Free Republic

The head of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has called on Arab forces to confront Israel and for the international community to pressure the “Zionist government to withdraw from the land of Palestine.” The statement – the existence of which was revealed Wednesday by the Investigative Project on Terrorism blog – reminds Brotherhood followers of the movement’s decades-long “sacrifices” in efforts to destroy the Jewish state. “On this day, like every year, the Arab and Islamic nations remember the worst catastrophe ever to befall the peoples of the world,” Badie wrote in the text, translated by The Jerusalem Post. “We demand the

CLEAR POWER PLANTS: The Very Real Possibility Of A Global Nuclear Catastrophe Politics / Nuclear Power Mar 26, 2012 - 01:59 AM By: Washingtons Blog The Government Spends Trillions On Unlikely Threats … But Won’t Spend a Billion Dollars to Prevent the Very Real Possibility of Global Nuclear Catastrophe We’re Spending Money Combating the Wrong Dangers Studies show that people are worry about the wrong things. We are terrified of things that will probably never happen, and underestimate the real dangers which face us. As we noted last year, the extreme vulnerability of nuclear power plants to solar flares is...

A Greek default and traumatic ejection from the euro moved a step closer last night after eurozone finance ministers cancelled a crucial meeting, accusing Athens of failing to flesh out austerity cuts. The escalating brinkmanship came as fresh data showed that Greece's economy contracted by 6.8pc last year and at an accelerating 7pc rate in the last quarter, far worse than expected by the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) "troika". The country appears to be in a self-feeding downward spiral that is playing havoc with budget targets, leaving Greece with a...

Newt says that with the way the Fed is printing money, Romney’s proposal for an automatic minimum wage increase based on inflation could be potentially catastrophic. Newt remembers the Carter years and how inflation was rampant by 1980, setting the nation toward collapse. He says with the Fed printing so much money, inflation could potentially soar if the economy begins to recover which could send minimum wage soaring with it:

With a debt ceiling agreement finally in place and the Senate on track to approve it today congratulations are being handed out all around.  Armageddon and catastrophe has supposedly been averted. And politicians are rushing to put the best face on the deal.  Unfortunately, the new agreement does not accomplish as much as many had hoped, or as much as it should have, in terms of curbing spending and continued deficits. This explains why stock markets continued to fall despite the supposedly "good" news. The reason is because, once again, politicians are continuing to push the problem to the future. ...

Obama has just given an eager world his fantasy answer for the last sixty years of Arab-Israel conflict. The Great One's long-awaited solution is for Israel to pull back to the cease-fire lines of the 1948 War of Independence, or what Obama, in a moment of historical amnesia, calls "the 1967 borders." People have fought and died over those borders since 1949, not 1967. Make that sixty years of regular warfare. Take a quick glance at the Green Line on the map, and see if you can honestly answer this question: "Would I want my family and children to live...

GENEVA (AP) -- A senior official at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says solar storms pose a growing threat to criticial infrastructure such as satellite communications, navigation systems and electrical transmission equipment. NOAA Assistant Secretary Kathryn Sullivan says the intensity of solar storms is expected to peak in 2013 and countries should prepare for "potentially devastating effects." Solar storms release particles that can temporarily disable or permanently destroy fragile computer circuits. Sullivan, a former NASA astronaut who in 1984 became the first woman to walk in space, told a U.N. weather conference in Geneva on Tuesday that "it...

Troubling Global Volcanic Activity On The Rise By Alan CarubaNovember 3, 2010 3 Nov 10 - The news is all about the Tuesday’s U.S. elections, but some of us are concerned about the news on Monday regarding a possible eruption of the Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland. Never heard of it? You will. Grimsvotn is the most active volcano in Iceland. The one that made a lot of news earlier in 2010 was Eyjafjallajokull that, while relatively small, generated such a huge cloud of ash that it disrupted air travel across western and northern Europe for six days in April. Here’s...

Want to know what would happen if a 10km-wide asteroid came out of the sky and slammed down on your city? Scientists at Purdue University and Imperial College London have updated their popular impact effects calculator first produced in 2004. Users dial in details about the hypothetical impactor, like its diameter and density. The web program then estimates the scale of the ensuing disaster, such as the size of the crater left behind. It will also tell you how far away you need to be to avoid being buried by all the material thrown out by the blast, or set...

Barring a huge upset, Republicans will take control of at least one house of Congress next week. How worried should we be by that prospect? Not very, say some pundits. After all, the last time Republicans controlled Congress while a Democrat lived in the White House was the period from the beginning of 1995 to the end of 2000. And people remember that era as a good time, a time of rapid job creation and responsible budgets. Can we hope for a similar experience now? No, we can’t. This is going to be terrible. In fact, future historians will probably...

"As thou hast done to Israel, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head." ~ Obadiah 1:15 The Great New England Hurricane of September 1938 and Nazism. The Oct. 30, 1991 Madrid Peace Process and Hurricane Andrew of 1992. Massive historic floods in Iowa as Secy of State Condi Rice insisted Jerusalem be separated. America pressures Israel for peace in the region by relinquishing land and, within 24 hours, America is hit with catastrophe. Coincidence? John McTernan doesn't think so. McTernan, a staunch defender of Israel in light of biblical prophecy, has spent a...

Tiny balls of fungus and feces may disprove the theory that a huge space rock exploded over North America about 12,900 years ago, triggering a thousand-year cold snap, according to a new study. The ancient temperature drop, called the Younger Dryas, has been well documented in the geologic record, including soil and ice core samples.The cool-down also coincides with the extinction of mammoths and other Ice Age mammals in North America, and it's thought to have spurred our hunter-gatherer ancestors in the Middle East to adopt an agricultural lifestyle.But the theory that a comet or asteroid explosion is behind the...

In the days since the BP oil spill began, the failure to stop the leak has caused incredible anger and frustration -- especially for the people of the Gulf Coast struggling to survive one of the worst environmental disasters in our nation's history. This leak is an unprecedented catastrophe and a technical challenge unlike any we've ever seen. We are pressing for every possible remedy to keep oil from flowing into the Gulf, and to capture as much as we can while relief wells are drilled that will permanently stop the leak. We are relying on a team of scientists...

Introduction The following is just my opinion. It is nothing more than my opinion. I have nothing to substantiate or prove any aspect of my opinion. My opinion is simply the logical conclusion of a law-abiding sixty-year old Christian grandfather who has both an engineering degree and an M.B.A. degree and who has seen both good times and hard times during his life. The Current Situation: At the present time every nation in the entire world is facing serious financial and social stress. If only a few nations were involved then it might be possible to contain the upcoming meltdown...

Efforts to contain the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill will reach a crucial moment today, when engineers for BP hope to learn if a high-risk attempt to plug the leaking oil well with heavy mud has been successful. BP executives expressed cautious optimism over the attempted "top kill", which involves pumping thousands of gallons of mud and chemicals into the ruptured Macondo exploration well. However, BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, said it would be 24 hours before engineers would know if the operation, which started at 1pm (1800 GMT) last night, would work. snip BP's latest attempt to control...

GRAND ISLE, La. -- Waves of heavy crude oil pushed ashore at barrier islands in southern Louisiana on Saturday, ruining some of this state's only beaches and, more importantly, threatening the fragile ecosystem of Louisiana's wetlands. Workers in knee-high rubber boots and hard hats shoveled polluted black sand and gobs of oil into plastic bags on the beaches of Elmer's Island Wildlife Refuge near Grand Isle, La., while the Louisiana National Guard raced to finish the construction of barriers made of sand and rock to protect miles of marshes. Meanwhile, residents lashed out at public officials and BP representatives at...

BP admits higher leak rate: 2010 Gulf oil spill now 20 times worse then Exxon Valdez British Petroleum has now admitted that the amount of oil being spilled has actually been much higher than previously reported. According to an MSBNC report today, estimates of the total amount of oil spilled so far is 20 times more than the 10.8 million gallons spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989. Right now, the spill is roughly the size of Pennsylvania. That represents one-fifth of the entire amount of water within US borders. snip This is - without question - the...

Marine scientists were carefully viewing footage of oil and gas billowing out of a ruptured well on the ocean floor today, to try to deliver the first reliable estimates of the crude gushing into the Gulf of Mexico – it could be as much as 70,000 barrels a day. snip Independent marine researchers have suggested the spill could be much larger. snip Its analysis was conducted by Steve Werely, an associate professor at Purdue University, using a technique called particle image velocimetry, a method was accurate to 20%. That puts the range of the oil spill from 56,000 to 84,000...

BP engineers tried to activate a huge piece of underwater safety equipment but failed because the device had been so altered that diagrams BP got from the equipment's owner didn't match the supposedly failsafe device's configuration The oil well also failed at least one critical pressure test on the day that gas surged up the drill pipe and set the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig aflame, killing 11 and setting off a spill that has spewed 210,000 gallons of crude into the gulf every day for three weeks, according to BP documents provided to congressional investigators. Who ordered the alterations in...

A focus of the Senate hearing into the Deepwater Horizon disaster was why the final step in the cementing process—putting a cement plug in the well more than a mile below the sea surface—wasn't performed. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that rig officials had taken the unusual step of postponing the installation of the plug while they removed heavy fluid that serves to keep oil and natural gas from surging up through the well pipe. Usually, the plug is set into place below the heavy fluid, or mud, which isn't removed until after the cement hardens. But experts at...

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – Concern grew Sunday that the US Gulf coast is facing a whole new level of environmental disaster after the best short-term fix for a massive oil spill ran into serious trouble. BP's giant containment box lay idle on the seabed as engineers furiously tried to figure out how to stop it clogging with ice crystals. The British energy giant, which owns the lion's share of the leaking oil and has accepted responsibility for the clean-up, has tried to banish the notion that the dome is a "silver bullet" to end the crisis. But should efforts...

A fire broke out at the Guinness factory in Dublin shortly after noon local time. Over nine fire brigades and three rigs with aerial ladder platforms were able to contain the blaze before it spread to the ammonia plant at the site. An official from Guinness was able to confirm that no one was hurt in the incident. “There were no injuries to any personnel and the fire has been extinguished,” the spokeswoman said. “An internal investigation is under way to find out exactly what the cause of the accident was.” The fire broke out near the Victoria Quay entry...

Feb. 4, 2009 -- An ancient killer is hiding in the remote forests of Siberia. Walled off from western eyes during the Soviet era and forgotten among the endless expanse of wilderness, scientists are starting to uncover the remnants of a supervolcano that rained Hell on Earth 250 million years ago and killed 90 percent of all life. Researchers have known about the volcano -- the Siberian Traps, for years. And they've speculated that the volcanic rocks, which cover an area about the size of Alaska, played a role in runaway global warming that led to the end -- Permian...

Until recently, this political epitaph might have been written for Dick Morris: An amoral, but brilliant consultant, strategist, and analyst -- the man who kept Bill Clinton in, and Hillary Clinton out, of the White House. By selling the strategy of triangulation to Bill Clinton, Morris successfully neutered the Gingrich revolution of 1994. But he also neutered the worst political impulses of Bill Clinton (Morris couldn't do anything about the sexual ones) and forced Clinton to work with the Republican congress to balance budgets and reform welfare. But Dick Morris is doing his best work now in his crusade against...

The giant deer, also known as the giant Irish deer or Irish elk, is one of the largest deer species that ever lived. Yet why this giant animal, which had massive antlers spanning 3.6m, suddenly went extinct some 10,600 years ago has remained a mystery. Now a study of its teeth is producing tantalising answers, suggesting the deer couldn't cope with climate change. As conditions became colder and drier in Ireland at the time, fewer plants grew, gradually starving the deer. The discovery is published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. The giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus) has become famous over...

I don't follow the monetary and fiscal problems of other countries very closely. We've got enough of a crisis here to worry about anywhere else. But during the stim bill debate, you may recall liberals pointing to Japan's "stimulus spending" in the decade of the 1990's as an example of how to get out of a deep recession. Maybe they should have read the fine print as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph explains: The IMF expects Japan's gross public debt to reach 218pc of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, 227pc next year, and 246pc by 2014. This has been...

Beware of the blob—this time, it's for real. As sea temperatures have risen in recent decades, enormous sheets of a mucus-like material have begun forming more often, oozing into new regions, and lasting longer, a new Mediterranean Sea study says (sea "mucus" blob pictures). And the blobs may be more than just unpleasant. Up to 124 miles (200 kilometers) long, the mucilages appear naturally, usually near Mediterranean coasts in summer. The season's warm weather makes seawater more stable, which facilitates the bonding of the organic matter that makes up the blobs (Mediterranean map). Now, due to warmer temperatures, the mucilages...

THE CONSCIENCE OF A LIBERTARIAN by Wayne Allyn Root Review by Dr. John Hospers, © September 2009 My book, LIBERTARIANISM was first published in 1971. Its subtitle, ‘A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow’ has at long last come true today. I hope it’s not too late. The pragmatic reality is in Wayne Allyn Root’s brilliant new volume: THE CONSCIENCE OF A LIBERTARIAN - a title I might add, that was obviously carefully considered and borrowed in the “classic liberal” sense –that is, it was returned with dividends of thought and deserved tribute to The Conscience of a Conservative author, politician –...

The New York Times is generally loathe to dignify conservative-leaning books with an official review. That stance is getting dicier these days, especially since the newspaper’s own nonfiction bestseller chart is chockablock with conservatives luminaries like Michelle Malkin, Dick Morris and Mark Levin. President Barack Obama has only been in office for roughly eight months, but he’s already inspired multiple conservative bestsellers. Malkin’s Culture of Corruption sits atop the list, followed by Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny in the two slot and Catastrophe by Morris and Eileen McGann at number four. Marji Ross, president and publisher of Regnery Publishing, isn’t surprised...

Here is video of Dick Morris tonight on The O'Reilly Factor and talking about President Obama's drive to get Government Health Care passed. O'Reilly asked Morris to compare the ObamaCare drive to the HillaryCare debacle in 1994, when President Bill Clinton failed to get Government Health Care passed. One big difference, Morris pointed out, is that Obama has this time bought off all the major players - AARP, Drug Companies, American Medical Association. O'Reilly pointed out that Obama has been stupefyingly dull in his presentation of his Health Care Plan. When asked if Obama is going to succeed, or will...

In a speech full of dire scenarios and gloomy predictions, the former House speaker argued that no price is too high for the federal government to pay when it comes to shoring up national security. "We are living at the edge of catastrophe," Gingrich said while laying out the flaws of the current governmental approach to security as well as his own framework for policy change.

One of the reasons I like Dick Morris is that he has an uncanny ability to predict the future. Take, for example, his prescient new book "Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress, and the Special Interests Are Transforming a Slump Into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism, and a Disaster Into a Catastrophe . . . and How to Fight Back." Dick’s wife, Eileen McGann, co-authored the book, which shot to the No. 1 spot on the Times' best-seller list in its very first week of release. The fascinating thing about “Catastrophe” is that, although it hit bookstores just a few weeks ago,...

Listen to former Clinton Advisor, Dick Morris, explain how Barack Obama has deceptively broken his campaign promise of "No New Taxes," similar to the first George Bush. Like then, he must be held accountable.

Dick Morris on CSPAN 2 now talking about his book Catastrophe till the end of the hour ( catch the questions?).

Hardcover Non-Fiction 1. CATASTROPHE, by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann 2. LIBERTY AND TYRANNY, by Mark R. Levin 3. OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell 4. HORSE SOLDIERS, by Doug Stanton 5. THE END OF OVEREATING, by David A. Kessler Paperback Non-Fiction 1. GLENN BECK’S ‘COMMON SENSE’, by Glenn Beck 2. THREE CUPS OF TEA, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin 3. WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES, by David Sedaris 4. BLINK, by Malcolm Gladwell 5. AN INCONVENIENT BOOK, by Glenn Beck

More bad news for Barack Obama. The first major book to be published on his presidency has shot up to the No. 1 spot on The New York Times' bestseller list the very first week of its release. Unlike the fawning media coverage the Obama White House has come to expect, this new best-seller "Catastrophe" paints a deeply negative picture of Obama and his policies. "Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress, and the Special Interests Are Transforming a Slump Into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism, and a Disaster Into a Catastrophe . . . and How to Fight Back" is authored by...

Author and political commentator Dick Morris spoke at The Book Review in Huntington, NY on Saturday, June 27. Chairs were ready to accommodate an audience of about 150. The crowd swelled beyond 300! Morris didn’t disappoint. He gave an informative speech that focused on President Barack Hussein Obama’s most disturbing actions to date. Obama has repeatedly reneged on his moderate campaign promises and worked hard to make good on his radical promises. He’s wrecking the country with his ratifications to our democratic way of life. Obama’s overhauls are hardly fixes but rather actions that are speeding the nation toward socialism...

Bernanke Inserts Gun In Mouth I'm not at all sure I believed what I read today.  (my comments in italics, indented) Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January indicates that the economy continues to contract.  Job losses, declining equity and housing wealth, and tight credit conditions have weighed on consumer sentiment and spending.  Weaker sales prospects and difficulties in obtaining credit have led businesses to cut back on inventories and fixed investment.  U.S. exports have slumped as a number of major trading partners have also fallen into recession.  Although the near-term economic outlook is weak, the...

Every Messiah needs his disciples. Barack Obama can count on one in Ann Curry. Reporting from a camp in Chad for refugees from Darfur in a segment on Today this morning, Curry proclaimed that “Obama’s message of hope has reached even here.” Her evidence? The fact that a sign had been tacked up on the door to a mud-brick structure renaming it “the Obama schoolhouse.” The video clip shows a sign in Arabic. Someone had helpfully translated it, scrawling “Obama” in chalk on the entranceway. View video,

There's no way that these times, in spite of the massive and heartbreaking job losses, can compare to the sufferings of the Great Depression. I expect that America will be going back to the seventies, though, when the economy was stagnant and contracting: there were gasoline lines and sky-high interest rates. In the 70s, the unemployment rate was higher than it is now and there were thousands upon thousands of unemployed Vietnam war veterans looking for jobs.

The new financial rescue plan may not work and could even make things worse because it plunges the US further into debt and it is designed by the same people who failed to forecast the crisis and take measures, legendary investor Jim Rogers told CNBC Tuesday. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will unveil a long-awaited package of measures to help the financial sector at 11 am New York time. But Rogers said Geithner, who was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, "has been dead wrong about everything for 15 years in a row," and so was President Barack Obama's...

reports coming in of major damage from 1-2 inches of ice over the area..its still raining with temps below freezing in many areas. information is sketchy but major damage to infrastructure are trickling in. Damage to houses from falling trees, multiple power poles down, and widespread power outages Travel is impossible in many area because of 100's of downed trees blocking the roads. Fires are reported in some area widespread state of emergencies issued Northern AR, SE MO and western KY seems to the the hardest hit so far..but things are icing up fast now in the Louisville/Lexington areas too

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,...