Free Republic

OAKLAND -- The Alameda County judge who presided over the dispute between UC Berkeley and tree-sitters seeking to block a construction project, Barbara J. Miller, was found dead Friday at her home in Oakland. She was 58. Judge Miller was found a little after 6 p.m., Oakland police said. The cause of her death has not been determined. Judge Miller was elected to the Superior Court for Alameda County in 1996 after having been a commissioner of the court since 1987. She served as presiding judge in 2004 and 2005. During her years on the bench, Judge Miller's best-known case...

GOSHEN — Score one for the deer. It looks like they'll have their choice of red or white after a local farmer who shot a deer to keep it from eating his grape vines last summer was ordered to put away his guns. Manuel Miranda was sentenced Friday in Litchfield's Bantam Court to probation and ordered not to use a firearm for two years. Miranda said he believed he was lawfully protecting his crop. Fed up with hungry deer eating his grape vines, the vineyard owner grabbed his shotgun July 23 and fired a charge of buckshot, a shell containing...

> A new report from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates sea lions ate 4,960 salmon and steelhead during the spring of 2009 — 2.4 percent of the fish passing the dam located near Cascade Locks, Ore. That compares to an adjusted estimate of 4,927, or 2.9 percent of the run, in 2008. And while the number of California sea lions was down — 54 this year compared to 82 in 2008 — the average number of salmon eaten by each one was up, along with the number of Stellar sea lions — 26 this year compared to 17...

A man sought in connection with the shooting of Seattle Police Officer Timothy Brenton has been shot by Seattle police in Tukwila, according to a law enforcement source. The man, 41, was shot in the head and is being taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, according to Interim Seattle Police Chief John Diaz. The apartment complex is in the 13700 block of 56th Avenue South. A second suspect is being sought, according to police. Police traced a car being sought in connection with Brenton's shooting to the apartment complex, Diaz said. As the officers approached the apartment a man...

A Lehigh Acres man was arrested in Collier County Monday on charges of Indecent Exposure in Public after he allegedly exposed himself to two women in a Walmart parking lot. The incident occurred at 5420 Juliet Blvd. in Naples. According to a Collier County Sheriff’s Office report: David Todd Napodano, 42, told investigators he was found naked in his van because he had “explosive diarrhea” and was using his underwear to clean himself. The victims told investigators they were looking for their vehicle in the parking lot when they saw Napodano naked in his van and exposing himself to them.

More intriguing to me than the story behind an unhinged Muslin is how in the hell a General could stand before America and deal out so much misinformation – there was only one shooter who had two pistols, he was shot dead and the person who shot the shooter was also shot dead. Now I know why so many of our young are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our Generals don’t know their asses from their elbows. One would expect miss information from civilians, but hearing it from seasoned military people who are very accustomed to battle is amazing. When...

The government, which ordered 250 million doses, has recommended that the limited supply go first to high-risk groups: children and young people through age 24, people caring for infants under 6 months, pregnant women and health care workers.

Manager played good Samaritan on way home from Stadium It's not hard to find stories gushing with praise about various Yankees on Thursday. While it wouldn't be a surprise to see some overzealous Yankee rooter credit Alex Rodriguez with solving the health care conundrum, the only story we've seen that has actual real-world implications deals with Joe Girardi's ride home early Thursday morning. Girardi happened upon a car accident on the Cross County Parkway in Westchester shortly after 2 a.m. and helped flag down police officers who were responding to the scene. The cops had congratulated Girardi moments before when...

NOVEMBER 3--Meet Aaron Siebers. The 27-year-old Denver man, a Blockbuster employee, was skateboarding yesterday afternoon when he fell and ripped his uniform pants. Due to work last night--and concerned about getting "written up" by Blockbuster superiors for not wearing his work-issued khakis--Siebers came up with a harebrained idea. Instead of just calling in sick, he stabbed himself in the leg and showed up at work claiming to have just been attacked by three Hispanic males. Siebers, who told cops he was assaulted as he walked toward the Blockbuster in Edgewater, had a deep stab wound in one leg and several...

He didn’t start 13 successful companies and secure more than 200 patents over 40 years by giving up when things got tough. Perseverance drove Robert Fischell to success. Sticking with an idea they believe can work is his best advice for other inventors aiming to get their innovation to the marketplace. “The harder I work, the luckier I get,” Fischell said Wednesday in a keynote address on medical device innovation at the annual MichBio Expo in Kalamazoo. “Give yourself the opportunity to get lucky. When you think of something, don’t just let it go. Figure out a new way to...

The South Carolina Air National Guard's 169th Fighter Wing was named the overall winner of Falcon Air Meet 2009, a three-nation F-16 Fighting Falcon competition, held here through to November 3rd. The South Carolina team, which represented the U. S. Air Force's Central Command and the U.S., won three of the four main events as well as the Top Overall Maintenance Award and the Top Overall Competition Award. Other nations competing in the annual event were Jordan and Belgium. "I could not be prouder of what the South Carolina Air National Guard accomplished here at this year's Falcon Air Meet,"...

Are you pleased overall with the election results? Total Votes = 372 Yes 40.86 % No 27.41 % Don't care

An Oviedo High School teacher resigned Wednesday after admitting she gave alcohol and her sport-utility vehicle to a student later arrested in a drunken-driving crash, a Seminole County Public Schools spokeswoman said. Meredith Witt, a special education teacher, told the principal of Oviedo High she provided alcohol to "one or more" students at her home Monday, then handed over the keys to a student and let him drive off, according to a school district document. Dylan Ferguson, 18, an Oviedo High senior, was arrested Monday on counts of DUI with damaged property and leaving the scene of a crash. His...

OXFORD, Ohio—A man wearing a breathalyzer costume was arrested Sunday on suspicion of driving drunk. According to a police report, 18-year-old James N. P. Miller, of Cincinnati, was seen driving the wrong way out of the entrance to a one-way street at East Park Place in Oxford. Officers executed a traffic stop and found that Miller was wearing a breathalyzer costume. After investigation, police said, Miller was found to be operating a vehicle while intoxicated. Inside his car, officers allegedly found an open container of Bud Light in the center console. Officers also found what was left of a case...

A recent Harvard Law School graduate has been accused of setting fire to a New York City chapel that houses the remains of unidentified victims of the 9/11 attacks, leading to public outrage from the victims’ families. Classmates of Schroeder at the Law School contacted by The Crimson either did not return repeated requests for comment or declined to comment. But according to media reports the act surprised those who know Schroeder, who served as co-president of Lambda, the school’s LGBT student organization, during his time as a student.

FR can't post threads from the Lower Hudson newspaper. Some more good news. I just wanted to let everyone know that a Republican and Pro-Life Catholic who is the station manager and program director of The Catholic Channel on Sirius Satellite Radio, Rob Astorino, won the election for County Executive for Westchester County, a liberal democrat bastion outside of NYC. He was attacked by the non-religious, pro-abortion left for being anti-femal and pro life. And still won!

A bank robber put the cat amongst the prison yard pigeons by demanding visitation rights for a pet moggie - who he claimed was the reincarnation of his dead mother! With her green eyes and soft fur, Gisela the cat is much more than a pet to jailbird Peter K. - and she has caused a prison farce in Werl, Germany. The 46-year-old bank robber was sentenced to five years imprisonment in 2007. Behind bars, it's his cat Gisela that the devout Buddhist misses most. And the reason is that he believes the feline is the reincarnation of his dead...

A 60-year-old man was burnt alive as he tried to kill his wife at their home in Feistritz an der Drau in Carinthia’s Villach-Land district today (Tues). Police said the man had doused himself and petrol and then poured it around his house before shouting "I will burn all of you to a crisp" and setting the home ablaze. The man was killed instantly as he was turned into a human torch but his wife and another man, whom police suspect she was having an affair with, escaped. They were treated for smoke inhalation at Villach provincial hospital.

Joan Orie Melvin is maintaining a 6% lead over Jack Panella for the lone vacancy on the Commonwealth Supreme Court. This contest is considered critical due to a 3-3 party split in the current court makeup. Panella had been heavilly favored to win, but in the waning days of the campaign, his lead dwindled and he begin running attack ads on Orie Melvin as a right wing extremist.

A 29-year-old man who claimed he was attacked and stabbed by three people - skinheads or Hispanic males - confessed Monday night that he stabbed himself because he didn't want to go to work, Edgewater Police said today. The man, Aaron Siebers, walked into his employer, the Blockbuster Video store at 1921 Sheridan about 6:30 p.m. Monday, and reported the attack. He said the trio was dressed in black. Siebers, of Denver, had a deep stab wound to the lower leg plus several superficial knife wounds, according to Steve Davis, spokesman for the Edgewater Police Department.

Another sign of the incessant creeping in of eurosocialist attitudes here in the United States thanks to Obama, Pelosi & Reid.

It sounds like the sort of romantic-mystery potboiler that keeps readers on the edge of their summer beach chairs: A strikingly pretty Florida housewife with a handsome husband and two beautiful young daughters is kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and held for $50,000 ransom. Or was she? Prosecutors contend the strange case of 37-year-old Quinn Gray, who claims she was abducted and held for four days in hellish captivity, is a cleverly planned ruse.

It seems the planned protest of Lance Cpl. David Raymond Baker's funeral by Westboro Baptist Church, a Topeka, Kan.-based church known for picketing at the funerals of American troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, never materialized. "If they were there, they didn't make themselves known," said Painesville Police Capt. Rick Kline. Painesville police received word from another department that protesters may have been on Walnut Avenue, though none were found upon investigation. There were also two buses that passed by the church before the funeral, but again, no protesters were involved. "(The buses) slowly drove by because of...

http://hamptonroads.com/pilotonline

Minnesota Power is seeking an almost 20 percent increase in rates for its residential customers to cover investments made in cleaner, greener energy. For the average residential customer, that amounts to $13 per month. “We know this is unwelcome news at an unwelcome time,” said Pat Mullen, the company’s vice president of marketing and public affairs. “These are improvements that need to be made. It is creating an environment that we all value.”

The call came into the 911 dispatcher: "I don't want to hurt anybody. I'm drunk." And with that, Mary Strey, 49, of Granton, reported herself as a drunken driver about three miles northeast of Neilsville in central Wisconsin. In the 911 call, Strey said she wanted to report a drunken driver and the dispatcher asked if she was behind the suspect vehicle. "I am them,"

Ford Motor Co. will haul out piles of arsenic-laced soil found in Ringwood State Park, ending a four-year battle over the source of the waste. The company failed to prove the cancer-causing element was a naturally occurring remnant of mining in the remote mountain in Ringwood, rather than a byproduct of the paint sludge it dumped decades ago. As a result, the federal Environmental Protection Agency is demanding Ford remove the contamination as part of its Superfund cleanup. Plastic tarps now cover several hockey-rink size swaths of the toxic-laden soil. Federal officials say the arsenic isn’t leaching and has not...

A good port or Madeira. A special Sancerre or a Châteauneuf-du-Pape. For the past 15 years, the customers of Wine Ventures in Tenafly have known to count on its proprietor, Craig McManus, for a friendly chat and some wine expertise. What they may not know is that wine is just McManus' day job. By night, he chases spirits. He communicates with the dead. He looks for ghosts. He conjures up the late relatives of people he's just met. He ignores those who call this ridiculous. Instead, he took a phenomenon that initially "freaked me out" and spun it into a...

<p>Under a steel-gray sky, workers waded through the swirling mosaic of red, pink, and yellow cranberries at a Burlington County bog last week as wide-eyed onlookers snapped photos. A year’s worth of labor had come down to this moment, when the Lee family and its helpers, filled with excitement and a sense of urgency, began the autumn harvest ritual.</p>

Over the past year, he has turned 18, earned his GED and dreamed about moving to California and going to college. All from the confines of a Suffolk County Jail cell. Jose Pacheco is one of seven defendants charged with participating in the hate killing of Marcelo Lucero, and the only minority among the group. He and five others have been held in jail for nearly a year awaiting trial in the closely watched case. PHOTOS: 7 teens accused in Patchogue slaying In prison greens, behind Plexiglas, the 18-year-old repeatedly glanced at his mother and attorney during an interview last...

Proving that you’re never too old to hunt, 90-year-old Delores Wilhelms got her buck for the second straight year. The Wisconsin granny connected on a 9-point buck earlier this month using a crossbow. Last year, after sitting out hunting for years after her husband passed away, Wilhelms’ neighbor, Ron Haessly, helped the woman return to the woods. She was successful in her initial return to the woods taking a buck with her crossbow then as well. The feat earned Wilhelms a write-up in the pages of Outdoor Life. Meanwhile, across the country on Oct. 8, another grandmother, Doris Baumann, who...

In a 26-Mile Slog, a Shortcut Can Be Tempting By ANDREW W. LEHREN Two California women running together in last year’s New York City Marathon needed more than four hours to cover the first 16 miles. Then, suddenly, they seemingly transformed into elite athletes, their finishing times suggesting a world-record pace through the marathon’s toughest section. Turns out, they had taken a shortcut. They ran in only four boroughs, skipping the Bronx and making a beeline for the finish line. They cheated. And they were not alone. Thirty years after Rosie Ruiz infamously combined distance running and subway riding, some...

A Philadelphia newspaper has apologized to readers for mistakenly running an ad congratulating the Philadelphia Phillies on winning back-to-back World Series titles. The Yankees held a commanding 3-1 lead in the championship as of Monday, the day the ad was printed in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

KINGSPORT, Tenn. - Police in Kingsport say a woman flagged down a passing car, got into the front passenger seat and offered sex to a police officer. . . . The document indicated the officer wasn't in uniform and told Solomon, when she asked, that he wasn't a policeman. . . . he drove her to the police station and told her she was under arrest for prostitution.

One of the most important things to remember about socialism – or coercion of any kind – is it fails eventually because human beings have an innate desire for liberty and a strong need for personal property rights. In fact, the origins of government lie in the need of agricultural communities to protect themselves from violence and theft. So it is particularly ironic that in more recent times, it is government itself that has more frequently played the role of bandit. When you start taxing people at extreme rates to pay for socialist "benefits," when you start telling them which...

A former Oakland Raiders player and a current Alameda County supervisor got into a dustup the other day over pee-wee football - landing Supervisor Scott Haggerty in a neck brace and ex-NFL tight end Jeremy Brigham under investigation by Pleasanton police. All of it was caused, we're told, by Brigham's accusations that Haggerty - whom he had just fired as the assistant coach of his Pleasanton squad of 10- and 11-year-old boys - had leaked plays to an opposing team. Police Sgt. Jim Knox confirmed that his department is investigating the incident. He declined to discuss details, but said a...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Wisconsin wildlife officials need wolf watchers. The Department of Natural Resources is planning training sessions in November and December for volunteers willing to locate and count gray wolves and other carnivores. More information is available on the DNR's volunteer tracking Web site at http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/mammals/volunteer. The trackers will have to conduct at least three surveys in blocks of central and northern Wisconsin forests. So far this year 174 volunteer trackers have surveyed more than 8,000 miles. They have detected more than 367 different wolves.

ELK, Wash. - The owner of a miniature horse says he was forced to shoot and kill three pit bulls that were mauling his animal. Thursday, the horse's owner told the Pend Oreille County Sheriff's Office the three dogs had come onto this property, off Juanita Lane and started attacking his horse. The man fired several warning shots to try and scare the dogs and when the warning shots did not work, the man turned his aim to the dogs, shooting all three. Two of the dogs died on the scene and the third ran off only to die later...

There was a fire early this morning in Killeen at the shelter, and many of the animals were killed. They need any help you could offer. There is a link on their page for a contest to win $20,000 just by voting for them. Even if you can't donate, this would help. So sad to have them head into the holidays after this kind of tragedy. This is a no-kill shelter run by volunteers and donations. http://www.centexhumanesociety.com/

SALT LAKE CITY — A rap by four teenagers at a McDonald's has gotten them a bad rap in one Utah city. The teens were cited by American Fork police earlier this week for disorderly conduct after they rapped their order at a McDonald's drive-through.

Beloved cartoonist Berkeley Breathed had an unusual inspiration for his latest children's book, "Flawed Dogs." No it wasn't one of the Santa Barbaran's many rescued pit bulls, but it was one of Michael Vick's infamous dogs who was set to be put down. "The book happened because I came across both a picture and a quote at about the same time -- a picture of one of Michael Vick's fight dogs. It was set to be put down, but a shelter in Utah decided to take the dog and a few others at the same time and try to rehabilitate...

Early Saturday morning, 7Online.com, the website for ABC's New York affiliate WABC-TV, reported the previous night's arrest of Jason Shih, an alleged campaign worker for Governor Jon Corzine (D-NJ) charged with "possession of a controlled narcotic and paraphernalia that is used for distribution." For some reason, although the headline "Corzine campaign worker arrested" shows up in a Google News search, the page is no longer available: "We are sorry, but the URL you requested could not be found. The page you are looking for may have been renamed, moved, or deleted." A search of "Jason Shih" and "Corzine" at 7Online.com...

We're Not Gonna Take It!

Vilano Beach begins North of St. Augustine Inlet and runs to South Ponte Vedra. There are large deposits of Coquina clam shells, the main ingredient in Coquina rock, the material used for the Spanish forts here. On the white sand areas there are black streaks of Titanium ore. Ponte Vedra was once home to a Titanium mining operation. The "red shell" has been a traditional place to test beach buggies and 4WD vehicles, it is easy to bury your wheels up to the hubs if you get off the hard pack.

A few months ago, needing to cut my monthly budget way down, I examined every place where I could cut. One of the things I noticed was how much money I was spending on a liberal newspaper that was continuing to jack its price while constantly shrinking in size and increasing in content from other news agencies (i.e., less NJ news, which is the reason I bought it in the first place). So I quit the Star-Ledger cold turkey. Other than the comics and the weekly food sections, I discovered that I don't miss it. On Sundays, an acquaintance is...

<p>None of the bodies has been identified; search of house to continue Saturday (CNN) -- A search has been launched for a 50-year-old convicted rapist and suspect in the killings of six people whose bodies were found in and around a house in Cleveland, Ohio, police said Friday.</p>

Scores of law enforcement officers continued their search for convicted sex offender Anthony Sowell Friday night, while investigators temporarily ended their work at Sowell's home after finding the bodies of possibly six people inside and outside the house. Investigators intend to continue digging at the Imperial Avenue property today in a search for more bodies. Sowell, 50, has lived in the home since 2005. Police found two of the bodies on Thursday. When a third was discovered Friday afternoon in the basement's dirt floor, it triggered a more extensive search. Vans from the coroner's office were lined up outside the...

According to security researchers, computer servers at the government institutions of Poland suffered a well-synchronized cyber attack, which was allegedly launched by Russian sources in September 2009. The details of this attack on the Polish government are not yet revealed, as reported by the daily Rzeczpospolita. The attack took place in the beginning of September, a particularly intense moment, near about Westerplatte visit of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The purpose of his visit was to commemorate the outburst of the Second World War, as reported by NATIONAL on October 11, 2009. Meanwhile, security experts informed that generally botnets are...

MARION COUNTY, Fla. -- A Marion County man is behind bars after investigators say he got drunk and drove a stolen lawnmower into the back of a school bus.Ron Martin, 29, was arrested Wednesday after he ran into the stopped bus.Martin and a friend fell off the lawnmower when it hit the bus and then got mad and started banging on the doors of the bus when the children started laughing.