Free Republic

Supply chain issues and the popularity of garden centres during lockdown are causing a shortage of garden gnomes. The ornaments are in short supply with raw materials hard to come by and the recent blockage of the Suez Canal contributing to the national shortage. Ian Byrne, assistant manager of Highfield Garden World in Whitminster, said there had been a "massive upswing" in the sales of garden gnomes. "There aren't any [gnomes]. There's definitely a shortage. It's a combined thing with garden centres being so busy, I looked at some figures based on March which said garden centres were 97% busier...

MATTOON, Ill. (WAND) - A fight that started between a group of juveniles in Mattoon turned into an all out brawl between their parents and led to shots being fired in Mattoon. Police were called to the 1700 block of Edgar Ave. Monday around 6:15 p.m. When they got there, they learned two groups of people had been fighting and shots had been fired. While no one was shot, a house with an infant inside had been struck by a bullet. Mattoon police said the fight started between a group of juveniles that led to a physical fight. Adults from...

August 23, 2014 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - In 1200 A.D., a Swedish man named Frederik Ugarph found a hard wood statue only about six inches (15 cm) high of a little person wearing a conical hat in what is now Trondheim, Norway. The statue was standing on a pedestal engraved with the words: “NISSE Riktig Storrelse.” That means, “Gnome, actual height.” Owned and housed today by the Oliv family in Uppsala, Norway, X-ray tests indicate the wooden statue is more than 2,000 years old, perhaps carved from a tree that is no longer known. Another historic account of a “miniature person”...

The State of California has stooped to looting the contents of safety deposit boxes to bolster state funds.

If you hoped to get your hands on some of the garden gnomes at the City of Gillette auction on Thursday, you’re out of luck. The little guys will be hanging around the Gillette Police Department a while longer. More than 100 garden gnomes that were supposed to be sold at the city auction were pulled from the auction block after Gillette police got reports that the gnome nabbing may have been more expansive than just northeastern Wyoming. Three teenage girls confessed to stealing 143 gnomes from lawns in Gillette and Campbell County in May after Sundance police caught them...

Author’s note: A June 2009 “From The Shadows” installment told the tale of “Tammy” whose family was terrorized by an evil, little gnome-like man on their property near the Tule River in Porterville, Calif. Her case is not as isolated as we may hope. Dan Bortko’s family moved from Wyandotte County, Kan., to Liberty, Mo., in 1948 when he was about nine months old. His family didn’t know it, but something already lived in the house on High Street. The house, a stucco bungalow built atop a hill in the 1920s, wasn’t the only structure on that site. “There was...

MOUNT VERNON, Wash., Dec. 17 (UPI) -- A string of lawn gnome disappearances in Washington state was solved when winds blew down a fence around the yard where they were being kept, authorities said. Lisa Soneda of Mount Vernon said her daughter told her this month that the fence separating her back yard from that of her next-door neighbor had blown down to reveal an unusual sight,

A group of students assembled a gnome village in front of the high school Thursday morning in an apparent prank days before graduation.Now police are trying to reunite the 75 colorful garden ornaments with their rightful owners.School staff found the pointy-hatted curios decorating the school's landscaping when they arrived at work.Police Lt.Steven Ang said the eight students involved - all captured on the school's security cameras wearing dark hooded sweatshirts to conceal their identities - put some thought into the gnome feng shui"They were strategically placed in the landscaping - neatly and professionally," he said.

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. — A number of gnomes and other creatures have taken sanctuary at the Springfield police station. As part of a prank, somebody stole 75 lawn ornaments from around town and placed them meticulously on and around the lawn of one house on Oct. 17, police said. Among the figurines are plastic and porcelain geese, deer, frogs are gnomes. Police took them back to the station to help find the rightful owners. "We need to get them out of here," Capt. Richard Harrison said. "Every time I leave my office they're sitting in my chair, working on my computer....

Police Say Man Hit Brother With Lawn Gnome During Fight PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Police say a 26-year-old Port St. Lucie man was arrested after hitting his brother with a garden gnome and a ladder during a fight. Police reports show Johnathon Gesell and his brother, James, began arguing Tuesday before Johnathon hit James in the back with the garden gnome. Johnathon Gesell then allegedly punched his brother's girlfriend in the face and smashed part of the rear tail light and quarter panel on his brother's truck with a baseball bat. He also allegedly hit his brother in the...

SYDNEY, Australia - What's in a gnome? For surprised Australian customs officials, the answer was snakes and lizards. During a routine check of international mail on June 10, an officer discovered two snakes and three lizards stuffed inside three of the diminutive garden figurines in a shipment from Britain. "When the package was opened, the officer spotted several snakes moving about. The package was immediately resealed," Australian customs said Tuesday in a statement. A day later, officials at the same facility X-rayed another package from Britain and found five snakes and five lizards stuffed inside pottery figures and other ornaments....

Gnosticism is probably hotter now than it has been since—well, over 1,500 years ago. As The Da Vinci Code hits movie theaters and probably extends its three-year run on the New York Times bestselling fiction list, Gnostic books like The Gospel of Judas and The Lost Gospel are also prominent on nonfiction bestseller charts. Peter Jones, professor of New Testament at Westminster Seminary California and director of Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet (cwipp.org) is the author of The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back and other books that critique anti-Christian doctrines, including Cracking Da Vinci's Code (Cook Communications) and the newly...

The Gospel of Judas" is a long-lost bit of Gnostic apocrypha. Now that archeologists have found a copy, the media is abuzz with speculation that this ancient document will shed new light on or even change Christianity. According to "The Gospel of Judas," Jesus tells Judas to betray Him. This will enable Jesus' spirit to escape from its fleshly container. Jesus also is said to call Judas the only disciple who truly understands His message. Much of the rest of the "gospel" is just disembodied dialogue about "spirit" as opposed to matter, in sharp contrast to the historically detailed Gospels...

Kirsty Scott Thursday August 25, 2005 The Guardian Police are trying to reunite numerous garden gnomes with their owners after discovering an "Aladdin's cave" of ornaments during a raid on a house in Alloa. Officers investigating complaints that gnomes, plant pots and animal figures were disappearing from gardens across central Scotland raided the house in Clackmannanshire and found more than 40 ornaments, including rabbits, hedgehogs, birds, frogs and a terrier. A total of 62 plant pots and 25 solar lights were also recovered, together with a decorative wheelbarrow. Central Scotland police said there had been a spate of reported thefts...

Tony Blair has been urged to quit as prime minister early into his third term, days after Labour's election win. Despite securing an historic third victory, the government's Commons majority was slashed from 161 to 67. Several Labour MPs have described Mr Blair as a "liability", among them ex-Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. However, senior party figures including David Blunkett and Peter Hain have rallied in support of Mr Blair, urging MPs to "get behind" their leader. Downing Street has said there is "no change" from Mr Blair's statement last year that he would serve a full third term. Some MPs...

LONDON (AP) -- A grandmother stopped an intruder from entering her home by lobbing a heavy garden gnome at him, police said Friday. Jean Collop was woken early on Tuesday morning by the sound of an intruder on the roof of her home in Wadebridge, southwest England. "I grabbed the first thing that came to hand - one of my garden gnomes - and hurled it at him, and hit him," she recalled. "He lay there and I began to scream. I went back into the kitchen and found a rolling pin in case he came down. I didn't want...

THE world's first international congress on garden gnomes has been riven by controversy over the appearance of female gnomes alongside their male counterparts on suburban lawns.Fritz Friedman, the Swiss president of the Association for the Protection of Gnomes' Rights, said at the conference in Chemnitz, eastern Germany, that gnomes had always been "men only" and must remain so."It is inconceivable that women can also be involved," he told the 100 delegates. Gnomes were single symbols of friendliness and suburban tranquility.If they were given wives, then sexual dynamics would introduce unwelcome tensions.The argument broke out because one delegate, Reinhard Griebel, who ...

I am not affiliated in any way with the people selling these Bush gnomes. Came across them on the internet and thought I’d share. It’s pretty obvious that they’re trying to take a dig at Bush, but they’re pretty funny (I like the spurs) and I think I’ll pick one up for my yard. It’ll scare the wits out my liberal friends when they see him peeking out from under a shrubbery, but it really isn’t that hard to scare the wits out of them in the first place.

GRAEFENRODA, Germany (AFP) - With his jolly face and little paunch, Reinhard the potter resembles the garden gnomes he produces by the dozen in this little village in Germany where, they say, the phenomenon began. Reinhard Griebel grew up surrounded by gnomes in Graefenroda, tucked in the forests of the eastern German state of Thuringia. This village of 3,500 people claims to be the birthplace of "nanus hortorum vulgaris", or the common garden gnome, which local folklore says was dreamed up by a local potter in 1880. The craftsmen of the village, including Reinhard's great-grandfather, wasted no time in capitalising...