Free Republic

We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction. The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing long-term...

A 25-year-old driver in Cass County offered a lesson Sunday in what not to do while driving. When pulled over by a sheriff's deputy, not only was he traveling at speeds near 80 miles per hour, but he also said he'd drifted into the wrong lane because he was text-messaging, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said Monday. As if that weren't enough, he was arrested on suspicion of drinking and driving. "This is the kind of traffic event where almost everything that could go wrong, did go wrong," said Nathan Bowie, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety....

The country's largest medical association is set to issue a formal apology today for its historical antipathy toward African American doctors, expressing regret for a litany of transgressions, including barring black physicians from its ranks for decades and remaining silent during battles on landmark legislation to end racial discrimination.

The United States needs a new law requiring that the president consult with Congress before going to war, a blue-ribbon panel led by two former secretaries of state said Tuesday. The current War Powers Resolution is "ineffective, and it should be repealed and it should be replaced," James Baker said in a joint appearance with Warren Christopher, announcing the results of the study they led. The recommendation follows failed efforts by Democrats in Congress to put a stop to the war in Iraq or to put conditions on President Bush's conduct of it. Congress passed a joint resolution to authorize...

There's a story from the Ass Press on Yahoo about a Minnesota doofus (named in the article as a college student) who tried to sell his vote on eBay for $10. He might get upto 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Look it up on Yahoo (if you're interested).

...So when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought June 4, Hartridge decided it was only right to let her front lawn die to save water. "The whole water conservation ethic is very important to me," said Hartridge, a state employee who bikes or rides the bus to work. But that ethic didn't agree with her neighbors, or with the city. Before Hartridge could plan new landscaping, a neighbor complained to the city about her brown lawn, and the Code Enforcement Department slapped the family with a citation. Their small brick home was declared a "public nuisance" in violation of...

THE power of the wind and the tide have been harnessed – now the footfall of trudging shoppers is to become the latest source of emission-free energy. Underfloor generators, powered by “heel strike” and designed by British engineers, may soon be installed in supermarkets and railway stations.

...In 1976, Washington became the first major American city to ban handguns. But since that day, handgun technology has changed dramatically. In fact, the editor of Shooting Sports Retailer, a gun industry magazine, observed in 1997: "Firepower is increasing. So is the killing potential as guns shrink in size and concealability." We hope the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will take that fact into account when they decide this month whether the District's handgun ban is constitutional. Here in Philadelphia, the deadly shift can be measured by the rate of violence in 2006, which resulted in more than 2,000...

EDINBURG TX - Some opponents of the border fence are preparing civil disobedience when the bulldozers move into the Rio Grande Valley late next month. Speaking in an individual capacity, members of the No Border Wall coalition told the Guardian that a number of protests are planned, both locally and nationally. Members of the group made the comments after speaking out against the levee-wall plan at this week’s Hidalgo County Commissioner’s Court meeting. “There are people ready to do civil disobedience, people who have experience in doing civil disobedience, who are not afraid to do that,” said No Border Wall...

ON RIGHT NOW! "Including references to "Whitey". There has been a race for Clinton operatives to aquire this tape, but I believe this tape is already in the hands of a major network." This JUST aired minutes ago on "Geraldo"... Geraldo prefaced by saying that Roger Stone was the same person who first exposed Spitzer's relationship with hookers.

As the price of crude oil and its products—most notably gasoline—continue to rise, Democrats are split over whether fascism, communism or plain old tort abuse would provide the best remedy. The fascist approach was championed by Representative Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa). Under his plan (House Bill 5800—Consumer Reasonable Energy Price Protection Act of 2008), ownership of energy producing assets would remain in private hands, but the government would control pricing and profits. “For too long, American businesses have been free to pursue private greed,” Kanjorski complained. “It’s time they be compelled to meet public need.” Kanjorski called the bill “a first...

Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place. Politicians and a large percentage of the public lose sight of the unavoidable fact that for every created benefit, there's also a created cost or, as Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman put it, "There's no free lunch." While the person who receives the benefit might not pay or even be aware of the cost, but as sure as night follows day, there is a cost borne by someone. Let's look at a couple of congressionally created problems. The Community Reinvestment...

LU lab called on again to check ancient DNA Tuesday, May 6, 2008 Kathryn Reuseh uses a pipette during the first day of the Paleo DNA ancient DNA training program Monday at Lakehead University. A Thunder Bay DNA expert was in New York City on Monday to discuss findings that could help researchers prove that Jesus did marry Mary Magdalene and that they had children. >br> Lakehead University‘s Paleo DNA Laboratory operations supervisor Renee Fratpietro joined English filmmaker Bruce Burgess in the Big Apple to discuss his film “Bloodline”, which follows a three-year investigation led by Burgess and his American...

The [Connecticut] state Senate has given final legislative approval to a bill aimed at reducing the pollution that causes global warming. Senators voted 35-0 in favor of the legislation and sent it to Gov. M. Jodi Rell. The House of Representatives approved it earlier. If she signs it into law, Connecticut will be the fifth state to adopt mandatory limits on global warming pollution. The state passed legislation back in 2004. But that law, which established benchmarks for air pollution reduction, was voluntary. The new bill would require total emissions to be capped at 10 percent below 1990 levels by...

WASHINGTON (Routers) In an effort to drive a wedge between moderate Germans and those more extreme, the State Department issued new rules today, stipulating that the word "Nazi" was not to be used by department employees to describe the enemy. Germany recently declared war on our country, as part of its alliance with Imperial Japan, which itself attacked us at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii a little over a week ago, and with which we are now at war. "Nazism has a great many admirable features," said a department spokesman at Foggy Bottom, "and we want to make clear that despite...

The conservative movement in American politics has never been more fractured by in-fighting than it is today and we must find a way to fix it, fast. In the good ole days, all of my hate mail came from sniveling liberals angry with my ultra-conservative message about the founding principles and values that made America the greatest nation in earth's history. But today, most of my hate mail comes from self-styled conservatives and angry Republicans who can't seem to agree on what it means to be Republican, much less conservative. I believe that we are headed for a disastrous loss...

PROVO, Utah — No one really disputes that Chad Hudgens was waterboarded outside a Provo office park last May 29, right before lunch, by his boss. There is also general agreement that Hudgens volunteered for the “team-building exercise,” that he lay on his back with his head downhill, and that co-workers knelt on either side of him, pinning the young sales rep down while their supervisor poured water from a gallon jug over his nose and mouth. And it’s widely acknowledged that the supervisor, Joshua Christopherson, then told the assembled sales team, whose numbers had been lagging: “You saw how...

Is American public education a form of child abuse? A week ago, the Washington Post’s Brigid Schulte reported on a student named Randy Castro who attends school in Woodbridge, Va. Last November at recess he slapped a classmate on her bottom. The teacher took him to the principal. School officials wrote up an incident report and then called the police. Randy Castro is in the First Grade. But, at the ripe old age of six, he’s been declared a sex offender by Potomac View Elementary School. He’s guilty of sexual harassment, and the incident report will remain on his record...

BEIJING (AFP) — China warned on Saturday it would step up a controversial "re-education" campaign for Tibetans after a fresh protest showed a huge security crackdown had failed to extinguish nearly one month of unrest. The statement in the state-run Tibet Daily newspaper called for Buddhist monks to become Chinese patriots, but activist groups said the heavy-handed techniques already employed in the campaign were inflaming tensions. Efforts by authorities to "re-educate" monks at a monastery in Sichuan province in southwest China led to protests there on Thursday in which at least eight Tibetans were killed, the activist groups said. China's...

SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - People switched off lights across the world on Saturday, dimming buildings, hotels, restaurants and bars to show concern at global warming. Up to 30 million people were expected to switch off their lights for 60 minutes by the time "Earth Hour" -- which started at 8 p.m. in Suva in Fiji and Christchurch in New Zealand -- completed its cycle westwards.More than 380 towns and cities and 3,500 businesses in 35 countries signed up for the campaign that is only in its second year after it began in 2007 in Sydney alone."Earth Hour shows that everyday people...

Feelings about Nancy Grace aside, this story of how an 11-year-old Wisconsin girl slipped into a diabetic coma and died because her parents sat around praying rather than seeking medical attention for her--as relatives had been begging them to do for weeks--is horrifying. Though the parents insist they don't regard themselves as religious, they also note that laying on of hands is their preferred method of healing in general. With apologies to similar believers everywhere, my first reaction to this is, Wow, these people are some kind of crazy. My second reaction: time to consider a little court-negotiated sterilization. Seriously....

BAGHDAD - The overall U.S. death toll in Iraq rose to 4,000 after four soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad, a grim milestone that is likely to fuel calls for the withdrawal of American forces as the war enters its sixth year. The American deaths occurred Sunday, the same day rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad and a wave of attacks left at least 61 Iraqis dead nationwide. An Iraqi military spokesman said Monday that troops had found rocket launching pads in different areas in predominantly Shiite eastern Baghdad that had been used...

As Ohio election officials investigate illegal crossover voting in the 2008 primary, questions arise on Rush Limbaugh's role. Limbaugh, the nation's top-rated talk radio host, was urging Republicans in Texas and Ohio to skip their party's primary on March 4 and instead cast a vote for Hillary Clinton in order to prolong the fight between her and Barack Obama. What Limbaugh encouraged Republican voters to do in Ohio was a fifth-degree felony in that state, punishable with a $2,500 fine and six to 12 months in jail. On Thursday, March 20, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the "Cuyahoga County...

"...Democratic New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer will be fighting for his political life following an allegation he met with a high-priced prostitute last month at a Washington, D.C., hotel...As governor, though, he's been out front on climate change issues perhaps more than any other. David Sassoon, writing at SolveClimate.com, thinks the scandal has potential to slow the entire nation's climate actions: "Spitzer's rendez-vous, the night before Valentine's day s'il vous plaît, will unfortunately strike a blow at progress on global warming, whether through his resignation, unavoidable distraction if he stays in office, and/or his diminished effectiveness. He has been a...

Tiny plastic bags used to sell small quantities of heroin, crack cocaine, marijuana and other drugs would be banned in Chicago, under a crackdown advanced Tuesday by a City Council committee. Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) persuaded the Health Committee to ban possession of "self-sealing plastic bags under two inches in either height or width," after picking up 15 of the bags on a recent Sunday afternoon stroll through a West Side park.

The political salvos over Iraq between Barack Obama and John McCain the other day made for good political theater. More important, the exchange offered a revealing contrast between the politics of realism and the politics of hope. It began with a question to Obama during the Democratic presidential debate Tuesday. Obama has pledged to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq and was asked if he reserved the right to go back into Iraq. He responded that "if al-Qaida is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our...

Climate change is occurring far more rapidly than even the worst predictions of the UN's Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change, Al Gore said on Thursday. yada yada yada ...

Recession in the US 'has arrived' Merrill said Friday's employment figures confirmed the recession The feared recession in the US economy has already arrived, according to a report from Merrill Lynch. It said that Friday's employment report, which sent shares tumbling worldwide, confirmed that the US is in the first month of a recession. Its view is controversial, with banks such as Lehman Brothers disagreeing. But a reserve member of the committee that sets US rates warned that it could do little about the below-trend growth expected in the next six months. "I am concerned that developments on the inflation...

IN Bethesda, Md., in a squat building off a suburban parkway, sits a small federal agency called the Office for Human Research Protections. Its aim is to protect people. But lately you have to wonder. Consider this recent case. A year ago, researchers at Johns Hopkins University published the results of a program that instituted in nearly every intensive care unit in Michigan a simple five-step checklist designed to prevent certain hospital infections. It reminds doctors to make sure, for example, that before putting large intravenous lines into patients, they actually wash their hands and don a sterile gown and...

Lake Superior State University's 2008 list of banished words or phrases: • perfect storm • Webinar • waterboarding • organic • wordsmith/wordsmithing • author/authored • post 9/11 • surge • give back • `blank' is the new `blank' • Black Friday • back in the day • random

In this era of increasingly expensive energy and political-environmental polarization, if most Democrats and Republicans in Congress agree and then the President signs a bill, it must be a bowl of pablum laced with bad ideas. Which is a fair description of the new "energy bill" which will cost more only money and will do nothing for either energy independence or the environment. And in the highly unlikely case that it comes close to achieving its goals, it may do a lot more harm than good. Many talked about the new fuel efficiency standards for car manufacturers and the gaping...

Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining. Look at a map of the US. The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. While the northeast will also see some coastal...

Last week, a student at Big Spring High School in Newville, Pennsylvania was given detention for using Firefox on a school computer. Quoted below is the key explanation from the official detention writeup: “Today in class [name] had a program launched called Foxfire.exe. I had told [name] to close the program and to resume work but he told me that is was just a different browser and that he was doing his work. I had given him two warnings but he insisted that it was just a ‘better’ browser and he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I had then issued his...

A highly decorated Arab-American sergeant in the US army, who is currently serving as a paratrooper in Afghanistan, faces deportation on his return to the United States because of an irregularity in his immigration papers.

TORONTO -- Condemnation, and applause, for Thorarinn Jonsson's fake bomb art project continued to mount Friday, as the student was released from jail on $33,000 bail. The Ontario College of Art and Design student turned himself in to police Thursday night and was charged with common nuisance and mischief that interferes with property after a device, which was made to look like a pipe bomb, was left in a bag at the Royal Ontario Museum on Wednesday. The museum had to be evacuated and a major fundraiser for AIDS research canceled, as police investigated the suspicious package, that turned out...

29 10 2007 Tirana _ Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha has called on Egypt to persuade the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, OIC, member-states to recognize en bloc a possible declaration of independence by Kosovo. While presenting Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit with an overview of the situation in UN-administered Kosovo, Berisha asked his host to use Egypt’s considerable influence with the other Arab states. “After December 10, Kosovo must declare independence in coordination with the USA and the EU. It can’t be a part of Serbia because historically it has not been a part of Serbia,� Berisha said...

I don't normally follow Ted Rall's work. But when J.M., a member of our military serving in Iraq, wrote NB about Rall's recent column and cartoon, I had a look. I'd say our soldier was being restrained in describing Rall's work as "particularly offensive." I'm displaying one panel from his cartoon of October 22nd. You can view the whole of it here. As you'll note, the point is to celebrate the death of our soldiers, since they are "idiots" whose removal from the gene pool causes the average IQ back home to soar. His column of October 23rd, "HEY, SOLDIERS:...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came under increasing pressure from members of her Democratic caucus Wednesday not to bring a resolution officially recognizing the Armenian genocide to a vote. The San Francisco Democrat, who had promised to bring the long-debated resolution to the floor, sounded uncertain about its fate as support waned in the face of angry denunciations from Turkey and fears that the symbolic resolution could disrupt U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Whether it will come up or not, or what the action will be, remains to be seen," she said. The Bush administration and the Turkish government...

(AP) WASHINGTON Democratic lawmakers said Tuesday the Jena Six case shows the government needs to do more to combat racism far beyond a small Louisiana town where charges filed after a school fight garnered national attention. "Racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is not unique to any one place, but is found in cities and towns north and south throughout our nation," House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said as he opened a hearing into the Jena case. In Jena, six black teenagers were charged with the beating of a white student. The incident happened after nooses were hung...

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- In 1979, we helped organize five nights of concerts at Madison Square Garden and an anti-nuke rally that drew 200,000 people. These efforts and the ongoing work of many grassroots and national safe energy groups have helped to hold off the building of new nuclear reactors ever since. But three decades later, we're facing the same nuclear issues. And to counter this threat, we are organizing once again. One of America's most critical financial and ecological decisions is now before Congress. The atomic energy industry wants at least $50 billion in loan guarantees for a "new...

OSLO (Reuters) - Former Vice President Al Gore and other campaigners against climate change lead experts' choices for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, an award once reserved for statesmen, peacemakers and human rights activists. If a campaigner against global warming carries off the high world accolade later this month, it will accentuate a shift to reward work outside traditional peacekeeping and reinforce the link between peace and the environment. The winner, who will take $1.5 million in prize money, will be announced in the Norwegian capital on October 12 from a field of 181 nominees. Gore, who has raised awareness...

Our elected officials in the House of Representatives are voting on an important resolution today. H. RES. 635 Recognizing the commencement of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and spiritual renewal, and commending Muslims in the United States and throughout the world for their faith. Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas (for herself, Mr. MEEKS of New York, and Mr. ELLISON) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs...

GAZA CITY -- For years, the seaside Flower of the Cities resort was that rare place in the Gaza Strip where the dress code did not rule out bikinis. Now, with some of its cinder-block cabanas turned into prayer rooms, the beach club shows how Hamas is consolidating its hold here three months after seizing power. Bushy beards and black head-to-toe cloaks for women have become common at the club, which the armed Islamic movement torched in June after routing the secular Fatah party on the streets. The facility has been rebranded the al-Aqsa Resort, with a new logo featuring...

Good evening, gentlemen and ladies of America. I speak to you tonight as a patriot, and believe me, I do love our country and honor the servicemen fighting in foreign theatres of war. The plan we are currently pursuing in the theatres of Europe and the Pacific are clearly not working. The President, the generals and soldiers serving in the field may believe the mission is being accomplished, but the results show otherwise.Our President's foolish behavior in provoking our European enemies started by his signing of the "Lend Lease" bill back in 1941. Instead of trying to negotiate with...

SWISS ARMY KNIFE IN THE CAR = A FELONY? More from Cobb County, Georgia. It seems that a Cobb County student, Will Chandler, was found with a Swiss Army knife in the center console of his car. I can tell you that I have a Swiss Army knife in the console of my car right now. The difference is, this kid is actually going to be charged with a felony! That's right, folks ... a felony! Bad kid? Nope .. he has no record of disciplinary problems at his school. Do you have any idea what a felony conviction does...

The UK’s Liberal Democrats party has outlined a plan for making Britain carbon neutral by 2050. The measures will be debated at the party’s conference in Brighton next month. The party’s proposed mitigation policy outlined in the paper ‘Zero Carbon Britain - Taking a Global Lead’ has three key elements: pricing carbon through trading, tax or regulation; encouraging development, demonstration and deployment to bring forward a range of low carbon technologies; and encouraging long-term behavioral changes. Road Transportation. The plan outlines a number of actions to promote low-carbon transport technologies, including: * An increase in the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation...

Not fighting them there Barack Obama regarding al-Qaida's finding years of safe haven in Pakistan: "There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will." No response yet from the 9/11 cut-and-runners in the White House. mailto:qt@suntimes.com

Rugged American individualism could hinder our ability to understand other peoples' point of view, a new study suggests. And in contrast, the researchers found that Chinese are more skilled at understanding other people's perspectives, possibly because they live in a more "collectivist" society. "This cultural difference affects the way we communicate," said study co-author and cognitive psychologist Boaz Keysar of the University of Chicago. The study, though oversimplified compared to real life, was instructive. Keysar and his colleagues arranged two blocks on a table so participants could see both. However, a piece of cardboard obstructed the view of one block...

THE car-bomb/suicide-terror operations in London and Glasgow should have provided a fresh opportunity for reminding everyone, especially Muslims in Britain, that terrorism in the name of Islam still poses a major threat to public peace and safety. Yet this is not what is happening. Prime Minister Gordon Brown keeps repeating that the attacks have nothing to do with Islam - but, at the same time, keeps inviting "Muslim community leaders" to Downing Street to discuss how to prevent attacks. If the attacks have nothing to do with Islam, why invite Muslim "leaders" rather than Buddhist monks?

An open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Dear Prime Minister: As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government's climate-change plans. This would be entirely consistent with your recent commitment to conduct a review of the Kyoto Protocol. Although many of us made the same suggestion to then-prime ministers Martin and Chretien, neither responded, and, to date, no formal, independent climate-science review has been conducted in Canada. Much of the billions of dollars earmarked for implementation...