Free Republic

Wasn’t Eugene the genius that told us that the folks in the Superdome were eating each other?

No, that was Randall Robinson, author of the bestseller The Debt, which made the case for reparations.

As a black man, the worst part of Randall Robinson's forwarding that false rumor on HuffPo was that HE BELIEVED IT. He thought his fellow African-Americans were so ignorant they would take to eating their dead neighbors rather than continue to wait for relief that was inexcusably delayed, but nonetheless guaranteed to be on its way.

Tip for today. When you're in a hole, stop digging. "Smitty" is Stephanie Birkitt.

Whoa, there's a lotta attitude coming from Down Under. Forgive me for having forgotten over the last four years all the unfunny schtuff I left behind when I stopped watching Letterman on a regular basis.

Whatsamatter, you think Dave's a laff riot and Birkett is the new Lily Tomlin or something?

Wow, you became aware of Birkitt's character in 2005 (do you know Michael Jackson is still dead?). Smitty was appearing on The Late Show years before that time

Are you referring to Barbara Gaines, now the Executive Producer? She's a lesbian. Whether she was "out" going back to her days on the NBC show, I don't know, but I do know this: In June, before any details of actual sexual intercourse between Dave and his staffettes emerged, I remembered for the record Letterman groping Gaines on-camera.

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Strange you should say that, because I vividly remember back in the NBC days how Letterman did EXACTLY that on camera.

Dave used to do a bit in which he would call people at random from the White Pages from across the country (that's how he found Arnie Barnes, a "meat shaper" working at Omaha Steaks). Given the task of bringing the phone directories to his desk was Barbara Gaines, a production assistant. Gaines would enter from stage left and put the phone books on Dave's desk. As she would bend over and flip the pages and place her finger on a person selected to be called, a grinning Dave, while making idle chit-chat, would slowly reach behind her with his left hand. She would flinch and giggle and playfully say "C'mon!" or something.

At the time, Letterman was widely known to be dating writer Merrill Markoe, so it struck me as odd that he would be goosing a staff member on camera. Years later, Gaines, who eventually became Executive Producer, came out of the closet, making it more mysterious. Nevertheless, it happened that way, and wish I had video to prove it.

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More video and analysis at L.N. Smithee's REACTOR at LNSmitheeBlog.Blogspot.com

The 40-year-old German said the noise detracted from the players’ ‘sex appeal’.

He said: ‘Just play it back to the women. It sounds disgusting, ugly, unsexy!’

What gets me about the grunting is that it is, IMHO, counterproductive. I don't know what it is that these players were taught the grunting does to help them; if it has any benefit making a loud sound when you make contact, why don't other elite athletes scream? Does Tiger go "Hharrhgh!" when he hits a tee shot? Does Ryan Howard go "Aaarrhee!" when he swings for the fences?

Also, it actually saps energy they need late in matches. If you've ever had an illness that causes loud sneezing or coughing fits, you know how tiring it is to cause that much sound to come out of your body. I'll never forget watching Maria Sharapova as she ran out of gas in a tiebreaker in a three-set match. She could barely get the grunts out, and I thought, "I'll bet she wishes she had stopped earlier in the match!"

BTW, I hadn't thought about Michael Stich since...well, since he won. He's a one-hit wonder, the Slim Whitman of tennis.

It couldn't have happened to a hackier hack. I decimate the deceiver in this 2005 thread.

My only question is, will his vacuum be filled by something even more hacktastic?

Von Brunn himself posted on the Republican Web site, Free Republic, spouting the right-wing claim that Obama‘s birth certificate was forged,

I believe there is something askew about Obama's original Certification of Live Birth, which has (contrary to popular belief) NEVER been released. There is NOT a single reason not to release the original if it is on the up-and-up. NONE.

defending President Bush against Dan Rather,

Hey, Keith, why do you think Dan Rather is working for peanuts for Mark Cuban on a cable channel with even fewer viewers than MSNBC? Because the legendary old school newsman Rather, whom America first got to know when he covered Kennedy's assassination live in Dallas, tried to fix the 2004 election and got caught BY FREEPERS and retired a disgrace!

Don't think that can't happen to you too, Keith.

and claiming the media had tried to destroy Sarah Palin.

YOU TRY TO DESTROY PALIN EVERY MADDOG CHANCE YOU GET! You trashed her earlier in this rant! Dude, do you immediately forget every word you say after you read it off your 'prompter?

This reminds me of the way Margaret Cho tried to slime FR (after some individuals clicking over to her site from here admittedly were cruel and abusive toward her) by referencing the failed attempt by Stormfront members to "[P]enetrate Free Republic." We sniffed that plot out and banned the neo-Nazi trolls, but Cho's webmaster referred to one of the plotters' writing that FR was "packed full of our target audience."

How nice it is to know that while President "New Kind of Politics" Obama is firing inspectors general for false reasons and breaking a law he co-sponsored as a Senator in the process, the Huffington Post and the producers of Countdown have their priorities straight: Slandering Free Republic through guilt-by-association arguments that fall apart under scrutiny.

Let me interject at this point that I am a black man.

Nightline began life as America Held Hostage, a nightly update on the the Iran hostage crisis during the Carter administration. Ever since the hostages were released on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, there has been ever-so-slightly biased leftward under the anchorage of Ted Koppel. Still, Koppel was the most respectable and respectful anchor on television.

When Koppel retired, and former BBC reporter Martin Bashir joined unrestrained ABC lefties Terry Moran (from out of the WH Press Corps) and fluffmistress Cynthia McFadden from 20/20 as rotating anchors, it's been a GOP gang-bash.

I follow Moran on Twitter, and while he seems to be a very devoted and spiritual family man, his contempt for right-wingers is obvious to anyone who pays attention to the way he puts things. Still, he's not the most biased reporter who tweets; if you want a howl, follow CNN's Rick Sanchez, an moron who thinks he's a genius, ABC's Michelle Obama suckup Yunji De Nies, or the vacuous vision known as Contessa Brewer of MSNBC.

OTOH - It used to be I couldn't stand ABC's Jake Tapper, who gave biased coverage during the Fla. recount and took Moran's place in the WH Press Corps. But he's been great, asking probing questions of Obama to the point that BHO recently dodged him, and stymieing the stammering, giggling Robert Gibbs on a regular basis.

I was surprised to see Palm on the list. I thought it was already dead and buried. Remember those ads and billboards with the naked woman that were controversial in the late nineties?

Oops, sorry. Wrong thread. Never miiind.

I have bought from eBay a couple of dozen times over the years and have had absolutely zero problems that weren't resolved with a week. The only trouble was when an electronic item I won with a bid less than two dollars had a $80 shipping charge FOB from Hong Kong. I fought that and the seller backed down. No probs since then.

I wouldn't worry about eBay if I were you. It ain't Craigslist, with pervs, scammers, and killers just a click away.

I was surprised to see Palm on the list. I thought it was already dead and buried. Remember those ads and billboards with the naked woman that were controversial in the late nineties?

I’m not an Israel supportor nor am I against their need for a secure nation. However, they have done no good spying on the United States. And I don’t forgive them easily for that. So don’t get sympathetic on their behalf and expect me to go along.

What are you talking about?

I hope Crocs stays. Great cheap indestructible shoes that never smell. if you don’t like them for adults, they are still wonderful for children. Even the world over, they could provide cheap indestructible footwear for poor children.

Meanwhile, even in this crappy economy, there are people who are spending $215 and up on butt-ugly sneakers only because they were designed by Kanye West.

Borders! Yikes! This is hitting home. I was just there tonight, but you know, you can see how the internet spoils you. You look at their DVD database for, oh, say DJANGO, and you see order ... order ... order. Why go to the store?

As hard as it is to stomach the condescension of bookstore employees who are almost exclusively liberal, I enjoy browsing in bookstores. Stacey's, a large, beautiful independent bookstore in downtown San Francisco that I used to frequent on my lunch breaks, suddenly disappeared after 85 years. It was heartbreaking riding by on a bus for the first time in weeks and seeing the banners screaming that fixtures were for sale.

Borders is all there is left in San Francisco with easy parking (Barnes & Noble is at Fisherman's Wharf).

It still ticks me off the way libs demonize Wal-Mart, saying that it kills downtown businesses. There may be a kernel of truth in that, but Amazon.com is slowly murdering the entire retail book industry. Forget mom-and-pop stores, whole chains are going south. Any anti-corporate union-thug types boycotting it? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

I don't know what being a "birther" has to do with any of this, but this is more than just political horse-trading a la Blagojevich. Harman allegedly wanted to make a deal to boost her own intelligence bonafides at the expense of national security; remember, espionage charges are involved.

The funny thing is that whatever is the full truth of Harman's gambit, it failed. She was passed over in favor of the gaffetastic Silvestre Reyes, who would be a national punch line if he was a white Republican.

Israel is already a U.S. ally, so I am mystified that there are so many spy cases on its behalf.

The shooter knew there was an armed student in the classroom. This is a big error in the experiment. What mass shooter would enter a room where he knew there was someone with a gun to shoot back?

The shooter shot the lecturer first, then turned directly to the young man and began firing. How convenient it was for the shooter to know who was armed and where he was sitting so he could quickly take out the one and only threat in the room.

The shooter knew he could be fired at, but showed no surprise at the sight of a gun. The experiment was repeated with other "victims" under the same circumstances and not once did the shooter react in surprise. In real life, a shooter won't expect any resistance and is likely to react when shot at. The shooter was a professional firearm instructor and a good shot under stress. Not exactly realistic, since real mass murderers are usually just insane people with guns.

In other words, this experiment was rigged. The armed student was set up to fail.

I knew from the first promo that it would be a blatantly unbalanced piece (I've seen that footage of the kids pointing the empty guns at each other and staring down the barrel before), but I was not prepared for the way the subjects were set up like bowling pins in that "live" demonstration.

The author of the article failed to note that the shooter in the demonstrations knew exactly which of the people in the room were going to attempt to shoot back; with the exception of one volunteer and one other designated person seated in the conference room, all the others were law enforcement officers whose instructions were to take cover rather than attempt to engage the shooter. On top of that, when one of the volunteers landed a round on the shooter's left arm, it was minimized: 'It was just a graze. You're supposed to be shooting at the head...'

At the end, Sawyer said she really, really wished she could have had an opposing point of view, but that they couldn't find any that weren't contradictory. Unbelievable (in every sense of the word).

Van Susteren's ratings are getting smashed by Beck, whose show, despite airing in the ghetto that is 5 p.m., is already the network's third-highest-rated program.

That's as dumb as saying "Red Eye's ratings are getting smashed by The O'Reilly Factor." They're all on the same network, butthead!

Van Susteren's ratings aren't being threatened by her direct competition, and with market share trends increasing FNC's viewership (partially due to Beck catching fire), Ailes would be a maddog fool to mess with success -- especially with the competition doubling down on wacko left w/Ed Schultz!

Don't be fooled, people -- this is just part of the left's anti-Palin blitz. Why do you think the article's lead was about Palin and not Van Susteren's ratings?

Brown told the court in a filing that he doesn't think that Proposition 8 is a constitutional revision or that it violates the constitutional separate of powers. But he said he believes it is unconstitutional because it violates the inalienable right to liberty.

Moonbeam Brown knew exactly what it was when the Gay-stapo demanded that he change the language the title from “California Limits to Marriage Amendment” to “Elimination of the Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry." He just thought that change would kill it.

This is dereliction of duty by the Attorney General, who is supposed to represent The People of the State of California. The People have spoken, but Brown -- even in rejecting the supposed best argument against Prop 8 -- is still ignoring the electorate, just like his predecessor. The only reason why the whole question of legality of same-sex marriage made it to the California Supreme Court last year is because the last AG, Democrat Bill Lockyer, sent an CA Appeals court invalidation of Gavin Newsom's rogue marriages to the Supremes for review. They did just what Lockyer wanted -- they overturned it, and created a right to same-sex marriage from whole cloth.

And you Weiner Nation fans, don't ever forget -- this whole deal is partly HIS fault. Savage sent Brown's AG campaign $5,600.00 and blew off conservative Republican candidate Chuck Poochigian.