Free Republic

Wind turbines. Solar panels. Electric cars, nuclear reactors, geothermal energy. The $369 billion climate package unveiled by Democrats last week is chock-full of subsidies for technologies meant to rein in planet-warming pollution. But there’s one popular, emissions-free machine conspicuously absent from what could be the nation’s most significant piece of climate legislation yet: the bicycle. Provisions designed to supercharge the sale and use of traditional bikes and the battery-powered variety were dropped from the climate deal reached by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), the Senate’s most conservative Democrat. The absence is grinding the...

...The toilets will sound an alarm, spray water and open doors if they detect violent movement... ...The toilets will have weight-sensitive floors to make sure only one person is using each cubicle at a time... ...The water jets will also be used to prevent smoking and drug-taking... ...A total of £170,000 is being spent on the futuristic toilets, with £135,000 paid by the town council and £35,000 paid by Bridgend Council...

The casket for President George H.W. Bush, who died on Nov. 30, lies in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda until Wednesday morning, where the public may pay their respects to the 41st president of the United States.

Not since Sister Act has a film fronted by black women had quite the commercial impact of Hidden Figures, which has crashed through the $100 million barrier at the US box office and even scored a place on the Best Picture line-up. Underrate the star power of Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe at your peril; by the end of their film, you’ll certainly be doffing your hat to the women they’re playing, too. Hidden in the sense of historically obscured – their contributions to the space race neglected and marginalised – this trio of Nasa employees had...

Under a Massachusetts civil rights agency’s interpretation of new anti-discrimination law, churches can be forced to let biological males who identify as transgender women use the women’s bathroom. Recently passed legislation amending the state’s anti-discrimination law to include protections for “gender identity” will take effect Oct. 1. The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, which enforces the state’s anti-discrimination laws, recently published a “Gender identity guidance” that lays out what will be legally required of employers and “agents of places of public accommodation.” Faithful attend a Thanksgiving Mass for newly elected Pope Francis at Saint Ignatius church in Newton, Massachusetts March 19,...

The president’s approval rating now stands at 42 percent – an all time low in CNN polling and 8 points lower than where Obama was only three weeks ago. Moreover, 56 percent of all Americans think the president has fallen short of their expectations… In even worse news for congressional Democrats, likely voters say they are considerably more likely to vote for a candidate the president opposes than one he supports. On the other hand, 50 percent of voters said they would be more likely to vote for a Tea Party-backed candidate while a third of Americans said Tea Party...

KERNERSVILLE, N.C.- A North Carolina collector is auctioning "The Catcher in the Rye" author J.D. Salinger's toilet on eBay with an asking price of $1 million. Rick Kohl of Kernersville-based webuytreasure.com said he might be open to accepting a smaller sum for the commode, which was taken from a New Hampshire home the notoriously reclusive author moved out of in the mid-1980s, the Charlotte News & Observer reported Thursday. "I bet it's worth $100,000," Kohl said. "Come on, it's J.D. Salinger's throne! We're talking 'Catcher in the Rye' here!" The auction runs for about 2 1/2 weeks.

Somewhere, some time, the United Kingdom lost its pride in itself. Let's start at the toilets at Gatwick airport... It's the small things that take you by surprise on returning to Britain after a long break, as I did over Christmas. Not the weather or the headlines or Labour's plunging fortunes, but things like the speed of cars, the cost of a train ticket, the convenience of cash machines (do we know how much they encourage profligacy?), and the number of newspapers on offer. For me it was the smallest thing of all that gave me the greatest shock. It...

Has there been any real analysis of the Dennis Loo's research on projectcensored.org entitled "No Paper Trail Left Behind"? I've looked and can't find too much to debunk many of the points and have been getting owned in several recent discussions about the Bush election victories. Some of it is the normal moonbat diebold, felon voter purge, 'the exit polls were really right' nonsense, but there are a couple of interesting points. I could ignore it, but I'd rather logically debate it. I enjoy the back and forth discussion, but I could really use some ammo. The only thing I...

The loo. The can. The throne. No one used to discuss how much they spent on their toilet. It wasn’t so much a part of the design, as a functional element of necessity that was a taboo topic. You can flush that old fashioned concept. Today, homeowners are spending thousands of dollars on fancy thrones fit for a king.

Archaeologists excited over old toilets Posted Thu, 20 Jan 2005 Excited archaeologists are sifting through the contents of 150-year-old New Zealand toilets to get a better understanding of the everyday lives of early settlers. Although there is plenty of oral and written history, there are gaps which can only be answered by lifting the lid on the sanitary habits of pioneering families, they say. About 30 of New Zealand's leading archaeologists arrived in Wellington on Thursday to start a five-week project to collect and document information from historic sites along an inner-city bypass route. The old toilets, locally referred to...

Live in a Former Toilet -- Only $200,000 May 30, 2002 12:06 pm EST LONDON, May 30 (Reuters) - A former Edwardian public toilet in south London, measuring just four meters square, is to be converted into a two-story "duplex apartment" and will be worth 135,000 pounds ($200,000), say estate agents Acorns in Lewisham. "I don't think the fact that it was a loo will put people off," said an Acorns spokesman of the convenience, at 17 Devonshire Road, on the busy South Circular road. "It is very convenient as it is opposite Forest Hill station," added the spokesman....