Free Republic

Ellen DeGeneres will reportedly marry her long-time Australian lover Portia de Rossi in California this weekend. The couple are expected to wed in an intimate ceremony with only a few close friends and family, Usmagazine.com reports. DeGeneres, a successful comedian who now hosts a popular daytime talkshow, and 35-year-old de Rossi began dating in December 2004. Following the California Supreme Court's ruling that same sex couple's had the "right to marry," DeGeneres announced on her show in May that she and de Rossi would marry.

Gross predicts $1 trillion of writedowns Mark Cobley 25 Jul 2008 One of the world's most successful bond fund managers, Bill Gross of Pimco, expects the fall-out from the US sub-prime mortgage crisis to hit $1 trillion (??35bn), in terms of the amount that will have to be written off the global financial services industry's combined balance sheet. The total suggests Gross believes the crisis has much further to run. According to the most recent total on Financial News' writedown-ometer, which is compiled from banks' results, $205bn had been written down as of June. Since then, fresh book-losses have been...

Madrid, Spain (AHN) -- Hundreds of bike riders shed their clothing and rode through the capital of Spain Saturday protesting the overuse of automobiles, and celebrating the simplicity of bicycles and the human body. According to the World Naked Bike Ride Website, the annual ride is held in cities all over the world "to celebrate cycling and the human body. The ride demonstrates the vulnerability of cyclists on the road and is a protest against oil dependency." The event is meant to be a peaceful and humorous. It has a "bare as you dare" policy, meaning it's okay to wear...

Same-Sex Couple Sues After Faced With Ultimatum at Mariners Baseball GameAnyone who has attended a Major League Baseball game in the past decade has probably seen a "Kiss Cam" where couples throughout the ballpark are featured locking lips on the big-screen JumboTrons. But controversy over ballpark kissing erupted at Safeco Field in Seattle this week when a same-sex couple claimed they were discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, which stadium officials deny. Sirbrina Guerrero, 23, says she and her partner, who requested anonymity, were just "exchanging pecks," not acting any differently than heterosexual couples at the game, when park...

PITY the mothers and grandmothers. Visible bra straps, glaringly obvious roots — these are but a few of the grooming no-nos that have become yes-yeses in recent years. Now there is another stylistic tic that would have been unthinkable on a proper lady in your Aunt Beatrice’s day. Over the last few years — since the era of the skull print scarf, let’s say, or the (metaphorical) rise of the Olsen twins — having streaked, chipped or just plain grotty nail polish no longer suggests drug addiction, manual labor or pure laziness. Like untied high-tops, thread-worn jeans and bedhead, it’s...

NESS CITY, Kan. - Deputies say a woman in western Kansas became stuck on her boyfriend's toilet after sitting on it for two years. Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital. "We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- Orange County Public Schools is investigating claims that a student was forced to use a lunchbox as a toilet in front of his class at Meadowbrook Middle School.The teacher will not be coming to school. She will be relieved of her duty with pay as the school district investigates, officials said. "If you gotta go, you gotta go," student Quonterious Thomas told Eyewitness News in an interview Monday. Thomas, 13, says his language arts teacher, Jameeka Chambers, gave him two options when he had to go to the bathroom at Meadowbrook Middle School in Orange County....

LONDON - An artist is inviting Londoners to come face-to-face with the wretched labour of one of India's lowest castes - by filling an art gallery with 21 big blocks of human excrement. The monoliths are the brainchild of Santiago Sierra, whose previous work includes pumping a former German synagogue full of poisonous car exhaust (visitors wore gas masks) and an attempt to write the word "Submission" in giant, flaming letters near the U.S.-Mexico border. Elena Crippa, curator at the Lisson Gallery where the work is being displayed, said the Spanish-born artist's intention is to confront audiences with the horror...

Gross-subprime mortgage mkt a "$1 trillion problem" Mon Nov 5, 2007 9:06 AM ET NEW YORK, Nov 5 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will have to cut its federal funds target rate to prevent a dramatic fall in housing prices in the wake of the subprime mortgage meltdown, the manager of the world's biggest bond fund said on Monday. The turmoil in the risky subprime mortgage-market is a "$1 trillion problem ... There are $1 trillion worth of subprimes and Alt-As and basically garbage loans," said Bill Gross, chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. or Pimco, on CNBC...

Cure for killer bug - but there's a catch KATE FOSTER IN THE annals of medical history, this could go down as one of the most effective but stomach-churning treatments ever devised. Scientists seeking a cure for a deadly superbug have successfully treated patients using human faeces. Trials in a Scottish hospital have shown patients suffering from the Clostridium difficile bug can be cured using 'donor stool' administered via a tube through the nose into their stomach. Clostridium difficile was last week at the heart of a damning report into cleaning failures at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust...

MINNEAPOLIS - Embattled Sen. Larry Craig asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday to overrule a county judge who refused to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea in connection with an arrest in an airport bathroom sex sting. Craig's appeal was filed at the court in St. Paul less than two weeks after Hennepin County District Court Judge Charles Porter refused to overturn the guilty plea, saying it "was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and ... supported by the evidence." Craig, a Republican from Idaho, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in August after he was accused of soliciting sex...

Life partner of prime minister's lesbian daughter gives birth to a baby girl Itamar Eichner Published: 09.07.07, 10:19 / Israel News Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his wife Aliza welcomed their newest grandchild on Thursday, as their daughter's partner gave birth to a baby girl. The prime minister's 34-year-old daughter Dana is a self-identified lesbian who lives with her life partner Dafna Ben Zvi. Thursday night, Ben Zvi gave birth to a baby girl, which the couple decided to name Amalya. Amalya is the couple's first child, and the prime minister's eighth grandchild, with Olmert's oldest daughter Michal giving birth...

(MAYUGE) - If you are a farmer, you may want to think twice about flushing your urine down the toilet. Urine may be a waste product but it also has many uses, and the best part of it is that it comes with no price tag. Farmers in various parts of the country use human urine as fertilizers and to fight crop diseases. The method started in Baitambogwe Village in Mayuge District but has now spread to over 21 districts. Through knowledge sharing via telephone Short Message System commonly known as SMS, farmers in Baitambogwe are propagating the method to...

On Thursday’s "Good Morning America," the ABC program touted a liberal New Yorker who is so concerned about the environment that he refuses to use toilet paper. GMA devoted eight and a half minutes of the May 10 show to promoting the cause of Colin Beaven, a man who, in addition to his bathroom stance, refuses to buy anything in packaging, won’t use transportation, even elevators, and insists that all his food be grown within 250 miles. According to liberal weatherman Sam Champion, who admiringly recounted Mr. Beaven’s story, "The rules may seem a little extreme." A little? Co-anchor Diane...

Close window Published online: 4 May 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070430-13 Maggots eat up resistant bacteriaCreepy crawlies are the latest weapon in the anti-MRSA arsenal.Katharine Sanderson It looks bad, but it works: maggots can clean out some foot wounds better than drugs. The drug-resistant bug MRSA has a new adversary — the maggot. Researchers in Manchester, UK, have just won a grant to compare maggots with other more hi-tech treatments for people with diabetes who suffer from infected feet. A quarter of all people with diabetes are at risk of foot ulcers, because of the reduced blood circulation caused by the...

Off-Duty NWA Worker Charged With Assault On Flight Image Heather Brown Reporting (WCCO) Minneapolis An off-duty Northwest Airlines employee was arrested after a woman on a flight from Seattle complained that the man had ejaculated on her. The FBI identified the man as Samuel Oscar Gonzalez, 20, of Lakewood, Wash. He was charged in federal court with simple assault, a misdemeanor. It happened on the redeye Monday morning from Seattle to Minneapolis. The woman was headed back to college. Near the end of the flight, the FBI said Gonzalez sat next to the woman as she was trying to sleep....

"A Stockholm nightclub has been asked to pay 30,000 kronor in compensation to two lesbian women who were requested by a security guard to refrain from kissing. "

I was just thinking the other day, you rarely hear any great varmint stories anymore. Then, all of a sudden, the wires are flooded with varmint news. Of course, you, the reader, rarely ever get to see these stories. These are the ones that editors like to hold back and pass around the office via e-mail. I don't know why. I suppose some editors think that it's demeaning for a newspaper to run stories about, say, 500 chickens in Japan that were scared to death after a rocket exploded a few miles away. Or the story about some guys in...

Link Only: 40 tons of spilled cow intestines close part of I-43

UPDATE: Snickers parent company Mars has pulled the anti-homosexual ads it was hosting on its website—expressing regret and saying it will never air them again. # Earlier: Snickers aired an ad during the Super Bowl that featured two men reacting in violent disgust after accidentally kissing while eating a candy bar. While the ad may be a satirical dig at homophobes, the candy company appeared to affirm an anti-gay message on its website—where there were, until a few hours ago, videos of NFL players grimacing in similar disgust at the kiss. (Message to viewers: Manly men should be disgusted by...

It smells like a mixture of overripe Gorgonzola and putrefying mushrooms. Its texture is that of slugs stuffed with mozzarella. It is natto, or rotten soya beans, and is one of the world’s most challenging foods, as loved and loathed in Japan as black puddings are in Britain or rotten herrings in Sweden. And in the past few days it has become a cult, as natto-mania has swept Japan, emptying supermarket shelves and leaving soya bean fermenters scrambling to catch up with the unprecedented surge in demand. Earlier this month the television programme Revealed! Encyclopaedia of Living recommended two portions...

Ohio inmate with AIDS accused of performing sex act on sleeping cellmate Wednesday, January 17, 2007 ELYRIA, Ohio — A state prisoner who has AIDS has been charged with performing a sex act on his sleeping cellmate at the Lorain Correctional Institution, a prosecutor said. Michael Gross, 32, of Cleveland, was indicted on sexual battery and felonious assault charges. The felonious assault charge was filed because Gross has AIDS, Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will said. The cellmate told officials that when he awoke Sept. 29, Gross was performing oral sex on him, Will said. The alleged victim and Gross then...

When a food safety inspector walked into a market in Queens, he noticed the store had an interesting special posted on its front window: 12 beefy armadillos. In Brooklyn, inspectors found 15 pounds of iguana meat at a West Indian market and 200 pounds of cow lungs for sale at another market. At a West African grocery in Manhattan, the store was selling smoked rodent meat from a refrigerated display case. An inspector quickly seized a couple pounds of it. All of it was headed for the dinner table. All of it was also illegal. Authorities say the discoveries are...

Sunken treasure with a distinctly fishy flavor has been recovered from a huge Roman shipwreck in the Mediterranean. The 2,000-year-old vessel, discovered off the Spanish coast, was described by marine archaeologists last week as "a jewel of the Old World." However, it wasn't gold or silver that the ship was carrying but hundreds of jars of a foul-smelling fish sauce. The ancient delicacy, known as garum, was usually made from fermented fish guts and blood. Wealthy Romans, experts say, couldn't get enough of the stuff. The sailing ship, dating from the first century A.D. lies about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers)...

In his highly anticipated memoir, former Gov. James E. McGreevey writes of his deep love for the man who ended his political career, the destruction of his second marriage and the events that forced him into his stunning admission on national television that he is gay. In "The Confession," the former governor also touches on New Jersey's sometimes seamy political landscape, where cash, cronyism and a handful of powerful men intersect. But the 384-page book focuses mostly on McGreevey's secret life, from his frequent sexual encounters with men at highway rest stops to his infatuation with Golan Cipel, the Israeli...

BATAVIA, N.Y. -- Five parents who asked to transfer their children out of Batavia High School classes with a transsexual teacher have been denied, according to city schools Superintendent Richard Stutzman. The written requests did not meet the guidelines set out by the district, Stutzman said Tuesday without providing specifics. "That's all between the school, the teacher, the parents," he said. Other students were allowed to adjust their schedules because their requests were based on changes in their academic programs, Stutzman said. Fall classes began Wednesday in Batavia, 31 miles southwest of Rochester. Diagnosed with a transsexual disorder, the teacher...

ST PETERSBURG, Florida (AP) -- A woman and her roommate were charged with starving the woman's 9-year-old daughter, who weighed just 42 pounds when she was found, authorities said. The child also was locked up all day and was forced to wear a filthy diaper, police said. Melissa Samoraj, 27, and Raymond LaFountain, 31, were arrested Wednesday and charged with aggravated child abuse.

If you spend any time in the cereal aisle, I don't have to tell you that the folks who make Pop-Tarts are always coming up with crazy new combinations of flavors. But you may not realize that for every new variety of toaster pastry that makes it to the greengrocer's shelves, there are dozens of experimental flavors that don't make the cut. Here are some concepts that were rejected, for one reason or another. THERE ARE MORE! Please see More rejected Pop-Tart flavors.

Singer George Michael denied he has been forced to call off his "wedding" to his long-term partner after being caught cruising for sex with strangers. The former Wham! star insisted that his partner Kenny Goss had no problem with him being with other men.

Athletically speaking, Gay Games VII was a joke. Everybody knows true competition shouldn't include hefty figure skaters, any kind of line dancing or games best played with a beer in your hand. More than winning medals and breaking records, Gay Games participants talked of the importance of participating, having fun, being "out and proud," making strides toward a more accepting America and all that jazz. All around Chicagoland, guys kissed guys in the on-deck circle. Girls kissed girls between billiard matches. They didn't feel afraid or scared or judged. And in those eight days of reprieve -- something special happened...

India Government AIDS Body Urges Legalization of Sodomy NEW DELHI, India, July 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – India’s National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) has joined the efforts of activist organizations to decriminalize homosexual behaviour, saying the ban on homosexual activity is driving HIV/AIDS infections underground. NACO, the regulatory government body responsible for efforts to control the spread of the infection, filed a statement in the Delhi High Court on Wednesday in support of a petition put forth by a local AIDS group that asks that the law against homosexual activity be lifted. UNAID and other non-governmental organizations are also backing the...

LANCASTER, WI (AP) -- A leading goat cheese producer in Canada plans to build a new U.S. headquarters in Lancaster, giving local producers a new market for their milk. Woolwich Dairy Inc. of Orangeville, Ont., received a warm welcome from Gov. Jim Doyle and state Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen as the plans were announced Tuesday. Those plans call for the company to build a 30,000-square-foot facility, initially employing 30 full-time workers, in Lancaster's new business and industry park. Groundbreaking is expected in the fall, with the plant to open in summer 2007. More than 150 people crowded under a tent,...

May 31, 2006 -- A gun-toting stalker, who claimed she was pressured into a lesbian affair by members of a hippie-style commune on Staten Island, opened fire on its co-founder in a midnight ambush that left him critically wounded, authorities said yesterday. Despite his life-threatening injuries, Jeff Gross, who helped establish Ganas, the city's oldest '60s-style commune, was able to tell cops who allegedly shot him once in the chest and twice in the arm outside his Tompkinsville home Sunday night.

Jim McGreevey shockingly admits that before he became governor of New Jersey, he'd have anonymous gay sex at Garden State highway rest stops. "All I knew was that my behavior was getting crazier and crazier," McGreevey says of his torrid truck-stop trysts in an upcoming book that details his tortured life of lies and sexual repression. "With each new encounter, I was getting nearer and nearer to being caught - which surely would have generated headlines, especially after I became executive director of the state parole board" in the mid-1980s. "The closet starves a man, and when he gets a...

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian builders who drank their way to the bottom of a huge barrel of rum while renovating a house got a nasty surprise when a pickled corpse tumbled out of the empty barrel, a police magazine website reported. According to online magazine www.zsaru.hu, workers in Szeged in the south of Hungary tried to move the barrel after they had drained it, only to find it was surprisingly heavy and were shocked when the body of a naked man fell out. The website said that the body of the man had been shipped back from Jamaica 20 years...

TOM Cruise has claimed he will eat the PLACENTA after fiancée Katie Holmes has their baby. The actor, 43 — who wants her to give birth in silence according to his Scientology cult rules — said: “I’m gonna eat the placenta, too. “I thought that would be good. Very nutritious. I’m going to eat the cord and the placenta right there.” But when a GQ magazine interviewer said it would be a big meal, Cruise replied: “OK, maybe I won’t.”

Book Apparently Bound in Human Skin Found 47 minutes ago LONDON - A 300-year-old book that appears to be bound in human skin has been found in northern England, police said Saturday. The macabre discovery was made on a central street in Leeds, and officers said the ledger may have been dumped following a burglary. Detectives were trying to trace its rightful owner and believe it may have been taken from a dwelling in the area. Much of the text is in French, and it was not uncommon around the time of the French Revolution for books to be covered...

A lesbian firefighter in Minneapolis filed a discrimination suit Tuesday against the city's fire chief, a woman who happens to be the firefighter's former domestic partner. Capt. Jennifer Cornell sued in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis against Chief Bonnie Bleskachek, naming the city as a co-defendant, the Pioneer Press newspaper reported. Cornell claims Bleskachek denied her training opportunities and stood in the way of her advancement through "a history of animosity, ill-will, malice and bad faith conduct," the paper reported. The suit seeks an end to discrimination and $75,000 in damages. The case puts Mayor R.T. Rybak, who appointed Bleskachek...

CLEARWATER, Fla. — A Florida high school teacher who refused to let a student go to the restroom has been recommended for suspension. The student instead used a trash can to relieve himself in a classroom closet. The Pinellas County school system says Lesley Campbell violated school policy in November by unnecessarily embarrassing the high school junior. Campbell says the teen-ager indicated he might use the trash can if she didn't let him go, but says she was astonished when he actually grabbed the can and headed for the closet.

MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH Alleged fetus eater focus of new legislation Kansas considers bill to regulate conditions of abortion, medical clinics -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: February 15, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com Shockingly unsanitary conditions discovered at an abortion clinic in which the proprietor was accused of eating a fetus have prompted consideration of a bill by the Kansas Legislature to tighten up regulations for all medical facilities. Last spring, Krishna Rajanna's abortion clinic in Kansas City was raided after former employees made allegations of coffee cups full of syringes, medical tools stored near toilets and fetuses stored...

See this thread and this thread first! The pen is mightier than the sword But it doesn't take the award A pencil (of wood) Placed in his manhood "Pencil greater than the pen-is"--Oh, Good Lord! A man who lay down with a sheep Was sentenced, so now he doth weep What makes this so Baaa - d Is he could have had his relations with Little Bo Peep!

Authorities seized 600 pounds of "bathtub cheese" from a small ranch in southwest Riverside County last week. The seizure of the illegally produced cheese was one of the largest on record in California, according to the Department of Food and Agriculture. The cheese was seized last Saturday by a multiagency task force that included CDFA officers, Ontario police and Riverside and San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies. Also seized were wooden cheese presses, molds and other items used in production. Two men at the ranch were cited for illegal cheese production. Officials refer to illegally produced cheese as "bathtub cheese" because...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (L) greets U.S activist Cindy Sheehan as he arrives at the meeting with World Social Forum Organizations in Caracas, Venezuela January 27, 2006. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Trucker bombs, torpedoes and Mountain Dew are the nicknames for these fluid-filled roadside bottles. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - Some may call them “trucker bombs,” but road crews that have to pick them up have another word for them — disgusting. A bottle containing some unknown liquid near Nebraska Highway 50 and Interstate 80 may be an infamous “trucker bomb.” But for the highway crews that have to pick them up, there’s only one word for them — disgusting. Each year, truckers and other drivers toss out hundreds of plastic bottles and jugs filled with urine along...

His female caretakers thought they were caring for a handicapped adult, but William Mucklow was really a financial analyst. His nurses say he had a scheming mind and a penchant for Pampers. More than 20 women allege Mucklow behaved like a baby and asked them to change his diapers. Debbie McKemy/Alleged Victim: "He came to the door in a green onesy with a diaper full and a binky in his mouth. He acted like a 3-year-old child." Court documents allege William Mucklow pretended to be his own mother on phone interviews arranging for health care workers to come to his...

French lesbians have been crossing the border to Belgium in search of medical procedures to get pregnant, which are denied in France, creating a new sort of baby boom at Belgian fertility clinics. "In Belgium, we were welcomed without any judgment," said Marie-Pierre Micoud, 41, a marketing director, and her partner Nathalie Bassac, 43, a midwife, who conceived three boys by artificial insemination. "More and more women are making the trip from Paris to Brussels to have children through artificial insemination by an anonymous donor," said Franck Tanguy, who works with an association of homosexual parents and want-to-be parents. Last...

Driving in the dark to class on Tuesday, going about 50 mph, I suddenly come up on a freshly-hit deer in the middle of the road. Not much room to swerve, and very little time to think, I made a move to straddle the carcass. Bad choice. I hit the deer with the front/underside of the car. Car's operations are all intact. The deer's guts, however, are not. They were flung up and are stuck to the underside of the car and causing a most unpleasant odor to waft its way into the car. This shouldn't be an uncommon question...

Homosexual party sunk by Wilma? Fantasy Fest had been reset for Wednesday, but 'debauchery' could be canceled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: October 24, 2005 8:25 p.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Historic Customs House in Key West, Fla., stands behind remains of Hilton pier torn apart by Hurricane Wilma (photo: Key West Citizen) Despite the attempt to dodge the impact of Hurricane Wilma by changing the dates for the annual Fantasy Fest, the storm has deluged any hopes for the homosexual debauchery party this week, and could force a complete cancellation. "We know Fantasy Fest is on everyone's mind," City Commissioner Bill Verge...

WASHINGTON – Was the U.S. Supreme Court fooled by a make-believe sodomy case in Lawrence v. Texas – one manufactured by homosexual activists to entrap police and ensnare the judicial system in a conspiracy to change the law of the land? That is the compelling verdict of a new book, "Sex Appealed: Was the U.S. Supreme Court Fooled?" by Judge Janice Law. It was in the Houston courthouse where Law presided as judge that she first heard rumors that the key figures in what became the landmark Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court case actually invited arrest in a pre-arranged setup...