Free Republic

Getting paid to sit on the couchWhat a waste of tax money November 24, 2012 Tribune reporters Jared S. Hopkins and Alex Richards recently exposed one of those head-scratching how-Illinois-works stories that will drive you crazy. This state is perpetually broke, yet it allows government employees to get paid for doing no work. Between 2007 and September of this year, 2,033 state workers were placed on paid leave at various times, at a cost of more than $23 million. Employees placed on paid administrative leave are typically being investigated for alleged wrongdoing. Maybe an employee has been accused of stealing,...

As a recent college graduate holding down his first job in the 1980s, Barack Obama did not make much of an impression on someone who knew the ways of the world: His girlfriend’s landlord. “I can honestly say that I do not remember him,” said Ralph Allen, who owned the brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where Mr. Obama’s girlfriend at the time, Genevieve Cook, rented the top-floor apartment — an apartment Mr. Obama shared with her in late 1984. “Maybe we met while I was sitting out on the stoop one night. Who knows.”

In Iowa, Newt Gingrich Can't Shake Nancy Pelosi Global Warming AdBy David Anderson | Yahoo! Contributor Network – 11 hrs ago COMMENTARY | If Newt Gingrich goes on to lose his fight for the Republican presidential nomination, he may look back at his decision to co-star in a 2006 global warming television ad with Nancy Pelosi as the moment that doomed his campaign. Gingrich, who served as House Speaker from 1995-1999, fielded yet another question about the ad during a New Years Day campaign event at LJs Neighborhood Bar and Grill in Waterloo, Iowa. His answer was captured on video...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich‘s hobby, he says, is studying “dinosaurs and other fossils.” He openly mourned the death of Knut the polar bear.Gingrich believes it is a “false dichotomy” to group policies according to whether they deal with the country’s economic problems or protect the environment. Instead, he thinks government can incentivize the production of new energy technologies, which would consequently help the environment and the economy by making the country less dependent on foreign oil. And he is not short on ideas of how to do it. “One generation’s science fiction is the next generation’s practical reality,” wrote...

A Tampa mother is behind bars Monday after beating her one-year-old child for eating her marijuana. Tampa Police say India Couch, 22, faces drug and felony child abuse charges. Investigators say the child was left unsupervised, found the pot in her mother's purse, and ate an undisclosed amount of the drug. That's when police say Couch beat the child with a sandal and then hit the one-year-old hard enough to leave welts. TPD also says this mother attacked her live-in partner with a dumbbell.

There was a hail of gunfire Wednesday morning around 3:30 in the 4000 block of Bonanza Drive Northeast in Salem. Several people called 911 to report the shooting. 30-year-old Ellis Bellack was asleep on a couch when the shooting happened. One of the bullets broke through a window and hit him in the arm. He was treated at Salem Hospital and released. Detectives are trying to determine the number of rounds fired and who was behind the shooting. No information has been released about suspects.

All he wanted was a couch. Juan Zhindon, 20, was trying to push an air conditioner through the rear window of a home on 85th Street near 32nd Avenue in East Elmhurst at 11 p.m. on July 11 when the homeowner came out and tackled him, police said. The resident sat on top of the would-be intruder until police arrived. When cops questioned him, Zhindon allegedly said, "I was just trying to take a couch. My wife kicked me out because I cheated on her. I was looking for a place to sleep." Cops showed little sympathy, busting him for...

Lounging in front of the tube not only eats up hours in your day, it may also shorten your life, according to a new study. The study, which looked at the connection between watching TV and death for 8,800 Australian adults, found that each hour of TV-viewing was associated with an 11 percent increased risk of death from any cause, and an 18 percent increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease. These findings held true even after the researchers took into account other factors that could raise the risk of dying, such as age, gender, waist circumference and exercise habits....

A man was lit on fire Saturday night after he fell asleep on a sidewalk couch, Vancouver police said. The man was sent to the hospital with minor burns to his chest and wrist. No one has been arrested. According to police, the 26-year-old New Westminster man had been drinking when he stumbled across a couch near Commercial Drive and East Fifth Avenue. He decided to take a nap. At 11:40 p.m., a witness saw three men spray some type of fluid on the sleeping man and light him on fire, police said. The witness ran to help and got...

I’ve decided that the gay community is right. You should be allowed to marry whomever or whatever you want. To hell with tradition and all that other crap, live and let live that’s my new motto.

ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) - A Russian woman in St Petersburg killed her drunk husband with a folding couch, Russian media reported on Wednesday. St Petersburg's Channel Five said the man's wife, upset with her husband for being drunk and refusing to get up, kicked a handle after an argument, activating a mechanism that folds the couch up against a wall.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Officials say they are investigating an alleged assault involving Durham police officers outside a Raleigh bar.

"Come get some!" And here's his pic on Nifong's webpage. http://www.mikenifong.com/districtcourt.php

hate women. Let me rephrase that: I hate "women" -- the ones who make a career of it, the feminists who like to blow things up and then cry as the pieces rain down, choking on the vapors. Such vapors filled the air, apparently, up at Harvard when big, bad Lawrence Summers -- Harvard's prez, who has just got to stop saying he's sorry -- declared in a meeting that the dearth of women in the hard sciences might have something to do, not so much with (yawn) male chauvinism, but with the innate differences between the sexes. "I felt...

A talent scout for a hip-hop modeling agency was arrested yesterday for raping a 14-year-old girl in his fly-by-night Manhattan office as her parents waited in another room, police said. Charles (Maurice) Green, 35, allegedly promised the teen he could help her singing and modeling career through his two companies - Hip Hop Models Inc. and Urban Talent Network. But cops said he attacked her instead.

STUART, Fla. -- A dramatic rescue ended tragically in Stuart, Florida, a rescue so difficult firefighters say they have never seen anything like it. It happened late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning at the home of a 600-pound woman who was having trouble breathing. Rescuers went in not knowing how difficult it would be to get her out. 40-year-old Gail Grinds was literally stuck to her couch and had to be removed surgically at the hospital. Authorities estimate she had been on the couch anywhere from two to five years. Martin County Fire amd Rescue crews faced what seemed...

Well, Hillary's not invited to speak at the Democrat Convention. Gee, dontcha think she's taking that in stride?Me, either.</p.

CBS at 7:00 P.M. EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- Bill Clinton says in his new autobiography that his wife looked as if he had punched her in the gut when he finally confessed to his affair with Monica Lewinsky, and he slept on the couch for at least two months after that. Access Rest of Arrticle Here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CLINTON_BOOK?SITE=NYNYP&SECTION=ENTERTAINMENT

Why wait till 6 pm? Mike Trivisono of WTAM has sources who say it's career back up Kelly Holcomb. The source is probably Carment Policy itself. Click on link for story