Free Republic

A Sacramento Superior Court jury today awarded the survivors of Jennifer Lea Strange $16,577,118 as a result of her death nearly three years ago in a water-drinking contest conducted by a local radio station. In making the award, the seven-man, five-woman panel voted unanimously to find that Entercom Sacramento LLC, the local subsidiary of Entercom Communications Corp. of Philadelphia was negligent in putting on the contest that ultimately resulted in Strange's death.......Strange, 28, died Jan. 12, 2007, after participating in what KDND "The End" 107.9 promoted as its "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest that promised the popular Nintendo...

<p>A Sacramento County jury has awarded $16.5 million to the family of a 28-year-old woman who died after participating in a radio station's water-drinking contest.</p> <p>Jennifer Strange, a mother of three, died of acute water intoxication in January 2007 after the challenge to see which contestant could drink the most water without using the restroom. A Nintendo Wii video game was the prize for winning the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest.</p>

Overall Winner "The Storybook Wolf" This nighttime shot of a wolf leaping into a farm in northern Spain has been named overall winner of the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 competition. The picture, by Spanish photographer Josi Luis Rodrmguez, was selected from more than 43,000 entries. Iberian wolves--a subspecies of the gray wolf--are extremely wary of humans after centuries of persecution. Rodrmguez captured the photograph using motion sensors and an infrared barrier to operate the camera. "This wolf jumping over the farmer's enclosure with the supposed intent of killing his livestock speaks for itself--thousands of years of...

When Dylan Lynch captures a winning shot, it usually involves a hockey game, not a yawning cat. But it was the photo of his tired, three-year-old tabby, Ben, that won him top spot in our Kitty City photo contest. Lynch, a photographer and editor for the Edmonton Oilers and Oil Kings, likes to try out his new equipment on his three feline roommates. “I don’t always have a hockey game going on at my house, so I’ve got to test them on something,” he jokes.

Women's rights groups have slammed a Miss Homeless contest in Belgium that ended when a 58-year-old woman won the first prize of a rent free flat for a year. Miss Homeless finalists /Europics Therese Van Belle, 58, beat nine other finalists in the contest who will now all go back on the streets. Organiser Aline Duportail said the competition was meant to draw attention to the plight of the homeless. But woman's rights activist Jacqueline Aubenas said: "I am outraged. These girls that turned into puppets parodying their own life is an absolute pathetic." The contest was judged over...

Announcing a new contest to come up with 10 verses for our own Obama Song, not to be sung by children, but to be clean enough for children. The verses can be serious or funny, but they should reference Obama, his Administration, Policies or Actions. Suggested topics: Health Care, Gun Control, Czars, Background, Foreign Policy, Spending, ACORN... This is the format for the verses: Barack Hussein Obama (your verse) Hmm Hmm Hmm Go here to enter: http://barackhusseinobamahmmhmmhmm.blogspot.com/ Spread it around and join in, let’s keep up the dialog.

A boy with no official nationality who lives in Thailand captured third place in a Japanese paper aeroplane contest on Sunday after his tearful pleas to be allowed to attend prompted authorities to grant him a rare temporary passport for the event. Mong Thongdee prepares to let fly during the individual indoor flight competition Mong Thongdee, 12, won a national paper aeroplane championship in Thailand in August 2008 after he threw a plane that flew for 12 seconds, and was later chosen to attend the Japanese contest in Chiba, near Tokyo. But Mong, who lives in Chiang Mai in northern...

Video game developer John Carmack, better known for his work on Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein, has qualified for a million dollar prize from NASA. America's space agency challenged the nation's brightest minds to come up with a design contest known as the Lunar Lander Challenge. Carmack's team, known as Armadillo Aerospace, won $350,000 after taking first prize last year in NASA's Level 1 competition. Now they are aiming for Level 2 and the million dollar prize. As MSNBC.com describes it: "The alcohol-fueled, pressure-tank-equipped rocket has to hang in the air for a minimum of 3 minutes during each leg of...

A new contest at ConservativeHQ.com asks visitors for their ideas for slogans to go along with this Obamacare poster. The winner of the contest will receive a copy of the poster with their slogan, signed by ConservativeHQ.com Chairman and conservative fundraising legend Richard A. Viguerie. To enter the contest, simply visit http://www.conservativehq.com/contest.

CONTEST: Obamacare, "Win one for Teddy; KILL Grandma and Grandpa NOW!" Lets take this issue away from the left, run with it and turn this back on them by using this slogan against them. FR is full of talented graphics designers. I propose a CONTEST for creative people here on FR need to create some HIGH RESOLUTION graphic posters and bumper stickers with the above slogan done with nifty graphics like our "Sore Loserman" campaign with the following slogan: Obamacare, "Win one for Teddy; KILL Grandma and Grandpa NOW!" Please submit your entries on this tread so that freepers can...

Today, as the Administration holds a day-long summit on H1N1, we're excited to announce that HHS is launching a new PSA campaign contest to encourage more Americans to get involved in the nation's flu preparedness efforts by making a 15, 30 or 60 second video Public Service Announcement (PSA). The goal of the contest is to tap into the nation's creativity to help educate Americans about how to plan for and prevent the spread of the flu and the H1N1 virus.   The videos can be funny, cute, dramatic, but most of all, they should help make a positive impact....

HELSINKI (AFP) — Finland put an end to Estonia's 11-year reign and took gold and bronze on Saturday at the annual Wife-Carrying World Championships held in Sonkajaervi, central Finland, organisers said. Taisto Miettinen raced through a 250-metre (273-yard) course with two hurdles and a pool in 62 seconds, carrying Kristiina Haapanen on his back. The winners beat Estonia's Alar Voogla and Kristi Viltrop by 0.1 seconds. Miettinen has been attending the competition for a decade now and said he was pleased to finally win. "A couple of times I have lost by 0.1 seconds and I have stumbled. Our win...

WASHINGTON, June 17, 2009 – As it gears up for its 7th Annual Children’s Freedom Art Contest, a North Carolina-based troop-support group is looking for patriotic drawings or paintings that signify the unyielding spirit of America after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “We initially started as a group that put up exhibits of patriotic photos sent to us,” said Eileen A. Schwartz, founder of Flags Across the Nation. “About a year after the 9/11 attacks, we decided to launch a Freedom Art Contest for children. Throughout the year, we still do art-related exhibits and activities honoring our flag...

WORLD WIDE CELEBRATIONOF THE HALYARD MISSION HEROES!THE FORGOTTEN 500 BOOK REPORT CONTEST!Apart from the generous financial rewards kindly donated by various individuals as the prizes for the top three best book reports, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd place and the “Runner Up” reports that finish in the “Top Five” will be posted on my three websites on the internet dedicated to recognizing and celebrating Serbian heroes, among them General Draza Mihailovich, who was ultimately responsible for the success of the Halyard Mission Rescue Operation and the saving of the American airmen whose story shines in The Forgotten 500. The top five...

in the spirit of the Original Obama teleprompter photoshop thread, I would like to start a new contest, Original Teleprompter Photoshop threadFor this contest please photoshop Air Force One into your favorite pics to create the perfect Obama Air Force One Photo Op below is my entry

WASHINGTON, April 6 /Christian Newswire/ -- The deadline for enrolling in the 2009 National Bible Bee Competition is April 30, 2009. The Bible Bee Headquarters is urging families interested in participating in the National Bible Bee to contact the nearest Local Bible Bee and sign up now! To locate a Bible Bee in your community, you can visit the National Bible Bee website at www.biblebee.org and click the U.S. Google Map. Simply zoom in and click one of the green markers in your area for contact information! The Shelby Kennedy Foundation is excited to introduce this first-of-its-kind annual National Bible...

I think we need to have a contest and design our next automobile.If GM is now Government Motors, and we the people are the employers of the governmant, we should have some input on how to design a car.

A popular Detroit radio station has held a unique Valentine’s Day contest: a free divorce to the most deserving dysfunctional couple. On at least one previous occasion the local Detroit news media publicized an objectionable radio stunt that was subsequently stopped due to public outrage. In this case, however, the news media is AWOL. Every year the media covers the Hallmark holiday we call Valentine’s Day with shallow, mushy stories about marriage proposals, make-your-own-valentine treats and the area’s most romantic restaurants. But this year, when 95.5 WKQI, a highly rated station in the market, had a very different, more cynical...

This sounds like fun! Write a letter to President Obama and post it on the RegularFolksUnited.com website and the two letter writers with the greatest number of "thumbs" over 100 will win the prizes! (Winning submissions must have more than 100 thumbs).

The short story of how I won a $140 messenger bag from the "Why Buy Made In USA" blog, followed by me encouraging people to enter their weekly contest and win some cool stuff too.

Welcome to the Name The New Guy Contest! We need to define him based on reality and not have some media concocted reality foisted on us. If you win you will have bragging rights for the next four years each and every time the name is used out among the media and masses. My entry: People have been calling him the empty suit and zero (0). Did Rush start that? Anyway, we can do better than that. Let's see, his upbringing was sponsored by taxpayers (welfare mom), his education was paid for by who knows, his entry into politics was...

Parade magazine published a cartoon caption contest today. I made 10 entries. Two of them I'm sure will absolutely NOT win. I figure folks here will enjoy them though. 1. Well DUH! Of course I'm voting for him ! These rumors you've been reading on the Internet of him being some old giant mutant rat are just that, rumors!2. Hey, I understand! OK? Sure I'm your friend and you're proud of that, but I know that if you're going to win this election you must deny me!

The McCain Campaign isn't competent enough to start it so it's up to Free Republic (again). We need to name the other 7 ObamaNation States! Obama lives in a different America than the rest of us. His has 57 states in it. What are those other 7 states? That is the job for you, Freepers. Let's name those states. And the winning states will be sent to the McCain Campaign so they can get a clue as to what it's like to be a Conservative or even be in the Republican Party (for those of us who are). And maybe...

WASHINGTON, July 29, 2008 – A Marine in Fallujah pens a song about standing watch. A sailor stationed in Hawaii scribbles a lullaby for his son while in the Iraqi desert. A soldier raps into a tape recorder to entertain his unit. Songwriters like these servicemembers were among the many who submitted their original songs to this year’s “Songs From the Soul of Service” songwriting contest. Air Force Capt. Steven Wilson was among hundreds of servicemembers who submitted original songs for the Dallas Songwriters Association's “Songs From the Soul of Service” amateur songwriting contest. Wilson submitted three songs, and...

Upload a video to YouTube telling us in two minutes or less why you are a Republican in 2008. We'll select the 5 most creative and compelling videos, and you get to vote for the winner. The deadline is August 1st, so submit your video today! Why Are You A Republican 2008?

Julia Galvin came to Finland looking for a man that would carry her 120 kg over a 253-metres track - the incentive being the chance to win the wife-carrying world title and beer worth her body weight. In the end the Irish woman was carried by an English man through a pool and across hurdles. She did not make the gold, but said she would keep trying until the title and the beer was hers. "I think I am worth carrying because I am a walking party," she said. Wife-carrying is one of a host of bizarre contests that Finns,...

I live in a land locked area so when I see news like this it makes me jealous. While I get to trek up mountains, carrying my owners lunch and drink on my back, these dogs get to go out and surf. Yeah, that’s right, surf. (This year was the 3rd Annual Loews Coronado Bay Resort Surf Dog Competition at Imperial Beach in California. These canines bring a whole new meaning to the term sea dog.) See last years winner on video...

The Israel Project by: Meagan Buren, April 07, 2008 The Israel Project (TIP) is pleased to invite all filmmakers, writers and other artists around the world with a passion for Israel to submit entries for a first-ever contest commemorating Israel’s founding 60 years ago. TIP will award a total of $20,000 to the winning submissions in each of the following formats: · Television Advertisement (30 seconds) · Video (30 seconds - 7 minutes) · Printable Flyer (8 ½ x 11 inches) Entries will be accepted in English, French, Spanish, German, Arabic and Russian and must be submitted March 31 –...

This is none other than Rhode Island’s best rooster crowing contest and in America, number one contest. The applause is a cut section of the applause in the song; King Jesus is a Listening All Night Long, by the 5 blind boys’ of Alabama. The characters are, Clara the RI Hen and Joe Beak RI rooster at left bottom and Sam Loud at bottom right. Voice of contestant #1 Joe Beak is real rooster sound and contestant #2 Sam Loud voice is of o7jimmy.

Love of country must always be qualified these days, lest anyone think you are unaware of slavery, insufficiently regulated railroad stock offerings, Lester Maddox or the attempt by Philip Morris to conceal the addictive nature of cigarettes. Say “I love this country” at a dinner table with strangers, and it’s like shave and a haircut without the two bits. But? But? We are an exceptional nation, to be sure, but you can’t leave it at that. We are exceptionally misguided, exceptionally lazy and xenophobic, shot through to the pith with bilious perfidy, and our sole redeeming quality is our ability...

We have had a lot of entries into this month's contest, and there is still a little time for you to get your name in the mix. If you are interested in winning copies of: Mark Levin’s Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover’s Story of Joy and AnguishLaura Ingraham’s Power to the PeopleGlenn Beck’s An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World’s Biggest Problems It is very easy to enter. Just send me an e-mail (duane at allamericanblogger.com) that says "December Contest" in the subject bar. The contest ends on December 31, so there is not much time left. I promise...

Time to announce the December All-American Blogger Contest. This month it's a big one. This month we are giving way three books from three great talk radio hosts: Mark Levin's Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and AnguishLaura Ingraham's Power to the PeopleGlenn Beck's An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems To win this contest, all you have to do is send us an e-mail with "December Contest" in the subject line. That's it. If you have your own website, and you add us to your blogroll, you will get two entries in the contest...

Fellow FReepers, I have already asked many of you to cast a vote for me in the RacingJunk.Com Sponsorship Giveaway and now, if I can, I'd like to ask the same of all the other FReepers here. I am one of thirty racers with a shot at winning 15K in this. The voting runs from October 15th to November 15th. There is a signup process but it is FREE and pretty easy to negotiate through. The website is www.racingjunk.com: My name is Gene Hinders, I have the blue Ford Fairmont w/silver flames on the hood. I'd appreciate you taking the...

I don’t know how much simpler we can make this. You click on the “Contest” link at the top of the page, or even just click here. You fill out the form, which consists of your name and email address. We need that information so if you win we can write to you and say, “Hey Jerry - you won, where do we send the book?”.

IOWA CITY - The Hawkeyes play ISU this weekend. The University of Iowa is in the middle of "beat state week." But the school says it has had its fill of one contest in particular. Apparently there is such a thing as too much sweet corn. The University of Iowa was supposed to have a day of burgers and blues. Only the burgers were corn and the blues were more than music. There is a certain sadness that comes with the cancellation of a corn-eating contest. Shannon Thomas of the Alumni Association said, “There has been some disappointment about the...

September 17, 2007 is Constitution day. In celebration of the foundation of the greatest country in the history of man, we are giving away a copy of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution.

It was as if the tension would never end - but finally, eventually, painfully... Dec announced Paul Potts as the Britain's Got Talent winner. It was a moment where futures were made and dreams were dashed. But even though every one of the performers here has an outstanding talent, only one could scoop the big prize tonight. Two million votes were cast by the British public. For the big winner, welshman Paul Potts, tonight starts a week of newspaper interviews, magazine features and TV appearances. Life won't be quite the same ever again. As Ant and Dec congratulated the singer...

OTTAWA, June 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) –The CBC has inadvertently allowed pro-life Canadians a voice on abortion, a rare opportunity in Canada’s largely pro-abortion media landscape. Online abortion advocates are complaining that the “Great Canadian Wish List,” a contest described by the CBC as a way for Canadians to express what they hope for the country, has been “highjacked” by “right-wingers,” “anti-choicers” and “fetus fetishizers”...in other words, Canadians wanting an end to abortion. Since abortion has been legalized in Canada, politicians and news editors have asserted that the issue is closed despite the consistent poll results showing that as many...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A 43-year-old German man was taken to hospital in critical condition after he fell off a second storey balcony during a spitting contest with his 12-year-old son, police said Friday. A spokesman for the police in the eastern town of Cottbus said the man in Forst had apparently lost his balance after thrusting too far forward in his attempt to outspit his son. He tumbled over the ledge and landed on a balcony of the ground floor apartment, police said. He was taken to hospital in a rescue helicopter.

HELSINKI, Finland - Serbia's Marija Serifovic sang a heart-wrenching power ballad to win the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest early Sunday — an annual extravaganza of pop, rock and circus acts featuring bare flesh and fiery pyrotechnics. Serifovic's ballad "Molitva," or "A Prayer," beat a glitzy drag show act from Ukraine and a Russian girl band to win the annual event. Voters from an estimated television viewing audience of 100 million across the continent picked their favorite performance by phone and text message. "All my life I have been singing and tonight this (victory) makes me very proud," said Serifovic, 22,...

Thirteen-year-old Morgan Pozgar, of Claysburg, Pennsylvania, was crowned LG National Texting champion on Saturday after she typed "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from "Mary Poppins" in 15 seconds.

All good things come to end for them to give a fresh new start all over again. The first ever World's Best Presentation Contest is ending soon. The contest is still wide open and one can witness the best presentations from all over the world. The best Creative minds are competing against each other for this prestigious award. The judges will announce there results later, please have a look at my personal top 5 presentations. I am sure the winner is one of them. Shift Happens – Jbrenman http://www.slideshare.net/jbrenman/shift-happens-33834/ Originally designed by Karl Fisch, the same presentation was reworked by...

A friend of mine's son and new daughter in law are trying to win a trip to Cancun. Their wedding photographer is doing a little publicity stunt called 'Wedding Survivor' The couple whose picture gets the most votes will win. Her son's photo will only be up this week. If you would consider voting for them, we'd all appreciate it. they are #27 (it's a long shot of them on a balcony in shadows)

'American Idol' plots song contest after too many bland finale numbers January 14, 2007 BY LYNN ELBER Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) - "American Idol" knows that bad can be good, but not always. Untalented singers who fail spectacularly in the early auditions are so bad they make for good television. Forcing talented finalists to perform such forgettable tunes as "Do I Make You Proud"? That's just plain awful. American Idol judges Paula Abdul, left, and Randy Jackson ponder a question at a news conference during taping auditions of the show in San Francisco. To remedy this flaw in Fox's...

Democrats whomped Republicans in last month's midterms, but oddly enough they're still calling in the legal cavalry to contest one of the few races they narrowly lost. That would be Florida's 13th Congressional District, which runs along the Gulf Coast from just south of Tampa to just north of Fort Myers. The certified winner is Republican Vern Buchanan, who beat Democrat Christine Jennings by fewer than 400 votes out of more than 237,000 cast. Two recounts, which were demanded by Democrats and required by law, have reconfirmed Mr. Buchanan's victory and slightly increased the margin. Unbowed, the Dems are now...

The Ahmadinejad Code The winners have yet to be announced, but the 200-plus finalists in Iran's "Holocaust International Cartoon Contest" were recently exhibited in Tehran and posted online. And though not among the finalists, the above image was part of a cartoon accepted into the contest, one of over a thousand entries accepted. The cartoonist's name, Hugh Bradley, can be seen on the contest's list of participants under USA. Obviously a cartoon featuring Adolf Hitler could be appropriate for such a contest, but there's more to the image than meets the eye. It also contains a hidden message critical of...

TORONTO (Reuters) - An animal rights group called Tuesday for a North American theme park operator to cancel a competition in which people will try to break the world cockroach-eating record. Theme park operator Six Flags Inc, based in New York, is staging the contest as part of a promotion leading up to Halloween in which it is also offering customers free entry or line-jumping advantages if they eat a live Madagascar hissing cockroach. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said it had been flooded with calls from children, adults and even anonymous employees of Six Flags...

DALLAS - A 62-year-old retired accountant from Nevada swallowed 247 peppers in eight minutes to win the Jalapeno Eating World Championship at the State Fair of Texas. Richard LeFevre won $2,000 for prevailing in Sunday's contest, which was sponsored by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. "I love to eat, and I love to compete, so the two go pretty well together," said LeFevre, the world's eighth-ranked eater according to the federation. LeFevre, who has also won the fair's World Corny Dog Eating Contest three times, said his winning strategy was to mix three or four peppers in his mouth...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22, 2006 – If you’re currently a chef on active duty in the Armed Forces, TV cooking-show icon Emeril Lagasse wants your favorite recipe. Emeril is looking for a military chef who has the right recipe and knows how to use it. Any military chef who has a favorite dish can enter the first ever Military-Only Emeril Cooking Contest. Recipes ranging from jambalaya or marinated steak to specialty pies and appetizers all have a chance of winning. “I have great respect for our men and women who serve in the military,” Emeril said. “I also understand the challenges...

One of the questions everyone asks a new anchor is, "What's your sign off going to be?" Walter Cronkite had the most famous nightly farewell, "And that's the way it is." Edward R. Murrow used, "Good night and good luck." Well, it's a new era here at The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and Katie thinks maybe you folks on the other side of the screen might have some good ideas for what her own sign-off should be. If nothing else, it will be a lot of fun reading your ideas and, who knows, maybe one will actually stick.