Free Republic

The Islamic Republic of Iran is weak and vulnerable, far more than the regime would have us believe. That’s the biggest takeaway from last week’s suspected Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran — and it delivers important messages to the ayatollah, his terror proxies, the Iranian people and Washington policymakers. Haniyeh’s killing while under maximum protection by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tells Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, that Israel has deeply infiltrated the ayatollah’s intelligence and security establishment. Furthermore, unlike in previous years, Israel is now prepared to use its power to...

When they turn the pages of history When these days have passed long ago Will they read of us with sadness For the seeds that we let grow? We turned our gaze From the castles in the distance Eyes cast down On the path of least resistance Cities full of hatred Fear and lies Withered hearts And cruel, tormented eyes Scheming demons Dressed in kingly guise Beating down the multitude And scoffing at the wise The hypocrites are slandering The sacred halls of truth Ancient nobles showering Their bitterness on youth Can't we find The minds that made us strong?...

Physicists are building neural networks out of vibrations, voltages and lasers, arguing that the future of computing lies in exploiting the universe’s complex physical behaviors.Inside a soundproofed crate sits one of the world’s worst neural networks. After being presented with an image of the number 6, it pauses for a moment before identifying the digit: zero. Peter McMahon, the physicist-engineer at Cornell University who led the development of the network, defends it with a sheepish smile, pointing out that the handwritten number looks sloppy. Logan Wright, a postdoc visiting McMahon’s lab from NTT Research, assures me that the device...

President Biden on Friday said he doesn’t think the coronavirus is here to stay, but added that he does think it will remain around the world. “No, I don’t think COVID is here to stay, but having COVID in the environment here and in the world is probably here to stay,” he told reporters at the White House.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that President Biden thinks he needs more downtime — despite the fact that he’s spent more than a quarter of his days in office at one of his Delaware homes. “I know the president doesn’t have public events today,” Psaki told reporters during her regular briefing. “He does have a number of meetings with policy teams and that’s often what he’s doing behind the scenes.”

As the person who posts the daily Live thread on COVIOD-19, I am often pointed at as a ring leader for the "hype" and "hysteria". I don't think its fair, but I get it. I want to make a couple of over arching statements based on my life experience working in hospitals, emergency management and along side municipal and federal emergency preparedness organizations and departments. My work experience in hospital emergency planning and working with local, state, and federal officials provides me with a perspective that is different than most. The planning for these is things is pretty unemotional and...

As a Reagan Republican, I am an unlikely and probably unwelcome source of ideas about how a Democrat can win the presidency in 2020. But precisely because I am a Reagan Republican, I do not support Donald Trump and do not wish to see him elected to a second term. I worked for President Reagan for many years: initially in his 1980 campaign, then in the White House, and finally in his post-presidency office in Los Angeles. I knew him well. And I am absolutely certain he would be appalled by how Donald Trump conducts himself in the presidency.

Hollywood, CA September 29, 2016 – Street artists in Hollywood put posters up over night, culture jamming Apples iconic logo with the silhouette of Donald J. Trump instead of the bite, with the words “Think Different”. The Apple logo, and the slogan (written by Steve Jobs) is one of the most identified brands on the planet.The posters were photographed in Hollywood at Sunset & Highland, LaBrea & 4th Street, Melrose & Spaulding and adorning the Old Bernie Sanders Headquarters at Johnnies Diner at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax.

Janis, I.L. (1982). Groupthink: A psychological study of policy decisions and fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. I took a few liberties with Mr. Janis' symptoms of groupthink and recast them here as The Eight Commandments of the Left. Consider it the ultimate Rosetta Stone to unlocking the mystery of everything the left says or does. Turns out the left really DOES NOT think, they just fetch and execute Von Neunamm style and pass it off as intellect. I Thou shall create an illusion of invulnerability shared by most members to foster excessive optimism and encourage extreme risks taking II Thou...

Experts have advice for women, such as Crews and Duff, when it comes to protecting yourself from a potential sexual assault or abduction. "Really some of the simplest techniques to use are just walk with confidence. Don't be a target in how you're walking. Don't close yourself off, hunch over, don't seem timid or scared from the environment. Walk with authority," said Tina Toth, who is a sexual assault counselor for the Rape Crisis Center. She adds that predators tend to act on opportunity, so finding ways to limit your vulnerability is important. Other safety and self-defense practices include having...

Newt, showing up the anti-2nd Amendment, lying, left-wing, Progressive Liberal on yet another issue important to conservatives.

When the Center For American Progress’ best spin blames only 35% on Bush then you know it’s pretty much all Obama’s doing. (Washington Examiner) — Most of the soaring $1 trillion federal deficit is the blame of President Obama’s spending and political deals according to a pro-Obama think tank that pegged former President George W. Bush’s responsibility at just 35 percent. While opening its analysis by blaming Bush and showing pictures of Senate GOP leaders, the Center for American Progress said that the other 65 percent of the deficit surge came on Obama’s watch, a combination of high spending, extension...

After President Barack Obama revealed the suspect status of his support for Israel — and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wowed crowds with a sternly-worded address to a special joint session of Congress — some speculated Jewish American support for Obama would wane. But a new Gallup poll out yesterday shows a large majority still approve of the president. Jewish Americans gave President Barack Obama a 60% job approval rating in June, down from 68% in May, but statistically unchanged from 64% in April. Thirty-two percent of U.S. Jews now disapprove of the job Obama is doing, similar to their...

The U.S. Department of Justice is claiming power and authority beyond even what the kings of England held in a case involving private "Liberty Dollar" coins that were offered to individuals who wanted them for investing or for exchanging for goods and services, according to a "friend-of-the-court" legal brief. The case is against Bernard Von NotHaus, who was convicted on three counts of counterfeiting related to his work with the coins. The claim regarding the arrogation of power was made in a brief filed by members of the law firm of William J. Olson of Vienna, Va., and Gary Kreep...

Like tens of millions of others, US technology writer Nicholas Carr found the lure of the worldwide web hard to resist -- until he noticed it was getting harder and harder to concentrate. He set out his concerns in a celebrated essay headlined "Is Google making us stupid?" And his latest book "The Shallows" explores in depth what he fears the Internet is doing to our brains. "The seductions of technology are hard to resist," Carr acknowledges in that book, which has sold an estimated 50,000 hardback copies in the United States alone. But he thinks it's time to start...

After weeks of failing to provide even strong rhetorical support for the uprising in Libya — an uprising in pursuit of liberty and against a United States adversary — President Obama has now apparently decided that he has sufficient international authorization to act. This begs two questions: Where is Congress on Libya? And does President Obama think he took an oath to the United States Constitution, or to the United Nations Charter? Obama said today that the United States has moved “swiftly” on Libya (one would hate to see “not swiftly”)

Does the sun revolve around the Earth? One in every three Russians thinks so, a spokeswoman for state pollster VsTIOM said on Friday. In a survey released this week, 32 percent of Russians believed the Earth was the center of the Solar system; 55 percent that all radioactivity is man-made; and 29 percent that the first humans lived when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.

Does the sun revolve around the Earth? About one third of Russians appear to believe so, according to a survey published today. Thirty-two percent of Russians reject a sun-centered Solar system, four percent more than in 2007 when a similar survey was conducted (Snip) The survey also found 55 percent of Russians believe that radioactivity is a human invention. Twenty-nine percent believe humans lived in the era of dinosaurs. Women are more likely than men to believe scientific superstitions, the survey found.

A newly released WikiLeaks cable quotes Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling a U.S. diplomat of Israelis’ frustration with the peace process. Surprisingly, however, Dermer didn’t focus primarily on Palestinian behavior. Rather, he charged, “the Israeli public is skeptical regarding the benefits of returning to negotiations” because “all the GOI [government of Israel] has received in return for its efforts [to date] was a ‘slap-down from the international community.’”

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.00 If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this... The first four men [the poorest] would pay nothing. The fifth man would pay $1. The sixth man would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man [the richest] would pay $59. So that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy...