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Climate change - not increased use of cell phones - might be to blame for an unusual spike in road deaths that hit the United States two years ago, said a study published on Thursday. The study said people might have used their vehicles more frequently to avoid increasingly bad weather - rising temperatures and heavier rainfall - resulting in an increased number of deaths on the road. The finding challenges a widespread notion that 2015's hike was the result of increased cell-phone usage by motorists. [Snip] Using mathematical models, the retired Yale University epidemiologist also found that for every...

What exactly happened at the Vatican's Extraordinary Synod on the Family yesterday? At the conservative NewsBusters site, Ken Shepherd observed that, if you look to "many liberal media reporters" for the answer, you will find them "giddy as schoolchildren" at the synod's midterm report on its discussions about gays and divorced Catholics. That's an advocacy journalist critiquing the work of people that he clearly considered to be advocates. A check of Twitter bears this out: Did the earth really move? It sure did for Josephine McKenna of Religion News Service (author of that last tweet), whose own story on the...

Our favorite chump line message today was the idea of putting all these illegal children flooding the U.S. in Guam - but wait...Won't Guam tip over?

FNN Exclusive. It has been reported that a perfect correlation has been identified between drinking koolaid and mental deterioration and dysfunction. Researchers have discovered a chemical reaction of treated water in urban areas with the ingredients of koolaid. The reaction causes the koolaid to become toxic and destroys much of the mental abilities of the koolaid drinker. If the koolaid drinker is also wearing a tin foil hat, the effect is accelerated and becomes much more devastating. Scientists are speculating that the tin foil hat funnels cosmic rays into the koolaid drinkers brain which accelerates and magnifies the reaction. Several...

(Reuters) - Global temperature rise could exceed "safe" levels of two degrees Celsius in some parts of the world in many of our lifetimes if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, two research papers published in the journal Nature warned. "Certain levels of climate change are very likely within the lifetimes of many people living now ... unless emissions of greenhouse gases are substantially reduced in the coming decades," said a study on Sunday by academics at the English universities of Reading and Oxford, the UK's Met Office Hadley Center and the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand."Large parts of...

I ought to know. I was Mr. Obama's college classmate at Columbia University Class of '83. Our college was dominated by socialists and Marxists who hated capitalism and America. Let's look at the facts up close and personal - Jeff Foxworthy style. Mr. Foxworthy leaves no doubt as to "who might be a redneck." Let me leave no doubt that "Obama might be a socialist." If you believe it's greedy for American taxpayers to want to keep more of their own money, but not greedy to demand that government confiscate other people's money and redistribute it to those

(Check out volume 1 from last March here.) If... Your child confesses to living a double life that's 3 letters and starts with G, and you hope it's G-A-Y and not G-O-P... You think the only way to keep all of Obama's czars straight is to appoint a Czar Sorting Czar... You think the popularity of Che Guevara t-shirts is a great example of how free-market capitalism works... You're a hippie that wants to do your part by buying energy efficient light bulbs, now all you need is a home to use them in... You're from Florida, you voted...

“The Widow’s Might” (Mark 12:38-44) Our text today is the story usually known as “The Widow’s Mite.” It’s the story of a poor widow who goes to the temple and puts into the offering box two “small copper coins,” as our translation has it. But the King James Version had as the equivalent for “small copper coins” the old English word “mites”--she put in two mites. Thus the familiar phrase, “The Widow’s Mite,” m-i-t-e. But today I want to talk to you also about “The Widow’s Might,” m-i-g-h-t. For this story tells us as much about the widow’s might, her...

1. You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to beer. 2. You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can’t afford shoes. 3. You have more wives than teeth. 4. You wipe your butt with your bare left hand, but consider bacon “unclean.” 5. You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide. 6. You can’t think of anyone you HAVEN’T declared Jihad against. 7. You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing. 8. You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2006 – Military might will not win the battle for Afghanistan, NATO’s top military officer said here today. Building a government that guards the liberties of its citizens, provides economic opportunities and treats all fairly before the law will do more than simple military pressure, U.S. Marine Gen. James L. Jones said during a Pentagon interview. NATO has assumed the security mission in southern Afghanistan. The alliance now has responsibility for about 80 percent of the nation and is scheduled to assume command for the rest of the country by the end of this year. Jones said...

This might not be a world war, but it still needs a sense of urgency By Niall Ferguson (Filed: 23/07/2006) This is not the first time that world leaders have had their summers ruined by "a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing". In the summer of 1938, the quarrel between Germans and Czechs over the Sudetenland - which inspired Neville Chamberlain's notorious phrase - brought Europe to the brink of war. Chamberlain's shuttle diplomacy, which saw him fly three times to see Hitler in Germany, was inspired by memories of an earlier quarrel over...

Taiwan taunts China with show of military might (Filed: 20/07/2006) Taiwan has staged its biggest live-fire army drill in 20 years, simulating a triumphant repulsion of an invading Chinese force in a display designed to send a clear message to Beijing that the country will not be cowed. Chen Shui-bian is willing to challenge China More than 13,000 soldiers took part in the exercise, which included F-16 fighter jets and 550 pieces of artillery. Tanks fired shells at targets floating on the sea as paratroopers posing as Chinese communist soldiers fell from the skies, simulating an airborne assault against key...

Week of July 15, 2006; Vol. 170, No. 3 , p. 45 Mad cow disease might linger longer Nathan Seppa A rare but deadly human illness spread by cannibalism has an incubation period in some individuals of about 4 decades, researchers in New Guinea have discovered. The finding implies that a related human illness caused by eating beef from cattle with mad cow disease could also lie dormant for many years. HEADS UP. The box shows the area in New Guinea where until the 1950s, people practiced cannibalism, a ritual that spread the prion disease kuru. S. Norcross Scientists have...

A space telescope scheduled for launch in 2007 will be sensitive enough to detect theoretical miniature black holes lurking within our solar system, scientists say. By doing so, it could test an exotic five-dimensional theory of gravity that competes with Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. That is, of course, if the tiny black holes actually exist. The idea, recently detailed online in the journal Physical Review D, is being proposed by Charles Keeton, a physicist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and Arlie Petters of Duke University in North Carolina. Branes The Randall-Sundrum braneworld model, named after the scientists...

Neptune's largest moon, Triton, was originally a member of a duo orbiting the Sun but was kidnapped during a close encounter with Neptune, a new model suggests. Triton is unique among large moons in that it orbits Neptune in a direction opposite to the planet's rotation, which long ago led scientists to speculate that the moon originally orbited the Sun. But until now, no convincing theory for how Triton paired with Neptune existed. Gravity might have pulled Triton away from its companion to make it an orbiting satellite of Neptune, researchers report in a new study published in the May...

Hint from Hamas that it might recognise Israel By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem and David Rennie in Brussels (Filed: 08/04/2006) The first indications that Hamas might recognise the right of Israel to exist emerged following intense diplomatic and economic pressure from the international community. A senior Hamas official said Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, would discuss the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian president and Fatah leader. Ismail Haniyeh with Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza The European Commission yesterday announced a temporary halt in direct aid payments to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian...

WASHINGTON, March 14, 2006 – U.S. military might is only one piece of the solution to winning the war on terrorism, a defense official said here yesterday. "In the war on terrorism, our enemies operate globally," said Jeffrey Nadaner, deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations. The effort requires the help of partner nations all over the globe, he said. Those enemies find opportunity in countries with which the United States is at peace, in countries where the United States is conducting military operations, and in ungoverned areas, he told the audience attending the 17th Annual National Defense Industrial...

Jefferson might claim deals private 'Official acts' issue could play key role in case Saturday, January 21, 2006 By Bruce Alpert Washington bureau WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's public response to the federal government's investigation of his business dealings suggests his legal defense could be that his actions were distinct and separate from his congressional responsibilities and therefore not subject to federal bribery statutes, legal experts say. The New Orleans Democrat last week said he had never requested or accepted anything to "perform a service for which I have been elected." He said he is disappointed and perplexed by...

A researcher inspects the 5,000-year-old mummy known as Oetzi in this file photo from 2000. Oetzi is kept in a sealed-off chamber which researchers now worry may have been penetrated. Updated: 10:02 p.m. ET June 13, 2005ROME - Researchers suspect the corpse of a 5,000-year-old mummy frozen in the Italian Alps might have been contaminated by bacteria since its discovery in 1991, a doctor who cares for the body said Monday.

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