Free Republic

A 35-year-old man was charged on Friday with the theft of the boat being used to dredge the Weeki Wachee River, according to the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office. Charles William Fagerstrom, who had no address on paperwork filed with the court, was seen early Wednesday morning by workers who said he was sitting on a bucket on the boat eating potato chips, according to an arrest report. The boat had originally been docked at Rogers Park on Shoal Line Boulevard in Weeki Wachee. He had not gotten far down the river. “As patrol deputies responded to the area, the workers...

Jack LaPant didn’t come from a farming family and had no personal knowledge of agriculture. But once he switched careers in his early 20s and bought a ranch in a remote area of Northern California, farming became his life and his livelihood. He never expected this decision would lead to his being targeted by the U.S. Army over an environmental law they had no authority to enforce. Yet, after 47 years in the industry, Jack found himself in an eight-year legal battle in which he suffered losses of upward of $1.2 million. As a young man, Jack worked for Pacific...

Our nation’s ports are the lifelines of our economy. In 2016, foreign trades through U.S. ports were valued at $1.5 trillion—$475 billion exports and $1.0 trillion imports were moved by vessels. When goods travel through ports, it means they are traveling via ship. NOS is in the business of making sure that mariners—and the goods they are transporting—make it to their destinations safely and quickly. Just as airplane pilots need to know current weather and ground conditions, ship captains need to know exactly what's going on in the water and in the air. NOS monitoring systems supply mariners with the...

As helping refugees from New Orleans continues, a few people are turning some attention to the long-term future of that City. Begin with this: there must be a new New Orleans. As I write this, New Orleans is flooding again, from the long distance effects of Hurricane Rita. There is a law of hydraulics that great masses of water can be controlled or channeled, but not absolutely stopped. This law is as inexorable as gravity. Thomas Jefferson understood the vital importance of the Mississippi River and the Port of New Orleans to the whole nation. Aaron Burr recognized the same...

Newly released documents from the Bush administration show that a former member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle has resurfaced inside the new Iraqi government, bringing charges of corruption, bribery and bid-rigging. As a result, millions of U.S. aid dollars and billions in Iraqi government funds have disappeared in an ongoing scandal that is poised to engulf Baghdad and Washington. Worse still, a leading candidate for the top elected post in Iraq has also been implicated in the report as having taken "payoffs" in order to rig a major government cell phone contract. According to a May 2004 U.S. Defense Department...

<p>WASHINGTON — A senior Defense official placed under investigation by the FBI (news - web sites) on allegations that he tried to steer Iraqi reconstruction contracts toward friends has been removed from office, Pentagon (news - web sites) officials confirmed Friday.</p>