Free Republic

The 20 Worst Charities In America6-1 2020 By Greg Bocquet A favorite saying in business is that you have to spend money to make money. Charitable organizations, on the other hand, have to spend money to give money, and it turns out that some are woefully inefficient at channeling donations to the people they're supposed to help. The non-profit Charity Navigator Web site tracks such expenses via charities’ disclosure statements to the IRS to provide donors with an assessment of how well charities run themselves. Looking only at the supply side for the more than 5,500 charities that it tracks,...

GARNER, Iowa - An Iowa teenager preparing for her junior prom said she will be attending the event in a dress she created from hundreds of gum wrappers. Elizabeth Rasmuson said the colored wrappers of Wrigley's 5 gum inspired her to create a jacket from the wrappers last year and the success of that project led her to create a dress for next weekend's prom at Garner-Hayfield High School in Garner, KIMT-TV, Mason City, Iowa, reported Tuesday. Rasmuson said she began collecting wrappers in August and lost count of how many went into her dress at about 200. Rasmuson's boyfriend,...

(March 19) -- In 1965, a 14-year-old Canadian kid started building a chain of chewing gum wrappers, just like millions of other kids. The only difference between Gary Duschl and your typical kid is that he never stopped, and his chain is now 12 miles long -- 42 times the height of the Empire State Building, twice the height of Mount Everest and long enough to cross 210 football fields. "If you were to get in a car and drive 60 mph from one end of the chain, it would take you 12 minutes to get to the other," says...

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Guinness World Records said a Virginia man's constantly growing chewing gum wrapper chain was named the top stunt of the past decade. Gary Duschl of Virginia Beach got 62 percent of the online votes for the top stunt category on the Guinness Web site, beating out a man who swallowed swords and another who placed rattlesnakes in his mouth, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Tuesday. "It's an honor, and I'm very pleased to be even in the top 100, but to make it in the top 10, boy, I'm just amazed with that," said...

A chemistry student in the Ukraine was found dead with his jaw blown off by what is believed to be exploding chewing gum, according to reports. The 25-year-old's disfigured remains were discovered at his parent's home in the northern Ukrainian city of Konotop, reports in the Eastern European country said. The young man, who studied at Kiev Polytechnic Institute, was working at a computer late on Saturday when the alleged explosion happened.

A senator gets caught on camera spitting out her gum. CNN's Jeanne Moos chews the fat on embarrassing gum incidents. Click here.

(IsraelNN.com) Spokesman Aslam Shahuan of the Hamas police force in Gaza alleged on Monday that Israeli intelligence sources were trying to corrupt the young generation by distributing chewing gum that arouses one's sexual appetite. The case started when a Gaza resident's daughter felt side effects from the gum.

MEXICO CITY – The country that gave the world chewing gum is getting gummed up: The average square yard (meter) of Mexico City sidewalk has 70 blobs of discarded chew. Now Mexico is responding with innovations ranging from expensive sidewalk steam-cleaners to natural chewing gum that breaks down quickly. It's even telling its citizens (gulp!) to swallow their gum. The general in the war on discarded chewing gum is Ricardo Jaral, Mexico City's director for conservation of public spaces. He bemoans the blackened gobs that mar the newly restored 700-year-old downtown area, whose rough, porous paving stones serve as stubborn...

Roll Bubble Gum's surprise sticker turns out to be of swastika wearing Nazi officer. Gum pack apparently made in china, carries Arabic-English label Reuters Published: 08.14.07, 08:21 / Israel Jewish Scene An Israeli woman was astounded to find a tattoo- sticker of a Nazi soldier inside a pack of bubble gum she had bought at her local store, Maariv daily reported recently. "A surprise awaits you," said the "Roll Bubble Gum" pack, showing a picture of a pink wrapper alongside what it said was the sticker, which showed a Nazi officer in uniform and wearing a swastika armband. Some suggested...

This is disturning on many levels - LAX passenger hides objects in his body; bomb squad called His plane was diverted but deemed safe. The Iraqi national, a legal U.S. resident, said he was trying to ease stress. He is turned over to ICE. By Andrew Blankstein, Times Staff Writer March 7, 2007 Authorities called in the bomb squad early Tuesday and diverted a flight to Las Vegas after Los Angeles International Airport security screeners found hidden wires and other objects in a body cavity of a Philadelphia-bound passenger. Fadhel Al-Maliki, a 35-year-old Iraqi national living in Atlantic City, N.J.,...

ROCKVILLE, Md. - Counseling officials in Maryland are being heavily criticized for introducing a lesson to four different schools – in which students were supposed to chew and pass around the same piece of gum. The lesson was created by the Rockville (Md.) pregnancy counseling center in order to show students how easily sexually transmitted diseases are spread from person to person. A speaker from the counseling center asked students to chew the same piece of gum to see how many would be willing to do it. School officials say at least 100 students participated in the exercise, but not...

LOWER BURRELL, Pa. -- A Lower Burrell school student is facing a three-day suspension for sharing gum with a classmate. Jolt chewing gum has caffeine and ginseng. The Lower Burrell school superintendent said consuming and passing out the gum violates the school's drug awareness policy. That's because caffeine is considered a stimulant. Parents told Channel 11 they did not understand the suspension. Resident Elizabeth Grombacher said, "I think it's stupid. Everything's getting too politically correct it's so wrong." "It's probably just like Mountain Dew or something like that. If it's got a lot of caffeine in it and they probably...

FORT DETRICK, Md. (Army News Service, Jan. 17, 2006) – The Army recently finished testing “Stay Alert” caffeine gum as a countermeasure for fatigue and the new product is now available through military supply channels. The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, known as WRAIR, tested the new gum in its Silver Spring, Md., facilities. “We wanted to show that the gum is a quick and safe method of maintaining or improving alertness and physical and mental performance, and our tests did that,” said Dr. Gary Kamimori of the Department of Behavioral Biology at WRAIR. Gum 5 times faster than...

JERUSALEM -- Your chewing gum has just lost its flavor, but there is no garbage can in sight. What do you do? According to Jewish law, get ready to swallow it. A prominent Israeli rabbi has ruled that spitting gum on a sidewalk or hiding it under a desk is a violation of Halacha or Jewish law, the Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported Thursday.

SINGAPORE (AP) -- Singapore is set to partially lift its famous ban on chewing gum this week, but those yearning to blow bubbles or freshen their breath will have to settle for a chewy nicotine substitute. Starting Thursday, the tightly controlled city-state will allow the sale of Nicorette - a nicotine gum for smokers trying to quit. The government last year agreed to relax its 12-year ban on chewing gum to allow the sale of brands that health authorities consider "therapeutic" as part of a free-trade agreement with the United States that took effect Jan. 1. Pfizer, the company that...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.BRUSSELS, Belgium  -- The European Union's high court today upheld a decision to deny the world's leading chewing gum maker, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., permission to trademark its "Doublemint" brand across the EU. The European Court of Justice backed a decision by the EU's trademark office that the combination of "double" and "mint" represented a description of the type of gum. It said the public interest was served when "descriptive signs or indications may be used freely by all." The ruling by the Luxembourg-based court overturns an 2001 decision by a lower...

Singapore relaxes chewing gum ban Chewing gum will no longer be a criminal offence in Singapore - but it will only be sold on prescription. Chief negotiator Tommy Koh said that the 10-year ban is being relaxed as part of the free trade deal with the US. Sugarless gum prescribed by doctors and dentists as having therapeutic and medicinal benefits will be sold in pharmacies. Singapore outlawed the import, manufacture and sale of chewing gum in 1992, arguing that discarded lumps of gum were hard to clean from its tidy streets and that it stuck in train doors. Some locals...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 October 30 Leonids Over Uluru Credit & Copyright: Vic & Jen Winter (ICSTARS Astronomy) Explanation: Will this year's Leonid meteor shower be as good as last year's? No one knows for sure. Possibly, however, in the waning nighttime hours of November 18 and lasting throughout much of November 19, sky gazers across the globe may get their last chance ever to see a meteor storm. Although the...

LONDON (Reuters) - The often-maligned act of chewing gum could in fact make us smarter, according to British research. A joint study carried out by the University of Northumbria and the Cognitive Research Unit, Reading, has found that chewing gum has a positive effect on thinking, memory and other cognitive tasks. "The results were extremely clear and specifically we found that chewing gum targeted memory," Andrew Scholey of the university's Human Cognitive Neuroscience Unit said. "People recalled more words and performed better in tests on working memory." Peppermint gum, menthol or spearmint--it makes no difference. The key is the repetitive...