Free Republic

As Diseases Make Comeback, Why Aren't All Kids Vaccinated? The measles, whooping cough and even polio have returned. Why? Because of a new breed of vaccine deniers who are ignoring campaigns for awareness, and ultimately might live shorter—not longer—lives. By Glenn Harlan Reynolds Illustration by Koren Shadmi Published in the August 2008 issue. Progress is easy to take for granted. When I was a child in the ’60s, polio was history, measles was on the way out, and diphtheria and whooping cough were maladies out of old movies. Now these contagious diseases are making a comeback. Take measles, for instance....

AIRLINES are desperate. With jet fuel over $4 per gallon and still climbing, American, United and other major carriers are raising fares, cutting flights, trimming fleets and laying off pilots. They're also ordering fuel-efficient Boeing 787s and Airbus A350XWBs — the new generation of plastic planes. These new aircraft promise 20-percent-lower fuel consumption. Replacing heavier traditional aluminum alloys, 50 percent of their skins, panels and load-bearing structures are comprised of lighter, stiffer carbon-fiber-reinforced-plastic (CFRP) composites. Then add the latest, most fuel-efficient engine technology. Sounds good. But beneath these advantages danger lurks — novel maintenance challenges for which neither airlines nor...

Behold the Taunton River in Fall River, Massachusetts, pictured nearby. Congressman Barney Frank thinks your family would love to visit this scenic wilderness. Among its attractions are the fuel-storage tanks along the eastern shore. The container ships and piers are always a hit with the children looking for a place to romp. This could be America's next "wild and scenic river," if Mr. Frank gets his way. Last month the powerful Congressman pushed a bill through the House Natural Resources Committee that would give the Taunton River that designation under federal law. The bill could come up for a vote...

A prominent journalist doesn't just want our air conditioners turned down. He wants them off. This is the sort of nonsense we're getting from the anti-energy, global-warming-is-making-us-sick left. Time's Joe Klein probably thought he was being clever when he wrote his late June essay on the evils of cooling headlined "Kill Your Air Conditioner." Instead, he wrote yet another chapter in the left's book of environmental silliness. "The unnecessary refrigeration of America has become a chronic disease," said Klein. "Air conditioning is bad for the planet, and for national security, and for our balance-of-payments deficit."

The following speaks pretty much for itself, and we have provided the entire statement so there is no chance of taking words out of context. The thought that someone who is so ignorant as to believe that automation and technology harms workers–the exact position of the Luddites two centuries ago–could even conceivably become a Senator, let alone President, is truly frightening. Barack Obama on Economics: ‘We’re Going Through a Big Shift’ [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121365641014879041.html?mod=Leader-US] June 17, 2008 …WSJ: You talked about the last eight years and the question of redistribution goes way back … Sen. Obama: Oh, there’s no doubt about it....

More fighting in Iraq. Somalia in chaos. People in this country can’t afford their mortgages and in some places now they can’t even afford rice. None of this nor the rest of the grimness on the front page today will matter a bit, though, if two men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii turn out to be right. They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe. Scientists say that...

Withdraw from Iraq immediately. Eliminate the No Child Left Behind law. Legalize marijuana. Those were just some of the goals stated by candidates at the Green Party presidential debate Sunday in San Francisco. About 800 people of varying ages, economic backgrounds and political parties attended the "Presidential Debate that Matters" at the Herbst Theatre, where the five Green presidential hopefuls spent more time agreeing with one another than actually debating. "We're not so much against each other as we are for each other," said one of the candidates, Kent Mesplay, an environmental engineer who also ran for the Green Party...

The scientist credited as being the first to convince Tony Blair of the urgency of the climate crisis has accused green activists of being Luddites who risk setting back the fight against global warming. He says: "There is a suspicion, and I have that suspicion myself, that a large number of people who label themselves 'green' are actually keen to take us back to the 18th or even the 17th century."

THE Conservatives will propose banning plasma screens and other energy-guzzling electrical goods in a report to be unveiled next week. The proposals target white goods like fridges and freezers, as well as TVs, personal computers and DVD players that use too much energy or operate on stand-by. The ideas come from a Conservative group set up by David Cameron to develop policies to protect the environment and although the measures to make household electrical appliances more energy efficient are not binding on Mr Cameron, they are thought likely to be warmly received by the Tory leader. The group will also...

ISPs in the U.S. experienced a service slowdown Monday after fiber-optic cables near Cleveland were apparently sabotaged by gunfire. TeliaSonera, which lost the northern leg of its U.S. network to the cut, said that the outage began around 7 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday night. When technicians pulled up the affected cable, it appeared to have been shot. "Somebody had been shooting with a gun or a shotgun into the cable," said Anders Olausson, a TeliaSonera spokesman. The damage affected a large span of cable, more than two-thirds of a mile [1.1 km] long, near Cleveland, TeliaSonera said. The company...

Labor - A mechanical grape harvester could be the answer to a shortage of farmworkers in Oregon's vineyards Surrounded by shiny new tractors, Carl Capps spends most days talking about horsepower, hydraulics and transmissions. He paid little attention to anti- and pro-immigrant-legalization activists who marched at the state Capitol. Then the immigration debate came to him last fall, after he sold a quarter-million-dollar machine that harvests wine grapes -- the first in the Willamette Valley. The New Holland Braud grape harvester can do the work of 40 handpickers in a fraction of the time. Suddenly, vineyard owners were calling Capps...

Albert Einstein once said, “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left.” Why? Because without bees, plants don’t get pollinated. Without pollination, say goodbye to fruit, nuts, and some vegetables. We also won’t have natural oils (such as olive oil, sunflower oil, hemp oil, etc.). And we don’t have many natural fibers, such as cotton. You can see how important the bee is to our livelihood and existence. Some economists say the bee is worth about $14 billion to our economy. That’s why I was so alarmed to...

Minutes before curtain call, a five-year-old in an over-sized T-shirt sits on a bench outside a Massachusetts Institute of Technology auditorium as his identically dressed parents prep him on their upcoming performance: What do you do on stage? Sing, smile, face the audience. And remember, no hands in your pants, and no fingers in your nose. These three took the stage last Saturday (April 21) in the U.S. premiere of Lifetime: Songs of Life & Evolution at the Cambridge Science Festival, along with dozens of other families, with a mission to spread the good word on evolution. These families, members...

Environmentalism: So global-warming alarmists now want to limit our use of toilet paper. What's next, one-room shacks with bamboo fences? Don't laugh. That's also on their list of recommendations. Singer Sheryl Crow says she's spent most of her save-the-planet tour of campuses "trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming." Eureka! She's found a really practical idea. "I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting," Crow said.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Secular scientists who fear allowing the conclusions of creationism into secular universities have good reason to be afraid because they are accountable to the creator, Kurt Wise, professor of theology and science at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said on the Albert Mohler Radio Program in February. “If it’s true that there was a creation, then you realize that means there’s someone in control,” Wise said on the broadcast hosted daily by Southern Seminary’s president. “And if there was a flood -- in other words, a creator who actually judged this creation -- that means we’re in big trouble....

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCERhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/303306_joel12.html Peer into future after car ban -- it isn't prettyMonday, February 12, 2007By JOEL CONNELLYP-I COLUMNISTA longtime friend came up at a party last week, asking what it would take to get me on board the campaign that seeks to tear down the Alaskan Way Viaduct and not replace it.I cited a prediction by Department of Transportation boss Doug MacDonald that the "street option" would mean 12 hours of daily congestion on Interstate 5. "Good!" said my friend, once on the Seattle School Board. "Cars suck," added a woman chiming in on our exchange.Inspired by her persuasive depth,...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- The U.N. called Monday for tighter regulation on technology to change or create materials at the atomic and molecular level, a process being used to develop new drugs, foods and other commercial products. In its annual report of the global environment, the U.N.'s Environment Program said ''swift action'' was needed by policy makers to properly evaluate the new science of nanotechnology. Although nanotechnology could transform electronics, energy industries and medicine, more research is needed to identify environmental, health and socio-economic hazards, Achim Steiner, who heads UNEP, said in the 87-page report. The report was released on...

** Board shoots down BLM leasing of 14,000 acres on sensitive lands Environmentalists have won another round in challenging a series of Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease sales in Utah. The Interior Department's Board of Land Appeals this week reversed the BLM's leasing of roughly 14,000 acres for energy development north of Nine Mile Canyon and just south of the Book Cliffs in central Utah. The leases, covering 16 parcels, have been suspended, effective immediately. The agency, the board ruled, failed to adequately identify sensitive archaeological sites before offering the lease parcels for sale in October 2003....

A leading group of scientists says "antievolutionism" remains active in part because academics are seen as "lost in a pampered world of irrelevancies, unwilling or unable to come out of the ivory tower." Randy Olson has left the tower behind. A Harvard-trained evolutionary biologist, Olson left academia for Hollywood. He's made a documentary, "Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus," not to take on intelligent design — which he clearly thinks is a ridiculous theory — but to prod scientists to find a way to talk about evolution that doesn't make them sound like "arrogant jerks." His tack is to...

Rep. Cynthia McKinney, in her first public appearance since losing her re-election bid last week, said Tuesday that the black community needs to oppose electronic voting machines, which she warned can be used to steal elections. McKinney also said the state of Georgia should prohibit crossover voting among political parties in primary elections and end its system of runoff elections. You won't know who won as long as we have those electronic voting machines, with the problems that have been manifested by them,'' she said, criticizing Georgia officials for not requiring that paper records be kept of all votes. She...

Light Pollution At the beginning of the 21st century, humanity is losing a valuable and beautiful part of its heritage. For the first time in history, poorly designed and badly aimed lighting is denying vast numbers of humanity a view of the night sky. Urban sky glow now pollutes nearly all of Britain's night skies. As amateur astronomers we have a responsibility to guard our night time environment against light pollution. What is light pollution?  Light pollution is the popular name for sky glow - a brightening of the night sky caused by the scattering of artificial light by aerosol...

Creating 'human-animals' for research Ethics report endorses mingling human cells with lesser beings Sunday, May 1, 2005 Posted: 0316 GMT (1116 HKT) RENO, Nevada (AP) -- On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs. The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can't wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus' brain about two...

LANSING -- Lawmakers have booted a plan requiring science teachers to present competing theories of evolution and global warming from legislation after critics said it would require public schools to teach religious theories about creation. The debate is not over. The House Education Committee voted 15-2 Wednesday to forward the bill by Midland Republican Rep. John Moolenaar requiring teachers to use scientific methods to evaluate scientific theories. It passed in an amended form proposed by Richland Republican Rep. Lorence Wenke that deleted examples of global warming and evolution, with support from Bad Axe Republican Tom Meyer and others. Lawmakers still...

Why Do Students Reject Evolution? It's the Science! Despite the Darwinist community's long-standing campaign to help the public come to the "correct" view that "evolution and religion are compatible," public skepticism of evolution remains high. (See this link for documentation.) This would logically lead one to the conclusion that there are other factors besides religion that drive skepticism of evolution. Perhaps, one might even suggest, for many people the issue has a lot to do with science! Recently I was told about a 1997 article in Scientific American which reported a study conducted by Brian Alters on students' reasons for...

SAN FRANCISCO - In its quest to genetically engineer rice with human genes to produce a treatment for childhood diarrhea, tiny Ventria Bioscience has made an astonishing number of powerful enemies spanning the political spectrum. Environmental groups, corporate food interests and thousands of farmers across the country have succeeded in chasing the company's rice farms out of two states. And critics continue to complain that Ventria is recklessly plowing ahead with a mostly untested technology that threatens the safety of conventional crops grown for the food supply. "We just want them to go away," said Bob Papanos of the U.S....

SAN FRANCISCO - A tiny biosciences company is developing a promising drug to fight diarrhea, a scourge among babies in the developing world, but it has made an astonishing number of powerful enemies because it grows the experimental drug in rice genetically engineered with a human gene. Environmental groups, corporate food interests and thousands of farmers across the country have succeeded in chasing Ventria Bioscience's rice farms out of two states. And critics continue to complain that Ventria is recklessly plowing ahead with a mostly untested technology that threatens the safety of conventional crops grown for food. "We just want...

GENEVA -- The WTO has ruled that the EU broke international trade rules by stopping imports of genetically modified foods, officials said Tuesday. The preliminary judgment by a World Trade Organization panel concluded that the European Union had an effective ban on biotech foods for six years from 1998, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is a confidential report. The report sided with a legal complaint brought by the United States, Canada and Argentina over an EU moratorium on approval of new biotech foods, the officials said. The panel ruled that individual bans in six...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Even with the economy adding jobs last year, the number of Americans who fell into poverty in 2004 rose to 37 million, up 1.1 million from 2003, according to Census Bureau figures released August 29. It marks the fourth straight increase in the government's annual poverty measure, indicating that the recovery from the 2000 recession has not "trickled down" to everyone. Indeed, the Census Bureau also reported that "2004 marked the second consecutive year in which real median household income showed no change." These new statistics put a damper on the...

Irked by state Sen. Sam Aanestad's continuing criticism of his wilderness bill, Rep. Mike Thompson Wednesday said the Grass Valley state legislator was ignorant. "He doesn't understand the North Coast or its economy," said Thompson, D-Napa Valley, in a telephone interview. Aanestad doesn't understand his bill, either, he added. Thompson, who represented Butte County in the state Senate before he was elected to Congress, has been promoting legislation to designate as wilderness more than 300,000 acres of land along California's northern coast. After Thompson introduced his latest version of this bill, House Resolution 233, in January, Aanestad attacked it as...

British scientists say they have successfully cloned a human embryo - the country's first. The Newcastle University team took eggs from 11 women, removed the genetic material and replaced it with DNA from embryonic stem cells. Three of the resultant clones lived and grew in the laboratory for three days and one survived for five days. The critical factor for success appeared to be how quickly the egg was collected and manipulated. Patient-specific stem cell first Any longer than an hour and there was no success, Professor Alison Murdoch and colleagues found. The clone that lasted for five days had...

--SNIP-- Mr. Taverne argues compellingly that the conflict over gene-spliced crops is the most important battle of all between the forces of reason and unreason, both because of the consequences should the forces of darkness prevail, and also because their arguments are so perverse and so consistently and completely wrong. In fact, agricultural practices have been "unnatural" for 10,000 years, and with the exception of wild berries and wild mushrooms, virtually all the grains, fruits and vegetables in our diets are genetically modified. Many of our foods (including potatoes, tomatoes, oats, rice and corn) come from plants created by "wide...

Denmark has become so paranoid over chemicals in their food that they are literally taking key nutrients from the mouths of children. A couple of weeks ago, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration actually blocked Kellogg's from selling its breakfast cereals because they are fortified with vitamins and minerals. We simply can't make up stuff this kooky. Denmark has become infatuated with the organic philosophy of chemophobia. In the late 1990s, the government even briefly considered converting the entire country to organic farming over fears of the dangers of pesticides. While the authorities wisely backed off their organic-only scheme-after studies...

BISHA, 5 September 2004 — A female guest at a wedding party in Bisha was beaten up badly after she was caught taking photos of women, Al-Watan newspaper reported. A young girl caught the guest taking photos of other guests with her cell phone. The girl asked her to erase the photos from her cell phone but the guest refused. She tried to flee the hall but the girl would not let her go until she got rid of all the photos from the cell phone. This triggered a fight between the two. When the news reached the men’s section,...

November 28, 2002THE ABSURDITIES OF WATER FLUORIDATIONThis Practice Is Unethical, Unnecessary, Ineffective, Unsafe, And Inequitable. Any So-Called Expert On Fluoridation Who Thinks Otherwise Is Invited To An Open Public Debate On This Issueby Paul Connett, PhDWater fluoridation is a peculiarly American phenomenon. It started at a time when Asbestos lined our pipes, lead was added to gasoline, PCBs filled our transformers and DDT was deemed so "safe and effective" that officials felt no qualms spraying kids in school classrooms and seated at picnic tables. One by one all these chemicals have been banned, but fluoridation remains untouched.For over 50 years...

Environmentalists Rejoice at Monsanto GM DecisionLondon -- Environmentalists claimed a victory and the death knell for genetically modified crops on Tuesday as U.S. chemical giant Monsanto declared it was giving up on the GM wheat it had hoped would smash consumer resistance. "This is the end of GM. It is the final nail in the coffin. I am sure the companies will come back with more proposals in the future but basically the damage is done," Tony Juniper, director of green lobby group Friends of the Earth said. "I am sure a combination of exporters, farmers and consumers has finally...

Parents Who Choose Not to Vaccinate Children Upset with Some in the Medical Community Friday, April 09, 2004, 9:49:53 PM By KCRG-TV9 News Anchor/Reporter Renee Chou – TV9 Cedar Rapids Newsroom Some eastern Iowa parents feel they're treated with hostility because they refuse to immunize their children. They've discovered that saying no to vaccines means that pediatric offices can say no to providing care to their children. At 19 months old, Ambryia Mulnix has never felt a needle poke into her skin. Her mother, Arielle, says she's done her own research and comes to this conclusion on vaccines. Arielle...

[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 1/29/04 ] NASA director defends Mars plan By LARRY LIPMAN The Atlanta Journal-Constitution WASHINGTON -- Defending President Bush's goal of sending a manned mission to Mars in the face of skyrocketing budget deficits, the nation's space agency director told a skeptical Senate panel Wednesday that there are some things only humans can do. Testifying before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said Bush's space exploration plans were both fiscally prudent and realistic and would comply with the administration's goal of cutting the budget deficit in half by the end of the...

Posted on Wed, Jan. 28, 2004 Senators Skeptical About Bush NASA Vision ROBERT GEHRKE Associated Press WASHINGTON - Skeptical senators grilled NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe on Wednesday on whether President Bush's vision of returning astronauts to the Moon and exploring Mars is feasible in light of strained federal budgets. In the past, Congress has seen NASA project budgets balloon well beyond what they were ever projected to cost, said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. "Space flight is costly," said Dorgan. "I don't want to be a wise guy, but we've been promised the Moon before." Earlier this month, the president sought...

Bush's corporate gravy train to Mars On January 14, US President George Bush announced the he had set a human mission to Mars as a long-range goal after NASA, the US space agency, builds a base on the Moon. According to the January 16 Washington Post, a senior Bush administration official said the impetus for the new space policy was Bush's desire to give NASA a clear mission after the February 1 disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia during its atmospheric re-entry. Under the new policy, the fleet of three remaining space shuttles will be retired once construction of the...

Three-fifths of Americans oppose Bush's mission to moon, Mars WASHINGTON (AFP) - More than three-fifths of Americans oppose President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s proposal to return to the moon and eventually put a human on Mars, according to a poll. His plan to spend billions of dollars to manned mission to the moon and eventually to Mars drew opposition from 61 percent of the 1,003 adults surveyed January 14-15. Bush called late Wednesday for a new space vessel capable of traveling to the moon as early as 2015. He would give the US space agency NASA (news...

<p>All the Democrats seeking to evict George Bush from the White House denounce him for ``unilateralism,'' meaning insufficient respect for international institutions and obligations. Now some of those Democrats may turn on a dime and demand that he defy an international organization, and disregard clear obligations freely entered into, by ignoring the World Trade Organization.</p>

Name some of the things that make us so much better off than Americans of just a couple of generations ago. One of the most important things are new medicines that not only prolong life but leave us vigorous at ages when old folks used to sit around in rocking chairs. Airplanes have put the whole world within our reach. Computer operating systems have enabled people with no understanding of the science and technology of computers to use them nevertheless to do innumerable things. You might think that those who created these things would be among our heroes. On the...

The East Coast blackout last week offers California a valuable lesson in how to improve our own electric system, beginning with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. As the analysis of this latest blackout unfolds, California should be weary of false solutions put forward by the utility industry. The solution to our energy problems, East Coast, West Coast and between, is greater energy efficiency and conservation, more renewable energy and a shift to clean, localized power generation.

<p>Since Belinda Martineau stopped manipulating plant genes eight years ago and began pondering agricultural biotechnology's effects on society, nothing has riled her more than the assertion that biotechnology will cure world hunger.</p> <p>"They're making these claims, and they're just promises. At this point, they look like empty promises," said Martineau, a plant biologist who used to work for Calgene in Davis, where she helped invent the first commercial biotech crop, the "Flavr Savr" tomato.</p>

Satellites crucial to American warfare In-Depth Coverage By JON SARCHE Moving through the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, a Special Operations group came upon a fortified Taliban position that Northern Alliance guides said could take several weeks of ground fighting to defeat. Nineteen minutes later, the site was reduced to smoking rubble, a victim of America's growing use of space in warfare. "We've done even better than that in Iraq," said Col. Jim Rodgers of the Air Force Space Command. "We have a goal of single-digit minutes." Making that possible are scores of satellites providing soldiers and commanders with navigational, communications...

Facts are Being Ignored, Proponents of Ban Say Debate on Capitol Hill continues on several important national issues: the economy, the pending war with Iraq, partial-birth abortion, and of course, the recent shuttle tragedy. But not to be lost in the mix is another of particular concern to Christians and pro-life advocates -- human cloning.The White House has officially announced that it will push Congress for a bill banning all human cloning. President Bush's chief advisor Karl Rove says the bill will be a priority. Those opposed to human cloning welcome the news, saying it is time to ban the...

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) will move to pass a permanent ban on all forms of human cloning in the new Congress, a Frist aide told Human Events.Despite Frist’s public ambivalence last year over whether he would support a ban or merely a moratorium on cloning, the aide said Frist would push for a permanent ban in the new Congress. The aide said Frist had spoken for a moratorium last year only because that was all he thought would pass the Senate at the time, and that a moratorium would be "better than nothing."Still, thanks to continued opposition from...

January 8, 2003 A "Moderate" Prohibition A new study by Center for Science In the Public Interest isn't in the public interest. By Ronald Bailey "The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lacks both the authority and the information to adequately evaluate the safety of genetically engineered (GE) foods," claims the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in a just-released study. An uncritical Washington Post story about the study describes CSPI as "moderate" on the issue because the activist group claims it is not in principle opposed to genetically enhanced crops. But with this new report, they join...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The chairman of President Bush's bioethics council demanded a public apology from Stanford University, accusing the school of trying to conceal the nature of its stem cell research and mischaracterizing the bioethics council's views.</p> <p>Stanford has said its new cancer institute will conduct stem cell research using nuclear transfer techniques -- work that many consider to be cloning of human cells. However, Stanford said the characterization of its work as cloning is wrong because the institute won't create human embryos, just cells.</p>