Free Republic

LOUISVILLE (Reuters) - Kentucky Governor-elect Matt Bevin said on Friday that when he takes office in December he will order changes to the state marriage license form to appease clerks who have objected to issuing licenses to same-sex couples. "One thing I will take care of right away is we will remove the names of the county clerks from the marriage form," Bevin told reporters in the Capitol rotunda. Bevin, only the second Republican elected governor in Kentucky since 1971, said he would make the change by executive order. It is unclear what impact his order would have on the...

The main union for construction workers is accusing President Obama of throwing them "under the bus" by rejecting the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) is one of the few labor unions that broke with the majority of Democrats and supported the project, which Obama rejected Friday after a seven-year review. "We are dismayed and disgusted that the President has once again thrown the members of LIUNA, and other hard-working, blue-collar workers under the bus of his vaunted 'legacy,' while doing little or nothing to make a real difference in global climate change," Terry...

'Global Cooling' Exhibit Still on Display at the Smithsonian by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York on 09. 8.09 ... Photo via Yglesias The Smithsonian boasts one of the nation's most respected, most visited, and most famous group of museums. So what's it doing still displaying an exhibit based on 1970s-era science--that the earth is undergoing 'global cooling'--in its Natural History Museum in 2009? You're probably most likely to hear about global cooling these days from climate change deniers who sometimes say something along the lines of: "Well, scientists said that there was global cooling in the '70s. Now it's global...

Ending a review process that lasted nearly seven years, President Obama on Friday rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline, siding firmly with environmental activists and drawing the ire of business and labor groups who say the administration is willfully standing in the way of economic growth, job creation and energy security. In a speech at the White House, Mr. Obama, flanked by Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joseph R. Biden, formally announced they'll block construction of Keystone. "The State Department has decided the Keystone XL pipeline would not serve the national interests of the United States. I...

For the last few years, climate hysterics have demanded that government prosecute those who disagree with their notions of climate change. The New York Times is reporting that New York's attorney general has opened an investigation into ExxonMobil, accusing the oil company of making false statements about climate change to its investors while its scientists were telling company officials of the dangers of global warming.

Ever since M. King Hubbert in the 1950s convinced a lot of people with his "peak oil" theory that production would collapse and we'd eventually exhaust our crude supplies, the clock has been running. And running. And it will continue to run for some time, as technology and new discoveries show that there's still an ocean of oil under our feet. [snip] A BP official told the magazine that "energy resources are plentiful. Concerns over running out of oil and gas have disappeared." Things are so good, in fact, that Engineering and Technology says "with the use of the innovative...

Could ExxonMobil be guilty of fraud for taking a public stance on global warming? New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman thinks so, and news that he’s demanded years of records from the oil giant shows how creative some lawyers have become in using litigation to try and achieve the sort of policy changes once left to legislators. The New York Times reports Schneiderman issued a subpoena Wednesday evening seeking emails, financial records and other information about the company’s activities around climate science since the late 1970s, “including a period of at least a decade,” the Times says, “when ExxonMobil funded...

The New York attorney general has begun an investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how such risks might hurt the oil business. According to people with knowledge of the investigation, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman issued a subpoena Wednesday evening to Exxon Mobil, demanding extensive financial records, emails and other documents. The investigation focuses on whether statements the company made to investors about climate risks as recently as this year were consistent with the company’s own long-running scientific research. The people said the...

Muslim bakeries in Michigan refused to bake cakes for gay weddings. You would think that would be news like Memories Pizza refusing to cater gay weddings. Nope, Muslims are part of the liberal media protected class. If Muslims want to follow their own religious beliefs and not bake cakes for gay weddings, you don't hear any big outcry of 'homophobia.' Instead, these Muslim bakeries in Michigan are given a pass to practice their religion as they see fit, unlike Christians. Watch the following video from Steven Crowder going into a few Dearboorn Muslim bakeries and asking them to make a...

The New York attorney general has begun a sweeping investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how those risks might hurt the oil business. According to people with knowledge of the investigation, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman issued a subpoena Wednesday evening to Exxon Mobil, demanding extensive financial records, emails and other documents. The focus includes the company’s activities dating to the late 1970s, including a period of at least a decade when Exxon Mobil funded groups that sought to undermine climate science. A...

California governor Jerry Brown used state experts to prepare a 51-page report on the prospects for oil development on his family's private land in Northern California, according to an Associated Press investigation released early Thursday morning. "Senior staffers in the state's oil and gas regulatory agency over at least two days produced a 51-page historical report and geological assessment, plus a personalized satellite-imaged geological and oil and gas drilling map for the area around Brown's family ranchland near the town of Williams," the AP reported. Brown's office declined to comment, referring the AP instead to the California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, which...

Al Gore .. has levied his global warming activism from a net worth of $700,000 in 2000 into an estimated net worth of $172.5 million by 2015. He is not alone in his financial endeavor. Funding of science, in this particular case, climate change science, is dominated by the federal government. We assert that this will cause recipients of [government] grants to publish findings that are in-line with government policy preferences (i.e., do not bite the hand that feeds you ... Studies that receive financial support from the public sector do not have to disclose it as a conflict of...

SCIENTISTS claim we are in for a decade-long freeze as the sun slows down solar activity by up to 60 per cent. A team of European researchers have unveiled a scientific model showing that the Earth is likely to experience a “mini ice age” from 2030 to 2040 as a result of decreased solar activity. Their findings will infuriate environmental campaigners who argue by 2030 we could be facing increased sea levels and flooding due to glacial melt at the poles. However, at the National Astronomy Meeting in Wales, Northumbria University professor Valentina Zharkova said fluctuations an 11-year cycle of...

The global elite has little idea what afflicts the poor, says Pope Francis. He's right ---but that observation sometimes applies to him, too. In his US visit, the pope is already creating headlines about the urgent need to respond to climate change. Invoking the need to "protect the vulnerable in our world," he calls for an end to humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels. But do the world’s poor believe that carbon cuts are a top priority? Since March 2013, the United Nations has sought citizens’ ranking of 16 policy priorities. More than 8 million people have participated, with nearly 3...

Well this is awkward. Just a month after former Aussie PM Tony Abbott openly questioned global warming data (and was 'replaced'), a new NASA study finds another inconvenient truth - Antarctica has been adding more ice than it's been losing, challenging other research, including that of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that concludes that Earth’s southern continent is losing land ice overall.As Christian Science Monitor reports, In a paper published in the Journal of Glaciology on Friday, researchers from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Maryland in College Park, and the engineering firm Sigma Space...

Gates wants giant carbon tax, says government 'somewhat inept' The world’s richest man thinks only socialism – and skyrocketing gas prices – can save the world from climate change. Bill Gates, whose net worth is roughly $80 billion, told the Atlantic for its November issue that only massive intervention by world governments can head off environmental disaster. “There’s no fortune to be made. Even if you have a new energy source that costs the same as today’s and emits no CO2, it will be uncertain compared with what’s tried-and-true and already operating at unbelievable scale and has gotten through all...

From the “settled science” department and former chief alarmist Jay Zwally, who for years had said the Arctic was in big trouble (only to have his prediction falsified), comes this Emily Litella moment in climate science: “Never mind!”. Curiously, WUWT reported back in 2012 about an ICEsat study by Zwally that said: ICESAT Data Shows Mass Gains of the Antarctic Ice Sheet Exceed Losses. I surmise that with the publication of this second study, the original is now confirmed. I suppose John Cook will have to revise his “Denial 101” video on Antarctica now. This map shows the rates of mass changes...

It's no secret that many U.S. environmental groups have become more strident and ideological during the Obama residency. But you may be surprised just how extreme they have become. In early October, a national network of environmental groups - called Stop the Frack Attack (STFA) - held a summit in Colorado to discuss their campaign strategies. The STFA alliance is led by Earthworks and includes other well-known national activist groups, such as the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Food & Water Watch. Dozens of smaller groups, which routinely serve as the face of national groups in state- and...

The weakest President since Jimmy Carter, the "man" who won the Olympic gold medal for Flexibility to Foreign Leaders, mocked the GOP candidates for their response to what is widely accepted as an astonishingly inept and biased set of debate moderators. Obama sneered: "Let me tell you, if you can't handle those guys then I don't think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about it." Ha ha ha, cooed the idiots in the audience. A couple of things about that. Firstly, the GOP candidates handled the left wing CBNC stooges beautifully. The candidates successfully put the...

Only 1% of the Bakken Play area is commercial at current oil prices based on my analysis that follows. Only 4% of horizontal wells drilled since 2000 meet the EUR (estimated ultimate recovery) threshold needed to break even at current oil prices, drilling and completion, and operating costs. The leading producing companies evaluated in this study are losing $11 to $38 on each barrel of oil that they produce, the very definition of waste. Although NYMEX prices are about $46 per barrel, realized wellhead prices in the Bakken are only $30 per barrel according to the North Dakota Department of...