Free Republic

HOPE MILLS, N.C. – North Carolina authorities say they used a stun gun on a woman motorist who blocked a McDonald's drive-thru for 20 minutes after employees refused to serve her because she cut in line. Authorities say 37-year-old Evangeline Lucca bypassed the order screen and line and pulled directly up to the pick-up window Friday afternoon at the restaurant in Hope Mills, about 60 miles south of Raleigh. Cumberland County sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Tanner told The Fayetteville Observer that the woman had her 3-year-old daughter in the car when she became confrontational with the workers before deputies arrived. Tanna...

What's the best term for people in the U.S. without permission? Poll Here halfway down on right.

In a quirky example of new media getting tripped up over history, overseas press reports Thursday claimed that Harley-Davidson Inc. had built a new factory in Milwaukee - with the writers not realizing they were taking information from a 94-year-old magazine article. Trade publications as far away as India picked up the story, which originally ran in the May 1918 issue of Motorcyclist Magazine and was reprinted in the magazine's recent issue as a historical article. Those who used the information, without Motorcyclist Magazine's permission, apparently didn't get the back-in-time angle. One automotive publication in India wrote: "To make their...

Earlier this year, entrepreneur and X-Prize impresario Peter Diamandis hinted he was about to unveil something amazing: a startup that will mine asteroids for precious metals. “Since my childhood I’ve wanted to do one thing, be an asteroid miner,” Diamandis told Forbes. “So stay tuned on that one.”

(Reuters) - Conservative activist Andrew Breitbart died of heart failure with no prescription or illegal drugs in his system, the Los Angeles County Coroner's officials said on Friday. There was no significant trauma to the body of Breitbart, who died in March at the age of 43, and foul play was not suspected, a coroner's spokesman said in a written statement.

Some folks just can’t take a hint. House leaders, insisting this is no time to raise taxes on anyone for any reason, made sure that the budget that will be debated next week includes none of the governor’s proposed $260 million in tax hikes, including a 50-cent a pack hike in the cigarette tax. But anti-smoking zealots have adopted a new strategy. According to interviews conducted by State House News Service, they will push for a $1.25 a pack hike not in the state budget (OK, let’s give them credit for knowing a non-starter when they see one), but in...

Amazing. A major news channel has finally reported what Freepers have known for years: The man whom Barack Obama (Jr) reveres and calls "Father," (Barack Obama Sr.) was a bigamist at the time of Junior's birth. If the president's narrative is to be believed, then Barack Obama Sr. was married to two women at the same time when Jr. was born. Mr. Obama Sr. never divorced his first wife, Kezia, who was in Kenya at the time of Sr's alleged marriage to Barack's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, in Hawaii in 1961. Mr. Obama Sr, married a third woman, then later...

...what was the most POSITIVE Nostalgic memory all of you have from your Childhood.

You'll have to read the Snopes articles, but an email I got said that Obama's 13 year old daughter took 12 of her friends (and 25 Secret Service agents) to Mexico for Spring Break on your tax dollars. The article also points out that Obama instructed the SS to close down any web sites that talked about it. I wonder if that's why I couldn't get on FR for most of yesterday?

Metro is inspecting all of its defibrillators after one failed to work Monday when a 51-year-old rider suffered a fatal heart attack on the Yellow Line. The agency announced the news after The Washington Examiner started asking questions about the broken automated external defibrillator Thursday morning. Metro now says it plans to inspect all the defibrillators in its stations within 24 hours after determining the one at the Pentagon station had a dead battery. Metro has 46 defibrillators, meaning not every one of the 86 stations has one. The agency said Thursday it plans to add units at all remaining...

The objects displayed in Michigan's newest museum range from the ordinary, such as simple ashtrays and fishing lures, to the grotesque — a full-size replica of a lynching tree. But all are united by a common theme: They are steeped in racism so intense that it makes visitors cringe. That's the idea behind the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, which says it has amassed the nation's largest public collection of artifacts spanning the segregation era, from Reconstruction until the civil rights movement, and beyond. The museum in a gleaming new exhibit hall at Ferris State University "is all about...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (TheStreet) -- US Airways (LCC_) has been successfully gathering union support for its effort to merge with bankrupt AMR (AMMRQ.PK), and could unveil a union-backed bid as early as next week. The carrier has managed to win qualified backing from at least three American unions -- the Transport Workers, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants and the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents flight attendants at American Eagle, according to people with knowledge of those discussions.

Students at a vocational school who just wanted to learn how to weld were afraid for their lives when their teacher lined them up, pulled a gun from his waistband and started firing blanks at them.

Omer Petti, a 95-year-old retired Air Force major, said he expected to set off metal detectors at San Diego International Airport. He and his 85-year-old travel companion have two replaced knees, a replaced hip and a pair of wheelchairs between them. What they didn't anticipate was being subjected to full-on "humiliating" TSA private-room pat-downs.

With the ruling by Judge Malihi in Georgia that Obama will remain on the ballot, tyranny has been established. How else does one describe it when the President is above the law? A court issues a subpoena to the President which is ignored. The court rules against a motion to dismiss. The attorney for the defendant, Obama, states he will not participate or provide subpoenaed material. The Georgia Secretary of State says such action will be at the attorney’s and his client’s peril. The hearing proceeds with the only evidence and testimony presented being against the defendant. One week later,...

Taxpayers may feel kind of blue when they discover their dollars went to fund a study to determine rats like to bop to the music of Miles Davis while hopped up on cocaine. The study, which was performed at Albany Medical College, drew jeers from the animal rights group In Defense of Animals and landed it on its top ten list of Real Ridiculous Research. The research found that sober rats don’t really like music that much. After the silence, the rats liked Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” more than Miles Davis’s iconic jazz tune “Four.” But when the rats were given...

A twin-engine aircraft crashed into the Gulf of Mexico after the pilot was unresponsive for nearly three hours as radar tracked the plane flying aimlessly in loops. The FAA lost radio contact with the Cessna 421 before 9 a.m. ET. It was circling at approximately 28,000 feet. Fully loaded, the plane was carrying about 3.5 hours worth of fuel. Only the pilot was thought to be on board. The plane took off from Slidell, La., and was en route to Sarasota, Fla., according to a flight plan. Somewhere between the two points, it began flying in circles. Officials at NORAD...

Carrier Air Wing 14 Deactivation Cancelled By SOF Editor on Mon, 04/02/2012 - 11:40am The Navy directed U.S. Pacific Fleet and Naval Air Forces to stop, and reverse the deactivation process for carrier air wing (CVW) 14 in a memo dated March 20. The National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law Dec. 31, 2011, mandates that the Navy maintain a minimum of 10 carrier air wings and a dedicated and fully staffed headquarters for each carrier air wing. Aircraft carriers along with their embarked air wings are the center pieces of America's naval forces. With more than 40 assigned aircraft,...

Some Stars Capture Rogue Planets by Staff Writers Boston MA (SPX) Apr 20, 2012 New research suggests that billions of stars in our galaxy have captured rogue planets that once roamed interstellar space. The nomad worlds, which were kicked out of the star systems in which they formed, occasionally find a new home with a different sun. This finding could explain the existence of some planets that orbit surprisingly far from their stars, and even the existence of a double-planet system. "Stars trade planets just like baseball teams trade players," said Hagai Perets of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The...