Free Republic

A cold, abrupt end to a honeymoon By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer Encinitas couple that fled Witch Creek fire returns home after cruise ship sinks off Antarctica ENCINITAS -- Three times since marrying June 11 in a beachside ceremony at La Jolla Cove, Trevor Takayama and Torrey Trust have dodged disaster. In August, the Encinitas couple fled an approaching hurricane while camping in a Costa Rican rain forest, on a summerlong honeymoon tour of Central and South America. In October, the Witch Creek fire forced the newlyweds to evacuate the hilltop three-bedroom home she grew up in, near Manchester...

The scare over global warming, and our politicians' response to it, is becoming ever more bizarre. On the one hand we have the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change coming up with yet another of its notoriously politicised reports, hyping up the scare by claiming that world surface temperatures have been higher in 11 of the past 12 years (1995-2006) than ever previously recorded. This carefully ignores the latest US satellite figures showing temperatures having fallen since 1998, declining in 2007 to a 1983 level - not to mention the newly revised figures for US surface temperatures showing that...

LONDON (AFP) - More than four times the number of natural disasters are occurring now than did two decades ago, British charity Oxfam said in a study Sunday that largely blamed global warming. "Oxfam... says that rising green house gas emissions are the major cause of weather-related disasters and must be tackled," the organisation said, adding that the world's poorest people were being hit the hardest. The world suffered about 120 natural disasters per year in the early 1980s, which compared with the current figure of about 500 per year, according to the report. "This year we have seen floods...

Forget about the threat that mankind poses to the Earth: our activities may be shortening the life of the universe too. The startling claim is made by a pair of American cosmologists investigating the consequences for the cosmos of quantum theory, the most successful theory we have. Over the past few years, cosmologists have taken this powerful theory of what happens at the level of subatomic particles and tried to extend it to understand the universe, since it began in the subatomic realm during the Big Bang. The Boomerang Nebula, mankind ‘shortening the universe’s life’ Cosmologists claim by observing dark...

PARIS (Reuters) - French towns worried about fuel prices, pollution and striking transport workers need look no further than the horse. Horses are a possible alternative for vehicles such as school buses and refuse trucks, say groups eager to pick up on global concerns about eco-friendly transport. "It's all about sustainable development and bringing some humanity back to today's monotonous, machine-driven jobs," Stephane de Veyrac, from the French National Stud Organisation, said at this week's annual conference of French mayors. De Veyrac's group says it is the first in France to offer consulting on a wide range of horse-powered vehicles...

The UN has finally produced an unabashed piece of positive news. There are 6.8 million fewer people in the world suffering from HIV than they had previously estimated. Revised figures in the latest UNAIDS study slashed an estimate for total infections this time last year to 32.7 million from 39.5 million cases, the number given in the agency's 2006 report. "The single biggest reason for the reduction in global HIV prevalence figures in the past year was the recent revision in India after an intensive reassessment of the epidemic in that country," UNAIDS said in its report. While I’m glad...

Curvy mothers have brainier kids 10 November 2007 From New Scientist Print Edition. CURVIER women may have smart children because hip fat contains polyunsaturated fatty acids critical for the development of the fetus's brain. Using data from the US National Center for Health Statistics, William Lassek at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and Steven Gaulin of the University of California, Santa Barbara, found a child's performance in cognition tests was linked to their mother's waist-hip ratio, a proxy for how much fat she stores on her hips. Children whose mothers had wide hips and a low waist-hip ratio scored...

California on Thursday said it was suing the United States government to secure approval for the state's tough new proposals aimed at slashing vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. At a news conference in the state capital Sacramento, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Edmund Brown said the lawsuit had been filed over the failure of the US Environmental Protection Agency to greenlight California's standards. California passed legislation in 2002 requiring automakers to reduce vehicle emissions 30 percent by 2016. As many as 16 other US states have reportedly indicated they will adopt California's emissions levels. However, for the law to...

I have a story here from the Anchorage Daily News. "'Talk Radio's Limbaugh Bashes St. Michael Teen's Testimony -- Radio host criticized for saying Yup'ik youth was exploited.' Charlee Lockwood has never heard of Rush Limbaugh or listened to his radio program, and perhaps it's just as well. Monday, the talk radio king told listeners that Democrats were exploiting the 18-year-old Yup'ik Eskimo, and that her emotional testimony earlier in the day in front of a U.S. House committee on global warming made him 'really want to puke. I just want to throw up.'" I did say this. "'It's the...

Unless a dramatic and perhaps historical flurry of activity occurs in the next 9 weeks, 2007 will rank as a historically inactive TC year for the Northern Hemisphere as a whole. During the past 30 years, only 1977, 1981, and 1983 have had less activity to date (January-TODAY, Accumulated Cyclone Energy). However, the year is not over... 2007 lowest September activity on record since 1977 2006 and 2007 lowest October activity on record since 1976 and 1977 For the period of June 1 - TODAY, only 1977 has experienced LESS tropical cyclone activity than 2007. There are currently two worldwide...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Latin America and other poor regions of the world will bear the brunt of climate change, a top official from the organization that shared this year's Nobel Peace Prize said Thursday. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N. network of scientists, was awarded the prize along with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for their work alerting the public of the perils of global warming. "The results of the IPCC show very clearly the impacts of climate change will be ... much more severe for the poorest groups and Latin America is included...

Are Some Men Predisposed To Pedophilia? ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2007) — Height may point to a biological basis for pedophilia, according to new research released by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The study found that pedophilic males were shorter on average than males without a sexual attraction to children. The study, published in Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, suggests that pedophiles may have been exposed to pre-birth conditions that affected their physical development. The researchers observed this height difference by analyzing the files of over 1,000 men who were assessed for pedophilia or other...

Global warming lecture at CSUF stirs controversy Science weighs against philosophy on campus By: Sylvia Masuda Issue date: 10/18/07 Section: News Posted: 10/18/07 Controversy erupted in the Cal State Fullerton science community over Tuesday's global warming lecture in the Titan Theater. Research professor and climatologist Patrick Michaels presented "Reducing the Effects of Global Warming in Southern California," a presentation which explained why global warming is not an imminent problem. The Economics Association organized the event. Over the years, science organizations have criticized Michaels for exaggerating his credentials and for pushing what they feel is a political agenda. CSUF science...

"20/20” co-anchor John Stossel is going on the attack against “experts” who warn about manmade global warming – along the way berating Al Gore for saying the debate over climate change is over. In a release from ABC previewing Stossel’s report on Friday’s “20/20,” the veteran newsman and Newsmax pundit – who won 19 Emmys exposing scammers and con artists – says: “This week on ‘20/20’ (in our new 8 p.m. Eastern time slot) I say ‘Give Me a Break!’ to our Nobel Prize-winning Vice President. “Mr. Gore says ‘The debate is over,’ and those who disagree with his take...

Just when you thought it was safe to turn on an NBC-owned station, the network is getting ready to bombard citizens with a weeklong manmade global warming propaganda blitzkrieg that's destined to make Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his Norwegian sycophants smile like a polar bear that's just bagged a juicy seal. It appears the good folks at NBC didn't feel they lost enough money -- and good will! -- pushing this absurd issue down citizens' throats during July's failed "Live Earth" concerts. Be that as it may, this campaign, cleverly called "Green is Universal" - I guess they couldn't...

'Black people are less intelligent than whites', claims DNA pioneer One of the world's most eminent scientists is at the centre of a row after claiming black people are less intelligent than whites. James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, has drawn condemnation for comments made ahead of his arrival in Britain tomorrow for a speaking tour. Dr Watson, who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, made the controversial remarks in an interview in The Sunday Times. The 79-year-old geneticist said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect...

Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out. This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms. -excerpted- Click HERE for the rest of the essay.

I hope the delay in approving the power plants Sunflower Electric has proposed isn't because the Kansas Department of Health and Environment believes the lie that carbon dioxide has some magical power to control atmospheric temperatures. How can anyone believe that CO2, which is only 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, can have any impact on air temperatures? I have yet to see any scientific evidence to support the claims about the magical ability of CO2 claimed by greenhouse gas believers. If these believers had any real scientific evidence they wouldn't be claiming that their estimates of past temperatures provide evidence....

(1. Introduction 2. The ever-changing climate 3. IPCC pseudoscience challenged 4. CO2 fixation, Kyoto and beyond 5. Sun and climate 6. Modelling fantasies 7. Global alarmism 8. New science and technology 9. Sources

Here are those 11 corrections to Gore's film - and many will be familiar to readers of this column: Gore presents Mt Kilimanjaro's melting snows as proof of global warming. In fact, the snows are vanishing thanks to local factors, including deforestation. Gore suggests Antarctica's ice cover is melting. Most studies says it is increasing or stable. Gore shows scary graphics of cities drowning in seas that rise 7m, causing millions of refugees. But the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the seas will rise at worst by 59cm this century. Gore uses images of Hurricane Katrina and...