Free Republic

West Texas has seen its share of oil booms, but the people there say this one is unlike any they’ve seen. Driven by shale drilling, a gusher of crude production has transformed the Permian Basin into America’s hottest oilfield, turning what was a remote stretch of towns spread among mesquite trees and scrubland into an industrial zone, seemingly overnight. Oil prices have fallen about 25% since October to around $57 a barrel. But West Texas residents are hopeful the boom won’t go bust soon because companies have pumped billions into building out the oilfield, and drilling is not expected to...

Houston 'Redneck white city down in Texas." That's how Houston Mayor Annise Parker sums up the caricature of her town, and she wants everyone to know it's bunkum. Houston is "a really cool city," she says. "Open and entrepreneurial and welcoming." It's also booming. The mayor herself is a walking testament to the cosmopolitan contrarian reality of modern Houston. Annise Parker is a Democrat in a deep-red state, the first openly gay mayor of a major American city. She's a social liberal who's also a former oil-industry executive with a pro-business attitude running what may be the nation's least-regulated metropolis....

Boston TV icon Rex Trailer is in the intensive care unit of a Florida hospital, his family told WBZ-TV Tuesday. Trailer, 84, was the host of the popular children’s television show “Boomtown,” on WBZ from 1956 to 1974. The program often included children with disabilities in the studio audience. His spokesperson said Trailer was in Florida for Christmas visiting his sister when he came down with pneumonia. The spokesperson told WBZ Trailer is doing well and that he’s alert and responding to treatment. His family issued this brief statement: “Rex Trailer appreciates everyone’s prayers and support for a speedy recovery...

Believe it or not, a place exists where companies are hiring like crazy, and you can make $15 an hour serving tacos, $25 an hour waiting tables and $80,000 a year driving trucks. You just have to move to North Dakota. Specifically, to one of the tiny towns surrounding the oil-rich Bakken formation, estimated to hold anywhere between 4 billion and 24 billion barrels of oil. Oil companies have only recently discovered ways to tap this reserve. And along with the manpower needed to extract the oil, the town is now scrambling to find workers to support the new rush...

All roads in northwest Arkansas lead to Wal-Mart.' -- message emblazoned on a Wal-Mart store bag, circa 1965 - - - BENTONVILLE, Ark. - It's 10 a.m., and Todd Thomas has been up for five hours. Doing business with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. means that you have to get up early and this week is even busier than usual, with thousands of shareholders from around the world flooding into the northwest Arkansas town for the company's annual meeting yesterday. From the window of his family-run business on Sam Walton Boulevard, Bentonville Copy and Ship, one can see the unassuming low-rise campus...

Toogood Reports [Monday, December 23, 2002; 12:01 a.m. EST]URL: http://ToogoodReports.com/ Those evil, white males are at it again. In the past two months, Neo-Nazis have shot up and started explosions in Los Angeles not once, but twice. The Russian mob has also laid the City of Angels to waste. A priest was caught abusing an altar boy in Boston. A sniper terrorized the Miami area. In Philly, a white male was caught kidnapping girls, and turning them into sex slaves. In New York, innocent young black men were up for the death penalty, having been racially profiled in a murder...