Free Republic

The social media giant today introduced two devices, which are both Amazon Alexa smart speakers with video displays. The Portal and Portal+ are hands-free devices with cameras and microphones for video calls to Facebook friends. As you might have guessed, a Facebook account is required. If another person joins you on the call, everyone will always be in the frame. “Both models are designed to make you feel closer to the important people in your life, and make video chats seem less like a call and more like you’re actually in the same room,” according to a Facebook press release....

Reporting from Sacramento -- When the owner of Staples Center had nearly completed a two-year project to generate power from the sun on the arena's roof, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger showed up at a ceremony to help lay the final solar panel and heap praise on the Anschutz Entertainment Group for going green. Schwarzenegger returned that same night in late October for a far different, less public event: a fundraiser thrown by the company that raked in half a million dollars for his political endeavors. Guests mingled with the governor and First Lady Maria Shriver over cocktails and dinner on a...

When Laurie-Ann Fuca told loved ones she was planning to become a soldier, some doubled over and laughed until their stomachs hurt. They hooted that she'd never pass the physical at her age, that she'd wilt without luxuries like manicures and martinis. No one's laughing now at the 41-year-old Tucson soccer mom, who is making history as the first Arizona woman to join the Army past her 40th birthday. The mother of four leaves for boot camp Monday, three weeks after her eldest son, a 19-year-old soldier, was sent to Iraq. Until recently, the scenario would have been impossible. But...

WASHINGTON, June 7, 2006 – Growing up "green" with a pair of Army parents and moving around the world influenced a West Point cadet's decision to give military life a whirl. Cadet Sgt. Philip S. Bucci, a second-generation West Pointer, said his military parents influenced his decision to attend the academy. Photo by Gerry J. Gilmore  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. "Dad graduated from West Point in 1977, and Mom was an Army nurse," recalled Cadet Sgt. Philip S. Bucci, who has just completed his second year at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. "I've always...

CAMP FALLUJAH, IRAQ (Jan. 17, 2006) -- The tall, bright eyed, 20-year-old Marine with an athletic build seems to be always smiling. Whether he is tasked out for a working party unloading mail from home or talking about his high school band days, his good nature and laughs keep on coming. “I was going to play football but band got in the way,” said Lance Cpl. Jonathan M. Fisher, a motor transportation operator of 7-ton military vehicles, trying to be serious but smiling about his seven-year commitment to grade school bands as a percussionist. “Go ahead, laugh it up!” What...

CAMP BAHARIA, Iraq (Jan. 12, 2006) -- The right to wear the eagle, globe and anchor and be considered among the world’s finest is a privilege that is hard earned. Lance Cpl. Josslyn D. Selzer, a 19-year-old Boone, N.C., native with Headquarters and Service Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, is living out that dream. “I have always wanted to be a Marine, since I was about 8,” said Selzer, an ammunition technician for the battalion. “My sister, Deadra, is in the Marines; she joined a year-and-a-half before me, but I knew I wanted to join long before she ever...

Once you get there, you stay there. That could well be the one timeless truth about Congress. For the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, re-election is one of life's certainties. The possibility of a lifetime job - a job with no shortage of power, perks and prestige - also explains much about the mad dash that began Wednesday, with the unexpected announcement by Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe that he will not run for a 12th term in 2006. "These opportunities don't happen everyday," said Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat. Open congressional seats are indeed among the...

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (Aug. 19, 2005) -- Family tradition, especially in the military, is something a lot of people value, honor and pass on to future generations. One Bridgewater, N.J., native here is continuing a family tradition dating from World War I. Sergeant Brittany L. Greenhalgh, intelligence communicator, G-2 Section, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Headquarters Group, II MEF (Forward), followed in the footsteps of her family’s heritage and enlisted in the military shortly after graduating from Bridgewater-Raritan High School in 2000. “My family’s military history sparked my interest in the military,” she said. “I have three grandparents that were active...

State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata went to bat for a West Hollywood billboard company being sued by Caltrans in 2001, and three months later received a $10,000 campaign donation from that company, documents show. The events are detailed in campaign finance records, as well as in documents Caltrans has provided under subpoena to a federal grand jury investigating possible public corruption on the part of Perata, D-Oakland, now California's most powerful elected Democrat. "There is no, nor will there ever be, any inappropriate connection between Senator Perata's legislative activity and any political contributions he happens to receive on...

The Register's opinion pages constantly seek to find total freedom when there's no such thing ["An indecent power grab," discussing legislation to increase FCC fines for broadcasting "indecent" material, Editorials, Feb. 20]. Total freedom would hurtle us over the cliff of anarchy on which the Register keeps teetering in the misguided belief in the viewpoint that "anything goes." Sexual perversion on the screen or foul language screamed in public are not speech. They're acts that bottom-feeders of our society have insinuated into our Constitution. When we say what we think, thougn prohibited from using foul language or indeceny, we do...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Swiss lurch to right follows trend in Europe Victory of the People's party threatens 'cosy consensus' as leader denies he has anything against foreigners Luke Harding in Berlin Tuesday October 21, 2003 The Guardian (UK) The leader of Switzerland's far-right People's party, which won a stunning victory in the country's general elections over the weekend, last night denied he had anything against foreigners. Christoph Blocher - a blunt German-speaking billionaire businessman - yesterday shrugged off comparisons with the far-right Austrian leader Jörg Haider, after his anti-immigrant SVP party emerged as the most powerful force in Swiss politics. In an interview...

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - Arnold Schwarzenegger is often compared to Ronald Reagan, another movie star-turned-politician who blazed California's gubernatorial trail decades ago.</p> <p>But Reagan actually had more relevant experience than Schwarzenegger, having spent years as head of the Screen Actors Guild and as a corporate spokesman for General Electric. And unlike Schwarzenegger, he also was a social conservative. Indeed, in the view of most, there are as many differences as similarities between California's two premier actor-politicians.</p>