Free Republic

Climate change may shrink the ice caps and devastate the coasts, but here in the farmlands of Minnesota and the Dakotas, a milder climate may bring some benefits, a new report suggests. That was one twist in a report issued Tuesday by a group of top corporate and political officials, including Greg Page, executive chairman of Wayzata-based agribusiness giant Cargill. While the group's other notables warned Tuesday about possible devastation ahead, Page delivered a conflicted -- even hopeful -- view of how food production would adjust to a changing climate. For instance, a warming climate is expected to shift the...

A number of bloggers are posting videos that show bison and other animals allegedly leaving Yellowstone National Park, prompting theories that as earthquakes ramp up the seismic activity will set off the Yellowstone supervolcano. Two of the main bloggers behind the discussion stress that there’s no way to know when the supervolcano will go off but note that the 4.8 magnitude earthquake that hit on March 30 seemed to set off a reaction from the animals, who are moving for a reason. “Whether I believe this, or whether I don’t believe the story or not, I don’t know. I can...

Ice-induced pavement pile-up's, out of control vehicles, winter fail wipe outs and the usual death defiers.

(Newser) – Bacon lovers, be warned. A fast-spreading pig virus could send pork prices to record highs in the US, reports the Wall Street Journal. The PED virus, short for porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, has hit farms in 22 states so far. It's lethal only to young pigs, not humans, but the Journal says the number of pigs being lost per week is likely to push pork prices beyond the record of $3.81 a pound. A post at Agri-Pulse predicts that the worst spikes will come in the summer.

Dec 11 (Reuters) - Canada's postal service will phase out urban home delivery within five years and hike the cost of postage stamps to try to stem soaring losses, the post office said on Wednesday. Canada Post, like the U.S. Postal Service, is suffering as customers switch to digital communications. In August it said it was on track to run short of cash by the middle of 2014 unless major changes were made. The government-owned corporation - which has a mandate to be self-financing - last month reported a third-quarter loss of C$109 million ($103 million) before tax and said...

It’s the awe-inspiring pride of the United States – and it harbors a deadly power that could kill us all. Yellowstone National Park is pristine wilderness, full of scenic landscape and iconic hot-pools and geysers that attract tens of thousands of visitors every year. But it’s what lies beneath that has scientists scurrying. We’ve long known that Yellowstone is merely the skin on top of a supervolcano – a giant pool of magma sitting just under the Earth’s surface. Exactly how giant has been the subject of much speculation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is spewing 50 percent more methane — a potent heat-trapping gas — than the federal government estimates, a new comprehensive scientific study says. Much of it is coming from just three states: Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. That means methane may be a bigger global warming issue than thought, scientists say. Methane is 21 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, the most abundant global warming gas, although it doesn't stay in the air as long. Much of that extra methane, also called natural gas, seems to be coming from livestock, including manure,...

Folks, if you have read me recently you know that I've said that you are the problem and that the reason this is true is that you won't go on strike, you won't picket DC and refuse to leave until the government stops stealing from you and debasing the currency, you won't reduce your spending and income to only that which provides necessities, and most of you go on to justify your behavior with "my kids (and/or family) deserve what I can provide." You're fools and I'm going to prove it. Further, I'm going to prove -- by arithmetic --...

Government and health charities have been doling out duff healthy eating advice for decades, but when are they going to admit it? That's the question raised by the remarks of cardiologist Aseem Malhotra, who writing in the BMJ has challenged the orthodoxy that the consumption of foods containing saturated fat, such as butter and red meat, causes heart disease. Malhotra is brave and principled to speak out, yet he is far from a lone voice. In 2010, a major review of scientific studies on fat, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, concluded that contrary to what we have...

Legitimate revolution takes time, patience and fortitude. Unfortunately, this is a strategic concept that is lost on many Americans today who suffer from a now common ailment of attention deficit disorder and an obsession with immediate gratification. Even some who have their hearts in the right place and who work to defend and resurrect our nation’s founding ideals seem to believe that any action to defeat corrupt oligarchy must be effective immediately, otherwise, it’s not worth the attempt. History, of course, teaches us the opposite. The American rebellion against the British monarchy was not an abrupt or immediate affair. Anger...

The research comes with caveats. It is based on climate models, huge computer programs that attempt to reproduce the physics of the climate system and forecast the future response to greenhouse gases. Though they are the best tools available, these models contain acknowledged problems, and no one is sure how accurate they will prove to be at peering many decades ahead. The models show that unprecedented temperatures could be delayed by 20 to 25 years if there is a vigorous global effort to bring emissions under control. While that may not sound like many years, the scientists said the emissions...

DALLAS -- The parks and recreation department is warning residents near a south Dallas playground to be on the lookout for symptoms of mercury exposure after light bulbs were illegally dumped at the playground and a vacant lot across the street. Nearly 1,000 electrical and fluorescent light bulbs were found Thursday at the Peary Play Lot in the 2800 block of Peary Ave. near Malcolm X Boulevard.

<p>Big Government: When the government shuts down, the president will do without three-fourths of his White House staff — 1,265 taxpayer-salaried federal workers. That's a fraction of the government's total waste.</p> <p>House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who didn't show up to vote on the budget last week, recently claimed, "the cupboard is bare. There's no more cuts to make" in a government that spends almost $4 trillion each year. But it's funny how when the massive state apparatus is starved of its cash flow, lots of things magically appear in that bare cupboard.</p>

Trash pickup, national parks, building inspections (and parking tickets) may be put on hold More than a third of federal workers would be told to stay home if the government shuts down -- but even if you're not one of those facing a furlough, your daily life could be affected in ways you might not expect. Details about shutdown plans for each agency were expected to be posted on the OMB and individual agency websites by Friday afternoon, according to union officials. Formal furlough notices would be sent on Tuesday, the beginning of the new fiscal year. Services considered critical...

Events have failed to fulfill the prophecy. Preachers have suddenly been struck dumb by uncertainty. Believers are understandably nervous and some, under their breath, are abandoning the dogma. These sentences could have been written at the end of the day on October 22, 1844, about the Millerites, a religious sect started in upstate New York. Preachers had told their followers that Jesus would return to earth that day. He failed to show. But the subject here is not Millerism, but another kind of religious faith: the faith of the global-warming alarmists. And while it’s not likely to have the impact...

If you haven’t been in a bubble cut off from all forms of media lately, it would be impossible to have missed all of the warnings being issued about the impending loss of our electrical grid. This isn’t just coming from so-called “gloom and doom” sites or from alternative media. Major mainstream media sources such as ABC News, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and CBS News have all issued the alerts. Unfortunately, the hordes seem to be brushing these warnings off as something that cannot happen, because the reality is too unpleasant to even contemplate. Many seem to...

While Americans demand vociferously the defunding of ObamaCare in hopes of getting rid of the most destructive and freedom-robbing piece of legislation passed in modern times, Congressmen pretend to make valiant efforts to do so via various proposals that only low information and extremely naïve voters can believe to be true. Their efforts are akin to a handful of people standing on the tracks of an oncoming speeding train, waving their hands in hopes that the engineer will see them in time and be able to stop thousands of tons of momentum at the last minute. Even Heritage President, Jim...

At last week's Comic-Con event in San Diego, the film director Zack Snyder bounded on stage to announce a bold new merger. His next Warner Bros blockbuster would pit Batman against Superman, two costumed superheroes in one movie. "Let's face it," said Snyder, "this is beyond mythological." The fanbase was galvanised. Hyperbole hit the roof. But in Hollywood, alarm bells were ringing. Industry insiders are referring to this season as "the summer of doom" – an overcrowded huddle of big-budget spectaculars, without the audience to sustain them. US box office takings are down 19% on the same period last year,...

GENEVA—U.N. climate experts say the first decade of the new millennium was an unprecedented era of climate extremes, with more countries than ever before seeing their temperature records broken. The World Meteorological Organization's analysis Wednesday says average land and ocean surface temperatures during 2001-2010 rose from the previous decade and were up almost a half-degree Celsius from the 1961-1990 global average. The U.N. agency cites heatwaves in Europe and Russia, droughts in the Amazon Basin, Australia and East Africa, and huge storms like Tropical Cyclone Nargis and Hurricane Katrina.

“Fiscal bloodbath” is how one federal official speaking off-the-record described the early impacts of the much dreaded budget sequester. “We’re looking at the cancellation of many mission-critical government activities. There’s no way of knowing whether the country will ever be able to recover.” Anticipation of the cutbacks in spending inspired the Department of Homeland Security to release illegal aliens slated for deportation into the communities near where they were incarcerated. Secretary Janet Napolitano denied any responsibility for the early release and attributed it to a “misunderstanding by a low-level employee.” “I don’t really know why we were holding these people...