Free Republic

I play senior softball and an individual who played on one of the teams in our league has joined our every day pick-up ball group.He is totally deaf but I believe he can read lips. It's hard for everyone to understand what he is communicating to us so he tries to make it simple and rudimentary.So, I've decided to try to learn ASL in an attempt to be able to converse with him on a level he can understand. I would appreciate any advice from anyone who has experience in ASL in dealing with anyone they know is deaf.

Untold War Stories@UntoldWarFacts·6hAn American pilot spent almost 16 months inside a German POW camp.Then he escaped.He found a German Fw 190, climbed inside a fighter he had never flown before and stole it.Then he flew it to freedom.Somehow, that wasn't even the most remarkable part of his flying career.This is the story of Bob Hoover..🧵1/6 Untold War Stories@UntoldWarFacts·6h🧵 2/6Bob Hoover was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1922. As a young man he worked at a grocery store to help pay for flying lessons at Berry Field. He taught himself aerobatics and eventually entered the Army through the Tennessee National Guard.During...

ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵉᶰᵗᵃʳʸ Susan Kokinda@SusankokindaQ_2·20hIT'S OVER: Trump and Iran Just Shut Out theUK and NATO #prometheanupdates#Trump #iran #UK #NATOOctober 1, 2026TRANSCRIPT BEGINS~~~Susan Kokinda: So, why are Europe and Britain irrelevant at this table?Because their own policies have collapsed their economies, and have stripped them of any leverage. That was noted with not a little bit of irony by Kirill Dimitriev, the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund and one of Putin's chief interlocutors with the United States. Here's how he put it:"Europe can finally enjoy the success of both its Green and Russophobic agendas-no oil, no gas." ~Kirill Dimitriev March 22, 2026This...

Today we seek out old humor and boldly go where cheap humor has gone before: Star Trek

The 2-repeat allele of the MAOA gene confers an increased risk for shooting and stabbing behaviors Kevin M Beaver 1 , J C Barnes, Brian B Boutwell PMID: 24326626 DOI: 10.1007/s11126-013-9287-x Abstract There has been a great deal of research examining the link between a polymorphism in the promoter region of the MAOA gene and antisocial phenotypes. The results of these studies have consistently revealed that low activity MAOA alleles are related to antisocial behaviors for males who were maltreated as children. Recently, though, some evidence has emerged indicating that a rare allele of the MAOA gene-that is, the 2-repeat...

American Revolution 2.0Have you already seen how far the country has been pulled off course? Are You Counting the Days Until the Election? A nation in decline does not correct itself by accident. What you are reading is the product of years of quiet work by people who refused to stay inside the stable of group-think: researchers, memers, prayer warriors, and ordinary citizens who left the old media matrix, compared notes, and kept a watch. Five hundred threads ago many of us were still alone, ranging from half-asleep to already on duty. Small enclaves formed, drops were read for clues,...

President Donald Trump again insulted Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, calling him “a pain in the a**” before wondering aloud, “Is he here, by the way?” The president has used similar lines countless times before, including at his Republican midterm convention in Dallas, where he declared, “He may not dress right. He may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen, but you know what he is? He’s the greatest attorney general in America, and he deserves to be your next senator.” His latest remarks came as he returned to Denton, Texas,...

The laws already on the books cover a lot of harmful conduct involving AI, but they do not cover everything cleanly. As of October 2026, the U.S. still does not have one comprehensive federal AI law. Instead, AI is governed through a mixture of existing laws, agency authority, executive policy, and state laws.

AI security/control will probably develop into something akin to "anti-virus" software. The closest analogy is the entire cybersecurity industry: Antivirus began as one layer, but eventually we needed firewalls, identity management, intrusion detection, security operations centers, audits, penetration testing, and incident-response teams. What follows is the most likely path for AI.

Sean “Diddy” Combs has been placed in solitary confinement following an NBC News report on his VIP lifestyle inside prison, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. The disgraced hip hop mogul arrived at the Fort Dix federal prison in New Jersey in October after he was sentenced to 50 months behind bars for transporting people across state lines for sexual encounters. Since then, he has spent thousands of dollars a month to bring his high-end lifestyle to the low-security prison, NBC News reported Tuesday in a story based on interviews with four men who spent time in...

The City of Malibu has delayed the next phase of its upcoming speed camera program after more than 100,000 speeding violations were recorded in less than 10 days, officials announced Thursday. The program’s warning period was scheduled to begin in late September but has been pushed back to November as the city continues its traffic study and evaluation of existing speed limits in eastern Malibu, specifically in Carbon Canyon and Tuna Canyon. ... The cameras that have been installed are collecting preliminary information on speeding activity as the city assesses existing conditions. Drivers may see a camera flash when a...

If you think the lift to the top of The Shard is a long ride, spare a thought for future visitors to Dubai's Burj Azizi. The skyscraper will feature a staggering 2,071ft (631.5m) continuous elevator journey – the equivalent of 140 floors – making it one of the longest single lift rides on Earth. KONE, the company behind the technology, says a new generation of AI-powered, lightweight elevators is helping make such record-breaking journeys possible. And it said its design could one day carry passengers more than a kilometre into the sky. ‘What was once considered a futuristic vision for...

Nikole Hannah-Jones regrets sending her daughter to a ‘bad school’. But she misses the crucial reason why it failed its pupils Back in 2002, not long after the US was struck by terrorists, and I watched the world spin into chaos, my mother told us we had to leave our apartment. She had lost her job the year before and had fallen behind on rent. We were evicted. We moved in with my great-grandmother and shared a bedroom for two years. My mom enrolled me in the local school in Kansas City, Missouri. In sixth and seventh grade, from age...

Four people familiar with the hiring plans told The New York Times about the push. ICE had about 29,000 employees in July, according to federal data cited by the paper, roughly 8,000 more than when Trump took office. Meeting the new hiring goal would add another 17 percent to the workforce. Some agents have been under pressure to work seven days a week. They’re making arrests and managing cases, and ICE wants thousands more officers to share that workload. Congress has already approved the funding. Seven-day workweeks are a pretty good argument for using it to get more people hired....

Earlier, “progressive” LA mayoral candidate Nithya Raman used the "genocide" slur with Hasan Piker.  Appearing on Sep 29, 2026 in a Jewish forum by the Jewish Federation, Raman was asked whether she would appear with someone who was anti-Christian or anti-Muslim, as she had appeared with the antisemitic Hasan Piker. She said yes, explaining that “we need to hear a wide variety of opinions.”  So she was asked about her use of the word “genocide.”  She answered, “I’m not an expert on this term, but I’ve seen experts calling it a genocide. I looked it up, and...

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under Anthony Fauci funded deadly gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the likely Chinese epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.However, SARS-COV-2 was apparently not the first deadly virus that created panic in the former NIAID director's office.According to a journal entry obtained by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and published by Just the News, Fauci privately expressed terror upon learning that his agency had supported a U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases experiment that took Ebola — a deadly virus with a case fatality rate ranging from 25% to...

A magnitude 4.3 earthquake has struck Washington’s Puget Sound region, with shaking reported in the Seattle area, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and residents. People in the area described a sudden jolt. The earthquake struck at 2:05 p.m. local time on Tuesday, with its epicenter about 3 miles west-northwest of Wauna, Washington, according to the USGS. It occurred at a depth of about 17 miles. The Seattle area faces earthquake risks from faults beneath Puget Sound and the Cascadia subduction zone offshore, where an oceanic tectonic plate pushes beneath North America.

The Wuppertal Suspension Railway, which opened on 1 March 1901 has glided above the Wupper River for 125 years and now carries over 80,000 passengers every day, according to Mayor Miriam Scherff. She says its suspended technology offers a fast, environmentally friendly link between districts along a 13-kilometre stretch of narrow valley.

The Trump administration's recent effort to bring the law down on Rep. Ilhan Omar could go as far as seeking to strip the Minnesota congresswoman of her citizenship for alleged immigration fraud. But a criminal investigation is unlikely to yield the results the president wants, according to a former federal prosecutor. Michael Wildes, an immigration attorney, told Fox News Digital that investigators face a "very high bar" to build a case against Omar after White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is conducting a "criminal" investigation against the progressive "Squad" member. It all stems...