Free Republic

The New England cottontail was once so common that Massachusetts author Thornton Burgess adapted one named Peter for the children's stories he penned a century ago. But the critter that inspired "The Adventures of Peter Cottontail" and the enduring song that came later faces an uncertain future. Its natural habitat is disappearing, and without intervention, it could be unhappy trails for the once-bountiful bunny. [snip] As neglected agricultural lands reverted back to forest and those forests matured, the population of New England cottontails thinned. More than 80 percent of their habitat disappeared over the past 50 years, according to the...

Eleven months ago, the old Battle Mountain Humane Society building north of Hot Springs on Highway 385, was consumed by fire. A faulty fluorescent light fixture was the cause of the catastrophe that killed 11 dogs and rendered Wagoner, who had an apartment in the building, homeless. Volunteers sprang into action, donations poured in from the area, state, nation and even from international donors. Celebrities such as NASCAR driver Ryan Newman stepped up through his foundation to lend a hand. Immediately next to the cement pad where the original building - a converted riding stable - stood last year, a...

The Roman artefacts, deliberately shaped into flat discs, have been in the collection at Fishbourne Roman Palace since the 1960s. And up until now the museum thought the items were used for early games, such as draughts. But, a British Medical Journal article has now proposed they have a very different function. The broken pieces range in size from 1 inch to 4 inches in diameter and were excavated near to the museum in Chichester, West Sussex in 1960. It is well publicised that Romans used sponges mounted on sticks and dipped in vinegar as an alternative to toilet paper....

If the Left insists upon limiting the Second Amendment, then maybe it is time to reexamine the First Amendment, in light of their arguments for limiting the Second. Whereas: More people are threatened, bullied, or otherwise victimized by speech or other forms of expression utilizing mass communications; Whereas: Technical advances have placed the means of mass communications and publishing onto every desktop and mobile device in America; Whereas: Only manual writing or manually operated printing presses were available in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was adopted; Whereas: The Founding Fathers had no way of even conceiving of the concept...

President Barack Obama 52.01% Governor Mitt Romney 47.99% Looks like the Libs have been quietly skewing this, on Fox, no less.

Source is AP story, so only able to post a short excerpt; much more at the link.Archaeologists have struck gold at a dig near the town of Goshen about 35 miles south of Provo: the largest Fremont Indian structure ever found. Jim Allison, anthropology professor at Brigham Young University, said the 850-square-foot structure is unique because it served as a communal area that brought the entire village together. It’s several times larger than typical Fremont structures, which average between 80 and 90 square feet.

Prince Charles: Eighteen months to stop climate change disaster Sun May 18 2008 10:49:26 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time) · by ApplegateRanch · 94 replies · 277+ views Telegraph UK ^ | Last Updated: 1:08PM BST 18/05/2008 | Andrew Pierce The Prince of Wales has warned that the world faces a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless urgent action is taken to save the rainforests. In one of his most out-spoken interventions in the climate change debate, he said a £15 billion annual programme was required to halt deforestation or the world would have to live with the dire...

Local breaking news; no linkable sources yet. The Battle Mountain Humane Society animal shelter in Hot Springs, South Dakota burned to the ground this afternoon. No human injuries involved; one known animal death . At last word, a full accounting of the animals was on-going.

HOT SPRINGS – An easy way to show your support of the Hot Springs VA is to sign an online petition recently created by Save the VA Public Relations Committee member Justin Gausman. One way to sign the petition is to simply log on to www.Change.org and enter “Hot Springs VA” into the “Find” space found in the top browser bar. Another quicker way to find the link is to go to www.chn.ge/zpuT7J> which will link you directly to the petition. “Change.org is a reputable website that has a very thorough privacy policy,” he said. Furthermore, if you receive further...

Once a homeless veteran living in Denver, Henry Amador, now of Hot Springs, is doing all he can to help keep open the facility that helped him find peace and sobriety - the Hot Springs VA.[snip] Veterans who apply for the homeless program at the Denver VA live in a homeless shelter in an unsavory part of town. Henry says that the VA paid the shelters $300 each night to house a veteran. Finally, as a last resort, they deported him to Hot Springs, SD. They told him they could no longer help him, but that he might have a...

Earlier this week, Stimulus beneficiary Evergreen Energy bit the dust. Then, Ener1, a manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles and recipient of Stimulus largesse, filed for bankruptcy. And today, the Las Vegas Sun reports that Amonix, Inc., a manufacturer of solar panels that received $5.9 million from the Porkulus, will cut two-thirds of its workforce, about 200 employees, only seven months after opening a factory in Nevada. I foresaw this spate of bad news last November. As I explained yesterday, In a previous post, I compared renewable energy spending in the 2009 Stimulus to a green albatross burdening the President....

A file containing 5,000 emails has been made available in an apparent attempt to repeat the impact of 2009's similar release [snip] The emails appear to be genuine, but the University of East Anglia said the "sheer volume of material" meant it was not yet able to confirm that they were. One of the emailers, the climate scientist Prof Michael Mann, has confirmed that he believes they are his messages. The lack of any emails post-dating the 2009 release suggests that they were obtained at the same time, but held back. Their release now suggests they are intended to cause...

Rising greenhouse emissions may tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat, warns a report for Nasa It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim. Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain. This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by scientists at Nasa and Pennsylvania State...

Facilities are being added at the Vore Buffalo Jump Historic site west of Beulah, Wyoming, to make the site more accessible to visitors. And this summer marks the first time scientists working at the site have been protected by a shelter built last year. The Vore Buffalo Jump is one of the most important archeological sites in the Black Hills area. It provides some of the most graphic evidence we have of how Native tribes living in the Black Hills area survived before the coming of Europeans and their horses. There are thousands of individual buffalo bones at the bottom...

The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs recently yielded the remains of a 60th mammoth, the giant, extinct creatures that once roamed the continent. [just a teaser--AP story]

[snip] Traditionally, the key is the acknowledgment that Jesus is the Son of God, who, in the words of the ancient creed, "for us and for our salvation came down from heaven ... and was made man." In the Evangelical ethos, one either accepts this and goes to heaven or refuses and goes to hell. Bell, a tall, 40-year-old son of a Michigan federal judge, begs to differ. He suggests that the redemptive work of Jesus may be universal — meaning that, as his book's subtitle puts it, "every person who ever lived" could have a place in heaven, whatever...

Dugard was insulted when the lawyer for Nancy Garrido said his client deserved compassion because she acted as Dugard's mother during her ordeal and was under the control of her husband, co-defendant Phillip Garrido, El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson told reporters.

In May 2008, archaeologists began the tedious task of exhuming the remains of Native Americans at a remote site south of Lake Okeechobee and reburying them at another remote site, to make way for a man-made wetland needed to restore the Everglades. [snip] But the more the archaeologists dug, the more they found. After nearly two years, the tribes learned that what they'd been told were some teeth and bones turned out to be partial remains of 56 men, women and children moved from an ancient burial ground so significant that it would have been eligible for listing on the...

Cal-DOT is planning to spend $935,000 to cement part of Blocker Beach to create a channel for steelhead. This is to 'help' the fish get to the SantA Monica Mtns for spawning. This is a paraphrase, due to AP-FR agreements; follow the link to read the actual story.

EVENTS IN NEBRASKA: "At 9 p.m. Central Time on Dec. 16th, a very bright meteor lit up the completely overcast sky like lightning in southeast Nebraska," reports Trooper Jerry Chab of the Nebraska State Patrol. "It flashed for approximately 2 seconds and was followed by ground shaking, which prompted many calls by the public to law enforcement in a three county wide area." The USGS says there was a magnitude 3.5 earthquake near Auburn, Nebraska, at 8:53 pm Wednesday night, about the same time and place as the fireball. Coincidence? Readers in Nebraska with photos or eyewitness accounts are encouraged...