Free Republic

New Democrats' support level drops to single digits as Grits reach their highest mark since May, poll says By MICHAEL DEN TANDT AND GLORIA GALLOWAY Monday, December 12, 2005 Posted at 12:45 AM EST From Monday's Globe and Mail Ottawa and Beamsville, Ont. — Prime Minister Paul Martin made a targeted campaign swing through Ontario's southern heartland yesterday as a new poll showed Liberal support in the province surging to its highest point in weeks, mainly at the expense of the New Democrats. A poll taken for The Globe and Mail and CTV on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday showed nationwide...

Lansing, Mich. — State legislators on Thursday took another step toward barring Canadian trash from Michigan landfills, but the ban will not take effect unless Congress also takes action. The state Senate voted 34-1 to approve a bill that would prohibit Canadian and other foreign waste from being dumped in Michigan, if Congress authorizes it. The legislation now heads back to the state House. While the legislation received overwhelming approval, some Democrats criticized it. "Since Congress is very unlikely to pass this law, the bill itself is very much symbolic," said Sen. Liz Brater, D-Ann Arbor. "It's window dressing. ......

Vancouver — The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ruled yesterday that a Roman Catholic men's group, the Knights of Columbus, was entitled to turn away a lesbian couple who wanted to hold a wedding reception in their facility. But in a decision that upset both sides in the dispute, the three-member tribunal also decided that the Catholic group had affronted the same-sex couple's dignity, feelings and self-respect, and that it should pay $2,000 to the two women to compensate for their injuries. The tribunal upheld the religious freedom of the Knights of Columbus while reinforcing protections against discrimination on the basis...

The Hidden Dangers of McKennedy: Why the Kennedy-McCain Amnesty Bill Will Destroy America by Michael Hethmon The Capitol Hill Club, literally steps from the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., is a popular venue for members of Congress to address special interests concerning their legislative views. On June 20, 2005, Senator John McCain spoke at the Club to a meeting of the American League of Lobbyists, promoting the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, S. 1033, better known as the Kennedy-McCain bill after its two principal sponsors. During question time, FAIR staff attorney Mike Hethmon challenged the Senator to name any...

I have a question for the many, knowledgeable freepers out there regarding employer health insurance. Open enrollment is upon us and this year, and the company I work for has sprung a new twist that shockeked myself and my coworkers.As in past years, we are expected to shoulder more of the burden of our health insurance premiums and this year is no different with an $80 to $120 increase in our protion of the monthly premiums. Nobody likes it, but it's a fact, but that's not what concerns me.We are offered employee+spouse and family plans, each with its own, higher,...

France Public Announcement November 07, 2005 This Public Announcement is issued to alert Americans to ongoing security concerns in France. Significant unrest that began in the northern suburbs of Paris October 27 has now spread to several locations within the city limits of Paris, and to many other cities throughout France. Angry youth have set fire to many buildings and thousands of vehicles. While damage to property has been extensive, there seems to be no pattern of arsonists directing their anger at ordinary citizens or tourists. This Public Announcement will expire on December 7, 2005. Travelers should be alert to...

Paris — French President Jacques Chirac, intervening after six nights of rioting in suburban Paris, called Wednesday for calm and said authorities will use a firm hand to curtail what may become a “dangerous situation.” The violence, sparked initially by the deaths of two teenagers, has exposed the despair, anger and deep-rooted criminality in the poor suburbs, where police hesitate to venture and which have proved fertile terrain for Islamic extremists. “The law must be applied firmly and in a spirit of dialogue and respect,” Mr. Chirac said at a cabinet meeting. “The absence of dialogue and an escalation of...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Pakistan sent geologists to investigate reports of new volcanic activity that could force 150,000 people to flee the earthquake devastated Himalayan foothills. Scientists hoped Alai valley villagers are wrong and speculated aftershocks and landslides from the Oct. 8 earthquake could be responsible for the reports of a volcano, The Independent reported. While no volcanic activity was found in an aerial survey Monday, an army official said 150,000 people in the area would have to leave if that is the case. Geologists began combing the area Tuesday. This month's powerful 7.6 earthquake earlier killed an...

A new NASA-funded study finds that predicted increases in precipitation due to warmer air temperatures from greenhouse gas emissions may actually increase sea ice volume in the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean. This adds new evidence of potential asymmetry between the two poles, and may be an indication that climate change processes may have different impact on different areas of the globe. The researchers used satellite observations for the first time, specifically from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager, to assess snow depth on sea ice, and included the satellite observations in their model. As a result, they improved prediction of precipitation rates. By...

The Liberal government survived a crucial budget vote Thursday night by a sliver, effectively ending the possibility of a snap election and giving the governing minority a bit of breathing room to finish this session of Parliament before the summer break. By the closest of margins, the Grits, along with the support of the NDP and independent MPs Chuck Cadman and Carolyn Parrish, pushed the budget with NDP amendments through, thus surviving a non-confidence motion on Bill C-48 which contained $4.6-billion in concessions for the Democrats. The final result was 152 to 152, with the Speaker breaking the tie to...

By RICHARD GILBERT Thursday, May 19, 2005 Updated at 12:25 AM EDT Special to Globe and Mail Update A month ago, Ottawa reached an extraordinary agreement with the auto industry. The deal commits the industry to improving the fuel economy of cars, sport utility vehicles, vans and pickup trucks in operation in Canada by as much as 50 per cent by 2010. If implemented, the agreement could produce the most radical change in vehicles Canadians have seen - and perhaps some social changes, too. Here's why. According to the agreement (known as the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of...

Montreal — Alfonso Gagliano is attempting to join former prime minister Jean Chretien's move to have Justice John Gomery removed from the sponsorship inquiry. Pierre Fournier, lawyer for the former public works minister, said Thursday his client filed papers in Federal Court asking to join Chretien's motion. The lawyer said Judge Gomery has created "concerns about partiality" but wouldn't cite specific comments. When you read the application by Mr. Chretien ... I think you'll find that most of the reproaches he makes against the commissioner are equally applicable to Mr. Gagliano," Mr. Fournier told reporters outside the inquiry hearing room....

Berkeley - The bizarre plates and spikes that lined the backbones of the long-extinct stegosaurs were probably extreme examples of the often elaborate and colorful displays developed by animals to recognize fellow members of their species, according to an international team of paleontologists. The team's analysis of stegosaur plates lends support to a growing consensus among paleontologists that the weird adornments of many dinosaurs - the horns of triceratops, the helmet-like domes of the pachycephalosaurs, and the crests of the duck-billed hadrosaurs - likely served no function other than to differentiate species, akin to birds' colorful feather ornamentation. "Our studies...

The Conservatives succeeded in a bid to adjourn the House of Commons for the day, in another move to paralyze the proceedings of government and force an immediate confidence vote in the government. The motion that the House be adjourned until Friday at 10 a.m. passed in the House of Commons before noon on Thursday, 152 to 144. It was supported by the Tories and the Bloc Québécois, part of a strategy to block or stall the activities of the government. After the vote, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said the two parties will continue to take action to force Parliament...

Ottawa — A coalition of pharmacists, doctors and patients is warning that Canada could face a disastrous shortage of drugs if the United States allows unlimited imports of drugs from Canada. The coalition says legislation to be introduced in the U.S. Congress next month would overwhelm Canada's prescription-drug supply and price-control system. Medicines are cheaper in Canada because prices are regulated by the Patent Medicines Prices Review Board. This has led to a thriving cross-border trade mainly conducted on the Internet. The coalition says a survey it commissioned found that 55 per cent of Canadians are concerned about U.S. plans...

Washington — A civilian patrol group that has been monitoring the Mexican border for illegal immigrants wants to expand its mission to the Canadian border, organizers said Tuesday. Minuteman Project leaders said their volunteers alerted U.S. authorities to more than 330 cases this month of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States across a 37-kilometre stretch of Arizona's southern border. Now they plan to extend their patrol along the rest of the border with Mexico and are helping organize similar efforts in four states that neighbour Canada. “In the absence of the federal government doing its mandated duty to secure...

On a gray day in mid-January, Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, suggested that innate differences in the build of the male and female brain might be one factor underlying the relative scarcity of women in science. His remarks reignited a debate that has been smoldering for a century, ever since some scientists sizing up the brains of both sexes began using their main finding--that female brains tend to be smaller--to bolster the view that women are intellectually inferior to men. To date, no one has uncovered any evidence that anatomical disparities might render women incapable of achieving academic...

Prime Minister Paul Martin made a strong case last night for delaying a federal election, even if he doesn't succeed in fending one off. Canadians are angry, and rightly so, over the dramatic allegations about the sponsorship scandal that are emerging from the Gomery inquiry. But we won't know the full picture until Mr. JusticeJohn Gomery submits his final report later this year. At that time, Mr. Martin has promised to go to the people and face their judgment in a general election — an extraordinary pledge for a Canadian prime minister. “Let the facts come out,” he said. “And...

Russian Astrologist Sues NASA NASA has been taken to court in Russia over its plans to crack open a comet. Marina Bai, a Russian astrologist, filed a lawsuit last month with the Presnensky district court in Moscow, demanding that the U.S. space agency call off its $311 million Deep Impact mission. As reported in MosNews.com, Bai is also asking for 8.7 billion rubles ($311 million) in compensation for moral damages. “The actions of NASA infringe upon my system of spiritual and life values, in particular on the values of every element of creation, upon the unacceptability of barbarically interfering with...

Galaxy Observations Show No Change In Fundamental Physical Constant The results are being reported today (Monday, April 18) at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) by astronomer Jeffrey Newman, a Hubble Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory representing DEEP2, a collaboration led by the University of California, Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz. Newman is presenting the data and an update on the DEEP2 project at a 1 p.m. EDT press conference at the Marriott Waterside Hotel in Tampa, Fla. The fine structure constant, one of a handful of pure numbers that occupy a central role in physics,...