Free Republic

May 27, 2009 The XM25 Individual Air Burst Weapon is looking likely to be the shoulder-fired weapon of choice for the US military to kill or neutralize hidden targets. Due for field test this summer, the lightweight XM-25 "smart weapon" uses High Explosive Air-Burst (HEAB) munitions that can be programmed to detonate at a precise point in the air without the need to impact, spelling trouble for elusive targets, be they behind a wall, inside a building or in a foxhole. The XM25 Developed jointly by the German arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch and the US company Alliant Techsystems (ATK...

Elizabeth Smart vividly remembers being awakened in the middle of the night by "feeling something cold and sharp to my neck." She awoke to a bearded man armed with a knife who was wearing a stocking cap and whom she thought she had never seen before. He told her, "Don't make a sound. Get up out of bed quickly." Speaking Thursday at the annual Crime Victims Conference at the Capitol, Smart talked for the first time in detail about portions of her nine-month kidnapping in 2002, including an experience in San Diego where she was so weak from starvation that...

Could this be the world's smartest dog? I don't know. But he must be up there somewhere. Perhaps just behind Lassie. Video on site

IBM Unveils Building Blocks for 21st Century Infrastructure IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new services and products to help clients build a new, more dynamic infrastructure that will bring more intelligence, automation, integration, and efficiencies to the digital and physical worlds. As a result, it will enable businesses and governments to better respond to and manage challenges presented by today's globally integrated planet. The new products and services enable clients to use powerful computing systems to manage and gain insight from an increasing number of things in their physical infrastructure that are being instrumented with intelligent sensors. For example, a...

Sen. Reid: Feds Should Trump States in Building the Smart Grid February 23, 2009 at 6:32 PM When it comes to using billions of federal stimulus dollars to build out a “smart” electricity distribution grid, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn’t want state regulators standing in the way. That’s the gist of comment the Nevada Democrat made at a Washington D.C. clean energy meeting Monday, according to Reuters. Reid plans to introduce energy legislation on Thursday to speed the building of transmission infrastructure to bring remote solar-thermal, wind and geothermal power sources to population centers — and the bill...

Ontario pushes big 'green' agenda The Canadian province of Ontario believes it can create 50,000 jobs by encouraging renewable energy projects, enhancing energy efficiency programs and launching a "smart grid." Clinton puts climate change high on the agenda with China While economies crash, environmentally friendly laws proliferate Obama prefers Congress to EPA in tackling climate -- Browner The campaign for renewable energy needs a transmission strategy Obama, Harper pledge partnership on energy and climate A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line.

CHIMPANZEES have long been known for their ability to mimic humans. Now scientists have found that baby chimps’ mental development can even be more advanced than children of the same age. At nine months, the animals are just as curious and capable of recognising carers and familiar objects as the average baby. When compared with infants kept in isolated conditions in orphanages, the animals are even more advanced.

Laura makes fun of the "Intellectial Conservatives". It's only about 30 seconds.

http://www.mikefrancesa.com/wordpress/?p=1178Joe Biden, the gaffe master keeps on going. Video at the above link, here is the transcript: Joe Biden: The Republican party and some of the blogs and others on the far right, are trying very hard to paint a picture of this man, they’re trying the best as they can to mischaracterize who he is and what he stands for. All this stuff about how different Barack Obama is, they’re not just used to somebody really smart. They’re just not used to somebody who’s really well educated. They just don’t know quite how to handle it. Cause if he’s...

Bo (woof) In Commentary: Some think this dog is amazing. Me, I’m not surprised. (In case you missed this one, a Mission Viejo woman’s dog — a 9-year-old cockapoo known as Cookie Einstein — has become a celebrity of sorts for her apparent mathematical abilities, the O.C. Register’s Niyaz Pirani reported over the weekend. She [Cookie] adds, subtracts, multiplies, divides and calculates square roots and simple algebra through barking. And Cookie can answer if the question’s asked in either English or Spanish.) Bi-lingual and good in math…she must have scored well on her SATs. Cookie won’t respond to anybody but...

<p>Why are our owners so obsessed with finding out how intelligent we are? All they need to know is that we got it going on upstairs. How else to explain us living in their homes, eating their food and having them pick up our feces? And all of that without us paying them a dime.</p>

Just because, I really really like the idea! :)

WARREN, Maine — William Flynn depicts himself as a do-gooder, a member of the Jaycees who has a wife and teenage stepdaughter and likes to play softball. At least that's how he'd like to be seen by a judge, who's considering freeing Flynn early from the 28 years-to-life prison term he got for killing his lover's husband as a teenager in the notorious Pamela Smart murder case. Since going to prison nearly two decades ago, Flynn has earned a high school equivalency degree and an electrician's helper license, gotten married and raised money for charity. He says in court documents...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Monkeys performed about as well as college students at mental addition, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a finding that suggests nonverbal math skills are not unique to humans. The research from Duke University follows the finding by Japanese researchers earlier this month that young chimpanzees performed better than human adults at a memory game. Prior studies have found non-human primates can match numbers of objects, compare numbers and choose the larger number of two sets of objects. "This is the first study that looked at whether or not they could make explicit decisions that were based...

Dogs display aspects of human intelligence By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm GMT 28/11/2007 Dog lovers have long claimed that their pets are smarter than many of us realise. New evidence to back that view comes from research published today which concludes that, like us, our canine friends are able to form abstract concepts. Friederike Range and colleagues from the University of Vienna, Austria, show for the first time that dogs are able to learn how to classify complex colour photographs and place them into categories in the same way that humans do. Training stimuli: Images of dogs...

The US Navy's new stealth robot carrier plane is now "structurally complete", according to its maker, and is now being fitted out with subsystems while software tests begin. The Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator (UCAS-D) is expected to make its first flight the year after next, and its first carrier deck landing in 2011. "Once we get robust flight controls we will begin failure detection and accommodation testing, which is the real key to any unmanned aircraft," said Scott Winship, UCAS-D project chief at Northrop Grumman, talking to Flight International. Although a firm decision by the US Navy to build...

Neanderthals 'were ahead of their time' Last Updated: 2:42am BST 14/06/2007 Big, brutish and stupid - it's a commonly held view that our prehistoric predecessors were as wild and unsophisticated as the animals they hunted. Neanderthal man was 'as smart as we are' But Neanderthal man was not as slow-witted as he looked and was in reality as smart as we are, an archaeologist claims. They were actually innovators who used different forms of tools to adapt to the ecological challenges posed by harsh habitats as they spread through Europe. Although our ancestors have become the butt of jokes about...

Dogs 'as bright as a 14-month-old child' By Tim Shipman, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:56am BST 10/06/2007 Dog lovers have long argued that their pets are practically human. Just how close they are to the truth is revealed by research showing that the creatures have the intelligence of a toddler. As with humans, they have the capacity to decide whether to copy others' behaviour, depending if it makes sense to do so. Researchers at the University of Vienna trained a female border collie called Guinness to use her paws to push a bar that released a treat, rather than using...

War On Terror: Europe plans to investigate mosques and identify clerics who preach terrorism. As they pay for decades of foolish immigration policies, they can be thankful there's no ACLU looking over their shoulders. European Union security officials say they will analyze member-state mosques, examining the training and funding sources of imams, in a project to be completed by fall. It may be abhorrent to societies proud of religious toleration to "discriminate" against the places of worship of one particular faith. But as usually politically correct Europeans have concluded, it also amounts to simple common sense.

When the Smart Fortwo arrives in the U.S. in early 2008, parent company DaimlerChrysler doesn't want to repeat past mistakes. The first Smart hit the European market in 1998, but the brand has never been profitable. With the new Fortwo, Smart is starting anew with a car tailor-made for the United States. Standard safety features include four airbags, ABS and stability control. The U.S. Fortwo will have increased cabin and trunk space and a new 1.0-liter 3-cylinder engine making 84 bhp, mated to a refined semi-automatic transmission. Company executives claim the car will get about 40 mpg. Three models will...