Free Republic

An airliner came within just 80ft of colliding with a quadcopter drone after it was 'deliberately flown' at the passenger plane as it flew over Essex, an official report reveals. The 74-seater aeroplane was travelling over Southend when the pilot spotted the remote-controlled quadcopter 'very close' to the right wing-tip. An investigation launched into the incident recorded the risk of collision as 'high', in what is believed to be the first ever near-miss between a passenger plane and a drone in the UK.

I have just finished reading William R. Forstchen's new novel One Second After. Briefly, it is about the instantaneous breakdown of American way of life as the result of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which disables the nation's electrical grid as well as all sophisticated electrical components in cars (they stop), planes (they crash), telecomunications of every sort, etc. leaving the population in a world similar to that of the Eighteenth Century. Shortages of every variety create societal strains, chaos, death and destruction in a matter of weeks and months. Forstchen's book (with a forward written by Newt Gingrich), while fiction,...

Recently I have had conversations with several intelligence/counter-insurgent military experts regarding potential war with Iran. The response is always the same -- You have no idea how bad Iran wants the U.S. to throw them into that briar patch. They tell me that there are no good options; just less bad ones. Iran, like Osama Bin Laden, wants this holy war! Apparently, Iran has been flooding Hezbollah spies into Mexico and other U.S. border areas, and they are armed with stinger missles prepared to shoot down U.S. planes if we attack Iran. This, they say, would be just the first...

Fifty years ago, China invaded Tibet. What was the first task of the 'Liberation's Army'? 'To defend the western borders', Mao stated. On the ground, it meant building new roads leading to India (including the Aksai Chin road on Indian territory). The same roads were used 12 years later to invade India. The Chinese always plan years in advance. The 'beyond Taiwan policy' [mentioned in the first part of this article] brings to my mind the railway line scheduled to reach Lhasa, the Tibetan capital in July 2006. In February 2001, the 1,118-kilometer railway stretch from Golmud (the current terminus...

A Shot in the Dark by F. Robert Falkenberg With the recent events in Maryland and Virginia, I have seen through the media of what happens to a large herd of sheep that suddenly discovers a wolf devouring them. Perhaps I am channeling Jeane Dixon, or I am simply twisted and able to think about how I would play this (were I an Allah-loving, murdering bastard [pardon the redundancy]), but here is my vision for the next few months… Tuesday, 10/28/02: Chief Moose, at his morning press conference, expresses gratitude with two weeks going by without another new victim of...