Free Republic

Hottest, heaviest touching double star Astronomers say the two stars might be heading for catastrophe. They will likely either merge to create a single giant star or form a double black hole. This artist’s impression shows VFTS 352 — hottest and most massive double star system known to date where the two components are in contact and sharing material. Image via ESOWe know that many stars in our galaxy are in double or multiple systems, but here are two stars so close they touch. An international team of astronomers said this week (October 21, 2015) that this system – known...

DOUBLE ECLIPSE OF THE SUN: On Sept. 13th, the sun was eclipsed--twice! No one on Earth has ever seen anything like it. Indeed, it was only visible from Earth orbit. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recorded the event: The double eclipse began around 06:30 UT when Earth passed directly between the sun and SDO. The observatory watched as the body of our planet moved slowly across the face of the sun, producing a near black-out. When the Earth finally moved aside about an hour later, another eclipse was in progress. This time, the Moon was in the way. A movie...

In the face of Israeli outrage over the Iran nuclear accord, the Pentagon is moving quickly to reinforce arguably the strongest part of the U.S.-Israeli relationship: military cooperation. But officials say Washington has no plans to offer new weaponry as compensation for the Iran deal. Defense Secretary Ash Carter left for Tel Aviv on Sunday to push ahead with talks on ways the U.S. can further improve Israel's security — not just with Iranian threats in mind, but an array of other challenges, including cyberdefense and maritime security. Israel also has expressed concern that U.S. sales of advanced weaponry to...

Heresy: Fundamentals Combat Riflecraft, Part Three (Or, “Two Will Do….Except When It Won’t!) June 11, 2013 There is a false truth present in the “tactical” shooting community that has been around for decades. This lie goes back to the old mythology of “one-shot stops” and the mantra of “I’ll only carry a pistol if it starts with point-four.” That lie is the misguided faith in a two-shot default response to a bad guy problem that requires a ballistic solution. This used to be taught as the “double tap.” Based on conversations I’ve had with supposedly “trained” tactical shooters, including numerous “instructors,”...

Weird baseball reached a whole new level on Friday night in Seattle. Note: Watch the video at the link before reading the article.

Starting on Monday, the fare is going up from 25 cents to 50 cents. But Metro pass holders and those who purchase commuter books will receive discounts. The fare increase is needed to help cover the line's operating costs. Until now, Angels Flight has relied on donations to make up the difference.

And the numbers just keep on coming. Not that the White House or the Democrats on the Hill really cared to begin with, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) sharpened its pencils again and made another pass at sizing up the projected cost of Obama’s healthcare plan. Hardly a news flash to economist Steve Beaman, entrepreneur and chairman of The Steve Beaman Group, a personal development company, the CBO’s new projected 10-year price tag is $1.76 trillion—nowhere near the original $940 billion sales pitch to get it passed. Why so off? Because in the political games people play, the 10-year...

It may come as a surprise to some (and boy, do I feel like a cantankerous old geezer for saying this,) but firearms are a mature technology. We all have to be aware that just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should” Following the invention of the double column magazine by Deudonne Saive, there really haven’t been a whole lot of original ideas coming out of the handgun industry for the last 75 years. Yes, I know, underqualified hacks like me will tell you all about the latest whizbang doodad from SHOT show, but in comparison to...

Rainbow after Joplin Tornado

The ethics cases against Reps. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) highlight an odd paradox: that many other members of Congress do similar things but are not facing charges. On March 4, 2009, Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) introduced a witness at a hearing promoting renewable energy interests: Brooks Hurst. Congressman Graves failed to mention that Hurst was an old friend. The congressman also left out that his own wife and Hurst invested money in the same Missouri fuel plants. Congresswoman Waters argues that is the same thing she's accused of: helping a good friend and his company, where her...

Will The Dow Dip Below 10000 Today? CNBC Shows Dow Futures Down, Moving Towards 10000. How low will it go today? http://www.cnbc.com/id/17689937

A fresh take on a classic experiment makes no progress in unifying quantum mechanics and relativity. If you ever want to get your head around the riddle that is quantum mechanics, look no further than the double-slit experiment. This shows, with perfect simplicity, how just watching a wave or a particle can change its behaviour. The idea is so unpalatable to physicists that they have spent decades trying to find new ways to test it. The latest such attempt, by physicists in Europe and Canada, used a three-slit version — but quantum mechanics won out again. In the standard double-slit...

So now it turns out to be Richard Goldstone - author of the notorious Goldstone Report - who is politicizing his grandson's bar mitzvah. Jewish authorities in South Africa didn't "ban" Goldstone from the synagogue at which his grandson was being bar mitzvahed, as Goldstone and his supporters had alleged. A small group of protestors had said they would exercise their right of expression to picket Goldstone. Though they clearly had the right to do so, most Jews in South Africa and elsewhere - including me - were uncomfortable with the idea of picketing a grandfather attending his grandson's bar...

MOSCOW — Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow's subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 37 people and wounding 102, officials said. The head of Russia's main security agency said preliminary investigation places the blame on rebels from the restive Caucasus region that includes Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian forces since the mid-1990s. The first explosion took place just before 8 a.m. at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow. The station is underneath the building that houses the main offices of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB's main...

Here's a poser: Suppose a public official is accused of recommending his girlfriend for a promotion, though he was the one who first flagged the potential conflict of interest and officials had refused to let him recuse himself from decisions about the woman. Should he lose his job? That's precisely what happened in 2007 to Paul Wolfowitz, who was run out of the World Bank on the pretext that he had given his girlfriend a raise. In fact, Mr. Wolfowitz had made bank officials aware that his girlfriend already worked at the bank before he accepted the job as president,...

LANCASTER, Pa. – The mother of the nation's first double hand transplant patient says he's out of the hospital and looking forward to returning to his wife and daughter in Georgia. Doris Schafer told the Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era that her son, Jeff Kepner, visited her over the weekend in Lancaster. She says he plans to return to Augusta, Ga., at the end of this week. Schafer says Kepner is considerably happier than when she saw him in June at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, about a month after the transplant. She says her son still has no feeling...

SAN DIEGO - A sailor accused of murdering a fellow seaman on duty at Camp Pendleton committed suicide in the base brig. Jonathan Campos, 32, of Lancaster, was found unresponsive in his cell at about 12:20 p.m., taken to the base hospital and declared dead about 1:15 p.m.,the Los Angeles Times reported. Campos, a petty officer 2nd class, apparently asphyxiated himself with toilet paper. He had been on suicide watch in the brig and was last checked at 11:45 a.m., according to a Navy written statement. Campos was charged with murdering 29-year-old August Provost on June 30 at about 2...

Double jeopardy in before US Supreme Court HOUSTON A former Enron Corp. executive is hoping a little known component of the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy clause will help him avoid a retrial on charges related to financial fraud at the once mighty energy giant. Attorneys for F. Scott Yeager are set to present oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday on the issue of whether double jeopardy prevents prosecutors from retrying individuals after a jury votes not guilty on some charges, but fails to reach a verdict on others that share an element with the acquitted charges. Prosecutors...

John P. Coale, a prominent Washington lawyer and power-broker, is secretly running Palin's political action committee and working to "protect the Palin brand," according to the Washington Post. He is very, very good at doing that because he can walk through walls and read minds and leave his body and never gets sick because he is a Scientologist. Coale is also the husband of Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren, whom he recruited into the church.

N Korea's Kim died in 2003 and was replaced by lookalike, says Waseda professor Is Kim Jong Il dead? Yes, North Korea’s “Dear Leader” is no more, having passed away in the fall of 2003, writes Waseda University professor Toshimitsu Shigemura in Shukan Gendai (Aug 23-30). A one-time Mainichi Shimbun journalist posted in Seoul, Shigemura is introduced by the magazine as a leading authority on the Korean Peninsula. His latest book, released this month, is titled “The True Character of Kim Jong Il.” If true, the implications are potentially vast. Among them: former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s summit partner during...