Free Republic

When Rodolfo Olmedo was dragged down by a group of men shouting anti-Mexican epithets and bashed over the head with a wooden stick on the street outside his home, he instinctively covered his face to keep from getting disfigured. Blood filled his mouth. "I wanted to scream, but I couldn't because of the beating they were giving me," said the 25-year-old baker. Nearly five months later, he is still taking pain medications for his head injuries. Recorded by a store's surveillance camera, the assault was the first of 11 suspected anti-Hispanic bias attacks in a Staten Island neighborhood, re-igniting years-old...

When a president suffers a sharp decline in popularity early in his term, it seems safe to conclude he has badly misjudged the mood of the electorate, pushed the wrong policies and set himself on the path to becoming a one-term president. That, it's widely agreed, is the sad tale of Barack Obama, who has managed to demoralize liberals while inspiring a wave of gloating among conservatives. A new CNN/Opinion Research poll finds that already, most Americans want to vote him out in 2012. But both Democrats and Republicans are jumping the gun. They forget that this storyline also describes...

President Bush favored cap and trade, one of this former speechwriters claims in a new book. In fact, Matt Latimer writes in "Speechless," the President actually ENDORSED the policy in a speech, but no one in the press could figure out what he meant. Cap-and-trade, which would put a limit on businesses' carbon emissions, barely passed the House this year but has yet to make headway in the Senate. Most Republicans are vocally opposed to it.

A man whose home was so full of rubbish that he had to build an intricate network of tunnels to get around may have died after losing his way in the labyrinth. Investigators believe Gordon Stewart, 74, died as a result of dehydration, after becoming unable to find his way out of the mass of carrier bags, boxes, old furniture and other junk. Police had to call in a specialist diving team because the smell from the house, Broughton, Buckinghamshire, was so overpowering. Neighbours had become concerned that they had not seen Mr Stewart for several days and raised the...

London, England (CNS) - Sir Paul McCartney's head has been found in a bin by a homeless man. Anthony Silva has found the waxwork of the Beatle legend's head and earned himself a reward of 2,000 pounds [around $3,200]...The head, made in the 1960s and displayed at the Louis Tussauds museum in Great Yarmouth, is expected to sell from 5,000 pounds to 10,000 pounds, or around $8,000 to $16,000, at Carters Entertainment auctioneers.

According to a recent study by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, 73 percent of California drivers change their oil more frequently than required. This same scenario no doubt repeats itself across the country. Besides wasting money, this translates into unnecessary consumption of $100-a-barrel oil, much of it imported. Using 2005 data, the Board estimates that Californians alone generate about 153.5 million gallons of waste oil annually, of which only about 60 percent is recycled. Used motor oil poses the greatest environmental risk of all automotive fluids because it is insoluble, persistent, and contains heavy metal and toxic chemicals. One...

Rubbish threatens Tuvixeddu necropolisRichard Owen in RomeMay 24,2008 An ancient Mediterranean necropolis described as one of the world's greatest historical sites is being submerged beneath cement, high rise housing and rubbish dumps, according to Italian conservationists. Tuvixeddu - which means “hills with small cavities” in the Sardinian dialect - contains thousands of Phoenician and Punic burial chambers from the 6th century BC. It has long been robbed of funerary objects but some of its tombs have retained their original paintings, including “Ureo's Tomb”, named after a sacred serpent, and “The Warrior's Tomb”, in which a decoration depicts a warrior throwing...

Silvio Berlusconi declares Naples street rubbish dumps 'military no-go zones' By Malcolm Moore in Naples Last Updated: 10:30PM BST 21/05/2008 Silvio Berlusconi promised to wash Italy clean of fear and use "absolute firmness" against any dissent. The 71-year-old prime minister held the first meeting of his new cabinet in rubbish-strewn Naples in order to resolve the city's perennial problems of crime and unemployment. At the end of the five-hour meeting, Mr Berlusconi promised to govern the city and the country with an iron fist. "We have painful tasks ahead, but we will act with unswerving determination," he said. He reclassified...

Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists described by one expert as "one of the most important developments in the history of science". The parallel universe theory, first proposed in 1950 by the US physicist Hugh Everett, helps explain mysteries of quantum mechanics that have baffled scientists for decades, it is claimed. In Everett's "many worlds" universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits. Given a number of possible alternative outcomes, each one is played out - in its own universe. A motorist who has a near miss, for instance,...

'Envirocrime' snoops paid £30,000 just to check your rubbishBy DANIEL BOFFEY - More by this author » Last updated at 22:21pm on 21st April 2007A council is paying plain-clothes snoopers £30,000 a year to track down homeowners who put their rubbish out at the wrong time of the week or in the wrong place. The 'envirocrime' officers are employed to enforce environmental regulations and have the power to fine residents who 'offend'. Ealing Council in West London is spending nearly £150,000 on recruiting and employing four new enforcement patrollers to add to its 23-strong team that already monitors 'waste...

Lie detectors might work in the movies, but a US congressional report says that when it comes to screening nuclear scientists, you might as well reinstitute the ducking stool. The US Congressional Research Service last month updated a report looking into the use of polygraphs or "lie detectors" in the US government. The report specifically focuses on use of polygraph screening in the Department of Energy (DOE), which runs some of America's most sensitive nuclear labs and research programmes. Large numbers of DOE personnel have been made to take routine polygraph tests since some embarrassing security breaches in the late...

Why we are closer to cousins from our mother's side By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 1:51am GMT 28/02/2007 We tend to help cousins on our mother's side more than cousins on our father's, according to a study published today. Evolution by natural selection has shaped us to mistrust paternity, say researchers, and their findings confirm a prediction by evolutionary scientists that we tend to be kinder – altruistic – to the children of our mother's sister than those of our father's brother. Evolutionary biologists say that the more likely we are to have genes in common with our...

IN an unusual alliance of star power George Clooney, the Hollywood actor and producer, is joining forces with John Grisham, the bestselling author, to create films dedicated to exposing miscarriages of justice.Grisham, who has blocked attempts to turn some of his novels into films, has agreed to let Clooney make one based on his first non-fiction book, The Innocent Man. Sources close to the 51-year-old author say that other films, television dramas and documentaries may follow. For Grisham, a former lawyer who turned his back on Hollywood after the amazing winning streak that followed the Tom Cruise blockbuster The Firm...

Most will end up in piles of remaindered copies or lie unread in the rooms of students. As literature, they have few redeeming qualities, while their relationship to reality is often questioned, as is their true authorship.But the presidential candidate's book has become as much part of the race for the White House as the wooing of wealthy donors in Manhattan, trudging through the snows of New Hampshire and endless stump speeches in Iowa. With the 2008 election arguably the most open contest since 1928 – the last time no sitting president or vice-president ran for their party's nomination –...

THOUSANDS of householders are facing the prospect of paying Britain’s first domestic rubbish tax under an Environment Agency proposal to trial the system in councils across England and Wales, writes Jonathan Leake. The scheme would see householders charged according to the weight of all non-recyclable waste they put out for collection each week. Green waste — recyclable paper, metal and glass, for example — would still be taken away for free. The agency’s “pay as you throw” proposal is aimed at breaking a deadlock between government departments that has held up attempts to “green” Britain’s waste disposal system. Tomorrow, the...

MUSLIM terrorists are no more likely to come from places with large Islamic populations than anywhere else, according to Manchester academics. Dr Ludi Simpson and Dr Nissa Finney studied media reports to map the location of suspects charged under anti-terror laws. The Manchester university researchers found that the proportion of people who have been charged is no greater in areas with large Muslim populations. They warn that "branding" areas such as Bradford and Newham, in London, as terrorism hotbeds is not only inaccurate but creates an atmosphere of "prejudice and fear". Dr Simpson said: "We looked at the 75 cases...

Boris Johnson was embroiled in an astonishing row last night after he attacked the TV chef Jamie Oliver and his campaign for healthier school dinners. The shadow higher education minister criticised Oliver's crusade days after David Cameron endorsed the chef's campaign. Mr Johnson even offered support to the mothers in Yorkshire who passed fast food to their children through the school fence in protest at the introduction of "over-priced, low-fat rubbish" in the school canteen. "I say let people eat what they like. Why shouldn't they push pies through the railings?" Mr Johnson told a fringe meeting in Bournemouth. "I...

Here are my predictions for August 22 (actually August 21). I’ve analyzed over 10,000 articles and a list of books since 9/11. Here is my analysis, listed as predictions, as of 1 AM PT 8/21. I don’t reference all my sources in the interest of space. 1. Terrorists will probably attack Israel with WMD on 8/21 or 8/22. Most likely time is on 8/21 between 9 AM and 2 PM US Pacific Time. This time corresponds to the Islamic religious holiday of the night of Rajab 27, which begins at sunset local time (ie around 9 AM PT US). The...

WASHINGTON - If current trends hold, tobacco will kill a billion people this century, 10 times the toll it took in the 20th century, public health officials said Monday. Tobacco accounts for one in five cancer deaths, or 1.4 million deaths worldwide each year, according to two new reference guides that chart global tobacco use and cancer. Lung cancer remains the major cancer among the 10.9 million new cases of cancer diagnosed each year, according to the Cancer Atlas. Reducing tobacco use would have the greatest affect on global cancer rates, health officials said. Improving nutrition and reducing infection by...

MADONNA’S world tour began in typically provocative fashion when the pop singer hung from a cross, shouted an obscenity at an image of President Bush, showed video footage that seemed to compare Tony Blair to Adolf Hitler, and writhed around on a device that combined a horse’s saddle with a stripper’s pole.As if that were not enough, the singer also wore a crown of thorns, dressed up as various male icons — James Brown and John Travolta included — and even briefly played the electric guitar. Early reviews of the event on Sunday night were positive, but the show failed...