Free Republic

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   The "Junkiest" Junk Science That Taxpayers' Money Can Buy   Friday, October 09, 2009   Now, more than at any other time in anyone's memory, the federal government is in no position to waste taxpayer dollars on gun control advocacy "research."  Nevertheless, the National Institutes of Health recently gave anti-gun researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine $639,586 to conduct a survey intended to prove that possessing a gun doesn't benefit assault victims. Criminologist Gary Kleck calls the resulting survey "the very epitome of junk science in the guns-and-violence field—poor...

Carbon trading markets will yield few fortunes and break a lot of hearts I am no economist, but for an amateur I have a track record in predicting economic trends at least as good as Paul Krugman’s and I didn’t bother attending an Ivy League school to be able to do that. In predicting economic bubbles there are two things to remember. One is that most bubbles deal with intangibles, such as Michael Milliken’s junk bonds and the dot com bubble that saw insane valuations for non-performing stocks simply because they had an “E” in front of their name. The...

Take a look at the action of the Department of Energy. They just recently loaned $529 million dollars to a Finnish company that is producing a $90,000 dollar hybrid sports car (that is $90,000 per car Clyde). These funds are supposed to be used to create , or save American jobs, not sent overseas to create Finnish jobs building cars that none of us can afford in the first place. Now comes the really interesting part, guess who is now receiving profits from this little venture by way of ownership of a fair amount of stock in this company? You...

Leadership: Our new science czar, John Holdren, once backed compulsory sterilization and forced abortion as part of a government population-control program. The only thing missing was a Soylent Green recipe.In April, President Obama declared that "the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over." In everything from stem cell research to climate change and energy policy, reason and science would triumph. The problem is that what the Obama administration considers science, as exemplified by the choice of Holdren, is troubling. In a recently rediscovered 1977 book, "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," co-authored with doomsters Paul and Anne Ehrlich,...

Not content with his humiliation at Copenhagen, Denmark this past September, President Obama will be traveling there again in December to attend the UN COP15 Climate Change Conference. This agreement would commit the United States to punitive and expensive greenhouse gas regulations dictated by the United Nations without recourse. COP stands for "Conference of the Parties" and the December Copenhagen conference will be the 15th under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), hence COP15. According to their website, it will be one of the largest conferences ever held outside the New York or Geneva headquarters, with an...

(CNSNews.com) – International law dealing with refugees should be amended to cover people affected by disasters attributed to climate change, environmental lawyers are arguing. With the United Nations and others predicting upward of 200 million people being displaced by 2050 as a result of environmental changes, the London-based Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD) says they will need help dealing with “statelessness and compensation.” “International refugee law focuses on those who are persecuted for political, racial or religious reasons,” the organization’s director, Joy Hyvarinen, said in a statement Thursday. “It was not designed for those who are left...

The secret to sex appeal lies with the tampering of pheromones, creating a "sexual tsunami", according to new research. Scientists at the University of Toronto ... discovered that when the pheromone was removed, it created a "sexual tsunami" where the bugs proved attractive to one another, regardless of sex. The research found that male fruit flies with no history of homosexuality attempted to mate with their pheromone-free males ... Even flies of a different species were interested, according to the research team. "Lacking these chemical signals eliminated barriers to mating," Prof Levine said.

Smoking bans in places like restaurants, offices and public buildings reduce cases of heart attacks and heart disease, according to a report released Thursday by a federally commissioned panel of scientists. The report, issued by the Institute of Medicine, concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke significantly increased the risk of having a heart attack among both smokers and nonsmokers. The panel also said it found that a reduction in heart problems began to take effect fairly quickly after a smoking ban was instituted and that exposure to low or fleeting levels of secondhand smoke could cause cardiovascular problems. “Even a...

And the award goes to... (drumroll)... The New York Times, for "Biggest Obstacle to Global Climate Deal May Be How to Pay for It"! Quite frankly, that's the only obstacle to a global climate deal. What else is there? Some states are just baddies who want to ruin the globe for everyone else? But it's just a headline, and those are usually created by someone who didn't write the actual article, so surely the meat is better. Let's take a peek at the lede: As world leaders struggle to hash out a new global climate deal by December, they face...

Public Discourse: Our energy secretary applauds and encourages companies to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its position on climate change. Should any Cabinet secretary, with the powers of government behind him, be threatening U.S. companies? Part of the climate-change mantra is that the debate is over and the science is settled. Just to make sure, environmental groups have sought to pressure businesses to go green or at least keep silent. Now it would appear the whole weight of the federal government is being thrown behind this campaign to coerce and silence real and potential opposition. On Thursday, Steven...

At a conference for environmental journalists in Wisconsin, Al Gore dodged questions on the many identified errors in his global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth. "We're very close to that political tipping point," Gore said. "Never before in human history has a single generation been asked to make such difficult and consequential decisions." While the audience of environmental journalists were largely in agreement with Mr. Gore's presentation and his positions, one Irish journalist and filmmaker asked Gore about the many scientific errors that were found in Gore's global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth. "A judge in the British High Court,...

<p>Global Warming: President Obama warns of planetary doom at the U.N. if we fail to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Meanwhile, a former warm-monger predicts decades of cooling as the sun stays nearly "spotless."</p> <p>The president had hoped to address Tuesday's United Nations climate change summit in New York with a finished cap-and-trade bill. Failing that, he hoped he'd at least have a version of the Waxman-Markey bill that has passed the House on his desk before the Copenhagen talks in December to cobble together a follow-up to the failed Kyoto Protocol.</p>

Snow Shuts Down Game 3 for Phillies, Rockies Those with tickets can use them for Sunday's game By ARNIE STAPLETON and ASHA BEH Updated 12:45 PM EDT, Sat, Oct 10, 2009 Shutterstock The weather gurus were right. It's cold and snowy in Denver. And Game 3 of the Philadelphia Phillies-Colorado Rockies playoff on Saturday night has been postponed because of it. A cold front moved into Denver overnight, dropping temperatures into the teens with record lows for the date. Coors Field was covered with a thin layer of snow and ice Saturday morning and flurries were expected to continue through...

Govt-Funded Research Unit Destroyed Original Climate Data CEI Petitions EPA to Reopen Global Warming Rulemaking Washington, D.C., October 6, 2009―In the wake of a revelation by a key research institution that it destroyed its original climate data, the Competitive Enterprise Institute petitioned EPA to reopen a major global warming proceeding. In mid-August the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) disclosed that it had destroyed the raw data for its global surface temperature data set because of an alleged lack of storage space. The CRU data have been the basis for several of the major international studies that claim...

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming ******************************************************World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.******************************************************************* Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ___________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 5, 2009 President Obama signs an Executive Order Focused on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance WASHINGTON, DC – Demonstrating a commitment to lead by example, President Obama signed an Executive Order (attached) today that sets sustainability goals for Federal agencies and focuses on making improvements in their environmental, energy and economic performance. The Executive Order requires Federal agencies to set a 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target within 90 days; increase energy efficiency; reduce...

Naked Crowd Gathers For Climate Change [BBC Video] Hundreds of naked people gathered in a French vineyard to pose for photographer Spencer Tunick and illustrate the threat of global warming through art. The famous photographer teamed up with Greenpeace to create a "meaningful message" on climate change, concentrating on the vulnerability of wines and agriculture in France.

The Arctic Ocean is becoming acidic so quickly that it will reach corrosive levels within 10 years, a leading scientist has warned. Waters around the North Pole are absorbing carbon dioxide at such a rate that they will soon start dissolving the shells of living sea creatures. The potentially disastrous consequences for the food chain have been highlighted by Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso of the National Centre for Scientific Research in France. His team of oceanographers have produced startling predictions about the acidity of the Arctic Ocean after research carried out on the Svalbard archipelago, a group of islands half way...

Ted Williams' frozen head for batting practice at cryogenics lab: book BY Nathaniel Vinton DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Updated Friday, October 2nd 2009, 10:44 AM Head of Ted Williams was abused by employees at Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., whistleblower says. AP Ted Williams, who spent his entire career with the Red Sox, died in 2002 at the age of 83. 'Frozen,' by former Alcor exec Larry Johnson, makes shocking claims about how employees treated Ted Williams' frozen head. Take our PollCryonics: Critical or near-criminal? In "Frozen," Larry Johnson, a former exec at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation...

Note: The following text is a quote: 01 Oct. 2009 Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on emerging security risks, Lloyd's of London Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me begin by thanking Peter Levine for hosting us in this very impressive building. This is my first time here, but it is the second time that NATO and Lloyd’s have come together to discuss emerging security challenges. And while a security Alliance and an insurance market might not seem to have too much in common, another look makes it clear that we do: managing risk. We are both focused on...