Free Republic

Government planes leaving for Oman, Khamenei abdicated in favor of IRGC. IRGC bigwigs defecting to Crown Prince. Trump says well beyond cease fire. Victory is goal now, no nuclear weapons. Transcript linked below video.

HOUSTON – Following 20 months of construction of the new Ship Channel Bridge along the Beltway 8, the county has issued a pause. Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia said the decision was made following the discovery of a design flaw with part of the bridge. “I want to make sure that we are doing everything on behalf of public safety to ensure that everything is well,” Garcia said. “This was obviously concerning and alarming for me." John Tyler, the deputy director of engineering with the Harris County Toll Road Authority and in charge of the project, said the flaw was...

Operators of certain 737 Next Generation planes will be required to make inspections, the FAA said. The cracking was found in the plane’s pickle forks, which attach the plane’s body to its wing structure, CNN affiliate KOMO reported. Pickle forks are designed to last more than 90,000 landings and takeoffs without cracking, the affiliate said, and there could be dire results if the system fails, it said. In a statement, Boeing said the “cracking issue” was found on a small number of airplanes. “No in-service issues have been reported,” the company said. “Over the coming days, we will work closely...

Suheib Yousef, son of the co-founder of Hamas, Hassan Yousef, exposed the terror's group underside and rampant corruption to an Israeli journalist on Wednesday. Suheib, fed up with the duplicity he was privy to at his senior position for Hamas in Turkey left the organization a month ago, fleeing to an unknown location in Asia. Suheib is the younger brother of the "Green Prince," Mosab Hassan Yousef, who worked undercover for the Shin Bet for ten years.... "Hamas is part of me since childhood. I grew up in Hamas and worked for it, but when I was exposed to the...

A senior commander in Hamas's elite commando unit has handed himself over to Israel, according to sources inside Gaza cited by Channel 2. Reports of his surrender to Israel have been circulating in Gaza ever since the commander - a member the elite "Nahba" unit of Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades - went missing several days ago. The Nahba spearheads Hamas's tunnel warfare capabilities, and is specifically tasked with capturing IDF soldiers. The missing commander is reportedly from Khan Younis in southern Gaza, and the son of a prominent judge on Hamas's Sharia religious court. According to...

The U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship struggled in drills at sea to fend off a swarm of small attacking vessels like the Iranian boats it could encounter in the Persian Gulf, according to the Pentagon's chief weapons tester.

A painting hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York called The Adoration of the Christ Child. Created in the 16th century by a Flemish artist, what stands out in this sublime presentation of the Nativity is the detail of the characters standing around the crib. Two of them, an angel and a shepherd, appear to have Down’s Syndrome. This suggests that the condition has been around for a very long time, and it helps illuminate the early modern approach to disability. Religious art normally conformed to classical standards of beauty. By implication, the artist regarded people with Down’s...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senior U.S. officials are literally calling “fowl” after the Thanksgiving turkey pardoned by President Obama publicly defected to the Middle Eastern terrorist group ISIS. Popcorn the Turkey, now calling himself Babakurn al-Turki, was pardoned from the dinner table only yesterday by President Obama in a public ceremony at the White House. Normally the pardoned bird is sent along with its competitor to live out its remaining days at Morven Park’s Turkey Hill in Leesburg, Virginia. However, U.S. officials have now admitted that al-Turki instead hijacked an Osprey out of Andrews Air Force Base in nearby Maryland and...

Boehner and Yellen are the dealers, I reckon... A friend sent this, not sure who's work it is, and can't quite make out what that is on the bottom-right corner there

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's 52-year-old sister Bushra has reportedly fled the country with her children, defecting to Dubai. The family is said to have escaped after an argument in which Bushra disagreed with her brother over his management of the current civil war in the country. It is believed that she and her children will remain in Dubai. According to Al Arabiya television, she has enrolled her children at school there. A Syrian source who spoke with the television news network on condition of anonymity said there is a faction of Alawite leaders who are worried the entire minority sect...

NATO may have gotten the best news it’s had in a long while from Libya — or more accurately, Tunisia. Moammar Gaddafi’s oil minister, Shokri Ghanem, has apparently fled the country and may have defected to the rebels. Ghanem traveled to Tunisia on “personal business” and is apparently not taking Gaddafi’s phone calls any longer: Reports that a top official in the government of Moammar Gaddafi has defected gained strength here Tuesday, as a spokesman for the Libyan government said the regime has been unable to make contact with the man.Shokri Ghanem, Libya’s top oil official, left Libya on Monday...

Whoa! The makers of WakeMate have sent out a warning to users that their Android-compatable WakeMate might burst into flames. Ahhh! They’ve sent out this message today saying that the black USB charger bricks included with the product are defective. They say these chargers were sourced through a Chinese vendor and proper certification in the USA was performed – but these thangs are blowing up anyway. Check out the full letter and at least one exploding event via tweet. NOTE that the main subject here is the USB charger included with the WakeMate package. It will burst into flames. This...

WikiLeaks not only has to fend off attacks from the outside, it also has dissension from within to grapple with, as former staffers have branched off to form their own whistleblower platform, Openleaks, expected to go live Monday. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter published an account of the upcoming launch, using information from an unnamed source. It quotes that source: "Our long term goal is to build a strong, transparent platform to support whistleblowers — both in terms of technology and politics — while at the same time encouraging others to start similar projects."

Wanted, advice for Small Claims Court regarding defective Lane furniture. Hoping to solicit some advice regarding a small claims court filing I am considering… Two years ago I purchased an Ashley leather Sofa and Recliner from a local furniture store. Immediately after the furniture was delivered I discovered a slit on the side were the seat reclines and notified the store. On the phone, they said that this is easily repairable and sent out a technician. I agreed to the repair because the damage was small and located in an inconspicuous place. However, after the technician evaluated the slit, he...

Political expediency can prove to be very tricky maneuvering. Alren Specter left the Republican Party for the self ascribed reason that his political career was much too important to allow Republicans in the Republican primary to decide his highly esteemed political fate. Well how the worm turns...

Author and former spy John Le Carr was tempted to defect to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, he revealed yesterday. The 76-year-old, who wrote his first three books while working as an MI6 agent, admitted he was curious to know what it would be like working for the Russians. When Le Carre whose real name is David Cornwell, was asked if he was genuinely tempted to switch sides, he said: 'Yes, there was a time when I was, yes. 'I wasn't tempted ideologically. But when you spy intensively and get closer and closer to the border . ....

A ‘defect’ in spacetime may be one of the most curious findings of the data collected from the Wilkinson Anisotropy Probe. What WMAP gave us is the earliest image of the cosmos we have in our repertoire, showing temperature changes across the microwave background thought to be the aftereffect of the Big Bang. When Marcos Cruz (Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria) and colleagues found a cold spot in the data, they launched an investigation to determine what in heaven could be causing it. A random fluctuation in the data? Possibly, but the Spanish and British team studying the cold spot...

In an act of jaw-dropping hubris, Pope Benedict Joseph Ratzinger recently declared Protestantism's churches "not true churches." In an effort to underscore the wisdom of such a position at this time, he then had his "document" signed by none other than Cardinal William Levada, a pro-gay, pro-pedophile, pro-molestation cleric hailing recently from San Francisco and Portland. Apparently hypocrisy is in abundant supply in the Vatican larder. Levada is one of the papal appointments that causes either great puzzlement about (or gives great insight into) this Pope's orientation. Fresh off of scandals in his previous appointments, Levada received one of the...

"According to part of the information, his wife and children managed to leave Iran before his disappearance," Mr Amir told Israel's Army Radio, without elaborating on his sources. Gen Azkari flew to Istanbul from Damascus, the Syrian capital, and checked into a hotel. But after leaving his possessions in the room he never returned.

Bogota, Colombia -- Ariel Perez was, like thousands of fellow Cuban doctors, a devoted soldier in Fidel Castro's most important overseas mission -- providing medical care to the poor in oil-rich Venezuela, Cuba's most vital ally. But last year, Perez and two Cuban companions, carrying rucksacks with a few belongings and holding just $1,300 among them, sneaked across the Colombian border and promptly defected.....