Free Republic

Thinking the unthinkable. Like all races, this campaign has come down to a lot of “if-then” statements. America is already unimpressed with the Pelosi-Reid Congress. This is, with a few changes, who President Obama would be making laws with — a House Ways and Means chairman who doesn’t understand the tax laws he writes, a House speaker who does freelance diplomacy with dictators... In the Senate, President Obama will have Robert Byrd holding the purse-strings in Appropriations, ensuring that most of the new president’s national initiatives will be based out of West Virginia. On the Banking Committee, Chris Dodd will...

Scientists are today preparing to switch on the world's biggest scientific experiment. The £5billion Large Hadron Collider aims to recreate the conditions moments after the Big Bang that created the universe.

On Sept. 7, 2006, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University, stood before an audience of economists at the International Monetary Fund and announced that a crisis was brewing. In the coming months and years, he warned, the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession. He laid out a bleak sequence of events: homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt. These developments, he went on, could cripple or destroy...

The Pacific is the biggest ocean on Earth, but it's getting smaller every day. Australasia and the Americas are inching closer together, and in about 350 million years the Pacific will effectively close. That's when plate tectonics - the process driving all that slow motion, and one that geologists have assumed to be continuous - may grind to a halt.

Human activities are cumulatively driving the health of the world's oceans down a rapid spiral, and only prompt and wholesale changes will slow or perhaps ultimately reverse the catastrophic problems they are facing. Such is the prognosis of Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, in a bold new assessment of the oceans and their ecological health. Publishing his study in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Jackson believes that human impacts are laying the groundwork for mass extinctions in the oceans on par...

The video looks a bit like a scene from a low-budget sci-fi horror film. A tiny hole slowly begins sucking in bits of the Earth in Switzerland with mountains, lakes and cities quickly falling into the growing gap. And it just keeps on growing--and growing. By the end of the 38 second movie, the entire planet has been swallowed up -- and all that's left is a shimmering ring in the inky blackness of outer space. Absurd, perhaps. But a brief look around Internet blogs, and especially YouTube, makes it clear that there are a number of people out there...

See the video under "TOP VIDEO", they say it is going to be turned on THIS WEEKEND in the video, you might want to give your mom or other loved ones a call and tell them that you love them ;)

New Yorkers feel the pinch, call for tax on richMore than three-quarters of New Yorkers say they are feeling the pinch from pricey food and gas prices, and 80% were in favor of a so-called "millionaire's tax," according to recent polls. Elisabeth Butler Cordova August 06. 2008 3:13PM The deteriorating economy continues to weigh heavily on New Yorkers’ minds, according to two polls released Wednesday. With a remarkable one-month increase of 9%, 81% of New York residents say they are feeling the effects of rising food prices, according to a new Siena Research Institute survey. About 78% of New Yorkers...

A warmer planet could mean we'll suffer more (and stronger) allergies As one of 40 million Americans who suffer from hay fever, Lewis Ziska carries an inhaler in his pocket and takes a whiff to clear his lungs on bad allergy days. But hay fever is more than a personal-health issue for Ziska. A weed ecologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Crop Systems and Global Change Laboratory, Ziska is a leading researcher in the fledgling field of allergies and climate change. His findings regarding ragweed, an invasive plant whose pollen is the leading trigger of fall hay fever, are...

Governor vetoes climate change curriculum California public students will stick to reading, writing and arithmetic, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decided as he vetoed a bill late Friday that would have required climate change be added to schools' curriculum. The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would have required future science textbooks to include climate change as a subject. In January, the state Senate approved the bill, SB 908, by a 26-13 vote. Only two Republicans supported the proposal. In his veto statement, Schwarzenegger said he supported education that spotlights the dangers of climate change. However, the Republican...

The G8 summit may have agreed to try to cut greenhouse gas emissions - but don't count on that saving your favourite crusty French bread. German researchers have shown that high CO2 levels in the atmosphere lead to wheat crops throughout Europe with less gluten, the protein in flour that forms the gooey matrix of dough. By 2050, the researchers say, the expected CO2 levels in the atmosphere may lead to dough that rises nearly 20% less than it does now. The researchers, from the Johann Heinrich von Thunen Institute in Braunschweig , say that CO2 disrupts nitrogen uptake by...

If all goes according to plan, a massive underground facility in Switzerland will begin smashing particles together later this summer in an effort to provide a clearer understanding of the physical universe than has ever before been possible. Known as the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, the project is composed of a 17-mile circular tunnel beneath Geneva, containing thousands of magnets meant to send beams of subatomic particles hurtling toward each other. The resulting collisions are expected to release matter similar to that present at the "Big Bang" that created the universe.

http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=6950 Will Earth's Future Be a FROZEN One? 27-Jun-2008 ...rather than a hot one? - The future? The disappearance of sun spots was the hot topic at a recent international solar conference held at Montana State University. For the past two years, the sun has undergone a phase of relative inactivity, meaning usual solar phenomena such as sun flares, sun spots, and solar eruptions have all but disappeared. "It's a dead face," researcher Saku Tsuneta says of the solar surface. Tsuneta is with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and was one of the participants at the MSU conference The...

It is certain that the United States is in for an energy price and supply shock the likes of which we have never experienced or imagined. While high prices, to a reasonable extent can be tolerated, hell will break loose if massive supply disruptions emerge. We are much closer to them than people think. Those who think that we can conserve ourselves to energy independence need not read any further. They are vastly wrong and it is pointless to argue with them. The first proof of trouble to come is that none of the three US presidential candidates, Senators John...

Global Intrigue + More Will Escalate Food Prices Drastically: What Will A Loaf Of Bread Cost Next Year? RFFM.org Guest Commentary by Joyce Morrison The mere thought of a food shortage in America is unthinkable…or is it? Headlines read, “Planting season weather perplexing for farmers.” “Weather may cut yields,” “Further spike in food costs feared due to floods,” “Food shortages,” -- these are headlines preparing us for the fact we will no longer have the cheapest, safest food in the world. All spring the breadbasket of America has been deluged with floods, wind storms, tornados, heavy rain and hail. Illinois...

That black hole that was going to eat the Earth? Forget about it, and keep making the mortgage payments — those of you who still have them. A new particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider scheduled to go into operation this fall outside Geneva, is no threat to the Earth or the universe, according to a new safety review approved Friday by the governing council of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or Cern, which is building the collider. “There is no basis for any concerns about the consequences of new particles or forms of matter that could possibly be...

In 2000 a Saudi oil geologist named Sadad I. Al Husseini made a startling discovery. Husseini, then head of exploration and production for the state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, had long been skeptical of the oil industry's upbeat forecasts for future production. Since the mid-1990s he had been studying data from the 250 or so major oil fields that produce most of the world's oil. He looked at how much crude remained in each one and how rapidly it was being depleted, then added all the new fields that oil companies hoped to bring on line in coming decades. When...

Abstract: The heat generated inside our planet is predominantly of radionic (nuclear) origin. Hence, Earth in its entirety can be considered considered a slow nuclear reactor with its solid ”inner core” providing a major contribution to the total energy output. Since radionic heat is generated in the entire volume and cooling can only occur at the surface, the highest temperature inside Earth occurs at the center of the inner core. Overheating the center of the inner core reactor due to the so-called greenhouse effect on the surface of Earth may cause a meltdown condition, an enrichment of nuclear fuel and...

Are we living in the last century of our civilization? Is it possible that all of our technology, knowledge and wealth cannot save us from ourselves? Could our society actually be heading towards collapse? A dramatic preview of an unprecedented ABC News event called "Earth 2100." According to many of the world's top scientists, the answer is yes, unless we take action now. This September, in Earth 2100, a dramatic ABC News 2-hour broadcast, the greatest minds across the globe will join together in a countdown to the year 2100 to tell us what we must do to survive the...

SYDNEY: A reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles could happen sooner than we think, according to Dutch scientists who report that the planet's magnetic field is becoming gradually less stable. A reversal could affect everything from navigation and communications equipment to the composition of the atmosphere, say experts. The report, published today in the U.K. journal Nature Geoscience, found that reversals have been far more common in the last 200 million years than they were deep in the planet's history. Wandering polesResearchers, led by Andrew Biggin of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, made the discovery by analysing rocks...

McCain says he will win in January.

Bob Du Vernois brews beer with detailed consideration to aroma and taste, but it's last call on one of his favorite varieties. A worldwide shortage of hops has depleted the supplies available to brewers, particularly for some of the specific blends that craft brewers have made their specialties. The shortage is the result of recent drought in Australia and flooding in Europe that destroyed much of their crops, forcing brewers overseas to turn to U.S. hops supplies that already were strained by a movement to plant more profitable crops like corn. Coupled with rising fuel costs, the shortage has hops...

Climate report offers a dire look at next 50 years. Get used to it -- and be ready for water shortages, too, says a sweeping new scientific report rounding up likely effects of climate change on the United States' land, water and farms over the next half-century. Some effects already can be felt, says the report released Tuesday, which synthesizes results of more than 1,000 individual studies. And it's not just humans' food that's at risk, said witnesses at a congressional field hearing in Seattle on Tuesday. An intense and sudden acidification of the Pacific resulting from climate change presages...

Everywhere I go these days... I hear an increasingly shrill cry for "solutions." This is just another symptom of the delusional thinking that now grips the nation, especially among the educated and well-intentioned. I say this because I detect... the desperate wish to keep our "Happy Motoring" utopia running by means other than oil and its byproducts. But the truth is that no combination of solar, wind and nuclear power, ethanol, biodiesel, tar sands and used French-fry oil will allow us to power Wal-Mart, Disney World and the interstate highway system -- or even a fraction of these things --...

SALMON, Idaho (AFP) - Like apple pie and baseball, beer has achieved favored status in the lexicon of American traditions, with US sales of the drink outstripping purchases of liquor and wine by billions of dollars. But an international shortage of hops -- the ingredient that adds aroma, body and bitterness -- is causing prices of the agricultural commodity to soar, industry officials say. The origins of the hops shortage are linked to an oversupply a decade ago of the agent that provides flavors in beer that range from fruity to woody, said Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association....

The price of oil futures, passing through the $130 level as they have this morning, likely headed far north of $200, is really secondary to the Bigger Picture of how the economy and oil are tied together. But is $800 oil in the cards? Oh, yeah... A conversation with ... petroleum geologist Jeffrey J. Brown ... explains the concept of oil going nonlinear from here: "In my opinion, we are looking at an accelerating net oil export decline rate, combined with a requirement for an accelerating rate of increase in oil prices, in order to balance supply & demand, as...

"Far from normal". Those were the words that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke used to describe the financial markets (and by extension the economy) these heady spring days when everybody else with a rostrum, it seems, has pronounced the so-called liquidity crisis contained. There's a great wish for American finance to return to business-as-usual -- raking in fantastic fees for innovating new modes of tradable paper, and engineering mergers and buy-outs that generate huge fees plus $100 million kiss-offs for corporate CEOs in the noble struggle to dismantle America's productive capacity -- but apparently events are still out of hand. The...

Rising global temperatures could lead to an increase in kidney stones, according to research presented at the 103rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA). Dehydration has been linked to stone disease, particularly in warmer climates, and global warming will exacerbate this effect. As a result, the prevalence of stone disease may increase, along with the costs of treating the condition. Using published data to determine the temperature-dependence of stone disease, researchers applied predictions of temperature increase to determine the impact of global warming on the incidence and cost of stone disease in the United States. The Intergovernmental...

Increased volcanic activity is linked to ice melted by the effects of global warming, a study has found. So much ice in Iceland has melted in the past century that the pressure on the land beneath has lessened, which allows more of the rock deep in the ground to turn to magma. Until the ice melted, the pressure was so intense that the rock remained solid. Carolina Pagli, of the University of Leeds, led research which calculated that over the past century the production of magma had increased by 10 per cent.

Researcher: Basic Greenhouse Equations "Totally Wrong" Michael Asher (Blog) - March 6, 2008 11:02 AM New derivation of equations governing the greenhouse effect reveals "runaway warming" impossible Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was. That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30...

If you think turning 40 is bad, just wait until you turn 44. Researchers say that’s the age when people feel most depressed. Using data on two million people from 80 countries, researchers found an extraordinarily consistent pattern in depression and happiness levels that leaves us most miserable in middle age. Using a sample of one million people from the U.K., researchers discovered that for both men and women the probability of depression peaks around 44 years of age. The only country which recorded a significant gender difference was in the U.S., where unhappiness reached a peak at around 40...

Amid the daily market turmoil, and to help prevent a crash, it helps to step back and remember how we got here. With the benefit of hindsight, everyone can see that the U.S. economy built up an enormous credit bubble that has now popped. Our own view -- which we warned about going back to 2003 -- is that this bubble was created principally by a Federal Reserve that kept real interest rates too low for too long.In doing so the Fed created a subsidy for debt and a commodity price spike. The price spike contributed to "excess savings" in...

Using environmentally friendly light bulbs can be seriously bad for your skin, doctors warn. New energy-saving bulbs produce a more intense light which can cause eruptions of existing skin problems, like eczema, and even lead to skin cancer, they claim. The revelation comes after health experts warned the fluorescent bulbs, which are to become compulsory in homes within four years, could trigger migraines and cause dizziness and discomfort to people with epilepsy. The lives of thousands of people may be threatened if the government's plan to phase out the normal variety of incandescent lighting goes ahead without exemptions. Sufferers could...

Smaller asteroids may pose greater danger than previously believed INCINERATION POSSIBLE - Fine points of the "fireball" that might be expected from an asteroid exploding in Earth's atmosphere are indicated in a supercomputer simulation devised by a team led by Sandia researcher Mark Boslough. (Photo by Randy Montoya ) Download 300dpi JPEG image (Media are welcome to download/publish this image with related news stories.)ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The stunning amount of forest devastation at Tunguska a century ago in Siberia may have been caused by an asteroid only a fraction as large as previously published estimates, Sandia National Laboratories supercomputer simulations...

Global warming is blamed for walrus stampede deaths Associated Press - December 14, 2007 4:23 PM ET ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Some scientists blame the deaths of thousands of Pacific walruses on the disappearance of sea ice caused by global warming. The walruses died in stampedes earlier this year as they crowded on shorelines along the Asian side of the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska from Russia. An expert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the lack of sea ice during the late summer and early fall led to a "pretty sobering year" that was "tough on walruses."...

Video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7WJeqxuOfQ We have subversives in elected office and the State Department who are trying to cram as many people as they can into the U.S. Many of our large cities are already suffering from overpopulation. The U.S. passed the 300 million mark in 2000 and some demographers say our population will almost double by 2050 and, if immigration is not curtailed, exceed ONE BILLION before 2100. The last thing we need is more legal or illegal immigrants. If the American people don’t rise up and take action to get rid of the subversives who are trying to destabilize...

The president of Estonia goes on national TV to urge his countrymen to have more children. Russian President Vladimir Putin warns his parliament about "a serious crisis threatening Russia's survival": the nation's low birth rate. The government of Singapore is trying to reverse that country's birth dearth by sponsoring a massive taxpayer-funded matchmaking service. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, panicking the world with dire predictions of a population explosion. By the year 2000, he predicted, the world would be so crowded that hundreds of millions would die of starvation. Although Mr. Ehrlich's prophecies have turned out to...

President Rafael Correa complained on Saturday he did not receive special diplomatic treatment at a Miami airport security checkpoint earlier this month and will now avoid traveling through the U.S. In his weekly radio address, Correa said he accepted an apology issued Tuesday by U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador Linda Jewell, who said U.S. officials learned of his travel plans only hours before and "didn't have time to make all the arrangements necessary to receive a head of state." Correa received "discourteous treatment" at Miami International Airport, where he'd stopped to change planes Nov. 15 on the way to a summit...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The guessing game ended this week - consumer spending is slowing down as J.C. Penney became the latest retailer to confirm the trend. "We're in a very difficult selling environment," J.C. Penney CEO Myron Ullman told analysts Thursday in a conference call to discuss the company's third-quarter results. The call was monitored via Webcast in New York. "We came out of September expecting a strong start for early fall. That didn't happen. This is the first time that we're seeing a real change in consumer sentiment," Ullman said. Penney isn't the only one to be disappointed....

From eco-friendly pop-ups and “Eureka moments” to a twist on USA Network’s tagline, the cable networks of NBC Universal will fly their appropriately colored flags during the company’s “Green Is Universal” initiative next month. Bravo, Sci Fi Channel, USA and Universal HD are all stepping up to the environmental plate with programming and public affairs campaigns during NBCU’s green push from Nov. 4-10. Through its worldwide programming, specials and consumer-focused events, the week will focus NBC Universal's resources and efforts toward educating viewers, Web and wireless users, and the company's employees on ecological issues and the impact on the environment....

It's been plain sailing for the UK economy thanks to a constant reach of low interest rates. But things have got too easy, and we've steered ourselves into some choppy waters, with many on the good ship Great Britain starting to feel queasy and out of their depth. I refer to the swell of debt. Personal-sector debt at more than £1,000bn has been greater than the country's entire annual economic output for some time, while government debt continues to ratchet up. Alistair Darling added another £4bn during his Pre-Budget Report. The economy now struggles with a bloated public sector without...

Further evidence for the decline of the oceans’ historical role as an important sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide is supplied by new research by environmental scientists from the University of East Anglia. Since the industrial revolution, much of the CO2 we have released into the atmosphere has been taken up by the world’s oceans which act as a strong ‘sink’ for the emissions. This has slowed climate change. Without this uptake, CO2 levels would have risen much faster and the climate would be warming more rapidly. A paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research by Dr Ute Schuster and Professor...

The Top 100 Effects of Global Warming September 24, 2007 This piece is from the Center for American Progress Action Fund's Mic Check Radio. Global Warming Wrecks All the Fun Say Goodbye to French Wines Wacky temperatures and rain cycles brought on by global warming are threatening something very important: Wine. Scientists believe global warming will “shift viticultural regions toward the poles, cooler coastal zones and higher elevations.” What that means in regular language: Get ready to say bye-bye to French Bordeaux and hello to British champagne. [LA Times] Say Goodbye to Light and Dry Wines Warmer temperatures mean grapes...

Just when we thought we'd seen the back of one axis of evil, up pops another one to give us all sleepless nights. The original axis of evil, as defined by President George W Bush in his State of the Union address in January 2002, consisted of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. In fact, this axis was always an unlikely amalgam, conjured from the imagination of David Frum, the President's chief speechwriter at the time, who was casting around for a suitably demonic phrase to capture the gravity of the threat America was said to face from its combined enemies...

LONDON -- When Al Gore predicted that climate change could lead to a 20-foot rise in sea levels, critics called him alarmist. After all, the International Panel on Climate Change, which receives input from top scientists, estimates surges of only 18 to 59 centimetres in the next century. But a study led by James Hansen, the head of the climate science program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia University, suggests that current estimates for how high the seas could rise are way off the mark -...

<p>The last politician who took advice from the bond market was Bill Clinton. When he pushed for a tax hike back in 1993 to cut the budget deficit, it was under the assumption that bond investors would respond by bringing down interest rates. (The theory here is that deficits are inflationary. Inflation is bad for bonds.) Yet long-term interest rates surged from 6.45 percent when Clinton signed his tax-hike bill on Aug. 10, 1993, to 8.16 percent on Nov. 7, 1994, the day before the midterm congressional election where Republicans won back the House and Senate.</p>

NY ALESUND, Norway (Reuters) - Previously unknown islands are appearing as Arctic summer sea ice shrinks to record lows, raising questions about whether global warming is outpacing U.N. projections, experts said. Polar bears and seals have also suffered this year on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard because the sea ice they rely on for hunts melted far earlier than normal. "Reductions of snow and ice are happening at an alarming rate," Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoy said at a seminar of 40 scientists and politicians that began late on Monday in Ny Alesund, 1,200 km (750 miles) from the North...

Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’ Dominic Kennedy Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated. Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby. The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to...

NEW YORK: US researchers say that lowering cholesterol levels with statins, a class of drugs, might increase the risk of cancer. The researchers who studied 40,000 people, however, could not say if this was a side effect of the drugs or due to the low cholesterol. Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance that occurs naturally in all parts of the body. Our body needs some cholesterol to work properly. But if the substance increases in blood, it can stick to the walls of arteries. This is called plaque, which can narrow arteries or even block them. There are two types...

The freight train, carrying yellow phosphorus, derailed in western Ukraine late Monday. Rescuers extinguished a fire that broke out in the highly toxic substance, which can catch fire spontaneously on contact with air at temperatures higher than 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It can cause liver damage if consumed.