Free Republic

At least two people died Saturday morning after a car careened into a crowd attending a college homecoming parade in Stillwater, Oklahoma, according to reports. Local police responding to reports of multiple injuries after the vehicle smashed into parade bystanders as part of Oklahoma State University’s homecoming festivities received reports of a fatality, but had not confirmed it. "There was a major accident and we don't have any further information at this time," a spokesperson at the Stillwater Police Department told International Business Times. This is the car. pic.twitter.com/nvrj2gwA5R — Geoff Haxton (@GeoffHaxton) October 24, 2015 The incident that also...

Where does a support role end, and a combat mission begin? The Pentagon has identified 39-year-old Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler of Roland, Oklahoma as the first US service member to die in the ground fight against ISIS. Wheeler was part of a mission aimed at rescuing captives held at an Islamic state compound in northern Iraq. Officials received intelligence that led them to believe that the captives faced imminent mass execution, prompting the Kurdish Regional Government to request the raid. US special forces teamed up with the peshmerga (the Kurdish regional militia) and freed 69 hostages during the approximately...

Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler of Roland, Oklahoma, a highly-decorated soldier and father of four, rushed into action when he heard sounds of gunfire coming from a prison in Iraq where dozens of ISIS-held hostage were being held on Thursday. Those actions, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters on Friday, weren't part of the original rescue mission plan, but were critical to its success. "I am immensely proud of this young man," Carter said adding that his thoughts and prayers go out to Wheeler's family. Earlier Friday, Defense officials confirmed to NBC News Wheeler, 39, as the American Delta Force commando...

For the past year, the Obama administration has been running an experiment: Is it possible to make policy more effective by using psychology on citizens? The nickname is “nudging”—the idea that policymakers can change people’s behavior just by presenting choices or information differently. The classic example is requiring people to opt out of being an organ donor, instead of opting in, when they sign up for a driver’s license. Without any change in rules, the small tweak has boosted the number of registered organ donors in many states. Nudging has gained a lot of high-profile advocates, including behavioral-law guru Cass...

IN an earlier, cozier Washington, D.C., John Boehner could have been the kind of House speaker whose memory is held dear by high-minded chin strokers on Sunday morning television programs: An icon of sadly bygone bipartisanship, a cutter of the grandest bargains, a man who, by God, made legislation move. In this Washington, D.C., alas for him, Boehner was a humble bomb defuser, and the only grand bargains he cut were between his more intransigent backbenchers and the demands of political and constitutional reality. And now D.C. looks at his record, his resignation and his possible successors and asks: Can...

Hundreds of donors to Jeb Bush's presidential campaign will gather later this month in Houston. They'll shake hands with a pair of former presidents, and high-profile lieutenants of the former Florida governor will push them to write generous checks. This weekend in Las Vegas, dozens of donors met up with Marco Rubio. They ate fast-food hamburgers, shook hands with a celebrity pawn-shop owner and played flag football with the Florida senator. "I'd say he threw five interceptions, maybe three or four touchdown passes," Wayne Berman, Rubio's national finance chairman, said playfully. "There were a lot of middle aged guys trying...

Turkish police on Friday detained the editor of a leading English-language daily newspaper on suspicion of "insulting" President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a series of tweets. Today's Zaman editor-in-chief Bulent Kenes was detained at the newspaper's offices by plainclothes police who raided the building late in the evening and took him away in a car, the daily said. Samanyolu, a television channel close to the newspaper aired live coverage of his departure in police custody. Hundreds of staff members could be seen crowding round Kenes in solidarity as the police took him away to Istanbul's main Caglayan courthouse. Clutching placards...

Israeli fire killed six Palestinians and wounded scores during clashes Friday near Gaza's border, the first unrest-related deaths there after days of violence in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, medics said. The clashes came as Hamas' chief in Gaza called violence that has hit the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem an intifada, or uprising, and urged further unrest. Ahmed al-Hirbawi, Shadi Dawla, Abed al-Wahidi and Nabil Sharaf, all aged 20, were killed when soldiers responded after youths threw stones at them on the Israel side of their common border east of Khan Yunis, Gaza medics said. Mohammed...

A suicide bomber blew himself up outside an evangelist church in northeast Nigeria on Thursday, injuring several people, witnesses and a rescue worker said. "There was an explosion outside the ECWA church this morning. A suicide bomber who was restrained from getting into the church blew himself up," said Abubakar Yakubu, who heads the Nigeria Red Cross in Gombe. "Luckily no one was killed but some people were mildly injured." A witness said the man arrived during the church service and refused to park his motorcycle outside a security barrier set up by church volunteers. "He insisted on riding through...

I wish I had the time to flesh this out in nice prose with appropriate links and citations, but I just don't have the time right now. So, this is the abbreviated version. Many Freepers proudly proclaim that they will have nothing to do with Twitter. Here is why I think that's a mistake: Why Twitter Matters =================== 1. It's the “Executive Summary” of what’s important 2. Michelle Malkin started Twitchy for just that reason 3. Rush Limbaugh found this out too late after the whole sponsor-gate 4. We live in a short-attention span society 5. Even here on FR,...

Reports via twitter and storm spotters on WeatherTap that a strong tornado has hit Branson, Missouri. Significant damage reported in populated areas. Damage reported to Capri Inn.

The Sebastian County Quorum Court will not act on complaints from county resident Jamie Mitchell regarding the discharge of firearms in an unincorporated area of the county. Mitchell brought the complaint before court members in late 2011, stating that neighbor Charles Parker was “discharging .50 caliber weapons within 75 feet of his home.” Responding to a question from court members regarding whether he’d approached Parker about the problem, Mitchell claimed that he had, and that Parker’s response was, “There’s no law against it.” [snip] “This is not a Second Amendment issue. I’m simply stating this is a safety issue. Don’t...

I have a new paper appearing at IEEE S&P with Hristo Paskov, Neil Gong, John Bethencourt, Emil Stefanov, Richard Shin and Dawn Song on Internet-scale authorship identification based on stylometry, i.e., analysis of writing style. Stylometric identification exploits the fact that we all have a ‘fingerprint’ based on our stylistic choices and idiosyncrasies with the written word. To quote from my previous post speculating on the possibility of Internet-scale authorship identification: Consider two words that are nearly interchangeable, say ‘since’ and ‘because’. Different people use the two words in a differing proportion. By comparing the relative frequency of the two...

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit today against the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), demanding data on certifications and authorizations the agency has issued for the operation of unmanned aircraft, also known as drones. Drones are designed to carry surveillance equipment – including video cameras, infrared cameras and heat sensors, and radar – that can allow for sophisticated and almost constant surveillance. They can also carry weapons. Traditionally, drones have been used almost exclusively by military and security organizations. However, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection uses drones inside the United States to patrol the U.S....

FORT SMITH, Ark. — A plan by Air Force officials would remove the A-10 aircraft mission from the 188th Fighter Wing in Fort Smith next year and possibly replace it with one involving remotely piloted aircraft. The proposal released by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz on Friday would give the 188th Fighter Wing an MQ-1/9 Remote Split Operations Squadron that would be made up of unmanned aerial vehicles commonly referred to as drones. The MQ-1 and MQ-9 wouldn't be assigned to the base, only a ground control operation station from which the unmanned aircraft are operated. [snip]...

[snip] Air Force Secretary Michael Donley met Tuesday with Michigan Reps. Candice Miller and Tim Walberg, who concerned about losing the A-10 mission at Selfridge Air National Guard Base. “Secretary Donley indicated that the Obama Administration is not open to making any alterations to their proposed cuts and all of the cuts outlined last week will be included in the budget the President plans to send to Congress next week,” the two Republicans said in a joint statement. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, left a Thursday meeting with Donley still frustrated with the Pentagon’s plans for the Iowa National Guard’s 132nd...

I've done a bit of looking for a camera for my 12yo son, with little success. Hopefully some more knowledgeable FReepers can give me some good advice. I want a camera that he can use to actually learn about photography, not just use to take pictures. I'd like a camera that has the capabilities to manually set shutter speed and aperture, not just one with a lot of snazzy automatic features. Actually, I'm afraid all those features will just get in the way. At the same time, I'm not looking to spend more than a couple hundred dollars. I have...

[see pic below] Jason “Molotov” Mitchell and his wife, Patricia “DJ Dolce” Mitchell, look like hipsters. She wears a stylish dress and nose stud, her dark hair angled sharply around her face. Jason, who goes by Molotov both socially and professionally, sports a landscaped beard and a tattoo on his forearm that reads “zealot.” They are in tip-top physical condition, they say, because they teach krav maga, an Israeli Defense Force-perfected form of martial arts. They are charismatic and engaging. When we first meet at a mutual friend’s birthday party, I have no idea who they are. She describes her...

The U.S. Department of Justice is defending computer hacking laws that make it a crime to use a fake name on Facebook or lie about your weight in an online dating profile at a site like Match.com. In a statement obtained by CNET that's scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, the Justice Department argues that it must be able to prosecute violations of Web sites' often-ignored, always-unintelligible "terms of service" policies. The law must allow "prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provider," Richard Downing, the Justice Department's deputy computer crime...

CLEVELAND -- Cleveland's mayor has vetoed a measure that would have made it a crime to use social media to organize a flash mob. City council members who introduced the measure say teens have used Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to pull together flash mobs that are really only large gatherings of trouble makers, instead of the usual large crowds breaking into dance. [snip] [Mayor Frank] Jackson told council members that the ordinance passed by them was a concern because it could interfere with the rights of the city's law-abiding citizens.