Free Republic

Comic and actor Roseanne Barr has offered a reward to anyone that can return a sex tape of her that has gone "missing." Barr has fired an intern who she alleges stole the tape while working for her on her MySpace page. Barr says on her website: "One of the interns who was administering my MySpace page has been fired. He has stolen my private sex tape. "I am offering $25,000 for its return, unless someone would like to distribute it - then I am willing to deal." She has also claimed that the intern posted offensive messages on the...

The Elephant in the Room of Pasadena Affordable Housing When it comes time to hand out awards for affordable housing in Pasadena who should get the most notoriety? a) Danny Bakewell, Black housing developer and activist b) Jill Shook, activist and author of "Making Housing Happen: A Faith Based Approach" c) Mayor Bill Bogaard, the force behind inclusionary housing law d) Marvin Schacter, low income housing activist, former State Aging Commission member e) Patricia Duff Tucker, Director, Neighborhood Housing Services f) The private landlord elephant in the room The phrase "elephant in the room" is an English idiom for an...

Girl kills elephant with 83-lb bow One of the more unusual stories I've seen on the archery forums recently...

A woman is campaigning to raise awareness of a rare condition which has left her with 11 stone (70kg) legs. Mandy Sellars, 32, from Lancashire, suffers from Proteus syndrome, a condition also thought to have affected the "Elephant Man", Joseph Merrick. Mandy says she is determined to lead an adventurous life

GAUHATI, India - A killer elephant named after Osama bin Laden by fearful villagers was killed by sharpshooters, officials said Sunday. The animal was blamed for 14 deaths in the northeastern state of Assam. "A licensed shooter shot and killed the 10-foot tall bull near the Behali forest reserve in northern Assam," said wildlife warden Chandan Bora. Wildlife authorities had ordered that the elephant be shot and killed by December 31. The order came after the bull — dubbed "Laden" — was blamed for the death of a woman Wednesday near the thickly wooded evergreen jungle where it lived. The...

By IANS Saturday December 16, 07:23 PM Guwahati, Dec 16 (IANS) Laden, a rogue wild Asiatic elephant that was wreaking havoc in Assam, was Saturday shot dead on state orders. A wildlife official said the 10-feet tall male tusk-less elephant was killed by a hunter at the Behali tea plantation in Sonitpur district, 240 km north of Assam's main city of Guwahati. 'Licensed hunter Dipen Ram Phukan and a team of forest rangers shot dead Laden as the elephant was moving around aimlessly and trying to enter a human settlement area,' wildlife warden Chandan Bora told IANS by telephone. 'Local...

'BULL' LADEN AP December 16, 2006 -- GAUHATI, India - Hunters in northeastern India are tracking a rogue elephant blamed for 14 deaths in two years and named Laden - after Osama bin Laden - by fearful villagers. The bull was blamed for a woman's death Wednesday near the evergreen jungle it calls home.

The elephant and the event horizon 26 October 2006 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. How to be in two places at once What happens when you throw an elephant into a black hole? It sounds like a bad joke, but it's a question that has been weighing heavily on Leonard Susskind's mind. Susskind, a physicist at Stanford University in California, has been trying to save that elephant for decades. He has finally found a way to do it, but the consequences shake the foundations of what we thought we knew about space and time. If his calculations are correct,...

See the upper left corner of the page for the video of congressional candidate Raj Peter Bhakta riding an elephant across the Rio Grande with a mariachi band playing in the background. They were unchallenged by the Border Patrol, as there were no Border Patrol agents in the vicinity. The stunt was to demonstrate the lack of security on our southern border.

Reports of an elephant crossing the river or people trying to smuggle an elephant across were rampant Tuesday while an elaborate political stunt was taking shape near the mouth of the Rio Grande. It was a while later that the stunt, which was a photo shoot, was abruptly met by federal agents. “The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up,” said Raj Peter Bhakta, a former star on the NBC show “The Apprentice,” who also is a Republican candidate for the 13th...

SEOUL: He's no Dumbo the Flying Elephant but with his ability to "speak," perhaps as close to the Disney cartoon character as a real life elephant can get. The Everland amusement park said Friday its 16-year-old male Asian elephant, named Kosik, can make sounds imitating up to eight Korean words, including 'sit', 'no', 'yes', and 'lie down'. The pachyderm produces humanlike sounds by putting his trunk in his mouth and shaking it while exhaling - similar to how people whistle with their fingers. But the park said it's unclear if Kosik knows the meaning of the sounds he makes. Kim...

Bush: The elephant in the room Opinion Jul. 13, 2006. 01:00 AM JAMES TRAVERS George W. Bush will be the invisible presence at the table tomorrow when Stephen Harper sits down to breakfast with Tony Blair. In the short and long political histories of the Canadian and British prime ministers, no spectre looms as large as that of the U.S. president. Harper's early progress is as connected to his decision to align Ottawa with Washington as Blair's late career stumbles are inseparable from his decision to dispatch troops to Iraq. While the outcomes are markedly different, the motives are remarkably...

Party's fiberglass pachyderm prohibited from Brookfield parade By LISA SINK lsink@journalsentinel.com Brookfield - Democrats can rejoice: This city's Independence Day parade will feature donkeys but no elephants. "Sparky," a 5-foot-tall, 100-pound fiberglass elephant purchased as the mascot for the Republican Party of Waukesha County will not be allowed in Brookfield's Fourth of July parade today, ending its four-year parade run. But the Wisconsin Donkey and Mule Society will return as a parade unit. That's because the donkey and mule society is not affiliated with the Democratic Party. The elephant mascot, however, violates Brookfield's ban on political parties as parade entries....

ZAGREB (AFP) - Suma, a 45-year-old elephant and long-time resident of the Zagreb Zoo, was bereaved and inconsolable after her pachyderm partner of tens years died of cancer. Until she heard Mozart. "Suma became very depressed after her roomie Patna died in early May," head of Zagreb Zoo Mladen Anic told AFP on Thursday. "She was refusing to eat, became uncommunicative, showed all the signs of a serious depression." Then, by sheer accident, Suma's keepers discovered that the healing power of Mozart extends to the animal kingdom too. Earlier this month, the zoo the zoo organized a concert of classical...

Early signs of elephant butchers Excavations took place in 2004 Bones and tusks dating back 400,000 years are the earliest signs in Britain of ancient humans butchering elephants for meat, say archaeologists. Remains of a single adult elephant surrounded by stone tools were found in northwest Kent during work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Scientists believe hunters used the tools to cut off the meat, after killing the animal with wooden spears. The find is described in the Journal of Quaternary Science. The first signs of the Stone Age site were uncovered by constructors at Southfleet Road in Ebbsfleet,...

Drug test subject 'looks like elephant man' says girlfriend (Filed: 15/03/2006) The girlfriend of a man fighting for life after taking part in a pharmaceuticals trial has said the drugs he was given have left him looking "like the Elephant Man". Myfanwy Marshall Myfanwy Marshall, 35, said her boyfriend, a 28-year-old British man who had taken part in drug trials before without adverse side effects, felt ill 80 or 90 minutes after being given the drug on Monday. He is now in the intensive care unit at at Northwick Park hospital in north-west London. Five other men were also admitted...

Woman Enters Exhibit, Elephant Smacks Her Fri Mar 3, 7:00 PM ET WACO, Texas - A 25-year-old woman climbed past barriers and into an elephant's zoo exhibit, then crawled out with minor injuries after the 6,000-pound animal smacked her with its trunk. "That's how an elephant reacts to something they would perceive as a threat," said Cameron Park Zoo director Jim Fleshman. After saying she wanted to play with the elephant, the woman climbed over a 3-feet-high wood-and-wire fence, scaled an 8-foot-tall artificial rock structure and bypassed an electric wire before jumping into the exhibit Thursday afternoon, Fleshman said. A...

Get out of the way... he hasn't forgotten By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 16/02/2006) The reputation that elephants have for never forgetting has been given a chilling new twist by experts who believe that a generation of pachiderms may taking revenge on humans for the breakdown of elephant society. The New Scientist reports today that elephants appear to be attacking human settlements as vengeance for years of abuse by people. In Uganda, for example, elephant numbers have never been lower or food more plentiful, yet there are reports of the creatures blocking roads and trampling through villages, apparently without...

Bob Barker pleaded with city officials to close the Los Angeles Zoo's pachyderm exhibit and allow its three elephants to retire to a sanctuary. Appearing jovial when he arrived at Friday's City Council meeting, the veteran game show host and longtime animal rights activist turned serious when he began to talk about the zoo's elephants, Gita, Ruby and Billy. "I came here today to ask, to beg you ... to vote to release those elephants from that zoo," Barker said. "They have lived in misery." Gita and Ruby are ill, leaving only Billy on display. A fourth elephant, Tara, died...

Debate over escaped elephant An escaped elephant is roaming the streets of St Petersburg - while authorities try to decide whose job it is to catch it. The animal, which was being transported through Russia by an unnamed Finnish company, escaped from its container by smashing through its walls. There have been a number of sightings around the city but no one has tried to catch the elephant yet. Local media say it's unclear which arm of the St Petersburg emergency services is responsible for escaped elephants.