Free Republic

German carmaker Audi is being ridiculed online after revealing its latest electric car model: the Audi e-tron.  As was swiftly discovered by francophones around the globe, 'e-tron' is very similar to the French word 'ètron'.It is therefore unlikely that Frenchmen will be rushing to their local cardealers to purchase the new Audi, as 'ètron' means 'excrement' or 'turd'.  Audi promises that the e-tron will usher in 'a new era of electric'.  It writes on its website that the car is 'the only electric SUV built with Audi DNA,' adding: 'This is electric done the Audi way.'  However, as reported by Inquisitr, social...

Learning to Name Sins Is to Have More Power Over Them Msgr. Charles Pope • September 23, 2018 • Over the years we have steadily been losing the vocabulary of sin. Saying “I have sinned” is often replaced by “I made a mistake,” or “I made a poor decision,” or “I’m sorry if my behavior was hurtful in some way.”Not only are we slow to say we have sinned, we are also ignorant of the subtleties of sin, in part because our vocabulary about sin is so limited. In this state we lose a certain advantage over sin because...

Naomi Tomky was still laid out on the operating table after an emergency C-section when the earliest pangs of regret kicked in. “The baby was being lifted over my head,” the 34-year-old freelance writer remembers, “and the anesthesiologist was like, ‘what’s her name?’ I started explaining and was like, oh God, what have I done?” Tomky’s now 8-month-old daughter is Tove (pronounced TOH-vah), a Swedish moniker that’s typically said like TOO-vah, but in this case, the expectant parents from Seattle changed the pronunciation for a twist. “My husband has Swedish heritage and then Tova, or Tovah, is a common Hebrew...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel appeared to suggest renaming one of Chicago’s airports after President Barack Obama on Thursday, but also sounded confused about how the O’Hare and Midway got their current names. During a mayoral forum at Chicago State University, the mayor seemed a bit flustered as he answered a question about his quick about-face after he suggested naming a Chicago high school for President Barack Obama, and renaming Stony Island Avenue for the late civic leader Rev. Arthur Brazier. That’s when the mayor brought up the city’s two airports. “We have to, in some way, whether it’s President Obama or...

The USS Medgar Evers? The USS John Murtha? The USS Cesar Chavez? Our Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus, has this diversity thing down cold. Each one of those ships was in a class that previous names of their sister ships had nothing to do with civil rights, or corrupt Democratic politicians. Ships are usually named after states, cities, even famous explorers and war heroes. But Mabus has injected partisanship into this tradition, naming another ship for Democrat Gabriel Giffords, who has shown courage in her recovery from an assassination attempt but had expressed little interest in the military during her career...

The U.S. Navy announced Wednesday morning that it has named one of its new ships after Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta, a San Diego native who died a hero in Iraq in 2004. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced the move, saying a new guided-missile destroyer will be named the USS Rafael Peralta. A Pentagon statement said Mabus named that ship and two other new destroyers after Navy and Marine Corps heroes whose actions occurred during different conflicts but "were united in their uncommon valor." Peralta was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross after using his body to shield fellow Marines from an...

President Obama repeatedly asked members of Congress to pass the American Jobs Act last week. But when no Democrat filed Obama’s bill after he presented it to Congress, a conservative congressman swiped the name for his own legislation.

I am trying to think of a good name for a dog, just acquired from the pound. He's been neutered, seems to be a bit less than one year old. He's part blue heeler and part black lab with ears that do not seem to be of either of those two breeds. He's joining the alpha male guard dog and the little mama dog who are both getting up there in years. If anyone has any good suggestions for naming him, I'd appreciate it.

More Americans are following the lead of President and Michelle Obama when it comes to naming their daughters, the Social Security Administration said Friday. "Maliyah," a version of the name "Malia" that the president and first lady gave their oldest daughter, made the biggest jump in popularity among girls names in 2009, moving 342 spots up to No. 296. The name "Malia" moved up 153 spots to No. 192. Meanwhile, "Sasha," the name of the Obamas' younger daughter, came in at No. 261 - having moved up 101 spots. There was no bounce for the first lady: The name "Michelle"...

An unemployed Arkansas woman — and her unborn son, whose name she tried to auction on eBay — can't seem to catch a break. After five auctions on the Internet marketplace, Lavonne Drummond, 36, saw a winning bid of $6,800 was dashed Tuesday when the winning bidder, a producer at an Internet radio talk show, told the mother of six that he had no intention of paying for the naming rights of her seventh child. "They just apologized," Drummond told FOXNews.com. "They just wanted to help but didn't think they would actually win." Drummond, whose first four auctions were removed...

LONDON (Reuters) - Muslims criticised the government on Friday for publishing the names of 19 men who police sources say are under arrest for allegedly plotting to blow up passenger planes bound for the United States. The government instructed the Bank of England to publish the names on its Web site on Thursday, just hours after police arrested 24 people in connection with the suspected plot. Police have not named the 24 but a police source confirmed they include the 19 named by the central bank. Although the bank did not give the addresses of the 19, it listed their...

New Berlin rejects naming high school after Reagan By KAY NOLANSpecial to the Journal Sentinel Posted: July 20, 2004 New Berlin - School Board members have backed away from a plan to rename West High School after the late President Ronald Reagan. Instead, the board voted Monday to consider bestowing the Reagan name on an elementary school, perhaps when a new one is built to replace Center Elementary. Shortly after Reagan's death on June 5, School Board Vice President Matt Weiss had suggested renaming one of the district's two high schools in Reagan's honor. The district's other high school is...

I still haven't quite recovered from the recent day when my six-year-old daughter came home from school and blurted out: "Abba, I hate my name!" It seems some of her classmates had teased her that morning by chanting "Shoshana-banana, Shoshana-banana..." "Ooof," she said, "why did you have to call me Shoshana? It's a stupid name!" I tried to explain yet again that I had wanted to name her in memory of my late grandmother, Rose. The modern Hebrew equivalent, Vered, sounded a little hard on our ears, so my wife and I settled for the biblical flora term that can...

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant and the cast of "Friends" are in heavenly company -- at least when it comes to naming children. Parents in Oklahoma apparently like to thumb through the Bible, watch Bryant slam-dunk, or take in the popular television sitcom while mulling over names for their children-to-be. According to statistics provided by the state's Health Department, there were 74 children born in Oklahoma in 2002 who were named Kobe or a derivative of the name. Religious names were also popular for the 50,160 babies born in Oklahoma last year. Jacob was...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - It's a bird. It's a plane, but it's not Superman. At least not in Sweden, where a couple who wanted to name their child after the comic book hero found the law harder to bend than the man of steel himself. The tax authority, which oversees rules for names in the Scandinavian country of 8.9 million, nixed a request by Sara Lindenger and her live-in boyfriend, Johan Leisten, both 28, to name their child Staalman, Superman in Swedish. "We wanted to call him David Rune Staalman Leisten," Lindenger told The Associated Press Tuesday. "It would be much...

Russian designations of aircraft and missies Russian aircraft designationsFrom rec.aviation.military FAQ by Ross Smith In the 1920s and 1930s, many different designation systems were used for Russian aircraft; the People's Comissariat of Defence had its own system, and each manufacturer had another, usually based on the initials of the designer or organisation (for example, A N Tupolev's ANT-6 was also known as the TB-3). Prefixes used included: A = Autogyro ARK = Arctic coastal reconnaissance B = Bomber BB = Short-range bomber BSh = Armoured attack aircraft (Sh = Shturmovik) DAR = Long-range arctic reconnaissance DB = Long-range bomber...