Free Republic

The weeklong event in Nevada draws thousands of people — and their drugs A new Nevada sheriff tasked with overseeing the upcoming Burning Man festival plans to crack down on the annual desert debauchery. Jerry Allen, 39, who was elected Pershing County Sheriff in January, said he plans to tighten law enforcement for the tens of thousands of festival-goers journeying to the remote Black Rock Desert next week for the annual event, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported on Tuesday.

The Black Rock Desert, Nevada, site for this year's Burning Man has been inundated with biting bugs, it emerged this week. Several photos uploaded to Twitter this week showed swarms of bugs, both on the ground and in the air. User @khloestarr shared one such photograph, writing: 'Bugs on the playa this year. Not normal. Shouldn't a dust storm knock them out? Like Burningman [sic] wasn't gross enough.' On Tuesday, a blog post on the page for Voices of Burning Man reported on the insects' presence.

In recent weeks, Democratic congressional candidate Darcy Burner has touted her Harvard degree in economics when talking about the nation's financial crisis and her opposition to the bailout package passed by Congress. At two debates this month, she brought up her academic background in her opening statement. "I loved economics so much that I got a degree in it from Harvard," she said at an Oct. 10 debate at KCTS-TV. "Now everywhere I go in this district, the only thing people want to talk to me about is the economy." But while she took courses in economics, Burner doesn't have...

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev.—The giant Burning Man art festival, in its official manifesto, calls on attendees to exhibit "radical self-reliance" as they camp and frolic on the dry lakebed here for a week every year. Burning Man's mantra is so compelling that some 50,000 participants have gathered in this rustic setting for the 25th annual rite. But some bourgeois Burners are calling upon more than spiritual vibes to tap their inner self. They've got hired help. ... Elsewhere on the desert grounds, Burners wear bikini tops, leather chaps, stilts, goggles—and sometimes nothing at all. They rely on canned food for...