Free Republic

On Oct. 12, 2018, 16-year-old Karlie Gusé attended a party near her home in Chalfant Valley, a dessert town near Bishop, Calif. According to her boyfriend and others at the party, Karlie smoked marijuana—which may or may not have been laced with another drug—and immediately fell ill. She began to experience intense fear and paranoia, eventually calling her stepmother to ask for a ride home. But, at 9 p.m., Melissa Gusé found Karlie running down a street, away from the party. No one knew it then, but that was only the first of two times Karlie would run scared down...

When an animal dies in a forest or field its body usually becomes food for scavengers large and small. Sometimes that includes larger animals like vultures or wild dogs, but it’s usually insects that are left to clean up the last bits of tissue. The bottom of the sea is no different and, as a new video from the Gulf of Mexico reveals, there’s always something waiting for a free meal. Scientists from LUMCON were studying the effects of “food falls” in the sea, providing marine scavengers with a feast by dropping dead alligators into the Gulf and then observing...

/begin my excerpts N. Korea's Gentleman Scavengers Devouring Leftovers at Restaurants because... In N. Korea's restaurant districts, well-dressed 'gentleman scavengers' are popping up. Rations are not enough to cover their (basic) need and they make up the shortfall at restaurants. According to 'Open Radio for N. Korea,' a female Pyongyang resident in her 50's conveyed, "To make up their need, rising number of people are getting their meals from leftovers at Pyongyang's restaurants." In Pyongyang, only those at a household whose head has a job, get food rations, but it is not enough for family members to last for a...

NEW YORK -- Dinner shared by a group of friends at a well-appointed Greenwich Village apartment featured eggplant Parmesan with a salad of mixed greens and avocado dressing. The guests already had snacked on hors d'oeuvres of smoked mozzarella and crackers. Not bad considering the diners find their food by digging through garbage. They call themselves "freegans," a play on the words "vegan"-- vegetarians who avoid all animal products, including dairy -- and "free." In an ideological rejection of consumer waste, they only eat food that's been discarded.

DEAR ABBY: Last April, my nephew, "Frank," a first lieutenant in the Army, was on the third day of a road trip from Fort Campbell, Ky., to Seattle to deliver his pickup truck to his parents' home for storage during his second tour of duty in Iraq. He was on I-80 near Cheyenne, Wyo., in a snowstorm when his truck skidded on an icy patch, collided with a big rig, rolled over multiple times and landed off the roadway in the snow. Frank had multiple deep lacerations to his head, legs and feet, crushed bones in one foot and back,...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) -- Amid rising hopes for a high-tech turnaround, there's this sobering sign: Martin Pichinson - a man who has buried nearly 150 failed startups since 1999 - has swooped into Silicon Valley like a vulture lurking over a pack of wounded animals. Pichinson, a self-described "doctor of reality" who helps liquidate companies, says he wouldn't have moved from Los Angeles to Palo Alto a few months ago had he not smelled more high-tech trouble looming. "Sadly, it looks like 2004 is going to be another busy year...