Free Republic

Texas Governor Greg Abbott had a blunt response to learning that LGBTQ+ groups have written to the United Nations to complain about suffering from "systemic" discrimination in the Lone Star state. Dismissing the international organization with a six-word post on X, formerly Twitter, Abbott wrote: "The UN can go pound sand." His comment comes after Texas passed a string of laws that critics consider discriminatory against LGBTQ+ people. Seven new laws in particular have drawn the ire of some gay and transgender organizations and human rights groups, which joined forces to write a letter to officials at the U.N. "to...

"And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice is the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure out what happened and somebody blocked their view. DOJ press conference"- Patrick Fitzgerald pdf p. 6

The slight asymmetry in the sand dunes shows their steep sides are orientated towards the south. The University of Arizona, which operates the High-Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRise) camera used to take the image, pointed out in a statement(opens in new tab) that this indicates sands are blown southwards, though the Martian winds may be variable. The image was taken on November 22, 2022, at a latitude of 42.505 degrees and a longitude of 67.076 degrees. It comes as part of a series of pictures taken by the HiRise camera that orbits Mars on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft. The...

A steep price for sand. One eager eBay seller is looking to cash in following Tom Brady’s second, and most likely final, retirement announcement on Wednesday. The Florida beach sand where Brady ended his iconic 23-year NFL career was listed for sale on eBay and is listed for at least $99K with 124 bids as of Saturday morning. “Bid for 1 of 2 samples taken from Tom Brady’s exact retirement spot on Feb. 1, 2023,” the listing reads. According to the Miami Herald, Brady made his announcement from Surfside Beach in Miami — near where he lived with his then-wife...

Ten days ago, NASA’s satellite spotted a massive dust storm blowing off the Sahara Desert and into the waters of the Atlantic Basin. At the time, we forecasted dust clouds were “headed for the Americas.” Fast forward today, millions of tons of Sahara’s nutrient-laden minerals have been whisked across the Atlantic Ocean and are set to arrive in South Florida on Friday or Saturday. Satellite footage shows the airborne dust particles have already blanketed parts of the Caribbean. #SaharanDust has been on the move across the Atlantic for the past few weeks. So far, no clouds thick enough to make...

The world is running out of sand: Shortage could mean there won't be enough to make glass vials for COVID vaccines Sand is used in concrete and glass, making it essential in housing and tech There's a sand shortage, with under 1,000 sand mines in the US That could hurt the construction industry, which uses up to 50 billion tons a year Since 2015 there's been a global shortage of glass that's only worsening as vials are needed for vaccine rollout Experts say demand for glass vials will rise by 2 billion over the next two years

The leaders of the coup that ousted Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita spent most of the year training in Russia before returning to boot out the democratically-elected leader at gunpoint, according to sources in the Malian military. The rebels took control of Mali's largest military base in Kati, just outside the capital, Bamako, on Tuesday before storming Keita's official residence, seizing the president and forcing him to resign as leader of the West African nation. Numerous media outlets, including the BBC, immediately reported that the coup was led by Malick Diaw and Sadio Camara, two army colonels who hold top...

Skateboarders in Los Angeles went to work Monday removing sand from a popular skate park that was ordered filled by local officials last month to deter its use amid a statewide stay-at-home order. Armed with shovels, buckets and brooms, the skaters at the famed skate park in Venice Beach defied authorities to regain access. "Taking the Venice Skatepark back today," read an Instagram post by Shacked Mag, a skating magazine. "The city let this skate park get destroyed, graffiti, garbage, broken glass everywhere....... Skaters want their park back. More clips in our Instagram Story."

If you're planning a beach vacation, you'd better get to it soon. An alarming statistic for you: 67% of Southern California beaches? GONE by 2100. All because of sand. Even if you don't think about the grainy stuff, you use it daily. You're reading this off something made with sand, looking at it through a screen made with sand, surrounded by buildings made with concrete. I could let you guess what's in concrete, but I suspect you're already catching onto a theme here. The following is a transcript of the video. I'll try to make this quick since we don't...

Are There As Many Stars as Sand Grains? September 22, 2019 | David F. Coppedge A video clip from Illustra Media attempts to answer a common question: How many stars are there? Lord willing, the Editor will soon be back from travel and speaking. Till then, enjoy this amazing video from Illustra Media! HOW MANY STARS? The question is timeless. Pondered, throughout history, by human beings of every culture, age, and nationality: how many stars are there in the universe? This fascinating film explores worlds gigantic and microscopic to reveal answers that challenge our perceptions of creation. Travel with us...

Rather than try to impose the numerous costly mandates and socialistic programs of the Green New Deal, policymakers should focus on improving U.S. industry and making the nation more mineral-independent, a move that would allow for greater technological innovation in the future, both within and outside of the energy sector.

American singer, actor Frankie Avalon celebrates 78 today.

A Plano West High School student was arrested on charges related to an ISIS-inspired plan to commit a mass shooting at the Frisco mall with help from others, authorities said Wednesday. Matin Azizi-Yarand, 17, faces charges of making a terroristic threat and criminal solicitation of capital murder. He was taken into custody at school on Tuesday and is being held on $3 million bail. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

SURFACING MODELS OF THOUGHT Out of the complexity of the global sand trade has emerged something of a butterfly effect, in which an economic decision in one place can wreak social and environmental havoc on the other side of the world. If you’re looking for a way to express something that’s staggeringly hard to count, you won’t find a more reliable metaphor than grains of sand. There is indeed quite a bit of it – about 7.5 quintillion grains on Earth’s beaches and deserts, according to one estimate. But if you think that this would be sufficient to supply an...

Sand, spanning miles of beaches, carpeting vast oceans and deserts, is a visual metaphor for limitless resources. Yet researchers in this week's journal Science seize another metaphor - sand in an hourglass, marking time running out. Sand is the literal foundation of urban development across the globe, a key ingredient of concrete, asphalt, glass, and electronics. It is cheap and easily extracted. Scientists in the United States and Germany say that easy access has bred a careless understanding of the true global costs of sand mining and consumption. Sand mining across the world is being linked to coastal erosion, habitat...

A beach that was swept away more than 30 years ago from a remote island off the west coast of Ireland has reappeared after thousands of tons of sand were deposited on top of the rocky coastline.

Despite the obvious similarities between Martian and Terrestrial dunes, one in-depth analysis has led a couple of researchers (Gary Kocurek and Ryan Ewing, see below) to suggest that there are also important differences.

FBI and IRS agents today conducted an operation at the law office of State Senator Carlos Uresti, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports. The operation took place at Uresti's private law office on Quincy Street, just off I-35 on the north end of downtown.An FBI agent confirmed only that agents are conducting 'lawful law enforcement activity' at the office. They are being assisted by San Antonio Police, officers are keeping bystanders at bay.It is not clear what the agents are looking for. The IRS has not returned a call seeking comment. Developing

“Right now, it’s all about the frack sand. The story of US shale resilience is now about huge quantities of high-quality frack sand. This is the backbone of the comeback.” Welcome to the Mega-Frack Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting highly pressurized water into a well and then pouring sand into it in order to keep the tiny fractures created by the water blast open, and then widening them so that more crude oozes from the shale rock. The US response to the oil price war has been the ‘mega frack’, which means that producers are creating more fractures in rock because...

Don't take my word for it, though-here's how Black Lives Matter ties into what the left calls "environmental justice." Another activist on the Mall, Dominque Hazzard, a member of the Black Youth Project 100, said, "The Black Lives Matter and the Climate and Justice movements are totally connected because, around the world, climate change is disproportionately impacting people of color and the working class. "The movement is about ending state sanctioned violence against black people," Hazzard said.