Free Republic

From Apple’s forthcoming smartwatch to the Fitbit, there is fierce competition to get consumers hooked on wearable devices. And soon there will be a bracelet that turns your skin into a touchscreen using a tiny built-in projector. Wearers of the of the Cicret bracelet will be able to check an email or watch a film that’s projected onto their forearm, and control the picture by using their skin like a touchscreen.

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said the House Republicans who passed $1 trillion-plus funding bill late Thursday “flipped American voters the bird.” “It’s baffling really,” Palin said in an interview with Breitbart News on Friday. “The Republican Leadership in the House just flipped American voters the bird by sidelining the new Congress we just elected.” Palin’s criticisms come the morning after the House passed a spending bill by a 219-206 vote. While the bill will keep the government open for another year, Palin and other conservatives are not happy that the legislation will fund President Barack Obama’s executive action...

A police sweep at Oceanside High School East in Rockland last week has stirred up a passionate debate over how to balance the individual rights of students with "zero tolerance" drug policies. Principal Renee Thompson said that although there have not been any specific drug problems at the school, she organized the raid by the Rockland Police along with the Knox and Lincoln County Sheriff's Departments in an effort to "send the message that we have zero tolerance for drugs, tobacco and paraphernalia brought on school grounds." According to Rockland Police Detective Sergeant Chris Young, it's the first time in...

NASA's picture-perfect Orion launch to Mars was all the rage last week. Praise was heaped upon key NASA contractors Boeing (NYSE: BA ) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT ) -- and deservedly so. Between Orion's success, and the companies' announcement that their United Launch Alliance joint venture will develope a "next-generation liquid oxygen/hydrocarbon first stage" rocket to power launches to near-Earth orbit, Boeing and Lockheed are on a hot streak. But amid all the hullaballoo at ULA, you might have forgotten there's another space launch company that is building even more innovative products. Its name is SpaceX. It goes up,...

WJHL.com: Liberia postpones elections again because of Ebola 2 hours ago "MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) - Officials in Ebola-stricken Liberia have postponed senatorial elections elections until the end of the week, while some urged calling off the vote for fear the results would not be credible. Ebola …

The White House insists that the public break between President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) over a government funding bill won't damage the relationship between the two top Democrats. "The president has always had not just a good working relationship but an open line of communication with Leader Pelosi, and that didn’t change yesterday, and it’s not going to change in the future," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Friday. Earnest said Obama values Pelosi because she has proven more persuasive to her members "than I think probably any other leader in either party in...

This week, oil fell through the price floor of $60 a barrel and gas at my local filling station was $2.26 a gallon. That’s great news for commuters and almost every business, but wonderfully bad news for our ugliest enemies. If oil prices remain low through next year, the effect on rogue governments, from the Russian Federation to Venezuela, will go from damaging to devastating. But Western economies (and China’s) stand to benefit, with cheap oil possibly tickling Europe’s snoozing markets awake. Even most underdeveloped states will get a welcome break.

FYI for fans

The California High-Speed Rail Authority will officially break ground next month in Fresno on construction of its statewide bullet-train route. The Jan. 6 groundbreaking ceremony, announced Friday afternoon, comes about a year and a half after the agency awarded its first construction contract, a $1 billion deal to design and build the first 29-mile section from Madera to the south end of Fresno... ~~snip~~ California voters approved Proposition 1A, a $9.9 billion bond measure to help finance a high-speed rail system, in November 2008. But it wasn’t until the fall of 2010, when the Obama administration and the Federal Railroad...

Friends, it's Sunday night again and time to relax. Warm up the tubes for another 4 hours of classic radio Americana. Listen LiveInfo *tonight's show will be available at the "Info" link starting tomorrow.Official OTR blog of "The Big Broadcast" thread: http://kallmansalley.com/

VIENNA (AP) — A Russian loan to France's National Front. Invitations to Moscow for leaders of Austria's Freedom Party. Praise for Vladimir Putin from the head of Britain's anti-European Union party. As the diplomatic chill over Ukraine deepens, the Kremlin seems keener than ever to enlist Europe's far-right parties in its campaign for influence in the West, seeking new relationships based largely on shared concern over the growing clout of the EU. Russia fears that the EU and NATO could spread to countries it considers part of its sphere of influence. And it has repeatedly served notice that it will...

On Monday, 28 Russian military planes including TU-95 and TU-22 strategic bombers were intercepted over the Baltic Sea near Latvia's border. On Tuesday, a Russian plane violated Estonia's airspace. Poland's defense minister later accused Putin of launching "unprecedented activity" around the Baltic Sea. Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said the recent Russian flights were "of a different nature than we've seen in a while." The warplanes were intercepted by NATO in international airspace. "For the past 19 years, we have been trying to treat Russia as a partner, trying to bring the nations of Europe back together...

The Great Life " Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled… —John 14:27 " Whenever we experience something difficult in our personal life, we are tempted to blame God. But we are the ones in the wrong, not God. Blaming God is evidence that we are refusing to let go of some disobedience somewhere in our lives. But as soon as we let go, everything becomes as clear as daylight to us. As long as we try to serve...

OPEC won't rush to cut oil production even if prices fall as low as $40 per barrel, one of the cartel's members said Sunday. The energy minister for the United Arab Emirates told Bloomberg at a Dubai conference that the middle eastern oil producers believe "the market will stabilize itself." "We are not going to change our minds because the prices went to $60 or to $40," Suhail Al-Mazrouei said. Even as it has watched prices dip, OPEC declined to cut back on production at its November meeting. Some observers had expected a production cut to boost the price of...

“Who Are You, John?” (John 1:6-8, 19-28) How would you like to be defined in terms of someone else? I mean, who you are, your life and identity--when people think of you, they always compare you to somebody else? Are you like this person? Are you like that person? I suppose it could get old after a while. Why can’t people just take you for who you are, on your own terms? Well, today we’ll meet someone whose life was always being defined in terms of someone else. And you know what? He was okay with it. And so this...

Bill Cosby says he only expects the 'black media' to stay 'neutral' and give him a fair hearing over mounting rape claims. The 77-year-old said that African-American media should be impartial in reporting the allegations that he is a serial rapist. 'Let me say this. I only expect the black media to uphold the standards of excellence in journalism and when you do that you have to go in with a neutral mind,' Cosby told Page Six.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has surveyed what he calls “the Obama-Clinton foreign policy,” and he does not like what he sees. Speaking Wednesday at The Heritage Foundation, Cruz condemned current policy as “appeasement and moral equivalency.” Said Cruz: “One of the sad legacies of the last six years” is that “our friends no longer trust us and our enemies no longer fear us,” and that the United States risks going from “the leader of the free world to a dutiful and obedient member of the international community.” Cruz criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks that we should “respect”...

The passage of Proposition 47 by California voters in November is at least partially to blame for an uptick in Fresno crime figures, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said this week. Aggravated assault is up 9.9% in a 28-day period ending Wednesday, although it remains down 3.9% for the year in figures released by police after the department’s monthly Crime View session, in which Dyer and his command staff go over key statistics. Burglary is up by 30.7%, in the period, while it remains down by 12.8% for the year. Auto theft spiked by 12.6% but is still down by...

PYONGYANG, North Korea - North Korea on Sunday presented to the media an American man who says he illegally crossed into the country but has not been put into custody and is seeking asylum in Venezuela. Arturo Pierre Martinez, 29, of El Paso, Texas, said he entered North Korea by crossing the river border with China. Details of how and when he got into the country were not immediately clear. In his comments to reporters, Martinez strongly criticized the U.S. for alleged human rights violations. "The illegal war carried out against the nation of Iraq serves as a perfect example...

Five members of an Israeli family have suffered chemical burns after a substance believed to be acid was thrown over them reportedly by a Palestinian man in the West Bank. Police said the victims included four girls who were sprayed with a corrosive substance by a man who was then shot in the leg by a bystander. The incident took place close to a checkpoint near Beitar Illit, in the southern West Bank. Paramedics who treated the family – including three children aged between about eight and 10 – said the wounds appeared to be acid burns affecting their limbs....