Free Republic

If demography is destiny, then news of America's decline is (like Mark Twain's death) decidedly premature. Statisticians tell us Oct. 17 (at 7:46 a.m. EDT, according to the Census Bureau's estimate) was the day America's population reached, then surpassed, 300 million people. That's a three followed by eight zeroes. Unfortunately, Oct. 17 was Halloween with an extra "Boo" (B with two zeroes) for various "greens" and ecological radicals mired in Malthusian desperation and myths of looming disaster. For decades, the doomsayers have been predicting catastrophe wrought by the "population explosion" and diminishing resources. Author and columnist Mark Steyn notes in...

8/18/2006 - MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFPN) -- The Tampa Bay Buccaneers broke training camp Thursday and in an unprecedented move for the team, held its day-before-game walk-through at MacDill AFB, Fla. The Buccaneers, who play their second pre-season game against the Miami Dolphins Saturday, have a long-standing relationship and community partnership with the military here. "You guys have no idea what a great morale booster it is for you to come out and do this," said Col. Maggie Woodward, 6th Air Mobility Wing commander. "It means a lot that you think enough of us to do this." Friday's...

FORT BELVOIR, Va., Aug. 18, 2006 – There’s plenty of fuel available to fill the tanks of U.S. military vehicles and aircraft despite widely reported accounts of a commercial oil pipeline rupture in Alaska, a senior Defense Department logistician said here yesterday. “We’re in good shape all the time. We have significant fuel reserves. If fuel became locally unavailable, … we could move fuel from elsewhere in the United States to cover DoD’s requirements,” John S. Bartenhagen Jr., Defense Energy Support Center deputy director for operations, said. The center buys fuel for defense department needs. It is a component...

TAMPA, Fla. -- Security "pat-downs" of fans at Tampa Bay Buccaneers games are unconstitutional and unreasonable, a federal judge ruled Friday, throwing into question the practice at NFL games nationwide. U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore issued an order siding with a season-ticket holder who had sued to stop the fan searches that began last season after the NFL implemented enhanced security measures. High school civics teacher Gordon Johnson sued the Tampa Sports Authority, which operates the stadium, to stop officials from conducting the "suspicionless" searches. A state judge agreed with Johnston that the searches are likely unconstitutional and halted...

A council has apologised to a woman who was fined £60 after workmen painted a disabled bay around her car. When Shirley Hatcher, 67, parked her car in North Road, Southampton, Hampshire, there were no parking restrictions in place. Mrs Hatcher, of Priory Road, said: "I had just gone to the hairdressers and when I returned there was this disabled bay and the £60 fine." A spokeswoman for Southampton City Council has apologised for the error. Mrs Hatcher said: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it. "My car was covered in polka dots from the paint they had...

Rescuers using small boats, a helicopter and a C-130 aircraft searched a portion of the Chesapeake Bay today for missing diplomat and publisher Philip Merrill, whose sailboat was found adrift last night, Coast Guard authorities said. Officials from the Maryland Natural Resources Police and the Coast Guard began searching overnight the area between the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and the point where his boat was found, which is roughly 20 miles south of Annapolis. The search area is roughly 25 miles by 8 miles, said Coast Guard Lt. Commander Adam Mach. Rescuers using small boats, a helicopter and a C-130 aircraft...

WASHINGTON — President Bush expressed "serious concern" Saturday over the suicides at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay and directed an aggressive effort by his administration to reach out diplomatically while it investigates. "He wants to make sure that this thing is done right from all points of view," White House press secretary Tony Snow said Saturday evening. Bush, who is spending the weekend at Camp David, was notified at 7:45 a.m. EDT. Snow said it was during his daily intelligence briefing just afterward when the president voiced his concern over the incident and directed that the bodies be...

NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, April 4, 2006 – Preliminary hearings began here today for an Afghan man accused of working as a translator and accountant for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and involvement in a grenade attack that injured three journalists in March 2002. Abdul Zahir appeared in court wearing a dress shirt and khaki pants and talked and laughed with his translator and military attorney before proceedings began. An issue arose immediately when the presiding officer found out that written charges had been submitted to Zahir in English, Arabic and Pashtu, but Zahir's native language is Farsi. Marine Col....

HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) -- New cracks appear in Elke DeMuynck's ceiling every few weeks, zigzagging across her living room, creeping toward the fireplace, veering down the wall. Month after month, year after year, she patches, paints and waits. "It definitely lets you know your house is constantly shifting," DeMuynck said. So do the gate outside that swings uselessly 2 1/2 inches from its latch, the strange bulges in the street and the geology students who make pilgrimages to her cul-de-sac. DeMuynck could throw her paint brush from her front stoop and hit the Hayward Fault, which geologists consider the most...

Fault East of Bay Area 'Locked and Loaded' Saturday March 25, 2006 7:31 PM By SCOTT LINDLAW Associated Press Writer HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) - New cracks appear in Elke DeMuynck's ceiling every few weeks, zigzagging across her living room, creeping toward the fireplace, veering down the wall. Month after month, year after year, she patches, paints and waits. ``It definitely lets you know your house is constantly shifting,'' DeMuynck said. So do the gate outside that swings uselessly 2 inches from its latch, the strange bulges in the street and the geology students who make pilgrimages to her cul-de-sac. DeMuynck...

Click here for updated storm photo galleries, computer simulations, NOAA website links and detailed information on the Kilauea flood as well as breaking information and event postponements... Recent Garden Island headlines... The Garden Island multi-media links...

The Department of Defense announced today the completion of the first round of Administrative Review Board (ARB) decisions. All of the hearings for this first round were conducted from Dec. 14, 2004, to Dec. 23, 2005. Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England, the Designated Civilian Official (DCO) for the ARB process, has made final decisions on all 463 board recommendations; these decisions consist of 14 releases (3 percent), 120 transfers (26 percent) and 329 continue to detain (71 percent). The ARB is a review process conducted annually to determine whether each detainee should be released, transferred or further detained....

WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - A U.S. Army general who rhelped set up operations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has asserted his right not to incriminate himself in the courts-martial of two soldiers accused of mistreating detainees there, The Washington Post reported on Thursday. The move by Major Gen. Geoffrey Miller is the first time he has indicated he might have information that could implicate him in wrongdoing, the newspaper said, citing military lawyers. Invoking the right does not legally imply guilt it said. It said the action came shortly after the commanding officer at Abu Ghraib, Col. Thomas...

U.S. NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Jan. 9, 2006 – Military commissions proceedings resume this week as officials here hold preliminary hearings in the cases of two enemy combatants held here since 2002. Proceedings will resume in the case of Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al Bahlul, a Yemeni man accused of crafting terrorist propaganda, and begin for Canadian teen Omar Ahmed Khadr, who officials say killed a U.S. serviceman while fighting for al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Military commissions proceedings began against Bahlul in August 2004 but were halted by a federal district judge's ruling in November 2004. An appeals court...

The government agency leading the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay has consistently overstated its progress while minimizing threats to the bay and its own failures to address them, according to a federal oversight report released yesterday. ... The criticism comes amid growing angst among policymakers and the public that an agreement reached five years ago for cleaning the bay by 2010 could fail without a big political and financial boost. In the agreement, known as Chesapeake 2000, the region's political and environmental leaders proposed cutting the amount of major pollutants that enter the bay nearly in half over a decade....

FOR MORE than 20 years, educators have known that children would do better in school if the calendar were expanded. The seminal 1983 report ''A Nation at Risk" recommended that school districts consider seven-hour schedules as well as a 200- to 220-day school year. In 1994 the National Education Commission on Time and Learning in its report ''Prisoners of Time" reached the same conclusion: The United States should significantly expand its conventional school calendar to accommodate the demands of education reform efforts. [...] That's about to change. The Legislature provided $500,000 in next year's budget for planning grants to school...

Potentially affecting taxpayers in Arizona and at least 12 other states, thousands of tax payments and other correspondence sent to the Internal Revenue Service were dumped into San Francisco Bay in an automobile accident. Approximately 30,000 estimated quarterly tax payments sent to an IRS post office box in San Francisco in early September were ejected into the bay from a contract courier vehicle involved in the Sept. 11 accident, the IRS said in a "problem alert" statement issued Friday.

Cobbeldick aims his sights on town's top office Thursday, August 04, 2005 By CAROLYN STEIGMAN BAY VILLAGE _ If Bruce Cobbeldick isn't elected mayor of Bay Village in November, it won't be for lack of trying. He has been campaigning at a feverish pace since first announcing his plan to run for the position in March 2004. No one goes door to door like me, tries this hard to be accessible to people, or takes the initiative to have Web sites and campaign headquarters in place for the convenience of citizens, Cobbeldick said. What other candidate has rented out the...

Laura Bush pressured to resign over Guantanamo Bay scandal - President withholds decision POSTED: 2:35 pm PDT July 16, 2005 (AP Photo/Haraz Ghanbari) WASHINGTON -- Former presidential candidate John Kerry said Saturday "Laura Bush ought to be fired." Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., a possible 2008 presidential contender, nodded in agreement when the two appeared together on Capitol Hill. Also Saturday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said the matter of leaking a recipe from her cookbook "rises above politics and is about our national security." Leading White House critic Representative John Conyers added, “All we know is that it was...

I am confident I am the best candidate because O’Boyle’s campaign is mostly about simply defeating Deborah Sutherland, and if Bay’s present School Board President becomes mayor, it would be a pretty darn rough on Bay taxpayers, as I can only imagine how easy it would be for the School Board to pretty much get whatever its wants – they’d say jump and the residents would be saying, “how high?” My platform is the most substantial. My vision for Bay Village maps to the true desires of most residents and most business owners; moreover, I’m the only candidate who is...