Free Republic

Sound bites from the left. Sound bites to the right; here I am, stuck in the middle with you (STEALERS WHEEL). The House Budget Committee was in full political regalia as posturing for the home folks and November’s election was in full force. Most of the questions are redundant or ridiculous and in some cases, both. An exception was Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who asked Mr.Bernanke if the FED‘s policies had corrupted the BOND markets that they stopped sending a credible signal. It has been a consistent theme of NOTES that the BOND market is broken as an indicator of...

On January 19, 2010, in a speech from the White House yard, the president sank to a new low. In a speech more appropriate to the back door of a mansion than the Rose Garden, he resorted to the age-old technique of begging… not on one’s own behalf – that would be embarrassing – but on the behalf of family, friends, or other worthies. I’m reminded of the gaggles of panhandlers famous in the piazzas and town squares of Europe. When last I visited my ancestral home town of Pizzo Calabro, I was warned to beware of Calabria’s omnipresent families...

Oh, this is rich. I’m laughing so hard, it’s difficult to type. Only in California. For a few years now, I’ve been signed up for Barbara Boxer’s campaign solicitations. Keep your enemies closer and all that. So, today Ms. Boxer is just tickled pink all over to announce to her California groupies that the one, the only, the prophet of global warming, the Oscar-winning, Peace-prize-taking guy who got filthy rich hawking gloom-and-doom snake oil to the world is coming to L.A.!!!! Just for her. So they can both stand in the same room together begging for more money from the...

Two young boys, twelve or so, sitting outside a bagel store, one of them had said to me, “Hey, lend me a dollar.” See Articles & Stuff "What would you do? "

Another addition to the journals of the absurd… we’ve got a panhandler who was arrested for begging without a permit in North Carolina. The story from WRAL…

THE hours are long and the work monotonous, but begging pays well for at least one of Sydney's homeless men who earns up to $50,000 a year from good samaritans. Ken Johnson, 52, makes his living on busy George and Market St, outside the Myer store in Sydney's CBD, where he sits for up to 16 hours daily, seven days a week.

Research Highlights Nature 459, 618 (4 June 2009) | doi:10.1038/459618a; Published online 3 June 2009 Animal behaviour: Pretty please Many young animals beg for food from their elders. But, eventually, the pleading stops or the charity dries up. Joah Madden, at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his team looked to find the biological triggers that put an end to begging behaviour by studying free-ranging meerkats (Suricata suricatta) of the Kalahari Desert in South Africa over an 18-month period. The group analysed the begging calls of meerkat pups aged between 40 and 60 days — the peak of their begging...

I saw a clip of this video on Bill O'Reilly's show tonight (don't ask me why I was watching -- I probably shouldn't have drunk (drank?) (drinked?) a whole bottle of Nyquil but that's water under the bridge). The video is of bears begging for food from visitors at a zoo. They perform some hilarious antics but I can't quite decide if they are for real or is it one of those computer generated deals like that commercial a few years ago of a bear fighting a guy who just caught a salmon.

Being a beggar will not be so easy anymore if draft legislation approved by the cabinet yesterday becomes law. The bill proposed by the Human Security and Social Development Ministry sets conditions for people who want to be beggars. They must provide proof they are underprivileged, disabled, homeless or elderly without children to care for them. And this will be a reserved occupation, exclusively for Thais who must carry ID cards. Would-be professional beggars will have to report to local administration organisations for approval and work permits. Local agencies will be responsible for controlling beggars in their jurisdictions, while the...

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) - A police survey says panhandlers outside a Wal-Mart here can make $300 a day. Inside, it takes a clerk a week to make that much. Police say people who have a problem with that needn't look to the law--asking for money is considered protected free speech. "We are not going to target panhandlers," said Coos Bay Police Capt. Rodger Craddock, who spoke a recent gathering of business owners about panhandling. "We can't do that. But if they aren't getting money from us, they aren't going to stand on that corner." He said most panhandlers are...

Sam Grabarski, president of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, pulled his car into the parking lot behind the Shubert Theater on Hennepin Avenue several weeks ago. A man opened his door, grabbed him and demanded money. Grabarski shoved the man away and then followed him out of the parking lot to ensure that the aggressive panhandler accosted no one else. Brazen conduct such as this is still rare in Minneapolis, says Grabarski. Increasingly, however, "livability" crimes, from panhandling to public urination. are undermining the quality of life in the city. "People don't expect to be the victim of a felony --...