Free Republic

It could be that even George Monbiot is ready to give up on the thoroughly exposed global warming hoax, because he is searching hungrily for a new crisis to exploit — like Big Government's failure to prevent us from having too much space: The issue is surplus housing — the remarkable growth of space that people don't need. Between 2003 and 2008 (the latest available figures), there was a 45 percent increase in the number of under-occupied homes in England. The definition of under-occupied varies, but it usually means that households have at least two bedrooms more than they require....

I suspect that human capability reached its peak or plateau around 1965-75 – at the time of the Apollo moon landings – and has been declining ever since. This may sound bizarre or just plain false, but the argument is simple. That landing of men on the moon and bringing them back alive was the supreme achievement of human capability, the most difficult problem ever solved by humans. 40 years ago we could do it – repeatedly – but since then we have *not* been to the moon, and I suggest the real reason we have not been to the...

With Shoreline communities filling up with visitors for beach season, golf carts laden with towels and umbrellas could be popping up on local roads. After a year of uncertainty for owners about whether they could drive their carts on the road, new legislation passed by the General Assembly authorized towns to allow golf carts, with certain restrictions. This week, the Old Saybrook Police Department started a program for owners to register their vehicles, following recent approval by the Police Commission. State Rep. Marilyn Giuliano, R-Old Saybrook, said a reinterpretation of existing state regulations about a year ago led to golf...

The Bush administration is facing a wave of new allegations that the abuse of foreign detainees in U.S. military custody was more widespread, varied and grave in the past three years than the Defense Department has long maintained. New documents released yesterday detail a series of probes by Army criminal investigators into multiple cases of threatened executions of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers, as well as of thefts of currency and other private property, physical assaults, and deadly shootings of detainees at detention camps in Iraq (news - web sites). In many of the newly disclosed cases, Army commanders chose...