Free Republic

Before we heard that Al Gore's Current TV had rejected Glenn Beck's The Blaze TV as a buyer for, as Beck put it, "legacy" reasons and selected Al Jazeera as its white knight instead, Fjordman passed along this December 25 Deutche Welle interview with Aktham Suliman, Al Jazeera's former Berlin correspondent. Suliman argues that Al Jazeera's coverage is a policy instrument of its owners the Qataris, who, as he puts it, "tend toward the Muslim Brotherhood." Saudi-investor-funded Al Arabiya TV, on the other hand, is more Salafist. Big difference? Hah -- not when it comes to extending sharia. "Generally speaking,...

"Torinese engineer Salvatore Majorca created the revolutionary Moto Major straight after WWII. Apparently it was an engineering rather than styling exercise, but 60 years on, its shape is still breathtaking. The wheels, in particular, would not look out of place on many modern motorcycles."..."The Major, born in 1948 on a draft of an engineer in Turin, Salvatore Majorca. Its aim is very clear: to create a very exceptional art, both stylistically and mechanically. As for aesthetics, one can not but look confirm the opinion of all those who see the Major is ahead about ten years compared to its contemporaries....

Among the five new ObamaCare tax hikes that kicked in Jan. 1, one in particular is attracting opposition from both Republicans and Democrats: the tax on medical devices. Last month, 18 Democratic senators and senators-elect (including New York’s own Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand) wrote Majority Leader Harry Reid, asking him to delay implementation of this 2.3 percent excise tax on the sales of everything from pacemakers to tongue depressors. The House already voted to repeal the tax, which is projected to extract as much as $29 billion from medical-device firms. There’s a reason that lawmakers from both parties...

Cyclist Lance Armstrong once offered a large "donation" to the same agency that recently concluded he and his team had used illegal substances, causing him to be stripped of his seven Tour de Frances wins. The brazenly inappropriate gesture made to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is recounted by the agency's CEO Travis Tygart, who tells Scott Pelley the whole story of his agency's investigation of Armstrong for the first time in an interview to be broadcast on the premiere edition of "60 Minutes Sports," Wednesday, Jan. 9 at 10:00 p.m. on the Showtime network. Armstrong once gave the International Cycling...

Coming soon to your television… “All My Baby’s Mamas” a reality show starring rapper Shardy Low and the ten women who had eleven of his babies. The show is scheduled to air this spring on Oprah’s Oxygen Channel. (VIDEO AT LINK) That’s not a house. That’s a harem...

Gun violence on Chicago streets has become such a concern that Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said today he's considering turning to celebrity mouthpieces like Bulls star Derrick Rose to try to convince residents to break the "no-snitch" code of silence that often impedes investigations into shootings in Chicago neighborhoods. McCarthy said he has "spoken to a number of (celebrities) and they're all very interested" in becoming spokespeople for a campaign to convince Chicagoans to cooperate with police. He would not give specific names, but did say Rose, who grew up in crime-plagued Englewood before achieving NBA fame, is the type...

Hoffman’s Gun Center and Indoor Shooting Range has a new policy on assault rifles in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, a change that has ignited a storm on Facebook. The Newington store, whose motto is “Guns for the Good Guys,” announced late last week on Facebook that “Hoffman’s Gun Center will require a Connecticut state pistol permit to purchase ‘assault style’ center fire rifles.”That’s instead of the previous policy of selling a weapon like an AR-15 or Bushmaster .223 (used in the Newtown slayings) pending a two-week background check. The move set off a torrent of reaction on...

Vice President Joe Biden, who is heading up the President’s task force on gun control proposals, announced Tuesday that he would be meeting this week with the National Rifle Association, among other groups. And his timing is just a bit suspect; the day before meeting with the NRA, Biden will be meeting with gun control organizations and shooting victims. Presumably, his welcome for the NRA will be somewhat less hearty. The NRA, under heavy public pressure thanks to the White House’s bully tactics after the Sandy Hook massacre, said it would visit the White House

Metro says that Metrobuses traveling in parts of Southeast Washington are being pelted with rocks. As part of a campaign to discourage this, police are distributing a flier reminding people not to throw rocks at buses or cars. Flier here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr-gridlock/files/2013/01/Dont-Throw-Rocks-Flier.pdf The Metro Transit Police and Metropolitan Police Department have been distributing the flier, which features a reminder that throwing rocks at vehicles is a crime. It also includes 911 as well as numbers for D.C. police (202-727-9099) and the transit police (202-962-2121, which riders may or may not recognize as the number repeated in system-wide announcements). The transit agency...

Appearing on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Thursday, former New York City mayoral candidate and author Mark Green advocated for new legislation that would allow people to identify and locate gun owners who lived in their neighborhoods. He compared it to the already existing “Megan’s Law,” which lets citizens know if a convicted sex offender lives near them. Then he flat-out compared sex offenders to gun owners.“If we have a Megan’s Law — because I think almost everyone might agree — that if you’re a convicted child molester, a neighbor might want to know that because they’re in your home, safe, but...

YONKERS, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) — A deal to give New York one of the toughest gun control laws in the nation is being negotiated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who, sources said Tuesday, is hoping to announce the plan Wednesday during his State of the State speech in Albany. Cuomo hopes to jump-start the 2013 legislative session with a big deal that could dramatically alter gun control laws across the state.Highly placed sources told CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer that Cuomo is negotiating with Assembly and Senate leaders for a package of gun control laws that would be a dramatic response to the...

How To Fly A U-2 Spy Plane Got your eye on a sweet used '59 U-2 spy plane you saw on Craigslist? Would you go ahead and take the plunge if you just, you know, knew how to fly it? Then boy, are you in luck. That's because a couple days ago an entire flight manual for the U-2 from 1959 was declassified and released by the CIA. You can tell it's declassified because on each page where the word "secret" appears, someone has carefully drawn a line through it. We've got a copy here for you. The U-2 is,...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal safety investigators intensified their scrutiny of a Monday fire aboard a Boeing 787 as concerned investors sold shares in the aircraft maker for a second day. Boeing on Tuesday confirmed that the fire aboard a Japan Airlines plane appeared to have started in a battery pack for the plane’s auxiliary power unit. The National Transportation Safety Board described the fire damage to the battery as ‘‘severe,’’ and said it is sending two more investigators to examine the Japan Airlines plane. It also formed investigative groups to look at the plane’s electrical systems as well as the...

Ted Cruz may have the aura of a future presidential contender, but is he even eligible...? The newly sworn-in Texas senator and rising Republican star was born in Canada, to a mother who was born in Delaware and Cuban father. That’s triggered a debate about whether he’s eligible for the nation’s highest office... While there’s no legal precedent for Cruz’s situation, most constitutional scholars surveyed by POLITICO believe the 42-year-old tea party sensation would be OK. “The problem is, no one knows what a natural born citizen is,” agreed University of California, Davis law professor Gabriel Chin, who argued in...

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India was to decide its response Wednesday after accusing Pakistan of killing two of its soldiers and mutilating one of the bodies ...

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Iran's Foreign Ministry says it is hopeful the appointment of former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to lead the Pentagon would improve relations between Tehran and the U.S. Asked about Hagel's nomination, ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that Tehran was hopeful that there would be "practical changes" to U.S. foreign policy, and that nations would change their attitude towards the U.S. if it respected their rights.

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Alternate headline: “Liberals to discover strange new respect for ‘Natural Born’ Clause circa 2016/2020.” The newly sworn-in Texas senator and rising Republican star was born in Canada, to a mother who was born in Delaware and Cuban father. That’s triggered a debate about whether he’s eligible for the nation’s highest office — nevermind that he’s been in Congress less than a week. While there’s no legal precedent for Cruz’s situation, most constitutional scholars surveyed by POLITICO believe the 42-year-old tea party sensation would be OK. But there’s just enough gray area to stoke controversy, as Cruz learned during his campaign...

A new poll shows that Congress is less popular than carnies, root canals and colonoscopies, but more popular than the ebola virus, meth labs and gonorrhea. SNIP On the bright side, Congress came out of the survey in higher standing than North Korea, the Kardashian family, and actress Lindsay Lohan, as well as Cuba's Fidel Castro and former Sen. John Edwards.