Free Republic

MOST PEOPLE believe humans are different. The reason is that Homo sapiens has evolved to be conscious. Many animals feel pain and pleasure; some appear to be self-aware. But the human mind’s unique potential to exhibit a sense of self marks out every member of the species for special treatment. In his encyclical in May, Pope Leo upheld this insight by drawing a line between humanity and its growing army of bots. Artificial-intelligence systems, he said, do not undergo experiences or feel joy or pain. He is not alone. Many people feel that to confer personhood on AIs would be...

The US is at a heightened risk of a catastrophic blackout that could last up to 18 months due to aging power grid infrastructure that takes agonizingly long to update and is potentially vulnerable to a precision weapon strike. The alarming vulnerability was brought to light in 2013 by Jon Wellinghoff, former chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), after a coordinated attack on a California electrical substation in April 2013. The gunmen fired 120 shots, taking out an alarming 17 transformers at a Pacific Gas and Electric’s Metcalf electrical substation just outside San Jose, New York Times Magazine...

California Democrats on Wednesday passed AB 2624, dubbed the 'Stop Nick Shirley Act' by Republicans. The bill, introduced by Democrat Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, restricts the release of investigative videos exposing immigration support service providers. Mia Bonta is married to California's radical far-left Attorney General Rob Bonta. The California Democrats got to work on AB 2624 earlier this year after investigative journalist Nick Shirley exposed rampant hospice and daycare fraud. The bill will fine journalists (and regular citizens) a minimum of $4,000 for exposing potential fraud inside certain immigration support service providers. The bill passed the California Senate on Tuesday and...

Twenty soldiers in the U.S. Army's 9th Brigade Engineer Battalion at Fort Stewart, Georgia, have already reenlisted to cash in on a four-day pass to play Grand Theft Auto VI when it's released by Rockstar Games this fall. CBS News reported that the battalion, part of the 3rd Infantry Division, is offering the special leave as a reenlistment incentive tied to the game's Nov. 19 release. "The idea was to have a unique incentives program that connects to what soldiers are interested in," said Lt. Col. Angel Tomko, a spokesperson for the 3rd Infantry Division. "The command team, in conjunction...

While far-left Twitch millionaire Hasan Piker built an enormous following attacking the United States, praising communist dictators, and declaring that America “deserved 9/11,” his younger brother was reportedly working on some of the nation’s most sensitive military aircraft. Murat Piker, Hasan’s younger brother and frequent livestream companion, spent more than a decade working as an aerospace engineer at Boeing, according to a bombshell report from the Washington Free Beacon. His projects reportedly included the new Air Force One, the E-6B Mercury nuclear command aircraft, airborne surveillance systems, military drones, satellites, and Boeing spacecraft. According to Murat’s public LinkedIn profile, he...

AI and alcohol have three main similarities, according to Beijing bar owner Song De: hallucinations, bubbles and distillation. As AI enthusiasm sweeps across China, Song hopes his bar can ride the wave. He opened AGI Bar, ‌named after the concept of artificial general intelligence where AI systems surpass human intelligence, last year in Zhongguancun, the capital's high-tech neighbourhood ‌in Haidian district. It is now a hub for Beijing's AI developers, investors and students. "You'll see people sitting around a table coming from different labs, competing companies, and different universities, all ​chatting about industry trends right here," said Song, an independent...

This is not a joke. Surprisingly, the Internet Web Domain DSA.COM is up for sale. I don't know how long it's been available, or who is the current owner. It's being brokered through GoDaddy's domain sales subsidiary Afternic. Latest suggested price is only $1250. which is pretty cheap for a domain like that. So what would you do with it? It would make a great parody site. Or put up some good political articles that run counter to the DSA's positions. Or maybe just post a bunch of funny political memes. Check it out: https://dsa.com will take you to the...

After U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents tried to track down a New York man at his home, an airport and a hotel to confront him over a critical email he sent to the former head of ICE five months prior, federal officials are defending such investigations in court filings. The same court filings say the investigation into the man, David Streever, was closed at the end of June. David Streever takes a selfie while on vacation with his daughter and a character at Moomin World in Finland. He was contacted by Homeland Security Investigations officers five months after sending...

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, reported a 25-year-old South Palm Beach man to the FBI after he shared detailed plans to rape and murder his ex-girlfriend. "I'm gonna kill her by the end of this month," Darren Zhou told the chatbot, his messages preserved in court records. "If I can't have her then nobody can." Investigators say Zhou, a since-fired Goldman Sachs analyst, turned to ChatGPT in March to discuss his recent breakup with a girlfriend of six months. He recounted her hobbies, the places she frequented, his jealousy of the men around her and his desire to get back...

The Amish are what are known as "plain people" … religious Christians who value tradition over change. They dress modestly, and most don't use technology like cars, computers or phones. So, what exactly is going on here? VIDEOS AT LINK.......... Meet Lovina Hershberger Zook, the unlikely 23-year-old social media creator who has amassed some six million followers with her recipes and stories about the Amish. She comes from one of the most conservative subgroups in the Amish, and grew up speaking a dialect of German known as "Pennsylvania Dutch." She's no longer Amish – she left the faith five years...

A provocative new book by journalist and former political aide Gil Durán argues that a tightly networked circle of Silicon Valley billionaires and venture capitalists have spent three decades methodically constructing an ideological and political apparatus aimed at replacing democratic governance with corporate rule. The book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, published by Simon & Schuster, is scheduled for release on August 18, 2026 — and its claims are already igniting debate across the political spectrum. Key Facts ►Gil Durán’s book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, is published...

A clever swap has extended the historic Voyager 2’s mission in interstellar space. Engineers are hoping to do the same for Voyager 1. An ambitious effort to boost an aging probe on its journey through the uncharted territory of interstellar space seems to have found success. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have spent the last few months implementing what they nicknamed the “Big Bang” fix to buy the historic Voyager 2 spacecraft more time to continue its science mission. Voyager 2 is roughly 21.35 billion kilometers (13 billion miles) away from Earth, while its twin, Voyager...

A Chinese paranormal influencer has died aged 24 following a tragic car crash, around a year after she filmed herself destroying a religious statue in a viral video designed to test whether she would suffer supernatural punishment. Known online as Jiang Xiaorou, the creator had reportedly built a following of around 1.3 million people on Douyin, where she posted videos exploring abandoned buildings, investigating alleged paranormal activity and challenging traditional beliefs surrounding the supernatural. In August 2025, Jiang attracted controversy after recording herself smashing a statue of Guanyin, a revered Buddhist figure commonly associated with compassion and mercy. The stunt...

A Massachusetts teenager who allegedly used ChatGPT for searches about 'killing his family' before murdering his mother and brother flashed a wide-eyed stare in court, as prosecutors claimed he spent $2,000 on cereal bars following the murders. Arjun Aravind, 17, was arraigned in Concord District Court on Thursday after being accused of killing his mother Sudha Venkatesan, 45, and his younger brother, Siddharth Aravind, 14, inside their $1 million home in Acton two days prior. Aravind, who had his hands and ankles cuffed, glanced around the courtroom at times, with his dark, wavy hair partly obscuring his face. A police...

Today we laugh at Socialism/Communism (While we still can!)

There’s an old saw in politics that says, “If you are explaining, you’re losing.” Over the past few months, Big Tech and its allies in the legacy media have been doing a lot of explaining about data centers, including why they are needed and why more communities should welcome the projects. But Big Tech’s public relations challenge got a lot harder last month, when country music legend Willie Nelson declared people need to “fight against data centers invading our land.” Nelson, who owns a house and farm in his hometown of Abbott, Texas, also said, “The last thing we need...

Cyber warfare is increasingly coming for U.S. water supplies. Water providers in at least seven U.S. states have been targeted by cyberattacks over the past two weeks, according to multiple agencies including the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Some officials indicated that as many as a dozen states could have been impacted. The hackers targeted components known as programmable logic controllers, which allow utility providers to manage the flow and even chemical composition of water supplies to the homes and businesses they serve, according to the agencies. In many cases, they...

TAIPEI, Taiwan — For 30 minutes, the internet in parts of Taiwan crawled. The slowdown Thursday for people in the capital, Taipei, and six other cities and localities was part of the last phase of the island's annual Han Kuang exercises, military drills that began last week and aim to model a response to a possible Chinese military invasion. Telecommunication operators slowed mobile web traffic to 256 Kbps, making it difficult to exchange anything other than texts. Usually, residents can access 5G in major cities. Taiwan has stepped up the intensity of the Han Kuang drills, incorporating reservists and more...

They can't win without CHEATING! The modern Democrat Party is completely LAWLESS. Former Lumberton Township Mayor and current Committeewoman Gina LaPlaca, along with her husband, Democratic operative Jason Carty, are facing a new round of criminal charges after prosecutors say they submitted fraudulent signatures to place LaPlaca on the June Democratic primary ballot for the Lumberton Township Committee. Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw’s office announced the charges this week. An investigation found that multiple people whose names and purported signatures appeared on LaPlaca’s nominating petition never signed it and never authorized anyone to sign on their behalf. Without those...

This video starts with a brief history of Taiwan, and the geological makeup of the island, and then dives into why this tiny little island became an extremely important nation, against all odds with their chip & semiconductors manufacturing.