Welcome to FreeRepublic. I hope you will find lots to interest you here. Breaking news gets here as fast as anywhere, and then a Freeper in the neighborhood of the breaking news shares more than reporters can.
The threads from Katrina are classics.
BTW, the report abuse button is magical. “It” plus and explanation, erases objectionable posts. I have used it to ask moderators to get rid of remarks that I have made that were erroneous, as well as to point out nasty posts. And they are gone within minutes.
This was especially true during the Virgina Tech shooting. Some FReepers were way ahead of the media, reporting what was going on as it was happening. While CNN was reporting two people dead, acting as if it was over, FReepers were reporting more shots fired, requests for additional ambulances and hospitals diverting rescue workers to other hospitals because they were at capacity. Some people were in my office that morning talking about the two people being shot after reading cnn.com, and I was reading FR telling them it was much worse than that and it wasn't over. They were skeptical of me because I was reading it from a discussion board, but they had never heard of FR. An hour or so later they finally read on CNN.com what I told them from FR much earlier.
Yep done the same thing. Can't edit posts here, but you can ask to make them go away.