Free Republic

The U.S. Air Force has announced its strategy for replacing America’s Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles—which have stood alert, awaiting Armageddon, for nearly five decades. Making nukes is hard. But squeezing another multi-billion-dollar project into the Air Force’s already bulging budget is perhaps the bigger challenge. We’re talking about the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, an effort to replace the stockpile of Minuteman nuclear missiles Boeing built for the Pentagon back in the late 1960s.

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told Arutz Sheva on Tuesday in time for International Holocaust Memorial Day that the battle over the Holocaust lives on—and is being waged on the field of public memory. According to Zuroff, aside from the widespread scourge of Holocaust denial, a new phenomenon has reared its head recently in eastern Europe, where there are attempts to minimize the genocidal horrors committed against the Jewish people and revise history. “This phenomenon should worry the state of Israel and the Foreign Ministry,” emphasized Zuroff. “In post-Communist eastern Europe, they’re trying...

Sen. Joe Donnelly, Democrat Indiana, described what his position is as a senator"I am the hired help, and my top priority continues to be addressing the issues most important to Hoosiers: working to strengthen the economy for working- and middle-class families, ensuring our servicemembers and veterans have access to the care and resources they deserve, and providing excellent constituent services to every Hoosier.

Dubai airport has soared ahead of London's Heathrow, riding a boom in long-haul flights between Asia and the West to become the world's top international travel hub, it said Tuesday. Traffic at the airport increased 6.1 percent last year to 70.47 million passengers, Dubai Airports said, adding that it expected a further surge in traveller numbers in 2015. Dubai International is home to Emirates, the Middle East's largest carrier, which along with Abu Dhabi's Etihad and Qatar Airways has seized a significant portion of travel between the West, Asia and Australasia.

IBM denies the rumor about the layoffs of more than 100,000 IBM employees. The company says that only “several thousand” IBM employees will be affected by the layoffs. In an email statement from IBM to Reuters, IBM officially denied the rumor concerning as many as 112,000 employees. According to the Jan. 26 Reuters report, “IBM is in the process of layoffs, as disclosed in its latest earnings report last week, but it will affect ‘several thousand’ employees only.” The layoffs of as many as 112,000 of the company’s employees would affect 26 percent of its global workforce. Robert Cringely, a...

Those on a quest to rethink small-space living build tiny houses, install pop-up rentals on vacant lots, and design portable 10-square-foot microkitchens tucked inside armoires. Presented over the weekend at Toronto’s Interior Design Show, Cubitat is a 10-by-10-by-10-foot cube that houses a kitchen, bathroom, bed, laundry, and storage.

11 Unexpected Facts Proven by Science That Can Make Your Life Happier and Exciting Spend time with friends and family. Be sure to exercise. Get enough sleep.Scientists have long known that these and other familiar strategies really can boost your mood. But recent research has revealed several not-so-obvious links to happiness, including everything from the ambient temperature to your political views.Some are causal links, others just interesting associations. But keep reading for some surprising facts that may have you rethinking your pursuit of happiness. 1. Make sure the temperature is right. Research has shown a clear link between warm weather...

Two bills filed in the Mississippi House and Senate would make it an express duty of the state government to protect the gun rights of Mississippians against federal gun control measures. House Bill 1297 (HB1297) was filed by Rep. Staples last week. It declares “All federal acts, laws, orders, rules or regulations regarding firearms are a violation of the Second Amendment.” In other words, as the Founders understood, the federal government has no authority over firearms, period. The bill goes on to declare that all such federal acts are “invalid in this state, shall not be recognized by this state,...

The rifle is built to replicate the original in look, feel, and heft. The heart of the design is a .22 caliber receiver based on the design of the Ruger 10/22, but made of steel, not aluminum. The receiver is housed in a stock and hand guards made from real American Walnut.

Looking at the glorious NON-EVENT that was this BS blizzard, I ask that we conservatives teach our friends how to see the dangers of the nanny state. Think about it....media, politicians and "scientists" in the government all worked together to SHUT DOWN commerce, freedom of movement, etc. I know this would be easy to let them off the hook and say "Well, they did their best, better safe than sorry, etc." I think, however, that this splendidly demonstrates that these entities think of themselves as overlords who KNOW better than their citizenry how to conduct themselves in a potential crisis....

TAMPA — At first, Dawn Bryan blamed the goat on the back porch. She figured the repeated “thunks” she heard was the animal hopping onto and off the picnic table. The noise continued and she went outside to investigate. Just then, she said, a window next to her shattered. That, she thought, was not the goat. Rather, according to Bryan and a Hillsborough County sheriff’s report, it was a neighbor and a buddy of his firing an AK 47 rifle in a back yard that abuts Bryan’s property on Porter Road in Lithia. The neighbor, Scott Radford, is a Hillsborough...

NBC cited defence officials and said the charges could come against the soldier within a week. But Lt Col Alayne Conway, spokeswoman for Army public affairs, said no decision had been made yet in the Bergdahl case. She said: "We are aware of the inaccurate media reporting. To be clear there have been no actions or decisions on the Sgt Bergdahl investigation.  "The investigation is still with General Mark Milley, commanding general of Forces Command, who is reviewing now the Army's facts and findings to determine, impartially, any appropriate next steps and possible actions - which ranges from no further action to convening...

I haven't seen official snowfall totals yet, but judging from a glance out the window, it looks as if New York City might have gotten about 6 inches Monday night. Meanwhile, the entire city is shut down. Schools, government, public transportation, private transportation, and — by virtue of the lack of transportation — most offices and businesses. It's just absurd. I've lived in New York for almost my whole life — 48 years and counting. I have seen the city weather many actually large snowstorms, including a 26-incher just a few years go. The city stayed open through all of...

Explanation: What does the magnetic field of our Galaxy look like? It has long been known that a modest magnetic field pervades our Milky Way Galaxy because it is seen to align small dust grains that scatter background light. Only recently, however, has the Sun-orbiting Planck satellite made a high-resolution map of this field. Color coded, the 30-degree wide map confirms, among other things, that the Galaxy's interstellar magnetism is strongest in the central disk. The rotation of charged gas around the Galactic center creates this magnetism, and it is hypothesized that viewed from the top, the Milky Way's magnetic...

Explanation: You may have heard of the Seven Sisters in the sky, but have you heard about the Seven Strong Men on the ground? Located just west of the Ural Mountains, the unusual Manpupuner rock formations are one of the Seven Wonders of Russia. How these ancient 40-meter high pillars formed is yet unknown. The persistent photographer of this featured image battled rough terrain and uncooperative weather to capture these rugged stone towers in winter at night, being finally successful in February of last year. Utilizing the camera's time delay feature, the photographer holds a flashlight in the foreground near...

President Obama announced Sunday that he’ll use his executive authority to designate 12 million acres in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as wilderness, walling it off from resource development. This abrogates a 1980 deal in which Congress specifically set aside some of this acreage for future oil and gas exploration. It’s also a slap at the new Republican Congress, where Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has been corralling bipartisan support for more Arctic drilling.

Episode One: Sex Trafficking in the USA The Department of Justice estimates that there are 300,000 children at risk of being trafficked into sexual slavery in the U.S. A Path Appears introduces individual survivors behind these shocking numbers, and illuminates the widespread existence of a crime happening in our own backyards. In this episode, Ashley Judd and Nicholas Kristof meet Shana Goodwin, whose earliest memories are of being sexually abused by her grandfather. Shana guides them through the streets of Nashville where she was first sold to a pimp by her mother at the age of 12. Through Shana, we...

25,000 adult film stars, distributors, and fans descended on Las Vegas this week for the 15th annual Adult Entertainment Expo and AVN Award Show, the industry’s equivalent of the Academy Awards. Porn stars showed off for the cameras, toy manufacturers hawked their wares, and 1,000 journalists from hundreds of outlets chronicled the extravaganza. However, this year’s convention comes at a pivotal moment for the industry’s presence in California, which has long been the pornography capital of the world.

Delaware's Democratic Gov. Jack Markell has designated Feb. 12 as Charles Darwin Day in his state, to coincide with the explorer's 206th birthday, The Huffington Post reported. Darwin presented his theory of evolution in "On the Origin of Species," published in 1859. The Delaware proclamation was made at the initiative of Chuck Dyke, a member of Delaware Atheist Meetup. He put in a routine request for a special recognition through the website of the governor's office, according to Patheos, a site devoted to faith issues.Markell cited Darwin's discoveries as "the foundation of modern biology [and] an essential tool in understanding...

Aristotle on the Immateriality of Intellect and Will Michael Egnor January 26, 2015 3:27 PM | Permalink At Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne has responded to my post about the immateriality of the intellect and will and the reality of free will. He admits that he doesn't grasp the argument completely, so I'll expand upon it a bit. First, a note on the provenance of the argument. The argument is not mine. It was originally proposed by Aristotle (De Anima, Book III). For two millennia, it was the common wisdom of educated men, and was widely considered decisive. Thomas...

A transgender physician will soon become Pennsylvania's new physician general, the Washington Blade reported. Dr. Rachel Levine, an expert in adolescent eating disorders and behavior health, was nominated for the Commonwealth's highest medical post by progressive Gov. Tom Wolf. She made her transition from man to woman five years ago, and with her appointment will become "the highest-ranking transgender person to ever hold a position within state government," the Blade said. Levine graduated from Harvard College and Tulane University Medical School, and has practiced pediatrics and psychiatry for about three decades, PennLive reported. She has been a physician at Penn...

On Monday, actress and feminist icon du jour Emma Watson announced via her Facebook page that she's committed to starring as Belle in the upcoming live-action Disney adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. Yes, that Belle, in that Beauty and the Beast, the film Disney made in 1991. The news comes just before the March release of Disney's live-action Cinderella (directed by Kenneth Branagh) and The Jungle Book (directed by Jon Favreau, due in 2016). All are timeless tales based on stories much older than the Disney canon, but these films are also explicitly remakes, using the same character names...

DENVER (CBS4) – A nationwide cellphone company distributing phones and cellphone plans in Denver as part of a massive government program says it is “outraged by the unacceptable actions” uncovered by a CBS4 undercover investigation. The response from Total Call Mobile comes nearly three months after an undercover CBS4 investigation revealed multiple examples of fraud and cheating in the phone distribution program. The Lifeline program is aimed at providing free cellphone service to the poor and needy. It handed out more than 13 million free cellphone plans in the first six months of 2014. In Colorado, the program handed out...

The greatest musical genius in the history of the world was born 259 years ago today. Here is a silent toast to the magical music of Mozart. From Wikipedia: He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound; Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."

BOSTON - A veteran Celtic punk rock band has asked Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to stop using their music at appearances because they hate him. In a Jan. 24 tweet to Walker, Dropkick Murphys said, "Please stop using our music in any way ... We literally hate you!! Love, Dropkick Murphys." The tweet was in response to Walker playing their song "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" as he took the stage at the Iowa Freedom Summit.

U.S. stock index futures furthered already steep declines after data had orders for U.S. durable goods unexpectedly falling in December, adding to a bearish view as corporate earnings disappointed. Earnings season is poised to gather steam this week, with some of Wall Street's biggest names lined up to report. Apple releases its earnings after the close on Tuesday, with analysts expecting the tech firm to beat consensus. Poor weather conditions have brought New York and other areas in the north-east to a standstill, however extreme forecasts have been downgraded, with some meteorologists predicting less snowfall than initially expected. The travel...

“Our views on this are well known,” said State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki during the daily press briefing in Washington, according to the official transcript. “We’ve spoken about them frequently publicly and have for years. We don’t make concessions to terrorists. That remains the case.” A reporter then said: “So you don’t make concessions to terrorists. But at the same time, was there not a prisoner exchange for [Bowe] Bergdahl?” Bergdahl, a soldier in the U.S. Army, was held captive by a Taliban-linked group in Afghanistan for nearly five years until May 2014. “Sergeant Bergdahl was a member of the...

West Coast dockworkers and their employers need to stop holding the economy hostage and sign a labor contract. Escalating the dispute with slowdowns is causing pain far from the docks, where an estimated $500 billion of cargo is handled annually between the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. The fallout from the severe congestion is reverberating across the United States. Retailers, meat exporters ... the list of businesses suffering losses due to the backlog at the port goes on and on. There are tens of thousands of peoples’ lives directly touched by the dispute but most people have no clue...

Word For The Day, Tuesday January 27, 2015 In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". hypocorism [hahy-pok-uh-riz-uh m, hi-] -n1. a pet name. 2. the practice of using a pet name. 3.the use of forms of speech imitative of baby talk, especially by an adult.[1840-50; < Greek hypokórisma pet name. See hypocoristic, -ism]

The pilot of a single engine Cirrus SR-22 aircraft that ran out of fuel is safe after ditching his aircraft 253 miles northeast of Maui, Hawaii Sunday.

Formerly the "Fans of Quinn and Rose Discussion" thread. We still hold out hope that our favorite talk show hosts will come back on the air - and all indications are that they will be, very soon! As we wait, our friendly group will still meet to start the day. So if you are preparing to go to work, are getting home from work - or happily retired - stop in and say mornin' and share the latest news, discuss the weather, share a recipe, or whatever!

Is it a message from far beyond out own galaxy? A brief mysterious pulse detected by Arecibo telescope has baffled boffins. The discovery of a split-second burst of radio waves by scientists using the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico raises major new questions over what caused it. The finding by an international team of astronomers, published July 10 in The Astrophysical Journal, marks the first time that a so-called 'fast radio burst' has been detected using an instrument other than the Parkes radio telescope in Australia.

Click on link.

January 27, 1967 The Apollo I fire R.I.P.

The test rig for the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) at Fermilab. I picked this image today because it kinda sorta looks like the wormhole-making machine from the film version of Contact. [Credit: moi]A lot of science fiction plot devices are devoted to getting around the speed of light. In the real Universe, nothing with mass can travel faster than light, which means we can’t travel to distant stars without taking decades, centuries, or longer in transit. So, sci-fi draws from teleportation, hyperdrive, warp drive, and the ultimate cosmic short-cut: wormholes.[1] In some cases, the source of a science fiction...

Speaking at a memorial service on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the infamous death camp, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Auschwitz was a symbol of the Holocaust, the "collapse of civilization" perpetrated by Nazi Germany. "We must not forget," the chancellor said. "We owe that to the many millions of victims."

Boreholes and a reservoir on former president Nelson Mandela’s farm in Qunu in the Eastern Cape have reportedly run dry, affecting livestock and the watering of plants at the family gravesite. The Daily Dispatch spoke to two sources who claimed Mandela’s farm has been without water since early January. Two cows have died in the last two months, and the gardens are no longer tended, including Mandela’s gravesite. There is no water for the plants and flowers next to his grave and these are dying, the sources stated. However, Mandela’s eldest grandson Mandla Mandela denied this, telling the Daily Dispatch...

Requesting a devastating set of well cited facts detailing the true nature of the economy to shut up / shut down d@named fool Obola supporters. Anyone know of an infographic?

People on both sides of the abortion debate had much to talk about when Republicans introduced a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. NARAL lobbied hard against it, and though the bill easily passed the House before and is supported by a majority of Americans, Obama promised to veto it. The bill was tabled due to debate over the rape exception, which is unfortunate for apparently both pro-lifers and pro-abortion advocates alike. A new poll shows that a whopping 84% of Americans want to ban abortion after the first trimester, and that includes 7 out of...

Who was the smartest person to ever live? There are certainly many worthy contenders. Today, the very name of "Einstein" is synonymous with genius. Others may suggest Stephen Hawking. Those who appreciate literature and music may proffer William Shakespeare or Ludwig van Beethoven. Historians may recommend Benjamin Franklin. Before I submit my own suggestion, we must first discuss what we even mean by smart. Colloquially, we routinely interchange the words smart and intelligent, but they are not necessarily the same thing. There is an ongoing debate among psychologists, neuroscientists, and artificial intelligence experts on what intelligence actually is, but for...

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Police confirmed that a 14-year-old relative intentionally drowned a 2-month-old child found dead Monday morning inside a South Dallas apartment. Child Protective Services had placed the infant in the home where she was killed. “The facts of the case are that the 14-year-old intentionally drowed a 2-month-old and that’s the real tragedy today,” said Maj. Robert Sherwin with the Dallas Police Department. The teen is now in police custody and is being questioned. At this time, no charges have been filed. The child’s mother was at work at the time of the incident. Around 6:15 a.m., police...

A French judge spared a baby girl from being named Nutella – changing her name to Ella instead to save her from a lifetime of teasing. “The name ‘Nutella’ given to the child is the trade name of a spread,” the court ruled, according to a La Voix Du Nord. “And it is contrary to the child’s interest to have a name that can only lead to teasing or disparaging thoughts.” The parents wanted to name the girl after the popular chocolate spread, but the judge said that the name was not in the interest of the baby girl, who...

FULL TITLE: The children of Auschwitz: On the eve of the 70th anniversary of its liberation, Jews who appeared as youngsters in photograph taken at the concentration camp join those revisiting their past Too bewildered and dehumanised to show any emotion, a dozen young faces peer out from a world beyond comprehension. Witnesses to unfathomable depths of human savagery, these are among the last occupants of history’s most infamous slaughterhouse. To stand in the Arctic chill of Auschwitz today, it seems extraordinary that anyone survived what unfolded here. Yet, astonishingly, most of the people in this photograph – taken exactly...

They cancelled Hannity tonight for some dude that looks like a queen bee to tell me it's gonna snow in the northeast.

MSNBC host Al Sharpton’s apparent lack of preparation for his own show has become the stuff of legend, so much that now four volumes of his teleprompter flubs and incredible mispronunciations are now part of the Free Beacon annals. In this latest installment, Sharpton wrecks the names of such people as Ebola patient Nina Pham, quarterback Troy Aikman and actor Ray Romano, of animals like koalas (kola-cue?), and of general terms like waterboarding (waterboating), manhunts (manhoods), YouTube (UseTube) and asphyxia (asphema).

On the uniform's front, Warriors is spelled out in Mandarin with the sleeve featuring a goat, the animal the Chinese attribute to this upcoming year. The jersey also features red and yellow piping. Red is the color associated with good luck, while yellow is connected to wealth and happiness. "The meaning of a warrior certainly translates into the Chinese culture well as they are very familiar with what being a warrior means," said the team's president and chief operating officer Rick Welts. "I think they'd be hard pressed to make a similar connection to the Lakers." The team plans on...

Here are a few of the basic items that you may want on-hand while in ‘survival mode’ during a winter snow-storm power outage situation. These are very minimal considerations, but they at least should provide a small amount of comfort inside your home, and will hopefully get you thinking about other items to have on hand.

Asteroid 2004 BL86, which passed closest to Earth today at a distance of 750,000 miles (1.2 million km), has a companion moon. Scientists working with NASA’s 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, have released the first radar images of the asteroid which show the tiny object in orbit about the main body. ... 2004 BL86 measures about 1,100 feet (325 meters) across while its moon is approximately 230 feet (70 meters) across. The asteroid made its closest approach today (Jan. 26th) at 10:19 a.m. (CST), however it will peak in brightness this evening around 10 p.m. (4:00...

A sports bar is a great place to watch the big game. But if you’re buying a TV for your Super Bowl party at home, Consumer Reports has complete buying advice. Its testers say a screen that’s at least 50 inches or larger is a good size for a crowd. Testers in Consumer Reports’ labs size up hundreds of TVs every year. Also important is a set that delivers a wide viewing angle. When you’re watching a big game with a crowd of friends, not everyone is going to get that great seat front and center. One of the concerns...

Jurors found true sentencing enhancements for the personal use of a deadly weapon and committing great bodily harm, prosecutors said. She was sentenced last Friday, according to a written statement released by the Orange County District Attorney’s office. Authorities said the children, then ages 5 and 3, were stabbed in the chest while they slept at a family member’s home in September of 2009. ... The older child was transported to the hospital and underwent open-heart surgery. The second child sustained a wound to the chest.