Free Republic

TALLAHASSEE - Florida lawmakers appear ready to deliver on one of Gov. Charlie Crist's campaign promises to punish insurers who have retreated from the state's property market while still writing other insurance in the Sunshine State, such as auto. In a surprise voice vote Wednesday, the Florida Senate agreed to force Florida insurance companies who write property insurance in other states to offer it here if they want to continue writing any insurance in this state. The House has a similar proposal. "The 'cherry-picking' in this state has got to stop," said Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, as he...

According to a Des Moines Register news story, "In a blunt and stinging letter, the governor and the top officer of the Iowa National Guard on Tuesday called federal immigration officials' actions in the Swift raids "completely unacceptable," saying agents undermined the public's trust in government, potentially jeopardized the safety of law enforcement personnel in Iowa and could have compromised undercover operations." For the full story, see here.

NEW YORK (AP) -- More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.

Here is a mass e-mailing I got from the ASPCA with regards to this bill. It's passed the Senate, now it's the House's turn. The link above goes to the text of the bill. My comments are after that.H.R. 4239, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), is a bill that could make it a crime punishable by imprisonment to cause any business classified as an "animal enterprise" to suffer a loss of profit—even if the company's financial decline is the result of legal activities, such as peaceful protests, consumer boycotts or media campaigns. The term “animal enterprise” would include manufacturers,...

I don't normally post vanities, but here is a story about how the DNC tried to touch my life. And it also shows how, euphimistically, inept they are. My mailbox held an interesting surprise for me yesterday. It was a letter from the DNC! This was the last thing I ever expected to receive in the mail. My curiosity got the better of me so I opened it. The salutation was to me, with the title Democratic Party Member. Imagine that! A Freeper getting mail saying he's a member of the DNC. I didn't know if someone was playing a...

Good news for dinosaur fans: There are probably a lot more of them waiting to be discovered. At least, their fossils are. Peter Dodson of the University of Pennsylvania and Steve Wang of Swarthmore College estimate that 71 per cent of all dinosaur genera — groups of dinosaur species — have yet to be discovered. “It's a safe bet that a child born today could expect a very fruitful career in dinosaur paleontology,” Dr. Dodson said in a statement. The estimate appears in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Dodson — a professor of anatomy...

Woman Taught Sunday School For 54 Years WATERTOWN, N.Y. -- The pastor of a church that has stopped letting women teach Sunday school said that won't affect his decisions as a city councilman in upstate New York. The First Baptist Church in Watertown dismissed Mary Lambert Aug. 9 after adopting what it called a literal interpretation of the Bible. The reverend recently dismissed Lambert, who had taught Sunday school for 54 years, citing the biblical advice of the apostle Paul: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." Lambert...

BERLIN — U.S. and German scientists have launched a two-year project to decipher the genetic code of the Neanderthal, a feat they hope will help deepen understanding of how modern humans' brains evolved. Neanderthals were a species that lived in Europe and western Asia from more than 200,000 years ago to about 30,000 years ago. Scientists from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology are teaming up a company in Connecticut to map the genome, or humans' DNA code. “The Neanderthal is the closest relative to the modern human, and we believe that by sequencing the Neanderthal we can learn...

LAKELAND -- A person died on State Road 33 north of I-4 early today when the vehicle he or she was in was hit by a stolen pickup truck, according to police reports. After receiving reports that a woman stole a pickup from a man in Lakeland, officers spotted the truck and chased it. Police cruisers ended up driving into stop sticks that had been placed on the road to stop the pickup. The incident resulted in the closing of State Road 33 this morning from I-4 to Tomkow Road.

Mollusk fossils push back evolution, ROM scientists say Life 560 million years ago more advanced than previously believed, article says. Two Canadian paleontologists have discovered dozens of fossils of a soft-bodied, deep-sea dweller that lived more than half a billion years ago, adding one more piece to the enigmatic puzzle that is the history of life on Earth. The 189 well-preserved fossil specimens of Odontogriphus omalus have been interpreted as the world's oldest known soft-bodied mollusk, and were found in British Columbia's mountains in the Burgess Shale, one of the most important fossil sites in the world. The newly discovered...

We humans customarily assume that our visual system sits atop a pinnacle of evolutionary success. It enables us to appreciate space in three dimensions, to detect objects from a distance and to move about safely. We are exquisitely able to recognize other individuals and to read their emotions from mere glimpses of their faces. In fact, we are such visual animals that we have difficulty imagining the sensory worlds of creatures whose capacities extend to other realms--a night-hunting bat, for example, that finds small insects by listening to the echoes of its own high-pitched call. Our knowledge of color vision...

The same shockwaves that have homeowners reeling are striking business owners who must now confront premiums that have increased since last year by as much as 400 percent -- when they can get insurance. Florida homeowners have railed for months about the skyrocketing cost of residential property insurance and the suffering it is causing. They're about to have a lot of company. Business owners looking for commercial property insurance are increasingly finding themselves in the same rickety boat as homeowners. And should the crisis get out of hand, the effects could reach throughout Florida's economy. "The commercial insurance market is...

Quebec unveils carbon tax Province hopes levy on oil and gas firms will put $1.2-billion toward its Kyoto goals RHÉAL SÉGUIN From Friday's Globe and Mail QUEBEC — Quebec plans to adopt tough vehicle emissions standards and will become the first province to levy a "carbon tax" on oil and gas companies as part of an ambitious plan to fight global warming. The tax will raise about $200-million a year over six years, provincial government officials said yesterday, and will finance a $1.2-billion Green Fund to make reductions in greenhouse gas emissions called for under the international Kyoto accord. Environmental...

Two mothers should be allowed on birth document, judge says Found in breach of Charter, Ontario told to alter rules to include lesbian parents KIRK MAKIN From Wednesday's Globe and Mail An Ontario judge struck down a birth registry provision yesterday that prevents lesbian couples from being registered as parents of babies conceived through artificial insemination, saying that the regulation causes them unjustified "pain and hardship." Mr. Justice Paul Rivard of the Ontario Superior Court ruled that the province violated the litigants' right to equality by stopping them from adding their names to the Statement of Live Births after their...

survey asking Halifax teachers their sexual orientation drew fierce criticism yesterday, just weeks after the Halifax Regional School Board was singled out in a human rights case against a gay teacher. The “employee identification survey” is being handed out this week to all 8,000 employees of the school board, most of whom are teachers. They are being asked to list their names and employee numbers, and answer questions on their race and sexual orientation. The survey, the school board maintains, will help it to better understand the diversity of its work force and therefore allow the board to foster a...

For the past 30 years, flame retardants have been found in every Canadian home, added liberally as a safety precaution to everything from mattresses and carpets to stereos, televisions and computers. Now Canada is poised to add flame retardants — or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) — to its toxic-substances list. If a draft proposal it is circulating is any guide, the federal government is expected to virtually eliminate some varieties of the chemical and place tight controls on others. Regulators are considering drastic action because laboratory studies using animals have linked the chemicals to behaviour changes that bear an uncanny...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Thursday that the "extraordinary" boom in the U.S. housing market in recent years is over. "This has been quite an extraordinary boom," Greenspan told a Bond Market Association dinner in New York. "The boom is over. I think we can safely say that with a strong degree of confidence." Greenspan said there was a "high degree of froth in the system," and that it was clear that home equity extraction and the turnover of home sales was waning.

Normally, I don't post requests for help on issues, but there are a fair number of more knowlegeable animal lover Freepers than I. They may be interested and/or could offer some insight into 2 bills pending in FL. Here are the Senate Summaries of these 2 bills coming before the Senate Agriculture Committee in FL and are to be voted on the 21st. Has anyone heard of these bills and does anyone have any idea what their impact will be? Some have said that this will cripple the dog/cat breeders in FL and will include private, non-profit animal rescue groups...

Sen. Mel Martinez, nearly a year after leading the charge for federal intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, now says he may have been off-base. "Perhaps this was not in the realm of federal concern. It may have been better left to state courts to deal with it," Martinez said in a taped interview for Political Connections that airs today on Bay News 9. In a wide-ranging interview in which the Orlando Republican for the first time also publicly embraced the Senate candidacy of Katherine Harris, he alluded to the Schiavo controversy as providing a lesson "with a whack across...

CLEARWATER - Policyholders covered by Citizens Property Insurance Corp. pleaded with state regulators Thursday night to reject the company's proposed rate increase, saying it will force them to sell their homes. "I'm sick to my stomach," Pasco County resident Meghan Hulbert told officials of the state Office of Insurance Regulation at a public hearing on the rate increase. "I'm a single mom, and I may have to give up my home." Officials of Citizens, the state's insurer of last resort, said they are concerned about the rising rates. But they said it was a reality that Florida residents may have...