Free Republic

BERLIN (AP) — Luxury carmaker Bentley says it’s recalling 820 cars worldwide over fears that its famous “Winged B” hood ornament could injure people in an accident because it might not properly retract. Bentley Motors’ European head office in Berlin said Thursday the recall affects 620 cars in the United States and Canada and 200 in Europe who added the raised hood ornament as an option on Arnage, Brooklands and Azure models made between October 2006 and March 2009. The company says no injuries have been reported but a dealer noticed the spring mechanism under the ornament has a tendency...

Parents seek to stop candy throwing at parades Some British Columbia in are trying to end the practice of throwing candy from floats during parades.   DAWSON CREEK, B.C. — Some British Columbia in are trying to end the practice of throwing candy from floats during parades.The campaign in Dawson Creek is the latest effort by people concerned about children bolting into the parade to scoop up the sweets. Efforts to end candy tossing have been adopted in Kamloops, Prince George and Fort St. John.A Fort St. John town council member and parade marshal, Larry Evans, says float drivers...

Thousands of Washington children will be forced back into car and booster seats next month when a change to state law takes effect. On June 1, children will have to stay in the safety seats until they are at least 8 years old or 4 feet, 9 inches tall. Violators face a $112 ticket. About half of all children between 6 to 8 years old will be affected by the change, according to safety advocates. "It's going to be a big challenge for those kids who have been out of the booster seat to get back," said Shawneri Guzman...

Something has happened to freedom in modern America. There seems to be less of it, and we don’t all seem to know how. There certainly has been a slight but undeniable Osauma Bin Ladin tax; levied against our individual rights, since the attacks of 9/11. However, the people keeping us down today aren’t from the Middle East, don’t speak Farsi, unless they came by it from their family, and are not oppressing the masses in hopes of imposing Sharia. They do it for the children. They do it because they care. Anything that might hurt an ordinary American gets reflexively...

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A study has found that air rifles, paintball pistols and BB guns injure as many as 21,000 Americans each year, undermining the notion that such weapons are harmless in the hands of young people. Nonpowder guns kill an average of four Americans yearly, and from 1990 to 2000, there were 39 such deaths -- 32 of children younger than 15, according to a report in November's issue of Pediatrics. The report, published Monday, comes just two weeks after the BB gun death of an 8-year-old South Carolina boy accidentally killed by a 13-year-old friend. The pellet...

<p>So it's not exactly the end of the divine luminous world and it's not exactly as bitterly dire as BushCo smirkingly reaming this nation and gutting schools and the economy and the environment and sex and joy, all slathered with his bald-faced lies about war. No, it's not quite as bad as that.</p>