Free Republic

Weather across the United States will make drastic shifts this week as cities from Arizona to New York are forecast for above-average temperatures in the coming days before chilly air brings back the winter feeling. More than 235 million Americans will experience temperatures 5 to 20 degrees higher than average for early November on Tuesday, reported FOX Weather. That is an extreme change from last week's record snowfall in the Rocky Mountains, Great Lakes and New England. According to The Weather Channel, a zonal upper level pattern, which when weather systems move parallel to the latitude lines, will keep temperatures...

The past year has generated one of the most unusual primary election campaigns in American history. The Republican frontrunner has shifted back and forth, with four candidates still in the race just four months before the party convention in Tampa. Meanwhile the incumbent president has faced no opposition from within his party and has spent his time preparing for what promises to be an intense, expensive, and acrimonious fall campaign. The nationwide survey by Barna Group asked a sample of likely voters who they would vote for if the election were held today, evaluating the relative strength of the three...

Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., told TheDC that global warming proponents wrongly try to justify numerous weather patterns as being the result of global warming. “Global warming scientists say it will be warmer, colder, snowier, and less snowy all at the same time, which is impossible. Anyone who follows global warming knows the theory is rife with exaggeration,” Michaels said. “What’s disturbing is to see The New York Times put a really fringe idea on their editorial page. Obviously they’re panicking about people’s distrust...

Need a break from the depressing news Dogs welcoming home their "daddies"

Look at these and thaw out!

Summer Refuses To Fall By MERITA ILO The Canadian Press Published Saturday October 6th, 2007 Appeared on page A1 TORONTO - People across Eastern Canada will be adding the unusual warm weather to the list of things they'll be thankful for this Thanksgiving long weekend. With temperatures in some areas in Ontario expected to reach as high as 30 Celsius, holiday travellers are packing up T-shirts and shorts instead of warm jackets and scarves. "This is record-breaking," David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada, said Friday. "We've never seen it in 150 years of weather keeping, to have it...

PARIS (AFP) - A kilogram (2.2 pounds) of beef causes more greenhouse-gas and other pollution than driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on back home, according to a Japanese study. A team led by Akifumi Ogino of the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, calculated the environmental cost of raising cattle through conventional farming, slaughtering the animal and distributing the meat, New Scientist reports in next Saturday's issue. Producing a kilo (2.2 pounds) of beef causes the equivalent of 36.4 kilos (80.08 pounds) in carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas, Ogino found. Most...

"And the idea was, the shark comes to the nearest man, that man, he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin', sometime's the shark goes away, sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometime's that shark, he looks right into ya, right into your eyes. And another thing about that shark. He's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites you." Quint from Jaws

Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil Predicts Early Spring: Thousands Flock To Punxsutawney, Pa., For Annual Rite (CBS) PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. A new pair of hands pulled Punxsutawney Phil from his stump this year, so it was only fitting that the groundhog offered a new prediction. Phil did not see his shadow on Friday which, according to German folklore, means folks can expect an early spring instead of six more weeks of winter. Since 1886, Phil has seen his shadow 96 times, hasn't seen it 14 times and there are no records for nine years, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. The last time...

In California, Fox Gets Warm Embrace and a Cold ShoulderBy JOHN M. BRODER Published: May 26, 2006 SACRAMENTO, May 25 — In an echo of the debate on immigration under way in Washington, the California Legislature gave visiting President Vicente Fox of Mexico a two-edged welcome on Thursday. Democratic and Latino members, including the Assembly speaker, Fabian Núñez, embraced Mr. Fox, while some Republicans boycotted his evening address to a joint session of the Legislature. Other Republicans attended the speech, but wore yellow buttons reading "No más!" to protest Mr. Fox's support for liberalizing American policies on immigration. In his...

A nice illustration of where it was hot and where it was not last month. Click on the image for the big picture (only 2 MB, so it shouldn't crash a browser). From the linked article: "The dramatic difference in January temperatures between the northern halves of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres is revealed in this image of land surface temperature data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor on NASA’s Terra satellite. The image compares the temperatures between January 1-24, 2006, to the average temperatures for that period from 2001-2005. Regions where temperatures were up to 10...

Is the refrigerator only an appliance, or does it speak much more to our values and cultural needs? Is it simply a holder of food, or does it say something about how we live and who we are? After long years of viewing refrigerators as a block of cold, static kitchen furniture, many have begun to see an opportunity for change. Some refrigeration reformers are questioning the very role of a refrigerator in the household, becoming more vocal about changing refrigeration issues and rights. Jerusha Chauderey, charter member of Women Opposing Refrigeration Dependence, hopes the public will consider a full-scale...

Siberians fear minus 30 is too warm for comfort By Julius Strauss in Yuchyugay (Filed: 05/03/2005) The afternoon high is a little below minus 30 degrees Celsius an hour outside the small Siberian settlement of Yuchyugay, even in the pale winter sun. But at this time of the year, locals say with a frown, it should be a steady minus 50. As cars roll across the wide, frozen rivers, traces of running water show where the current runs so fast that the ice melts, a phenomenon, the locals insist, that should only occur much later in the season. Environmental research...

Warm Weather Causing Allergies Provided by: The Associated Press Last Modified: 1/6/2005 4:52:05 PM ATLANTA (AP) -- The recent unusual warm spell in the South has brought people out in shorts and tee-shirts in January. It’s also brought about another warm-weather phenomenon -— allergies. Atlanta doctors and pharmacists are reporting an upsurge in sniffles, sneezes and coughs. This year, they’re from allergies, not winter colds. Pharmacists have been faced with restocking shelves with allergy medicines such as Claritin. Even herbal remedies have been hot sellers off the shelves. Doctor Keith Phillips, of Emory University, says it’s mold — not pollen...

The municipal drama that plays out each day in City Hall has a reliable cast of characters, their daily arrival as inevitable as budget deficits and comptroller reports. There are the lawmakers on the east side of the building, the mayor on the west, and the lobbyists, advocates and reporters sprinkled throughout. They join with the rest of the powerful and the seeking and the perpetually aggrieved who descend on city government each day. And then there is the challah lady. Soft spoken and unassuming, she strides up the steps of City Hall each week with a few toasty loaves...

According to the Associated Press, a Russian foreign minister says Moscow respects Lebanese sovereignty. In a veiled swipe at the United States and its United States allies such as Israel, Russia's foreign minister said Sunday his country opposed a Security Council resolution demanding free presidential elections here and a Syrian troop withdrawal out of Moscow's respect for Lebanese sovereignty. Sergey Lavrov made his comments after meeting Lebanese President Emile Lahoud in Beirut, marking his latest high level meeting during a Middle East tour that has included talks with the leaders of Egypt and Syria. He is expected to arrive in...

Kerry Hides as Americans Fail to Warm to His Style Posted July 1, 2004 By Scott Stanley Jr. Washington insiders are saying that John Kerry is proving to be the laziest presidential candidate since Adlai Stevenson. For three days he has been hiding out at his wife's pickle farm in Pennsylvania without receiving important visitors of any kind, and tomorrow he heads for speeches in Cloquet, Minn., and Boomer, Wis., before stumping in Iowa river towns. Then it's back to one of his wife's mansions for Independence Day, remaining there Monday with nothing scheduled. There is speculation that Kerry will...

NOAA REPORTS 2002 WAS MARKED BY WIDESPREAD DROUGHT IN THE U.S., RETURN OF EL NIÑO, AND WARM GLOBAL TEMPERATURE December 17, 2002 — The climate of 2002 in the United States was characterized by warmer than normal temperatures and below average precipitation that led to persistent or worsening drought throughout much of the nation, according to NOAA scientists. Working from the world’s largest statistical weather database, NOAA scientists at the National Climatic Data Center also found that 2002 is very likely to be the second warmest year on record for the globe. The return of El Niño affected hurricanes...

Ameriscan, March 21, 2002 New York Lakes Fail to Freeze BUFFALO, New York, March 21, 2002 (ENS) - Several lakes in upstate New York that have frozen every winter for the past three decades broke their perfect record this year, and remained ice free. In his 30 years of studying freeze thaw cycles of lakes in New York state, Dr. Kenton Stewart had never seen some lakes in his lake ice network stay unfrozen for an entire winter - until this winter ended on Wednesday. "The majority of the lakes in the state still froze, but a surprising number...

RECORD WARM WINTER IN MUCH OF MIDWEST AND NORTHEAST; DROUGHT WORSENS ALONG EASTERN SEABOARD, NOAA REPORTS March 14, 2002 — Many areas of the Midwest and Northeast experienced record warmth during the December 2001 through February 2002 winter season, said scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., today. The December-February temperature for the contiguous United States was the fifth warmest, and the global temperature was the second warmest since records began in the late 1800s. Precipitation since September 2001 was the lowest on record in the eastern seaboard region from Florida to Maine, leading to severe...