Free Republic

URBANA, Ill. (WTVO) — A missing emu in Central Illinois is still on the run. Illinois State Police tried to catch the animal on I-74 in Urbana on Tues day, but it got away. Experts said that it is going to be hard to catch the emu if they do not have the right resources. The bird can run as fast as 30 miles per hour, and it is in wide open space right now. The emu is believed to have been on the lam since September. Experts said that it is not surprising it has survived this long, but...

An outback Australia watering hole has barred the big birds from the premises following a series of flaps, according to reports. ...But as they grew older, they began climbing the steps into the pub and wreaking more havoc than any over-served patron by stealing customers’ food, drinks and car keys — and relieving themselves inside. The solution was to erect ropes in front of the joint’s doors, along with signs reading, “Emus have been banned from this establishment for bad behaviour. Please let yourself in through the emu barrier and then reconnect please!”

Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Employees at a Kentucky zoo rounded up a quartet of emus that escaped from an Amish farm and went wandering near a busy highway. Mick McGill, animal management director at the Kentucky Down Under Adventure Zoo, said phone calls started coming in about 3 p.m. from drivers who spotted the emus wandering loose near the L&N Turnpike in Horse Cave. McGill said he and his head zookeeper, Harley White, did a quick check to make sure the emus didn't belong to the zoo, and soon determined the large birds had escaped from a nearby Amish farm....

Oct. 21 (UPI) -- Authorities in Minnesota said they captured a "habitual runaway" emu about a day after the animal was spotted running loose. The Benton County Sheriff's Office said the emu was reported running loose Saturday night, and authorities were familiar with the animal from previous incidents. "Have you seen this emu?! This emu is wanted for questioning for being a habitual runaway. If found, please report his location to the Benton County Sheriff's Office ... do not approach the subject as he may be violent!" the sheriff's office said in a Facebook post. An update posted Sunday night...

ORANGE COUNTY, N.C. - An escaped emu has been avoiding capture for weeks now, but continues to tantalize animal control officials in Orange County, North Carolina, with sudden public appearances -- before just as suddenly disappearing. The large flightless bird’s latest antics involved a startling interaction with a car. “He apparently jumped on the hood of a car and then ran away,” Tenille Fox, with Orange County Animal Services told WTVD-TV. No one seems to know who the bird belongs to, WTVD reported. It just appeared in a backyard in June, and then the hunt was on to find it....

A VICTORIAN man who deliberately ran down emus in his ute on a country road near the South Australian border has said his actions were the “biggest stuff up” of his life. Jacob MacDonald, 20, was charged with numerous animal cruelty and traffic offences on Friday after the video he filmed of himself running over the emus went viral on social media. MacDonald, pictured, is from Cowangie, a small town only kilometres from the South Australian border. Yesterday, speaking publicly for the first time since the incident, he said that while running down the emus as they crossed Pallarang Rd...

YPSILANTI, MI -- More than two weeks after Eastern Michigan University staff discovered racial graffiti spray painted outside of King Hall, students returned to the spot on Thursday, Oct. 6, seeking to create unity and heal as a campus community. While the the spray paint was gone, the pain associated with the incident was still present for many students. A silent protest march organized by EMU student Desmine Robinson, however, aimed to remove some of the tension associated with the hateful act. "We want to kill racism and I know we can't chase that feeling out of everyone, but if...

.... The International Monetary Fund is in very serious trouble. Events have reached a point in Greece where the Fund's own credibility and long-term survival are at stake. The Greeks are not withholding a €300m payment to the IMF because they have run out of money, though they soon will do. .... They knew exactly what they were doing. The IMF’s Christine Lagarde was caught badly off guard. Staff officials in Washington were stunned. .... The IMF’s Original Sin in Greece was to allow the urbane Parisian Dominique Strauss-Kahn to hijack the institution to prop up Europe’s monetary union and...

An issue that could “dramatically affect” the mission of the United States Armed Forces is telling soldiers when it is okay to kiss a girl. The Air Force is the latest branch to employ the services of Mike Domitrz, a speaker and author known for his “May I Kiss You?” training session, to teach servicemembers about consent and sexual assault prevention. On Thursday the Air Force awarded Domitrz’s company, the Date Safe Project, $10,000 for three training sessions. Domitrz’s 60 to 90 minute sessions offer a “unique combination of humor and dramatic story telling,” the Air Force said in an...

The University of Michigan isn't the only area university whose showing of the film "American Sniper" on Friday caused controversy. Four protesters were temporarily detained after disrupting an 8 p.m. showing of the film April 10 on the Eastern Michigan University campus, according to university officials. EMU spokesman Geoff Larcom said during the first of two planned showings at university's Student Center, protesters got on stage and disrupted the movie. The EMU Police Department received complaints for subjects causing a disturbance and refusing to leave at about 8:10 p.m. at the Student Center, according to their police log. About 40...

HERZLIYA, Israel (AP) - Israeli traffic this weekend was really for the birds. In the central Israeli town of Herzliya near Tel Aviv, an escaped emu ran through traffic Sunday on a main road between cars in the rain. Local authorities say the bird escaped from a private farm. Passer-by Iliya Zelser filmed the bird's run. He says the experience made him feel like he was in a cartoon. Zelser says he expected to hear the "beep beep" of the cartoon Road Runner. The 27 year old told The Associated Press: "I said to myself in a second, a coyote...

The couple and their five children are fond of unusual animals and urban agriculture. So the couple found an emu farm near Martinsville and brought home a chick about a year ago and named it Zazu. “It’s grown up with our family,” Mike Powell said. It started out sleeping in the couple’s bed. “Not the prettiest creature in the world, but we love it,” Mike Powell said. Today, it’s about 5 feet tall, and looks like a shaggy umbrella on long legs with large, reptilian feet. At the end of a long neck is a head with an expression that...

<p>The punishment regime imposed on Cyprus is a trick against everybody involved in this squalid saga, against the Cypriot people and the German people, against savers and creditors. All are being deceived.</p>

Below are some of the key highlights from Kyle Bass' latest, and as usual, must read letter:On central banks and the final round of global monetary debasement: Central bankers are feverishly attempting to create their own new world: a utopia in which debts are never restructured, and there are no consequences for fiscal profligacy, i.e. no atonement for prior sins. They have created Potemkin villages on a Jurassic scale. The sum total of the volatility they are attempting to suppress will be less than the eventual volatility encountered when their schemes stop working. Most refer to comments like this...

As children across America costume themselves as ghouls, ghosts, goblins and former North African dictators Monday night, they may have missed the most spine-chilling scare of the day. According to calculations based on the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook, on All Hallows’ Eve the United States’ total debt will surpass its Gross Domestic Product for the first time since World War II. That means the average American’s share of government debt is more than an average American makes in a year. Spooky! On October 19 Bloomberg released a chart showing that per capita gross government debt would to exceed...

Europe, the G20, and the global authorities have one last chance to contain the EMU debt crisis with a nuclear solution or abdicate responsibility and watch as the world slides into depression, endangering the benign but fragile order that has taken shape over the last three decades. The threat of cascading default, bank runs, and catastrophic risk must be taken off the table," said US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner over the weekend. "Sovereign and banking stresses in Europe are the most serious risk now confronting the world economy. Decisions cannot wait until the crisis gets more severe." Euroland's dysfunctional arrangements...

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos sought to reassure nervous markets and EU partners on Saturday by pledging his debt-ridden country would do whatever it takes to avoid default and stay in the euro zone. During an IMF meeting in Washington that was dominated by fears that Greek debt woes could trigger a wider European crisis, threatening banks and hurting the world economy, Venizelos dismissed any talk of bankruptcy.

Very rarely in political history has any faction or movement enjoyed such a complete and crushing victory as the Conservative Eurosceptics. The field is theirs. They were not merely right about the single currency, the greatest economic issue of our age – they were right for the right reasons. They foresaw with lucid, prophetic accuracy exactly how and why the euro would bring with it financial devastation and social collapse. Meanwhile, the pro-Europeans find themselves in the same situation as appeasers in 1940, or communists after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They are utterly busted. Let's examine the case...

We were pretty much speechless when we read this - it sure puts guarantees by Noyer, Trichet and all the other bureaumonkeys that the ECB does not accept just any collateral in perspective. From Presseurop.eu: "The most expensive footballer in history may now be used to guarantee the solvency of a Spanish bank. “Ronaldo in the bailout fund,” headlines Süddeutsche Zeitung. The daily reports that the Bankia group of savings banks,...

Champions of the European Project can claim a dubious vindication. They never wavered in their faith that EU states would yield sovereignty to save the euro if push came to shove, that monetary union would force the pace towards joint EU government. So it proves to be, for now. But let us not forget that Europe's ideologues have achieved this only by pushing the world to the brink of catastrophe and holding parliaments to ransom with their great gamble, just as the West's financial elites held parliaments to ransom in the banking crash of October 2008. Once yields on 10-year...