Free Republic

Republican U.S. Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, considered by some to be an “accidental” congressman, was easily defeated Tuesday in a Michigan district and became the third U.S. House incumbent to lose his seat this year. Lawyer and businessman David Trott, 53, who contributed nearly $2.5 million of his own money to his campaign, will face Democrat Bobby McKenzie, a counterterrorism expert, in the November general election to represent the 11th congressional district covering a swath of Detroit’s western and northern suburbs. …

Anderson Cooper discusses the recent Ebola outbreak in Africa with Dr. James Wilson, the director of the National Infectious Disease Forecase Center. Wilson notes the recent outbreaks seem to have hit more populated areas because of deforestation, and “human beings showing unrestricted growth.” Wilson says “we’re going to see more of this.”

A pizza vending machine takes convenience food to a whole new level, delivering fresh pies to customers in just three minutes 24/7. The Let's Pizza unit invented by Claudio Torghele, an entrepreneur from Rovereto, Italy, mixes flour and water together and presses the dough flat to create a 10.5 inch base. Desired toppings are then added and the meal is flash-cooked in a high temperature infrared oven at 380 degrees Celsius. While the baking process is underway, a takeaway box is prepared. The finished pie is then placed in the cardboard container and delivered through a slot. As they wait...

Apparently, the feebs have been using malware and the TOR network to snoop on quite a bit more information than one might have suspected. Use the following link here for more info: http://www.wired.com/2014/08/operation_torpedo/

Satellite imagery released by the U.N. shows destruction in hard-hit Gaza neighborhoods.

It’s a mystery why one person can be poor but still be proud, independent, and reasonably content while the guy next door is only content to slide into a swamp of misery, blame, slovenliness, dependence, and cigarette smoke. I agree that Alchemist summed things up pretty well by observing, “Poor is a state of finance. Poverty is a state of mind.” But why? Entire tomes have been written about poverty, of course. How soul-crushing it is. How it leads to crime. How it’s everybody’s fault except the individuals who are in that state. How it’s increasingly becoming institutionalized among entire...

Russian gang of computer hackers has gathered a staggering cache of some 1.2 billion stolen usernames and passwords, exposing vulnerability in some 400,000 websites targeted, according to a report Tuesday. The find by Hold Security, a Milwaukee-based firm, also included some 542 million email addresses culled by the crew of twentysomethings based in a small south central Russian city, the New York Times reported. “Hackers did not just target U.S. companies, they targeted any website they could get, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to very small websites,” Alex Holden, the founder and chief information security officer of Hold Security, told...

Sarah Palin’s new eponymous channel already has some competition from an online video platform that’s taking a swipe at the Republican firecracker, and devoting its entire lineup to all things Palin. The one-time GOP vice presidential candidate announced last month the creation of her subscriber-based news site, SarahPalinChannel.com. Now, Pluto.TV is launching its own “#SarahFailin” channel, which it says features a “tongue-in-cheek mashup” of Palin’s “most (in)famous broadcast T.V. interviews and parodies of the ‘Going Rogue’ author.” The online video channel, which curates content from across the internet as well as traditional television shows, launched this week.

August 6, 2014Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord    Reading 1 Dn 7:9-10, 13-14 As I watched: Thrones were set upand the Ancient One took his throne.His clothing was bright as snow,and the hair on his head as white as wool;his throne was flames of fire,with wheels of burning fire.A surging stream of fireflowed out from where he sat;Thousands upon thousands were ministering to him,and myriads upon myriads attended him.The court was convened and the books were opened. As the visions during the night continued, I saw: One like a Son of man coming,on the clouds of heaven;When...

A few days ago this writer went to his first Minnesotans Against Common Core meeting in Becker Minnesota. This writer was not surprised to hear various concerns the speakers mentioned during the course of this meeting. Establishing Child Career Pathways beginning in Second Grade; Recording of "Biometrics" of Children in data bases for future Government use; Dumbing Down of the masses; Indoctrination children to make them more compliant to authority; Conditioning Individuality out of Children; Extending the Length of the School Year. Understandably, the parents in the audience were upset, agitated and angry over children having their career paths set...

The 34-year-old was convicted of first-degree murder last year in Travis Alexander's grisly 2008 slaying, but the Arizona jury deadlocked on whether she should get life behind bars or death.Arias had admitted to slaying Alexander after a day of sex in his Phoenix home on June 4, 2008, but argued that it was in self-defense. Her victim was stabbed nearly 30 times, had his throat slit and was shot in the forehead. Prosecutors argued it was premeditated murder carried out in a jealous rage when Alexander wanted to end their affair. Arias will be assisted by her current attorneys, who...

Police said four children were at the playground inside the mobile home park when a 12-year-old pulled out a knife and began stabbing Michael Conner Verkerke, 9, repeatedly in the back. Adam Zachow, who lives across the street from the Verkerke’s, said his kids spend the weekend playing with Michael, who goes by his middle name, Conner.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) misled Congress on the number of veteran deaths in its health care system, adding to a growing list of untruths that VA has told congressmen trying to investigate the scandal-plagued department. The House Committee on Veterans Affairs, chaired by Republican Rep. Jeff Miller, is the latest victim of VA’s dishonesty. VA provided the committee an April 7, 2014 fact sheet purporting to show all of the cases of delays and preventable veteran deaths it oversaw in its gastrointestinal care in the last fifteen years. “As a result of the consult delay issue VA discovered...

After a decade long chase of 6.4 billion kilometers (4 Billion miles) through interplanetary space the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft is now on final approach for its historic rendezvous with its target comet 67P scheduled for Wednesday morning, Aug. 6. some half a billion kilometers from the Sun. See online webcast below. Rosetta arrives at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in less than 12 hours and is currently less than 200 kilometers away.

t is the softly spoken radio show that provides good-natured help and advice to thousands of gardeners every week. So regular listeners to Gardeners’ Question Time may be horrified to discover it has been accused of peddling racial stereotypes. According to an academic, the sedate Radio 4 panel show is riddled with "racial meanings" disguised as horticultural advice. One current presenter, Bob Flowerdew, rubbished the idea, calling it “ridiculous”, and asked whether experts on the show “should stop using Latin names to avoid offending the Romans”. But Dr Ben Pitcher, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Westminster,...

This is a fun, quarterly chart based on company reports and data from Canaccord Genuity, a Canadian investment bank. It shows the relative share of each major smartphone maker based on their operating profits. Since just about every company other than Apple and Samsung is losing money, Canaccord analyst Michael Walkley says, "Apple and Samsung once again dominated handset industry operating profits and combined to capture a remarkable 108% of Q2/14 handset industry profits as other leading OEMs such as BlackBerry, Nokia/Microsoft, and Sony posted operating losses or near breakeven results.”

Don't know 'bout the rest of ya, but as a Swede and Volvo owner, I pretty much trust this company to experiment some.. (Link to clip below)

Sticker shock is around the corner for many Americans with government-brokered medical coverage, as insurance companies are beginning to apply their first-year costs to next year's premiums. In the case of Florida, some consumers will pay as much as 23 per cent more when their plans are renewed in the fall, according to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2716851/Obamacare-rates-2015-23-cent.html#ixzz39aDNsRvB Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The victim of Monday’s shooting on the 91 freeway, who pursued his assailant until California Highway Patrol officers could arrive, spoke with CBS2 on Tuesday to describe the ordeal. Shooting victim Ken Baker was transitioning from the I-5 to the 91 freeway Monday when another driver pulled a gun and began firing at him. Bullets shattered the driver’s-side window of Baker’s vehicle, causing glass to burst into his face. Baker then gave chase. “It blew up in my face; I didn’t know what happened,” Baker recalled. “And I pursued the guy, and I got as far...

With the largest Ebola epidemic ever recorded raging across West Africa and as two Americans who were infected in Liberia have entered the U.S. for treatment, the question has been raised: will Ebola happen in the U.S? Actually, an Ebola outbreak has happened in the U.S. before -- not just once, but at least three times. In 1989, Ebola entered into the U.S. through infected monkeys, which were shipped from the Philippines for experimentation. At the time, Hazleton Laboratories (now Covance, Inc.) owned a facility in Reston, Virginia. After one shipment, monkeys were falling rapidly ill and dying. The Reston...