Free Republic

I travel a good bit, and I like to stop at small gun shops along the way.   Most people can buy long arms in most of the U.S. without a problem, and if a handgun is worth the effort, it can be transferred to a dealer in most home states. You never know what you will find, and often, there are interesting items. I recently visited RCH Firearms in Hayward, Wisconsin, a good ways from the beaten track.   I must have driven by this shop a dozen times before the sign in the window proved of enough interest...

(Reuters) - For someone with $55 million to spare on an egg-sized diamond, the world's most expensive necklace is on sale this month at a jewelery show in Singapore, reflecting Asia's growing appetite for precious gems and expensive baubles. Known as L'Incomparable, the necklace created by luxury jeweler Mouawad features a yellow, internally flawless diamond of more than 407 carats suspended from a rose gold setting that is studded with 90 white diamonds weighing nearly 230 carats. "Serious interest" has been expressed by a couple of potential buyers from Asia, said Jean Nasr, managing director of Mouawad in Singapore, declining...

INDIA: Indians are warming up to the idea of buying their liquor online. The first website to offer the service started about six months ago. Since then, new liquor websites have come online at a rate of about one a month. As of October, there are more than five websites in India that sell liquor online. Their customers are mostly young adults, and women are in particularly high spirits about the service. Online portals offer a range of imported drinks. Businessman Sandeep Khullar, who is a social drinker, said: "It is a very welcome thing. Earlier, you have to stand...

(Reuters) - On the congested streets of Indonesia's capital, chained monkeys are a surreal sideshow. Some ride tiny bicycles wearing baby doll masks or shake people's hands for small change. Not for much longer. Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo has banned all such entertainment, reinforcing his image as a can-do politician cleaning up one of Asia's most frenetic cities ahead of presidential elections next year in which voters expect him to run. Widodo has criticized the shows as animal abuse and an unwelcome distraction for motorists who slow their cars to gawk at macaques outfitted in skirts, cowboy hats or plastic...

It is currently free to enter to the country, one of Southeast Asia’s most popular destinations, but Thai authorities have said they are now considering introducing a fee of around £10 per head. The government has claimed it is introducing the tax in order to pay for visitors’ unpaid medical bills and in the hope of attracting a better “quality” of holidaymaker. The tax could be introduced from January next year. Pradit Sintavanarong, Thailand's Public Health Minister, said officials from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, the Ministry of Public Health and the Royal Thai Police agreed the fee should...

This was brought about by an idea in an earlier thread this week discussing Valve and PC Gaming. I had no idea how many other Freepers had Steam. A cursory glance indicated no existing groups for Free Republic, so I decided to create one. Request an invite at: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FreeRepublicGamersMost of all, have fun, and stay true to the Constitution.

American action film star Steven Seagal will become the face of a new Russian firearm, the actor announced at a Moscow news conference Friday. Seagal also used the occasion to practice some local phrases, give two thumbs up to the Russian army and criticize the weapons used by President Vladimir Putin's bodyguards. The U.S. actor has established friendly relations with Putin, who shares a penchant for martial arts with Seagal, and Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. One of Putin's associates, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, asked the American star earlier this year to lobby for easing restrictions on the sale of...

The rising value of the yuan has had a curious side effect: It is often cheaper for Chinese tourists to travel to exotic foreign destinations than it is to travel to China's popular resorts. A Beijing resident looking for an island break, for example, may find it more economical to go to Sri Lanka than to Hainan. Over the next year, the number of outbound trips from China will top the 100 million mark for the first time in history. The rising number of Chinese people traveling abroad has grown even faster than predicted. The UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)...

(Reuters) - A funeral parlor switches into gold mining; a steel trader turns into a property developer; and a food packaging firm ventures into resources. Reverse takeovers and shifting corporate business strategies on Singapore's stock market have come under the spotlight in the wake of a recent collapse in the share prices of three companies listed on Southeast Asia's biggest bourse. One of the companies, Blumont Group Ltd (BLUM.SI), lost as much as S$6.2 billion ($4.96 billion) in market value in the past week. Prior to that, Blumont had surged as much as 12-fold this year, making it Singapore's top...

BUSAN – Taiwan may impose a 5% tax on all cinema tickets sold in the island territory. The proceeds will be channeled into a fund to help support the local movie industry. The proposal was put forward Wednesday by the Ministry of Culture at a meeting with local film-makers and industry bodies. The ministry positioned the move as an amendment to the existing Motion Picture Act. It said that the tax would be levied on ticket sales for all films, domestic and foreign. The support fund would provide subsidies for Taiwanese film-makers and screenwriters, and encourage them to make more...

This clip is from Västerås, Sweden. Each year, a festival celebrating classic American cars is held in this Nordic city. See link below.

These newly created “Just Move” stamps are allegedly all slated for destruction [by USPS] because some of the activities depicted are unsafe......That might pose a problem for this new "running with scissors" stamp....

Mimicking the 'bump fire' technique that can be utilized to fire a semi-auto rifle nonstop (from the hip), a new $6000 rifle from Slide-Fire keeps the stock (and your trigger finger) steady while the rest of the gun moves with the recoil, pulling the trigger against your stationary finger and producing the desired hail of gunfire...  The weapon utilizes loopholes in federal firearms law, whereas the stock of such a gun is simply not regulated as to it's movement/or lack of, nor how this is now being utilized to produce a full-auto effect... just the traditional mechanical elements of...

Former contractor of the U.S. intelligence service Edward Snowden travels in Russia freely and looks forward to finding a job, his attorney said Wednesday. "He feels okay, travels and reads," Anatoly Kucherena, who acted as Snowden's solicitor during the American's month-long confinement in the transit zone of a Moscow airport, told reporters, adding the whistleblower does not work at the moment. The former employee of the National Security Agency will make up his mind "shortly," Kucherena said, explaining that Snowden's savings and donations from supporters allow him to lead "a modest life." The lawyer also said Snowden's father was coming...

<p>Businessman Abdul Haji and a small group of plain-clothes policemen helped to rescue dozens of people from the Westgate mall. He had gone in search of his brother, armed only with a pistol..</p> <p>He had packed an SSK heavy blaster pistol with 14 rounds of ammunition.</p>

Well, the 50th is in the books. The same kid won, but he was riding a different horse. There was good, there was bad, and there was not a lot of ugly, thankfully. Let’s get started with the review. The UWRC (AKA Unlimiteds) competitors were few and far between, with only 15 racers showing up for race week. But, the big iron was there. Returning champ, Strega, along with Voodoo, Rare Bear, Czech Mate, 232 and Dreadnaught all have the pedigree. All of them could win; nearly all of them HAVE won. But, it was Bob Button’s year --- finally.

Holy hell, that is a LOT of starships. This comparison chart, compiled by DeviantARTist Dirk Loechel, presents what he says is an accurate size-comparison between famous sci-fi starships. As far as I can tell it's got more or less every single sci-fi starship ever, from Star Wars to Warhammer to EVE Online to Halo and way, way beyond. In an update this month, Loechel added a ton more ships to what already must have been a huge collection.

More shooting and showing the cool little XDs in 9mm, as well as a reminder about the recall. I'm anxious to get this pistol back from Springfield, as it is definitely a fine shooter.http://www.springfield-armory.comhttp://www.springfieldrecall.com

When Seoul’s city government decided to embrace “participatory budgeting” last year, many hailed the move as a meaningful step toward engaging the public in civic affairs and their bottom line. A total of 250 randomly selected Seoulites were put on the civil participatory budget committee, which was asked to decide budgets for local projects worth 47 billion won ($43.7 million) last year. The amount rose to 50 billion won this year. A year into implementation, however, the system doesn’t appear to be following rules set up to avoid reckless spending or half-baked proposals, according to a JoongAng Ilbo analysis of...

The Yomiuri ShimbunSouth Korean clothing, cosmetics and other brands are rapidly making a name for themselves in the Japanese fashion market. With an established reputation for craftsmanship, South Korean firms are also known to quickly adopt cutting-edge fads. They appear confident that Japan’s affection for South Korean music, television and other forms of popular culture will translate into success in the fashion world. The South Korean women’s clothing brand Dolly & Molly opened its first store in Japan in Parco department store in Shibuya, Tokyo, on Aug. 23. Featuring colorful, fun designs, the brand’s popularity was boosted after its products...