Free Republic

Associated PressR ENICK, Mo. - As the winds howled and the tornado sirens blared, friends and family begged Billy and Penny Briscoe to leave their southern Randolph County mobile home. Then the explosion hit. The couple are among at least nine people, including two more in and near the north-central town of Redick, killed by a series of powerful weekend storms that produced tornadoes and damaging hail across Missouri. Nearly 12 hours after the funnel cloud touched down, signs of devastation were widespread Monday morning. The powerful winds blew out car windows, bent telephone poles sideways, uprooted trees and destroyed...

I'm looking for a source of the names of the various Cabinet members under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush 41, to include Under Secretaries. Does anyone out there know of such a source? Thanks

Screaming and yelling by men at work may now be sex-based discrimination if women at work find the behavior more intimidating than men do. On September 2, 2005, in E.E.O.C. v. National Education Association, (No. 04-35029), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the “reasonable woman” standard applies to workplace abusive conduct, even if there is no sexual content to the behavior. This decision significantly expands the types of behaviors that may furnish a basis for a claim of discrimination. Three women working for a labor union, the National Education Association, sued for gender discrimination claiming that the NEA...

University of Missouri-Columbia police yesterday arrested two protesters as they were digging mock graves on the lawn of Crowder Hall, home of the MU ROTC offices. Steve and Lana Jacobs, members of the St. Francis Catholic Worker community that shelters the homeless and runs a local soup kitchen, were issued summonses for misdemeanor damage of landscaping. They have been assigned a June 2 hearing in Boone County Associate Circuit Court. Steve Jacobs was arrested at about 9 a.m. His wife was arrested about an hour later after going home and bringing another shovel back to the lawn. Steve Jacobs said...

...Patriotism in Red America didn’t have to be relearned after September 11. Selfless sacrifice is still an honored tradition in our communities, whether it takes place on the nation’s battlefields or a home in the nursery...Aside from religion, one of the most marked differences between the two parts of our country is the way we think about the military...Red America is full of smart people, as many employers are learning. It’s just that intellect, like wealth, isn’t flaunted here..... After the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections the blue and red map became ubiquitous. The large expanses of red represented areas...

After the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections the blue and red map became ubiquitous. The large expanses of red represented areas where a majority of voters favored Bush. The smaller, but more heavily populated, areas of blue represented votes who chose Gore [and now Kerry]. Now the nation’s social commentators want to know why there’s such a gap in our citizenry’s disposition. When David Brooks penned an article for The Atlantic Monthly (December 2001) describing the differences between rural and urban America, he started with his tongue in his cheek. But in the midst of the long essay, to the...

Coffee shop owner reaches breaking point with homeless To Skip DuCharme, Lakota Coffee Co. is like his living room, and he doesn’t like people to put their feet on his furniture. The owner of the downtown coffee shop on Ninth Street let me know this one of the first times I chose to hang out at Lakota on a weekend and propped my feet on one of his wood-carved chairs. He asked me to put my feet down. I didn’t blame him. It’s no wonder, I thought after I talked to DuCharme last week, why he wouldn’t want a man...