Free Republic

There's more to your computer's operating system than meets the eye. Ash Edmonds via Unsplash ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Apple prides itself on the polish and slickness of its software, and on the surface, macOS proves itself an intuitive and easy-to-navigate operating system. Dig deeper, however, and you'll find a heap of useful settings and options that let you customize your computing experience. Here are 24 of our favorites. 1. Mute Siri Siri doesn't have to speak her responses aloud—she can silently display them on screen. If you'd prefer this option, click the Apple menu, followed by System Preferences and Siri. Finally, next...

A young European cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) trying to escape predation by expressing dermal papillae in 3-D and a mottled pattern, both of which disrupt the body contour and allow the cuttlefish to fool predators by avoiding recognition. As reported by Gonzalez-Bellido et al., these muscular structures contain a mix of muscle types that allow the animal to express and flatten the papillae quickly, and to maintain papillae expression for extensive periods without the need for neural input. The circuit that controls them appears homologous to the squid skin iridescence circuit. Credit: P Gonzalez-Bellido. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ An international team of scientists has...

As my regular readers know, I periodically take trips to Israel to visit family. When I return, I then post my impressions and what I have learned, thereby providing an eye-witness perspective to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As was recently shown, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, with its central claim that police around the country are hunting and killing innocent black men, is a lie. Yet the BLM myth is enmeshed within a larger narrative, a narrative of eternal White Racism. And couched within this tale are distortions and outright crucially false ideas of slavery. In the interest of that "honest discussion" of race that the Eric Holders and Barack Obamas of the world claim to want, I submit considerations without which no such discussion can be had. One glaringly inconvenient truth that, odds are, few...

According to law enforcement sources, the shooter, former student Nicolas de Jesus Cruz, is in custody. Helicopter footage shortly before 4 showed police frisking a handcuffed young man outside a squad car. Dressed in a maroon shirt and dark trousers, he was placed in the squad car as TV choppers filmed the scene. He gave no visible sign of being injured, but authorities have said Cruz was transported to Broward Health North. A teacher at the school told the Miami Herald that Cruz, 19, had been identified as a potential threat to fellow students in the past. “We were told...

FULL TITLE: BREAKING NEWS: Gunman 'shoots up to 50' at Florida high school leaving 'many dead' after going on a rampage before being taken into custody a mile from the scene following dramatic showdown with SWAT A suspected gunman has been arrested after opening fire on aFlorida high school, leaving at least 50 injured. Police surrounded Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where the 'heavily armed' shooter, wearing a gas mask, pulled out a 'long' gun at just after 2pm and began shooting. At around 4pm, two hours after the shooter first opened fire, police and SWAT teams...

The Pico Rivera City Council is demanding the resignation of one of its own members after he was caught on video delivering an anti-military rant in a classroom that has garnered national attention. The vote came after dozens of veterans and community members blasted City Councilman Gregory Salcido and called for his resignation for the video in which he criticized the intelligence of those who join the military. [SNIP] "My goal as it relates to my students as it relates to the military is to get them to do everything to get to college. It's not just the military. I...

The president and founder of Kentucky’s Creation Museum in Petersburg and the Ark Encounter in Williamstown has been dropped as a speaker at the University of Central Oklahoma after a LGBT group objected. Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, had been scheduled to speak March 5 at the public university in Edmond, Okla. Stockton Duvall, student body president at the university, took responsibility for the decision to rescind Ham’s invitation after learning of the opposition to his visit. Duvall told The Oklahoman newspaper that a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning group opposed Ham’s visit because of his view...

The purpose is to facilitate picking out high-quality potential immigrants and temporary workers to make the US the best in most everything. It's not always accurate, but it would do a good job of identifying the cream. It's far better than just assuming people are equal or valuing people by degree level alone. It is written in legislative language to a practical, detailed level not popular here. SEC. ???? PERSONAL RATING FACTOR. (a) The Secretary of HS shall create an Internet/computer-based system (1) allowing the entry of application information including web links, pictures, document scans and performance videos (2) allowing...

A Canadian Christian family is crying out for help after their 12-year-old son was forcibly removed from their home in Norway by government officers in response to their decision to homeschool him. The parents had pulled him from a public school after he was bullied. The father, Leif Kristiansen, posted a video to Facebook last Thursday that shows police officers and officials from Norway's child services agency, Barnevernet, chasing and tackling their son, Kai, before taking him away from their apartment in Ås. "Can somebody please help us? ... Barnevernet is stealing our child!" Terese Kristiansen, a Canadian citizen, shouts...

Kids attending New York City's Success Academy charter schools do remarkably well. "We are No. 1 in student achievement in the state," says founder Eva Moskowitz, "outperforming all the wealthy suburbs." They do. Although they teach mostly poor kids, 95 percent pass the state math test, and 84 percent pass the English test. Pass rates at government run schools are 38 and 41 percent. How does Success Academy do it? "China and India are not worrying about the length of the school day," she replied. "We have to toughen up." From what I saw, "toughening up" doesn't make kids hate...

We welcomed back to the show Andy Weir for this two segment 88 minute discussion about Andy's new book, "Artemis." In addition, we discussed space policy, lunar economics and development issues, and many related ideas for human space exploration including privately developed launch vehicles, lowing the cost to LEO, and cislunar transportation development.

Donald Trump’s recent proposals to register Islamics living in the United States and to bar more Islamics from entering this country until we can determine how to separate the dangerous ones from those who are not dangerous show that he is the only candidate who understands what a Fourth Generation world will be like. The hysterical denunciations from all other candidates except Senator Cruz demonstrate they don’t get it. While that alone may not be enough to indicate Trump would be a good president, it strongly suggests none of his opponents are fit to hold the office. Whether they like...

Consider this from a disturbing new report on how U.S. schools teach – or, rather don’t teach – students about the history of slavery in the United States. - only 8 % of U.S. high school seniors could identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War; - 68 % of the surveyed students did not know that slavery formally ended only with an amendment to the Constitution; - only 22 % of the students could correctly identify how provisions in the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders; - and only 44 % of the students answered that slavery was...

They may not get into the city’s best public schools, but they’re gonna die trying. Parents are so desperate to get their children into coveted public middle and high schools that they are sending them in sick — even with dangerous flu symptoms — because absences count when it comes to admissions, an advocacy group said Monday. While city education officials publicly tell parents to keep their kids home, they allow many of the schools to set their own admissions policies — which can put much more weight on attendance than actual school performance, according to Community Education Council 2...

Perhaps the most persistent delusion about economics is the lump of labor fallacy, the notion that the amount of work available in an economy is fixed and the more people you have, the more unemployment you have – instead of recognizing that the amount of work is not static, and people create more of it. One of the most vivid arguments against the lump of labor fallacy unfolded almost 50 years ago, when Uganda dictator Idi Amin expelled some 60,000 South Asians to ensure that “the average Ugandan enjoys the wealth of his country.” Such massive dislocation of a people...

We can tell illegals till the cows come home that learning English is the real path to assimilation and upward mobility and all we hear is that diversity is "strength" or maybe that we have yanqui imperialista racist prejudices. But over in India, we are seeing that idea coming to life. Quartz has a long and utterly fascinating piece by Sajith Pai, titled "India has a new caste for native English speakers only,' describing how English is not only a great skill to have in the global economy, and a path upward in a big striving country such as...

Leftists Hate Manly Men

Some parents are speaking out after a popular first grade teacher was fired after she posted pictures of her same-sex wedding on social media. Jocelyn Morffi taught first grade at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic School in Miami for seven years. Last weekend, she married her girlfriend and posted pictures of the ceremony to Facebook. On Thursday, Morffi was fired. In a letter to parents, Principal Carlota Morales called it a “difficult and necessary” decision. Nearly a dozen parents who had children in Morffi’s class came to the school to protest her firing. The parents called her a “great teacher”...

Anyone know of anyone coming from North Carolina to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the next 3-4 weeks who could put the 3/4 ton truck on a trailer or tow it with a tow bar to TX for a fee? Please private message me if you know someone. Helping a conservative fellow who is going to restore it & needs it in Texas.