Free Republic

Growing up we all believe what we want to. For years my son believed that there were monsters under his bed at night, my daughter believed that a unicorn would show up for her to ride away. Both of them believed in the tooth fairy (OK there was one of those, but it was only me in a costume). Part of the growing process is that we realize that these childish myths are not real by any means. Surprisingly, there is one childish myth that many otherwise intelligent adults cling on to. That's the myth that there is a scientific...

Brazilian authorities defended the reliability of the nation's electric grid after a massive power failure Tuesday darkened about half the country and revived concerns about Brazil's ability to provide energy infrastructure to match its surging economy. Blackouts hit about 800 Brazilian cities, including Rio de Janeiro and the economic hub of São Paulo, around 10 p.m. Tuesday night after three high-power transmission lines collapsed, triggering a domino effect that prompted a 14,000-megawatt hydroelectric plant to go offline, officials said. Paraguay, which shares the dam with Brazil, also suffered a major blackout. Energy Minister Edison Lobão said the outage was provoked...

CHARLESTON - At least one state coal industry leader said he was shocked by comments Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made earlier this year concerning his plan to aggressively charge polluters for carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. "What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there," Obama said in a Jan. 17 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that was made public today first on the Web site newsbusters.org, which calls itself "the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media...