Free Republic

You never forget your first drone. When the Phantom first takes off, it sounds like a swarm of bees. But when it rockets 200 feet into the air at 25 miles per hour, you can’t hear it at all. It’s just a small dot with blinking lights, waiting where you tell it to wait, taking pictures with its camera until you ask it to come back home. When the chief executive of DJI’s American subsidiary, Colin Guinn, came to Los Angeles to sell film studios on his company’s professional-grade unmanned aerial vehicles, he also let Quartz test-drive the company’s newest...

Apple has partnered with China Merchants Bank to offer Chinese customers affordable payment plans for purchases made at the Apple Store, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. Although the country has a fast-moving economy, Apple’s premium-priced products remain out of reach for many potential Chinese customers, and Apple hopes that simple payment plans, still a novel concept in the country, will help reach a new demographic of consumers. Apple is known for its premium products that often hit the wallet harder than those from competing companies. In still-developing nations like China, however, this can severely limit Apple’s potential market. According to Bloomberg, the...

five (un-armed) people were gunned down Saturday in Chicago, including an (un-armed) man whose mother had already lost her three (un-armed) children to shootings. >Chicago<

Anonymous, a band of online vigilante activists, has turned its ire on the U.S. Department of Justice, threatening to release secret, internal documents the group hacked in memory of Aaron Swartz, the Internet prodigy who committed suicide before his federal trial. “With Aaron’s death we can wait no longer. The time has come to show the United States Department of Justice and its affiliates the true meaning of infiltration. The time has come to give this system a taste of its own medicine,” read part of the message and video posted on the U.S. Sentencing Commission website, which the activist...

If confirmed as expected, John Kerry will be the first white male U.S. Secretary of State in about 16 years. So what, if anything, does that mean? For the first time in almost a decade, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee were using the term “mister” to address a prospective Secretary of State. And at least online, it's been causing buzz. Jezebel.com—a website aimed at women—recently posted a piece asking satirically, “Is America Ready for a White Male Secretary of State?” … Years of diplomatic leadership from Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton have left a...

Don't like the new laws and restrictions being proposed? Call your county assessor!!! TELL HIM YOU ARE NOT GOING TO PAY YOUR PROPERTY TAX!!! TELL HIM WHY, EXACTLY!!! IF YOU ARE BRAVE ENOUGH, GO TO THE COUNTY SEAT AND TELL THEM TO THEIR FACES!!! See they really don't give a single dam about who wins the vote. No matter who wins, they just re-hash the same old crap over and over, it's just different jerks doing the rehashing! But hit them in their pocketbooks and heads will roll! This plan works even if you don't own property and live in...

A 38-year-old man was killed in the Englewood neighborhood tonight, making him the sixth person shot dead today, police said. The latest shooting happened about 10:05 p.m. in the 7000 block of South Carpenter Street, Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines said. The man died on the scene, Gaines said.

Maybe he can get a job in the Administration? - A crooked registrar faces a lengthy jail sentence after being found guilty of issuing false birth certificates to a gang of African fraudsters who stole at least £4million from taxpayers over 20 years. Azu Akpom provided fake certificates to the ringleader of the gang who went on to create false identities for up to 100 children to milk the benefits system. Croydon Crown Court heard how the Nigerian-born father of three was ultimately trapped by a text message which, despite his denial, showed he knew the gang’s chief conspirator, Ugandan-born...

Last Thursday Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and other U.S. military leaders lifted the ban on women serving in combat positions. I, for one, think this is a great idea and have a few modest proposals, if the brass inside the beltway is open to suggestions, on how they should deploy the dames (and whom they should deploy). First off, if you truly want to eviscerate the enemy—namely Muslims—then I propose sending the most nerve grating and foul women Hollywood has to offer straight into hot zones as our forward armies. I’m a thinkin’ starting off with Roseanne Barr, Joy...

Franco Harris doesn't believe the NCAA sanctions against Penn State will stand, nor is he convinced that the trials of former Penn State officials will occur. Further, the former Penn State running back said, he sees opinions shifting about his alma mater's role in the Jerry Sandusky scandal. "The narrative is starting to change," Harris said Friday. "The [grand jury] presentment and the Freeh Report are falling apart. The NCAA [sanctions], that will fall apart. There will be no trials for [Tim] Curley and [Gary] Schultz. There's no case. We're starting to find the truth." More than 200 turned...

Explanation: Comet McNaught of 2007 has been, so far, the most photogenic comet of our time. After making quite a show in the northern hemisphere in early 2007 January, the comet moved south and developed a long and unusual dust tail that dazzled southern hemisphere observers. In this image, Comet McNaught was captured above Santiago, Chile. The bright comet dominates on the left while part of its magnificent tail spreads across the entire frame. From this vantage point in the Andes Mountains, one looks up toward Comet McNaught and a magnificent sky, across at a crescent moon, and down on...

When President Obama announced his sweeping new plan for preventing gun violence on January 16, it included no fewer than twenty-three “executive actions,” in addition to a series of legislative proposals. The message was clear: in the face of congressional intransigence—on gun control and beyond—Obama will push changes through the executive branch that he believes to be for the good of the country. “Congress too must act, and Congress must act soon,” Obama said, while making it clear that the White House will not wait for the GOP-controlled House. It was not the first time the president has flexed his...

Some dude in New Zealand wants to eradicate all house cats — and for good reason. They are cold-blooded serial killers that will murder just about anything they can get their little paws on. It must be stopped! Good riddance to these natural born killers.Here is a compilation of some of New Zealand’s deadliest and most terrifying predators:

Scroll down a bit to download the PSA. I can't do a hot link to the file. It's a MP3 file, you can get at the source. This sheriff is one of the good guys. This has gone viral. The lefties have their panties in a wad over this PSA. HAH!! I’m Sheriff David Clarke, and I want to talk to you about something personal…your safety. It’s no longer a spectator sport; I need you in the game, but are you ready? With officers laid-off and furloughed, simply calling 9-1-1 and waiting is no longer your best option. You can...

Emma Brooke-Whitehead had undergone extended chemotherapy without success when doctors at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia decided to try the groundbreaking new treatment about eight months ago. "This treatment was really her only chance," pediatric oncologist Stephen Grupp told ABC News. The treatment works by using a disabled version of HIV to retrain a patient's disease-fighting white blood cells to kill cancer cells.

Last weekend, Phil Mickelson threatened to move out of California over the onerous tax hikes imposed by Jerry Brown and the Democratic supermajority in Sacramento. Mickelson later apologized for his outburst, although I'm not sure why; he has just as much right to complain as anyone else. CNN Money later attempted to correct Mickelson, saying that his total tax rate was somewhere around 53%, not 62%, but I'm not sure that was much comfort, nor an effective rebuttal to Mickelson's point.As it turns out, Mickelson's not the only sports entity looking at a Golden Gate exit. Forbes noted that one...

Can improved labeling on food products help consumers make healthier choices? A new study by the Food and Drug Administration shows that it can. The FDA is in the process of updating the 20-year-old nutrition facts label that appears on all food and beverage products in the U.S. The organization’s researchers believe that improved labels may assist consumers in making healthier decisions about the food they buy. The FDA commissioned the study as part of the action plan for its Obesity Working Group. The researchers' goal was to determine whether modifying the key elements of the nutrition facts label might...

A couple of weeks ago, on a leisurely Sunday afternoon, 40 people gathered at a church in Washington Heights for a show-and-tell session sponsored by the New York City Preppers Network. One by one, they stood in front of the room and exhibited their “bug-out bags,” meticulously packed receptacles filled with equipment meant to see them through the collapse of civilization. Onto a folding table came a breathtaking array of disaster swag: compasses and iodine pills, hand-cranked radios and solar-powered flashlights, magnesium fire-starters and a fully charged Kindle with digital road maps of the tristate region. Many of the items...

Iran Human Rights, Mahmoud Amiry-Moghaddam, “What is surprising about this is that not only was this a public amputation, but that photos of it were distributed by official press agencies, and that they showed a machine that we had until yet never seen images of.

Police this week continued their investigation into the December 14 mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in seeking to document exactly what happened and learn the motive of the gunman who shot and killed 20 first-graders and six educators at the Dickinson Drive building. State police spokesman Lieutenant J. Paul Vance said that state police had a private meeting with members of the families of the deceased on January 15 to update them on the progress of the probe and to answer questions. Lt Vance declined to provide details on that 90-minute meeting. "We're doing our best to keep...