Free Republic

The Republican National Committee is looking for Hillary Clinton. Which is why, according to a memo they've sent to the press, they're asking, “Where’s Hillary?” "We’ve noticed it. You’ve noticed it: Hillary Clinton is hiding," reads the memo from Sean Spicer, communications director. "Potential Republican presidential candidates are out in public, speaking to voters, and sharing their ideas. But Hillary Clinton is nowhere to be found." Well, we do know she tweeted. Hillary’s only public appearances in 2015 have been in Canada. And in the previous year, almost every public appearance she made came with huge speaking fees—a quarter million...

The University of California Student Association board – which represents all 233,000 students enrolled in the UC system’s 10 campuses – approved a resolution on Sunday that calls on the system’s leaders to financially divest from the United States. The measure cited alleged human rights violations by America such as drone strikes that have killed civilians, and claimed the country’s criminal justice system is racist, among other accusations. The “Resolution Toward Socially Responsible Investment at the University of California” passed with an overwhelming majority vote of 11-1-3.

I was the pilot in command of the flight that carried Brian Williams into Iraq in March 2003. The mission was to deliver bridges to the Objective Rams region in order to support our ground-force advancement. We were briefed that we would be operating forward of the line of troops and that the objective was unsecure. We were a flight of two, and I was the rear aircraft. Our flight to Objective Rams was uneventful, with the exception of a desert dust storm that caused deteriorating conditions not suitable for flight. We determined that we would not make it back...

Vast ranges of volcanoes hidden under the oceans are presumed by scientists to be the gentle giants of the planet, oozing lava at slow, steady rates along mid-ocean ridges. But a new study shows that they flare up on strikingly regular cycles, ranging from two weeks to 100,000 years -- and, that they erupt almost exclusively during the first six months of each year. The pulses -- apparently tied to short- and long-term changes in earth's orbit, and to sea levels--may help trigger natural climate swings. Scientists have already speculated that volcanic cycles on land emitting large amounts of carbon...

Anthem Inc., the country’s second-biggest health insurer, said hackers broke into a database containing personal information for about 80 million of its customers and employees in what is likely to be the largest data breach disclosed by a health-care company. Investigators are still determining the extent of the incursion, which was discovered last week, and Anthem said it is likely that “tens of millions” of records were stolen. The health insurer said the breach exposed names, birthdays, addresses and Social Security numbers but doesn’t appear to involve medical information or financial details such as credit-card or bank-account numbers, nor are...

Weed history is being made in Seattle: the first vending machines to dispense marijuana flower buds debuted Tuesday. The machines, called ZaZZZ, are being placed in medical pot dispensaries, which helps to verify customer's age and identity since medical marijuana cards are required to enter the centers, said Greg Patrick, a spokesman for the maker of ZaZZZ, American Green. Though vending machines appeared for the first time in Colorado last year, those sold only edibles, or cannabis-infused foods, and not the plant's flower buds that are so often associated with smoking pot.

Cases like this are fueling a growing debate about the accuracy of "vegetative state" and "brain death" diagnoses. airlift(Harlow, England) - Martin Pistorius hates Barney. And it's no wonder why. For 12 years, while he was in a coma that doctors described as a "vegetative state," nurses, thinking that he couldn't see or hear anything, played endless re-runs of Barney as he sat, strapped into his wheel chair. (Photo via Life Site News) But Martin wasn't the "vegetable" that doctors said he was. In fact, he could see and hear everything. "I cannot even express to you how much I...

Two stars from the Seattle Seahawks took time away from the field to cut an ad shilling for Obamacare. The ad, posted Friday, features Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and rhetorically explosive cornerback Richard Sherman touting the benefits of President Obama’s healthcare law and its web portal Healthcare.gov.

Free community college for all. Conversation-starter? Definitely. Political possibility? Not any time soon. President Obama unveiled the idea in a video posted to Facebook on Thursday night. But administration officials provided no price tag, no legislation, and little evidence of Republican support on Capitol Hill. But the White House says that’s beside the point at this stage. The president hopes “to start a conversation,” Obama domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz told reporters.

California's budget, which bounced back after years of deficits, is now being squeezed by rising healthcare costs for the poor and for retired state workers.. The mountain of medical bills threatens to undermine Gov. Jerry Brown's efforts to strengthen state finances — his central promise of the past four years. Enrollment in the state's healthcare program for the poor, known as Medi-Cal, has exploded by 50% since President Obama's signature law took effect. Although the federal government picks up most of the tab, state costs have also been growing, and faster than expected.

A British soldier “shakes hands” with a kitten on a snowy bank, Neulette, 1917. In the Christmas truce film Joyeux Noël, a cat runs back and forth between the enemy trenches to soldiers that feed it. One names the cat Felix and the other Nestor, and when the two meet in No Man’s Land during thet ruce, a sweet argument ensues between the two men over whose cat it is and what is, in fact, its name. The director of the film, Carion, drew on a real life story of a cat who did this during the truce and was...

"The Firefly is an electric bike you attach to a manual wheelchair." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4jESFIbAS0

Researchers have developed a new 'illusion coating' that could hide things by making them look like something else or even completely disappear. "Previous attempts at cloaking using a single meta-surface layer were restricted to very small-sized objects," said Zhi Hao Jiang, postdoctoral fellow in electrical engineering, Pennsylvania State University. Jiang and Douglas H Werner developed a meta-material coating with a negligible thickness that allows coated objects to function normally while appearing as something other than what they really are, or even completely disappearing. The researchers employ what they call "illusion coatings," coatings made up of a thin flexible substrate with...

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the first flight of the SR-71 Blackbird, the Air Force’s sleek, high-flying Cold War reconnaissance workhorse that still holds several world air-speed records. Here’s a look back at the amazing aircraft.

Full Title: Why do you MANSPREAD? Woman with her tape measure confronts splay-legged men on the subway about the space they consume It is a gripe that frustrates subway riders daily: men with their legs splayed. So one woman decided to confront male commuters about the amount of space they consume. The investigation comes a month before New York City's MTA launches a campaign targeting 'manspreaders'.

House and Senate conferees negotiating a package to fund the Department of Defense through September 2015 have protected commissary operations by restoring 90 percent of a planned $100 million cut. Once again lawmakers thwarted a cost-saving initiative targeting military compensation and endorsed by the Joint Chiefs as a way to dampen personnel costs so more dollars can be spent on training, weapon buys and other readiness accounts being victimized by arbitrary “sequestration” cuts. Only last week House and Senate conferees on a different bill, the 2015 defense authorization act, unveiled a deal to lower the Defense Commissary Agency annual $1.3...

The father of the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” slogan has just been employed by the United States government. Dorian Johnson, the star witness to the Michael Brown shooting and the man who was assisting Brown during the strong-arm robbery moments before Brown was killed, has been hired by the city of St. Louis. According to STltoday.com, “Jeff Rainford, Mayor Francis Slay's chief of staff, has confirmed that Johnson was hired under a state grant through the city's Agency on Training and Employment, or SLATE.” Meeting the low income eligibility requirements, the 22-year-old will be holding the temporary position and will...

Torii Hunter is an anti-gay bigot. This is something he has proven with his own words on multiple occasions. Yesterday, at the press conference to announce the one-year, $10.5 million deal he signed to return to the Minnesota Twins, beat writer Mike Berardino of the Saint Paul Pioneer-Press asked him about those beliefs—specifically, in the context of how Hunter thought supporting Arkansas Republican Governor-elect Asa Hutchinson in his recent election had affected his free agency. Torii Hunter Says Homosexuality Is "Not Right" (Then Claims He Was Misquoted) Hunter's response: You got some people who are just messy, you know? So,...

Two bucks each tangled by the antlers in the same nylon rope were pulling against each other until a game warden came up with a clever solution. A Texas game warden came to the rescue of two bucks that were trapped in an unusual way—both deer had their antlers tangled in the same nylon rope and were pulling against each other around the pole of a clothesline in the backyard of someone’s house. The unidentified Texas game warden in Comal County used a clever strategy to free the animals, which were thrashing about with their survival in jeopardy: The Texas...

Deflation has had a bad rap, largely based on the experience of the 1930's when deflation was synonymous with depression. Recent experience with declining prices in Japan and China together with the concern over deflation in Europe and the United States has led to renewed attention to the topic of deflation. In this paper we focus our attention on the deflation experience of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany in the late nineteenth century during a period characterized by low deflation, rapid productivity growth, positive output growth, and where many nations had a credible nominal anchor based on...