Free Republic

With Jay Leno and Matt Winkler from Bloomberg News. (Michelle wore red, for May Day)Sen. Chris Dodd and Michael Bloomberg.Chevy ChaseLarry KingRupert Murdoch and Tim GeithnerArianna Huffington and Joy Behar.Jessica Simpson and Gabourey Sidibe ("Precious")Dennis Quaid and Queen Latifah.Bill Maher and Seth MacFarlaneThe one who was supposed to move out of the country in November, 2004.No, it's not Madonna. That's Donatella Versace.Gail Simmons and Tom Colicchio of 'Top Chef'.King, MacFarlane, and Jeff Probst.Tracy MorganColin Powell and Joy Behar.Chelsea Handler (female equivalent of Bill Maher) and Katie Couric.Cynthia NixonJon Bon Jovi is pleased to introduce his wife to race-baiter Al Sharpton.Peter...

President Barack Obama struck a hyperpartisan note Thursday, telling Democrats that he was "amused" by the Tax Day Tea Party rallies. Obama, addressing a Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraiser in Miami, did little to endear himself to the Tea Party groups protesting around the country, saying "they should be saying thank you" because of the tax cuts he has signed into law. The president went as far as to say that this week's special election in Florida, which was won by Democrat Ted Deutch, was portrayed by Republicans as "a referendum on healthcare, a referendum on the stimulus." "And you...

After several days of hype and hand-wringing about liberal plans to infiltrate Thursday’s tea party rallies, the great 2010 Tax Day Tea Party Crash did not produce much of a bang in Washington. To be sure, a handful of obvious crashers engaged in some mostly non-confrontational back-and-forth with tea party activists at a Thursday evening rally that drew thousands to Washington’s National Mall near the Washington Monument. And some less overt crashers subtly mocked activists from amidst their ranks at both the evening rally on the Mall and an earlier event at Freedom Plaza near the White House. And there...

The Hate Man is probably the most colorfully oddball homeless person on Berkeley's famously oddball Telegraph Avenue. Known as Mark Hawthorne when he was a New York Times news reporter from 1961 to 1970, Hate Man has lived mostly on the streets in Berkeley since opting out of normal society in 1986. For a man whose penchant for wearing cast-off women's clothes and eating garbage seems a tad feral, the 73-year-old Hate Man is a surprisingly gentle, lucid conversationalist about most anything - particularly his philosophy that everyone must acknowledge that they really hate each other. He went over the...

The Laysan albatross is a downy seabird with a seven-foot wingspan and a notched, pale yellow beak. Every November, a small colony of albatrosses assembles at a place called Kaena Point, overlooking the Pacific at the foot of a volcanic range, on the northwestern tip of Oahu, Hawaii. Each bird has spent the past six months in solitude, ranging over open water as far north as Alaska, and has come back to the breeding ground to reunite with its mate. Albatrosses can live to be 60 or 70 years old and typically mate with the same bird every year, for...

So, according to Frank Rich of the New York Times, the Tea Party protesters are indulging in a “small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht.” There is a “tsunami of anger” gathering across the land, he writes, and an “accompanying rise in right-wing extremism”. Well, I detest some of the expressions reported in recent days and I’m hoping the Tea Party movement – where I’ve met many thoughtful, responsible people – will begin a little self-policing. I’m also hoping that the worst sign-carriers will be taken aside and questioned — as I would be willing to bet that some of them are plants,...

Ask anyone in the Tea Party movement and they'll tell you how difficult it is to get any media attention at all, not to mention coverage that is actually fair and accurate, yet the Coffee Party movement sprung up overnight and it's already a media favorite. Find out why and comment here: http://pjtv.com/v/3251

Ivory Tower Conundrum Bethany Stotts, March 10, 2010 Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said that “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” But some in the ivory tower would prefer that the sunlight of transparency not shine too brightly into the classroom. “An associate professor [at the University of Virginia] who focuses on digital media, Mr. [Siva] Vaidhyanathan regularly teaches and writes enthusiastically about movements to make music, movies, and other creative works free online,” writes Jeffrey R. Young this...

Harvard Still Hates America Malcolm A. Kline, March 10, 2010 A number of years ago, former congressman John LeBoutellier wrote a book about his alma mater which he titled Harvard Hates America. The thesis is worth revisiting. Since then, (1978), a quartet of Harvard grads have run for president, two of them successfully, displaying varying degrees of affection for their native soil. The last Crimson candidate, who now occupies the White House, matriculated from Harvard Law. “On this faculty, there are around 100 professors or assistant professors, and of that 100, I think you’d have to estimate there would be...

An attempt is being made to inculcate into our society the notion -- create a meme if you will -- that liberals and atheists are smarter than conservatives who believe in God. Cited as evidence by evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa are conclusions gleaned from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health which began with a survey of high school students in 1994 and part of which included a picture-based vocabulary test used to estimate their IQs. Interviews of participants 14 years later showed higher-IQ scorers to be disproportionately liberals and atheists. There is surprisingly simple test that you can perform...

Fantasies old and new Gene Lyons The first great rule followed by all American politicians and most journalists is to flatter the people about how smart and savvy they are. The reality, of course, is that much of the electorate is so poorly informed that it’s a wonder our political system works as well as it does, which many think is hardly at all. Last week, CNN released a poll showing that 86 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. government is “broken.” I admit my first reaction was to wonder subversively, “How would they know?” A contemporaneous Pew survey...

Many of us on the right like to claim that the Old Media is just an arm of the Democrat Party. Of course some of that on our part is bombast, but incidents like this tend to make conservative’s complaints seem more like right-on-target truth than over-the-top complaining. On February 23, ABC TV Channel 7, WTRF News (Wheeling, West Virginia/ Steubenville, Ohio), posted on its website what was originally credited as a story written by reporter Bob Westfall. Unfortunately, though, this posting was only posing as a news story as it was nothing but a word-for-word re-posting of Democrat Ohio...

Police launched an investigation Tuesday after veteran British TV broadcaster Ray Gosling confessed on air to smothering his lover, who was dying of AIDS. A spokesman said officers would liaise with the BBC after Gosling's admission was aired on its 'Inside Out' program, broadcast at 7:30 p.m. GMT Monday. The BBC did not alert the police in advance of the confession, which was reportedly recorded last November. A police spokesman said: "We were not aware of Mr. Gosling's comments until the BBC Inside Out program was shown. "We are now liaising with the BBC and will investigate the matter."

Enough is enough. Post-docs, complaining of low pay while conducting vital research, are rising up in university towns across the state. Nearly 300 postdoctoral researchers at University of Massachusetts campuses in Amherst, Boston, and Dartmouth joined the United Auto Workers union, becoming the first post-doc researchers in the state to unionize. The move triggers a process that will require the university system to negotiate over wages, health insurance, job security, and other workplace issues. “We’ve taken this step so we can protect our rights on the job, and make sure post-docs working on different campuses and in different labs are...

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute. “I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media,” the legendary newsman said. Such a commission on media reform, Rather said, ought to make recommendations on saving journalism jobs and creating new business models to keep news organizations alive. At stake, he argued, is the very survival of American democracy.

The tea partiers are enjoying their day in the sun, but coffee is the beverage preferred by most Americans, and we don't have time to gang up and holler and wave our arms -- we prefer to sit quietly with coffee in hand and read a reliable newspaper and try to figure out what's going on in the world. Great heaps of dead bodies are moved by front-loaders and dumped, uncounted, unidentified, into open pits in a stricken country while people feast and walk treadmills on enormous cruise ships sailing a hundred miles off the coast en route to the...

Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz presented quite a paradox in a Charlie Gibson profile Monday. The retiring ABC World News anchor said that "it’s time to move on" since objectivity is "less of a marketable commodity." But Kurtz also underlined how Gibson dared to keep airing live coverage of Ted Kennedy’s funeral until they were able to broadcast the reading of Ted Kennedy’s letter to Pope Benedict. These passages came late in the article: Gibson worries whether broadcast networks will be able to support sizable editorial staffs in an era of declining audiences, when cable news channels are louder...

Gay newspapers in several U.S. cities, including the Washington Blade, shut down on Monday, as the company that owned them, Window Media, abruptly went out of business. Window Media had been in serious financial trouble, but employees said they had expected a reorganization or sale, not a liquidation. “We found out when two of the corporate officers were waiting for us when we got to work this morning,” said Kevin Naff, editor of the Blade, a 40-year-old paper that was one of the most important publications written for a gay audience. “It’s not a complete surprise. The abruptness of it...

Dan Calabrese notices a scolding tone coming from the Associated Press in reporting its latest polling. It headlines the report by noting that “a grouchy public [is] sticking with Obama,” having seen a 54% job approval rating in its survey — but some bad numbers on the issues. Does the AP report those falling levels of support as a consequence of Barack Obama doing a poor job? No, as emphases from Dan and myself show: The public grew slightly more dispirited on a range of matters over the past month, including war and the economy, continuing the slippage that has...

If Fidel Castro and Sean Penn are in the same room, which one do you think hates America more? Such a question doesn't seem to concern Vanity Fair who according to the website TMZ has hired Penn to write an article about how Barack Obama and his administration have impacted Cuba.