Free Republic

This long attack on the unfairness of progressive taxation from the Hoover Institution by Kip Hagopian usefully embodies a lot of right-wing delusions about income inequality. It argues that a person's income is determined by three things: America’s free enterprise system provides an environment in which the substantial majority of its citizens can realize their fullest earnings potential. Within that environment, individual economic outcomes are the product of a combination of three elements: aptitude, work effort, and choice of occupation. Aptitude. For the purposes of this essay, aptitude is broadly defined as the capacity to produce, or to earn income....

-click any to enlarge- Accident occurred north of Deer Lodge, Montana on I-90. The driver was a twenty-something guy headed back east to college. He had left central Washington early in the morning, but fell asleep at the wheel and drifted off the shoulder hitting the end of the section of guard rail at high-speed... The guard rail came through the right headlight, engine compartment, firewall, glove box, passenger seat, rear seat and exited out the driver s side rear window. That is 120 ft. of guard rail that threaded through the Suburban... Thankfully, there was no passengers in the...

A Hungarian dog has been reunited with his owners after being sucked into the sky still in his kennel by the wind from a huge storm. Agnes Tamas, 57, said she had chained her dog who she has renamed Lucky to the dog house when he was swept away by what she described as the worst storm anyone in her village of Gesztered can remember. She said: "I saw the roofs of the local houses being ripped off one by one, and I ran into my garden to try and get to the cellar. "I couldn't believe it when...

If luck is the battlefield’s final arbiter — the wild card that can trump fitness, training, teamwork, equipment, character and skill — then Lance Cpl. Ryan T. Mathison experienced its purest and most welcome form. On a Marine foot patrol here through the predawn chill of Friday morning, he stepped on a pressure-plate rigged to roughly 25 pounds of explosives. The device, enough to destroy a pickup truck or tear apart several men, was buried beneath him in the dusty soil. It did not explode. Lance Corporal Mathison’s weight triggered the detonation of one of the booby trap’s two blasting...

Getting ready for tomorrow's Christmas meal got me thinking about Christmases-past My son is doing really well in Boston and HIS new Christmas tradition is to bring the 'beef' for dinner: 3+ pounds of Prime Filet Mignon @ $36 a pound. He wants a Bernaise Sauce;he gets a Bernaise sauce. I was thinking about where I spent Christmases in the early 50's to 1960 when I met and married my lovely wife. Such haute cuisine dineries as Commanders in New Orleans eating the cheapest shrimp on the menu; the charming NAHA Hotel in Okinawa, home of the world's finest seaweed...

LUCKY, the world's oldest sheep, has died and has been buried on the Victorian property where she was born and hand-reared more than 23 years ago. Lucky, who was abandoned by her mother and has delivered 35 offspring of her own, died on her farm at Lake Bolac, west of Ballarat, on Monday morning aged 23 years, six months and 28 days - a Guinness-certified world record age for a sheep. Victoria's recent burst of hot weather greatly weakened Lucky, owner Delrae Westgarth said. "We got up to 36C here and it knocked her around," she said. Mrs Westgarth found...

Pass the syrup -- this lucky guy is eating breakfast at home instead of on Rikers Island. A Brooklyn teen's playful Facebook message to his pregnant girlfriend about pancakes sprung him from jail and helped him avoid years in prison for a holdup he didn't commit. Prosecutors dropped a robbery charge against Rodney Bradford, 19, after learning his Facebook account status had been updated with the inside joke "WHERE MY IHOP?" from a computer in his dad's Harlem apartment one minute before an Oct. 17 stickup of two men in Brooklyn's Farragut Houses. "They had me on Rikers Island...

The unbelievable tale of a cat named Lucky -- who fell 26 stories and survived -- doesn't quite prove the myth but it comes pretty close. In early May, Keri Hostetler was readying her lower Manhattan apartment for guests who were coming to visit. She cracked the window of her home office a few inches -- something she "never, ever did" -- just to air the place out. She left the door to the room ajar and got to work on her laundry. Her beloved cat Lucky, a 3-year-old gray-and-black striped male who Hostetler describes as "a lover and a...

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) -- A dog has died after being drenched with toxic household cleaners by a burglar in Michigan. Nancy Sheppard was at work Tuesday when someone entered her home in Kalamazoo and poured the liquids over her dachshund mix Lucky.

DELAND — DeLand police are investigating a bizarre shooting at a cemetery that involved bullets used in a military funeral service but no gun. Howard Sheppard, 30, of Deltona, was shot in the left biceps and went to Florida Hospital DeLand for treatment, Officer Jacob Hudson wrote in a report. Sheppard, who works at DeLand Memorial Gardens, told a nurse he picked up six rounds of ammunition and one of them discharged and struck him in the arm, Hudson said. When Sheppard said the other five rounds were in his shirt pocket, a security guard took the shirt and called...

An American toddler has had a miracle recovery after getting a key lodged in his eye.

First farmers made 'lucky beads'The green beads were prized by early agriculturalists Some of the first farmers in the Near East probably used green beads as amulets to protect themselves and their crops, a study suggests. The authors of the research suggest that early agriculturalists attached special importance to this colour. Beads they recovered from dig sites in Israel had been made from a variety of green minerals and the farmers went to great efforts to obtain them. Details appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Daniella Bar-Yosef Mayer, from Israel's University of Haifa, and Naomi Porat,...

A CANE toad has survived after being eaten by a dog and spending 40 minutes in the animal's stomach. The super toad was eventually vomited up by the dog and hopped away shaken but seemingly unharmed, the Northern Territory News reported. The dog also lived - proving she's as tough as her owner, Darwin rugby league player Jackson Crews. Bella was playing in her backyard in Bakewell, Palmerston, when she swallowed the toad. "I went to feed the dogs some left over pies and pasties,'' Mr Crews said. "I threw them on the grass and as I did I noticed...

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Two New Zealand pilots whose plane ran out of fuel landed on a wing and a prayer, literally, local media reported on Wednesday. Grant Stubbs and Owen Wilson from Blenheim, at the top of the South Island about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Wellington, were in a microlight plane when the engine cut out. "When you're in a microlight if you crash, you usually die. I turned to O B (Wilson) and he said we had no fuel," Stubbs told the Marlborough Express newspaper. "I asked what we should do. He said: 'You just pray Grant.'"...

A team of gunmen shot and killed Lucky Dube, an international reggae star and one of the nation’s best-known musicians, apparently in a carjacking attempt late Thursday that underscored the continuing peril of violent crime here. As the provincial police commissioner appointed seven veteran investigators to chase down the attackers, President Thabo Mbeki called on the nation “to confront this terrible scourge of crime, which has taken the lives of too many of our people, and does so every day.” The police said Mr. Dube, 43, was shot by three assailants in Rosettenville, just south of downtown Johannesburg... The attackers...

Ok, I live in a very nice neighborhood. Now, from where I sit on my couch, I can watch my TV but, I can also see the house across the street. It appears to be a very nice family- husband, wife and two kids. The kids appear to be maybe six months and two years old. The mother seems to care very much about them. Anyway, when the mother arrives home, she parks the car in front of her house, takes the two year old up approximately 13 steps and drops him off on the porch. She then goes down...

CAIRO (Reuters) - An American animal rights activist dressed as a crippled chicken fell foul of Egyptian police on Saturday after staging a protest in front of the central Cairo branch of the fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). The activist, Jason Baker of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), was protesting against KFC's chicken production practices as part of a global campaign against the U.S.-based company. Police intervened after Baker, bandaged and carrying a crutch, fell over in a melee. His chicken head fell off and KFC staff jubilantly told onlookers that he was not Egyptian....

LONDON (AFP) - A 72-year-old man escaped with minor injuries when he drove his car over a 30 metre (100 foot) cliff before landing on the beach below, police said. Terry Flynn was doubly lucky because his stepson, Andy Baldwin, was driving past when he saw the car veer across fields towards the drop and called the emergency services. But Baldwin only realised who the driver of the car was when he rang Flynn's mobile phone later and was told to call a hospital accident and emergency department. The incident took place on Monday, on the Isle of Wight, just...

HUSAYBA — Cpl. Jamie L. Emerson is one lucky 'Bastard.' The 22-year-old assigned to the 'Betio Bastards' of 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment escaped death when an enemy bullet ripped through his Kevlar helmet Aug. 1 in Husayba, an area on the Euphrates River near the Syrian border. “Everybody’s been calling me ‘lucky,’” said Emerson, a mortarman with Regimental Combat Team 5. The battalion earned the nickname 'Betio Bastards' during a bloody World War II battle at Tarawa, a chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean where hardened Japanese marines defended the island of Betio with more than 5,000 troops....

BRIDGEPORT, Ind. (AP) -- Gamblers at Caesars Indiana raked in nearly a half-million dollars over two days on one slot machine that gave players credit for putting in 10 times as much money as they really had. Caesars lost $487,000 before a player notified officials of the problem with the slot machine, The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., reported Friday.The Indiana Gaming Commission is investigating, and the casino might end up being fined for failing to follow procedures designed to prevent such a problem, said Jennifer Arnold, the commission's deputy director. The casino intends to try to get the money back,...