Free Republic

A software CEO from Texas accused of allowing the killing of his neighbor's bison in South Park last winter is due in court. Forty-four-year-old Jeffrey Scott Hawn of Austin has been charged with 32 counts of animal cruelty, one count of theft of more than $20,000 and a one count of criminal mischief. Prosecutors allege that he "tortured, needlessly mutilated or needlessly killed" the bison, who belonged to another rancher.

Bobby Prigel says building an organic creamery will keep his farm alive. But preservationists say it will spoil the rural landscape. GLEN ARM, Md. -- Bobby Prigel seems like a poster child for the local-food movement. A fourth-generation dairy farmer, he wants to build a creamery to make organic butter, yogurt, cheese and ice cream. He wants to sell those products to consumers in nearby Baltimore instead of shipping his milk out of state. He wants to make enough money to pass on the farm to a fifth generation. But some neighbors and conservationists are challenging Prigel's plans. Opponents, led...

RICHMOND | In a state considered the American birthplace of hunting with hounds, George Washington's favorite sport has become a target for some landowners who say baying dogs and their owners are trampling property rights. Even other hunters object to a Virginia right-to-retrieve law viewed as the most absolute in the nation: Hunters have free reign to chase after dogs that stray onto posted private property. Proponents are rising to protect their right to hunt, mindful that other Southern states have already limited or eliminated certain forms of the sport because of complaints from property owners. Courtly fox hunters and...

BENNINGTON, Vt. — Things have really been booming at Southern Vermont Orchards. And it's been keeping people up at night. After a series of hailstorms devastated the orchard's apple crop in 2007, the owner resorted this summer to using a hail cannon, a noisemaking machine whose sound waves supposedly disrupt the formation of hailstones. Scientists snicker at such devices. But farmers swear by 'em. As for the neighbors, they just swear.......

Bummer! I ordered a yard sign on the Internet, a beautiful McCain-PALIN sign! I vote! I live in America! I live in the deep South, even! But I also live in a covenanted community, a golf-course community full of stepford wives and pissy no-tolerance types who run the Homeowners' Association. And I just read the following on their web site: Section 15. Signs. No signs shall be displayed upon any Lot or Living Unit other than a sign identifying the name of the contractor during construction of a dwelling . . . provided said sign meets the design criteria of...

ATLANTA -- Georgia lawmakers are considering allowing guns in more public places, including churches, sporting events, and even university campuses. Religious leaders were among those who spoke out against the possible changes Tuesday, saying churches, temples and mosques should remain gun-free sanctuaries. The chairman of a state Senate study committee looking at Georgia's firearms laws cautioned that any proposed legislation was in its infancy. "We're working toward a draft," said state Sen. Mitch Seabaugh, a Republican from Sharpsburg. But "template" legislation circulated Tuesday would make it possible for the estimated 300,000 Georgians with gun permits to carry their weapons to...

The South American republic of Ecuador will next week consider what many countries in the world would say is unthinkable. People will be asked to vote on Sunday on a new constitution that would give Ecuador’s tropical forests, islands, rivers and air similar legal rights to those normally granted to humans. If they vote yes - and polls show that 56% are for and only 23% are against - then an already approved bill of rights for nature will be introduced, and new laws will change the legal status of nature from being simply property to being a right-bearing entity....

BENNINGTON, Vt. — Things have really been booming at Southern Vermont Orchards. And it's been keeping people up at night. After a series of hailstorms devastated the orchard's apple crop in 2007, the owner resorted this summer to using a hail cannon, a noisemaking machine whose sound waves supposedly disrupt the formation of hailstones. Scientists snicker at such devices. But farmers swear by 'em. As for the neighbors, they just swear......

Yesterday I stopped by my local Safeway Grocery Store in the Washington Square shopping center in Petaluma, California. Right next to each entrance were Obama booths selling t-shirts, button, bumperstickers, etc. When I got home, we called Safeway and asked the "Store Manager of the Day" (his words) why they are allowing these partisan booths in front of the store. His response was (paraphrased) that they didn't do it, and that their landlord has the right to rent spots on their sidewalk. So, we called the Fulcrum Group, out of the Sacramento Area, and asked them if they rented this...

Scandal in Baltimore Pro-Life Catholics Arrested at Baltimore Basilica Brian Mershon REMNANT COLUMNIST Basilica of the Assumption Editor’s Note: After this week's scandal in Baltimore involving Catholic pro-lifers being arrested for passing out pro-life literature at the Basilica of the Assumption, Remnant columnist Brian Mershon questioned the parties involved, including Operation Rescue’s Randall Terry as well as a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Baltimore. MJM Sunday, Sept. 15, 2008, Exaltation of the Holy Cross—Two pro-life Catholics were arrested Sunday following 9 a.m. Mass at the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore, MD, after being asked to leave church property by...

Hundreds of people whose beachfront homes were wrecked by Hurricane Ike may be barred from rebuilding under a little-noticed Texas law. And even those whose houses were spared could end up seeing them condemned by the state. Now here's the saltwater in the wound: It could be a year before the state tells these homeowners what they mayormay not do. Worse, if these homeowners do lose their beachfront property, they may get nothing in compensation from the state. The reason: A 1959 law known as the Texas Open Beaches Act. Under the law, the strip of beach between the average...

A Salinas jury has convicted an elderly neighbor of the first-degree killings of a Carmel Valley couple. John Kenney shot and killed Mel and Elizabeth Grimes in 2006 after years of bitter feuding, including restraining orders, assaults and killing of pets.

Just a few months ago Mr. Rangel admitted that he occupies four rent-stabilized apartments in a posh New York City building. It turns out that in a city with a very tight housing market, Mr. Rangel has wrangled himself a pretty good deal, thanks to rent-control laws that are ostensibly aimed at helping the poor and middle class. But don't cluck too loudly at Mr. Rangel alone. Lots of well-connected New Yorkers have good deals. New York City has had rent control laws since 1947, on grounds that they were necessary to protect people from rising rents. New York State...

DALLAS (AP) -- A federal judge has stopped a Dallas suburb's latest attempt to prevent illegal immigrants from renting housing in the community. Federal Judge Jane Boyle on Friday granted a temporary restraining order stopping Farmers Branch from enforcing a ban on home rentals to those who can't prove they live legally in the country. The ordinance was set to go into effect Saturday.

A Park County rancher on Friday waived his right to a preliminary hearing and asked to enter a plea in the slaughter of 32 bison owned by his neighbor. It’s hard to find anyone here sympathetic to Hawn.

St. Hedwig has homes on large lots and a longtime tradition of rural living. And folks there want to keep it that way. “We want to be able to maintain as best we can the reason we moved out here in the first place,” said Kathy Palmer, the city’s planning and zoning commissioner. But a new master plan and recently updated zoning maps are no match for a proposed route of Trans-Texas Corridor 35 that would slice straight through the city of about 2,000 people and create headaches for several city departments, officials said. With neighboring Wilson County, St. Hedwig...

Again, "Smart Growth" is a hot topic. This week Volusia County and most of its cities agreed to start yet another plan for "smart growth" by controlling future growth to certain areas in the county and limiting environmental impact in others. Monday, July 14, 2008 13 Central Florida News DELAND -- Volusia County and most of its cities have agreed to start a plan for "smart growth," limiting growth to certain areas in the county, and limiting the environmental impact to several building corridors. Forget sprawling homesteads. Your neighbors will be closer. That is just one change in how communities...

Update: A Potsdam man has removed two broken toilets from the property he owns on Market Street but is leaving the rest there in defiance of village law. Hank Robar sees the toilets and urinals as a form of art. But Code Enforcement Officer John Hill tells 7 News the toilets pose a safety risk and violate the village’s bulky waste law. Hill says he plans to ticket Robar Thursday. “I’m going to write the ticket and let the judge take care of it.” said Hill. Hill says while he thinks the toilet issue is “being blown way out proportion”,...

BUILDING and maintaining the fences needed to control livestock is an expensive and time-consuming business. The materials alone can cost more than $20,000 a kilometre. On top of that, there is the cost of repairing damage caused by wild animals and falling trees. And then there is the need to move some fences around, a bit at a time, so that grazing land can be used efficiently. Strange as it may seem at first blush, many ranchers would therefore like to see the back of fences—if only they could. According to Dean Anderson, an animal scientist at America’s Department of...

JOHANNESBURG (Business Day) -- Although Metorex did not have a piece of paper confirming there was no problem with its mining titles, it hoped the fact that it had built mines in Congo would prevent it from losing what had been granted, he said... ...The government’s recent contract with China to provide infrastructure investment in return for resources concessions should not provoke feelings of insecurity among other investors, she said.

HE PAST few days in China have seen a number of outbreaks of violence in rural areas over property disputes and real estate frauds, the latest in a series of confrontations over grievances about perceived abuses of power, corruption and land grabs, writes Clifford Coonan in Beijing. In Henan province in central China, thousands of students attacked a county government office, smashing windows and clashing with riot police. Students from a local high school took to the streets to try and stop a developer from building apartments on their sports ground. Tensions spilled over into violence after two girls were...

T. Boone Pickens, Scam Artist, Given Eminent Domain Authority in Texas!By Cary Wesberry • August 2, 2008 All-around jerk T. Boone Pickens has managed to swindle Texas into giving him eminent domain powers.  The State Legislature changed State Law allowing two residents in Roberts County to vote and create a municipal water district, thereby giving them the power to confiscate private property.  The two voters were Pickens’ wife and manager of his ranch.   Regardless of T. Boone Pickens, those responsible for this abomination in my State Legislature need to be held responsible for their probable criminal activity in working behind the backs of the People...

Texas businessman Jeff Hawn was charged May 8 in the March slaying of 32 bison near Hartsel and faces one count of class 3 felony theft, one count of class 3 felony criminal mischief and 32 counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, each a class 6 felony. Hawn turned himself in to the Park County Jail on May 12 and bonded out... Kobe Bryant's attorney The arrest warrant affidavit indicates that the bison had been killed over the course of a number of weeks. For instance, it states that on April 1 officers "retrieved a spent bullet from one of...

South of Hartsel, the South Platte River meanders through some of the most fabulous ranch and fishing land in the nation. On a late summer afternoon, the sheer beauty of the setting caused a couple of motorcyclists to stop and point their cameras at a group of handsome horses standing near the river. Exactly five months earlier, a group of 14 men pointed not cameras but guns at a group of bison and shot them dead. Killed were 32 bison belonging to longtime South Park rancher Monte Downare. The slaughter has caused an outrage that the beauty of Colorado's South...

Frisco man says HOA won't let him park pickup on driveway 01:32 PM CDT on Monday, August 18, 2008 By STEVE STOLER / WFAA-TV (Channel 8) sstoler@wfaa.com If there's one thing Texans are serious about, it's pickups. But a Frisco man says his truck is being targeted simply because his homeowners association doesn't think it's classy enough. Jim Greenwood said he never dreamed his HOA would have a problem with his new Ford F-150 pickup. Then he received the first of three notices threatening him with fines. "Mr. Greenwood, you're violating a subdivision rule that prohibits pickup trucks in your...

Got Gas? You'll need it for the 10 worst commutes in the U.S. (LifeWire) - Lost time and endless aggravation are two of the biggest drawbacks of a grueling commute by car. But gridlock on the way to work also harms the environment by pumping extra pollution into the air and wasting precious fuel. How wasteful and time-consuming a commute becomes depends in part on how slowly traffic moves and how long it is stalled, says David Schrank, an associate research scientist at the Texas Transportation Institute, part of Texas A&M University in College Station. Things start to get...

Agenda A regular meeting of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Waxahachie, Texas to be held in the Council Chamber at City Hall, 401 S. Rogers on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 7:00 p.m. Council Members: Ron Wilkinson, Mayor N.B. (Buck) Jordan, Mayor Pro Tem Chuck Beatty, Councilman Joe Jenkins, Councilman John Wray, Councilman -snip 14. Consider proposed Ordinance passing and adopting “The International Property Maintenance Code, 2006 Edition”

SACRAMENTO – California is on the verge of initiating a historic rewrite of local planning laws, fusing for the first time the issues of urban growth and global warming. Unprecedented nationally, the complex legislation would steer communities toward land-use policies to contain sprawl, using as much as $12 billion a year in state-controlled transportation funds as an incentive. “This bill will change the way California grows,” said state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, its author. Under the measure, the state Air Resources Board would establish targets for 17 regions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of a broader campaign to...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — For decades, California cities and counties knew one way to grow — by sprawling outward. That approach, which has led to ever longer commutes, jammed freeways and worsening air quality, is being challenged under a bill that was approved Saturday in the state Legislature. If signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not yet indicated whether he would do so, the bill would require local governments to plan their growth so that homes, businesses and public transit systems are clustered together. The goal is to help California meet the emission mandates spelled out in a wide-ranging...

Settlement is in sight on a 9-year-old court battle over land on which Wasilla's Multi-Use Sports Complex is built. Anchorage Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski on Monday signed an order giving developer Gary Lundgren $314,739 in attorney fees and court costs in an eminent domain case the city filed against Lundgren's land in December 2002. In eminent domain cases, the plaintiff typically pays the defendants' court fees.

BOSTON — As a wave of home foreclosures courses through the United States, some of the nation’s hardest hit cities think they have found a way to ease the blight left on their communities by the crisis. Using taxpayer and private money, Boston, Minneapolis, San Diego and a handful of other places are buying foreclosed properties to refurbish and resell them to developers and homeowners in an effort to prevent troubled neighborhoods from sliding into urban decay. The efforts so far have been taken on a small scale. But local officials say they can become an important pillar of any...

Under the Clean Water Act of 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers are granted jurisdiction over the “navigable waters” of the United States. If a boat can float on it, it’s theirs to regulate. Over the years, the definition of “navigable waters” overflowed its banks, expanding to include virtually anywhere with detectable levels of H2O. “What began as a reasonable attempt to control water pollution in our nation’s interstate rivers, lakes, and streams,” says Peyton Knight at the National Center for Public Policy Research, “spiraled into unreasonable federal regulation of isolated wetlands, ponds, dry lakebeds,...

Speaking of Minnesota . . . Stephen Spruiell is sussing out the Twin Cities in advance of the Republican National Convention, and reports on the GOP's latest platform draft over on the homepage. Spruiell finds the platform plank on immigration, for example, is worded in such a way as to avoid driving a wedge between McCain and his conservative base: The passages on global warming provide another example. The draft acknowledges that human activity is contributing to warming and calls for “measured and reasonable” steps to curtail it. Policymakers should support solutions that are “technology-driven, market-based,” and not fall prey...

A North Texas family is mourning the loss of two of their pets. The nine-month-old pit bulls were shot and killed by a neighbor who says it was self defense. The shooting happened in a neighborhood off Ten Mile Bridge Road in northwest Fort Worth. The neighbors never had any problems before. But that all changed over the weekend. The man who pulled the trigger says he didn't have any choice. But the dogs' owners disagree. Kristopher Harrison has a six-year-old daughter. He says that's why he was upset when two pit bulls wandered into his backyard Saturday afternoon. Harrison...

No. 1 Constitutional Amendment Article 1, Section 2 (Legislative) Ballot Title: DECLARATION OF RIGHTS Ballot Summary: Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to delete provisions authorizing the Legislature to regulate or prohibit the ownership, inheritance, disposition, and possession of real property by aliens ineligible for citizenship. Full Text: SECTION 2. Basic Rights.--All natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy....and to acquire, possess and protect property....

Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is about to make a killing by selling water he doesn’t own. As he does it, it will be praised as a planet-friendly wind project. The basic story amounts to this: Pickens, thanks to favors from state lawmakers whose campaigns he funded, has created a new government whose only voters are two of his employers; this has empowered Pickens to more cheaply pump water from an aquifer and, by use of eminent domain, seize land across 11 counties in order to pipe the water to Dallas. To win environmentalist approval of this hardly “sustainable”...

ARIZONA DAILY STAR A Northwest Side homeowners association discovered its old community-management company was quietly making money off the area's home sales during the housing boom without the HOA board's knowledge. Now, after hammering out a contract with a new management company, the board wants other associations to look at their own contracts so they know who is paid when homes are sold in their communities. At issue is a fee collected — from the buyer or the seller — to cover the cost of the state-mandated transfer of homeowners association documents to a home's new owner. In other words,...

Supporters of the right to keep and bear arms have long recognized the value of firearms for the defense of life, liberty and property. But in Florida, a perverse conception of the 2nd Amendment has produced the opposite effect: The cause of gun rights is being used to attack property rights. In 1987, Florida wisely affirmed personal freedom by letting law-abiding citizens get permits to carry concealed weapons. But this year, the legislature decided it was not enough to let licensees pack in public places. They also should be allowed to take their guns into private venues -- even if...

Yitzchak Herskovitz had hoped to have his Jerusalem property freed of Arab squatters by Wednesday, as the court ordered, but the police said they don't have the men for the job. Herskovitz, a septuagenarian formerly of Los Angeles and now of Kiryat Arba in Judea, bought property in southern Jerusalem in 1992. He has never been able to take possession of it, however, because of Arab squatters living there. The police have turned down the most recent court order to evict the Arabs because of riots they expect will result. They promise to carry it out within several weeks -...

Shorter commutes. Less sprawl. Cleaner air. Denser housing closer to downtown near transportation hubs. "Smart growth" it's called. California policy makers have been yakking about this -- dreaming about it -- for decades. But too many interests have been prospering from dumb growth or have merely been skittish of a future they can't quite visualize. Enter a tenacious policy wonk with roots in local government: state Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). He has just managed to finesse to the verge of legislative passage a visionary smart growth bill that, by its nature, also fights global warming. ... (snip) The measure (SB...

Walt Neidlinger spent years trying to keep a Wal-Mart-anchored shopping complex from being built near his Wind Gap home. The traffic would have been suffocating for their little community, neighbors argued, so when the massive retailer and its partners packed up their plans and left Plainfield Township last year, Neidlinger was ecstatic. He figured he'd wait for the next plan to come along and remembers thinking, ''What could be worse than Wal-Mart?'' Over the past year, Neidlinger says, he's gotten an answer: RPM Recycling -- the metal-shredding plant on the same land -- causes daily noise that sounds like a...

HEAVY-METAL superstar James Hetfield of the band Metallica has erected a metal fence on his property on a Terra Linda hilltop, closing off a popular trail and angering hikers, bikers and equestrians. Someone scrawled "SHAME DISGRACE" on the 300-foot-long, 8-to 10-foot-high corrugated metal silver fence adorned with barbed wire at its far edges. "Look at the barbed wire. This a serious fence," said hiker Tom McMillan of San Rafael, as he walked along the shiny behemoth late last week. The fence, at the end of a fire road in the Terra Linda-Sleepy Hollow Divide open space preserve, went up in...

If there's one thing Texans are serious about, it's pickups. But a Frisco man says his truck is being targeted simply because his homeowners association doesn't think it's classy enough. Jim Greenwood said he never dreamed his HOA would have a problem with his new Ford F-150 pickup. Then he received the first of three notices threatening him with fines. "Mr. Greenwood, you're violating a subdivision rule that prohibits pickup trucks in your driveway," the notice reads. Stonebriar HOA rules allow several luxury trucks on driveways, including the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Avalanche, Honda Ridgeline and Lincoln Mark LT. But most...

Link

DES MOINES — Regan "Draco" Lane-Smith and "Naughty" Nonah Elliston outfitted their six-bedroom rental house with 15 mattresses, bondage crosses and sex swings. They built elaborate sets in their backyard for taking erotic photos. And they promoted the Hardwood Cabin online. Up to 60 guests at a time came to mingle, sunbathe nude by the pool and have sex with fellow swingers and fetishists, Elliston said. Parties were frequent enough that the couple's laundry service was cycling through 50 bedsheets a week. But the couple shut down the sex club last month when they were cited for running a business...

Wind Turbines Whip Up Health Fears By RICHARD COCKLE  BOARDMAN, Ore. — Sherry Eaton pulled into the driveway of her rural, high-desert home to see one of several giant wind turbines being assembled a half-mile away. "I started to cry," Eaton, 57, recalled of her first sight of the Willow Creek Wind Project in late July. "They're going to be hanging over the back of our house, and now there's the medical thing." "The medical thing" is new research suggesting that living close to wind turbines, as Eaton and her 60-year-old husband, Mike, soon will be doing, can cause sleep...

Home Science Under Attack In Massachusetts An anonymous reader tips a guest posting up on the MAKE Magazine blog by the author of the Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments. It seems that authorities in Massachusetts have raided a home chemistry lab, apparently without a warrant, and made off with all of its contents. Here's the local article from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. "Victor Deeb, a retired chemist who lives in Marlboro, has finally been allowed to return to his Fremont Street home, after Massachusetts authorities spent three days ransacking his basement lab and making off with its...

Immigration reform activist Susan Tully says it's completely outrageous that the Los Angeles City Council is considering an ordinance that would require large, new home-improvement stores to set aside space for day laborers seeking employment from customers. According to the LA Daily News, the proposed ordinance has already been approved by the Planning and Land Use Management Committee, but must still be approved by the entire council. It would mandate that new home-improvement stores that meet the size criteria provide a shelter that is easily accessible to the day laborers and equipped with drinking water, bathrooms, tables with seating, and...

One of CLNE’s underwriters is WR Hambrecht and Co., owned by William Hambrecht, a leftwing activist who has given, on average, around $80,000 per year to liberal candidates and causes. It is probable that such a heavyweight in the leftist movement is also well known to Nancy Pelosi and to Harry Reid, who will be partnering with the Center for American Progress Action Fund and UNLV to host the National Clean Energy Summit on Aug. 19 with such notables as President Clinton, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado, and Texas entrepreneur...

Nancy Pelosi says that she is trying to save the planet and prevent global warming, but the reality is that, according to disclosure statements, in May 2007 she invested in T. Boone Picken’s clean energy fuels corp., CLNE, which is the sole sponsor of a proposal in California to funnel $5 billion in state funds and $5 billion in Federal funs to this corporation which will indirectly help them create a giant wind farm in the Texas panhandle. An overlooked story in November of 2007 shows that the T. Boone Pickens plan involves the private control of water, which Pickens...