Free Republic

John McCain is collapsing in the polls in Florida and other swing states, but Sarah Palin, God bless her, has a solution. "For me, the heels are on, the gloves are off," she announced at high noon Monday to a group of Republican donors at the Naples Beach Club.... Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned...

Border Guard uses 'Skunk' as new crowd-dispersal means Out with rubber bullets, tear gas, shock grenades; in with new, stinky means to scatter violent rioters. After using new tool during Naalin riot, officers report Palestinians ran to shower, changed clothes Efrat Weiss YNET Published: 08.10.08, 15:45 / Israel News www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3580338,00.html The Border Guard has begun using a new means of contending with riots coined "Skunk". The police developed this new method for scattering violent demonstrations and tested its effectivity in the last demonstration which took place in the West Bank village of Naalin. Separation Fence Use of the "Skunk" is...

'Microdrone', the police's tiny eye in the sky By Tom Chivers and agencies Last Updated: 2:14am GMT 08/03/2008 In size and appearance it may resemble a toy - and the fact that it can squirt a jet of water on to unsuspecting people's heads may add to that impression - but this is in fact a £25,000 hi-tech crime-fighting machine. A remote-controlled and almost silent miniature helicopter, the "Microdrone" can act as a police commander's eye in the sky, capturing images with both a video and an infra-red camera and instantly transmitting it to operators on the ground up to...

August 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - National Geographic (NG), a leading environmentalist, de-population supporting magazine, has published a major cover story by Michael Finkel on the extraordinarily deadly and complex malaria parasite. The July 2007 NG edition article discusses possible solutions to the disease but also uncharacteristically acknowledges a leading expert's contention that the international ban on DDT was a terrible mistake which may have cost many millions of lives, especially in poor African nations. Environmental ideologues have been quick to slam Finkel's article as being flawed and damaging to the their past success in convincing the world to ban...

Noise complaint at bar leads to melee Accounts differ of incident where an officer says he was forced to use a Taser on patrons By ANNE MARIE KILDAY and PAIGE HEWITT A Houston police officer responding to a noise complaint Friday night at Walter's, a popular music venue on Washington Avenue, discharged his Taser at least three times when a melee ensued after he told a guitar player to turn down the volume. Exactly how — and why — it all started depends on whom you ask. Officer G.M. Rodriguez approached management about the noise complaint, filed by a neighbor,...

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is considering shipping to Iraq a weapon that shoots an invisible column of energy to cause intolerable pain without killing its target. Known as the Active Denial System, the weapon was tested a third and final time in Florida last week and could be deployed if gets Pentagon approval, according to Department of Defense spokesman Lt. Col. Brian Maka. The weapon has been touted as a crowd-control device because it would allow U.S. forces to stop, deter and turn back an advancing adversary without applying deadly force. Critics say the weapon would cause more harm than...

US Air Force unveils hand-held laser gun By Michael Sirak JDW Staff Reporter Washington, DC The US Air Force has unveiled its first hand-held laser weapon that gives security forces a non-lethal option for controlling crowds and protecting areas like checkpoints, according to service officials. While only in prototype form and years away from fielding, the weapon, known as the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response (PHaSR) system, holds great promise, they said. The PHaSR is about the same size and weight of a fully loaded M60 machine gun - around 9 kg - but shoots a low-power beam of laser...

<p>WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military is exploring ways to use drugs such as Valium to calm people without killing them during riots or other crowd control situations where lethal weapons are inappropriate.</p> <p>Some critics say the effort violates international treaties and federal laws against chemical weapons, an allegation the military denies.</p>

In The Futurological Congress (1971), Polish writer Stanislaw Lem portrayed a future in which disobedience is controlled with hypothetical mind-altering chemicals dubbed "benignimizers". Lem's fictional work opens with the frightening story of a police and military biochemical attack on protesters outside of an international scientific convention. As the environment becomes saturated with hallucinogenic agents, in Lem's tale the protesters (and bystanders) descend into chaos, overcome by delusions and feelings of complacency, self-doubt, and even love. If the Pentagon’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) has its way, Lem may be remembered as a prophet. (Austin and Hamburg, 1 July 2002) -...