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During the 70 years that the communists controlled the Soviet Union, they had a peculiar way of teaching history to the people. They would teach things as historical fact that never happened. If you were one of those who took umbrage with their revisionist history lessons, you would soon find yourself living in a tiny apartment in a part of the country where they laugh at anyone who claims the world is getting warmer. In a communist country this is the only way to convince the masses that they are actually better off than anyone in the history of...

COPENHAGEN — Has Copenhagen collapsed? That seems to be the growing sentiment inside the city's Bella Conference Center, where officials, environmentalists and even delegates to the international climate conference began streaming out Friday evening. What began with excitement and anticipation two weeks ago ended Friday night with disappointment and anger for thousands. "This is a sad day for my country," said Mama Konate, chief delegate from the West African nation of Mali. "We have worked very hard to reach this agreement. And now it seems over. Without a deadline, I don't know if we will ever finish." The conference, the...

I cannot condone some things that colleagues of mine wrote or requested in the e-mails recently stolen from a climate research unit at a British university. But the messages do not undermine the scientific case that human-caused climate change is real. The hacked e-mails have been mined for words and phrases that can be distorted to misrepresent what the scientists were discussing. In a Dec. 9 op-ed, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin argued that "The e-mails reveal that leading climate 'experts' . . . manipulated data to 'hide the decline' in global temperatures." Yet the e-mail she cites was written...

A student says a Dallas public community-college teacher compared crosses to swastikas while explaining a school ban on religious items made in ceramics classes.

...in its first year of operation the museum hosted approximately 85,000 guests... The word "museum" may not even be the most apt descriptor for the complex. The Grammy Museum uses the annual awards as a jumping-off point, allowing visitors to digitally explore genres, regions and the recording studio. It takes a hands-on approach to education, giving the guests the opportunity to record vocals, mix a track and learn the basics of traditional rock 'n' roll instrumentation. ...on Jan. 8 the museum will open "Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer," pairing the intimate looks at the star with rare footage...

...As Alan I. Leshner, who heads the American Association for the Advancement of Science, wrote in The Washington Post recently: "It is wrong to suggest that apparently stolen e-mails ... somehow refute a century of evidence based on thousands of studies. ... Doubters insist that the Earth is not warming. This is in stark contrast to the consensus of 18 of the world's most respected scientific organizations, who strongly stated in an Oct. 21 letter to the U.S. Senate that human-induced climate change is real. Still, the doubters try to leverage any remaining points of scientific uncertainty about the details...

History serving “a social aim,” rather than chronicling the past in a detached manner, is what readers get in A People’s History of the United States. With any luck, “The People Speak,” the History Channel documentary based on the book that premieres this Sunday, will be, like so many Hollywood productions, unfaithful to the original. Given A People’s History of the United States’ infidelity to facts, this might be the only chance viewers have of seeing anything resembling an accurate retelling of history.Through Zinn’s looking-glass, Maoist China, site of history’s bloodiest state-sponsored killings, transforms into “the closest thing, in the...

The web site of a Catholic college in Montana advises students who wish to obtain an abortion to contact Planned Parenthood. “How can I obtain an abortion?” asks an anonymous "ask-a-nurse" advice column for Carroll College students. The response-- “thoughtfully prepared by Health Services”-- is "Carroll College does not offer abortion counseling based on its Catholic Tradition. There is a Planned Parenthood in Helena or you can talk with any health care provider concerning your options." In addition, the college’s official “Summer Job Finding Guide” asks students to consider applying for employment at Planned Parenthood. In 2005, a controversy erupted...

These must be the children of the 1700 scientist in Britain who signed a statement defending the evidence for human-made climate change in the wake of hacked e-mails that emboldened climate skeptics.

Over 1,700 scientists in Britain have signed a statement defending the evidence for human-made climate change in the wake of hacked e-mails that emboldened climate skeptics. E-mails stolen from an English university appeared to show scientists discussing ways to shield data from public scrutiny and suppress others' work. Climate skeptics — those who deny that human activity is responsible for global warming — have seized on the correspondence as evidence that scientists have conspired to hide the facts. Most scientists say the e-mails do nothing to undermine the evidence for climate change. More than 1,700 signed a statement released Thursday,...

A former Duke University employee and adoptive gay father charged with molesting his five-year-old son--and offering the boy as a sex object to pedophiles online--is expected to make a plea bargain, according to a Dec. 1 article in local newspaper the Durham Herald Sun. Frank Lombard faces charges stemming from alleged instances in which he molested his young adopted son and chatted about the deeds online even as he carried them out. It’s thought that the U.S, Attorney’s Office is positioning the case for a plea arrangement because the Office is set to file an "information," which allows the prosecution...

It dawned with the warmest winter on record in the United States. And when the sun sets this New Year's Eve, the decade of the 2000s will end as the warmest ever on global temperature charts. Warmer still, scientists say, lies ahead. Through 10 years of global boom and bust, of breakneck change around the planet, of terrorism, war and division, all people everywhere under that warming sun faced one threat together: the buildup of greenhouse gases, the rise in temperatures, the danger of a shifting climate, of drought, weather extremes and encroaching seas, of untold damage to the world...

In the 10 days since we first blogged about “ClimateGate” — the unauthorized release of e-mails and other material from the Climate Research Unit (C.R.U.) at East Anglia University in Norwich, England — it’s become strikingly clear that one’s view of the issue is deeply colored by his or her incoming biases. No surprise there, but still, the demarcation is clear. One of the best indicators: when you stumble onto a blog post about the topic, you can tell which way the wind is blowing simply by looking at the banner ad at the top of the site: if it’s...

The science showing that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are causing a dangerous warming of the world's climate is sound, President Barack Obama's top scientists said on Wednesday, despite controversial e-mails stolen from climate researchers. E-mails from Britain's University of East Anglia, made public last month after being obtained by hackers, show climate researchers deriding global warming skeptics, who argue that the messages show that the researchers manipulated data to make climate change appear more definitive.

He said: 'I can confirm what has been written in other places: research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU files. 'The scientific debate has been in many instances hijacked to advance other agendas.' The researcher added although he does not believe that manmade climate is a hoax, he and other researchers have been ‘bullied and subtly blackmailed’ to fit in the scientific mainstream. 'In this atmosphere, PhD students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the "politically correct...

What is the phrase? Oh yea: “Denial isn’t a river in Egypt” They say it to alcoholics in an intervention and to abducted kids suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Its cliché, but now is a point of massive irony. To start, allow me to recall the tale of the esteemed immunologist, David Baltimore. Dr. Baltimore is a Nobel laureate, chairman of the board of director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and holds a professorship at CalTech. However in spite of his current position his reputation has been permanently scared by a scandal in the early 1990’s at...

The Obama administration might think Climategate is a nonevent, but on Monday, Pennsylvania State University announced it was launching an investigation into the academic conduct of Michael Mann, director of the school's Earth System Science Center. Yesterday, it was announced that Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, would step aside while his university conducts an investigation. With so much fraud being exposed in the academic community that studies and promotes global-warming theories, an example has to be made of someone. There are dozens of researchers at other institutions involved in this...

<p>LONDON — Britain's University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.</p> <p>The university says Phil Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review into allegations that he worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented.</p>

Here is video of Arizona Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio being heckled out of an event on the campus of Arizona State University. Arpaio has been strong on cracking down on illegal immigration, and protesters showed up to drown him out as he tried to answer questions at an event on the ASU campus. The protesters began singing, making it impossible for the Sheriff to be heard. He eventually simply got up and walked out, ending the forum. University officials said the protesters' actions were "very shortsighted." It warms your heart to see that liberal First Amendment tolerance for diversity...

Some facts: 1998 was a warm year. But since then, two years – 2005 and 2007 – have had higher global average temperatures. Two others, including this year to date, have been average. Four others were just a tad cooler. This current decade has been warmer than the 1990s, the warmest of the past century. Yet those who deny climate change claim the planet has been cooling since 1998. Black, they thunder, is white, and – skilled and persistent communicators that they are, with plentiful political, media and industry backing – they manage to convince, or at least confuse, many...

No commentary (laughing too hard??)... just a link and the summary below for those of you interested in the Copenhagen talking points, conveniently titled The Copenhagen Diagnosis, brought to you by: Citation: The Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2009: Updating the world on the Latest Climate Science. I. Allison, N. L. Bindoff, R.A. Bindoff, R.A. Bindschadler, P.M. Cox, N. de Noblet, M.H. England, J.E. Francis, N. Gruber, A.M. Haywood, D.J. Karoly, G. Kaser, C. Le Quéré, T.M. Lenton, M.E. Mann, B.I. McNeil, A.J. Pitman, S. Rahmstorf, E. Rignot, H.J. Schellnhuber, S.H. Schneider, S.C. Sherwood, R.C.J. Somerville, K.Steffen, E.J. Steig, M. Visbeck, A.J. Weaver....

In case you have not yet heard, the scientists behind the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have been exposed through their own email conversations. At this time, it is not known who or how the emails were obtained, though much speculation has been done. From the servers at the University of East Anglica in the UK being illegally broken into and hacked, to a whistle blower protected by UK laws as well as US laws, to an insider job, a person with legitimate access to the emails have all been discussed. More will be revealed certainly. What is known...

Lift up a rock and another snake comes slithering out from the ongoing University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) scandal, now riding as “Climategate”. Obama Science Czar John Holdren is directly involved in CRU’s unfolding Climategate scandal. In fact, according to files released by a CEU hacker or whistleblower, Holdren is involved in what Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball terms “a truculent and nasty manner that provides a brief demonstration of his lack of understanding, commitment on faith and willingness to ridicule and bully people”. “The files contain so much material that...

Senator Inhofe: Well, on this thing, it is pretty serious. And since, you know, Barabara Boxer is the Chairman and I’m the Ranking Member on Environment and Public Works, if nothing happens in the next seven days when we go back into session a week from today that would change this situation, I will call for an investigation. ‘Cause this thing is serious, you think about the literally millions of dollars that have been thrown away on some of this stuff that they came out with. Melanie Morgan: So what will you be calling for an investigation of? Senator Inhofe:...

GLOBAL WARMING JUNK SCIENCE PROVEN A CONSPIRACY—- ManBearPig Is Finally Dead! I’m serial! Recently “discovered” classified emails and files prove that the junk scientists behind the global warming movement knowingly perpetrated a fraud on the global community. The files were posted on the internet– HERE. The Telegraph reported: If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka...

Of all the sins of the campus left, the worst is hypocrisy. Academic freedom is a spigot they turn on and off at their convenience. This evening, Ray Luc Levasseur, a convicted terrorist who served 18 years of a 45-year sentence, will participate in a "Colloquium on Social Change" at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, sponsored by a "progressive" faculty group called "Social Thought and Political Economy." Levasseur was the leader of the United Freedom Front, which worked for social change from 1976 to 1984 by bombing government buildings, robbing banks, murdering a New Jersey state trooper, and attempting...

A prominent Columbia architecture professor punched a female university employee in the face at a Harlem bar during a heated argument about race relations, cops said yesterday. Police busted Lionel McIntyre, 59, for assault yesterday after his bruised victim, Camille Davis, filed charges. McIntyre and Davis, who works as a production manager in the school's theater department, are both regulars at Toast, a popular university bar on Broadway and 125th Street, sources said. The professor, who is black, had been engaged in a fiery discussion about "white privilege" with Davis, who is white, and another male regular, who is also...

A fuming Gov. Deval Patrick is taking on University of Massachusetts officials who now say they must allow a convicted terror bomber to speak on campus because of “academic freedom” - even after angry cops thought the event had been stopped. “Gov. Patrick is outraged and extremely disappointed at reports that the University of Massachusetts has again extended a speaking invitation to Raymond Luc Levasseur,” said Patrick spokesman Joe Landolfi. The governor last night called on UMass brass to “review” the abrupt about-face. Levasseur, now under federal parole in a Maine halfway house, was the radical leader of United Freedom...

On the day I born, June 9th, 1954, Senator Joseph McCarthy was asked the famous question; “Have you no sense of decency sir?”. Some members of the media who saw an opening, pounced on the opportunity, and never looked back. This would become the beginning of the end of the anti-communist mood in America. It would be the birth of terms like McCarthyism, Redbaiting, and Blacklisting. The heirs of this movement are much more numerous today than in 1954, and the true journalists have been replaced by mere actors, playing the part of journalists. We have gone from a nation...

very ironic announcement that I just got in my Harvard email announcing a forthcoming lecture: HARVARD UNIVERSITY EDMOND J. SAFRA FOUNDATION CENTER FOR ETHICS Eliot Spitzer, former Governor and Attorney General of New York, will deliver a public lecture as part of the 2009/10 Labs Lectures on the Question of Institutional Corruption. Thursday, November 12 at 4:30pm Emerson Hall, Room 105 25 Quincy Street, Cambridge This is a ticketed event.

Members of Seattle University’s Muslim community have been gathering signatures on a petition since Monday to voice their resentment over the university hosting author Nonie Darwish last week. Darwish, a former Muslim who renounced Islam for Christianity and tours the nation speaking out against radical Islam and Sharia law, spoke at Seattle University Thursday. Event organizers maintain they brought Darwish to campus to foster discussion about human rights issues and conflict in the Middle East. “The idea of a university is to exchange ideas,” said Gracie Cohen, a sophomore pre-major who publicized Darwish’s talk. Some students, however—who said Darwish spreads...

The National Education Association has made a glowing assessment of radical socialist community organizer Saul Alinsky and is enthusiastically recommending American public school teachers read two of his books, including one dedicated to Satan. On its website, the NEA dubs Alinsky "an inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!" It recommends Alinsky's "Reveille for Radicals," a 1946 book about the principles and tactics of "community organizing," and "Rules for Radicals," a 1971 text that articulated a socialist strategy for gaining political power to redistribute wealth from the "haves" to the "have-nots." The NEA, the largest...

Regardless of your tribal affiliations, were you cautiously optimistic when our new president promised to "restore science to its rightful place" in the formulation of public policy? Were you embarrassed by the prior occupant's politicization of issues that should have been decided on a more scientific basis? Did you assume that Barack Obama would surround himself with apolitical science advisors unencumbered by embarrassing anti-science baggage and free of culture-war axes to grind? To paraphrase a once famous mayor of New York - So how's he doing so far? You're probably aware that the H1N1 swine flu vaccine supply has fallen...

I have discussed with Freepers over the last 4 months that I am back in school earning my Masters degree. Today my head about exploded when not only my professor but people (grown adults) said Communism was a fear on paper but never a real threat to the U.S. Let me give you direct quotes taken from today's lecture. "Exactly where does communism fit in today's classroom, newspapers, and television sets? It doesn't, only the right wing fringe in this country wants you to believe that is the case, where is the proof? America feared communism based on it being...

Rather remarkable ways in which millions of dollars were passed out. no wonder no jobs were created. I thought "shovel ready" meant something.

I was just reading one of my daughters "history" books called, "Call to Freedom". (credit is given to "CNNfyi.com" so I knew this was going to spell trouble.) In a chapter called "The Great Society", the book brags about LBJ's accomplishments in poverty. Here's a quote..."Partly because of Johnson's Great Society, poverty in the US decreased. Overall unemployment levels stayed low and the percentage of Americans living below the poverty level dropped to about 12% by 1969. Americans' income levels rose more during the 1960's than they had during the prosperous years of the 1950's". There are chapters devoted to...

Rocco Landesman, the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) chairman, said, in part: "This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists."...

Did I miss something? What did Obama write?

Love Can Mess You Up: Before Arthur David Horn met his future bride Lynette (a "metaphysical healer") in 1988, he was a tenured professor at Colorado State, with a Ph.D. in anthropology from Yale, teaching a mainstream course in human evolution. With Lynette's guidance (after a revelatory week with her in California's Trinity Mountains, searching for Bigfoot), Horn evolved, himself, resigning from Colorado State and seeking to remedy his inadequate Ivy League education. At a conference in Denver in September, Horn said he now realizes that humans come from an alien race of shape-shifting reptilians that continue to control civilization...

A panel of legal scholars has suggested that Congress remove sodomy as a crime punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a recommendation that could boost efforts to end a ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military. The Commission on Military Justice recommended that Article 125, which deals with sodomy, be repealed, arguing that “most acts of consensual sodomy committed by consenting military personnel are not prosecuted, creating a perception that prosecution of this sexual behavior is arbitrary.” In its report — dated October 2009 — the commission suggested several changes be made to the UCMJ, including...

First-century believers could have offered tangible evidence that there was little chance for the gospel to have an impact on the status quo of religious and civil oppression in their day. How could a small band of men—led by a fisherman (Peter) and a tentmaker (Paul)—living under Roman occupation ever conceive that their circumstances would change enough so that the gospel message would lead to the transformation of the world? To add to the improbability of a world-wide impact, soon after the victorious ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on His disciples, one of their own...

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.

Tenured Radical Goes Global Malcolm A. Kline, October 16, 2009 A professor whom Accuracy in Academia has covered extensively is getting ready to take his act on the road. “Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, produces a steady stream of writings that downplays the threat radical Islam poses to America and the West,” Jonathan Schanzer writes in The American Thinker. “His opinions are at odds with the beliefs of most Americans.” “Now, through a project designed to foster an understanding of America in the Arab world, he appears to be at...

Conservative warrior David Horowitz was scheduled to speak at St. Louis University this month. But he won’t be. University officials canceled his speech because of its title: “Islamo-Fascism Awareness and Civil Rights.” Horowitz commented: “I have spoken at 400 universities. This is the first time my speech has been censored and stopped by an administration. And they are supposed to be the guardians of intellectual discourse.” Cary Nelson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, said that with this cancellation, St. Louis University “joins the small group of campuses that are universities in name only…. The free exchange...

A group of UC Berkeley law students will launch a torture accountability initiative next week dedicated to holding the authors of the infamous torture memos accountable, reinstating respect for the prohibition against torture and ending executive abuse of power and impunity. Called the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture (B.A.A.T.), at their kick-off Oct. 13 the group will host a panel of lawyers and legal academics to discuss the memos crafted by the Bush administration’s legal counsels at the Department of Justice, including Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo. Yoo, who spent the previous semester at Chapman University, returned to the UC...

Months of Republican attacks on President Barack Obama’s health-care proposals appear to have hurt the party, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. The survey found 64 percent of voters disapproving of the way Republicans in Congress are doing their jobs, with 25 percent approving. Also, 53 percent had an unfavorable opinion of the party in general, while 25 percent rated it favorably. The performance of Democratic lawmakers was disapproved of by 56 percent, with 33 expressing approval. For the party in general, 46 percent expressed disapproval, 38 percent approval. Asked who they trusted to do a better job on the...

The global Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly 1 in 4 people in the world practise Islam, a landmark study has claimed. Britain has a total of 1,647,000 Muslims - just 2.7 per cent of the British population, and 0.1 per cent of the global Muslim population, the report claimed. The Pew Forum report also revealed that Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon - or North and South America combined. It claimed that about five per cent of Europe's population practises Islam - and that there are more Muslims living in Asia than in the Middle East....

I have been a faculty member at a major State University for 40 years. Several years after my arrival, I voted for George McGovern. Eight years later, I voted for Ronald Reagan. In those eight years, my family and I experienced several traumas that caused me to reevaluate -- and ultimately, drastically alter -- the political, cultural and economic axioms that had governed my life. Within months of buying my first home in an excellent neighborhood, within walking distance to the University and, most importantly, located in a district with an outstanding local public elementary school, my five year old...

The past haunts Richard Nixon's library/h2> Once privately run, the Yorba Linda presidential museum is making a transition to government operation. And that has turned statues of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai into political footballs. The statues depict two old men relaxing in easy chairs. As others mill about the drawing room, the men engage in conversation, one gesturing at the other to underscore a point. For nearly 20 years the likenesses of China's communist leaders Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai have sat perfectly still in the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda. Now, they are creating...

BURLINGTON TOWNSHIP -- New Jersey's education commissioner ordered a review after a YouTube video shows school children learning a song celebrating President Barack Obama. The video shows more than a dozen youngsters at B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington Township. The district said the students were participating in Black History Month in February. Education Department spokeswoman Kathryn Forsyth said the commissioner has directed the school superintendent to review what happened. Forsyth said the commissioner wants to ensure that students can celebrate Black History Month without "inappropriate partisan politics in the classroom." Forsyth also said the teacher who directed the...