Free Republic

When you think "family heirloom," it's natural to think of Grandpa's pocket watch or Grandma's engagement ring, but what about Uncle Jim's Bugs Bunny tattoo? Sure, it was once on ole-Jim's calf, but now it can be framed, mounted and proudly displayed above your fireplace, for when you remember him on Christmas Eve. NAPSA -- the National Association for the Preservation of Skin Art -- launched earlier this month with the aim of helping you pass down your tattoos to your kids, grandkids, and loved ones. It's no longer a morbid dream. You can have your tattoos removed, preserved and...

Some mistakes can be erased with Confession and Reconciliation. Others require a laser. That’s the thinking behind a popular program sponsored by the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Monterey, Calif., in which retired and off-duty physicians volunteer their time to remove tattoos from people who feel their ink is holding them back from putting past mistakes behind them.Laser tattoo removal usually costs hundreds of dollars a session, but Catholic Charities offers laser treatments for $20 or less to people who go the extra mile to prove that transforming their physical appearance is just the first step in transforming their...

Who was involved in the deadly Waco biker brawl? “In 34 years of law enforcement, this is the most violent crime scene I have ever been involved in,” Waco Police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said following a biker gang shootout that left 9 dead and 18 others wounded in the parking lot of a busy shopping center Sunday. “There is blood everywhere.” Reports of the grisly brawl, which police said escalated from the bathroom to the bar and out into the parking lot of a restaurant called Twin Peaks, sound like a scene from a movie — or one of...

SYDNEY - Early adopters of the Apple Watch are complaining that a number of its key functions are disrupted by their tattoos. Users of the watch, which went on sale last week, took to social media on Thursday under the hashtag #tattoogate to air their frustration with the flaw from Apple's renowned design house. One anonymous user on Reddit, an entertainment, social networking, and user-generated news website, said the device's locking mechanism, which should disengage when the watch detects it is being worn, failed to work on decorated skin. "My hand isn't tattooed and the Watch stayed unlocked. Once I...

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno confirmed Wednesday that the Army will change its unpopular tattoo policy, with looser rules that allow for more ink to take effect in the near future. “Society is changing its view of tattoos and we have to change along with that. It makes sense. Soldiers have grown up in an era when tattoos are much more acceptable and we have to change along with that,” the general said while speaking at a conference in Huntsville, Alabama, Army Times reported.

More 'progress' and cutting-edge style  from Obama-voter-types... next level s#!% here! Just wrong 'Glass-lense' piercing- why [more: gallery/links]

By using an innovative non-invasive photographic technique, European researchers have managed to locate and map the extensive set of tattoos on the exquisitely preserved remains of Ötzi the Iceman. Remarkably, they even found a previously unknown tattoo on his ribcage. Ötzi's frozen remains were discovered by two German tourists in the Ötzal Alps on the border between Austria and Italy in 1991. He lived around 3,300 BCE and represents Europe's oldest natural human mummy. Because he was so well preserved in ice, he has provided anthropologists with a slew of information about Copper Age (or Chalcolithic) humans. ... It's worth...

French designers alter 3D printer to let you ink yourself 3D printing technology has now followed the curve of most emerging inventions. What starts as a prototype gets picked up by the industries the idea most impacts, then by corollary industries, then by the art and hobbyist crowd. This month, Paris design studio Appropriate Audiences made that final step by hacking a 3D printer and turning it into a tattoo gun. The printing device itself, called Tatoue, affixes a tattoo gun on rails to a square metal frame. The frame and gun can move on three axes so the tattooing...

Is this a violation of the first amendment? A man is left confused and frustrated after he feels he was denied a job based on his tattoos. A man is left confused and frustrated after he feels he was denied a job based on his tattoos. Bill Roach reached out to Eyewitness News because he thinks he was a victim of discrimination and was treated unfairly. He said the tattoos aren’t gang related and shouldn’t be an issue. He’s proud of them, and they all mean something to him. “My right arm is nothing but music,” he said. “You know,...

The year is 2001. Eighteen-year-old Rees Barnett impulsively walks into a tattoo parlour and picks the trendiest designs off the wall display: a tribal arm band and a shoulder tribal tattoo. But over the years, both those symbols quickly went from cool to ​cliché, leaving Barnett with tattoo regret. “Unfortunately, I can’t blame it on booze,” he said. “[It's] one of those bad decisions that you wake up and realize, oh crap, I’m stuck with these.” Now, at age 32, the pension fund analyst is erasing this part of his past at Precision Laser Tattoo Removal in Toronto. A technician...

Former congressman Allen West (R., Fla.) is making a statement on the right to bear arms on his right bare arm with a new tattoo. Aces High Tattoo Shop in West Palm Beach, Fla. showed off the former Republican’s ink on its Instagram account over the weekend.

A stunning housecleaning at “The View” has left Whoopi Goldberg driving solo and looking in the rearview mirror at her canned co-hosts. ABC officials said Thursday night big changes were coming to the show, and soon afterward Sherrie Shepherd and Jenny McCarthy took to social media to confirm they were leaving the morning talkfest.

Tattoos are making a comeback in present day culture. From teenagers to housewives, they are appearing everywhere, even among Christians. So then, is it okay for Christians to get tattoos? To answer this, we need to see what the Bible says about it, if anything.First of all, making marks on the skin is mentioned in several verses. The first is in Leviticus and the rest are in the book of Revelation which deal with the Mark of the Beast. Lev. 19:28, "‘You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead, nor make any tattoo marks on...

DALLAS-Thirteen needles are simultaneously zinging in and out of Adam Metzger’s shoulder. The 27-year-old is unruffled. He stares unblinkingly out the storefront window of Taboo Tattoo, a studio in the Bishop Arts District. To his right, Cody Biggs shades blue into a square of the Texas state flag. His movements are sure, even. The buzzing suddenly falls silent. Biggs pauses to dunk the handpiece into a thimble-sized plastic cup of ink, then turns back to his canvas. Metzger’s shoulder is pink and puffy, weeping streams of ink and blood. “How are you doing, buddy?” Biggs asks, rubbing on ointment in...

In what was first called "advice to my younger self," then later "advice from some of those women" to the average girl, the DNC released confusing and often contradictory "advice" to young Democrat women. The advice specifically comes from DNC Women's Caucus Members. Some of the advice is common sense, and probably should be followed by both men and women: "be brave," for example. Then some is a bit random. The DNC itself makes specific note that "we all need a good pair of stretchy pants sometimes." Again, the DNC calls this advice for women in the Democratic party. The...

Jeffrey Chapman is charged in the November 2011 killing of Damon Galliart.A Kansas man who is about to go on trial for first-degree murder thinks that the “murder” tattoo he has on his neck might influence a jury, so he is hoping to have it covered up before he appears in court. “Mr. [Jeffrey] Chapman has secured a licensed tattoo artist from Hays who is willing to go to the jail,” according to a motion filed by defense attorney Kurt Kerns. “Mr. Chapman’s tattoos are not relevant to any material facts and Mr. Chapman asks for the court to exclude...

If you want to sign on the dotted line to serve Uncle Sam in the Army, it’s going to get a lot harder to make the cut. By the end of April, new recruits will be held to the Army’s new grooming standards–which include stricter rules on tattoos. “Tattoos are cool thing today, 70-80% of people who come into our office have tattoos. I’ve seen 15-year-olds with tattoos,” said Sergeant First Class Robert Black with the Army Recruiting Command in Norfolk, who says these new policies will cut down on the number of enlisted they can take. If you have...

CT scans and the use of infra-red technology on the naturally mummified remains of a woman who lived in in a Christian community in the Sudan 1,300 years ago have revealed a tattoo on her inner thigh. The tattoo is a symbol of the Archangel Michael, assembled from ancient Greek letters. “She is the first evidence of a tattoo from the period. This is a very rare find,” Daniel Antoin, curator of physical anthropology at the British Museum, told The Telegraph. The woman’s remains are part of a special exhibition of eight mummies and what technology has revealed about their...

While I have not been in America for almost ten years, I do watch American TV via my G-sat. My most popular channel is the History Channel. What shocks and amazes me is that most all of the women on all of the programs are slathered with Tattoos. Is this a new phenomena in America? Have women degraded themselves to such an extent? Some may think it cool. I think it is disgusting.

Existing ink jobs could be grandfathered in.   The U.S. military and tattoos have an entangled history. The rise of the tattoo in popular culture started with floods of inked veterans—especially from World War II—returning home with them. The first tattoo parlor in New York City, established in 1846, served to mark up Civil War soldiers. It is that strong history that's probably the reason why a blog post on the Army's website declared in 2009, "Today, it seems, you couldn't throw a rock into an Army formation without hitting a Soldier with at least one tattoo." So it might be...