Free Republic

First up, Shepard Smith repeating over and over on a hot summer day, that it was "HOT". That was my first day of Fox news. It really was hot, and I've hated him ever since. Next, of course, is the blow-hard High School teacher, O'Rielly, who in the real world ought to be a lunch-room/hall monitor, up on charges of sexual harrassment. Anyone who admires O'Rielly is overlooking a lot, let's face it. Have you ever seen him in a discussion group? There's a reason for that. I saw him sit on on Brit Hume's Sunday forum once, and it...

She's got the teeth of one of those monsters from Alien. She's creeping me out. Also, she has no idea how to referee between guests. I believe she's mad, as well.

ST. LOUIS - (KRT) - Bill Moyers denounced on Sunday the right wing and top officials at the White House, saying they are trying to silence their critics by controlling the news media. He also took aim at reporters who become little more than willing government "stenographers." And he said the public increasingly is content with just enough news to confirm its own biases. Moyers spoke in St. Louis at a conference on media reform. His reports have appeared on the Public Broadcasting System since the 1970s. He was an aide to President Lyndon Johnson and is a former newspaper...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Eighty-nine Democratic members of the U.S. Congress last week sent President George W. Bush a letter asking for explanation of a secret British memo that said "intelligence and facts were being fixed" to support the Iraq war in mid-2002. The timing of the memo was well before the president brought the issue to Congress for approval. The Times of London newspaper published the memo -- actually minutes of a high-level meeting on Iraq held July 23, 2002 -- on May 1. British officials did not dispute the document's authenticity, and Michael Boyce, then Britain's Chief of Defense...

Runaway Bride's Defense Jennifer Wilbanks (Photo: CBS/AP) "She is very sorry for the pain that she's caused her family, her fiancé, the community at large." Lydia Sartian, attorney for Jennifer Wilbanks John Mason listens as family members speak to reporters in front of his home in Duluth, Ga., after learning his fiancé had been found alive, Saturday, April 30, 2005. (Photo: AP) (CBS/AP) Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks issued an apology Wednesday for disappearing just before her wedding day, saying, "I had a host of compelling issues that seemed out of control." Wilbanks made her apology in a statement read by...

Actress Rosie O'Donnell says she turned down an invitation from the "Late Show with David Letterman" because of a clash with a producer five years ago. O'Donnell, who used to host a talk-show of her own, said on her blog the incident occurred when Letterman was unexpectedly hospitalized in January 2000 for heart-bypass surgery, the New York Post reported. The actress said she spoke to CBS head Les Moonves the day the Letterman news broke. She said she told Moonves that if he was stuck for a host, he could let her know. She claims executive producter Rob Burnett called...

In an effort to increase its ranks for coming wars, the U.S. military is recruiting - and paying - children as young as 14 years old for future combat duty. By Tim Schmitt Colin Hadley spends most of his days after school skateboarding or playing Halo II on his new X-Box with friends. He sleeps until noon or later on weekends and rarely, if ever, does any schoolwork outside the classroom, where he pulls down solid C's and a few D's - just enough to get by. He's the typical 15-year-old American boy: cocksure in demeanor, certain the world revolves...

MORE HISTORICAL REVISIONISM: "I don't recall any prewar speeches about delivering democracy to the Middle East." Hmm. Must've missed the 2003 State of the Union address, where Bush said: Different threats require different strategies. In Iran we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror. We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny, and the United States supports their aspirations to live...

I'm getting old and it's not very often when my heart goes bumpity bumpity bump.

Russian was translated into English by an electronic "brain" today for the first time. Brief statements about politics, law, mathematics, chemistry, metallurgy, communications and military affairs were submitted in Russian by linguists of the Georgetown University Institute of Languages and Linguistics to the famous 701 computer of the International Business Machines Corporation. And the giant computer, within a few seconds, turned the sentences into easily readable English. A girl who didn't understand a word of the language of the Soviets punched out the Russian messages on IBM cards. The "brain" dashed off its English translations on an automatic printer at...

Des Moines, February 24th, 2005 - His unique style and perspective have drawn readers to the Des Moines Register for years. Today columnist Rob Borsellino wrote about his own life and how he's dealing with the diagnosis of a deadly disease. Rob Borsellino went public with a very personal struggle. He announced in his column on Wednesday that he has been diagnosed with Lou Gherig's Disease, a terminal, neurological disorder also known as ALS. How do you tell people you have a fatal disease?. If you're Des Moines Register columnist Rob Borsellino you write about it. "I was having trouble...

I believe these seminars go on for eight hours, and then they are replayed tonight. Washington Journal was cut short by two hours. It would be nice if Smiley could post-pone at least until that is over. How often do they have these forums? Seems like last week. But of course my main complaint is how each one of these seminars is just one liberal speaker after another, and most of these people are such tragic, transparent frauds with absolute nothing of any substance to say. It's mystifying. It's embarrassing. Half an hour of this and you'll see what I...

Interviewed by Harold Gullan on C-span's new "After Words" program. Wead wrote "The Raising of a President", about presidential parents. I don't know why he would pull such a publicity stunt when he's already getting this much attention...

Did anyone catch Ward Churchill on C-SPAN Saturday night? (Shows how boring my life is if I’m watching C-SPAN on a Saturday night. . .) Three observations: 1) If this is the face of the Left today, they haven’t much of a future. Pathetic. 2) What’s with the burly security perimeter around the dude? The audience was whooping and hollering for the guy; there was no threat of disruption or harm to the speaker. The security people, with their fake paramilitary-looking vests, made the thing look like a low-rent Nuremberg rally--which is what it was, come to think of it....

Eating in a Manhattan midtown restaurant the other night, I happened to glance over at the bar area. People were perched on bar stools, leaning into each other's ears, making conversation; you could hear the pretty bartender's husky laugh halfway to the kitchen. I flashed on to a feeling direct from my teenage years - a longing to be part of that group of cool grownups connected to each other by faint but unmistakable sexual electricity. But then I realised that something was missing: smoke. It used to unwind from the tips of our cigarettes and tie us together, then...

I don't know why I care about his show, except it's unusual and I happen to be up at that ungodly hour, switching my remote back and forth between Imus' and C-Span's Washington Journal. Imus in the morning is for those who are into the news/political media. He's realized there are a few of us who pay attention to the shout shows, as if they were sports events, and that can be entertaining especially when there are great political controversies or debates developing. His cronies are ridiculously demuring, at times. I sense a lot of the impromtue humor is partly...

An Anarcho-Stupidist makes his point during George W. Bush’s inauguration...

"Q: I'm curious as to what kind of responses you have been getting. Do you use curse words at them? A: I made an Indian woman cry and promise to quit her job in 60 seconds. You can do it too!" MUMBAI: This is only a random (and printable) selection from the thousands of messages in cyberspace calling for a campaign to harass Indian call centre operators, to put an end to the offshoring of jobs. The same person goes on to describe some more of his experiences while calling these call centres, an activity to which he promises...

If I was a better writer, maybe I could get across just what’s wrong with The History Channel. I wish Lileks would tackle the subject someday. It’s not just the conspiracy series. It’s not even their fascination with UFOs, Area 51, and Ghosts (though that can make me furious). Perhaps what bothers me the most is the spiraling narrative technique, and the repetitive presentation of the same “re-enactments”. For instance, tonight about the Lincoln assassination. I think they showed John Wilkes Booth ascending the stairs and patting his vest-pocket for the derringer at least eight times, while the narrator explains...

Deadlines, deadlines, the Bleat returns Thursday morning...