Free Republic

DOUGLASVILLE, GA (AP) -- A deputy died after being shot in the head in a shooting that also killed another man. Deputy Blake Gammill was airlifted to Atlanta Medical Center on Thursday night, where he was pronounced dead. The incident began around 10:30 p.m. when authorities went to a home in Douglas County just south of Interstate 20 to serve a search and arrest warrant against Jimmy Bilbo, a former Douglas County deputy who was accused last year of child molestation. The deputies were about to take Bilbo into custody when his stepfather appeared out of a back room and...

TACOMA, Wash. -- A Pierce County father is looking for answers after a pit bull attacked and bit his 6-year-old daughter on her school playground Thursday. Michael Davidson said he received a call from Sheridan Elementary School just before 2:00 p.m. to report his daughter was in the nurse's office. When he arrived, paramedics were on scene. They transported Aubree, who is in the first grade, to the Mary Bridge emergency room where she received about nine stitches for a deep wound left by the dog. Davidson told KIRO 7 he's upset the dog and its owner(s) got away. He...

Is there no one in Los Angeles politics who can tell the truth? Not when it comes to crime, apparently, as has been vividly demonstrated this week in the aftermath of a police shooting that claimed the life of a 13-year-old auto-theft suspect. This is what we know: Just before 4 A.M. Sunday morning, LAPD Officers Dana Grant and Steve Garcia were on patrol in South-Central Los Angeles. They saw a maroon Toyota Camry run a red light, and when they attempted to pull the car over the driver led them on a brief, high-speed pursuit on the Harbor Freeway...

DUCKABUSH - Two men suspected of stealing Sea-Doo personal watercraft from Brinnon got into more trouble on Dabob Bay, about 12 miles south of the Hood Canal Bridge. One man rescued from the water has been arrested by Jefferson County deputies, and a Coast Guard search continues for a second man. Petty Officer Mike Zolzer in Seattle says the Coast Guard first received a call just after 6 a.m. Tuesday from someone who heard a man in the water calling for help. He was picked up by a Navy security boat from the Bangor submarine base. He told a Jefferson...

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Gay activists in this staid Eastern Washington city are planning to create a neighborhood of gay-oriented homes, businesses and nightlife, which religious conservatives complain will be at odds with Spokane's family-oriented culture. A gay district would signal that Spokane is tolerant and progressive, proponents contend, the type of community that can attract the so-called "creative class" that will build the economy of tomorrow. "We're talking about an actual physical part of town we would like to establish as a gay district," said Marvin Reguindin, owner of a Spokane graphic design firm, who envisions an area similar...

Rat Problem Girl(Sung to Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls") Chorus- Are you gonna use fake votes tonight? Ah, even though it ain’t right. Rat Problem Girl You spin that fraud machine around. Verse- Chris took all the votes she had And Rossi beat her bad But she knew she could beat this misery Chris got with old Dean Logan Just a nasty old Rat spokesman Said call it a tie and don’t concede Chris appealed across our land She said count ‘em all by hand Throw in some dead and felons by the way, hey That put her on the top...

Egyptian Government Daily on Time Magazine's Man of the Year - George W. Bush: 'Hitler was Also Man of the Year' Following Time Magazine's choice of U.S. President George W. Bush as its 'Man of the Year,' the Egyptian government daily Al-Akhbar published an editorial titled "Bush, Hitler, and the Man of the Year." The following are excerpts from the editorial: [1] "The U.S. Time Magazine 's choice of the U.S. president, George Bush, as Man of the Year 2004 was a second blow to a world that has not yet recovered from the shock of his winning a second...

Twas the month of Christmas, and across Washington State Citizens were wondering about their new Governors fate Dino Rossi won the election once, then twice The Democrats are naughty while Dino’s been nice The chads were hung on the ballots with care In hopes that a Gregoire vote would somehow be there The votes were counted and counted again No Chris Gregoire and no Deborah Senn Paul Berendt goes to court and sues Sam Reed Crying “43 votes are all we need!” The Republicans have vowed to put up a fight So Merry election to all and to all...

BRISTOL, Tenn. Authorities say a Bristol, Tennessee, police officer responding to a domestic dispute call was shot and killed last night. Officer Mark Vance arrived on the scene around 9-30. Sergeant Greg Leake said the 30-year-old was shot a short time after he entered the residence. Police did not elaborate on the domestic dispute, but 26-year-old Nickolus L. Johnson was arrested as the suspected shooter. Leake said charges are pending. According to police records, Johnson has a criminal history. In 1997, he was charged with malicious wounding in Bristol, Virginia and sentenced to six years in prison. Vance had been...

LONDON, Nov 25 (AFP) - Gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles, the increasingly popular all-terrain cars, should be forced to sport labels just like cigarette packs announcing their terrible health and environmental impact, a British think tank said Thursday. Just like smokers in the European Union buy tobacco marked with "Smoking Kills" and other dire warnings, New Economics Foundation (nef) offered its own slogans for super-stickers which they said should be slapped onto the hoods and sides of cars. "Global warming kills," "Climate change can seriously damage your health" or even "Driving seriously harms you and others around you" were among the...

Vancouver, Wash. - Police say a deadly shooting in Vancouver early Friday morning started when a homeowner confronted a man inside his garage. The shooting happened just before 2:00 a.m. in the 1800 block of S.E. 176th Place. "We had a homeowner report that he heard noises in his garage," said Officer Ron Stevens with the Vancouver Police Department. "He went to investigate those noises and when he went into the garage, he was confronted by a male subject who was armed. The homeowner shot the subject and the subject died at the scene as a result of his injuries."...

The Last Battle of Vietnam It never occurred to me, ever before, That our Navy would win the Vietnam War. When they took to their boats in this year of elections, With the mission of making some major corrections I shared their belief, John should not be elected, And their view overdue, truth should be resurrected. Yet I questioned the course they’d set themselves for, Knowing how John was loved by the media whore. Ignored and dismissed by the media queens Being shrewd, savvy sailors they still found the means To reach out to the people, to open their eyes...

Aaron Brown's snide shot of the day. Upon pointing out a photo in Stars and Stripes of some soldiers in Iraq who had earned Purple Hearts, during his Wednesday night "Morning Papers" segment on CNN's NewsNight, Brown sarcastically remarked: "Some day, one of them will run for President and someone will say they didn't earn the Purple Heart. Welcome to America." Brown began his November 10 look at the Thursday newspapers, a segment in which he holds up big veloxes of front pages: "Okay, time to do morning papers. I've been on an airplane today. I have no voice left....

SEATTLE -- Police arrested a naked man in the office of the Russian consulate in downtown Seattle early Thursday morning. Police were called about 3 a.m. and told that an uncooperative intruder had taken off all his clothes. He was arrested in the women's restroom. KIRO 7 Eyewitness News video showed him covered with a sheet of yellow plastic as he was led away. It wasn't immediately known how the man got inside or how long he had been there.

Dedicated to the true warriors of B Company, 1/69th Armor, who let me call 2nd Platoon home for 4 months during my tour in Vietnam. “We were riding into it. I could just make out the misty silhouettes of ships at sea. Jets flew overhead. All were part of the combined operation. I was perched outside the turret. Our tank commander and 2nd Platoon leader, LT Rick Hasty, wanted me to learn how to drive so I’d make rank more quickly, but there hadn’t been time to teach me. An experienced drive, Chuck Meerholz, had just joined the platoon, so...

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Organizers of a national gay and lesbian conference said soul-searching was in order after the resounding voter passage of gay marriage bans in 11 states last week. Matt Foreman, executive director of the sponsoring National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said the election results left members troubled and fearful. It's tough when "the vast majority of citizens in your state not only do not understand you but take hostile steps to change the constitution to take away rights we never even had," Foreman said. "There's no way you can put lipstick on that pig." About 2,000...

The media has been full of reports of Arafat’s illness and numerous articles on his role as leader of the Palestinians. What else is there to add? Some important matters are being noted, but others are left unsaid. Note the contrast when the media refers to Yasser Arafat and to Ariel Sharon. Arafat is almost always identified as the “Palestinian President” or “leader of the Palestinian Authority”, a neutral and respectful mention of his title. He is never referred to as the prime terrorist that he is. However, in Sharon’s case the pejorative adjectives of “hard line” and “right wing”...

Fingers are pointing, recriminations flying, and intellectual elitism is in full flood within their party and among their yapping media lapdogs, as Democrats try to determine what went wrong. Listening to and reading the liberal pundits quickly reveals that most of them still don’t get it. The condescension and contempt with which they view the majority of the electorate is on open display now that they need not hide their elitism until the next election cycle begins. For example, we Bush voters are all just a bunch of, “self-righteous, gun-totin’, military-lovin’, abortion-hatin’, gay-loathin’, foreigner-despisin’, non-passport-ownin’ rednecks,” in the words of...

Many trees will die to provide a palate for commentators to analyze the Republican victory on November 2nd. Almost all of those trees will have died in vain. The single most important thing that occurred in 2004 will escape discussion by the majority of commentators because they are beholden to the legacy media. They cannot bring themselves to admit this election was the legacy media's last hurrah. Evan Thomas of Newsweek was quoted as saying the media was worth 15 points to the Democrats. This is undoubtedly true. Had our media behaved in the old model of only modest hostility...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - At least 20 newspapers are objecting to Saturday's "Doonesbury" comic strip because it features a profanity, uttered in the strip by Vice President Dick Cheney. Editors told Universal Press Syndicate, the comic strip's distributor, that if their reporters aren't allowed to use profanity in stories, they don't think "Doonesbury" should, either. In Garry Trudeau's comic, the voice of Cheney directs a caricature of President George Bush to tell a reporter to "go f-- himself." A spokesman for Kansas City-based Universal Press Syndicate said at least 20 newspapers have contacted the company to complain about the...