Free Republic

Rudy Giuliani never misses an opportunity to remind people about his track record in fighting crime as mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. "I began with the city that was the crime capital of America," Giuliani, now a candidate for president, recently told Fox's Chris Wallace. "When I left, it was the safest large city in America. I reduced homicides by 67 percent. I reduced overall crime by 57 percent." While crime did fall dramatically in New York during Giuliani's tenure, a broad range of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show the mayor deserves...

Black women who feel they've been victims of racial discrimination are more likely than their peers to develop breast cancer, a large study suggests. The study, which followed 59,000 African-American women for six years, found that those who reported more incidents of racial discrimination had a higher risk of breast cancer

"Global warming threatens our White Chistmases with winter heatwaves. And our Arbor Days with record wildfires. And now it imperils our Independence Day fireworks with ever worsening droughts."

With the pendulum swinging back and forth between nature and nurture as explanations for sexual preference, critics argue that science is asking a simplistic – and dangerous – question Gay men believe their sexual orientation is inextricably bound up with their very being. It is not a choice – let alone the "wrong choice," as religious and political critics have counter-claimed for years. Many believe they simply were "born that way," and long for proof that their sexual proclivity is biological or genetic, a variation, not a deviation, of human nature. And how can an innate instinct be the subject...

Climate hysteria now invading our homes and businesses By Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris, www.nrsp.com Saturday, May 26, 2007 Ontario environment minister Broten's ban of used oil heating just the latest example of an increasing intrusion into daily life by governments that ignore science "That government, dedicated to saving the environment from the evils of technology, had been voted into power because everybody knew that the Green House Effect had to be controlled, whatever the cost. But who would have thought that the cost of ending pollution would include not only total government control of day-to-day life, but the...

In a couple of hundred years historians will be comparing the frenzies over our supposed human contribution to global warming to the tumults at the latter end of the tenth century as the Christian millennium approached. Then as now, the doomsters identified human sinfulness as the propulsive factor in the planet's rapid downward slide. Then as now, a buoyant market throve on fear. The Roman Catholic Church sold indulgences like checks. The sinners established a line of credit against bad behavior and could go on sinning. Today a world market in "carbon credits" is in formation. Those whose "carbon footprint"...

I can’t help passing along this passage from Wednesday’s Variety: Cathy Schulman has made her first hires and promotions as president of Mandalay Pictures and Mandalay Independent Pictures. A highlight of the Mandalay Pictures’ slate at Universal is the remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” scheduled to be in production by early fall. “We think we have a very contemporary take,” Schulman said. “In the original, the birds just showed up, and it was kind of like, why are the birds here? This time, there’s a reason why they’re here and (people) have had something to do with it. There’s...

Scientists: Global Warming Could Wipe Out ¼ Of All Species Local Group: Swift Action by Congress, Pennsylvania Could Help Avert Worst Predicted Impacts POSTED: 12:52 pm EDT April 6, 2007 UPDATED: 1:26 pm EDT April 6, 2007 Approximately 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species are at risk of extinction if the global average temperature increases by another 2.2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a major consensus report released Friday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC is a United Nations body charged with assessing the scientific record on global warming. "More droughts, floods, forest...

Former Vice President Al Gore, testifying on his pet issue last week, told Congress: "there is no longer any serious debate over the basic points that make up the consensus on global warming." As Rush Limbaugh observed a few hours after Gore's testimony, when liberals declare the debate over, you can bet the debate is not over; they just want it stifled. Perhaps conservatives should adopt this tactic of declaring the debate over on some of our issues. What do we have to lose? It would be a fun exercise, and it might usher in a whole new era of...

GORE REFUSES TO TAKE PERSONAL ENERGY ETHICS PLEDGE WASHINGTON, DC ? Former Vice President Al Gore refused to take a ?Personal Energy Ethics Pledge? today to consume no more energy than the average American household. The pledge was presented to Gore by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, during today?s global warming hearing. Senator Inhofe showed Gore a film frame from ?An Inconvenient Truth? where it asks viewers: ?Are you ready to change the way you live?? Gore has been criticized for excessive home energy usage at his residence in Tennessee. His electricity...

All in a Good Cause Here's a story you haven't heard, and you should have. An intelligence source, working for a government agency. He's not a spy, he's an analyst. He uses computers to crunch numbers and at the end of his work, out pops the truth that was hiding in the original data. Let's call him "Mann." The trouble with Mann is, he has an ideology. He knows what he wants his results to be. And the original numbers aren't giving him that data. So the agency he works for won't be able to persuade people to fight the...

WASHINGTON (March 10) - The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium. At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press. Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be...

The increasing intensity of hurricanes hitting the U.S. is partly driven by global warming, and the ferocity of storms to come is likely to increase as surface temperatures of the ocean rise, says a noted scientist visiting UW-Madison. "The effects of global warming do not only concern scientists," Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Kerry Emanuel told an audience at a public lecture Thursday. "I want to put this issue into a societal context."Emanuel, a professor in the department of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at MIT, has published two books and over 100 scientific articles. One article published in the...

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Snow fell on Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, for the first time in 63 years on Wednesday, stirring excitement and curiosity among residents and their children. "I have never seen it snow in Kathmandu in all my life," said 45-year-old housewife Manju Shrestha, playing in the snow with her young children. Weather officials said the brief snowfall, which lasted only a few minutes, was the result of a "westerly disturbance" over Nepal that earlier in the week caused heavy rains.

Czech president Vaclav Klaus has criticized the UN panel on global warming, claiming that it was a political authority without any scientific basis. In an interview with "Hospodárské noviny", a Czech economics daily, Klaus answered a few questions: Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?• A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a...

Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. For some...

The White House yesterday embraced a new international report faulting humans for global warming, marking the furthest President Bush has gone in placing blame. But administration officials again rejected the Kyoto-style caps on carbon emissions that have been the preferred solution of European nations. The report, released in Paris by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the fact that the Earth is now warming "is unequivocal," and said it is "very likely" that human activity is responsible for many of the changes. "Human activity is contributing to changes in our Earth's climate, and that issue is no longer...

The Polar Bear Pic They Won't Show You h/t Instapundit - Ann Althouse calls attention to an image of Polar Bears making the rounds, again - it was allegedly taken by Dan Crosbie in 2004 and is currently number one on Yahoo's photo list. The image I have up at right also involves Dan Crosbie from the same period in 2004 during a scientific trip during which they carried rifles to run off polar bears while planting equipment in the ice - ice that was much thicker than they expected it to be. (pertinent excerpted text at bottom) But...

ARIS -- It's a trend that counts Leonardo DiCaprio, London cabs and Al Gore among its followers: Making life "carbon neutral" through tree-planting and other environmentally friendly efforts to curb emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide. The theme is a hot one as scientists in Paris this week prepare to issue a major report on global warming -- but critics say the movement is counterproductive, even a scam. The practicalities of "offsetting" carbon dioxide emitted when flying, driving cars, even getting married are increasingly simple. A growing array of companies offer to calculate how much carbon dioxide such activities give off...

FEDERAL WAY, Wash., Jan. 24 -- Frosty E. Hardiman is neither impressed nor surprised that "An Inconvenient Truth," the global-warming movie narrated by former vice president Al Gore, received an Oscar nomination this week for best documentary. "Liberal left is all over Hollywood," he grumbled a few hours after the nomination was announced. Hardiman, a parent of seven here in the southern suburbs of Seattle, has himself roiled the global-warming waters. It happened early this month when he learned that one of his daughters would be watching "An Inconvenient Truth" in her seventh-grade science class. "No you will not teach...