Free Republic

What's your favorite ice cream flavor? You might say vanilla or chocolate, and if I asked why, you’d probably say it’s because it tastes good. But why does it taste good, and why do you still want to try other flavors sometimes? Rarely do we ever question the basic decisions we make in our everyday lives, but if we did, we might realize that we can’t pinpoint the exact reasons for our preferences, emotions, and desires at any given moment. There's a similar problem in artificial intelligence: The people who develop AI are increasingly having problems explaining how it works...

Dorsey may not be a lightning rod for controversy like Musk, Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, or be perceived as socially awkward like Mark Zuckerberg, but it’s a mistake to think he’s any less Machiavellian or megalomaniacal than the rest of them, several sources who know Dorsey told The Post. “He was at one point the lowest person in the room at Twitter and then, because he wanted to be the most important person in the room, he was — and he ended up being CEO,” said author Nick Bilton, who spent time with Dorsey for “Hatching Twitter: A True...

President Joe Biden on Thursday warned that Republicans will seek to impeach him if they win the House majority next week....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has introduced five articles of impeachment against Biden. Ten House Republicans have either introduced or sponsored 21 articles of impeachment against Biden and his top officials, according to the The New York Times.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) slammed President Biden for making “offensive and disgusting” comments about shutting down coal plants at an event in California on Friday. Biden gave remarks at the corporate headquarters of Viasat, a global communications company, to promote the CHIPS and Science Act, which he signed into law in August to provide $50 billion in incentives to the domestic manufacturing of semiconductors. Biden said that generating electricity from wind and solar energy is cheaper than generating it from coal and oil. He said people are not building new coal plants because they cannot rely on it. “We’re going...

This is a rally cry to action for all amazing conservatives in America. November 8 is election day! Sound the klaxons, ring the bells, bang the drums and tell all of your friends (unless they're liberals). We have a golden opportunity to take back our beloved country from the incompetent Democrats (the party of really bad ideas) who have intentionally destroyed America. Even comedian Bill Maher claimed that the "left has gone super crazy in ways that the average American doesn't understand and doesn't want." Their "inept" and "crazy" leadership has spawned a dumpster fire of: Open borders, rising crime,...

The exhibition “We Are Here: Contemporary Art and Asian Voices in Los Angeles” opened at the USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena to great uncertainty. Just two days earlier, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. As fear spread, so did a rising tide of anti-Asian racism and xenophobia

Link to article

Vladimir Putin is set to deploy special units to shoot his own military if they retreat from the war in Ukraine, UK government defence chiefs said on Friday. Britain's Ministry of Defence said that Russia will deploy so-called 'blocking units' which 'threaten to shoot their own retreating soldiers in order to compel offensives'. With low morale at a peak among Russian soldiers, Putin is turning on his own men. 'Due to low morale and reluctance to fight, Russian forces have probably started deploying 'barrier troops' or 'blocking units',' the Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence update on Friday. 'These...

Romans 1:28-30

31st Week of Ordinary Time Luke 16:9-15 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us to approach wealth with wisdom. Let me quote a sermon of St. John Chrysostom on the right approach to money:“Those who love money are fierce in the pursuit of it, like wild animals pursuing their prey. They betray, cheat, or exploit their closest friend when there is gold and silver to be gained. They learn to make their consciences as numb as fingers on a cold day. Their eyes become blind to the suffering they cause, and their ears deaf to the cries of those whose...

We are advancing in the “unofficial liturgical season” of November, and the Mass Readings turn toward meditation on the Last Things. This Sunday we are directed especially to the consideration of the resurrection of the dead. The resurrection of the dead is controversial. It is a traditional belief in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but Eastern religions have no necessary commitment to it. Indeed, bodily resurrection makes no sense in Buddhism. Likewise, ancient Greek philosophy had little use for the body in general, and it was often regarded as a prison for the soul. Western secularism espouses materialism; therefore, there is...

VIDEOAmerican sailors, marines, and soldiers during WWII in the Pacific Theater listened to Tokyo Rose all they wanted WITHOUT interference from the government. In fact, Tokyo Rose broadcasts were frequently piped in over the shipboard radios. Meanwhile in the European theater American and allied military personnel were allowed to listen to both Axis Sally and Lord Haw-Haw WITHOUT interference from government censors.Contrast that to the situation in 2022 when, despite not even being at war with Russia, Social Media (at the urging of the government) is actively censoring not only RT and Sputnik but a whole host of other sources...

True the Vote founder Catherine Englebrecht and election data security analyst, Gregg Phillips, were previously in contempt of court and placed in jail for failing to outline the participants in a 2020 hotel discussion that revealed the Konnech election data compromise that was transmitted to Chinese networks. {Go Deep} Konnech CEO Eugene Yu was arrested for exploiting access to U.S. election data, including election worker information, and transferring the files to China. Eugene Yu and Konnech sued True the Vote and are using the U.S. civil judicial system to find out who told the FBI about the Chinese data harvesting...

President Biden made his closing argument to voters in a largely unwatched TV broadcast. He warned that “failure to vote Democrat means siding with the enemies of our democracy. It’s right there on your ballot. Candidates with a ‘D’ after their names are friends of democracy. Candidates with an ‘R’ after their names are rebelling against our democracy.” As proof of the veracity of his contention, Biden cited the 2 am attack on Paul Pelosi by MAGA extremist David DePape, calling it “emblematic of the type of political violence instigated against democracy by Donald Trump. The brazen nature of this...

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him. And Jesus said to them, “You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.” Luke 16:14-15“God knows the heart!” What a great truth to be deeply aware of. So often in life there are misconceptions we have of others and misconceptions that others have about us. This passage goes to the heart of this tendency of the Pharisees to create a false image of themselves for others to see...

Jewish groups thought Elon Musk was listening to them about antisemitism on Twitter. Then Kanye West came back. In the week after the rapper who now goes by Ye lost most of his endorsements due to his antisemitic rants, and amid an apparent uptick in broader antisemitic content on the platform, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) met with Musk, the social media giant’s mercurial new owner, about keeping hate speech off the site. Three days later, all goodwill from the meeting has devolved, as anti-Jewish content on Twitter is experiencing a “prolific surge,” according to the Network Contagion Research Institute, a...

MARKET EXTRA The Federal Reserve on Friday confirmed what many investors were saying for some time: the $24 trillion Treasury market has been experiencing low levels of market liquidity in recent months. The central bank has been rapidly increasing interest rates since March as part of a fight to bring inflation down from a 40-year high. The hope has been that such steps can cool consumer demand enough to tame prices, without throwing the economy into a painful recession, or spark a financial crisis. But since May, cracks in liquidity in Treasurys, the biggest, deepest part of the U.S. bond...

My SSA payment is normally deposited on the second Wednesday of each month, but it was deposited yesterday or today. Anyone else notice an early payment? This is really odd.

From Uggs to low-rise jeans, the fashion world is seeing a resurgence of questionable trends from two decades ago. Now, it seems as though the thin, heroin-chic body of the 1990s and early aughts is also making a comeback. In early October, Bella Hadid closed out Paris fashion week at Coperni, her tiny form nearly naked on the runway as a dress was spray-painted onto her skin. Days later at the Miu Miu spring 2023 show in Milan, waifish girls paraded down the runway with bared midriffs, some of them modeling the “micro-mini” skirt for which the label has recently...

Millions of Americans are currently working two or more jobs in order to make ends meet, as global inflation and corporations jacking up prices have sent prices of food, gas, housing, health insurance and other necessities soaring in the past year. Cashe Lewis, 31, of Denver, Colorado works two jobs and is currently trying to find a third job to cover the recent $200 monthly rent increase to her apartment. She works days as a barista at Starbucks, but claims it’s been difficult to get enough hours even with taking extra shifts whenever she can due to scheduling cuts as...