Free Republic

More than 140 people were injured when gas-filled balloons exploded at a governing party campaign concert in the Armenian capital.

At 7:50 am Friday morning, CNNMoney reported on the embarrassingly small number of jobs the “green” energy industry has contributed to the nation’s workforce. The story was titled “‘Green’ jobs just a small portion of workforce.” -------- “As Kermit knows, it’s not easy being green,” the story began. “There were only 3.1 million green jobs in the U.S. in 2010.” Translation: After receiving billions in federal subsidies ($100 billion from the stimulus program alone), “green” jobs account for only 2.4 percent of the nation’s employment. Seeing as how taxpayer dollars are being thrown at “green” energy projects under the guise...

FBI agents arrested a 29-year-old man in a sting operation Friday night who planned a suicide bombing attack on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd told reporters the suspect had been closely monitored by law enforcement while planning to detonate what he believed were explosives. He allegedly prayed in a Washington mosque shortly before his arrest. The suspect was allegedly of Moroccan descent and has spent 12 years in the United States, but it is not clear whether he has U.S. citizenship. He had been under surveillance for several weeks, sources said, and had considered a...

Did Wisconsin’s Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs cut a secret access deal with one of Madison’s most infamous protesters? That’s the question being asked after one of our reporters caught an interesting conversation at the Wisconsin Capitol. While the rally was in violation of the policy governing access to state facilities, it appears protesters may have established an understanding with Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs. As he was speaking to veteran protester Miles Kristan about their understanding, the chief asked our reporter to leave. “You told me you were going to help me with this,” Tubbs is overheard saying to...

A young man who spray-painted the words “Free Yigal Amir” on the Rabin memorial in Tel Aviv has been met with wildly different responses, from support and understanding to calls for a severe punishment. Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai issued perhaps the strongest response, saying Friday, “The hands that permitted themselves to harm what is holy and important to the people of Israel should be chopped off.” The Labor party called for a harsh response as well. “The murder of Rabin and the memorial are a national symbol that reminds us that extremism and violence are a threat to Israeli...

A team of researchers believes it has found proof that the Soviets-Russians hid information on Raoul Wallenberg It has long been suspected that Russia has deliberately concealed information on the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the courageous Swedish diplomat who rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. Wallenberg was arrested in Budapest after Soviet troops entered the city in 1945 and never seen again. The Soviet Union claimed alternatively that he had died or had been executed shortly afterwards. Former Soviet prisoners testified that they saw him alive during the 1980s when he was merely identified by number rather than...

For those haven't seen the evidence of Tuesday's blatant silver manipulation (which we expected beforehand here), where the cartel sold 250,000,000 paper ounces of silver (1/4th of Global world silver production) in 1 minute to smack down silver, prepare to have your eyes opened. 5 times the volume of all silver mined in the US annually was sold in 1 minute to knock silver below $40. We have said repeatedly to expect the cartel to become more and more like a caged animal as the silver manipulation end game nears.

For all those who believed that it was only JP Morgan who is manipulating the Brent-WTI spread, we regretfully have to inform you that the squid is once again front and center, having now been caught red-handed by none other than the ICE exchange, aka the home of Brent trading. From a just disclosed complaint: "On 28 January 2011 the Exchange’s monitoring detected six notable “price spikes” in the April11 Brent/WTI spread, between 14:26 hours and 14:31 hours UK time. These were investigated and found to be the result of a limit order and several large market orders placed in...

Sobhi Saleh, a top Muslim Brotherhood leader who was elected by Egypt's Supreme Council to be on the constitution amendment committee, recently gave a speech wherein he insisted that Brotherhood men should only marry Brotherhood women, since they are "superior" to other Muslim women in Egypt—and so they can "produce little Brotherhood kids." He also likened Egyptian secularists to atheists (that is, infidels) and referred to Egyptians disagreeing with the Brotherhood as qaum lut, the "People of Lot," the Koran's unflattering appellation for sexually depraved societies. Muslim Brotherhood leader and liar, Sobhi SalehTo "clarify" his position, which he received some...

Communists have a well deserved reputation for altering history or "sanitizing the past to suit their purpose. But that's all in the past, they are open and honest now.... they would never use deception to advance their agenda, would they......? President Obama has a long history with several radical groups, including the Communist Party USA. The communists naturally want to protect their "friend" from negative fallout should such associations become publicly known. It seems they are even willing to censor or alter their own publications to hide evidence of their past support for the President. Thankfully "wayback" provides proof positive...

Update: Thanks to Instapundit and Memeorandum for the links. Please bear with us in that the site is getting more traffic than usual and the hamsters turning the wheels are getting tired. Update (II): Welcome readers from Legal Insurrection. Also I see now that Ace of Spades HQ caught the revision, but I guess wasn’t able to document it like I was able to. (I accidentally preserved a copy.) Also below DRJ provides a link to the official policies of the AP, including corrections. Basically they are supposed to report changes unless it is a live event in progress. So...

With one in seven Americans living in poverty, with unemployment at record levels, with an unprecedented national deficit, with foreclosures up and businesses down you’d think the Obama Administration and Democratic National Committee (DNC) would be focusing on the economy. You’d be wrong. Instead, the Community Organizer in Chief and the radical left is focusing its energy on stalking and harassing top conservatives and tea party patriots. On Saturday, September 18, Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart headlined an event entitled “Right Nation 2010,” held just outside of Chicago, Illinois.

John McCluskey and Casslyn Welch, the Arizona prison escapee and his accomplice, who are also wanted for a double murder, have been apprehended in Springerville, Arizona.

(CNSNEWS.COM EXCLUSIVE) -- In the three fiscal years from 2007-2009, the Department of Homeland Security caught and released 481 illegal aliens from state sponsors of terrorism and “countries of interest” who are now fugitives, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement database obtained by CNSNews.com as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request. The four state sponsors of terrorism, as determined by the State Department, are Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba. The “countries of interest” are those additional countries whose citizens have been subjected to enhanced screening on U.S.-bound flights by the Transportation Security Administration as a result...

Connecticut’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, having just been caught in a BIG LIE about military service during the Vietnam war, is now considered damaged goods, and I mean DAMAGED GOODS BIGTIME. Even with any support coming to him from the state of Connecticut employees unions, he will be remembered for this brand new scandal.

Ed Miliband’s adverts banned for overstating climate changeThe adverts' claims 'were not supported by science' TWO government advertisements that use nursery rhymes to warn people of the dangers of climate change have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for exaggerating the potential harm.The adverts, commissioned by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, used the rhymes to suggest that Britain faces an inevitable increase in storms, floods and heat waves unless greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control.The ASA has ruled that the claims made in the newspaper adverts were not supported by solid science and has told the Department...

“It is almost impossible to know who is the government and who the lobbyists. They have merged into one single animal with different faces.” – Dr. Gabriel Calzada, Spanish economics professor and researcher BACKGROUND: Last March, Spanish economics professor Gabriel Calzada published an academic analysis that showed for every green job created in Spain, 2.2 jobs were lost as an opportunity cost. This finding contradicted the Obama Administration’s claim that massive subsidies for wind and solar energy would create jobs. Calzada’s study gained national attention from the media and policymakers, making it difficult for the Administration to advance such failed...

PARIS (AFP) – Leading French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy has been caught red-faced for praising the work of a philosopher who, it turns out, was invented as a joke by a journalist from a satirical daily. In his latest book "De la guerre en philosophie" (Making war in philosophy), Levy quoted Jean-Baptiste Botul, an expert on German philosopher Immanuel Kant created by journalist Frederic Pages. Levy acknowledged late Monday that he had often quoted Botul's work "The sex life of Immanuel Kant" during many public appearances and in the pages of his latest book. "As it turns out, it was a...

A German man mooning at railway staff in a departing train got his trousers caught in a carriage door and ended up being dragged half naked along the platform, out of the station and onto the tracks. The 22-year-old journalism student shoved his backside against the window of a low-slung double-decker train when staff forced him off in Lauenbrueck for travelling without a ticket, a spokesman for police in the northern city of Bremen said. "It's a miracle he wasn't badly hurt," the spokesman said on Monday. "This sort of thing can end up killing you." Instead, dangling by his...

A Scituate man reeled in a 624-pound mako shark Thursday, possibly breaking the record for the biggest male mako ever caught, a biologist said. “I’ve caught a million sharks before, but never anything this feisty,” said Taylor Sears, 20, a Massachusetts Maritime Academy junior who said he fishes every day of the summer. Greg Skomal, a shark specialist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries, said the 10-foot fish is the largest male mako shark ever to be recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, and appears to be the largest male ever caught. “We didn’t think they got this big, basically,”...

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington -- The Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center, a job-training facility in one of Los Angeles' poorest neighborhoods, is threatened with receiving no federal money at a time of high unemployment -- simply because of its name. The center has become a victim of a move on Capitol Hill to block funding for projects that bear the monikers of sitting lawmakers. "It doesn't seem fair that rich private entities can get funded and this poor school cannot," said Rep. Waters (D-Los Angeles), who had a heated confrontation with Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.)...

(IsraelNN.com) The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) publicized last week’s bulldozer terrorist attack in Jerusalem with the headline “Tractor driver shot in Jerusalem,” the media watchdog Honest Reporting website reported. The headline eventually was changed to “New digger attack in Jerusalem,” but the lead of the article simply stated that the driver was shot dead by police. In the second paragraph, the BBC told its readers, “Israeli police say they are treating it as a terrorist attack.”

(IsraelNN.com) A United Nations Security Council committee confirmed on Tuesday that Iran violated U.N. sanctions by trying to send a ship with weapons to Syria. The high-explosive shells, including those than can pierce armor, and anti-tank explosives may have been destined for Hamas terrorists in Gaza, Hizbullah in Iran or Syrian-backed Iraqis, Council diplomats told the Associated Press.

By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “this is a remote place," they said, "and it’s already very late. Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. But he answered, "You give them something to eat." Mark 6:35-37 Jesus, even after spending time with his disciples in a boat and teaching those who followed the boat to the shore, still wanted to minister to the people. His disciples were slow to catch on regarding his mission. Later we’ll see the...

Chicago, IL (AHN) - Eight deaths in Illinois and Missouri are being linked to a 28-year old man sighted near the border of the two states. The Illinois State Police called Nicholas Sheley of Sterling "a person of interest". Sheley is armed, dangerous and has a $25,000 prize money on his head. He has been linked to at least five of the homicides, including four people whose corpse were discovered in an apartment at Rock Falls.

WNYW-TV: What you're about to see raises serious questions about the character and reputation of an elite and highly trained part of the police department.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25, 2007 – Coalition forces detained three suspected militants in the Nerkh district of Afghanistan’s Wardak province yesterday. The troops caught the suspects during a search of buildings believed to be militant hiding places. “Coalition forces conducted a search of the compounds in the Nerkh district for militants indicated to be in the area,” said Army Maj. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force 82. In earlier operations, coalition forces killed several militants and detained two others in the Nerkh district of Wardak province Oct. 23. A follow-on search yielded a weapons cache containing explosive materials,...

JERUSALEM – Islamic authorities using heavy machinery to dig on the Temple Mount – Judaism's holiest site – have been caught red-handed destroying Temple-era antiquities and what's believed to be a section of an outer wall of the Second Jewish Temple.

A motorist in Helsingborg has been ordered to pay back over a quarter of a million kronor in disability benefits after claiming to be blind for a period of ten years. The person in question was caught driving a car on three separate occasions while at the same time receiving benefits totalling 268,000 kronor ($38,500). The Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) explained its decision to request reimbursement in a letter to the individual concerned: "While investigating your case in the autumn of 2006, we received information suggesting that you cannot be considered sightless.

Two suspected thieves were nabbed after mistakenly telephoning police as they tried to set up a drug deal, police in California say. The two men - Paul White, 38 and Ryan Ogle, 25 - were arrested after dialing the emergency number 911 in an attempt to page a drug dealer, Pomona police sergeant Eddie Vazquez says. The misplaced phone call from a public booth alerted police, who arrived on the scene and found the men standing beside a car which had been reported as stolen, Sergeant Vazquez says. He says the men were arrested for various offences, including auto theft,...

A man wanted for attempted murder in Maricopa County was caught by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers Sunday night while crossing into the United States from Mexico at the San Luis port-of-entry. Just after 11 p.m. Julian Angel Tamayo, 20, tried to enter the United States on foot, according to a press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. When questioned by authorities, Tamayo refused to identify himself and, as he grew increasingly nervous, he asked to return to Mexico. Customs and Border Protection officers then took Tamayo into custody. After fingerprinting him they learned he was wanted for...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A convicted murderer who escaped from a Michigan psychiatric facility in 1976 was back behind bars Thursday after living most of his 30 years on the run as an otherwise law-abiding family man in Tennessee, authorities said. Thomas Ball, 76, was arrested at his Nashville home Wednesday morning, Deputy U.S. Marshal Danny Shelton said. Ball had been using the name Thomas Fry and had run a storage business near Nashville for years with a woman he called his wife, Shelton said. After she died last year, he turned to the government for financial help, and that led...

A failure by the U.S. and the European Union to reach a new agreement next month on the provision of passenger data for transatlantic flights could ground up to 105,000 people each week, the International Air Transport Association's director general said Thursday. The two sides need to reach a new accord by the end of September, after the European Court of Justice ruled in May that the current agreement is unacceptable. That agreement calls for airlines to provide U.S. authorities with the names, addresses, ticket payment details, and telephone numbers of passengers on U.S.-bound flights. The EU's highest court ruled...

Ivy League Professor Caught with Videos That Show Him Having Sex with Children, Feds Say August 28, 2006 6:10 PMJack Date Reports: An Ivy League business school professor is in federal custody for allegedly having videos of himself engaging in sexual acts with children, ABC News has learned.Lawrence Scott Ward, 63, Professor Emeritus of Marketing at University of Pennsylvania's renowned Wharton School of Business, was caught with child pornography in his luggage and on his laptop computer after arriving at Dulles International Airport on a flight from Brazil, according to court documents.An affidavit in support of a criminal complaint...

BISBEE — A Phoenix woman caught in Douglas driving a stolen car with nine illegal immigrants inside was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison by a Cochise County Superior Court judge Friday. Liliana Lopez, 19, asked Judge Tom Collins for probation, which was one of several sentencing alternatives included in a plea agreement she signed in July. “Well, I’m not going to do that,” said Collins, who cited the value of the stolen property, the fact that Lopez was transporting illegal immigrants, and that she admitted to belonging to a gang as aggravating circumstances. According to court records, a...

Imagine going to get your car repaired, paying for it, and then finding out that the work was never done. With the help of insiders, NBC4 uncovered an apparent scheme at several Los Angeles area Jiffy Lube stores. The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has asked customers who have had problems at Jiffy Lube stores to contact the DA's Consumer Protection Division, by e-mail, at jiffylube@lacountyda.org

JPFO began our campaign to "Boot the BATFE" (www.jpfo.org/bootbatfe.htm) in January of 2005. The instigating factor was a tape we received, a tape that indisputably showed BATFE agents attempting to frame an innocent gun owner, John Glover. That tape -- which we promptly copied and began distributing as _BATFE Fails the Test_ (www.jpfo.org/batfevideo.htm) -- was something the BATFE _never_ intended you to see. Thanks to it, the charges against Glover were dropped and all but one of his firearms returned. Eighteen months later, we offer you something else the BATFE was hoping wouldn't get out: John Glover's story, straight from...

Tucson Police say men on a surveillance tape are doing more than just washing a car. They say they're trying to erase evidence. Tucson Police say that surveillance tape may solve the mystery for a family who says someone broke into their home. It's a story you'll see only on News 4. A Tucson family says they've been living in fear since their home was burglarized a week ago. Police say whoever did it took off with electronics, personal identification information, jewelry and the family car. Monday, the family talked only to News 4's Lupita Murillo. ------ The men in...

Apple's Jobs caught up in US options scandal (Filed: 30/06/2006) Apple Computer has launched an internal investigation after admitting it may have manipulated stock-option grants to benefit executives, including chief executive Steve Jobs. The admission wraps Apple into the unfolding business scandal that is spreading to some of America's best-known companies. At least 60 have now disclosed possible stock option irregularities. Tainted: Steve Jobs may have been awarded a manipulated grant Investigators are trying to determine whether companies inflated the value of stock options awarded to senior executives by backdating or timing the grants to coincide with days when the...

KENNER, Louisiana — Three people convicted of hauling away liquor, wine and beer from a grocery store after Hurricane Katrina were sentenced to 15 years in prison. The judge said Wednesday he wanted to send a message that looting would not be tolerated when he gave the maximum sentence to Coralnelle Little, 36, Rhonda McGowen, 42, and Paul C. Pearson, 36. A jury convicted the trio May 2 on a portion of the state's looting law that took effect two weeks before the Aug. 29 storm. The amended law set a three-year minimum sentence, and a maximum of 15 years...

One in four shops is caught selling knives to children under 16 By David Derbyshire, Consumer Affairs Editor (Filed: 21/06/2006) More than a quarter of shops that stock knives are illegally selling them to children under 16, according to a survey by trading standards officials. Despite concerns about rising knife violence, a significant number of shopkeepers are failing to check the ages of teenage customers or are wilfully turning a blind eye. Richard Beckett, 14, shows knives bought by teenage volunteers However, there was some evidence that the recent spate of stabbings and the Home Office amnesty may finally be...

It may not be on a scale of Franklin D. Roosevelt's attempt to pack the Supreme Court, but Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez's bid to pack the Coastal Commission with his cronies is very troubling all the same. As speaker, Núñez, D-Los Angeles, gets to make four appointments to the 12-member panel. Under state law, if an appointee is unable to attend a Coastal Commission meeting, he may send a designated alternate in his place. Núñez, however, is attempting to dictate who the four alternates will be – a clear usurpation of each commissioner's legal authority. What's more, the timing of...

A black bear chased, caught and mauled a bicycle rider on a mountain trail in Canada's oldest and most popular national park, and was shot and killed when it refused to leave the area, a warden said. The biker, Greg Flaaten, 41, a Web administrator for the town of Banff, was being treated for severe arm injuries at Foothills Hospital in Calgary following the attack, and reconstructive surgery in the biceps and triceps area was scheduled Monday. Authorities initially feared Flaaten might lose his arm, but that concern was eased when a key artery was found to be intact, maintaining...

Taylor 'looked like whipped dog' as justice caught up By Hans Nichols in Freetown, Sierra Leone (Filed: 02/04/2006) Slumped and sombre, Charles Taylor uttered not a single word as he sat in the United Nations helicopter that spirited him from Liberia, where he once ruled, to neighbouring Sierra Leone, where he is accused of committing war crimes. "He looked like a whipped dog. A look of total defeat," said a UN official, one of 16 passengers on the flight that brought Taylor to the tribunal he has eluded for three years. Charles Taylor in Freetown "You look at someone that...

Former Tucson sector Border Patrol agent Scott James says he caught his fair share of illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico during his years of service with the agency. Not that it really mattered, he added. James, who resigned from the Border Patrol two months ago, said his job, like those of his colleagues, was little more than a sham. Enforcing the law was the last thing the Department of Homeland Security wanted, he said. Some illegal immigrants apprehended on the border are from Pakistan, Iraq, China and other countries considered by the Department of Homeland Security to be...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Two brothers who had eluded a string of felony drug and weapons charges for 15 years have been captured and were found with stockpiles of drugs, weapons and gunpowder, a U.S. marshal said Saturday. A tip earlier in the week led authorities to a rented home in rural southwestern New Mexico, where the brothers were arrested Friday on weapons, explosives and other charges from a 1991 warrant in Merriam, Kan., officials said. Geoffrey Rose, 62, and Gregory Rose, 50, were taken into custody without incident, U.S. Marshal Gorden Eden said. The men were thought to be aligned...

Atmospheric 'sprites' captured in explosive detail 18:28 16 February 2006 NewScientist.com news service Kimm Groshong Sprites are rare and fleeting events, lasting between just 10 and 100 milliseconds (Image: Steven A Cummer, Duke University) Mysterious flashes of light called “sprites", that occur above thunderclouds during powerful storms, have been captured on film in unprecedented detail by researchers using an ultra-high-speed camera. The best images yet of the flashes – which resemble a giant undulating jellyfish with its tentacles falling from a halo of light – have allowed the team to pick apart their structure and mechanics. Sprites are fleeting events,...

Obesity 'can be caught like a cold' By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 31/01/2006) Evidence that obesity could be contagious was published yesterday by American researchers - and washing your hands could be an elementary step to avoiding the virus and becoming overweight. A team led by Dr Leah Whigham, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found that the human adenovirus Ad-37 causes obesity in chickens, marking the third virus to be linked to being overweight: two related viruses, Ad-36 and Ad-5, also cause obesity in animals. Moreover, Ad-36 has been associated with human obesity, leading researchers to suspect that...

TIKRIT, Iraq (Army News Service, Dec. 28, 2005) – Three weapons caches were discovered and destroyed by Iraqi and U.S. Soldiers Dec. 27 in north central Iraq. Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team discovered a large cache of mortar rounds and artillery fuses while patrolling near Hawijah. Nearly 400 mortar rounds of various types and sizes, along with 250 lbs. of explosive propellant, 878 artillery fuses, 1,900 rounds of small arms ammunition, a Russian-made anti-tank missile and an anti-personnel mine were blown up by an explosive ordnance disposal team at the site in a controlled detonation....

TIKRIT, Iraq (Army News Service, Dec. 8, 2005) – Just a week after a huge cache of mortars was uncovered near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, another large terrorist cache was discovered Dec. 6 near the neighboring city of Tuz. Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, found two storage bunkers crammed with weapons near Forward Operating Base Bernstein, west of the city. More than 400 rockets of various types and 80 mortar rounds were discovered in the bunkers. Mortars and rockets, along with IEDs, are the preferred weapons of terrorists, officials said, because...