Free Republic

Humanity's Strange FaceStone Age skull stokes debate over what it takes to be human Bruce Bower In June 2003, three cave researchers prepared for what they hoped would be a return to the Stone Age. The explorers strapped on scuba gear and plunged into a lake in Romania's Carpathian Mountains. These intrepid souls, led by Stefan Milota of Pro Acva Grup in Timisoara, Romania, swam one at a time into a rocky passage that snakes up into an adjacent limestone hillside. At the top of the 80-foot-long channel, they emerged into the musky air of a pitch-dark cave that most...

Close the border for humanity's sake How many undocumented immigrants will die before the Bush administration realizes that the most humane act it can take is to close our southern border and thus stop smugglers from taking the calculated risk that financial profits outweigh the costs of getting caught? The recent death from dehydration and heatstroke of 19 people among 100 undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America crammed into a tractor-trailer near Victoria, Texas, is the latest in a series of similar tragedies. Smugglers have locked immigrants into sweltering trucks to bring them into the United States for years....