Free Republic

I have reason to suspect that the "monetary transmission mechanism" is full of rocks (again), and we are about to have another instance of what could colloquially be called "fun." (Yes, that's sarcasm.) Here's what we know and what I can deduce from it: JP Morgan's "cash position" was analyzed by a writer who published on SCRIBD, which showed that actual cash held has deteriorated radically. By more than half in the last year. The deterioration is continuing, not slowing. I am hearing repeated anecdotes from multiple areas that foreclosed property held by banks with multiple full-price offers that include...

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Jack Bogle published "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism" four years ago. The battle's over. The sequel should be titled: "Capitalism Died a Lost Soul." Worse, we've lost "America's Soul." And worldwide the consequences will be catastrophic. That's why a man like Hong Kong's contrarian economist Marc Faber warns in his Doom, Boom & Gloom Report: "The future will be a total disaster, with a collapse of our capitalistic system as we know it today." No, not just another meltdown, another bear market recession like the one recently triggered by Wall Street's "too-greedy-to-fail" banks....

If you thought Washington—which already took over banking and autos, and is fast-tracking attempts to take over health care and energy—would leave the Internet alone, you were dead wrong. The Internet (perhaps our greatest free market success story in recent years) is squarely in the cross-hairs of the administration and it’s not waiting for Congress to act. The charge is being led by an eager, ideologically committed White House staffer named Susan Crawford. Officially, she is the Special Assistant for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy. Wired Magazine calls her, “the most powerful geek close to the president.” In recent weeks,...

Two metre sea level rise unstoppable-experts 29 Sep 2009 17:39:53 GMT Source: Reuters * Several metres sea level rise almost unstoppable * Coast protection would save much land, homes, assets * Cost up to $215 billion a year by 2100 By Gerard Wynn OXFORD, England, Sept 29 (Reuters) - A rise of at least two metres in the world's sea levels is now almost unstoppable, experts told a climate conference at Oxford University on Tuesday. "The crux of the sea level issue is that it starts very slowly but once it gets going it is practically unstoppable," said Stefan Rahmstorf,...

Could. If. Might. Take a look at almost any global warming alarmism story and you are likely to see a plethora of those speculative weasel words. It happens so frequently that your humble correspondent, in his previous global warming story about the "Modoki," labeled a new term incorporating those words: "Couldifmite." It was my recommendation that a mineral rock be given the name of Couldifmite. Any MSM reporter in the vicinity of of Couldifmite will be subjected to the uncontrollable urge to overload his global warming stories with "could," "if," and "might" along with the related speculative weasel words of...

New Analysis Brings Dire Forecast Of 6.3-Degree Temperature Increase By Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 25, 2009 Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if the world's leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges, a much faster and broader scale of change than forecast just two years ago, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Program. The new overview of global warming research, aimed at marshaling political support for a new international climate pact by the end of the year, highlights...

New satellite information shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica continue to shrink faster than scientists thought and in some places are already in runaway melt mode. British scientists for the first time calculated changes in the height of the vulnerable but massive ice sheets and found them especially worse at their edges. That is where warmer water eats away from below. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003, according to a paper published online Thursday in the journal Nature.

David Letterman is not just wearing his political views on his sleeve, as a one of his shows production executives recently pointed out. Now he's allowing his show to be used as a platform for leading Democrats to advocate action on liberal causes. On Sept. 21, President Barack Obama appeared on CBS's "Late Show with David Letterman" and used his show to promote his health care/health insurance reform initiatives. But the very next night on Sept. 22, he had former President Bill Clinton on to publicize the efforts of the Clinton Global Initiative, one of which is to give aid...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama acknowledged the "doubts and difficulties" clouding progress on climate change in Congress, but said the U.S. is determined to tackle global warming at a year-end summit in Copenhagen. "We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act," Mr. Obama told a United Nations meeting on climate change in New York. "And we will meet our responsibility to future generations."

Originally called geoengineering, this approach used to be dismissed as science fiction fantasies: cooling the planet with sun-blocking particles or shades; tinkering with clouds to make them more reflective; removing vast quantities of carbon from the atmosphere. climate engineering and it is looking more practical. Several recent reviews of these ideas conclude that cooling the planet would be technically feasible and economically affordable. There are still plenty of skeptics, but even they have started calling for more research into climate engineering. The skeptics understandably fear the unintended consequences of tampering with the planet’s thermostat, but they also fear the possibility...

NASA needs more cash in order to meet its goal of finding nearby space rocks that could hit Earth in a devastating impact, a new report says. Congress ordered NASA in 2005 to find and track 90 percent of the large asteroids near Earth by 2020, but did not set aside the necessary funds required to do the job, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Academy of Sciences. Without that funding, NASA will not be able to build the new facilities and telescopes required to track potentially threatening asteroids down to the size of about 460 feet...

The catastrophe, when it comes, will be beautiful at first. It is a balmy evening in late September 2012. Ever since the sun set, the dimming skies over London have been alive with fire. Pillars of incandescent green writhe like gigantic serpents across the skies. Sheets of orange race across the horizon during the most spectacular display of the aurora borealis seen in southern England for 153 years. And then, 90 seconds later, the lights start to go out. Not the lights in the sky - they will dazzle until dawn - but the lights on the ground. Within an...

The Permian Extinction: Good Science, Bad Assumptions by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Ninety percent of marine and 70 percent of terrestrial creatures perished suddenly in an event variously called the Permian extinction, the Permian–Triassic (P-Tr) extinction, or the Great Dying. The calamity’s cause, referred to as the K-T event, remains unknown, even though asteroid impact has been in vogue. At least, this is the account that has been repeated for several decades. Now, a recently-published study is showing that evidence of the Permian extinction is not limited to a single rock stratum.1 The whole story must be rewritten...

OBAMA PLANS TO DESTROY AMERICA ORCHESTRATED CRISIS TO HASTEN FALL click here MUST READ!!!

reports coming in of major damage from 1-2 inches of ice over the area..its still raining with temps below freezing in many areas. information is sketchy but major damage to infrastructure are trickling in. Damage to houses from falling trees, multiple power poles down, and widespread power outages Travel is impossible in many area because of 100's of downed trees blocking the roads. Fires are reported in some area widespread state of emergencies issued Northern AR, SE MO and western KY seems to the the hardest hit so far..but things are icing up fast now in the Louisville/Lexington areas too

SEVERE SPACE WEATHER: The National Academy of Sciences has just released the results of a study entitled Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts. The 132-page document examines what might happen to our high-tech modern society in the event of a super solar flare followed by an extreme geomagnetic storm. Such a storm did occur in the year 1859. It electrified telegraph lines, shocking technicians and setting telegraph papers on fire; Northern Lights as far south as Cuba were so bright, you could read a newspaper by their eerie glow." According to the report, "a contemporary repetition of that...

In seven days, Americans will elect Barack Obama our nation's 44th president. For the past several weeks, I kept waiting for McCain/Palin to catch-up, and kept waiting for something about Obama to rise to the level of big news to change the election's trajectory, which has been very steady in pointing to a Obama/Biden victory for at least the last six weeks. However, nothing happened and in my opinion, the die is cast and onto 2012. I expect that next Wednesday morning, we will wake up to a Obama landslide that we haven't seen by a U.S. presidential candidate since...

One of the most frightening outcomes of the election will not be the possible internal changes. Last week O'Reilly said that regardless of who wins, the position will come with more challenges than any POTUS has ever had to faced from day one. But, he said that if Obama wins the election he will tested by a foreign dictator very quickly.

ENOUGH!!! Can we just knock it off with all the doom-and-gloom in this place??? I swear I'm gonna bite my hand (or something else) if I see one more post about hoarding food and stocking on ammo. It's not the end of the world. Jesus is not coming yet. No Armageddon yet. It's just the market's response to years of greed, laxity, crookedness and all-around incompetence. Granted, times are tough, and livelihoods are on the balance, but we need to hang tough and ride the storm. I come from a place in which a decade ago the banking system actually...

AN asteroid discovered today will hit Earth's atmosphere over Sudan in a few hours but will burn up before it can hit the ground or endanger aircraft, astronomers say. The asteroid would create a large fireball about 10.46pm EDT (1.46pm AEST) as it burns up, a team at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said. "We want to stress that this object is not a threat," said Timothy Spahr, director of the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center at Harvard in Massachusetts. "We're excited since this is the first time we have issued a prediction that an object will enter Earth's...

The US stock market could suffer a devastating crash with shares losing a third of their value this week if Hank Paulson’s financial bailout plan fails, US Treasury officials have warned. ---- The financial system could face a meltdown of 1929 proportions unless US politicians succeed in their efforts for a $700bn rescue scheme, experts added. The warning came as Republicans and Democrats met in Washington for a rare weekend debating session to attempt to seal agreement on the contentious plan, aimed at preventing a long-lasting recession in the US.

(CNN) -- Summer is over in the northern hemisphere, but it's been another chilling season for researchers who study Arctic sea ice. "It's definitely a bad report. We did pick up little bit from last year, but this is over 30 percent below what used to be normal," said Walt Meier, a research scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. This past summer, the Arctic sea ice dwindled to its second lowest level. Arctic sea ice is usually one to three meters, or as much as 9 feet thick. It grows during autumn and winter...

Antarctic winter ice gets bigger; Arctic shrinks 12 Sep 2008 13:56:24 GMT Source: Reuters By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO, Sept 12 (Reuters) - The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has grown in recent Septembers in what could be an unusual side-effect of global warming, experts said on Friday. In the southern hemisphere winter, when emperor penguins huddle together against the biting cold, ice on the sea around Antarctica has been increasing since the late 1970s, perhaps because climate change means shifts in winds, sea currents or snowfall. At the other end of the planet, Arctic sea ice is...

Are we living in the last century of our civilization? Is it possible that all of our technology, knowledge and wealth cannot save us from ourselves? Could our society actually be heading towards collapse. According to many of the world's top scientists, the answer is yes, unless we take action now. This September, in Earth 2100, a dramatic ABC News 2-hour broadcast, the greatest minds across the globe will join together in a countdown to the year 2100 to tell us what we must do to survive the next century … And what may happen if we don't.

A "minor planet" with the prosaic name 2006 SQ372 is just over two billion miles from Earth, a bit closer than the planet Neptune. But this lump of ice and rock is beginning the return leg of a 22,500-year journey that will take it to a distance of 150 billion miles, nearly 1,600 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun, according to a team of researchers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II). The discovery of this remarkable object was reported today in Chicago, at an international symposium titled "The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Asteroids to Cosmology." A...

<p>Billionaire vulture investor Wilbur Ross this morning told CNBC's "Squawk Box" that a thousand banks could fail before the financial crisis is over...</p> <p>And the impact on the credit crunch could be severe...</p>

On a planet 4C hotter, all we can prepare for is extinctionThere's no 'adaptation' to such steep warming. We must stop pandering to special interests, and try a new, post-Kyoto strategy We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never...

Comments: Getting concerned as McCain has not led since May. Even the electoral college tally on Rasmussen has had Obama solidly ahead like a rock. McCain is underperforming Bush in almost all Republican and swing states, including CO, NV, NM, OH, WI, MT, IA, IN, GA, NC, VA, and so on. Despite an impressive anti-Obama ad barrage, McCain has still not managed to demonstrate a winning electoral college mosaic so far.

See the video under "TOP VIDEO", they say it is going to be turned on THIS WEEKEND in the video, you might want to give your mom or other loved ones a call and tell them that you love them ;)

A warmer planet could mean we'll suffer more (and stronger) allergies As one of 40 million Americans who suffer from hay fever, Lewis Ziska carries an inhaler in his pocket and takes a whiff to clear his lungs on bad allergy days. But hay fever is more than a personal-health issue for Ziska. A weed ecologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Crop Systems and Global Change Laboratory, Ziska is a leading researcher in the fledgling field of allergies and climate change. His findings regarding ragweed, an invasive plant whose pollen is the leading trigger of fall hay fever, are...

Gallup's tracking poll which had been showing a close race between McCain and Obama until just a few days ago, is now showing McCain down by 9 points. Now, polls this far out don't mean much--but I think it's safe to say that Obama has gotten a bounce out his pandering trip overseas. McCain needs to counter quickly; if he loses his edge on national security, this election is over.

PRINCETON, NJ -- Barack Obama has stretched his lead over John McCain among national registered voters to seven percentage points, 48% to 41%, in Gallup Poll Daily tracking conducted July 23-25. This represents a continuation of Obama's frontrunner position in Gallup's Friday report, when he led McCain by six points, 47% to 41%. Earlier this week, Obama and McCain were separated by just two to four points, but that was before the extensive U.S. news coverage of the last leg of Obama's foreign tour. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that the bounce is continuing for Barack Obama. The presumptive Democratic nominee attracts 46% of the vote while John McCain earns 40%. When "leaners" are included, it’s Obama 49% and McCain 43%. Just four days ago, the candidates were tied at 46% (with leaners). Obama is viewed favorably by 57% of voters, McCain by 55%.

When the Obama camp announced that it was going to make a play for North Dakota, a lot of people scoffed. I, for one, was skeptical. But then we all started taking a look at the ROI — the fact that the Obama camp could throw relative pennies at the state and win enough votes to make it competitive — and started thinking that maybe it was a smart choice to at the very least annoy McCain there. Well, now the polls are suggesting that maybe the Obama team was on to something. A new Research 2000 poll released today...

Gallup now has Obama ahead 47-41 and Rasmussen has Obama leading by a 46-40 percent margin. Media bias is certainly a factor but McCain is running a campaign as thrilling as watching paint dry.

Fortunately, the odds are good that the next one will fall over one of our oceans, which take up more than two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, or the planet’s still-vast stretches of uninhabited lands. How much in taxpayer dollars should be invested to pinpoint such hazards is one of the toughest risk-management exercises around.

Global Intrigue + More Will Escalate Food Prices Drastically: What Will A Loaf Of Bread Cost Next Year? RFFM.org Guest Commentary by Joyce Morrison The mere thought of a food shortage in America is unthinkable…or is it? Headlines read, “Planting season weather perplexing for farmers.” “Weather may cut yields,” “Further spike in food costs feared due to floods,” “Food shortages,” -- these are headlines preparing us for the fact we will no longer have the cheapest, safest food in the world. All spring the breadbasket of America has been deluged with floods, wind storms, tornados, heavy rain and hail. Illinois...

That black hole that was going to eat the Earth? Forget about it, and keep making the mortgage payments — those of you who still have them. A new particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider scheduled to go into operation this fall outside Geneva, is no threat to the Earth or the universe, according to a new safety review approved Friday by the governing council of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or Cern, which is building the collider. “There is no basis for any concerns about the consequences of new particles or forms of matter that could possibly be...

WASHINGTON - Droughts will get drier, storms will get stormier and floods will get deeper with a warming climate across North America, U.S. government experts said in a report billed as the first continental assessment of extreme events.

Arctic sea ice is melting even faster than last year, despite a cold winter. Data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that the year began with ice covering a larger area than at the beginning of 2007. But now it is down to levels seen last June, at the beginning of a summer that broke records for sea ice loss. Scientists on the project say that much of the ice is so thin that it melts easily, and the Arctic may be ice-free in summer within five to 10 years. I think we're going to...

Abstract: The heat generated inside our planet is predominantly of radionic (nuclear) origin. Hence, Earth in its entirety can be considered considered a slow nuclear reactor with its solid ”inner core” providing a major contribution to the total energy output. Since radionic heat is generated in the entire volume and cooling can only occur at the surface, the highest temperature inside Earth occurs at the center of the inner core. Overheating the center of the inner core reactor due to the so-called greenhouse effect on the surface of Earth may cause a meltdown condition, an enrichment of nuclear fuel and...

The world's largest particle collider is designed to do its job largely under the surface-and that under-the-surface status also applies to much of the progress in the legal case challenging whether the collider should actually be allowed to do its job.

PANJIM, JUNE 16 (Agencies) — Manmade chemicals have damaged the ozone layer of the upper atmosphere that shields Earth from the harmful effects of the sun’s ultraviolet rays, each summer creating a hole over the South Pole that expands to nearly the size of Antarctica. But in 1996, an international treaty banned the chemical refrigerants and propellants (known as CFCs, or chlorofluorocarbons), and the hole has been shrinking. Scientists predict it may stop forming by the end of this century. But that’s not necessarily good news. A new study published in ‘Science’ says that the closing of the ozone hole...

Are we living in the last century of our civilization? Is it possible that all of our technology, knowledge and wealth cannot save us from ourselves? Could our society actually be heading towards collapse? A dramatic preview of an unprecedented ABC News event called "Earth 2100." According to many of the world's top scientists, the answer is yes, unless we take action now. This September, in Earth 2100, a dramatic ABC News 2-hour broadcast, the greatest minds across the globe will join together in a countdown to the year 2100 to tell us what we must do to survive the...

Climate report offers a dire look at next 50 years. Get used to it -- and be ready for water shortages, too, says a sweeping new scientific report rounding up likely effects of climate change on the United States' land, water and farms over the next half-century. Some effects already can be felt, says the report released Tuesday, which synthesizes results of more than 1,000 individual studies. And it's not just humans' food that's at risk, said witnesses at a congressional field hearing in Seattle on Tuesday. An intense and sudden acidification of the Pacific resulting from climate change presages...

Everywhere I go these days... I hear an increasingly shrill cry for "solutions." This is just another symptom of the delusional thinking that now grips the nation, especially among the educated and well-intentioned. I say this because I detect... the desperate wish to keep our "Happy Motoring" utopia running by means other than oil and its byproducts. But the truth is that no combination of solar, wind and nuclear power, ethanol, biodiesel, tar sands and used French-fry oil will allow us to power Wal-Mart, Disney World and the interstate highway system -- or even a fraction of these things --...

The price of oil futures, passing through the $130 level as they have this morning, likely headed far north of $200, is really secondary to the Bigger Picture of how the economy and oil are tied together. But is $800 oil in the cards? Oh, yeah... A conversation with ... petroleum geologist Jeffrey J. Brown ... explains the concept of oil going nonlinear from here: "In my opinion, we are looking at an accelerating net oil export decline rate, combined with a requirement for an accelerating rate of increase in oil prices, in order to balance supply & demand, as...

"Far from normal". Those were the words that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke used to describe the financial markets (and by extension the economy) these heady spring days when everybody else with a rostrum, it seems, has pronounced the so-called liquidity crisis contained. There's a great wish for American finance to return to business-as-usual -- raking in fantastic fees for innovating new modes of tradable paper, and engineering mergers and buy-outs that generate huge fees plus $100 million kiss-offs for corporate CEOs in the noble struggle to dismantle America's productive capacity -- but apparently events are still out of hand. The...

Rising global temperatures could lead to an increase in kidney stones, according to research presented at the 103rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA). Dehydration has been linked to stone disease, particularly in warmer climates, and global warming will exacerbate this effect. As a result, the prevalence of stone disease may increase, along with the costs of treating the condition. Using published data to determine the temperature-dependence of stone disease, researchers applied predictions of temperature increase to determine the impact of global warming on the incidence and cost of stone disease in the United States. The Intergovernmental...

Global warming is causing significant changes to the Earth's natural systems and it is highly unlikely that any force but man-made climate change can be blamed . Researchers who analysed 30,000 academic studies dating back to 1970 said man was responsible for changes that ranged from the loss of ice sheets to the collapse in numbers of many species of wildlife. "Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the warming world is causing impacts on physical and biological systems," said Cynthia Rosenzweig, at the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The effects on living things include the...