The Layman's Corner

Republicans are looking to deny child tax credits to illegal immigrants _ refund checks averaging $1,800 a family _ in an effort that has roused anger among Hispanics and some Democratic lawmakers. The proposal, which would require people who claim the federal credit to have Social Security numbers to prove they're ... Read More

On Saturday, Icelandic member of parliament Birgitta Jónsdóttir posted a nomination letter on her blog on behalf of the three-member parliamentary group The Movement, proposing suspected WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning as a candidate for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. Nobel Peace Prize nominations can be submitted by any member of ... Read More

Undaunted by the monumental failure of Personhood USA's push to declare fertilized human eggs exactly the same as grown ass adults in Mississippi, conservatives in Oklahoma have pushed forward with their own Personhood Bill. But one Democratic smartass isn't having it, and she finds the whole thing so absurd that ... Read More

Bring it Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on Tuesday said she is ready to do battle with the "right wing" in order to uphold the Obama administration's new rules that could compel religious affiliated employers that oppose contraceptives on moral ground to provide insurance plans that provide contraceptives to their employees. "We are ... Read More

Despite the fact that about 70% of Americans want to. “We all know that gas prices going up are a very big challenge to us and we need to find alternatives to foreign oil,” Cantwell said. “But just drilling more as our strategy to pay for this bill is just not ... Read More

House investigators wrote the Port of Los Angeles yesterday to review the decision to spend almost half a million dollars in stimulus money on retrofitting a luxury yacht with environmentally-friendly engines. "The Port of Los Angeles owes the public greater transparency about this project and a full accounting of the cost-benefit ... Read More

Algore stunned The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows. The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being ... Read More

It certainly does look like one. Its hair matches samples recovered from mammoth remains regularly dug up from the permafrost in frozen Russia. The official was reportedly in the area surveying for a planned road. Paranormal writer Michael Cohen said: "Rumours of a handful of mammoths still kicking around in the vast wilderness ... Read More

And they wonder why their approval rating is in single digits (CNSNews.com) – House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that Congress does not need an official federal budget because it can just adopt appropriations bills and authorization policies as needed to keep operating. At a briefing with journalists on Capitol Hill ... Read More

In fact, it seems as if it isn’t really much of a debate anymore. First, let me be clear, the debate among scientists isn’t whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas or whether, even, it can cause warming, but instead on what real (if any) total effect it has overall on the ... Read More