Free Republic

India’s first submarine capable of firing nuclear ballistic missiles, the INS Arihant, is undergoing sea acceptance trials and will be commissioned after their completion, the Navy has announced. "INS Arihant is now undergoing sea acceptance trails as it had already passed several deep sea diving drills. The submarine will be commissioned after completing all the sea trials," said H.C.S. Bisht, Vice Admiral of the Indian Navy. The 6,000-ton vessel is the first nuclear-powered submarine that can launch nuclear-capable missiles manufactured by India – the first nation to announce it has accomplished this feat after the five original nuclear powers. It...

The University of Missouri will be shaggier and dirtier and faculty will be responsible for taking their own trash to dumpsters under the plan for cutting 50 jobs in campus operations detailed in an email memo sent Friday by Vice Chancellor Gary Ward. Landscaping operations will be cut back so sidewalk edges are trimmed no more than twice a year and only in the most visible locations, Ward wrote. After Saturday football games, the debris left by tailgaters will not be picked up until Monday, he wrote. Custodial staff no longer will clean or remove trash or recyclables from offices,...

America’s military is dangerously weak and unprepared today, and it’s not getting better. At least that’s what top military leaders told Congress recently. Unfortunately, the testimony of these top generals and admirals did not get the attention it deserved. For the last 15 years, the United States military has not prepared for conflict with a near peer competitor like Russia or China. General Mark Milley, chief of staff of the Army, shared his worries with Congress, explaining that the Army would be able to handle a serious conflict but “not at a level that is appropriate for what the American...

A South Carolina elementary teacher is working to help his young students learn how to act like gentlemen, according to a report by WSMV. Raymond Nelson of Memminger Elementary in Downtown Charleston hosts 60 kids every Wednesday at the Gentleman’s Club, where the children are taught how to dress and act like gentlemen. He works with children who are at-risk children and came up with this idea to help the children. “I was thinking maybe if I have the boys dress for success,” said Nelson. “When was the last time you saw someone fighting in a tuxedo?” The club’s motto...

The current controversy over Australia’s Future Submarine Program, its schedule and the associated life-of-type of the current Collins class has resulted in much hyperbole as to the difficulties associated with keeping elderly boats in operation. A quick survey of the state of affairs in the major submarine operators overseas may provide some context to concerns that the Collins class will have to run for well over thirty years of service. In the United States, four Los Angeles class nuclear powered attack submarines (SSNs) are scheduled for decommissioning in 2017 after thirty-six years’ service, while the hull life of the Ohio...

A woman’s corpse was found in an elevator in China about a month after an elevator maintenance crew improperly shut off its power, trapping her inside, without checking to see if it was empty. The body of the 43-year-old building resident, who was living by herself, was discovered on March 1, several weeks after the elevator in Xi’an had been turned off over complaints about a glitch, the Associated Press reports.

The technical museum named After K. G. Sakharov is probably one of the main places of interest in Togliatti. It was founded in 1998, today it has many unique exhibits and is surely worth visiting. The museum allows to trace the historical development of the automobile, engineering, armoured, aviation, railway, missile, artillery and naval weapons. The B-307 was retired and moved to the museum! The Russian Tango-class submarines (Project 641B Som [Catfish]) were the successors to the Foxtrot-class submarine based in the Black Sea and Northern Fleet areas. The first of the class was completed in 1972 at Gorky. A...

February 25, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan's Justice Minister, on Thursday, formed a fact-finding committee on the alleged burial of radioactive waste in northern Sudan desert during the construction of Merowe Dam. The decision comes after claims by the former director of the Sudan Atomic Energy Commission (SAEC), Mohamed Sidig, who said that 60 containers with toxic waste were brought from China with construction materials and machinery for the building of the Merowe dam. Sidiq claimed that 40 containers were buried in the desert near the dam construction site while another 20 containers have been left out in the open. The...

Graham proposed a "disagreement hierarchy" in a 2008 essay "How to Disagree",[22] putting types of argument into a seven-point hierarchy and observing that "If moving up the disagreement hierarchy makes people less mean, that will make most of them happier." Although originally written as a simple list, Graham's hierarchy can be represented as a pyramid with the most convincing form of disagreement at the top, and the weakest at the bottom:

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead of apparent natural causes Saturday on a luxury resort in West Texas, federal officials said. Scalia, 79, was a guest at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa. According to a report, Scalia arrived at the ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body. U.S. District Judge Fred Biery said he was among those notified about Scalia's death. "I was told...

The ultra large container ship CSCL Indian Ocean grounded in Elbe river near Grunendeich. The ship was en route from Felixtowe to Hamburg at low water, while having draft of 11.50 m. The vessel got black out, losing propulsion power, which caused hitting a mud shallow and hardly grouding. The traffic on Elbe river is hampered, as large part of the shipping channel is closed by the container carrier. At the scene of the accident were dispatched 7 tugs, which should tow the ultra large container ship CSCL Indian Ocean to safe depth at high tide. The local authorities described...

Video at link. David Stockman (Office of Budget and Management, Reagan Administration) explains why the market will not be going up any time soon.

A new UN-backed Libyan government has been unveiled and tasked with uniting its warring factions, but rejection by leaders of the two existing parliaments leaves a question mark over its future. The prime minister, Fayez Sarraj, has appointed a 32-member cabinet tasked with ending the civil war, stemming immigration to Europe and halting the expansion of Islamic State. But for now the new government of national accord is based in a hotel in Tunis, capital of neighbouring Tunisia, after Libya was deemed too unsafe. Sarraj’s government is the result of more than a year of mediation by the UN, whose...

As many as 80,000 residents in western Ukraine lost power for six hours on Dec. 23. Cybersecurity firms SANS ICS and iSight Partners have attributed the blackout to Russian hacking group Sandworm and its malicious software, BlackEnergy 3. Cyberattacks on power grids and other critical infrastructure are not new, but this most recent attack seems to be the first use of cyber as a weapon with kinetic effects during an ongoing conflict, highlighting the growing importance of cybersecurity. While an analysis of the cyberattack is ongoing, BlackEnergy has a history of targeting information control systems. For the Prikarpattiaoblenergo electric company...

Full Title: SAS to spearhead operation involving 1,000 British troops to wrest back control of a dozen oil fields from ISIS in Libya British special forces to lead offensive by 6,000 U.S. and European soldiers SAS will advise Libyan commanders on key tactics to control the battlefield ISIS has seized several oil fields and is targeting biggest refinery in region British special forces have been sent to Libya in a bid to halt the advance of the Islamic State, it has been reported. SAS troops are understood to be preparing for an offensive involving 1,000 British soldiers to wrest back...

Hillary Clinton Shuts Down Heckler Trying to Question Her About Bill's Alleged Sexual Misconduct: 'You Are Very Rude'. Hillary Clinton had no time for a Republican state representative who heckled her about former President Bill Clinton's sex scandals during a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Sunday. After Katherine Prudhomme O'Brien, a GOP state representative from Rockingham, repeatedly interrupted the Democratic front-runner in an attempt to question her about her husband's alleged sexual misconduct, Hillary finally fired back, "You are very rude, and I'm not going to ever call on you," drawing a huge round of applause from the...

... Steve Jobs and Carly Fiorina made a deal where HP could slap its name on Apple’s wildly successful product. Nonetheless, HP still managed to botch things. ... If it were a straight deal for HP to include Apple’s software, the fee might have been hundreds of millions of dollars. (Around that time, software companies were paying huge sums to have their products or services preinstalled, since people seldom deleted them and often used the default choices.) Even better, preinstalling iTunes was a way for Apple to stifle Microsoft’s competitor to the iTunes Music Store. As an Apple leader at...

This is the next superpower? You’ve got to be kidding. Anybody expecting China to dominate the world must be wondering how the Keystone Kops managed to take over the Politburo in Beijing. China has embarked on a long odyssey to prove that capitalism can work within the confines of a communist government. There have been many impressive successes. But the failures—including those we’ve seen on display this summer—reveal that China is nowhere near the global powerhouse it imagines itself to be or some western declinists fear it will become. The follies in China’s financial markets during the past two months...

... First, the history. Although by 1944 the war’s outcome was never in doubt, if all efforts failed the Soviet Army would eventually have crushed the Reich by itself. Victory at that point was a national and industrial effort, and would belong to the countries with the most steel plants and masses of citizens under arms. Midway was different. It was not a national effort but instead a battle of individuals, a rickety shootout by a few highly trained people under extremely confused conditions, and — incredibly — the underdog won. There’s no reason the United States, with a second-string...

ISIS fighters have Ramadi under pressure from several angles. Essawi said ISIS militants made significant advances Wednesday in three areas east of Ramadi: Albu Soda, Albu Ghanem and parts of Soufia, which leads to central Ramadi. Over the weekend, the militants seized control of areas north of Ramadi. Routes south of the city were taken some months ago. That leaves only areas to the west of Ramadi in the hands of government forces, but those positions are under threat, Essawi warned. The recent fighting has driven a steady stream of refugees out of the city. On Wednesday, some residents packed...