Free Republic

Dinosaurs Diversified Over Time, Not SuddenlyMany Species, Many, Many Years July 23, 2008 The belief that dinosaurs underwent explosive species diversification just before they were wiped out is an illusion, for the beasts' main evolutionary shifts took place millions of years before, a study says. The strange demise of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous era some 65 million years ago has given rise to a popular view that almost has the tinge of Greek tragedy. Just as the rulers of the Earth had reached their evolutionary zenith, a catastrophic event -- possibly a space rock that slammed...

As this week’s debate on climate change has unfolded, the American people and those watching us around the world had every reason to hope that we would act. Every credible scientist and expert believes action is necessary. This is critical and long overdue legislation that represents a good first step in addressing one of the most serious problems facing our generation. Like many of my Senate colleagues, I believe the legislation could have been made even better. Had there been a substantive Senate debate about some of the concerns with this bill, I believe the outcome could have generated broad...

Carbon Cult sickos are under fire for an interactive website that tells children they should die because they emit CO2. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Planet Slayer" site invites young children to take a "greenhouse gas quiz", asking them "how big a pig are you?". At the end of the quiz, the pig explodes, and ABC tells children at "what age you should die at so you don’t use more than your fair share of Earth’s resources!" It's one of a number of interactive features that "Get the dirt on greenhouse without the guilt trips. No lectures. No multinational-bashing (well, maybe...

Biting the Bullet: It’s Either McCain or Obama By Rene Guerra Never, ever, in her 232 years of illustrious existence, has America been at such a dire juncture where her enemies and rivals--domestic and foreign--are so determinedly poised and so advantageously positioned to undoing her. Islamofascism has vowed to destroy America, at any cost; “Death to America� the frenzied, mouth-foaming, suicidal Iranian throngs cry. Our brave troops in Iraq and Afghanistan keep fighting day in and day out the terrorists that the Saudi Wahhabis, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian Shiite fundamentalists, and the Syrian Baathists would otherwise be sending to...

Conservatives don’t love John McCain, but unless they’re considering abandoning their cause with Atlas Shrugged proportions, there’s no way in hell they’ll vote for Barack Obama. Sometimes, things have to get worse before they get better. And with that idea in mind, the conservative movement really is America’s crutch. The most specific example is economics, as conservatives constantly preach lower taxes and greater individual freedom. One would think that the Bush tax cuts, which have yielded continued economic growth (yes, our economy is growing, despite the lies you keep hearing), and the burgeoning economy during the Reagan Administration would provide...

Cornflakes in cereal killer warning By Rosemary Desmond May 13, 2008 03:28pm Article from: AAP CLIMATE change could lead to "killer cornflakes" with the most potent liver toxin ever recorded, an environmental health conference has been told. The effects of the toxins, known as mycotoxins, have been known since the Middle Ages when rye bread contaminated with ergot fungus was a staple part of the European diet, environmental health researcher Lisa Bricknell of Central Queensland University (CQU) said. "People started suffering mass hallucinations, manic depression, gangrene, abortions, reduced fertility and painful, convulsive death," Ms Bricknell told the 10th World Congress...

All indications are the Democrats will pick up seats in both the House and Senate, with the Senate likely being a couple of RHINOs away from the magic 60. McCain is no Reagan but he's the only thing standing in the way of the most liberal Senator in Senate becoming President with a clear majority in Congress and at a critical time with decisions to be made on the war on terror, the war in Iraq, heath care, taxes, illegal immigration and likely the Supreme Court. Sometimes you do have to pick the lesser of two evils. This is one...

FORGET DELEGATES AND the popular vote for the Democratic presidential nomination. The most important thing Hillary Clinton gained by winning the Pennsylvania primary yesterday was a better argument--indeed, a much better argument. Chances are, Clinton will trail Obama in the delegate count when the primaries end on June 3, as she does now. And while she may cut into his lead in the popular vote in the Democratic contests, she's not likely to exceed his vote total. So the only way she can capture the nomination is by convincing roughly 300 uncommitted super-delegates that Obama cannot defeat Republican John McCain...

A series of giant pipes in the oceans to mix surface and deeper water could be an emergency fix for the earth's damaged climate system, says the scientist behind the Gaia hypothesis. Professor James Lovelock, whose hypothesis says earth is a kind of superorganism composed of living and non-living elements, has fuelled controversy for three decades. He thinks the stakes are so high that radical solutions must be tried to fix our climate, even if they ultimately fail. In a letter to the journal Nature, he proposes vertical pipes 100 to 200 metres long and 10 metres wide be placed...

If you're wondering who's largely to blame for the alleged heating up of the climate you need look no further than Jane Fonda. That's what "Freakanomics" columnists Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt suggest in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. "If you were asked to name the biggest global warming villains of the past 30 years, here's one name that probably wouldn't spring to mind: Jane Fonda. But should it?" the authors ask. According to Editor & Publisher, the two cite Fonda's anti-nuclear thriller "The China Syndrome," which opened just 12 days before the Three Mile Island accident in...

<p>The last politician who took advice from the bond market was Bill Clinton. When he pushed for a tax hike back in 1993 to cut the budget deficit, it was under the assumption that bond investors would respond by bringing down interest rates. (The theory here is that deficits are inflationary. Inflation is bad for bonds.) Yet long-term interest rates surged from 6.45 percent when Clinton signed his tax-hike bill on Aug. 10, 1993, to 8.16 percent on Nov. 7, 1994, the day before the midterm congressional election where Republicans won back the House and Senate.</p>

Anti-depleted uranium activists have enlisted the assistance of all of Hawaii’s leftist alternative weeklies in a campaign against depleted uranium. The Hawaii Island Journal June 30 caries a front page cartoon skeleton in an aloha shirt and the headline “Radioactive us -- danger depleted uranium.” Articles on the alleged risks of depleted uranium appeared in quick succession in Honolulu Weekly, June 13, Maui Time, June 21, and Big Island Weekly, June 27 as well as the Journal. Big Island Weekly points out that the latest anti-DU hype is based on observations in South Kona by an activist armed with a...

MEXICO CITY — President Felipe Calderon of Mexico blasted the U.S. Senate's rejection of the immigration bill on Thursday, calling the senators' action "a grave error" that avoided a "sensible, rational and legal solution." "It's a mistake," Calderon said. "First, because it's a problem that's not being confronted. And with this evasive action the U.S. Senate is making it worse. "Secondly, by closing the door on legal immigration, the only thing the Senate does is open the door to illegal immigration." Calderon, appearing at a joint news conference with the visiting President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, said he continues to...

Along with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez has been the Bush administration’s voice in an immigration debate that has divided Republicans. Gutierrez, a Cuban immigrant who became chief executive of Kellogg’s, said this week in an interview that he’s not disappointed by Republican opposition to the immigration bill, and that he hasn’t seen evidence that Democrats want to withhold a victory for President Bush. Gutierrez repeatedly framed the debate as a national security issue, predicting victory in part because of the “inevitability” of immigration reform. Q: If the Senate doesn’t approve a comprehensive immigration reform bill...

If The Bipartisan Immigration Reform Bill Now Being Considered By The Senate Is Not Passed, The U.S. Will Be Left With A Status Quo That Is Unacceptable. The current immigration system is broken: Border security and interior enforcement laws need to be improved. Employers do not have the tools they need to verify the work eligibility of their employees with assurance. As many as 12 million illegal workers remain in the shadows. Only around 13 percent of green cards are awarded each year based on employment-related criteria, and far too little emphasis is placed on the skills and attributes necessary...

Geez, Senator Lott is really unhappy with "talk radio" and some of his colleagues: The Republican whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi, who supports the bill, said: “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.” At some point, Mr. Lott said, Senate Republican leaders may try to rein in “younger guys who are huffing and puffing against the bill.” I think that this is a complaint that the old days were more fun for senators, and that the senators especially don't like the new media's ability to inform, inspire and direct public opinion. The end result of...

Critics of the measure succeeded in sidetracking it last week, and given their continued opposition, the decision to bring it back for more debate does not necessarily portend passage.Reid and McConnell announced their plans in a brief, two sentence statement that capped days of private negotiations by key senators as well as Bush's personal involvement."We met this evening with several of the senators involved in the immigration bill negotiations," they said. Based on that discussion, the immigration bill will return to the Senate floor after completion of an unrelated energy measure now undergoing debate.At the White House, spokesman Scott Stanzel...

Senators Work to Revive Immigration Bill By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON — Key Republican and Democratic senators are reaching for a deal to resurrect their stalled immigration compromise by requiring that some $4 billion be spent on border security and workplace enforcement. The mandatory security funding is part of a plan to attract more Republican support for the measure, which grants legal status to millions of unlawful immigrants. In private meetings Wednesday, the bipartisan group that crafted the delicate compromise was hammering out a plan to allow votes on a limited set of Republican- and Democratic-sought changes...

Yesterday, a GOP aide, who is one of my sources in the Senate, gave me the rundown on what's happening with the Senate immigration bill (this is the same person who I talked to last week about the bill). First off, it does look like the Senate immigration bill is coming back. The conventional wisdom seems to be that it's going to be brought up right before the July 4th break, so that the Senate Republican leadership can try to use that as leverage to get votes (in other words, "vote for the bill or we'll have to waste your...

Senior GOP senators are embracing an eleventh-hour plan to pass an emergency supplemental bill for more border security money as a strategy to win over Republicans who have balked at the bipartisan immigration bill languishing in the Senate. But even as the emergency-spending approach gained momentum yesterday during President Bush’s rare visit to the Senate, the immigration bill’s strongest supporters warned that time is running out for an agreement to bring the measure back to the floor... Senate GOP Conference Chairman Jon Kyl (Ariz.), along with Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.), said they supported the idea of pushing ahead...

Senate conservatives have been warned by Republican leaders that they must either accept a series of largely symbolic floor votes on a handful of amendments to the immigration reform legislation or see themselves shut out of the process altogether when the chamber resumes work on the bill later this year, GOP lawmakers and aides said Tuesday...

Just look at the tireless efforts to find compromise by the supporters of the immigration bill: Negotiators also were considering harsher penalties for immigrants who overstay their visas or re-enter the country illegally, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.“If you had mandatory jail time” for such offenses, Graham said, “I think it would create a deterrent.”Another possible amendment, he said, would prohibit employers from participating in a new temporary worker program if they repeatedly break the law by hiring illegal workers. All great ideas. But they will be dismissed by the far right. Because the “Amnesty� phrase in all their...

Key Republican and Democratic senators, working to attract more support for President Bush's stalled immigration bill, huddled Wednesday with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to discuss tougher border security and workplace enforcement. At a Capitol Hill meeting, the bipartisan group continued talks aimed at cobbling together enough backing from skeptical Republicans to quickly revive the measure that would grant legal status to as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants. A day after Bush fielded criticism from Republicans whose opposition derailed the bill last week, the White House said it would be open to changes to the delicate bipartisan deal. Architects...

President Bush is building his legacy, adding another unfortunate line of hollow bravado to his rhetorical repertoire. To "Mission accomplished," "Bring it on," "Wanted: Dead or alive," and of course, "I earned ... political capital, and now I intend to spend it," he has added "I'll see you at the bill signing," referring to his own ill-considered push for so-called comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Bush emerged from a midday meeting with Republican senators on Capitol Hill to declare, "We've got to convince the American people this bill is the best way to enforce our border." No, Mr. President, someone you...

The Senate's inability to move forward on a bipartisan immigration reform bill preserves a broken system with ineffective and insufficient laws. Maintaining the status quo is unacceptable and would be a serious setback to those of us who are charged with securing our homeland and advancing our nation's competitiveness. Effective immigration enforcement requires the right tools and resources -- precisely what the new bill would give us. By denying our law enforcement critical assistance, the current system impedes their brave efforts to protect our country.... Supporters of the Senate bill have a solution that is both clever and just. They...

President Bush visited with Senate Republicans behind closed doors yesterday, promising that he will follow through on border security, pleading with them to give his immigration plans a second look and trying to overcome hard feelings that arose from his recent charge that opponents are guilty of trying to "frighten people.". . . One key question is how to go forward even though several amendments have already cut at the grand bargain -- including limiting the guest-worker program and making it easier to deport those who don't qualify for legalization -- and several other difficult amendments could pass before the...

Tony Snow is about to appear live on FOX & Friends on FOX News. The subject is Bush's push for immigration "reform".

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush changed few minds on a bipartisan immigration overhaul on Tuesday at a rare luncheon meeting with Senate Republicans aimed at reviving the stalled legislation, lawmakers said. Bush acknowledged the bill that would legalize millions of unlawful immigrants ignited passions but said it was the best way to protect U.S. borders, a major concern for conservatives in his party who oppose it. "Some members in there believe that we need to move a comprehensive bill, some don't, I understand that," Bush told reporters following the meeting. "This is a highly emotional issue, but those...

I keep hearing that although donations to the national Republican Party are way down, donations to local and state parties and individual politicians are up since this fight over the immigration bill started. This theory might qualify me for a tin hat, but what if this fight over the immigration bill was designed to get the conservative base all riled up? I'm sure donations have been down recently, since people are, at the least, uncertain about events in Iraq and Afghanistan. So perhaps the powers that be in the Republican Party needed an issue that would bring in contributions somewhere,...

George Bush has all but guaranteed victory for the all-but-dead immigration-reform bill. That would be funny if it weren't so, well, you know, not funny. At this point in his lame-duck career, Bush is lucky if he can guarantee a sunrise. And yet, at the end of his European road trip, Bush told reporters in Bulgaria - yeah, Bulgaria - that he would "see you at the bill signing." I assume he meant the American reporters. But you can't blame Bush for being giddy, just days after his mosh-pit performance in Albania - yeah, Albania - where he waded fearlessly...

WASHINGTON - Though I’ve never heard him use the term, my guess is that George W. Bush sees himself as a hacendado, an estate owner in Old Mexico. That would give him a sense of Southwestern noblesse, duty-bound not just to work “his” people, but to protect them as well. His advisor, Carlo Rove, has explained that a system called “democracy” now gives peasants something called “the vote.” It would be shrewd, Rove said, for hacendados to grant their workers’ citizenship.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- During a rare meeting on Capitol Hill, President Bush pushed lawmakers Tuesday to move forward on immigration legislation that he said enforces U.S. borders and workplaces. "This is a highly emotional issue," Bush said after a luncheon with Senate Republicans. "Now's the time to get it done. It's going to take a lot of hard work, a lot of effort." "I believe without the bill, it's going to be harder to enforce the border," Bush said. "The status quo is unacceptable." Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said passing the bill is up to the...

For the first time in five years, President Bush will attend the Senate Republicans' weekly policy lunch today as he pushes to revive his moribund overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. But even before he set foot in the Capitol, several Republican senators issued a terse warning yesterday: Don't expect much. In the days after the sweeping compromise on immigration collapsed on Thursday, opposition, if anything, appears to have hardened among some senators who had once been willing to consider the deal. The bill's vociferous critics have also had a long weekend to throw dirt on its grave. .... Republicans...

It's indicative of how very badly President Bush needs a victory — any victory — that he plans to make a rare trip to Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon to attend a weekly Republican luncheon. There, he will make a personal appeal to senators on behalf of his bipartisan immigration reform bill, the progress of which came to a sudden and surprising halt late Thursday night after a failed attempt to bring the legislation to a vote. While Bush has previously leaned on Vice President Cheney to make these kinds of congressional entreaties (the President last sat in on a Senate...

President Bush said this morning in Bulgaria that he is confident an immigration reform bill can still be passed... "Listen, the immigration debate is a tough debate. I'm under no illusions about how hard it is. There are people in my party that don't want a comprehensive bill; there are people in the Democrat Party that don't seem to want a comprehensive bill. I was disappointed that the bill was temporarily derailed," Mr. Bush said. "I, frankly, find it interesting that ... a so-called important subject they need to get to would be to pass a political resolution on my...

WASHINGTON - President Bush is putting his influence within his own party to the test Tuesday as he pleads personally with skeptical Senate Republicans to resurrect his immigration bill. Despite his confident tone Monday about the measure's fate, Bush is facing a hostile audience that has shown little appetite for following his lead on the contentious issue. Bush left no room for the possibility that his bid to legalize up to 12 million unlawful immigrants while tightening border security might die. "I'll see you at the bill signing," he said while traveling in Bulgaria. Still, weakened by his sagging poll...

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., right, looks on as Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., discusses immigration reform legislation during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, June 8, 2007. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) WASHINGTON - President Bush, calling the nation's current immigration situation unacceptable, urged senators to try again to pass legislation that he described as imperfect but the best option available. In his weekly Saturday radio address, Bush said the bill would not grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, that they would have to pay fines and take other steps to get on a path to legal status and possibly citizenship....

Supporters of immigration reform launched new talks to save their tattered bill yesterday, with the chief architects of the bipartisan compromise confident that they could resurrect it -- even as recriminations flew over its stunning collapse. The rescue mission was dispatched moments after the vote was tallied Thursday night. Sixty votes were needed to end debate and pave the way for final passage, but only 45 senators voted yes. Republican and Democratic negotiators believe they can reach agreement by early next week on the official sticking point: which conservative amendments would be considered before final passage. The list must be...

NEWTON, Iowa (AP) -- Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said Saturday that time is running out on overhauling immigration policy. "We've got other things to do in the Senate," McCain told reporters. "Hopefully we can come to an agreement, but in all candor -- a little straight talk -- time is not on our side." McCain also challenged opponents of the plan to step up. "The status quo is de facto amnesty -- fact," the Arizona senator said. "So for us to do nothing and celebrate the fact that we stopped this legislation, well then those who have a better...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - - Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001. But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped. “If any Republican is elected president - - and I think obviously I would be the best at this - - we will remain on offense and will anticipate what (the terrorists) will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said. The former New York...

Bisphenol A is ingested by practically everyone in Canada who eats canned foods or drinks from a can or hard plastic water bottles. Now a controversy is raging over the safety of widespread public exposure to the chemical, which is known to act like a synthetic female sex hormone. At the heart of the intense debate over bisphenol A is that it challenges the main tenet of modern toxicology, the idea that the dose makes the poison, a principle credited to the 15th-century Swiss alchemist Theophrastus Paracelsus.

Oil supplies from non-Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries producers will increase by as much as 4 million barrels a day and peak in 2015 before dropping from then until 2030, OPEC said Tuesday. Conventional non-OPEC crude production is expected to rise to at 50.5 million barrels a day in 2015 and will fall by nearly 2 million barrels a day to 48.6 million barrels a day over the following 15 years, according to a presentation held by OPEC's research director, Hasan Qabazard, in Riyadh. Non-OPEC production stood at 46.8 million barrels a day in 2005, the presentation, entitled "Global Oil...

Global Warming is a ReligionFebruary 2, 2007 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Hey, try this headline. This is in the Scotsman, the UK Scotsman: "Russia to Analyze Yellow-Orange Snow in Siberia." What to a bet it's bears? What do you bet it's just bear urine? Everybody is out there just looking for a disaster because of global warming, they're out there looking for some sign that the apocalypse is here. It's bear pee. RUSH: Gary in Post Falls, Idaho. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. CALLER: Good morning Rush. First time caller. Just two quick points on the global warming. RUSH: Yes,...

He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him. (Eccl., 10:8) Respected Madams/Sirs: For a period of more than 15 years, Europe has been heartily assisting the shredding and disintegration of some European states, the so called “communist creations” (e.g. USSR, SFRY) and all under the motto of “the people’s right to self-determination”. Europe wishes to administer the grand finale in this process upon Serbia, striving to sever Kosovo and turn it into another Albanian state in the Balkans. We only desire to remind you, ladies and gentlemen of Europe,...

TORONTO - A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic, scientists said. The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 497 miles south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada's remote north. Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake. Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island...

There is the story about a motorist evacuating New Orleans at the onset of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The motorist ran out of fuel on a crowded expressway. When later asked why he did not turn off the motor to conserve fuel, he replied, "Why would I do that? I needed the air conditioning." The story illustrates a fundamental obstacle in our country's critical need to conserve energy and use it wisely. "Even when you are running for your life, with no fuel supply in sight, people do not make the connection with the fact that their fuel tank contains...

Nairobi, Kenya – A new United Nations children’s book promoting fears of catastrophic manmade global warming is being promoted at the UN Climate Change Conference in Kenya. The book's main character, a young boy, is featured getting so worried about a coming manmade climate disaster that he yells “I don’t want to hear anymore!” The new children’s book, entitled “Tore and the Town on Thin Ice” ((http://www.unep.org/PDF/TORE.pdf)) is published by the United Nations Environment Programme and blames “rich countries” for creating a climate catastrophe and urges children to join environmental groups. The book is about a young boy named Tore...

Environmentalists sued the Bush administration Tuesday for failing to produce a report on global warming's impact on the country's environment, economy and public health. The lawsuit seeks to compel the U.S. Climate Change Science Program to issue the national assessment, which should contain the most recent scientific data on global warming and projections for its future impacts. The plaintiffs claim the government must complete such a report every four years under the Global Change Research Act of 1990. "Global warming is one of the most serious threats facing humanity today," according to the complaint. Without the report, decision makers and...

Climate chaos? Don't believe it By Christopher Monckton, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:14am GMT 05/11/2006 Download Christopher Monckton's references and detailed calculations [pdf] The Stern report last week predicted dire economic and social effects of unchecked global warming. In what many will see as a highly controversial polemic, Christopher Monckton disputes the 'facts' of this impending apocalypse and accuses the UN and its scientists of distorting the truth Biblical droughts, floods, plagues and extinctions? Last week, Gordon Brown and his chief economist both said global warming was the worst "market failure" ever. That loaded soundbite suggests that the "climate-change" scare...