Free Republic

You ever notice the annoying voices that owners use to speak to us? I can live with that but here’s a trend I’m happy they stopped dead in its tracks. (Jayna Hutchinson, a 33-year-old Vermont woman, was charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest after a police officer caught her staring at his dog in a “taunting/harassing manner.”) Dogs on the scene have reported to...

WASHINGTON - The government on Thursday warned owners of about 4.6 million recalled Ford vehicles to bring their cars and trucks immediately to dealerships to disconnect cruise control switch systems that have been linked to engine fires. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued the consumer advisory to the owners of certain unrepaired Ford, Lincoln and Mercury sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, vans and passenger cars who have not yet responded to past recalls. The recalls have vexed the Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker, affecting its popular F-Series pickup trucks, prompting hundreds of complaints and dozens of lawsuits over engine fires. Three...

Judge orders shepherd destroyed after vicious attack Thursday, November 08, 2007 BY LINDA STEIN PRINCETON TOWNSHIP -- A family whose beloved German shepherd faces death for having led a dog attack on a landscaper is devastated by the news but vows to continue to fight to save him. ..."He's innocent. He did nothing more than protect my wife. He never bit anyone until she was grabbed and pulled to the ground," James said. Congo has been ruled vicious by a municipal judge and ordered put down. ...The landscaper, Giovanni Rivera, has won a $250,000 insurance settlement as a result of...

THIS IS THE OWNER OF OUR DEFEAT TO AL QAEDA IN IRAQ.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2006 – Over the past two and a half years, about 500 severely wounded servicemembers and their families have enjoyed 5,000 free dinners out on the town thanks to Hal Koster and Marty O’Brien. “Some of them have come to multiple dinners because some of them are here for years,” Koster said Aug. 18, as he looked over the 60 or so guests dining on the rooftop of The Exchange restaurant here. About 20 servicemembers, many in wheelchairs and prosthetics, family members and other guests dined overlooking a panoramic view of the U.S. Capitol, and the Washington...

PATCH is not all the dog he used to be. After having two kilograms of fat sucked from his body, the 12-year-old kelpie cross is "like new", says his delighted owner, Irene Williams. Patch is believed to be the first dog in Australia to have undergone liposuction, an increasingly popular operation for overweight humans. His problem was not obesity, but fatty tumours. One, on his left hind leg, was so large it was threatening to cripple him within months. "To see him degenerate was tearing at my heartstrings," Ms Williams said. Advised that radical surgery was the only option, she...

Fruity headache for cafe ownersBy Samantha Williams and Karina Dunger 03jul06 Cafe workers ... Julie Hanssens and Jodie Lee / Troy Bendeich BAD weather is set to affect the price of oranges after already crippling Australia's banana industry. The worst frost in 24 years has destroyed 40,000 tonnes - about 25 per cent - of the citrus fruit produced in southern Australia. "They won't hit skyrocketing prices of bananas but there will be some price hike due to the reduction of fruit on the market," Riverina Citrus CEO Peter Morrish said. Oranges currently sell for $2.50kg, with experts predicting rises...

For sale: old, second-hand graves. £3,000 each, many careful owners By Stephanie Condron (Filed: 04/07/2006) A cemetery is offering second-hand graves, with "refurbished" monuments including headstones, obelisks and crosses, to be used again. Recycled burial plots, complete with the original memorials, still contain the remains of those who died at least 75 years ago - the names of the dead are simply scoured from the monuments to allow new inscriptions. The City of London cemetery is selling 1,000 such plots advertised as "traditional-style graves" to be "adopted" by families willing to pay £3,000 to lease them for 50 years. The...

Possenti Society Blasts Vatican UN Gun Grabbers for 4th of July Insult to American Gun Owners; Urges Church Collection ProtestsContact: John Snyder, 703-212-9863 ARLINGTON, Va., June 29 /Christian Newswire/ -- John Snyder, Founder/Chairman of the St. Gabriel Possenti Society, issued the following statement today: As we approach next week’s 230th commemoration of the signing of our Nation’s Declaration of Independence, we face the reality of three institutional insults to our country’s Fourth of July celebration of freedom. The first insult comes from a United Nations group meeting in New York, taking place now through July 7, to undermine the traditional,...

"The concept of Network Neutrality has unfortunately been misunderstood by many conservatives, libertarians, and other champions of the free market. That's too bad, because the free market essence of the Internet is exactly what would be lost without Network Neutrality. The large telecoms, some politicians and a number of conservative pundits have characterized the push for Network Neutrality as a left-wing attempt to stifle innovation and put government bureaucrats in control of the Internet. Well, it’s not. Through my work with Gun Owners of America, I am demonstratively a lot further to the right than they are. It is true...

Endangered Species Act critic finds himself in crosshairs By ERICA WERNER Associated Press writer Sunday, March 26, 2006 TRACY, Calif. -- Republican U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo likes animals, just as long as obscure species aren't dictating what happens to the land. Bidding for his 12th term in Congress, the cowboy-booted Pombo, a Californian who raises cattle on the family ranch, wants to rewrite the 1973 Endangered Species Act to dramatically expand the rights of property owners. And as chairman of the House Resources Committee, he is closing in on that longtime goal. That has made him a prime target for...

BOUNTIFUL - When Gregg Revell packed his bags for a trip to Pennsylvania last April, he had no idea how far he'd be traveling. Before the week was out, the 57-year-old suburban real estate agent and grandfather would be arrested, thrown into one of the country's most notorious jails, strip searched and inoculated against his will. The soft-spoken Utah native would be on his way to becoming a poster child for the National Rifle Association in a $3 million lawsuit. During a nearly five-day stay in a Newark, N.J., jail, he would meet a terrifying side of America that most...

Chicago dog owners who tether their pets for hours on end without food or water would be reined in -- with a two-hour limit -- under a crackdown proposed Wednesday by the City Council's most powerful alderman. "If dogs are tethered in this way, it makes them more likely to bite humans and makes them mean," said Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th). "It's a question of cruelty to the animals. It's a question of responsible care of animals. If people own pets, they ought to treat them responsibly." The Burke-championed ordinance introduced at Wednesday's City Council meeting would...

USDA ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION BOONDOGGLE REPORT Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., introduced two bills that would amend the Animal Health Protection Act to direct the Sec of Agriculture to establish an electronic livestock identification system. This is where a multi-billion dollar federal program started spreading it’s roots. Now over $70,000,000 has been doled during the past 30 months to promote, study, plan, and implement the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The original idea was to develop a 48 hour national computer method to locate the life time communication path of any critter that might test positive for the dreaded BSE. Once the...

News Release March 29, 2004 Study Reveals That Dogs Resemble Their Owners As a Result of Selection Do people really resemble their pets? A resemblance in a movie or on TV between a pet and its owner has occasionally tickled our funny bone. The results of a recent study suggest that a resemblance between owner and dog may be actually determined by the pet lover's selection. The research, by Michael M. Roy and Nicholas Christenfeld, both of the University of California, San Diego, found that when people pick a pet, they seek one that, at some level, resembles them. These...

FEMA GUN BAN YET ANOTHER SLAP FOR LOUISIANA GUN OWNERS Under pressure from NRA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is "reconsidering" a ban on the possession of firearms in the trailer parks providing homes for hundreds of families left homeless by hurricane Katrina. As the experience on the streets of New Orleans showed us, there is a demonstrable need to protect life and family after a disaster. Yet, according to an October 12, Associated Press article, FEMA has had a general policy for several years to prohibit guns at such parks anywhere in the country. The AP also reported...

Some people collect medieval torture devices. Others devote themselves to the study of plagues. Me, I just follow the Arizona Cardinals. Every year I circle the day on my calendar when the Cards open camp and really begin sucking in earnest. They have a Commitment to Wretchedness -- 58 years since they won an NFL title, one playoff win in that time and one winning season in the last 20. All that couldn't have happened without Bill and Michael Bidwill, a father-son ownership team that could mess up a one-float parade. Since then-Chicago Cardinals owner Charles Bidwill died in 1947,...

The New York Times welcomed the Supreme Court's recent endorsement of virtually unfettered eminent domain powers as "a setback to the 'property rights' movement." The fact that the Times not only celebrated a defeat for property rights but felt a need to put the phrase in scare quotes speaks volumes about the left-liberal misconceptions that have been brought to the fore by the Court's decision in Kelo v. New London. According to the Court, the Fifth Amendment, which allows the government to take property "for public use" provided it pays "just compensation," is a license to transfer any parcel of...

Land interventions in Cojedes State will continue next Wednesday. In this way, the decree issued by Cojedes Governor Johnny Yánez Rangel with regard to 16 estates will be enforced. Following the effective intervention of El Charcote farm last Saturday, regional authorities plan to seize several properties of the Boulton family in Cojedes, such as Gavinero, Yaguara, San José and La Flecha. Rafael Alemán, the Cojedes State Secretary-General, said under this schedule of interventions, Paraima and Piñero -both properties of the Branger family- will be intervened next January 13th and 14th, respectively.

Cloning kitty A California company is selling cloning technology to pet owners. But opponents say this technology holds false promises. By Michael B. Farrell | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Three years after scientists in a Texas laboratory successfully cloned the first house cat, a company in California is now selling that same technology to pet owners who want a carbon copy of their cat or dog. For $50,000 Genetics Savings & Clone can take a cat's DNA and create an exact genetic duplicate. They hope to do the same with a dog next year. So far they...