Free Republic

(NEW YORK) -- Usually Spider-Man is the one spinning a web, but on Thursday the superhero was the one who ended up getting snared. The Spider-Man balloon, measuring nearly 30-feet tall and 78-feet long, had part of its left arm torn when it hit a branch during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Balloon handlers held tight to their balloons, which were threatened by winds of up to 26 mph during the annual parade. The New York Police Department had considered grounding the balloons, a popular draw at the annual parade, but instead ordered them to...

The White House is "as sorry as we can be" that a Washington state woman held up as an example of the success of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces appears to be falling through the cracks, press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday. In mid-October, President Obama cited single mother Jessica Sanford as an exchange success story after she wrote to him after being able to sign up for insurance in early October. She's since learned that her state's system miscalculated her tax credit and that her out-of-pocket costs will be substantially higher than expected.

An advertisement placed in The Seattle Times on Wednesday by a group hoping to encourage Washington state to keep up its fight to secure the coveted work on the new Boeing 777 includes a notable miscue. At the top of the full-page ad, under the all-caps text "The Future of Washington," is pictured not a Boeing jet, but rather an A320 from archrival Airbus.

Debacle: The woman who got a shoutout from President Obama last month for her fan letter for ObamaCare finds out her exchange quote was a computer mistake and she doesn't qualify for a tax credit after all. In one of his famous photo-ops in the Rose Garden last Oct. 21, with an array of touted beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act behind him, President Obama read a letter from Jessica Sanford of Federal Way, Wash., to explain why the Affordable Care Act, with all its rollout flaws, was still needed. The letter told a sad tale of a grateful single...

Militant Islamist rebels in Syria linked to al-Qaeda have asked for "understanding and forgiveness" for cutting off and putting on display the wrong man's head. In a public appearance filmed and posted online, members of Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, one brandishing a knife, held up a bearded head before a crowd in Aleppo. They triumphantly described the execution of what they said was a member of an Iraqi Shia militia fighting for President Bashar al-Assad. But the head was recognised from the video as originally belonging to a member of Ahrar al-Sham, a Sunni Islamist rebel group that...

If you think you had a bad day at the office, check out the misfortune of one delivery truck driver who accidentally backed into a $300,000 Ferrari FF on Columbus Avenue in New York City on Oct. 30. The driver of the Baldor Foods, Inc. truck told bystanders he “didn’t see nothing” as he put the truck in reverse, crushing the hood

In the heady days after the October 1 launch of the Affordable Care Act -- better known as ObamaCare -- Lady Gaga, Amy Poehler, Nina Dobrev, Rosario Dawson, Sarah Silverman, Olivia Wilde, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, Pearl Jam, Lance Bass, John Legend, Alyssa Milano and Kerry Washington joined the President to encourage Americans to #getcovered. Since then, technical glitches and website snafus have so marred the ObamaCare website that the team who built it has been called to testify before Congress on Thursday. But there will be no celebrities flanking them on Capitol Hill, as the stars that helped launch...

Neil Young, a high-profile proponent of cars powered by alternative fuels, was recently stranded on the highway when his own $1 million biomass-powered hybrid car broke down. **SNIP** Young was on his way to an environmentalist festival in Canada, according to the Sierra Sun, driving his custom-made hybrid electric 1959 Lincoln Continental.

Now Obama says he didn't set a red line.Oh the humanity

Richard Thomas was sentenced to five years and four months after admitting raping the woman at her home in Leigh, Greater Manchester. He knew she was ill but did not know she had HIV and collapsed when police told him, Liverpool Crown Court heard.Thomas, 27, of Sandringham Drive, Leigh, raped the woman after she had taken a sleeping tablet. 'His own fault' He said he had been drinking heavily and taken drugs, and could not recall the attack but believed the woman, the court heard. Thomas had let himself into the house uninvited in the middle of the night and...

A New York man died after being nearly decapitated by a booby trap he set to protect marijuana plants on his property. Daniel R. Ricketts, 50, who owns property and a residence on Saw Mill Road in Albany County, was identified as the victim on Sunday, the Times Union reports.

FT LEAVENWORTH, KS — An administrative error has been blamed for a mix-up in sentencing involving the cases of convicted Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan and Bradley Manning, the Army private convicted of leaking classified documents to the website WikiLeaks. After sentencing concluded last Wednesday in Fort Hood, Texas, it was reported Hasan would undergo gender reassignment surgery and change his name from Nidal to Nahid Hasan. Nahid is an Arabic name meaning “one with full, round breasts.” Not long after it was revealed, the traitor formerly known as Chelsea had been transferred to death row where he awaits...

In China they’re building the second-tallest skyscraper in the world with the world’s fastest elevators, stark contrast with Spain where, apparently, elevators in skyscrapers can’t be taken for granted. At least not in The Intempo skyscraper in Benidorm, Spain, according to Gizmodo’s Jamie Condliffe: Initially designed to be a mere 20 storeys tall, the developers got over-excited and pushed the height way up: now it boasts 47 storeys, and will include 269 homes. But that push for more accommodation came at a cost. The original design obviously included specifications for an elevator big enough for a 20-storey building. In the...

Tunisian authorities say a suspected religious extremist blew himself up while making a bomb in a home he was renting near the capital. … Separately, the interior ministry says an “extremist” was arrested on Friday after he blew off his hand while handling explosives in Menzel Bourguiba, 43 miles from Tunis. …

A traffic sign near a preschool has some drivers asking questions. As a driver isn't it our job to obey all posted street signs, but how do you do that with this one, privately posted in front of a preschool, "please slow drively?" It has caused some perplexed reactions. "It looks like they might have done it on purpose. Is it funny? Yes, it's funny," one man said. "With people these days, I'm pretty sure it was done on purpose," a woman said.

(Newsday) Fox News host Geraldo Rivera tweeted, then deleted, a nearly-naked self photo on Sunday morning in an online faux pas amazingly similar to the scandal that engulfed former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). Thankfully, the photo did not feature the 70-year-old anchor’s, erm, parts. “70 is the new 50 (Erica and family are going to be so pissed … but at my age … )” the host of “Geraldo At Large” wrote in his early morning tweet, attaching a shirtless, self-shot photo of him wearing his signature red glasses and a towel that’s a bit too low for comfort. After...

An Arizona police officer has been fired after he made an early morning stop at a local gas station, wearing his bulletproof vest and pointing his service weapon at the clerk. Off-duty Tuscon Police Officer Kyle James McCartin, 23, and a friend entered the station early Tuesday shirtless beyond the bulletproof vests and appeared to be intoxicated, according to the station clerk. In the security-camera footage, the men made no attempts to disguise themselves or hide their faces. Both of the men appear to pay for their goods. Following the completion of their transactions, the two men left the station...

The Trayvon Martin case is already making its way into the classroom. This fall, George Mason University in Virginia will offer a sociology class called “Race and Politics, Trayvon Martin.” According to the syllabus, the class will discuss the connection between race and politics in American history and the Martin case will be presented alongside historic cases such the Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision. Martin will also be discussed alongside African-American figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Emmett Till, and Rodney King. The course website indicates that the class will specifically examine “why, and in what...

Just last month, a supposedly declassified video showed a German-flown drone narrowly missing a flying Afghan passenger jet. Now, another “secret” video has made its way into public view, showing an unmanned aerial vehicle piloted remotely hitting a plane on a runway in Afghanistan. The German tabloid paper Bild (translated via Google Translate) claims to have “exclusive video footage documenting another, earlier drone debacle.” It describes the UAV as a IAI Heron ramming into a Transall C-160 Transport plane at a base in Northern Afghanistan.

George Mason University (GMU) is set to offer a three-credit course on Florida youth Trayvon Martin this fall but in the online description of the course misspelled his name as “Trevon Martin."