Free Republic

Seinfeld was a television marvel. Perhaps the most successful situation comedy series of all time, it ran from 1989 to 1998, and has become an omnipresent aspect of our lives as it continually runs in syndication and lives on in best-selling DVD box sets, making fortunes in the hundred millions for both of its co-creators. But there is yet another facet of Seinfeld at which we can marvel: the cast of characters on the show weirdly foreshadowed the rise to prominence of a large component of the dominant urban liberal wing of the Democratic Party. With a nod to Brian...

U.S. scientists say they have achieved a breakthrough in quantum cascade laser output power, delivering 120 watts from a single device at room temperature. The Northwestern University researchers, led by Professor Manijeh Razeghi, said their accomplishment is particularly attractive for infrared countermeasures -- a way of misguiding incoming missiles to protect commercial and military aircraft. Unlike conventional interband semiconductor lasers, the scientists said their quantum cascade laser is an intersubband device requiring only electrons to operate. Razeghi's team demonstrated the ridge width of a broad-area quantum cascade laser can be increased up to 400 microns, without suffering from filiamentation --...

Israel's election campaign presents an unparalleled challenge to Israelis on both the Right and the Left who care about the issues challenging the country. Today, not only do that have to defend what they believe, they also have to defend their right to believe anything. Last Friday, Makor Rishon published an in-depth report on the growing isolation and demonization of the religious Zionist camp. Hebrew University sociologist Tamar Elor explained that the front running Kadima Party presents an impossible challenge for the religious Zionist sector, represented most prominently by the settlers in Judea and Samaria. "The settlers are an ideological...

For the hell of it... I'm conducting a survey. What was your favorite Seinfeld episode? I need a good laugh.