Free Republic

A Mongolian couple has died of the bubonic plague after eating raw marmot kidney, triggering a quarantine that left tourists stranded in a remote region for days, officials said Monday. The ethnic Kazakh couple died on May 1 in Nogoonnuur soum, in Mongolia's westernmost province of Bayan-Ulgii, which borders Russia and China. A six-day quarantine was declared for people in the region, preventing nine tourists from Russia, Germany and Switzerland from leaving. The quarantine was lifted on May 6 after no other cases of the plague were reported. Authorities have warned people against eating raw marmot meat because it can...

Full title: Actor Jon Polito, known for roles in Coen brother films 'The Big Lebowski' and 'Miller's Crossing,' dead at 65 Actor Jon Polito, who was best known for his roles in Coen brother films like "The Big Lebowski," "Miller's Crossing" and "Barton Fink," has died. He was 65.

As part of a bid for foreign currency, Kim Jong-Il is trying to bolster North Korean software-development capabilities, including video games targeting foreign audiences, like a mobile-phone bowling app starring Jeff Bridges's character from The Big Lebowski as well as Men in Black spinoff, called Alien Assault. Both games are published by a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

So there’s this guy named the Dude, and some dudes break into his apartment and pee on his rug, so the Dude, an LA burnout whose real name is Jeffrey Lebowski, goes to find the other Jeffrey Lebowski, a rich guy the intruder dudes were actually looking for, so he can get him to replace the soiled rug, which totally tied the room together. That’s the basic premise of “The Big Lebowski,’’ the Coen Brothers’ 1998 stoner caper, which also involves bowling, nihilism, a kidnapping, and many, many White Russians - a cocktail whose parts combine more cogently than the...

ROCKLIN, Calif. – Police said a dispute over bowling etiquette led one man to assault another with a 16-pound ball, knocking out one of the man's teeth. They said a 24-year-old man hit a man in the face with the bowling ball during a melee involving six bowlers at the Rocklin AMF Lanes. Two groups got into a fist fight about 12:40 a.m. Thursday after two bowlers approached the lane at the same time. They couldn't agree which should go first.

Radiocarbon Dating of Malibu Artifacts Confirms Importance of Farpoint Site • National Science Foundation and Smithsonian Officials Are Among Those Urging Preservation and Additional Archaeological Research at Point Dume Property • BY ANNE SOBLE Archaeologist Gary Stickel announced at a recent lecture at the Malibu Public Library that a stone spearhead, or point, found at a local construction site by a Native American project monitor in 2005 has been established as an artifact from the oldest archaeological find in the City of Malibu. Radiocarbon dating of mussel shell fragments from the site that was provided gratis by the National Science...

I have just about had it with the voting vaginas.___ That was the sentiment running through my head -- for nearly three hours -- on Monday night, during the Vaginas Vote, Chicks Rock concert held at Harlem's Apollo Theatre. The event was planned and sponsored by Rock the Vote, Planned Parenthood, the White House Project and of course V-Day, that vulva-licious organization headed up by Eve Ensler and her blessed freaking vagina. My fidgety exasperation was emblematic of my growing ambivalence about this political season's mass pander to the women's rights movement. In case you've been holed up in PBS's...