Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

User:JamesCarmody

2008-03-08T03:03:56Z

JamesCarmody: Yup!

I came her to help, in my own time at my own expense. After this [[User_talk:Aschlafly#Explaining_myself|pathetic response]] I'll not bother.

# [[Special:Contributions/JamesCarmody|Contributions]]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:JamesCarmody Blocking and unblocking] (give him a chance to explain himself)
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400842&oldid=400176 Response]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400843&oldid=400842 Aschlafly's reply]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Usability&oldid=400846 Create an article] so "we can learn"
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400847&oldid=400843 Further clarification]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400853&oldid=400847 Aschlafly not quite getting it]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400862&oldid=400853 Incredulity sets in]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400866&oldid=400862 Talk talk talk] See [[last wordism]]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400871&oldid=400868 Yup!]

User:JamesCarmody

2008-03-08T02:59:33Z

JamesCarmody: typo

User:JamesCarmody

2008-03-08T02:48:50Z

JamesCarmody: valediction

I came her to help, in my own time at my own expense. After this [[User_talk:Aschlafly#Explaining_myself|pathetic response]] I'll not bother.

# [[Special:Contributions/JamesCarmody|Contributions]]
# [http://www.fbiproxy.com/browse.php?u=Oi8vd3d3LmNvbnNlcnZhcGVkaWEuY29tL2luZGV4LnBocD90aXRsZT1TcGVjaWFsOkxvZyZhbXA7dHlwZT1ibG9jayZhbXA7cGFnZT1Vc2VyOkphbWVzQ2FybW9keQ%3D%3D&b=61 Blocking and unblocking] (give him a chance to explain himself)
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400842&oldid=400176 Response]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400843&oldid=400842 Aschlafly's reply]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Usability&oldid=400846 Create an article] so "we can learn"
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400847&oldid=400843 Further clarification]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400853&oldid=400847 Aschlafly not quite getting it]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400862&oldid=400853 Incredulity sets in]
# [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=59900&diff=400866&oldid=400862 Talk talk talk] See [[last wordism]]

Liberals and Academia

2008-03-08T01:57:44Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

The phrase '''Professor values''' refers to the lack of morals and values in the culture of college faculties, which is characterized by [[atheism]], [[censorship]], [[socialism]], advocacy of [[liberal]] beliefs, [[liberal grading]], and promotion of sexual immorality.

There are about 3600 colleges, many small, and perhaps 500,000 professors. Yet there have been a relatively large number of shocking crimes and bizarre conduct.

== Shocking Murders by Professors ==

Kansas State University English professor Thomas Murray was a popular teacher, but he was convicted of murdering his ex-wife with 17 stab wounds and blunt trauma to her head. She "was found dead in her bedroom atop a dresser."<ref>http://www.courttv.com/trials/murray/backgrounder_ctv.html</ref> Professor Murray had written several books, including "The Language of Sadomasochism."<ref>''Id.''</ref>

He did not testify in his defense and spoke only sentencing, where he called the state's case a "fairy tale."<ref>http://www.kansaspublicradio.org/newsstory.php?itemID=5892</ref>

(add more examples)

== References ==

<references/>

[[Category:Liberals]]

Usability

2008-03-08T01:47:22Z

JamesCarmody: create

In relation to websites, and other software for that matter, '''usability''' is the art of making an application easy for your visitors to find the exact information they need when they need it. Anything that slows the process inhibits usability. Conversely, easy, intuitive navigation and strong, informative text enhance usability. Utimately the user should be able to use and follow the application, such as a website, without complicated instructions easily avoiding getting lost or getting frustrated by not finding what they are looking for.

Usability usually involves three core components:
*effectiveness (how well a task can be completed such as finding particular information)
*efficiency (how easy or quick it is to complete the task)
*satisfaction (the user's perception or opinion of the system).

[[Category:Internet]][[Category:Computer science]]

Liberal elite

2008-03-08T01:14:58Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

The '''Liberal Elite''' is a term used to describe those high ranking members of society - Politicians, college educators and celebrities - who regularly promote the Liberal agenda to unsuspecting teenagers and young people. In Ireland, the Liberal Elite is symbolized by [[Pat Kenny]], a prominent talk show host who displays all the worst aspects of the [[Liberal_style#Examples_of_Liberal_Style|Liberal Style]] of debating.
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Liberal Christianity

2008-03-08T01:14:30Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

'''Liberal Christianity''' is a term used in the [[United States]] to describe [[Christians]] who hold theologically, socially, or politically [[liberal]] views.

Liberal Christianity may refer to liberal theological movements, which take many forms in modern Christianity. In the most popular Christian denominations, support for the ordination of women is disallowed as a liberal position. These [[faith]]s also oppose endorsing same-sex unions as contrary to the [[Bible]] and the foundation of the family.

Liberal Christianity may refer to an opinion or advocacy position on certain political issues. Liberal Christians may oppose the death penalty because of their religious views; they may believe in "tax and spend" approaches to poverty; they may consider aggressive interrogation of terrorists to constitute "torture" that should be banned; and they may elevate animal rights to the level of human rights as part of [[environmentalism]].
[[Category:Christian movements]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Hippie

2008-03-08T01:12:43Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

[[Image:Hippies.jpg|right]]

The '''Hippie''' subculture originated in the late 1960s, in rebellion to "all repressive hierarchical power structures since these are adverse to the hippie goals of peace, love and freedom." <ref>http://www.hippy.com/hippyway.htm</ref>

Hippies were noted for psychedelic [[music]], sexual freedom, [[drug]] use, and rejecting what they saw as the [[materialism|materialistic]] values of the society around them. The non-violent movement was largely in response to the the [[Vietnam War]] and used the slogan "peace and love".

Many of the elements of hippie counterculture, such as an anti-corporate ideology and the [[anarchy|anarchic]], experimental, [[libertarian|libertarian]] strands, have stayed with hippies as they grew up. Many aspects of alternative cultures that were shocking in the 1960s have now become acceptable in mainstream society, such as "recreational" use of psychedelic drugs. <ref> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1612717,00.html </ref>

Hippies were preceded by the counter-culture [[beatnik]] movement in the 1950s.

==Christian Alternative==
"[[Jesus Freak]]s" were hippies who were born-again [[Christian]]s and followed Christ's commandments regarding the importance of [[love]] and eschewed the use of drugs. Many hippies experimented with alternative living arrangements such as [[commune]]s, where all work and all possessions were shared.

==Examples in Pop Culture==
In the movie ''[[Easy Rider]]'' the protagonists visit a hippie commune in [[California]]. [[Tom Wolfe]]'s account of [[Ken Kesey]]'s [[Merry Pranksters]] in his book ''[[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]'' documented one aspect of the hippie scene.

==Famous Hippies==

===Ken Kesey===
Most famous for writing the novel "[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]," [[Ken Kesey]] was also known as one of the most famous hippies of the 1960's. He famously rode around on top of a technicolor school bus called "Furthur." He had a troupe of hippies with whom he lived and traveled, called the [[Merry Pranksters]]. The adventures of Kesey and the Pranksters are documented in "[[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]," by [[Tom Wolfe]].

===Timothy Leary===
Dr. Timothy Leary (1920 – 1996) was an American psychologist who advocated the use of and research into psychedelic drugs, including LSD. He is best known for coining the phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out."

===[[Harry Hay]]===
Harry Hay was founder of the Radical Faeries, a loosely affiliated international group of mostly gay men, hippies, neopagans, environmentalists, and eco-feminists. Hay is a radical who is accredited as the founder of the modern [[gay rights]] movement in the United States. As an octogenarian Hay was still known to dress as a hippie <ref>http://www.eyeweekly.com/eye/issue/issue_01.11.01/columns/pink.php</ref>.

==External Links==
*[http://www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/14_flower_children.htm Flower Children]

==References==

<References/>

[[Category:Politics]]
[[category:culture]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Feminism

2008-03-08T01:11:24Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

'''Feminism''' originally was an expression used by [[suffragettes]] - who were predominantly [[pro-life]]<ref>[http://www.godlessprolifers.org/library/wallace4.html ''Susan B. Anthony opposed abortion'']</ref><ref>''"There is no question that she deplored the practice of abortion, as did every one of her colleagues in the suffrage movement."'' [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/opinion/13schiff.html?_r=1&oref=slogin ''Desperately Seeking Susan''] [[New York Times]] (13 October 2006)</ref><ref>[http://www.feministsforlife.org/history/foremoth.htm ''Voices of our Feminist Foremothers''] Feminists for Life</ref> - to obtain the right for women to vote in the early 1900s in the [[United States]] and the [[United Kingdom]]. By the late 1900s, however, [[liberals]] had changed the meaning to represent people who favored [[abortion]] and the identical treatment of women in the military and in society as a whole. Specifically, modern feminists tend to:

* believe that a "village" (i.e., others) should raise children rather than the child's father and mother<ref>Leading feminist [[Hillary Clinton]]'s famous book was entitled, "It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us," in reference to raising children.</ref>
* loathe [[chivalry]] and dislike men patronizing women, as in holding the door open for them
* anti-father, viewing traditional [[marriage]] as unacceptably patriarchal
* dislike of macho activities, like male-only contact sports
* prefer for role-reversal, like girls playing football and boys being cheerleaders for it, or men baking cookies for women
* oppose single-sex schooling and seek to abolish all-male ''private'' clubs
* express outrage at highly macho events, like the Duke lacrosse party or [[Tailhook]]
* insist that childrearing activities be shared equally by men and women in every respect, rather than a productive division of labor
* support [[affirmative action]] for women
* detest women who are happy in traditional roles, such as housewife, and especially dislike those who defend such roles
* prefer that women wear pants rather than dresses, presumably because men do
* women in combat in the military just like men, and coed submarines

==History==
Roots of the movement in the United States and the United Kingdom include the [[Women's Suffrage]] movement of the early 1900's and the [[Women's Liberation]] (or "Second Wave Feminist") movement of the 1960's and 1970's.

The [[Equal Rights Amendment]], which proponents claimed would address the inadequacies of the [[Fourteenth Amendment]] concerning women and citizenship, was proposed in the US in 1923. The amendment passed Congress in 1972 but was ultimately defeated, falling just three states short of the required three-quarters majority on June 30, 1982. The majority of Americans felt that its passage would entail several consequences, including making girls subject to the military draft, the integration of single-sex schools, the possible recognition of homosexual marriage, and the revocation of laws that protect women in dangerous jobs, such as factory or mining work. {{fact}}

The feminist movement in the West evolved in the 1980s with the rise of so-called [[Post-Feminism]] (also called "[[Third-Wave]]" feminism), which stresses that women have many rights that go unrecognized, often by women themselves, in everyday life, and in the American legal structure. Most members of the feminist movement support reproductive rights currently guaranteed by American law, including the legal right to [[abortion]]. This stance is opposed by many conservatives, leading political commentator [[Rush Limbaugh]] to coin the term "Femi-nazis" to refer to extreme feminist activists.

During the administration of [[Bill Clinton]], feminism made a partial resurgence, but feminist leadership largely failed to criticize President Clinton's [[sexist]] behavior toward female employees as both Arkansas Governor and U.S. President.<ref>Odone, Christina [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article528875.ece ''Left-wing misogyny is alive and well: The party’s feminist agenda allows Labour men to get away with sexist behaviour''] (2 June 2005) [[The Times]]</ref><ref>Jackson, Candice E. ''"Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine"'' (World Ahead Publishing; 2005) ISBN 0-9746-7013-8</ref>

==Quotations==
"The nuclear family must be destroyed ... Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process" - Linda Gordon

"I feel that 'man-hating' is an honourable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them." - Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor

"I haven't the faintest notion what possible revolutionary role white hetero-sexual men could fulfill, since they are the very embodiment of reactionary-vested-interest-power. But then, I have great difficulty examining what men in general could possibly do about all this. In addition to doing the sh*twork that women have been doing for generations, possibly not exist? No, I really don't mean that. Yes, I really do" - Robin Morgan

"Marriage has existed for the benefit of men; and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women ... We must work to destroy it. The end of the institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation of women. Therefore it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not to live individually with men ... All of history must be re-written in terms of oppression of women. We must go back to ancient female religions like witchcraft" (from "The Declaration of Feminism" November, 1971)

"In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent" - Catharine MacKinnon, quoted in Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies

"The feminista agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become [[lesbian]]s" - Pat Robertson, fundraising letter, 1992

"The people I'm furious with are the Women's Liberationists. They keep getting up on soapboxes and proclaiming women are brighter than men. That's true, but it should be kept quiet or it ruins the whole racket" - Anita Loos

"We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage" - Robin Morgan

"I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire" - Robin Morgan

"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex" - [[Valerie Solanas]], [[SCUM]] founder (Society for Cutting Up Men)

"The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness...can be trained to do most things" - Jilly Cooper, [[SCUM]] (Society For Cutting Up Men, started by [[Valerie Solanas]])

"Women are not inherently passive or peaceful. We're not inherently anything but human." - Robin Morgan

"Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women's movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage" - Sheila Cronin, the leader of the feminist organization NOW

"I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig" - [[Andrea Dworkin]]

"Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice" - [[Andrea Dworkin]]

"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies" - [[Andrea Dworkin]]

"In my own life, I don't have intercourse. That is my choice" - [[Andrea Dworkin]]

Under patriarchy, every woman's son is her potential betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman" - [[Andrea Dworkin]]

"To be rapeable, a position that is social, not biological, defines what a woman is" - [[Andrea Dworkin]]

Q: People think you are very hostile to men A: "I am" - [[Andrea Dworkin]]

"Men use the night to erase us" - [[Andrea Dworkin]]

"The annihilation of a woman's personality, individuality, will, character, is prerequisite to male sexuality" - [[Andrea Dworkin]]

"Men love death. In everything they make, they hollow out a central place for death, let its rancid smell contaminate every dimension of whatever still survives. Men especially love murder. In art they celebrate it, and in life they commit it. They embrace murder as if life without it would be devoid of passion, meaning, and action, as if murder were solace, stilling their sobs as they mourn the emptiness and alienation of their lives" - [[Andrea Dworkin]]

"Men are rapists, batterers, plunderers, killers; these same men are religious prophets, poets, heroes, figures of romance, adventure, accomplishment, figures ennobled by tragedy and defeat. Men have claimed the earth, called it 'Her'. Men ruin Her. Men have airplanes, guns, bombs, poisonous gases, weapons so perverse and deadly that they defy any authentically human imagination" - [[Andrea Dworkin]], Pornography: Men Possessing Women

"On the Left, on the Right, in the Middle; Authors, statesmen, thieves; so-called humanists and self-declared fascists; the adventurous and the contemplative, in every realm of male expression and action, violence is experienced and articulated as love and freedom" - [[Andrea Dworkin]], Pornography: Men Possessing Women

"The institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist" - Ti-Grace Atkinson

"Feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice" - Ti-Grace Atkinson

"It matters more what's in a woman's face than what's on it." - Claudette Colbert, quoted in Kindling the Spirit by Lois P. Frankel

"Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear" - Susan Brownmiller; Authoress of Against Our Will p.6

"When a woman reaches orgasm with a man she is only collaborating with the patriarchal system, eroticizing her own oppression" - Sheila Jeffrys

"Politically, I call it rape whenever a woman has sex and feels violated" - Catharine MacKinnon

"All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman" - Catharine MacKinnon

"You grow up with your father holding you down and covering your mouth so another man can make a horrible searing pain between your legs" - Catharine MacKinnon (Prominent legal feminist scholar; Universities of Michigan & Yale)

"In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent" - Catharine MacKinnon, quoted in ''Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies''

"The more famous and powerful I get the more power I have to hurt men" - Sharon Stone, Actress

"Ninety-five percent of women's experiences are about being a victim. Or about being an underdog, or having to survive ... women didn't go to Vietnam and blow things up. They are not [[Rambo]]" - Jodie Foster, Actress - as quoted in The New York Times Magazine

"The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race" - Sally Miller Gearhart, in ''The Future - If There Is One - Is Female''

"And if the professional rapist is to be separated from the average dominant heterosexual (male), it may be mainly a quantitative difference" - Susan Griffin, Rape: The All-American Crime

"If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males" - Mary Daly, former Professor at Boston College, 2001

"If anyone is prosecuted for filing a false report, then victims of real attacks will be less likely to report them" - David Angier

"To use the word [rape] carefully would be to be careful for the sake of the violator, and the survivors don't care a hoot about him. … They [men unjustly accused of rape] have a lot of pain, but it is not a pain that I would necessarily have spared them. I think it ideally initiates a process of self-exploration. 'How do I see women?' 'If I didn't violate her, could I have?' 'Do I have the potential to do to her what they say I did?' Those are good questions." - Catherine Comins, assistant dean of student life at Vassar in 1991 [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,973077-6,00.html]

"As long as some men use physical force to subjugate females, all men need not. The knowledge that some men do suffices to threaten all women. He can beat or kill the woman he claims to love; he can rape women ... he can sexually molest his daughters ... THE VAST MAJORITY OF MEN IN THE WORLD DO ONE OR MORE OF THE ABOVE" - Marilyn French (her emphasis)

My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don't even need to shrug. I simply don't care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don't matter" - Marilyn French; The Woman's Room

"All patriarchists exalt the home and family as sacred, demanding it remain inviolate from prying eyes. Men want privacy for their violations of women ... All women learn in childhood that women as a sex are men's prey" - Marilyn French

"All men are rapists and that's all they are" - Marilyn French, Authoress; (later, advisoress to Al Gore's Presidential Campaign)

"The media treat male assaults on women like rape, beating, and murder of wives and female lovers, or male incest with children, as individual aberrations ... obscuring the fact that all male violence toward women is part of a concerted campaign" - Marilyn French

"I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He's just incapable of it" - Barbara Jordan, former congresswoman

"Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release" - [[Germaine Greer]]

"Man-hating is everywhere, but everywhere it is twisted and transformed, disguised, tranquilized, and qualified. It coexists, never peacefully, with the love, desire, respect, and need women also feel for men. Always man-hating is shadowed by its milder, more diplomatic and doubtful twin, ambivalence" - Judith Levine, Authoress

"I feel what they feel: man-hating, that volatile admixture of pity, contempt, disgust, envy, alienation, fear, and rage at men. It is hatred not only for the anonymous man who makes sucking noises on the street, not only for the rapist or the judge who acquits him, but for what the Greeks called philo-aphilos, 'hate in love' for the men women share their lives with - husbands, lovers, friends, fathers, brothers, sons, co-workers." - Judith Levine, Authoress of My Enemy, My love

"There are no boundaries between affectionate sex and slavery in (the male) world. Distinctions between pleasure and danger are academic; the dirty-laundrylist of 'sex acts' ... includes rape, foot binding, fellatio, intercourse, auto eroticism, incest, anal intercourse, use and production of pornography, cunnilingus, sexual harassment, and murder" - Judith Levine; summarizing comment on the WAS document (A Southern Women's Writing Collective: Women Against Sex)

((Delaney Nickerson, of the American Coalition for ABUSE AWARENESS, refers to the False Memory Syndrome Foundation as "The F---ing Molesters Society" (Miami Herald, April 3, 1995) The ACAA is a lobbying group, which includes Ellen Bass (co-author of THE COURAGE TO HEAL), and Rene Frederickson, leading feminist psychotherapist and strong proponent of repressed memory theory))

((At the STONE ANGELS satanic ritual abuse conference in Thunder Bay in February, 1995, the following was contained in the handouts at a conference supported financially by the Ontario Government: FMS stands for: FULL OF MOSTLY SH*T; FOR MORE SADISM; FELONS, MURDERERS, SCUMBALLS; FREQUENT MOLESTERS SOCIETY))

"Women have their faults / men have only two: / everything they say / everything they do" -- Popular Feminist Graffiti

"I was, in reality, bred by my parents as my father's concubine... What we take for granted as the stability of family life may well depend on the sexual slavery of our children. What's more, this is a cynical arrangement our institutions have colluded to conceal" - Sylvia Fraser, Journalist

Catharine MacKinnon maintains that "the private is a sphere of battery, marital rape and women's exploited labor." In this way, privacy and family are reduced to nothing more than aspects of the master plan, which is male domination. Democratic freedoms and the need to keep the state's nose out of our personal affairs are rendered meaningless. The real reason our society cherishes privacy is because men have invented it as an excuse to conceal their criminality. If people still insist that the traditional family is about love and mutual aid - ideals which, admittedly, are sometimes betrayed - they're "hiding from the truth" The family isn't a place where battery and marital rape sometimes happen but where little else apparently does. Sick men don't simply molest their daughters, they operate in league with their wives to "breed" them for that purpose - Donna Laframboise; The Princess at the Window (in a critical explication of the Catharine MacKinnon, Gloria Steinhem et al, tenets of misandric belief)

"If the classroom situation is very heteropatriarchal - a large beginning class of 50 to 60 students, say, with few feminist students - I am likely to define my task as largely one of recruitment ... of persuading students that women are oppressed" - Professor Joyce Trebilcot of Washington University, as quoted in Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women

"Men, as a group, tend to be abusive, either verbally, sexually or emotionally. There are always the exceptions, but they are few and far between (I am married to one of them). There are different levels of violence and abuse and individual men buy into this system by varying degrees. But the male power structure always remains intact." - Message on FEMISA, responding to a request for arguments that men are unnecessary for a child to grow into mature adulthood.

Another posting on FEMISA: "Considering the nature and pervasiveness of men's violence, I would say that without question, children are better off being raised without the presence of men. Assaults on women and children are mostly perpetrated by men whom they are supposed to love and trust: fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, step-fathers." (Both above quotes taken from Daphne Patai's excellent critical work, [[Heterophobia]])

"At Brandies I discovered Feminism. And I instantly became a convert... writing brilliant papers in my Myths of Patriarchy class, in which I likened my fate as a woman to other victims throughout the ages." - Heather Hart 7

Here are 10 reasons why we are concerned about feminism and the National Organisation for Women

1. "The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist" - National NOW Times, January, 1988

2. "Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women's movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage" - feminist leader Sheila Cronan

3. In response to a question concerning China's policy of compulsory abortion after the first child, Molly Yard responded, "I consider the Chinese government's policy among the most intelligent in the world" - Gary Bauer, "Abetting Coercion in China" The Washington Times, Oct. 10, 1989

4. "Overthrowing capitalism is too small for us. We must overthrow the whole ... patriarch!" - [[Gloria Steinem]], radical feminist leader, editor of Ms. Magazine

5. "Marriage has existed for the benefit of men; and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women.... We must work to destroy it. The end of the institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation of women. Therefore it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not to live individually with men ... All of history must be re-written in terms of oppression of women. We must go back to ancient female religions like witchcraft" (from "The Declaration of Feminism" November, 1971)

6. "By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God" - [[Gloria Steinem]], editor of Ms. Magazine)

7. "Let's forget about the mythical Jesus and look for encouragement, solace, and inspiration from real women ... Two thousand years of patriarchal rule under the shadow of the cross ought to be enough to turn women toward the feminist 'salvation' of this world" - Annie Laurie Gaylor, "Feminist Salvation," The Humanist, p. 37, July/August 1988

8. "In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them" - Dr. Mary Jo Bane, feminist and assistant professor of education at Wellesley College, and associate director of the school's Center for Research on Woman

9. "Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession... The choice to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family- maker is a choice that shouldn't be. The heart of radical feminism is to change that" - Vivian Gornick, feminist author, University of Illinois, The Daily Illini, April 25, 1981

10. "The most merciful thing a large family can to do one of its infant members is to kill it" - Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, in "Women and the New Race" p. 67

"Women's chains have been forged by men, not by anatomy." - Estelle R. Ramey

"I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectives but as nouns." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Our Girls"

"We are, as a sex, infinitely superior to men" - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
From 'A feminist Dictionary; ed. Kramarae and Triechler, Pandora Press, 1985:

MALE: ... represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants ... the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female

MAN: ... an obsolete life form ... an ordinary creature who needs to be watched ...a contradictory baby-man ...

TESTOSTERONE POISONING: ... 'Until now it has been though that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from "testosterone poisoning"

Letter to editor: "Women's Turn to Dominate" "... Clearly you are not yet a free-thinking feminist but rather one of those women who bounce off the male-dominated, male-controlled social structures. Who cares how men feel or what they do or whether they suffer? They have had over 2000 years to dominate and made a complete hash of it. Now it is our turn. My only comment to men is: if you don't like it, bad luck - and if you get in my way I'll run you down" Signed: Liberated Women, Boronia Herald-Sun, Melbourne, Australia. 9 February, 1996

“Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism” - Catharine MacKinnon

The English novelist and critic [[Rebecca West]] said <ref>http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/rebecca_west.html</ref> :

<blockquote> "I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute." </blockquote>

The televangelist [[Pat Robertson]] said <ref> Fundraising letter, 1992 quoted on http://www.gainesvillehumanists.org/patr.htm </ref>:

<blockquote>"The [[Feminism|feminist agenda]] is not about equal rights for women. It is about a [[socialist]], anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, [[abortion|kill their children]], practice [[witchcraft]], destroy capitalism, and become [[Homosexuality|lesbian]]s." <ref>Pat Robertson, fund-raising letter, 1992</ref></blockquote>

==See also==
*[[Gender equality]]

==References==
{{reflist|small}}

==External Links==
*[http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/ The Feminist eZine] Archive of articles about Feminist History.
*[http://www.cia-on-campus.org/surveil/steinem.html Gloria Steinem and the CIA], ''The New York Times'', February 21, 1967.
*[http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg02217.html Inside the CIA with Gloria Steinem], Nancy Borman, ''The Village Voice''.

[[Category:Liberal Falsehoods]]

Conservaphobia

2008-03-08T01:09:45Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

'''Conservaphobia''' is the hysterical, irrational opposition to [[conservative]]s, [[conservative]] speech and [[Conservapedia]] by people who otherwise claim that they support the right of [[free speech]].

==See Also==
*[[Phobia]]
[[category:politics]]
[[category:psychology]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Collectivism

2008-03-08T01:09:06Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

{{rewrite|unclear definitions}}
'''Collectivism''' in government is based on the notion that the welfare of the group takes precedence over individual rights. It is based upon the flawed logical premise that the sum is greater than its parts. It is generally preferred by [[liberal]]s. [[Libertarians]] generally prefer [[individualism]].{{fact}}

==Notes==
<references/>

==See also==
*[[Economic planning]]
*[[Socialism]]

[[category:politics]]
[[Category:Liberal Falsehoods]]

Class warfare

2008-03-08T01:08:30Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

'''Class warfare''' is a [[Marxist]] notion that people in different social classes must necessarily be in conflict with each other, the rich seeking to keep the poor down and the poor seeking to take away what belongs to the rich.

==External Links==
*[http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2008/03/karl-marx-and-democrats-why-i-hate.html Karl Marx and the Democrats: Why I hate Class Warfare], [[Mike Volpe]], ''[[The Provocateur]]'', March 1, 2008

[[Category:politics]]
[[Category:Sociology]]
[[Category:Communism]]
[[Category:Liberal Falsehoods]]

Godless liberal

2008-03-08T01:06:37Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

"'''Godless Liberal'''" is a pejorative term describing [[Liberal]]s who are [[atheists]], or whom their opponents claim believe in purging spirituality and all references to [[God]] from public life.

[[George Clooney]] regularly describes himself as a 'godless liberal' in a joking manner.
[[category:politics]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Moral relativism

2008-03-08T01:03:26Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

Moral relativism is the philosophy that moral standards should vary from society to society, and from time to time in history. Under this theory, ethical principles are not universal and are merely social products. This theory teaches that there is no objective moral order or absolute [[truth]]. It has been linked to [[atheism]] and to [[Communist]] and [[Nazi]] ideology.
[[category:philosophy]]
[[Category:Liberal Falsehoods]]

Exotheology

2008-03-08T00:59:40Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

Exotheology, or UFO religion, refers to the (imaginary) theology of (imaginary) extraterrestrial beings. This requires a strong form of belief in life in outer space: it implies not only that life in outer space somehow exists, but that it is intelligent and even has a theology of its own.

Exotheology was pursued by [[liberals]] in the 1960s through 1970s. Most scientists in the late 1970s, such as President [[Jimmy Carter]]'s [[Carl Sagan]], believed in intelligent life in outer space. "Scientists today generally assume, and the mathematical probabilities favor, the existence of intelligent life among the myriad planets wheeling through the cosmos."<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,916129,00.html Time magazine Apr. 24, 1978]</ref>

== References ==

<references/>

[[category:Paganism]]
[[category:deceit]]
[[Category:Liberal Falsehoods]]

Extraterrestrial life

2008-03-08T00:58:57Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

'''Extraterrestrial life''' is [[Life science|life]], whether demonstrated, hypothesized, or merely imagined, that did not obviously originate on the [[earth]]. It has been a staple of [[science fiction]] since the [[Edward VII|Edwardian]] era, but has also lately become the subject of intense speculation, scientific debate, and even theological debate.

The term ''life'' is here used in its usual manner to connote living things, regardless of complexity or condition of sentience. However, in [[science fiction]] especially, extraterrestrial life may take unconventional form, such as non-carbon-based life forms or even disembodied intelligence.

The term ''race'' here means a species of sentient individuals (not an ethnographic subdivision of a single species); for example, humans all belong to only one race, the human race.

== Extraterrestrial life as a scientific hypothesis ==
Vigorous scientific research on the subject is fairly limited, and has focused on both the "micro" and "macro" aspects of the problem:

# The [[exogenesis]], nature, survival, and movement of primitive life forms, including the hazard that such microbes might pose to [[astronaut]]s or to the earth itself.
# The possibility of prior or future detection, contact, trade, or war with an extraterrestrial [[civilization]].

=== Microbes and other primitive forms ===
[[Image:PIA09027 a anno br.jpg|400px|right]]

Extraterrestrial microbes have been and remain the subject of much serious scientific speculation. Such speculation has centered on three questions:

# Could a microbe of extraterrestrial origin somehow come to earth and cause a killer [[pandemic]]?<ref>This question of ''back-contamination'' was a serious worry in the middle years of [[Project Apollo]]--that is, the time of the first four missions of that project. [[National Aeronautics and Space Administration|NASA]], the launch authority for Apollo, required the crews of the first three missions actually to reach the [[moon]] to spend weeks in [[quarantine]] while under the constant care and watch of a [[physician]]. Only after three crews landed on the moon and returned to earth with no ill effect and no evidence of having contracted any communicable disease on the moon or in space did NASA drop that requirement. (The crew of [[Apollo 13]] did not face this requirement because their in-flight emergency precluded their planned landing.)</ref>
# Did life on earth begin with the "seeding" of the earth from outside? This theory, called [[panspermia]], alleges that either (a) the earth acquired the seeds of life by passing through the tail of a [[comet]], or (b) an extraterrestrial ''civilization'' sent the seeds of life ''deliberately'' for one reason or another. Extraterrestrial microbes would be involved in either case.
# Might a human crew or human-directed robotic explorer find extraterrestrial microbes on another [[planet]]?

With the continued development and perfection of telescopes, [[Astronomy|astronomers]] and [[rocket]] [[science|scientists]] have openly and often feverishly speculated about whether the other planets in our [[solar system]] might harbor forms of life that originated on those planets. This speculation has also extended to [[Titan]], the largest satellite of the planet [[Saturn]].

The major considerations driving such speculation are the requirements of life, and the difficulty with the theory of [[abiogenesis]] as a workable origin of [[life]] on [[earth]]. Most scientists engaged in such speculation seem to agree that life requires at least two things in order to self-generate in any environment:

# [[Water]]
# An [[atmosphere]]
[[Image:Mars_meteorite.jpg|thumb|150px|[[Meteor]]ite believed to have once been a part of [[Mars]] and to contain [[fossil]] evidence that primitive [[life]] may have existed on Mars.[http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/mars/meteorites/html/s94_032549.html Image source] ]]
Currently the most exciting subject for speculation concerning extraterrestrial life is the planet [[Mars]]. Its atmosphere is quite thin, and this would militate against the presence of life or, more to the point, the presence of standing or flowing water. But photographs taken from orbit and from the surface of Mars reveal erosion channels that strongly suggest that water once flowed on Mars. Indeed, the first graphic above shows changes in a gully in two views of it, taken four years apart--as if liquid water had opened another erosion channel in the meantime. (The operators of the Mars Global Surveyor insist that such pictures might still contain artifacts that make them unsuitable for scientific research, and hence disclaim any definite conclusion that anyone might be tempted to draw from them.) The second graphic shows a [[meteor]]ite, found in [[Antarctica]] in 1984, containing microscopic cavities that once might have held [[microbes]] and that, until recently, was believed to have fallen to earth from Mars.<ref>Donald L. Savage, James Hartsfield, and David Salisbury, "[http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/nasa1.html Meteorite Yields Evidence of Primitive Life on Early Mars]," ''Mars Meteorite Project'', press release 96-160, August 7, 1996. Retrieved April 17, 2007, from the [[Jet Propulsion Laboratory]] Web servers.</ref>

If one could show that abiogenesis occurred on Mars, then that process was far more likely to have occurred on earth than it would be absent such a showing or finding. Yet apart from the reliability of such evidence is this one inherent weakness for this argument: it assumes that life ''found'' on Mars ''originated'' on Mars. The [[Hydroplate theory]] of the [[Great Flood]] suggests that large quantities of water, including muddy slurries, were ejected into space during the initial fissure of the original earth's crust, and that these ejecta persist today as [[comet]]s, [[asteroid]]s, and [[meteor]]oids. If such ejected water and mud fell to Mars from above, then they might have held [[microbes]]--and therefore any microbes found on Mars are far more likely to have come from earth during the Noachic Flood than to have originated on Mars.<ref>If such life forms survived, that need not be a great shock to any observer. [[Extremophiles]], or microbes known to thrive under conditions that would kill or render dormant any other form of life, are well-known on earth and have even been the subject of engineering studies attempting to find practical uses for them.</ref>

Space scientists have searched for extraterrestrial microbes for years. To date, no definitive proof of such microbes has been found. The Antarctic meteorite mentioned above, and the alleged bacterial fossils on it, fueled speculation for months, until other scientists finally determined that the microbes involved probably were earthly contaminants.<ref>Rick Lockridge, "[http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9801/15/contaminated.rock/ Scientists dispute NASA's claims about Mars meteorite]", ''The Cable News Network'', January 15, 1998. Retrieved April 17, 2007 from CNN's web servers.</ref>

Nevertheless, the finding of extraterrestrial microbes on [[Mars]] is one of the fondest expressed hopes of NASA planetary scientists<ref>Authors unknown, "[http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/life/ Do Martians Exist?], ''NASA Mars Exploration'', 05 Oct 2005 04:51:40 UTC. Retrieved April 17, 2007, from [[NASA]].</ref> and of other scientists and advocacy groups<ref>Everett Gibson, Jr., David S. McKay, and Kathie Thomas-Kerpta, "[http://www.marssociety.org/portal/TMS_Library/MAR_98_046/view Life on Mars: Evidence from Martian Meteorites]," ''Proceedings of the Founding Convention of the Mars Society'', R. M. Zubrin and M. Zubrin, eds. 1998. Retrieved April 17, 2007, from [http://www.marssociety.org The Mars Society].</ref> hoping to persuade the [[United States]] government, or perhaps the [[United Nations]], to fund crewed expeditions to Mars. Furthermore, no sane space mission planner could in good conscience ignore the potential hazard of the transport of a microbe to earth and the release of that microbe into earth's [[biosphere]]. Happily, measures for containing such a microbe, perhaps derived from those measures taken during [[Project Apollo]], would contribute a relatively insignificant amount to the total budget of a program of crewed missions to Mars or to any other celestial body.

[[Francis Crick]] and [[Leslie Orgel]], in 1973,<ref>Crick, F. H. C., and Orgel, L. E. "Directed Panspermia," ''Icarus'', 19, 341 (1973).</ref> openly speculated on a form of exogenesis called [[Panspermia#Directed panspermia|directed panspermia]], in which such an extraterrestrial nation-state fired a brace of missiles, each laden with [[bacteria]] and/or [[blue-green algae]], in all directions. One such missile crashed on earth, and we are its by-product, as it were, their theory states.<ref>For a detailed discussion on the logical weaknesses and omissions of such a position, see the main article on [[Panspermia]].</ref>

====Candidates for extraterrestrial life in our Solar System====
Besides [[Earth]] there are two moons and one planet that scientists consider possibly habitable to some form of life.
#[[Mars]], as mentioned above, is the most popular candidate. Ice is known to exist at the poles. Some liquid water might exist on Mars because temperatures occasionally rise above freezing.
#The [[Jupiter|Jovian]] moon [[Europa]] is covered with a thick sheet of ice. Scientists speculate that a liquid ocean may exist under the crust and that may harbour life.
#[[Titan]], a moon of [[Saturn]], has approximately the same percentage of [[nitrogen]] in its atmosphere as in Earth's. Titan also has [[ocean]]s and thick clouds. Scientists have determined that the oceans are liquid [[methane]], not water, and that the low temperatures of -178 Celcius make life, at least as we know it, highly improbable.

=== Extraterrestrial Civilizations ===
Do one or more extraterrestrial civilizations exist? Until recently, speculation about extraterrestrial races was confined either to [[science fiction]] or to innumerable anecdotal reports of "[[UFO|unidentified flying objects]]." These latter reports were once the subject of an investigation, known as [[Project Blue Book]], by the [[United States Air Force]].<ref>Anonymous, "[http://www.ufoevidence.org/topics/ProjectBlueBook.htm Project Blue Book]", ''[http://www.ufoevidence.org/ UFO Evidence.org]'', retrieved April 16, 2007</ref><ref>Anonymous, ''[http://www.bluebookarchive.org/ The Project Blue Book Archive]'', retrieved April 16, 2007</ref><ref>Fund for Unidentified Flying Object Research (FUFOR), ''[http://www.nicap.org/index.htm Official Site of the National Investigative Committee for Aerial Phenomena]'', Francis L. Ridge, editor and Webmaster, December 15, 1997 to present. Retrieved April 16, 2007.</ref><ref>Presumably the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics|Soviet]] Army Air Forces had their own version of Blue Book as well.</ref> But years after Blue Book wound down, a large cadre of scientists began to entertain seriously the notion that extraterrestrial civilizations might exist.

SETI ('''S'''earch for '''E'''xtra'''t'''errestrial '''I'''ntelligence)<ref>[http://www.seti.org/site/pp.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=178025 Home of the SETI Institute]</ref> is the name given to several government and privately-funded projects that over the years have searched for evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations. This is done by listening via [[radiotelescope]] on a defined frequency band for any transmission having any semblance of order. The frequency band is one that, they believe, is the likeliest region in the [[electromagnetic spectrum]] for anyone to be sending a signal intended to cross interstellar, or even intergalactic, space.

No definitive evidence exists for any form of extraterrestrial civilization. While the [[Project Blue Book]] investigators found a number of cases that they had to classify as "unknown," they were able to classify the bulk of the anecdotes as anything from outright hoaxes to misinterpretations of common weather features to misinterpretation of the sightings of ordinary aircraft.<ref>The Air Force might also have acted in a deceptive manner in certain isolated cases in which what the witnesses took for [[UFO]]s were actually secret experimental prototypes. Perhaps some of these prototypes exist today as the [[B-2]], [[F-117]], and other [[Stealth aircraft]].</ref> Neither has any [[Astronomy|astronomer]] or [[astronaut]] reported a definite sighting of, much less contact with, any carrier-like vessel that would have been capable of launching any of the alleged two-seater or similar small-crewed craft that various "witnesses" report having encountered. Nor has any [[physics|physicist]] yet suggested a method by which such a craft could have visited our [[solar system]], given the fixed speed limit set by the [[Special Theory of Relativity]]. Finally, the SETI project, for all their searching for a signal (even to recruiting civilians to participate in a "distributed computing" project to process the noise they have received from their radiotelescopes), have never isolated anything like a definite signal.

====The Drake Equation====
In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake developed a method for estimating of the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the galaxy. The Drake Equation simply begins with the number of stars, then multiplies that number by a series of probabilities (probability that a star has planets, that a planet can support life, etc.) to obtain the quantity desired (number of populated planets, number of civilizations whose existence is detectable, etc.).

In principle, the Drake Equation can provide an upper and lower bound for the number of extraterrestrial civilizations by setting upper and lower bounds for each probability factor, which can then be improved upon as better information becomes available. Because the number of stars in so huge, even the lower bound is often calculated to be a respectable number. However, a serious problem is that some of the probabilities are completely unknown, or even unknowable. For example, the probability of life emerging on a planet is a meaningless concept if life is created directly by God and not by some naturalistic process.

If any of the probabilities appearing in the equation is zero, then the number of extraterrestrial civilizations of course goes to zero. This is a serious problem if one relies only on naturalistic explanations of the genesis of life. One of the most well-accepted scientific laws, the [[law of biogenesis]], says that life only comes from life, which means that it cannot come from non-life. Furthermore, scientific observations are that evolution itself is impossible, as evolution requires ''increasing'' genetic [[information]], whereas observations show that living things ''lose'' genetic information.<ref>Wieland, Carl, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/431/ The evolution train’s a-comin’], ''Creation'' 24(2):16–19, March 2002.</ref>

== Extraterrestrial Life in Science Fiction ==
Extraterrestrial nation-states and, almost as often, extraterrestrial microbes, have been a staple of [[science fiction]] since soon after science-fiction writers first began speculating on what sort of inventions might carry men into outer space, and what they might discover there. [[H. G. Wells]] even speculated on an extraterrestrial civilization on the [[moon]], populated by man-sized insects (''The First Men in the Moon''). Wells also speculated that the Martian nation-state would launch an invasion of earth (''The War of the Worlds''), an invasion that would fail when the Martian soldiers and pilots fell terminally ill with earthly microbes against which their immune systems would have no defense. [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] indulged in far richer speculation on an entire civilization on Mars, and on semi-regular commerce between his Martians and a select few visitors from earth.

The middle twentieth century saw the introduction of a number of popular-culture icons that were either:
# Humans caught up in events on other, inhabited worlds, some of which were making war against the earth, or
# An extraterrestrial "refugee" that became an obvious [[God-substitute]] after, [[Moses]]-like, he crashed to earth in a small space capsule launched from a world that later destroyed itself in a cataclysm far more devastating than the [[Great Flood]] had been.

In addition to this, the [[motion picture]] industry, especially in the [[United States]] but also in [[United Kingdom|Great Britain]], produced scores of low-budget films having a theme involving an extraterrestrial nation-state attempting either:

# To recruit humans, usually by fraudulent means, into assisting them in weapons or defensive-systems development,
# To subvert human society and/or the international community by infiltration or by playing some individual humans or human nation-states against others, or:
# To invade the earth by main force.

The motion picture industry abandoned that theme as the century progressed, and produced a number of films showing extraterrestrials to be friendly. Toward the very end of the century, the theme of extraterrestrial invasion returned, in the form of a number of high-budget films that linked the basic theme to a number of modern-day legends, including:

# The alleged crash of an extraterrestrial scout craft near [[Roswell]], [[New Mexico]], [[United States]].
# The synthetic religion, called [[Scientology]], developed by the late [[L. Ron Hubbard]]. This movement informed many of Hubbard's works, including [[Battlefield Earth]] (which the actor [[John Travolta]], an adherent of Scientology, has lately adapted for the [[motion picture]]s), and [[Mission Earth]], a ten-volume series completed shortly before Hubbard's death and published posthumously.

The [[Star Trek]] [[television]] franchise that [[Gene Roddenberry]] created, with its myriad of extraterrestrial and often trans-galactic nation-states and empires hardly needs introduction. But in addition, producer [[Quinn Martin]] created a series that centered on one man's attempt to warn his government that certain people were not what they appeared, but were instead extraterrestrial spies. More recently, [[Kenneth Johnston]] created a concept (''V'') of a space-borne force whose commanding admiral and officers at first puts on a friendly appearance similar to that of [[Matthew Perry]] (the American [[commodore]] who first visited [[Japan]]) but, soon afterward, subvert human governmental and media institutions in order to further their true purpose, which is to steal earth's water and carry away earth's population for food.

Nor have science fiction writers ignored speculation on the finding of extraterrestrial microbes. Usually they have portrayed such microbes as capable of producing deadly extinction-level pandemics. (See, for example, ''The Andromeda Strain'' by Michael Crichton.) John B. Olson and Randall S. Ingermanson, however, speculated that the first crew to fly to Mars might discover incontrovertible evidence of microbial life--including a culturable microbe. This would engender excitement in the hearts of their launch authorites, but would also inspire such fear in the mind of a [[National Aeronautics and Space Administration|NASA]] engineer that she would actually attempt to strand or murder the crew to stop them from [[back-contamination|back-contaminating]] the earth with their culture.

== Christian Views on Extraterrestrial Life ==
The question of whether the existence of an extraterrestrial race is compatible with the [[Bible]] is in sharp dispute. The dispute is probably of modern origin--the Catholic Church never issued any formal pronouncement on the question of alien life, and most Protestant confessions are silent on the matter. Those insisting that the Bible is entirely compatible with extraterrestrial races hold that the Bible contains no verse that says directly that man is the only sentient race in the universe.

===John 10:16 ===
Compatability advocates quote this verse:{{Bible quote|I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.|book=John|chap=10|verses=16|version=NASB}}

Critics of this position point out that that verse probably referred to the distinction between [[Judaism|Jew]] and Gentile, and reject the proposition that "other sheep" might include extraterrestrial races.

===Uniqueness of the Atonement===
Opponents hold that the presence of such a race would give the lie to the claim of [[Jesus|Jesus Christ]] that He came to take away the sin of the world.<ref>{{Bible ref|book=I_John|chap=2|verses=2|version=NASB}}</ref>, and that He died once and only once to bring this about. They contend that since Jesus is referred to singly (as he was an individual person), this rules out the possibility of an alien counterpart to Jesus, and that an alien counterpart to Jesus is a necessary precondition for an alien nation to exist.<ref>{{Bible ref|book=Genesis|chap=1|verses=26-28|version=NASB}}</ref><ref>{{Bible ref|book=Romans|chap=5|verses=14|version=NASB}}</ref>--and that Kingdom is also not of this universe, or "cosmos".

Defenders of the compatibility position might insist that neither of the two verses named above speaks directly to the uniqueness claim. But the original [[Hebrew]] and [[Greek]] texts use definite article adjectives and references to a specific person named [[Adam]] (and another, named [[Jesus]]), with no hint that either Adam or Jesus had any counterpart elsewhere in the cosmos. These things militate in favor of uniqueness almost as well as any direct negation of plurality might. Again, compatibility defenders might cite a lack of evidence that any hypothetical alien race would ''require'' counterparts to Jesus or Adam. But [[Christian]] critics reply that if the Bible is real at all, then life does not arise out of non-life. Therefore ''every'' race would have its Adam--and if any given Adam did ''not'' fall into sin, then his race would be under strict Divine orders to avoid contact with humans until the "hour of temptation" (see above) came to pass.<ref>For a further exposition of the uniqueness position, see [[Essay: Extraterrestrial Life and the Bible]].</ref>

The speculation concerning Jesus dying multiple deaths on other worlds has occasionally found poetic expression. See, for example, [[The Innumerable Christ]] by [[Hugh McDiarmid]].

=== Extent of the Creation ===
The presence of extraterrestrial ''microbes'' on one or more of the other planets in our solar system (most likely Mars) does excite some fear in Christian quarters. But not all Christians harbor such fear, and even [[Young earth creationism|young earth creationists]] are quite confident that they could explain such a finding. For example, if the [[hydroplate theory]] is correct and a slurry of mud from the Great Flood traveled to Mars and poured itself out upon it, then such a slurry would almost certainly contain microbes. That some of these might be extremophiles, and thus capable of long-term survival even in such a harsh environment as that of Mars, is entirely possible and would allow complete harmony between the finding of microbes in such locations and the Biblical account of earth pre-history.

==Non-Christian Views on Extraterrestrial Life==
Outside of the Christian faith, other religions, as well as movements exhibiting characteristics common to [[pagan]] religions, have adopted or expressed tenets dealing with extraterrestrial life:

#'''Church of Scientology''' founder [[L. Ron Hubbard]] has lectured on and written accounts of complex extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in earthly events.
#The '''[[Raelians]]''' believe that their minds are the once-disembodied souls of extraterrestrial persons (and therefore believe that their minds are extraterrestrial in origin though their bodies are not).
#The '''[[Hale-Bopp movement]]''', whose members committed mass suicide in the season of the close passage near the earth of [[Comet Hale-Bopp]], believed they would be taken away by an alien craft concealed in the comet's tail.
#The '''[[UFO]] movement''', which exists as a loose alliance of organizations often having the initials "UFO" (for Unidentified Flying Object) in their names, ''viz.'', "Mutual UFO Network", "Center for UFO Studies," "Fund for UFO Research", express various beliefs concerning the extrterrestrial nature of unidentified flying objects.
#The '''[[Nation of Islam]]''', especially when it came under the leadership of [[Louis Farrakhan]], expressed a belief that the original founder of the Nation of Islam lives today in an extraterrestrial spacecraft called the "Mother Wheel," and that Farrakhan himself has been taken on board that vessel for consultations with this person.<ref>Farrakhan seems recently to have abandoned this theory and attempted to steer the movement he now leads toward the orthodox [[Islam]] taught by [[Muhammad]].</ref>

== Explanations given for UFO sightings and belief ==
Lynn Cato, senior bibliographer for the library of Congress, created a 1600 entry on [[UFO]] bibliography for the [[United States Air Force]] Office of Scientific Research. After a two year investigation, in which she reviewed thousands of documents, Catoe stated:<ref name=Reason>Authors unknown. "[http://www.letusreason.org/NAM25.htm A UFO 2nd Coming]." Let Us Reason Ministries, 2007. Retrieved November 3, 2007.</ref><ref name=Gleghorn>Gleghorn, Michael. "[http://www.probe.org/cults-and-world-religions/cults-and-world-religions/ufos-and-alien-beings.html UFO's and Alien Beings]." Probe Ministries. Retrieved November 3, 2007.</ref> {{Cquote|A large part of the available UFO literature...deals with subjects like mental telepathy, automatic writing and invisible entities...poltergeist manifestations and 'possession'....Many of the UFO reports now being published in the popular press recount alleged incidents that are strikingly similar to [[demonic possession]] and [[psychic phenomenon]] which have long been known to [[Theology|theologians]] and [[Paraphschology|parapsychologists]].}}

Prominent UFO researcher [[John Keel]] concurred. After surveying the literature on [[demonology]] Keel stated,<ref name=Gleghorn/>{{Cquote|The manifestations and occurrences described in this imposing literature are similar if not entirely identical to the UFO phenomenon itself.}}

[[Astronomy|Astronomer]] Dr. [[Hugh Ross]] states that ninety-nine percent of what people have told him were UFOs, experienced astronomers can identify as a [[star]], cluster, or other object in the night sky. The 1 percent of sightings, which he calls residual UFOs, have attracted his attention. <ref name=Blade>Tarjanyi, Judy. "[http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=73122266402007&Avis=TO&Dato=20030104&Kategori=NEWS10&Lopenr=101040052&Ref=AR Astronomer links UFOs to Occultism]." ''The Toledo Blade'', January 4, 2003. Retrieved November 3, 2007.</ref> According to Dr. Ross very few astronomers have seen residual UFOs.<ref name=Blade/>

The following newspaper excerpt<ref name=Blade/> summarizes Dr. Ross's findings:

{{cquote|In 1969, however, Dr. Ross met two astronomers who were having regular UFO encounters. Both also happened to be involved in occult activity.

Upon investigation, Dr. Ross consistently found a connection between occult involvement and residual UFO encounters. For example, he said, countries with a high degree of occult activity such as Russia during the Soviet era, France, and certain parts of Brazil also had high percentages of UFO encounters. During Russia?s Soviet period when every expression of religion except occult activity had been outlawed, he said, “Russians were seeing UFOs at five to eight times the rate Americans were.}}

[[Christian]]s who reject naturalistic explanations of life such as the [[theory of evolution]] have presented arguments in the field of [[Christian apologetics]] regarding UFO's being spiritual in nature and not amenable to naturalistic explanation.<ref name=Gleghorn/><ref name=Reason/><ref name=Bohlin>Bohlin, Ray. "[http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/lifemars.html Are We Alone in the Universe?]" Leadership University, July 14, 2002. Retrieved November 3, 2007.</ref><ref name=CMI>Authors unknown. "[http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2995/ Alien Life/UFO Questions and Answers]." Creation Ministries International. Retrieved November 3, 2007.</ref><ref name=AiG>Authors unknown. "[http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/alien.asp Alien Life/UFO Questions and Answers]." Answers in Genesis. Retrieved November 3, 2007.</ref>

== Political speculation on ET's and UFO's ==
Politicians (among them, former [[President of the United States]] [[Jimmy Carter]]) have openly speculated on the existence of extraterrestrial nation-states.<ref>Carter claims to have witnessed an unidentified flying object in 1969; he remains the only U.S. President to have formally reported a [[UFO]]. He filed a report with the International UFO Bureau in [[Oklahoma City]] after a request from that organization.[http://www.presidentialufo.com/carter_ufo_report.htm] See [[Jimmy Carter]].</ref> More recently, [[United States House of Representatives|US Representative]] and Presidential candidate [[Dennis Kucinich]] [[Democratic Party|D]]-[[Ohio|OH]]) was asked in a primary debate whether he had, as earlier alleged, seen a UFO--and answered in the affirmative.<ref name=Kucinich>User "nikbaron". [http://youtube.com/watch?v=gSRWRbuMqyc Representative Dennis Kucinich UFO]." ''<http://youtube.com>,'' posted October 31, 2007. Retrieved November 17, 2007.</ref><ref name=Feagler>Feagler, Dick. "[http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/stories/index.ssf?/base/opinion-0/1193474407233790.xml&coll=2&thispage=1 So Dennis Kucinich saw a UFO; what's the big deal]?" ''The Plain Dealer'' (Cleveland), October 28, 2007. Retrieved November 17, 2007.</ref>

For further details, see the article on [[Exotheology]].

== References ==
{{reflist|2}}

== See Also ==
*[[Essay: Extraterrestrial Life and the Bible]]
*[[Exotheology]]

[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Liberal Falsehoods]]

Global warming

2008-03-08T00:57:10Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

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

'''Global Warming''' is any increase in average air temperature at the [[Earth]]'s surface over a period of decades or more. As far back as temperature records can be reconstructed, periods of global warming and global cooling have alternated; see [[ice age]]s and [[interglacial warming]].

==Controversy==
{{main|Global Warming Controversy}}

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]]".

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 1° F warming since 1850.

The two sides are divided on whether this warming is a natural recovery from the [[Little Ice Age]] or a man-made environmental phenomenon. There are also debates regarding the potential positive or negative effects of a warming.

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 had no net change in temperature since 1977. A rapid increase in temperature reversed itself. The reasons for this are not 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 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]]
[[Category:Liberal Falsehoods]]

Liberal Party

2008-03-08T00:52:56Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

'''Liberal Party''' is the name of some [[political parties]] in a number of countries:

'''[[Liberal Party of Australia]]''' a pro-business conservative party, founded in [[1944]]. There was also an earlier [[Liberal Party (Australia)|Liberal Party]] during the second decade of the [[20th century]].

'''[[Liberal Party of Canada]]''' is a centre left, pro-business party.
There are also parties affliated with the Canadian federal liberal party in addition to autonomous parties active in the politics of the provinces of Canada.

'''[[Liberal Party]]''' a pro-business party in [[Hong Kong]]

[[Liberal Party]] This party evolved from the Whig Party in the [[United Kingdom]]. The majority of members went on to merge with the [[Social Democratic Party (SDP)]] to form the [[Liberal Democrats]] in 1988. A minority of members maintained the Liberal Party name and formed a new party because they felt that the Liberal Democrats had lost the ideals of the original party.

[[Category:Political Parties]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Essay:Liberal Falsehoods

2008-03-08T00:52:07Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

A major liberal falsehood of the mid-20th century was that intelligent life in outer space ''must'' exist, and that America should spend billions looking for it. This falsehood had political overtones in favor of nuclear disarmament, globalism, environmentalism, government spending and atheism. Political and Atheist leaders who were strong advocates that intelligent life ''must'' exist in outer space were:

[[Jimmy Carter]]
 [[Adolf Hitler]]
 [[Carl Sagan]]

== Other Liberal Falsehoods ==

*[[Population Bomb]]
*[[Evolution]]
*[[Global Warming]]

[[category:essay]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right

2008-03-08T00:51:24Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

[[Image:1400049520.jpg|right|thumb]]
[[Ann Coulter's]] second book, '''Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right''', was published by Crown Forum in 2002. In the text, she argues that the media's coverage of President Bush is unfair and biased.

She blames liberals for the fact that American political debate has become increasingly hostile, overly personal, and insufferably trivial. Some have quarreled with the choices of words she has had for certain politicians and commentators, such as [[John Howard]].

''Slander'' was also criticized for being riddled with factual errors, one of the most well known being the following passage from the first edition:

<blockquote>
“The day after seven-time [[NASCAR]] [[Winston Cup]] champion [[Dale Earnhardt]] died in a race at the [[Daytona 500]], almost every newspaper in America carried the story on the front page. Stock-car racing had been the nation’s fastest-growing sport for a decade, and NASCAR the second-most-watched sport behind the NFL. More Americans recognize the name Dale Earnhardt than, say, Maureen Dowd. (Manhattan liberals are dumbly blinking at that last sentence.) It took the [[New York Times]] two days to deem Earnhardt’s name sufficiently important to mention it on the first page. Demonstrating the left’s renowned populist touch, the article began, “His death brought a silence to the Wal-Mart.” The Times went on to report that in vast swaths of the country people watch stock-car racing. Tacky people were mourning Dale Earnhardt all over the South!” (page 205, Slander, First Edition)
</blockquote>

In fact, as many commentators pointed out, the ''[[New York Times]]'', like most American newspapers, covered Earnhardt’s death on its front page the day after he was killed, in an article beginning “Stock car racing's greatest current star and one of its most popular and celebrated figures, Dale Earnhardt, crashed and was killed today." Her “correction” in the paperback edition removes the sentence “It took the New York Times two days to deem Earnhardt’s name sufficiently important to mention it on the first page,” but the passage still strongly implies that the NYT didn’t cover Earnhardt’s death until three days later.

Among the other alleged inaccuracies liberals charge Coulter with is the claim that “In 1993 [[Al Gore]] saw busts of [[George Washington|Washington]] and [[Benjamin Franklin|Franklin]] and asked, ‘Who are these guys?’ The story was carried only by ''[[USA Today]]''." The account had been repeated in several papers, including the ''New York Times'', yet numerous liberal sources claim Al Gore was referring to busts of [[John Paul Jones]] and [[Marquis de Lafayette]] although the [[Media Research Center]] has video of the occasion available online. <ref>Media Research Center,[http://www.mediaresearch.org/videobias/gore/welcome.asp Gore Gaffe Videos #2] "During January 17, 1993 pre-Inaugural tour of [[Monticello]], Thomas Jefferson's home, shown live by C-SPAN, Al Gore asks of busts of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Marquis de Lafayette: "Who are these people?" </ref>

Her reference to “[[Katie Couric]], berating [[Arlen Specter]] about [[Anita Hill]] ten years after the hearings. . ." when in fact, this “berating” consisted of Couric asking Specter a single question about a discussion of the [[Clarence Thomas]] hearings in his upcoming book where he accused Anita Hill of ‘flat out perjury.’”

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Book]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Classical liberal

2008-03-08T00:50:48Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

A '''classical liberal''' is someone who is [[liberal]] in the original sense of the word: namely, advocating personal freedom.

A common synonym for 'classical liberal' which is more commonly used in the US is [[libertarian]].

The original philosophy of liberalism (now sometimes called [[classical liberalism]], or [[libertarianism]] in the US), favors many forms of freedom, such as:

*Freedom of speech
*Freedom of religion
*The right to form political parties and vote
*Freedom to invest in and use private property
*Freedom to work as one chooses
*Freedom to enter into economic contracts
*Free trade and freedom of migration
*Sexual freedom
*Equal rights independent of race or sex

This interpretation of liberalism arose during the [[Enlightenment]], and became influential throught the [[American Revolution]] and [[French Revolution]], and was also spread in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the [[classical economists]]<ref>[http://www.economyprofessor.com/economictheories/economic-liberalism.php]</ref>.

Classical liberalism is the primary [[ideology]] behind politics in the United States. Both modern American [[liberalism]] and [[conservatism]] are branches of classical liberalism, as they both seek to promote individual freedom, though in different ways. Other ideologies which are not popular in the US include [[socialism]], [[communism]], and [[fascism]].

A prominent publication which promotes liberalism in the original sense of the word is the British news magazine [[The Economist]].

==References==
<references />
[[category:politics]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Liberal Democrats

2008-03-08T00:49:44Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

The '''Liberal Democrats''', often known as the "'''Lib Dems'''", are a political party in the [[United Kingdom]]. They have traditionally occupied the center of the political spectrum, between the [[Labour Party]] on the left and the [[Conservative Party]] on the right ("liberal" in British political parlance means "centrist" or "moderate" rather than "left-wing", as it does in the United States). At the present time, the party is seen as being moderately left-leaning.

The Liberal Democrats' current leader is [[Nick Clegg]]<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/7148179.stm</ref>.

The Liberal Democrats were formed in 1988 by a merger between the centrist [[Liberal Party]] and the moderately left-wing [[Social Democratic Party]], which had split off from the Labour Party in the early 1980s when the latter became too strongly socialist. The Liberal Party was one of the oldest political parties in the world, tracing its roots back to the [[Whigs]] of the era of [[William of Orange]].

== History ==
Since its foundation, the party has steadily increased its presence in the [[House of Commons]] at each successive election. The party won 62 seats in the 2005 general election<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/</ref> - the most that the party or its predecessors had won since the election of 1923.

== Policies ==
Their policies can be broadly described as social-democratic, with a libertarian bent - they have mooted the idea of decriminalizing recreational drugs, whilst arguing for a rationalization of the currently confused status of the various components of the [[United Kingdom]].

The party is currently under investigation for receiving money from banker and expatriate Michael Brown which was may have been fraudulently obtained.

==References==
<references/>

[[category:British Political Parties]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Massachusetts liberal

2008-03-08T00:49:02Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

{{merge|Massachusetts}}
A [[liberal]] from [[Massachusetts]], in many ways the most liberal state in the [[United States of America|United States]]. It is the only state where it is a crime, with a mandatory prison sentence of at least one year, to transport a lawfully owned gun for a lawful purpose in an automobile without a special permit. Out-of-state drivers traveling to hunting or gun competitions in the Northeast have to choose between going hours out of their way to avoid Massachusetts, or spending hours attempting to obtain a permit.{{fact}}

Massachusetts is also the only state that has [[same-sex marriage]]. Two of the most liberal senators in the entire [[U.S. Senate]], [[Ted Kennedy|Teddy Kennedy]] and [[John Kerry]]<ref>http://nationaljournal.com/voteratings/sen/lib.htmM</ref>, represent Massachusetts. Massachusetts has the lowest [[divorce]] rate in the country at 2.4 divorces per 1,000 people per annum, according to the Barna Research Group, however this is due to the fact that Massachusetts has the lowest marriage rate, with many couples simply choosing to cohabitate.

[[John Kerry]] lost by nearly three million votes nationwide in the 2004 election against [[George W. Bush]], yet Kerry won Massachusetts by a margin of about 62-38%. Massachusetts was the only state in which a majority voted for George McGovern instead of Richard Nixon in the [[United States presidential election of 1972]].

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Liberal Arts college

2008-03-08T00:47:52Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

In the United States, the term '''liberal arts college''' refers to an institution of higher learning which exclusively or mainly grants undergraduate degrees, and which focuses on a traditional general education rather than on specific career-oriented specialties. Historically, most liberal arts colleges in the United States began as divinity schools designed to train protestant ministers for a life of service.

A ''university,'' in contrast, has one (or more) undergraduate "colleges," but also has "graduate schools" which require an undergraduate degree for entrance. A university might have a medical school, a law school, a business school, and possibly schools of agriculture, music, veterinary medicine, divinity, and others.

The phrase "liberal arts" was coined in classical times. It traditionally included the "trivium" of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and the "quadrivium" of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. One dictionary definition of "liberal arts" in the modern sense is:
:Academic disciplines, such as languages, literature, history, philosophy, mathematics, and science, that provide information of general cultural concern.<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/61/88/L0148800.html Liberal arts], American Heritage Dictionary online</ref>
One liberal arts college expresses its modern meaning thus:
:A successful undergraduate education should primarily develop the essential skills of writing, researching, articulating and defending ideas, and working with others—the skills that prepare graduates for leadership in most any career.<ref>[http://www.williams.edu/admission/academics.php Williams College: Academics], Williams College website</ref>

Famous liberal arts colleges include Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Middlebury, Carleton, Bowdoin, Pomona, Haverford, and Davidson.<ref>[http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1libartco_brief.php Liberal Arts Colleges: Top Schools], U. S. News and World Report]</ref> The colleges of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC)<ref>[http://www.nescac.com/ NESCAC]: Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, Williams</ref> are called the "little Ivies" and are sometimes seen analogous to the universities of the [[Ivy League]]. Most of them were historically men's colleges. The "Seven Sisters," another famous group, were historically women's liberal arts colleges; of the original seven, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Bryn Mawr, and Barnard remain women's colleges; Wellesley and Vassar are coeducational; and Radcliffe no longer exists as an undergraduate college.<ref>[http://www.mtholyoke.edu/cic/about/12812.shtml The Seven Sisters], Mount Holyoke's website</ref>

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Education]]
[[Category:Liberals]]

Liberal Style

2008-03-08T00:44:57Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

{{Examples of liberal bias}}

[[Category:Liberals]]

Liberal myths

2008-03-08T00:42:40Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

'''Liberal Myths''' are heavily promoted falsehoods motivated by a [[liberal]] belief system. They include:

*The claim of a [[population explosion]] (motivation: promote [[abortion]]){{fact}}
*The claim that people today are smarter than in prior centuries (motivation: to make famous [[Christians]] look dumb){{fact}}
*The claim that the [[Apostles]] were all illiterate (motivation: to portray them as dumb){{fact}}
*The claim of [[extraterrestrial life]] (motivation: deny that man was created in [[God]]'s image){{fact}}
*The claim that the [[George W. Bush|Bush]] tax cuts substantially reduced 2006 revenues and expanded the [[budget]] deficit.
*The claim that the Bush tax cuts have not helped the economy.
*Anthropogenic [[Global Warming]].[http://www.nowpublic.com/some-exasperating-liberal-myths]
*The claim that a fetus is not a living being with rights.
*The claim that [[gun control]] reduces crime.{{fact}}

Please add to this list.

[[Category:Deceit]]
[[category:liberals]]

Essay:Liberal gloss

2008-03-08T00:41:37Z

JamesCarmody: cat.

'''Liberal gloss''' is the term used to describe the language that [[liberal]]s use, specifically language which "glosses" over certain important facts. [[Conservapedia]] actively removes liberal gloss from any of its articles.

==See also==
*[[Owen Lattimore]]

==Further reading==
*[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n13_v41/ai_7722313 Why are the liberals whitewashing? - Owen Lattimore in the liberal press], by [[William F. Buckley]], Jr., ''[[National Review]]'', July 14, 1989.

[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:media]]
[[Category:Deceit]]
[[category:liberals]]

Scotland

2008-03-07T15:47:10Z

JamesCarmody: violent crime

[[Image:Lion rampant.png|thumb|right|The Scottish Royal Coat of Arms- Better known as the Lion Rampant]]

'''Scotland''' is the second largest country of the [[United Kingdom]].
It is about three-eighths the size of its larger neighbour England, but is much less populous; most of the population lives in the ''central belt'', a band across central Scotland between the capital [[Edinburgh]] and the city of [[Glasgow]]. Other cities are [[Aberdeen]] and [[Dundee]]. [[Inverness]] and [[Stirling]] were granted city status recently but are in fact smaller than some of the larger Scottish towns like Paisley and Perth.

== Introduction ==

{| class="wikitable" style="float:right"
|- bgcolor=cccccc
! Position || Current Holder
|-
| [[British_monarchy|Monarch]] || Queen [[Elizabeth II]]
|-
| [[UK_Prime_Ministers|Prime Minster]] || [[Gordon Brown]] MP
|-
| [[Secretary of State for Scotland|Secretary of State]] || [[Des Browne]] MP
|-
| [[First Minister of Scotland|First Minister]] || [[Alex Salmond]] MSP
|}

Scotland is historically Christian; the national church is the [[Church of Scotland]]

Scotland includes the island groups of [[Orkney]], [[Shetland]], the [[Inner Hebrides|Inner]] and [[Outer Hebrides]], the islands of the [[Firth of Clyde]] including [[Arran]], [[Bute]], [[Cumbrae]] & [[Wee Cumbrae]], the [[St. Kilda]] archipelago, [[Rockall]] and various other smaller islands.

[[Ben Nevis]], the highest mountain in the [[United Kingdom]], is in the Scottish [[Highlands of Scotland|Highlands]], as are most of the nation's highest mountains. Those with heights above 3000 feet are eponymously named [[Munro| Munros]] after Sir Hector Munro, the first person to compile a list of such mountains.<ref> for a complete list of Munros see http://www.sol.co.uk/d/dickwall/munroes.htm</ref>

== Societal Problems ==

Scotland, like many developed countries, has a great number of social and ethical challenges as church attendance<ref>[http://www.unavoce.org/scotland.htm The Once-Heroic Church in Scotland]</ref> has plummeted to an all-time low.<ref>Church attendance is just over 7% of Scottish adults. In 1962 Scotland had 26,015 baptisms. In 1998, there were only 9,951.</ref>
Currently some 40% of births are to unmarried mothers, the trend being upwards. In 2003/4 there were 7.5 conceptions per 1000 for 13-15 year olds and 68.2 conceptions per 1000 for 16-19 year olds with over 50% of the 13-15 year olds being pressured into [[abortion]]. <ref>[http://www.brook.org.uk/content/M6_4_teenage%20pregnancy.asp Teenage pregnancy]]</ref>. In Scotland, 93% of men and 87% of women aged 16-74 drink alcohol. The proportion of [[public school]] pupils aged 12-15 who had had an alcoholic drink in the previous week has risen in the last decade from 14% in 1990 to 21% in 2000. Death rates from alcohol have risen over 100% between 1990 and 2000, the rates for women being nearer 200%.<ref>[http://www.scotland.gov.uk/health/alcoholproblems/docs/paap1-00.asp Statistics on Alcohol in Scotland]</ref> Abuse of [[illegal drugs]] is also increasing rapidly. <ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/653646.stm Drug abuse increasing]</ref>

The prevailing irreligious and atheistic climate has also led to the imposition of the [[homosexual agenda]], something to which the [[Church of Scotland]] is sympathetic<ref>[http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/generalassembly/downloads/gareports07manddchallengetounity.rtf A challenge to unity: same-sex relationships as an issue in theology and human sexuality]</ref>. That has led the leading [[conservative]] [[Christian]] [[Pat Robertson]] to describe Scotland as "dark country full of [[homosexuals]]"<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9906/02/scotland.robertson/ 'Dark land' with 'strong homosexuals,' televangelist says]</ref>. The homosexual agenda manifesting itself in: the repeal of laws banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/800673.stm MSPs abolish Section 28]</ref>, the introduction of [[secular marriage]]<ref>[www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/research/pdf_res_papers/rp01-21.pdf Secular Marriage (Scotland) Bill]</ref>, the legalisation of [[same-sex marriage|same-sex unions]]<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4494882.stm Same-sex couples embrace equality ]</ref>, the [[adoption]] of children by homosexuals<ref>[http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1356432006 MSPs approve gay adoption]</ref>, teaching homosexuality in schools<ref>[http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=754672006 Schools told to give pupils gay sex advice]</ref>, [[affirmative action]] for homosexual soldiers and policemen<ref>[http://www.gpascotland.com/050827.htm Army marches in Gay Pride parade]</ref>, forcing religious schools to employ [[Atheism|atheist]] teachers<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4787496.stm Atheist teacher wins job tribunal]</ref>, protection for [[Child molesting|pedophiles]] <ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4031625.stm 'Make friends with a pedophile']</ref> and the banning of anti-gay chants at sports events<ref>[http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=387732007 Anti-gay chants to be banned from terraces]</ref>.

As a consequence of wide spread immorality and Scotland's drug and alcohol<ref>[http://www.alcoholinformation.isdscotland.org/alcohol_misuse/AI_MainPage.jsp;jsessionid=CA9BB0B70FE9B0014E6273AC4AE3B789?pContentID=1411&p_applic=CCC&p_service=Content.show& Alcohol and Crime in Scotland]</ref> fuelled atheistic culture Scotland now tops the list of the world's most violent countries<ref>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article568214.ece Scotland tops list of world's most violent countries]</ref> with violent crime still on the increase<ref>[http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.1720948.0.scots_violent_crime_figures_increase_by_a_third_in_two_years.php Violent crime in Scotland]</ref>.

A poignant example of violent crime was the 1996 Dunblane massacre<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/13/newsid_2543000/2543277.stm Massacre in Dunblane school gym]</ref> where the balding, bespectacled [[Child abuse|paedophile]] Thomas Watt Hamilton entered Dunblane's public primary school with two 9 mm Browning HP pistols and two Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolvers. He let off 109 rounds of fully metal jacketed and hollow point [[ammunition]] killing sixteen pupils and one teacher before finally shooting himself in the [[head]]. The ensuing [[liberal hysteria]] led to a campaign, fronted by the [[liberal media]], for [[gun control]]. This was enacted shortly afterwards leaving innocent citizens unable to defend themselves against the rising tide of crime. As a consequence [[rape]] skyrocketed <ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/5043806.stm Rape claims continue to increase]</ref>.

== History ==
[[Image:Scotland.gif|thumb|right|250px|A map of Scotland.]]
Scotland has been inhabited since the first [[Mesolithic]] hunter-gatherers are thought to have migrated to Scotland.<ref>At least 8500 years before recorded history dealt with Britain, according to the uniformitarian timescale. [http://www.scotlandhistory.net/ Scotland History], Wormland, Jenny. Scotland: a History. 2005, Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.1</ref>
These inhabitants showed advanced knowledge of astronomy, creating several [[Stonehenge]]-like monuments.

At the time of the [[Romans]] the tribes in what became Scotland were similar to those further south, and can be considered to be [[Celtic]] peoples. Those from the North-East were called ‘Picti’ (Picts) by Roman writers, which could mean ‘painted people' and refer to tattoos. The Romans never subdued these northern tribes, and after a brief period when the Antonine Wall between the Firths of Forth and Clyde was the Roman Empire’s northern frontier, they drew back and had [[Hadrian’s Wall]] as the frontier. They did try and influence the tribes between the two Walls, and when kingdoms like Strathclyde emerged in the early [[Dark Ages]], their rulers often bore Roman names or titles, the dynasties having been founded by Roman officials. The Scots themselves began arriving as settlers in the West of Scotland at this time (AD 400-500). They were from a part of the north of [[Ireland]] and spoke Old Irish, which changed to become Scottish [[Gaelic]], and eventually replaced Pictish. They sometimes warred with the Picts and [[Briton]]s and sometimes allied with them, but a unified kingdom under the Scottish king Kenneth Mac Alpin was established in AD 843, called ‘Alba’ (still the [[Gaelic]] name for Scotland). This kingdom took over Strathclyde in the early 11th century to form the basis of Mediaeval Scotland. [[Normans]] and their decscendents such as Robert the Bruce ('de Brus' was a Norman surname) became important nobles in Scotland.

==Union with England==

After the death of Queen [[Elizabeth I]] of England in 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended to the Throne of England, becoming [[James I]] of England. He was the first monarch to call himself King of Great Britain. This is referred to as the Union of the Crowns. James was also at this time King of [[Ireland]].

The Parliaments of Scotland and [[England]] were not united until 1707 and it is this date that is recognized as the formation of [[Great Britain]]. This is referred to as the Union of the Parliaments. (The [[United Kingdom]] was to come into being with the addition of [[Ireland]] in 1801.)The formation of the Irish Free State in 1922 resulted in the current name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Scotland has its own Parliament of 129 members as well as sending 59 Members of Parliament(MPs) to represent its interests in the [[United Kingdom]] parliament which sits in [[London]]. Scottish MPs have historically been recognized for their political skills and appointed to the Cabinet in larger numbers than is proportionate. The current Prime Minister [[Gordon Brown]], is Scottish, and formerly he was [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]].

Relationships between Scottish and English MPs before [[devolution]] were sometimes tense because of what the former [[Conservative|Conservative Party]] MP, by then an [[Ulster Unionist]], [[Enoch Powell]] dubbed ''The West Lothian question''. The name arose in 1977 after [[Tam Dalyell]], Labour MP for West Lothian in Scotland, asked during a debate in the [[Houses of Parliament]] over Scottish and Welsh [[devolution]]:

<blockquote>''For how long will English constituencies and English Honourable members tolerate... at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on British politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?''</blockquote>

He pointed out that he as MP for West Lothian could vote on matters affecting English constituencies but not his own constituency.

== Sports and culture==

The national preoccupation, indeed obsession, is [[football (soccer)]]. Other diversions include [[rugby]], [[lawn bowls]], [[motorsports]], [[horseracing]], [[shinty]] (similar to hockey), [[curling]], sports of the [[Highland Games]] - such as tossing the [[caber]] and, of course, [[golf]] - Scotland is the home of golf. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club at [[St Andrews]] is the governing body of world golf.

Scotland is famous for its disproportionate amount of inventions and discoveries (as immortalized in [[Wha's Like Us]]), its world class universities, the Scottish Enlightenment, being the one of the first industrial nations while still preserving some of the last great wildernesses of Europe, and being the home of [[golf]].

The symbol of Scotland is the [[thistle]]. The Scottish flag is the Cross of St. Andrew, a white diagonal cross on a dark blue background. The design originated in the 9th century and it is the oldest national flag still in use anywhere in the world. Other things associated with the country are [[kilt]]s ([[tartan]] skirtlike garments worn by Scotsmen), and the haunting music of the [[bagpipes]]. Famous Scottish products include [[pie]]s, [[haggis]] and Scotch [[whisky]].

Scotland's motto is ''Nemo Me Impune Lacessit'' ("No one provokes me with impunity")<ref>http://www.scotland-guide.co.uk/ALL_AREAS_IN_SCOTLAND/Glasgow/Areas/Centre/Mercat_Cross.htm </ref> which translates as ''Wha daur meddle wi me?'' in [[Scots]] and in [[English]] as ''Who would dare mess with me?''.

Also see [[:Category:Scottish Culture]].

==External Links==
*[http://www.n-cyclopedia.com/scottish-history/index.htm A Brief History of Scotland]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Scotland]]
[[Category:United Kingdom]]

Scotland

2008-03-06T14:33:04Z

JamesCarmody: /* Societal Problems */ Crime

[[Image:Lion rampant.png|thumb|right|The Scottish Royal Coat of Arms- Better known as the Lion Rampant]]

'''Scotland''' is the second largest country of the [[United Kingdom]].
It is about three-eighths the size of its larger neighbour England, but is much less populous; most of the population lives in the ''central belt'', a band across central Scotland between the capital [[Edinburgh]] and the city of [[Glasgow]]. Other cities are [[Aberdeen]], [[Dundee]] and [[Inverness]].

== Introduction ==

{| class="wikitable" style="float:right"
|- bgcolor=cccccc
! Position || Current Holder
|-
| [[British_monarchy|Monarch]] || Queen [[Elizabeth II]]
|-
| [[UK_Prime_Ministers|Prime Minster]] || [[Gordon Brown]] MP
|-
| [[Secretary of State for Scotland|Secretary of State]] || [[Des Browne]] MP
|-
| [[First Minister of Scotland|First Minister]] || [[Alex Salmond]] MSP
|}

Scotland is historically Christian; the national church is the [[Church of Scotland]]

Scotland includes the island groups of [[Orkney]], [[Shetland]], the [[Inner Hebrides|Inner]] and [[Outer Hebrides]], the islands of the [[Firth of Clyde]] including [[Arran]], [[Bute]], [[Cumbrae]] & [[Wee Cumbrae]], the [[St. Kilda]] archipelago, [[Rockall]] and various other smaller islands.

[[Ben Nevis]], the highest mountain in the [[United Kingdom]], is in the Scottish [[Highlands of Scotland|Highlands]], as are most of the nation's highest mountains. Those with heights above 3000 feet are eponymously named [[Munro| Munros]] after Sir Hector Munro, the first person to compile a list of such mountains.<ref> for a complete list of Munros see http://www.sol.co.uk/d/dickwall/munroes.htm</ref>

== Societal Problems ==

Scotland, like many developed countries, has a great number of social and ethical challenges as church attendance<ref>[http://www.unavoce.org/scotland.htm The Once-Heroic Church in Scotland]</ref> has plummeted to an all-time low.<ref>Church attendance is just over 7% of Scottish adults. In 1962 Scotland had 26,015 baptisms. In 1998, there were only 9,951.</ref>
Currently some 40% of births are to unmarried mothers, the trend being upwards. In 2003/4 there were 7.5 conceptions per 1000 for 13-15 year olds and 68.2 conceptions per 1000 for 16-19 year olds with over 50% of the 13-15 year olds being pressured into [[abortion]]. <ref>[http://www.brook.org.uk/content/M6_4_teenage%20pregnancy.asp Teenage pregnancy]]</ref>. In Scotland, 93% of men and 87% of women aged 16-74 drink alcohol. The proportion of [[public school]] pupils aged 12-15 who had had an alcoholic drink in the previous week has risen in the last decade from 14% in 1990 to 21% in 2000. Death rates from alcohol have risen over 100% between 1990 and 2000, the rates for women being nearer 200%.<ref>[http://www.scotland.gov.uk/health/alcoholproblems/docs/paap1-00.asp Statistics on Alcohol in Scotland]</ref> Abuse of [[illegal drugs]] is also increasing rapidly. <ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/653646.stm Drug abuse increasing]</ref>

The prevailing irreligious and atheistic climate has also led to the imposition of the [[homosexual agenda]], something to which the [[Church of Scotland]] is sympathetic<ref>[http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/generalassembly/downloads/gareports07manddchallengetounity.rtf A challenge to unity: same-sex relationships as an issue in theology and human sexuality]</ref>. That has led the leading [[conservative]] [[Christian]] [[Pat Robertson]] to describe Scotland as "dark country full of [[homosexuals]]"<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9906/02/scotland.robertson/ 'Dark land' with 'strong homosexuals,' televangelist says]</ref>. The homosexual agenda manifesting itself in: the repeal of laws banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/800673.stm MSPs abolish Section 28]</ref>, the introduction of [[secular marriage]]<ref>[www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/research/pdf_res_papers/rp01-21.pdf Secular Marriage (Scotland) Bill]</ref>, the legalisation of [[same-sex marriage|same-sex unions]]<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4494882.stm Same-sex couples embrace equality ]</ref>, the [[adoption]] of children by homosexuals<ref>[http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1356432006 MSPs approve gay adoption]</ref>, teaching homosexuality in schools<ref>[http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=754672006 Schools told to give pupils gay sex advice]</ref>, [[affirmative action]] for homosexual soldiers and policemen<ref>[http://www.gpascotland.com/050827.htm Army marches in Gay Pride parade]</ref>, forcing religious schools to employ [[Atheism|atheist]] teachers<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4787496.stm Atheist teacher wins job tribunal]</ref>, protection for [[Child molesting|pedophiles]] <ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4031625.stm 'Make friends with a pedophile']</ref> and the banning of anti-gay chants at sports events<ref>[http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=387732007 Anti-gay chants to be banned from terraces]</ref>.

As a consequence of wide spread immorality and Scotland's drug and alcohol<ref>[http://www.alcoholinformation.isdscotland.org/alcohol_misuse/AI_MainPage.jsp;jsessionid=CA9BB0B70FE9B0014E6273AC4AE3B789?pContentID=1411&p_applic=CCC&p_service=Content.show& Alcohol and Crime in Scotland]</ref> fuelled atheistic culture Scotland now tops the list of the world's most violent countries<ref>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article568214.ece Scotland tops list of world's most violent countries]</ref> with violent crime still on the increase<ref>[http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.1720948.0.scots_violent_crime_figures_increase_by_a_third_in_two_years.php Violent crime in Scotland]</ref>.

==Cities==
[[Image:Scotland.gif|thumb|right|250px|A map of Scotland.]]

Scotland has four major cities. They are [[Aberdeen]], [[Dundee]], [[Edinburgh]] and [[Glasgow]]. [[Inverness]] and [[Stirling]] were granted city status recently but are in fact smaller than some of the larger Scottish towns like Paisley and Perth.

== History ==
Scotland has been inhabited since the first [[Mesolithic]] hunter-gatherers are thought to have migrated to Scotland.<ref>At least 8500 years before recorded history dealt with Britain, according to the uniformitarian timescale. [http://www.scotlandhistory.net/ Scotland History], Wormland, Jenny. Scotland: a History. 2005, Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.1</ref>
These inhabitants showed advanced knowledge of astronomy, creating several [[Stonehenge]]-like monuments.

At the time of the [[Romans]] the tribes in what became Scotland were similar to those further south, and can be considered to be [[Celtic]] peoples. Those from the North-East were called ‘Picti’ (Picts) by Roman writers, which could mean ‘painted people' and refer to tattoos. The Romans never subdued these northern tribes, and after a brief period when the Antonine Wall between the Firths of Forth and Clyde was the Roman Empire’s northern frontier, they drew back and had [[Hadrian’s Wall]] as the frontier. They did try and influence the tribes between the two Walls, and when kingdoms like Strathclyde emerged in the early [[Dark Ages]], their rulers often bore Roman names or titles, the dynasties having been founded by Roman officials. The Scots themselves began arriving as settlers in the West of Scotland at this time (AD 400-500). They were from a part of the north of [[Ireland]] and spoke Old Irish, which changed to become Scottish [[Gaelic]], and eventually replaced Pictish. They sometimes warred with the Picts and [[Briton]]s and sometimes allied with them, but a unified kingdom under the Scottish king Kenneth Mac Alpin was established in AD 843, called ‘Alba’ (still the [[Gaelic]] name for Scotland). This kingdom took over Strathclyde in the early 11th century to form the basis of Mediaeval Scotland. [[Normans]] and their decscendents such as Robert the Bruce ('de Brus' was a Norman surname) became important nobles in Scotland.

==Union with England==

After the death of Queen [[Elizabeth I]] of England in 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended to the Throne of England, becoming [[James I]] of England. He was the first monarch to call himself King of Great Britain. This is referred to as the Union of the Crowns. James was also at this time King of [[Ireland]].

The Parliaments of Scotland and [[England]] were not united until 1707 and it is this date that is recognized as the formation of [[Great Britain]]. This is referred to as the Union of the Parliaments. (The [[United Kingdom]] was to come into being with the addition of [[Ireland]] in 1801.)The formation of the Irish Free State in 1922 resulted in the current name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Scotland has its own Parliament of 129 members as well as sending 59 Members of Parliament(MPs) to represent its interests in the [[United Kingdom]] parliament which sits in [[London]]. Scottish MPs have historically been recognized for their political skills and appointed to the Cabinet in larger numbers than is proportionate. The current Prime Minister [[Gordon Brown]], is Scottish, and formerly he was [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]].

Relationships between Scottish and English MPs before [[devolution]] were sometimes tense because of what the former [[Conservative|Conservative Party]] MP, by then an [[Ulster Unionist]], [[Enoch Powell]] dubbed ''The West Lothian question''. The name arose in 1977 after [[Tam Dalyell]], Labour MP for West Lothian in Scotland, asked during a debate in the [[Houses of Parliament]] over Scottish and Welsh [[devolution]]:

<blockquote>''For how long will English constituencies and English Honourable members tolerate... at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on British politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?''</blockquote>

He pointed out that he as MP for West Lothian could vote on matters affecting English constituencies but not his own constituency.

== Sports and culture==

The national preoccupation, indeed obsession, is [[football (soccer)]]. Other diversions include [[rugby]], [[lawn bowls]], [[motorsports]], [[horseracing]], [[shinty]] (similar to hockey), [[curling]], sports of the [[Highland Games]] - such as tossing the [[caber]] and, of course, [[golf]] - Scotland is the home of golf. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club at [[St Andrews]] is the governing body of world golf.

Scotland is famous for its disproportionate amount of inventions and discoveries (as immortalized in [[Wha's Like Us]]), its world class universities, the Scottish Enlightenment, being the one of the first industrial nations while still preserving some of the last great wildernesses of Europe, and being the home of [[golf]].

The symbol of Scotland is the [[thistle]]. The Scottish flag is the Cross of St. Andrew, a white diagonal cross on a dark blue background. The design originated in the 9th century and it is the oldest national flag still in use anywhere in the world. Other things associated with the country are [[kilt]]s ([[tartan]] skirtlike garments worn by Scotsmen), and the haunting music of the [[bagpipes]]. Famous Scottish products include [[pie]]s, [[haggis]] and Scotch [[whisky]].

Scotland's motto is ''Nemo Me Impune Lacessit'' ("No one provokes me with impunity")<ref>http://www.scotland-guide.co.uk/ALL_AREAS_IN_SCOTLAND/Glasgow/Areas/Centre/Mercat_Cross.htm </ref> which translates as ''Wha daur meddle wi me?'' in [[Scots]] and in [[English]] as ''Who would dare mess with me?''.

Also see [[:Category:Scottish Culture]].

==External Links==
*[http://www.n-cyclopedia.com/scottish-history/index.htm A Brief History of Scotland]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Scotland]]
[[Category:United Kingdom]]

Scotland

2008-03-06T14:18:27Z

JamesCarmody: /* Societal Problems */ more content

[[Image:Lion rampant.png|thumb|right|The Scottish Royal Coat of Arms- Better known as the Lion Rampant]]

'''Scotland''' is the second largest country of the [[United Kingdom]].
It is about three-eighths the size of its larger neighbour England, but is much less populous; most of the population lives in the ''central belt'', a band across central Scotland between the capital [[Edinburgh]] and the city of [[Glasgow]]. Other cities are [[Aberdeen]], [[Dundee]] and [[Inverness]].

== Introduction ==

{| class="wikitable" style="float:right"
|- bgcolor=cccccc
! Position || Current Holder
|-
| [[British_monarchy|Monarch]] || Queen [[Elizabeth II]]
|-
| [[UK_Prime_Ministers|Prime Minster]] || [[Gordon Brown]] MP
|-
| [[Secretary of State for Scotland|Secretary of State]] || [[Des Browne]] MP
|-
| [[First Minister of Scotland|First Minister]] || [[Alex Salmond]] MSP
|}

Scotland is historically Christian; the national church is the [[Church of Scotland]]

Scotland includes the island groups of [[Orkney]], [[Shetland]], the [[Inner Hebrides|Inner]] and [[Outer Hebrides]], the islands of the [[Firth of Clyde]] including [[Arran]], [[Bute]], [[Cumbrae]] & [[Wee Cumbrae]], the [[St. Kilda]] archipelago, [[Rockall]] and various other smaller islands.

[[Ben Nevis]], the highest mountain in the [[United Kingdom]], is in the Scottish [[Highlands of Scotland|Highlands]], as are most of the nation's highest mountains. Those with heights above 3000 feet are eponymously named [[Munro| Munros]] after Sir Hector Munro, the first person to compile a list of such mountains.<ref> for a complete list of Munros see http://www.sol.co.uk/d/dickwall/munroes.htm</ref>

== Societal Problems ==

Scotland, like many developed countries, has a great number of social and ethical challenges as church attendance<ref>[http://www.unavoce.org/scotland.htm The Once-Heroic Church in Scotland]</ref> has plummeted to an all-time low.<ref>Church attendance is just over 7% of Scottish adults. In 1962 Scotland had 26,015 baptisms. In 1998, there were only 9,951.</ref>
Currently some 40% of births are to unmarried mothers, the trend being upwards. In 2003/4 there were 7.5 conceptions per 1000 for 13-15 year olds and 68.2 conceptions per 1000 for 16-19 year olds with over 50% of the 13-15 year olds being pressured into [[abortion]]. <ref>[http://www.brook.org.uk/content/M6_4_teenage%20pregnancy.asp Teenage pregnancy]]</ref>. In Scotland, 93% of men and 87% of women aged 16-74 drink alcohol. The proportion of [[public school]] pupils aged 12-15 who had had an alcoholic drink in the previous week has risen in the last decade from 14% in 1990 to 21% in 2000. Death rates from alcohol have risen over 100% between 1990 and 2000, the rates for women being nearer 200%.<ref>[http://www.scotland.gov.uk/health/alcoholproblems/docs/paap1-00.asp Statistics on Alcohol in Scotland]</ref> Abuse of [[illegal drugs]] is also increasing rapidly. <ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/653646.stm Drug abuse increasing]</ref>

The prevailing irreligious and atheistic climate has also led to the imposition of the [[homosexual agenda]], something to which the [[Church of Scotland]] is sympathetic<ref>[http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/generalassembly/downloads/gareports07manddchallengetounity.rtf A challenge to unity: same-sex relationships as an issue in theology and human sexuality]</ref>. That has led the leading [[conservative]] [[Christian]] [[Pat Robertson]] to describe Scotland as "dark country full of [[homosexuals]]"<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9906/02/scotland.robertson/ 'Dark land' with 'strong homosexuals,' televangelist says]</ref>. The homosexual agenda manifesting itself in: the repeal of laws banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/800673.stm MSPs abolish Section 28]</ref>, the introduction of [[secular marriage]]<ref>[www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/research/pdf_res_papers/rp01-21.pdf Secular Marriage (Scotland) Bill]</ref>, the legalisation of [[same-sex marriage|same-sex unions]]<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4494882.stm Same-sex couples embrace equality ]</ref>, the [[adoption]] of children by homosexuals<ref>[http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1356432006 MSPs approve gay adoption]</ref>, teaching homosexuality in schools<ref>[http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=754672006 Schools told to give pupils gay sex advice]</ref>, [[affirmative action]] for homosexual soldiers and policemen<ref>[http://www.gpascotland.com/050827.htm Army marches in Gay Pride parade]</ref>, forcing religious schools to employ [[Atheism|atheist]] teachers<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4787496.stm Atheist teacher wins job tribunal]</ref>, protection for [[Child molesting|pedophiles]] <ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4031625.stm 'Make friends with a pedophile']</ref> and the banning of anti-gay chants at sports events<ref>[http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=387732007 Anti-gay chants to be banned from terraces]</ref>.

==Cities==
[[Image:Scotland.gif|thumb|right|250px|A map of Scotland.]]

Scotland has four major cities. They are [[Aberdeen]], [[Dundee]], [[Edinburgh]] and [[Glasgow]]. [[Inverness]] and [[Stirling]] were granted city status recently but are in fact smaller than some of the larger Scottish towns like Paisley and Perth.

== History ==
Scotland has been inhabited since the first [[Mesolithic]] hunter-gatherers are thought to have migrated to Scotland.<ref>At least 8500 years before recorded history dealt with Britain, according to the uniformitarian timescale. [http://www.scotlandhistory.net/ Scotland History], Wormland, Jenny. Scotland: a History. 2005, Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.1</ref>
These inhabitants showed advanced knowledge of astronomy, creating several [[Stonehenge]]-like monuments.

At the time of the [[Romans]] the tribes in what became Scotland were similar to those further south, and can be considered to be [[Celtic]] peoples. Those from the North-East were called ‘Picti’ (Picts) by Roman writers, which could mean ‘painted people' and refer to tattoos. The Romans never subdued these northern tribes, and after a brief period when the Antonine Wall between the Firths of Forth and Clyde was the Roman Empire’s northern frontier, they drew back and had [[Hadrian’s Wall]] as the frontier. They did try and influence the tribes between the two Walls, and when kingdoms like Strathclyde emerged in the early [[Dark Ages]], their rulers often bore Roman names or titles, the dynasties having been founded by Roman officials. The Scots themselves began arriving as settlers in the West of Scotland at this time (AD 400-500). They were from a part of the north of [[Ireland]] and spoke Old Irish, which changed to become Scottish [[Gaelic]], and eventually replaced Pictish. They sometimes warred with the Picts and [[Briton]]s and sometimes allied with them, but a unified kingdom under the Scottish king Kenneth Mac Alpin was established in AD 843, called ‘Alba’ (still the [[Gaelic]] name for Scotland). This kingdom took over Strathclyde in the early 11th century to form the basis of Mediaeval Scotland. [[Normans]] and their decscendents such as Robert the Bruce ('de Brus' was a Norman surname) became important nobles in Scotland.

==Union with England==

After the death of Queen [[Elizabeth I]] of England in 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended to the Throne of England, becoming [[James I]] of England. He was the first monarch to call himself King of Great Britain. This is referred to as the Union of the Crowns. James was also at this time King of [[Ireland]].

The Parliaments of Scotland and [[England]] were not united until 1707 and it is this date that is recognized as the formation of [[Great Britain]]. This is referred to as the Union of the Parliaments. (The [[United Kingdom]] was to come into being with the addition of [[Ireland]] in 1801.)The formation of the Irish Free State in 1922 resulted in the current name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Scotland has its own Parliament of 129 members as well as sending 59 Members of Parliament(MPs) to represent its interests in the [[United Kingdom]] parliament which sits in [[London]]. Scottish MPs have historically been recognized for their political skills and appointed to the Cabinet in larger numbers than is proportionate. The current Prime Minister [[Gordon Brown]], is Scottish, and formerly he was [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]].

Relationships between Scottish and English MPs before [[devolution]] were sometimes tense because of what the former [[Conservative|Conservative Party]] MP, by then an [[Ulster Unionist]], [[Enoch Powell]] dubbed ''The West Lothian question''. The name arose in 1977 after [[Tam Dalyell]], Labour MP for West Lothian in Scotland, asked during a debate in the [[Houses of Parliament]] over Scottish and Welsh [[devolution]]:

<blockquote>''For how long will English constituencies and English Honourable members tolerate... at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on British politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?''</blockquote>

He pointed out that he as MP for West Lothian could vote on matters affecting English constituencies but not his own constituency.

== Sports and culture==

The national preoccupation, indeed obsession, is [[football (soccer)]]. Other diversions include [[rugby]], [[lawn bowls]], [[motorsports]], [[horseracing]], [[shinty]] (similar to hockey), [[curling]], sports of the [[Highland Games]] - such as tossing the [[caber]] and, of course, [[golf]] - Scotland is the home of golf. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club at [[St Andrews]] is the governing body of world golf.

Scotland is famous for its disproportionate amount of inventions and discoveries (as immortalized in [[Wha's Like Us]]), its world class universities, the Scottish Enlightenment, being the one of the first industrial nations while still preserving some of the last great wildernesses of Europe, and being the home of [[golf]].

The symbol of Scotland is the [[thistle]]. The Scottish flag is the Cross of St. Andrew, a white diagonal cross on a dark blue background. The design originated in the 9th century and it is the oldest national flag still in use anywhere in the world. Other things associated with the country are [[kilt]]s ([[tartan]] skirtlike garments worn by Scotsmen), and the haunting music of the [[bagpipes]]. Famous Scottish products include [[pie]]s, [[haggis]] and Scotch [[whisky]].

Scotland's motto is ''Nemo Me Impune Lacessit'' ("No one provokes me with impunity")<ref>http://www.scotland-guide.co.uk/ALL_AREAS_IN_SCOTLAND/Glasgow/Areas/Centre/Mercat_Cross.htm </ref> which translates as ''Wha daur meddle wi me?'' in [[Scots]] and in [[English]] as ''Who would dare mess with me?''.

Also see [[:Category:Scottish Culture]].

==External Links==
*[http://www.n-cyclopedia.com/scottish-history/index.htm A Brief History of Scotland]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Scotland]]
[[Category:United Kingdom]]

Scotland

2008-03-05T13:37:11Z

JamesCarmody: more history

[[Image:Lion rampant.png|thumb|right|The Scottish Royal Coat of Arms- Better known as the Lion Rampant]]

'''Scotland''' is the second largest country of the [[United Kingdom]].
It is about three-eighths the size of its larger neighbour England, but is much less populous; most of the population lives in the ''central belt'', a band across central Scotland between the capital [[Edinburgh]] and the city of [[Glasgow]]. Other cities are [[Aberdeen]], [[Dundee]] and [[Inverness]].

== Introduction ==

{| class="wikitable" style="float:right"
|- bgcolor=cccccc
! Position || Current Holder
|-
| [[British_monarchy|Monarch]] || Queen [[Elizabeth II]]
|-
| [[UK_Prime_Ministers|Prime Minster]] || [[Gordon Brown]] MP
|-
| [[Secretary of State for Scotland|Secretary of State]] || [[Des Browne]] MP
|-
| [[First Minister of Scotland|First Minister]] || [[Alex Salmond]] MSP
|}

Scotland is historically Christian; the national church is the [[Church of Scotland]]

Scotland includes the island groups of [[Orkney]], [[Shetland]], the [[Inner Hebrides|Inner]] and [[Outer Hebrides]], the islands of the [[Firth of Clyde]] including [[Arran]], [[Bute]], [[Cumbrae]] & [[Wee Cumbrae]], the [[St. Kilda]] archipelago, [[Rockall]] and various other smaller islands.

[[Ben Nevis]], the highest mountain in the [[United Kingdom]], is in the Scottish [[Highlands of Scotland|Highlands]], as are most of the nation's highest mountains. Those with heights above 3000 feet are eponymously named [[Munro| Munros]] after Sir Hector Munro, the first person to compile a list of such mountains.<ref> for a complete list of Munros see http://www.sol.co.uk/d/dickwall/munroes.htm</ref>

==History==

In the year 722 BC, the Assyrians conquered the Kingdom of Israel and sent the Ten Tribes of Israel into exile.<ref>[http://www.britam.org Revealing the Lost Ten Tribes Amongst Western Peoples]</ref> The British historian Bede describes how the Scots had arrived in Ireland (at the time known as Scotia) after journeying from Scythia in longboats, and were from there travelled on to Scotland (which they called Alban - Alba is still the [[Gaelic]] name for Scotland). Ancient Scottish art attributed to a people now called Picts shows characteristics peculiar to Scythian art. After the Crucificxtion, Christ's apostle Andrew, came to Scotland to preach to these descendants of the Scythians.<ref>[http://www.domestic-church.com/CONTENT.DCC/19981101/SAINTS/standrew.htm Saint Andrew the Apostle]</ref> St. Andrew then became the patron saint of Scotland, the Scottish flag incorporating the Cross of Saint Andrew. The Scots crowned their Kings on the Stone of Destiny, the stone that Jacob used as a pillow when he had a dream in which he saw a stairway to heaven with angels ascending and descending (Genesis 28:10-22).

The [[Romans]] never managed to conquer the Scots, and after a brief period when the Antonine Wall between the Firths of Forth and Clyde was the Roman Empire’s northern frontier, they drew back and had Hadrian’s Wall as the frontier. In spite of this, there was interaction between the Scots and Romans. Many Scots leaving to serve the Roman empire, such as Pontius Pilate, who was born in the hamlet of Fortingall.<ref>[http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/towns/townfirst1306.html Fortingall]</ref> Pontius Pilate was related to the Scots King, Metallanus. At the the time Metallanus was on good terms with the government of Caesar in Rome. Pilate first went to Rome and was later appointed the Roman Procurator of Judea. To this day, the Royal Scots, one of the oldest regiments in the British Army claim descendance from Pontius Pilate's bodyguard. There still exists at Caesaria in Palestine, an ancient stone slab which is called the Pilate Stone, upon on which is inscribed in Latin "Hiberieum Pontius Pilatus". The Romans referred to northerly regions of the British Isles as Hibernia.

From the late 13th century the Kingdom of England began to threaten Scotland's indpendence. The Scots presenting the [[Pope]] with the Declaration of Arbroath stating their intention, to remain free, reiterating their right to do so as descendants of the Scythians, one of the exiled Ten Tribes.

:"Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous."

:"...for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

Scotland's independence was finally secured by the brave deeds of the knight William Wallace and King Robert the Bruce at the [[battle of Bannockburn]].

By the 16th century many Scots had come to mistrust the rule of [[Vatican City|Rome]] and the false [[doctrine]]s and [[malpractice]]s within the [[Roman Catholic Church]]. Most, led by [[John Knox]], joined the [[Protestant Reformation]] that had been inspired by [[Martin Luther]] nailing his [[95 Theses]] to the door of a church in Wittenburg [[Germany]]. This struggle for religious dignity was not easy and the wrath of Rome was both bloody and brutal. Many Scots [[Martyrs to the faith]], such as [[Patrick Hamilton]], [[Walter Myln]] and [[George Wishart]] were murdered by Roman Catholics and are commemorated to this day at the [[Martyrs' Monument]]. Scotland was finally liberated from the yoke of Rome in 1560 with the establishment of the [[Presbyterian]] Church.

[[England]] also broke from Rome but this had little to do with abhorrence at the false doctrines and malpractices of the Roman catholic Church but was motivated by King [[Henry VIII]]'s lust for women, with which even the Pope was appalled, refusing to allow him to divorce wives which he no longer wished to have. Henry had them murdered instead so he could remarry. He finally split with Rome over the issue forming the Anglican [[Church of England]], of which he was head. Anglican practices remained similar to those of Rome and in Recent years many Anglicans have rejoined the Church of Rome.

Being English, this new church set out to control religious matters in Scotland, insisting the King of England have supremacy over the Church of Scotland. The protestant Scots would have none of that, knowing that the only true authority is the [[Bible]], not Popes or Kings. In Scotland the Bible was made available to all by its publication in the common language and universal education enabling everyone to read it themselves. Once again having to defend their religious dignity against corrupt [[zealot]]s, the Scottish [[Coventanters]] made great sacrifices against the ensuing English blood-lust and brutality. An insprational example being [[John Brown (Martyr)|John Brown]] who was murdered outside his cottage home in the presence of his wife, Isabel, and two children. Eventually, the Scots ensured their religious dignity.

==Union with England==

After the death of Queen [[Elizabeth I]] of England in 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended to the Throne of England, becoming [[James I]] of England. He was the first monarch to call himself King of Great Britain. This is referred to as the Union of the Crowns. James was also at this time King of [[Ireland]].

The Parliaments of Scotland and [[England]] were not united until 1707 and it is this date that is recognized as the formation of [[Great Britain]]. This is referred to as the Union of the Parliaments. (The [[United Kingdom]] was to come into being with the addition of [[Ireland]] in 1801.)The formation of the Irish Free State in 1922 resulted in the current name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Scotland has its own Parliament of 129 members as well as sending 59 Members of Parliament(MPs) to represent its interests in the [[United Kingdom]] parliament which sits in [[London]]. Scottish MPs have historically been recognized for their political skills and appointed to the Cabinet in larger numbers than is proportionate. The current Prime Minister [[Gordon Brown]], is Scottish, and formerly he was [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]].

Relationships between Scottish and English MPs before [[devolution]] were sometimes tense because of what the former [[Conservative|Conservative Party]] MP, by then an [[Ulster Unionist]], [[Enoch Powell]] dubbed ''The West Lothian question''. The name arose in 1977 after [[Tam Dalyell]], Labour MP for West Lothian in Scotland, asked during a debate in the [[Houses of Parliament]] over Scottish and Welsh [[devolution]]:

<blockquote>''For how long will English constituencies and English Honourable members tolerate... at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on British politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?''</blockquote>

He pointed out that he as MP for West Lothian could vote on matters affecting English constituencies but not his own constituency.

== Societal Problems ==

Scotland, like many developed countries, has a great number of social and ethical challenges as church attendance<ref>[http://www.unavoce.org/scotland.htm The Once-Heroic Church in Scotland]</ref> has plummeted to an all-time low.<ref>Church attendance is just over 7% of Scottish adults. In 1962 Scotland had 26,015 baptisms. In 1998, there were only 9,951.</ref>
Currently some 40% of births are to unmarried mothers, the trend being upwards. In 2003/4 there were 7.5 conceptions per 1000 for 13-15 year olds and 68.2 conceptions per 1000 for 16-19 year olds with over 50% of the 13-15 year olds being pressured into [[abortion]]. <ref>[http://www.brook.org.uk/content/M6_4_teenage%20pregnancy.asp Teenage pregnancy]]</ref>. In Scotland, 93% of men and 87% of women aged 16-74 drink alcohol. The proportion of [[public school]] pupils aged 12-15 who had had an alcoholic drink in the previous week has risen in the last decade from 14% in 1990 to 21% in 2000. Death rates from alcohol have risen over 100% between 1990 and 2000, the rates for women being nearer 200%.<ref>[http://www.scotland.gov.uk/health/alcoholproblems/docs/paap1-00.asp Statistics on Alcohol in Scotland]</ref> Abuse of [[illegal drugs]] is also increasing rapidly. <ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/653646.stm Drug abuse increasing]</ref>

==Cities==
[[Image:Scotland.gif|thumb|right|250px|A map of Scotland.]]

Scotland has four major cities. They are [[Aberdeen]], [[Dundee]], [[Edinburgh]] and [[Glasgow]]. [[Inverness]] and [[Stirling]] were granted city status recently but are in fact smaller than some of the larger Scottish towns like Paisley and Perth.

== Sports and culture==

The national preoccupation, indeed obsession, is [[football (soccer)]]. Other diversions include [[rugby]], [[lawn bowls]], [[motorsports]], [[horseracing]], [[shinty]] (similar to hockey), [[curling]], sports of the [[Highland Games]] - such as tossing the [[caber]] and, of course, [[golf]] - Scotland is the home of golf. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club at [[St Andrews]] is the governing body of world golf.

Scotland is famous for its disproportionate amount of inventions and discoveries (as immortalized in [[Wha's Like Us]]), its world class universities, the Scottish Enlightenment, being the one of the first industrial nations while still preserving some of the last great wildernesses of Europe, and being the home of [[golf]].

The symbol of Scotland is the [[thistle]]. The Scottish flag is the Cross of St. Andrew, a white diagonal cross on a dark blue background. The design originated in the 9th century and it is the oldest national flag still in use anywhere in the world. Other things associated with the country are [[kilt]]s ([[tartan]] skirtlike garments worn by Scotsmen), and the haunting music of the [[bagpipes]]. Famous Scottish products include [[pie]]s, [[haggis]] and Scotch [[whisky]].

Scotland's motto is ''Nemo Me Impune Lacessit'' ("No one provokes me with impunity")<ref>http://www.scotland-guide.co.uk/ALL_AREAS_IN_SCOTLAND/Glasgow/Areas/Centre/Mercat_Cross.htm </ref> which translates as ''Wha daur meddle wi me?'' in [[Scots]] and in [[English]] as ''Who would dare mess with me?''.

Also see [[:Category:Scottish Culture]].

==External Links==
*[http://www.n-cyclopedia.com/scottish-history/index.htm A Brief History of Scotland]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Scotland]]
[[Category:United Kingdom]]