Free Republic

After two and a half years of review, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Final Environmental Impact Statement was published in July. It determined that the Pebble Mine project can successfully meet strict federal regulatory and environmental standards and that the mining project would have no discernable impact on returning salmon and no affect on commercial fisheries in Bristol Bay. The mine is not at the headwaters of Bristol Bay — as is often wrongly portrayed in photographs. It's 230 miles away by river, or 100 miles by air, from Bristol Bay, and only touches three very small tributaries at...

In the past, when we studied the collapse of civilizations, we learned about Barbarian invasions and slave revolts. When our history is written, I suspect it will include peacocks on airplanes and emotional support hamsters. So how did we get here? How are farm animals such as pigs getting into first class to keep their owners soothed and sedate? That's what the Jack Daniels was supposed to do. As we’ll see in a moment, we can blame the unhinged era of Eric Holder at the Justice Department. In case you missed it, Spirit Airlines is getting grief for advising college...

SIERRA VISTA — Fon B. Huffman, the last survivor from the international Panay Incident of 1937, died Thursday, his family announced. Huffman, born in 1913, celebrated his 95th birthday on Aug. 19. He died peacefully in his sleep at noon in Hacienda Rehabilitation and Care Center. His daughter, Nancy Ferguson, was by his side. The Iowa farm boy who joined the Navy at age 16 was a 24-year-old sailor aboard the USS Panay when it was attacked near Nanking, China, on Dec. 12, 1937, by Imperial Japanese warplanes. In those days, the American gunboat, part of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet,...

Peering into a hole that it dug, the Mars rover Opportunity has turned up new puzzles for scientists to ponder. Since landing Jan. 25, the Opportunity has been exploring the same small crater. One intriguing feature of that crater, in the middle of the vast plain Meridiani Planum, is the small pebbles, many almost perfectly round, scattered over the surface. The rover also saw these pebbles, about the size of BB's, embedded in an outcrop of bedrock it cruised past last week, and scientists wanted to see what lies in the dirt, too. By holding five of its six wheels...