Free Republic

What I find very alarming is our ``conservative`` radio talk show hosts are constantly referring to Herman Cain as a ``conservative``, as if there is an intentional motive by these hosts to convince listeners that Herman Cain is a ``conservative``, when in fact Herman`s 9-9-9 plan is comparable to government enforced central planning on a federal level. And let us not forget how that central planning thing worked out for the ``Union of Soviet Socialist Republics``! QUESTION: Why would Mark Levin and other “conservative� talk show hosts constantly call Herman Cain a “conservative� when the evidence of Herman’s political “conservatism�...

I’ve lived in Texas throughout the entirety of the Perry administration. He hasn’t been the most awful governor we might have had, but in truth, he’s been mediocre. It is true to say that Perry deserves a little credit for the better economic conditions in the state, insofar as he’s done no particular harm. On the other hand, it’s fair to say that part of the reason Perry’s done no particular harm, and perhaps the sole reason he hasn’t damaged the economy, is because the Texas people, through their legislature, won’t let him. The governor’s real shortcomings are not to...

Apple today released Mac OS X 10.6.7 Update which is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes that: Improve the reliability of Back to My Mac Resolve an issue when transferring files to certain SMB servers Address various minor Mac App Store bugs For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: Support information. For information on the security content of this update, please visit: Security information. Mac OS X 10.6.7 is available via Software Update and also...

It’s war! This week, I went to the unveiling of the iPad 2 and got some hands-on time with the device afterwards. Meanwhile, Jason bought a Xoom and has been extensively testing it out. The consensus? iPad 2: Good. Xoom: Bad. At least for now. I haven’t extensively played with iPad 2 yet, and Google is undoubtedly going to patch the Xoom. But still, first impressions are key. Jason and I discuss these two products in depth in this week’s episode of OMG/JK, and we also dive into the upcoming group messaging war that is likely to break out at...

Apple's magnetic iPad 2 cover flops back and out of the way, or rolls up into an easel for typing or viewing. Putting the rumors to rest: iPad 2 announced today Hands-on review: How does Motorola Xoom compare to iPad? Apple expected to unveil new iPad today If one of your company’s goals for 2011 was to introduce a tablet to complete with the iPad, you can expect to struggle. The second most powerful evidence of this happened just a minute ago, as I pulled out my iPad and keyboard here in my San Francisco hotel lobby to write...

Ever since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad 2, people have busy trying to compare his statements to the truth, especially this one:  “Many have said (iPad) is the most successful consumer product ever launched. Over 90% market share and our competitors were flummoxed.�Where was Steve getting this 90% market share data point? Strategy Analytics showed iPad’s market share at 75% in 4Q10 and falling fast. The thing about Steve Jobs is that he rarely outright lies, instead opting to look at data in a way that he thinks makes most sense and which contains some shred of validity.  I don’t think Steve was...

It's not your imagination. Orange juice is not going as far as it used to. Same for toilet paper. Dish soap. And cheese slices. You are making more trips to the store. In fact, a Consumer Reports investigation found that while many products have reduced their packaging size; their prices have actually increased. It how businesses are dealing with higher prices for wholesale food and energy. Instead of raising prices significantly, companies are shrinking the packaging. They are hoping you do not notice too much. Consumer Reports (paid subscription required) first noticed the trend when they started hearing complains about...

The Jewish U.S. soldier who was instrumental in finding Adolf Hitler's last will and testament during World War II has died at the age of 86. Arnold Hans Weiss – born Hans Arnold Wangersheim – a banker and attorney who lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland, died of pneumonia. His wife predeceased him in 2005; he is survived by two sons and three grandchildren. Weiss played a pivotal role in the final days of the war as a member of a counter-intelligence unit. Together with a British intelligence officer and historian, and a second U.S. intelligence agent, Weiss helped track down...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08GXj-atUqw

How to win a free copy of “She’s the Boss: The Disturbing Truth About Nancy Pelosi,” by Rochelle Schweizer: Sentinel was kind enough to give me three copies of the book to give away to readers of Hope is Not a Foreign Policy. The rules are simple. For each action you take (see list below), leave a comment indicating what you have done. Leave a new comment for each new action that you take. For example, if you blog about the giveaway on your blog, leave a comment. If you post the giveaway on your Facebook News Feed, leave a...

I have to constantly remind myself that sales estimates can be all over the place, so when a recent report suggested Macs sales weren’t improving as fast as some expected, I was ready to attribute that state of affairs to the extreme success of the iPad. However, it now appears that Mac sales may actually be growing faster than previously believed. There’s a story in this week’s issue of Fortune that, in June, sales of new Macs to the enterprise actually soared nearly 50%, about three times higher than the rest of the PC industry. In addition, sales to government...

Apple scored its biggest gains in government, big business and the European home market Source: Needham, IDC Given the Mac's tiny share of the worldwide PC market -- roughly 3.5% as of June -- Apple (AAPL) has a lot of room to grow. And grow it did in the second quarter, as a note to clients issued Monday by Needham's Charlie Wolf makes clear. Using IDC's numbers for calendar Q2, Wolf takes a close look at Mac shipments in various market segments, from the home to the largest enterprises. Among his findings: At 35%, Mac shipment growth in June easily...

Obama already is in over his head concerning his own country. He has not brought hope and change as he promised. He has been discovered as the inept individual many knew him to be before he walked into the White House.

Even though the Bible was completed 2,000 years ago, long before the invention of the microscope, the telescope, satellites, etc. it does not contain any scientific errors. This might be considered a miracle in itself. Without exception, every ancient religious writing has certain unscientific views of astronomy, medicine, hygiene, etc. The Qur’an says in Surah 18:86 that the sun sets in a muddy spring. Qur’an 18:86 “…when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring” The only exception to these kinds of errors, among ancient religious writings, is the Bible. Not only is...

Oct 19, 2009 — Science news outlets have put out some bizarre headlines recently.  Readers can judge whether they should be blessed with the label “science” or belong instead at supermarket checkouts. Women are evolving fatter:  New Scientist and PhysOrg said that natural selection is making women shorter, plumper and more fertile.  “The take-home message is that humans are currently evolving,” said Stephen Stearns of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina.  “Natural selection is still operating.” Killer algae heading north:  Science Daily said that toxic algae was a key player in mass extinctions in the past, and...

Canada’s Macleans news site recently published an article titled “Darwin movie too evolved for U.S. audiences”. The article refers to the decision of US film distributors to “pass” on the film “Creation”—the dramatized story of Charles Darwin’s struggle while writing the Origin of Species. The refusal to distribute a film premiered and acclaimed at the Toronto Film Festival seems to have again roused the Canadian media’s scorn of the “backward Americans” of which—according to Gallup—only 39% believe Darwin and his evolutionary theory. It is interesting how very differently the Canadian and world media treated America during WW II when far...

At National Review Online, conservative curmudgeon John Derbyshire has weighed in on the Climategate scandal by encouraging conservatives not to jump on the anti-science bandwagon. I share his worry and find his advice is good so far as it goes; but I think Derbyshire’s defense of science might actually encourage the skepticism he wants to prevent. Most of the trouble comes from his invocation of the word “science,� and his claim that science has a magisterium.His article is called “Trust Science.� I’m not sure what that means. What is “science,� and how do we “trust� it? Imagine if someone said:...

Last February I mentioned the events that would commemorate the life and work of Charles Darwin in 2009. I had no idea at the time that I would be invited to participate in one of these events. But there I was, precisely 150 years after On the Origin of Species first appeared, seated with other scientists in front of a packed room that featured, among other interesting things, a life-sized model of a baleen whale. The venue was the National Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany, and the occasion was a panel discussion titled Design without a Designer? [1]...

With millions of eyes on Copenhagen, this seems an appropriate time to ask whether ID thinking has any relevance to understanding the Earth's environment. Can design concepts help us weigh the diverse and often conflicting messages? I think ID is helpful, because features of the Earth's environments and ecologies start to take on new meaning. In this blog, I am thinking particularly of negative feedback mechanisms. Human design engineers will use negative feedback to promote stability and positive feedback to amplify an input signal. They select the mechanisms they need to achieve the desired effect. By analogy, if the Earth...

David Queller and Joan Strassmann, evolutionary biologists at Rice University, recently proposed a new way to describe what makes an organism a unified whole. They defined an organism as an entity made up of parts that cooperate well for an overall purpose, and do so with minimal conflict. But how do parts like these get together, and where does purposeful behavior come from?...

“Darwin’s finches” are a variety of small black birds that were observed and collected by British naturalist Charles Darwin during his famous voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle in the early 1800s. Years later, Darwin argued that subtle variations in their beak sizes supported his concept that all organisms share a common ancestor (a theory known as macroevolution). The finches, whose technical name is Geospiza, have since become classic evolutionary icons...

esearch has shown that humans like to help, even before they are old enough to have been taught how to do so. This innate characteristic distinguishes humans from their supposed closest evolutionary family member, the chimpanzee, which doesn’t demonstrate the same altruistic behavior. In studies on the subject, at only 18 months old, toddlers were observed to consistently aid unrelated adults in simple tasks such as opening a door or picking up a clothes pin. Researchers assumed then that altruism, or unselfish concern for the welfare of others, evolved early in humans. But does this conclusion necessarily follow from the...

This recent BBC News header[1] was typical of the news headlines worldwide on the story: Michelle Obama racist image sparks Google apology Apparently, the image referred to was a photograph of Mrs Obama that had been manipulated to give her the facial features of a monkey. I say “apparently”, because the mock-up photo no longer appears as the #1 ranking on Google’s list of image search results for “Michelle Obama”.[2] It is very clear however from the news reports of the “race row”[3] that in the last days that the picture was Google-accessible, it stirred many people. Such was the...

In his new book, The Deniable Darwin (Discovery Institute Press, 2009), published just before the ClimateGate scandal broke, mathematician David Berlinski explained that scientists should not be trusted to check themselves--no more than anyone else on the planet, and maybe less so, since grant money is involved. Now he writes on his blog, "I Told You So." From The Deniable Darwin: My own view, repeated in virtually all of my essays, is that the sense of skepticism engendered by the sciences would be far more appropriately directed toward the sciences than toward anything else. It is not a view that...

“The Totalities of Copenhagen” William Dembski Bret Stevens’ article today in the WSJ, “The Totalities of Copenhagen,” again shows the strong parallels between the global warming debate and the evolution debate, especially with the proclivity of AGW and evolution advocates to quash all dissent. Consider, from his piece, the following characteristics of the AGW advocates: ...

The current treatment of young-age creationists in the scientific community and society at large is unfair and unwise. Scientists and philosophers of science, including old-age creationists and naturalists, should respect youngage creationists as legitimate contributors to science. Young-age creationists offer to the current origins science establishment a competing rational viewpoint that will augment fruitful scientific investigation through increased accountability for scientists, introduction of original hypotheses and general epistemic improvement...

The pro-global warming blog Climate Change Denial is spinning like a top. Devastated by the revelation of pervasive fraud in climate science, the warmists are clearly dazed and grasping at any tactics that might salvage their ideological hijacking of science, now laid bare. In their latest post, "Swiftboating the Climate Scientists", they ignore the transparent scientific misconduct and fraud revealed in the highest eschalons of climate science, and accuse the skeptics of attacking climate science for base ideological motives. The term "swiftboating" alone is risible and actually revealing; warmists are nearly all leftists, still simmering over the implosion of the...

Stephen C. Meyer, director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, fights to show that all lives have eternal value because they are the work of a Creator and not the product of chance. WORLD's 12th annual Daniel of the Year does not save lives abroad, as Britain's Caroline Cox and Sudan's Michael Yerko do. Nor does he regularly save lives of the unborn, as Florida's Wanda Cohn does through her pregnancy center work. No, Stephen C. Meyer, director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, fights to show that those lives have eternal value because...

Dr. Henry M. Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research in 1970 with a vision to uncover and present evidence for the accuracy and authority of the Bible. For almost 40 years, ICR has distinguished itself as the leader in creation science research and education, ably assisted by the many fine scientists whom God has led to work here. These men and women have dedicated their training and skills to raising the banner for the truth of our Creator God. We would like you to meet our current on-site scientists and hear their thoughts on the purpose, significance, and importance...

Museums and textbooks often use artistic renderings to estimate what a fossilized animal or plant may have looked like when it was alive. These images by “paleoartists” put flesh and faces on skeletal structures, and they can influence public perception of early human history more than the actual science—particularly in regards to human evolution.

Dec 4, 2009 — The facility with which some evolutionary biologists appeal to almost magical powers of evolution to explain anything and everything is revealed in some recent science articles. Whatever needs explaining is due to evolution – evidence or not. These four examples can be considered representative of the genre...

New research out this week has resolved a long-standing, and important, quandary about the causes of global warming. While several models point to anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gases as the leading cause of global warming, the warming trends do not quite match the history of anthropogenic CO2. In fact, shrinking glaciers and other undeniable evidences of warming trace back to about the mid seventeenth century. But this predates the significant rise in anthropogenic CO2 that came later in later centuries. Now environmental researchers have solved the puzzle...

Arguing with Idiots… Part Deaux (A full-frontal assault on the Temple of Darwin) (Link to PDF). (I know I’ve done rants like this before, but you guys are worth it!) Dear worshippers of Darwin and lovers of self, My personal (condensed) declaration of faith: I believe in the God of the Bible. I believe in the Bible. I believe what it says. I believe, unashamedly that God is the Creator of the Universe and that He created it just as described in the Genesis account. I believe the only way to receive salvation is to believe and receive Jesus Christ...

Read the following mini-stories and much more by clicking the excerpt link below: 1. The Times: “Evidence of Life on Mars Lurks Beneath Surface of Meteorite, Nasa Experts Claim 2. PhysOrg: “‘Super-River’ Formed the English Channel” 3. Wired: “There’s No Such Thing as a ‘Simple’ Organism” 4. ScienceDaily: “Study Pits Man Versus Machine in Piecing Together 425-Million-Year-Old Jigsaw” 5. PhysOrg: “Bacterial Gut Symbionts Are Tightly Linked with the Evolution of Herbivory in Ants” 6. And Don’t Miss . . .

Dec 3, 2009 — In the previous entry, Darwin inspired some geologists, even though he was wrong. Here are some news stories showing nature inspiring engineers with wonders right under their noses...

In May 2009, a remarkably well-preserved extinct primate, nicknamed “Ida,” was hailed as one of the most important fossil finds ever. It had features that some interpreted as a link between two primate body forms. At the time, ICR News suggested that its evolutionary significance was far overblown, predicting that the scientific consensus would offer retractions. Those retractions came three months later, confirming that the fossil―called Darwinius―was really just an extinct lemur variety...

Natural selection and change, yes; Evolution, no --snip-- Summary 1.This episode talks much about change and natural selection, but fails to give any evidence that these produce evolution, other than for the various professors who assert that it does. 2.Darwin’s theory promoted the idea that man is “a beast with animal lusts and no morality”, and this has been gleefully accepted by much of modern society. 3.We might well ask: Why would any sane professor adopt and propagate a theory for which there is such paltry scientific evidence, which is an expression of hatred of God, and which demotes man...

Evolutionists retreating from the arena of science --snip-- Today, the Darwinian scientific consensus persists within almost every large university and governmental institution. But around the middle of the 20th century an interesting new trend emerged and has since become increasingly established. Evolutionary theorists have been forced, step by step, to steadily retreat from the evidence in the field. Some of the evidences mentioned earlier in this article were demonstrated to be frauds and hoaxes. Other discoveries have been a blow to the straightforward expectations and predictions of evolutionists. Increasingly, they have been forced to tack ad hoc mechanisms onto Darwin’s...

Dec 2, 2009 — Field geologists have revisited a site Darwin visited on the voyage of the Beagle, and found that he incorrectly interpreted what he found.  A large field of erratic boulders in Tierra del Fuego that have become known as “Darwin’s Boulders” were deposited by a completely different process than he thought.  The modern team, publishing in the Geological Society of America’s December issue of the GSA Today,1 noted that “Darwin’s thinking was profoundly influenced by Lyell’s obsession with large-scale, slow, vertical movements of the crust, especially as manifested in his theory of submergence and ice rafting to...

Although creation-based organizations have reported for over a decade on the technical scientific journal articles published about soft tissue found inside dinosaur remains, mainstream media outlets have largely been silent on the subject. But a recent segment that aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes finally broke the news to a broader audience. The soft tissue issue may be gaining more traction, and even “may be changing the whole dino ballgame,” according to correspondent Lesley Stahl.[1] The program is currently viewable online at the CBS website. In a field test demonstration to determine whether a dinosaur fossil was real bone, and not...

Need evidence for Darwinian evolution? Just make it up. That’s the lesson of Donald Prothero’s book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Prothero is a professor of geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles. On November 30, he teamed up with atheist Michael Shermer (founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine) to debate Stephen Meyer and Richard Sternberg of the Discovery Institute. Shermer wrote the foreword to Prothero’s book, calling it “the best book ever written on the subject.” In fact, “Don’s visual presentation of the fossil and genetic evidence for evolution is...

A new concept making its way through the scientific community holds that just a few key changes in the right genes will result in a whole new life form as different from its progenitor as a bird is from a lizard![1] This idea is being applied to a number of key problems in the evolutionary model, one of which is the lack of transitional forms in both the fossil record and the living (extant) record. The new concept supposedly adds support to the "punctuated equilibrium" model proposed by the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen J. Gould. Dr. Gould derived his ideas...

HUNTSVILLE, AL, Nov. 25 Christian Newswire -- Two creation films called "inappropriate" were denied the opportunity to be shown in government facilities this week--which marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species". While the intelligent design film "Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record" has not been granted permission for a showing in California, "The Mysterious Islands", a new 90-minute Vision Forum film that challenges Darwin's evolution by taking audiences back to engage the enchanted Galapagos Islands, has enjoyed a victory and will premiere as previously scheduled tonight, Nov. 25, at 6:30 PM, at...

A lawsuit has been filed against the California Science Center by the American Freedom Alliance (AFA) for cancelling the AFA’s contract to screen the Darwin’s Dilemma documentary on October 25th. According to AFA’s press release: American Freedom Alliance (AFA), a non-profit group, has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against a popular science museum for cancelling an event exploring the topic of intelligent design. The group says its free speech rights were violated when the California Science Center (CSC) abruptly reversed a decision to allow the showing of a pro-intelligent design documentary at the museum’s IMAX Theater. The program was...

More details are now coming out from the lawsuit filed against the California Science Center by the American Freedom Alliance (AFA), filed in the Superior Court for the State of California for the County of Los Angeles (Central District). AFA's lawsuit contends that the California Science Center engaged in viewpoint discrimination when cancelling AFA's contract to screen the pro-intelligent design (ID) documentary Darwin’s Dilemma at the Center’s IMAX Theatre on October 25th. As discussed below, AFA's complaint contains e-mails from California Science Center staff revealing that the Center cared more about how it would be perceived by ID-critics in the...

Pro-Darwin consensus doesn't rule out intelligent design --snip-- (CNN) -- While we officially celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" on November 24, celebrations of Darwin's legacy have actually been building in intensity for several years. Darwin is not just an important 19th century scientific thinker. Increasingly, he is a cultural icon. Darwin is the subject of adulation that teeters on the edge of hero worship, expressed in everything from scholarly seminars and lecture series to best-selling new atheist tracts like those by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. The atheists claim that...

Dawkins argues that there is no doubt that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is true and, unlike some other scholars of the subject, says belief in evolution is not compatible with faith in religion. In fact, he argues, science and religion undermine each other. "I believe a true understanding of Darwinism is deeply corrosive to religious faith," Dawkins says in his TED Talk. There's no room for a God in the world as he sees it, and he believes atheists should be forceful in opposing religion. He acknowledges that it's an unpopular case to make, particularly in the...

Today, November 24, it is exactly 150 years since Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species. The world has been gearing up for this “second echelon” of celebrations for this international “Year of Darwin”, following on from the 200th anniversary of his birth this last February. Atheists and humanist groups in particular have seemed to be relishing the thought of giving further prominence to the ideas of their patron saint. Their adulation is heightened by their knowledge that...

“Why aren’t priests in this country doing more to help Arab Christian Palestinians?” As we sat down for dinner at the 2009 awards banquet sponsored by the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation, the question caught me by surprise. I had been invited by chance, but in all honesty I knew very little about the organization. Thanks to that question, however, I now know much more about why all Christians should be deeply concerned about today’s Christian Palestinians. There should always be a solidarity among Christians, regardless of where we live. As such, when one of us suffers, we all suffer....

Darwinism and the adoption of Chinese Marxism According to James Pusey, writing in Nature, "Charles Darwin's banner was first unfurled in China during the Reform Movement of 1895-98, in response to China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War." There were two groups seeking change: the reformers, who were loyal to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and the revolutionaries, who wanted a clean break with the past. --snip-- The reformers and the revolutionaries debated vigorously "with both sides wildly waving Darwin's banner" The leaders of these movements imbibed the message of scientific racism coming from America and Europe and presented themselves as 'fit'...