Free Republic

This post has been elaborated here.1. Just because an argument is politically strategic, does not make it true: A couple of years ago, the Human Rights Campaign, arguably the country’s most powerful lesbian and gay organization, responded to politician Herman Cain’s assertion that being gay is a choice. They asked their members to “Tell Herman Cain to get with the times! Being gay is not a choice!” They reasoned that Cain’s remarks were “dangerous.” Why? “Because implying that homosexuality is a choice gives unwarranted credence to roundly disproven practices such as ‘conversion’ or ‘reparative’ therapy. The risks associated with...

A few years ago a friend who wishes to remain nameless suggested that it was about time I started writing a blog. "Why would I want to do that?" I said. "Because it's the future and you'd be good at it," he said. So I gave it a go and I've been here ever since. But not for any longer I'm afraid. Today is the sad day when I must bid you all farewell. I have been appointed Chief Sustainability Consultant at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, working directly to one of my all-time- heroes Ed Davey, with...

If there is any current example of American exceptionalism, that belief that the United States is a unique country, based around an idea rather than tribal affinities, it is its space program. No other country has had its citizens walk on the moon. A self described "expert in communications" named Linda Billings takes a dim view of American exceptionalism as it is related to the high frontier of space. Indeed she takes an exception to the very idea of a space frontier. Her blog post is a look into how the liberal mind thinks about space issues.

1. The National Corvette Museum Cover up: 2. In the sinkhole…. They found something they aren’t releasing to the media yet…… 3. Fact – There have been 7 reports of sinkholes found in the area THE SAME DAY as the Corvette museum collapse. Fact – There are reports of continual screaming heard at the Corvette Museum the morning of the discovery. Fact – 4 professors at Western Kentucky University were called in. Fact – 1 geologist was called in from the University of California. 4. We demand to know what this is! 5. Can’t see it? Let’s enhance it. 6....

Three Mars One applicants that made it to the second round. From left, Max Fagin, Brian Hinson and Andrew Rader. If you were to find yourself on the Red Planet, what would you do when you get there? Those who made the second round of the Mars One mission (which aims to establish a colony on Mars in the next decade) are a step closer to answering that question. In interviews with Universe Today, applicants Andrew Rader, Max Fagin and Brian Hinson explained what they’ll do if they embark on a planned one-way trip to the Red Planet. It’s impossible...

Now that Robert Park is in the winter of his life and James Van Allen is dead, an unlikely person named Charles Seife, not a scientist but rather a professor of journalism, has taken up the banner of the jihad to destroy NASA's human spaceflight program. In an article in Slate and a later post on his personal blog, Professor Seife compared the space agency to a Panda, cute but in danger of extinction. The reason, he suggests, NASA's "fixation" on human space flight. Like Van Allen, Park, and a slew of politicians before him, Seife would see NASA's human...

Basic premise of this paper: 1. let’s take fish out of their natural ocean environment, 2. put ‘em in a tank where they are stressed, 3. crank up the temperature, 4. see if any fish die, 5. count dead fish, 6. assume natural adaptation is impossible 7. report news of future doom to the world via press release. Via Eurekalert: According to an international team of researchers, the rapid pace of climate change is threatening the future presence of fish near the equator. “Our studies found that one species of fish could not even survive in water just three degrees...

As scanning becomes more sophisticated researchers are finding that there is actually a difference in the way development takes place in the brains of men and women starting in the teenage years.

Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook Transatomic Power (TAP) is developing an advanced molten salt reactor that generates clean, passively safe, proliferation-resistant, and low-cost nuclear power. This reactor can consume the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) generated by commercial light water reactors or use freshly mined uranium at enrichment levels as low as 1.8% U-235. It achieves actinide burnups as high as 96%, and can generate up to 75 times more electricity per ton of mined uranium than a light-water reactor. Transatomic Power has greatly improved the molten salt concept, while retaining its significant safety benefits. The main technical change we...

China is investing heavily in 3D printing, just like those in the U.S. and Europe. In June, China announced a gigantic 3D printer, which they claimed was the world’s largest at the time, with a 1.8 meter build diameter. Basically the thing could print out a nice sized bathroom vanity if you wanted it to. Southern Fan Co. (As Translated from Chinese), is completing a printer this month which will be able to print out metal objects approximately 6 meters, or 18 feet in diameter and 10 meters long (33 feet). The metal parts can weigh up to 300 tons....

It is a commentary on how adrift NASA space policy is when one considers that four years after President Obama made his "we choose not to return to the moon" speech that the space agency may be pivoting back to the moon. Paul Spudis, a planetary geologist and return to the moon advocate, has read the tea leaves and has seen the first, tentative steps toward a pivot back to the moon. Elon Musk, the space entrepreneur and political ally of Barack Obama, has recently conceded that expeditions to the moon would be useful. NASA is partnering with private companies,...

If the Environmental Protection Agency moves to restrict neonicotinoid pesticides, often called neonics, because of fears that they are causing bee deaths, it will happen in spite of the mounting empirical evidence rather than because of it. Last December, in response to fevered political pressure, the European Commission banned the use of neonics for two years. The moratorium, guided by the precautionary politics that now dominate science-based regulation in Europe, took effect just as a number of new studies shed increasing doubt on the belief that neonics play a key role in bee health. (snip) The “crisis” prompting this handwringing...

Readers may recall our story from Dec 15th, 2013: Over half the USA covered in snow, the most in 11 years Now, it’ even more.Area Covered By Snow: 67.4% Area Covered Last Month: 48.1%

So an apparently epic creation/evolution debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham took place recently. I haven't seen it yet, but it's definitely on my to do list. As a Christian who believes in God I don't reject evolution outright, but I totally reject the evolutionists dismissal of the creation/intelligent design crowd. I believe the creationist views and arguments are just as valid (if not more so) than evolution in that at least the creationist side is honest about the bottom line being that their arguments and beliefs are rooted in faith. Both sides operate on faith, but to me...

What was most instructive about Tuesday night's debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye [watch entire debate here] over the issue of origins was Nye's blanket admission of total, abject ignorance on the most important questions of the evening. Where did the atoms that made up the Big Bang come from? Nye has no idea. Where did man's consciousness come from? Nye has no idea. How can matter produce life? Nye has absolutely no idea. This surely is all one needs to know to recognize the utter bankruptcy of the theory of evolution. Now it's helpful for us who believe...

This colorful view from NASA's Cassini mission is the highest-resolution view of the unique six-sided jet stream at Saturn's north pole known as "the hexagon." This movie, made from images obtained by Cassini's imaging cameras, is the first to show the hexagon in color filters, and the first movie to show a complete view from the north pole down to about 70 degrees north latitude. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton University This colorful view from NASA's Cassini mission is the highest-resolution view of the unique six-sided jet stream at Saturn's north pole known as "the hexagon." This movie, made from images...

Lord Monckton invites ‘Chazza’ to spar over ‘unroyal’ global-warming remarkHis Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Clarence House, London.Candlemas, 2014Your Royal Highness’ recent remarks describing those who have scientific and economic reason to question the Establishment opinion on climatic apocalypse in uncomplimentary and unroyal terms as “headless chickens” mark the end of our constitutional monarchy and a return to the direct involvement of the Royal Family, in the Person of our future king, no less, in the cut and thrust of partisan politics.Now that Your Royal Highness has offered Your Person as fair game in the shootout of politics, I...

The Obama administration will announce the establishment of regional hubs focused on mitigating climate change on Wednesday. The hubs are the first-ever regional centers that will focus solely on risk adaptation and climate change solutions at seven locations across the country. "On the heels of passage of the farm bill, the administration will take executive action to help farmers, ranchers and rural communities combat climate change and adapt to extreme weather and other damage it causes," a White House official said in an email ahead of Wednesday's announcement. Dubbed "climate hubs," the new centers will address issues like increasing risks...

Under normal circumstances, a competent educator would conclude that there is a possible link, but that so far the analysis of data is conflicting or inconclusive. Further study is warranted. If an educator were not invested in the ideology that at least one abortion is a necessary female rite of passage into the Pentagonal Order of the Gaia Green Sisterhood, health professionals would be advised to be alert to the possibility of abortion breast cancer linkage and await further results. Well, a new meta analysis from China is out now, showing a stronger link between abortion and breast cancer......

Washington (AFP) - Starfish have been mysteriously dying by the millions in recent months along the US west coast, worrying biologists who say the sea creatures are key to the marine ecosystem. Scientists first started noticing the mass deaths in June 2013. Different types of starfish, also known as sea stars, were affected, from wild ones along the coast to those in captivity, according to Jonathan Sleeman, director of the US Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center. "The two species affected most are Pisaster ochraceus (purple sea star or ochre starfish) and Pycnopodia helianthoides (sunflower sea star)," he wrote in...