Free Republic

NEW YORK (AFP) – When British climbing legend George Mallory took his iconic 1921 photo of Mount Everest's north face, the mighty, river-shaped glacier snaking under his feet seemed eternal. Decades of pollution and global warming later, modern mountaineer David Breashears has reshot the picture at the same spot -- and proved an alarming reality. Instead of the powerful, white, S-shaped sweep of ice witnessed by Mallory before he died on his conquest of Everest, the Main Rongbuk Glacier today is shrunken and withered. The frozen waves of ice pinnacles -- many .. the size of office buildings -- are...

Open mouth, insert backhoe BY DAVE BARRY Apr. 24, 2005 (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Dec. 20, 1998.) I was feeling pretty good when I went to see Stanley. Stanley is my dentist. I chose him because he meets the American Dental Association's single most important criterion for selecting a dental-care professional: He looks exactly like Willie Nelson. If Stanley put on a headband and got on stage at a country-music concert, the audience members would absolutely believe that he WAS Willie Nelson, except that instead of telling them not to let their babies grow up...