Free Republic

Haifa resident asks court to keep the Almighty away, claiming He is being mean to him An Israeli man has petitioned the Haifa Magistrate’s Court for a restraining order against God, claiming the Almighty has been particularly unkind to him. The initiator of the request, a resident of the northern port city, represented himself in court, the Walla news site reported on Wednesday. A protocol of the hearing noted that God did not turn up for the session, although it did not specify how the court determined the Omnipresent was not in fact there, as opposed to merely exercising the...

An Iowa City woman is accused of faking a domestic assault so she could have the father of her child arrested. ... Before officers responded to the scene, a co-defendant, 29-year-old Jessica Morales, punched Cole in the eye so she would have an injury, police said. Police said Cole was crying “hysterically” as she gave a false report about the assault. ... As a result of her actions, the father of Cole’s child — who also lives with Cole — was arrested and charged with domestic assault. Police said Cole and Morales admitted to having her child’s father arrested so...

IOWA CITY — Two Iowa City police officers were treated and released from the hospital after an accidental shooting Monday night. According to a news release the officers were cleaning and maintaining their service weapons when one of the officer accidentally fired. “Over the course of this generally routine maintenance, an Iowa City Police Officer accidentally discharged a service weapon which in turn caused non-life threatening injuries to the officer and another officer who was standing nearby,” the release stated. The incident happened around 8:30 at the at the Iowa City Police Department substation, on Highway 6 East. The release...

It seems as though profit-maximizing business people ought to be speaking up loudly and often for three changes in our culture, changes that while making life better also have a dramatically positive impact on their organizations. Minimum Wage, Climate Change, and Anti-corruption movements.

... A short while ago, there was a story making the rounds about how the Mac App Store was “cracked,” making it possible for users to gain access to apps without paying for them. I won’t get into the details here, because it doesn’t really matter. You see, Apple has taken a different approach with the Mac App Store. It’s an honor thing, and I like that. With many software products, I need to have a license code at the ready just to install them on my Mac. When I’m done, that software then must connect via the Internet to...

They put their right foots in, they put their right foots out, and with former Iowa football coach Hayden Fry watching, a world-record crowd shook it all about Friday night. Fry returned to the second-annual FRY Fest, the celebration named in his honor that precedes the Hawkeye football season, which kicks off Saturday. The highlight of this year’s event – besides the appearance of Fry himself, of course – was a successful attempt to set a Guinness World Record in the Hokey Pokey, the signature celebration of Fry’s teams after big wins. The official count was 7,384 dancers outside the...

It'd be an understatement to say that this has been a terrible week for Apple, and we haven't even reached the halfway point. On Monday, Consumer Reports dealt a devastating blow to the iPhone 4 when it declined to recommend the device to consumers due to the antenna reception problem.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- No one will be spared, not even the Queen. Britain's coalition government on Tuesday put out the country's harshest budget in decades. The plan makes clear that Britain is dead serious about attacking the country's debt burden, which is among the largest and fastest-growing in Europe. So serious, in fact, that a higher capital gains tax rate will take effect at midnight for high-income taxpayers.

Without doubt, the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound "Freedom Flotilla" in the dawn of Monday, May 31, 2010 is one of the most savage crimes in recent history.

The prophet has spoken, and his words provide both hope and fear to the computer world. In front of a rapt audience of tech executives at an industry conference on Tuesday night, Apple maestro Steve Jobs predicted the end of the PC era. And what will replace the device that has transformed every aspect of business and society over the past 25 years? Well, it just so happens that Jobs believes the next phase of the computer revolution will be dominated by a device that looks a lot like the iPad tablet he introduced so successfully two months ago.

DES MOINES – Gov. Chet Culver today signed legislation that will make Iowa a “shall issue” state when it comes to county sheriffs issuing permits to acquire or carry a concealed weapon.

A Des Moines girl was suspended after school officials said she violated their weapons policy. Jazmine Martin, 12, brought an empty shotgun shell to school on Monday, a souvenir from a summer vacation to South Dakota. The shell was empty and had the word "blank" written on the front.

Cedar Rapids businessman and flood recovery leader Christian Fong has entered the race for governor, calling for new leadership to restore the Iowa dream. “Sadly, today I see the dream being ripped away from future generations,” Fong said. He’s seeking the Republican nomination to challenge first-term Democratic Gov. Chet Culver. “The dream has to be restored.”

In an unusually heated attack on a veteran political reporter by a cable news host, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann laced into the Associated Press's Charles Babington an hour after Barack Obama had concluded his speech in Denver on Thursday night. ... So Olbermann was outraged that the AP's Babington had written, in his analysis of the speech, just off the wire, that Obama had tried nothing new and that his speech was lacking in specifics. He read the first few paragraphs on the air, lamented that it would be printed in hundred of newspapers on Friday, and concluded, "It is analysis...

That was the reaction from Southeast Asia to West Africa as people in developing countries wondered how something so common to them could bring a huge swath of the world's superpower to a grinding halt. "Look at their response there in New York," popular radio commentator Joe Taruc wondered aloud in his Friday morning talk show in Manila. "If it happened here, it would be nothing out of the ordinary." Hot weather, storms, rebel attacks, even giant schools of jellyfish have been known to send power grids crashing like dominoes in countries already struggling to keep up with rising electricity...

Knight(police chief in West Branch, Iowa), after receiving a call about a loose dog harassing another pet, followed a "big black dog" in an area around Oliphant Street and north of the Hoover Elementary campus. That resulted in finding an eight-year-old black lab in the back yard of the Mike and Jana Andrews' home. Threatened by the dog, Knight shot it.Case of mistaken identity. This dog looked like the loose dog, but 'Riker' was in his own fenced-in back yard, and the owner was on the patio - the dog had been out less than 1 minute. She saw the ...

Meat eaters confront Kernel Corn from PETA By Janet Rorholm The Gazette Friday, February 01, 2002, 10:01:08 AM CEDAR RAPIDS -- Protesters eating chili, hamburgers and chicken while holding signs "Honk if you eat meat" were on hand to greet PETA's new anti-meat mascot, Kernel Corn, when the large cob arrived at Pierce Elementary School on Thursday. More than two dozen high school students from Kennedy High School, which is next door to Pierce, 4343 Marilyn Dr. NE, protested the cob's visit. "Parents have the right to decide what is the best diet for kids. These are growing, developing children ...