Free Republic

Two items from Drudge-- the first, an unprecedented Administration rebuttal to a Drudge post (the ham item I gleefully posted yesterday, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2296111/posts) which merely increases their IQ (Idiocy Quotient) by several notches. In response to the astonishingly inept recovery.gov website which implied two-pounds-of-ham were purchased for more-than-a-million-bucks, the Administration has even more lamely dug itself into an even deeper hole by extolling the actual price of the ham... approximately double what Food Lion is selling it for... the good stuff, in Food Lion's case, a nice Smithfield smoked ham. Now that's pork! No wonder Obama's latest czar, Cass Sunstein, wants...

Gov paying over a half million dollars a pound for sliced ham? Thomas Lifson According to Recovery.gov, the new Obama website showing us how much the country is being stimulated by government spending, the taxpayers are buying sliced frozen ham at $550,000 per pound. I wonder what they would pay for fresh ham? And here I thought prosciutto was expensive. Is this going to be served to guests at one of the many parties the Obamas like to throw? Half million dollar a pound ham won't really uimpress the Saudis, if Obama offers it to them, no matter how low...

Is a Hippo a Pig or a Whale? March 24, 2009 — Two teams of evolutionists are having a spat over whale evolution. Thewissen and team (Northeastern Ohio U) say the hippo is close to the pig, but Jessica Theodor (U of Calgary) and Jonathan Geisler (Georgia Southern U) say it’s in the whale family tree. Their arguments and counter-arguments were published in Nature last week...

Giant rabbits to return to Spanish menus Spaniards will soon be enjoying a diet of giant rabbit under plans to reintroduce the rare breed for human consumption. By Fiona Govan in Madrid The Valencia Agricultural Research Institute has launched a breeding programme of the rare Valenciano rabbit and predicts that it could be on supermarket shelves within three years. It is hoped that the animals, which can grow as big as a lamb and produce 7kgs (15lbs) of meat, will prove popular as a healthy and cheap alternative to red meat. The Valenciano breed was established in 1912 when farmers...

Cannibalism May Have Wiped Out Neanderthals Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Unhealthy Diets? Feb. 27, 2008 -- A Neanderthal-eat-Neanderthal world may have spread a mad cow-like disease that weakened and reduced populations of the large Eurasian human, thereby contributing to its extinction, according to a new theory based on cannibalism that took place in more recent history. Aside from illustrating that consumption of one's own species isn't exactly a healthy way to eat, the new theoretical model could resolve the longstanding mystery as to what caused Neanderthals, which emerged around 250,000 years ago, to disappear off the face of the Earth...

It's in a subscribers only link at the Wall Street Journal. The Congressman wants $8,000,000.00 to pay for marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to fund research into shrimp-fishing. These are but two of the Congressman's 65 earmarks sought thus far this year to the tune of $400,000,000.00. HIs chief spokesman pulled a Tom DeLay and said "Reducing earmarks does not reduce government spending, and it does not prohibit spending upon those things that are earmarked," the spokesman said. "What people who push earmark reform are doing is they are particularly misleading the public -- and I have...

Residents use pig races to deter building of mosque Residents don't want group in their area  By Ted Oberg (11/29/06 - KTRK/KATY, TX) - There's an awful lot of exciting news when you round the corner on Baker Road. One of two big yellow signs announces a new neighbor is coming soon. Also on ABC13.com: Send news tips | RSS | ABC13 E-lert | Info mentioned on air | Search abc13.comK.I.A., that's the Katy Islamic Association, plan to build a mosque here. "It's not an appropriate place to have a mosque or church," said resident Barbara Simpson. It isn't...

LAKELAND -- Deputy Billy Osborne heard the man's cries for help but couldn't see him through the thick brush and pre-dawn darkness. " 'I have two broken arms, and an alligator's got me pinned. I can't move. Please help me,' " the Polk County deputy sheriff recalled the man saying at a news conference Wednesday. As Osborne listened, he followed the pleading voice through more than 20 yards of weeds in Lake Parker's murky, chest-deep water about 4 a.m. Then he saw them: a naked man slumped over, caught in the jaws of a huge alligator amid thick cattails in...

A Muslim lawmaker on Monday night raged at a catering crewmember of a Chinese restaurant for serving her food with pork. Rep. Faysah Dumarpa of Lanao del Sur reportedly slapped the crewmember, Virginia Fernando Altamirano, and held a bread knife at her. Altamirano, 36, has filed a complaint against Dumarpa with the Quezon City police. “It is forbidden in Islam for a believer to eat pork or its derivatives. To do so is a grievous sin. An intentional consumption of such meat would hinder me from gaining entrance to paradise. Beyond dietary concerns, this is a matter of faith,” Dumarpa...

The southbound truck route on the Golden State (5) Freeway was reopened after frozen pig carcasses were spilled across lanes Monday night. A big rig collided with a box truck in the truck route from the southbound Golden State (5) Freeway just north of the Foothill (210) Freeway Monday night, scattering frozen pigs over 80 feet of the freeway, authorities said. The collision, in which one truck clipped another, occurred at 7:36 p.m., said California Highway Patrol Officer David Porter. The collision was at the end of the truck route, and Caltrans brought in a dump truck and loader to...

The "Case of the Double Labels" is still under investigation, but a spokesperson for the company that makes the product called "Hill Country Fare Bacon Grill Lucheon Meat" -- an HEB(grocery store) house brand -- did confirm from the canned meats markings are that of pork. The can and labels were produced by food giant Tyson Foods. What can't be explained is how an Arabic label for "Al Haloub Cow" brand was underneath the Hill Country label. (See previous story below.) Archie Schaffer III is Senior VP of External Relations at Tyson Foods' headquarters in Arkansas. He confirmed that an...

Hubba Hubba: It's Friday!!!

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish engineers have poured pig manure into a contaminated pond next to an old mine, saying the bacteria in the slurry will clean up metals in the water. Mining company Outokumpu dumped 450 cubic meters of pig slurry into the waste water near the closed Kangasjarvi mine, which once produced zinc, copper and sulfur. "Pig slurry contains bacteria that bind metals that are in the mine water and they will sink to the bottom. We have used this system to clean mine waters at various mines," Eero Soininen, Outokumpu's mine reclamation manager, told Reuters. "Around 15 years...

Elephant trunks and smoked gorilla limbs hang from Emile Ndong's stall, "ripening" in the tropical heat. "A good ceremony, a marriage or an initiation is worthless unless you serve game at the table," said Ndong, a hawker at the bustling Oloumi market in Gabon's capital of Libreville. Ndong is one of many profiting from Africa's booming trade in bushmeat -- a blood-soaked business that has serious consequences for the continent's wildlife. Finding ways to curtail this industry will be discussed at an international conference in Madagascar from June 20 - 24, which will seek ways to harness Africa's ecological treasures...

(CNSNews.com) - A government watchdog group Friday named Alaska Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski "Porker of the Month" for supporting construction of the infamous "Bridges to Nowhere" and for a proposed taxpayer-funded PR campaign "to repair the damage that the bridges helped inflict on" the state's "national reputation." According to Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), Congress set aside $452 million in the transportation bill for two bridges - $229 million for the Gravine Island Bridge, which connects the island with a population of 50 people to the town of Ketchikan, and $223 million for the Knik Arm Bridge. "For favoring wasteful...

There's no physical evidence that the family who gave the Donner Party its name had anything to do with the cannibalism the ill-fated pioneers have been associated with for a century and a half, two scientists said Thursday. Cannibalism has been documented at the Sierra Nevada site where most of the Donner Party's 81 members were trapped during the brutal winter of 1846-47, but 21 people, including all the members of the George and Jacob Donner families, were stuck six miles away because a broken axle had delayed them. No cooked human bones were found among the thousands of fragments...

French Christmas soup not for Jews or Muslims Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:13 PM GMT By Pierre Thebault NICE, France (Reuters) - An extreme-right French group has found a way to distribute Christmas cheer only to a chosen few by offering homeless people free hot soup containing pork, which observant Jews and Muslims do not eat. The soup kitchen, set up at the harbour of this Riviera town, draws about as many protesters as poor people. Police stand guard between it and a Catholic charity group distributing vegetable soup outside their church. Dominique Lescure, head of the small ultra-nationalist group...

(paraphrased - I don't know of Reuters can be posted) A French extreme-right (/ultra-nationalist) group's soup-kitchen in Nice is distributing vegetable soup to the poor/homeless locals during this winter The kicker is that they're adding pork to it and the Muzzies are screaming "discrimination!".

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- A pride of lions has killed and devoured 20 villagers, wounded 10 others and eaten at least 70 cattle in southern Ethiopia in the past week, police said Tuesday. The attacks have forced at least 1,000 people to flee their homes in Hadia Zone, in the Southern Nation and Nationalities People State, 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, according to a police statement.

Hello! Just wanted to pass this information along to everyone, thought you might enjoying watching it. Attention!! We would like every llama owner and lover to be aware of an exciting 1/2 hour llama program that is being aired on RFD-TV. The showings will be at the following times: July 4th at 6:30pm. July 5th at 2:30am and again at 10:30am July 9th at 5:00pm. It will be shown on channels: Dish Network channel #9409 Direct T.V. channel #379 Cable T.V. (check your local listings) This was filmed on a llama ranch and features Cart Pulling, Fiber, Youth, A Breeding...

WAUSAU, Wis. - Wild cats prowl around the bird feeder outside Mark Smith's home, waiting to pounce on a wren or maybe a robin. About all Smith can do right now is watch. But if the La Crosse firefighter has his way, there will soon come a day when he can open his door, take aim and fire - and not worry about being prosecuted. Smith, 48, wants Wisconsin to declare free-roaming wild cats an unprotected species, just like skunks or gophers. Anyone with a small-game license could shoot the cats at will, legally. His proposal gets tested April 11...

It seems as if single men are discovering what single women have known since ancient Egyptian times: Cats are worthy of worship. At least unmarried British men say so, in a recent survey conducted by Cats Protection, a leading animal welfare society in the United Kingdom. And judging by the delirious worship that single men I know lavish on their kitties, I'd like to think American men -- those brave enough to stand up and be counted -- feel the same way.

US President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s administration vowed to exert diplomatic pressure -- but no trade sanctions -- to stop Iceland's and Japan's "scientific" whale hunts. Under the Pelly Amendment of 1967, countries that hunt whales may face US trade sanctions if they are certified to be diminishing an international conservation program. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans announced he had certified to Bush that Iceland's whale hunt diminished the International Whaling Commission (news - web sites) conservation program. Evans also kept Japan certified for the same reason over its annual whale harvest. "The lethal research whaling conducted by...

JERUSALEM (AP) - The Israeli Supreme Court decided Monday that Israeli municipalities must permit the sale of pork where a majority of residents demand it - a ruling hailed as a victory by secular rights activists. Orthodox Jews warned that the decision would undermine the nation's Jewish identity. The consumption of pork is forbidden under Jewish law. The battle between observant Jews and secular Israelis over the role of religion in daily life has become heated in recent years. Areas of friction include Jewish Sabbath observances - much of Israel still shuts down from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday -...

A childless German couple finally found out why they weren't able to conceive — they had never had sex. Doctors at the Lübeck campus of the University Clinic of Schleswig-Holstein (search) in northern Germany described the case in a medical bulletin, according to Ananova.com. After eight years of marriage, the 36-year-old man and his 30-year-old wife went to the campus' fertility clinic to figure out what was wrong. Doctors gave them a battery of tests and were baffled — both husband and wife were healthily fertile. Then came the important question. "When we asked them how often they had had...

For some people, it's important to pay attention when the birds and the bees are discussed. Take the case of a German couple who sought help from a fertility clinic after eight years of no success having children. The only problem was, they weren't having sex. According to Ananova, officials at the University Clinic of Lubek said they'd never heard of a similar case after examining the couple during fertility tests last month. After numerous examinations, doctors found both husband and wife to be fertile, and should have had little trouble in conception. "When we asked them how often they...

A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex. The University Clinic of Lubek said they had never heard of a case like it after examining the couple who went to see them last month for fertility tests. Doctors subjected them to a series of examinations and found they were both apparently fertile, and should have had no trouble conceiving. A clinic spokesman said: "When we asked them how often they had had sex, they looked blank, and said: "What do you...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Mexican cook killed his drinking buddy, cut up his body and boiled him in herbs, according to police who fear he may have been turning him into tamales. AP Photo Prosecutors said on Wednesday they had arrested Carlos Machuca, a tamale-maker, at his home in the western city of Morelia on Tuesday, after receiving an anonymous phone tip. Officers found a man's mutilated corpse in the living room and body parts simmering in aluminum saucepans on the patio, state prosecutors told Reuters. "We saw the flesh and the tamales, and our first impression was that...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A major highway and transit spending bill stalled Wednesday in the House as Republican leaders tried to deal with a presidential veto threat and disunity within their ranks. A two-hour closed-door meeting among House Republicans failed to clear up differences over the six-year, $275 billion bill, casting doubt over whether it would come for a vote before the House leaves for a two-week spring recess at the end of this week. The legislation, which would spread infrastructure projects around the country and create hundreds of thousands of jobs, is a top legislative priority this year. But it...

Berlin - A German hunter stabbed a wild boar to death in a stairwell after the beast rammed through the bolted front door of a block of flats and stormed up to the sixth floor, a Berlin newspaper reported on Tuesday. The beast from the local forest sped past a group of children playing outside and into the building in a Berlin suburb, probably in search of food. Petrified neighbours peered through their spy holes fearing their doors would not hold - and called 36-year-old hunter Conrad Meyer. "I grabbed him around the neck and then stabbed him square in...

A school has banned under sevens from reading the story of the Three Little Pigs in case it offends Muslims. All other tales about pigs, including Babe, are also off limits for pupils under seven at Park Road Junior Infant and Nursery in Batley, West Yorkshire. The school says any talk of pigs is offensive to Muslims who make up 60% of the 250 pupils. But leading Muslims say there's nothing in their religious rules to stop children reading about pigs. The ban was discovered when a parent saw words relating to pigs had been removed from a homework sheet....

<p>COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- A 29-year-old Danish man was jailed for two weeks on charges he stole 32,000 dried pig ears from a Danish company that makes treats for pets.</p> <p>A 26-year-old accomplice who admitted taking part in the weekend theft was also charged, but released, police said. Neither were identified in keeping with Danish law.</p>

Thu 9 Jan 2003 Pygmies being eaten by rebels in Congo's ongoing war, UN reveals JAMES ASTILL IN NAIROBI REBEL soldiers are massacring and eating pygmies in the dense forests of north-east Congo, UN investigators said yesterday. A UN team has spent the past week investigating allegations of cannibalism in remote Ituri province, where fresh fighting between several rebel groups has displaced around 150,000 people in the past month. Many of the displaced tell of rebel fighters capturing and butchering pygmies across the front-line, said Manoddje Mounoubai, a spokesman for the UN cease-fire monitoring mission in Congo yesterday. "The UN...

Sen. Frist aids victims at South Florida wreck scene By BRIAN BANDELL Associated Press WriterIncoming Senate majority leader Bill Frist, a surgeon, helped authorities tend to six victims of a rollover accident on a Florida highway New Year's Day, earning praise from paramedics for stabilizing some of the four survivors. Frist, R-Tenn., a full time heart and lung surgeon before joining the Senate eight years ago, replaced Trent Lott, R-Miss., who stepped down as majority leader in December after making a racist comment. An Isuzu Rodeo with six people aboard was heading west on Alligator Alley when it rolled over...