Free Republic

The last thing any tourist wants is to buckle up for a boring attraction. So a new study that reveals 'the 100 most boring attractions across the globe' serves a useful purpose for those keen to guarantee a holiday free from the mundane. America, it seems, needs to up its game on the excitement front, with attractions in the country occupying the top seven spots, beating Shrek's Adventure London into eighth place. And four Legoland Discovery Centers make the top 25. The ranking, by Solitaired, was drawn up by an analysis of 66.7million Google reviews of 3,290 popular tourist attractions...

POSTED: 6:55 pm CST December 21, 2005 UPDATED: 8:00 pm CST December 21, 2005 AVOCA, Ark. -- Authorities say a 13-year-old Hometown boy was exposed to HIV when he was allegedly raped by a 42-year-old woman in his own home. Deputies thought they were headed to a domestic disturbance call at the teen's home near Avoca at about 2 a.m. Monday, and they found two men arguing with a woman named Donna Sue Mars. However, during subsequent interviews, police said one of the men said Mars had sex with his 13-year-old son. Officers confirmed that the boy said Mars forced...

The Missouri ER doctor who mysteriously disappeared last week was found dead from a gunshot wound in an Arkansas lake, authorities confirmed Wednesday — as his brother said the devoted healthcare worker may have been in danger because he had previously been kidnapped. Dr. John Forsyth’s body was found Tuesday by a kayaker in an Arkansas lake — about an hour south of where he was last seen in Cassville, Missouri — with what appeared to be a gunshot wound, the Benton County Sheriff’s Office said in a release. Cassville Police Captain James Smith told The Post that the 49-year-old’s...

For centuries, a legend has persisted across the Ozarks. Lore holds marauding Spaniards once discovered a rich silver deposit within a cave somewhere in the hills, and then sealed it shut for future mining. Several variations of the tale are told, but one notion is constant, the treasure is said to still remain hidden. Many people in South-Central Missouri have searched for this fabled lost silver mine. Some went empty-handed to their graves after a lifetime of digging. Others got so far as thinking they found the site, and even had their ore tested at Missouri S&T. However, no great...

A Cole County man was one of five people in the state selected for Missouri's first elk season in modern history. The five randomly selected hunters from all corners of the state were given the opportunity to hunt elk beginning this October. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) randomly selected the few lucky winners from a pool of 19,215 permit applications including 33 for one resident-landowner antlered-elk permit and 19,182 for four general permits. [photos at link]

BRANSON, Mo. - First responders across southwest Missouri were called to the scene of a reported "mass casualty incident" at Table Rock Lake on Thursday after several people were thrown into the water.

One Christian college has developed a unique response to the "culture" of star athletes like Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance — a mandatory class on patriotism. "We are trying to teach students to understand and support and be willing to defend our country," Jerry Davis, president of the College of the Ozarks, a Christian liberal arts college outside of Branson, Mo., told Fox News on Friday. "We think that's needed, especially because of the culture in which we live. We have 99 percent of us being — having our safety secured by less than 1...

First, you want to pick a place that allows you to maintain a normal, mainstream life before life as we know it comes crashing down. A lot of us are of the mindset that something catastrophic is inevitable. I am becoming increasingly convinced that this is a sooner rather than a later probability, however it could conceivably still be years away. So in the meantime, you want to have reasonably convenient access to things like employment, education, cultural and extracurricular activities for your kids, modern medical facilities, shopping, and all the trappings of modern life. ... Another consideration is proximity...

The Camden County Sheriff’s office in southern Missouri confirmed it received a tip regarding a group of Middle Eastern men asking suspicious questions about Bagnell Dam. --snip-- Lake News Online reported The Camden County Sheriff’s Office has verified that it received a tip regarding a group of Middle Eastern men asking about Bagnell Dam and have forwarded the report to the FBI and a joint task force on terrorism. That does not mean that there is any reason to be scared or panicked that an attack is planned at the Lake of the Ozarks, CCSD Cpl. Scott Hines said, advising...

Americans now comprehend fully the disdain the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has for truth-telling, the rights of others, and the environment. Forget the last six spiteful years; the Colorado mine disaster suffices. The EPA’s wanton malfeasance — experts warned of a catastrophic blowout — unleashed three million gallons of orange arsenic-, cadmium-, and lead-laden wastewater into an Animas River tributary trashing public, private, and tribal lands and waters in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and the Navajo Nation. Even so, the EPA has nothing on the U.S. Forest Service. In documents filed days ago in a federal district court in Arkansas,...

<p>CAMDENTON, Mo. (AP) — Homeowners near Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks fear a decision by federal regulators could jeopardize thousands of homes, gazebos, boathouses and other buildings.</p> <p>The lake is formed by a dam owned by Ameren Missouri, which was required to develop a plan for the lake's shoreline. The utility says thousands of homes and other buildings appear to encroach on property designated for the dam. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says many of the homes and buildings should go.</p>

Interestingly, if you watch the video or read the story, you fail to find any "controversy", other than perhaps invented by the reporter, and the Dem guy who SPECULATES "hatred" might be involved, but he has no evidence of that, and they present no reports of actual complaints. If the story gets legs, they will no doubt play the race card next.

In her 2006 run for governor, Sarah Palin took advantage of public uproar over Frank Murkowski’s expensive state-purchased jet which had become emblematic of the waste and abuse of good-old-boy politics. She said the governor didn’t need it. And as soon as she got elected, she sold it. In the run-up to 2012, Palin perhaps has found a similar object of public distain to use to her advantage should she run for president: The much-ridiculed teleprompter. In what had to be a blow to teleprompter manufacturers everywhere, the former governor and now best-selling author spoke to a large audience in...

My parents and I just had a wonderful time at “Hard Work U” – the school motto of College of the Ozarks. It earned that proud nickname because students there work their way through college and graduate with little or no debt. (In other words, a place after my own heart, and the hearts of others who worked their way through college and, like me, maybe took five years to finish because of work schedules!) At tonight’s patriotic event at the college we heard some amazing personal stories of heroism and sacrifice by our military veterans in attendance, including members...

A one two punch storm system is organizing across SE New Mexico and will be tracking eastward over the next 24 hours. In addition, a second storm system will be dropping south through the Northern Plains. These two systems will be phasing, or coming together, on Wednesday and a powerful low pressure system will track from the southeast Texas coast to near Louisville, Kentucky by Wednesday evening. A sharp shot of cold air will sink rapidly southward behind this moisture rich system and likely rainfall will be changed over to accumulating snow.

Local news has been reporting all evening on a system of tornado producing storms moving through SW Missouri. There is at least one reported fatality and significant damage. Tornado warnings continue to be issued every few minutes. Anyone else in the area have any information?

This column is called “The Edge,” so my topic choice this week might seem a little odd. I’m writing about one of the oldest institutions in Western civilization: the monastery. Monastic-type living stretches way back. It even pre-dates Christianity, possibly as far back as the Greek Pythagoreans, whose community some consider the first monastery in western culture. In Christianity, the monastic life started with St. Antony. In 285, St. Antony fled to the wastes of Egypt, there to live by himself in an old empty fort. He stayed there nearly 75 years, coming out only twice. People flocked to...