Free Republic

Tsunami risk of asteroid strikes revealed 18:18 12 May 2006 NewScientist.com news service Jeff Hecht The researchers modelled the asteroid impact believed to have led to the demise of the dinosaurs – this frame shows tsunami wave heights 4 hours after the impact of the 10-kilomtre-wide asteroid (Image: Steve Ward)Related Articles Tsunamis triggered by asteroid impacts cause a disaster similar to the 2004 Asian tsunami once every 6000 years on average, according to the first detailed analysis of their effects. Researchers have assumed that tsunamis would make ocean impacts more deadly than those on land. But Steve Chesley at the...

Party endorses lawmaker receiving drug treatment after Capitol crash Updated: 10:03 a.m. ET May 9, 2006 WEST WARWICK, R.I. - Democrats endorsed an absent Rep. Patrick Kennedy, being treated for addiction to prescription pain drugs, for re-election Monday night at their state convention. Kennedy checked into the Mayo Clinic on Friday for his second stay in less than five months after a middle-of-the-night car crash near the Capitol on Thursday that he said he couldn’t remember. It was his second car crash in three weeks. Republicans have said Kennedy should step aside because he can’t fulfill his duties. But Democratic...

There is opposition to a plan by Israeli Arabs to march in the center of the Israeli city of Lod to mourn the "catastrophe" of Israel's creation. Residents of Lod filed a request with Lod Police Commander Amichai Eshed to prevent a public observance in the city on May 15th (the anniversary of the end of the British Mandate) of Al-Nakba – which is Arabic for "The Catastrophe," a reference to the founding of the State of Israel. They wrote in their letter that, "Nakba Day testifies more than anything to the disloyalty of Palestinians in Israel to the right...

Baghdad morgue struggles to cope with flow of bodies By Oliver Poole in Baghdad (Filed: 05/05/2006) The month after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra was the bloodiest in Baghdad's modern history, with 1,294 bodies arriving at the city's morgue. Ninety per cent had been shot, said the facility's deputy director, Dr Qaiss Hassan, as official figures were released of the carnage that came after the destruction of the revered Shia holy site on Feb 22. A coffin arrives at the morgue There was a wave of tit-for-tat sectarian killings as Shia mobs rampaged through the Iraqi capital,...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The California Assembly has voted to restrict the use of ultrasound machines for personal use, approving a bill that would allow them to be sold only to licensed professionals. Democratic Assemblyman Ted Lieu introduced the bill after "Mission: Impossible III" star Tom Cruise bought an ultrasound machine to see images of his unborn child. The actor's fiancee, Katie Holmes, gave birth to the couple's daughter, Suri, last month in Los Angeles. Doctors and technologists typically receive years of training to perform ultrasound exams, which help obstetricians check a baby's health. Cruise was criticized by doctors who said...

In the leak scandal that led to five indictments for a top-level White House official, reports this week cite that former US Central Intelligence Agency employee Valerie Plame was allegedly following Iran's nuclear activities before her identity was revealed. Democrat Party Senator Frank Lautenberg, in a letter to CIA Director Porter Goss, asked for an evaluation of the harm outing Plame has caused. In the letter, the Senator reminds Director Goss of recent news stories which report that before Plame was outed, she participated in intelligence works on the Iranian nuclear dossier, and her subsequent outing gravely jeopardized the US’...

LONDON (Reuters) - The ozone layer is showing signs of recovering, thanks to a drop in ozone-depleting chemicals, but it is unlikely to stabilize at pre-1980 levels, researchers said on Wednesday. Depletion of the earth's protective ozone layer is caused by the chemical action of chlorine and bromine released by man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are used in aerosol sprays and cooling equipment. Ozone-depleting chemicals were banned by the 1987 Montreal Protocol which has now been ratified by 180 nations. "We now have some confidence that the ozone layer is responding to the decreases in chlorine levels in the atmosphere due...

World Cup fans warned of race attacks By Bojan Pancevski in Berlin (Filed: 30/04/2006) Black visitors to the World Cup in Germany are being warned to stay clear of parts of the country where they could be at risk of racist attacks. A "no-go" map, with a focus on the capital Berlin, will be posted on a website and printed in brochures for distribution to thousands of visitors of African and Asian origin. The document was drawn up by the Africa Council, an umbrella organisation of African community groups and activists in Germany, following concern over an incident on Easter...

MOSCOW, April 19 (Itar-Tass) - Russia will maintain neutrality in a possible armed conflict between Iran and the United States, Russian army chief of staff Yuri Baluyevsky stated on Wednesday, as he was answering Itar-Tass questions. "Unequivocally, and I'm saying it as chief of the General Staff, Russia will not be offering the use of its armed forces on this or that side," Gen Baluyevsky said. He called for resolving the Iranian nuclear problems through negotiations. "A diplomatic solution of the Iranian nuclear problem is the only right path; one should walk on it, the nuclear problem should be resolved...

4/13/2006 - SOUTHWEST ASIA -- “It’s so frustrating to come under attack, and see another one of our soldiers hurt,” said “AJ,” a Joint Terminal Attack Controller who supports the U.S. Army infantry in Iraq. “This time one of our guys lost a leg and several fingers,” said the major. “But it could have been worse if the Strike Eagles hadn’t arrived on the scene.” While hundreds of F-15E sorties fly through the Iraqi skies in any given week supporting troops on the ground, this recent mission stands out in two 336th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron crews’ minds as particularly memorable....

Indiana signs 75-year lease turning toll road over to private operator; lawsuit filed INDIANAPOLIS If the deal stands, drivers on the Indiana Toll Road will be paying a foreign consortium for the next 75 years for the privilege of driving on the highway. Indiana officials today signed an agreement to turn the 157-mile toll road over to a Spanish-Australian consortium that will operate the roadway for a profit. It's the biggest highway privatization deal in U-S history. The consortium is paying the state three-point-eight (b) billion dollars up front and will be responsible for operating and maintaining the highway. It...

On Feb. 21, Doubleday will publish the book that cost me my job: "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy." The germination began when I heard about the extraordinary efforts made by the White House to ram the Medicare drug benefit through the House of Representatives during the night. Until that point, I had given President Bush the benefit of the doubt—even on things with which I was uncomfortable. For example, I had reluctantly concluded the Iraq War was justified on the basis of what I knew at the time it began. I don't normally...

My web site JunkScience.com celebrated its 10th anniversary on April 1, 2006. To mark the event, this column spotlights 10 big junk science stories of the last 10 years. In no particular order, they are: 1. The most toxic manmade chemical? That’s what some called dioxin, a by-product of natural and industrial combustion processes and the “contaminant of concern” in the Vietnam-era defoliant known as Agent Orange. Billions of dollars have been spent studying and regulating dioxin, but debunking the scare only cost a few thousand dollars. Keying off Ben & Jerry’s claim on its ice cream packages that “there...

NEW YORK — A civil liberties group accused police yesterday of lying about the circumstances surrounding the arrests of hundreds of protesters during the Republican National Convention. In a letter to police and prosecutors, the New York Civil Liberties Union demanded a review of cases brought against protesters arrested on Aug. 31, 2004, at demonstrations near the World Trade Center site and Union Square. “We are concerned that false police statements may have tainted hundreds of cases of people arrested at the two largest mass arrests during the convention,” wrote the group’s attorney, Christopher Dunn. City law officials have said...

Secrets of the DunesEXCLUSIVE: At Australia's WIllandra Lakes, TIME’s Lisa Clausen Visits the site of the world's largest repository of ice-age human footprints Sunday, Mar. 19, 2006 They were in the wrong place, but Steve Webb's archaeology class decided to stay anyway. A colleague had mistakenly taken them to a site they'd never visited before, a nondescript-looking claypan lost among the pale dunes in the Willandra Lakes region of far western New South Wales. Luckily, Webb thought it would still make good practice fieldwork for his Aboriginal students after a week of classes in the nearby town of Mildura. He...

MIAMI (March 17) - A growing scandal over teachers who paid to get credit for courses they never took has cost nearly three dozen educators their jobs, and hundreds of others were being investigated. The Miami-Dade County School Board voted 5-4 on Wednesday to fire six teachers and accept resignations from 26 others. The punishments stem from a scam run by former high school teacher William McCoggle, who claimed to offer continuing-education classes through a private company. McCoggle pleaded guilty to fraud in November, admitting he did little more than sell transcripts, requiring no tests, homework or other academic work....

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. (March 15) - Carlos G. Rojas didn't know what to think when the military life insurance checks started showing up at his office. He didn't know anyone who would have named him a beneficiary, and the checks totaled $200,000. He called Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance, which pays death benefits to military families, and the customer service representatives insisted the money was his and he should cash the checks, he said. Rojas couldn't do it. "It's not like picking up a penny you just found," said Rojas, a 29-year-old marketing consultant. "Somebody's life was connected with that money."...

The Hamas-run web site promoting suicide terrorism to children has been updated with a new illustrated story glorifying a young girl’s suicide attack on the “Zionists”. The story, entitled “A Palestinian Girl's Heroism,” describes how the young girl calmly progresses, step by step, though the planning and execution of the terror attack, in which she dies. In death she is said to be "smiling, lying on the grass, because she died as a Shahida, martyr for Allah, for Palestine." “The illustration with the story on the web shows a young smiling girl with four candles,” a report by Palestinian Media...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Prosecutors asked a judge Wednesday to reconsider her decision to toss out half of the government's case against confessed terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. They acknowledged that altering the judge's ruling is their only hope of salvaging the death-penalty case. In a motion filed with U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, prosecutors said the aviation security evidence she barred because a government lawyer coached the witnesses "goes to the very core of our theory of the case." At the very least, the prosecutors argued they should be allowed to present a newly designated aviation security witness who had no contact...

Out of the sand It was built in 1504, but abandoned 13 years later and left to crumble. Now, after a huge restoration project, Yemen's Amiriya palace is considered the world's most beautiful mosque. By Rory McCarthy Saturday March 11, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Amiriya palace ... the exterior during restoration and (right) paintings inside one of the domes. Photographs: Yahya Arhab/EPA There is a photograph of a small town in Yemen taken a century ago by a German photographer called Hermann Burchardt. It is one in a series of remarkable pictures taken during an expedition through the southern tip...