Free Republic

Proving just how important Barack Obama’s new rumor-busting Web site could be, a Tennessee Democratic Party member told a local newspaper that the presumptive nominee of his party “may be terrorist connected.”

Prostitution Case Features Prosecutors of Corruption BY JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun March 10, 2008 URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/72574 Prosecutors specializing in government corruption cases are leading the investigation into what authorities say was a prostitution service that charged up to $5,500 an hour — suggesting that the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan may have evidence that a public official hired a prostitute. Federal prosecutors here recently unsealed a criminal complaint charging four people with running Emperors Club VIP, which advertised itself as an escort service. Prosecutors say the Emperors Club employed more than 50 high-end prostitutes. During a...

Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), also known as Congressman Hollywood, is one of the most powerful members of the House when it comes to intellectual property issues, so when he muses aloud about "revisiting" the DMCA, people listen. Unfortunately, Berman wants to reform the DMCA because it doesn't go far enough, and his ideas sound like they're ripped right from the pages of the Big Content playbook. Berman chairs the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, and this morning oversaw a hearing on the PRO-IP Act, a bill that could boost statutory damages for copyright infringement and create...

Albert Snyder of York, Pa., the father of a Westminster Marine who was killed in Iraq, today won his case in a Baltimore federal court against members of Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church who protested at his son's funeral last year. The jury of five women and four men awarded Snyder $2.9 million in compensatory damages. The amount of punitive damages to be awarded has not yet been decided. The jury deliberated for about two hours yesterday and much of today.

WASHINGTON - Oh, Canada! The USA is closer than ever. The Bush administration appears to have annexed a major Canadian landmark as part of a slick new campaign to promote U.S. tourism and welcome foreign visitors to America. A Disney-produced promotional video released last week by the departments of State and Homeland Security highlights majestic American landscapes, from New England's colourful fall foliage and the Grand Canyon to the Rocky Mountains and Hawaii's pounding surf. Backed by a soaring orchestral soundtrack, shots of those attractions are interspersed with the smiling images of people of all creeds and colours. The video,...

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has taken up a new battle against pirates, but this one is different than previous legal pursuits. The UK-based organization acts as the worldwide arm for the music recording industry, but as widely reported, it apparently forgot to renew its .com top-level domain in time before it got snatched up by one of its top targets, The Pirate Bay. While the IFPI still retains control of ifpi.org, ifpi.com now points to a Pirate Bay page that reads: "International Federation of Pirates Interests." The two sides are now preparing for a fight over the...

When it comes to launching online attacks, criminals are getting more organised and branching out from the Windows operating system, says eBay's security chief. eBay recently did an in-depth analysis of its threat situation, and while the company is not releasing the results of this analysis, it did uncover a huge number of hacked, botnet computers, said Dave Cullinane, eBay's chief information and security officer, speaking at a Microsoft-sponsored security symposium at Santa Clara University. Cullinane, who one year ago downplayed the role of organised crime in phishing ("It's not the Sopranos," he said), believes that online attackers are indeed...

Michael Goldfarb in the Weekly Standard has just broken news on the Weekly Standard that can only result in the firing of, at the minimum, Franklin Foer, editor of the once-respected New Republic. You simply cannot publish anti-military stories, inflammatory and controversial on their face, without subjecting the wild claims to the most strict fact-checking measures possible. Yet Mr. Foer, it now appears, did just that. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the husband of a New Republic staffer who previous to his military service posted anti-war material on a weblog, volunteered to recant the stories that were published in The New Republic...

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp--author of the much-disputed "Shock Troops" article in the New Republic's July 23 issue as well as two previous "Baghdad Diarist" columns--signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods--fabrications containing only "a smidgen of truth," in the words of our source. Separately, we received this statement from Major Steven F. Lamb, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multi National Division-Baghdad: An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp...

It's in a subscribers only link at the Wall Street Journal. The Congressman wants $8,000,000.00 to pay for marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to fund research into shrimp-fishing. These are but two of the Congressman's 65 earmarks sought thus far this year to the tune of $400,000,000.00. HIs chief spokesman pulled a Tom DeLay and said "Reducing earmarks does not reduce government spending, and it does not prohibit spending upon those things that are earmarked," the spokesman said. "What people who push earmark reform are doing is they are particularly misleading the public -- and I have...

Description on main page of website: "Some of us — hopefully most of us — are trying to understand and appreciate the effect our recent election will have on you, the citizens of the rest of the world. As our so-called leaders redouble their efforts to screw you over, please remember that some of us — hopefully most of us — are truly, truly sorry. And we'll say we're sorry, even on the behalf of the ones who aren't."

For a hearty lunchtime chuckle: Check out my interview with Ron Ott of Coptix, one of the masterminds behind the April Fools' joke that caused a Rove Derangement Syndrome feeding frenzy.

Tomkat, Bradgelina Get Pwned In Annual Banned Word ListPOSTED: 12:24 pm EST December 31, 2006 UPDATED: 12:44 pm EST December 31, 2006 DETROIT -- Online video gamers inadvertently stumbled onto a pop culture phenomenon when they began championing the use of "pwn," a misspelling of "own." Now, linguist police around the globe say it's high time to bury the cryptic term, which means to dominate or soundly defeat. "This word is just an overly used Internet typo," said Tory Rowley, of Corunna, Mich. "It has been overused to the point that people who play online games are using it in...

I really, really hope Rush Limbaugh sees and picks this up today. COURIC: CBS 'EVENING NEWS' RATINGS DISASTER Monday, Oct. 16, 2006 NEW YORK CITY WABC 7.1 WNBC 5.3 WCBS 3.7 LOS ANGELES KABC 5.9 KNBC 3.1 KCBS 1.5 WASHINGTON, DC NBC 9.3 ABC 7.8 CBS 2.5

(S10E09) Almost immediately after the events of 9/11, conspiracy theories began to crop up, and probably faster than ever before now that we had the internet and a way to instantaneously transmit gross misinformation and conclusions rife with logical fallacies. I think Cartman best summed up this episode with a line from his song about finding the truth behind 9/11: "I can't base my logic on proof." While Mr. Macke tries to find out which boy took a crap in one of the urinals, Cartman decides to finally get to the bottom of 9/11. He presents his finding in class,...

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BOSTON (Reuters) - A prostitute forced repeatedly into having sex with a Boston policeman said she feared the abuse would never stop -- until she stole his badge. When the officer, Michael LoPriore, telephoned her to get it back, the FBI was tuning in to their conversation, the 19-year-old's lawyer, John Swomley, said on Wednesday. LoPriore, 37, was charged in federal court on Tuesday with depriving the woman of her rights by using his position as a police officer to force her to perform sex in his car in September 2004. Under a plea agreement, the 12-year veteran of Boston's...

Today's Democrats are nothing like Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, who with courage and decisive action kept on top of their jobs and aggressively confronted one national defense crisis after another. Jimmy Carter, elected during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and (1) believing Americans had an inordinate fear of communism, (2) lifted U.S. citizens' travel bans to Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia and (3) pardoned draft evaders. President Carter (4) also stopped B-1 bomber production, (5) gave away our strategically located Panama Canal and (6) made human rights the central focus of his foreign policy. That led...

AP 7-Eleven Dropping Venezuela-Backed Citgo Wednesday September 27, 12:16 pm ET 7-Eleven Dropping Venezuela-Backed Citgo As Its Gasoline Supplier DALLAS (AP) -- Convenience store operator 7-Eleven Inc. is dropping Venezuela-backed Citgo as its gasoline supplier at more than 2,100 locations and switching to its own brand of fuel. The retailer said Wednesday it will purchase fuel from several distributors, including Tower Energy Group of Torrance, Calif., Sinclair Oil of Salt Lake City, and Houston-based Frontier Oil Corp.