Free Republic

House Republicans are pressing efforts to safeguard the First Amendment rights of scientific skeptics who dissent from what they consider the Obama administration’s alarmist position on climate change, according to letters to 17 state attorneys general. The series of letters, sent Friday and signed by 19 of the 22 Republican members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, renew an earlier request to the state attorneys general for information detailing their communications with environmental organizations. They also ask for communications between employees for the state attorneys general and the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, or the White House.

How many Coptic Egyptian Christians have to die before you take action? WASHINGTON and LOS ANGELES, April 11, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- What has been described as the Arab Spring has evolved into deadly seasons, especially for the original Christian inhabitants of these lands. The dictators who once ruled these countries are being replaced by militant Islamic regimes that are bent on cleansing their nations from all Christians. Not a day passes in Egypt without Christian homes, businesses and churches burnt to the ground. Members of the Christian minority are wounded and killed. It is common for their children to be...

Vatican City, Feb 25, 2016 / 12:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- For Pope Francis, dialogue with Islam is a core issue. He recently voiced hopes to meet a major Sunni leader: the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Mosque, Ahmed el-Tayeb. "I want to meet him. I know that he would like it," the Pope said during his Feb. 18 in-flight press conference. The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, headed by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, is reaching out to al-Azhar Mosque. "We are looking for the way, always through Cardinal Tauran because it is the path, but we will achieve it," Pope Francis said...

Vatican’s ecumenism comes at the expense of Egypt’s human rights Pope Francis, who is “building bridges to build peace” around the world, has naturally reached out to embrace Sunni Muslims. Last month, for the first time after years of Vatican silence, Pope Francis summoned to his private library in Rome grand imam Ahmed El-Tayeb of Cairo’s Al-Ahzar Mosque Institute. Absent a press release before this event, the Pope was quoted as saying, “this meeting is the message” – leading all to dwell on the meaning and purpose of their 25 minutes together. Christians, especially Egyptian Coptic Christians, have observed the...

President Barack Obama used his visit to Yosemite National Park on Saturday to tout his administration’s environmental record and to warn Americans about the dangers of climate change — albeit with false information. “Fires are raging across the west right now … all while it’s still really early in the season,” he said in a speech at the park, according to the Los Angeles Times. Obama joins California Governor Jerry Brown in making a spurious connection between wildfires and climate change that scientists have long since rejected.

If Democratic attorneys general can pursue climate change skeptics for fraud, then also at risk of prosecution are climate alarmists whose predictions of global doom have failed to materialize.[Snip]...it has been asserted that “fossil fuel companies” may have funded non- profits who minimized the risks of climate change. Does anyone doubt that “clean energy” companies have funded non-profits who exaggerated the risks of climate change? Under the stated theory for fraud, consumers and investors could suffer harm from misstatements by all energy-market participants and the non-profits they support.

"Patagonia turns out to be the Rosetta Stone - it shows that human colonisation didn't immediately result in extinctions, but only as long as it stayed cold," says study leader Professor Alan Cooper, ACAD Director. "Instead, more than 1000 years of human occupation passed before a rapid warming event occurred, and then the megafauna were extinct within a hundred years." The researchers, including from the University of Colorado Boulder, University of New South Wales and University of Magallanes in Patagonia, studied ancient DNA extracted from radiocarbon-dated bones and teeth found in caves across Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego, to trace...

It's called the latitudinal diversity gradient, a phenomenon seen today in most plant and animal species around the world: Biodiversity decreases from the equator to higher latitudes. A new study of fossils representing 63 million of the past 65 million years reveals that -- for North American mammals, at least -- the modern LDG is the exception rather than the rule. The findings, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, point to the importance of not assuming that the way things are today is the way they've always been, the researchers say... It may seem obvious that...

It draws on fossil evidence showing Homo sapiens was present in East Africa around 195,000 years ago and that our species had dispersed to the far corners of Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas by 12,000 years ago. This increase in global human populations is linked with a variety of species extinctions, one of the most significant being the reduction by around two-thirds of 150 species of 'megafauna' or big beasts between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, says the paper, with their disappearance having 'dramatic effects' on the structure of the ecosystem and seed dispersal. ...second... the advent of agriculture worldwide,...

A federal judge ruled Friday that a lobbyist and former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official can testify for a coal company in its lawsuit against the agency. The EPA had sought to block Jeff Holmstead, who led the EPA’s air pollution office under then-President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, from appearing as an expert witness in Murray Energy Corp.’s case. The agency argued that Holmstead’s time at the EPA is a significant conflict of interest and his testimony would amount to little more than unreliable legal conclusions. The EPA “effectively argues that, because Mr. Holmstead once worked at...

So you’re a global warming skeptic, author, philosopher and think tank creator who champions the use of fossil fuels. Then you get subpoenaed by the Massachusetts attorney general over your think-tank’s supposed ties to ExxonMobil — the claim being that the oil giant allegedly attempted to cover up global warming science. And how did Alex Epstein, author of “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” respond to Maura Healey’s subpoena on Wednesday? " F---- Off, Fascist"

Scientists from San Diego and a dozen countries around the world are gathered at the University of San Diego this week to share their latest research. Among some of the major topics at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference are climate change, heat waves and ocean acidification. Geophysicist Peter Ward, who worked for the U.S. Geological Survey for nearly three decades, discussed warming global temperatures during his Wednesday session. "There's a very interesting correlation between warming and volcanism at the end of the last ice age," Ward said. He said the past two years of record warmth...

The landmass and the seas have been stretched and flattened Enlarge Image The Tabula Peutingeriana is one of the Austrian National Library's greatest treasures. The parchment scroll, made in the Middle Ages, is the only surviving copy of a road map from the late Roman Empire. The document, which is almost seven metres long, shows the network of main Roman roads from Spain to India. It is normally never shown to the public. The parchment is extremely fragile, and reacts badly to daylight. But it has been on display for one day to celebrate its inclusion in Unesco's Memory...

Gold bracelet found on arm of (slave?) girl killed near Pompeii by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. On the inside of the bracelet is carved "from the Master to his slave girl" (DOM[I]NUS ANCILLAE SUAE).

I used to teach this subject. I use a method that's a little different than the standard, a method aimed at results, not tradition, and no need to learn grammar at the outset, when you've got enough new things to learn. If you learned by the traditional method you may find this radically different; but trust me.

In the noble tradition of De clunibus magnis amandis oratio (Baby Got Back), I bring you: Gelu, O Gelu, CaraVANILLÆ GELUS doo doo doo, doo-doo-doo-doo doo doo doo, doo-doo-doo-doo... Etenim, siste, me iuva, auscultaque (Indeed: Halt, aid me, and take heed) Gelu redivit cum inventione novissima (Frost has returned with a very new invention) Nescioquid me constringit (Something constrains me) Fluo ceu hasta baleanarum necandarum noctu et quotidie (I flow in the manner of a whale-killing spear daily and by night) Umquam hoc desistetne? Ego dubito. (Shall this ever cease? I myself doubt it.) Lucernis restinctis luceam (When the lamps...

Across the nation, schools are re-introducing Latin into their curricula. While Latin’s visibility is highest in private and homeschool settings, it is mounting a comeback in the public school system as well. This remarkable phenomenon brings to mind our often-ignored connection to the Roman and Greek civilizations of the ancient world. What Is Old Is New Again Latin’s stability makes it unique among languages still in use. Although centuries ago its grammar and vocabulary became essentially frozen (thus earning the designation “dead”), this language of the Roman Empire did not disappear — thanks largely to its status as the Roman...

As the iuvenis voluptarius might say, put on your brevissimae bracae femineae and let's go to the taberna nocturna and drink some vinum rubrum Burdigalense. The Vatican has helpfully produced a new lexicon of modern words in Latin, providing translations for such non-classical terms as playboy, hot pants, nightclub and Merlot. The lexicon, which has just been launched, is intended to provide updated vocabulary for theologians writing in Latin about current issues. For those wishing to write about anarchy or dissent in the 21st century, entries include tromocrates (terrorist) and punkianae catervae assecla (punk). Theologians referring to the modern vices...

(Gang, what you see is what I recieved from the friend of a friend kind of person. So if the Latin isn't exactly...well, "Latin" ... remember --as our liberal friends would say-- it's the intention that counts! [grin] -- YD.) -Pecunia in arbotis non cresat Money doesn't grow on trees. -Sane ego te vocavi. Forsitan capedictum tuum desit. I did call. Maybe your answering machine is broken.-Ne feceris ut ridram Don't make me laugh.-Te precor dulcissime supplex! Pretty please with a cherry on top!-Fac ut nemo me vocet Hold my calls-Ita erat quando hic adveni It was that way when...

Yes, you read the thread title correctly. - CD De clunibus magnis amandis oratioMixaloti equitis mehercle!(By Hercules!)Rebecca, ecce! tantae clunes isti sunt! (Rebecca, behold! Such large buttocks she has!)amica esse videtur istorum hominum rhythmicorum.(She appears to be a girlfriend of one of those rhythmic-oration people.)sed, ut scis,(But, as you know)quis homines huiusmodi intellegere potest?(Who can understand persons of this sort?) colloquuntur equidem cum ista eo tantum, quod scortum perfectum esse videtur.(Verily, they converse with her for this reason only, namely, that she appears to be a complete whore.) clunes, aio, maiores esse! (Her buttocks, I say, are rather large!)nec possum...