Free Republic

We recently wrote about the Brett Kimberlin saga -- which is long and involved, and which we'd avoided jumping into for a long time, given how complex and nutty it was. If you're not familiar with it, go back and read that post to catch up on it, but the super short version is that Kimberlin has been suing a lot of people, in large part because he doesn't like the way they're characterizing his past. And he's more or less indicated that he intends to tie people up in court for as long as possible, leading some to put...

The comedy just keeps on coming. Plus, now it seems that Turney failed to get some approvals, and his welcome home may not be all the happy. Maybe he’ll stay in Antarctica. After having to prematurely abandon their mission due to being stuck in ice, and having a weather forecast provided that said all they had to do was wait a few more days, which came true, freeing the ship, the intrepid Dr. Turney and his gaggle of global warming geese tourists were evacuated by helicopter to the Aurora Australis, which then sailed to the Australian Casey Station to finish...

When U.S. officials warn about "attacks" on electric power facilities these days, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a computer hacker trying to shut the lights off in a city with malware. But a more traditional attack on a power station in California has U.S. officials puzzled and worried about the physical security of the the electrical grid--from attackers who come in with guns blazing. Around 1:00 AM on April 16, at least one individual (possibly two) entered two different manholes at the PG&E Metcalf power substation, southeast of San Jose, and cut fiber cables in the...

Police investigating the murder of an Iraqi mother in southern California, initially thought to be a hate crime, have filed papers with a court that suggest the mother had a difficult relationship with her daughter and her husband. The beating death last month of Shaima Alawadi, 32, of El Cajon, shook the Iraqi-American community when her family reported that a note was found next to Alawadi's body, reportedly saying "go back to your own country, you terrorist." Alawadi's 17-year-old daughter, Fatima, told police that a similar note had been found a week prior to the murder, but the mother thought...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Former U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson crashed into a Lynx bus in downtown Orlando about noon Saturday. Grayson was traveling to an upscale fundraising event for his Congressional campaign. Authorities with the Orlando Police Department said the crash happened at Orange Avenue and Livingston Street. Investigators said Grayson was driving a Mercedes, when he ran a red light and hit the bus. Police and a campaign representative said Grayson and his passenger were not hurt. Two people aboard the bus claimed they suffered minor injuries and were taken to a hospital. Authorities said the crash is under investigation,...

Now it’s a Phytoplanktonic panic Posted on July 30, 2010 by Anthony Watts Borrowing a phrase from NSIDC’s Dr. Mark Serreze, Phytoplankton are now apparently in a “Death Spiral”. See Death spiral of the oceans and the original press release about an article in Nature from a PhD candidate at Dalhousie University, which started all this. I’m a bit skeptical of the method which they describe in the PR here: A simple tool known as a Secchi disk as been used by scientists since 1899 to determine the transparency of the world’s oceans. The Secchi disk is a round disk,...

IQALUIT, Nunavut - The Group of Seven finance ministers emerged from a two-day meeting in the Far North saying they are determined to make financial institutions bear the cost of crises they cause. The G7 ministers also expressed confidence a global economic recovery is underway, although they cautioned it was still too fragile for governments to start withdrawing stimulus spending. The meeting in Nunavut's remote capital was unusual in that it did not produce a formal communique. And for its locale - a treeless landscape about 300 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle that offered none of the accoutrements the...

A senior Mexican senator and former foreign affairs minister yesterday called Canada's visa controls on Mexico a humiliation and questioned whether Canadian-Mexican relations will improve as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister. In a blunt speech to a Toronto business and academic gathering, Senator Rosario Green Macias detailed the information she was required to provide to the Canadian government to enter Canada – proof of property ownership, her last six bank statements, a letter from the Mexican senate stating she is a senator and personal information about other members of her family. “That has to stop,” said Ms. Green,...

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A national Latino coalition is threatening to challenge Oklahoma's sweeping immigration law before the measure goes into effect on Nov. 1. The Rev. Miguel Rivera is president of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian eaders. Rivera says the group may challenge the measure in federal court as soon as Oct. 1. Rivera also says the group's planning an Oct. 1 rally against House Bill 1804 on the steps of the Oklahoma Capitol in Oklahoma City. Officials say the group's lawsuit will likely argue that the state's law unconstitutionally pre-empts federal immigration law. Among other...

WASHINGTON — An estimated 1.6 million children and spouses have been separated from family members forced to leave the country under toughened 1996 immigration laws, a human rights group said Wednesday. The separations have taken a toll on families who have sold homes, lost jobs, lost businesses or been thrown into financial turmoil, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The widespread impact on American families has been truly devastating, said Alison Parker, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch. In 1996, Congress toughened immigration laws making immigrants, legal and illegal, deportable according to an expanded list of "aggravated...

Coral "shuffle" helps reefs survive warmer world: study SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's Great Barrier Reef might be able to survive warming sea temperatures, as a result of global warming, better than first thought because some coral algae are more heat tolerant, Australian scientists said. Coral geneticists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science have found that many corals store several types of algae, which can improve their capacity to cope with warmer water. "This work shatters the popular view that only a small percentage of corals have the potential to respond to warmer conditions by shuffling live-in algal partners," said...

Cat returns home after 10 years Patricia Charnet only had a few snapshots to remember Lynx by A cat has been reunited with its owner 10 years after going missing. Lynx disappeared from her home in Hook, Hampshire, in 1997, and her owner, Patricia Charnet, thought she would never see her pet again. Earlier this week a stray was found in Carterton, Oxfordshire, and handed in to the Blue Cross centre in Burford. A scan showed that the 12-year-old tabby was microchipped and the centre tracked down her owner, who lived 60 miles away. Ms Charnet said that when the...

The what-ifs in the sudden death of immigration reform are intriguing. What if Senate majority leader Harry Reid hadn't pulled the immigration bill from the floor when it was close to passage in early June? What if Republican senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jon Kyl of Arizona had come up earlier with their enforcement-toughening amendment that would have prompted, for the first time, a sweeping crackdown on those 3 to 4 million foreigners who have overstayed their visas? What if Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had twisted arms to get more Republican votes for the bill?...

DHS Secure Border Initiative Delayed Thursday June 21, 4:38 pm ET By Dan Caterinicchia, AP Business Writer Lawmakers Ask DHS Secretary About Delay in Multibillion-Dollar Secure Border Initiative WASHINGTON (AP) -- Technical issues are delaying the first leg of a multibillion-dollar project to build a high-tech fence along the nation's southern border to reduce illegal entry, the government said Thursday. Some lawmakers are questioning why Boeing Co., the lead contractor, and staff at the Department of Homeland Security waited until a day after a hearing earlier this month to update Congress on the status of the "virtual fence's" initial phase....

Bush's surge to save his immigration bill. The Fool-the-Yahoos Surge: Meetings have been held, tactics adopted, talking points synchronized. The new Bush counterinsurgency strategy to reverse the course of the immigration debate seems to have two components: 1) Exude confidence. "We are winning" ... sorry, that's what Bush said about the war in Iraq. Here's what his Commerce secretary said about the immigration Grand Bargain: "This bill is alive and well .... I have no doubt. This is going to go through ...." 2) Stress all the enforcement provisions in the bill, while pretending you've gotten the message: "I know...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham insisted Friday that Congress will pass comprehensive immigration reforms even as other senators ribbed him for having dubbed “the grand bargain” that crashed and burned. A day after suffering a major legislative defeat, Graham minimized as “a bump in the road” the Senate’s failure Thursday to act on an immigration bill he helped craft. “We’re inside the 10-yard line, and we’ve got four downs,” Graham said at a Capitol briefing. “I like our chances.” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who managed the immigration measure during its two weeks on the Senate floor, used...

An immigration reform measure that appeared to die in the Senate on Thursday could return next month, Sen. Ken Salazar, one of the measure's chief architects, said today. At a press conference at his Denver office, the Colorado Democrat said Senators would turn their attention to the energy bill next week, but that he is hopeful they will return to immigration reform in July. "Failure on immigration reform is not an option," he said. "For this Congress and Washington not to deal with immigration reform is an abdication of responsibility." If action is not taken now, Salazar said, immigration reform...

There’s a simple reason the immigration bill being debated by the U.S. Senate is unpopular with voters—the general public doesn’t believe it will reduce illegal immigration. And, in the minds of most voters, that’s what immigration reform is all about. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 16% of American voters believe illegal immigration will decline if the Senate bill is passed. Seventy-four percent (74%) disagree. That figure includes 41% who believe the Senate bill will actually lead to an increase in illegal immigration. If voters had a chance to improve the legislation, 75% would “make changes...

The world’s largest untapped oil reserves – in northern Canada – have become the new front line in the battle between environmentalists and the energy industry. Shell, a self-styled “green” energy company, is to invest billions of pounds in exploiting the Athabasca tar sands. Environmentalists say the tar sands are the world’s dirtiest oil deposits and that refining them generates three to four times more CO2 than normal oil extraction. However, Clive Mather, chief executive of Shell Canada, said rising demand and surging oil prices could not be resisted. “The deposits are huge, potentially even greater than in Saudi Arabia,”...

The bitterly cold winters of Gordon Chipman's childhood are fading into memory, and the pine forests that now blanket British Columbia's sprawling Interior landscape may soon follow. Chipman grew up in Williams Lake, a hub town in the Interior forest industry where logging contractors traditionally relied on minus-40 Celsius winter temperatures to sustain an annual peak in logging activity. The deep freeze made a hard surface, supporting fast, efficient movement of heavy logging equipment that would, at other times of the year, become mired in soft ground. In Chipman's mind, nothing, not even the rapid spread of the mountain pine...