Free Republic

MANADO, Indonesia (AFP) - Rising sea levels that could wipe whole nations off the map and displace scores of millions of people are being overlooked in global climate change talks, island countries said Tuesday. Major emitters are pushing for greenhouse gas emissions cuts that are too low to prevent devastating sea rises, representatives said at the World Ocean Conference in Indonesia's Manado city. "Dealing with environmental refugees will have a much more serious impact on the global economy and global security in fact than what wars have ever done to this planet," said Rolph Payet, a presidential adviser from the...

LONDON -- On the eve of a global economic summit, President Barack Obama promised world leaders he would listen, not lecture, as they seek a common fix to the financial crisis. "We can only meet this challenge together," he said Wednesday as the U.S. and Russia spoke on the summit sidelines about nuclear warhead reduction. The flurry of diplomacy came as Obama stepped on the world stage for the first time as president, aiming to shore up both America's economy and its reputation across the globe. He met with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese...

Vince Shlomi, an infomercial salesman with a penchant for slanging in the vain of Ginsu, The Clapper, Life Alert and other such time and money (or life) saving multi-purpose device slicksters was involved in an incident involving a hooker he courted at a nightclub in Florida, February 7th. The Smoking Gun was first to report this story March 27th. Best known for his sales pitch for the Shamwow, the product which claims to be able extract large quantities of liquid spills created by common accidents around the home (or wherever accidental spills occur), Shlomi has created a dubious reputation promoting...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Monday offered a fresh package of aid to small businesses — "the heart of the American economy" — in an aggressive push to get big banks that got federal bailout money to do more lending to these struggling entrepreneurs. "You deserve a chance. America needs you to have that chance," Obama told small business owners gathered in the White House East Room as the administration detailed various steps to get credit flowing to small businesses. With Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner by his side, Obama said the nation has small businesses to thank for many...

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — A fired-up Barack Obama ditched his TelePrompter to rally House Democrats and rip Republican opponents of his recovery package Thursday night – at one point openly mocking the GOP for failing to follow through on promises of bipartisanship. In what was the most pointedly partisan speech of his young presidency, Obama rejected Republican arguments that massive spending in the $819 billion stimulus bill that passed the House should be replaced by a new round of massive tax cuts. “I welcome this debate, but we are not going to get relief by turning back to the same policies...

The Democrats’ stimulus bill is a “sham” that could pass unless enough angry voters besiege Congress with calls and e-mails, Sen. Jim DeMint, chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, tells Newsmax. Citing a new Gallup poll showing that three out of four Americans oppose the stimulus in its present form, the South Carolina Republican says Americans are beginning to understand what the stimulus bill is: a grab bag of spending measures that Democrats lusted after for years and will do little to stimulate the economy. “When people see bike trails and hiking trails and golf courses, they know this is...

WASHINGTON – We may never know whether the government's $700 billion bailout of the financial industry worked, according to a new report from congressional auditors. That's because it will be impossible to sort out which of the government's spending and other tinkering has made a difference, according to the report released Friday by the Government Accountability Office. The report covers Treasury's administration of the bailout, called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, through Jan. 23. Nearly $294 billion had been released by that date — almost $200 billion of it through a program to inject capital directly into financial institutions. The...

WASHINGTON – The recession is killing jobs at an alarming pace, with tens of thousands of new layoffs announced Monday by some of the biggest names in American business — Pfizer, Caterpillar and Home Depot. More pink slips, pay freezes and other hits are expected to slam workers in the months ahead as companies desperately look for ways to survive. "We're just seeing the tip of the iceberg — the big firms," said Rebecca Braeu, economist at John Hancock Financial Services. "There's certainly other firms beneath them that will lay off workers as quickly or even quicker." Looking ahead, economists...

Jim Hansen is the 'grandfather of climate change' and one of the world's leading climatologists. In this rare interview in New York, he explains why President Obama's administration is the last chance to avoid flooded cities, species extinction and climate catastropheRobin McKie, science editor The Observer, Sunday 18 January 2009 Article historyAlong one wall of Jim Hansen's wood-panelled office in upper Manhattan, the distinguished climatologist has pinned 10 A4-sized photographs of his three grandchildren: Sophie, Connor and Jake. They are the only personal items on display in an office otherwise dominated by stacks of manila folders, bundles of papers and...

<p>Barack Obama's inauguration address will stress "responsibility" by calling on Americans in government and business to embrace a new era of proper behavior.</p> <p>"Getting our country back on track," is the core theme of the speech, said Obama Press Secretary Rob Gibbs, adding that the president-elect wrote the bulk of it as it is now.</p>

WASHINGTON – The economic crisis that will dominate Barack Obama's first 100 days as president, and beyond, will give him a rare chance to enact big portions of his agenda that otherwise might have languished for months or years. Not since Franklin D. Roosevelt has a new president been poised to pack so many ambitious, costly — and, under more normal circumstances, highly contentious — projects into one fast-moving bill. As in 1933, a frightening economic collapse makes the quick political work possible, choking off longer debates and possible opposition that many of the initiatives would have faced in better...

Slideshow: President-elect Barack Obama Play Video Barack Obama Video: Illinois House impeaches Gov. Rod Blagojevich AP Play Video Barack Obama Video: Web only: Obama names intelligence team WRAL Raleigh Reuters – President-elect Barack Obama arrives to make a speech on the economy at George Mason University in Fairfax, … WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama said Friday that he and Congress will "hone and refine" his nearly $800 billion economic recovery plan, as he seeks to patch fissures with senior Democrats over key features of the still-emerging plan. The job was made more urgent with the release of a Labor Department...

How lame is the energy bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi had her House Democrats pass through the House on Tuesday? Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu said before the vote that Pelosi's handiwork would be "dead on arrival" in the Senate. This from a Democrat who's up for re-election in an oil-and-gas state that would seem to gain from the bill's much-ballyhooed expansion of offshore drilling? What gives? For starters, Landrieu knows that the limited drilling the House leadership allows in principle -- it opens up waters 50 miles from shore with state approval -- is made next to impossible in practice....

GOP candidates, convention steer clear of immigration BY REID J. EPSTEIN reid.epstein@newsday.com September 8, 2008 During the Republican presidential primary, immigration was such an important topic that candidates were tripping over each other to be seen as the toughest defender of the nation's borders. The issue became so hot that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the GOP presidential nominee, was forced to disavow his own immigration reform bill because it was seen by many Republicans as too lenient. But a parade of Republicans came to the convention podium in St. Paul last week with barely a mention of immigration. On Wednesday...

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) pauses during a ceremony in Janusz Korczak Square at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, July 23, 2008. Obama began a visit to Jerusalem on Wednesday pledging staunch support for Israel and saying that if elected, he would work to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process. REUTERS/Jim Young (JERUSALEM) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008 (USA

In a time when tele-evangelists seem to inundate the airwaves with their own cable channels and are just another stop in an evening's channel surfing, it's easy to forget an earlier time, when revival meetings were as exciting as the circus coming to town, and evangelists were treated like rock stars. For Los Angeles, the premiere evangelist of those days was Aimee Semple McPherson. She was born Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy in 1890 in Ontario, Canada. As a child, she traveled with her mother Minnie, who worked for the Salvation Army. Aimee's first husband, Robert Semple, was a Pentecostal missionary who...

Last night, Al Gore preached to the choir. The polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate, droughts are dragging on, floods are getting stronger and today alone, an additional 170 million tons of carbon dioxide has been dumped into the Earth's atmosphere, he told a crowd of believers at Value City Arena. "The planet has a fever," he said. It needs to be saved, to be fixed immediately. "This is our home. We don't have another planet to go to. Don't let anybody tell you we're going to get on rocket ships and go to a new planet....

Mary Katherine Ham makes a great point about this Obama plagerizing story, which is getting a bit bigger today but I will get to that in a moment. First MKH: [W]hat the story takes a whack at, effectively, is Obama’s authenticity, which is his No. 1 selling point. Hillary’s camp is smart to play up the fact that the supreme orator, the Messiah of American politics, the man of change above all else, could really just be another politician with a flair for speechifying, a calculating player with no compunction about inspiring with rehashed copy if it suits his purposes.This...

NEW YORK - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, elated by a strong collection of Super Tuesday wins, looked past Democratic rival Barack Obama to take aim at President Bush and his Republican allies. "You know tonight we are hearing the voices of people across America, people of all ages, of all colors, all faiths and all walks of life," she told supporters in a crowded Manhattan ballroom. The New York senator is seeking to become the first woman president, while Obama would become the first black president. Appearing onstage with her husband and daughter Chelsea, Clinton did not direct any criticism...

By Michael P. Tremoglie (author of the critically acclaimed novel A Sense of Duty available at Barnesandnoble.com) Liberals, generally, and liberal Democrats specifically, have always used ad hominems against their ideological or political opponents instead of arguing the merits of the issue. Very often they “poison the well” so to speak, by questioning the other person’s credibility either by claiming the other is ignorant (coupled with a veiled insult) or by alleging that their antagonist is motivated purely by a seedy self-interest. The most famous of these is the race baiting of conservatives and Republicans. Routinely liberals and Democrats label...