Free Republic

ISLE ROYALE, Mich. (WLUC) - A lake freighter with 22 people on board experienced a water emergency on Lake Superior Saturday morning. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the M/V MICHIPICOTEN, a vessel carrying taconite, allided or struck something underwater and began taking on water Saturday morning.

It’s been 36 years on Thursday since the ore boat Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a violent storm in eastern Lake Superior taking all 29 crew members with her. The storm of November 9-10, 1975, ranks among the most powerful to strike the Lake Superior region.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Jonathan Metz had his left arm stuck in his furnace boiler for about 12 hours when he asked himself "what would MacGyver do?" and concluded that amputating the limb was his only chance for survival.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, - Workers at an Ohio company said a hunting dog spotted a 4-foot alligator near the office and alerted them to its presence. Jeff Tate, who owns Buckeye Caseworks in Columbus, said employee Jeff Colucy was letting his Weimaraner dog , which is trained to spot birds, relieve himself near the building when the canine spotted the reptile, the Columbus Dispatch reported Thursday. "My sales manager was taking his dog out to go to the bathroom, and he went to bring him back in and he was on point -- but not at a bird -- at a...

FReepers, please create a FreeRepublic photo record here of what happens when a community organizer thug is given the most important job in the world. The empty suit, who currently occupies the Oval Office, has no ability whatsoever to lead in a crisis. God help our republic.

<p>Once upon a time, there was a television show about a bunch of people on an island. For six years it was one of the most fascinating things on TV. And then it ended, in the worst way possible.</p> <p>Lost ended tonight, and with it the hopes and dreams of millions of people who thought it might finally get good again. SPOILER ALERT: It didn't. What did we learn? Nothing. We learned nothing from two-and-a-half hours of slow-motion bullshittery backed with a syrupy soundtrack.</p>

IT EMERGED from a blazing light in the clouds, descending on a busy street before zipping off silently into the sunset. Just what - or who - propelled the strange flying disc across Sydney's skyline may never be known. But while the close encounter was over in seconds, it was enough to convince mother-of-two Fiona Hartigan that she'd just seen a UFO. And she has the photos to prove it.

For many users of Facebook, the world’s largest social network, it was just the latest in a string of frustrations. On Wednesday, users discovered a glitch that gave them access to supposedly private information in the accounts of their Facebook friends, like chat conversations.

MOSCOW — A Russian MP has asked an eccentric regional leader to explain his behaviour after claiming on state television that he was visited at home by aliens in a UFO, media reported Thursday. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, head of the Buddhist Kalmykia region of southern Russia and president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), announced without apparent irony on a high-profile chat show he had met the aliens in 1997. In an equally bizarre twist, Andrei Lebedev, an MP for the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, has now written to President Dmitry Medvedev raising fears that secret information could have been disclosed...

PLANO, Texas, -- A Texas couple says they've downsized their garden display of spring bluebonnets, a state tradition, after their homeowners association threatened legal action. Eddie and Melissa Smith's bluebonnet bonanza began five years ago with three plants from a local Plano, Texas, home-improvement store, The Dallas Morning News reported Sunday. Explosive growth followed, and the bluebonnets spread over the Smith's entire lawn and jumped the sidewalk to curve around their corner lot, the newspaper said. "We didn't add more seeds, didn't fertilize, didn't water any extra," Melissa Smith said. "It was God's handiwork." But not everyone was a fan....