Free Republic

By June 16, 2014 (NASA) (Source: NASA) In the remote and forested terrain of Juina in western Brazil, an ugly rock with an uglier name surfaced months ago inside a diamond mine. It was a tiny green crystal, all scars and bumps. It “literally look[ed] like [it had] been to hell and back,” one scientist said in March. But despite the provenance, the ringwoodite stone wasn’t scorched — it was, in fact, sopping wet. Providing an unparalleled glimpse into the our planet’s innards, the stone rode a violent volcanic eruption to the surface from 325 miles inside the Earth’s mantle....

In yet one more pathetic, wrong-headed bit of sophistry from fat-headed know nothing, Jonathan Martin at Politico, we’re supposed to believe that his insipid blathering passed off as wisdom means the recent tragedy in Arizona is about former Governor Sarah Palin, not some delusional lunatic too confused to have any consistent political beliefs. If silly targets drawn on basically rhetorical maps for political purposes, or otherwise, had the capacity to remove contemptible bastards from our nation’s political discourse, a large X marks the spot over this moron Martin’s image would be a good place to start. Tragedy marks turning point...

The economic report released last week by Health and Human Services, which indicated that President Barack Obama's health care "reform" law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers, had been submitted to the office of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the Congressional votes on the bill, according to career HHS sources, who added that Sebelius's staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken.

It's the basement apartment like no other. Life has been found 1.6 kilometres beneath the sea floor, at temperatures reaching 100 °C. The discovery marks the deepest living cells ever to be found beneath the sea floor. Bacteria have been found deeper underneath the continents, but there they are rare. In comparison, the rocks beneath the sea appear to be teeming with life. John Parkes, a geobiologist at the University of Cardiff, UK, hopes his team's discovery might one day help find life on other planets. He says it might even redefine what we understand as life, and, bizarrely, what...

Children die beneath Mugabe's bulldozers By Alistair Leithead in Harare (Filed: 24/06/2005) A piece of red plastic tape flutters from a post outside the remains of Lavender Nyika's home in Tafara - a place outside Harare which means "we are happy". But there is little happiness here. The tape is a traditional sign representing a loss in the family, and while hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans have lost their homes, few have lost a daughter. Lavender Nyika's daughter Charmaine was crushed to death Charmaine was two years old and inside the family home when the police came with their bulldozers...