Free Republic

This year’s edition of Netroots Nation (the supposed liberal answer to CPAC) kicked off this week, in case you hadn’t heard. (And judging by the massive lack of media coverage, you might not have.) To be honest, I have not idea what was going on at the various panels and speeches, aside from the apparently well received socialist stemwinder from Elizabeth Warren. But there was, it seems, one get together which was a real hoot, whether intentionally or not. It was a seminar called (wait for it) … Only the Jester Speaks the Truth and it was all about the...

On his Friday radio show, Glenn Beck suggested those who do not want to pass out soccer balls and teddy bears to illegal immigrant children at detention centers with him are "pusses." He also said Americans should not "focus" on the gangsters, killers, and rapists who are coming across the border with the illegal immigrant children two days after Breitbart Texas reported that an illegal immigrant whom the federal government released in June with a "notice to appear" was arrested for murder. While discussing his plans to go to McAllen, Texas on Saturday with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep....

On the second day at Netroots, which was held in Detroit, Michigan, about 300 attendees at this liberal conference took to the streets to protest the proposed water-shut-offs. The city has begun cracking down on residents who haven’t been paying their water bills; 42,000 have seen their water turned off since July of 2013. The Atlantic reported on July 17 that residents are paying plumbers $30 to turn their water back on illegally. Although, while Netroots participants were there to be the voices for these people, the folks affected are remaining quiet: Residents targeted by the shut-off campaign have been...

The civil rights activist is going after the social media giant over diversity concerns. This follows weeks of criticism aimed at the lack of minorities at tech companies.The last few weeks have been filled with criticism regarding the lack of minorities working at tech companies, mainly at Google, Facebook and Twitter. Now, Rev. Jesse Jackson has launched a petition demanding that Twitter reveal its employment diversity reports publicly. Jackson wants this information available to show the world what percentage of the company’s workforce is made up of minorities. This has been a sensitive issue recently for many, especially after it...

Metal 3D printing is the Holy Grail of additive manufacturing. Unlike with other materials that can be printed, metal enables manufacturers to create end-use objects via 3D printing, objects which oftentimes outperform matter-1those produced with traditional casting techniques. In fact General Electric and Airbus are already saving money money using metal laser sintering machines to produce parts for anything from aircraft, to fuel nozzles. Additionally, once those products are installed for end-use, they continue to save money because of their light weight, great strength, and precise fit. The reductions of just a few kilograms on board an aircraft can save...

Kgb USA Inc. has informed the Texas Workforce Commission that it plans to carry out a “mass layoff” in San Antonio. The call center company, which does business as Conduit Global, expects to eliminate 225 positions by Aug. 31. Conduit Global officials say the layoffs are a result of an unexpected cancellation of services by one of the company’s clients. Conduit Global notes in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) letter filed with the Texas Workforce Commission that it is hopeful the layoffs can be minimized by the “potential award of a large customer care contract.” If a...

When Ezra Klein and friends launched Vox as an "explanatory journalism" site this spring, conservative catcalls and ridicule began promptly. The project's critics have been vindicated time and again. Though the site sometimes produces solid content, it's run by hard-left ideologues who lack the capacity to present "just the facts, ma'am"-style reporting. Over the last 24 hours or so, Vox has beclowned itself on four separate occasions. First, see Mollie Hemingway's brutal take-down of co-founder Matt Yglesias' stupefyingly ignorant attack on conservatives and religious liberty. His asshattery was so acute that even a junior Vox colleague publicly rejected Yglesias', er,...

German officials are considering switching from computers back to manual typewriters for sensitive documents to prevent United States’ spying, according to a July 14 statement. “Are you considering typewriters?” an interviewer asked Patrick Sensburg, head of the Bundestag’s parliamentary inquiry into the U.S. National Security Agency activity in Germany. “As a matter of fact, we have, and not electronic models either,” he replied.

As one of our over 6.5 million FreedomWorks activists nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to vote YES on the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act, H.R. 3086, sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte and cosponsored by more than 200 Representatives from both parties. Back in 1998, Congress passed the original Internet Tax Freedom Act, a temporary moratorium on taxing internet access. Since then, the Act has been renewed, but is now set to expire on November 1. If Congress does nothing, states could start taxing your internet access by the end of the year....

On March 31, 2010, the day before the Inspector General's report says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) began its scheme to target tea party and conservative groups, the White House Visitors Log reveals that President Barack Obama met with IRS union boss Colleen Kelley. In a notable feat of investigative journalism, American Spectator reporter Jeffrey Lord exposed what appears to be an unholy alliance among the White House, Democrat members of Congress and the thousands of IRS employees, who are members of the far-left, anti-Tea Party National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). The NTEU, which supported Obama in 2008 and 2012,...

When 3D printing is discussed, one of the most debated topics is that of 3D printed weaponry, specifically guns. Last year, Solid Concepts created a 3D Printed replica of a 1911 pistol. At the time, it brought up quite a bit of debate, as the 3D printing of guns could severely undermine national and world-wide security. If anyone with a 3D printer could print an operational gun, then what good are laws that prevent people from obtaining guns? TodayÂ’s consumer level 3D printers can, for the most part, only print in plastic or plastic-like materials. Many people argue that guns...

ABC's Jonathan Karl on Tuesday asked White House press secretary why the letter from the White House to Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) inviting him to a meeting with President Obama regarding the Texas border crisis was from Valerie Jarrett. While it's routine for staff to draft such letters for elected officials, matters of such magnitude and to other elected officials of stature are almost always in the name of the principle. The president's spokesman, when asked why the letter was from Jarrett rather than the President, said "Valerie spends a lot of time maintaining relationships with governors around the country"...

The number one issue that people have with 3D printers today, is the speed at which they print at. People now-a-days want things quickly, at the touch of a button. Over the years, many of our everyday jobs, chores, and desires have reached a point of almost becoming instant. For example, when you want to print a document from your computer or tablet, its done in approximately 5-10 seconds. When you want to bring up a website on your smartphone, itÂ’s up in a matter of 1-2 seconds. Just about every aspect of our lives, when compared to that of...

A few days ago, we asked a simple rhetorical question: "Are you targeted by the NSA?" The answer, sadly for those reading this, is very likely yes, as it was revealed that as part of the NSA's XKeyscore program "a computer network exploitation system, as described in an NSA presentation, devoted to gathering nearly everything a user does on the internet" all it takes for a user to be flagged by America's superspooks is to go to a website the NSA finds less than "patriotic" and that user becomes a fixture for the NSA's tracking algos. So assuming one is...

Google's right to be forgotten system is woefully inadequate and censoring things it shouldn't. We decided to make a number of right to be forgotten claims to see what would happen. One request was to remove search listings for an automated online profile page that contained someone's name and Twitter handle. There are loads of websites that collate information about people and spew out automated profiles – 192.com and Peekyou.com being two examples. These websites might be annoying, but should they ever be censored from search results if all they are doing is collating publicly available information? None of the information...

Can you imagine telling the IRS you don’t need to complete all their forms or provide records to back up your claim for a tax refund? Or saying your company’s assurances that its medical products are safe and effective should satisfy the FDA? Especially if some of your data don’t actually support your claims—or you “can’t find” key data, research and other records, because your hard drive conveniently crashed? But, you tell them, people you paid to review your information said it’s accurate, so there’s no problem. Do you suppose the government would accept your assurance that there’s “not a...

“Bigger is better,” as the old adage goes. When it comes to a juicy steak, or a diamond ring, these words always hold true. When it comes to 3D printing, however, there still remains some debate. The 2nd World 3D Printing Technology Expo was held in Qingdao, Shandong, China this past week (June 19-22). It featured thousands of individuals from China, United States, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and almost a dozen other countries. They were there to discuss the latest breakthroughs in 3D Printing, including possible applications, material use, business models and more. Qingdao Unique Products Develop Co., Ltd,...

<p>I don't seek out media appearances but last week was a busy one for me. I was interviewed by CBS News, BBC World Service, Jonathan Green of Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Sunday Extra, and by Piya Chattopadhyay of the CBC's The Current. I also had invitations from NPR and CTV that I, unfortunately, had to turn down due to time constraints. It was a busy week but thankfully all of the journalists, hosts and producers who reached out to me had a sincere interest in complex stories. They are my kind of people so talking to them was actually quite fun.</p>

I'm trying to determine if it's worth messing with to find a different (and free) operating system for my very old Dell Latitude laptop. It currently has Windows XP SP3, which of course Microsoft no longer supports.

For many people, the 2013 feature Terms And Conditions May Apply was their introduction into just how extensive and invasive data collection has become. It is all “voluntary,” of course, based on their agreement to software/app, website, and search engine terms and conditions. Even worse, is what the consumers of Big Data do with this information. Powerful computers and specialized programs allow virtually endless data dredging, whereby large volumes of information are analyzed seeking any possible relationships between data, occasionally for unethical purposes. Such practices can result in relatively benign consequences, such as seeing ads for various drugs and media...

Baghdad: Supporters of a powerful jihadist group are waging an online propaganda war in concert with its battles on the ground in Iraq, where Sunni militants have overrun swathes of the country. For militant groups, the fight over public perception can be even more important than actual combat, turning military losses into propaganda victories and battlefield successes into powerful tools to build support for the cause. The offensive, led by jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) but involving other Sunni groups as well, swept down from northern Iraq, overrunning major areas of five provinces and...

Those were the days. It was June, 2011. 24,000 pages of former Gov. Sarah Palin’s emails were released by the state of Alaska. She had resigned as governor nearly two years before, and was by then a happy private citizen. The media were so interested in getting into every nook and cranny of those emails that they facilitated their release, and then crowdsourced processing them. The Guardian even published a guide. “We think it’s important to get the documents out into the world as soon as possible and see what you think about them – just like we did with...

Board of Sonasoft, IRS email contractor, working to get ‘Silicon Valley’s Wannabe Obama’ electedBy J.E. Dyer on June 22, 2014 at 7:07 pm The blogosphere has been alive in the last 48 hours with the sound (smell?) of smoking gun, after the revelation late last week that at the time of Lois Lerner’s remarkably convenient computer crash, the IRS had a contract with a company named Sonasoft for email back-up and archiving services.The IRS contracted with Sonasoft from 2005 to 2011. Sonasoft’s niche in the IT services world is explicitly organizing and backing up email files on Exchange and SQL...

Was just this morning checking the story on the South Korean soldier who went bezerk and shot five of his fellow troops yesterday, and upon arriving at the specific Reuters article page, was promptly diverted to the screen above.  The URL they sent me to was 'http://sea.sy/indexs/', and is obviously aimed at Nmr 10 Downing as well as the UK press in-general. No small task, hacking reuters, tho- rather impressive, and quite coincidentally comes the day after I was reading a piece about the original news report hacker, Chicago's version of Max Headroom. But the thing is, the crime...

It's been a couple of years since the last thread on this, so what are FReepers' favorite or recommended iPhone/iPod apps?

#YesWeCode looks to close the coding inequality gap Shortly after Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in February 2012, liberal activist Van Jones was talking with his friend Prince—yes, that Prince—about the circumstances of the shooting. More “I think he made the observation,” Jones told TIME, “that when African-American young people wear hoodies people think they’re thugs, but when white kids wear hoodies you assume that they’re going to be dot-com billionaires,” a reference to the outerwear favored by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his ilk. “We just started thinking: ‘Well, how do we turn that around?’” Out of that...

Think the National Security Agency is doing enough snooping in “The Homeland?” A federal spying coalition aims to drill deeper under the Orwellian title, Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee. “Call it massive surveillance of the U.S. population,” said John Whitehead, president of the civil libertarian Rutherford Institute. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder soft-pedaled DTEC earlier this month. He said the committee — whose members are not yet known — would “coordinate closely with U.S. attorneys and other key public safety officials across the country to promote information-sharing and ensure an effective, responsive and organized joint effort.” Whitehead and other skeptics are...

According to experts in the information technology field, it should be a fairly mundane thing to round up the all of Lois Lerner’s electronic correspondence from her employment at the Internal Revenue Service during 2009-2011. That is, her remaining, hidden emails which have yet to be turned over to congress. However, it looks as though it may instead take an act of God to get the Obama administration to come clean on anything, especially now, concerning their apparent abuse of power and the official cover-up about having deployed a corrupt and highly politicized IRS to target non-profit Tea Party civic...

Tea Parties happened organically BECAUSE we have each other. Hence, terrorists, tyrants and those who intend harm to our freedom and constitution know they MUST isolate us by CONTROLLING the INTERNET and phone communication when it hits the fan. (Articles on that subject are featured in at cbPatriot.) The CB Patriot Project is the place to join patriots from around America who have already joined the project to assure we can still communicate and congregate - just as we did in 2008 when the tea parties began to rise up. Social media was not nearly as relevant when we started...

WOODBURY, Conn. – A high school student claims that a firewall is blocking conservative websites at his school. Andrew Lampart, a senior at Nonnewaug High School, discovered that he couldn’t get on the National Rifle Association’s website while on campus as he was doing research for a classroom debate on gun control in May. “So, I went over to the other side,” Lampart told WTIC. “And I went over on sites such as Moms Demand Action or Newtown Action Alliance and I could get on these websites but not the others.” The 18-year-old decided to investigate further by broadening his...

When it comes to 3D printers, they can be used to make all sorts of objects, via additive manufacturing. However, many ‘makers’ (people who utilize their creative abilities to ‘make’ things) use more than just 3D printers when trying to visualize their ideas in creating tangible objects. CNC machining, as well as laser engravers are used by many individuals in creating complete products, made from a multitude of materials and processes. One problem with this, is that all of these processes currently require individual machinery. For example, many ‘makers’ end up needing to purchase, store, and operate a 3D printer,...

In a SHOCKING discovery, CGI Federal – the Canadian Company that built the Obamacare website – appears to have a connection to the “Innocence of Muslims” video the Obama administration blamed for the Benghazi attacks.And here’s how it was done:The evidence is well established that in 2010, CGI acquired Stanley Associates, which “provides services to the U.S. federal civilian, defense and intelligence agencies”. [1]When the crudely produced video “Innocence of Muslims” was posted to a YouTube it needed a boost, especially since it was posted by someone no one had ever heard of and who had only uploaded two videos...

June 16, 2014 THE LATEST ON LOIS LERNER’S “LOST” EMAILS, WITH A BOMBSHELL AT THE END by John Hinderaker The Internal Revenue Service claims, as of last Friday, that two years’ worth of Lois Lerner’s external emails are gone forever. You can read the letter in which the IRS told Senators Hatch and Wyden that Lerner’s external emails from 2009 to 2011, the critical time period for the IRS’s effort to suppress conservative nonprofits, have been lost, here. The letter is signed by Leonard Oursler, National Director for Legislative Affairs. If you keep reading, you eventually will get to the...

The Wall Street Journal has posted a profile of PewDiePie, the Swedish gamer who claims more subscribers than any other YouTube channel. According to the article, the 24-year-old grossed $4 million in 2013, making him a real-life YouTube millionaire. 2013 was a banner year for PewDiePie. He regularly scored hundreds of millions of views each month, accumulated more than two billion of them for the entire calendar year, and frequently topped our YouTube charts. All of those views added up to $4 million in ad revenue, though that number doesn’t represent PewDiePie’s ultimate profit, since partner network Maker Studios takes...

The Filastuder One question arises quite often when talking to people who utilize FDM 3D printers on a daily basis. What do you do with your 3D printed scraps and junk? When an object doesnÂ’t print correctly or when an object just simply is not wanted or needed any longer, where do they eventually end up? Most likely they get tossed in a the trashcan, and end up in a landfill for the next 500 years before the earth reclaims them. That filament that you paid $40/roll for becomes wasted money. One 15-year-old boy, named Grayson Galisky, has taken it...

A veteran IT professional tells TheBlaze that the IRS’ claim that the agency lost two years’ worth of former IRS official Lois Lerner’s emails is “simply not feasible.” On Friday, members of Congress revealed that the IRS would not be able to hand over Lerner’s emails to and from other IRS employees from January 2009 to April 2011, possibly due to a “glitch” or “crash.” Lawmakers were seeking the emails as part of their investigation into the IRS targeting scandal. Norman Cillo, an Army veteran who worked in intelligence and a former program manager at Microsoft, argued it is very...

...[M]oments ago, representative Steve Stockman (R-Texas) announced he would request that the National Security Agency help in the hunt for missing emails to and from the IRS’s Lois Lerner, and recover two years worth of "lost" emails. [....] And now the NSA is caught between a rock and a hard place: because if it refuses an official congressional demand, it shows once again that the spy agency is entirely separated from any concept of checks and balances and accountability; if it complies, it confirms that all the NSA is, considering it can't even tap into a bunch of Al Qaeda...

Materials, materials, materials. When it comes to 3D printing, the biggest improvement that most in the industry wish to see, is the ability to print in more materials. Currently, most consumer level 3D printers are restricted to printing primarily in plastics, however, one 17-year-old from Virginia, named Sagar Govani, is well on his way to changing this. He is in the process of creating a 3D printer, more specifically a 3D printer extruder, that is capable of printing using metal filament. WeÂ’ve seen attempts at this before. For example, others have creating 3D printers that are basically robotic welding machines,...

19-year-old Marissa Williams was charged with the solicitation of murder and is in the Tuscaloosa County Jail pending a $30,000 bond.TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- A 19-year-old is in the Tuscaloosa County Jail after asking a fictional stranger to shoot and kill her family. According to court records filed Tuesday, 19-year-old Marissa Williams has lived with her aunt in Fosters, Ala., since April 2014. Their relationship was strained by Williams' habits on social media -- she allegedly would invite strangers she befriended on sites like Facebook over to her house. When her aunt asked Williams to stop inviting men she met online...

What is a good PC and Reg Cleaner? They all say they are the best. My PC has gotten as slow as a snail with the sleeping sickness.

Welcome to the FossaMail homepage! FossaMail is an Open Source, Mozilla Thunderbird-based mail, news and chat client for Windows, brought to you by the Pale Moon developer (and therefore not affiliated with the Mozilla Corporation). It is an optimized and reconfigured re-build of Mozilla Thunderbird ESR.

I started a WordPress Blog a few months ago and basically don't know what I'm doing. I can write, but am IT-challenged. Since I began the blog, I have not had one, repeat one, response. My stats indicate that I am getting "hits," but not one person has commented on my essays. I know I'm not Charles Krauthammer but I can't believe I have not had a single response. I can't help but think my settings or something need adjusted. Please advise. Thank you.

My old laptop running vista is having the cpu max out when no programs are running I have been cleaning up the hard drive from all old programs, too, stopped almost everything from starting up, but my cpu just maxes out running the resource monitor, my rundll32 is using 90% and more of the cpu how do I find out which tsr or stray program is doing this? I need to know what to shut off or just outright delete...

Announced as far back as January, the efforts of founder Alex Bandar, COO Casey McCarty and Shop/Production Manger Matt Hatcher have finally come to fruition; the Columbus Idea Foundry — a 65,000 square ft. “makerspace” in the heart of Columbus, Ohio — is open in its brand new location. The new space, nestled in a downtown district called Franklinton, celebrated its official open house yesterday and it is going to mean a lot to central Ohio. What is it though? According to Hatcher and McCarty, it is “the largest community ‘makerspace’ on the planet.” Built in a 100-year-old shoe factory,...

The TIG process, utilized by StrongPrint With today's technology, we have seen some major progress being made within the 3D printing space. Within a couple of years, we have seen 3D printers go from being priced in the $2500+ range, to becoming as affordable as purchasing a video game console. Today, just about anyone can afford to purchase a 3D printer, yet mass adoption has not begun to take place. One of the reasons for this, is because of the limited number of materials that affordable consumer level 3D printers are capable of printing with. We are limited to the...

Come July, popular education, writing and media job hub, MediaBistro, may look completely different. The parent company of the website, Mediabistro Inc., announced recently that it was selling off its editorial and e-commerce assets to Prometheus Global Media for $8 million. mediabistro What’s left of MediaBistro will become Mecklermedia Corporation and focus on the company’s growing trade-show business. Via a statement, the company’s CEO Alan Meckler said the change is necessary because he thinks a narrowed focus is best for all involved. � “The new Mecklermedia will be able to significantly reduce debt, add working capital and concentrate on being...

Human Capital I was honoured to be invited to speak recently at Dubai International Academy’s graduation ceremony for the class of 2014. This diverse class spanned 32 nationalities.What was remarkable for me was how the UAE provided an invaluable setting for this net increase in human capital development. Dubai and the UAE had offered these young people a solid base for the next step of their academic and personal journey. As a Singaporean, whose country relies on developing human capital as its key resource, this resonated strongly with me. They were a talented and dedicated group of young men and...

China seems to be one of the nations who are establishing themselves at the forefront of 3D printing innovation. Last month, it was reported that China has begun 3D printing full sized homes, and now there is news of something that may be even more incredible. After 3 1/2 years of research and development, Sanya Industrial Innovation Design Center, in Sanya, China, has developed a 3D printer that, according to the company, is the largest of its kind. It also touts the ability to print in multiple and extremely affordable materials, print at high speeds, and in full color. The...