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Sarah Palin's teenage daughter pregnant Posted September 1, 2008 1:18 PM Bristol Palin, 17, holds her brother Trig during the campaign rally where Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain introduced Bristol and Trig's mom, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, as his vice presidential running mate in Dayton, Ohio, Friday, Aug. 29, 2008. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia) by Jason George ANCHORAGE, Alaska--The presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain announced Monday that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's teenage daughter is pregnant. In a statement, Palin and husband Todd said, "Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make...

By DAVID BROOKS Published: August 29, 2008 DENVER My fellow Americans, it is an honor to address the Democratic National Convention at this defining moment in history. We stand at a crossroads at a pivot point, near a fork in the road on the edge of a precipice in the midst of the most consequential election since last year’s “American Idol.” One path before us leads to the past, and the extinction of the human race. The other path leads to the future, when we will all be dead. We must choose wisely. We must close the book on the...

Aug 8, 2008 0:54 | Updated Aug 8, 2008 14:55 The Last Word: Israel should boycott the Olympics opening ceremony By JEREMY LAST At 8 p.m. on Friday, Beijing time, President Shimon Peres will settle into his seat along with dozens of other world leaders, ready to witness the opening ceremony of the 2008 summer Olympic Games. As the event gets into gear, athletes representing each of the 200-plus countries competing at the Games will file into the newly built 91,000-seat stadium, affectionately known as the Bird's Nest. Israeli fans around the world will be waiting with anticipation and pride...

Father of former Olympian killed in Beijing By BETH DUFF-BROWN, Associated Press Writer BEIJING - The murder of the father of a former Olympian at a Beijing landmark cast a sad shadow over the first full day of Olympic competition Saturday, just hours after China's jubilant opening of the Summer Games. Todd and Barbara Bachman of Lakeville, Minn. — parents of 2004 volleyball Olympian Elisabeth "Wiz" Bachman and in-laws of U.S. men's volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon — were attacked by a Chinese man while visiting the 13th-century Drum Tower. The U.S. Olympic Committee confirmed Bachman died from knife wounds and...

Sparks fly as ExxonMobil profit tops 10 billion dollars Jul 27 12:38 PM US/Eastern Surging oil prices helped drive quarterly profits for US energy giant ExxonMobil to 10.36 billion dollars, the latest in a string of mammoth profit reports that have drawn fire for the industry. The second-quarter profit was up 36 percent from a year ago and approached the company's all-time record profit of 10.71 billion dollars that was believed to be one of the biggest for any company. Stoked by skyrocketing crude-oil prices, ExxonMobil's net profit in the quarter to June came to 1.72 dollars per share. That...

Sen. Joe Lieberman praises pastor who said Holocaust was God's work One of John McCain's most prominent supporters on Tuesday praised an evangelical leader whom the Republican presidential candidate repudiated after a string of controversial remarks were made public. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who frequently campaigns with McCain, said pastor John Hagee's support for Israel outweighed the remarks that led McCain to reject his endorsement. Lieberman said he had been urged not to speak to Hagee's group, Christians United for Israel. Advertisement "The bond that I feel with Pastor Hagee and each and every one of you is...

"Why Iraq Was Inevitable" by Arthur Herman According to an April 2008 poll in U.S. News & World Report, fully 61 percent of American historians agree that George W. Bush is the worst President in our history. Some of these scholars cite the President’s position on the environment, or on taxes, or on the economy. For most, though, the chief qualification for obloquy lies in Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq. In this, of course, the historians are hardly alone: five years after the launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom, both the mainstream media and America’s political elites treat...

Wimbledon under fire for pigeon cull Jun 24, 1:03 pm EDT Buzz Up PrintLONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - Wimbledon came under fire from animal activists on Tuesday for using marksmen to shoot down dive-bombing pigeons. The tournament employs two hawks to scare away pigeons who had become a pest swooping down on Centre Court and distracting players in the middle of tense matches. But the hawks failed to keep the pigeons away from the players’ lawn and the open-air media restaurant so marksmen were called in. “The hawks are our first line of deterrent, and by and large they do...

McCain proposes $300M prize for new auto battery By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday that the search for alternatives to the country's dependence on foreign oil is so urgent that he's willing to throw money at it. The Arizona senator proposed a $300 million prize for whoever can develop a better automobile battery, and $5,000 tax credits for consumers who buy new zero-emission vehicles. The latest proposal is in addition to his support for overturning the federal ban on offshore oil drilling. "In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around...

Christian Photographer Hauled before Commission for Refusing Same-Sex Job By John Jalsevac New Mexico, January 30, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The case of a Christian photographer who refused to photograph a same-sex "commitment ceremony", was heard before the New Mexico Human Rights Division on Monday. A same-sex couple asked Elaine Huguenin, co-owner with her husband of Elane Photography, to photograph a "commitment ceremony" that the two women wanted to hold. Huguenin declined because her Christian beliefs are in conflict with the message communicated by the ceremony. The same-sex couple filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Division, which is...

First California Same-Sex Wedding June 16 By: ANDY HUMM 06/12/2008 Veteran lesbian activists Del Martin, 87, and Phyllis Lyon, 83, whose 2004 wedding in San Francisco was invalidated by the California Supreme Court, will be the first same-sex couple to legally marry there on Monday, June 16 at 5 p.m. when the high court's May ruling finding a constitutional right to marry for same-sex couples takes effect. It is the only one that Mayor Gavin Newsom will allow that day before county clerks across the state must begin issuing licenses to same-sex couples the next morning. The clerk in rural...

The Maunder Minimum and Climate Change: Have Historical Records Aided Current Research? John E. Beckman, and Terence J. Mahoney Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain 1. Introduction: the Solar Cycle and its Variation We are all familiar with the 11-year sunspot cycle. One familiar factor is the effect of solar activity on short-wave radio communications. During sunspot maximum high-energy protons and alpha particles from the Sun affect the ionosphere, reducing its effectivity as a mirror from which short radio waves are reflected round the world, disrupting transmissions for days at a time. The association with the...

Home Mission Overview Mission Overview Mission Objectives News News & Features Media Room Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Podcasts VIDEOS ALL 5/26/2008 -- Video: Phoenix Landing - Nerves and Joy This video includes highlights from the entry, descent and landing phase as Mars Phoenix Lander touched down on the Red Planet on May 25, 2008. › Play video 5/25/2008 -- Video: Mars Landing Challenge -- Big Science Ahead Scientists plan intriguing research, once Phoenix lands safely on Mars. › Play video 5/24/2008 -- Video: Drop Tests of Phoenix Parachute and Radar This video shows testing of two systems that are critical...

Obesity contributes to global warming: study Michael Kahn, Reuters Published: Thursday, May 15, 2008 GENEVA (Reuters) - Obesity contributes to global warming, too. Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says. This adds to food shortages and higher energy prices, the school's researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in the journal Lancet on Friday. "We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility," Edwards said in...

California Supreme Court opinion (PDF) A sharply divided California Supreme Court today legalized same-sex marriage, a historic ruling that will allow gay and lesbian couples across the state to wed as soon as next month and inflame the social, political and moral debate over gay unions. In a 4-3 ruling written by Chief Justice Ronald George, the Supreme Court struck down California laws that restrict marriage to heterosexual couples, finding that it is unconstitutional to deprive gays and lesbians of the equal right to walk down the aisle with a marriage license in hand. The California and Massachusetts Supreme Courts...

Iwo Jima Veterans Blast Time's 'Special Environmental Issue' Cover Time editor tells MSNBC 'there needs to be a real effort along the lines of World War II to combat global warming and climate change.' By Jeff Poor Business & Media Institute 4/18/2008 9:40:43 AM For only the second time in 85 years, Time magazine abandoned the traditional red border it uses on its cover. The occasion – to push more global warming alarmism. The cover of the April 21 issue of Time took the famous Iwo Jima photograph by Joe Rosenthal of the Marines raising the American flag and replaced...

Kauai hospital saddled with visiting horse by: Derek Paiva posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 11:54 AM “I’m coming up to see a relative.” That’s what a Kauai man said at Wilcox Memorial Hospital on Kauai—before taking a horse three floors upstairs. Hospital security stopped the reportedly intoxicated man and his steed. He’d already trotted the horse through the hospital’s lobby and into an elevator, all to cheer up his relative. But when he saw the stallion, the ailing patient said, “That’s not my horse.” The incident, which happened earlier this month, went international this weekend as newswires picked up...

Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group NewsMain Home Message From R.A. Pielke Sr. August 30, 2006 Mismatch Between Multi-decadal Global Climate Models Predictions And The Global Radiative Imbalance Filed under: Climate Change Metrics, Climate Models — Roger Pielke Sr. @ 6:59 am There is a clear mismatch between the model predictions reported in the 2005 Science article by Hansen, J., L. Nazarenko, R. Ruedy, Mki. Sato, J. Willis, A. Del Genio, D. Koch, A. Lacis, K. Lo, S. Menon, T. Novakov, Ju. Perlwitz, G. Russell, G.A. Schmidt, and N. Tausnev 2005. “Earth’s energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications” , and...

Arthur C. Clarke, 1917 - 2008 Posted at 4:21 pm in Science I am incredibly saddened to hear that Arthur C. Clarke has died. He had been ill for sometime, and finally succumbed earlier today. It is no exaggeration at all to say we owe the world to Clarke. He is most famous for having written the book and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, of course. But he also was the first person to conceive of a geostationary orbit; one in which a satellite orbits the Earth once every 24 hours, giving it a view that always shows the same...

Arctic Meltdown The Economic and Security Implications of Global Warming Scott G. Borgerson The Arctic Ocean is melting, and it is melting fast. This past summer, the area covered by sea ice shrank by more than one million square miles, reducing the Arctic icecap to only half the size it was 50 years ago. For the first time, the Northwest Passage -- a fabled sea route to Asia that European explorers sought in vain for centuries -- opened for shipping. Even if the international community manages to slow the pace of climate change immediately and dramatically, a certain amount of...