Free Republic

Watching Easy Rider for maybe the 15th Time; thought I'd share this for comment. The worm seems to have turned.

Can You Spot the Snipers in These Photos?

It's a normal part of the school day for many students and teachers, but what happened Friday during the pledge and moment of silence that follows at Cy-Fair High School is creating quite a buzz, thanks to a teacher who captured the moment on camera. 

Just put of by Netflix streaming. Rush was the most solid and cool and allaround awesome band of the past half century. 'Now I didn't ask for no argument'.

A painter friend of mine is putting on a web convention of famous contemporary artists. It includes interviews with Marvin Mattelson, Albert Handell, Fernando Freitas, and many other Masters in the art world. I apologize for not posting this sooner, as it's been going on for a week now and is only available until March 26, 2014. There have been six interviews released with a new one every day. If you are an artist or art-lover, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to gain information and inspiration to help transform your own art or hear from the masters. This is really...

With the rise in popularity and drop in price of high speed cameras, more and more incredible footage is getting captured of events our human brain would otherwise be unable to see in such detail.

The Eisenhower Memorial is dead. Not the memorial itself, but the wildly unpopular design by Frank Gehry. The decisive blow is Congress’ 2014 budget, which denied the $49 million in construction funds requested by the Eisenhower Memorial Commission, the body charged with building the memorial. Instead, Congress allotted $1 million for operations, thereby halving the Commission’s previous annual budget. Congress also reinstated the requirement that the Commission possess 100% of construction funding before it can break ground. This sets an impossibly high bar. The Commission’s 2014 budget request estimated that it would need an additional $25 million in construction funds...

The King of Pop allegedly fathered a secret son with a DNA test claiming to give the truth Michael Jackson is alleged to have a lovechild after DNA evidence claimed to prove the superstar had a secret son - but who is he? Brandon Howard is a 31-year-old singer, songwriter and producer who goes by the stage name of B Howard. He's the son of 53-year-old singer Miki Howard, whom Jackson family patriarch Joe Jackson represented back in the 1980s. Miki met Jackson in 1982 and her son was born soon after. In 2010 Brandon released his debut album Genesis...

does someone make an adapter/cable to go from the phone port to a thumbdrive I can take to it to a photo kiosk to print?

...As of 2010, SXSW Inc. had just 75 paid employees, including those working part-time. ..,These thousands of volunteers “are the faces of SXSW,” according to the company, and without them this year’s conference simply couldn’t happen. ...SXSW may have an argument that its internship program is legal; that its program is only available to those getting college credit certainly helps. When it comes to volunteers, however, the Department of Labor says there is no argument at all: Individuals “may not volunteer services to for-profit private sector employers.” ...The artists who come to SXSW aren’t compensated much better. Plane tickets and...

Sunday’s Academy Awards event showcased Hollywood’s finest. Beautiful people in beautiful clothes saying lovely things about their industry – a politically “progressive” business that gives nearly all of its political contributions to Democrats. Democrats, of course, purport to believe that “the rich” do not pay their “fair share” in taxes. Democrats also believe in gender equality, that women should receive “equal pay” for “equal work.”

It’s a sad day for the Internet… according to Trend Micro’s security analysts, it’s been discovered that photographs of both sunsets and — even more heartbreaking — cats being shared across the web contain malware capable of getting into your bank accounts.

TCM Remembers 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6gXi67ueD0

Enjoy Classic Duck Dynasty

1970s: “The Flying Pulpit” The Williams X-Jet, created by Williams International, was a small, one-man, light-weight, Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft powered by a modified Williams F107 turbofan aircraft engine designated WR-19-7 after some minor modifications. The vehicle was nicknamed "The Flying Pulpit", seemingly due to its shape. It was designed to be operated by / carry one person and dirigible by leaning in the direction of desired travel together with the modulation of its input power. It could move in any direction, accelerate rapidly, hover and rotate on its axis, stay aloft for up to 45 minutes...

1927: Submarine Aircraft Carrier HMS M2 was a Royal Navy submarine monitor completed in 1919, converted in 1927 into the world's first submarine aircraft carrier. She was shipwrecked in Lyme Bay, Dorset, Britain, on 26 January 1932. She was one of three M-class boats completed. • Design and Career Four M-class submarines replaced the order for the last four K-class submarines, K17-K21. Although they were similar in size, the M class was an entirely different design from the K class, although it is possible that some material ordered for the K-boats went into them. In any event, the end of...

Vyacheslav Ivanov made a timelapse of snowflakes forming and melting that's mesmerizing and sort of makes you appreciate the beauty of those frozen bits falling from the sky..

THINK YOU DON'T like IPAs? Too bitter, too intense? Many are. Tongue-numbingly resinous and paint-thinner strong, today's double and triple India Pale Ales have a few devoted, if masochistic, fans. But to those of us more interested in grace than grandeur, IPAs can be hard beers to love. Or even swallow. No longer. Showcasing new and experimental breeds of hops, the latest pale ales offer a welcome change of pace: nuanced flavor.So get them while you can: a fleeting, flickering burst of tropical sun in a northern winter. 1. Great Lakes Chillwave Double IPA (9.4% ABV): Hop-of-the-moment Mosaic bursts through...

RUSH: I told you a long time ago to be wary that the Clinton-Lewinsky thing was gonna lead to people thinking it's cool and all that. Have you heard Beyonce's latest tune? Oh, oh, oh! Well. Hang on. Grab audio sound bite 6A. This is Beyonce Carter's website. She released a new song out there, and a video entitled "Partition." It's the limousine partition, I guess. Doesn't want the driver looking back. Wants the driver to close the partition. In the song she sings a bout going to a club with her husband and not getting there before things got...

A chilling video of Maryland police silencing an innocent student who was recording the arrests of two other people has civil libertarians outraged. The arrests were made at night on the streets of Towson, Maryland. A University of Maryland-Baltimore County student who witnessed the arrests decided to record them using his cell phone. The student, 21-year-old Sergio Gutierrez, was soon approached by officers who objected — wrongly — to his actions. Gutierrez repeatedly told the officers that he knew he had the right to film them, but the cops were prepared to use any excuse to shut him down. First...

Christian Scientists have won their long, twilight struggle against brutalism -- so says a wrecking ball at the corner of 16th and I streets in Washington, D.C. For what seemed like an eternity, members of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist fought with architecture historians and city bureaucrats over the right to tear down their own church. Churchgoers never liked their 1971 classic brutalist structure -- an architectural style that is well, brutal -- and have even suggested it has something to do with their dwindling numbers.

When it comes to wildlife photography, the Snow Leopard is almost unicorn-like. No, it’s not mythical, but it’s almost as hard to capture one of these infamous “gray ghosts of the Himalayas” on camera as it is to track down a creature that doesn’t actually exist.

I have a new idea for a movie or series. I know we have a few Hollywood types here. Name: Outlawing Normal The show will be how society fringes work to push government and society to accept the fringes and, outlaw the normal society. I get to be executive producer.

...Until now, there were only two verified photographs of Johnson (1911-1938), who remains the most inspirational musician produced by the Mississippi Delta and the man Eric Clapton once anointed as "the most important blues musician who ever lived". This weekend a third, newly cleaned-up and authenticated image has been released by the Johnson estate showing him standing next to musician Johnny Shines. Forensic work on the photograph began in 2007, when Lois Gibson, who works with the Houston police department, analysed the features of the long-fingered figure holding the guitar. Gibson, who found the identity of the sailor kissing the...

Wait, did the season finale of “Downton” leave us with more questions than it answered? Here’s what we still don’t know: Did Bates kill Green? Will Mary choose Blake or Gillingham or Napier? (Okay, probably not Napier). Will Edith ever locate Michael Gregson? What dirt does Barrow have on Baxter? (And, related, why do the names of so many characters on “Downton” begin with B? Bates, Blake, Barrow, Baxter, Bunting, Branson, Braithwaite. I’m out of breath). I doubt the last question will be answered and it looks like we’ll have to wait for next season to find out about the...

From the opening ceremony with a malfunctioning ring, to police officers singing Get Lucky, the Sochi Winter Olympics have been a games to remember. But tonight marks the end for the highly controversial games, which are also the most expensive in Olympic history. Showing that the country has a sense of humour, dancers during the opening section of the show mocked the moment a ring failed to open during the opening ceremony. The joke was followed by an opulent show of ballet, circus performances and classical music, an ode to the country's rich literary history - before the Olympic flame...

In my youth, vampires were EVIL INCARNATE. They used you and left you dead or worse. Somehow, in the past fifty years, vampires have become teenaged heartthrobs, misunderstood and full of angst. But do you realize, from a societal and sociological point of view...vampires are the perfect man for modern women? In my youth, in the movies, men were men. You were either John Wayne…strong, silent, but caring underneath, or you were Cary Grant…quirky, but strong, witty on the surface, but a manly good guy underneath. They were GOOD INCARNATE. We have gelded the modern male. Once they were supposed...

A journey to the heart of New Guinea’s Asmat tribal homeland sheds new light on the mystery of the heir’s disappearance there in 1961 smat is, in its way, a perfect place. Everything you could possibly need is here. It’s teeming with shrimp and crabs and fish and clams. In the jungle there are wild pig, the furry, opossumlike cuscus, and the ostrichlike cassowary. And sago palm, whose pith can be pounded into a white starch and which hosts the larvae of the Capricorn beetle, both key sources of nutrition. The rivers are navigable highways. Crocodiles 15 feet long prowl...

Tunes for the Ages(d)\ Beetles – “When I’m 64.” At 73, I wish. Jackson Browne - “In sixty-five I was seventeen (actually 25) and running up one-o-one. I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on.” Well, I kind of know where I ‘m running to now. Neil Young –“ Old man look at my life, I'm a lot like you were.” Not sure about that. And Sinatra - “It Was a Very Good Year”. Most have been, not all.

London: A giant jade boulder that could be worth billions of pounds has been discovered in Burma. The 50-tonne block was found half buried in soil and rock in the gem-rich north of the country. Villagers discovered the 5.5 metre-wide boulder in the mountainous state of Kachin, where rebels have been fighting the government for more than 50 years. It is now under armed guard as officials negotiate with rebels about what to do with it. Burma, also known as Myanmar, is one of the world’s biggest producers of precious stones. Jade expert Jason Holt, of Holts Jewellers in Hatton...

Special to the Star-Telegram One year after his death, hundreds of items from the estate of Van Cliburn are going on sale at Christie’s auction house in New York. The pianist, who died in February 2013, filled his Westover Hills home with items encountered during his world travels — fine art, furnishings, tableware — and selected with a veteran collector’s eye. Two years ago, Cliburn parted with some of his most valuable treasures at a Christie’s auction of what was billed as “The Van Cliburn Collection.” That sale earned almost $4.4 million, beating a presale estimate of $3 million. The...

This striking composite photo from the riots in Ukraine helps put the extreme devastation occurring in Kiev right now into perspective. The lighter image on the left is of Independence Square in Kiev before the riots and the seemingly post-apocalyptic half of the image was taken in the same square by Olga Yakimovich for Reuters on Feb. 19th.(via: Imgur)

Debris scattered on ground was actually part of display (Newser) – Whoops: A cleaner at an art exhibition in Italy threw away some pieces of cardboard, cookies, and newspaper that were strewn on the floor ... not realizing they were actually part of artist Sala Murat's display. She assumed the debris was trash left behind while the display was being set up; security noticed pieces of the work were missing when the exhibit opened yesterday, but by then it had already been given to trash collectors, the BBC reports, citing local media. A rep from the cleaning firm says...

Muslim Wonder Woman Redesign Puts Diana in a Headscarf Artist flowercrownprincess envisions Wonder Woman as a hijab-wearing Muslim superhero, who is ready to battle evil in both armor and a headscarf.

They've spent four years training for the chance to win Winter Olympics gold, so spare a thought for these athletes who have come a cropper on the snow and ice in Sochi. Britain's Rowan Cheshire has posted a pictured of her injuries on Twitter after becoming the latest freestyle skier to be injured at the Sochi Olympics. Cheshire was knocked unconscious after falling heavily on her face during a training session at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park. The 18 year-old, who is due to compete in the ski halfpipe, is understood to have remained unconscious for several minutes after crashing...

Sports Illustrated is marking the 50th anniversary of its swimsuit issue with three models on the cover. Chrissy Teigen, Nina Agdal and Lily Aldridge strike a playful pose in the picture topping the magazine's annual swimsuit edition. The image was to be unveiled Thursday on ABC's ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' The issue hits newsstands and digital formats next week. Aldridge said in an interview Thursday she was ''in shock'' over her selection. ''It's the most incredible honor to be a Sports Illustrated cover model,'' she said. Especially since it's the 28-year-old Victoria's Secret model's first time in the magazine. Even though...

You're looking at a newly released 8-frame movie of Saturn's enigmatic "hexagon." It is the highest-resolution footage ever acquired of the massive six-sided maelstrom atop the ringed planet's north pole, and boy howdy is it gorgeous. For the uninitiated, Saturn's uncannily symmetric cloud system measures roughly 20,000-miles across, and is utterly unique in our solar system. Its dimensions and dynamics are just bizarre. At the hexagon's center whirls a tightly wound hurricane roughly fifty-times larger than the average hurricane-eye on Earth. About it spins an assortment of smaller vortices, caught up in the hexagon's jet stream, that rotate clockwise, even...

LONG BEACH (CBSLA.com) — A taste of Scotland is coming to the Southland. The ScotsFestival and International Highland Games will take place this weekend at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. The event showcases some of Scotland’s most famous foods, music and sports. It’s all part of the celebration honoring the history of the legendary ship, which was built in Clydebank, Scotland in the 1930s. The festival runs from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Former Hollywood child star Shirley Temple has died at the age of 85. The actress found fame as a young girl in the 1930s in films like Bright Eyes, Stand Up and Cheer and Curly Top. After retiring from films in 1950 at the age of 21, Temple returned to the public eye as a Republican candidate for Congress and as a US diplomat. She died on Monday at home in Woodside, California, from natural causes. "She was surrounded by her family and caregivers," a statement said. Born in 1928, the sweet-faced, curly-haired Temple was one of the most popular...

Get those telescopes ready: the coming months offer Earthbound viewers some great views of the planet Mars. Mars reaches opposition for 2014 on April 8th. This is approaching season represents the best time to observe Mars, as the Red Planet is closest to us in April and rises in the east as the Sun sets opposite to it in the west. Mars reaches 10” in apparent size this week. Mars is already beginning to show surface detail through a moderate-sized telescope as it continues to grow. In mid-February, Mars currently rises at around midnight local, and rides high to the...

RANCHO PALOS VERDES (CBSLA.com) — A record number of whales are migrating southbound through the waters off the Palos Verdes Peninsula, according to scientists with the American Cetacean Society Los Angeles Gray Whale Census and Behavior Report. Some 1,055 gray whales have been tracked southbound en route to nursing and calving waters off Baja California so far this season, compared to 704 at the same time last year. Scientists also said December was the highest month on record. This weekend marked the third highest count of southbound gray whales since the ACS/LA Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project began 31...

Captain Robert Posey and Pfc. Lincoln Kirstein were the first through the small gap in the rubble blocking the ancient salt mine at Altausee, high in the Austrian Alps in 1945 as World War II drew to a close in May 1945. They walked past one sidechamber in the cool damp air and entered a second one, the flames of their lamps guiding the way. There, resting on empty cardboard boxes a foot off the ground, were eight panels of The Adoration of the Lamb by Jan van Eyck, considered one of the masterpieces of 15th-century European art. In one...

VIDEO: Jimi Hendrix sings "The Wind Cries Mary" in a montage with Edward Hopper paintings. Taking a great song with poetic lyrics by Hendrix and combining it with great art by Hopper seems right, and I haven't found anything like it before. The third Hopper painting shown is called "Nighthawks" and has been featured in past Freepathon threads. It looks like the paintings in the video have been processed with a photo effect that, while not unpleasant, is not the same as the original paintings.

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — An 89-year-old man has sold his assemblage of rare, 19th-century photographs to a collections-based educational and research institute. The Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino acquired Ernest Marquez’s one-of-a-kind collection. The undisclosed purchase amount for the photos, which span from the 1860s to the 1950s, was made possible with help from the library’s Collectors’ Council. As CBS2′s Amy Johnson reports, Marquez’s collection began with his desire to collect pictures of his family’s Santa Monica property obtained through a Mexican land grant. From there, he found pictures at antique shops, flee markets, and...

Does the following charter allow for non-discrimination against polygamous heterosexual people? "The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play."

Julia Randall says she is "45 going on 12," an apt summation of her current artistic inspiration on view at Real Art Ways in Hartford. Randall starts by chewing bubble gum and blowing a bubble, then biting the end of the bubble to seal it. Then she takes the bubble out of her mouth and photographs it.

Student took the photo during a school field trip to the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s biology department. LIMESTONE COUNTY, Ala., Feb. 5 (UPI) -- If they want to discipline her, administrators have this student dead to rights… An Alabama high school senior could be suspended after she posted an Instagram selfie with a cadaver while on a school field trip to the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s biology department. The student, who attends Clements High School in Limestone County, used her cellphone to take a photo of herself with a dead body that had been donated to the school....

Four years after Farrah Fawcett’s death, her alma mater and her former partner, Ryan O’Neal, went to court over an Andy Warhol painting of the blond pop icon. In December a jury settled the case, but it had no hope of deciding on the question at the heart of the dispute: Whom did Farrah really love? It was a Monday morning in mid-December at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the day of closing arguments in the matter of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas System v. Ryan O’Neal, and the show was just minutes from getting...

Our general news is so depressing that I think that it is time for a little "hump Day" cheer. This was in my email, and I'd like to share. http://www.youtube.com/embed/-iP27eatYxE