Free Republic

What? You expected us not to make a juvenile joke in the headline of this story? Listen, most of us around here are still amused by bodily functions, so this shouldn’t be unexpected. What was unexpected for a Halton Police officer earlier this week was a contractor who failed to tightly secure the trailer hitch ball on their truck’s drawbar. According to a video posted to Twitter by the attending officer, the truck and trailer in question were bounding along Dundas Street when the gendarmes spotted something amiss at the hitching point. Closer inspection revealed the ball on which the...

US political activist and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader tells DW why he believes Donald Trump will be a one-term president and why the Democrats should adopt European concepts to win the midterm elections.[Trump] has gone back on his populist promises. He has brought back Wall Street advisers in his circle of advisers in Washington. He is destroying the law and order for corporate polluters and consumer exploitation and labor abuse. And he is basically running down the regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the auto safety agency. He is very unstable in foreign policy: one day he...

A 59-year-old woman who was being kept alive by a ventilator after she was plowed down by a speed-demon bicyclist in a Central Park crosswalk has died, her family said Monday.

The Los Angeles Police Department has gone and got themselves a Lamborghini. With a starting price of $182,000, the 2014 Lamborghini Gallardo is the latest edition to the LAPD's fleet of vehicles, complete with traditional black and white paint and 'To Protect and to Serve' written on the sides, according to NBC Los Angeles. And in the land of high-speed pursuits, what better way to catch those bandits flying down the 101, right? Wrong.

State Patrol: Front Seat Gas Tank Fueled 'Unsafe' Car It runs on alternative fuel source and the driver can see the road in ways most cars don't offer. But you won't be seeing this classic Ford Pinto back on a Minnesota road any time soon. A Minnesota State Trooper stopped the car Sunday on U.S. Highway 52 in Koochiching County. A State Patrol spokesperson posted photographs of what the Trooper found on the agency's Facebook page. "Much of the vehicle was rusted out," said the spokesperson. Photos show a clear view through what remains of the floor to the road...

Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and perennial third-party presidential candidate, announced last month that he would work to find a Democrat to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012. Nader now says that a primary challenge is a near certainty. “What [Obama] did this week is just going to energize that effort,” Nader promised in an interview with The Daily Caller. “I would guess that the chances of there being a challenge to Obama in the primary are almost 100 percent.” The only question, he said, is the stature of that opponent and whether it will be either “an ex-senator or...

More than two dozen motorcycles crashed on a freeway in Oregon on Friday, blocking traffic for hours, police said. Oregon State Police said the bikers were behind a car when traffic unexpectedly slowed in the northbound lanes on Interstate 5. The collision sent bikes scattering across the road, near Wilsonville, south of Portland.

And other unintended consequences of strict fuel-economy standards. If something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Such is the case with President Barack Obama's proposed national fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks and a new tailpipe standard for C02 emissions. The national press has uncritically reported that the new standards will make cars "cleaner." In fact, the rules could impose substantial costs in terms of urban air pollution and human life. The standards are designed to reduce C02 emissions from cars, with the twin goals of addressing climate change and reducing dependence on imported energy. Carbon...

Obama's plan to put everyone in high-mileage vehicles by 2016 is much like any utopian dream. The goals are noble -- saving the planet, reducing fuel consumption, yada, yada, yada... BUT, as with most liberal fantasies, it is the unintended consequences that come back to haunt us. In this case, it is the safety issue. This CBS video report from the Insurance Institute should sound a warning to everyone.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader is again slamming Barack Obama. ABC News reports Nader says Obama will not make the kind of African-American president that he and other civil rights supporters had hoped for. "People who have fought the civil rights battle... would often talk about, 'look what would happen if we had an African-American president'... it doesn't look like it's going to be what we all thought it would be," Nadar said. Nader also says he lost respect for Obama because the senator opposed the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Nader told the Rocky Mountain News...

"The Smart's base price is $11,590, and a fully loaded Smart Fortwo Passion convertible goes for $16,950. The 1,800-pound car gets 40 miles per gallon."

The tiny car that won over Europeans with its cute looks and very high mileage is finally coming to America, just not in the way you might expect it to. The 60-mpg, two-seat coupes are made by a European company called smart, but the DaimlerChrysler division is not the one selling them here anytime soon. True, they will be sold in Canada starting in September, but not so in the United States. Instead, smart USA is betting Americans won't want the small smarts, at least not yet, and has taken a different strategy: a smart SUV, available here in...

Rhode Island Democrats are expected to endorse Representative Patrick Kennedy for re-election when they meet tonight in West Warwick. Party members will endorse candidates for Congress and the state's top jobs -- governor, secretary of state, general treasurer and attorney general. Kennedy has checked himself into the Mayo Clinic for treatment for addiction to prescription drugs following a Thursday car accident in Washington. He says he can't remember driving to Capitol Hill or crashing his car. Kennedy's doctors say he was taking Phenergan for stomach and intestinal problems and Ambien, a commonly prescribed sleeping medication. Police say he appeared intoxicated.

It's hard to imagine that Patrick Kennedy would have gotten elected to Congress a dozen years ago without his last name. It's equally hard to imagine that the media would be going wild about his late-night car crash and prescription drug addiction if he weren't a Kennedy. The only lingering mystery is why national news organizations didn't pounce earlier on the Rhode Island Democrat's long history of alcohol and drug abuse, depression and a series of downright embarrassing incidents.

PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Among the patrons at the News Café, an airy bar downtown, the debate erupted almost as soon as Representative Patrick J. Kennedy finished making his emotional appearance on a television above the liquor bottles and colored lights. Kennedy, the six-term congressman who represents this old factory city, said he would enter a rehabilitation clinic for his addiction to pain medication, a day after crashing his car into a barrier outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Bobby LaBonte was not impressed. ''He lost my vote, I'll tell you that," said the 58-year-old former Marine, who called himself a...

DETROIT - The Dodge Neon, Ford Focus and Volkswagen's New Beetle are among the small cars that got the lowest safety rating in new side-impact crash tests performed by an independent, nonprofit organization. Eleven of the 13 cars tested earned a "poor," the lowest of four ratings, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said. The Chevrolet Cobalt and the Toyota Corolla earned the second-highest rating of "acceptable," but only when they were tested with their optional side air bags. They earned "poor" ratings without the air bags. Other vehicles that earned a "poor" rating were the Hyundai Elantra, Kia Spectra,...

Headline on paper front page online. Controversial Metro Rail hits Prison bus. More details to follow.

After witnessing a weekend of self-congratulatory festivities marking the January 1st debut of Houston’s MetroRail transit system, the hometown newspaper’s editorial board could hardly contain its exuberance. “Viewed from any angle,” opined the Houston Chronicle, the kickoff celebrations were a sure “sign of good things to come.” To the board, itself a merciless campaigner for rail, the roughly 15,000 people in attendance suggested that a “large helping of crow” was in order for transit critics. Reports from Houston spread quickly causing the Arizona Republic’s editorial page to gloat “critics rail at light rail to no avail.” After all, what...

DETROIT - General Motors Corp. said Tuesday it will recall about 127,000 Chevrolet Corvettes to correct a problem with the steering column lock - the automaker's third major recall in less than a week. Since Friday, the world's largest automaker has recalled nearly 2.5 million vehicles, a situation that dims its much-publicized message of improved quality. The latest recall involves a condition in which some Corvettes can operate when the electronic steering column lock fails to unlock. Vehicles included in the recall are 1997-2000 models with automatic transmissions in the United States, Canada and Mexico; 1997-2004 models with automatic transmissions...