Free Republic

Have the CDC Geniuses Been Right About Anything? Happy Wednesday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Crudités and wine on the mezzanine at 3:42 PM sharp. Pants optional. Full disclosure: I’ve never really trusted doctors. Yeah, I wanted to be one back in the day but then I decided to hit the road and tell jokes for a living. Save me your sob stories about your parents’ disappointment in your career choices. Anyway, that’s just one of the many reasons I haven’t gotten swept up in the Cult of Fauci. Even if I were in awe of physicians, Fauci is really...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government has doubled to 7.4 billion barrels its estimate of how much oil might be found and tapped in the booming area of the Dakotas and Montana "These world-class formations contain even more energy resource potential than previously understood, which is important information as we continue to reduce our nation's dependence on foreign sources of oil," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Tuesday, April 30, in a conference call. The region already is helping to drive the nation's dramatic shift into a role as the world's leading oil producer. The surge comes primarily because of the Three...

A new report that predictably found huge potential natural gas supplies in the U.S. also contained news its own writers found surprising - that oil is more abundant than they thought. "Contrary to conventional wisdom the North American oil resource base also could provide substantial supply for decades ahead," the report said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sexual reproduction may be nearly as old as animal life itself, according to researchers who discovered a new species of organism that lived 540 million years ago. The tube-like creatures called Funisia dorothea anchored themselves in abundant flocks onto the shallow, sandy seabed of what is now the Australian outback. Nothing appears to have evolved yet to eat them, so they lived peaceful lives, reproducing sexually at times and by asexual methods such as budding at other times, Mary Droser of the University of California Riverside and colleagues reported in the journal Science. They behaved very much...

SACRAMENTO - Riverside and San Bernardino counties are likely to hold four major elections within 12 months if a bill that moves up next year's presidential primary from June to February is signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger. The Assembly on Tuesday passed the bill on a party-line vote, 46 to 29, and sent it to the governor for his signature. Schwarzenegger has not taken a formal position on the bill, spokesman Aaron McLear said. But the governor has recently promoted the idea of holding an earlier primary. Proponents, including the Legislature's majority Democrats, said the measure would give the state's nearly...

The Universe could host billions of EarthsBritish researchers are more confident than ever that there are "Earths" out there waiting to be discovered.The scientists say perhaps a half of all the known planetary systems today could be harbouring habitable worlds. It must be said most of these systems are strange places where supergiant planets orbit close in to their stars. But Barrie Jones and colleagues say their modelling work suggests that even with this oddness, there should be room for small rocky planets. The Open University team presented its ideas here at the UK National Astronomy Meeting on Tuesday. They...

Does anyone here listen to Savege nation? I do, most of the time. Michael Is entertaining, and he DOES tell it like it is. BUT, it seems like nothing Bush does is EVER good enough for him. I never hear Michael complimenting W on much of anything. Is this just my imagination?

<p>The explosions that got this recall campaign off and running lit up the political sky but left a lot of damage, much of it self-inflicted. Arnold Schwarzenegger's stunning announcement flattened Gov. Gray Davis and shattered Democratic unity around the party's recall strategy, sending Davis' lieutenant governor, Cruz Bustamante, scurrying into the race, breaking his own pledge not to run.</p>