Free Republic

THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact. Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved. He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources...

<p>China continued selling U.S. Treasurys in January, although it remained the largest foreign holder following revisions that showed it never actually lost the top spot to Japan, the Treasury Department said.</p> <p>Overall, foreigners were modest net buyers of long-term U.S. financial assets in January, according to the monthly Treasury International Capital report, known as TIC.</p>

Chinese state-owned oil company Cnooc Ltd. said it will pay $3.1 billion for a 50% stake in a unit of Argentina's Bridas Energy Holdings Ltd. in a move to boost its production and reserves. The deal highlights China's growing thirst for energy resources globally. The Chinese government is encouraging state-owned energy companies to buy assets abroad to power the country's booming economy. The deal is structured as an oil and gas production joint venture. The Beijing-based oil company's unit, Cnooc International Ltd., and Bridas Energy Holdings will each hold a 50% stake in Bridas Corp., which has exploration and production...

Is it too late to save your retirement? For many, the answer is surely yes. News out this week shows that 29% of those who have already retired have saved nothing at all to support themselves, while only a third have saved at least $50,000. To put this in context: A retirement account of $50,000 will provide a 65-year-old man with an annuity of just $4,000 a year. Yet according to the latest annual retirement survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, two-thirds of those in retirement don't even have that much set aside....

Dale Klein, Commissioner and former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) challenged the premise on which President Obama based his move to withdraw the application to permit the geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. At a conference in Bethesda, Maryland yesterday Commissioner Klein emphasized that it was politics, not science, which led to this decision. Klein said, Those who would distort the science of Yucca Mountain for political purposes should be reminded that it was a year ago today that the president issued his memorandum on scientific integrity, in which he stated that ‘The public must be able to trust...

'I absolutely know that in anybody's eyes I was a traitor," says Mosab Hassan Yousef. "To my family, to my nation, to my God. I crossed all the red lines in my society. I didn't leave one that I didn't cross." Now 32, Mosab is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founder and leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. As the son of a Muslim cleric, he says he had reached the conclusion that terrorism can't be defeated without a new understanding of Islam. Here he echoes other defectors from Islam such as the former Dutch parliamentarian and...

Immediately following the news of his death, election analysts rated the race as competitive for the GOP. While Murtha has held the seat since 1974 with few re-election scares, the Johnstown-area district outside of Pittsburgh has right-leaning roots, and a special election contest will be targeted by House Republicans. With Murtha’s death, Democrats now control the House by a 256-178 margin. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) won the district by a narrow 1,000 vote margin against President Barack Obama. It was the only district in the nation, however, that voted Democratic in the 2004 presidential...

"This debate is not over," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.). "The American people are still going to have another month to weigh in." Republicans are forcing the Senate to vote Wednesday on whether the Democrat-backed bill is unconstitutional. Sen. John Ensign (R., Nev.) raised a point of order Tuesday against the bill, arguing that the Constitution doesn't give Congress latitude to force Americans to buy health coverage, as both the House and Senate bills do. "What's next?" Mr. Ensign said. "Will we consider legislation in the future requiring every American to buy a car? Will we consider...

Senate leaders set final health-care vote for 8 a.m. ET on Dec. 24

<p>Gross domestic product rose at a 2.2% annual rate July through September, after falling by 0.7% in the second quarter, the Commerce Department reported in its third GDP estimate. Last month, the department revised its third-quarter GDP growth estimate to 2.8% from an originally reported 3.5%.</p>

The scramble is on to find his replacement as the U.S. representative announces he will to run for governor full time U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie dropped an early Christmas bombshell on Hawaii: He is leaving Congress to fire up his campaign for governor full time. In a message to supporters on the Internet yesterday, Abercrombie said he was returning to Hawaii to campaign and will resign from Congress. Details will come during a news conference set for 11 a.m. tomorrow, he said. The longtime Hawaii political leader said the announcement makes him "all in for Hawaii." "We will present ambitious,...

Protesters are arrested outside US Senator Chuck Schumer's office in New York. Angry constituents of Schumer staged the sit-in at his Manhattan office, dissatisfied that the influential senator hasn’t done enough to push for universal, national health care.

Australia's parliament is poised to reject the government's plan to cut carbon emissions on Wednesday, handing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd a constitutional trigger to call snap elections that could come as soon as March. Opponents of the cap-and-trade scheme are set to vote it down in the Senate after a climate-change skeptic seized the opposition leadership on Tuesday, reducing the chance that it might pass with the support of opposition rebels. "There is no bigger reform at this time in our lives and reforms of this type are never easily won," Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told Australian radio ahead...

AP story

AP story

AP story. Link only.

2nd Circuit to Civil Rights Lawyer Lynne Stewart: Go Directly to Jail A federal appeals court says bail for civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart should be revoked and she should begin serving her sentence “forthwith” for passing messages from an imprisoned terrorist to his followers. The New York City-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Stewart’s conviction in an opinion (PDF) released today, rejecting her argument that the First Amendment protected her release of statements by an imprisoned sheik. Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to terrorists by passing messages from Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman to...

South Korea is emerging as an unexpected contender in the global race to build nuclear-power plants, turning up as a finalist for one of the industry's most-coveted projects. The Korean bid has surprised more-established competitors—including industry leader Areva SA of France—as well as officials in the United Arab Emirates, who are examining bids for a contract that could be worth as much as $40 billion to build and run the Arab world's first nuclear-power plants. U.A.E. officials could award the contract as early as the next few weeks. Early in the bidding process, many observers expected a two-horse race between...

Brazilian authorities defended the reliability of the nation's electric grid after a massive power failure Tuesday darkened about half the country and revived concerns about Brazil's ability to provide energy infrastructure to match its surging economy. Blackouts hit about 800 Brazilian cities, including Rio de Janeiro and the economic hub of São Paulo, around 10 p.m. Tuesday night after three high-power transmission lines collapsed, triggering a domino effect that prompted a 14,000-megawatt hydroelectric plant to go offline, officials said. Paraguay, which shares the dam with Brazil, also suffered a major blackout. Energy Minister Edison Lobão said the outage was provoked...

Economists in the latest Wall Street Journal survey, on average, expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates around September 2010, a politically sensitive time considering midterm elections will be right around the corner and unemployment is forecast to still be over 9.5%. The 52 surveyed economists—not all of whom answer every question—on average expect the unemployment rate to rise to 10.3% by the end of this year from its current 10.2%, and they expect it to stay above 9.5% through 2010. The respondents expect job growth to return over the next 12 months, but the forecast calls for an...