Free Republic

In the clips shared to social media, masses of garbage could be seen charging down canals and storm drains, the water carrying it virtually invisible for all of the junk. “These are the trash tsunamis of Indonesia and it will all end up in the ocean,” clean-up environmentalist Gary Bencheghib, who shared the clip, wrote. “We can no longer turn a blind eye to these waves of plastic.” “The trash is not the problem. It’s the people. If they don’t waste from the beginning, there will still be trash but maybe better managed,” another wrote. Others called for a more...

The Utah Transportation Commission on Friday approved spending an extra $38 million to cover rising costs for two major upcoming highway projects — on Interstate 15 and Bangerter Highway in Salt Lake County. The increased expenses are caused in part by rising prices to buy and demolish homes and businesses to clear new rights of way. That includes an extra $23 million for a project to convert three more intersections on Bangerter Highway into freeway-like interchanges at 6200 South, 10400 South and 12600 South. Construction on those projects is scheduled to begin in 2020, but purchasing the needed rights of...

After a ban on non-biodegradable utensils went into effect over the weekend in Seattle, local officials are advising food service businesses to “[s]top using plastic straws and plastic utensils.”An ordinance pending before the New York City Council would make that city’s food service businesses the next front line in liberal politicians’ war on plastic straws.For the last two months, the New York City Council has deliberated over a bill that would make it a civil offense for any food service provider in the city to offer customers straws or stirrers “made of plastic or any other non-biodegradable material.” If passed,...

....Confederate flags were found around the King Center and Ebenezer Baptist Church Thursday morning. According to Ebenezer Baptist Church Rev. Shanan Jones, police and Homeland Security are working to remove the flags..... four small flags were found laying on the property.

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Some feel it is oppressive when police officers in New York arrest people for seemingly minor offenses like cycling on a sidewalk. And although these types of arrests are down dramatically, there is a move in the City Council to decriminalize low-level offenses like littering, fare evasion, public drinking, public urination, cycling on a sidewalk and loitering after hours in a city park. Supporters of the plan say they should be treated like parking violations, not crimes. In Park Slope, just eight people were arrested for sidewalk cycling from 2008 to 2011, but there were more...

AMESBURY, Mass. (MyFoxBoston.com) – An Amesbury man says someone sprayed offensive graffiti near his home on a beam that is part of a construction project, which was brought to a screeching halt due to the vandalism. Scott Taylor lives just feet from where a massive bridge project is happening on Interstate 95, and he says construction workers have been scattering debris all over his yard for almost a year. He woke up to the graffiti this week and that sent him over the edge. The message? “Welcome to Fallujah, baby.” "I think it's pathetic. I think it's cowardly. And I...

A Colorado woman was reportedly attacked by three African-Americans while ordering lunch at a McDonald’s drive-thru in Colorado recently, after she asked one of the alleged attackers not to leave her trash in the parking lot. “I witnessed this young lady throwing trash out of her car and all I said was that it wasn’t cool,” Shannon, the woman who was seemingly assaulted, explained. Before she knew it, she said, the woman and her female friend lunged at her, punching her face and pulling her hair through the car’s open window. Then, in the midst of the confusion, a man...

Ironically, a major focus of the speeches at the "One Nation" hate rally was the need for "Green Jobs" along with plenty of rhetoric accusing conservatives of not caring about our environment.

A judge has hit out at a 'grotesque' waste of taxpayers' money after a student was hauled before the court after her 14-month-old niece dropped a sweet wrapper. Larissa Wilkinson, 19, appeared at Crown Court accused of 'depositing controlled waste' after her misdemeanour was reported by a passer-by last March. She was driving her Fiat Punto in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, when her niece, Lyla Henderson, picked up the wrapper from her car seat and dropped it from the window. Miss Wilkinson's number plate was immediately taken down and handed to Kirklees Council who later issued her with a fixed penalty...

A motorcyclist has told how he was electronically tagged for four months and given a 36-hour community order – for dropping mint imperials while riding. Thomas Payne, 19, must be at home from 8pm till 6am under the terms of his ankle tag after police spotted the trail of sweets left by his Yamaha DT175. A police charge notice said he had ‘intentionally and without authority or reasonable cause, caused sweets to be on a road, namely Lancaster Circus, in such circumstances that it would have been obvious to a reasonable person that to do so would be dangerous’ contrary...

African American Mo. State Senator Kevin Engler spewed the following today.

A grandfather was left humiliated after being handed a £60 litter fine when his cigarette was knocked out of his hand as he walked past a scuffle between police and shoplifters. Lazaris Michael, 76, had taken a single puff before his smoke was sent flying as officers apprehended two girls who were trying to flee a branch of Boots. But the pensioner did not have time to bend down and pick it up before a council warden pounced on him and hit him the fixed penalty for littering in front of a large crowd. When he begged the council to...

ALBANY, N.Y. -- The New York state Legislature has given final passage to a bill that would charge $250 for pet owners who don't pick up after their dogs in some parts of the state. That would more than double the current fine. Dog owners currently have to pay $100 if they don't pick up the poop. The change would apply to the five boroughs of New York City, Albany and Yonkers. The Assembly passed the bill Wednesday and the Senate had already passed it. A spokesman for Gov. David Paterson said the governor will review the measure.

BOSTON -- Nine blinking electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a marketing campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. At least one of the devices depicts a character giving the finger. Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before authorities declared the devices were harmless. "It's a hoax -- and it's not funny," said Gov. Deval Patrick. Turner Broadcasting, parent company of Cartoon Network, said the devices were part of a promotion for...

A furious Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino vowed yesterday to throw the book at the masterminds behind a guerrilla marketing campaign gone amok that plunged the city into bomb-scare pandemonium and blew nearly $1 million in police overtime and other costs. As city and state attorneys laid groundwork for criminal charges and lawsuits, cops seized 27-year-old Arlington multimedia artist Peter Berdovsky, who posted film on his Web site boasting that he and friends planted the battery-wired devices, and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown. Both were jailed overnight on charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct. “This is outrageous...

It was bad enough when cartoons caused rioting in Muslim countries. As a native Bostonian, I am embarrassed at the level of hysteria caused by cartoons in my home city. In an effort to promote a late night Cartoon Network show called “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”, Turner Broadcasting hired some guerilla marketers to attach magnetic boxes with the lighted image of one of the characters on several locations around the city of Boston. Now I don’t know much about making terror bombs, but city officials were notified and later considered the boxes dangerous. Have any of us ever heard of...

BLACKSBURG - An official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Thursday that his office has not taken on an investigation into burned Qurans left at the door of a Blacksburg mosque over the weekend. Kevin Foust, who supervises the Roanoke FBI office, said Thursday that his staff is working with the Blacksburg Police Department and U.S. Attorney John Brownlee's office "to determine whether or not we will open a federal investigation" into the incident. In the meantime, "we have offered any resources we have available" to help Blacksburg police in their investigation, Foust said. Members of the Al-Hedaya mosque,...

A Hereford resident on Monday shows the refuse left by a large number of illegal immigrants in the wash area between Ash Canyon and Turkey Track Road over the weekend. The U.S. Border Patrol says that it can't force illegal immigrants to pick up trash that they didn't leave. Mark Levy ~ Herald/Review HEREFORD -- The U.S. Border Patrol cannot force illegal immigrants to pick up trash if it cannot be proven they caused the debris left on private or public property, a spokesman for the agency's Tucson Sector said Monday. A Hereford area resident is the latest to complain...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Spitters and litter bugs beware: the Hong Kong government is about to make the familiar habit of cleansing one's airways and tossing of rubbish very expensive. The government, aiming to prevent more outbreaks of the deadly SARS virus and bird flu, is launching a sweeping clean-up campaign to give the city's image a much-needed polish. "Some of the measures will be seen as very draconian," a government source, who did not want to be identified, said on Monday. The price of spitting or littering? HK$1,200 (94 pounds) a time. Those who cannot afford to pay may...

    It's not about smoking, it's about constitutional guarantees! 42 tyrants and a ring leader named Bloomberg It is saddening to see the people of one of our nation's 13 original states, whose founding fathers were among those who pledged their "...lives, fortunes and sacred honor..." in order to secure the blessings of liberty and establish protection of individual rights associated with property, allowing 42 tyrants and a ring leader named Bloomberg, to trample upon and disregard these fundamental protections written into our constitutions, state and federal. It is equally saddening to observe two factious groups in New...