Free Republic

The FBI secretly kept tabs on Nicholas Michael Teausant for six months, having a confidential informant meet with him repeatedly in Stockton at breakfast joints, a park and a flea market as the 20-year-old student allegedly spun his vision of jihad against the United States. Federal court papers say Teausant talked for months of his desire to train fighters in Syria, to bomb the Los Angeles subway system over the New Year’s Day holiday and to spark a civil war that would topple the U.S. government. :snip: In Internet postings quoted in the complaint, as well as conversations Teausant had...

A Virginia man’s personal information has been stolen after he signed up for Obamacare on the healthcare.gov website. Now, he’s questioning if the website is the reason why. “There’s a possibility someone got my personal information from your website,” Virginia Beach resident Rich Guillory said in a video shot by WVEC-VA while speaking on the phone. “They knew my name and they had my number” — along with his address and social security number as well. he day after he signed up on the website, he got a call from someone claiming they could help him with finding health insurance....

"If men are obsolete, then women will soon be extinct—unless we rush down that ominous Brave New World path where females will clone themselves by parthenogenesis, as famously do Komodo dragons, hammerhead sharks, and pit vipers."

Val Patterson said his life motto was "Anything for a laugh." And after the 59-year-old died of throat cancer last week, he owned up to a few humorous events from his life. Patterson's obituary in The Salt Lake Tribune begins like many others, with a loving tribute to his wife, Mary Jane, and recollections of a life lived in full. But then things get more interesting, as Patterson notes, "Now that I have gone to my reward, I have confessions and things I should now say." First up, the former engineer admits he never earned the advanced degree from the...

The video shows you at the link at about 15:45

INDIANAPOLIS -- A Morristown man is fuming after the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles' decision to suspend his license for a medical condition he doesn't have. Todd Allen said when he and his wife split up in 2009, the judge gave him their car. Allen said his ex-wife was not pleased with the judge's decision and told the BMV that he had narcolepsy, a chronic sleep disorder.

This is the terrifying moment that a racing driver's car flew through the air and smashed into a wall during the Le Mans 24 Hour race. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p2Nb0Ienv6k

Post-war stress too much for Marlboro Man's marriage By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles (Filed: 28/06/2006) A US marine whose photograph touched the hearts of countless Americans has filed for divorce just weeks after his lavish wedding was funded by donations from the public. An iconic picture of James Blake Miller, 21, was taken in 2004 during a break from combat in Fallujah and was published in hundreds of newspapers. Showing him grubby-faced and exhausted with a cigarette dangling from his lips, it earned him the nickname Marlboro Man. After his return to the United States, the lance corporal revealed...

Was fig first fruit of man's agricultural endeavours? By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 02/06/2006) The dawn of agriculture may have come with the domestication of fig trees near Jericho some 11,400 years ago, archaeologists report today. The discovery of ancient carbonised figs suggests that fruit, rather than grains that are traditionally thought to have heralded agriculture, may yield the earliest evidence of purposeful planting. The figs date back roughly 1,000 years before wheat, barley and legumes were domesticated in the region, making the fruit trees the oldest known domesticated crop, a team reports today in the journal Science. Nine...

Java Man's First Tools Richard Stone INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY ASSOCIATION CONGRESS, 20-26 MARCH 2006, MANILA About 1.7 million years ago, a leggy human ancestor, Homo erectus, began prowling the steamy swamps and uplands of Java. That much is known from the bones of more than 100 individuals dug up on the Indonesian island since 1891. But the culture of early "Java Man" has been a mystery: No artifacts older than 1 million years had been found--until now. At the meeting, archaeologist Harry Widianto of the National Research Centre of Archaeology in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, wowed colleagues with slides showing stone tools found...

You want to make Greg Mortenson laugh? Ask him whether his life has ever been threatened. He could talk about the time he tried — and failed — to climb one of the world's deadliest mountains. Or how Afghan warlords kidnapped him for eight days. Or how he choked from the stench of rancid goat hides that hid him in the back of a truck as he escaped a gunfight. Life isn't quite as dangerous this week, as the Roseville native enjoys a media tour for his new book, "Three Cups of Tea." The biography recounts the Indiana Jones adventures...

SIERRA VISTA — When Jay Record woke up this morning, he already had the gift he wanted — a new kidney. Now the Sierra Vista dad hopes to be starting 2006 with a new lease of life after receiving the kidney from his sister Juliann. The siblings are now recovering from the Dec. 15 operation, which took place at the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix. “I felt great knowing that I would be getting a healthy kidney, especially coming from a family member. That made it really special,” said Jay, 34, who first learned his kidneys were not...

Nasa tries to figure out real-life Rain Man's brain Robin McKie, science editor Sunday December 11, 2005 The Observer (UK) It took Kim Peek just over an hour to read Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October. Four months later, when asked to give the name of the book's Russian radio operator, Peek quoted the entire relevant passage. It was a prodigious feat. Yet for Peek - the real-life 'savant' on whom Dustin Hoffman's character in the film Rain Man is based - such recall only gives a glimpse of his powers. He knows 9,000 books off by heart; he...

When a rock hits the calm surface of a pond, ripples form at the point of impact and travel outward in expanding circles. The story begins with a young man and his dream - a dream of overcoming his health problems and flying for the Air Force. The boy, Ryan Penne, 14, of Chico, Calif., stepped into dreamland last year at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., when he and his family were guests of Col. Darryl W. Burke - then the 9th Reconnaissance Wing's vice commander - for a comprehensive base tour as part of the Make-A-Wish program. Ryan suffers...

Ancient man's lost secrets on test Paul Jeeves TECHNOLOGY from the 21st century will be used to unlock the past to one of Yorkshire's most important archaeological finds from the Bronze Age. Gristhorpe Man, one of the best preserved examples of human remains buried in a hollow oak tree trunk, will leave Scarborough's Rotunda Museum today in specially constructed boxes for Bradford University's Department of Archaeological Sciences. The latest technology will be used to try to extract samples from the remains for analysis to establish how the Bronze Age man died as well as gathering more detail about his lifestyle...

BARWANA, Iraq (Nov. 10, 2005) -- Being an infantryman and standing security posts go hand in hand when in Iraq. While some are in security positions and others are regulating traffic, these posts are an important part of keeping Marines safe here. Standing many hours on these posts keeping his fellow Marines with Company L, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, safe is Los Angeles native, Lance Cpl. Steve Nuno. The automatic rifleman spends hours everyday manning the entry control point and other security position at the base here. His job while spending time on these mostly uneventful posts is to...

Posted on Thu, Oct. 27, 2005 Clovis speakers discuss man's origins in the United States MEG KINNARD Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. - A University of Texas archaeologist opened the highly anticipated "Clovis in the Southeast" conference at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center Thursday by rejecting the premise on which many experts once based their theories on man's North American origins. At the meeting, sponsored in part by the University of South Carolina, Michael Collins called the idea that the first inhabitants traveled by way of a land bridge from Asia "primal racism." Instead, Collins said, they arrived by water, because...

HADITHA DAM, Iraq (Oct. 18, 2005) -- The use of dogs as guardians of military camps to protect against surprise attacks dates back to ancient Egypt. Today, dogs are not only guarding bases but also patrolling with Marines of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment in Iraq. Sergeant James J. Wasmer, a Chatham, Mass., native, and his search dog, Euro, are one K-9 team busy doing weapons caches sweeps and entry control point searches to keep citizens of Iraq and Marines safe. Recently the team conducted a sweep with the battalion’s Company L to look for weapons caches and other explosives...

Seafood was the spur for Man's first migration By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 13/05/2005) The lure of a seafood diet may explain why the first people left Africa, according to a genetic analysis published today that overturns the conventional picture of the very first migration of modern humans. The international project shows - contrary to previous thinking - that early modern humans spread across the Red Sea from the Horn of Africa, along the tropical coast of the Indian Ocean towards the Pacific in just a few thousand years. And it suggests that the first migratory wave probably included...

Deseret Morning News, Sunday, October 03, 2004 Mexico discovery fuels debate about man's origins Archeologists are baffled by hominid bones By John Rice Associated Press MEXICO CITY — For decades, Federico Solorzano has gathered old bones from the shores of Mexico's largest lake — bones he found and bones he was brought, bones of beasts and bones of men. Mexican professor Federico Solorzano shows the supraorbital arch from the fossil of an early hominid. Guillermo Arias, Associated Press The longtime teacher of anthropology and paleontology was sifting through his collection one day when he noticed some that didn't seem to...