Free Republic

TRINIDAD — The coal mines that once fueled the region’s economy are returning to life. The mine will produce metallurgical coal that will primarily be exported to Asian countries, including Japan, Korea and China.

Ticaboo • Syd Auster’s father flew fighter jets to protect American soil, including this dusty company town off a two-lane road to Lake Powell. But soon the same mineral-rich landscape that Auster’s dad safeguarded decades ago will be largely owned by the country he once guarded against. By year’s end, the Russian mining company Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ) will have a controlling stake in the Canadian company Uranium One. When that happens, the town itself, the Shootaring Canyon uranium mill a few miles up the highway, more than 10,000 acres of uranium claims in Utah and holdings in South Dakota, Wyoming and...

Wyoming’s Washington delegation is concerned about the proposed transfer of three Powder River Basin uranium facilities into the hands of a Russian company. The Powder River Basin uranium facilities have been pulled into the Iran nuclear debate on Capitol Hill with a deal that would transfer the controlling interest of Canadian-owned Uranium One to the Russian company JSC Atomredmetzoloto. The company now owns 23.1 percent of Uranium One’s common stock and is seeking a controlling 51 percent share. Commonly known as ARMZ, the company is controlled by Russia’s state agency that oversees its nuclear industry. The agency has supplied uranium...

Four leading House Republicans, citing national security concerns, are urging Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to block the sale of a Wyoming-based uranium mine to an arm of the Russian government's main nuclear agency. The lawmakers are raising alarm over the proposed sale of a Powder River Basin, Wyoming-based uranium processing facility operated by Uranium One USA, a Canadian-based company, to Atomredmetzoloto, a subsidiary of the Russian government agency Rosatom, according to a letter obtained Tuesday by The Washington Times. The sale was first announced on Aug. 31, and the lawmakers claim that it could give Moscow control of up...

Canada has recorded a case of Tamiflu-resistant swine flu virus, in a Quebec man who had been given the drug to prevent infection. Meanwhile, Japan revealed Tuesday it had found a second such case of Tamiflu resistance, in a person who has no ties to the country’s earlier reported case.

Fans of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy have long argued that he has fought the good fight ... But today, he is defending the indefensible: special interest legislation, tucked into a Coast Guard authorization bill, that would give Gov. Mitt Romney the power to veto the proposed Cape Wind energy project, even though it would be in federal waters. The project... more than five miles offshore of Cape Cod. The equivalent of burning 113 million barrels of oil per year. Proponents of Cape Wind say it is an important source of alternative, renewable energy, and it has the backing of such...

Opponents of a plan to build the first offshore U.S. wind farm in Nantucket Sound off Massachusetts were a step closer on Friday to blocking the $900 million project. Negotiators in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate agreed late on Thursday to give Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney the power to block a plan by Cape Wind Associates LLC to put 130 giant wind turbines near the resort islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Backers say the project could generate enough electricity for most of Cape Cod and nearby islands. Opponents include wealthy residents with yachts and shorefront property near...

The March 2005 Budget moved Tax Freedom Day later by 3 days, from 27 May (revised figure) in 2004, to 31 May in 2005. This is actually an increase of three days because 2004 was a leap year. So we get three days more of the year that we have to work for the government, rather than for ourselves.

Gartner, the technology research group, has added its voice to warnings about a feature in Google's new Desktop beta that allows users to transfer data between two computers. The Desktop 3 update was released a fortnight ago by Google, and a new feature called Search Across Computers enables the transfer of information such as emails, instant messages and other files so they can be searched from another computer. But to enable the transfer, the user must first authorise Google to store material from the PC on its own servers for up to 30 days. "The newest release of Google's desktop...

BUBBA AN AGENT FOR DUBAI? IS Bill Clinton serving as a lobbyist and public-rela tions guru to the government of Dubai? It sure looks like it. He's been paid a pretty penny by Dubai's rulers... The whole affair raises disclosure questions for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, too. While publicly opposing the port deal, she privately benefits from her husband's Dubai-related income. Published reports indicate that that Clinton has been directly advising top Dubai officials over the past two weeks on how to overcome negative public opinion and congressional resistance to the takeover of six U.S. ports by DP World ......

Comments in Middle East border on bizarre... Bill Clinton (in Qatar) called the cartoon depictions of Muhammad published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten last fall "totally outrageous cartoons against Islam," ... In fact, the cartoons are pretty tame stuff -- the Islamic prophet is not shown as dirty, drooling, shaped like an animal or engaged in any unsavory acts, all standard for cartoon depictions of Jews in the modern Arab press. Mr. Clinton is entitled to his opinion, of course, though one wonders why he would want to gin up more hostility toward the West with an inflammatory characterization of...

Where is the outrage that was manufactured to run Rush Limbaugh off the air? Is it absent because Gumbel is allegedly black? So just picture for a moment, if you will, that you're watching SportsCenter tonight and Dan Patrick says, "The lack of whites in the NBA makes it look like a welfare office." Think that would get buried like Gumbel's comments? For what it's worth, maybe Gumbel should do some research on the emerging face of the GOP.

Some cast aside traditional loyalties... Adam Hunter, an ambitious law student with bright eyes, an easy smile, and plenty of charisma, seems practically destined for politics... a first-year law student at Howard University, a historically black campus with a long record of liberal activism. He has political ambitions of his own -- but not with the Democrats. Instead, Hunter, who as an undergraduate headed Howard's chapter of College Republicans, sees himself as part of a younger generation of African-Americans. He is ready to cast aside traditional loyalties to the Democratic Party and forge his own political identity. ''There's a lot...

Black Republicans are making a run for a number of big elections this year. In Maryland, Michael Steele wants retiring Democrat Paul Sarbanes' Senate seat. Keith Butler is also running for Senate, from Michigan. Lynn Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steelers star, wants to be governor of the Keystone State. Randy Daniels would like to be governor of New York. And gunning for governor in a key presidential electoral state there is the great black hope for the Republican Party, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. The "great black hope" is probably the last phrase Blackwell would use to describe himself...