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PORONG, Indonesia -- For nine months, a gaping hole in the ground has spit out a torrent of hot, black mud, swallowing thousands of houses outside Indonesia's second-largest city and attracting amazed geologists from around the world. Most say the flow is unstoppable, but Indonesian specialists refuse to listen, and they have recently begun carrying out a scheme straight from a Hollywood movie: dropping nearly 1,500 concrete balls into the mouth of the mud volcano. "We know lots of people think this is a crazy idea," said Satria Bijaksana, a professor and one of three geologists behind the $130 million...

Before she set a toe on the red carpet at the Golden Globes last week, Angelina Jolie’s carefully molded image as humanitarian and mom was already showing some cracks. The Internet had been flooded with reports, picked up from European interviews, that she had called her biological daughter “a blob” with less personality than her two adopted kids, and had criticized Madonna’s adoption of a baby boy from Malawi. Women’s Wear Daily reported she was being difficult about designs from St. John, the staid company whose ads she appears in and whose conservatively elegant gown she wore to the Globes....

52 REASONS NOT TO MOW 37 WAYS TO HELP TREES Please download with 100% cotton, rice, recycled, or scrap paper Ron Howard, director of A Beautiful Mind and many other films,made his first film at age 8.. an anti mowing film which showed the nature of mowers' attacks on lawns. Art Buchwald: People shouldn't be judged by the length of their grass. In 2003 through now, the world has seen floods, famine, fire, mudslides, hurricanes, tornados and other disasters created by the unprecedented destruction of trees around the world. Trees are nature's weather stabilizers. We need trillions of trees.. new...

A ball of gas more massive than a billion suns is hurtling like an enormous comet through the interior of a distant galaxy cluster. The massive structure is held together by mysterious dark matter, astronomers said today, but it is steadily breaking apart and becoming fuel for new stars. "This is likely a massive building block being delivered to one of the largest assembly of galaxies we know," said study team member Alexis Finoguenov of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The finding is detailed in the June 6 issue of Astrophysical Journal. Great ball of fire The gas blob...

THESE ARE THE SENATORS WHO VOTED TO GIVE SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS TO ILLEGAL ALIENS REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL PARTY, THESE POLITICIANS NEED TO BE DEFEATED IN 2006, 2008 OR 2010, WHENEVER THEY NEXT COME UP FOR OFFICE. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW; THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO KNOW THIS INFORMATION -- THAT IS, UNLESS THEY DO NOT MIND SHARING THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY WITH FOREIGN WORKERS WHO NEVER PAID INTO IT AND AMERICAN CITIZENS ARE BEING LEFT OUT. Grouped by Home State Alabama: Alaska: Stevens (R-AK), Yea Arizona: McCain (R-AZ), Yea Arkansas: Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR),...

I am curious why none of the media covers the most important aspect of the Malvo shootings. If you look at Newspapers on the dates when the shootings are underway you discover something I find quite interesting. The shootings begin to dominate the news the day before the debate on the Iraq war starts and they catch them the day after the declaration of war??? If you ask most people "do you remember the debate about starting the second Iraq war", they will all answer "yes of course". But if you followup with the question "name one point in the...

I recently received a reply to a post that stated: "This should be beneath a "freeper". Sad." So I asked.. what is it that makes a FReeper? My reply (and I will admit was tasteless) was also questioning. It stirred controversy and was removed? Why Moderators? Can you not tell me? Did it not meet with your "FReeper" mentality? According to all posted guidelines it should be listed but no, you chose to delete it. Yes.. I'm the first one IBTZ, I'm sure you'll nick me for speaking up..

Songwriter Burt Bacharach is releasing an explicit version of his controversial song Who Are These People? The song slams US President George W Bush and his administration and features Elvis Costello wailing an expletive at the end...

Halifax — Scientists will begin probing waters off Nova Scotia in search of a slimy creature they believe is slithering north and could be blanketing some of Canada's richest fishing grounds.Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey plan to head out Monday to a vast area over the Canadian portion of Georges Bank to look for a colony of sea squirts nicknamed the Blob for its icky texture and habit of covering most everything in its path. “It's something new. It covers up the bottom and it forms a barrier between fish and what fish feed on, so logically you'd think...

HALIFAX – Scientists will begin probing waters off Nova Scotia in search of a slimy creature they believe is slithering north and could be blanketing some of Canada’s richest fishing grounds. Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey plan to head out today to a vast area over the Canadian portion of Georges Bank to look for a colony of sea squirts nicknamed the Blob for its icky texture and habit of covering almost everything in its path. ‘Covers the bottom’ “It’s something new. It covers up the bottom and it forms a barrier between fish and what fish feed on,...

Many argue that communism will never be possible because of "human nature". The essence of this false argument is the belief that a communist society would consist of an all-powerful central government that would tell everybody what to do--and would therefore undermine the creative initiative of individuals and the search for happiness. • This argument is based on two false assumptions: (1) It assumes that a communist society will look like the former Soviet Union, or the current China, North Korea, etc (ie: corrupt police states with a feudal-style ruling class) (2) It assumes that people will only work in...

why do people keep banning me everytime I put up interesting articles? I work for a website I think some of you are familiar with called phantirath weekly world news and each time we put somthing up on FR no matter how conservative it is it keeps getting banned. Whats the matter with it?! Damn man what are you marxist socialists communists? I just got a call this mroning from a Juwish friend of mine who said that you banned an important article about Zionism and Noam Federman and about how we were to support israel. I thought you guys...

One of the hardest films ever to sit through, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" challenges one's instincts about fairness and objectivity, even in the subjective sphere of reviewing. It arrives, like Moore's earlier "Roger & Me" and "Bowling for Columbine," in the guise of a documentary.

LITTLE EGG HARBOR, N.J -- It smells like rotten eggs at best, decomposing flesh at worst. It looks like the pods from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." To the people whose homes back up onto a Tuckerton Creek tributary where the gelatinous substance recently appeared, it's just "The Blob." "It's frightening," said Eileen Masterson, 66. "We can't swim because the odor is so horrible and we won't crab here because we don't know whether it's safe." The substance, which was noticed about two weeks ago, consists of jelly-like bulbs that undulate with the waves just below the surface. By most...

<p>Chilean scientists said on Friday their study of a huge blob of flesh found on a Pacific beach about three weeks ago concluded it was the carcass of a sperm whale, ending speculation of a giant octopus.</p> <p>Scientists have been baffled by the 40-foot-long (12-meter) mass of gelatinous tissue found on a remote beach in southern Chile, with initial hunches ranging from whale blubber to a disputed species of giant octopus.</p>

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Scientists said on Wednesday a huge mass of slimy flesh that washed up on a Chilean beach last week may be a rare type of giant octopus or just discarded whale blubber. European zoologists contacted by the Chileans to help identify the 40-foot-long (12-meter) piece of gelatinous tissue said it closely resembled descriptions of a bizarre specimen found in Florida in 1896 that was named "octopus giganteus" and has confounded experts ever since. Other informal sightings of similar deep-sea creatures by fishermen and divers from the Bahamas to Tasmania are the stuff of folklore on the...

Michael "The Blob" Moore should be the subject of talk radio today. Please post comments here about the reaction on the shows to which you listen. I expect Larry Elder, among others, to rip him to shreds.

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 November 1 Europa's Freckles Credit: R. Pappalardo (U. Colorado) et al., Galileo Project, JPL, NASA Explanation: Europa, one of Jupiter's large Galilean moons, may well posses an ocean of liquid water hidden beneath its icy surface -- and so holds the tantalizing possibility of life. In this image, constructed with data recorded in 1996 and 1997 by the Galileo spacecraft, Europa's characteristic surface ridges and cracks are...