Free Republic

At 8 a.m. Thursday, 14 state senators from Wisconsin met upstairs from a coffee shop a block from the capitol and decided the safest route to blocking Republican Gov. Scott Walker's budget bill was to leave town. Elder statesman, 83-year-old Sen. Fred Risser, who was first elected in 1956, gave his blessing. ...snip... Minority leader Mark Miller suggested they meet up at the Best Western Clock Tower Resort in Rockford, Ill. It was across the state line, only about an hour and a half away by car, and the hotel's clock tower was easy to spot from the I-90. ...snip......

BAYOU LA BATRE, ALA. -- The afternoon before Hurricane Katrina arrived, Vo Loan, 11, who like other Asian-American children in Bayou La Batre serves as English translator for her parents, was out with her mother when the police rapped at their door Her father, Vietnam-born Nguyen Hung, answered. The two officers warned Nguyen in English that flooding from the major hurricane could be deadly and that his family should evacuate. He didn't understand, he explained to a reporter last week, speaking through his daughter at their small white house. "My van was broken, but I could have found another way...