Free Republic

COCOA, Fla. — Police say they made an arrest in a bomb threat at Cocoa High School earlier this year. According to a newly released report, a woman made the threat in a voicemail to the school on Feb. 3. Advertisement Officers say the message included several expletives but allegedly said that if the school did not feed the woman's son more, she would blow it up. Police did not find any explosives that day. They later confirmed the woman's son had gotten into an argument with a cafeteria worker the day before about wanting extra food. Investigators have since...

After much anticipation, the Chicago Botanic Garden on Saturday night announced that Spike is not expected to bloom.

New York fashion blogger Brittny Pierre is not ashamed to admit that she had gone out on dozens of dates with men for the sole purpose of getting a square meal. Pierre, who has been writing for Village Voice Media and a hip hop website, made the confession in a piece written in the first person that appeared on the feminist blog XOJane this week. The woman detailed how she would meet her 'victims' on the dating site OKCupid and through Craigslist, and would go out for dinner three times a week with different men, allowing them to foot the...

Barack Obama benefited from strong support among a number of demographic groups during his 2008 presidential campaign. In an economic sense, after two-and-a-half years of his presidency, those same groups which showed him the greatest support have suffered disproportionately more than others in the United States. It begs the question as to whether these groups will be political lemmings for Obama both in their support of his campaign and when they pull the lever in the 2012 presidential election. If their votes are based upon how their financial lives have changed since Obama took office, then they cannot reelect Obama...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ6iLuyCAx0

I have grown tired of cooking (and eating) the same meals over & over again. Mostly we eat steak, beef ribs, fried chicken, fried pork chops, tacos, and enchiladas. With the occasional corned beef, spaghetti and (packaged) Chinese food thrown in. I have several cookbooks upstairs that I was considering perusing, then I thought about the fine folks on FR. Please add your favorite recipe(s) to this thread so I can start experimenting. The only thing that I will not cook is liver & onions (YUK). I would love to have a tried & true recipe of pot roast and...

Elephant kills its two handlers The Associated Press HANOI, Vietnam -- A domesticated elephant killed two handlers in northern Vietnam apparently after being forced to work without eating, an official said Monday. Le Van Lanh, 42, and his assistant Ha Van Hoang, 46, died Saturday after being gored by the elephant's tusk in the forest in Truong Xuan village, village chief Ngan Van Thiep said. The one-tusked male elephant, which is more than 20 years old, apparently became angry and attacked its handlers after being forced to haul more trees from the forest without being fed Saturday morning, he said....

Darryl Delatte, 57 years old and 22 months shy of retiring as a mechanic, was rescued from his flooded New Orleans home after Hurricane Katrina and dropped on an interstate. There, he watched people die -- and wondered why no help came. "Everybody kept passing you by," he says. Now, at a cavernous disaster relief center in Houston, he ponders the promises made by government officials -- of land and jobs for evacuees back home, of a rebirth of the city's essential, vibrant black community.

Grandma was right — the way to a man's heart really is through his stomach. Or so it would seem, based on the romantic powers of a recipe that appeared in Glamour magazine (search). In its January 2004 issue, Glamour printed instructions on how to make Engagement Chicken (search), a dish that at the time had inspired the boyfriends of three women to pop the question. Since then — in a case of what came first, the chicken or the ring? — the magazine has received 21 letters (and counting) from women who say this simple meal was the magic...