Free Republic

Thought your fingerprint was secure? Think again. The unique pattern on the tip of your fingers can easily be copied and used to access your most personal information. As PIN numbers and passwords prove redundant in protecting data, tech companies are looking to convert bodily features into secure identity authenticators. Bionym, the Toronto-based biometrics technology company, have introduced The Nymi -- a wristband that measures heartbeats to authenticate identity. Its embedded sensor reads the electrical pulses produced by your heartbeat, which is unique to each of us. "You leave your fingerprints everywhere - you actually leave this impression which can...

(H/T to Ryan T. Anderson at the Daily Signal) Despite the foaming vitriolic mouths of the Left, calling for the reality-TV star Duggars’ heads, and prophesying TEOTWAWKI, the citizens of Fayetteville, Arkansas chose common sense over granting special LGBT privileges.  They repealed the ordinance passed by their city council in August.  Hooray for democracy, and proving the theory that all politics is local.  The Duggars campaigned in favor of repeal of this ordinance, causing a firestorm of pique and calls for 19 Kids and Counting to be cancelled by TLC. Among other things, the law made it a crime for citizens to engage in...

Two years after buying Lucasfilm for $4 billion, Disney is starting to reveal just how Star Wars will be integrated into the company’s theme parks. Main attractions will be based on new sequels and spinoffs — the first of which, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, bows next year — not the older films in George Lucas’ sci-fi franchise, according to Walt Disney Co. chief Bob Iger. “There will be a much larger Star Wars presence in our parks globally,” Iger said during a Q&A at Variety’s Dealmakers Breakfast on Wednesday, sponsored by Delta Air Lines and Bank of America. “But...

On Wednesday morning, editor Nancy Gibbs announced the Ebola fighters as their choice because “they risked and persisted, sacrificed and saved” during a year in which “an outbreak turned into an epidemic" around the world, striking “doctors and nurses in unprecedented numbers. ... Anyone willing to treat the disease's victims 'ran the risk of becoming one.'” The Ferguson protesters came in second, a selection that quickly sent many supporters to the Internet to vent their anger and disappointment.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special. For those remembering how they stared with wonder and awe at the jerky stop-motion animation and shivered with delicious fear at the perils faced by the plucky buck with the incandescent schnoz, the notion that this program occurred a half century ago would be a marvelous testament to the enduring power of the show’s appeal . . . if it didn’t make you feel so damned old. If it does, that is. For young kids today it’s a cultural artifact from a time so remote it...

Germany’s first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, supposedly once said that there was “a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America.” Apparently, late 19th-century observers could not quite explain how the U.S. thrived when by logic it should not. That paradox has never been more true than today. The U.S. government now owes more than $18 trillion in long-term debt. Even after recent income-tax hikes for the very wealthy and huge cuts in the defense budget, the Obama administration will still run an annual budget deficit of nearly $500 billion. No government official dares to trim Social...

It’s dreary outside and you find yourself dreaming of an escape to the Caribbean. You long for turquoise water and sugar-sand beaches, with plenty of activities to take your mind off work. Cruises offer the perfect smorgasbord of beaches, shopping, scenery, and fun things that you can’t do at home, all served up with a fruity, umbrella-topped beverage. But not every port lives up to the image in your dreams. To help you choose your next cruise itinerary — or rather, figure out which places to avoid — Yahoo Travel did some digging around and found the Caribbean ports with...

What good purpose is served by releasing a report on CIA enhanced interrogation techniques while we are still at war with an enemy whose techniques include beheading Americans? Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and her Democratic colleagues say that the CIA lied about their tactics and exceeded their authority while seeking to obtain information from suspected terrorists. There is a dispute among politicians and intelligence experts as to whether these tactics resulted in any information that was helpful in defending the U.S. from another terrorist attack. In a recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, former CIA...

Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! A Brief Consideration of the Importance of ExperienceBy: Msgr. Charles PopeI want to give two thumbs up for good old-fashioned experience, just experiencing life to its top … just having an experience! Too often in today’s hurried age and also in this time of 24×7 news, we rush past experience right to analysis. Too often we insist on knowing immediately what something “means” and what to think about it. This rush to think and analyze often happens before the experience is even over. And, of course, analyzing something before all the facts are...

Stop President Obama’s Illegal Immigration Action in Court President Obama broke the law. He violated the Constitution. Now we’re taking aggressive action in court. President Obama said he “change[d] the law” when he took unilateral action on immigration. The Constitution is clear: The President enforces the law. He does not make the law. Twenty states are taking a stand to defend the Constitution against President Obama’s imperial immigration action. They’ve filed a massive federal lawsuit to stop his unconstitutional overreach. We’re joining them. We’re preparing to file a critical amicus brief to stop President Obama’s illegal action. We testified before...

Even if Republicans shut down the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) next year, President Obama could still carry out his executive actions giving legal status to up to 5 million undocumented immigrants. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders have punted the funding fight over Obama’s immigration action to February, arguing their new majority will have more leverage to stop the plan dead in its tracks. But it’s unclear how much weight the threat of withholding funding would carry. Eighty-five percent of DHS employees continued to work during last year’s 16-day shutdown because they were funded with mandatory funds...

Greenpeace was so proud of their vandalism that they signed their name to it.Images BBCGreenPeace extremists have gone to great lengths to harass whaling vessels with rubber rafts and chain themselves to trees in the rain forest in order to protest what they consider to be the destruction of the planet, they don’t seem to mind personally destroying cultural treasures.Greenpeace Defaced Ancient Peruvian landmark:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvmpFm4xzAAGlobalPost.com reports that on Wednesday Greenpeace apologized to the Peruvian government for vandalizing and damaging one of the country’s cultural treasures in a campaign to fight Global Warming junk science: “Environmental group Greenpeace apologized Wednesday after Peru...

More incriminating personal information was leaked Wednesday following the unprecedented Sony Pictures hack, this time in the form of emails between top producers and executives belittling a number of major stars and projects, and even making racist jokes about President Barack Obama. In one email exchange, Sony co-chairperson Amy Pascal -- a prominent Democratic party donor and Obama supporter -- asked movie producer Scott Rudin ahead of a fundraiser what she should ask the President "at this stupid Jeffrey (Katzenberg) breakfast," to which Rudin quipped "would he like to finance some movies." "I doubt it. Should I ask him if...

Recently I had a fairly pedestrian thought, a thought I've been having on and off for 10 years: "I want to put some music onto my portable music listening device." This used to be a relative cinch: I'd put the music on iTunes, plug in my iPod, and drag the songs over. Now, anytime I dare hook my iPhone up to a computer, there's software that needs updating, apps and photos I need to clear away for extra room, and esoteric rules regarding what is allowed to "sync." After finally getting an album onto my phone, another software update a...

The federal government's funding authorization expires tonight at midnight, and the Republican plan to renew it bodes poorly for the GOP's leadership of Congress next year. ... Congress shouldn't let the government shut down, but Republicans should neither acquiesce to president Obama's unprecedented executive power grab, nor give up control over the budget for well into the 114th Congress. ... Republicans take control of both chambers in January, so they have no good reason to make a deal with the Senate Democratic leadership that sets spending levels until next October. ... There are, as speaker Boehner has pointed out, some...

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...

Jackie has a lawyer. Palma Pustilnik, an attorney at Charlottesville's Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, said Wednesday morning that she'd been retained as counsel by the woman at the center of a Rolling Stone account depicting a gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house. The magazine revealed Friday that it found "discrepancies" in Jackie's account and said its "trust in her was misplaced." The fraternity tied to the allegation, Phi Kappa Psi, has said it found no evidence to support her claims and several key facts in the story were refuted by records.

... In Berkeley, Calif., a mob protesting the grand jury decisions in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases broke the window of a Trader Joe ’s supermarket. They wrecked a RadioShack store and smashed ATM machines. That still wasn’t enough. This Monday, some two dozen New York City Council members went into the street in front of city hall and disrupted traffic. For the people gridlocked in their cars, taxis and delivery trucks, Councilman Andy King explained: “We have a responsibility to wake you up, and the only way people get woken up is if you disrupt their everyday...

The Agents of SHIELD midseason finale went big, revealing the Marvel Comics-based identities of both Skye and her father, “The Doctor.” But that wasn’t all, as Skye and Raina made it into the chamber in the mysterious hidden city where a mist would transform them into something… Inhuman. Yes, it’s true! On the heels of plenty of fan speculation, the Inhumans have made their first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, years before their 2018 movie, via Agents of SHIELD. While they may not have said the words Inhumans or Attilan, any lingering doubts as to what we’re dealing with...

Explanation: In this night scene from the early hours of November 14, light from a last quarter Moon illuminates clouds above the mountaintop domes of Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. Bright Jupiter is just left of the overexposed lunar disk with a streak of camera lens flare immediately to the right, but that's no fireball meteor exploding near the center of the picture. Instead, from the roadside perspective a stunningly bright moondog or paraselene stands directly over Kitt Peaks's WIYN telescope. Analogous to a sundog or parhelion, a paraselene is produced by moonlight refracted through thin, hexagonal, plate-shaped...