Free Republic

You may notice that our website is looking a little light today. We’d like to explain. Today is "A Day Without a Woman," a general strike for women's rights and equality—so many of the women of PopSci aren't working. And that means the website is going to be pretty quiet: While we get an awful lot of emails assuming we're a bunch of "sirs," the majority of the staff here is female.

This week, the McDonald’s location at Main and Gray got some extra special attention for a sign at its side entrance imploring those sliding in for burgers and fries to pull their pants up. It’s been there for weeks but the right person must have just seen since it’s right up there next to the government shutdown in everyone’s mind. The same sign is up at the McDonald’s at Westheimer and Kirkwood too. And hey, it looks like Happy Meals are $1.99 on Tuesdays now. I know where I’m going after happy hour. “No one wants to see your underwear,”...

CONROE, Texas — Montgomery County jurors sent a message that drunk driving in the county will not be tolerated. George Harvey, 59, was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday after a jury thought eight convictions for driving while intoxicated was too many to let him back on the streets.

Children's campaigners in the U.K. have blasted plans to display a naked photo of a ten-year-old Brooke Shields as part of an art exhibition.

Katy (Texas) Tea Party - 4th of July Rally 2009 Our Independence Day! (Check Out The Website) Click Here for all the DetailsEveryone's Invited Saturday, July 4th starting at 5:00PM On FM 359 - Just North of Brookshire Entertainment by Kevin Black Guest Speaker - Lores Rizalla - KTRH Guest Speaker - Rebecca Forest - President of IRCOT Opening Presentation by Natalie Arceneaux Special Honored Guests and Speakers Veterans of our United States Military H.M. “Mike” Warren - LTC, US Army Ret. E.D. Christensen - LTC, US Army Ret. Fireworks, Family Fun, Food and Lots MORE! This is a Family...

Midtown lounge denies it discriminated against homosexual customers left waiting outside in the rain Owners of a Midtown lounge and the organizers of Houston’s first “guerrilla gay bar” met Monday to try to mend fences after a botched weekend event left both sides feeling mistreated. The “guerrilla gay bar” event was planned as an impromptu mixer of the city’s gay and straight communities at the Union Bar on Bagby. Instead of mingling with the bar’s typically straight customers, however, about 100 gays and lesbians were left standing out in the rain on Friday. Some who waited said it felt like...

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Major U.S. banks sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications. The dozen banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions that included senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists. The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice...

AUSTIN — Public records examined by the Austin American-Statesman show that most elected officials who have been stopped on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in recent years have declined to consent to a blood or breath sample. The newspaper reported Sunday that it turned up cases involving more than a dozen elected officials in Texas — including representatives, senators, judges and commissioners — in which police on the scene asked for a sample to determine whether the driver's blood-alcohol concentration exceeded the 0.08 legal limit. Except for two cases, both of which occurred outside the state, the politicians refused, the...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Condemned killer Eric Nenno was the last person 7-year-old Nicole Benton saw when she was abducted, strangled and raped more than 13 years ago. Her father was among the last people Nenno could have seen Tuesday night when the Texas inmate was executed for killing her and hiding her body in the attic of his home. Nenno, however, refused to look at Buddy Benton, who stood close to the death chamber window that separated him from his daughter's killer. Nenno also ignored the child's uncle, Donald Benton, and the girl's grandfather, C.J. Bowles, who walked up to...

Some electric retailers in Texas reduce rates after natural gas cost takes a tumbleTexas electricity prices may have peaked for the summer after a price drop by some retail providers. While many retailers have held rates steady or even raised them this month, the decreases that have come are the first this year. The lower rates followed a steep drop in the price of natural gas — a key power plant fuel that essentially sets the price of power in Texas — which has plummeted nearly 28 percent this month. Since the end of June, some one-year fixed-rate electric plans...

In light of Tuzla-gate (catchy, no?), reporters are going over past statements by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, (and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois) to see if others don't stand more rigorous examination. One that may get renewed scrutiny is a story she told “Women in Military Service” in 1994 -- that shortly after the end of the Vietnam war, she looked into joining the Marines. In June 1994, Clinton told an organization trying to build a memorial for women who had served in the armed forces, that while living in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1975, “I decided that I was very interested...

Honda Motor Co. plans to stop making motorcycles in the United States next year and transfer the work to Japan, pulling the plug on its first U.S. plant. The 330,000-square-foot (30,657 sq. meter) Marysville, Ohio, plant, built in 1979, turns out large Gold Wing touring and VTX cruiser motorcycles. The work will be shifted to a plant in Japan that can produce bikes more efficiently. The Ohio plant employs 450 workers. Honda said there will be no layoffs when production ends in spring 2009. The workers will remain with the company, helping produce cars, trucks, engines and parts and filling...

NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams is reporting on the Patriot Guard Riders Tonight. As part of the Homefront Series in America, Janet Shamian presents an excellent report tonight on the Patriot Guard Riders, a grass-roots organization of everyday Americans that are anything but ordinary, and a city that vowed that no members of the American military would return home "without feeling loved". http://dailynightly.msnbc.com/2006/10/relentless_wedn.html#below-fold As many of you know, I worked on a piece for the PGR with this show. We taped the segment back in July and it was to air at the end of July but Lebanon broke...

How a group of motorcycling Vietnam vets is helping the widow of a Montreal man killed in IraqA few weeks after her husband died in Iraq, Vendella de Moors popped a disc into her DVD player so she could watch him flash his brilliant smile again. The U.S. Army allowed soldiers to film themselves reading stories and send recordings for their children at home. On this particular disc, however, Mrs. de Moors discovered much more. After reading the stories -- Dr. Seuss, one for each child and one for Vendella -- First Lieutenant David de Moors said goodbye and rose...

I am a Houston-area Freeper and I am thinking of going to Crawford, Texas this weekend to protest the anti-war Mom Cindy Sheehan "show". It's hard to sit by and watch the Left anti-war crowd piss on the graves of our American heros who have answered their country's call to duty. Perhaps there are some among you that feel the same. I have been looking for any posts that discuss FReeping her anti-war protest and have so far seen none. If there is already a thread on this, please let me know, otherwise this thread can serve that purpose. I...

Determining the rate of identity theft in Europe is difficult, and the reason is telling: Data security experts say it's not seen as enough of a problem to warrant a comprehensive survey. The exception is the United Kingdom, where fraud experts estimate 100,000 people, or about 0.17% of the population, fell victim last year to account hijacking, new-account fraud or other types of identity theft. Compare that to the U.S., where a Federal Trade Commission survey found 10 million ID-theft victims a year -- or 3.39% of the population. So what is so different in the Eurozone? Several things: Social...

AUSTIN -- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, for the first time in its history, commuted the death penalty of a murderer Wednesday because he is mentally retarded. Willie Mack Modden, sentenced in the stabbing death of a mother of three in 1985, cannot be executed and will serve a life sentence for the murder instead. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that executing the mentally retarded is unconstitutional. "We conclude that the record supports the trial court's findings that the applicant is mentally retarded," the majority opinion stated in the 7-2 decision, noting the consistent test results of...

Frustrated taxpayers dutifully completing their 1040s frequently ask themselves an understandable question: Where is all this money going? And they deserve an answer. The federal government is projected to spend $21,671 per household in 2004 — the most since World War II and $3,500 more than in 2001. Tax revenues will reach $16,981 per household through a combination of the income tax, payroll tax, gas tax, estate tax and assorted business taxes typically passed on through higher prices and smaller investment returns. The remaining $4,690 represents the deficit per household, which will be dumped in the laps of our children....

A 21-year-old man who police said entertained his friends at a southeast Houston apartment complex by torturing and burning a month-old kitten to death earlier this month was apprehended Monday. A witness told police that James Edward Land set the kitten on fire on Nov. 14 at the Royal Palms Apartments, 5601 Royal Palms, officers said. The witness told police that Land put the kitten into a pillowcase and threw it while he and his friends laughed. Land then doused the kitten with lighter fluid and set it on fire, the witness said. After police were called, the witness said,...

Millions of U.S. jobs will be exported in the coming decade, forecasters say. Here are the jobs that are especially vulnerable, plus 5 that aren't. One of the most unsettling truths about the job market today can be found in two seemingly insignificant recent announcements by high-tech powerhouses Oracle and Hewlett-Packard. Software giant Oracle (ORCL, news, msgs) said it's moving 2,000 developer jobs from the United States to India, doubling the number of developers it has on payroll there. Then Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, news, msgs) announced plans to close a customer-service operation in Florida and send the operation's 1,200 jobs overseas,...