Free Republic

TAMPA - One photograph shows a beautiful baby girl with a fat, happy face. Another shows a dead 5-month-old with sunken eyes. She weighed 6 pounds. Her autopsy showed no body fat. Without being told it's the same child, you'd never be able to tell. When Polk County investigators responded to a call Sunday about a baby not breathing at the Lakeland home of Tivasha Logan and Chauncey Gardner, they found more beer than baby food, Sheriff Grady Judd said. There only were about 2 ounces of formula inside the one can they saw.

Federal wildlife officials have concluded that killer whales are threatened by California's massive network of dams and water diversions, a development that could bring a massive shift in public opinion about the state's water issues. Though the iconic orca never ventures into freshwater, its primary food source does. Salmon species in the Central Valley are in bad shape, in large part due to the damming and diversion of their habitat on numerous rivers in California's interior. Their decline threatens to starve the dwindling southern resident population of killer whale, which numbers less than 90 animals. As a result, the National...

COCOA — For nine months, Theresa Clifton has rallied with roughly 50 other protesters who attended each hearing for a woman accused of moving out of her home and leaving behind her dog to starve to death, calling for nothing but the maximum yearlong jail sentence. On Thursday, a judge ordered Christine Abrams, 30, of Cocoa to spend eight months in jail as part of a 12-month probation sentence, after she pleaded no contest to two counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty for the starvation death of her 1-year-old German shepherd, Ella. Judge Kelly McKibben also ordered Abrams to perform 80...

Costa Rican artiste Guillermo Habacuc Vargas is making headlines for tying a dog from the street in an art gallery as part of an exhibit to starve it to death. The title of his exhibit "Eres Lo Que Lee" was written across the gallery in dry dog food. The food and a bowl of water were both out of the dog's reach. Eventually the animal died of starvation. The artist claimed the dog was sick and would have died anyways. Now Vargas has been selected to represent Costa Rica in Visual Arts Biennel of Central Americas 2008. The organizers have...

Five million face hunger in Zimbabwe, UN says Last Updated: 3:39PM BST 18/06/2008 The United Nations has warned that more than five million Zimbabweans could be threatened by hunger next year due to a steady drop in food production coupled with the world's highest rate of inflation. Robert Mugabe's seizure of land continues to take its toll The Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Program said in a joint report that an estimated two million people in Zimbabwe will not have enough to eat in the summer months. That figure is projected to rise to 3.8 million people...

Fred Thompson will pick up the support of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) tomorrow, according to two Republicans familar with the decision. For a candidate who came up empty-handed last week when three prominent Christian conservatives endorsed GOP hopefuls and is falling in both national and early state polls, the move comes at a critical time. NRLC is the most prominent anti-abortion group in the country, with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters. A spokesperson for the organization declined to comment on their endorsement decision, but Thompson was likely rewarded for his strong pro-life...

Gang forced starving slave to toil in fields Last Updated: 12:12am BST 27/10/2007 A starving man who was held as a slave has been freed by police. The 22-year-old, believed to be the first human slave to be found in Britain since the trade was abolished 200 years ago, was duped into leaving his home in Eastern Europe. The man had been forced to work long hours picking vegetables for the past year. He was made to hand over his wages to the gang holding him and was even denied a change of clothes. In a scene described as being...

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS -- A North Richland Hills woman accused of letting her 78-year-old husband die of malnutrition and dehydration surrendered to Tarrant County authorities Thursday night, police said.Lowesta Ann Halliburton, 43, was free Friday after posting $50,000 bail. She is expected to be charged with injury to the elderly by omission, a first-degree felony. If convicted, she faces life in prison and a $10,000 fine.Her common-law husband, Richard Hoye, died May 21 at their home.Halliburton has said that police targeted her because of the couple's 35-year age difference and the fact she is black and Hoye was white.

Mugabe feasts - as his people starve and his party plots< John Makura Gweru and Andrew Meldrum in Johannesburg Sunday February 25, 2007 The Observer (UK) Robert Mugabe celebrated his 83rd birthday yesterday with a lavish feast for the ruling elite while ordinary Zimbabweans faced shops with empty shelves. The hunger of his people, many of whom walked for miles simply to gaze at the tonnes of food on show, did not seem to put the President off his thickly frosted birthday cake, but he was said to be irked by a snub from one of his Vice-Presidents. In what...

Kim's life of luxury as the people starve By Richard Spencer in Beijing (Filed: 16/10/2006) From imported lobsters to cognac and Mercedes-Benz cars, the expensive tastes of North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong-il, have never failed to stagger those who have witnessed his conspicuous consumption. However, his love of the finer things in life, in a country where his people have been allowed to starve, is now being challenged by the United Nations sanctions imposed at the weekend. They include a clause banning the export of luxury goods to North Korea and aim to cut off or at least greatly...

<p>WASHINGTON, DC, July 3, 2006--Although the 60s are long over, about 150 aging hippies and hangers-on relived them again over Independence Day weekend. They offered themselves up as tools of the CodePink-Cindy Sheehan leftism-for-profit machine, this time at the Ghandi statue at 21st and Massachusetts Avenue NW, and later, eating off the street in front of the White House.</p>

Charles R. McNabb was five months into a hunger strike — his 5-foot-9 frame withered to less than 100 pounds — when he was wheeled into the Airway Heights prison infirmary last year. The prison medical staff wanted to insert a feeding tube. McNabb, convicted of arson, wanted to continue starving. He was remorseful, he had told jailers, for badly burning his stepdaughter.(snip) The Washington State Court of Appeals yesterday ruled that the Department of Corrections (DOC) was justified in force-feeding McNabb, setting a precedent for other state inmates who attempt hunger strikes. The five-page ruling dismissed McNabb's claim that...

The courts so purposely humiliated Congress in the Terri Schiavo case that some U.S. representatives are finally beginning to talk back. Non-elected judges have flagrantly abused the legislative and executive functions of government for so many years that we wonder why a reaction has taken this long. With the whole world watching, a mere probate judge in Florida thumbed his nose at a congressional subpoena and refused to comply. Then the federal judiciary closed ranks behind him, asserting its independence from and supremacy over not only an act of Congress, but even over the life of an innocent and defenseless...

The Humane Thing to Do Is Let Africa Starve An Editorial by Frank J. Posted by Frank J. at 11:36 AM | TrackBack (7) Africa has been a troubled region for some time. Unstable politics, genocide, aids outbreaks, mass starvation - we do what we can to help, we send money to Sally Struthers, but do we really think Africa is going to get better and be a fully functional continent again? Sure, we can keep things patched together, but each day Africa exists is just another day of suffering. It's time we face up to reality and give Africa...

It seems that many people hold a vested interest in the destruction of Terri Schiavo. Having finally found a states rights and family rights cause they can get behind, the culture of death has extended its blood lust from unborn babies to indisputably alive adults. While we've come to expect a defense for abortion from the pro-death types, what befuddles pro-lifers are the depths to which their opponents (and they are opponents) have extended this barbarous worldview. No longer content to kill babies, they now embrace destroying people in all stages of life. It seems they've lost all compassion and,...

I wrote this to a FReeper earlier. She was feeling much frustration with many here I believe because of what was, in her mind, a careless disregard for morality and the well-being of an innocent and quite defenseless girl, Terri Schiavo.The intelligent and good FReeper was at the point of wanting to leave FR. So I wrote her:*****Don't go, please. You're one of the folks here with a real good heart and very strong feelings. That is a very good combination. Don't go ........I'm getting a feeling (or a wish) that today (Wednesday) the Federal marshals or some others are...

March 4, 2005 -- Animal-welfare officials are searching for a Brooklyn fiend who threw a kitten in a trash compactor and severed its spine, and another heartless criminal who starved a young dog in The Bronx. The two shocking cases of animal cruelty were brought to light when a horrified worker found the crying kitten in an apartment building, and a cop brought the crippled dog to the city animal shelter.

According to a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll of 909 adults taken over the weekend, nearly six in 10 people said they think the feeding tube should be removed and felt they would want to remove it for a child or spouse in the same condition.

I need some help, here. I'm in a discussion at another site, and EVERY BLASTED IDIOT THERE thinks she should die. They all think the poor woman's brain dead and should just be killed. I'd like to post the videos and audios that've been taken, but I can't find them. So I REALLY need the links. Thank you for any and all help, folks.

Dictator celebrates as North Koreans starve (Filed: 17/02/2005) Kim Jong-Il celebrated his birthday in exuberant fashion yesterday, despite worsening food rations among his people and international condemnation of his nuclear ambitions. Children's dance displays, synchronised swimming, fireworks and Kim's personal touch - flower shows featuring the Kimjongilia, a form of magnolia specially bred to bloom early in his honour - marked the 63 years of North Korea's "Dear Leader". An army dance ensemble performed a concert featuring numbers such as General on a Galloping White Horse and a female solo, I Do Not Know a Warmer Bosom. Pyongyang's central square...

Stepping up his attack on the state bureaucracy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday he wants to use his budget plan to "starve the public sector" without raising taxes "because we don't want to feed the monster." In an hourlong interview with The Bee editorial board, Schwarzenegger also called a trio of Democratic constitutional officers "the Three Stooges" for criticizing his budget approach, and said legislative Democrats are focused on the "wrong things." The spending controls he has proposed and his aversion to new taxes, he added, are "not locked into eternity." "Right now, we need drastic measures," Schwarzenegger said. "We...

One: Convince the have nots that the haves are evil. Two: Decry the evils of foreigners. Three: Manipulate an election. Four: Nationalize all media sources. And the fifth stage: Expropriations. Looks like fidel castro's dream has finally been realized. He has managed to export his revolution. Hugo Chavez has gone by the book in beginning the end of Venezuela. Although I must confess that I have not followed the events in that country meticulously - I haven't been able to stomach the destruction of another country by way of Cuba's example - Venezuela is slowly sinking down the hell hole...

The Government of Cojedes state took over as proimised the British owned cattle ranch Hato El Charcote. The Goveror stil claims they are respecing private property, but "it is not absolute" whatever that means. You can read more about it here, here and here. The people at the bottom are not part of the intervention, they are the invaders of the ranch, who are protesting because the Government apparently is not going to give them the intervened land, but it will be handed over to 28 cooperatives of farmers.

I have mentioned Carlos Machado Allison in this blog before. He is retired from Universidad Central de Venezuela, was President of the Venezuelan National Fund for Agrarian Research .... He is just finishing a book called “Agriculture in Venezuela”. Today he is interviewed in page 3 of El Nacional ... here are some excerpts: “The agricultural states are the poorest of the country” On the state being the biggest landowner: “This is true; it has so much that it does not even know what it has. Some say it has 8 million hectares, other say 20 million. But there is...

As Zimbabwe shops with stolen cash, millions starve By Rachel Smith in Harare 23 December 2003 For the Christmas season, Barbours department store in First Street, central Harare, has extended its shopping hours. Gilded smiling half-moons on red crêpe paper put customers in the festive spirit. On the third-floor children's department, there is a crush round the till. Harassed mothers in the latest fitted-denim skirts from South Africa watch toddlers eyeing an American punchball set. There is a selection of Barbies and some Fisher Price-imitation lorries. One little girl with tight braids clutches a giant pink teddy bear. Price: ZWD$101,000...

<p>Wolf Blitzer's 'Late Edition' on CNN has a segment scheduled on the Terri Schindler-Schiavo situation with both sides being represented by respective attorneys.</p>

A state protection agency for disabled persons on Wednesday was planning to launch an investigation into alleged spousal abuse against Terri Schiavo, the severely brain damaged woman whose feeding tube was reinserted this week after intervention by the Florida Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush.

Bizarre Mugabe move has ecologists up in arms Sunday Argus (SA) Date posted:Mon 8-Sep-2003 Date published:Sun 7-Sep-2003 Conservationists in Zimbabwe are rallying international support to protest against the latest bizarre move by President Robert Mugabe's regime - an order to shoot thousands of buffalo at private conservancies "to contain foot-and-mouth disease" By Basildon Peta Conservationists in Zimbabwe are rallying international support to protest against the latest bizarre move by President Robert Mugabe's regime - an order to shoot thousands of buffalo at private conservancies "to contain foot-and-mouth disease". The conservationists say the order is not only "stupid", but it would...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another 9-11 date with death -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 4, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com What do you call a country that sentences its prisoners to death by starvation and dehydration? Barbaric, inhumane perhaps? Fasts, even hunger strikes, often are self-imposed for periods of time. However, no one in his right mind passes up fluids. Death by dehydration is a painful, agonizing and arduous process that takes 10 to 14 days. In addition to feeling the pangs of hunger and thirst, the skin, lips and tongue crack. The nose bleeds because of the drying of the mucus membranes....

Saturday, 18 January, 2003, 12:15 GMT'Millions could starve' in N Korea A United Nations special envoy has warned that North Korea is in the grip of a humanitarian crisis and has called for tensions over the country's nuclear programme to be resolved. There is a serious and ominous risk that this crisis could escalate. Maurice Strong, speaking after three days of talks in Pyongyang, warned that the country was on the brink of mass starvation. He said up to eight million people were in a "life or death" situation. "You cannot make the children, the ill people, the old people...

Mugabe land grab leaves horses to starve By Jenny Booth (Filed: 20/10/2002) Starving and slowly dying, Zimbabwean horses are stark reminders of the cruelty inflicted on farm animals when President Robert Mugabe ordered thousands of white farmers to leave their land. As the farmers fled, few of their pets and working animals could be evacuated. Although some dogs and cats were quarantined and taken out of the country, greater numbers were put down by vets - until the necessary drugs ran low. For the farm horses, however, there was almost no hope. As they were unable to forage, the choices...

'Sickening' U.N. Elitists Gorge on Caviar as Africans Starve The London Sun today blasted the "sickening champagne and caviar lifestyle being enjoyed by Earth Summit delegates." Just like at the so-called World Food Summit, "They are gorging on mountains of lobster, oysters and fillet steak at the Johannesburg conference — aimed at ending FAMINE," raged the newspaper. And they wash it all down with the finest champagnes and wines, of course. "As the summit began yesterday, desperate kids in nearby shanty towns queued for water at standpipes." Even the self-styled "environmentalist" left-wing group Friends of the Earth called the face-feeding...