Free Republic

The Northern Californian couple who found $10 million worth of gold coins on their land could have broken California Law for failing to report their stunning discovery to police, it emerged today. ..... But, according to Californian Law, the couple should have declared their findings to the police within a ‘reasonable time’ of finding it. The Californian Civil Code, sub-section 2080, also states that a notice must go in the local paper if the haul is worth more than $250. Usually, breaking the Civil Code isn’t an arrestable offense but punished with a fine. ..... But, according to one Gold...

The U.S. Defense Department plans to buy eight fewer F-35 fighter jets in fiscal 2015, according to a news report.The Pentagon will request funding for 34 of the aircraft in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, including 26 of the Air Force’s conventional model, six of the Marine Corps’ vertical-landing version, and two of the Navy’s aircraft carrier variant, according to an article by Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg News.That’s down from 42 planes the department previously projected it would buy during the period, but up from the 29 aircraft it’s buying this year, it stated. The Defense Department’s base budget,...

Plans to permanently retire the USS George Washington and bring the NavyÂ’s carrier-fleet total down to 10 are still being debated in ongoing budget deliberations despite reports the White House has scrapped any plans to reduce the carrier total.Some of the uncertainty centers around potential funding for the mid-life refueling for the USS George Washington in the upcoming 2015 budget submission, dollars which may still be uncertain or under review, Capitol Hill and Pentagon sources said.The uncertainty comes amid widespread discussion about whether the Defense DepartmentÂ’s upcoming 2015 budget proposal will remove funding for one aircraft carrier and bring the...

Win or lose in November, Democratic Lt. Gov. John Walsh will be the next senator from Montana.Gov. Steve Bullock appointed his former running mate to fill the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, who is leaving the Senate early after being confirmed Thursday as ambassador to China.Walsh was already running for the seat, but he’ll now run as the incumbent senator. That change could provide some inherent advantages in his quest to hold one of the party’s most vulnerable seats.“I wanted to appoint someone who I truly believed would wake up each and every day wanting to put Montana...

The Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Smith reports that a former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman is acknowledging for the first time that a group of snipers shot up a Silicon Valley substation for 19 minutes last year, knocking out 17 transformers before slipping away into the night. The attack was "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred" in the U.S., Jon Wellinghoff, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time, told Smith.

The U.S. Navy is about to cut in half the number of aircraft carriers it keeps ready for combat. Starting in 2015, just two American flattops will be on station at any given time, down from three or four today. The change is spelled out in a presentation by Adm. Bill Gortney, head of Fleet Forces Command. The U.S. Naval Institute published the presentation on its Website on Jan. 24. The new “Optimized Fleet Response Plan” represents an effort to standardize training, maintenance and overseas cruise schedules for the Navy’s 283 front-line warships, in particular the 10 nuclear-powered carriers. The...

Glacier fox: Animal becomes latest to freeze solid in Scandinavia's lakes, following fish and moose The grisly find was made recently by 26-year-old Jeffer Sandström, who was hesitant himself as to whether skating on a lake in Jönköping was a good idea.   "Temperatures had been below zero for several days, so I figured it was strong enough for a skate," he told The Local, adding that the ice was likely between three and five centimetres thick   After a few hours of skating "with the odd cracking sound here and there", the Swede made a macabre discovery.   ...

ROME (RNS) Computer users in the Vatican apparently have an illegal taste for the German heavy metal band Scorpions, the coming-of-age dance film “Billy Elliot,” the television comedy series “Camp” — as well as more, ahem, adult content — according to information from Netherlands-based company TorrentFreak.TorrentFreak is a news site that focuses on file sharing and intellectual property issues, but may be best known for its occasional reports on the illegal peer-to-peer downloading of files.Video courtesy of thecultbox . via YouTube The Vatican is not the only place guilty of illegal downloads, based on data gathered by the company: the...

A one-time day care and childrenÂ’s school in Utah has received a nearly $7 million contract from the Defense Department for construction work related to the F-35 fighter jet.You read that right.The company, known as Creative Times Day School Inc., in Ogden, Utah, started out as a day care in the late 1980s and later expanded into commercial and federal construction doing business as Creative Times Inc. The firm beat out three other unnamed companies for a $6.8 million, fixed-price contract to build an addition to an F-35 hangar at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, according to a Dec. 20...

Doctors in Colombia have discovered a 40-year-old fetus inside an 82-year-old woman who had been complaining about stomach pain. .... Doctors believe the woman had a medical phenomonen called a lithopedion, or "stone baby," which occurs most commonly when a fetus from "abdominal pregnancy," which implants outside the uterus, dies and calcifies because it is too large to be absorbed by the body.

Cato was one of the leaders in the Roman Republic who maneuvered Julius Caesar into a position where his only choices were to get convicted of a crime by the Senate (thereby losing all power, possibly his life, and with his best outcome a life in exile) or to overthrow the Republic. Caesar's decision was not surprising. His ability to execute on his decision was also not surprising. Caesar was an incredible dynamo, a great leader of men who inspired intense loyalty and devotion in those he led. Cato, by contrast, was a fool. Caesar not only overthrew the Republic...

If he runs at all, former Sen. Larry Pressler’s, R-S.D., bid for Senate as an independent won’t look like your traditional campaign.He said his campaign is running on an “idealistic concept” in a Wednesday phone interview with CQ Roll Call. Pressler, 71, referred to a famous line by William F. Buckley about his third-party bid for New York mayor in 1965.“If I win, I might demand a recount,” Pressler told CQ Roll Call.Pressler wasn’t even his own first choice to run, but everyone he’s spoken with about it has declined to step forward. Asked if he would be hiring a...

Submitted by Gary Galles of the Ludwig von Mises Institute,“We paid our Social Security and Medicare taxes; we earned our benefits.” It is that belief among senior citizens that President Obama was pandering to when, in his second inaugural address, he claimed that those programs “strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers.”If Social Security and Medicare both involved people voluntarily financing their own benefits, an argument could be made for seniors’ “earned benefits” view. But they have not. They have redistributed tens of trillions of dollars of wealth to themselves from those younger.Social Security and...

In my last post I explained why it makes logical sense for men to greatly limit the amount of “courtship” they offer women in today’s post sexual revolution sexual and marriage marketplace (SMP & MMP). But this leaves the question of what this means for women, and how they should rationally respond to men’s rational choices.For women who want to meet and marry a suitable man.The key to answering the question involves understanding the woman’s primary objective. If the goal is to maximize the amount of courtship she receives, skip below to the section on courting for sex. If a...

One of the more common refrains in the “Where have all of the good men gone!” lament is men’s increasing unwillingness to court women the way women expect to be courted. This is almost always framed as either a great mystery or a case of weak men screwing up feminism (or both).Examples of this concern abound, from Aunt Haley’s last three posts, to the divorced single mother who found out men weren’t willing to spend very much to court her, to the woman in Vox’s recent post lamenting that her 59 year old friend was only offered half a sandwich...

Some people are trying to draw parallels between Trayvon Martin and Renisha McBride, who was killed while intoxicated and banging on a man’s screen door at 4:30 AM. It isn’t much of a comparison. The two are young and black and were shot by non-black citizens, but that’s about it. Trayvon Martin was pretty much minding his own business when he was followed by Zimmerman, and died because he decided to repay the insult with blows, unaware that Zimmerman was carrying a concealed weapon (note to young men: always assume the other guy has a weapon). Martin was not drunk,...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother and son of the former presidents Bush, is considering a run for president, but only if Gov. Chris Christie fails to gain nationwide traction, Politico reports this morning.

The results of a new poll paid for by a super PAC supporting Wyoming U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi weren’t surprising.Pollster Bob Wickers reported that of 400 likely 2014 Republican primary voters, 69 percent supported Enzi over Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney who is trying to oust the three-term incumbent.The results showed Cheney only had 17 percent of support from those polled.Wickers has long-standing ties to Wyoming. He worked for state Treasurer Mark Gordon’s 2008 congressional campaign and state legislator Colin Simpson’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign.The Cheney camp called it a phony poll conducted by a “well-known pay-for-say”...

Peters is the likely Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo) Republicans don’t need to win Michigan to get the majority in the Senate, but the Wolverine State could become a serious takeover target later next year.After more than three decades, Democratic Sen. Carl Levin announced that he would not seek re-election. Instead of competitive primaries filled with ambitious candidates, it looks like both parties have settled on their nominees for next fall. At this point, the general election looks like it will be between Democratic Rep. Gary Peters and Republican former Secretary of State...

The Boston Globe reported Friday that national Republicans are actively recruiting former Massachusetts Sen. Scott P. Brown to run again — this time in New Hampshire.With former Rep. Charles Bass the latest Republican to take a pass on the Senate race, the party is still in search of a top-tier challenger to take on Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Jerry Moran told the Globe that despite the speculation that Brown is simply flirting with a bid, he doesn’t think the former senator “is just fooling around.”Of course, a successful Brown Senate bid would be nearly unprecedented....