Free Republic

Is Howard Dean actually thinking about running for president again?The former governor of Vermont, Democratic National Committee chairman and 2004 presidential candidate is headed back to Iowa and New Hampshire, according to local news reports.James Pindell, the political director of New Hampshire’s WMUR, reported Tuesday in a story titled, “Howard Dean to visit NH during presidential campaign ‘testing the waters’ phase” that the Democrat is visiting the Granite State next month.The popular liberal was once seen as the Democratic front-runner to take on President George W. Bush in 2004. But he is often remembered today for his infamous “Dean scream”...

Boreded Ceiling Cat makinkgz Urf n stuffs 1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. 2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz. 3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day...

A picture might be worth a thousand words, but add a cute cat and a funny caption, and you apparently have something much more valuable. A company called Cheezburger Inc., famous for a site dedicated to these so-called LOLCats, said Tuesday that it won a whopping $30 million in funding — which it will use “to become the largest humor network in the world.” Cheezburger, which has been around since 2007, also publishes more than 40 other sites, including the FAIL Blog, which provides photographic evidence of human stupidity, usually captioned with the simple word: “Fail.” The funding round is...

The foreclosure market is getting wild in Lake Elsinore: "Taking advantage of a slump in local real estate, a family of bobcats has moved into a foreclosed Lake Elsinore home, lolling about on fences and walls and riveting an entire neighborhood."Neighbors first noticed the feline squatters Aug. 27 hanging out on a side wall of the empty house in the Tuscany Hills development. ... The foreclosed home is one of several on the block. Its lawn is brown but still being watered by the sprinklers. The house sits right up against barren, chaparral-covered hills.

I can has a break? OK. I love Icanhascheezburger.com, and LOLcats in general, as much as the next guy. Truly. I have spent hours, in aggregate, laughing myself to tears on the site. But when I ran across an item on the site on Tuesday morning announcing that it is teaming up with the trendy micro-soda company Jones Soda to run a contest to put LOLcats labels for root beer and other flavor sodas, I had to ask myself if someone was maybe huffing a little too much catnip. LOLcats, of course, are the whimsical combinations of silly pidgin English...

PHOENIX -- A rare and exotic African Serval cat bolted from its owner and is loose on Valley streets far from its native African savanna. Karen Shaw said while several residents have spotted Suzie, her pet eludes capture. "She's nothing like a domestic cat," Shaw said. House cats don't grow to be as big as the serval or have ties to ancient Egypt. "They've actually been pets for about 1,000 years," Shaw said. The long-legged cats with large ears generally have a length of 34 inches, plus 16 inches of tail. The shoulder height is about 21 inches. "She can...

If you spend any time at all observing net culture, then you'll have been unable to miss the recent explosion in popularity of lolcats. This relatively recent phenomenon is the convention of taking pictures of cute animals, most frequently cats, and overlaying absurdist captions on the images. The core behavior has existed for some time; "Image macro" is a generic term for this kind of folk art, and cats have always featured heavily in these types of Internet in-jokes. But a few distinct categories have sprung up that have helped amplify and popularize the phenomenon. I'M IN UR X Ying...