Free Republic

Jermalle Brown and Douglas Bufford were gang members hired to combat violence on the South Side through a program hatched by Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration. Paid with taxpayer funds to hand out anti-violence pamphlets, the teens were part-time foot soldiers in the governor’s $54.5 million Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, a program described as “a comprehensive and concerted effort to keep our young people safe, off the streets and in school.” Quinn launched that program a month before his 2010 election as an answer to gun carnage in the city — even though murders that year dipped to a nearly 50-year low....

This Land is My Land (Hebei Edition) For two years, villagers in China's Hebei province have refused to leave 67 acres of their land that the local government granted to a state-owned power company. On June 11, six villagers were killed in a confrontation between hired thugs with pipes and locals wielding pitchforks. This week, government officials backed off. The Washington Post report suggests it may have been video of the brutal June riot, recorded by one of the local farmers and distributed over the internet, that led to the about-face.Violent video here.

<p>October 6, 2003 -- WHAT do social insects, Genghis Khan's cavalry and the cyberbullies at MoveOn.org have in common? Swarming.</p> <p>Social insects aren't much on individuality. Gene-driven, they do low-order tasks in the service of an elaborately organized nest - and they do it in large numbers.</p>