Free Republic

The mystery of the trainload of biodiesel that crossed back and forth across the Sarnia-Port Huron border without ever unloading its cargo, as reported by CBC News, has been solved.

More than 200 school districts across California are taking a second look at the high price of the debt they've taken on using risky financial arrangements. Collectively, the districts have borrowed billions in loans that defer payments for years — leaving many districts owing far more than they borrowed.

Reporting from Sacramento -- The Capitol's usual political alliances are being tested by the state's severe financial problems as interest groups scramble to hold onto as much as possible of the state's shrinking coffers...........

Authorities said a 15-year-old boy playing "cops and robbers" with a toy gun was shot and wounded by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who mistook it for the real thing.

A recent conference brought angry delegates together to protest the increasing temperatures engulfing the globe. The participants staged a rally and called for immediate action by world leaders. "Our very existence depends on temperatures not only leveling out, but actually decreasing," said one of the conference's speakers. See photo in original article for more information...

Assembly Labor and Employment Committee Chairman Sandre Swanson, D-Alameda, says lawmakers are going to have to work across the aisle to fix California's unemployment insurance fund, which will be broke by January. He apparently means lawmakers should be talking about raising the payroll tax that employers pay on each worker to bankroll the state unemployment fund. And for Legislative Republicans presumably still smug about preventing any tax increases in this year's budget fiasco, that's going to be a tall order.

Speech was given on October 12, 2007 in Newport Beach. You have extended me a very dangerous invitation tonight – to speak to a gathering of political conservatives on the day that Al Gore has received the Nobel Peace Prize for discovering that the earth’s climate is changing. I’ve heard that he’s going to contribute half of his prize money to environmental causes and use the other half to pay his electricity bill. And anything left over will come in handy to help pay for the fleet of private jets that allow him to travel around the world to tell...

To add to the farce that is known as border security, now we are faced with the travesty of unarmed border guards who are forced to deal with armed border intruders. FSM Contributing Editor Mike Cutler, a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, warns us that unless this laughingstock ends, we will most likely endure another terrorist attack, programmed to be catastrophic. Recently, unarmed National Guard troops were forced to flee when they were confronted by armed intruders who ran our nation’s border with Mexico. The troops who fled the confrontation were assigned to an entry-identification team, asigned to...

Hispanic gang specialist, retired L.A. Sheriffs Sgt. Richard Valdemar told Full Disclosure Network™ "It is my duty as a Hispanic to talk about this (the illegal immigration issue) because you cannot, you would be called a racist." In a six minute video preview of part four of a four part Special Series of interviews, Sgt. Valdemar describes what it was like to work for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for 33 years while having to deal with legal and illegal Mexican immigrants in a city that has become known as "the illegal immigration capitol of the nation."

Tom Milliron figures Juneau schoolchildren are going to encounter guns one way or another, whether venturing armed into nearby wilderness or visiting the home of a friend

Unions were created to serve an important purpose -- to protect workers' rights and safety. But in their zeal to negotiate as many benefits as possible, some may be hurting the very employees they represent.

One inmate was killed and nearly 50 were injured in a race riot Saturday afternoon at North County Correctional Facility in Castaic that may have been sparked by a feud between rival gang members, authorities said. The melee — which was quelled in about an hour — broke out around 3:20 p.m., and was contained primarily to two dormitory areas at the prison, the population of which is approximately 60 percent Latino and 30 percent black, said Sheriff Lee Baca.................... In order to maintain some semblance of order, he said as of Saturday he was segregating all black and Latino...

A 55-year-old grandmother from Seward who had her purse snatched in the parking lot of the Dimond Boulevard Costco on Monday afternoon has taken it upon herself to "catch the twirps," she said............"They are lucky I didn't have my .45 automatic. I would have blasted them," said Szymanski.

HERMISTON, Ore. -- Parked alongside his onion fields, Bob Hale can prop open a laptop and read his e-mail or, with just a keystroke, check the moisture of his crops. As the jack rabbits run by, he can watch CNN online, play a video game or turn his irrigation sprinklers on and off, all from the air conditioned comfort of his truck. While cities around the country are battling over plans to offer free or cheap Internet access, this lonely terrain is served by what is billed as the world's largest hotspot, a wireless cloud that stretches over 700 square...

There is one often overlooked item on the 109th Congressional agenda that is critical to our economy and our American system of free enterprise. I am talking about updating our nation’s telecom laws to unleash billions of dollars in new investment and economic growth, to renew America’s global competitiveness and to put consumers, rather than the government, in charge of our innovation economy. When Congress last revisited the nation’s telecom laws in 1996, the Internet was in its infancy, cell phones were rare, few people had personal computers outside of work and cable companies provided solely television service while phone...

(AP) - BOSTON-The chief judge of U.S. District Court in Boston lashed out at Congress on Tuesday for putting what he called a "chokehold" on all federal district courts, stripping them of the authority to rule on deportation cases.

I-10 closed after pursuit that started in Ventura County ended in Alhambra

LAPD files a case based on video survelience when, according to the TV report, the alleged victim does not want to press charges. To avoid copyright issues I'm not excerpting the original story but the link will get you there.

(AP) - WASHINGTON-U.S. government authorities may prosecute sick people whose doctors prescribe marijuana to ease pain, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, concluding that state laws don't protect users from a federal ban on the drug.

Valley athletes pulled from preliminaries This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Tuesday, May 10, 2005. By JOHN PURCELL Valley Press Sports Editor No class, no track, no exceptions. That's apparently the ruling from the Antelope Valley Unified High School District about high school athletes who won't be allowed to compete in this weekend's CIF-Southern Section track and field preliminaries, and it's got parents, coaches and athletes angry. Because of a districtwide rule that requires students to attend school on the day of any athletic event they expect to participate in, athletes who qualified for the section prelims...