Free Republic

The flooding in eastern Iowa has reached the point of catastrophe. Towns are overwhelmed, businesses destroyed, and crops are gone. A fifth of the corn and soybeans are gone. Fox News is calling it "Iowa's Katrina." Here is a gallery of aerial phtographs at the web site of the newspaper I used to deliver every afternoon, the Iowa City Press-Citizen. The thing is, though, the people of eastern Iowa seem to be stepping up in the Iowa stubborn way. I have seen any number of man-on-the-street interviews, and nobody is complaining. They all seem to be working to solve their...

Why China's next earthquake might be political The “c” in China has always stood for catastrophe. Whether it has been those of nature, man-made political disasters, or a combination of both, no other civilized society has suffered more down through the centuries than the ancient Chinese polity. That was true in the old, dynastic, traditional China, captured in the melodrama of Pearl S. Buck’s novels which despite their lack of sophistication were a representation of what “the real China” was like. In our own time, the chaos, destruction and loss of life during the two-decade long Japanese invasion and Occupation...

At this point it’s reasonable to wonder how Jimmy Carter got elected governor of Georgia, let alone president of the United States. To witness him laying a wreath at the tomb of Yasser Arafat, then schmoozing with Hamas in Damascus, is enough to make the sane among us recoil in disgust. On the very day that the peanut-farmer-who-became-president claimed to have scored a commitment of peace from Hamas, the terrorist thugs launched a rocket salvo at Israel, thus leading the former president to claim that at least he gallantly tried to bring about peace and stability to the Middle East....

So the sky did not fall in. While the Chicken Littles of the world economy, led by Gordon Brown, George Soros and Warren Buffett, may still repeat mechanically the IMF’s surprising judgment that the world - especially America - faces its worst financial crisis since the 1930s, their hearts are no longer in it. Mr Brown, after last week’s election woe, can no longer blame the world economy for his political failure. Mr Buffett, having speculated against the dollar for years and declared that credit derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, has finally begun to find attractive opportunities to...

Reindeer catastrophe overshadows Sami national day Published: 5 Feb 08 15:22 CET Online: http://www.thelocal.se/9886/ The Sami people of northern Sweden celebrate their national day on February 6th and Lappland is a hive of activity getting ready for the party of the year. Reindeer shoes are being made, handicrafts sculpted and party frocks designed and sewn up. Jokkmokk's yearly market sets the pulses racing among Sami youth and high schools and colleges get their traditional goods ready to sell to the hordes of brethren and tourists that will descend on the town from near and far. "For some it is a...

Tajikistan 'facing catastrophe' by Natalia Antelava BBC News, Dushanbe Tens of thousands in Tajikistan are already malnourished Tajikistan is in the grip of emergency food shortages, the UN's World Food Programme is warning. The deteriorating food situation is part of the energy crisis which hit the mountainous nation in the middle of its coldest winter for five decades. The cost of food has tripled in recent months, partially because of rising world prices. Some humanitarian agencies claim Central Asia's poorest nation is heading towards catastrophe. It's well below zero in Tajikistan, but most people have no electricity, no heating and...

Deadly landslide raises more concerns about China's Three Gorges Dam Aileen McCabe , CanWest Asia Correspondent Published: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 SHANGHAI - A deadly landslide near China's controversial Three Gorges Dam has killed one construction worker and left two missing in central Hubei Province, near the dam's massive reservoir. The official news agency Xinhua said the tragedy occurred on Tuesday, the same day Chinese government officials pledged to step up measures to deal with environmental problems caused by the dam. Xinhua did not say what caused the fatal landslide, but in a story about the new environmental plan, Xinhua...

A carbon-rich black layer, dating to 12.9 ka, has been previously identified at 50 Clovis-age sites across North America and appears contemporaneous with the abrupt onset of Younger Dryas (YD) cooling. The in situ bones of extinct Pleistocene megafauna, along with Clovis tool assemblages, occur below this black layer but not within or above it. Causes for the extinctions, YD cooling, and termination of Clovis culture have long been controversial. In this paper, we provide evidence for an extraterrestrial (ET) impact event at 12.9 ka, which we hypothesize caused abrupt environmental changes that contributed to YD cooling, major ecological reorganization,...

Wooly mammoths, giant sloths, saber-toothed cats, and dozens of other species of megafauna may have become extinct when a disintegrating comet or asteroid exploded over North America with the force of millions of hydrogen bombs, according to research by an international team of scientists. The blast, which the researchers believe occurred 12,900 years ago, may have also doomed a mysterious early human culture, known as Clovis people, while triggering a planetwide cool-down that wiped out the plant species that sustained many outsize Ice Age beasts, according to research published online yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

AMES - Rudy Giuliani would be a “total catastrophe.’’ Mitt Romney would be “OK.” That’s the assessment of the 2008 Republican presidential field by Steve Scheffler, the president of the Iowa Christian Alliance. Scheffler said his association’s members have not begun to coalesce around any of the candidates seeking the Republican nomination. However, the fact the Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain aren’t in Ames today “is a testimony to the constituency – the largest constituency to participate in the caucuses” – the social conservatives that make up the ICA. “If they thought they could win the straw poll, they...

The defence of the families of victims who died in A-310 air catastrophe in Irkutsk (Russia) in 2006 is considering a possibility of filing a civil suite against the European aircraft manufacturer – Airbus.

One of the criticisms of Al Gore’s message on climate change is that he exaggerates the imminence of the threat—implying, for instance, that sea levels may rise more quickly than scientists feel comfortable saying. But a few people think Gore is actually sugarcoating the catastrophe predictions. Most prominently, the renowned British scientist James Lovelock thinks that the world is already approaching a tipping point, beyond which temperature rise will run out of control and major ecosystems will collapse. The dying Amazon rainforest would begin releasing carbon, making things even hotter. The permafrost would melt, releasing carbon and causing sea levels...

WHILE the international community readies itself for gradual global warming over the next century, a growing number of scientists are beginning to worry that climate change might come much sooner - and be much more catastrophic - than previously thought. They point out that, in the past, climate change has not been gradual. Europe's climate has switched from arctic to tropical in three to five years and, they warn, it can happen again. Fred Pearce, of the New Scientist, has spent the past two years speaking to climate experts who are studying the possibility of "type 2" climate change -...

PARIS (AFP) - The World Wildlife Fund on Friday warned consumers against buying Spanish strawberries, whose cultivation is having a "catastrophic" impact on wetlands in the south of the country. "By buying Spanish strawberries -- on sale in supermarkets from January to April -- you are supporting the destruction of the Iberian natural milieu because the impact of this cultivation on the environment is catastrophic," WWF's Paris office said. Some 95 percent of Spanish strawberries are grown on an area of 5,000 hectares (12,300 acres) around the Coto Donana national park, which is on the UNESCO world heritage list, WWF...

The seas have been rising for 18,000 years, but the pace has quickened. At the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pacific Ocean crept seven inches higher during the past century, as global warming melted glaciers and expanded ocean waters. Californians are taking notice. In one of the first efforts of its kind in the state, officials are starting to address the threats rising seas pose to the Bay Area. One of the first steps was to compile maps that show what would happen if the sea level rose three feet -- the upper limit for what might occur by 2100, according...

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - An attack on Iran would be catastrophic and encourage it to develop a nuclear bomb, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Thursday. "It would be absolutely counterproductive, and it would be catastrophic," ElBaradei said at a discussion on nuclear proliferation at the World Economic Forum. The Bush administration in recent weeks has toughened its stance against Iran, which the West has accused of seeking to secretly build an atomic bomb, raising fears among political and business leaders that the U.S. plans an attack. President George W. Bush has moved an...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - An employee working the drive-through window at a McDonald's will have a tale to tell. When the worker went to the open window thinking the car pulling up had already ordered, the people in the car threw a dead cat through the window, police said. Cedar Rapids Animal Control officer Matt McAtee said the black domestic shorthair appeared to have been dead for a while. "It looked like somebody had picked it up off the road," McAtee said. Police were called to the restaurant about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday. The people in the car drove off. A...

Thousands of people have gathered in Trafalgar Square in London to urge the Government to take dramatic action to combat climate change. Organisers put the number of people at today's event at about 14,000 The rally's organisers, the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, want Britain to take the lead at the UN global warming conference which begins in Nairobi next week. They are urging the Government to negotiate an international deal to make sure that global temperatures do not rise more than two degrees centigrade from their current levels, and to introduce a Climate Change Bill that demands annual reductions in...

North Korea warns catastrophe after border incident 1 hour, 4 minutes ago North Korea warned of catastrophic consequences on Sunday if South Korea's military engaged in "unforgivable military provocation" like the weekend skirmish at a heavily fortified border between the two Koreas. South Korean troops fired warning shots on Saturday after North Korean soldiers briefly crossed over the border, adding to mounting tension after Pyongyang said on Wednesday it planned to conduct a nuclear test. "This was an undisguised challenge against us and an unforgivable military provocation," the North's KCNA news agency said in a commentary. "It was only the...

Just over one month ago, the Crystal Ball argued that a larger wave than currently existed at the time would have to build in order for Republicans to lose their congressional majorities. At the time, the race-by-race rather than national dynamic of competitive races pointed more towards a "micro-wave" than a "macro-wave" for out-of-power Democrats. But now, with a quarter of time elapsed between that pulse-reading and the election, surer signs are emerging that something more substantial than a "micro-wave" is heating up this summer. Historical trends and big picture indicators--generic congressional ballot tests and approval ratings of President Bush's...

Al Gore warns of pole shift Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore has been touring the world and making presentations of an impending global pole shift. "The world is in a greater danger now than ever before", Mr. Gore said, "and the time for us to take action is drawing short". "Any time between now and the year 2012 the earth will shift on its axis, causing massive flooding, worldwide suffering and death." Mr. Gore also urged action on the part of his audiences, including massive migration of humans from one continent to another to shift the load on the...

The crack is 8m-wide in places The largest tear in the Earth's crust seen in decades, if not centuries, could carve out a new ocean in Africa, according to satellite data. Geologists say a crack that opened up last year may eventually reach the Red Sea, isolating much of Ethiopia and Eritrea from the rest of Africa. The 60km-long rift was initially sparked by an earthquake in September. Follow-up observations reported in the journal Nature suggest the split is growing at an unprecedented rate. See the rift in detail We think if these processes continue, a new ocean will...

White farmers facing catastrophe as Zimbabwe reneges on property deal By Stephen Bevan in Pretoria (Filed: 25/06/2006) Zimbabwe's white farmers' union has given warning of an impending "humanitarian catastrophe" after the government reneged on a promise to pay evicted white farmers the full value of the buildings and equipment seized along with their farms, leaving many of them destitute. The government refuses to pay for the land seized from the estimated 3,800 white farmers forcibly evicted since 2000, but it had pledged to pay in full for the "improvements". Last week, however, farmers were outraged to learn that they will...

Despite California's history of disasters, state government is underprepared for a catastrophic earthquake, flood, pandemic or terrorist attack, an independent agency warns. Sweeping changes in the bureaucracy are needed to bolster readiness, the Little Hoover Commission said in a report that was sharply critical of the leadership in Sacramento. "Prevention and mitigation efforts are lacking, California's response plans are inadequate and the state has no recovery plans to guide rebuilding," concluded the commission, an independent state agency that helps make state government more effective. But Eric Lamoureux, spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Services, said the state is already...

TALE OF ARTHUR POINTS TO COMET CATASTROPHE From The Times, 9 September 2000 http://www.the-times.co.uk BY NICK NUTTALL Arthur: myth links him to fire from the sky THE story of the death of King Arthur and its references to a wasteland may have been inspired by the apocalyptic effects of a giant comet bombarding the Earth in AD540, leading to the Dark Ages, a British scientist said yesterday. The impacts filled the atmosphere with dust and debris; a long winter began. Crops failed, and there was famine, Dr Mike Baillie of Queen's University, Belfast, told the British Association for the Advancement...

Giant wind farm will be a 'catastrophe', warns charity FRANK URQUHART CONTROVERSIAL plans to build the world's largest wind farm on Lewis will have an "unprecedented impact" on endangered birds and wildlife and the island habitat that supports them, a major charity said yesterday. In a damning report, published to coincide with a meeting in Edinburgh today between the developers and MSPs, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland claims that the £411 million development, involving the erection of 234 wind turbines across 43km, will have a "catastrophic" effect on more than 6,000 hectares of protected peatland other...

Harriet Miers' Texas law firm, Locke Liddell, was investigated by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for agreeing to write favorable tax opinions for clients regarding Ernst & Young tax schemes that are now under criminal investigation. In August 2005, accounting firm KPMG LLP agreed to pay $465 million in fines and cooperate with federal authorities to avoid criminal prosecutions for popular tax schemes that were aggressively marketed in 1999-2000. Rival accounting firm Ernst & Young, or E&Y, remains even today under federal grand jury examination for similar slick tax avoidance schemes, often marketed in conjunction with banks, during the...

Government officials are evaluating and revising disaster plans around the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, just as they did after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. While war and automobiles kill more people than nature, find out what natural disasters top scientists’ worry lists. #10 Pacific Northwest Megathrust Earthquake Geologists know it’s just a matter of time before another 9.0 or larger earthquake strikes somewhere between Northern California and Canada. The shaking would be locally catastrophic, but the biggest threat is the tsunami that would ensue from a fault line that’s seismically identical to the one that...

Sound from last December's huge tsunami-causing earthquake was picked up by underwater microphones designed to listen for nuclear explosions. Scientists this week released an audio file of the frighteningly long-lasting cracks and splits along the Sumatra-Andaman Fault in the Indian Ocean. The spine-tingling hiss and rumble is an eerie reminder of the devastation and death that is still being tallied in the largest natural disaster in modern times. At least 200,000 people are thought to have died as a result of the magnitude 9.3 earthquake, the tsunami, and the lack of food, drinkable water and medical supplies that followed. The...

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin was wrong when he told his parliament Monday that the collapse of the Soviet Union was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century." Oh sure, it may have been tragic for the moldy Kremlin apparatchiks who had to give up their dachas in the Crimea and their chauffeur-driven Chaikas, but for the rest of the world, it was a joyous occasion. Putin, a former KGB colonel, is feeling particularly nostalgic these days. The 60th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War (World War II to the rest of us) will be celebrated in Moscow...

A Glimpse Ahead Timothy Snodgrass The Impossible Will Come Alive In 2005 01/28/05 In January of 2004, as we began to intercede for the New Year the Holy Spirit gave us the prophetic slogan, "The Seas will Roar in 2004". This year we were given a new slogan, "The Impossible will come Alive in 2005". As the veil of darkness begins to come down over nations and regions, along with great shakings will come great breakthroughs; signs, wonders, healings and a spectacular release of miracles in impossible circumstances. This year, although we are ultimately poised to gain much ground, there...

The Black Swan: The 21st Century Challenge for Public Policy with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Ph.D. Return to Event List | RSVP February 09 2005, 1:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. Event Details What you think you know may not matter. What you don’t know certainly will. And why you are unlikely to know what matters in time. In 2001, the stock market lost $7 trillion dollars in value at about the time experts were declaring an end to the business cycle. In 1989, the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations abandoned communism, and the Cold War ended, taking the world by...

A popular hip-hop radio show is in hot water over a parody that mocked victims of the South Asian tsunami catastrophe, calling them "screaming chinks" and "little Chinamen." Yonkers-based Asian Media Watch accuses the WQHT/Hot 97 "Miss Jones in the Morning" show of "repeated racist attitudes" and demands the program's "elimination." "The host broadcasts a horrifying song that mocks the dead South Asian tsunami victims, uses the racial slurs 'chink' and 'Chinamen,' and calls the drowning victims 'bitches,' " said AMW director Kai Yu in a letter to Hot 97's John Dimick.

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

AN eight-year-old Indian tsunami victim stunned gravediggers when he abruptly opened his eyes and sat up just as he was about to be buried in a mass grave. The volunteer gravediggers were preparing Anthony Praveen for a mass burial along with 35 []other victims of last week's tsunami in the country's hardest-hit district of Nagappattinam, after collecting bodies piled up in a makeshift mortuary in the local government hospital, when the apparently dead boy became conscious. More than 6000 []have lost their lives in the district, about 350[]km south of Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state. Anthony's survival has...

It is no wonder that earthquakes and floods feature so frequently in the Old Testament. They are, in the correct sense, awesome things. When the Earth itself is disordered, we feel a primal fear. Even the most sophisticated people may find themselves crossing their fingers superstitiously, or murmuring imprecations to some ill-defined power. The flood story - the folk-memory of an ancient inundation that wiped away all but a few survivors - was common across Europe, Asia and pre-Columbian America. Modern fears of global warming and rising sea-levels are, in their way, an echo of that same Noah myth: they...

Chance Of A Cometary Impact Re-assessedThe chances of the Earth suffering a collision with a cometary body may be higher than previously thought, according to new research by astronomers Bill Napier and Chandra Wickramasinghe. If so, international programmes designed to detect a large class of potentially threatening objects, namely near-Earth asteroids, as well as strategies to mitigate the worst effects of collisions, may be in need of urgent review. This is the disturbing conclusion reached by the astronomers in a paper which is to be published shortly in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Their argument is based...

The Armageddon By Ali Sina In my previous article, Understanding the Muslim Mind, I spoke of the great danger that awaits us all. I talked about atomic bombs being detonated in various American and European cities in one day, killing and disabling millions of people and crippling the entire western world. One reader was cynical. Sarcastically he wrote: “I dunno, talking about Armageddon seems to detract from the point...but, if the terrorists get an atomic bomb -- what do you think the target would be? New York ? …The white house? " I wonder why? Why should talking about Armageddon...

We have, over the past several months, warned that as Planet X moved from below to above the Sun’s middle, the Ecliptic, it would move from slinging along the magnetic flow lines curling toward the Sun’s S. Pole to the magnetic flow lines curling out from the Sun’s N. Pole. Magnetic particles flow along these lines, from the N. Pole to the S. Pole, thus forcing Planet X to align with this flow. We have explained that the steps in this process are: Planet X first slings past the Sun’s S. Pole with its N. Pole pointing toward this great...

Iceberg Breaks Free From Antarctica WASHINGTON (AP) - An iceberg larger than Delaware has broken off Antarctica. The National Ice Center reported Monday that the berg, named B-22, broke free from an ice tongue in the Amundsen Sea, an area of Antarctica south of the Pacific Ocean. The new iceberg is located at 74.56 south latitude and 107.55 west longitude. It is 40 miles wide and 53 miles long, covering 2,130 square miles, slightly more than the 1,982 square mile area of Delaware. The iceberg was discovered through photographs taken by Defense Meteorological Satellites. Icebergs are named for the section...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami called on Muslim countries Friday to hold an urgent meeting to discuss the "catastrophe" in Iraq, particularly the 2-week standoff in the holy city of Najaf. Khatami urged the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference to hold an emergency summit and said immediate action should be taken to end the escalating violence in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, where militiamen loyal to militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces. "What is happening in Iraq is a spiritual and human catastrophe and immediate action must be taken...

Very long but good anthropology/archaeology article Click Here

Meteor clue to end of Middle East civilisations By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent (Filed: 04/11/2001) SCIENTISTS have found the first evidence that a devastating meteor impact in the Middle East might have triggered the mysterious collapse of civilisations more than 4,000 years ago. satellite images of southern Iraq have revealed a two-mile-wide impact crater caused by a meteor Studies of satellite images of southern Iraq have revealed a two-mile-wide circular depression which scientists say bears all the hallmarks of an impact crater. If confirmed, it would point to the Middle East being struck by a meteor with the violence equivalent ...

The critical question at Easter is: how is the pagan West to be Christianised again and who will be the agents of conversion? Not the mincing, fissiparous Church of England, is the evident answer. Rome, since the Second Vatican Catastrophe, has been in free-fall. Now that the word ‘renewal’ has finally been displaced by ‘crisis’ in headlines in the Catholic press, a comical attempt at reform is being essayed. The New Mass is to undergo a few cosmetic changes: the 1960s Marxist-collectivist "We believe", at the beginning of the Creed, is to be replaced by the correct translation: "I believe"....

1997 Train Disaster Claims Death Toll of 2,400 People North Korean railroad trains, due to obsolete tracks and diminishing funding, have long been exposed to danger. In 1997, a passenger train that departed from Haeju, South Hwanghae Province, and headed to Manpo, Jagang Province, derailed on a bridge on a descending slope called Kaegogae Hill between Huichon and Chonchon, and plunged into the valley tens of meters below. It was a horrible disaster, leaving few people alive. Passengers were packed into the train like sardines. People's Army units stationed nearby were mobilized to look after the aftermath, with no villagers...

Solar storm 'could spark catastrophe' Scientists are warning a "perfect space storm" that occurred 144 years ago could happen again at any time with catastrophic consequences. Newly uncovered scientific data has shown the true extent of history's most massive electromagnetic storm which blew up on the first two days of September 1859. Like "the perfect storm" at sea which inspired a blockbuster movie, it was the result of a number of titanic events coming together. But in this case the centre of the storm was the sun, not the ocean. A combination of sunspots and solar flares produced an explosive...

Firestorm Kills 12, Destroys Hundreds Of Homes Fires Threatens Much Of County POSTED: 7:12 a.m. PST October 26, 2003 RAMONA, Calif. -- The worst firestorm to hit San Diego County in living memory has killed at least 12 people, destroyed hundreds of homes and devastated more than 128,000 acres, fire officials reported Sunday evening. School Closures In addition to the 12 confirmed deaths, there are unconfirmed reports of more fatalities, Sheriff Bill Kohlender said. Some of those killed were found in their cars and others had died in their homes, said the sheriff. The county medical examiner was investigating all...

New Theory: Catastrophe Created Mars' Moons By Leonard David Senior Space Writer posted: 07:00 am ET 29 July 2003 PASADENA, California – The two moons of Mars – Phobos and Deimos – could be the byproducts of a breakup of a huge moon that once circled the red planet, according to a new theory. The capture of a large Martian satellite may have taken place during or shortly after the formation of the planet, with Phobos and Deimos now the surviving remnants. Origin of the two moons presents a longstanding puzzle to which one researcher proposed the new solution at...

Aids 'threatens economic catastrophe' Aids mainly affects the most productive members of society The economic impact of HIV/Aids may be far worse than previously thought and some African countries may face complete collapse, a report has warned. The study*, jointly authored by economists from Heidelberg University and the World Bank, models the impact of the virus in various scenarios. In South Africa, one of the countries worst affected by HIV/Aids, a failure to fight the disease will cause incomes at least to halve over the next three generations, the study predicts. By 2080, full-time child labour will be ubiquitous, with...

UVA Interviews Ken Jones, Author of Index of Leading Catholic Indicators Una Voce America director Fred Haehnel recently sat down with Ken Jones, vice president of Una Voce St. Charles, to discuss his new book, Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church since Vatican II. Mr. Jones is an attorney and legal publisher in St. Louis. His translation from the French of Cardinal Hoyos’ letter to Bishop Bernard Fellay of the Society of St. Pius X was published in the August-September 2002 issue of Inside the Vatican. Why did you decide to put together your Index of Leading Catholic...