Free Republic

Marjorie Knoller was originally sentenced in 2002 to four years in prison after a judge reduced a jury's conviction of second-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter...Trial evidence showed that Whipple suffered 77 wounds from the 150- and 130-pound dogs and lost one-third of her blood.

It was a tragic scene in North Las Vegas involving a baby and two dogs. A four-month-old was attacked by two Pit Bulls. The dogs were attacking so viciously police say they had to shoot them dead upon arriving at the scene. Residents in the neighborhood near Cheyenne and Martin Luther King say they are shocked but not surprised that it happened. Neighbors tell News 3 the two Pit Bulls were full grown dogs and when the baby girl arrived at the house four months ago they began to display aggressive behavior towards the child and anyone who held her....

To know her is not necessarily to love her. When John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate late last month, the Alaska governor quickly became a media phenomenon. Largely unknown, she existed at first in something of an information vacuum, and due to the shock of her selection--everyone loves a surprise--the press rushed to fill the void with whatever data was easily available. Mostly this consisted of human interest material; Palin had plenty to go around. Mooseburgers. Float planes. Ice Fishing. Beauty pageants. Teen pregnancy. Et cetera. By the end of her first 15 minutes in the spotlight--which...

Joe Biden appeared this morning on Meet the Press, moderated by Tom Brokaw. In the opening series of questions, Brokaw probed Biden about the effect of Governor Sarah Palin's inclusion in the presidential campaign. Brokaw asked generally how Biden would handle his upcoming debate with Palin, underscoring his question with the premise that it might be a delicate situation debating a woman. Biden responded with a rambling answer in which he stated that he debates women all the time in the U.S. Senate and had previously run against a formidable female opponent in one of his Delaware Senate races. Biden...

A North Texas family is mourning the loss of two of their pets. The nine-month-old pit bulls were shot and killed by a neighbor who says it was self defense. The shooting happened in a neighborhood off Ten Mile Bridge Road in northwest Fort Worth. The neighbors never had any problems before. But that all changed over the weekend. The man who pulled the trigger says he didn't have any choice. But the dogs' owners disagree. Kristopher Harrison has a six-year-old daughter. He says that's why he was upset when two pit bulls wandered into his backyard Saturday afternoon. Harrison...

The pit bull that critically injured a young girl during a vicious attack in her East Anchorage home was put to death Wednesday at the request of its owner, according to Anchorage Animal Care and Control. The family pet, Dozer, was also responsible for attacking the girl's baby sitter Tuesday afternoon. A neighbor shot the dog in the leg while trying to get it off the baby sitter. The owner surrendered Dozer to animal control officials later that night, and the dog was killed by lethal injection Wednesday evening. "He was owner-surrendered for euthanasia by his owners," said animal control...

A pit bull that severely mauled a young girl inside her East Anchorage home Tuesday afternoon was shot by a neighbor who followed screams to the scene to find the girl's baby sitter fighting the dog in the front yard. The girl's injuries were so severe that witnesses at first told police the 6-year-old was dead, killed in the attack by one of her family's pets. The girl, however, was still alive and was rushed to Alaska Native Medical Center, where she underwent surgery Tuesday afternoon for what police called life-threatening injuries to her neck and head. Her mother was...

OK What is the name of the blonde Conservative Christian who is on the stacked panal. This gal has a ton of fortitude. To go to work and defend what so many of us here at FreeRepublic views are and put up with the 3 full of poop coming out of there mouth women. Some days I think she is having an influence on the woman who sits next to her. Not Barbara the other side the gal who has the special needs son Jeffery. But the Obama name comes up and all 3 of these woman spew stupidity and...

A farmer landed in hospital after a horny bull mistook him for a cow.

“He that sells what isn’t his ‘en must pay his debts or go to prison” is an old stock market axiom that has stood the test of time. Loosely translated, it means that if you sell a stock “short” (betting that it's going down in price), you're responsible for ANY loss incurred if that stock rallies. And, last week that old market “saw” took on new meaning when the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) changed the rules on “naked” short-selling. Clearly, “naked” short-selling has been a “dirty” little secret on Wall Street for years, but that has now changed with the...

Droughts, heavy rain, heat waves, wildfires and intense hurricanes are more likely to affect North America because of global warming's effect on extreme weather, the Bush Administration's Climate Change Science Program said Thursday. There's high confidence that the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events has already been influenced by global warming, and even greater confidence that more expensive, damaging and deadly weather is to come as temperatures continue to rise. The risk is tied directly to human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. The findings are familiar, but the report is the...

Holy cow - giant Friesian may be tallest in UK By Richard Savill Last Updated: 2:08PM BST 12/05/2008   Weighing 1.25 tons, and towering 6ft 6in at the shoulder, Chilli, dwarfs most horses, is the same height as a small elephant, and could provide enough steaks to feed an army. BNPS The owners of Chilli, a black and white Friesian steer, believe he may be the tallest bovine in Britain. Naomi Clarke, care manager of the Ferne Animal Sanctuary in Chard, Somerset, who raised the bullock, said: “As he was growing up we began noticing that he was bigger...

It was a typical Obama speech -- soaring rhetoric, allusions to Martin Luther King, Jr., and probably a few fainters in the audience. It was a ballsy speech to be sure. But it was still bull.Obama wants to be both the black candidate and the candidate above race. He wants to embrace race and move beyond race. He tries to have his cake and eat it too. He wants us to do the same. I for one threw up.Let's be clear on one thing. Obama would not be here but for being outmaneuvered by Camp Clinton. Obama never made this...

New Haven (AP) _ An eighth-grade honors student at a New Haven school has been suspended for buying a bag of candy at school. Michael Sheridan, a student at Sheridan Middle School, was suspended from school for one day, barred from attending an honors student dinner and stripped of his title as class vice president. Officials say he was punished because he bought a bag of Skittles from another student. A school spokeswoman says the New Haven school system banned candy sales and fundraisers in 2003 as part of the districtwide school wellness policy. Spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo says there are...

Index Value: 12,162.38 Trade Time: 3:29PM ET Change: Up 191.19 (1.60%) Prev Close: 11,971.19 Open: 11,969.08 Day's Range: 11645.63 - 12163.44 52wk Range: 11,508.70 - 14,280.00

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A 12-year-old Connecticut boy may be the new Florida state record holder for catching the heaviest bull shark. Aidan Murray Medley had a spent a half day at sea Tuesday when he reeled in the 551-pound bull shark just north of the Palm Beach Inlet. The seventh-grader was in Palm Beach County on vacation with his family. They plan to submit his catch for a new state record. Florida wildlife officials say the current record set in 1981 was a 517-pound catch at Panama City Beach.

Taliban control half of Afghanistan, says report Last Updated: 2:36am GMT 22/11/2007 The Taliban has a permanent presence in most of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into the group's hands, according to a report from an international think tank. An Afghan police officer searches an Afghan man, after he left the town of Musa Qala, in an area controlled by the Taliban The Senlis Council claimed that the insurgents controlled "vast swathes of unchallenged territory" and were gaining "more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people". It said that the Nato...

Ranchettes have replaced working ranches in much of California, and now there are pint-sized cows to match. In the past two years, Bev Boriolo, 72, and her husband, Don, have built a herd of 12 miniature Hereford cattle, all well under 4 feet tall. The couple, who live on a grassy 30-acre parcel near Plymouth, are raising animals for a small but growing niche in the livestock business: little cattle for little ranches. The smallest of the miniature breeds stand less than 3 feet tall, full grown. They're cute, they keep the weeds down, and, as Boriolo says, "they're as...

A bull escaped from its handlers at the Minnesota State Fair today, running loose for about a block before it rammed a fire hydrant and died, witnesses said. No people were injured in the incident. The bull, owned by Morris-based Wulf Limousin Farms, was being unloaded from a trailer around 9:15 a.m. when it got spooked and broke free. Witnesses said they were shocked to see the bull running down the street on the south side of the fairgrounds, where most of the animal exhibits are. "All we heard was screaming, and then we saw the bull starting to run...

It's amazing what people do for entertainment: http://youtube.com/watch?v=hG7yOQCcLEU He won't do time for this but if it is proven that he was complicit in anyway, his career is over.

HARRAH, Okla. -- An Oklahoma rodeo cowboy was killed this weekend when the bull he was riding fell on him, authorities said.Will Jernigan, 29, was killed at the Prague Rodeo at about 10 p.m. on Saturday. The Harrah native had been riding bulls for several years, officials said.Witnesses said the bull was jumping up in the chute before the gate was released. When it was released, the bull stepped on Jernigan and then fell on top of him. "You look up in there, and the bull's hanging up over the pen, kind of like he was trying to climb out,...

Uproar as Shambo the sacred bull is reprieved By Richard Alleyne  Last Updated: 2:57am BST 17/07/2007 Moo tube: Shambo's webcamFarmers have condenmed a "ludicrous" High Court decision to reprieve a bull infected with TB because it was worshipped by a religious community.   Shambo was to be destroyed in line with agricultural safeguards after testing positive for bovine TB   Shambo, a six-year-old Friesian, was to be destroyed in line with agricultural safeguards after testing positive for bovine tuberculosis.The decision was overturned by a High Court judge who said that the slaughter would contravene the human rights of the Skanda...

IF YOU WATCH CNBC, you probably wonder how purported "experts" can disagree so sharply. Are we in a bull market or a bear market? Are interest rates heading higher or lower? Is the economy strong, or is it weak? There's always an expert to take any side of any financial question — and usually take it at the top of his lungs. I'm one of those so-called experts. I appear on CNBC about once a week, usually on a panel with other experts. We experts are chosen deliberately by CNBC's producers to have divergent opinions, so that viewers can see...

"And the idea was, the shark comes to the nearest man, that man, he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin', sometime's the shark goes away, sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometime's that shark, he looks right into ya, right into your eyes. And another thing about that shark. He's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites you." Quint from Jaws

An upmarket London beauty salon's claims that bull semen can give hair the ultimate shine is likely to go untried in the Waikato. Hari's, in hoity toity Chelsea, offers a 45-minute Aberdeen Organic Hair treatment involving massaging a protein-rich mixture of bull semen and a plant root into the client's hair. But Julie May, who owns The Salon, in Garden Place, Hamilton, is not keen to try it in her establishment. "I would not want it on my hair. I know what the reaction from customers would be here and I know what my staff would say," she said. "It's...

What a mess: A Feb. 9 front-page article about the Pentagon inspector general's report regarding the office of former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith incorrectly attributed quotations to that report. References to Feith's office producing "reporting of dubious quality or reliability" and that the office "was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda" were from a report issued by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in Oct. 2004. Similarly, the quotes stating that Feith's office drew on "both reliable and unreliable reporting" to produce a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq "that was much stronger than that assessed...

LA GLORIA - There is no need to go to Mexico, Spain or to South America to watch a bullfight. This small town in western Starr County is the home of the country's only bullring that features fighting bulls. But unlike other bullrings where blood is what seems to attract spectators, the bullfights at Santa Maria Bullring are bloodless - bulls are fought with a red cape, not killed. The bullring is starting its winter season with four world-class bloodless bullfights scheduled for Jan. 14 at the arena, at the intersection of FM 1017 and FM 755 in La Gloria,...

Bull attacks Minnesota trail ride Event's future uncertain By Heidi Clausen Regional Editor PETERSON, MINN. - Sylvia Passow said a freak accident on her trail ride this fall probably will cast a permanent shadow over the event in the future. Four people were hospitalized and several riders and horses injured when a black bull attacked them in a pasture they were riding through Sept. 30 near Peterson. The bull charged horses and riders near the center of the group of 140 to 150 riders. Mrs. Passow and her husband, Jeff, who own Brush Poppin' Ranch, organize the three-day trail ride...

What Housing Bust? The bear forecast vs. the bull facts. By John Tamny Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist for Goldman Sachs, puts the odds of a consumer-led recession at one in three. His reasoning for this bearish assessment goes as follows: The current housing slump could negatively impact consumer spending which would bring down the economy. But there’s one glaring problem with this sequence of events: There simply is not a lot of evidence that real estate has hit a rough patch. Last month the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) released its House Price Index. The index shows...

As he sold investors on an improbable plan for turning Inland Empire cow manure into electricity, W. Patrick Moriarty had an answer for everything. With a folksy delivery, the Orange County businessman promised cutting-edge technology, a respected engineering firm and tax-exempt financing to extract methane gas from mountains of manure and use it to generate enough power to light a small city. "He told me categorically that we would get our money back with interest and that the project was good as gold," said Shmuel Erde, a Beverly Hills lender. What Moriarty and his business partner, Wayne Stephens, didn't tell...

Cows also 'have regional accents' Cows moo with a regional twang Cow moo recordings(Click on site to hear) Cows have regional accents like humans, language specialists have suggested. They decided to examine the issue after dairy farmers noticed their cows had slightly different moos, depending on which herd they came from. John Wells, Professor of Phonetics at the University of London, said regional twangs had been seen before in birds. The farmers in Somerset who noticed the phenomenon said it may have been the result of the close bond between them and their animals. Farmer Lloyd Green, from Glastonbury, said:...

Success, which spoils things, has most surely changed the time-honored menu of the great Testicle Festival. "It's not the same anymore,'' moped Bob Zeier, a 75-year-old retired cattle rancher, sitting in the Ryegate Bar and Cafe and dragging on a Camel filter. "Not the same at all. A bull testicle is just not the same as a calf testicle.''

OU death not linked to terrorism By Nolan Clay The FBI concluded a University of Oklahoma student who blew himself up last year on campus was not a terrorist, the top agent in Oklahoma says. "We have no evidence he had a social or political agenda that he was trying to bring attention to," said Salvador Hernandez, the FBI's special agent in charge in Oklahoma. "We don't consider this terrorism the way we define it," he said. "There would have to be a cause." Joel "Joe" Henry Hinrichs III, an engineering student, died Oct. 1 when his bomb went off...

A North Carolina man's condition deteriorated Monday after being injured last week in an event connected to an annual festival in Pamplona, Spain. Ray Ducharme's condition worsened since Sunday while he was in intensive care and he was receiving help breathing, Pamplona spokeswoman Begona Lopez told The Associated Press Monday. Ducharme was being treated for a collapsed lung and required a tracheotomy, according to a Web site maintained by his supporters. The latest update on the Web site www.pray4ray.com said Monday that Ducharme would be unconscious for three days while fluid was drained from his lungs. "This is a critical...

A 9-year-old boy was attacked and bitten by a pit bull in the Morand Manor housing area of Fort Knox June 7. Bryce Burkett was riding his bicycle with his 12-year-old brother Brandon near their home when the dog jumped its back yard fence and ran up to Bryce, knocked him down, and began biting his thigh and side, said Angela Burkett, the boys’ mother. The attack happened between 6:15 and 6:30 that evening, Burkett said. “My son (Brandon) came running up the street, yelling that (Bryce) had gotten bitten by a pit bull,” she said. “We all took off...

The Mexican people aren't the only ones who realize that the "country" known as Mexico is no longer a civilized nation. Thousands of animals are leaving the 3rd world cesspool that should be an oil rich world superpower. El Cujo, a miniature Chihuahua who recently crossed the border complained about Mexico's poor health conditions. "I may eat crap, nibble my butt, and look like a rat with acromegaly, but I don't want to live in a country that has to send ambulances to another country for emergency healthcare. El Cujo also knows that US doctors don’t extort families of foreigners...

LIFTON, Colo. -- A pit bull injured several people and two other dogs in Clifton, Colo., the Grand Junction Sentinel reported in its Thursday editions. Three people were injured as they tried to stop the dog from attacking a baby. None of the injuries to the people were serious, but a Chihuahua that was attacked was critically injured. The incident happened Wednesday afternoon as a loose pit bull attacked the Chihuahua and a schnauzer. The pit bull bit the hand of a mother who picked up her 18-month-old child who was playing in the front yard of their home. A...

Fed Official Warns of Changes Financial Tools Outpacing Controls, Geithner Cautions By Nell Henderson Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 1, 2006; Page D02 A top Federal Reserve official warned yesterday that the U.S. financial system is evolving faster than the ability of investors, lenders and regulators to evaluate and manage the risks involved. --- snip ---One source of concern Geithner highlighted was the recent rapid growth in credit derivatives -- financial contracts whose value is linked to corporate bonds and loans. The instruments allow investors to bet on the creditworthiness of a company, while spreading the risk of corporate...

The Florida State Guardianship Association has chosen Michael Schiavo as its "Distinguished Guardian of the Year" for 2005, outraging many in the pro-life community. Schiavo is the former husband of Terri Schiavo, the brain-injured Florida woman whose life ended March 31 by court-ordered dehydration at her husband's request. While admitting that Schiavo was a "controversial choice," Michelle Kenney, president-elect of the association told the Associated Press that her group decided to bestow the honor on Schiavo because of his "commitment" to honoring what he claimed was his wife's wish "not to be kept alive artificially." "We see a lot of...

2006: To Bull or not to Bull? by M.A. Nystrom December 23, 2005 Cambridge, MA 1. Happy HolidaysFirst off, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and Joyful Holidays to all of you. I would like to say thank you to all of you for all of the support that you've given me this year. Remember to give thanks for everything you have during this holiday season, and send up a prayer for those who are less fortunate. Because I am a trader, I tend to write about money, the markets and other such worldly things. But at the end of the day,...

Toxicology tests are being done on the bodies of three pit bulls shot after they mauled two children and four adults to determine if the dogs ingested marijuana found inside their owner's home, authorities said Tuesday. The dogs' owner, Scott Sword, 41, of the 6600 block of Hawthorne Drive near Cary, has been charged with felony possession of marijuana and misdemeanor production of marijuana plants, said McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren. On Nov. 5 police handling the dog attack found five harvested marijuana plants growing in Sword's back-yard garden and more than 30 grams of marijuana in his home,Nygren said....

Overturned Cattle Trailer Shuts Down Highway TRAFFIC INFORMATION WCPO.com traffic section WCPO.com's traffic section offers the latest route-specific updates as well as Tri-state traffic camera images. 9NEWSBREAKERS: SEND YOUR VIDEO AND PHOTOS Are you on the scene of breaking news or do you have additional photos or video to add to a 9News story? Send us an interesting or relevant picture or video and your shot may end up on air or online. 9Newsbreakers info Reported by: Jenell Walton Web produced by: Liz Foreman Photographed by: Dave Marlo First posted: 11/2/2005 8:27:45 AM A major highway is shut down Wednesday...

From the Interdictor / DirecNIC blog: Sometime around midnight, a squad of 82nd Airborne guys accompanied by a US Marshall busted into our Data Center with their M4-A1s to investigate the lights and movement. Personally, I know they were just bored -- there's no way they honestly thought there was some kind of threat up here just yards away from several huge military and police presences. Anyway, they came up and demanded to account for us all. That means they told Donny, who was still up, to come wake up Crys and me in the side closet room type area...

By Donny, Your Neighbor's Pit Bull, Guest Columnist All I'm gonna say is this. You whiny, European Arabs better just cut the drama, people. It's quiet time for you. All this concern that you're all going to be profiled, and singled out because a few repressed homosexuals in your broad religious category can't keep their smelly mitts off the exploding cummerbunds. Well you don't know profiling until you've been one of Me, mister. See, I just finished eating a diabetic octogenarian with a MedicAlert bracelet. Quite frankly, the attack was totally unprovoked. But I've got a good case against...

An Adelaide woman will run naked through the streets of Pamplona in protest at the annual running of the bulls in the Spanish city. Lauren Bowey, 21, will join hundreds of other animal rights activists in a nude run through Pamplona on July 5. The nude run, organised by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), is in protest at Pamplona's annual running of the bulls. "Most people don't realise that the same bulls who are forced to run through the streets of Pamplona wind up being tormented, stabbed and slaughtered in the bullring later that night," Ms...

In a solid win for pro-gun forces, the Minnesota Senate passed a measure Friday that would allow nearly all law-abiding citizens to get permits to carry loaded handguns in public. The 44-21 vote likely clears the way for the Minnesota House to pass the bill early next week and send it to the governor for his signature. Lawmakers first passed the measure, alternatively called the conceal-carry bill or the Personal Protection Act, in 2003, but the state Appeals Court last month ruled that the way it was passed was unconstitutional. During five hours of Senate debate, proponents of the bill,...

COMMENTARY Beinart: Truth is, Hillary has always been a centrist Peter Beinart, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON POST Advertisement Tuesday, May 10, 2005 Hillary Clinton has moved to the center in preparation for 2008. It's become a cliche — so self-evidently true that it shows up not merely in editorials but in news articles as well. One of the reasons it's so uncontroversial is that it seems innocuous, even flattering. It shows how shrewd a politician Clinton is. She knows Democrats must do better among hawkish, culturally traditional voters — so she's moving in that direction herself. But in fact the...

The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition Why is there no HIV in most AIDS patients, only antibodies against it? Why would HIV take 10 years from infection to AIDS? Why is AIDS not self-limiting via antiviral immunity? Why is there no vaccine against AIDS? Why is AIDS in the US and Europe not random like other viral epidemics? Why did AIDS not rise and then decline exponentially owing to antiviral immunity like all other viral epidemics? Why is AIDS not contagious? Why would only HIV carriers get AIDS who use either recreational...

Onward corporate soldiers, say religious activists Thu Apr 28, 2005 12:17 PM ET By Alister Bull ST. LOUIS, April 28 (Reuters) - Armed with the power of faith and billions of dollars, America's mighty religious establishment is trying to reform the country's boardrooms on issues from human rights to television violence. Faith-based groups, like other special interest groups, have strategic investments in hundreds of companies that let them use shareholder resolutions to push their agendas. Bosses, mindful of the importance of religion in the lives of many Americans and its growing impact on politics and public opinion, are paying increasing...

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - Two dogs whose breed has a reputation for being mean played the roles of rescuers for a woman who was being attacked by another dog. A red chow was on top of Angie Pecoraro, 22, in her yard on Monday when two pit bulls jumped over a fence and fought off the chow, Nebraska Humane Society spokeswoman Pam Wiese said. Witnesses said the chow had bitten Pecoraro several times on her hands, arms and stomach, Wiese said. An ambulance took Pecoraro to a hospital, where she was treated and released, Wiese said. The Humane Society impounded...