Free Republic

I posted a thread back in November of 2001 that featured a 9/11 tribute site. Amazingly, one of the links was still active- America Attacked 9 1 1 (Still get all weepy and goose bumpy watching it) Heck yes! They can build their mosque some where else!

He's 16 and likes to text his g/f (girlfriend), even when he drives his mom's car. But, OMG (oh my gosh) -- this time it's going to cost him -- or, more likely, his mom. Jason Cordell, of Wyoming, is among the first -- if not the first -- ticketed for driving while texting in West Michigan. Fines and costs total $150 for the offense. She hopes her son learned his lesson. "Except, he don't have a job, so mom's gotta pay the ticket," she said. "So, it's kind of a lesson to me."

Walmart is being sued after an employee said he was wrongfully fired when he failed a drug test. Joseph Casias has a prescription for medical marijuana and says he uses it for pain from sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor he has been suffering from for the past 10 years

A Shepherd woman is being treated for head trauma at Blodgett Hospital in Grand Rapids after leaping from a pickup because her husband refused to stop for her to purchase cigarettes about 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Isabella County sheriff’s officials said.Jacklin Faber suffered head injuries and was transported to Central Michigan Community Hospital and later airlifted by helicopter to Blodgett Hospital in Grand Rapids for treatment.

Prosecutors say 79-year-old Donald Evans robbed the independent Bank on West Columbia in Battle Creek, Mi. in February. The evidence against Evans includes a to-do list that specifies 'robbing a bank.' Det. Sgt. Todd Madsen of the Battle Creek Police Department, "I think that the way things are right now, financially, and hard times and stuff, you're going to see an increase in robberies, especially the banks.” The 79-year-old Donald Evans, however, was quoted saying he needed the money for "women, gambling, and alcohol."

CENTREVILLE, Michigan- The Springer's 16-year-old daughter, Calista, died chained to her bed when the house caught fire. The parents contend they chained her to keep her safe at night because she was a troubled child.Big news around here.

A legally blind woman has bagged a bear in the Upper Peninsula.Villa tells WLUC-TV her "limited sight" only allows her to "see the difference between light and dark" and "silhouettes of people."

Researchers in Texas are trying an unusual approach to combat fire ants — deploying parasitic flies that turn the pesky and economically costly insects into zombies whose heads fall off.The flies lay eggs on the fire ants, and the eggs hatch into maggots inside the ant and eat away at the pest's tiny brain.

According to the University of Illinois (and my wife has a B.S. and M.S. from the Univ. of Illinois at Champaign and sheÂ’s pretty smart, so IÂ’d believe them) Antarctic sea ice is nearly 1,000,000 square kilometers above the 1979-2000 normal. That means that the excess sea ice would cover an area about the size of Michigan and California combined! According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO - Antarctic sea ice has grown at the rate of over 4% per decade over the past 30 years and reached an all-time maximum in 2008. You havenÂ’t...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - A candlelight vigil was held Saturday night to mourn the death of Thomas Pauli.Authorities say he died of hypothermia in January after two downtown shelters wouldn't let him inside. The shelters say they were just abiding by the law.Pauli's past criminal record kept him out, the 52 year old man was a sex offender."The law states they can't reside within 1000 feet of a school," said Rev. Ralph Collins of Mel Trotter Ministries.Marge Palmerlee of Degage Ministries says it's the wording she'd like to see changed."Staying at a mission is not actually residing, it's just...

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - She drives students to school each day, but on Tuesday a driver's morning route became a violent nightmare. Police say the driver became the victim of a student's rage, and instead of driving the bus to school, she was rushed to the hospital. The Kalamazoo school-bus driver is recovering on Wednesday after being badly beaten. The incident occurred on Tuesday, around 7:30 in the morning near the corner of Gull Road and Brook Drive in Kalamazoo Township. Police say that a 16-year-old male repeatedly punched the driver in the face and head. The teenager is...

The dog struck about a week ago at a home in the 300 block of Waubascon Road in Battle Creek, where it attacked and killed a pony.Police describe the wild dog as a pit bull, dark brown or chocolate brown, full-grown and weighing about 50 pounds.

Michigan's hard-hit retail sector would suffer the double whammy of higher taxes and fees under the governor's budget plan......the state intends to raise upwards of $97 million more from retailers, who have been mired in a years-long slump and just experienced a poor holiday season.

Federal regulators are about to approve preliminary permits, which would give the go ahead.(snip)"The EPA says these injection wells will last…for 10,000 years. This injection well didn’t last 10 months,"(snip)Should the deal go through, tankers from Canada full of hazardous waste would be transported on I-94.

On Thursday, the DELEG released the jobless rates for the state's 83 counties, and the numbers continue to shoot higher and higher. The unemployment rate increased in every county in the state.

Michigan's 41 prisons go totally tobacco-free one week from today. Indoors and out.

SAO PAULO- General Motors plans to invest $1 billion in Brazil to avoid the kind of problems the U.S. automaker is facing in its home market, said the beleaguered car maker. According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the funding will come from the package of financial aid that the manufacturer will receive from the U.S. government and will be used to “complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012.” We're sending a Billion dollars to Brazil?

The record on 57-year-old Cassandra Grant shows a whooping 50 prior felony convictions.Sentencing guidelines this time around suggested a maximum sentence of a little over two years, but she could face more than eight this time.

The Salvation Army and police are looking into the thefts of toys for the WOOD TV8/WOTV 4 Salvation Army Angel Tree Toy Drive.(Hope that the Huntington Bank has a good photo of the perp.)

Michigan's unemployment rate rose to 8.9 percent in August, according to a monthly report released Wednesday. That's up from 8.5 percent in each of the previous three months, which already ranked as worst in the nation. The national jobless rate for August was 6.1 percent.