Free Republic

Environmentalists are torn over the high cost of breaking reliance on fossil fuels. Industrial-scale solar development is well underway in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The federal government has furnished more public property to this cause than it has for oil and gas exploration over the last decade — 21 million acres. In the fight against climate change, the Mojave Desert is about to take one for the team. "I have spent my entire career thinking of myself as an advocate on behalf of public lands and acting for their protection," said Johanna Wald, a veteran environmental...

U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday touted his administration's energy policy agenda, predicting that his clean energy programs will create "hundreds of thousands" of new American jobs by 2012. Meanwhile, he painted an ugly, contrasting picture of the GOP energy agenda, arguing that Republicans would only boost the nation's dependence on foreign oil and keep special interest groups in control. "We can go back to the failed energy policies that profited the oil companies but weakened our country," the president said in his weekly radio address, proving that he's not done attacking the GOP this midterm election season. "Or we...

KINGMAN - The Mojave County Attorney's office confirmed late Wednesday that a judge has dismissed charges against Warren Jeffs. Jeffs was facing several charges of Sexual Conduct with a Minor. In the motion filed late Wednesday afternoon, the Mojave County Attorney outlined several reasons to dismiss the charges against the polygamist leader. Those include: Jeffs has already served more jail time than he would have served if convicted. Also, the paperwork says the State of Texas has much more serious charges lodged against Jeffs. And, some of the State's witnesses no longer wish to testify in the case.

A small convoy of vehicles, in everything from old pick-up trucks to a stretch limo, with about thiry passengers total, left Victorville for the 130 mile trip to the site of the Mojave Cross, which vandals had torn down and stole a couple weeks ago, after the SCOTUS had ruled that it was not a religious symbol, but a war memorial, and that the box(!) civering it since the suit was filed several years ago. When a replacement was erected, it was immediately taken down by rangers of the Mojave Preserve, contending that since it was not the original cross,...

Mojave Cross replica is removed after mysteriously appearing overnight 11:18 PM PDT on Thursday, May 20, 2010 By BEN GOAD and DUG BEGLEY The Press-Enterprise The Mojave Cross saga took yet another unexpected turn Thursday, when the contested symbol that vanished last week reappeared briefly before being taken down by federal officials. National Park Service officials learned Thursday morning that a cross again was on top of Sunrise Rock, about 10 miles south of Interstate 15 near Cima Road, a sparsely traveled route into the Mojave National Preserve. It's about 30 miles east of Baker.

Here is a video report showing the empty spot left after vandals tore down and took away the Mojave War Memorial Cross in California . . . How sick can people be.

The 7-foot-tall metal cross in a 75-year-old war memorial that withstood the heat of the Mojave Desert and a blazing battle in the Supreme Court over its legality was ripped down and stolen Sunday night, according to federal officials. The 7-foot-tall metal cross in a 75-year-old war memorial that withstood the heat of the Mojave Desert and a blazing battle in the Supreme Court over its legality was ripped down and stolen Sunday night, according to federal officials. "This is an outrage, akin to desecrating people's graves," said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Liberty Institute, which represents the caretakers of...

Washington (CNN) -- A war memorial shaped like a cross that has been at the center of a Supreme Court fight has been torn down by vandals from its remote perch in a California desert.

[half way down the page under, Oral Argument Recap] Despite strenuous efforts by Justice Antonin Scalia to keep alive the core question of whether the cross display was a violation of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause, the dominant sentiment on the bench seemed to be that that was no longer open to review. And despite efforts by U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to get the Court to focus on whether a former park service officer had any right to sue to test the display, that, too, seemed to be beyond the Court’s reach. Kagan, in fact, had to endure lectures by...

Virginia’s Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell is catching flak from the ACLU because it does not like the fact that he has lifted the ban on police chaplains praying in Jesus’ name. Virginia’s former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine had issued the ruling in 2008, and the ACLU gang charges that McDonnell is giving in to conservatives and Christians in revoking the Jesus ban. Well, maybe another former Virginia governor influenced McDonnell—Thomas Jefferson. The author of Virginia’s famed Statute for Religious Freedom, Jefferson never tried to suppress Virginians’ or Americans’ free exercise of religion. In fact, as president in 1802, Jefferson invited...

The Mojave Desert Cross Memorial. Washington D.C., Apr 28, 2010 / 01:31 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a federal court overstepped its boundaries in ordering the removal of a long-standing memorial cross in California's Mojave Desert.A white, seven-foot cross, which was erected as a memorial by the Veterans of Foreign Wars over 75 years ago in the Mojave National Preserve, will be allowed to stay.Before today's ruling, the cross was covered with a plywood box in accordance with a lower court’s order. A district court initially ruled that the cross had to be removed...

The Supreme Court gave its approval Wednesday to displaying a cross on public land to honor fallen soldiers, saying the Constitution "does not require the eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm." Speaking for a divided court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the 1st Amendment called for a middle-ground "policy of accommodation" toward religious displays on public land, not a strict separation of church and state. Kennedy disagreed with judges in California who said U.S. National Park Service officials must remove a small Latin cross from the Mojave National Preserve that had stood since 1934 to honor soldiers...

AMBOY, Calif. — Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation in Congress on Monday to protect a million acres of the Mojave Desert in California by scuttling some 13 big solar plants and wind farms planned for the region. But before the bill to create two new Mojave national monuments has even had its first hearing, the California Democrat has largely achieved her aim. Regardless of the legislation’s fate, her opposition means that few if any power plants are likely to be built in the monument area, a complication in California’s effort to achieve its aggressive goals for renewable energy. Developers of...

Deep in the heart of the Mojave National Preserve in California stands a five foot cross carefully disguised in a plywood box. The U.S. Park Service was forced to cover the cross until the Supreme Court decides whether the cross can remain in its place as a monument to fallen soldiers during World War I, or whether it must come down because its presence violates the Constitution. The case is the latest in a recent flurry of challenges to religious symbols placed on public property. The cross was constructed more than 70 years ago by the Veterans of Foreign Wars....

Although the Supreme Court's term doesn't formally kick off until Oct. 5, justices scheduled arguments in a key campaign finance case for Sept. 9, and are hearing a case early in the fall term regarding a legal fight over a war memorial in the Mojave National Preserve.

Tessera Solar plans to plant 34,000 solar dishes — each one 40 feet high and 38 feet wide — on 8,230 acres of the Mojave Desert in Southern California. Although the lengthy licensing process for the Calico solar farm remains in the early stages, several environmental groups are already raising red flags about the massive project’s impact on such protected wildlife as the desert tortoise, the Mojave fringe-toed lizard and Nelson’s bighorn sheep. Calico is one of dozens of industrial-scale solar farms planned for the Southwest that have divided environmentalists over the need to promote renewable energy while protecting fragile...

After WWI many U.S. soldiers moved to the Californian desert to find physical and emotional healing. In 1934, they erected a memorial to honor their fallen comrades, a single white cross, - a symbol used around the world to memorialize those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country. The site for the memorial was chosen because at a certain time of day, the sun casts a shadow on the rock which resembles a WWI doughboy. For more than 75 years, the memorial has stood as a reminder that there were those who fought and died for our freedoms. But...

People who say that nothing's harder to get rid of than a bad penny must never have met Keith Brackpool. The British-born promoter, who has spent the last dozen years pushing a scheme to pump water to Southern California from beneath 35,000 acres his Cadiz Inc. owns in the Mojave Desert, just won't go away. ... In the past his posse has included ex-Gov. Gray Davis and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Now he has added Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who last week publicly endorsed the scheme as "a path-breaking, new, sustainable groundwater conservation and storage project." The endorsement was embedded...

FEINSTEIN SEEKS TO BLOCK DESERT SOLAR FARM DUE TO SEVERE ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE Congressman Brian Bilbray (R-San Diego) has coauthored H.R. 964, a measure that would exempt any solar energy project on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands from Environmental Impact Report requirements. Sempra Energy, Bilbray’s third largest campaign contributor, seeks to import power from desert solar farms on BLM lands. On Friday, California’s Senator Diane Feinstein sent a blistering letter to the Secretary of the Interior opposing solar farms on BLM lands, citing massive environmental damage from scraping bare a half-million acres of desert lands proposed for solar mirrors. “It...

MARCH 27, 2009 Dianne Feinstein: I Brake for Turtles California's energy-independence movement, held up by the desert tortoise. By JOHN FUND Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, thinks he has a partial solution to America's dependence on foreign oil. But he says liberals and environmentalists are rejecting his plan to make it easier to build solar and wind power stations. California's Mohave Desert is an inhospitable place, he notes, but 19 companies think it's perfect for siting solar or wind facilities on 500,000 acres owned by the federal government there. But Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who used to...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said development of solar and wind facilities in California's Mojave Desert would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public

Earlier this month, we asked you to call your U.S. Representatives to show support for the national Omnibus Public Lands Bill, containing wilderness desig- nations for over 700,000 acres in California. (If you haven’t called your representative yet, please do so now.) Now we have an opportunity to get even more of California’s wild desert places formally designated as wilderness — the highest protection our public lands can receive from the federal government.All you need to do is write a quick, heart-felt note to Sen. Dianne Feinstein mentioning why you love wild desert places in general, and mentioning a few...

WASHINGTON -- California's Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy. Feinstein said Friday she intends to push legislation that would turn the land into a national monument, which would allow for existing uses to continue while preventing future development.

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 500,000 acres in the Mojave Desert would be off-limits to wind or solar energy production under legislation Sen. Dianne Feinstein intends to introduce. The land is coveted by companies seeking to develop alternative energy, setting up a potential clash with one of the more powerful members of Congress. The land would seem ideally suited for solar energy production. Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on the property, but such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public, said...

LOS ANGELES – A relative of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and one of his former cabinet secretaries are part of a private investment group that could score a lucrative payoff if regulators approve a sprawling solar-energy complex near the Mojave Desert Preserve. The personal connections have raised questions about possible favorable treatment for a project being touted as a breakthrough in the development of solar power. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime environmental activist who is the cousin of first lady Maria Shriver, and former state Environmental Protection Secretary Terry Tamminen were named senior advisers at VantagePoint Venture Partners last year....

Many have said they’re not interested in Windows Vista, that Windows XP is just fine for them. And in fact, you could go so far as to say some of them actually hate the OS. Still, a new OS, Mojave, may just be the key to a new marketing campaign. Last week Microsoft told a focus group in San Francisco they were being shown a new version of Windows, codenamed Mojave. Feedback was quite positive; more than 90% gave positive feedback. Afterwards they were told that Mojave was actually Windows Vista.

MOJAVE - The East Kern Airport District directors approved in principle a plan to add a small live steam railroad to the Legacy Park under development at the Mojave Air and Space Port. The railroad is proposed by the Mojave Transportation Museum as a tourist attraction and means of conveying the community's long history as a railroad town. "We just saw it as a wonderful opportunity for tourism," said Cathy Hansen, museum board member and airport district director. Hansen abstained from the district directors' 4-0 vote on the proposal. The proposed railroad track would circle the park area. It could...

The company that flew the first privately funded manned rocket into space has been cited in connection with an explosion last summer that killed three workers, the state said today. California occupational safety inspectors said in a report that Scaled Composites LLC failed to properly train workers about the dangers of nitrous oxide that was used during a test in July. The state levied three citations against Scaled, including two that were considered "serious," and fined the spaceship builder $25,870. The company has 15 days to pay or appeal. Three workers died and three were seriously injured in the explosion...

MOJAVE - The nation's first inland spaceport could lose that designation by the end of the year. The Federal Aviation Administration informed officials at the Mojave Air and Space Port of its intention to suspend or revoke the space launch site operator's license Dec. 31. "I have no reason to be optimistic we're going to keep our spaceport license," said General Manager Stu Witt, reporting on the issue to the East Kern Airport District board of directors Tuesday. The district governs the Mojave Air and Space Port. At issue are questions by the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation regarding...

The decision today is the latest in the lengthy case. The American Civil Liberties Union originally filed a lawsuit in 2001 on behalf of a man who said its location on federal land violated the U.S. Constitution. The original cross was erected in 1934 by a prospector to honor World War I veterans. The latest version was installed in the mid-1990s. President Bill Clinton authorized the Mojave National Preserve in 1996, including the land where the cross sits. The cross has been covered, first by a tarp and now by a box, as the case makes its way through the...

At issue is the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which bars the government from favoring any one religion, as it applies to a lone white metal Latin cross in the Mojave National Preserve in southern California between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. In 2004, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a cross on a prominent rock on public land was unconstitutional, prompting Congress to pass a law allowing a trade so its immediate area would become private land. People have been putting crosses in the spot since the 1930s, most recently with one man drilling a...

Excerpt - BAKERSFIELD - A series of explosions ripped through the Mojave Airport shortly before 3 p.m. First reports indicated there were a large fire, two deaths, and several other serious injuries. The explosion apparently happened on the edge of the grounds of the huge airport, where many experimental airplanes, jets, and even rocket planes are tested. One spokesman said a rocket exploded. Emergency equipment is being rushed to the area from throughout the county. Helicopter ambulances are being sent from Bakersfield. ~ snip ~

As Mojave Airport moves into the future as the nation's first inland space port, the facility needs to create a brand that will make it readily identifiable and distinct from others that may follow. With that goal in mind, directors of the East Kern Airport District - which governs the air and space port - narrowly approved a concept for the logo design that is intended to convey the purpose of the facility. Using such signature brand symbols as the Swiss Army cross and Nike "swoosh" as examples, Witt told directors the air and space port needs a logo that...

WASHINGTON – It's a war memorial. It includes a cross. It is on public land. And while politicians use congressional maneuvers to keep the cross there, others say it's unconstitutional and should be removed. This sounds a lot like the cross atop Mount Soledad in La Jolla, but it's not. About 275 miles away in the Mojave Desert stands a far less prominent but nonetheless controversial cross that, like the Mount Soledad cross, has been the subject of lawsuits and court-ordered removals. Unlike Mount Soledad, however, the battle surrounding the desert cross at a place called Sunrise Rock has focused...

An aviation archaeologist discovered the lost wreckage of a World War II bomber in the middle of the Mojave Desert. A military recovery mission is underway with the discovery of decades-old bones. “It's very, very...it's an emotional experience,” said U.S. Marines Captain George Murphy. “Even though we didn't know these men personally, we share a common experience.” On April 09, 1944, a B-24D Bomber went down during a training mission just southwest of the then Mojave Marine Corps Air Station. The coroner issued death certificates to the families of all ten men on board. And, the cause of the crash...

MOJAVE - XCOR Aerospace will help develop a rocket engine for NASA's next manned spacecraft under a multimillion-dollar contract announced Tuesday. Mojave-based XCOR is teamed with Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, for the first phase of developing a rocket engine that runs on liquid oxygen and liquid methane, nontoxic fuels that could help lower the overall cost of spaceflight. XCOR's portion of the $10.4 million contract is $3.3 million, the biggest government contract the company has had to date, CEO Jeff Greason said. "We were a significant part of this team," he said. "We are very excited about the opportunity to...

LOS ANGELES - Virgin Galactic officials see their new space travel endeavor as more than a business to bring the experience of spaceflight to paying customers. It is part of a larger goal to use capitalism and new technology to improve the world in which we live. The spacecraft that will serve Virgin Galactic's customers - designed and developed by SpaceShipOne creator Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites in Mojave - will ultimately contribute to the environmentally friendly technology which Virgin believes will be necessary to meet society's problems in the future. "We're going to have to be in space...

California lawmakers took steps this week to provide an outlay of funds for the inland Mojave Spaceport, an action also designed to keep the state aggressive in public space travel and space enterprise. The California Legislature has moved a bill to invest $11 million in the Mojave Spaceport. Noting competition from other states and nations, the Senate Committee on Transportation voted on a bipartisan 8-1 vote in favor of Senate Bill 1671 by State Senator Roy Ashburn that will ensure a competitive advantage for the first, and only, inland spaceport in the United States. The measure would establish a loan...

MOJAVE - Long home to feats of aviation achievement, Mojave and its spaceport are poised on the launching pad of a new industry. "There is the possibility there are going to be significant changes in this area brought on by a new industry. That industry is personal spaceflight," said Burt Rutan, seen as a pioneer of the budding industry since last year's success of his privately funded, manned space program, SpaceShipOne. Rutan addressed the crowd Thursday at the Kern County Board of Trade's mixer at the Mojave Airport. The event was an opportunity to spotlight the growing development of east...

rocketed into history in the skies over Mojave in the first privately funded, manned space flight. On Oct. 5, 2005, SpaceShipOne will take its place with other icons in the history of flight, as it is unveiled in the Milestones of Flight Gallery of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The spacecraft, the creation of designer extraordinaire Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites team, will hang suspended between Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier, and Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, the first aircraft to complete a solo flight across the Atlantic. "It...

KELSO, Calif. - A 65,200-acre wildfire in a southeastern California wilderness preserve destroyed five homes and two cabins built in the late 1800s, but firefighters had most of the blaze surrounded, officials said Saturday. Six trailers or other structures also were destroyed in the Mojave National Preserve blaze, which was 65 percent contained late Saturday night, Ranger Linda Slater said. Firefighters made good progress Saturday after a cold front moved in with winds that were not as strong as expected, Slater said. The large fire formed after lightning sparked five separate blazes Wednesday afternoon near the Nevada state line. Those...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) - A federal judge has ruled that a land exchange seeking to protect the removal of a 6-foot cross in the Mojave National Preserve is invalid and ordered officials to honor his previous ruling to remove the cross, an environmental group said Wednesday. The cross has been at the center of a legal battle to end governmental sponsorship of religious symbols on public land. In his April 5 ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin said a one-acre land exchange enacted by Congress in 2003 to place the cross in private hands and shield it from previous...

WASHINGTON - The inventor of the first private spaceship predicted Wednesday that commercial manned space flight would move quickly from joyrides for millionaires to the general public and spawn advances not yet imagined — much as early computers opened the way for the Internet.

A federal judge has rejected a land swap intended to preserve a cross in the Mojave National Preserve, dealing a blow to supporters who hoped to skirt an order to dismantle the memorial to veterans. In a ruling issued Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Timlin declared invalid a plan to transfer the land where the cross stands to the California Veterans Home in Barstow. Calling the plan "an attempt by the government to evade the permanent injunction' against the display of the cross, Timlin again ordered the removal of the steel-pipe structure that sits on an outcropping known...

MOJAVE - Time is running out for those interested in claiming souvenirs of the historic SpaceShipOne spaceflights. The nonprofit Rocket Boosters will cease Internet sales of the exclusive licensed merchandise on March 15. The gear - shirts, mugs, calendars, pins and similar memorabilia - may be ordered at the organization's Web site, www.rocketboosters.org. As the sale is winding down, some merchandise is limited. Created by famed aviation designer Burt Rutan and built at his Scaled Composites in Mojave, SpaceShipOne made history last year as the first privately funded, manned space program. It claimed the $10 million Ansari X Prize with...

MOJAVE - The Mojave-built Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer is getting ready to visit the American heartland . Pilot Steve Fossett will depart from the Salina Municipal Airport in central Kansas when he sets forth on a record-setting attempt to fly solo nonstop around the world in the coming months. Mission Control for the flight will be nearby at Kansas State University, Salina's College of Technology and Aviation. The flight is tentatively set to take off in early February. Unveiled at Scaled Composites' facility at the Mojave Airport a year ago, the aircraft is another distinctive design from aviation mastermind Burt Rutan....

MOJAVE, Calif. — A $20 million, private investment in manned space flight earned a $10 million return yesterday when a stubby, white rocket captured the X Prize by soaring to the edge of space for the second time in less than a week. SpaceShipOne's jubilant backers predicted it won't be long before that red ink turns black, as the thirst for adventure and exploration fuels a boom in space tourism. "There are real dollars to be made here," said St. Louis entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, who created the prize to inspire a new breed of rocketeers and move human space travel...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 6/27/4 -Waziristan, Basra, Fallujah, Nablus, Mojave BREAKING: Waziristan, Pakistan - al Qaeda terrorists taken out BREAKING: Basra, Iraq - al-Zubayer oil field oil started flowing again BREAKING: Shatt al-Arab - British heroes returned BREAKING: Fallujah - America liberated Iraqi Civil Defense Corp (ICDC) takes over BREAKING: Nablus - Israeli heroes take out seven Palestinian terrorists BREAKING: Mojave, Calif. - American hero Astronaut in SpaceShipOne QFN ====QUAGMIRE-FREE NEWS Exclusive to FReerepublic PICTURES YOU MAY NEVER SEE IN THE GENERAL MEDIA ========= Fallujah ========= In Fallujah, U.S. Marines heroes chat up local boys in...

9th Circuit topples Mojave desert cross By The Associated Press 06.08.04 SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that an 8-foot cross in the Mojave National Preserve is an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. Ruling 3-0 in Buono v. Norton, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court that had ruled against the cross, which has become both a war memorial and a place of worship at a Southern California desert site known as Sunrise Rock. The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a retired National Park Service...

LOS ANGELES - A federal appeals court today upheld a lower court’s ruling that the presence of a large Christian cross on the federal Mojave Desert Preserve is an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. “The court took a look at this issue and concluded that the case couldn't be clearer: a religious symbol on government property violates the U.S. Constitution," said Peter Eliasberg, a managing attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, which brought the challenge. "At every level the courts have rightly agreed with this principle and there's no reason to believe that any amount of political grandstanding is...