Free Republic

The last time angler Mac Weakley saw Dottie, the 25-pound big bass that gained worldwide attention for its size, she was on the end of his hook. The legendary big bass, which was released after its 2006 capture, was found belly-up this week in Escondido's Dixon Lake. The Florida-strain largemouth bass had been dead about a day. Nicknamed Dottie for a distinctive birthmark spot below her jawline, the dead fish measured 29 1/2 inch long and weighed about 19-pounds. When Weakley caught Dottie two years earlier, she was bulging with eggs that significantly added to her weight. Weakly never officially...

The Catholic Controversy of the Week (well, the most-prominent one) involves what you see above. That's a Mormon baptismal font, and in a move that sent the religion beat into overdrive -- and threatened to put a damper on the tip-top relations that just saw two top leaders of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints attend an ecumenical prayer gathering with the Pope for the first time -- an early April letter from the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy urged the global church to withhold parish registers from LDS, citing the Mormon practice of posthumous baptisms. The...

John A. Wheeler, a visionary physicist and teacher who helped invent the theory of nuclear fission, gave black holes their name and argued about the nature of reality with Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, died Sunday morning at his home in Hightstown, N.J. He was 96. Skip to next paragraph The cause was pneumonia, said his daughter Alison Wheeler Lahnston. Dr. Wheeler was a young, impressionable professor in 1939 when Bohr, the Danish physicist and his mentor, arrived in the United States aboard a ship from Denmark and confided to him that German scientists had succeeded in splitting uranium atoms....

(BEIJING) - A 19-year-old woman has allegedly confessed to a "terror plot" aimed at an aircraft flying from the Muslim west of China to the capital Beijing. State media said the girl, named for the first time as Guzalinur Turdi, was trying to cause a fire above the wing. She had injected two drinks cans with petrol, which she had placed in the waste-paper bin in the toilet, when she was spotted by an air stewardess. The revelation of the "terror attack" was made during the National People's Congress, or parliament session, in Beijing this month by senior officials from...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Four months after he was declared brain dead and doctors were about to remove his organs for transplant, Zach Dunlap says he feels "pretty good." Dunlap was pronounced dead Nov. 19 at United Regional Healthcare System in Wichita Falls, Texas, after he was injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident. His family approved having his organs harvested. As family members were paying their last respects, he moved his foot and hand. He reacted to a pocketknife scraped across his foot and to pressure applied under a fingernail. After 48 days in the hospital, he was allowed to...

Jerusalem: The news that a senior Islamic Jihad terrorist, Shadi Sukiya, was captured by an elite anti-terror unit of the Israel Defense Forces while hiding out in the Jenin offices of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) did not make a ripple in the flood of coverage from the Iraqi front in late March 2003. Just eleven days earlier, on March 16, the ISM did make world headlines when Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old ISM member, was run over by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah and died of her injuries. Maybe the fact that a "peace organization" was found to be defending...

The family of Ameriquest Mortgage founder Roland Arnall says he has died at UCLA Medical Center. He was 68. The billionaire helped create and later emerged as a symbol of the struggling sub-prime mortgage industry. A family statement said Arnall died Monday morning but did not give the cause of death. Arnall was appointed ambassador to the Netherlands in March 2006 after an approval process that was slowed by unsettled issues regarding Ameriquest. the California-based lending company he founded in 1979. A major Republican financier, Arnall's fortune was estimated at $1.5 billion by Forbes magazine last year.

(UNCLASSIFIED) Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Guess these guys shouldn't have taken the relaxed walk back to the mosque.. Video taken on Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) sensor in Iraq. The FLIR Sensor produces a video picture based on heat all objects give off. These terrorists just completed an attack on an American position and had slowed down to a stroll thinking they were home free. WRONG!!! The Chain Gun onboard uses a 30 mm high energy explosive in the bullet. The gun is considered an area weapon but as you can see it is very accurate; you can see the...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A woman who has been considered dead found out recently that the government still doesn't believe she's alive. According to government paperwork, Laura Todd has been dead off and on for eight years, and Todd said there's no end to the complications the situation creates. “One time when I (was) ruled dead, they canceled my health insurance because it got that far,” she said. Todd’s struggle started with a typo at the Social Security administration. She said the government has assured her since the problem that they have deleted her death record, but she said the problems...

TEHRAN, Feb 17, 2008 (AFP) — An Iranian ayatollah died suddenly of a heart attack during an impassioned speech lashing out at insults against the family of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the run-up to elections, the press reported on Sunday. Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Tavassoli, a former head of Khomeini's office, died while delivering the speech to Iran's main arbitration body, the Expediency Council, of which he was a member, the Kargozaran daily reported. He had been responding to unprecedented ultra-conservative attacks against Hassan Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini's respected grandson, who had criticised mass disqualifications in the March election and...

5 dead after crash at "fly-in" community runway Associated Press - January 26, 2008 2:44 PM ET OCALA, Fla. (AP) - Florida Highway Patrol says five young men are dead today after a car they were riding in crashed after traveling off an airport runway. The runway is at the exclusive "fly-in" community of Jumbolair Aviation Estates. The crash at the community, which is also the home of actor John Travolta, happened at about 3:45 a.m. According to a preliminary FHP investigation, a 2008 gray BMW with 5 occupants, ages 18 to 20, was traveling at a high rate of...

"New York Police Department confirms actor Heath Ledger, 28, found dead in his New York City apartment, which was strewn with pills." | PHOTOS | VIDEO Live reports at 5:45 PM, Quoting TMZ Source, via Fox News: Actor Heath Ledger, 28, was found dead in his apartment bedroom by his housekeeper and masseuse at 3:30 PM this afternoon. Police are telling TMZ it was an accidental drug overdose and not foul play. Ledger was found with perscription pills strewn around the bed. TMZ also says the apartment is "not" owned by Mary Kate Olsen

SANTIAGO (AFP) - An 81-year old man in the small Chilean village of Angol shocked his grieving relatives by waking up in his coffin at his own wake, local media said on Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT When Feliberto Carrasco's family members discovered his body limp and cold, they were convinced that the octogenarian's hour had come, so they immediately called a funeral home, not a doctor. Carrasco was dressed in his finest suit for the wake, and his relatives gathered to bid him a final farewell. "I couldn't believe it. I thought I must be mistaken, and I shut my eyes," Carrasco's...

Scores dead in Afghan cold snap By Charles Haviland BBC News, Kabul Authorities have put out an alert to combat cold-related diseases The number of people who have died due a cold snap in Afghanistan has risen to 200, government officials say. Four large provinces in the western part of the country have been especially badly hit. Tens of thousands of livestock have also perished. Local people are saying the winter conditions have been the most severe in decades. The cold spell is also affecting neighbouring countries. People seem to have been unprepared for the heavy snow and low temperatures....

A family drove hundreds of miles with their dead grandmother in the back of their recreational vehicle to fulfill the ailing woman's wishes. They arrived in Hillsboro, Ore., on Sunday with the body and notified police. The 79-year-old woman, who likely died in Wyoming, was in poor health but wished to see family members in Arkansas before she passed away. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,322806,00.html More here: Update: Grandmother's last family trip ends in Hillsboro after her death in Wyoming by The Oregonian Monday January 14, 2008, 12:51 PM The woman was last seen alive by the family about 3 a.m. Saturday near Laramie,...

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have turned a "crazy idea" into a potential breakthrough. They removed the lifeblood from a heart - leaving behind a ghostly white shell - then injected new cardiac cells, bringing the organ back from the dead. The federal government wouldn't fund the idea: Grant reviewers said it was implausible. Medical journals wouldn't publish the initial results: Editors doubted them. But Sunday's study in the prestigious Nature Medicine journal is long-awaited validation for the researchers and a promising direction in organ transplantation and the fight against heart disease.

Baptisms for the Dead Jesus Christ taught that baptism is essential to the salvation of all who have lived on earth (see John 3:5). Many people, however, have died without being baptized. Others were baptized without proper authority. Because God is merciful, He has prepared a way for all people to receive the blessings of baptism. By performing proxy baptisms in behalf of those who have died, Church members offer these blessings to deceased ancestors. Individuals can then choose to accept or reject what has been done in their behalf.

Religious right is deadBILL PRESS 26.DEC.07 No matter who becomes the next president of the United States, the American people have already won a great victory — with the total disintegration of the once all-powerful religious right. Starting in 1979 when Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, Christian conservatives have been the most powerful voting bloc in the Republican Party. Ironically, they began by casting out of the White House a born-again Christian who continued, as president, his lifelong practice of teaching Sunday school, and replacing him with a divorced and remarried man who seldom stepped inside a church. But...

International Ph.D. Scholars Discovered Slain In Campus Apartment; Home Invasion Suspected BATON ROUGE, La., Dec. 14, 2007 Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam, two international Ph.D. students at Louisiana State University, were found dead inside a campus apartment, police said, Friday, Dec. 14, 2007. (AP / CBS) (CBS/AP) Two international students were found shot to death inside an apartment at a university in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and authorities said Friday the men were likely slain during a home invasion. The victims, Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam, both international Ph.D. students at Louisiana State University, were...

TORONTO, Ont. -- A 16-year-old girl has died after allegedly being choked by her father over a dispute with her family over her refusal to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by some Muslim women. Peel Regional Police arrested a 57-year-old man Tuesday morning after receiving a 911 call from a suburban home in Mississauga from a man saying he had killed his daughter, according to a Toronto newspaper Web site. According to the National Post, a Toronto newspaper Web site, when police arrived at the house they found the teen on the floor without any vital signs.

TUUSULA, Finland (Reuters) - At least seven people died when a gunman opened fire at a school in southern Finland on Wednesday, hours after a video was posted on YouTube predicting a school massacre. A teacher at Jokela High School told Reuters the gunman was one of its pupils. "At this moment its seven (deaths) or more, higher," Dr Eero Hirvensalo, the head of the medical response team, told Reuters. The YouTube video, set to hard-driving music, shows a still photo of a school that appears to be Jokela High School. The photo then fragments to reveal a red-tinted picture...

“Not Dead But Sleeping” (Matt. 9:18-26)Things die in November. Now I say this as one who comes from the Midwest, where leaves fall off trees and flowers wither and frost appears. That stuff apparently doesn’t happen out here in this paradise on the Pacific, where, like the new Jerusalem, the trees yield their fruit twelve months of the year. But back in the Midwest, where I come from, things die in November. And it was like that back in Europe, where many of the traditions of the church year developed. In November, things die. And so it was only natural,...

US Army kills, arrests 38 al-Qaeda-inspired militants MIL-IRAQ-US-OPERATIONS US Army kills, arrests 38 al-Qaeda-inspired militants BAGHDAD, Oct 26 (KUNA) -- The US army in Iraq announced on Friday it has killed and arrested 38 militants in scattered places in central and south Iraq. The army said in a statement that US forces killed today seven terrorists and arrested 31 others in various operations in central and south of the country. It added that the operations were centered in areas west of Mosul, north of Falluja, west of Sammarra, Biji and south west of Kirkuk targeting al-Qaeda-inspired militants. (end) aha. tg

Ancient Scots Mummified Their Dead Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Sept. 14, 2007 — The ancient Egyptians were not the only ones to mummify their dead, according to a study in this month's Antiquity Journal that claims prehistoric Scottish people created mummies too. The researchers do not think the Egyptians influenced the Scots, but that mummification arose independently in the two regions. Initial evidence for Scottish mummies was announced in 2005, when archaeologists unearthed three preserved bodies — an adult female, an adult male and an infant — buried underneath two Bronze Age roundhouses in South Uist, Hebrides, at a site...

From the Pre-1970 Mass for the Dead: For the intention of all those who were killed on 11 September 2001, and all those who have given their lives in the war against radical Islam, especially members of the Allied forces. Absolve, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the souls of Thy servants, that they who are dead to the world, may live to Thee; and wipe away by Thy most merciful forgiveness whatever sins they may have committed in life through human frailty. Through Christ Our Lord, Amen. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon...

Osama Bin Laden's widely reported video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and 36 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2007 – Afghan national security forces, advised by coalition forces, defeated an insurgent attack yesterday near Regay Village on the east side of the Musa Qalah Wadi in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. The combined force was on a combat patrol when insurgents attacked from multiple compounds and trenches using small-arms fire, 82 mm mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. The Afghan forces repelled the attack with accurate small-arms fire and artillery. When the insurgents reinforced their fighting positions with additional fighters, Afghan forces requested coalition close-air support. Coalition aircraft performed precision air strikes on the insurgents, killing a number of...

BRITAIN marks the 10th anniversary of Princess Diana's death tomorrow with a royal memorial service and a series of other tributes to the the "people's princess". Diana's sons Princes William and Harry, her ex-husband Prince Charles and the Queen, will mark the tragedy that many say changed Britain with a solemn service in central London. Her sons, who were aged just 15 and 12 when their mother died aged 36 in a car crash in Paris, are now officers in the British army. They were to give personally-selected readings during the service, being held at their regimental chapel. The Archbishop...

My cellphone has not stopped ringing for the past ten minutes. Various sources inform that an announcement will come within the next few minutes from the Cuban government on Cuban TV and media. Stay tuned and we'll see if we've been manipulated once again or if today is the birth date of Cuba's liberty. Update: Here's the deal and what I know up to now, as of 1500 hours, August 24, 2007: First, South Florida Law Enforcement is on alert. An EOC (Emergency Operations Center) has been set-up and manned somewhere in Homestead. Im also told Local and State government...

JERUSALEM - An 8-year-old Israeli boy spent six hours floating in the Dead Sea alone at night after his father left him there by accident during a family trip, police said Sunday. They said they would not press charges against the errant parent. The Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth and one of Israel’s most popular tourist attractions, has an abnormally high salt concentration that allows swimmers to float on the surface.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5, 2007 – The senior al Qaeda terrorist believed to be the mastermind behind both bombings of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, was killed during a coalition air strike, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesperson told journalists in Baghdad today. “Yesterday, the government of Iraq announced that the coalition force killed a senior al Qaeda terrorist, Haitham Sabah al Badri,” said Navy Rear Adm. Mark Fox, spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq. “He was killed east of Samara on Aug. 2.” Al Badri, whose body was positively identified by family members, is believed to have masterminded both the February...

A teenager was shot to death and four others were wounded, two critically, when gang members apparently showed up for a going-away party advertised on the Web. The Saturday night apartment gathering was planned as a celebration for someone who is headed off to college, but about 100 people showed up, said Cindy Beavers of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. The party was advertised on the MySpace.com social networking Web site. "When you advertise a party that way, you don't know what kind of people are going to show up, or what kind of problems they may bring," Beavers...

A former Allegheny County man with a string of drunken driving arrests has been charged with drunken driving again in an accident outside Morgantown, W.Va., Sunday night that killed five people and critically injured three others.    Brian J. Stone The calamitous accident on Interstate 68 is the latest incident in a long struggle with alcohol for Brian J. Stone, 32, of Cheat Lake, W.Va., said his father, John. "He's had his share of problems," John Stone said. "For most of his life, drinking was a problem." The problems include at least seven drunken driving arrests -- five in West...

ROMANCE, Ark. - An 18-month-old boy died Wednesday of suspected heat exposure after he climbed into a dishwasher that started running, police said. Authorities are still investigating, but said it appeared the boy's death was accidental. "This is probably the hardest, most emotional scene that these investigators will ever work," said Chief Deputy Jeremy Clark of the White County sheriff's office. Blake Kurck was found dead in his home near the White County town of Romance at about 1 p.m. Wednesday, the sheriff's office said. The boy's 13-year-old brother found him inside the appliance, which was running, authorities said. "The...

The late Do Ho's daughter, Dayna Ho-Henry, was found dead Friday, her brother said. The 51-year-old's death comes less than a week after the Waikiki Beach funeral for her father, who died April 14 of heart failure at age 76. Ho-Henry was one of the legendary singer's 10 children. The entertainer is best known for his catchy signature tune "Tiny Bubbles." No foul play is suspected, police spokeswoman Michelle Yu said. "The family is grieving the loss of my sister and we're just trying to make sense of it," said Ho-Henry's brother, Dwight Ho. The Honolulu Medical Examiner's office said...

Jerry Garcia's guitars spur Grateful Dead auction May 8, 2007 SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Forty years after the Summer of Love celebrated the free-living ways of the 1960s counterculture, bidders paid more than $1.1 million at auction on Tuesday for Grateful Dead memorabilia. A cream-colored 1975 Travis Bean electric guitar belonging to the band's legendary, late lead guitar player, Jerry Garcia, brought in $312,000 in a brisk sale, auction house said. Enthusiasts also bid $102,000 for an acoustic guitar and $39,000 for a Gibson electric guitar played by Garcia. One of his leather guitar straps sold for $20,400, or four...

LAS VEGAS – Diego Corrales, a former world champion boxer who scored one of the most memorable knockouts in boxing history, died Monday in a three-vehicle accident near his Las Vegas home. Corrales was driving a 2007 Suzuki 1000 motorcycle, traveling northbound on Fort Apache Road in the southwest part of the city, when it inexplicably struck the back of a 1997 Honda Accord, Las Vegas police spokesman Sgt. Tracy McDonald said. McDonald said the motorcycle careened into the southbound lane and, at some point, he was tossed off the bike. A 2004 Mercedes-Benz traveling in the southbound lane was...

HOUSTON -- A 4-year-old child found his parents dead in an apparent murder-suicide a north Houston home, officials told KPRC Local 2. Houston police said the child found Kendra Brooks, 20, and Anthony Mack, 21, dead in a bedroom of a home in the 1200 block of Homer Street at about 12:15 p.m. Saturday. Investigators said Brooks and Mack were living with Mack's parents and had recently been arguing.

BORIS Yeltsin, who engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy as the country's first post-Communist president, has died. He was 76.

Dozens feared dead in Solomon Islands tsunami Staff and agencies Monday April 2, 2007 Guardian Unlimited (UK) Dozens of people were feared dead today in the Solomon Islands after an undersea earthquake caused a powerful tsunami to sweep across the low-lying South Pacific nation. The quake, and a series of aftershocks, prompted a tsunami alert across much of the Pacific region, with beaches closed and ferries cancelled as far away as Sydney amid fears of a disaster on the scale of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, which killed more than 250,000 people. Although the alert elsewhere was scaled...

Report Reveals Dead La. Mayor's Troubles Friday March 30, 2007 10:16 PM By DOUG SIMPSON Associated Press Writer BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The first black mayor elected in a mostly white town had lost more than $200,000 gambling and was cheating on his wife, state investigators concluded in deeming his fatal shooting a suicide. Gerald Washington, 57, was found dead with a gunshot wound to the chest last December, just days before he was to take office in Westlake. The death generated speculation that Washington was murdered - a theory put forward by his wife and children - but...

A YEMENI was killed today in clashes with police as workers at a gas export terminal in southern Yemen protested at a French engineer's alleged desecration of the Koran, a local official said. "One worker was killed and others were arrested following clashes with police who intervened" to contain the protest at the terminal being built by the French company Total in Balhaf port, he said, requesting anonymity. "After a fight between a French engineer and another who is Yemeni, the Frenchman - to enrage the Yemeni - threw a Koran on the floor in an offensive way," the official...

MIAMI — A former CIA operative and Cuban exile is the latest to call the 1997 reburial of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara a fraud, because he said the body of one of Fidel Castro’s closest friends is still in Bolivia. Gustavo Villoldo, 71, said he has strands of faded hair that he snipped before burying Guevara’s body under a Bolivian airstrip in 1967. He believes the remains are likely still there, not in the official grave site in a Cuban mausoleum. DNA tests could confirm his theory, he said. But Villoldo would also need Guevara’s relatives to come forward to...

US House panel sets 2008 troop pullout from Iraq 15 Mar 2007 18:09:45 GMT Source: Reuters By Richard Cowan WASHINGTON, March 15 (Reuters) - A Democratic plan to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by Sept. 1, 2008, was approved by a key committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday. On a mostly partisan 36-28 vote, the House Appropriations Committee approved a $124.1 billion emergency spending bill, including around $100 billion to continue fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the bill, which could be debated in the full House as early as next week, would set...

Months before the first votes are cast in the campaign of 2008, some in the media are conducting last rites for the Republicans. The rush to bury the GOP is as hasty as it is premature. The headline atop Page 1 of Tuesday's New York Times read, "GOP Voters Voice Anxieties on Party's Fate." It sounded like a death knell for the party that has held the White House for 26 of the past 38 years. But the evidence was thin. A New York Times-CBS News poll that included 698 self-identified Republicans found that 40 percent of them thought the...

Group Accused Of Trying To Hide Woman's Body LAFAYETTE, Colo. -- Two Colorado teens have been arrested after the mother of one of them was found stabbed to death in the trunk of her car. Investigators allege that Linda Damm's body had been in the car for nearly a month as her daughter and friends tried but failed to get rid of it. On one attempt, police said they buried the body at the edge of a cemetery only to retrieve it later, fearing the grave was too shallow. Investigators claim 15-year-old Tess Damm and her live-in boyfriend were planning...

HAVANA, March 3 (Reuters) - It is the closest you get to a capitalist stock market in communist-run Cuba: dozens of wealthy merchants bidding high stakes for humidors full of premium cigars. Cuba's annual Habanos festival ended on Friday night with an auction of five ornate humidors of cedar and mahogany stacked with hand-rolled stogies that raised 533,000 euros ($703,560) for the country's health care system. The five humidors sold like hot cakes even though, for the first time in nine years, they did not bear the signature of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who has not appeared in public since...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Cuban leader Fidel Castro called in to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's radio talk show on Tuesday, declaring he's "more energetic, stronger" and his country is running smoothly without him at the helm. "I feel good and I'm happy," Castro said in a phone call to Chavez's weekday radio program. "I can't promise that I'll go over there soon, but, yes, I'm gaining ground." The 80-year-old Castro transferred control of Cuba's government to his brother Raul after undergoing intestinal surgery in July and dropped out of public view, fueling speculation about his condition. He thanked Chavez for spreading...

A great video that you wouldn't expect.

Warming Sign? Larger dead zones form off Oregon coast Sid Perkins Unprecedented recent changes in the yearly pattern of ocean currents off North America's West Coast have wreaked havoc on aquatic ecosystems there. Those changes, which have triggered the formation of large areas of oxygen-poor water along the Oregon shore, may be a troubling symptom of Earth's warming climate, a group of scientists says. MUSSELED OUT. Poorly oxygenated waters off the coast of Oregon in the summers of 2005 and 2006 stifled the growth of sea life, such as the mussels and barnacles seen here. Lubchenco Fisheries along the western...