Free Republic

St. Lucie’s elections mishaps came to light in the razor-thin U.S. House District 18 contest that prompted a prolonged recount and at least two lawsuits. U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, a Democrat who was sworn in on Thursday, defeated tea party icon Allen West, who filed two lawsuits against Walker seeking a manual recount of nearly 38,000 early votes. Murphy was ultimately declared the winner by a slim margin of less than 1,800 votes.

The report Penn State trustees commissioned Louis Freeh to do into the Jerry Sandusky scandal and whether there was a cover up at the university will be released Thursday. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh announced today that his report will be published online at 9 a.m., with a press conference at 10 a.m. in Philadelphia. Trustees hired Freeh in November to conduct the investigation, which they have said would be completely independent and unedited. According to the announcement today, the Thursday will be the first time anyone outside of the Freeh investigative team "will in any way receive the report,...

Former Penn State President Graham Spanier could face criminal charges in relation to the Jerry Sandusky case now that prosecutors have uncovered new evidence, NBC News reported this morning. According to NBC, prosecutors uncovered emails sent in 2001 in relation to what former assistant coach Mike McQueary reported he saw in a Lasch Building shower. McQueary, a graduate assistant at the time, testified that he saw Sandusky doing something that appeared to be "severe" and "sexual" in nature. Emails uncovered by investigators suggest Spanier conferred with former Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz, saying it would be...

A jury awarded $16.5 million Thursday to a woman who said she was drugged with carbon dioxide and manipulated to believe she was raped by family members at the hands of a former State College psychologist. ... Cantorna said his client was made to believe she was raped at the hands of her family and abused in cultlike rituals by prominent members of the community. Metter was accused in the civil lawsuit of creating those images and suggesting them as reality while the woman was drugged and in her most vulnerable state. “He took a woman who never had any...

A political party in Belgium has started a campaign, called "Women against Islamisation", with a logo in which a young woman appears in a burqa and a bikini. An-Sofie holding the logo on the right The campaign was launched by the rightwing Vlaams Belang party. Featured in the campaign logo is An-Sofie Dewinter, the gorgeous teenage daughter of Philip Dewinter, leader the of Vlaams Belang party. The burqa covers An-Sofie’s head and face while the rest of it falls behind her back. The bikini covers her breast and crotch. The burka and bikini logo is meant for the "Freedom or...

The resolution, set to be introduced Friday at the RNC’s annual winter meeting by Oklahoma committee member Carolyn McLarty, aims to shoot down what some see as an Obama administration trial balloon in the form of a recent opinion column in the New York Times by Paul V. Kane, a Marine Corps veteran and former international security fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government." Mr. Kane called on Mr. Obama to “enter into closed-door negotiations with Chinese leaders to write off the $1.14 trillion of American debt” currently held by China. Mr. Kane said the write-off would be “in...

A conservative research organization has called on state lawmakers to conduct an outside investigation of embattled researcher Michael Mann, saying Penn State's inquiry is tainted by a conflict of interest. In the past month, the Commonwealth Foundation released a 10-page policy statement urging the Pennsylvania General Assembly to commission an external and independent investigation of the Penn State meteorology professor. Penn State's inquiry was prompted when hundreds of illegally obtained e-mails were leaked last November from a private server in the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia in England. Critics say the e-mails suggest that data released...

Former CIA agent Kent Clizbe sent letters to 27 Penn State faculty members last week, hoping to find a whistleblower in the "Climategate" controversy involving Penn State meteorology professor Michael Mann. "As an intelligence collector targeting foreign or enemy government, we recruit an insider," said Clizbe, who sent the e-mails last week. "I'm attempting to recruit an insider to tell us what's really going on." Mann was thrust into the spotlight when hundreds of e-mails, including ones that he had written and received, were leaked from a private server in the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia...

The U.S. Congress will explore deliberate tinkering with the climate in its first ever hearing on geoengineering early next month, ScienceInsider has learned.Congressional committees have shied away from focusing hearings on the controversial topic until now. One reason might be that talk of a technical fix could distract from needed emissions cuts, especially with the U.S. Senate and international negotiators debating new controls on carbon pollution. The House of Representatives' science and technology committee has slated the hearing on the controversial subject for 5 November. The exact focus of the hearing is not known, but the meeting could be a...

CO2 Accounting Error in US House Cap and Trade Bill Creates Perverse Incentives to Clear Forests Several recent studies estimate that this error, applied globally, would create strong incentives to clear land as carbon caps tighten. One study estimated that a global CO2 target of 450 ppm under this accounting would cause bioenergy crops to expand to displace virtually all the world's natural forests and savannahs by 2065, releasing up to 37 gigatons (Gt) of CO2 per year (comparable to total human CO2 emissions today). Another study predicts that, based solely on economic considerations, bioenergy could displace 59% of the...

Penn State University, University Park, Pa.: The Rock Ethics Institute in Penn State's College of the Liberal Arts selected 11 faculty members to participate in the 2009 Ethics Seminar for Faculty. The seminar supports research and teaching designed to promote ethical awareness and inquiry.Nancy Tuana, director of the REI, notes, "The seminar will create an interdisciplinary environment for faculty to discuss current ethics research, enhance their ethical literacy, and improve skills and techniques for integrating ethical analysis into the classroom. Fellows can share ideas as they each develop their curriculum for their classes."The Ethics Seminar will provide Honors Faculty with...

Data gathered by a NOAA aircraft over northern Alaska and the Arctic Ocean in April 2008 indicate that forest fires in Russia and agricultural burning in Kazakhstan may substantially contribute to springtime plumes of dirty air known as arctic haze (note the dark stripe of smoky air above and beyond the NASA plane shown in this image).Credit: J. Cozic/CIRES/NOAA Chemical Sciences DivisionData gathered by aircraft flying over northern Alaska and the Arctic Ocean in April 2008 hint that many springtime plumes of arctic haze in the region,

Physics professor William Happer GS ’64 has some tough words for scientists who believe that carbon dioxide is causing global warming.“This is George Orwell. This is the ‘Germans are the master race. The Jews are the scum of the earth.’ It’s that kind of propaganda,” Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, said in an interview. “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Every time you exhale, you exhale air that has 4 percent carbon dioxide. To say that that’s a pollutant just boggles my mind. What used to be science has turned into a cult.”Happer served as director of...

5 hours ago ROME (AFP) — The Etna volcano in Sicily rumbled back to life on Tuesday with a "seismic event" followed by a burst of ash, volcanologists said three days after minor eruptions shook the cone. A "seismic event provoking a strong explosion was recorded Tuesday at 0424 GMT (6:42 am local) in parts of the peak of the volcano," the National Geophysics and Vulcanology Institute in Sicily's Catania region said in a statement. The explosion on Etna, Europe's tallest active volcano at 3,295 metres (10,810 feet), was followed by a rain of ash on the southeast crater, "where...

Unofficial Summary of the Rush Limbaugh Show for Friday, April 22, 1994 by John Switzer This unofficial summary is copyright (c) 1994 by John Switzer. All Rights Reserved. These summaries are distributed on CompuServe and the Internet, and archived on CompuServe (DL9 of the ISSUES forum) and Internet (cathouse.org and grind.isca.uiowa.edu). WWW users can access http://neptune.corp.harris.com/rush.html The /pub/jrs directory at ftp.netcom.com contains the summaries for the past 30 days. Distribution to other electronic forums and bulletin boards is highly encouraged. Spelling and other corrections gratefully received. Please read the standard disclaimer which was included with the first summary for this...

An elections official said she has received between five and 10 complaints about Tuesday's judge of elections at precinct 25 in the HUB-Robeson Center -- College Democrats President Enrique Ortiz. Centre County Elections Office department clerk Jodi Neidig, who was in charge of recruiting elections officers for the HUB, said she "can guarantee" Ortiz will never work for Centre County during another election. She said she was "extremely disappointed" in the way precinct 25 was run as a whole. Ortiz, speaking on behalf of himself and not the College Democrats, said the HUB polling place was "horribly run" and an...

See Source URL for complete report. Note that the authors state that they received no funding for this study. Abstract In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group One, a panel of experts established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, issued its updated, Fourth Assessment Report, forecasts. The Report was commissioned at great cost in order to provide policy recommendations to governments. It included predictions of dramatic and harmful increases in average world temperatures over the next 92 years. Using forecasting principles as our guide we asked, are these forecasts a good basis...

If you should happen to telephone Ambassador John Bolton’s office at the United Nations, chances are good the person who answers your call will be one Peggy Kerry. Does that name ring a bell? Perhaps it should. According to a July 27, 2004 article in the Washington Times, Miss Kerry was the featured speaker at an event sponsored by the NOW in conjunction with the Democratic National Convention. “And he has a secret weapon,” Kerry boasted. “It seems to me that it’s up to the women, because when women vote, Democrats win.” And which “he” was Miss Peggy talking about?...

Beyond science and economics: Conference to examine the ethical dimensions of climate change Tuesday, August 29, 2006 University Park, Pa. -- Most of the discussion and debate about climate change centers on scientific scenarios, such as struggling eco-systems, violent storms and melting glaciers, or economic factors which range from the cost of alternative fuels to impact on gross domestic product. Largely missing, however, are explorations of the ethical implications of the actions or inactions of individuals and the world community as they consider solutions to a crisis of unparalleled proportions. On Aug. 30 and 31, experts on many dimensions of...

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the biggest private user of electricity in the world and has huge potential to cut back on greenhouse gases in-house and among its 60,000 suppliers, company officials said ahead of a global warming information stop Wednesday by former vice president Al Gore. Wal-Mart working groups on environmental change were meeting ahead of Gore's visit to discuss steps already taken and new efforts ahead under a green initiative launched last October by Chief Executive Lee Scott to make the often-criticized company a better environmental citizen. p>The world's largest retailer emitted the equivalent of 20.8...