Free Republic

Politics: Despite the whipping they took in Tuesday's election, congressional Democrats are moving fast on cap-and-trade and health care. Are they politically tone-deaf, or is this some kind of desperate strategy? Our guess is that Democratic leaders, having gotten a very negative message from the off-year balloting, are moving as fast as they can to pass the main big-spending items on their unpopular agenda. If they don't act now, the know their radical agenda is dead. On Thursday, Senate Democrats hustled the cap-and-trade bill out of committee without so much as a hello-and-howdy to the Republicans — knowing full well...

It's a global pandemic, says the World Health Organization. It's a national emergency, says Barack Obama. U.S. deaths have surpassed 1,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Nearly 5,000 have died worldwide, according to WHO. That sounds bad. But is it worth the hysteria? What is it about these deaths that have government health bureaucracies apoplectic? Is it time for a little context? What happens when we turn to the same sources to compare deaths due to swine flu with other leading causes of preventable deaths? Worldwide, nearly 3,000 people die from malaria every day. Worldwide, nearly 6,000 people...

AMERICA IS FAT!! Why spend so much time on effect when problems are solved by dealing with cause. We do not have a health care system, we have a disease care system. And we all are about to go over the cliff with a new system that rewards those who make bad choices, which has led to a great part of the problem in the first place. Come on America, wake up!! Come on Washington, deal with the real issues instead you becoming the solution to a problem you created. Take some time today and look at your fellow Americans....

Glenn Dance does not have swine flu. But when he took the family cat to the veterinarian last week, he was greeted in the parking lot by workers in surgical masks. They knew that his wife and daughter had the flu and told Dance that he was not allowed inside. Dance, who lives in Great Falls, obliged. Then he went along when he was asked to don rubber gloves to sign his pet's paperwork. And again when they said to keep the pen -- and wait in his pickup -- as Cleo was whisked away for a 90-minute work-up. "It...

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,...

They have the sheer numbers to put through any bill they want. They know they are in VERY SERIOUS trouble now in the upcoming elections, in fact, it could be devastating for them. So, in order to ensure their planned agenda of socialism moves forward regardless of upcoming election outcomes they must pass a Government Health care plan that can undercut and eventually eliminate all private insurance. Even if they lose the presidency next go around, they will have won the war. And they can continue to rule from that point forward without even winning the White House. The stakes...

Writing at The Huffington Post, John F. Kerry inadvertently reminds us of a fate worse than global warming.... that would have been a Kerry victory in 2004. To make his case for apocalyptic global warming, Mr. Kerry implores his readers, "don't take my word for it." Frankly, that's not a problem for me. Consider It has been some 1700 days since Kerry promised full disclosure of his military record by signing Form 180. For those who took John Kerry's word in this particular instance, his window of opportunity for restoring his personal credibility has long since closed. Kerry's op-ed recycles...

I saw a South Carolina license tag today and it had a cresent on the tag. Is this catering to muslims? See the images below.

Palin’s Poison In Egypt, 43 percent of people think Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks in America, a poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org found last year. In the United States, six percent of Americans say the moon landing of 40 years ago was staged, according to Gallup. And in Alaska, the former governor, a woman who was nearly a heartbeat away from the presidency, now tells followers that “Obama death panels” could decide if her parents and her baby, Trig, who has Down’s Syndrome, will live or die. The United States, like most countries, has long had a lunatic fringe who channel...

Chapter 4 of my book, titled, "An Inconvenient Hoax," systematically exposes and confronts all the most current science fiction being shoved down our throats by the Luddite absolutists and pseudo-intellectual scam artists of the left. It is devastating. Unsurprisingly, there is a flurry of new data pouring in even further confirming how utterly baseless this invented Green Scare really is, now even from Obama's own people. Much like the Swine Flu and about a gazillion other contrived alarmist fantasies from decades past (breast implants, Alar, the Millenium bug, DDT, etc.), public faith in the environmentalist religion is consequently fading, and...

Alaska as Democratic Opportunity?: The soon-to-be official resignation of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) could hand Democrats a legitimate pickup opportunity, according to a recent poll in the Last Frontier obtained by the Fix. The survey, which was conducted by Global Strategy Group, showed Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell (R) at 41 percent to former state Sen. Ethan Berkowitz's (D) 40 percent -- a statistical dead heat. Democrats held the Alaska governorship from 1994 until 2002 as Gov. Tony Knowles (D) benefited from a fractured Republican party and serious independent candidates. As for those who argued that Palin decided to leave...

Family worries about neighbors’ target shooting LIVE OAK(County) — Eight-year-old Mikayla Molohon likes playing on her swing set in the breezy Lake Meadows Subdivision near the banks of the Nueces River. Until the shooting starts. Then her grandparents, Sparkey and Jan Osborn, call “Mika” inside to watch television or play with her toys. The Osborns’ two Doberman pinschers become anxious, and Sparkey Osborn’s occasional migraines pound worse with the shooting. Mika and her sister, Colleen, 13, aren’t allowed in the front yard at all because the Osborns are never sure when the guns might go off. Two of their neighbors,...

Story Highlights Ron Paul: "There is too much hysteria ... there hasn't been that great a danger" "I haven't seen such a panic," says Southern California medical official Some say there are other diseases to worry about: "Malaria is killing thousands"

This is about hysteria. This current world episode of swine flu is about mass hysteria. And, actually, it is deeper than that. It is about tyranny, and the artificially created opportunity of tyrannists like Barry Soetoro (a.k.a. “Barack Hussein Obama”) to assert their loving control over everyone and everything. Flu is flu. Thousands of children and elderly die of flu every year, everywhere. (And those figures are hotly disputed, some saying the figures are much less.) But our current pig bug has been made into mass hysteria, in order that the tyrannists of the world may show their stuff, or,...

U.S. health authorities are lining up vaccine makers to develop a defense against virus posing global perilFederal health authorities, busily assessing the scope of the swine flu outbreak, are preparing in case a vaccine is needed to stem the spread of the disease that has sickened more than 100 in the United States and killed a 22-month-old boy in Texas. The development of a vaccine is a long, painstaking, fairly crude process that typically involves growing the virus in millions of chicken eggs. It would be months before the first person could be inoculated. Still, scientists with the Centers for...

Now, let me get this straight. Several hundred people get the flu in Mexico and 150 Mexican nationals die, now lowered to seven. A few Americans get the flu, 91 people at last count, but no one dies. A Mexican toddler did die in Houston, but had undisclosed other "underlying health issues." Even before this number reportedly died US Pravda, otherwise known as CNN, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, etc., hyped the "flu pandemic" story up to astronomical levels. Here we go again! The sky is falling, the sky is falling! BE SCARED! TERROR, TERROR! CRISIS! BE AFRAID! ... Does anyone buy...

A Maryland man who works for the World Bank and traveled to Mexico this month has been identified as a "probable" victim of swine flu, and about 80 of his colleagues are being asked to work from home while officials determine whether they should be tested as well. It was not immediately clear whether the man, whose name was withheld for privacy reasons, is one of the six Maryland residents who officials announced yesterday received preliminary test results showing they had contracted the new and sometimes deadly virus. No residents of the District or Virginia so far are known to...

Intersting headline from the Las Crucues Sun lcsun-news.com cannot be posted due to copyright complaint.

Global hysteria over swine flu reminds that the cure is often worse than the disease. As the swine-flu death toll rose to 152 in Mexico Tuesday, the world was stricken with terror. News shows considered a worldwide epidemic with millions of predicted deaths. The Associated Press referred to Mexico as "the epicenter of the outbreak" - making it sound as if a nuclear bomb had gone off. Tuesday's Washington Post warned, "Outbreak threatens global recovery." The Drudge Report's banner headline cried out: "COUGH FEAR!" Some perspective is needed. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the seasonal flu...

An Associated Press story dated April 28 takes swine flu fears to a whole other level. A report datelined Washington by Ricardo Alonsozaldivar and Eileen Sullivan examined the worst-case scenario "if the swine flu gets out of control." "Two million dead," Alonsozaldivar and Sullivan wrote. "Hospitals overwhelmed. Schools closed. Swaths of empty seats at baseball stadiums and houses of worship. An economic recovery snuffed out. We're nowhere close to what government planners say would be a worst-case scenario: a global flu pandemic. But government leaders at all levels, and major employers, have spent nearly four years planning for one in...

What Does a Potential Swine Flu Pandemic Mean to Restaurant Operators? Swine flu is all over the news and discussed at the water cooler, and some people are scared. Presumably some restaurant-goers and employees are among those needing reassurance. Here are some ways to help. -- Restaurants and Institutions, 4/27/2009 12:45:00 PM Today, swine flu is all over the news and discussed at the water cooler. It's the top search term on Twitter, and it has tweeters scared. Some are afraid to go to work or school--or are using it as a good excuse not to attend. Others are wondering...

One. Trillion. Dollars. The CDC yesterday, joined with the WHO (and the same media types who put 0bozo on the cover of Time magazine now 13 times) in declaring the Mexican flu a "crisis". Which brings to mind. Those famous words of Rahm Emanuel:

OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL House adopts plan for 'volunteer' corps Also requires new evaluation of 'mandatory' service for all -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: March 19, 2009 4:58 pm Eastern By Bob Unruh © 2009 WorldNetDaily The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a plan to set up a new "volunteer corps" and consider whether "a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people" should be developed.

Good news, Watchmen fans! The UK's Happy Harry Studios have announced the upcoming release of an animated Watchmen cartoon for Saturday morning kids' TV! Directed by Harry Partridge (Akira USA!), the new 'toon features Nite Owl, Dr. Manhattan, Silk Spectre, and that wacky Rorschach along with the rest of the gang as they fight for what's right in futuristic New York. And yes, the infamous "Space Squid" makes an appearances as the Watchmen's arch-nemesis! Happy Harry Studios is located in Swindon, Wiltshire UK.

Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added. ...

xactly ten years ago this week I preached in our church's morning service...It being the first Sunday of 1999, I decided to preach an appropriately forward-looking message on Matthew 6:34 and its context: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." In those days, the evangelical world was at the peak of the Y2K insanity, so I made reference to that issue in my message. At the time, Gary North was operating a heavily-trafficked website that included this: We've got a problem. It may be the biggest problem that the...

I'm so, so sick of this hysterical crap.

Science magazine reports that John Holdren, a professional environmental judgment day doomsayer, is going to become Barack Obama's top science adviser. See also NY Times Tierney Lab: Flawed science advice for Obama? John Holdren is the ultimate example of the pseudointellectual impurities that have recently flooded universities and academies throughout the Western world. Population growth means death Do you want to know what is his specialization? Well, look at his publication list at scholar.google.com. No, he hasn't found anything about laser cooling, like Steven Chu, despite his PhD in plasma physics. Instead, he has only written 3 very well-known texts...

What a quandary to be in. If the choice is between the well-being and stability of the world economy or the well-being and preservation of Mother Earth, what does a concerned, compassionate citizen of the world choose? Well, if you’re a Nobel Prize winning atmospheric scientist, like Paul J Crutzen – someone who once suggested that blasting the stratosphere with sulfur dioxide (an ordinary everyday pollutant) could be a viable option in helping to cool our rapidly warming planet – a global economic downturn could be just what the doctor ordered for an ailing planet in need of a break....

Let's fill some trucks with books, drive them downtown and burn them in front of the Chicago Public Library. Let's drive other trucks to the regional libraries and burn them, too . . . I mean the books, not the libraries, though libraries are the source of the problem. If it weren't for the libraries, it would be hard for innocent young people to be corrupted by the filth pouring out of the country's printers. Instead of burning books or libraries, perhaps we ought to start smashing printing presses. They have served as tools of sin and the devil since...

Sarah Palin may be a lady, but she ain't no woman. I confess, it was pretty riveting when John McCain trotted out Sarah Palin for the first time. Like many people, I thought, "Damn, a hyperconservative, f**kable, Type A, antiabortion, Christian Stepford wife in a 'sexy librarian' costume -- as a vice president? That's a brilliant stroke of horrifyingly cynical pandering to the Christian right. Karl Rove must be behind it." Palin may have been a boost of political Viagra for the limp, bloodless GOP (and according to an ABC/Washington Post poll she has created a boost in McCain's standing...

An online prediction market weighs in on whether VP candidate Sarah Palin will be dropped from the Republican ticket. NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Now the Democrats aren't the only ones who can try to capitalize on the negative buzz growing around Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the prospective Republican VP candidate. Intrade, an online prediction market based in Dublin, created a contract Tuesday morning on the likelihood that John McCain will drop Palin as his running mate. After opening at a probability of just 3%, the odds on Palin being cut from the ticket climbed to 18% around 9 a.m. and...

Another day, and no white smoke yet from Sen. John McCain’s Sedona, Ariz., residence. The search for a vice president continues as the Democratic clans gather in Denver. In an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric, McCain offered no new information about his vice presidential thinking. But he did have some kind words for Sen. Barack Obama’s newly announced running mate, Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden: “I think he’s a good selection…Joe and I have been friends for many, many years, and we know each other very well, and so I think [Obama’s] made a very wise selection.” Just because McCain’s...

John McCain is seriously considering choosing a pro-abortion-rights running mate despite vocal resistance from conservatives, with former Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) very much in the mix, close McCain advisers say. Under strong consideration: former Pennsylvania Republican Gov. Tom Ridge, and Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000. Multiple GOP sources say that party officials in Washington and in the states have been contacted by the McCain campaign in the past two weeks and asked about the fallout from such a choice. One person familiar with the calls said the party was being instructed to...

NR has learned that the McCain campaign has been calling key state GOP officials around the country the last couple of days and sounding them out about the consequences of a pro-choice VP pick. The campaign is asking about the reaction of conservative grass-roots activists to such a pick and whether a pro-choicer can be sold to them. This is an indication that the McCain campaign is serious about the possibility of a pro-choice VP nominee and that McCain leaving the door open to Tom Ridge last week may not have been merely a friendly nod to a longtime supporter....

On a planet 4C hotter, all we can prepare for is extinctionThere's no 'adaptation' to such steep warming. We must stop pandering to special interests, and try a new, post-Kyoto strategy We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never...

A SICK game on Facebook has been removed from the website after The Sun revealed how kids were able to STAB each other. Members of the internet social network could "SHANK" - street slang for knifing - other users by clicking on a blade icon in the popular SuperPoke! application. The revelation comes at a time when the UK is gripped by a knife-crime epidemic with 21 teenagers dying violently in London alone this year. But responding to calls from The Sun to remove it, US makers Slide admitted the icon was in bad taste and have taken it off....

Britain on alert for deadly new knife with exploding tip that freezes victims' organs Senior police officers have been warned to look out for a new knife which can inject a ball of compressed gas into its victim that instantly freezes internal organs. The 'wasp knife', which can deliver a ball of compressed gas capable of killing its victim at the press of a button, may be heading for Britain, the Metropolitan Police fear. A needle in the tip of the blade shoots out the frozen ball of gas which instantly balloons to the size of a basketball, freezing organs....

It started with a news report in January of 1983 of 40 teenagers and 7 adults, who were members of a gang called The Smurfs. They committed petty crimes. Hysteria spreaded throughout middle and high schools in Houston. At the peak, many students stayed home out of fear that the Smurfs might attack them. Anyone from the Houston area living at the time might remember it. Snopes Message Board-Texan schools attacked by Smurfs?Google Book Scan From Rough Guide of Unexplained PhenemenonHouston Press-The Year The Smurfs Attacked

It looks just like the type of story that would appear in The Onion but the funniest thing about this Reuters story about the effects of cow "burps" on global warming is that it was covered with a completely straight face. According to this story, methane released by cow "burps," not humans, might be the culprit in causing the rise in greenhouse gases. A scientific study on this phenomenom is being undertaken via cow "burp" collection: Argentine scientists are taking a novel approach to studying global warming -- strapping plastic tanks to the backs of cows to collect their burps.Researchers say...

For years, climate alarmists in the media have loved showing video footage of Greenland glaciers slipping into the ocean in order to evoke feelings of global warming gloom and doom in the citizenry. On Friday, the journal Science is publishing a seventeen year study of Greenland's ice sheet that flatly contradicts all such hysterical reports and claims. In fact, the paper concludes that such melting is a normal summertime event, and that when looked at over a longer period of time, there has been little change in the ice sheets in this region, and even possibly a slowing in glacial...

PARIS (AFP) — Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday...

PARIS (AFP) - Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday....

32,000 deniers That's the number of scientists who are outraged by the Kyoto Protocol's corruption of scienceQuestion: How many scientists does it take to establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming? The quest to establish that the science is not settled on climate change began before most people had even heard of global warming. The year was 1992 and the United Nations was about to hold its Earth Summit in Rio. It was billed as -- and was -- the greatest environmental and political assemblage in human history. Delegations came from 178 nations -- virtually every nation...

"Unfortunately, the recovery of the ozone hole has a dark side: The return of a thin, suspended blanket of stratospheric ozone will raise temperatures over the southern polar region, according to a new study by scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The scientists, who relied on a NASA computer model for their predictions, also report that the healing of the hole will weaken winds that currently shield the Antarctic interior from warmer air masses to the north. Antarctica may not be the only continent affected: The...

Ethanol and waterDon't mix Feb 28th 2008 | MIAMIFrom The Economist print editionNew reasons to be suspicious of ethanol OFFICIALS in Tampa, Florida, got a surprise recently when a local firm building the state's first ethanol-production factory put in a request for 400,000 gallons (1.5m litres) a day of city water. The request by US Envirofuels would make the facility one of the city's top ten water consumers overnight, and the company plans to double its size. Florida is suffering from a prolonged drought. Rivers and lakes are at record lows and residents wonder where the extra water will...

If you are a parent (or grandparent) of a young child, you are a target for manipulation by activists (some with scientific degrees) who claim we are surrounded by a sea of chemical "toxins" and "carcinogens." You are easy prey — because you care so deeply about the health and welfare of your babies and children. Purveyors of unfounded health scares know that. The fearmongers have just about everything going for them. And unless you recognize their manipulative tactics, you will be among their millions of terrified victims. Here's how they work: They know what psychiatrists have known for many...

A lawyer for the owner of the Player's Club Bar and Grill in Independence has challenged in court the enforceability of the city's Clean Indoor Air Act ordinance and won. John Carnes, an Independence attorney for Player's Club owner Jennifer Brashear, got Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Bushur to overturn two clean air citations given to Brashear. Municipal judges in Independence had found Brashear guilty of violating the city's health code by allowing patrons of the lounge to smoke on two separate occasions. "There are some holes in that ordinance that basically makes it unenforceable," Carnes said. "It's an...

I can’t remember exactly what I wrote that was so evil. So much to choose from. Was it that I refused to be freaked by this latest panic attack that global warming was blasting in and . . . Oh, my God, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!