car already, and the hours are such that I will thankfully be able to avoid rush hour traffic in both directions. I've got some family there who will put me up for 2-4 weeks while I get myself settled...

I'm sick and tired of all the whining and flailing about! I just can't take it anymore! You wanted it, fine - here's MY opus:

I don't want to be a hotlinker, but no matter which side of this you're on, you'll have to admit that this is the funniest take on this case yet - and it's aimed squarely at us.