Free Republic

For several years, UCLA astronomers have studied GD 362, a peculiarly dirty white dwarf star 165 light-years away in the constellation Hercules. Now they are pretty sure why the atmosphere of this dense, hot but slowly cooling ghost of a once much larger star is so polluted. It ate a planet.

When people in the coal business talk about "the valley of death," they are referring to a grim place not located near any mine. It is an economic chasm that the industry fears awaits it if the Senate approves climate legislation similar to what passed the House. Although the House bill includes some help for coal, it also creates incentives for utilities to move away from polluting fuels. Industry advocates and independent analysts say that leaves coal with few options for a sustainable future. "Unless they come up with a breakthrough technology to capture carbon and store it, coal is...

<p>Besides, I know for a fact that the feminists spreading the lies about Palin knew they were spreading lies. Not to tell tales out of school, but: they knew. They were supplied with the correct information, and they chose to lie anyway. Why?</p>

A state licensing commission said Wednesday it is appealing a court ruling rejecting a permit the commission issued for a coal-fired power plant in southwestern Arkansas. The Arkansas Public Service Commission said it petitioned the Arkansas Supreme Court to review the state Court of Appeals' ruling that would force Southwestern Electric Power Co. ( SWSEO.OB - news - people ), a unit of American Electric Power ( AEP - news - people ), to start over in its effort to obtain a permit for the $1.6 billion coal-fired plant the company hopes to build. "The commission hopes that the Arkansas...

The way most media outlets have treated the American Bar Association's unanimous "Well Qualified" evaluation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, you'd think they were reporting on a dispassionate assessment by an unassailable apolitical body. The ABA's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary basks in such a false reputation, deluding the public into thinking it objectively assesses judicial nominees based on their integrity, competence and temperament, with ideology a nonfactor. A look at Federal Election Commission records shatters that notion, revealing that the 15-member ABA panel is dominated by financial supporters of liberal Democrats. For instance, the FEC Web site indicates the...

PEOPLE CAN debate global warming. Argue over green technologies. Discuss the pros and cons of alternative energy sources. But rationalize the Waxman-Markey "cap-and-trade" energy bill? That would take peculiar genius, indeed. The humongous (more than 1,500 pages) bill passed recently by the U.S. House of Representatives would institute an enormous change in U.S. energy policies--a change that would kill jobs, hurt businesses, suck away trillions from the gross domestic product, and cost consumers through the nose--all for a minimal reduction in global temperature. (More on that in a moment.) Basically, Waxman-Markey creates a tradable "commodity"--energy credits--that industries buy and sell,...

Plans for a third coal-fired power plant at Delta are dead. The Intermountain Power Agency said Wednesday it will let the air-quality permit for a coal-fired Unit 3 expire. Instead, the company will focus on other options for the central Utah site, said IPA spokesman John Ward. "The understanding within IPA is that if there were ever an attempt to start another third coal-fired power unit at that location, they would have to start over," he said. "This particular permit application would be moot." Environmental groups, who have been fighting Unit 3 since it was first proposed, applauded the move....

A new poll shows President Barack Obama’s popularity in Virginia has slipped below 50 percent. The Public Policy poll of 617 likely general election voters showed Obama with a 48 percent approval rating, which is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent. The survey showed 46 percent disapproval and 6 percent not sure. The opinion is highly polarized, the poll shows, with 95 percent of Democrats but only 9 percent of Republicans viewing him favorably. Fifty-two percent of independents disapprove of his performance with only 38 percent approving. The poll was taken June 30 through...

Charles Bolden, President Barack Obama's appointment to be NASA's administrator, had plenty of support at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday. He thanked an entire busload of friends and family, filling an overflow room, who had come to Washington DC from his home state, South Carolina. He had three Republican Senators -- two from South Carolina, and one from Texas, where Bolden now lives -- vying to claim him as a prodigal son. And he had the chief architect of his eventual appointment, Florida Senator Bill Nelson, extolling his virtues as an "overcomer" who rose through the ranks of the...

Alternative Energy: A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another.It's a beautiful theory — highways full of electric cars emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants after being plugged into an outlet in our garages overnight. The problem, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, is that the effort may only shift the problem somewhere else. "If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading...

MALMO, Sweden -- A few years ago, the London Guardian newspaper called Sweden the most successful society the world has ever known. But Sweden today is being transformed by a large influx of immigrants from the Middle East. Sweden's third largest city, Malmö, sits just across the water from Copenhagen, Denmark. To visitors, Malmö seems quiet, nice, maybe a little boring; in other words, quintessentially Swedish. But under the surface, Malmö has serious problems. Click the player to see the report from CBN News Senior Reporter Dale Hurd followed by comments from Pat Robertson. On Saturday when Israel played Sweden...

Church officials in the Diocese of Metuchen are helping to oversee a church investigation into whether a nun who's being considered for sainthood is the cause of a medical miracle. The probe, the first in the history of the Diocese of Metuchen, involves Mother Mary Angeline Teresa McCrory, who died in 1984 at age 91 and was founder of the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm. A unidentified married couple in New Jersey whose unborn baby was diagnosed with a genetic disorder is claiming that prayers to McCrory helped their child, who was born far healthier than expected, said...

Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed another cache near the Western gate of the National Museum in Cairo, Culture Minister Farouq Hosni said yesterday.Zahi Hawass, the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the cache contained a table made of limestone, a fragment of a slab with hieroglyphic inscriptions, some stones, and the base of a pharaonic pillar, which date back to the pharaonic period around 1,300 years BC."This type of slab was quite widespread during the era of the Pharaohs, who used it to mark a special occasion,

RIVER EDGE — A borough resident is on a mission to get saint status for a beloved Detroit priest, who he believes answered prayers to heal his son's cancer.           Ryan Blute holding photo of the Rev. Solanus Casey, whom he prayed to for a cancer cure. Kevin Blute hopes the Vatican will make the Rev. Solanus Casey the first male saint born in the U.S., and     suggested a friend's prayer group name itself after the friar. Blute's teenage son, Ryan, was diagnosed with melanoma in 2007 and has since recovered.  "I feel like I'm in gratitude to him big...

A key leader of the 1999 student uprising that shook the Islamist regime in Iran returned to Iran clandestinely this week, and plans to lead a nationwide protest on Thursday. Roozbeh Farahanipour, 37, was jailed for several months in 1999 for his role in the protests and was tortured extensively. But that hasn’t deterred him from going to back to his homeland. “These are momentous times,” he told Newsmax shortly before leaving the U.S. for his secret journey to Iran. “After 10 years, I am fulfilling my dream.” The postelection protests of the past several weeks “have already succeeded in...

I hope Greenpeace doesn't get mad when we tell that that there's been no global warming since 2001, and now we may be in a cooling trend...

The isotopic analysis of the diet of one of the earliest modern humans in Asia, the 40,000 year old skeleton from Tianyuan Cave near Beijing, has shown that at least this individual was a regular fish consumer. Michael Richards of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology explains "Carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of the human and associated faunal remains indicate a diet high in animal protein, and the high nitrogen isotope values suggest the consumption of freshwater fish." To confirm this inference the researchers measured the sulphur isotope values of terrestrial and freshwater animals around the Zhoukoudian area and...

I've seen a lot of videos on the Web but this has to be the most absolutely HILARIOUS video ever!!! TOTAL humiliation of Eminem at the MTV Awards by Bruno. Watch it at the 50 second mark when Bruno "traps" Eminem. The look of absolute DISGUST on the helpless Eminem's face is priceless. And soon afterwards, a totally humiliated Eminem stormed out of the auditorium. He will NEVER live this down! Hee! Hee! Watch the VIDEO.

Remember last week when the media touted a new cost estimate by the Congressional Budget Office suggesting that Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee had found a magic want enabling them to cover 97 percent of the uninsured for $600 billion? Well, we now know that the cost is more like $1.1 trillion, and likely higher. As I cautioned when the CBO numbers came out last week, the $600 billion estimate did not include the price of massively expanding Medicaid, a costly provision of all of the various Democratic health care proposals. But now the CBO...

The Associated Press has finally discovered math, and realizes that Barack Obama’s numbers don’t add up. Don’t expect this to last long, but the AP finally reports what every sentient being outside the mainstream media and the Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) already understood: President Barack Obama promised to fix health care and trim the federal budget deficit, all without raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans. It’s a promise he’s already broken and will likely have to break again. Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress have already increased tobacco taxes — which disproportionately hit the poor — to...