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Prepaid phone plans, where you pay the full price for a cellphone and then pay lower monthly rates without a contract, seem to offer what most budget-conscious people want. So why haven’t they really caught on?

Yet another student has landed in trouble for having something that represents a weapon, but isn’t actually anything like a real weapon. This time it’s an autistic middle school student in South Carolina who was suspended until further notice after he brought a cartoonish drawing of a bomb he drew to school, reports local NBC affiliate WYFF. The student, 13-year-old Rhett Parham, showed his drawing to some older students at Hill Crest Middle School in Greenville. They reported it to school officials. They boy said he got the idea to draw the bomb from a video game called Bomberman Hero....

Pope Francis said it is true that in the past, people with epilepsy might have been mischaracterized as being possessed by demons, but that confusion did not refute the fact that the Devil exists and is so important that he “is on the first page of the Bible” and at the Bible’s end, “with the victory of God over the Devil.” … As for his comments on Satan and other demons, the Pope said, “Some may say, ‘But Father, you’re too old-fashioned. You’re frightening us with these things.’ No, it’s not me! It is the Gospel! And these are not...

When over the weekend, a Xerox "glitch" shut down the EBT system, better known as foodstamps, for nearly the entire day across 17 states leaving millions without "funding" to pay for food leading to dramatic examples of the basest human behavior possible, some of the more conspiratorial elements saw this merely as a dress rehearsal for what may be coming in the immediate future. While there was no basis to believe that is the case, a USDA (the currently shuttered agency that administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) memo obtained by the Crossroads Urban Center in Utah carries in it...

Say hi to Lucy. Lucy is part of Generation Y, the generation born between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s. She's also part of a yuppie culture that makes up a large portion of Gen Y. I have a term for yuppies in the Gen Y age group—I call them Gen Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies, or GYPSYs. A GYPSY is a unique brand of yuppie, one who thinks they are the main character of a very special story. So Lucy's enjoying her GYPSY life, and she's very pleased to be Lucy. Only issue is this one thing: Lucy's...

Good thing British authorities are keeping foes of jihad such as Pamela Geller and me out of the country, eh? If they let us in, people like these men with "roots in Turkey, Pakistan, Algeria and Azerbaijan" might get angry and start plotting violence. UK Death Watch Update: "British authorities break up terror plot," from AP, October 14 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

The UK is facing its greatest risk of blackouts since 2007/08 in the coming winter. The National Grid, responsible for balancing the country’s supply and demand of energy, last week has given this warning because Britain’s reserves of electricity have halved in 12 months. The UK and the USA are in the same boat here. Both countries have governments that have – or pretend to have — fallen for the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory hook, line, and sinker.

National Park Service (NPS) rangers removed the handles from some 40 public water pumps and closed restrooms in the 184.5 mile- C&O Canal National Historical Park, but they haven’t been able to keep hikers and bikers off the popular trail known as a “cyclist’s dream.” “It’s full every day,” said Gail Hall, who runs Mountain Side Bikes at the trailhead in Cumberland, Md. “They’re bringing in their own water and utilizing the tree-lined areas [of the park] for restrooms. Some towns like Harper’s Ferry even brought in potties to accommodate them. As long as they can pedal, they don’t care.”

Nielsen has conducted an investigation into the ratings for Megyn Kelly’s new Fox News Channel show, “The Kelly File,” following grousing by MSNBC chief Phil Griffin. The investigation has revealed that the numbers for Kelly are accurate. Last Tuesday, the day after its debut, “The Kelly File” doubled its audience, crushing “The Rachel Maddow Show,” its MSNBC competition.

Unrepentant former terrorist Bill Ayers was an invited dignitary at the University of Chicago’s International House last week, plugging his latest ode to himself in book form, reports The College Fix. The book, “Public Enemy: Confessions of an American Dissident,” describes — from his vantage point – his disappointment with America after his friendship with Barack Obama became a focus of controversy during the 2008 Democratic primary and subsequent general election. At the University of Chicago event, Ayers said he was “amazed” to be “cast as some kind of public enemy” just because he had been a co-founder of the...

School “zero tolerance” policies claimed another victim as Massachusetts high school student Erin Cox was suspended from her volleyball team after giving an intoxicated friend a ride home from a party. Police determined that Cox had not consumed alcohol, and agreed that the honors student had only come to a party featuring underage drinking in order to make sure a friend got home safely. But Andover High School decided to punish Cox anyway, determining that she had violated the school district’s zero tolerance policy against drug and alcohol use. Cox was demoted from her position as captain of the volleyball...

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - An off-duty Richland County sheriff's deputy is in hot water after allegedly assaulting a woman, handcuffing her and slamming her head into a table at a Columbia restaurant on Monday. Columbia police arrested 49-year-old Deputy Paul Allen Derrick at Buffalo Wild Wings on Devine Street and charged him with assault. The incident happened just after 11 p.m. According to a Columbia Police Department incident report, Derrick approached a female soldier from Fort Jackson who appeared to be upset. The report states the 23-year-old showed no interest in Derrick and the two started arguing. Police say Derrick,...

A woman named Laura told me yesterday she was at the Market Basket in Salem, N.H. The woman in front of her took one EBT card from her designer purse, tried to run it through and failed. She shrugged and pulled out a second one. That one didn’t work either, so she took out a third card and tried that. When it didn’t work, she pulled out a wad of cash that would choke a horse, all 50s and 100s, and paid cash.

(CNSNews.com) -- Bureaucracies in the Obama Administration have thus far published approximately 11,588,500 words of final Obamacare regulations, while there are only 381,517 words in the Obamacare law itself. That means unelected federal officials have now written 30 words of regulations for each word in the law. What is commonly known as the Obamacare law includes both the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA). Since these bills were signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010, various agencies in the administration have published 109 final regulations spelling out...

A teenager thought to be possessed by the devil was subjected to a violent crucifixion-style exorcism by four religious extremists, a court in France heard today (Monday). Three men and a woman belonging to the Seventh Day Adventist Church are accused of kidnapping, and acts of torture and barbarism against the 19-year-old. The young woman, referred to solely by the name Antoinette, was barely alive when police found her in a flat in a housing estate in the Paris suburb of Grigny. Her tormentors are accused of tying her up like Jesus on the cross, and keeping Antoinette in the...

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (CBS Sacramento) – According to a recent study, women may enjoy a spicier sex life after they receive breast implants. Although the study size was small, researchers found that women experienced a significant boost in their arousal and sexual satisfaction after they had the surgery. However, researchers also found that women who were left with stretch marks after the procedure did not experience any improvement in their sex life.

Dan Price was once a successful but stressed out family man in Kentucky but left it all behind twenty years ago to live underground in the Oregon woods. He's the Hobbit hole man who walked away from the 9-to-5 life, dug himself a house under a horse pasture and he has never looked back. ‘When you get rid of things and you’re willing to have less, you’re given a gift of more,’ said Price as he sat in his 8-foot abode.Price once worked as a photojournalist to help support his wife and two young kids and to pay the family...

HOUSTON - The six law enforcement officers accused of taking part in an illegal horse racing and gambling operation in Crosby appeared in court Monday morning. The six officers involved are from four different agencies and include: Carlos Garza, a reserve deputy for the Maverick County Sheriff's Office Edward Scott, a reserve for the Fort Bend County Deputy Precinct 2 Constable's Office David Green, a reserve for the Fort Bend County Deputy Precinct 2 Constable's Office Richard Rene Rivera, a DPS State Trooper Joel Garcia, a deputy for the Harris County Constable's Office Secar Guadelupe Rangel, a deputy for the...

A cure for marijuana abuse could be on the horizon thanks to a new finding. Researchers found that increasing the levels of a naturally-occurring acid in the brain could stop addicts who are trying to give up from relapsing. The scientists discovered that kynurenic acid reduces the kick monkeys and rats get from THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. … Kynurenic acid, which can be produced from bananas and turkey, is thought to cause fewer side effects than other treatments that have been considered because it occurs naturally in the brain. …

“Mark ‘I wasn’t really buying that AR-15‘ Kelly is committing a felony right in front of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. It’s against New York State (NYS) law for someone to be in possession (i.e. holding) a handgun without a valid NYS Pistol license. Mark Kelly can’t have a NYS pistol license because he’s not a legal resident of New York.” An Empire State firearms attorney told TTAG that there’s an exception for firearms training but, as far as he can tell, not gun shows. Unless we hear otherwise, under Article 265 of New York State penal law,...

The Law of the Sea Treaty. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Yes, when it comes to international agreements that may seem harmless until you read the fine print, the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty has plenty of company. Like the pacts cited above, the ATT has been signed by the U.S., but not ratified by the Senate. Nor is it likely to be. But that doesn’t mean it won’t prove damaging to the United States and its interests.

Another Democrat in the Colorado Senate is facing recall for voting for new gun control laws. Two other Democrats faced recall earlier this year over those laws, and despite having Michael Bloomberg and his anti-gun allies pour millions of dollars into Colorado to defend them, they were both defeated and removed. This third recall would switch control of the state Senate from D to R. So Gov. John Hickenlooper is scared, and wants Bloomberg and his anti-gun nuts to just stay away. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper suggests national gun-control groups stay away from a looming recall battle that could switch...

Administrators at Texas Christian University repeatedly shot down conservative students’ attempts to publicize an event by using a picture of a gun, and vetoed a gun safety course entirely. Administrators at the private university in Fort Worth, Texas prohibited student members of a Young Americans for Freedom chapter from advertising conservative commentator Bay Buchanan’s visit to the university by circulating a picture of an antique shotgun with the caption “Fully Loaded.”

A former NHS director died after waiting for nine months for an operation - at her own hospital. Margaret Hutchon, a former mayor, had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex. But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery.

I am a member of BJ's wholesale. They have this emergency food supply available: http://www.bjs.com/augason-farms-emergency-food-storage-kit-1-year-1-person.product.211362?dimId=8052 Any thoughts? I have a supply of food that I've been building up over time. About two months for my family of four (two adults - two children). I want a compact supply and something I can build further on. Thanks in advance.

FULL TITLE: South Carolina man who shot unarmed teenager dead will NOT face trial under controversial Stand Your Ground law A South Carolina mother has spoken out in shock after it was announced on Friday that the man who shot dead her 17-year-old son will not be tried for his murder because of the state's 'Stand Your Ground Law'. In April 2010, Shannon Anthony Scott, who was then 33, opened fire on a SUV full of teenage girls outside his home in Columbia and unintentionally hit unarmed 17-year-old Darrell Andre Niles in his car, killing him. Despite being arrested and...

Late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was concerned by the United States’ lean to the left after President Barack Obama took office in 2009, authors of a recently released book about “The Iron Lady” claim. Thatcher never commented publicly on President Obama’s leadership, though the Obama administration’s big government agenda runs counter to everything she believed in, former Thatcher aide Niles Gardiner and writer Stephen Thompson, authors of “Margaret Thatcher on Leadership: Lessons for American Conservatives Today”, told The Daily Caller. But even though Great Britain’s first female prime minister didn’t speak out publicly about Obama, she was privately concerned...

<p>There wasn’t much left by the time she arrived, just a burnt-out structure and the haze of smoke that lingered around it.</p> <p>The siding and gutters had melted. The roof was gone. Inside, piles of ash filled the rooms that had once bustled with the pleasant sounds of a family.</p>

The rights of a transgendered Colorado high school student are being put ahead of girls the boy harasses in the girls bathroom. A male student at Florence (CO) High School who claims to be transgendered has caused controversy by harassing female students in the girls room, but will not face any discipline – this despite vocal protests from the girls’ parents. ‘The boy’s rights as a transgender trump their daughters’ privacy rights,’ the school has told concerned parents, according to CBN. Unidentified because all involved are minors, the students are being threatened with removal from sports teams or even hate...

FULL TITLE: Horrific impact of deadly 'cannibal heroin' that 'eats' addicts alive: Drug that originated in Russia is now on the streets of the U.S. It is feared a deadly drug known as 'cannibal heroin' which eats flesh from the inside out is about to take off in the United States. Krokodil, which is similar to heroin and originated in Russia 10 years ago, turns users into zombies as their bodies begin to rot leaving addicts with reptilian skin. Following reports over the past month of cases of krokodil abuse in both Arizona and Chicago, Illinois, the drug is now...

The two Democratic state senators who lost their jobs last month in recall elections for endorsing strict gun control initiatives in Colorado are nothing more than sacrificial lambs in New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s mission to reform the nation’s gun laws. While Bloomberg didn’t precisely use the words “sacrificial lambs,” he essentially said as much in an interview with Time Magazine, when he rejected the notion that the recall was a sign that his side had lost in Colorado. “What do you mean we lost?” Bloomberg told Time. “I’m sorry for those two people. But we won in Colorado....

On the best of days, D.C. witnessed millions of peaceful tea party marchers who were taxed enough already, yet most of the MSM ignored them and wrote them off as a few thousand radical right wingers with extreme views, an “AstroTurf movement” as Nancy Pelosi so derisively called them. On the worst of days, D.C. is a place to fear and the seat of power, corruption, and pettiness. Big rig drivers understood that. Unlike the past when truckers caused gridlock in Washington with their demonstrations, few American truckers showed up this time to protest their bloated government that does not...

In simply Southern terms, Allen West defined President Obama as a “spoiled brat child.” The former Florida Representative said America has given Obama everything he wanted, during an interview on the "The Steve Malzberg Show” show Thursday: “We gave him a state senator position in Chicago, we gave him a U.S. Senate position out of the state of Illinois, unproven, untested, no resume, we gave him the presidency — twice. So if you continue to reward bad behavior, you're going to get more of that bad behavior." The majority of Americans continue to accuse Republicans for the nearly-two-week-long government shutdown....

I created this meme over at memegenerator. I used to use quickmeme but they kept censoring any conservative memes. This is pure Alinsky rule #5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” The point is to get people to laugh at Obamacare and associate it with failure. Please share or add your own captions. This is one way to get to the low information voters.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, the late former first lady Betty Ford and Title IX advocate Bernice Sandler were among the nine women inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame Saturday. The ceremony, attended by about 700 people, was held in Seneca Falls, the western New York village where the first known women’s rights convention was held in 1848. “Our mission is to share the stories of these women with the general population and to inspire future generations to their own greatness,” the hall’s deputy director, Amanda Bishop, said after the ceremony. …

A woman is suing a police officer and the town of Skokie, Illinois, after she was seriously injured when a cop threw her into a jail cell face-first following a drunk driving arrest. Cassandra Feuerstein, 47, claims in a federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday, that excessive force was used in the incident and that she needed reconstructive surgery to 'replace the bones that had been shattered' after being pushed into the cell on March 10. The video of the incident clearly shows the 47-year-old being roughly shoved into the cell by an officer, who was later identified as Michael Hart....

brief plotIn-car, auto road service taken over by obama logo ... 2011 movie

COVINGTON, La. -- Two referees arrested during last night's St. Paul's vs. Mandeville game in Covington have now bonded out of the St. Tammany Parish Jail. 55-year-old Christopher Gambino of River Ridge and 54-year-old James Radcliffe of Metairie are both charged with one count of Public Intimidation for their involvement in an argument with Covington Police Officers during the third quarter of the game. Both Radcliffe and Gambino are free today, after posting $5,000 signature bonds late last night.According to police and witnesses, the incident began when the Chain Crew, the volunteers holding the yard markers at the game, got...

London-based sculptor Ron Mueck, formerly a model maker and puppeteer for children's television and films, has been creating fine art sculptures since 1996. Using resin, fiberglass, silicone, and many other materials, Mueck constructs hyperrealistic likenesses of human beings, while playing with scale.

Another clause to add to a 17th amendment change. 1. Government employees (not military), federal and state are prohibited from all campaign donations. 2. Government employees (not military), federal and state do not get to vote in elections. Seems to me with 8% of the current workforce being a government employee (verify the 8% somebody?), that creates an inside coalition that will always support higher pay, more job security, more agency regulatory responsibility -- which is a progressive agenda.

One thing I haven't seen discussed or brought up is the fact that any shutdown, slim down or even default is repairable and only a temporary problem. But the creeping (well, it's past creeping now) socialism being brought about by Obama's executive orders, his unimpeded co-op of enumerate Congressional powers, his decisions to not enforce laws he doesn't like -- those are irreparable. Government rarely (peacefully) goes backwards. Taxes never go down and agency power is always expanding behind the backs of their congressional oversight. So bring on the shutdown, slimdown or default. Those can be fixed. Use those as...

He is a passionate campaigner on green issues, and now Jeremy Irons has backed a campaign to ban lorries from the quaint Oxfordshire town where he lives. The Oscar–winning actor has thrown his weight behind an action group to prevent HGVs using the narrow streets of Watlington as a rat-run between the M40 and M4. The market town—reputedly the smallest in the country—is regularly snarled up with lorries whose drivers, looking for a shortcut between Oxford and Reading, are directed there by their satnavs. …

DETROIT – Detroit’s chief financial officer has apologized for a comment he made about “someone in a hoodie” that a city employee said was racially insensitive. Jim Bonsall, who was hired to help the city turn around its finances amid the largest public bankruptcy filing in U.S. history, on Thursday apologized in a statement issued by the office of state-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr, saying that he didn’t intend to offend anyone. Orr’s office says Bonsall has been suspended with pay pending the outcome of an investigation. “I apologize and am sorry for having offended co-workers over comments I made...

This week, actor James Woods took to Twitter to criticize President Obama amid the government slimdown and also said he now expects to struggle to find work in left-leaning Los Angeles. So is Woods on target, or just paranoid? According to Mell Flynn, President of the Hollywood Congress of Republicans, discrimination against Republicans in Hollywood indeed runs rampant. … Early last year, Kelsey Grammer scooped a Golden Globe for his performance in the Starz series “Boss,” and at the after-party boasted to us that being a Republican was “easy” for him “because [he] was such a revolutionary” and refused to...

Crystal Dixon has run out of options. Dixon, the former associate vice president of human resources at the University of Toledo (UT), sued her former employer in 2008 after she was fired for publishing a column expressing her opinions on homosexuality. In February 2012, a federal judge ruled against Dixon. Later that year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit concurred with the lower court. Now, this week, the United States Supreme Court has declined to hear Dixon’s appeal. In her column, published in The Toledo Free Press, Dixon, who is black, had expressed her disagreement with comparisons...

Surgeons in Los Angeles have for the first time performed a life-saving procedure on a tiny fetus inside its mother’s womb after practicing on a grape. Using a hair-fine wire, a miniature needle, a tiny balloon and a catheter, they successfully carried out the operation on the unborn child’s heart—which is about the size of a walnut. It was a medical first for the surgical team at CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, and according to the LA Times, it appears to have been a success. … Practicing for such a critical and exacting procedure, remarkably, involved using...

Senate Democrats hosted Deadliest Catch Captain Keith Colburn on the Hill today to say that he can’t go fishing because of the government shutdown. Colburn was testifying at this afternoon’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the economic impacts of the government shutdown. “This is the first time in my 28 years of fishing that I haven’t been in the Bering Sea in October getting ready to go fish,” Colburn said “Many fishermen and coastal communities are already facing tough times. This unnecessary shutdown may be the tipping point if the situation isn’t resolved soon… I’m a small businessman in a...

When the phenomenon known as Obamamania first swept across America, progressives hailed The One as the answer to all the problems which had befuddled humankind since the start of time. Barack Hussein Obama we were told, by progressive savants, the mainstream media, and by The One himself, would atone for damage inflicted on the republic and its millions of citizens by 43 white males whom had preceded him in the Presidency, all of whom had failed to come even close to delivering Utopia, the progressive vision of heaven.

This month, the United Nation's Committee on Human Rights (CHR) will be considering a report submitted by the Dream Defenders, the NAACP, and the Community Justice Project of Florida Legal Services. Dream Defender Ahmad Abuznaid will travel to Geneva to meet with the CHR. The report alleges that the U.S. is in violation of its treaty obligations under the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," (ICCPR). Specifically, stand your ground laws, (SYG), violate America's obligation to protect the lives of its citizens. They also allege that juries apply these laws in a racially discriminatory fashion, although this doesn't appear...

I have often wondered at the rift between the left and the right. The division is not just in politics, though that’s wide enough. There are also differences in matters of morality, work ethic and self-control. Frankly, I don’t ever see that gap closing. What this comes down to is that I simply do not understand the logic of the progressive mind. And I say this as a former progressive – I was a good little liberal when I was in college, but maturity and adult understanding has eradicated all liberalism from my bloodstream to the point where I view...