Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Drugs

2009-03-07T09:06:59Z

Deshayzilla:

A '''drug''' is a chemical substance that affects the processes of the mind or body. The term "drug" may be used to refer to, beneficial [[medicine]] (such as [[antibiotics]] and painkillers like [[morphine]]) or certain other legal chemicals such as [[alcohol]], [[caffeine]], or [[nicotine]] but may also refer to [[illegal drugs]].

[[Illegal drugs]] are drugs which are prohibited by law. This is often based on the fact that these drugs cause damage to a person's [[brain]] and other organs, and that the drugs are highly addictive. Many celebrities have become addicted to drugs that killed them; many more non-celebrities have also died at a young age from drug addiction.<ref>''See, e.g.'', [[Hollywood values]].</ref> However, the status of many illegal drugs is disputed as they are much less likely to cause harm than others which are not classified as being as dangerous or are not illegal. Examples of drugs which tend to be less dangerous than legal drugs are marijuana, ecstasy, and LSD.

Many people become addicted to legal drugs as well, including alcohol, pain killers, anti-depressants, nicotine. Drugs, both legal and illegal may have significant effects on babies inside the womb, so pregnant women should use all drugs with caution.

== In sport ==
Some drugs can be used by athletes to gain a competitive advantage in sports. Drugs often abused in this way include amphetamines, steroids and EPO. Commonly known as doping, this practice is forbidden in almost all sports for two main reasons:
* It is considered to be unfair.
* While these drugs provide short-term physical benefits, they often do long-term harm, leading to shortened careers and poor health in later life.
Nevertheless, there have been many high-profile cases of top performers being caught using drugs, including the sprinter [[Ben Johnson]] and the cyclist [[Tyler Hamilton]].

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Medicine]]

Gateway drug

2009-03-07T09:03:48Z

Deshayzilla:

A '''gateway drug''' is a drug that has a certain degree of social acceptability which is thought to promote the subsequent use of other drugs. According to Drug Watch, The earlier children use the gateway drugs [[tobacco]] or [[alcohol]] or [[marijuana]], the more likely they are to move on to other drugs. Youth who drank alcohol were 50 times more likely to use [[cocaine]], and those who smoked tobacco cigarettes were 19 times as likely to use cocaine. Nearly 90% of cocaine users had smoked tobacco or drank alcohol or used marijuana first. The study, based on 30,000 [[American]] households, established a clear progression that began with use of the gateway drugs of alcohol, tobacco or marijuana and led to use of other drugs. [http://www.drugwatch.org/Alcohol%20&%20Tobacco_Gateway%20Drugs.htm]

However, the results of one study can not be used to generalize for all populations, especially when accounting for differences in drinking laws and cultural norms. Additionally, a causal effect has not been definitively established and it is not clear whether certain individuals inevitably seek out drugs or whether one drug causes the use of another.

[[category:addiction]]

Ecstasy

2008-03-13T22:26:48Z

Deshayzilla:

'''Methylenedioxymethamphetamine''' (commonly abbreviated MDMA), which is widely referred to as '''Ecstasy''', is a psychedelic drug that is illegal in the [[United States]]. It is considered to be an empathogenic-enactogen. It is usually taken in pill form, although it can also be insufflated.

The drug first achieved wide-spread popularity when a former seminary student, Michael Clegg, residing in Texas, was inspired by his first experience with the drug. He claimed that he had always wanted to know "the thoughts of God". At a time when the substance was unscheduled and unregulated, he began giving the drug away for free, but started selling it when the cost of production became "prohibitively expensive". [http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-1564288654365150131&autoPlay=true&playerMode=embed]

Recently, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) has received FDA-approval for research into the possible benefits of MDMA in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. The results thus far have been uniquely promising. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/20/AR2007112001777_pf.html]

==Effects of MDMA==
MDMA produces a euphoric "high" that lasts several hours by releasing serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin amongst other neurotransmitters. Users become extraordinarily peaceful and friendly as almost all hostility is repressed. A short period of diminished mood and a general feeling of malaise are a common once the high diminishes, although many users report little or no negative after-effects.
[[Category:Illegal substances]]

At high doses, MDMA may elevate heart rate and blood pressure significantly, cause dehydration, and hyperthermia. When used repeatedly on the order of several times a month, depression, persistent anxiety, and short-term memory loss may result. Whether or not these effects are reversible remains an area of ongoing research.

Global warming

2008-02-19T04:00:41Z

Deshayzilla: /* Al Gore's Assault on Science */

[[Image:RobinsonWhatWarmsTheEarth.gif|right|frame]]

'''Global Warming''' is the theory that the cumulative carbon emissions due to fossil fuel burning by man has caused and is continuing to cause a significant increase in Earth's average temperature. Since 1989, advocates have clashed on the issue of whether human beings are more responsible than nature for modern periods of global warming; see "[[greenhouse warming]]" and [[global warming theory]].<ref>Some people predicted "global warming," which has come to mean extreme [[greenhouse warming]] of the atmosphere leading to catastrophic environmental consequences. [http://www.junkscience.com/news/robinson.htm]</ref>

As an issue, it is a political battle over the science of climate change and is mainly used to justify support for the [[Kyoto Protocol]], which seeks to restrict [[carbon dioxide]] production on the grounds that it accelerates the "[[greenhouse effect]]". As of 2008, the United States is one of only a few countries around the world which have not ratified the treaty.

Most non-scientific support for the global warming theory rests on popular accounts such as Al Gore's ''[[An Inconvenient Truth]]'' or on reports issued by the UN's [[IPCC]]. However, Keston Green of Monash University and Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School wrote that:

*Because the forecasting processes examined in Chapter 8 overlook scientific evidence on forecasting, the IPCC forecasts of climate change are not scientific. <ref>http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/WarmAudit31.pdf</ref>

Politician [[Al Gore]] calls it a [[moral issue]], while scientist [[Richard Lindzen]] says, "It is probably the most immoral thing you could do to restrain energy so that the billions in the earth who don’t have access to electricity won't conveniently get it." <ref>http://www.americaabroadmedia.org/media/On%20line%20extra%20materials/Climate%20change%20-%20lindzen%20interview.doc</ref>
However, it is to be noted that many proponents of the theory propose energy conservation only until 'green' energy generation becomes predominant.{{Fact}}

In the general, the term ''global warming'' can be used for any upward trend in the [[global mean temperature]], but it is mostly used to refer to the most significantly accelerated period of warming beginning in the middle portion of the 20th century. The two sides are divided on whether this warming is a natural recovery from the [[Little Ice Age]] or a man-made environmental problem.

Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. are evenly split on the issue. ''Boston Globe'' writer [[Ellen Goodman]] wrote:
* 23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe [[anthropogenic global warming theory|the warming is due to humans]], while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it. <ref> [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/02/09/no_change_in_political_climate/] </ref>

As we learn more about climate, the "settled" conclusions of global warming [[alarmist]]s, appear more and more ridiculous.
"Clinging to alarmist scenarios for which there is no evidence, is simply exploitation of public gullibility." <ref>http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:A0llnpZ71lMJ:www.physics.harvard.edu/~motl/lindzen-nature-of-arguments.pdf+warming&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us</ref>

==The Modern Warm Period==
[[Image:Artic 1979.jpg‎|left|thumb|275px|A computer projection comparing the Polar Ice Mass in 1979 (left) and 2000 (right).]]
Average [[Earth]] surface air temperature has risen about 1° F since 1970.
<ref>Hansen's group at the Goddard Institute wrote, "Global warming is now 0.6 °C [1.0 °F] in the past three decades and 0.8 °C [1.4 °F] in the past century." http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/</ref> How much of this is due to contamination of the temperature record from the [[urban heat island]] effect is hard to assess. Efforts are currently underway to detect and remove this bias. Spurious warming trends that might be considered as global warming can occur almost anywhere. <ref>http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/01/29/do-urban-areas-have-larger-long-term-temperature-trends-than-other-locations/feed/</ref>
Nonetheless, controversy has persisted over the influence of urban warming on reported large-scale surface-air temperature trends. <ref>http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/01/29/do-urban-areas-have-larger-long-term-temperature-trends-than-other-locations/feed/</ref>

According to temperature reconstruction made within an [[Old Earth]] paradigm, there have been many cycles of naturally-caused global warming and cooling over many millions of years (see [[climate cycles]]). Some scientists, including [[Richard Lindzen]] of [[MIT]], [[Sallie Baliunas]] of [[Harvard]] and [[Fred Singer]] (independent), say that the recent warming could be part of another natural cycle or random fluctuations in the atmosphere. However, many scientists also think that human activities were most likely the cause of the the planet's recent warming.

A [[United Nations]] panel ([[IPCC]]) asserts that most of the warming since around 1850 is human-caused. Global warming alarmists call this panel "authoritative". Others question its objectivity, and a handful of scientists have resigned from the panel in protest over unauthorized changes in scientific reports.

In February, 2007, the [[IPCC|Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]], whose members were appointed by their governments, released their fourth assessment report on climate change. That report concluded that most of recent global warming was "very likely" caused by human activity<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6321351.stm</ref>. It says that increases in atmospheric concentrations of [[greenhouse gas]]es cause warming. Several members of this panel later complained their contributions were misrepresented in the final report.

===IPCC controversy===
A reporter for the ''Chicago Tribune'' called the IPCC "the top body of climate change scientists in the world". <ref>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704280477apr29,1,4275902.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed</ref>

Fred Singer and other scientists dispute this view. 


==False Claims of "Consensus"==

[[Richard Lindzen]] wrote in 1992,

:Indeed, a recent Gallup poll of climate scientists in the American Meteorological Society and in the American Geophysical Union shows that a vast majority doubts that there has been any identifiable man-caused warming to date (49 percent asserted no, 33 percent did not know, 18 percent thought some has occurred; however, among those actively involved in research and publishing frequently in peer-reviewed research journals, none believes that any man-caused global warming has been identified so far). <ref>http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html</ref>

Oddly enough, even though 82% of US climate scientists refused to support the global warming theory then, liberal activists were already claiming a scientific consensus for [[anthropogenic global warming]]. (It's hard to understand how 18 percent credence in ''any'' global warming translates into "consensus" support for ''human-caused'' global warming.)

The campaign to convince the public (and their elected representatives) that the "science is settled" began in 1988 or 1989, shortly after the communist nations lost the Cold War.


==The Hockey Stick Temperature Reconstruction==
[[Image:Hockey stick chart ipcc.jpg|right|thumb|300px|The flawed Hockey Stick graph in a 2001 IPCC report shows blue proxy values along the "shaft" with red instrumental values superimposed as the "blade".]]
One of the main pieces of evidence for anthropogenic global warming presented during the 3rd IPCC report was a temperature reconstruction done by climatologist [[Michael Mann]]. The resulting graph of the Northern Hemisphere temperature is shaped like a hockey stick, and it is used as evidence for the unusualness of the earth's temperature in the past few decades.

While dramatic, the graph encountered serious questions from the beginning. It failed to reproduce two Northern Hemisphere climate episodes that were well documented in the literature, the Medieval Warm Period and The Little Ice Age (it should be noted that these were not global phenomenons, but were limited to Europe and Greenland; the Mann diagram concerned global average temperatures). Concerned about these discrepancies, [[Stephen McIntyre]] and [[Canada|Canadian]] economist Ross McKitrick attempted to reproduce the result and discovered a serious flaw in the statistical methods used to construct the hockey stick graph. Because of this, the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC included several different temperature reconstruction methods instead of favoring just one hypothesis.

==Natural Variability of the Climate System==
Evolutionary scientists who believe in global warming think that the Earth has experienced numerous [[Ice Age|ice age]]s over two million years, during which global temperatures dropped approximately 11° F and then returned to normal. The frigid temperatures allowed ice sheets to expand southward, covering much of [[Asia]], [[Europe]], and [[North America]]. The cooling associated with ice ages is gradual, while the terminations are relatively rapid. However, even the rapid terminations of ice ages take centuries to millennia.

==Natural Climate Change on Other Planets==

Since the [[Viking spacecraft]] reached [[Mars]] in the 1970s until recent readings were taken, the average temperature on Mars has risen 1.1° F just as the average temperature on the earth has risen. Since human industrialization is clearly not to blame for the change on Mars, other causes are being considered. One possibility is that dust storms are changing the albedo of the planet, allowing it to warm, while another possibility is that solar variations from the sun are causing the warming.<ref>http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070404_gw_mars.html</ref><ref>http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977</ref>

Recently, it has also been found that similar to the Earth and Mars, [[Neptune]] is also undergoing global warming. Measurements taken at the Lowell observatory in [[Arizona]] have shown an increase in Neptune's brightness and temperature since 1980 following the same pattern seen on Earth and Mars. The researchers who discovered this warming suggest there may be a correlation between the warming and solar variations.<ref>http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007.../2006GL028764.shtml</ref>

[[Pluto]] has also been found to be undergoing global warming. The overall temperature increase on Pluto has been greater than that on the earth.<ref>http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html</ref>

On the other hand, [[Uranus]] has been found to be undergoing rapid cooling, for reasons not entirely understood.<ref>http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~layoung/eprint/ur149/Young2001Uranus.pdf</ref>

==Politics of Global Warming==

'Global Warming Now World's Most Boring Topic’ <ref>http://newsbusters.org/node/14167</ref>

The need to fight "global warming" has become part of the dogma of the liberal conscience. <ref>http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html</ref>

Clearly, "global warming" is a tempting issue for many very important groups to exploit.
... dealing with the threat of warming fits in with a great variety of preexisting agendas [like] dissatisfaction with industrial society (neopastoralism), ... governmental desires for enhanced revenues (carbon taxes), and bureaucratic desires for enhanced power. <ref>http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html</ref>

The global average surface temperature warmed about 0.9 °F over the second half of the 20th Century.

Assessments of climate science by the [[United Nations]] (see [[IPCC]] - ''Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change'')
have claimed that scientists are 90% sure that over 50% of the observed global warming in recent decades is human-caused, and that continued global warming should be expected over at least the next century. ''Science'' published a literature search by Naomi Oreskes concluding that "scientific consensus" supports the IPCC reports. <ref>http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686]</ref>

Several prominent scientists have pointed out the [[politicized science]] of the UN's assessment methods. The scientific reports are submitted to a panel of representatives appointed by each country in the IPCC. Several scientists whose research demonstrates that climate change is taking place have complained about their work being misrepresented by the U.N.

*In addition, a number of the participants have testified to the pressures placed on them to emphasize results supportive of the current scenario and to suppress other results. That pressure has frequently been effective, and a survey of participants reveals substantial disagreement with the final report. <ref>http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html</ref>

Richard Lindzen wrote:
:Perhaps more important are the pressures being brought to bear on scientists to get the "right" results. Such pressures are inevitable, given how far out on a limb much of the scientific community has gone. The situation is compounded by the fact that some of the strongest proponents of "global warming" in Congress are also among the major supporters of science (Sen. Gore is notable among those). <ref>http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html</ref>

==Al Gore Claims==

*Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame. Yet the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported, "Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to blame." <ref>http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/450392,CST-EDT-REF30b.article</ref>


*Gore claims the snowcap atop Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro is shrinking and that global warming is to blame. Yet according to the November 23, 2003, issue of Nature magazine, "Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit. Without the forests' humidity, previously moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine." <ref>http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/450392,CST-EDT-REF30b.article</ref>

*Gore claims global warming is causing more tornadoes. Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in February that there has been no scientific link established between global warming and tornadoes. <ref>http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/450392,CST-EDT-REF30b.article</ref>

== Scientists ==

[[Image:Rogerrevelle.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Roger Revelle]]

{|
| valign="top" width="35%"|
* [[Roger Revelle]]
* [[Achim Steiner]]
* [[Fred Singer]]
* [[Richard Lindzen]]
* [[Sallie Baliunas]]
* [[Lonnie Thompson]]
| valign="top" width="33%"|
* [[James E. Hansen]]
* [[Michael Mann]]
* [[Charles Keeling]]
* [[Edwin A. Hernández-Delgado]]
|}

==See Also==
*[[Anthropogenic global warming theory]]
*[[Global Warming Controversy]]
*[[Politics of global warming]]
*[[Liberal_hysteria#Global_Warming_Derangement_Syndrome|Global Warming Derangement Syndrome]]
*[[Socialist Environmental Disasters]]
*[[An Inconvenient Truth]]
*[[Previous Breaking News/Global Warming|Articles about '''Global Warming''' from previous "Breaking News"]]
*[[More News/Global Warming|Articles about '''Global Warming''' from "More News"]]

==External Links==

*[http://global-warming.accuweather.com/2007/12/attempting_to_stop_global_warm_1.html Attempting to Stop Global Warming is Futile and a Mistake, says letter to the UN]
*[http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164004 Signatories of an open letter on the UN climate-conference]
*[http://schwinger.harvard.edu/~motl/global-temperature-not-exist.pdf Does a global temperature exist?], ''Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics'', June 2007.
*[http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2032821,00.html The appliance of science] by Mike Hulme.
*[http://www.climatecrisis.net/ ''An Inconvenient Truth''], Film by [[Al Gore]]
*[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2332531355859226455&q=great+global+warming+swindle ''The Great Global Warming Swindle'' - Documentary Film]
*[http://www.physics.harvard.edu/%7Emotl/iris-effect.pdf Climate Sensitivity and Observed Negative Feedbacks], lecture by Richard Lindzen and Roberto Rondanelli.
*[http://www.physics.harvard.edu/%7Emotl/lindzen-nature-of-arguments.pdf Nature of Arguments for Anthropogenic Global Warming], by Richard Lindzen
*[http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=42 ''Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warmings's Unfinished Debate'', by S. Fred Singer]
*[http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus] - [[Richard S. Lindzen]], Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]
*[http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=47&articleID=604 "Should We Have Acted Thirty Years Ago to Prevent Climate Change?", by Randall G. Holcombe].
*[http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=25&articleID=296 "After Kyoto: A Global Scramble for Advantage," by Bruce Yandle].
*[http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=2319 The physical evidence of earth's unstoppable 1,500-year climate cycle]
*[http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1714 "Is There a Basis for Global Warming Alarm?", by Richard Lindzen]
*[http://www.independent.org/publications/policy_reports/detail.asp?type=full&id=5 "New Perspectives in Climate Change: What the EPA Isn’t Telling Us"]
*[http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17181 Survey Shows Climatologists Are Split on Global Warming]
*[http://www.magma.ca/~hurleyp/FightingTheHoax.htm Fighting the Hoax]
*[http://www.climateaudit.org Climate Audit], Steve McIntyre's blog
*[http://www.realclimate.org Real Climate], blog by a group of climatologists including Michael Mann

==Critique of the Hockey Stick Reconstruction==
*[http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.mckitrick.2003.pdf Corrections To The Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy Data Base And Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series] by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, ''Energy & Enviornment'' volume 14, 2003.
*[http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2007/05/the_decay_of_the_hockey_stick.html The Decay of the Hockey Stick by Von Storch] published on the journal ''Nature'''s blog, May 3, 2007.
*[http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/13830/ A Global Warming Bombshell] by Richard A. Muller, ''Technology Review'' , Oct. 2004; calls into question famous graph by Michael Mann.
*[http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/306/5696/679 Reconstructing Past Climate from Noisy Data] by Hans von Storch, Eduardo Zorita, Julie M. Jones, Yegor Dimitriev, Fidel González-Rouco, Simon F. B. Tett, ''Science'' magazine, 22 October 2004.


==References==
{{reflist|1}}

[[category:earth science]]
[[Category:Environmentalism]]
[[Category:Liberal Bias]]

Global warming

2008-02-19T03:59:01Z

Deshayzilla:

[[Image:RobinsonWhatWarmsTheEarth.gif|right|frame]]

'''Global Warming''' is the theory that the cumulative carbon emissions due to fossil fuel burning by man has caused and is continuing to cause a significant increase in Earth's average temperature. Since 1989, advocates have clashed on the issue of whether human beings are more responsible than nature for modern periods of global warming; see "[[greenhouse warming]]" and [[global warming theory]].<ref>Some people predicted "global warming," which has come to mean extreme [[greenhouse warming]] of the atmosphere leading to catastrophic environmental consequences. [http://www.junkscience.com/news/robinson.htm]</ref>

As an issue, it is a political battle over the science of climate change and is mainly used to justify support for the [[Kyoto Protocol]], which seeks to restrict [[carbon dioxide]] production on the grounds that it accelerates the "[[greenhouse effect]]". As of 2008, the United States is one of only a few countries around the world which have not ratified the treaty.

Most non-scientific support for the global warming theory rests on popular accounts such as Al Gore's ''[[An Inconvenient Truth]]'' or on reports issued by the UN's [[IPCC]]. However, Keston Green of Monash University and Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School wrote that:

*Because the forecasting processes examined in Chapter 8 overlook scientific evidence on forecasting, the IPCC forecasts of climate change are not scientific. <ref>http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/WarmAudit31.pdf</ref>

Politician [[Al Gore]] calls it a [[moral issue]], while scientist [[Richard Lindzen]] says, "It is probably the most immoral thing you could do to restrain energy so that the billions in the earth who don’t have access to electricity won't conveniently get it." <ref>http://www.americaabroadmedia.org/media/On%20line%20extra%20materials/Climate%20change%20-%20lindzen%20interview.doc</ref>
However, it is to be noted that many proponents of the theory propose energy conservation only until 'green' energy generation becomes predominant.{{Fact}}

In the general, the term ''global warming'' can be used for any upward trend in the [[global mean temperature]], but it is mostly used to refer to the most significantly accelerated period of warming beginning in the middle portion of the 20th century. The two sides are divided on whether this warming is a natural recovery from the [[Little Ice Age]] or a man-made environmental problem.

Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. are evenly split on the issue. ''Boston Globe'' writer [[Ellen Goodman]] wrote:
* 23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe [[anthropogenic global warming theory|the warming is due to humans]], while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it. <ref> [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/02/09/no_change_in_political_climate/] </ref>

As we learn more about climate, the "settled" conclusions of global warming [[alarmist]]s, appear more and more ridiculous.
"Clinging to alarmist scenarios for which there is no evidence, is simply exploitation of public gullibility." <ref>http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:A0llnpZ71lMJ:www.physics.harvard.edu/~motl/lindzen-nature-of-arguments.pdf+warming&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us</ref>

==The Modern Warm Period==
[[Image:Artic 1979.jpg‎|left|thumb|275px|A computer projection comparing the Polar Ice Mass in 1979 (left) and 2000 (right).]]
Average [[Earth]] surface air temperature has risen about 1° F since 1970.
<ref>Hansen's group at the Goddard Institute wrote, "Global warming is now 0.6 °C [1.0 °F] in the past three decades and 0.8 °C [1.4 °F] in the past century." http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/</ref> How much of this is due to contamination of the temperature record from the [[urban heat island]] effect is hard to assess. Efforts are currently underway to detect and remove this bias. Spurious warming trends that might be considered as global warming can occur almost anywhere. <ref>http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/01/29/do-urban-areas-have-larger-long-term-temperature-trends-than-other-locations/feed/</ref>
Nonetheless, controversy has persisted over the influence of urban warming on reported large-scale surface-air temperature trends. <ref>http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/01/29/do-urban-areas-have-larger-long-term-temperature-trends-than-other-locations/feed/</ref>

According to temperature reconstruction made within an [[Old Earth]] paradigm, there have been many cycles of naturally-caused global warming and cooling over many millions of years (see [[climate cycles]]). Some scientists, including [[Richard Lindzen]] of [[MIT]], [[Sallie Baliunas]] of [[Harvard]] and [[Fred Singer]] (independent), say that the recent warming could be part of another natural cycle or random fluctuations in the atmosphere. However, many scientists also think that human activities were most likely the cause of the the planet's recent warming.

A [[United Nations]] panel ([[IPCC]]) asserts that most of the warming since around 1850 is human-caused. Global warming alarmists call this panel "authoritative". Others question its objectivity, and a handful of scientists have resigned from the panel in protest over unauthorized changes in scientific reports.

In February, 2007, the [[IPCC|Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]], whose members were appointed by their governments, released their fourth assessment report on climate change. That report concluded that most of recent global warming was "very likely" caused by human activity<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6321351.stm</ref>. It says that increases in atmospheric concentrations of [[greenhouse gas]]es cause warming. Several members of this panel later complained their contributions were misrepresented in the final report.

===IPCC controversy===
A reporter for the ''Chicago Tribune'' called the IPCC "the top body of climate change scientists in the world". <ref>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704280477apr29,1,4275902.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed</ref>

Fred Singer and other scientists dispute this view. 


==False Claims of "Consensus"==

[[Richard Lindzen]] wrote in 1992,

:Indeed, a recent Gallup poll of climate scientists in the American Meteorological Society and in the American Geophysical Union shows that a vast majority doubts that there has been any identifiable man-caused warming to date (49 percent asserted no, 33 percent did not know, 18 percent thought some has occurred; however, among those actively involved in research and publishing frequently in peer-reviewed research journals, none believes that any man-caused global warming has been identified so far). <ref>http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html</ref>

Oddly enough, even though 82% of US climate scientists refused to support the global warming theory then, liberal activists were already claiming a scientific consensus for [[anthropogenic global warming]]. (It's hard to understand how 18 percent credence in ''any'' global warming translates into "consensus" support for ''human-caused'' global warming.)

The campaign to convince the public (and their elected representatives) that the "science is settled" began in 1988 or 1989, shortly after the communist nations lost the Cold War.


==The Hockey Stick Temperature Reconstruction==
[[Image:Hockey stick chart ipcc.jpg|right|thumb|300px|The flawed Hockey Stick graph in a 2001 IPCC report shows blue proxy values along the "shaft" with red instrumental values superimposed as the "blade".]]
One of the main pieces of evidence for anthropogenic global warming presented during the 3rd IPCC report was a temperature reconstruction done by climatologist [[Michael Mann]]. The resulting graph of the Northern Hemisphere temperature is shaped like a hockey stick, and it is used as evidence for the unusualness of the earth's temperature in the past few decades.

While dramatic, the graph encountered serious questions from the beginning. It failed to reproduce two Northern Hemisphere climate episodes that were well documented in the literature, the Medieval Warm Period and The Little Ice Age (it should be noted that these were not global phenomenons, but were limited to Europe and Greenland; the Mann diagram concerned global average temperatures). Concerned about these discrepancies, [[Stephen McIntyre]] and [[Canada|Canadian]] economist Ross McKitrick attempted to reproduce the result and discovered a serious flaw in the statistical methods used to construct the hockey stick graph. Because of this, the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC included several different temperature reconstruction methods instead of favoring just one hypothesis.

==Natural Variability of the Climate System==
Evolutionary scientists who believe in global warming think that the Earth has experienced numerous [[Ice Age|ice age]]s over two million years, during which global temperatures dropped approximately 11° F and then returned to normal. The frigid temperatures allowed ice sheets to expand southward, covering much of [[Asia]], [[Europe]], and [[North America]]. The cooling associated with ice ages is gradual, while the terminations are relatively rapid. However, even the rapid terminations of ice ages take centuries to millennia.

==Natural Climate Change on Other Planets==

Since the [[Viking spacecraft]] reached [[Mars]] in the 1970s until recent readings were taken, the average temperature on Mars has risen 1.1° F just as the average temperature on the earth has risen. Since human industrialization is clearly not to blame for the change on Mars, other causes are being considered. One possibility is that dust storms are changing the albedo of the planet, allowing it to warm, while another possibility is that solar variations from the sun are causing the warming.<ref>http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070404_gw_mars.html</ref><ref>http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977</ref>

Recently, it has also been found that similar to the Earth and Mars, [[Neptune]] is also undergoing global warming. Measurements taken at the Lowell observatory in [[Arizona]] have shown an increase in Neptune's brightness and temperature since 1980 following the same pattern seen on Earth and Mars. The researchers who discovered this warming suggest there may be a correlation between the warming and solar variations.<ref>http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007.../2006GL028764.shtml</ref>

[[Pluto]] has also been found to be undergoing global warming. The overall temperature increase on Pluto has been greater than that on the earth.<ref>http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html</ref>

On the other hand, [[Uranus]] has been found to be undergoing rapid cooling, for reasons not entirely understood.<ref>http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~layoung/eprint/ur149/Young2001Uranus.pdf</ref>

==Politics of Global Warming==

'Global Warming Now World's Most Boring Topic’ <ref>http://newsbusters.org/node/14167</ref>

The need to fight "global warming" has become part of the dogma of the liberal conscience. <ref>http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html</ref>

Clearly, "global warming" is a tempting issue for many very important groups to exploit.
... dealing with the threat of warming fits in with a great variety of preexisting agendas [like] dissatisfaction with industrial society (neopastoralism), ... governmental desires for enhanced revenues (carbon taxes), and bureaucratic desires for enhanced power. <ref>http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html</ref>

The global average surface temperature warmed about 0.9 °F over the second half of the 20th Century.

Assessments of climate science by the [[United Nations]] (see [[IPCC]] - ''Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change'')
have claimed that scientists are 90% sure that over 50% of the observed global warming in recent decades is human-caused, and that continued global warming should be expected over at least the next century. ''Science'' published a literature search by Naomi Oreskes concluding that "scientific consensus" supports the IPCC reports. <ref>http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686]</ref>

Several prominent scientists have pointed out the [[politicized science]] of the UN's assessment methods. The scientific reports are submitted to a panel of representatives appointed by each country in the IPCC. Several scientists whose research demonstrates that climate change is taking place have complained about their work being misrepresented by the U.N.

*In addition, a number of the participants have testified to the pressures placed on them to emphasize results supportive of the current scenario and to suppress other results. That pressure has frequently been effective, and a survey of participants reveals substantial disagreement with the final report. <ref>http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html</ref>

Richard Lindzen wrote:
:Perhaps more important are the pressures being brought to bear on scientists to get the "right" results. Such pressures are inevitable, given how far out on a limb much of the scientific community has gone. The situation is compounded by the fact that some of the strongest proponents of "global warming" in Congress are also among the major supporters of science (Sen. Gore is notable among those). <ref>http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html</ref>

==Al Gore's Assault on Science==

*Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame. Yet the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported, "Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to blame." <ref>http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/450392,CST-EDT-REF30b.article</ref>


*Gore claims the snowcap atop Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro is shrinking and that global warming is to blame. Yet according to the November 23, 2003, issue of Nature magazine, "Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit. Without the forests' humidity, previously moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine." <ref>http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/450392,CST-EDT-REF30b.article</ref>

*Gore claims global warming is causing more tornadoes. Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in February that there has been no scientific link established between global warming and tornadoes. <ref>http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/450392,CST-EDT-REF30b.article</ref>

== Scientists ==

[[Image:Rogerrevelle.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Roger Revelle]]

{|
| valign="top" width="35%"|
* [[Roger Revelle]]
* [[Achim Steiner]]
* [[Fred Singer]]
* [[Richard Lindzen]]
* [[Sallie Baliunas]]
* [[Lonnie Thompson]]
| valign="top" width="33%"|
* [[James E. Hansen]]
* [[Michael Mann]]
* [[Charles Keeling]]
* [[Edwin A. Hernández-Delgado]]
|}

==See Also==
*[[Anthropogenic global warming theory]]
*[[Global Warming Controversy]]
*[[Politics of global warming]]
*[[Liberal_hysteria#Global_Warming_Derangement_Syndrome|Global Warming Derangement Syndrome]]
*[[Socialist Environmental Disasters]]
*[[An Inconvenient Truth]]
*[[Previous Breaking News/Global Warming|Articles about '''Global Warming''' from previous "Breaking News"]]
*[[More News/Global Warming|Articles about '''Global Warming''' from "More News"]]

==External Links==

*[http://global-warming.accuweather.com/2007/12/attempting_to_stop_global_warm_1.html Attempting to Stop Global Warming is Futile and a Mistake, says letter to the UN]
*[http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164004 Signatories of an open letter on the UN climate-conference]
*[http://schwinger.harvard.edu/~motl/global-temperature-not-exist.pdf Does a global temperature exist?], ''Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics'', June 2007.
*[http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2032821,00.html The appliance of science] by Mike Hulme.
*[http://www.climatecrisis.net/ ''An Inconvenient Truth''], Film by [[Al Gore]]
*[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2332531355859226455&q=great+global+warming+swindle ''The Great Global Warming Swindle'' - Documentary Film]
*[http://www.physics.harvard.edu/%7Emotl/iris-effect.pdf Climate Sensitivity and Observed Negative Feedbacks], lecture by Richard Lindzen and Roberto Rondanelli.
*[http://www.physics.harvard.edu/%7Emotl/lindzen-nature-of-arguments.pdf Nature of Arguments for Anthropogenic Global Warming], by Richard Lindzen
*[http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=42 ''Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warmings's Unfinished Debate'', by S. Fred Singer]
*[http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus] - [[Richard S. Lindzen]], Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]
*[http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=47&articleID=604 "Should We Have Acted Thirty Years Ago to Prevent Climate Change?", by Randall G. Holcombe].
*[http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=25&articleID=296 "After Kyoto: A Global Scramble for Advantage," by Bruce Yandle].
*[http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=2319 The physical evidence of earth's unstoppable 1,500-year climate cycle]
*[http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1714 "Is There a Basis for Global Warming Alarm?", by Richard Lindzen]
*[http://www.independent.org/publications/policy_reports/detail.asp?type=full&id=5 "New Perspectives in Climate Change: What the EPA Isn’t Telling Us"]
*[http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17181 Survey Shows Climatologists Are Split on Global Warming]
*[http://www.magma.ca/~hurleyp/FightingTheHoax.htm Fighting the Hoax]
*[http://www.climateaudit.org Climate Audit], Steve McIntyre's blog
*[http://www.realclimate.org Real Climate], blog by a group of climatologists including Michael Mann

==Critique of the Hockey Stick Reconstruction==
*[http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.mckitrick.2003.pdf Corrections To The Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy Data Base And Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series] by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, ''Energy & Enviornment'' volume 14, 2003.
*[http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2007/05/the_decay_of_the_hockey_stick.html The Decay of the Hockey Stick by Von Storch] published on the journal ''Nature'''s blog, May 3, 2007.
*[http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/13830/ A Global Warming Bombshell] by Richard A. Muller, ''Technology Review'' , Oct. 2004; calls into question famous graph by Michael Mann.
*[http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/306/5696/679 Reconstructing Past Climate from Noisy Data] by Hans von Storch, Eduardo Zorita, Julie M. Jones, Yegor Dimitriev, Fidel González-Rouco, Simon F. B. Tett, ''Science'' magazine, 22 October 2004.


==References==
{{reflist|1}}

[[category:earth science]]
[[Category:Environmentalism]]
[[Category:Liberal Bias]]

Metallica

2008-02-19T03:26:28Z

Deshayzilla:

'''Metallica''' is an American [[thrash metal]]/[[heavy metal]] band known for establishing the thrash metal genre along with Slayer, [[Megadeth]], and Anthrax known as the "Big Four." First formed in 1981, in Los Angeles by guitarist and lead vocalist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich<ref>http://www.metallica.com/Band/history.asp</ref>, they have become one of the most popular in-concert bands while selling about 90 million records worldwide.<ref>http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artist/2q8c/</ref>

They have released a total of eight studio albums, the most well known being Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and Metallica and plan to release a ninth in February, 2008<ref>http://www.metallica.com/index.asp?item=14828</ref>

The band has come under criticism following their campaign to sue internet users who shared their music on Napster.

==Curent lineup==
*James Hetfield (guitars and vocals)
*Lars Ulrich (drums)
*Kirk Hammett (guitars)
*Robert Trujillo (bass)

==Discography==
*''Kill 'Em All'' (1983)
*''Ride the Lightning'' (1984)
*''Master of Puppets'' (1986)
*''...And Justice for All'' (1988)
*''Metallica'' (1991)
*''Load'' (1996)
*''ReLoad'' (1997)
*''St. Anger'' (2003)

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.metallica.com/ Official Metallica Website]

[[Category:Bands]]

Netherlands

2008-02-14T03:12:37Z

Deshayzilla: /* Netherlands drug policies */ improving grammar and organization

{{Country|
|map=Netherlands_map.gif
|flag=Netherlandsflag.gif
|arms=
|capital=Amsterdam
|government=Constitutional monarchy
|language=Dutch
|queen=Beatrix
|president=
|chancellor=
|pm=Jan Peter Balkenende
|area=41,526 km²
|pop=16,570,613
|pop-basis=2007 estimate
|gdp-year=2006 (est)
|gdp-pc=$35,078
|currency=Euro (€) (EUR)
|idd=31
|tld=.nl
}}

The '''Kingdom of the Netherlands''' (''Dutch: Koningrijk der Nederlanden'') is a country in [[Europe]]. It is bordered by [[Belgium]] and [[Germany]], and has a total population of approximately 16,5 million (2007). Its system of government is constitutional monarchy. The country is often referred to as "Holland", this was originally the name of two densely populated provinces of the country (North-Holland and South-Holland), the cities of [[Amsterdam]], [[Rotterdam]] and [[The Hague]] all lie in these provinces that have always been the most influential regions in the Netherlands, leading to the point where foreigners would equate Holland with the Netherlands.

As its name implies, it is a very low-lying country. About a quarter of the land area, containing more than half of the population, is actually below sea level, and would flood if the sea were not held back by a system of dikes. The Dutch have a saying that "God created the earth, but the Dutch made Holland".

A major breach of the dikes occurred in 1953, killing 1800 people.
To avoid a repeat of the disaster the Dutch began construction of the "Delta Project" to protect the country from future inundations. Begun in 1953 and completed in 2002 the Delta Project is considered a modern wonder of civil engineering. After [[Hurricane Katrina]], a delegation of American engineers was invited by the Dutch government to see how the project works and how its technology can be applied in the United States for low-lying cities like [[New Orleans]].

[[Amsterdam]], named for the Amstel river, is the largest city, and the capital of the Netherlands. Amsterdam is ringed by an extensive system of concentric canals. The seat of government, however, is located for historical reasons in [[The Hague]] (''Den Haag'' or '' 's Gravenhage'' in Dutch. ).

[[Eindhoven]] is the location of the giant electronics corporation, Philips (full name: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.), with annual revenue equivalent to about $40 billion. (The U.S. corporation [[General Electric]] has revenues of about $150 billion, but much of it is from non-electronics businesses). The Eindhoven area is known for its high concetration of high-tech industires, which include ASML, the world primary producer of lithography system for the production of semiconductors, and ''Océ'', a leading producer of printers and copiers.

[[Groningen]] is home to many branches of ''KPN'', the former state company of Post, Telegraphy and Telephony. It had its headquarters in Groningen when it was still state run, and move to [[The Hague]] since. ''KPN'' stands for ''Koninklijke PTT Nederland'', or ''Royal PTT Netherlands''. Groningen is also home to ''Gasunie'' (Gasunion), a public-private partnership that exploits the natural gas reseves in the province of Groningen and the adjoint [[North Sea]].

The Netherlands is also the home of the Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell, whose full name is ''Royal Dutch Shell'' or ''Koninklijke Nederlandse Shell''. Other well known Dutch or partly Dutch multinationals are ''Unilever'', a company owning many household brands, ''ING Group'', a banking group, ''Ahold'', an international chain of supermarkets, ''Reed Elsevier'', a publishing house, ''Nielsen Company'', owner of the [[Yellow Pages]], and ''Randstad Holding'', a company providing ''human resource services''. The famous ''Dutch East India Company'', known in Dutch as ''Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie'' or VOC, which dominated trade in with South-East Asia in the 17th century, is regarded as the first multinational in history.

The Netherlands has long been famous for its production of flowers, and also for a related economic event, the "tulip mania" of 1636-1637. A classic example of a "bubble," [[tulip]]s were traded on stock exchanges, and bid up to fantastic prices by people who understood that the prices were crazy but hoped to sell at a profit to even crazier investors. Many people mortgaged their homes for a single tulip bulb and in one case an entire brewery was exchanged for a few bulbs. As with all bubbles, when bidding began to lag people tried to sell and the bubble burst with disastrous consequences. Since then the Dutch have been renowned for their carefulness with money and have established a significant presence in the banking and financial sectors.

The Netherlands is also famous for its low-crime rate (although comparable to other western European nations) and [[libertarian]] legislation. Examples are licensed prostitution in designated areas of major cities, such as Amsterdam's Red Light District, the legal soft [[drugs]] sold in the country's many coffee shops, [[abortion]] rights, [[same-sex marriage]]s and [[euthanasia]].

==Netherlands drug policies==

Consuming and carrying (for personal use only) the "soft drugs" ([[marijuana]], [[hashish]] and [[hallucinogenic mushrooms]]) were made legal in the Netherlands in 1976 in a final attempt to stop drug-related crime in the 1970s. Soft drugs can be legally purchased by individuals over 18 in the famed (licensed) coffee shops, that do sell coffee as well, but are prohibited from serving alcohol.
The Dutch policy regarding soft drugs (and previously prostitution) is called "gedoogbeleid" (condonement policy). This means that although certain behavior is officially prohibited by law, a condonement clause prevents law enforcement agencies from persecuting this behavior. This clause is, legally speaking, not a law and can be reverted much easier than a regular law.

The main reason for this policy is to try to split the market for "soft drugs" from the one for "hard drugs", this to avoid that users "upgrade" from soft to "hard drugs" (the latter are still illegal). So in short, the law tries to prevent citizen's exposure to hard drugs by providing a legal context in which to purchase cannabis. The policy also allows the police to focus on the war on hard drugs and criminal trade, and avoid the exhaustive bureaucratic costs associated with low-profile possession busts. In fact, most major cities in the world have similar non-prosecution policies, but the Dutch one is the only nationwide one.

Interestingly, growing marijuana and hashish for commercial purposes is still officially illegal (it is legal to own up to four plants per household), causing coffee shop owners to rely on illegal homegrown products. Only two state run companies are exempted from this rule in order to grow marijuana for medicinal purposes. Leftist movements have stated that the government should make its mind up: "either make growing marijuana and hashish legal, or ban soft drugs altogether".

The legal status of soft drugs has had no significant adverse effects on Dutch society. This is probably due to the fact that it has become a more or less socially accepted drug like alcohol and tobacco, removing the need for dealers and effectively terminating cannabis' status as an anti-establishment symbol, and in effect diminishing its' popularity somewhat amongst youth.

==Queen's Day==

April 30th is known as Queen's Day (''Koninginnedag'') - the national holiday to mark the official birthday of the monarch. This is actually the birthday of former Queen Juliana (Queen Beatrix's mother) but has been kept as the official holiday because of the better weather (Queen Beatrix's actual birthday is 31 January). Queen's Day is the one day of the year when ordinary Netherlanders are permitted to sell goods on the streets without a license. Consequently the whole country is turned into a gigantic flea market (garage sale). The primary effect of this is that people buy goods they do not want or need, solely in order to sell them the following year. In an act of patriotism, most of the populace wear orange colored clothing (the national color) to identify with the Royal House Of Orange-Nassau.

Those not involved with selling their surplus belongings celebrate the national holiday at outdoors parties in the cities or with fine weather, spend the free day on a terrace of a pub, or cycle in the national ''Fietsen op Dijken '' tour around the nation's dikes.

==Anne Frank==
Anne Frank was a famous German Jewish girl who hid from Nazis in the house of friends in Amsterdam. She wrote a diary which was later published and became a best seller. Her family left Germany in 1933 because of the Nazis, but the Nazis caught up with her and sent her to Belsen death camp where she died before end of war in 1945. Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam is now a popular tourist attraction.

==Society==

[[Same sex marriage]] has been recognized by the Dutch government since 2001.<ref>[http://marriage.about.com/cs/samesexmarriage/a/samesex.htm About.com]</ref>

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:European Countries]]
[[Category:NATO members]]
[[Category:EU Members]]

Internet

2008-02-14T03:05:59Z

Deshayzilla: /* Controversy */

The '''Internet''' is a global network of interconnected smaller [[computer]] networks. Data is transmitted between computers and networks in small packets using the Internet Protocol (IP); they are reassembled at their destination. It originated in the work of DARPA, a research division of the US Army.

The conceptual foundation for the internet's creation was significantly developed by three individuals and a research conference, each of which changed the way we thought about communication, business and the exchange of technology:

*Vannevar Bush wrote the first description of the potential uses for information technology with his description of the "memex" automated library system.
*Norbert Wiener invented the field of Cybernetics, encouraging future researchers to focus on the use of technology to extend human capabilities.
*The 1956 Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence conference defined the concept that technology was improving at an exponential rate, and provided the first serious consideration of the consequences, the benefits and advantages or such a network.
*Marshall McLuhan made the idea of a global village interconnected by an electronic nervous system part of our popular culture. <ref>http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii.htm </ref>

The Internet is sometimes also known as "[[cyberspace]]." Sometimes it is inaccurately referred to as the Web or the [[World Wide Web]], because the Web is only one of numerous protocols that operate on the Internet.

The common protocol used to access websites (including this one) is the Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The creator of this is [[Sir Tim Berners-Lee]], who recently in an online magazine article claimed that given the opportunity, he wouldn't use the HTTP format for websites. Berners-Lee is currently the director of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

[[Ted Stevens]] famously referred to the internet as "a series of tubes" during a panel on [[network neutrality]]. While the statement was technically inaccurate, it is a reasonable depiction of the internet as an interconnected system to a lay person. The internet is formed from two basic elements, routers and connections. A router is basically a small computer that acts like a switching station, similar to the pumping stations of public water utilities. The connections are the pipes themselves, acting as a means to move packets from one router to another, and eventually from server to client.

==Controversy==

Although the Internet has been shown to contain valuable information, it also contains pornographic or otherwise vulgar material. Therefore, some conservatives would like to see tighter controls on the Internet which would limit what can be hosted and what can be downloaded.

In 1999, [[Democratic]] presidential candidate [[Al Gore]] misspoke when intending to take partial credit for the development of the internet when he referenced his High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991, commonly known as the "Gore Bill":<ref>http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/03/09/president.2000/transcript.gore/</ref>

:CNN's WOLF BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now.

:Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?

:AL GORE: Well, I will be offering -- I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.

:But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

==See Also==
*[[Digital Philosophy]]

== References ==
<references/>

[[Category:Information technology]]
[[Category:Internet]]

Oprah Winfrey

2008-02-14T03:02:14Z

Deshayzilla:

[[image: Oprah closeup.jpg|thumb|right|300px]]

'''Oprah Winfrey''' is a successful talk show host, and is one of the [[rich]]est African-Americans of all time, and is considered one of the most influential.

Winfrey is a liberal [[Democrat]], and has donated money to the Democratic Party, but received some praise in 2000 for allowing both presidential candidates, [[George W. Bush]] and [[Al Gore]], to appear on her show in a fairly balanced manner, despite her personal views.<ref>[http://www.american-partisan.com/cols/rollins/092100.htm]</ref> Winfrey has been a strong supporter of [[Barack Obama]] during the 2008 presidential campaign.<ref>[http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071208/ap_po/oprah_obama Oprah's star power to shine for Obama]</ref>
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Celebrities]]
[[Category:Women]]