Free Republic

"EU funding 'Orwellian' artificial intelligence plan to monitor public for "abnormal behaviour" The European Union is spending millions of pounds developing "Orwellian" technologies designed to scour the internet and CCTV images for "abnormal behaviour"." SNIPPET: "A five-year research programme, called Project Indect, aims to develop computer programmes which act as "agents" to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers. Its main objectives include the "automatic detection of threats and abnormal behaviour or violence"." SNIPPET: "Project Indect, which received nearly £10 million in funding from the European Union, involves the Police...

Just when you thought the Anti-Defamation League couldn't conceivably get any worse, comes the news that the ADL has effectively joined the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) to bash Dennis Prager, a popular Jewish author, speaker and talk show host. In a November 29th column, posted at Townhall.com, Prager criticized Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to Congress, for declaring he'll bring the Koran with him to his swearing-in ceremony. Prager's calls this "the narcissism of multiculturalism." The author of several best-selling books on Judaism and a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Prager notes that...

I passed through Shannon Airport in Ireland the other day. They've got a "holiday" display in the terminal, but guess what? It says "Merry Christmas." The Emerald Isle has a few Jews, and these days rather a lot of Muslims, and presumably even a militant atheist or two, but they don't seem inclined to sue the bejasus out of every event in the Yuletide season. By contrast, the Associated Press reports the following from Riverside, Calif.: "A high school choir was asked to stop singing Christmas carols during an ice skating show featuring Olympic medalist Sasha Cohen out of concern...

At Christmas, 1914, there occurred several informal truces at various points along the trench-lines of Northern France and Belgium. It may well be that there were other places where truces took place, but our precise knowledge of events is limited by the amount of direct, eyewitness testimony which has so far been discovered. Nevertheless, there are enough trustworthy reports (and even a few photographs) to convince us that something extraordinary happened that first Christmas of the war, and that it was not entirely an isolated happening. The image of opposing soldiers, shaking hands with each other on one day and...

Glaucoma is a disease that slowly takes away your eyesight without you noticing until it's too late. That's what is happening to the moral fiber in America. Opie and Anthony, a couple of "Shock Jocks" out of New York, pushed the envelope to the limit. As part of a "Contest" they broadcast a couple having sex at St. Patrick's Cathedral...during Mass. Soon after, they were taken off the air. How did the duo wind up in New York to begin with? They were fired from a Boston station for pulling a different stunt. The two made a false claim on-air...