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The 3D-printed gun that Cody Wilson calls the "Liberator." Eight months ago, Cody Wilson set out to create the world’s first entirely 3D-printable handgun. Now he has. Early next week [the] founder of the non-profit group Defense Distributed, plans to release the 3D-printable CAD files for a gun he calls “the Liberator,” All sixteen pieces of the Liberator prototype were printed in ABS plastic, [except] a single nail that’s used as a firing pin. The gun is designed to fire standard handgun rounds, using interchangeable barrels for different calibers of ammunition. Technically, Defense Distributed’s gun has one other non-printed...

the Pentagon announced Friday that the remains of 10 airmen missing in action from World War II will be buried next week at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. The Department of Defense said in a news release that the crew was on a bombing mission over Berlin in April 1944 when their B-24J Liberator aircraft crashed near East Meitze, Germany. There were no survivors. The crash site was located in 2003 and human remains were turned over to U.S. officials. Additional remains, as well as metal ID tags and a class ring, were gathered over the next few...

Friends, experience shows it always pays to scout around a bit... See what’s out there, keep your eyes open, and investigate your surroundings. That is what happened one morning when I had some hours to pass with no pressing duties. I did an internet search for local gun shops, picked a few that looked interesting, and took a drive to see who was open. As it happens, that part of Indiana had enough small gun shops to keep me going all day long, if I had wished. One waypoint on this morning’s journey turned up a neat little small town...

Ford built at least 8000 B-24 aircraft in WWII. This a collection of 291 B&W photos from the Henry Ford Museum taken at the old Willow Run Airport and Ford Motor Co. in Detroit. During the war automobile manufacturing was suspended so that GM, Ford, etc., could concentrate on the manufacture of military vehicles and aircraft. Ford Motor Company's assembly line was located adjacent to Willow Run. The government and Boeing company told Henry Ford during the war that he could not build an airplane like a car on an assembly line. He built the freeway to the plant, built...

A friend of mine recently forwarded me a question a friend of his had posed: "If/when our Federal Government comes to pilfer, pillage, plunder our property and destroy our lives, what good can a handgun do against an army with advanced weaponry, tanks, missiles, planes, or whatever else they might have at their disposal to achieve their nefarious goals? (I'm not being facetious: I accept the possibility that what happened in Germany, or similar, could happen here; I'm just not sure that the potential good from an armed citizenry in such a situation outweighs the day-to-day problems caused by masses...

On Dec. 3, 1943, a B-24D Liberator bomber with two Army airmen from Massachusetts flew a stealth mission to destroy Japanese war vessels in the Bismarck Sea. The mission turned out to be a success. The crew found a Japanese convoy and bombed it.

3/11/2008 - PALAU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, Palau (AFPN) -- A Kansas Air National Guard KC-135 Stratotanker crew from the 190th Air Refueling Wing returned the human remains March 3 to American soil after a recovery team recovered from a downed B-24 Liberator shot down near the Pacific island nation of Palau Sept. 1, 1944. According to military reports, the Army Air Forces B-24 was involved in a fight between American and Japanese forces over the island and suffered anti-aircraft fire. Three of the crew reportedly bailed out, one without a parachute, before the bomber crashed into the water. BentProp officials, a...

If you've ever dreamed of sailing the skies in a World War II bomber, there may be no time like the present in Tucson. But it'll cost ya. Four vintage bombers will touch down in the city in April, offering rides at about $400 a pop. The events are sponsored by two nonprofit foundations that use the money to help keep the rare old warplanes running. The Old Pueblo has become a favorite stopover for such outfits because our warm-weather city has all the attributes they look for. "Tucson is a hot spot because it has so many retirees and...

In President Bush's speech, during a question and answer session, an Iraqi woman took the microphone and thanked America and President Bush for liberating 27 million Iraqis. She said that she lost family members to the ruthless Saddam Hussein's reign of terror and two sisters are now members of the new Iraqi Parliament. The unidentified Iraqi woman blasted the naysayers and non-supporters (read: Democrats and loony left) for standing against such a correct decision to oust Saddam from power. When the President told her to tell her relatives in Parliament to form a Unity government with Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds,...

Enjoy

Bush Meets Victims of 'Butcherer' Saddam By NEDRA PICKLER ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - 0118dv-bush-iraqis Iraqis who said they were beaten, imprisoned and lost loved ones at the hands of Saddam Hussein's government shared their stories Wednesday with President Bush, who said the former Iraqi president "will get his due justice." There was an emotional atmosphere in the hourlong meeting, participants said, as Bush went around a table in the Roosevelt Room asking each of roughly a dozen Iraqis to tell their experiences. Bush said they told "stories of sadness and stories of bravery." "One of the interesting moments will...

In a foreign country the other day, a throng of people, chanting slogans and waving flags, awaited President George W. Bush. Hundreds of thousands of protesters, right? People angry at American aggressiveness and arrogance, no doubt. World citizens who think Mr. Bush is a reckless cowboy, too simplistic, his thought too little nuanced, his pronouncements too unmodulated for this complex, modern world. After all, isn't that what American elites have been telling us for years, now: that the Bush foreign policy is making the United States into the world's pariah? The elites were wrong again. The Bush visit occurred in...

BAGHDAD — The man replacing the mayor of Baghdad — who was assassinated for his pro-American loyalties — says he is not worried about his ties to Washington. In fact, he'd like to erect a monument to honor President Bush in the middle of the city. "We will build a statue for Bush," said Ali Fadel, the former provincial council chairman. "He is the symbol of freedom." Fadel's predecessor, Ali al-Haidari, was gunned down Jan. 4 when militants opened fire on his armor-covered BMW as it traveled with a three-car convoy. Fadel said he received numerous threats on his life...

It began as a lark. Two young women working in the cockpit of a Liberator bomber during World War II leave their names and addresses for the pilots to find. "I didn't expect to hear from anybody," says Mildred Lemons, who now lives in Arivaca. But a couple of months later, she did hear from one: Douglas Gordon Elliott, a flight engineer with the Royal Australian Air Force. Until the war's end, he and Lemons would correspond. And then both just drifted away. "I don't know who quit first," says Lemons. "I was married. The war was over." Suddenly, it...

SIERRA VISTA - Sixty years ago today, Dennis C. Jones was relaxing. He had taken a shower, shaved and eaten. It was Armistice Day - as today's Veterans Day is called. But for Jones - Casey to his friends - Nov. 11, 1944, was far from idyllic. There was no armistice the day Jones took a break on Panay Island in the Philippines. The area was still under Japanese control as he and a few other airmen made their way up the island - a 35-day trip - to where they would board a submarine to be taken to Australia....

They may not know what the Republican Party is, but Sulaimaniyah residents are staunchly in favour of its leader. As the United States presidential election approached, George Bush and John Kerry were still neck and neck in the polls – unless, of course, you count those carried out in Sulaimaniyah, in the Kurdish area of north-eastern Iraq. Here Bush would be assured of a runaway victory. As in the rest of Iraq, people here may still not be enjoying the lifestyle and freedoms they had hoped would follow the end of Saddam Hussein’s rule, and many are openly critical of...

...[T]he thousands of academics, lawyers, rights advocates, and other educated elites leading the effort to create a new Iraq... have hitched their fortunes to our own and nearly all of whom hope that President Bush wins. ...These, after all, are the Iraqis building institutions, occupying key positions in ministries, and cooperating openly with the U.S. And they're the Iraqis with the most to lose in the event John Kerry makes good on his pledge to "bring the troops home where they belong."... Such fears haven't been spun out of whole cloth. As far as Iraqi elites are concerned, President Bush...

"Dutch's Home!!" (To be sung to Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road") Effete Whore'd's damned...Reagan's hearse waits... RATS' derision towards Nancy, the Right ignores... As Sean Hannity raves!! Liberator's fightin' fer "the lowly"... Hey, I'm FReer 'cuz what Reagan showed me!! Dutch's headin' home again...Right claims his grace...we're not alone!! We gathered outside...Leftists, you know just what we're here for!! RATS're scair't 'cuz they're thinkin'...our Nation ain't listenin' to FOOLS anymore!! Show a little faith, there's passion on the Right!! RATS're poltroonish...we'll win the Big Fight!! Folks, FReedom's all Right to me!! Left ain't Right...we'll recover...RATS' loss is our gain!! Right's awestruck...cut...

Summary: Did the United Kingdom's influence in its heyday match the United States' today? Two Hegemonies provides an answer; but "empire" might be the better word.Niall Ferguson is Herzog Professor of History at the Stern School of Business, New York University, and a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. He is the author of Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power.From Foreign Affairs September/October 2003Hegemony or Empire? By Niall FergusonTwo Hegemonies: Britain 1846-1914 and the United States 1941-2001 .Patrick Karl O'Brien & Armand Clesse. Aldershot, U.K.: Asghate, 2002, 365 $84.95...

President 'will go down in Arab history as the liberator of Baghdad' Despite today's widespread Arab rage over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush "will go down in Arab history as the liberator of Baghdad," writes one bold Saudi columnist. Writing in the Saudi daily Arab News yesterday, columnist Dr. Muhammad Al-Rasheed praised last Sunday's capture by Americans of the former Iraqi tyrant and hailed Bush as a liberator. Here, courtesy of the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, are excerpts of Al-Rasheed's column: "Beware the march of history or the ides of March, whichever appeals...