Free Republic

In 1594, soldiers loyal to Queen Elizabeth I, sent to relieve a garrison besieged by Irish chieftain Hugh Maguire in Enniskillen Castle, were ambushed as they crossed the Arney River... and their supplies were thrown into the river. It became known as the Battle of the Ford of the Biscuits. According to the history books it took place near Drumane Bridge, close to the modern main road between Enniskillen and Dublin... Local people, like farmer Maurice Owens, thought they knew otherwise from the stories passed down through the generations. "We were always told that the battle took place down here...

Thailand’s famous moon parties banned in drug and alcohol crackdown This story was published: 1 day ago November 01, 2014 12:00AM THAILAND’s fun police are likely to throw the plans of thousands of Australian backpackers into turmoil after banning three of the four main monthly “moon” parties. Half and Quarter Moon shindigs — along with some supplementary jungle parties — will no longer be staged on the islands of Koh Phangan and Koh Tao, near Koh Samui, for ‘drug and alcohol’ reasons. The only beach rave left standing is Koh Phangan’s original Full Moon Party which last month attracted about...

The “Xiaofei” or "Little Flyer" lunar orbiter began re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere at 6.13am on Saturday and subsequently landed in Inner Mongolia, state media reported. The probe was launched eight days ago and travelled more than 520,000 miles during its mission around the Moon. The mission to the Moon was “another step forward for China's ambition that could eventually land a Chinese citizen there,” Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said. It was “the world's first mission to the Moon and back for some 40 years”. Saturday’s landing is the latest advance for a space program that China’s leaders see...

... He said: "We would love to finish what we started some years ago and I think pretty well all our astronauts would love us to finish and would love to go into space. "I think millions of people in the world would one day love the chance to go to space and this is the start of a long programme."

A Bahamas-registered cruise liner that ran aground in northern Norway a few months ago did it again on Saturday, in sight of the pier where it was to be moored. The Norwegian rescue services say passengers had been allowed to leave the "Marco Polo" cruise ship, which was carrying more than a thousand people when it ran aground in the Lofoten archipelago early Saturday. Rescues services said they were hoping to pull the 176-meter (580-foot) "Marco Polo" free at high tide late Saturday. Tugboats and a coast guard vessel had tried in vain to free the vessel by pushing it...

Many of us say, "That was the worst place in the world!" But really: How many of us truly have the authority to say that? Lee Abbamonte does. He's the youngest American to visit all 193 member nations of the United Nations, and he's well on his way to visiting all 324 on The Travelers’ Century Club list, which includes territories and unique destinations in addition to nations. (Lee expects to have 321 of the 324 countries checked off by the end of the year).

<p>NASA and Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] have completed final assembly and testing of the Orion spacecraft. The spacecraft will remain inside NASA's Launch Abort System Facility at Kennedy Space Center until it rolls to launch pad 37 in November.</p> <p>"An empty shell of a spacecraft arrived to Kennedy Space Center two years ago, and now we have a fully assembled Orion standing 72 feet tall," said Michael Hawes Lockheed Martin Orion program manager. "We're ready to launch it into space and test every inch."</p>

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced Wednesday it will spin off sports car maker Ferrari into a separate company, a move to unlock the luxury brand’s value and distinguish it from its mass-market parent. The spinoff aims to raise money to support the newly-merged carmaker’s plans to invest €48 billion ($61 billion) over five years to compete with global giants Toyota and Volkswagen. Shares in Fiat Chrysler soared on the news. “I think we are doing the right thing by giving Ferrari a proper, unique place in the capital markets to be evaluated and valued as a luxury automaker,” Marchionne told an...

All Freepers in Idaho/Oregon/West Coast area. Please help find the daughter of my neighbor. She is missing from Mountain Home, Idaho since September 24th.

The TRV represents a collaborative effort between NASA and CASIS, the non-profit Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which was recently endowed with the responsibility of making sure that we make good use of the US laboratory aboard the ISS. Towards this end, they have contracted with Intuitive Machines – a Texas-based private space firm – to create a return vehicle that will enable the on-demand, rapid return of experiments from the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory. “I believe with this new ‘on demand’ delivery capability for returning scientific samples to earth we will extend the viability...

An airliner came within just 80ft of colliding with a quadcopter drone after it was 'deliberately flown' at the passenger plane as it flew over Essex, an official report reveals. The 74-seater aeroplane was travelling over Southend when the pilot spotted the remote-controlled quadcopter 'very close' to the right wing-tip. An investigation launched into the incident recorded the risk of collision as 'high', in what is believed to be the first ever near-miss between a passenger plane and a drone in the UK.

I am staying in Aschaffenburg, Germany on business with a car and a 3-day weekend coming up. I am looking for suggestions on interesting things to do within a 60-90 minute driving range in any direction. Last time we had enough time off we planned on Heidelberg one day then Strausborg, France the next. Both were 2.5-3 hour drives. We were so burnt out after Heidelberg that we never made the trip to France the next day. So this time I'm trying to keep it a bit closer. I know Aschaffenburg had a large military presence for many years so...

'F*** You Chinatown': Guide Stuns A Bus Load Of Tourists With A Racist Tirade In San Francisco's Famous Asian District Tour guide launched into a racist rant about San Francisco's Chinatown She warned people against moving to the area saying it's 'a horrible place' German tourist filmed the expletive-laden tirade and put it on YouTube Guide said: 'F*** your noise, f*** your parades, f*** your dragons, f*** this' By JENNY AWFORD 23 October 2014 A tour guide stunned a bus load of tourists when she launched into a racist tirade about San Francisco's Chinatown on her last day of the...

Here’s a post from the AMSAT-UK high altitude balloon blog. It’s a great story about a balloon cruising at about 12km above the Earth completing its sixth circumnavigation of the planet. That post is from October 4th, and two weeks later the balloon is still going strong. Right now it’s over the Baltic heading into Russia with no sign of stopping or popping any time soon. The balloon was launched July 12, 2014 from Silverstone, UK. In the 100 days since then, this balloon has covered 144168 kilometers and has crossed its launching longitude six times. Even if this balloon...

... James had been boasting for days on Twitter about obtaining drugs, and alluded to sessions 'taking blow' with his 24-year-old wife. On Sunday, Mr Gaskell wrote on Twitter: 'One prescription in India (after you have told the doctor what to write) will take you faaaaaar...' Later the same day, he sent another boastful message, writing: 'Codeine under the counter here. With Valium, Xanax and Lyrica. Winning.' The first pictures taken inside their room at Hotel Maya show strips of coloured capsules next to their bodies as they lay slumped on the bed. ... 'In India I have eaten an...

Any Freepers preparing to retire in the next 5 to 10 years? What are you plans? What are you doing to get ready to enter the next level of your life? I'm considering retiring in 3 - 5 years and I feel like I don't have all my ducks in a row. Know what I mean? I'm not asking about financial advise, but would like to know what one should do to be ready to sleep in the first day of retirement.

In February 2014, while promoting his World War Two film, The Monuments Men, Hollywood A-List actor George Clooney declared that Britain should send the Elgin Marbles back to Greece. Despite claiming they came from the Pantheon in Rome rather than the Parthenon in Athens (and also that they had been taken by Lord "Eljin"), he felt that returning them was now appropriate. This was fiercely controversial territory. However, once the furore had died down, most people wrote it off as a kooky PR stunt. Until last week, when it emerged that George Clooney’s new wife, Amal Clooney, a lawyer specialising...

Link only. This will put a smile on your face for sure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK-T_t166TY&feature=youtu.be

Because the technologies required to land large payloads on Mars are significantly different than those used here on Earth, investment in these technologies is critical,” said NASA’s Principal Investigator for NASA’s Propulsive Descent Technologies (PDT) project Robert Braun. “This is the first high-fidelity data set of a rocket system firing into its direction of travel while traveling at supersonic speeds in Mars-relevant conditions. Analysis of this unique data set will enable system engineers to extract important lessons for the application and infusion of supersonic retro-propulsion into future NASA missions.” While NASA and other organizations have researched similar technologies – no...

We took a hacker to a café and, in 20 minutes, he knew where everyone else was born, what schools they attended, and the last five things they googled. In his backpack, Wouter Slotboom, 34, carries around a small black device, slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes, with an antenna on it. I meet Wouter by chance at a random cafe in the center of Amsterdam. It is a sunny day and almost all the tables are occupied. Some people talk, others are working on their laptops or playing with their smartphones. Wouter removes his laptop from his backpack,...