Free Republic

SNIPPET: "Lula and Chavez have established a "strategic relationship," and recently agreed upon a joint Brazilian-Venezuelan oil venture worth billions of dollars. Lula and Chavez have joined with Daniel Ortega, the returned Nicaraguan Marxist dictator, to form an anti-U.S. Latin American military alliance - all with Russian assistance - funded by the region's abundant oil reserves. Brazil is engaged in its own arms build-up and Lula is determined that Brazil will become at least a first-rate regional power. Unfortunately, Lula is establishing Brazil as an anti-American military power by aligning with nations hostile or potentially hostile to the U.S. Lula...

At this writing, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and other lawmakers are haggling over the final details of AB 32, a sweeping measure meant to establish California as the world leader in reducing the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Schwarzenegger wants not just hard caps on emissions but a market-based system in which incentives are created for businesses to reduce emissions through trading of pollution credits. Núñez is lukewarm on such a “cap and trade” system. Here's our recommendation to the governor: Quit negotiating and simply veto whatever measure comes your way. If AB 32 is enacted...

In case the rest of you are living in a cave, there are fires raging out of control in the Los Angeles/San Diego Area. They are so serious that many of us here in Southern Nevada are checking bed space and hotel rooms in case of major evacuations from the Los Angeles basin. As of the time of this writing, over 50,000 homes are threatened, and the situation is changing by the minute. At least 17 people are dead and it has consumed more than 800,000 acres stretching from the Mexican border to the suburbs northeast of Los Angeles. And...