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Toy-making giant Mattel Inc. issued recalls Tuesday for about 9 million Chinese-made toys that contain magnets children can swallow or which could have lead paint. The recalls includes 7.3 million play sets, including Polly Pocket dolls and Batman action figures, and 253,000 die cast cars that contain lead paint. The action was announced on the company's Web site and at a news conference here by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Nancy A. Nord, acting CPSC chairman, said no injuries had been reported with any of the products involved in the new recall. Several injuries had been reported in an earlier...

This statue currently stands outside the Iraqi palace, now home to the 4th Infantry division. It will eventually be shipped home and put in the memorial museum in Fort Hood , TX The statue was created by an Iraqi artist named Kalat, who for years was forced by Saddam Hussein to make the many hundreds of bronze busts of Saddam that dotted Baghdad . Kalat was so grateful for the Americans liberation of his country; he melted 3 of the heads of the fallen Saddam and made the statue as a memorial to the American soldiers and their fallen warriors...

Moshier, Jim E. Corporal Jim E. Moshier August 3, 1943 - June 11, 1967 After 40 years "missing in action", Marine Corporal Jim E. Moshier will finally rest near his father, brother, and the son he never met. At midday on June 11, 1967, Jim and 10 other Marines perished when their helicopter was shot down on a reconnaissance mission in Quang Tri Province in South Vietnam. Because of heavy enemy presence, immediate efforts to search and recover were not possible. Further recovery attempts, which resulted in 4 additional casualties, were also unsuccessful. Only recently have Jim's remains been positively...

You're not wrong if you think Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity never shut up, whereas Ed Schultz or Randi Rhodes barely get air time on the radio. The Center for American Progress and Free Press just released the first-of-its-kind statistical analysis of the political make-up of talk radio in the United States. It confirms that talk radio, one of the most widely used media formats in America, is dominated almost exclusively by conservatives. The new report entitled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” blames the FCC for the current imbalance, in particular the regulatory body's elimination of clear public...

oooooooooo....... It's the Ides of March.

Today--in a parking lot full of new cars--my old '86 Cutlas Supreme was stolen!! WHADDA' SHOCK!!

My "baby brother" was just a hero on the re-inactment show, "SWAT"!!!! I'm so proud!!! At one point the narrator said that these policemen have families who love them. I wanted to say, "That's ME!"

I have searched the Internet for an answer to a litarary/historical question I have about Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven," and I have had no success. It struck me that FreeRepublic is the best Brain Trust I know of, so...

On another thread the subject of neoptism of hollywoodies came up, and it seemed that it might be interesting to pool knowledge about who in Hollywood broke into the tight movie union because of their connections. Who's Whose Kid in Hollywood Nicholas Cage is Francis Ford Coppola's nephew. Anyone who saw him in Peggy Sue Got Married KNOWS he only got hired because of his uncle. He got to learn by being an apprentice in the trenches--that's a gift. Kate Hudson is Goldie Hawn's daughter.Gwennie Paltrow is the daughter of Bruce Paltrow and Blythe Danner.

Kern County's sludge ban suffered another blow Wednesday from U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess of Los Angeles. Last week, Feess issued a tentative ruling that stopped Kern County from enforcing the sludge ban while Kern fought off a legal assault from the city of Los Angeles, Orange County and the businesses that haul and farm sludge for them. Feess said in court that the Kern ban, enacted as Measure E by local voters on June 6, violated state recycling laws. On Wednesday, Feess issued a formal ruling that upheld those two previous decisions. But this new ruling went further....

L.A. gets temporary victory in sludge fight Ruling lets city, Orange County continue trucking waste to Kern LOS ANGELES -- The city of Los Angeles and Orange County can continue spreading their treated sewage sludge on Kern County farmland under a tentative ruling issued Monday in U.S. District Court. The ruling overturns, at least for now, the Measure E sludge ban passed by Kern County voters in June. Judge Gary Feess said he believes state laws that push for recycling of all solid waste -- including sewage sludge -- take precedence over the Kern County ordinance that bans spreading treated...

Back in 1902, a scientist examining the smooth, grapefruit-size brain of a manatee remarked that the organ's unwrinkled surface resembled that of the brain of an idiot. Ever since then, manatees have generally been considered incapable of doing anything more complicated than chewing sea grass. But Hugh, a manatee in a tank at a Florida marine laboratory, doesn't seem like a dimwit. When a buzzer sounds, the speed bump-shaped mammal slowly flips his 1,300 pounds and aims a whiskered snout toward one of eight loudspeakers lowered into the water. Nosing the correct speaker earns him treats. Hugh is no manatee...

LUCKNOW, India ? A man in northern India will be publicly slapped 51 times as punishment after village elders found him guilty of raping a neighbor who is deaf and mute, a village chief said Friday. The elders stepped in to review the case because local police had failed to arrest the accused man after a complaint was filed by the victim's husband, village head Badr-ul Hasan told The Associated Press. "Police told us that since the woman is deaf and mute, she is not able to narrate the incident," Hasan said. Village courts generally settle land disputes and other...

I've been very popular lately! Important people have been calling ME! So far, the major callers have been The Governator and Mr. Clint Eastwood! I feel so special!

I keep seeing people drag public school teachers down. If you don't like what teachers are doing, direct conservative people--your children?--into the profession so that it can be changed. That was what the liberals did in the '50's and '60's.

Two Bakersfield men are among a trio indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury for selling secret defense information and equipment to Yemen, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott said. Amen Ahmed Ali, 56, of Bakersfield is in custody. He will appear at a hearing at 1:30 p.m. Friday in Bakersfield. Ali is accused of receiving secret defense documents from an undercover government agent and sending them via fax and courier to Yemen, according to a release from Scott. Ali did this between June 25, 2005 and Aug. 31, 2006. A second Bakersfield man, Mohamed Al-Rahimi, 62, of Bakersfield, remains at...

On the sun-splashed Caribbean island of St. Kitts, Yale University researchers are injecting millions of human brain cells into the heads of monkeys afflicted with Parkinson's disease. In China, there are 29 goats running around on a farm with human cells coursing through their organs, a result of scientists dropping human blood cells into goat embryos. The mixing of humans and animals in the name of medicine has been going on for decades. People are walking around with pig valves in their hearts and scientists have routinely injected human cells into lab mice to mimic diseases. But the research is...