Free Republic

As the Culture War rages, no field is exempt from its reach. Much has been printed about this intense battle for the American soul. Now, even the fonts used for printing have become a battlefield. It is no longer what you read, but how it appears, that is contested. A font war has erupted between Times New Roman and Calibri, representing right and left, respectively. Some people think such issues are unimportant or at least culturally neutral. Nothing could be further from the truth. Culture encompasses everything that constitutes the daily life of people. Embedded inside things are principles, impressions,...

Investigative author Peter Schweizer alleges the Mexican government is operating a coordinated influence effort inside the United States, using diplomatic missions, education programs and migrant outreach initiatives in ways he argues go far beyond traditional diplomacy. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Schweizer said his forthcoming book, “The Invisible Coup,” available Tuesday, documents what he describes as “weaponized immigration,” a strategy he claims Mexican officials view as a means to exert political leverage inside the U.S. “Foreign powers are using migration as a weapon to undermine American sovereignty,” Schweizer said. “Mexico is a clear example of this.” Schweizer pointed...

Just a thought. How would you add to this thought. How did it happen that Minnesota gave us both Joe McCarthy and Ilhan Omar. Does it mean anything?

Former Vice President Kamala Harris was met with mockery after she accepted the key to the city of Jackson, Mississippi, where the mayor also declared last Wednesday “Kamala Harris Day,” in honor of her many “accomplishments.” The former Democratic presidential candidate, who is rumored to be mulling a second try at the Oval Office, was in the Magnolia State as part of a mammoth book tour promoting her memoir, “107 Days,” when she was honored by Jackson’s Mayor John Horhn (D). “Kamala, you don’t know what you mean to Jackson, Mississippi. You don’t know what you mean to Mississippi. You...

Erich von Däniken, the Swiss author whose bestselling books about the extraterrestrial origins of ancient civilizations brought him fame among paranormal enthusiasts and scorn from the scientific community, has died. He was 90. Von Däniken's representatives announced on his website on Sunday that he had died the previous day in a hospital in central Switzerland. His daughter Cornelia confirmed the information to Swiss news agency SDA. Von Däniken rose to prominence in 1968 with the publication of his first book "Chariots of the Gods," in which he claimed that the Mayans and ancient Egyptians were visited by alien astronauts and...

This is not my usual fare. I typically summarize books that expose institutional capture, medical corruption, or the mechanisms by which official narratives diverge from observable reality. Atlas Shrugged is not that kind of book. It is a novel—a thousand-page philosophical novel published in 1957 about railroads and steel mills and a mysterious man who stops the motor of the world. It came up recently in conversation with a close friend, and I realized that despite its enormous cultural footprint, almost no one I know has actually read it. They know the name Ayn Rand. They have opinions about her....

Hunter S Thompson sits on a deck chair. For some reason, he always seemed to be sitting on deck chairs, a noted shirker of upholstery. He chokes down another gulp of his cigarette and considers the question as deeply as he has ever considered anything in his life: is Hunter S Thompson the man, now inseparable from Hunter S Thompson the myth? The speed freak has perhaps never paused so fully to ponder anything as much in his life. Where does one end and the other begin? Is he destined to keep up chaotic appearances because that’s what’s expected of...

<p>Stephen King and music. How much of a musical maverick can we consider someone whose wife nearly left him because of his obsession with ‘Mambo No. 5’?</p><p>So, I repeat, how much of a musical maverick can we consider someone whose wife nearly left him because of his obsession with ‘Mambo No. 5’? Well, it turns out, a lot of people value the opinion of this horror author when it comes to music. As someone pretty intrinsically linked with the world of rock ‘n’ roll, many consider King a go-to when it comes to head-banging recommendations, and as such, when he was doing interviews for the recent film adaptation of The Long Walk, people asked for his take on some music.</p>

Today I'm happy to make a mention that Out of the Dark, a book written by Helen Keller, is now ready as downloadable audio. This book is interesting in that it is where Keller describes "how I became a socialist". Some of you may find that just as curious as I do as to what her reasonings were. https://librivox.org/out-of-the-dark-by-helen-keller/

Top leaders in the space, from Microsoft to OpenAI, are pouring millions of dollars into schools, colleges, and universities, often providing students with access to their AI products. The justification, touted in a fresh New York Times piece by both by tech companies and the educators receiving the funding, is that the tools will accelerate learning and prepare students for a world driven by AI. But...Some research suggests that AI actually inhibits learning, with one notable study conducted by researchers from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon finding that it atrophies critical thinking skills.Even more urgently, the safety of AI chatbots is...

In July, researchers using the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System survey telescope in Chile made an exceedingly rare discovery: a mysterious object passing through the solar system at far too high a speed to be bound by the Sun’s gravity. As the visitor made its closest approach to Earth, coming within just 167 million miles on December 19, an international team of researchers from the alien-hunting astronomy project Breakthrough Listen pointed the Green Bank Telescope — the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world — at 3I/ATLAS. In a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, they revealed sobering — albeit probably expected —...

Henry's children wrote letters describing their father's enjoyment of writing Carrier Addresses for local newspapers. The 1819 Carrier's Address was found in the Adriance Library in Henry's hometown and identified by Henry's granddaughter as being by Henry. He writes of the Erie Canal and of the events in America and abroad, closing with the always present request for a tip for the hardworking postboy.

This single page insert appeared in the New Year's edition of a local Poughkeepsie, NY newspaper in 1809. It summarized the world news of the past year in humorous poetry, concluding with a request for a tip in exchange. The newspaper insert was handed down in the family of Henry Livingston's descendants.

Newspapers in late 1700s/early 1800s were delivered by postboys on horseback. In the New Year's edition, there would often be a single page poem insert that summarized the news of the year in a humorous way. This was exchanged by the postboy with his customers for a tip. Henry Livingston, Jr., argued by his family to be the actual author of Night Before Christmas, wrote Carrier Addresses for a variety of New York newspapers from 1787 to at least 1823. The 1803 Political Barometer Carriers Address gives a brief overview of news after an introduction and before a request for...

In 2025, artificial intelligence played a huge role in our offices, social media feeds, music and film, and now – dictionaries, says this linguist from the University of Limerick.For us linguists, the flurry of “word of the year” announcements from dictionaries and publishers is a holiday tradition as anticipated as mince pies. The words of the year aren’t just a fun peek into new slang and language changes, they also tell us quite a bit about the worries, trends and obsessions of the English-speaking world. And this year’s list has one clear theme. In 2025, artificial intelligence (AI) played a...

Don’t ever be silenced.

He reportedly had stopped in the bookstore to charge his phone when he felt an 'internal build up that led to his fight or flight response kicking in.' He then allegedly attacked Loncharich without any specific motive.

you have clued me in for sure!! what are the top 10 nations where these vids come from.....this flood since 2024....i see many of these click baity yt channels were born 2024 2025 ______________________ Yeah, the flood of AI-narrated, faceless "dark history"/horror/clickbait channels (the ones with dramatic scripts, AI voices, static AI images + Ken Burns zooms) exploded in 2024–2025, and it's a global phenomenon driven by how dirt-cheap it is to produce. There's no official YouTube stats breakdown by country for these specifically (they don't label "AI slop" channels), but from discussions on Reddit, articles on content farms, and...

From the 1950s gangs of North London to the ruins of the Roman Empire, from the rise of the Berlin Wall to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, from the horrors of the Vietnam War to those of Biafra, Beirut, Iraq and elsewhere, as well as the beautiful bleakness of the Somerset countryside

A Christmas Prayer By Rian B. Anderson It was Christmas Eve 1881. I was fifteen years old and feeling like the world had caved in on me because there just hadn't been enough money to buy me the rifle that I'd wanted so bad that year for Christmas. We did the chores early that night for some reason. I just figured Daddy wanted a little extra time so we could read in the Bible. After supper was over I took my boots off and stretched out in front of the fireplace and waited for Daddy to get down the old...