Free Republic

My recent post, “What if They Are Wrong,” explored the possibility that human-generated CO2 will be determined, after all is said and done, to have no appreciable affect on climate. The post generated a lot of discussion. I want to follow up on some of that discussion with this brief post.CO2 is, after all, a trace gas and humanity has added to it a trace amount. An essential requirement that it have a major influence on our climate is a set of feedback mechanisms that magnify its effect. Most notably, for CO2 increase to have any seriously dangerous ramifications for...

Here's one for all you know Internet Explorer (and for the Microsoft haters too): Why do TWO processes open on the Task Manage when one Intenrnet Explorer Window is opened?

Stephen K. Bannon delivers his remarks to the Conservatives4Palin/GrizzlyCoalition meet-up event on Friday, February 10, 2012 in Washington, D.C. at the Embassy Suites - Crystal City during CPAC weekend. He talks about HBO's "Game Change", the smear jobs on Palin and what challenges lay ahead. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5E200Ug1hYc#!

full title..Well it has been a whole month! Just weeks after 17-day Hawaii holiday Michelle Obama takes daughters on ski trip to AspenWith the economy on its knees, many American families have had to forgo their annual holiday just to make ends meet. But barely a month after returning from a luxury Christmas break in Hawaii Michelle Obama is on holiday again- this time at the exclusive Colorado ski resort of Aspen. The First Lady Michelle Obama is spending Presidents' Day weekend in the upmarket resort with her daughters, Sasha and Malia. The Secret Service have been in town for...

Extraordinary and beautiful examples of toroidal vortices produced by dolphins, beluga whales, humpback whales, volcanoes, hydrogen bombs, and man. A toroidal vortex, also called a vortex ring, is a region of rotating fluid moving through the same or different fluid where the flow pattern takes on a toroidal (doughnut) shape. The movement of the fluid is about the poloidal or circular axis of the doughnut, in a twisting vortex motion. Examples of this phenomenon are a smoke ring or a microburst. Vortex rings were first mathematically analysed by the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, in his paper of 1867 On...

Huh ?????

A remote-controlled aircraft owned by an animal rights group was reportedly shot down near Broxton Bridge Plantation Sunday near Ehrhardt, S.C. Steve Hindi, president of SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness), said his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying. "It didn't work; what SHARK was doing was perfectly legal," Hindi said in a news release. "Once they knew nothing was going to stop us, the...

A remote-controlled aircraft owned by an animal rights group was reportedly shot down near Broxton Bridge Plantation Sunday near Ehrhardt, S.C. Steve Hindi, president of SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness), said his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying. "It didn't work; what SHARK was doing was perfectly legal," Hindi said in a news release. "Once they knew nothing was going to stop us, the...

The patents present four (somewhat) novel forms of unlock that range from simple to complex The "Big Three" of the Android world -- HTC Corp. (TPE:2498), Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KS:005930), and Google Inc.'s (GOOG) nearly-acquired subsidiary-to-be Motorola Mobility -- all share a common legal adversary -- Apple, Inc. (AAPL). Apple has asserted a slew of claims against the Android phonemakers, and they haven't been shy about firing back, sometimes quite successfully (other times not so much). I. The Backup Plan One of Apple's biggest successes, however, came when it scored a German injunction on Motorola's smartphones, thanks to its...

A pastor's daughter who was rushed to Bayfront Medical Center after she was accidentally shot in the head at church has passed away, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. Read more: http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_pinellas/pastors-daughter-dies-from-injuries-suffered-in-accidental-church-shooting#ixzz1mlsofSi2

A pastor's daughter who was rushed to Bayfront Medical Center after she was accidentally shot in the head at church has passed away, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. Read more: http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_pinellas/pastors-daughter-dies-from-injuries-suffered-in-accidental-church-shooting#ixzz1mlsofSi2

Call it a case of mistaken plant identity. A 15-year-old boy climbed into Angela Cartwright's kitchen window thinking to make off with a marijuana plant, but instead the young thief was actually stealing a potted tomato plant, a sheriff's arrest report shows. As he was running from Cartwright's house on Carmen Avenue near Holly Hill on Feb. 10 just after 7 a.m., the teen even yelled at Cartwright, "See, I have one of your pot plants!" the arrest report states. Cartwright had arrived at her residence that morning after leaving her 6-year-old son off at the school bus stop. When...

Earlier in the week, we posted the criticisms leveled at Bank of America by the former head of their Merrill Lynch brokerage unit, Lyle LaMothe. LaMothe said he grew weary of the emphasis on the "goals of the bank rather than specific needs of Merrill's brokers and clients" and that many brokers were dissatisfied. Following that post, we received a series of emails from a source close to the company backing up LaMothe's claims that Merrill Lynch brokers are increasingly unhappy at Bank of America. The source said that "many brokers are saying they are not happy with management and...

This is a bad, selfish use of FR bandwidth and I will admit that up front. However, I've searched the internet high and wide for a solution, to no avail. If you have DISH NETWORK, you might see a screen with the floating DISH logo and the words "press SELECT to continue." I cannot press SELECT, however, due to the fact that the dog chewed up the remote (5-7 days for a new remote to arrive). Is there anyway I can watch TV in the meantime? I looked on the DISH receiver itself for a SELECT button, but there is...

Ron Fouchier, a giant of a man at more than two meters tall (6'6"), has dark circles under his eyes. His life has been stressful lately. "They want to paint me as a homicidal idiot," he says heatedly. He is referring, most of all, to a powerful institution from the United States, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB). … Fouchier is attracting so much attention because he has created a new organism. And although it is tiny, if it escaped from his laboratory it would claim far more human lives than an exploding nuclear power plant. The pathogen...

I keep reading on FR that Rick Santorum is unelectable (although Rasmussen's latest poll has him just 6 points behind Obama in a head-to-head matchup) as they try to justify why they are supporting Newt Gingrich. Santorum is definitely less well-known than the former Speaker, but that's the problem for Newt. He is well-known and not well-liked. Talking Points Memo has a rolling track of Gingrich's favorable/unfavorable numbers in national polls. His favorables are now consistently in the 20-25% range since the Florida primary but his unfavorables have topped 60% in two of the last three polls (click link below)....

As the remaining 11 bidders revise their offers for the Dodgers, issues such as stadium renovations, control of the parking lots and TV rights will be major factors in the eventual sale price.

"Many Americans, particularly many Southerners, observe academia's agenda-motivated analysis and respond with a collective yawn. This infuriates and frustrates the "professionals." Academic historians then fume, pout, and spout forth even more of what caused the yawn to begin with. While not providing much real value, the whole spectacle does, nonetheless, make for some great entertainment."

Extraordinary and beautiful examples of toroidal vortices produced by dolphins, beluga whales, humpback whales, volcanoes, hydrogen bombs, and man. A toroidal vortex, also called a vortex ring, is a region of rotating fluid moving through the same or different fluid where the flow pattern takes on a toroidal (doughnut) shape. The movement of the fluid is about the poloidal or circular axis of the doughnut, in a twisting vortex motion. Examples of this phenomenon are a smoke ring or a microburst. Vortex rings were first mathematically analysed by the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, in his paper of 1867 On...

I discovered this site last year and spent about 4 months mesmerized by this Bald Eagle family. Raptor Resource has a camera equipped with infra-red, so you can watch this nest in Decorah Iowa 24 hours a day. Last year, over the course of a week, Mama laid three eggs. We watched Dad bring her food or trade places with her while she left the nest. Then the babies started hatching (at around 35 days) and we watched Mom and Dad feed and tend them for months until they all fledged. Was an AMAZING experience. Well, folks, Mama laid this...

Hollywood could will no longer relevant in a few years....

It goes without saying that connectivity is a hugely important part of smartphones. After all, without some sort of network connection, you've basically just got an expensive PDA or PMP. Today, TI is making formal the WiLink 8 family, the newest member of its popular WiLink series of WLAN combo chips, which is built on a 45nm process. WiLink 8 adds support for GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System - GPS + GLONASS) and NFC in addition to WiFi, Bluetooth, and FM receive/transmit like we've seen in WiLink 7 in a number of devices. The WiLink 8 family includes 15 different...

Welcome to the 11th installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or two- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe. (All 2011 FReeper Recipes are on my profile page as an Online Cookbook Thread Link)

A 40-year-old woman has been burned alive in Nepal she was accused of casting black magic spells in a remote village in southern Nepal. Human rights campaigners say the perpetrators of such crimes are rarely brought to justice A mob burned alive a 40-year-old woman today after accusing her of casting black magic spells in a remote village in southern Nepal, police said. Dengani Mahato died after she was severely beaten, doused in kerosene and set alight for allegedly practising witchcraft, Gopal Bhandari, a superintendent of police in Chitwan district, told AFP. "Nine people started to beat her after a...

Now that the left is successfully employing this wedge argument over insurance birth control mandates, what can we do on an individual basis to counteract it? I am suddenly seeing local boards and even my face book page being flooded with emotional posts by hysterical women who claim their uteruses (uteri?) are being attacked. They are being successfully distracted from the real issues and seem quite anxious to throw their vote away for red herrings. They have been tricked and I am trying to figure out the best way to dodge their emotional arguments and enlighten them. Some (most) of...

There have been some recent revelations regarding Media Matters that have come out lately, and this story really highlights the soft underbelly of invisible governance that progressives have set up over the last century. See these two stories: Inside Media Matters: Sources, memos reveal erratic behavior, close coordination with White House and news organizations and Why is Media Matters tax-exempt? Now, when I talk about invisible governance(and I will do so more in the future), I'm using this partially as my basis. There are several key quotes that need to be brought back to the forefront here:(see the cover of...

Complete breakdown at link....

after being nearly mauled to death by a coyote near La Canada, the little 2 year old pooch — named Alvin — was nursed back to health (for two months) by a vet and caring staff at Glendale’s Hillcrest Pet Hospital. The receptionist, Narenea Baltakin, says, “when he came in he was bleeding through the nose. There were puncture holes all over him. At first we thought he was hit by a car. We thought he was dead.” Alvin’s original owners have abandoned the dog — doubtful about his full recovery and the mounting medical bills. (The staff of the...

This story of Army Special Operations officer Cotton ("Cott") St. Clair, posted in the Middle East, is artfully told by director Bennett Stein, whose parents were CIA operatives. Upon returning home for a visit, St. Clair learns that his beloved sister is engaged to an antiwar activist. Predictably, the two men clash as the war-weary officer pursues a suspected female terrorist posing as a journalist. In the process, the film deftly lays bare the chasm in American society over our role in the world's danger spots - often seen through a biased media filter - and the actual, far more...

Explanation: This rugged road through the dark Atacama Desert seems to lead skyward toward the bright stars and glowing nebulae of the southern Milky Way. If you follow the road you will get to Cerro Armazones peak in Chile, future construction site for the 40-meter class European Extremely Large Telescope. For now though, sliding your cursor across the image will identify wonders of the southern skies in view. The scene is dominated by the reddish glow of the Great Carina Nebula, one of our galaxy's largest star forming regions. In fact, the remarkable skyscape is not a composite of varying...

Caterpillar: Goodbye Illinois, Hello Indiana’s Right To Work February 17, 2012 Caterpillar digging into Indiana Caterpillar has been a mainstay Illinois-based company for generations but no longer. The power and influence of big labor has impacted the company for too long, damaging its bottom-line and hurting workers. Now that Illinois’ neighbor, Indiana, has become a Right to Work state, Caterpillar is exploring their options, according to The Detroit News’ Robert Laurie: Back in 2009, Barack Obama announced that Caterpillar had promised to rehire some of its laid-off workforce if his stimulus proposal passed. This week, the nation’s largest manufacturer of...

I haven't watched Fox News Channel since the day Fox and Drudge all went on their Romney brainwashing spree. Today I decided I would watch my television before browsing FR. Tried CNN, and within 15 seconds of turning on the channel there was some "news" about some gay guy. Sure it's possible, maybe something actually did happen to a gay guy this week, but I am certain there were at least 10,000 more important things which happened in the world just so far this morning than some gay guy. Media, just shut up about gay guys. We don't actually care...

As much as Foley likes discovering shipwrecks -- he's found or helped find 26 in the past 14 years -- he doesn't much like spending time looking for them, at least not in the conventional ways. Rather than sending dive teams down to survey 1,000-foot transects one fin kick at a time, Foley prefers to use autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to survey huge tracts of seafloor. Where the robots don't work well, Foley sends down divers armed with closed-circuit rebreathers and thrusters, allowing them to cover more ground. He wants to go faster, he says, because he needs a lot...

PHOENIX (CBS5) - Authorities in Phoenix are asking for immediate action after they found that hundreds of protective vests worn by Valley cops may not stop bullets. Phoenix Police officer Anthony Daley, 30, was seriously injured when a bullet pierced through the bottom edge of his ballistic vest in November. A similar vest was tested Thursday and the results released today.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Winning The Future. Greater Together. We Don't Quit. They may not be official but those are all phrases that could in one form or another be candidates to become President Barack Obama's re-election slogan. Advisers say a fresh slogan to replace the winning "Change we can believe in" mantra of 2008, is unlikely to appear before Obama knows who his Republican opponent will be and starts big campaign travel swings, likely in the spring or summer. His campaign posters now say simply, "Obama 2012."

We didnÂ’t expect, we merely hoped, that one way or the other Gary Carter would conquer the enemy that finally took him down Thursday. Knowing Carter, perhaps one of the better things we can think of his death at 57 is that at least he was granted that one final ValentineÂ’s Day, to spend with the wife he loved proudly over thirty-seven years of marriage. Until a massive attack of glioblastoma multiforme that was diagnosed almost a year ago, Carter was living proof that living well is the sweetest revenge. The exuberant young man who was considered poison because he...

OK I broke down and rented a Rug Doctor. My carpet is a little under two years old and not in bad shape except I have a pellet stove and no matter what you do, it puts out a fine gray ash that dulls everything. So far, the results seem good, it will never look like new again, but looks a whole lot better than before. Problem being is that it uses a TON of water and I can hardly get by doing 75 sq ft or so without refill. Opinions? Hints? Anybody know the great Rug Doctor secrets held...

Cats are for petting, not for plating.Cats are fine pets. But a fine meal? No, sir. No. The alleged eating practices of a Bakersfield man has run him afoul of the law, after he was found with the headless carcass of a feline friend in his kitchen sink, according to reports. Jason Wilmert, 35, lives in the Bakersfield suburb of Oildale, where neighbors told police of hearing the sound of screaming cats coming from Wilmert's backyard. One neighbor reported seeing Wilmert decapitate a cat in his yard, police said. Yikes. Deputies arrived on-scene and saw a cat's head in Wilmet's...

In a statement provided to The Washington Post, SarahPAC treasurer Tim Crawford said HBO’s “Game Change,” which is based on a popular book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann and debuts next month, is likely to be riddled with falsehoods. “I haven’t seen HBO’s latest effort at manipulating history,” Crawford said. “However, based upon the description and reports from people who have viewed the film ‘Game Change,’ HBO has distorted, twisted and invented facts to create a false narrative and attract viewers. They call it a docu-drama; there is little “docu” in it. HBO must add a disclaimer that this...

An unusual school zone speed limit sign in suburban Detroit has drawn the attention of an irked driver. Greg Smith tells The Oakland Press of Pontiac that he noticed the sign recently in Oakland County's White Lake Township that lists six separate times when drivers should slow down to 25 mph on school days. Smith says drivers "practically have to come to a stop to read it." An elementary, middle and high school all are nearby. Police Chief Ed Harris says a meeting is being called with the White Lake Township supervisor, the school district and the county road commission...

Watch live all weekend at this link. It will all come to an incredible crescendo on Sunday when the tough keep going and the kids get some smiles. If you haven't seen it before, watch it - even for a few minutes. The Penn State students are the absolute best. Search youtube for "thon" videos and try to bring back a dry eye. I love you Penn State.

MSNBC's Ed Schultz: A Rare Liberal Success In Broadcasting Ed Schultz, who anchors MSNBC's prime 8 p.m. time slot, has been raising his ratings while talking about the issues of the poor and middle class working people. Ed Schultz is presenting himself as the one true advocate for the working man. On the air and in promotional spots, he reminds viewers that he’s standing up for the unemployed and the middle class. By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times February 16, 2012 Flip through the radio dial any given afternoon and you might hear an angry-sounding white man railing against the...

At the end of 1999 ESPN ran this breathtaking montage of some of histories' most famous sports happenings and personalities. There are few things better in life than sports highlights set to music, and this is the best of the bunch. This video is basically 7 minutes of chills. Memories of events you may witnessed, clips of events you only heard people mention.

It was a big week for John Besh, even by his eventful standards.... Apparently, several attendees of the “workshop” took Besh to task for lecturing about healthy eating on one hand while serving high calorie food at his restaurants on the other. “I went on to address a complex issue in very simple terms only to only be heckled by those that feel we can regulate restaurants to the point that our children will be happy and healthy,” Besh writes in his blog, which appears on epicurious.com. “In response to these suggestions, I pointed to a variety of other options...

A new drug compound can recharge a class of antibiotics used to fight superbug bacteria, improving the antibiotics’ effectiveness 16-fold. It’s another volley on the part of humans in the ongoing battle between new drugs and bacterial resistance. This new compound doesn’t fight the bacteria itself — it just makes the antibacterial drugs more potent, and better able to fight the bacteria despite the bugs’ resistance. The compound, developed at North Carolina State University, could help researchers fight an emerging problem with a tricky bacterial enzyme. The enzyme is called New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase, or NDM-1, and it has been found...

If you lack something and can, get it now. The Greek people have taken to the streets stating irrevocably that they don’t think they should be impoverished for a generation or more to make good on bad loans made by international bankers.... If the Greek deal falls through, or Greece defaults and walks away from the debt…..it burns $340 billion out of European bank equity. It also causes nerves to fray on the debts of Spain, Italy, Portugal, and even France…..all countries with far larger debts and therefore larger threats to the equity of the European banks...... Now....we find World...

Where it the comprehensive list of Tea Party rallies and other events for 2012? Here is the wiki, suggest updating that as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_protests I do not see any in Manhattan. We need to have one a month until election day. Let's get on the street, good people of the United States!

ORANGE – Parents in Orange Unified received a letter at the beginning of the school year asking them to donate $40 for each day their child misses class to help offset the $5.5 million in attendance funding the district loses annually. Five months later, the district has netted $920.