Free Republic

In ways that immediately brought to mind dangerous parallels with the yellow Star of David patch worn by Jews during the Third Reich, Donald Trump in November suggested that Syrian refugees, posing as allegedly dangerous Fifth Columnists, should wear badges on account of their Muslim faith so that they could not infiltrate American society and carry out plots against the nation. When asked by a reporter whether he thought the comparison with Nazi Germany was a fair one, Trump responded "you tell me." So shocking have been these and similar statements that not just liberal voices and outlets, but even...

An iconic Parisian canal is being drained for the first time in 15 years and a whole host of bizarre and unexpected objects have already surfaced. The Canal Saint-Martin is at the heart of the French capital’s 10th arrondissement, one of the city’s most exclusive and fashionable districts. But in recent years the area has developed a reputation for its lively nightlife, and a magnet for tourists and locals alike. Residents blame this surge in popularity as the reason for some of the more bizarre objects that have been discovered lurking in the canal. The last time the three-mile stretch...

In April 2012, a Kansas SWAT team raided the home of Robert and Addie Harte, their 7-year-old daughter and their 13-year-old son. The couple, both former CIA analysts, awoke to pounding at the door. When Robert Harte answered, SWAT agents flooded the home. He was told to lie on the floor. When Addie Harte came out to see what was going on, she saw her husband on his stomach as SWAT cop stood over him with a gun.

Juniata College, a small liberal arts college nestled in the hills of south-central Pennsylvania, has become the first college in the United States to order the removal of every urinal from campus. The vote by the college Board of Trustees was unanimous. The change was in response to an intense years-long campaign by a little-known, militant feminist group called Chicks Against Dicks (CAD). The group employed numerous tactics including petitions, lawsuits, and the occasional smashing of functioning campus urinals. Juniata President James A. Troha, androgynous but not transgender, was giddy over the vote. In remarks delivered breathelessly, Troha said, “Urinals...

Americans' overall satisfaction with the total cost they pay for their healthcare has been generally stable over the past 14 years. .....Americans cite cost as the most urgent health problem facing the U.S. today. One might expect that their satisfaction with healthcare costs would drop after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) brought more previously uninsured people into the system and made changes to coverage. However, satisfaction with healthcare costs has remained relatively stable. The current 57% who are satisfied is lower than the 62% measured in November 2009 -- the year before the ACA was signed into law.

Our solar system may be unique after all, despite the discovery of at least 120 other systems with planets, astronomers said on Wednesday. All the other solar systems that have been found have big, gassy planets circling too close to their stars to allow them to be anything like Earth or its fellow planets, the British and U.S.-based researchers said. If that is the case, Earth-like planets will be very rare, the astronomers write in the latest issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "Maybe these other extrasolar systems ... contain only the giant planets," said Mario...

Nickelsdorf, Austria is drowning in migrant feces and garbage in unparalleled dimensions. There is trash everywhere.

Volvo has a vision about rubbish. They want to replace bin collectors with autonomous robots, and they want to do it by summer 2016. (snip) The drones will accompany a dustcart, itself developed by another partner, the recycling company Renova, with a single driver who would sit, clean and at ease, in his or her cab as the robots do the dirty heavy lifting. The driver would not have direct control over the drones, but would act as their supervisor. (snip) The image that accompanies the announcement of the project shows robots that look like a cross between a Segway...

Late last month, Forbes published its list of the world’s top-earning D.J.s. Calvin Harris, 31, who less than a decade ago was stocking groceries in a Scottish supermarket, came in first place, earning $66 million over a 12-month period beginning in June last year through club fees, endorsement deals and music royalties

A cache of Atari game cartridges dug up in a New Mexico landfill last year has generated more than $100,000 in sales over the last several months. The April 2014 dig ended speculation surrounding an urban legend and proved it to be true that Atari discarded hundreds of games, including E.T. The Extraterrestrial, more than 30 years ago. In addition to the E.T. cartridges, Joseph Lewandowski found more than 60 other titles including Asteroids, Missile Command, Warlords, Star Raiders, Swordquest, Centipede and Super Breakout.

LOS ANGELES (BP) -- The "Family Guy" animated comedy series increasingly jokes about sexual violence against children and teens, with nearly 80 percent of all such scenes in the past three years perpetrated against that population group, a Parent Television Council (PTC) study found. Jokes or humorous depictions of rape, statutory rape, molestation or pedophilia against children were included in 91 percent of the series' scenes depicting sexual violence in the 2014–2015 season, up from 75 percent in 2012-2013, according to the PTC study. "Why would we ever want to be in the position to laugh at humanity's wors[t] offenses...

Everyone wants to know whether Jeb Bush can survive his support for Common Core and comprehensive immigration reform in today's Republican Party. One deal-breaker that might surprise people, though: His opposition to gay marriage. NBC News and Marist College are out with a batch of new 2016 primary polls. And as you might expect, Common Core, immigration reform, belief in man-made climate change and support for raising taxes on the wealthy are among those with the potential to alienate lots of conservatives. But according to the polls, so does opposition to gay marriage--an issue on which Bush agrees with basically...

KNBC Los Angeles investigative reporter Randy Mac’s described the streets of L.A. as a “post apocalyptic scene,” as he rode along with the cities one, 13-man trash crew for the nearly 500-square-mile city. Mac reported, “According to a report commissioned by the City Administrator’s office, only 35 percent of LA’s streets are cleaned regularly. The constant state of uncleanliness is threatening LA’s image, making some areas appear unsafe and ungoverned.” The trash crew supervisor Russell Zamora told Mac there was “on a daily basis, somewhere from 30 to 40 tons a day,” of illegally dumped garbage throughout the city.

When President Obama was reelected in 2012, MSNBC was “leaning forward” and smiling wide as Obama 2.0 propelled it to record ratings and a firm grasp on the No. 2 spot in cable news. Over two years later, the network has fallen backwards. January ratings revealed double-digit declines compared with January, 2014 in all ratings measurements. During the day, MSNBC was down 20 percent in viewers and 37 percent in the advertising-coveted 25-54 demo. In primetime, it fell 23 percent in viewers and 39 percent in demo.

In Seattle, wasting food will now earn you a scarlet letter — well, a scarlet tag, to be more accurate. The bright red tag, posted on a garbage bin, tells everyone who sees it that you've violated a new city law that makes it illegal to put food into trash cans. "I'm sure neighbors are going to see these on their other neighbors' cans," says Rodney Watkins, a lead driver for Recology CleanScapes, a waste contractor for the city. He's on the front lines of enforcing these rules. Seattle is the first city in the nation to fine homeowners for...

Sure, the incentive to compost is the putative reason for this regulation, but exactly how is it enforced? In order for city officials and trash collectors to know you have committed the civic sin of disposing of leftover food in your trashcan, they have to examine the contents of your trashcan. Let’s hope the citizens of Seattle and trash collectors can come to some kind of silent truce over this. Do they collectors really want to examine every load they dump into the truck for transgressions? (Lord help us, the city probably offers a bonus of taxpayer money for tagging...

Right now, there are more than 300,000 pieces of debris larger than a centimeter in diameter orbiting Earth. They range from tiny shards of metal to deactivated, decades-old satellites. Most are shrapnel from discarded rocket stages that have exploded after use, or satellites that have collided. Colloquially, all this debris is usually called "space junk." Together, the Department of Defense and NASA track the orbits of the 19,000 or so pieces of junk that are larger than a softball, alerting satellite operators when any satellite — including the International Space Station — is in danger, so they can move it.

After years of being a sucker and buying magazines off of the tables at gun shows, I'm done. I'm looking at my mags and I have about a dozen gun show mags and only maybe two or three are reliable and quiet. Most jam or don't activate the slide stop when empty or just plain rattle when loaded. I've spent an average of $15 each. For the same $ I could have bought 6 factory mags and have 6 good mags instead of 2 or 3. As an experiment I loaded a factory 7rd Ruger .45 mag with 7 rds...

Copies of a highly critical book land in the private, inaccessible mailboxes of all Members of European Parliament The last time Lithuania’s leader, Dalia Grybauskaite, talked to Vladimir Putin personally was in 2010, when he was still Prime Minister of the Russian government. But Ms Grybauskaite, the president of this small Baltic country of 3 million people, has been talking about him all the time since. And now, she is in trouble. It all started with an interview she gave to the Washington Post (Sept. 24) in which Ms Grybauskaite said that Russia is allowed by “Europe and the world...