Free Republic

<p>How’s this as a gesture of love for the woman who bore you? Chop off the reproductive organ of a plant and send it to her in a box tied up with a pretty bow.</p> <p>No, it’s not a weird botanical twist on the van Gogh woo-a-girl-with-a-severed-ear legend. It is what millions of us (67 percent of those celebrating the holiday) will compulsorily do to mark Mother’s Day.</p>

Target: Scott Walker, Wisconsin Governor Petition:Following the horrible example set last month in Florida, a state public lands agency in Wisconsin has instructed their employees to no longer discuss global warming. Global warming is the largest challenge that land managers are currently facing, but apparently, the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands (BCPL) thinks if they don't say it, it won't happen??!? The BCPL manages revenue from federal lands within the state to the benefit of schools and communities. This decision makes no sense, given that much of their revenue comes from national forests, and forests are already suffering...

A petition to close down a coal plant from the green group listed some supporters who say they hadn’t signed on. ... three western North Carolina businesses accused the green group of listing them without permission as co-signatories on a “businesses beyond coal” campaign letter. The Sierra Club listed 80 businesses as co-signatories last October in a letter it widely publicized, calling for Duke Energy to retire its coal plant in Asheville. ... National Review reached out to the remaining 61 businesses listed in the Sierra Club letter. Though it was unable to reach all of the owners, it found...

Al Gore pressed Iowans on Tuesday to make climate change a major issue in the next presidential election. Since Iowa holds the first presidential primaries in the country, candidates have campaigned heavily in recent years to win the hearts and minds of the residents of the Hawkeye State.(TWEET-AT-LINK)“More and more Iowans care about the climate crisis. Iowa is a leader in renewable energy. And Iowans can exert influence in their conversations with candidates,” Gore said at Climate Reality Project′s leadership training event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The three-day event from May 5-7 is designed to bring together a global network...

Rebecca Black and Roy Smith, both 44 and native Californians, get to work soon after sunrise. By 7:30 a.m., they’re busy in the cottage they rent on Old Redwood Highway in Cotati, where they live with their two daughters, Siena Smith, 11, and Lillian Black, 12. This morning, Smith skins and guts a 13-year-old goat, chops up the liver to feed the cats and dogs and saves the best parts for a family meal. Meanwhile, in the backyard, Black tans the goat’s hide. In this super eco-driven household, almost nothing goes to waste. Nearly everything is recycled and everyone is...

The GOP’s destructive Vietnam mythology: How the right’s self-glorifying delusions led to decades of avoidable war It only took about five years from the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, for the American right to succeed in burying the moment under mounds of revisionist horse shit. Ronald Reagan, speaking at a campaign appearance in the summer of 1980, said, It is time that we recognized that [the American War in Vietnam] was, in truth, a noble cause… We dishonor the memory of 50 thousand young Americans who died in that cause when we give way to feelings of guilt...

Will the next presidential election be won by a lie? Truth has long since been replaced by “narratives” on the American left. Rather than discuss genuine issues and objective facts, progressives prefer to make up a politically effective story. It doesn’t matter whether the story is false, as long as it sways the public’s emotions and wins the day. The ends justify the means. This “lying game” strategy often shows up in politically sensitive scientific debates. In honor of Earth Week, let’s look at one of the patron saints of environmentalism, Rachel Carson. Carson wanted to eliminate DDT, the most...

The present four-year California drought is not novel -- even if President Barack Obama and California Gov. Jerry Brown have blamed it on man-made climate change. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, California droughts are both age-old and common. Predictable California dry spells -- like those of 1929-34, 1976-77 and 1987-92 -- more likely result from poorly understood but temporary changes in atmospheric pressures and ocean temperatures. What is new is that the state has never had 40 million residents during a drought -- well over 10 million more than during the last dry spell in the early...

How can Shell possibly finance the purchase of BG? Royal Dutch Shell is set to report its first quarter earnings, and by all accounts, it will be a doozy. Analysts predict a 60 percent decline in earnings from a year earlier, including a massive 7 percent fall in production. But the price tag for BG will be $70 billion, a colossal sum in a period of low oil prices. Shell has already said that it would undertake a major divestment campaign to rid itself of assets it does not see as integral to its future. Purchasing BG is a sign...

The green energy barons have had a good run in the Age of Obama, but Capitol Hill conservatives are mounting their first serious challenge to these charlatans in the new Congress with the PTC Elimination Act filed by Rep. Kenny E. Marchant (R.-Texas). “If we want to build a healthier American economy, Congress must get rid of the dead weight in the tax code that is limiting our nation’s potential. That’s why I have introduced legislation to eliminate the production tax credit,” Marchant said in his April 22 statement. “Since its creation in 1992, the PTC has ballooned from a...

If you’ve ever got to teach a kid the meaning of non sequitur, remember this assertion by one Debbie Dooley, Tea Party eccentric and advocate for solar energy: Support solar energy, because Americans for Prosperity (AFP) says you shouldn’t, and “they refuse to take a position on the fiscal irresponsibility of illegal immigration and amnesty because their corporate benefactors support open borders and amnesty.” The best I can figure is that Dooley’s actually Andy Kaufman, returned to prank the Tea Party: “Vote solar. Because Mexicans.” There’s a ballot initiative campaign underway in Florida to get the state to endorse and...

Every year, millions of Americans frequent our state and national parks. In 2013, tourists, families and outdoor enthusiasts made an estimated 720 million visits to state parks and 726 million visits to national parks. National Park Week is an opportune time to focus on how to best preserve our parks for future generations. Across the country, tight government budgets leave little money for preserving and maintaining public parks. With increasing operational costs, privatizing certain park concessions can help provide a sustainable funding structure for these beloved areas. Funding shortfalls have caused states to close or significantly reduce services in state...

Town of Grand Chute -- Gov. Scott Walker said his administration will continue to let science guide environmental policy in Wisconsin even if some scientists are laid off at the Department of Natural Resources. Speaking on Earth Day in this town near Appleton on Wednesday, Walker addressed notices of potential layoffs that have gone out to fifty-seven employees of the state Department of Natural Resources. DNR spokesman Bill Cosh has said that of that number, 27 employees are in the Bureau of Science Services, a unit of the DNR where Walker is proposing significant cuts. "We believe that science should...

Five years ago this week, a blowout of BPÂ’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig 40 miles from the Gulf Coast tragically claimed eleven lives and spilled 3 million barrels of oil from the damaged wellhead into the Gulf. ItÂ’s hard to forget the video images of thick oil gushing, day after day, into the regionÂ’s waters. It was a horrific accident that caused substantial damage to the ecology and commerce of the region. Gulf-area wildlife, portions of the shoreline, tourism, fishers and shrimpers, and energy-sector workers suffered large losses in the aftermath of the spill. BP has paid close to $27...

Earth Day was first observed on April 22, 1970 as the brainchild of former Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-WI). One of the leading proponents of environmentalism and conservation at the time, Sen. Nelson envisioned Earth Day as an “environmental teach-in” that would generate popular support for an environmental agenda. Modeled on the anti-war teach-ins of the gloomy Vietnam era, over 20 million people participated in the inaugural Earth Day. Ever since, Earth Day has been a largely somber event sounding the alarm on impending environmental doom. Instead of merely generating awareness of the environmental problems we face, Earth Day should be...

Happy Earth Day! Today is a day we can all band together and share our love for this beautiful planet—or at least drown our sorrows about climate change with nerdy themed cocktails. Later today, President Barack Obama will mark the occasion with a climate-focused speech in the Florida Everglades. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, had a different idea: Fire a big chunk of the state's environmental staff. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Fifty-seven employees of the state Department of Natural Resources began receiving formal notices this week that they might face layoff as part of...

For the 45th annual Earth Day on Wednesday, President Obama will elevate global warming to the top of the list of environmental threats currently facing Americans, in a speech at the Everglades National Park. The trip, his first to the fragile but vital "river of grass" that, following decades of human interference now occupies a fraction of its former sprawling range in southern Florida, also comes with a heavy dose of politics. Winning the state will be key for any presidential candidate in the 2016 race, and two leading contenders for the Republican nomination, former governor Jeb Bush Senator Marco...

Sales of the Nissan Leaf and other electric cars have dipped thus far in 2015, and automakers have resorted to price cuts to boost interest in plug-ins.

....Obama will visit the Everglades Wednesday, Earth Day, to call attention to global warming and the administration's efforts to cut carbon pollution across the globe. CBS News reporter Mark Knoller raised an intervesting question with honorary Floridian and former Jim Davis adviser Josh Earnest at the press secretary's daily briefing today. Here's a transcript of the exchange: Q Thanks. On the Everglades trip, does the President risk undermining his message when he flies to the Everglades on a 747 hundreds of miles to make a statement about climate change? (Laughter.) Q He could drive. (Laughter.) MR. EARNEST: It’s a provocative...

In November of 2011, a magnitude 5.7 earthquake ripped through the small Oklahoma town of Prague, damaging more than a dozen homes and toppling a turret on a St. Gregory's University building in nearby Shawnee. It was the worst of three large quakes to strike the area over several days, and it still as ranks as the worst Oklahoma has ever experienced. Since then, hundreds more have rattled the state, racking up millions of dollars in damages and unleashing a political and financial maelstrom. Until 2008, Oklahoma typically had one or two earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater per year,...