Free Republic

TULSA — While dog-sitting for his mother earlier this month, Bryan Whalen discovered video recordings of his mother and two other people engaging in sex acts with three dogs, according to an affidavit filed Monday in Tulsa County. Authorities have charged Diane Whalen, 54, and Donald Roy Seigfried, 55, with crimes against nature, a felony that includes bestiality, said Capt. John Bowman of the Tulsa County sheriff's office. Seigfried was arrested and released Tuesday on $10,000 bail. Bowman said Whalen had not been arrested, but authorities were in contact with her lawyer. Bryan Whalen was feeding and taking care of...

SAN FRANCISCO: Reagan has his highways. Lincoln has his memorial. Washington has the capital, and a state, too. But President George W. Bush may soon be the sole president to have a memorial named after him that you can contribute to from the bathroom. prize-winning water-treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. Not surprisingly, those Republicans in a city that voted 83 percent Democratic in 2004 are not thrilled with the idea

<p>CARACAS - Grimacing from contractions, expectant mother Castuca Marino had more on her mind than birth pangs.</p> <p>She was nervous about whether she and her newborn child would make it out of the hospital alive. Interviewed as she stood in the emergency room of Concepción Palacios Maternity Hospital here last week, Marino had heard news reports of six infant deaths there over the course of a 24-hour period late in March.</p>

SEATTLE — A group of prominent local businessmen, including an attorney representing this city, discussed a "poisoned well” plan aimed partly at forcing the Oklahoma City-based owners of the SuperSonics to sell the NBA team rather than move it to their hometown. 'Poisoned Well' strategy sought to bleed... Sonics cite struggles in Seattle Plan hatched to keep Sonics in Seattle ... Testimony in federal court here Friday also revealed that Wally Walker, a former star player and executive for the team, was given the duty of driving a "wedge” between the NBA and the Sonics' owners before a critical vote...

It might not be perfect, but the manner in which the presidential candidates are chosen in the United States works. snip the $64 million question is staring everyone in the face: Where do Hillary Clinton’s supporters go from here? These are their choices: Support Barack Obama, the rival she ran such a ferocious campaign against; cross party lines and give their vote to Republican John McCain; or go for the unthinkable — abstain from voting. snip Even after Obama increased his Latino voter outreach, the numbers didn’t move his way. Major endorsements from high-profile Latino politicians such as Rep. Luis...

My dear friends at PETA are at it again. I must say, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals certainly spares no expense in pushing its cause. Over the years I’ve received dozens of mailers and packets about how we should be nice to animals and not eat meat. As a certified meat eater, I usually toss them. The latest mailing came in the form of a packet including pages of documentation and a DVD. This one caught my interest because it included 30 reasons to go vegetarian. I thought I would share some of these reasons with you, along...

Mexico is beginning to look like a real war zone. The headlines in the news media are reminiscent of those from some of the most brutal days of the Iraq War. They speak of executions, beheadings, cryptic messages and dozens of people killed in a single day. But the war against drugs that Mexico is waging is not one that can easily eliminate the enemies. snip The Mexican government has made the fight against drugs its No. 1 priority.snip The rival drug cartels are killing each other off, law enforcement agents are hunting down drug dealers, and their hit men...

CALEXICO — Two street gangs vying for control of a human-smuggling operation here has resulted in two shootings in a dense neighborhood near the border fence, police said. A man is recovering from a bullet wound after being shot by masked gunmen. Two other men are in Imperial County jail for their suspected involvement of an attempt to murder a rival. “We be-lieve it involves illegal alien smuggling and their attempts to cut into each other’s area and operations,” Calexico police Sgt. Gonzalo Gerardo said. Human smuggling in Calexico is lucrative: smugglers could receive as much as $1,500 per head...

A federal judge today blocked enforcement of employer-related provisions of the state's controversial immigration law, ruling it likely interferes with federal regulations regarding the hiring of unauthorized workers. Several business groups challenged House Bill 1804 — which has been called the toughest immigration statute in the nation — in federal court in Oklahoma City. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The State Chamber, the Oklahoma City and Tulsa chambers of commerce, and the Oklahoma restaurant and hotel and lodging associations contend the law places unreasonable burdens on businesses, according to the lawsuit filed Feb. 1 by the National Chamber Litigation Center....

Say it ain't so. Barack Obama has worked hard over the last 18 months to convince Americans that he is the untraditional politician – immune to special interests, loyal to his faith, close to the people, guided by principle. SNIP And now Obama goes and does something foolish that shows he is a traditional politician after all and may suggest that his religious convictions are not all that firm: He quits Trinity SNIP Not because he is uncomfortable sitting in the pews all those years but because other people were uncomfortable that he sat in the pews all those years....

Addressing the problems with Muslim women not wanting to wear uniforms while working in a tortilla factory http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2023331/posts My mean side says go ahead and let them wear their sacks but please pick out the body parts before packaging the product for market. I like to put my own brand of meat on tortillas. On another subject near to my heart. I lived for a while in a tolerant Muslim country and had no problems finding anything we needed or wanted. I really liked the Tiger, Fosters and Beer Bintang cause the water could kill, literally. My driver, maids, and...

Since 2002, taxpayers have entrusted San Diego community college leaders with $1.5 billion to transform three campuses, modernize six adult education centers and expand academic programs. So far, they have spent less than 15 percent of the money, constructing or renovating about a dozen buildings. The San Diego Union-Tribune analyzed thousands of district records and interviewed dozens of people and found that college officials missed many project deadlines and struggled with runaway costs for land and building materials. Failure to act quickly in the escalating real estate market cost the district millions. Delays in acquiring real estate cost millions of...

Stoked by surging natural-gas prices, San Diego's Sempra Energy has completed its new Baja California liquefied-natural-gas terminal – opening the first LNG import facility on the western coast of North America. JOHN GIBBINS / Union-Tribune Sempra Energy's new Baja California liquefied-natural-gas terminal, known as Energia Costa Azul, was completed at an estimated cost of $1 billion. JOHN GIBBINS / Union-Tribune The startup of Energia Costa Azul is part of Sempra Energy's corporate strategy that has placed a premium on being one of the top players in natural-gas infrastructure. The isolated docking facility known as Energia Costa Azul, 14 miles north...

FReepers, what do you think about requesting Cal Thomas or someone like him to address the "Gutter Language" now infesting much of our political discourse? We, meaning others and myself have grudgingly been forced to know about vulgar meanings of words that before now had no use in our everyday conversations. Last week my nine-year-old third grade daughter came home and asked me what Mack Daddy meant. I asked her where she heard the word and she stated that "the other night on television news a man called someone a Mack Daddy". I told her the man was probably talking...

Time magazine has published another one of those silly and meaningless lists some in the media occasionally and irritatingly compile to validate their self-importance. It is the 100 “most influential people in the world.” I didn’t make it, but then I don’t make other lists like People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive,” which must be an oversight. Time never tells us what qualifies these people as influential. Dictionary.com defines influence as, “the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others.” Who on Time’s list fits...

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's acting federal police chief was shot dead early Thursday outside his home – a brazen attack as drug traffickers increasingly lash back at a nationwide crackdown on organized crime. Edgar Millan Gomez was shot 10 times after opening the door to his Mexico City apartment complex, where at least one gunman was waiting for him before dawn, the Public Safety Department said. Two bodyguards were also wounded. Millan died hours later at a hospital. SNIP Garza urged U.S. lawmakers to approve the Merida Initiative, a US$500 million (euro326 million) proposal that would help fight drug crime...

Four score and seven years ago… No, wait, my mistake. Two score and seven or eight days ago, Barack Obama gave the greatest speech since the Gettysburg Address, or FDR’s First Inaugural, or JFK’s religion speech, or (if like Garry Wills in The New York Review of Books, you find those comparisons drearily obvious) Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech of 1860. And, of course, the Senator’s speech does share one quality with Cooper Union, Gettysburg, the FDR Inaugural, Henry V at Agincourt, Socrates’s Apology, etc: It’s history. He said, apropos the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, that “I could no more disown him...

The mainstream media need to get their heads out of their backsides. Seriously. If the national media is supposed to be liberal, it’s sure not doing much for liberal causes. At least that’s the opinion of this registered Democrat. Most Americans, the average kind who work long hours trying to feed their families, pay their mortgages and fuel their vehicles, don’t have the time to surf the Internet ad nauseam in pursuit of information about the candidates for president. Instead, they rely on the ABCs, CNNs and assorted major wire services to do that job for them. Unfortunately, the major...

TULSA — Americans fed up with seeing high fuel prices at the pump should take their frustration out on Democrats, Vice President Dick Cheney told a cheering partisan crowd Friday evening in downtown Tulsa. snip "Something that is absolutely critical is for us to produce more oil and gas right here in the United States,” said Cheney, who appeared at a fundraiser for the Oklahoma Republican Party on the eve of its daylong convention today. snip "The problem in Washington is that a lot of our Democratic friends year after year have tried to stand in the way of increased...

WILSON — Luke, the mixed-breed dog, was supposed to attend his owner's funeral. That's what three Wilson residents wanted to ensure over the weekend when they attempted to bust the dog out of the city pound. But the plan went awry, and now two men could face second-degree burglary charges in connection with the attempted dog break, said Wilson Police Chief Felix Hernandez. A juvenile was cited and released to his parents. SNIP Luke was picked up April 22 by local dogcatcher after he was caught once too often running the streets of Wilson. His owner, Saundra Vickers, 53, died...