Free Republic

Need to keep an eye on the votes that were cast before Sandy came calling. I could see those votes miraculously breaking for a certain candidate if the election is close.

Click to watch video" Chilling video shows the moments right after the shooting on Fidelity Street in College Station Monday. The cell phone video was recorded by Rigo Cisneros a former Army medic who lives on Fidelity. Cisneros tells News Three that he heard the gunshots and went outside to see if he could help. Police held him back until the scene was cleared and then he helped perform CPR on Brazos County Constable Brian Bachmann, who later died. Cisneros said he also briefly spoke to the alleged shooter, Thomas Caffall, who asked for forgiveness for shooting Bachmann. Caffall was...

Posted: Mon 6:28 PM, Aug 13, 2012 In a press release by a family attorney, the mother of the alleged shooter identifies him as Tres Caffall. The following is the statement from Linda Weaver through family attorney Tyler Moore. "Our family was shocked and devastated by the tragedy this afternoon. Our thoughts and prayers go to the families of the deceased and the wounded victims. We mourn them and the loss of Tres. He had been ill. It breaks our hearts his illness led to this. Please respect our privacy in our grief."

When Caren Berg told colleagues at a recent staff meeting, "There's new people you should meet," her boss Don Silver broke in, says Ms. Berg, a senior vice president at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., marketing and crisis-communications company. "I cringe every time I hear" people misuse "is" for "are," Mr. Silver says. The company's chief operations officer, Mr. Silver also hammers interns to stop peppering sentences with "like." For years, he imposed a 25-cent fine on new hires for each offense. "I am losing the battle," he says. Managers are fighting an epidemic of grammar gaffes in the workplace. Many...

Today is Triskaidekaphobia Awareness Day. Triskaidekaphobia can strike without warning. Symptoms include paralyzing fear and irrational thoughts or behavior. While symptoms can often be ameliorated by the raised eyebrows and amused snickers of nearby people, a lasting cure for Triskaidekaphobia remains elusive. Until there is a cure, we must not relent!

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), which mandated a steep rise in domestic ethanol production, is causing unforeseen negative consequences for food prices while failing to live up to the desired gasoline results and other expectations, concludes a Texas A&M University research team headed by an economics professor who studies energy issues.James Griffin James M. Griffin, director of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics & Public Policy, which is part of Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, and Mauricio Cifuentes Soto, a graduate student assisting him, say in their report that the goal of...

Sir, I believe that none of the other GOP candidates are as solid as you are on the life issue.The problem is that, as huge as the abortion problem is in our country, there are many other issues that predominate in our country in this election cycle -- the economy, creeping fascism in our government, to name just two -- issues that could potentially affect the very existence of our nation and culture as we know it.To be honest, you are not the man who is giving the best voice to the concerns of those who truly care about the...

Throughout the months-long 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists expressed surprise at the development and relatively speedy disappearance of giant plumes of subsea oil and gas that jetted from the wellhead and refused to surface. A new study explains how bacteria degraded the plumes so efficiently: A succession of hydrocarbon-noshing species mushroomed because their movable feasts were repeatedly replenished. Only about 15 percent of the BP gusher floated up to form giant surface slicks, a second new study finds. Natural gas constituents and dissolvable chemicals amounting to twice that mass remained near the seafloor, creating the...

BOSTON, November 7, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A lawsuit that could nullify the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has received the support of major U.S. corporations, who filed a brief opposing the law in federal court this week. A friend-of-the-court brief filed last Thursday in the case of Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services argues that DOMA, which protects marriage as between a man and a woman in federal law, imposes crippling burdens on employers. Seventy employers are represented in the brief, including Microsoft, Starbucks, Google, NIKE, Levi Strauss and Co., CBS, Aetna, Blue Cross...

Forget whatever you think you know about the night Osama bin Laden was killed. According to a former Navy SEAL who claims to have the inside track, the mangled tales told of that historic night have only now been corrected.“It became obvious in the weeks evolving after the mission that the story that was getting put out there was not only untrue, but it was a really ugly farce of what did happen,” said Chuck Pfarrer, author of Seal Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden.In an extensive interview with The Daily Caller, Pfarrer...

Who's Fueling Rick Perry's Presidential Campaign? By Michael Beckel on October 18, 2011 2:35 PM A cluster of Texas heavy weights helped elevate Rick Perry to the governor's mansion in the Lone Star State, and he's tapping the same network as he takes center stage at tonight's debate in Las Vegas and strives to win the GOP presidential nomination. About 57 percent of the money Perry has raised through the end of September for his presidential campaign has come from residents of Texas, according to preliminary research by the Center for Responsive Politics -- a total of $9.7 million...

Texas’ historic and lingering drought has already worn out its welcome, but it could easily stay around for years and there is a chance it might last another five years or even until 2020, says a Texas A&M University weather expert.John Nielsen-Gammon, who serves as Texas State Climatologist and professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M, says the culprit is the likely establishment of a new La Niña in the central Pacific Ocean. A La Niña is formed when colder than usual ocean temperatures form in the central Pacific, and these tend to create wetter than normal conditions in the...

The Southeastern Conference Presidents and Chancellors, acting unanimously, announced today that Texas A&M University will join the Southeastern Conference effective July 1, 2012, with competition to begin in all sports for the 2012-13 academic year. The addition of Texas A&M will increase the SEC membership to 13 institutions. It is the first expansion for the SEC since September of 1991 when the University of South Carolina joined the league. The University of Arkansas joined the SEC in August of 1991. With the addition of Arkansas and South Carolina, the SEC was the first conference to split into divisions and add...

A major earthquake struck northeast India early Sunday evening that sent tremors as far as Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. The quake, which struck in the mountainous region near the town of Mangan in north Sikkim state, registered 6.8 on the Richter scale. Aftershocks measuring 6.1 and 4.8 followed half an hour after. So far, 7 people in Sikkim, 2 in Bihar, 2 in West Bengal have been reported dead and around 33 injured. Five people were reported dead in neighboring Nepal, killed when the wall of the British High Commission in Kathmandu collapsed, and one person was killed in nearby...

Home schools emerged in many places of China today due to the parents' concern about the public education, the China Youth Daily reported Monday.A growing number of parents in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces are choosing to let their children receive an education at home rather than attend public kindergartens, primary, junior or senior middle schools.Some parents think their children cannot realize the happiness of learning, acquire useful knowledge effectively and master learning for a modern society through the current methods taught in schools. A recent seminar about launching home school projects was held by 21st Century Education Research...

Nero YouTubes while Rome burns! The White House, probably realizing the entire country is mega-financially-screwed anyway, just rickolled a Twitter critic who complained about the "entertainment value" of an Obama briefing. Retaliation? Watch this annoying video, you jerk! You might think the official mouthpiece of the United States of America indulging in well-worn meme prankery is a little unbecoming of the office, but hey—they're no strangers to love. Obama knows the rules, and so do I. A full tax hike's what he's thinking of—You wouldn't get this from any other guy. He just wants to tell you how he's feeling....

“By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!” That's right, the blue-skinned, green-haired, eco-friendly superhero may eventually be coming to a movie theater near you in a live-action feature film. A press release on Tuesday from Stuart Snyder, president and COO of Turner Broadcasting System Inc.'s Animation, Young Adults and Kids Media division, says that Cartoon Network has struck a development agreement with Angry Filmworks to begin working on the film. “The messages of Captain Planet are even more relevant today,” said Snyder. “We feel this team can bring the world’s first eco-hero to life in a powerful motion picture...

UNITED NATIONS — Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country. The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit" — to the point that the "well-being and existence of many beings" is now threatened. The wording may yet evolve, but the general structure is meant to mirror Bolivia's Law of the Rights...

Imagine, if you will, that the United Nations existed in the 1860s.  Upon receiving news of Sherman’s March to the Sea, it would not be farfetched to presume that the leading power of the day, Great Britain, would have assembled a coalition of the willing and, armed with the appropriate UN resolutions, intervened on behalf of the Confederacy*.By the rules of “humanitarian intervention” under which we apparently operate today, it doesn’t matter whether or not Lincoln had any legitimate interest in keeping the union together** – the actions of his generals would have brought upon the north the wrath of...

President Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya’s civil war has not only failed to win the approval of a majority of the American people, according to a Gallup poll conducted Monday, it also earned the lowest public approval rating of any U.S. military operation polled by Gallup over the past four decades.In fact, it was the only U.S. military intervention polled by Gallup that received less than majority approval from Americans.“The 47% of Americans approving of the action against Libya is lower than what Gallup has found when asking about approval of other U.S. military campaigns in the past four decades,”...