Free Republic

Fact: not a single Mass Pike toll taker has suffered a tragic career-ending injury since the bombshell announcement Wednesday afternoon that the tollbooths west of 128 may be coming down next summer. This can mean only one thing. The hacks don’t yet take the threat to their gainful unemployment seriously. Because if they were in fact worried, the carnage would have already begun in the toll plazas. Stools would be collapsing, cash drawers would be dropping onto flat feet, kinsmen of state reps and city councilors would be tumbling into holes, or slipping on ice or straining their backs, depending...

Budget analysts changed employee time cards to allow the San Diego City Attorney's Office to funnel extra money from lucrative special city accounts, according to results of an internal investigation released yesterday. City Attorney Michael Aguirre said the improper accounting, which took place from 1997 to 2004, included time cards being altered to reflect work for the wrong department, and part-time work billed as full-time. Questionable billing of other city departments continued in his office through this week, Aguirre acknowledged, even though he said he put new policies in place to stop the activities within a month after he took...

online exclusive Fat Matt Amorello was a complete boob to the bitter end. Two weeks ago today, he had a deal on the table that would have paid him through the end of the 2007 fiscal year - $223,000. Here it is, exactly 14 days later. The bloated fool spent upwards of $1 million on white-shoed lawyers, and he ends up with a deal by which he leaves the payroll on Feb. 15, 4 1/2 months earlier than under the first deal. So Fat Matt is out $85,000 - and it cost him a million bucks to lose the money,...

Concrete panels fell in Fall River tunnel in '99 Monday's Big Dig tunnel tragedy in Boston bears several similarities to falling concrete in a highway tunnel in Fall River. July 12, 2006 PAUL EDWARD PARKER Monday's Big Dig tunnel tragedy in Boston bears several similarities to a tunnel collapse in Fall River in 1999. On March 3 that year, several two-ton ceiling tiles fell from the roof of the tunnel that carries Route 195 under Fall River's city hall. Yesterday's collapse involved concrete ceiling tiles weighing three tons each. In both tunnels, the tiles were bolted to the structures above...

Accidental publicist Agencies risk unwitting release of sensitive information using popular office software BY Michael Arnone Published on Apr. 10, 2006 A new front line of national and corporate security is emerging, and some of the most common document applications, including Microsoft Word documents and PDFs, are putting people on it without their knowledge. In the past several years, federal agencies and private-sector companies have released documents on the Internet that they thought did not contain sensitive content, but they actually did. That has led to embarrassment, scandals, firings and national security breaches when unintended readers discovered the hidden data....

Rock icon's siblings perturbed at his portrayal in lyrics LUBBOCK, Texas A reference to late rock and roller Buddy Holly on the new Dixie Chicks album is drawing criticism from his brothers. In "Lubbock or Leave It," Natalie Maines of Lubbock sings: "I hear they hate me now/Just like they hated you./Maybe when I'm dead and gone/I'm gonna get a statue, too." Holly was born in Lubbock and his statue is downtown. He died in a 1959 plane crash in Iowa. Larry Holley doesn't know of anyone who hated his late sibling. Travis Holley says his late brother was proud...

Despite all the hoopla about the introduction of Windows Vista, the truth of the matter is that the new OS isn't due for at least another seven to nine months — and it will probably be even longer before most of us start adopting it. Meanwhile, we've still got to deal with Win XP. In order to make the waiting easier, we've decided to assemble the greatest tips in the history of Windows XP. Here you'll find the tips that give you the most bang for your buck; that are most useful in terms of security, functionality, and PC performance;...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Few presidents have had the opportunity to shape the Federal Reserve the way President Bush has this year. Once Bush replaces Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson, the only Democrat on the Fed's board who resigned recently, four of the Fed's seven governors will have taken office in 2006, and all seven will be Bush appointees. Ben Bernanke became Fed chairman on Feb. 1, but he still has more seniority than two other Fed governors, with a third appointment due soon. That would make Bush only the third president to place all seven governors on the board, after...

This is straight from his website, Robin Rather is Document Danny boys Daughter The following fundraising events, given in Ronnie's honor, are hosted and sponsored by members of our community who have graciously offered their time, resources, and dedication to Ronnie's re-election campaign. Tuesday, October 3, 2000 "Protecting the Safety on which our Quality of Life Depends" Sponsored By: Mayor Kirk Watson Hon. Ben Barnes Lowell Lebermann Robin Rather & David Murray Mithoff & Jacks, LLP John Sharp Melissa Jones Stevens Thursday, October 12, 2000 "The Asian community celebrates Ronnie Earle's dedication and service to Austin" Sponsored By: Tommy Hodinh...

Do you know the real reason the Legislature doesn't give a damn how much you're paying for gasoline? It's because they don't pay for their own gasoline. You do. The solons are the only people in Massachusetts who get paid for driving to work, and I use that word advisedly, since their ``work'' mainly consists of voting the way they're told to, not by their constituents, but by the leadership. Last week the Republicans in the House proposed a three-month suspension of the 21-cent-a-gallon state tax on gasoline. It was quickly shot down by the fat-cat Democratic leadership. ``It doesn't...

Check out this weird block of text at the bottom of a SPAM message that came in here a while ago. Is this someones atempt at keyword spamming that accidentally got included in the SPAM email or is it perhaps a draft copy of Kofi Annan's latest speech leaked to the press before proofreading? Weird! Machine other however monday got behalf so for the mailing a correct device well for add smattering dealt guide am bush. Messages . done deprecatory bit an budd fine object parasitic and boost eighty of info curd puissant didn iraq correct long ancestry. General i...

October 26, 2004 -- A WORD of advice to New York City taxi drivers: If you support President Bush in this GOP-hostile town, keep your mouth shut. Last week, I introduced you to Etzer Jerome, who was fined $500 and had his hack license suspended for three weeks after he expressed fondness for Bush to a passenger. Well, he's not the first driver to run afoul of the unwritten Code of Politically Correct Cabby Conduct. Meet Mira Chaikin. Last summer, the 15-year taxi veteran disagreed with a passenger over the war in Iraq — which she favors. Chaikin was fined...

The press is having a field day trying to spin the story that the 9/11 Commission has conclusively contradicted the White House on whether there were ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Yesterday The New York Times began their lead editorial titled The Plain Truth: It's hard to imagine how the commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks could have put it more clearly yesterday: there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11. Now President Bush should apologize to the American people, who were led to believe something different. The...

Previous posts on this topic: Los Angeles Protest it's a cross the aclu cannot bear! Here are the pictures from the protest yesterday. There are about 70 pics, so I put them onto 3 pages.

<p>Governor Mitt Romney is reviving his campaign to dilute the powers of Massachusetts Turnpike Authority chairman Matthew Amorello, but this time Amorello's legislative allies are ready to make changes in light of the chairman's recent missteps.</p> <p>Romney wants to overhaul the Turnpike Authority, reduce its functions, and diminish Amorello's clout. The governor's aides say he plans to include the reorganization in the budget proposal he will present to the House next month. The administration's proposal was designed to reap $190 million in one-time savings and to generate $23 million a year, offering badly needed revenue to leaders in the Legislature who are once again facing a major budget deficit. Lawmakers rebuffed a similar proposal from Romney earlier this year, but now Amorello has weathered a year of controversy that was capped off by Amorello's plans to throw a lavish party, with a Boston Pops performance, to celebrate the opening of the last significant section of the Big Dig. Amorello was forced to call off the event late last week, but some of his one-time allies at the highest levels of the legislative leadership are quietly distancing themselves from the Turnpike Authority chairman, who has a $205,000-a-year contract until his term expires in 2007.</p>

Earlier today the Country Nation news site posted this news article about the Chicks and Sony Chicken Little -- Sony Records is allegedly telling some Little Rock Disc-Jockeys to put a sock in it -- or in this case, a shirt. The trouble started when the Dixie Chicks' label got wind of a Little Rock, Arkansas radio station making light of lead singer Natalie Maines, on some shirts the station handed Wednesday. The letters "F.U.N.M." printed on the shirts stands for "Friends United for Natalie Maines," Country 102.9 program director Bud Ford, told KARK.com. Then again, "The first two letters...might...

MONTREAL - Metallica are taking legal action against independant Canadian rock band Unfaith over what they feel is unsanctioned usage of two chords the band has been using since 1982 : E and F. "People are going to get on our case again for this, but try to see it from our point of view just once," stated Metallica's Lars Ulrich. "We're not saying we own those two chords, individually - that would be ridiculous. We're just saying that in that specific order, people have grown to associate E, F with our music." Metallica filed a trademark infringement suit against...

They report. We deride. We deride Fox News Channel for saying "us" and "our" in talking about the American war effort, a strategy that conjures images of gung-ho anchor Shepard Smith, like Slim Pickens in "Dr. Strangelove," riding a Tomahawk straight into Baghdad. We deride Fox for playing ratings politics with the news, turning Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers' public call Tuesday for media to be "fair and balanced" into a back-door endorsement, pointing out frequently afterward that the general had echoed a Fox News marketing slogan.

A STATEMENT OF CONSCIENCENot In Our Name     L et it not be said that people in the United States did nothing when their government declared a war without limit and instituted stark new measures of repression.   The signers of this statement call on the people of the U.S. to resist the policies and overall political direction that have emerged since September 11, 2001, and which pose grave dangers to the people of the world.   We believe that peoples and nations have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers. We believe...

Is it just me, or has the median age for post-postmodern rock stars been getting younger? How else to justify all those fawning profiles of suburban scofflaws Sum 41 making out like they invented disorderly conduct? Sure, it all comes down to what the marketing execs call "positioning," like how the Sums' video for the hooliganistic "Still Waiting" carves into the Strokes/Hives/Vines, while their concurrent spoofs of mid-'80s metallic bombast seem lost on the band members themselves, let alone their desired audience. If "rock" is indeed "back," who can tell the difference between the mooks and the mockers? Part of...