By Nancy Salvato
Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich are featured together in a television commercial which focuses on how conservatives and liberals can come together to find solutions for problems caused by climate change. Mr. Gingrich’s explanation for joining this $300 million dollar advertising campaign is to force conservatives into debating liberals about the ways our country should best promote alternative energy sources. This in itself is a fine idea because I don’t know any person who wants our country to continue relying on oil for fuel. Most would agree that cleaner sources of energy are preferable.
While there should be robust debate about how best to pursue alternative energy, I believe this ad is misleading because it presents these two political adversaries as working together to find solutions to the problem of climate change in and of itself, as if there is a scientific consensus that climate change truly poses the problems outlined in Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Speaking of Al Gore, he is the person who is funding this effort and hired the advertising agency known for their caveman and talking lizard/Geico ads to produce these commercials.
Certainly, Gore has become a master of hyperbole in order to draw attention to his cause. While becoming a great promoter, he has done a great disservice to true science. The global warming argument is based on two assumptions. The first is that it’s caused by man and that we can stop it. While we may contribute to global warming, it is difficult to conclude that our activities can substantially affect the changes in temperature. The second assumption is that global warming is inherently bad. We cannot ignore dramatic climate shifts that have occurred in the past and declare that all climate changes are due to human activity and bad.
A true scientific investigation begins with a hypothesis, or assumption. Scientific findings are not based on one. Here’s why.
Have you ever held a ball in front of a dog and moved it up and down and sideways so that the dog moves its head in the same direction? Now, have you ever asked the dog yes and no questions while doing this so that it appears as if the dog is answering yes or no to your question? It would be wrong to believe the dog is really thinking about what you are saying. The dog is simply following your hand. This can be proved because if you asked the dog the same questions without moving your hand, you’ll find that the yes and no movement will stop. You have in effect stopped one variable, moving your hand, in order to determine whether it is your questions or hand movement that influences the dog. This is how scientists try to find out the answers to why some things happen.
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Posted by Walt in Environment Issues, Global Warming, Science categories at 7:03 PM EDT
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By Alan Caruba
It is now a proven fact that eating food—any kind of food—will kill you. No one who has eaten food in the past is alive today and everyone currently eating food will die. Therefore, those noble people who seek to save us from eating every kind of food that the earth provides should be hailed and saluted for their efforts to keep us alive.
I say this as the son of a woman who taught the art of haute cuisine for over three decades and authored several cookbooks. That poor woman died at age 98 and I am convinced it was all that fabulous food that killed her. Ridiculous? YES!
These thoughts were occasioned by word that two groups, the World Cancer Research Fund International, based in the United Kingdom, and the American Institute for Cancer Research, will likely announce that eating meat will give you some form of cancer at a press conference scheduled the same day as Halloween. Boo!
In mid-October The New York Times ran an article, “U.S. Cancer Death Rates Are Found to Be Falling.” It cited a decline “by an average of 2.1 percent a year…a near doubling of decreases that began in 1993, researchers (from the American Cancer Institute) are reporting.” Now this is, of course, good news. The bad news is that smoking appears to be a significant cause of cancer. In the U.S. cancer remains the second leading cause of death after heart disease, with 559,650 deaths expected every year.
Bear in mind that at least 10,000 Americans on the average die every day from something, not infrequently just old age and the infirmities associated with it. If you live beyond age 85 or into your 90s, the odds of dying from something are pretty good.
So why is it that meat is so often singled out as lethal? Well, for one thing, there are any number of vegetarian groups that, like some weird religious cult, flood the Internet and other media with fulminations against eating meat of any kind.
A Google search for “Meat + Health” will turn up links to literally thousands of studies that proclaim that eating meat will cause breast, prostrate, colon, and other forms of cancers. That said, if you search all the studies, you will also find those that confirm that meat is as healthy a part of diet as anything else. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USDA) 2005 Food Guide and its Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Eating Plan recommend two to three servings a week of lean meat.
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Posted by Walt in Nutrition, Science categories at 10:48 PM EST
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By Robert E. Meyer
Recently there has been a celebrated news release, detailing a new breakthrough in stem-cell research, which may make the existing moral controversy over the use of embryonic stem-cells moot.
While it’s still too early to tell if this new procedure using adult stem-cells from skin will produce the anticipated results, I have a feeling those perched exclusively in the embryonic stem-cell research camp, will be left unsatisfied.
The reason for my hunch is the way the stem-cell controversy has been misrepresented all along.
The fact that many religious leaders are tentatively, but enthusiastically, endorsing this new advance, refutes the charge that persons of strong religious convictions are Luddites trying to stifle scientific progress. This is an absurd canard that refuses to die a natural and merciful death.
A second false claim, is that the Bush administration sold out to the "religious-right," when the president banned government funding of embryonic stem-cell research several years ago.
Bush actually took the middle ground of compromise. Bush did not ban embryonic stem-cell research that was privately funded, nor prohibit continued research on the stem-cell lines already existing. To do so would have been the more socially conservative position. Bush’s "concessions" were viewed by some as his lack conservative conviction.
Of course, many will argue that embryos are routinely discarded as a byproduct of fertility treatments. I am personally opposed to that aspect of fertility procedures. Yet, the point of criticizing Bush because of that situation is irrelevant, because the government does not fund in vitro fertilization therapy. Thus, Bush is perfectly consistent in his approach, even if he is found to be wrong in his ultimate conclusions.
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Posted by Walt in Health, Religon, Science categories at 11:15 PM EST
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By Alan Caruba
When did the global warming hoax die? Historians are likely to pinpoint 2007. It will take another decade to insure it cannot be revived, but the avalanche of scientific studies and the cumulative impact of scientists who have publicly joined those who debunked the lies on which it has been based will be noted as the tipping point.
It took some forty years to unmask the Piltdown Man hoax that began in 1912 alleging that the skull of an ancient ancestor of man had been found in England. Any number of British anthropologists unwittingly contributed to the hoax by confirming the authenticity of the skull until it was found that the jaw of an orangutan had been cunningly attached. The unmasking of “global warming” has taken less than half that time.
The hoax has mainly been a creation of the United Nations Environmental Program and took off in earnest with the 1992 Earth Summit. It culminated in 1997 with the Kyoto Climate Control Protocol, an agreement to reduce the generation of carbon dioxide, a
“greenhouse” gas (CO2) said to be the cause of an accelerated warming of the earth. By 2005, 140 nations had ratified the pact, agreeing to reduce CO2 emissions. Notably exempt from the pact were nations such as China and India. Few, if any, nations have ever met the limits that require reductions in CO2 production, attributed to the use of so-called “fossil fuels” such as oil, natural gas, and coal.
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Posted by Walt in Environment Issues, Science categories at 7:46 PM EDT
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New York, May 2, 2007 - Actor Kirk Cameron and best-selling author Ray Comfort will square off with two atheists in New York on Saturday, May 5. ABC originally planned to stream the 90-minute debate LIVE on their website, but decided to reschedule the broadcast to capture a larger audience. They will broadcast the entire debate on ABC.com on Wednesday, May 9 at 1:00 p.m. EST.
Comfort-who claims he can prove the existence of God, scientifically, without mentioning faith or the Bible-stated, "The network originally offered me only four minutes to present my case. After speaking with Kirk and conferring with the atheists, they settled on 13 minutes. I'm ecstatic. I can prove the existence of God in that amount of time.
"We are very grateful to ABC for taking this courageous step," Comfort continued. "As far as we know, nothing like this has ever been done before. ABC's website is already the 7th most visited news site, with 19 million visitors every month. But with more than 177 million people in the U.S. who call themselves Christians, we are sure that it will draw an even larger viewing audience. Is there actually evidence for God? That's the most important question any of us will ever consider."
Cameron added, "We are excited that the network has decided to do this, because we have something very relevant to present. Most people think that belief in God is simply a matter of blind faith, and that His existence can't be proven. We will not only prove that God exists, but as an ex-atheist I'll show that the issue keeping so many people from believing in God-Darwinian evolution-is completely unscientific. It's a fairy-tale for grownups."
The debate came about after ABC ran a story in January about hundreds of atheists videotaping themselves blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
"But," Comfort continued, "there is something more sinister here than a few people not believing in God. Why would so many be so bitter against Christianity in particular? Why aren't they making videos that blaspheme Buddha or Mohammed or Ghandi? We made our own video clip and posted it on www.Hollywoodblasphemy.com to expose why.
As of May 2 there is still an opportunity for people to join in the debate, by submitting questions that will be passed on to the panelists. ABC will limit the live audience to 100 people, evenly divided between atheists and believers. The debate will be moderated by Martin Bashir, and on May 9 a shortened version of the debate will be aired on Nightline.
For further information, contact mark@livingwaters.com
Posted by Walt in Christianity, Science categories at 7:31 AM EDT
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By Alan Caruba
As a very young man, fresh out of college and the army in the mid-1960’s, I found myself employed as a rookie reporter on a weekly newspaper in New Jersey. I had never taken a course in journalism in my life, but I could write. The managing editor of the newspaper group that serviced a number of communities taught me all I ever needed to know about journalism. He taught me to be skeptical of everything and everyone.
Not distrustful. Skeptical. People will tell you the truth they believe or want you to believe. They may be wrong. Or they may be deceitful. There’s a difference. However, when error and deceit combine, there is a purpose, an agenda, and it exists, as often as not, to acquire wealth and power despite the harm it will leave in its wake.
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Posted by Walt in Environment Issues, Science categories at 10:23 PM EDT
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by Christopher Adamo
An astounding range of absurd ideas have been incorporated into the "mainstream" of modern America, based not on any inherent merit, but rather on the benefits to liberalism that can be derived from them. So much of today’s "conventional wisdom" represents neither convention nor wisdom, but instead results from a fundamentally leftist worldview, combined with a truly juvenile dosage of wishful thinking.
Consider, a few such pillars of the liberal faith, and more specifically how fragile they quickly become when placed under the hot lights of honest scrutiny.
As the American culture continues to crumble, we are incessantly reminded that "our diversity is our strength." Tell that to the people of the Balkans where, prior to U.S. intervention, centuries old feuds and tribalism had rendered the region little more than a wasteland of unending bloodshed between bickering "warlords."
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Posted by Walt in Environment Issues, Global Warming, Science categories at 10:38 PM EDT
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By Alan Caruba
Hating so-called “fossil fuels”, coal, oil, and natural gas, with a passion, the environmentalists have perpetrated every deception possible and, among them, is the notion that Americans can avoid destroying the Earth if they just fill up the tanks of their automobiles with ethanol.
As I have pointed out in the past, the world is not running out of oil and, here in the United States, we have enough reserves of coal to provide electricity and other needs for centuries to come. So who has the new Democrat majority in Congress declared persona non grata? The oil industry. Their proposed “answer” to our transportation energy needs is ethanol.
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Posted by Walt in Environment Issues, Science categories at 10:43 PM EST
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Global warming is a myth. But according to some scientists, global cooling or the appearance of an ice age is more likely than not. They identified about 40 possible super volcanoes sites. Some of the sites lie 20 miles beneath the oceans and some are under major land mass. A super volcano eruption could plunge Earth into an ice age and end life as we know it.
Unlike regular volcanoes, which are shaped like mammoth cones, supervolcanoes spring from massive canyons — calderas — that measure hundreds of miles across. Underneath their surface is a vast lake of lava. When the underground liquid rock — magma — bursts forth to the surface, a series of violent, massive explosions could occur in a wide-ranging eruption that could last several days. It would incinerate anyone within a hundred miles, and layers of ash would blanket much of the earth.
"These eruptions are so big that you couldn't really see them, because you couldn't be close enough to the volcano, watching it and survive. You could watch it from a satellite and you could see the volcano erupt and see the ash cloud begin to spread," said Michael Rampino, geologist and professor of earth sciences at New York University. (ABC News)
The scientists have identified Yellowstone National Park as one of the supervolcanoes sites within the continental United States.
Posted by Walt in Environment Issues, Science categories at 8:12 AM EDT
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Global warming is causing glaciers to grow?
According to a recent study published in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate, warmer temperatures are causing glaciers to grow.
The political correct scientist will blame any changes in the environment on the global warming myth. Even though they claim warmer temperatures and increase rainfall and snowfall in the Himalayan Mountain region, the glaciers continue to grow. But you would think increased temperatures would decrease the size of the glaciers.
Researchers at Newcastle University looked at temperature trends in the western Himalaya over the past century.
They found warmer winters and cooler summers, combined with more snow and rainfall, could be causing some mountain glaciers to increase in size. (News.BBC.co.uk)
So what does it take to increase the glaciers' size, cooler temperatures?
Posted by Walt in Environment Issues, Science categories at 8:54 PM EDT
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