Free Republic

Canada, were being played for a patsy on the oil sands. It’s being orchestrated by an unholy alliance headed by U.S. President Barack Obama, aided and abetted by American Democratic billionaires, hypocritical Canadian and U.S. environmentalists and Canada’s opposition parties. While Obama acts like Hamlet on approving the Keystone XL pipeline, and while the rest of the usual suspects rail against the Northern Gateway pipeline, or Keystone, or both — proxy fights for the real issue, which is the development of Canada’s oil sands — Obama is upping U.S. fossil fuel production like stink. And no one among the usual...

When defending their monopoly to defend us, the authorities often shoot themselves in the foot. In Saturday’s National Post, Rex Murphy recalled the case of a shopkeeper in Toronto’s Chinatown who was charged with kidnapping for nabbing a shoplifter and holding him for the police. The story had a happy ending: The lawmen looked as foolish in court as they deserved to look, and the shopkeeper was acquitted. Undaunted, though, the authorities press on. Currently, prosecutors are making fools of themselves over a citizen named Ian Thomson, whose warning shots scared away three men trying to firebomb his farm house...

At the end of Sunday mass at the church this writer attends in Washington, D.C., the pastor asked the congregation to remain for a few minutes. Then, on the instructions of Cardinal Archbishop Donald Wuerl, the pastor proceeded to read a letter. In the letter, the Church denounced the Obama administration for ordering all Catholic schools, hospitals and social services to provide, in their health insurance coverage for employes, free contraceptives, free sterilizations and free "morning-after" pills.

On New Year’s Day, NBC honking head Andrea Mitchell tried making America hip to the Hawkeye State’s unforgivable lack of hipness: The rap on Iowa: it doesn’t represent the rest of the country—too white, too evangelical, too rural. This isn’t the first time Ms. Mitchell—presumably a reporter rather than some wacked-out urban-supremacist sockpuppet—has made such a statement. In 2008 she chuckled while wondering why Barack Obama would bother to campaign in Southwest Virginia: This is real [laughs] redneck, sort of, um, bordering on Appalachia country.

The Crude, Third-Rate Artist Owes Much of his Fame, in Life and Death, to being a Communist Who Fanatically Supported the Totalitarian Movement That Murdered 200 Million People, and Ruined the Lives of Over 1 Billion More

How exactly has Tim Tebow been winning games? The Denver Broncos have been the beneficiaries of a complete resurgence since Tebow was named the starter. Although Kyle Orton has proven to be a viable starter in the NFL, he could not get the job done with the team they have assembled in Denver. Yet using the exact same team and barely ever throwing the ball, Tebow has very little but win. A group of Harvard students known as the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective recently set out to figure out why that has been the case.

November 8, 2011 Friday, thousands in Moscow, giving Nazi salutes and carrying placards declaring, “Russia for the Russians!” marched through the city shouting racial slurs against peoples from the Caucasus. In Nigeria, Boko Haram, which is Hausa for “Western education is sacrilege,” massacred 63 people in a terror campaign to bring about sharia law. Seven churches were bombed. Sunday, The New York Times reported that Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan are suffering “horrific abuse” following last year’s pogrom. Ethnic nationalism, what Albert Einstein dismissed as “the measles of mankind,” and religious fanaticism are making headlines and history. Welcome to the new world...

Can vitamin D help prevent certain cancers and other diseases such as type 1 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain autoimmune and chronic diseases? To answer these questions and more, UCSD School of Medicine and GrassrootsHealth bring you this innovative series on vitamin D deficiency. Join nationally recognized experts as they discuss the latest research and its implications. In this program, Cedric Garland, Dr. PH, discusses the expected vitamin D serum level for cancer prevention. Series: Vitamin D Deficiency – Treatment and Diagnosis [2/2009] [Health and Medicine] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 15767]

The Winnipeg streets are silent and black when Joanne Bromilow gropes a weary hand to a glass of water and two turquoise pills on her bedside table. Before her feet hit the floor later that morning, she’ll have taken another kaleidoscopic handful with hues almost as intense and varied as her symptoms:....Bromilow is one of the 75,000 Canadians in the grips of multiple sclerosis. ........ Half a world away in Sydney, Australia, Lynne Berson wakes up in the half-light of early dawn, pads her way to the kitchen to make her kids’ lunches while musing how spoiled she is to...

For 54 minutes, Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos couldn't score. Then they couldn't be stopped. Tebow rallied the Broncos with two touchdown passes in the final 2:44 of the fourth quarter to force overtime, and Matt Prater's 52-yard field goal gave them an improbable 18-15 victory Sunday over the stunned Miami Dolphins. The Broncos appeared beaten when they trailed 15-0 with 5:23 left and took over at their 20. At that point Tebow was 4 for 14 for 40 yards.

Afghan teenager whose mutilated face shocked the world unveils her new image. An Afghan teenager who was horribly mutilated by her husband under Taliban rule was all smiles as she unveiled her new prosthetic nose for the first time. Aisha, 19, shocked the world when she appeared on the cover of Time Magazine to lift the veil on the plight of many women in Afghanistan. Yesterday, she bravely faced the public wearing a prosthetic nose - one that gives her some idea of how she will look after having reconstructive surgery.

Robots are a major part of the cultural fabric of Japan; they’re performing weddings, buying groceries and keeping people company. A team of researchers at the University of Tokyo is taking this robotic cultural immersion a step further — they’re making animal-robot hybrids. Sort of. RatCar is a brain-machine interface that uses a rat’s brain signals to control a motorized robot. The rat hangs in the air, and the robot does what the rat’s limbs would do. It’s far from the only brain-robot locomotion contraption, but it’s arguably one of the strangest.

Is the Republican establishment losing it? Is the party leadership capable of uniting a governing coalition as Richard Nixon did before Watergate and Ronald Reagan resurrected in the 1980s? Observing the hysteria and nastiness of Karl Rove and the GOP establishment at the stunning triumph of Tea Party Princess Christine O'Donnell, the answer is no. This party is not ready to rule.

How often do you hear anyone make the obvious point global warming will be good for Canada? Arctic scientist Laurence C. Smith makes this logical argument in his new book, The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future. Smith, a professor of geography and earth and space sciences at UCLA who has done extensive research on the negative impacts of climate change, nonetheless predicts Canada, Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland), Russia and the northern U.S. will all become economic powerhouses and immigration magnets due to global warming over the next 40 years.

The BIG news this week will be the latest Apéro organized by Riposte Laïque. If you were not around a few months ago and need some filling in, an "apéro", short for "apéritif", is like a before-dinner cocktail, but in this context it has taken on the aspect of a major demonstration against the Islamization of France and for the values of the Republic....

TONY Blair's much-hyped autobiography is more like "a love letter" to ex-US President George W. Bush, say insiders who have seen drafts of the book.... The News of the World can reveal Blair says he thinks Bush was the only politician in the world with the courage and commitment to take on al-Qaeda after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The drug has traditionally been used as an anaesthetic for animals and, in some cases, humans – but has also established itself as a nightclub favourite in recent years, where it is nicknamed Special K. But studies have found it can treat depression within hours, even when years of alternative treatments have failed. And the effects of just one dose can last up to 10 days.

Settled science?: Could all of the percentages below really be correct? A huge math problem, and sanity check, for alarmists: If you could ever sort out the top hundred natural and anthropogenic causes of the 20th century warming, the sum of the contributions would have to be about 100%. If you get a number like 1200%, something's wrong.

Saddam Hussein drained the unique wetlands of southern Iraq as a punishment to the region's Marsh Arabs who had backed an uprising. Two decades later, one courageous US Iraqi is leading efforts to restore the marshes. Not even exploding bombs can deter him from his dream. Azzam Alwash is an anomaly in Iraq, a country devastated by war and terrorism. As he punts through the war zone in a wooden boat, his biggest concerns are a missing otter, poisoned water and endangered birds. Who thinks about the environment in southern Iraq, and who is willing to risk his life to...

‘Fox News North’ and the assertive new conservatism: With all the fuss over fake lakes, summit bloat and political mergers, it was easy to miss a significant media development last week: Quebecor Media is launching a news and opinion network to counter mainstream Canadian journalism. "Fox News North" hasn’t even been officially announced, but it’s already causing a stir because of its apparent goals and because its chief organizer is a former top aide to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Kory Teneycke is already signing up right-friendly talent for the new channel, which will clearly attract an audience but also must...