Free Republic

So here's a story and you can tell me if I am bat s*** crazy or you can laugh or whatever. My wife and I walk along a rural paved road in the evening about a half mile and turn around and come back. We have corn and bean fields on each side and nice wide ditches. One evening about 2 weeks ago on a Monday we were walking back and noticed a dead deer in the ditch on the far side. At first we thought it must have been hut by a car. The strange thing was that it...

In an experiment for a forthcoming National Geographic television show Mind Over Masses, a pavement was divided into lanes, separating those that are walking from those walking while talking on mobile phones. This may be a breezy way of showing the irritation some feel about how others use mobile phones. But the proposed solution is really just another form of control, when what we need is not a test of people’s obedience, but a reassessment of how we interact with each other in public. Civil society, to remain civil, requires an agreed framework for behaviour in public. You might call...

A wealthy Indian businessman celebrating his 45th birthday made sure he looked the part - by having a shirt made of gold. Pankaj Parakh, the owner of a multi-million pound textile business, spent £127,000 on the shirt which weighs almost four kilos. A team of 20 craftsmen spent 3,200 hours creating the shirt out of 18-22 carat gold. It has seven gold buttons but was created to have the same flexibility as a normal shirt. Mr Parakh, who left school with no qualifications, said: “Gold always fascinated me since I was five years old and studying in school. Over the...

A San Francisco man is accused of stealing a “For Sale” sign outside a Hercules house and then attempting to rent the place to at least four potential tenants, authorities said Wednesday. Gino Eckstein, 21, was booked into Contra Costa County jail on suspicion of residential burglary, possession of stolen property, renting property under false pretenses and identity theft, according to Hercules police. Officers first learned of the purported scam when one of the potential tenants filed a report Tuesday. She told officers she had responded to an online Craigslist ad for a house on the 1900 block of Pheasant...

Paul Mawhinney, a former music-store owner in Pittsburgh, spent more than 40 years amassing a collection of some three million LPs and 45s, many of them bargain-bin rejects that had been thoroughly forgotten. The world’s indifference, he believed, made even the most neglected records precious: music that hadn’t been transferred to digital files would vanish forever unless someone bought his collection and preserved it. Mawhinney spent about two decades trying to find someone who agreed. He struck a deal for $28.5 million in the late 1990s with the Internet retailer CDNow, he says, but the sale of his collection fell...

A Massachusetts homeowner was arrested Monday for “open and gross lewdness” after passing motorists spotted him--leaf blower in hand--doing yard work in the nude, according to cops. As Richard Capra, 69, worked on the curb appeal of his Shrewsbury home, “several vehicles were slowing down taking photographs,” according to the Shrewsbury Police Department. Responding to 911 calls, Officer Timothy Charland spotted Capra “completely nude, blowing off his driveway with a leaf blower.” Capra was “intoxicated and belligerent towards police” when questioned. Capra, arrested on a misdemeanor charge, was later released from custody after posting $500 bail. He is scheduled for...

College campuses in America are frequently teeming with all manner of liberals and trustafarian socialists who drive Volvos . Some of these schools are worse than others. Some are just egregiously awful.Here, The Daily Caller presents the 2014 rankings for the most annoying, rabidly politically correct, dirty-hippie, tree-hugging colleges and universities across the fruited plain. You have been warned. Swarthmore College in the suburbs of Philadelphia is a leftist hothouse full of wealthy white kids. In February, Swarthmore sophomore Erin Ching criticized her school for allowing a conservative — Christian thinker Robert George — to speak on campus. “What really...

Apparently, bears do a lot of things in the woods, including walking upright like a human. A home video showing a black bear on its hind legs has been viewed on YouTube than 52,000 times. The New Jersey black bear strolls across a street, peeks into a trash can and generally just ambles along in a Jefferson Township neighborhood. A woman who answered the phone after hours at the Jefferson police department, but declined to giver her name, laughed when the Daily News called for comment. “We’ve all seen it here in the office,” she said of the video. Asked...

An 87-year-old nudist is running for sheriff in Washington State. Dave Olinger of Oak Harbor, made the decision to run for mayor because of he desire to seek change in local politics, reports The Los Angeles Times. The incumbent Island County sheriff, Mark Brown, was reportedly running unopposed and as a Republican, which Olinger said was not right. Olinger said he originally wanted to run as a member of the nudist party, but settled for the Democratic party after learning the state didn’t recognize the nudist party as a political organization. "I think he watches too much of [The Daily...

I never planned on collecting Social Security or needing evacuation from a distant country with a highly contagious disease.. But Hey,, I've had a good ride, gravel roads and all. Ya never know, the day your timecard expires.. Your kid gets caught stealing Krispy Kreme donuts, Your dog hocks up your bbq offerings. Must be a real bitch, being rich. Oh vell, maybe next life I can come back as a gang banger from Central America.. Oh, but I DREAM..

<p>Apparently, after waiting in line in front of a careless mother and her screaming small child, a man who was having a bad day (and had a headache) decided to ruin that family's day: The child was screaming "I want fucking pie!" so the man bought up every last pie — all 23 of them — and walked out of the Burger King location, turning only to see the enraged mother and child, helpless as the cashier told them that the restaurant had just sold out of pie.</p>

That's the approach the player formerly known as Ron Artest is taking as he prepares to play his first season in China. China Daily reported that Artest, known most recently as Metta World Peace, has decided to change his name to "Panda Friend."

Growing up in a Latino household meant that there were a lot of hardcore superstitions running rampant throughout daily life. Superstitious beliefs go together with Hispanic homes in the way that rice and beans and chanclas do. They just fit. From purses on the floor to itchy palms, we've gathered the top eight superstitions every Latino grew up with, and put them in a list, of course. And here they are. Don't Put Your Purse on the Floor Listen, you like your money, right? Well you won't have any if you put that purse on the floor. So pick it...

Saudi men have been banned from marrying women from three Asian and one African country as the Gulf state toughens the rules restricting marriage with foreigners, a local daily said. Marrying women from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar and Chad is no longer permissible, Makkah newspaper reported. It said the total population of these communities in Saudi Arabia has exceeded 500,000 people, citing unofficial statistics, implying that this might be the reason.

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A New Mexico man almost lost his genitals to a dog bite when a 90-pound (40-kg) mixed breed pitbull attacked his eight-year-old daughter and he intervened to rescue her, police said on Sunday.

New Delhi: Air India has been forced to ground one of its planes after crew spotted rats scurrying around the cabin, The Times of India reported on Tuesday. The plane was on its way from New Delhi to Calcutta when staff became aware of the infestation, the newspaper said. "Rats on board an aircraft can lead to a catastrophe if they start chewing up electric wires," the paper quoted an unnamed airline official as saying. "If that happens, pilots will have no control on any system on board leading to a disaster." No one at the airline was immediately available...

Wikimedia, the non-profit organisation behind Wikipedia, has refused a photographer’s repeated requests to stop distributing his most famous shot for free – because a monkey pressed the shutter button and should own the copyright[.]

Justin Bieber may have millions of fans worldwide, but Russia's bears don't appear to admire the pop brat's music - which proved fortunate for one lucky fisherman. Igor Vorozhbitsyn had his life saved by a Justin Bieber ringtone, when his mobile phone went off during a potentially fatal attack by a brown bear. ... But as the bear began to claw at him, Igor's mobile went off. The singer's hit Baby rang out and the bear turned tail and fled back into the forest.

...Investigators were dispatched to the airport about 11:30 p.m. after the plane landed, according to the Houston Police Department. Police said the person died of apparent natural causes and no foul play was suspected. No other information about the case was released....