Free Republic

How Much have Global Problems Cost the World? A Scorecard from 1900 to 2050 was editted by Bjørn Lomborg with many contributors They use an unbiased or at least a consistent methodology to assess the impact of global problems from 1900 to today and project forward to 2050. There are often blanket claims that the world is facing more problems than ever but there is a lack of empirical data to show where things have deteriorated or in fact improved. In this book, some of the world's leading economists discuss ten problems that have blighted human development, ranging from malnutrition,...

This idea was brought to my attention the other day and thought it a great choice for a thread. Most of us who are US Navy fans can certainly recall the Navy's efforts to train their pilots on the Great Lakes (Lake Michigan) in the early 40's during the war. This thread may give you a nice idea of what that exersize was all about. Many interesting images to study here and quite possibly of interest to those who are involved with the restoration of aircraft that have been recovered from the Lakes. I have also included a page from...

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from...

In June 1863, when Brig. Gen. Albert Jenkins' cavalry, in the vanguard of the Confederate army, galloped into Pennsylvania, its aim wasn't only to spy and steal supplies. The soldiers were also determined, as historian Margaret Creighton notes, to round up African-Americans, whom the Confederates regarded as "contraband" that should be returned to "rightful" owners. The "slave hunt," as contemporaries and later historians called this phase of the Confederate invasion, would last as long as Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia remained in Pennsylvania. It ended only when the defeated Southern troops retreated back to Virginia after the...

My unfavorite new Facebook meme is this bit of sillyness which has apparently been spotted everywhere from the feeds of my college friends to (allegedly) that of Richard Dawkins' Foundation for Reason and Science:

The Sequester is not a cut.

The mighty American star system has elevated and demoted thousands of people over the 236 years since the propagandistic arts were first torqued up in the Declaration of Independence. But the supreme champion of the American personality cult has been Abraham Lincoln.

There are, generally speaking, three types of libertarian perspectives on the Civil War. Many libertarians actually support the war, some condemn it without defending the Confederacy, and some are actually pro-Confederate.

Readers may recall my previous essay where I pointed out how Mr. Gore’s Climate 101 Video, used in his “24 hours of climate reality”, had some serious credibility issues with editing things to make it appear as if they had actually performed the experiment, when they clearly did not. It has taken me awhile to replicate the experiment. Delays were a combination of acquisition and shipping problems, combined with my availability since I had to do this on nights and weekends. I worked initially using the original techniques and equipment, and I’ve replicated the Climate 101 experiment in other ways...

For everyone who didn't vote for Obama, "Happy Thanksgiving!" For all those who did vote for him, "Enjoy your Turkey!"

An alternative to the Mormon caucus. Mormons not allowed to post, just as Non Mormons are not allowed to post on Mormon Caucus threads.

Mormons, note the simularity of portions of the Book of Mormon to the King James Version of the Bible, assert that it proves the divine origin of the Book of Mormon. Of course that convicted fraud Joseph Smith Jr. would need to plagerize, but the G-d of Israel, of Jacob, and of Abraham would not need to plagerize, seems to have excaped them.

Powerful thing, myth. It can move men to noble deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice. Dangerous thing, myth. It can lead politicians to believe even their own propaganda, and so mislead others. Consider the myth that the war in Iraq is this country's "first pre-emptive war."

FORT MEYERS, Fla. - A pit bull who was recently adopted by a family after wondering onto a construction site may have saved a teen girl from a house fire on Friday.

Nearly three and a half centuries of scientific study and achievement is now available online in the Royal Society Journals Digital Archive following its official launch this week. This is the longest-running and arguably most influential journal archive in Science, including all the back articles of both Philosophical Transactions and Proceedings. For the first time the Archive provides online access to all journal content, from Volume One, Issue One in March 1665 until the latest modern research published today ahead of print. And until December the archive is freely available to anyone on the internet to explore.

Did you know that just over the past 11 quarters, dating back to the June 2003 Bush tax cuts, America has increased the size of its entire economy by 20 percent? In less than three years, the U.S. economic pie has expanded by $2.2 trillion, an output add-on that is roughly the same size as the total Chinese economy, and much larger than the total economic size of nations like India, Mexico, Ireland and Belgium. This is an extraordinary fact, although you may be reading it here first. *** For those who bother to look, the economic power of lower-tax-rate...

William Donald Hamilton, one of the towering figures of modern biology and the man who helped to unify Darwin's principles of natural selection with a rigorous understanding of Mendelian genetics, died on Tuesday in Oxford, England. He was 63. Dr. Hamilton was best known for a theory offering a genetic basis for altruism, the inspiration for Richard Dawkins's best-selling popularization, "The Selfish Gene," and for such well-known work by E. O. Wilson as "Sociobiology."