Free Republic

Evidence that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was informed that the assault on the Benghazi Consulate and murder of Ambassador Stevens was a planned terrorist attack before she went public with the misleading cover story of a video protest gone bad failed to dislodge her from defending it. "Sure, we knew within hours of the Ambassador's death that the attack had been planned at least 10 days in advance, but for us to have publicly acknowledged this would have put the country into even greater danger," Clinton maintained. "Remember, this attack occurred just two months ahead of a presidential...

Consisting simply of a surface and legs, the table is one piece of furniture that has remained largely the same for thousands of years. But now, a French design duo has come up with a way to turn the humble table into a means of climate control that doesn't use any electricity. Paris-based industrial designer Jean-Sébastien Lagrange teamed up with French engineer Raphaël Ménard to create the Zero Energy Furniture table, also known as the ZEF Climatic Table. The ZEF table looks like any other with the sleek design of a solid plank oak top and angled legs — but...

A few years ago, this column discussed certain disturbing findings regarding psychiatry and its relationship with the pharmaceutical industry: The major psychoactive drugs are no better than placebos; the “chemical imbalance” theory of mental illness is mostly nonsense; and psychoactive drugs are being given to children as young as two. The first finding was buried in clinical trials of antidepressants, in which side effects of real drugs (such as dry mouth) could be emulated in an otherwise non-active agent (aka removing “unblinding bias”). In these cases, there was absolutely no difference in efficacy between the antidepressant and the placebo. As...

Interstellar:Can You Do It?Circumnavigate the Many dimensions of Time, Space,Having Left Twenty Years Ago, Be Home For Dinner Tonight?http://endurance.interstellarmovie.net

One of the great physics experiments of our age looks ready to begin its quest.Scientists have held a dedication ceremony to inaugurate the Advanced Ligo facilities in the US. This pair of widely separated laboratories will be hunting for gravitational waves. These ripples in the fabric of space-time are predicted to result from extreme cosmic events, such as the merger of black holes and the explosive demise of giant stars. Confirmation of the waves' existence should open up a new paradigm in astronomy. It is one that would no longer depend on traditional light telescopes to observe and understand phenomena...

Benjamin Jasper Carter In a previous essay, I mentioned that we do not know what proportion of unsolved homicides are justified homicides.  The reason is that most homicides are violent criminals killing other violent criminals, and that because a person is a criminal, they are reluctant to report a self defense shooting to police.  From the previous essay: In the United States, about 37.5% of the homicides are unsolved.   In Chicago in 2013, the number was 75% unsolved.   Most homicides involve criminals killing other criminals.  How many of those would be justifiable if solved is unknowable; but clearly some...

LifeNews has repeatedly chronicled cases of people who were prematurely declared dead or said to be in supposedly persistent vegetative states who ultimately recovered. We have also covered miraculous cases where an act of God appears to be the only reason or only answer as to why a patient has recovered. File this story under “act of God” or “answered prayers.” Taylor Hale, then 14, suffered traumatic brain injury when she fell off hood of car while horsing around with friends in 2011. She spent a week in medically induced coma to help her brain heal, but she suffered a...

Yup, spaceships again. Between Star Citizen, the new Halo, the new Star Wars, a couple of key mods for Sins of a Solar Empire that I keep up with and have done some voice work on, and Destiny, my mind has been buzzing with them. I’m a huge nerd who thinks of things in my free time like “if I were a shinigami what kind of Zanpakutō would I have?” and “I wonder if I’d rather be a ranger or a mage” and “ff I were a Jedi in the New Jedi Order, what kind of ship would I have?”...

It’s no secret that uncurbed climate change and population growth are going to (and already have) put stress on the planet. But the situation is getting so bad that one prominent NASA scientist says we have to start thinking about terraforming Mars and that, in order for the human race to survive at current levels, we will eventually “need at least three planets.” “The entire ecosystem is crashing,” Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist of NASA’s Langley Research Center said Thursday. “Essentially, there’s too many of us. We’ve been far too successful as the human animal. People allege we’re short 40-50 percent...

* Nasa is thought to have successfully tested a revolutionary power source * Claimed it could fly for eons at the equivalent of 450 million miles an hour * It is powered by a device similar to that found in a microwave oven * Invented by now retired British scientist Roger Shawyer a decade agoAnyone who has ever watched an episode of Star Trek or a Star Wars film will know how it works. The good guys are minding their business in outer space when suddenly the Klingons or the Dark Empire bear down on them out of nowhere. There...

With rising obesity, America faces an increased number of type 2 diabetes cases. With an aging Baby Boom generation, the country is bracing for an increase in Alzheimer's disease. Could the two be related? Previous studies have hinted at such a link. But researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis say they have nailed down the connection. Their study, using mice, found that elevated glucose in the blood – a primary consequence of diabetes -- can rapidly increase levels of amyloid beta, which shows up in brain plaques in Alzheimer’s patients. The buildup of these plaques is...

n a Mediterranean beach 10 miles south of Tel Aviv, Israel, a vast new industrial facility hums around the clock. It is the world’s largest modern seawater desalination plant, providing 20 percent of the water consumed by the country’s households. Built for the Israeli government by Israel Desalination Enterprises, or IDE Technologies, at a cost of around $500 million, it uses a conventional desalination technology called reverse osmosis (RO). Thanks to a series of engineering and materials advances, however, it produces clean water from the sea cheaply and at a scale never before achieved. Worldwide, some 700 million people don’t...

“Man Made” has always been faith based. The Catholic Church Now enters the fray, The UN dictating What the Pope has to say; God pushed aside, Left in the wings, As the UN puppet masters Pull the Pope’s strings.

3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, is likely to revolutionize business in the next several years. Often dismissed in the popular mindset as a tool for home-based “makers” of toys and trinkets, the technology is gaining momentum in large-scale industry. Already it has moved well beyond prototyping and, as I explain in a new HBR article, it will increasingly be used to produce high-volume parts and products in several industries. Since I prepared that article, new developments have only strengthened the case for a 3-D future – and heightened the urgency for management teams to adjust their strategies. Impressive next-generation technologies...

Yes, well, sort of – and they have for some time now. It’s relatively old news, but a recent Times report and an upcoming book from the Hoover Institute’s Peter Schweizer have refocused attention on a 2008 blockbuster uranium deal involving Russia, the United States, and a Canadian company Uranium One. Pushing connections and presidential candidacies aside – the Clintons’ complicity is still very much speculation at this point – lets return to the deal and take a look at the US nuclear industry and, globally, the rise of Rosatom. The saga begins in 2009 when, after roughly a year...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) The current issue surrounding personal aircraft is the cost factor. Not only do private jets that seat under a dozen people cost millions to buy, but fuel for a flight will set you back a few thousand pounds each ride. NASA is working on a way to fix that, by creating a four man battery-powered airplane capable of working as a pseudo-drone and a short flight carrier. The electric plane features 10 engines and is capable of taking off vertically, similar to a rocket. The current prototype is focused on crop overview and personal surveillance. Instead of having a...

Across Massachusetts – and across America – thousands of schoolchildren are given sexually graphic, psychologically intrusive surveys by the public schools without parents’ knowledge. These surveys also ask youth to reveal their criminal activity, personal family matters, and other intimate issues. This is done in the public middle schools and high schools during school hours. At best, parents are told about the surveys in vague terms, but are rarely allowed read them beforehand. The surveys are “officially” anonymous and voluntary. But they are administered by the teacher in a classroom and (according to teachers we’ve talked to) there is often...

Men and women think and act differently, and now that’s a government-approved fact. The National Institutes of Mental Health, a federal agency with a budget of just under $1.5 billion, paid for a study to determine if men’s brains and women’s brains are wired differently. They might well have also studied whether men can give birth, or women can father children. This study, while good for the researchers who got to look at nearly 1,000 brain scans of men and women, and write scholarly papers based on their observations, contributed to the sum total of human knowledge in this way:...

The advent of three-dimensional (3D) printing has generated a swell of interest in artificial organs meant to replace, or even enhance, human machinery. Printed organs, such as a proto­type outer ear developed by researchers at Princeton University in New Jersey and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, was on the agenda at the Inside 3D Printing conference in New York on 15–17 April. The ear is printed from a range of materials: a hydrogel to form an ear-shaped scaffold, cells that will grow to form cartilage, and silver nanoparticles to form an antenna. Printed body parts brought in US$537 million...

The solar energy industry may prove to be a dark horse in the race to provide global energy security. The world has renewed its interest in solar energy investment as it searches for a cleaner and more sustainable alternative to conventional fossil fuels. Countries like China, Germany, the UK, the US, Japan and Canada have already made significant investments in solar power. Who are the other players who are investing big in solar energy? With its own set of limitations such as high installation costs and high plug-in time, are consumers across the world ready to choose solar energy to...