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EAU CLAIRE, Wis. - This cat used up his nine lives. Fire officials are blaming a 20-pound cat for starting a town of Washington house fire that caused about $25,000 damage. The gray and white cat apparently jumped on an electric range in the basement of a two-story home at about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday and turned on the push-button control, said Darrell Christy, the fire department's chief of operations. Plastic containers on top of the range smoldered. "We eliminated everything except for the cat," Christy said. A smoke detector alerted at least three people in the home, who were not...

Iran today claimed it had information that the United States, Britain and Israel had a role in two deadly military plane crashes in the last two months. It was the latest accusation by Tehran against the West in their sharpening confrontation. A day earlier, Iran blamed the United States and Britain for two bombings that killed at least nine people in the south-western city of Ahvaz. “The information we have says that the US, Britain and Israel’s intelligence agents intended to create insecurity in Iran,” Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi told reporters on the sidelines of a police seminar. Pourmohammadi did...

WASHINGTON - Six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency — five Republicans and one Democrat — accused the Bush administration Wednesday of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems. "I don't think there's a commitment in this administration," said Bill Ruckelshaus, who was EPA's first administrator when the agency opened its doors in 1970 under President Nixon and headed it again under President Reagan in the 1980s. Russell Train, who succeeded Ruckelshaus in the Nixon and Ford administrations, said slowing the growth of "greenhouse" gases isn't enough. "We need leadership, and I don't think we're getting it," he said...

SEOUL, South Korea - Disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk asked his fellow South Koreans for forgiveness Thursday at his first public appearance in almost three weeks, saying he takes full responsibility for his fraudulent stem cell research. "I ask for your forgiveness," Hwang told a nationally televised press conference in Seoul. "I feel so miserable that it's difficult even to say sorry." Seoul National University, where Hwang is a professor, on Tuesday issued a final report that he fabricated landmark published claims in 2004 and 2005 to have created the world's first human embryonic stem stells from cloned embryos. "The use...

I never had much use for Joe Biden, and enjoyed as much as the next Freeper the ribbing he's taken over his record-breaking bloviation at the Alito hearings. But while never high, my regard for him has just sunk much, much lower. Wolf Blitzer just interviewed Biden in the context of the poignant scene of Mrs. Alito crying during the today's hearings when Sen. Graham recounted some of the unfair intimations of bigotry that the Dems leveled at Alito. To Wolf's credit, he played more than once the footage of Mrs. Alito's distress. I would note that at least twice...

With the oldest of the Baby Boom generation now starting to turn 60, it seems inevitable that we will soon be inundated with books and TV specials assessing the impact of this huge cohort on American society. The Greater Generation, by American University professor Leonard Steinhorn, can be considered a very sympathetic brief for the defense. No doubt some opportunistic right-wing scribe is energetically pitching Regnery Press on the merits of prosecuting Boomers for their various crimes against humanity, even as some third party is pounding out an even-handed assessment. Hopefully at some point, Friends of the Forests will step...

It is said only in hushed tones and not by anybody of prominence, but a few brave souls in the Bush administration admit it. President Bush's Medicare drug benefit that went into effect Jan. 1 looks like a political blunder of far-reaching consequences. Furthermore, these critics assign major responsibility to Karl Rove. The hideous complexity of the scheme, which has the effect of discouraging seniors from signing up, is only the beginning of difficulties it entails for the president and his party. It will further swell the budget deficit without commensurate political benefits. On the contrary, the drug plan may...

If you’re looking for someone to blame for creating the environment that led to the Abramoff scandal, a good place to start is with campaign finance reform. Ever since Congress and the FEC began limiting the amount of money American citizens may contribute to political candidates, they have been increasing the power of lobbyists. Aside from the fact that this was a patently un-American limit on free speech – this so-called campaign finance “reform” has fostered an environment where lobbyists may legally contribute more money to a candidate than an individual can. Because of these limits, candidates must now spend...

Of course the Left blames George W. Bush for the deaths this week of a dozen coal miners. Tom Blumer at BizzyBlog cites the New York Times edit page's usual Bush-bashing innuendo: ...the Bush administration’s cramming of important posts in the Department of the Interior with biased operatives from the coal, oil and gas industry is not reassuring about general safety in the mines. Steven Griles, a mining lobbyist before being appointed deputy secretary of the interior, devoted four years to rolling back mine regulations and then went back to lobbying for the industry. Blumer then points out what the...

A too-close-to-call federal election campaign in Canada has spurred the nation’s beleaguered Liberal leader to try and cling to power by attacking the nation’s oldest ally and largest trading partner. That Canada sells 83% of its world exports to the United States and some 50% of all Canadian jobs depend either directly or indirectly on those exports seems irrelevant right now. It’s a bizarre world Up North these days. Prime Minister Paul Martin is in the fight of his political life against Conservative leader Stephen Harper and that’s obviously why he’s been trying to whip up anti-American fervor in the...

(CNSNews.com) - A gun rights group Thursday blasted Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin for accusing the U.S. of "exporting violence." The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) said Martin is treating the United States like a scapegoat for his failed leadership and for crimes committed by Canadian citizens. "On the same day that Prime Minister Martin was blaming the United States for his country's crime problem," said CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron, "CNN reported on a border arrest of two Canadian residents who were detained for trying to re-enter the country with handguns and ammunition...

BELLEVUE, WA – Reacting to the accusation from Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin that the United States is "exporting violence," the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) said Martin is trying to scapegoat an entire nation for his own failed leadership, and for crimes committed by his own citizens. "On the same day that Prime Minister Martin was blaming the United States for his country's crime problem," noted CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron, "CNN reported on a border arrest of two Canadian residents who were detained for trying to re-enter the country with handguns and...

MONTREAL — The deadly Boxing Day shootings in downtown Toronto were a “senseless and tragic act” by young people who feel marginalized by society, suggests Prime Minister Paul Martin. “Yesterday’s shootings in Toronto serve as a painful reminder that we cannot take our peace or our understanding for granted,” Martin said Tuesday during a service marking the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. “I think, more than anything else, they demonstrate what are, in fact, the consequences of exclusion.” He vowed to continue the struggle for peace, saying: “I believe in a Canada that represents to the world where the world is...

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- Canadian officials, seeking to make sense of another fatal shooting in what has been a record year for gun-related deaths, said Tuesday that along with a host of social ills, part of the problem stemmed from what they said was the United States exporting its violence. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and Toronto Mayor David Miller warned that Canada could become like the United States after gunfire erupted Monday on a busy street filled with holiday shoppers, killing a 15-year-old girl and wounding six bystanders -- the latest victims in a record surge in gun violence...

An interesting thing happened this evening. I formed Rodney King's maxim #4. For those of you who haven't been following my maxims, the first three are: #1: Don't trust anyone who doesn't drink - unless he/she is a recovering alcoholic. #2: Never take the side of the homosexuals- ever. #3: Any guy who goes to see Bareback Mountin' is gay. And now for #4. I was pulling into Sonic with my wife, and some lady cut into the drive through land and got ahead of me. After a flippant remark that I made to the effect of "What a B*tch"...

Alan Jones: I'm the person that's led this charge Email Print Normal font Large font By David Marr, Sydney December 13, 2005 BY THURSDAY last week Alan Jones was screaming like a race caller whose horse was coming home. "I'm the person that's led this charge here. Nobody wanted to know about North Cronulla, now it's gathered to this." The riot was still three days away and Sydney's highest-rating breakfast radio host had a heap of anonymous emails to whip his 2GB listeners along. "Alan, it's not just a few Middle Eastern bastards at the weekend, it's thousands. Cronulla is...

John Kerry Blames Rush Limbaugh for Iraq Blooper Failed presidential candidate John Kerry blamed top conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh Friday morning for the uproar over his claim that U.S. troops were terrorizing Iraqi women and children. "You know, the only people who are trying to make anything out of that, to be honest with you, are Rush Limbaugh and a few people on the right," Kerry told radio host Don Imus. On Sunday Kerry told CBS's "Face the Nation" that there was "no reason ... that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in...

Should hip hop take the rap for rioting? (Filed: 08/12/2005) French politicians have called for legal action to be taken against hip hop musicians in the wake of the French riots. Joe Muggs reports The waves of riots that swept across France this year have had an unexpected consequence for the French music industry. Urban violence: hip hop has been blamed for the Paris riots Last week, 200 politicians backed a petition by MP François Grosdidier calling for legal action against several hip hop musicians for their aggressive lyrics. Although prime minister Dominique de Villepin immediately dismissed the idea, it...

AUSTRALIA'S most distinguished expatriate scientist, Lord May of Oxford, has launched an attack on the Catholic Church, blaming Vatican policy for the spread of AIDS in the Third World.Lord May said that the Vatican's opposition to the use of condoms was an example of "dogma" leading to the deliberate misrepresentation of facts, at great human cost.The Sydney-born scientist's words came in his final speech delivered as president of Britain's Royal Society, the world's oldest scientific organisation, past presidents of which include Isaac Newton and Joseph Banks.Speaking in London, Lord May described AIDS as a pandemic, with more than 40 million...

An abortion doctor who has been the target of protests for years has been cleared by state regulators in the death of a mentally retarded Texas woman who received a late-term abortion at his clinic. The Kansas Board of Healing Arts, which regulates doctors, concluded after a nine-month investigation that Dr. George Tiller complied with the law and with health care standards in performing the procedure on the 19-year-old woman. Abortion opponents have accused Tiller or his staff of causing the woman's death, which happened in January, days after she visited his Wichita clinic. Larry Buening, the board's executive director,...