Free Republic

Do you despise Renoir? You must know you are not alone. Renoir-loathing is a default position in today’s art world and seems to gather more adherents in the wider population each year. Expressions of it crop up in the strangest places. In 2015, provocateur Max Geller organized a “Renoir Sucks at Painting” protest outside Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. “Activists” brandished signs calling Renoir an “aesthetic terrorist” and saying: “Other art is worth your while! Renoir paints a steaming pile!” and “God hates Renoir.” (When I called Geller’s protests “sophomoric” in the Boston Globe he challenged me to a duel...

A rural Alabama car dealership is giving away a Bible, a 12-gauge shotgun and an American flag with the purchase of any new or used vehicle as part of its Fourth of July sales promotion. Chatom Ford, a dealership in Chatom, Ala., went viral for its “God, Guns and Freedom” campaign that is running until July 31. The dealership’s general manager Koby Palmer talks about the offer in a Facebook video that now has more than 60,000 views. In the video, Palmer cocks his rifle in one hand and holds a Bible in the other while standing in front of...

SHANGHAI — United States chip makers are still selling millions of dollars of products to Huawei despite a Trump administration ban on the sale of American technology to the Chinese telecommunications giant, according to four people with knowledge of the sales. Industry leaders including Intel and Micron have found ways to avoid labeling goods as American-made, said the people, who spoke on the condition they not be named because they were not authorized to disclose the sales. Goods produced by American companies overseas are not always considered American-made. The components began to flow to Huawei about three weeks ago, the...

Starsky Robotics is now testing autonomous trucks that have no driver inside, the San Francisco Bay Area startup announced on Wednesday. As of June 16, Starsky began operating truly driverless semi-trucks on the Florida turnpike. It's a first in the industry. To be sure, there are plenty of autonomous trucks on the road. TuSimple has a fleet of more than 50 trucks making three to five revenue-generating routes per day in Arizona. Waymo resumed testing its self-driving trucks in Phoenix, after ending the tests two years ago. Embark's trucks drove more than 124,000 automated miles last year. And Tesla has...

The massive $11 million compensatory and $33 million punitive damage verdicts in favor of Gibson’s Bakery and its owners have been matched by equally massive media condemnation of Oberlin College’s conduct. In response, Oberlin College has developed a crisis management talking point that this “is a First Amendment case about whether whether an institution can be held liable for the speech of its students.” It’s a narrative of Oberlin College as victim, not the perpetrator the jury found it to be, and it’s being rolled out by Oberlin College with increasing media focus. Of course, that’s not at all what...

Insurgent candidate Tiffany Cabán — who has vowed to institute a slate of left-leaning criminal-justice reforms — declared victory over establishment favorite Melinda Katz Tuesday night in a tight Democratic primary race for Queens district attorney, but Katz refused to concede. Cabán, endorsed by fellow progressives like Bronx-Queens Rep. Alexandria ­Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, got 39.6 percent of the vote to Katz’s 38.3 percent, with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Since Cabán’s lead stood at 1.3 percentage points, it was above the 0.5-point threshold that would make a recount mandatory.

"We've gotten better at talking about inclusion. Now we intentionally start conversations, and when it's Pride Month or Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we celebrate." — Kevin Hart, founder of the West Florida LGBTA Teammate Network If rainbows and vibrant parades come to mind when you think of Pride Month, you're not alone, but if you research the history, you'll see it's more than a colorful party. "Pride Month is really about Stonewall," said Kevin Hart, founder of the West Florida LGBTA Teammate Network.

Today’s Cryptogram SN FV BAA LBIV LQV LSEV LX ASMLVH BHU AXRV VBGQ XLQVZ, LQSM FXZAU FXOAU KV B KVLLVZ WABGV. ---ESIV AXRV Today’s CG is courtesy of the Arkansas Gazette. You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram). Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated. PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but...

Unregenerate man is consistently described as being in a state of alienation and enmity. This is the condition that makes reconciliation necessary. Reconciliation is necessary only when a state of estrangement exists between two or more parties. Estrangement is the natural fallen state of our relationship to God. How are we enemies of God? Jonathan Edwards provides an insightful summary of the problem. He lists several points of tension between God and man: 1. By nature, we have a low esteem of God. We count Him unworthy of our love or fear. 2. We prefer to keep a distance from...

Today we'll feature the bluegrass group Sideline and their 2018 recording Thunder Dan. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

These debates are going to be a mess. They're all going to be about free everything and orange man bad. There will be little about policy and most about who can out-commie the rest.

A Virginia doctor on vacation with his wife and three children was reportedly murdered on Sunday while fly fishing in Belize. Dr. Gary Swank, a cardiologist from Roanoke, Va., and his tour guide were shot and killed while fly-fishing in a lagoon west of San Pedro Town, according to local media reports. Both men were reportedly shot multiple times in the body and head. San Pedro police believe the tour guide, Mario Graniel, 53, was the intended target of the gunmen, according to The Reporter. Graniel had previously called the authorities to his home on Saturday after an unknown gunman...

A woman whose lies put a man behind bars for two weeks, and cost him his job and marriage, has had her sentencing delayed after penning an apology letter to her victim. Caitlyn Gray, 20, falsely accused Good Samaritan Kenan Basic of indecent assault after he spent hours helping to get her car back on the road. In Bankstown Local Court on Tuesday, Gray handed in a written apology to the magistrate among numerous other documents. Gray had pulled into a Sydney BP in November 2018 after she smashed her car. Basic, from Bankstown, offered to help with the damage....

The Henry Long Ranger 6.5 Creedmoor stretches the limits of lever action rifles to a whole new distance. In this segment with 22Plinkster, he takes a look at the long-range capabilities. This Henry Long Ranger rifle has a 22 inch barrel with 1:8 twist rate. Comes with a hammer extender so your finger doesn’t slip off of it as you fire. This Long Ranger holds 4 rounds. Sporting a VX3i Leupold target scope with 6.5×20 power to see what you’re shooting at. Not exactly the best for hunting, but good enough for target shooting. 22Plinkster is shooting a steel target...

......traffic records, marriage certificate records, and divorce records indicate Rep. Ilhan Omar lived with Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi, her first and current husband, while claiming she was married to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. <><> Two dozen traffic violations and misdemeanor charges against Hirsi show that his address between 2006-2012 was the same Cedar Riverside address where Omar claimed to be living, even when she said she was married to Elmi from 2009 to 2011. <><>A marriage application by Omar and Elmi show their address is the same address Hirsi used to register a business, months after Omar and Elmi were legally...

Several Democratic presidential hopefuls are calling for Americans to make reparations for slavery. On June 19, the House judiciary subcommittee on the constitution, civil rights, and civil liberties held a hearing. Its stated purpose was "to examine, through open and constructive discourse, the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, its continuing impact on the community and the path to restorative justice." Slavery was a gross violation of human rights. Justice demands that all participants in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade make compensatory reparation payments to slaves. However, there is no way that Europeans could have captured millions of Africans. That means...

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) The folks at Project Veritas have done God’s work one more time. – This time they have gotten the smoking gun on Google’s Orwellian efforts to not only control Americans’ political opinions, but to actually control their entire thought processes to favor the Democrat Party and its candidates. Here is the video in its entirety: The video features two people: The first is Jen Gennai, head of Google’s “Responsible Innovation” team – an Orwellian name in and of itself, given what they actually do – bragging about how her team and indeed,...

My brother told me that the HBO mini-series “Chernobyl” was very good and worth watching.I haven’t seen it yet so this is not a review (although Gerard once told me I’d be a pretty poor journalist if I couldn’t write a review of a Sundance film without seeing it first) but a review of the reviews I’ve read. Most are positive, that indicate it is a well-made, compelling historical documentary that gets a few things wrong but most things about the disaster right. A good number of the reviews however are quick to point out that Chernobyl is not an...

“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit” (Proverbs 26:4-5).

Alexander Burton is a well known Registered Professional Geologist and Professional Engineer. He has been active in the field since obtaining his degree in Geology in 1954. He has worked professionally in Australia, numerous African countries, Canada, several Central and South American countries, China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Russia, and the United States. During his more than six decade long career, he worked  in several remote locations in British Columbia and the Yukon. He obtained his first pistol, a Colt 357, with a six-inch barrel, in 1955. He holds an Authority to Carry (ATC) and an Authority to Transport (ATT) from...