Free Republic

On July 4, George “Mojo” Buford returned home to Minneapolis following a gig at Yoshi’s nightclub in San Francisco, where he performed with his fellow vets from Muddy Waters’ band, Hubert Sumlin and James Cotton. A day later, the legendary blues harpist went in for heart surgery and never fully recovered, according to family. Buford, 81, died Tuesday morning of heart failure at St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood. “He was doing what he loved to do right up until the end,” his son Abe said proudly. A native of Hernando, Miss., Buford said in a 2002 interview that he moved...

The U.S. Treasury said its foreclosure-prevention program has cut mortgage payments for about 947,000 households, at least temporarily. HAMP, announced a year ago by President Barack Obama, gives lenders incentives to help struggling borrowers avoid foreclosure by shrinking their payments through a reduction in the interest rate to as low as 2%. In some cases, loan terms are extended to 40 years. Participants first are given three-month "trial" modifications. If they make payments on time and meet other requirements, including documentation of their income, they are given permanent modifications. As of Jan. 31, about 116,000 borrowers had such permanent fixes,...

To a certain type of New Yorker,every Dumpster is a potential treasure chest,right up there with thrift stores and stoop sales. But if the scavenger gods offer only a finite number of prizes, Julie Finch might have claimed one of them. Last month Ms. Finch stood on her toes to peer into the Dumpster outside her building on West 26th Street and found a blue wooden harp distinguished mainly by caked layers of grime and dust and a snarl of broken strings. “It was this old thing with wires going in all directions,” she said.“It didn’t look like anything anybody...

The harp of Israel goes back to the Tanach. It is written that the first person to play was a man called Yuval who played on a kinor. The next person was King David, who was the one who brought it to a very high level of awareness. He used it as a spiritual instrument to connect to Hashem. Then it went right into the Beit Hamikdash where there were 4,000 Leviim who played the harp. The tribe of Levi taught their children at age three to play on the nevel, the kinor, the shofar, and the silver trumpet. They...

Canada's annual seal hunt, the focus of a major protest effort by animal activists, will start on Saturday and could last longer than usual because the ice floes on which the seals gather are in poor condition, officials said on Thursday. Canada says a total of 325,000 harp seal pups can be shot or clubbed to death this year. The first stage of the hunt, which takes place on ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Canada's East Coast, will account for just over 90,000 animals. Activists, who say the killing is cruel and unnecessary, say they will film...

It's after midnight here in Ireland, so.. Happy St.Patrick Day!!!

I've spent the last three or four days drowning myself in websites filled with Celtic music midis and learning to play O'Carolan's Ramble to Cashel. My music library is a strange collection of 80s compilation albums, collections of Celtic music, works by Steel Eye Span, Moya Brennan, Pentangle, Clannad, Dougie McClean, and Bluegrass. I can sometimes tell you which Child Ballad a song is a variation of, and might know how to sing two or three different major variations. Tis a sickness. Wonder if anybody else had picked up this bug besides me....And I am logged in, my beeper is...

The official purpose of Project HAARP which is based in Alaska, is said to be for studying the ionosphere in order to "understand and use it to enhance communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defense purposes." Yet, over the years allegations have arisen that HAARP is involved in everything from weather modification to mind control. Guy Cramer has a new article posted which concludes that in addition to HAARP, there is another huge ionospheric array in Alaska. The page also contains photos, maps, and recommended links from Cramer and Dr. Joseph Resnick.

A Canadian Hat Trick by Daniel Sargis20 April 2004In a preemptive strike based on faulty intelligence, Canada has decisively launched a war on seals to save its depleted stocks of cod.   After harping ad infinitum about America’s “unjustified” war, our compassionate Canadian neighbors have launched a little pogrom of their own.  Taking their lead from Fallujian etiquette, Canada has commenced the slaughter of a million baby harp seals over the next three years.  At least they are sparing suicide bombers and serial rapists. Of course there are always the nitpickers who will maintain that “baby” seals aren’t slaughtered. ...

<p>The FBI official in charge of the probe into the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings said the investigation still has top priority among the bureau's unsolved cases, but he acknowledged the anthrax sender may never be caught.</p> <p>"Despite our very, very, very best efforts, we still might not be able to bring it home," said Assistant Director Michael A. Mason, who heads the FBI's Washington field office, which is investigating the case.</p>

Ancient harp to play again An RAF squadron flew cedar wood from Basra for the new harp A harp enthusiast is hoping to recreate the first working copy of the famous Harp of Ur, which was vandalised in Iraq's national museum following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Andy Lowings, 52, from Cambridgeshire, wants the replica instrument to be as close to the 4,750 year-old original as possible, even down to the source of the wood. His £25,000 project caught the imagination of a nearby RAF squadron who agreed to collect two pieces of cedar wood from Basra and presented...

U.S. Report Faulted Anthrax Prober FBI Official in Charge of Case Avoided Discipline Over Ruby Ridge Study By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, August 24, 2002; Page A02 The official in charge of the FBI's anthrax probe was accused of misconduct and recommended for discipline for his role in a flawed review of the deadly Ruby Ridge standoff, but a Justice Department official later concluded that punishment was unwarranted, according to newly revealed information about the case. Van A. Harp, a 32-year FBI veteran who now heads the bureau's Washington field office, allegedly "committed misconduct" by helping to...

Posted - February 25, 2002 1:26pm Washington (AP) - Months after anthrax-tainted letters killed five people and sickened more than a dozen, the FBI said Monday that its investigators do not have a prime suspect despite conducting hundreds of interviews in the case. "There is no prime suspect in this case at this time," spokesman Bill Carter said. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said there are several suspects and the FBI has not narrowed that list down to one. "I wish it were that easy and that simple right now," he said. President Bush wants the case resolved quickly, Fleischer ...

(no link, transcribed from hard copy) In the years that has passed since a rash of anthrax attacks terrorized our nation, the FBI has failed to name a credible suspect. Using methods that could best be described as dubious, the Bureau has identified a "person of interest", Dr. Steven Hatfill. For his part, Hatfill protests that he is an innocent, patriotic American whose reputation has been ruined by defamatory leaks by the FBI, driven by institutional desperation to produce some evidence of progress in its investigation. The anthrax probe is yet another FBI scandal in the making, and the official...