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I was recently inspired by an idea I saw on, of all things, The Simpsons. The plot started as Marge and her friends were gathered at their weekly investment club meeting. Helen Lovejoy was presenting to the club a chart of Dynaflux Unimatics's stock up seven and three quarters.

ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) — A man was charged with shooting and killing the owner, a bouncer and a patron of an after-hours club where he was denied admission early Sunday. Miguel Padilla was being held without bond in the Blair County Jail after his arraignment on three counts of criminal homicide in the shootings at the United Veterans Association Club, authorities said. All three men were pronounced dead at the scene and Padilla, described by police as an illegal immigrant, was arrested there shortly after the shooting, police said.

LITTLE FALLS — A Morrison AP) Little Falls, Minn. A judge in Morrison County has ordered a strip club, adult book and video store near Swanville, Minn. to close, citing the county's revised zoning ordinances. The ordinances restrict where adult-oriented businesses can locate and create a fee scale and licensing requirement. The ruling by Judge Thomas Godzala closes Lookin' Fine Smut and Porno, located at Minnesota Highways 27 and 28 near Swanville. Gordy Wheeler opened the business in October 2003. It is located about 930 feet from a tavern. The county's revised zoning ordinances prohibit any adult uses within 1,320...

You’ve probably never heard of The Doe Run Company of St. Louis or its subsidiary’s copper and lead smelting operation in the small mountain village of La Oroya, Peru, about 112 miles from Lima, but not long ago, the village had a distinguished visitor, Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace and chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies. The day he arrived, La Oroya’s mayor was leading thousands of marchers. Were they protesting Doe Run Peru? No. They were demonstrating against anti-mining activists, like Oxfam and groups tied to Christian Aid, the Sierra Club, EarthJustice and Friends of the Earth...

Montgomery County Public Schools yesterday halted a new sex-ed curriculum that was to have begun today, after a federal judge ruled in favor of a lawsuit that charged the course is unconstitutional and promotes homosexuality. U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. had granted a 10-day temporary restraining order yesterday to halt the teaching of the new course. "I have directed the office of the deputy superintendent of schools to review and evaluate the materials referenced in the judge's order," Superintendent Jerry D. Weast said, "...before any decisions are made about any future pilot testing of the revised curriculum in our...

FORT HUACHUCA - The World War II black officers club on this Arizona Army post is falling apart. Windows have been boarded up. In a couple of places, beams of light shine in through deteriorating roofs to break the darkness inside. Looking from in and out of the building, retired Army Dr. (Col.) Clotilde D. Bowen sees a patient that can be helped. She is a psychiatrist, used to working through the deep, troubling recesses of people's troubled minds. She knows what once was bright can be made whole again. Bowen only recently heard about the plight of the building....

When he was named president of the Club for Growth (clubforgrowth.org) last year, Pat Toomey didn't need anyone to tell him how important it was having the Republican lobbying group on his side in a tight political race. When the former Lehigh Valley congressman almost unseated Arlen Specter in the Senate primary last spring, the club — which specializes in helping candidates who favor small government, free markets and low taxes — contributed nearly $1 million to his campaign. I asked Toomey about his new job and his future political plans, when I called him at his offices in Washington:...

A strip club in the United States that attempted to get around a ban on full nudity by giving patrons sketch pads for special "art nights" was cited for violating the city's nudity rules, officials said. The citation was issued on Monday night to the Erotic City Gentleman's Club in Boise in Idaho. Boise allows full nudity for "serious artistic" expression only, so the club handed out pencils and sketch pads to patrons so they could sketch naked women. However, a police spokeswoman said officials concluded that patrons were not focused on art, so officers cited three dancers for violations...

IT seemed like an ordinary evening at Crobar, the trendy Manhattan nightclub. Two weeks ago, as Counting Crows performed on stage, young women dressed in expensive jeans pushed toward the front with their khaki-clad, mostly older boyfriends. Few, however, were regulars. On this night, the very rich and the merely rich intermingled on the club's two floors - V.I.P.'s upstairs ($1,000 a ticket) and the rest down below ($250). Most of the 1,250 people gathered for the event, the Robin Hood Foundation charity ball, were part of the city's unlikely new "it" crowd. Richer than Wall Street rich and more...

Abbas poses pragmatic for the Western press, while the PA Media Portray Feb. 25's Suicide Bomber of a Tel Aviv Night Club as a Hero fighting for Allah. While PA leader Mahmoud Abbas issues tersely worded condemnations of the February 25th suicide bombing of a Tel Aviv night club, the PA news media has been glorifying the memory of the bomber, Abdalla Badran, calling him a “shahid”, a martyr, a person who died for the highest ideals of Islam. Taking a page right out of Arafat’s book, Abbas has been projecting a moderate, pragmatic image abroad while the PA's state-controlled...

Hello, once again. Welcome to the weekly Free Republic Book Club thread. The winner of the poll and the topic for this week is historical novels. For those of you that want to get a jump on next week, the runner up in the last week's poll was mysteries, so grab one off the shelf and get busy reading, so you'll have something for next week. 8-)

Welcome to the Free Republic Book Club This is the place to discuss any book under the sun. First of all, my apologies for not getting to this thread until Saturday evening. Second, as has been suggested by several people on the previous threads, we're only going to make one thread per week, starting on Saturdays. We'll see how that works out. Third, let's try to pick a topic for the week. Granted, "off-topic" posts are to be expected (and practically mandatory, if reading other threads is any indication). Fourth, I pulled a lot of names from the previous...

Welcome to the Free Republic Book Club. Last time I checked there were over 70 posts on our first thread by 40+ posters. Not bad at all. Let's call our second meeting to order. I'd love to give you a topic, but I have to go dig up the car and take the kids bowling. So talk amongst yourselves. The results of yesterday's "survey" are below.

Welcome to the Free Republic Book Club. It was suggested a couple of days ago, in the FReeper's Book Rockets Up Amazon After Ingraham Show! thread (somewhere toward the end) that it would be great if there FR Book Club. Somehow, I think I got nominated to start one. I don't really know how to do that other than just to go ahead and do it. So I am -- please, feel free to point out mistakes, or point out how to make a "ping" list for folks that want to be a part of this. Anyway, if there are...

BOISE, Idaho - A city ordinance bans complete nudity at all gentleman's clubs, but one has challenged that ordinance by distributing pencils and sketch pads to patrons during "art night." The ordinance does give nudity exclusions for artistic displays which include dance, ballet and dramatic performances, so every Monday and Tuesday, the club encourages customers to sketch the models as they perform nude routines. "As far as the Boise city code, it specifies it has to be a serious artistic manner and this is a serious artistic manner," said Chris Teague, Erotic City owner. The club has put on art...

School targets lesson 'biases': Principal says he wants balanced talk on the issues By Carolyn Kessel Stewart / Daily News Staff Thursday, February 17, 2005 HUDSON -- After a legal defense team took an interest in the new student Conservative Club's claims of censorship, Hudson High School is now investigating some teaching practices for potential biases and inconsistencies. However, the school will not budge on allowing students to advertise a controversial conservative Web site, said Principal John Stapelfeld. English and social studies teachers have been asked to make sure all sides of an issue are represented in materials and teaching,...

BRAINERD, Minn. -- Maybe it's all that fighting at the Legislature. A state senator said he used a wooden club to scare off two men who were trying to rob his liquor store here. Sen. Paul Koering said he was working around 8 p.m. Saturday when two men wearing hooded sweatshirts and scarves over their faces entered the store. When Koering asked the men what they wanted, they tapped the cash register with an aluminum baseball bat and said, ``This is what we'll have,'' the Republican from Fort Ripley recalled Monday. Koering said he grabbed the club left behind by...

Easley campaign returning money from topless club owner The Associated Press Published: Feb 3, 2005 Modified: Feb 3, 2005 2:40 PM CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Gov. Mike Easley's re-election campaign will return donations it received from a Charlotte-based operator of topless bars. Easley political adviser Mac McCorkle offered no reason for the refund to David "Slim" Baucom, who runs 17 topless clubs, including 12 in North Carolina. Easley, who won re-election in November, has returned contributions from other club owners in the past. Campaign finance reports at the State Board of Elections show Baucom gave $8,000 to Easley during the 2004...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) --Shots were fired early this morning at an exotic night club in West Palm Beach. A woman went to the Flashdance Exotic Night Club after it closed today to talk to the owner about getting a job. She asked the owner if her two friends could go in with her. The owner let them in, and then the two male friends beat up the owner. The woman applying for the job beat and tied up the cleaning lady. The owner managed to pull out a gun while the men were kicking him. He fired shots...

SIERRA VISTA - Saving the World War II black officers club on Fort Huachuca is a worthy goal and it will fit well into the Army-Community Heritage Partnership Program, a senior Army civilian leader said. Noting the project will be costly and take time, William A. Armbruster, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for privatization and partnerships, said the military service can help provide some architectural assistance and support fund-raising. This week, he visited the building, which almost met the wrecking ball until the Southwest Association of Buffalo Soldiers was able to work a deal with the Army to renovate...