Free Republic

When farmers plow their land, it produces grooves called "furrows," bordered by small ridges of dirt. But in pursuit of new regulatory powers, federal agencies refer to the little dirt mounds by another term: “mini mountain ranges.” That seemingly absurd distinction is being used to impose more federal control over private land use decisions made by U.S. farmers. That was the claim described in a U.S. Senate committee report released Sept. 20. The committee reviewed the powers held by the nation’s two largest environmental regulation agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency, and a proposed...

Back in 2010, deep green environmentalist Rick Smith, then head of Environmental Defence Canada, hailed Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act regime as a cost-free operation that would catapult the province into the big leagues of renewable energy. Through fat subsidies and high prices offered to wind, solar and other renewable industry players, jobs and growth would boom and Ontario would be free of its dirty coal plants. It was the End of Coal, the government said. The birth of a renewable miracle. Asked whether the plan might lead to higher prices for consumers, “No,” said Dr. Smith —...

Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein will not be on the presidential debate stage for the first contest sponsored by the Commission on President Debates. Johnson and Stein both fell short of the 15 percent polling threshold required to participate, the commission said in a statement, adding that Trump and Clinton will face off on September 26 and their running mates, Tim Kaine and Mike Pence, will debate on October 4. Johnson in particular was pushing hard for inclusion in the debates, as he’d polled in the double digits across several national surveys, and previously...

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said in an interview published Sunday that she would not have ordered the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Marking the 15th anniversary of September 11 terror attacks, Stein instead told the Des Moines Register that she would have tried to bring the terror leader to trial in accordance with international law.

We can be sure that – if Jill Stein starts creeping upward in the polls – the mainstream media will knock her down to protect Hillary Clinton and keep her from reaching the 15% threshold required to participate in debates. To the pundits and journalists in America's news establishment, electing Hillary Clinton has become a righteous duty. In their minds, Donald Trump is the greatest evil threatening the American way of life, while Hillary Clinton represents a progressive step forward to a new milestone in American history. If you think America's mainstream news media is one-sided, corrupt and biased by...

A New Jersey Transit police officer spotted a man lying on the railroad tracks in Secaucus and managed to pull him to safety mere seconds before a train arrived.

Some justice has been served in the senseless killing of Melquiesha "Mel" Warren, a 23-year-old woman shot dead in a SoMa parking lot in 2013 over a fender bender, following a night in which she'd been celebrating her wife's birthday with friends. 26-year-old Michael Sione Green of San Mateo was found guilty Thursday on counts of murder, attempted murder, firing at a motor vehicle, assault, being a felon in possession of a firearm, carrying a concealed firearm, and carrying a loaded firearm, according to the DA's office in a release. District Attorney George Gascon says, "The jury sent a clear...

It’s time to come out of the closet. Or, more precisely, the sweat lodge. My family lives without air con­ditioning, except for one antique, ­semi-comatose window unit that “cools” the bedroom to approximately the same temperature as Dallas at dusk. Our house in Philadelphia was built in the 1920s, when people were tough and resourceful. For most of the year, the house is cool and pleasant, as long as there isn’t a mash-up of continuously scorching days and epic humidity, when the air is putrid, stagnant and, if it were a color, would definitely be mustard.

Julian Assange will be addressing the Green Party Convention on Saturday morning. Assange has been heavily involved in the U.S. elections this year, with WikiLeaks’ releasing damaging emails that showed officials in the Democratic party worked against Bernie Sanders’ campaign during the primary. The emails forced the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Here’s what you need to know. Julian Assange is scheduled to speak to the Green Party delegates through a live feed video on Saturday, August 6, the Green Party announced. He’ll be speaking at 11:45 a.m. Central, before the party nominates its presidential and vice presidential candidates. Jill...

Dennis Green, former head coach of the Vikings and Cardinals, has died at the age of 67. Green became head coach of the Vikings in 1992, instantly leading the team to a playoff berth. In 1998, he coached the team to one of the best offensive performances in league history. The team finished 15-1 and lost to the Falcons at home in overtime of the NFC championship game. Green and the Vikings returned to the NFC title game in 2000.

Seven years into Barack Obama’s presidency, the scales may slowly be falling from the eyes of The New York Times. Could the truth about America’s red diaper baby President be starting to emerge? In a story about papers of his reported father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., the Times said that President Obama has shown no interest in “the newly discovered documents, which included nearly two dozen of his father’s letters, his transcripts from the University of Hawaii and Harvard University, and references from professors, advisers and supporters.” The paper added, “Nearly three years later, as Mr. Obama celebrates his last...

New Map Shows the Dark Side of Artificial Light at Night ... The most fundamental difficulty, however, has been that no one knows exactly how severe the problem is.

Since both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sander are quite keen to talk about climate change and carbon taxes, let’s take a brief break from the campaign trail and check in on how Mother Gaia is doing these days. We’ve recorded what some climate scientists claim is a string of record warmest months over the past year and if I were judging by the almost snow-free, mild winter we just enjoyed in upstate New York and the rest of the northeast (watch out for the bears) I’d have to agree. So I assume this means we’re all doomed. But oddly...

**SNIP** Four years of drought have transformed this biosphere of wealth into something a little less than immaculate, with some homeowners actually letting their lawns turn brown in an effort to conserve precious water. But enough is enough, declared the Blackhawk Homeowners Association, which issued a letter to the 9,000 residents of Blackhawk stating that as of June 1st, “beautiful landscaping ” will again be required. The letter told residents that they must have a healthy lawn or drought-tolerant landscaping, or face fines, even litigation.

Adding wind and solar to Ontario's grid drives emissions higher.

To go along with the infamous "Mars hoax," which claims that the Red Planet will appear as large as the full moon in the sky; the "Nibiru cataclysm," a supposed disastrous encounter between Earth and a large planetary object; and "Zero-Gravity Day," when people on Earth supposedly can experience weightlessness, we now have the "nights of the green moon." This latest fallacy to sweep the blogosphere claims that on Wednesday (April 20), and again on May 29, the moon will appear to turn a shade of green. The full moon of April will occur on Friday, April 22. The explanation...

On Tuesday I published a short post about the key arguments of climate-change skeptics while also pointing out that some 98 percent of published scientists in the field believe human-caused climate change is indeed happening and must be addressed. For years the two sides have been talking - or yelling - past one another, which benefits none of us. As expected, the post brought forth a wave of comments from readers. Many lambasted me for providing a forum for the "lunatics" who deny human-caused climate change. Climate skeptics, on the other hand, chastised me for only presenting their more simplistic...

Climate records back to Viking times show the 20th century was unexceptional for rainfall and droughts despite assumptions that global warming would trigger more wet and dry extremes, a study showed on Wednesday. Stretching back 1,200 years, written accounts of climate indicated that variations in the extremes in the 20th century were less than in some past centuries. "Several other centuries show stronger and more widespread extremes," lead author Fredrik Ljungqvist of Stockholm University told Reuters. "We can't say it's more extreme now." Ljungqvist said many existing scientific models of climate change over-estimated assumptions that rising temperatures would make dry...

SunEdison, which bills itself as the world’s largest green energy company, may soon file for bankruptcy protection, according to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, as the company faces “liquidity difficulties” despite getting millions in government subsidies.

U.S. solar energy company SunEdison Inc, whose aggressive acquisition strategy has saddled it with almost $12 billion of debt, is at "substantial risk" of bankruptcy, one of its two publicly listed units warned on Tuesday. A bankruptcy would rank among the largest involving a non-financial company in the past 10 years, according to bankruptcydata.com. SunEdison declined to comment. SunEdison's shares - already reeling from a Wall Street Journal report on Monday that the company was being investigated for overstating its cash position - fell as much as 60 percent to a record low of 50 cents.