Free Republic

Thirteen years ago, Afghan interpreter Mohammed helped rescue then- Sen. Joe Biden and two other senators stranded in a remote Afghanistan valley after their helicopter was forced to land in a snowstorm. Now, Mohammed is asking President Biden to save him. Mohammed and his four children are hiding from the Taliban after his yearslong attempt to get out of Afghanistan got tangled in the bureaucracy. They are among countless Afghan allies who were left behind when the U.S. ended its 20-year military campaign in Afghanistan on Monday. As a private security team with the former firm Blackwater and U.S. Army...

I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias (Obama, Clintons, Waters, Schumer, Pelosi, Brennan, Comey, McCabe, Chris Matthews, Jim Acosta, etc., ad nauseum), King of Kings; Look...

Google has been flooded with 2.4 million requests from individuals and companies across Europe to be “forgotten” — that is, wiped clean from any Web search. Most of the requests came from regular Joes wanting sensitive information — like their home address or personal photos or videos — removed from any Google search results, the company said in its annual transparency report released on Tuesday. But among the others looking to take advantage of Europe’s 2014 “right to be forgotten” law were 41,213 requests from celebrities and 33,937 requests from politicians, Google said in the report. The law, enacted by...

Why are we in Afghanistan? Opening schools? Way to kill off our best and brightest? News certainly not on every night like it would be if there were a Republican president. What is the end game?

Russia's parliament gave its final approval on Friday to a law that would require Internet search engines to remove users' personal information from their results. The bill, passed by the State Duma lower house in its third reading, seeks to emulate European Union rules on the "right to be forgotten," under which search engines must take down certain results that appear under a search of a person's name. Under the new Russian legislation, Internet users will have the right to request the removal of information that is incorrect or "no longer relevant because of subsequent events or actions," TASS news...

The European Union's new law giving people a "right to be forgotten," which requires Google to remove links to information about them, is having exactly the effect its critics predicted: It is censoring the internet, giving new tools that help the rich and powerful (and ordinary folk) hide negative information about them, and letting criminals make their histories disappear. Exhibit A: Google was required to delete a link to this BBC article about Stan O'Neal, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch. O'Neal led the bank in the mid-2000s, a period when it became dangerously over-exposed to the looming mortgage crisis....

In a town in western Ireland, where castle ruins pepper green landscapes, there’s a six-foot stone wall that once surrounded a place called the Home. Between 1925 and 1961, thousands of “fallen women” and their “illegitimate” children passed through the Home, run by the Bon Secours nuns in Tuam. Many of the women, after paying a penance of indentured servitude for their out-of-wedlock pregnancy, left the Home for work and lives in other parts of Ireland and beyond. Some of their children were not so fortunate. More than five decades after the Home was closed and destroyed — where a...

Student forgotten in DEA holding cell gets $4.1M SAN DIEGO — A UCSD student scooped up in a drug raid and left in a Drug Enforcement Administration holding cell for 4 1/2 days without food or water will get $4.1 million to settle his claims, his attorneys announced Tuesday. Daniel Chong, 25, was among seven people detained in an April 21, 2012, raid on a University City home. Chong, an student at UCSD, was handcuffed and put in 5-by-10-foot cell, by an officer who told him, “Hang tight. We’ll come get you in a minute,” his attorney Julia Yoo said....

Memorial Day Reading

Man paints picture of all the past presidents...surprise with Obama....

In the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... Just in case you forgot, Americans are STILL fighting and dying in two overseas wars, and innocent civilians continue to die in horrible ways. I can see how this could slip your mind, as you will no longer see ANY mention of these, AT ALL, on any alphabet network evening news shows. The "Daily Death Count Update's!" on the 30 minute network news broadcasts ENDED on Nov 4, the day Obama was elected. With a Democrat in the White House, American Soldier Deaths are no longer even WORTH reporting, as they now have...

More than a year after death, LI man found in front of his TVBy Associated Press Saturday, February 17, 2007 - Updated: 12:04 PM EST HAMPTON BAYS, N.Y. - A man’s body was found in his home more than a year after his death, with the television still on and his features preserved by dry conditions, officials said.     Vincenzo Ricardo, 70, apparently died of natural causes, said Dr. Stuart Dawson, Suffolk County’s deputy chief medical examiner. Southampton Town police found Ricardo’s body this week when they responded to a report of burst pipes.     Ricardo was found in a chair...

As of last Tuesday, I think we all need to remember... Have You Forgotten?

According to ABC News, officials there have granted bin Laden amnesty. As long as he leads a “peaceful life,” bin Laden can remain free in Pakistan, said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan Khan. Reuters confirms that the Pakistani military has agreed to pull out of the tribal region along the Afghan border where bin Laden is believed to have found sanctuary. In exchange, al-Qaida and the Taliban reportedly have agreed to stop attacking military outposts reluctantly set up in response to heavy pressure from the White House. The Pakistani army is also returning captured Taliban weapons and prisoners and dismantling newly...

FAENZA, Italy - Environmentalists, foodies and travelers, unite! You have nothing to lose but your boring supermarket produce. The Festival of Forgotten Fruits — scheduled for Oct. 14-15 in the town of Casola Valsenio, Italy — is an event designed to bring attention to little-known and sometimes ancient varieties of wild fruit that are still cultivated locally. The festival will feature pomegranates, vulpine pears, rose apples, jujubes (also known as red dates or Chinese dates), quince apples, sorb apples, cornelian cherries and unusual types of berries, as well as medlars, which are used as an ingredient in desserts, jelly and...

Forgotten army sides with Hizbullah Jonathan Steele in Marjaayoun Monday July 31, 2006 The Guardian (UK) A Lebanese man wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, walks past a bomb crater in the eastern Bekaa valley. Photograph: Samer Husseini/AP "Any Hizbullah in the town?" I asked the Lebanese soldier who had hitched a lift outside this mixed Christian and Shia area just five miles north of the Israeli border. "A few," he replied, as his right eye creased into a cheerful wink. We dropped him in Marjaayoun's cobbled main square, where three other soldiers in...

WILLIAM Jefferson Blythe III was born on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Ark. After his mother remarried, he took the family surname, Clinton. Clinton was a good student. He enjoyed playing the saxophone and even considered a professional musical career. While in high school, a fortuitous meeting with President John Kennedy led him to choose a life of public service.

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2006 – Children in military families make sacrifices and serve their country as much as anyone in uniform does, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said here today. "In so many loving ways, our children quietly shoulder part of the burden, making their mom or dad understand that what they are doing is important," Marine Gen. Peter Pace said in an interview with the Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service. Military parents often have to miss holidays and special occasions, and children are left home to worry while parents go on difficult missions, Pace...

Argentina unearths forgotten past By Daniel Schweimler BBC News, Buenos Aires Workers renovating a plaza in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, have stumbled across a forgotten cemetery. It was used by early immigrants in the first half of the 19th Century. The bodies have rested under what today is a neighbourhood plaza It was called the dissident cemetery since it was used by the Protestant and Jewish communities who were not allowed to bury their dead in the Roman Catholic cemeteries used by the majority of the population. The find has excited experts keen to learn more about their country's...