Free Republic

(The University of Queensland) =============================================================== Like watching a movie in reverse, physicists have just demonstrated a new technique for the time-reversal of a wave of optical light. That doesn't mean that they have actually reversed the flow of time; rather, they have found a way to induce an optical wave to retrace a forward path in reverse, returning to its point of origin. It's the first time that time reversal of optical waves has been achieved with full control over all of the degrees of freedom of light simultaneously. This would be a massive achievement in and of itself, but...

Shortly after word reached England that the Spanish Armada had embarked, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, born in 1588, tells us that the terror induced in his mother labor pains that resulted in his premature birth. He memorably remarked that “fear and I were born twins together.” Hobbes’ words will doubtless resonate in spades with anyone who was born in 2020. The present year is the Year of Fear. It is the year of raw, wildly irrational fear. For sure, the inexhaustible fear-mongering on the part of opportunistic political partisans in the Government-Media-Industrial-Complex has exacerbated, exponentially exacerbated, the fears of tens...

An apologist with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries is calling for repentance and "reparations" in response to how accusations of misconduct and other scandals were handled. In a five-page letter addressed to RZIM leadership, Max Baker-Hytch, a senior tutor with the ministry's Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and a lecturer at Wycliffe Hall in England, wrote that he was troubled by how the organization responded to the misrepresentation of the deceased apologist's academic credentials and sexting allegations involving Lori Anne Thompson, a Canadian woman, both of which were first reported in 2017. The letter also mentioned more recent allegations that Zacharias...

The most common religious identity among young adults in the U.S. is "none," and the majority of Americans don’t believe it’s necessary for a person to believe in God to be moral and have good values, a new survey has found. Released Tuesday, AEI’s Survey Center on American Life investigating contemporary religion in the U.S. found that among young adults (age 18 to 29), the most common religious identity today is none. More than one in three (34%) young adults are religiously unaffiliated.Nearly nine in 10 (87%) Americans report they believe in God, but just over half (53%) report they...

Included were Hamas singer, alleged Taliban financier, named ‘93 WTC bombing conspirator. The Rohingya people are a stateless people inhabiting the southwestern shore of Myanmar, formerly Burma. For the past three-plus decades, the Rohingya’s illegal status – combined with militant separatist movements (mujahideen) that have arisen from the mostly Muslim group – made it a target of numerous government crackdowns, causing the Rohingya population to flee the area, many into bordering Bangladesh, claiming refugee status. This month, Basmah, a US-based Islamic extremist organization, exploited the plight of the Rohingya by conducting a fundraiser in the Rohingya’s name, featuring various speakers...

(i) the extent to which any foreign interference that targeted election infrastructure materially affected the security or integrity of that infrastructure, the tabulation of votes, or the timely transmission of election results;

'The short unclas version (in non lawyer language) is that US and UK were cooperating on a case to seize his corrupt assets overseas...' ================================================================ A newly declassified memo indicated that US diplomats in Ukraine warned then-Vice President Joe Biden‘s office about the evidence of corruption surrounding Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky in late December 2015. “I assume all have the DoJ background on Zlochevsky,” wrote then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, as reported by Just the News’s John Solomon. “The short unclas version (in non lawyer language) is that US and UK were cooperating on a case to seize his...

Conservative radio legend Rush Limbaugh provided listeners with a health update on Tuesday after being diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer in February. "Every day remains a gift," Limbaugh said. "You know, I wake up every morning, and I thank God that I did." He told listeners that in the future he will likely need to take some days off for “rest or for whatever medical challenges present themselves.” “But the fact that I’m able to get back here and be with you is a genuine blessing, and I appreciate it and I appreciate your understanding throughout all of this,”...

Black Lives Matter supporters on Tuesday protested for the 22nd consecutive day outside the residence of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to demand that his name be dropped from consideration for a Cabinet pick within Joe Biden’s administration.

Lockdowns have drastic consequences. Small businesses are closing for good at an alarming rate. Almost 100,000 were gone for good as of September, according to Yelp survey. The impact on children and young adults is also enormous. Children are out of school, and a recent study shows the loss of learning is significant.More heartbreaking are increases in mental health issues, abuse, and suicide. A few recent high-profile suicides among young teens, including one eleven-year-old on camera during a distance-learning session, drive the problem home. Opioid deaths are also increasing in over 40 states.We are told this is the cost of...

How history will view these self-proclaimed conservatives and protectors of principle. Of all the bizarrerie over the last four years, the Republican NeverTrump (RNT) phenomenon is the strangest. Pundits, commentators, and writers who self-identified as Republican and conservative did not see Donald Trump’s historic upset victory as a cause for celebration. Instead, they saw it as a disaster to be mourned and attacked with more vitriol than they ever expended on Barack Obama, not just one of the most progressive presidents ever elected, but a failure both at home and abroad. Many factors explain this mystery, but one stands out:...

A lefty former staffer currently running for borough president of Manhattan accused one of the most famous governors in the country of sexual harassment. And the media once again blockades the story. No one expects Chris Cuomo at CNN to cover his brother's disgrace, but hardly any outlet outside right-wing ones has covered a story of a left-winger accusing a Democrat of sexual harassment. Again. Unlike Tara Reade, Lindsey Boylan is currently active in Democrat politics. Governor Cuomo is being considered by Biden for the AG spot. Yet the Associated Press files an entire story on a possible Cuomo pick...

As the father of a couple of Aggies, we generally follow Texas A&M stories in our home. This is a story that caught my eye recently: Campus Reform reported that Texas A&M Students For Trump President Dion Okeke was notified by the university’s Student Conduct Office that he was “required” to meet with the office after he and other members put up pro-Trump signs on campus. If he did not attend the meeting, the letter he received stated, he could face student conduct "charges."The university has now canceled the meeting and issued a statement of apology.Happy ending.The university apparently sent...

Now that Black Lives Matter activists have served out their useful purpose for Democrats – energizing Black and White liberals voters to turn out for Joe Biden – they have apparently been dumped by the president-elect. Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, sent Joe Biden and Kamala Harris a letter shortly after the election, requesting a meeting. She argued, “Without the resounding support of Black people, we would be saddled with a very different electoral outcome. In short, Black people won this election.”

Newly declassified documents, released to the U.S. Congress, appear to prove the expensive and nationally demoralizing Russian interference narrative was a broad political hoax by the Democratic Party. Proving claims made in the explosive book The Russia Lie, documents released by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe allegedly show CIA Director John Brennan plotting against a political candidate and appearing to brief or prepare to brief the President of the United States at the time – Barack Obama – on the matter. The Federalist reports: Newly declassified handwritten notes from former CIA Director John Brennan show that the U.S. intelligence...

How many people died from COVID-19 or related ailments because the American Medical Association wanted to hurt President Trump's reelection chances? The American Medical Association has amended their recommendations regarding Hydroxychloroquine, reversing their previous warning that a drug in common use for seven decades was somehow now dangerous. This comes after the 2020 election, of course. If they admitted the truth about HCQ before the election, it would have benefitted President Trump who has been recommending it for months. The AMA is an organization of political hacks. Those in charge of the recommendation made a decision to disregard clear science...

The decision by SCOTUS not to take the Texas case was not just an abrogation of one of their few duties, it was a betrayal. Americans have been betrayed by an institution we believed in. The justices, as all judges do, probably want to say, "It isn't personal." They couldn't be more wrong. Judge Neil Gorsuch didn't have a hard time, but the other two Trump appointees sure did. We saw that and we fought for them. Many ordinary Americans demonstrated in the streets at their own physical peril; others lost their jobs supporting Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice...

December 16 2020 Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent St Mary Magdalene Church, Brighton, UK Lectionary 189Reading 1 IS 45:6C-8, 18, 21C-25 I am the LORD, there is no other; I form the light, and create the darkness, I make well-being and create woe; I, the LORD, do all these things. Let justice descend, O heavens, like dew from above, like gentle rain let the skies drop it down. Let the earth open and salvation bud forth; let justice also spring up! I, the LORD, have created this.For thus says the LORD, The creator of the heavens, who is...

(Firewall) LONDON—Iran has circumvented U.S. sanctions and exported more oil to China and other countries in recent months, providing a lifeline for its struggling economy and undermining the Trump administration’s so-called maximum pressure campaign against Tehran. The scale of Iran’s petroleum sales is difficult to gauge, given their often covert nature. Several firms that monitor the global oil trade say shipments from Iran have roughly doubled from the low levels seen earlier this year, although estimates vary widely. On the high end, U.S.-based TankerTrackers.com, which uses satellite imagery to follow deliveries, estimated Iranian crude oil exports hit 1.2 million barrels...

The pro-Biden media is obsessing over the tiniest kerfuffle imaginable. Jill Biden likes to be addressed as "Dr. Jill," based on the doctorate in education she got in 2007. We've known about her insistence on this appellation since at least 2009, because servile journalists often indulge it. It's harmless to call her Dr. Jill. But the elites exploded in fury when The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Joseph Epstein, who professed that this honorific "sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic." It was certainly comical when Whoopi Goldberg insisted on "The View" in March, "I'm...