Free Republic

In today's Huffington Post is Joseph A. Palermo's "Cheney, Rove, and Fleischer and the Importance of Net Neutrality." Net neutrality, you see, is yet another way the Left hopes to silence their opposition -- and Palermo calls on Obama's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to do exactly that. I guess he gets partial credit for honesty. And if this latest example of the Left's rush to suppression via Obama's FCC makes you think of the old Censorship Doctrine or any of the new ones -- "localism," "diversity in media ownership" and serving the "public interest" -- well, it should.

The Australian government is already planning to block legal internet content when its "great firewall" eventually goes live. That is the fear expressed by some of the most trenchant critics of this scheme, including Senators Simon Birmingham (for the Liberal Party) and Scott Ludlam (for the Greens) following another shift in emphasis by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy in evidence to the Environment, Communications and the Arts committee on Monday. The Australian government launched a trial of its filtering software on 11 February, in association with a number of ISPs, including Primus, Tech 2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Netforce and Highway 1. The...

In 2006, Thailand announced it was blocking access to YouTube for anyone with a Thai I.P address, and then identified 20 offensive videos for Google to remove as a condition of unblocking the site. ‘If your whole game is to increase market share,’ says Lawrence Lessig, speaking of Google, ‘it’s hard to . . . gather data in ways that don’t raise privacy concerns or in ways that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.’ In March of last year, Nicole Wong, the deputy general counsel of Google, was notified that there had been a precipitous drop in activity...

The MSM’s nauseating, pro-Obama bias during the campaign was almost too much to bear. The Libs won, and the un-Fairness Doctrine is on the front burner, once again taking aim at right-wing talk radio. The fallback position for Conservatives has always been, “well, we always have the right-wing blogs.” Now it appears that Google is trying to finish off the right-wing blogosphere once and for all. More . . .

Video: Tito the Builder - What a Guy! He's not Holding Anything Back About Obama

BEIJING (AFP) - Foreign reporters will not have complete access to the Internet during the Beijing Olympics, Games organisers said Wednesday, reversing a pledge to bring down the Chinese firewall of censorship. Sites linked to the banned Falungong spiritual movement and other unspecified ones would remain blocked for the thousands of foreign reporters covering the Games, organising committee spokesman Sun Weide told AFP. "During the Olympic Games we will provide sufficient access to the Internet for reporters," said Sun Weide, spokesman for the organising committee. However "sufficient" access falls short of the complete Internet freedoms for foreign reporters that China's...

Blog Shut Down by 'Christian' Apologist's Threat Contact: Pastor Dustin Segers, Coalition of Concerned Bloggers, ChristianResearchNetwork.com, 336-848-7197 MEDIA ADVISORY, July 28 /Christian Newswire/ -- Pastor Dustin Segers submits the following and is available for comment: How safe are our blogs? That question was raised again when on the evening of July 26, 2008, a popular religious blog was shut down by an Internet service provider. A complaint filed by Christian author and apologist, Richard Abanes, claiming that one article on the religious opinion site, Apprising.org, had slandered him, caused the web host, IPower, to send its publisher, Ken Silva, a...

China's "Live" Olympic Broadcast Will Be Delayed 10 Seconds to Avoid Airing any Embarrassing Political Episodes By chinafreepress.org Jul 8, 2008 - 11:41:36 PM To avoid broadcasting any undesirable incident, China's government has instituted a 10-second delay on the "live" broadcast of the Olympics. According to sources, the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party has ordered all regional television stations to implement a 10 second delay on their "live" Olympic broadcast. This delay order is meant to protect against any political protest--whether shouting a slogan or unveiling a banner--being broadcast, including any by foreign athletes in competition or...

This post got booted from Craig's list but why ? All the vile garbage on there why would *this get booted ?? ============================================== * Earth worship day idea -- more ideas water bottles This builds off of your idea, takes it a step further. Collect water bottles of all sizes and shapes and build (depending on volume of bottles collected) a giant idol of Gaia. The bottles might need to be mashed down flat to fit all together but I think it could work if a creative mechanical type person can come up with a workable design. The sculpture could...

There have been rumors and suggestions that certain users at Digg have “special powers” in the past, so what I saw could simply be one of those users who can alone bury stories submitted to Digg, at any stage of the voting process. Or (with tin foil hat on) Digg might have decided to ban Ron Paul. There’s zero way of knowing, and Digg never talks about its internal workings so we have no way of finding out which one it is, or even if it’s a combination of both. I wonder how long it will take for someone on...

CAIRO, Egypt — In Iran, a large red icon pops up on computer screens. In Syria, there's a discreet note from the filter. Other Arab nations display "blocked" in bold lettering or issue crafty "page not found" replies. However the censors put it, the message is clear: You're not permitted to see this Web site. Governments in the Middle East are stepping up a campaign of censorship and surveillance in an effort to prevent an estimated 33.5 million Internet users from viewing a variety of Web sites whose topics range from human rights to pornography. As a result, millions of...

VIDEO: Lord of the Rings Film Star Ian McKellen Admits to Ripping Out Hotel Bible Sections Against Homosexuality By John-Henry Westen AUKLAND, NZ, August 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - British Actor Ian McKellen who has used the mega-stardom he achieved playing Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films to promote homosexuality, has admitted to ripping out pages of hotel bibles that refer to homosexuality. In an August 10 interview on New Zealand's TV1 Close Up program McKellen was confronted by the interviewer questioning the truth of the rumour "He's the one, that when he stays in hotels rips the part...

Google's decision to censor its search engine in China was bad for the company, its founders admitted yesterday. Google, launched in 1998 by two Stanford University dropouts, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, was accused of selling out and reneging on its "Don't be evil" motto when it launched in China in 2005. The company modified the version of its search engine in China to exclude controversial topics such as the Tiananmen Square massacre or the Falun Gong movement, provoking a backlash in its core western markets. Asked whether he regretted the decision, Mr Brin admitted yesterday: "On a business level,...

Having traveled in the Soviet Union several times, I got used to reading the headlines in Pravda, Novosti, etc. The wording used by apparatchiks in those days of Stalinist repression are now being echoed by the Democratic National Committee on its website. The DNC is frothing at the mouth in the hopes of stifling freedom of expression -- a TV show, namely ABC's "The Path To 911." What's really frightening is that the Democratic Senate leadership has threatened to revoke ABC's broadcast license if it doesn't censor the 911 drama. Here is the DNC in its own words -- proving...

I am currently capturing Michael Medved's interview of the creator/producer of Path to 9/11. If anyone would like to hear it, tell me how to make it available.

Sens. Reid, Durbin, Stabenow, Schumer, and Dorgan sent a letter to Disney today containing the following passages:... Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation. The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold...

They chase each other at high speed wielding axes and hammers. But the famous cartoon duo of Tom and Jerry are in trouble for smoking on screen. Media regulator Ofcom received a complaint from a viewer who took offence at two episodes involving smoking. In one, "Texas Tom", the hapless cat Tom tries to impress a feline female by rolling a cigarette, lighting it and smoking it with one hand. In the other, "Tennis Chumps", Tom's opponent in a match smokes a large cigar. In a bulletin posted online, Ofcom noted "concerns that smoking on television may normalise smoking", and...

Bible club lawsuit roils school Most Downingtown East High School Prayer Club members just wanted to call themselves the Bible Club, use the word Christian, and put religious symbols and quotes from Scripture on their school posters, several students say. But the three students and two parents who took the Chester County school district to federal court last month said the students also wanted the right to voice their opinions as Christians on any number of topics, including abortion, homosexuality and premarital sex. And that has triggered a collision between those who want public schools to be havens from society's...

Wikipedia Attempts To Censor Israel News - Again By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem----May 27......The Israel News Agency, which has been a favorite target of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and the Hizbullah is again in the sights of Wikipedia for a third time in four months. The Israel News Agency, Israel's first on-line Government Press Office accredited news organization since 1995, has had it article removed three times on Wikipedia. The Israel News Agency, which directly disseminates news from the Israel Government Press Office, in addition to local, international news, features and editorials, has a...

Google is currently the premier search engine. However, it's results are getting worse by the day. Besides being bombarded with gateway search engine pages no matter what term you type in, you are not getting relevant results. In other words, you are not seeing legitimate pages that other search engines like Yahoo will return. For proof of this I give you the term "privacy service". This one affects us and our service at www.cotse.net. Cotse.Net is a privacy service. According to our logs it is indexed daily by Google. According to Google, we are not penalized in any way by...