Free Republic

Perhaps you read the title of this article, and automatically assumed that we made a typo. After all, it sounds awfully similar to a story we did in the past about 3D Systems. If you have been following the 3D printing space for the past several months, then you know that 3D Systems has been working on creating a new 3D printing system that they say is based on a “racetrack architecture”. It is an assembly line of sorts, and is said to be able to fabricate objects up to 50 times faster than other printers currently available today. Now...

This one must be solved fast because the regime cannot fire bureaucrats and misiones beneficiaries fast enough. Never mind that cutting off 20% of its payroll in bureaucracy or welfare would push us further into recession, with even less consumers, more social instability. The regime is seriously considering increase taxes further which in today's context would be lethal for the economy as businesses still alive barely make it through. Reminder; if you have 60% inflation your business must have benefits of 61% or start losing its value. That is, if your business does not make more than inflation you erode...

Harmony was never in Obama's vocabulary. Discord, on the other hand, is his middle name. Confront President Obama and his obstructionist pen that hovers prepared to slash their efforts to dial back his ruinous agenda President Obama, the King of “Me,” confiscates credit for anything that even sniffs of a positive scent. Right now, that’s the smell of economic growth from privately owned and developed oil fields. His own policies have shuttered federal oil leases, selling them at a premium with crippling restrictions while extorting oil companies (most particularly BP after the Gulf spill in 2010) to pay royalties on...

The Village Voice of New York City has come out in favor of knife reform legislation.   The abusive prosecutions under this law have, no doubt, been going on ever since its passage in the 1950's.   Knife Rights has been in the forefront of this fight, and has an ongoing court case, noted in the Voice article.  The abuses have become increasingly severe in the last 10 years, with The Village Voice noting that as many as 60,000 people have been arrested.  From the Village Voice: Assemblyman Dan Quart will introduce a bill today to adjust the language of the...

Property owner Miodrag Burgacic defended himself and his property one too many times in crime ridden Cleveland.  He has shot people who were attempting to steal from him twice before, and been able to hold people without shooting them at least once.   No charges were filed in those incidents. From theblaze.com: Miodrag Bugarcic seems to attract criminals like a magnet. But because the Cleveland businessman has used firearms to thwart crimes on his property multiple times — once with lethal results — why crooks keep trying to rip him off is anybody’s guess. After the third shooting, which...

A bridge linking mainland Russia with the Crimean Peninsula will be built by Arkady Rotenberg, a Russian construction tycoon and friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a January 14 report in Vedomosti. Russia has sought to build a bridge to Crimea since the end of World War II, but the project always stalled out due to high costs and political controversy. Since Russia officially annexed Crimea last spring, the controversy within Russia has diminished, bringing a renewed impetus for a connection. The plans for the bridge have not been made public, but sources inside RussiaÂ’s Finance Ministry told...

<p>After two constitutionally dubious delays, ObamaCare’s employer mandate took effect on Jan. 1 for employers with 100 or more full-time employees. The last open-enrollment date for our company, CKE Restaurant Holdings, Inc., was Dec. 4, 2014. As of that date, our company had approximately 20,000 employees, 6,900 of whom worked 30 or more hours a week and were eligible for ObamaCare-compliant health insurance. We elected to offer them coverage rather than pay the employer penalty, which would have sent workers to ObamaCare’s health-insurance exchanges, where those who qualified could receive federal subsidies to help pay for insurance.</p>

If you think college tuition is expensive now, wait until it is free If you think college tuition is expensive now, wait until it is free. Two years of “free” community college sounds wonderful, even though some students who just graduated felt cheated that they did not get it “free” and, in the name of fairness and justice, retroactive reimbursement was immediately demanded. The President announced that two years of junior college will be free if “you are willing to work hard.” Was he referring to working hard to keep up stellar grades or doing community service in exchange for...

The EPA thinks cow flatulence is a serious problem The Obama administration’s attack on America’s energy sector is insane. They might as well tell us what to eat. Oh, wait, Michelle Obama is doing that. Or that the Islamic State is not Islamic. Oh, wait, Barack Obama said that. Or that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is about protecting the environment. It used to be decades ago, but not these days. There was a time when the EPA was devoted to cleaning up the nation’s air and water. It did a very good job and we now all breathe cleaner...

Many people do not think much about the use of cover in self defense.  This is a mistake.   Much of the time, if and when you have to defend yourself, cover will be available and should be used.  Cover protects you from bullets and other weapons, or from access by the aggressor.   As the objective is to escape unharmed, rather than to damage or kill the aggressor, taking cover is usually a higher priority than shooting back.  In this gunfight video out of Cleveland, Ohio, on 6 January, 2015, the store owner, Fares Naser, makes good use of cover. ...

Women's fashion discount retailer Deb Shops is closing all of its stores in Michigan and nationwide. After more than 80 years in business, the Philadelphia-based retailer, which specializes in junior- and plus-size apparel, filed for Chapter 11 protection on Dec. 4, according to a news release. On Jan. 7, the bankruptcy court awarded Gordon Brothers Group and Hilco Merchant Resources the store closing process for all locations. Officials with Gordon Brothers Group and Hilco Merchant Resources began going-out-of-business sales at approximately 287 Deb Shops retail locations Friday, Jan. 9, the release states. The company's website gob.debshops.com now is simply an...

Put me down as someone who would really enjoy a contest between Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney. They are both serious and qualified men. I've always loved Romney's mixture of private and public sector experience. Jeb Bush ran a big state that looks a lot like the U.S. They are good patriotic men who have thought hard about the issues confronting the country. However, they have problems: 1) Romney lost in 2012. Fair or unfair, many people think that he ran a poor campaign. He seemed poised for victory after the first debate and then fell back. Also, a lot...

DOWNEY — The building that housed the world’s first Taco Bell is under “imminent threat of demolition,” according to the Downey Conservancy, a Downey-based preservation group. Although Downey is more famously recognized as the site of the oldest operating location for the world’s largest hamburger chain, it is Taco Bell that built its very first location within the city. The building, located at 7112 Firestone Blvd, was opened by founder Glen Bell in March 1962.

The barber shop seems to be behind the red neon sign in the upper story. Armed robbery requires a large number of disarmed victims.  If a significant number of potential victims are armed, armed robbery becomes a suicide mission.  Large numbers of violent criminals die young already.   It is one of the reasons that the life expectancy for black men is four years lower than for white men.   As more law abiding black people learn that they can trust the process, can obtain a concealed carry permit, and can go about legally armed without being abused by the police,...

The Senate could vote soon on a proposal to lift the nation’s longstanding ban on crude exports, worrying both supporters and opponents of the trade restrictions who say it’s premature. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is set to force the issue by offering his proposal to lift the 40-year-old ban as an amendment to legislation authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline. That is a much faster track than even crude export supporters envisioned when they launched a methodical, deliberate discussion of the issue a year ago. If Cruz insists on a roll call vote on his proposal, it would force many senators...

Sound the trumpets! Here comes the next best, all-new, electric wonder-car from General Motors. The dust had not even cleared from the rollout of the new and improved 2016 Chevy Volt when GM CEO Mary Barra announced the newest Tesla-killer from GM, the Chevy Bolt. Let's hope that the engineers working on the Bolt put more thought into the design of the vehicle than the GM executives put into naming the car. Seriously, the Bolt? The name sounds like something out of a Disney animated movie. I wonder if the names Ratchet orSocket were in contention. Whatever the case,...

There’s been little heat so far in Kentucky over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a technique of drilling for oil and natural gas that has caused division elsewhere in the country, but now the controversy has gushed up here. The potential to develop a vast underground shale layer that curves from the northeastern part of the state through Central Kentucky has sparked increased interest among oil and gas companies within the last 18 months. Companies signed hundreds of additional oil and gas leases with landowners in 2014, according to local officials. Much of the interest has been in Lawrence, Johnson and...

The statistics for this incredibly successful indoor farming endeavor in Japan are staggering: 25,000 square feet producing 10,000 heads of lettuce per day (100 times more per square foot than traditional methods) with 40% less power, 80% less food waste and 99% less water usage than outdoor fields. But the freshest news from the farm: a new facility using the same technologies has been announced and is now under construction in Hong Kong, with Mongolia, Russia and mainland China on the agenda for subsequent near-future builds. In the currently-completed setup, customized LED lighting developed with GE helps plants grow up...

Real issues of Immigration are as much about people as politics, as much about its costs as about compassion Every few years immigration becomes a political issue and, in truth, it has always been an issue in the minds of generations of Americans from its earliest years. Initially, those who were here, largely from England, wanted others like them, but America was a dynamic place spreading West and with a growing industrial sector. Events elsewhere in the world also played a role. By the middle half of the nineteenth century more than one-half of the population of Ireland emigrated due...

Jan 10th 2015 at 11:01AM Russia bans transgender people from getting driver's licenses Chris Bruce The Russian government has reportedly decided that it can make the country's roads safer by keeping people with what it considers "disorders" from getting driver's licenses. According to the International Business Times, under the new guidelines, people who are homosexual or transgender will not be allowed to to get a license. The list also includes things like fetishism, voyeurism and exhibitionism as grounds for not getting behind the wheel, notes the BBC News. The ban, which the government says has been devised to curb the...