Free Republic

KYIV, Ukraine — While the mood on the streets is calm and collected, behind the veil of composure, Ukrainians are in training for the fight of their lives. Tens of thousands of ordinary people across the Eastern European nation are learning to handle weapons, render first aid and perform other combat-related skills, as the threat of Russian invasion grows each day. Citizens are turning to experts in firearms, and even just family members, in hopes of surviving an attack and facing down their belligerent neighbor. “My daughter, now 23, taught me how to shoot,” Vlad Horbovetz, a surgeon and volunteer...

The date is Feb. 9, 1997, and the man responsible for one of the most egregious environmental follies in human history is sitting at a restaurant in Boyce, Virginia, with the leader of the movement seeking to undo his mistake. Of the hundreds of dams Floyd Dominy green lit during his decade running the Bureau of Reclamation, none are as loathed as his crown jewel, the Glen Canyon Dam. In 1963, Dominy erected the 710-foot (216-meter) tall monument to himself out of ego and concrete, deadening the Colorado River just upstream of the Grand Canyon, drowning more than 250 square...

What are we to make of Galileo Galilei? A scientific hero whose revolutionary ideas were quashed by the institutional authority of the early 17th-century church? A natural philosopher who defended Copernicus’ mathematics and astronomy valiantly but was prone to vanity and arrogance? Or even, as Babette Babich reports that controversial philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend repeatedly asserted of Galileo, a “crook”? It is important to understand in the first place that to ask this question is not to ask a scientific question – the sciences have absolutely no way of answering a question in this form. True, we could choose...

Dark, sinuous lines float in a blue sky. It seems straight out of sci-fi or fantasy—a fantastical spacecraft transitioning into its cloaking shield, or a mythical beast in flight. In reality, it is cranes at Gallocanta Lake in Spain, dozens of them, traveling between where they feed in the fields and where they sleep in the water. It is many frames, compressed to a single moment. Catalan photographer Xavi Bou is fascinated with birds and the challenge of making their flight patterns visible. He has combined his passions for nature, art, and technology to create these images which he calls...

As the director of elaborate fantasy epics like the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” trilogies, Peter Jackson has become known for meticulous attention to detail. Now he has put the same amount of care into making a documentary. With “They Shall Not Grow Old,” Jackson has applied new technology to century-old World War I footage to create a vivid, you-are-there feeling that puts real faces front and center and allows us to hear their stories in their own words. The documentary, which will screen nationwide Dec. 17 and Dec. 27, concentrates on the experiences of British soldiers as revealed...

INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) — The human brain is the largest and most complex organ in the body — a command center. It is constantly processing thoughts, emotions and actions. The mind is miraculous and mysterious even when it malfunctions. Rick Johnston, 49, was a hardworking supervisor for Carrier in 2015. He was on his 72nd straight day of work when he suffered a health scare similar to a stroke. "He had a neurological disorder. His brain is telling his body that he's had a stroke, but he has not had one," said his wife Cammie Johnston. "It took me almost a...

KYIV, Ukraine—How do you measure America’s greatness? By the size of its economy, or the strength of its military? By the height of its city skylines, or the audacity of the moon landings? Perhaps, by the heroism of the Marines who landed on Iwo Jima, or of the Army soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach? Maybe. But America’s greatness is not always measured like in the movies or a campaign speech. Sometimes, an anonymous act of gratitude is proof enough, even if we, as Americans, don’t always see it that way. In August, my wife, Lilya, and I were at...

Our Animal House Posted on December 19, 2016 by Robin (Reader Advisory: explicit content) I had one of those sad Berkeley days. I did errands around town, and beheld the tragedy that is Berkeley, Oakland, and the like. I needed to do some business near Gilman and Eastshore Freeway. If you’re ever in town, take a drive over there. The area personifies the horror that is Berkeley. At Gilman, there is what is called a “homeless encampment.” This translates into a lot of druggies and dealers, drifters, and runways, as well as psychotics, living and sleeping out in the wild....

The following is from a link I followed from a Wired article regarding a 12 year old girl wanting to buy a car and restore it by her 16th birthday. I spent the better part of the afternoon catching up on the threads and thought it was a great story that FReeps would enjoy. 04-18-2011 04:37 PM So we have been working on the car now for about 3 months, but as I have been prowling the forum I realized I should probably post the story, and some of you might be interseted in it. A few months ago our...

Got here at 5:20 am. Already a line of over 100. And the ever present presstitute core.

I just caught the middle part of a special on Fox that is quite damning (IMO) to democrats and Congress on this financial mess we find ourselves in. ACORN and Obama mentioned, and NOT in a flattering light. If you haven't seen it, or you only caught a part of it like me; you MUST catch it again tonight at 10pm ET on the Fox News Channel. We need to make sure this information spreads far and wide and fast. Hammer it home people, especially to any lefty (or independent/undecided) friends. This kind of information coming now, can bring down...

Just saw this on Fox News. An Ohio company has created a Bow for the ladies as a tribute to Sarah Palin. I thought it was a nice tribute to Sarah and to the women of America.

Boeing this week said completed work on and installed a 12,000-pound chemical laser in a C-130H aircraft and will now test the weapon, which will fire through a rotating turret that extends through the aircraft's belly, until an official demonstration set for 2008. Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) which is being developed for the Department of Defense, will destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations, Boeing said. The ATL team includes L-3 Communications/Brashear, which made the laser turret, and Hytec which made various structural elements of the...

Okay, so this rare vanity is directed to my FReeper brethren to see if any of you have run across this situation. And to warn potential victims in case you're about to. Out of the blue, I received a collections notice from a company called ANFI Collections, for a debt of some $100 dollars due to Verizon Florida, Inc. Now some 15~20 years ago, I did live in Florida, and I did have local phone service with GTE, now part of Verizon (they listed a # and it sounds like it might have been mine, but it's been so long...

Levitation has been elevated from being pure science fiction to science fact, according to a study reported today by physicists.   In theory the discovery could be used to levitate a person In earlier work the same team of theoretical physicists showed that invisibility cloaks are feasible. Now, in another report that sounds like it comes out of the pages of a Harry Potter book, the University of St Andrews team has created an 'incredible levitation effects’ by engineering the force of nature which normally causes objects to stick together. Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University...

By Michael Gerson Newsweek Aug. 21-28, 2006 issue - Five Washington Augusts ago, for me, is not just a different time; it is a distant country. At the White House, we debated the nuances of stem-cell research. The president delivered a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars without the need to mention any foreign wars. Americans obsessed on the mysterious affair of Chandra Levy. A spate of shark attacks was headline news.Everything we saw took us further from the reality we could not see. Five Augusts ago, hijackers in Florida trained in gyms, bought small knives and practiced flying...

Department of Defense study urges open source adoption 8/20/2006 6:50:40 PM, by Ryan Paul The Open Technology Development road map, a recently authored government report, advises Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Sue Payton to integrate a comprehensive open source strategy into defense department procurement and development policies. Written by consultants for Advanced Systems & Concepts in collaboration with major technology companies and the Open Source Software Institute, the 79-page report advocates adoption of open technologies, support for and adherence to open standards, and discusses topics like licensing and software project governance. The report argues that the standard practices associated with purchasing...

Hoosier Daddy? In Indiana Schools, It's Linux By Edward F. Moltzen, CRN 4:10 PM EDT Wed. Aug. 16, 2006 How's this for back-to-school fashion: More than 20,000 Indiana students are now Linux-enabled under a state grant program to roll out low-cost, easy-to-manage workstations, which are running various flavors of the open-source operating system. Mike Huffman, special assistant for technology at the Indiana Department of Education, said schools in the state have added Linux workstations for 22,000 students over the past year under the Affordable Classroom Computers for Every Secondary Student (ACCESS) program. And that could expand quickly with several...

A cool solution to waste disposal 31 July 2006A group of physicists in Germany claims to have discovered a way of speeding up radioactive decay that could render nuclear waste harmless on timescales of just a few tens of years. Their proposed technique – which involves slashing the half-life of an alpha emitter by embedding it in a metal and cooling the metal to a few degrees kelvin – could therefore avoid the need to bury nuclear waste in deep repositories, a hugely expensive and politically difficult process. But other researchers are sceptical and believe that the technique contradicts well-established...

Microsoft vs. Computer Security Why the software giant still can't get it right. By Adam L. Penenberg Posted Monday, Jan. 9, 2006, at 1:10 PM ET Four years ago, Bill Gates dispatched a companywide e-mail promising that security and privacy would be Microsoft's top priorities. Gates urged that new design approaches must "dramatically reduce" the number of security-related issues as well as make fixes easier to administer. "Eventually," he added, "our software should be so fundamentally secure that customers never even worry about it." Microsoft customers haven't stopped worrying. A year later, Windows was hit with several nasty worms, including...