Free Republic

000 NWUS54 KMOB 122029 LSRMOB PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MOBILE AL 229 PM CST FRI FEB 12 2010 ..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON... ..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE.... ..REMARKS.. 0140 PM HEAVY SNOW BREWTON 31.10N 87.07W 02/12/2010 M2.5 INCH ESCAMBIA AL BROADCAST MEDIA WEBJ RADIO REPORTS A NEW SNOWFALL TOTAL OF 2.5 INCHES. 0140 PM HEAVY SNOW BELLEVILLE 31.43N 87.11W 02/12/2010 M6.0 INCH CONECUH AL PUBLIC MEASURED ON A FLAT SURFACE. ALSO COOKS CROSSROAD NEARBY MEASURED 7 INCHES ON A FLAT SURFACE. THE EXACT LOCATION OF COOKS CROSSROAD IS UNKNOWN BUT WAS REPORTED BY INDIVIDUAL. 0226 PM...

ROME (Reuters) – Tourists took rare pictures of snow falling on the Colosseum and the Trevi fountain on Friday, and the Pope reportedly appeared at a Vatican window to watch Rome's heaviest snowfall in nearly a quarter century. In scenes usually only glimpsed in souvenir "snow domes" Italy's capital was blanketed in white, snarling road and air traffic but delighting many Romans who rode scooters with their feet on the ground and snapped pictures with mobile phones. Rome was last dusted in snow in 2005, but one meteorologist said the steady snowfall through Friday morning was the heaviest seen in...

Ireland has said yes to a plan to raise the political voice of Europe in world affairs, voting overwhelmingly to approve a treaty aimed at streamlining the operations of the European Union after rejecting the same pact only last year. Irish government and E.U. officials hailed the strong turnout in favor of the Lisbon Treaty, which would give the E.U. its first full-time president and foreign policy chief. Approval of the referendum follows a bitterly fought campaign that had raised concerns among foreign investors about Ireland’s commitment to the 27-nation bloc but ultimately hinged on Ireland ’s profound economic troubles.

HARDIN, Mont. (CBS/AP) This is the strange story of how American Police Force, a little known company which claims to specialize in training military and security forces overseas, has seemingly taken control of a $27 million, never-used jail, and a rural Montana town's nonexistent police force. After arriving in this tiny city with three Mercedes SUVs marked with the logo of a police department that has never existed, representatives of the obscure California security company said preparations were under way to take over Hardin's jail, which has no prisoners.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict called on Tuesday for a "world political authority" to manage the global economy and for more government regulation of national economies to pull the world out of the current crisis and avoid a repeat. The pope made his call for a re-think of the way the world economy is run in a new encyclical which touched on a number of social issues but whose main connecting thread was how the current crisis has affected both rich and poor nations. Parts of the encyclical, titled "Charity in Truth," seemed bound to upset free marketeers because...

Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”. “In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.” Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB,...

"The jaws of senior mandarins dropped when they read Sheinwald's account of McCain's thoughts on Palin which the ambassador reportedly picked up from a military friend of McCain's. The telegram was restricted to an even smaller group of people than usual for fear of another embarrassing leak. 'We took one look at this and hid it away,' one Whitehall source said."

In early September, I began noticing a string of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming. Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental movement. Still, the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global temperatures -- they're going down, not up.

Liberals Who Revere Senator Angered By His Concessions To Republicans Months of tumultuous negotiations with the White House and GOP allies have brought the Senate's liberal lion, Edward M. Kennedy, to the brink of passing a bill to legalize up to 12 million unlawful immigrants. But his concessions to get there have alienated liberals who in the past have counted him as their strongest champion. A showdown test vote is scheduled Tuesday, and the Senate could pass — or reject — the bill by week's end.

(Update: On Tuesday, May 16, the Senate passed Sen. Jeff Bingaman's (D-NM) amendment to S. 2611 that significantly reduced the number of legal immigrants who could enter under the bill's "guest worker" program. As a result of this change, our estimate of the number of legal immigrants who would enter the country or would gain legal status under S. 2611 falls from 103 million to around 66 million over the next 20 years.) If enacted, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611) would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years, allowing an estimated 103 million persons...