Free Republic

A retired sidekick of General Michael Flynn, O-6 Ret Special Forces officer Ivan Raiklin discusses with NPR journalist what is about to happen with all of those people who set up Gen Flynn, Trump, and many others. https://twitter.com/IvanRaiklin/status/1790813699655061952

Car manufacturers are slowing their transition to producing electric vehicles (EVs), because of low customer demand and production problems. Mercedes-Benz announced to investors in March of this year that it is going back on its pledge to sell only fully electric cars by 2030. Instead, investors were told that the company plans to continue to make gasoline-powered cars well into the next decade. Fully electric cars and hybrids will account for only up to half of its sales by 2030. It appears that carmakers are suffering after committing wholeheartedly to the ideological fad of EVs, rather than introducing them as...

A young transgender person’s attempt to perform their own mastectomy highlights a healthcare system where gender diverse people’s needs are being chronically unmet, experts say. An 18-year-old transgender person arrived at the emergency department several hours after attempting a mastectomy, with concerns he had damaged a nerve, according to a case report published by the New Zealand Medical Journal on Friday. The young person struggled with gender dysphoria – a clinical term used to describe the dissonance between one’s assigned gender and sense of self – and was on testosterone treatment while waiting for gender-affirmation surgery. He was unable to...

The Zigy electric quadricycle for one is a concept study at the moment, but its designers are seeking industry partners to move to prototyping - Andrea Mocellin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The design collaboration that brought us the Revolve wheelchair in 2021 has now turned its attention to the problem of inner-city mobility. Noting that many SUV-sized vehicles around town only have a single occupant, the team has designed a compact EV for one. The collaboration in question is between German mobility designer Andrea Mocellin and engineering consultancy Dexet Technologies. The Zigy concept was inspired by the narrow and congested roads of London,...

Leftists are enraged after Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s commencement address at Benedictine College went viral earlier this week, and a petition calling for the Catholic player to be dismissed collected over 100,000 signatures. Butker, a three-time Super Bowl champion, delivered the commencement address at the Catholic liberal arts college in Atchison, Kansas, last weekend. During the address, he pulled no punches, calling out President Joe Biden’s support for abortion and criticizing LGBTQ “Pride month.” A Change.org petition created on Monday now calls on the Chiefs to “Dismiss Harrison Butker for Discriminatory Remarks.” “The harmful remarks made by Harrison...

A novel warp drive concept that can function without any need for hypothesized exotic or negative forms of energy has been unveiled in a groundbreaking new study by leading propulsion researchers. Dubbed the “Constant-Velocity Subluminal Warp Drive,” the concept, developed by physicists with the Advanced Propulsion Laboratory at the New York-based think tank Applied Physics and from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, offers a theoretical new means of propulsion for space travel that conforms to general relativity, allowing it to operate at constant subluminal speeds with no need for unphysical forms of matter outlined in past concepts. According to...

An Air Force instructor pilot died early in the morning on May 14 from injuries sustained when the pilot’s T-6A Texan II training plane ejection seat activated during ground operations the day before, the 82nd Training Wing at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, announced in a press release. “An investigation into the cause of the incident is underway,” the wing wrote, adding that the pilot’s name is being withheld for 24 hours to notify his or her next of kin. The 82nd is the host unit at Sheppard, but the pilot was assigned to the 80th Flying Training Wing, the...

In 1587, John White and a group of approximately 115 English settlers landed on Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North Carolina. The colony they sought to establish marked the second attempt to create a long-term presence in the New World under the direction of Sir Walter Raleigh, who instructed them to establish a city bearing his name in the vicinity of the Chesapeake Bay. However, much like the earlier failed effort under Governor Ralph Lane in 1585, White and his fellow colonists soon began to face challenges that included strained relations with the region’s Indigenous inhabitants. With hopes...

Russia's First Channel openly urges Russian servicemen "not to wait for the drone" but to commit suicide themselves! "The significance of life is exaggerated," the propagandist argues. And he says that killing yourself on the battlefield is not suicide, but sacrifice.

A U.S. Army officer working at the Defense Intelligence Agency has resigned from the military citing his objection to Israel’s war in Gaza, according to an open letter he published online Monday saying he is distressed that his work has contributed to the deaths of Palestinian civilians.

This photo shows BYD electric cars awaiting to be loaded onto a ship at the international container terminal of Taicang Port at Suzhou Port, eastern Jiangsu Province, China, Sept. 11, 2023. (AFP Photo) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Biden administration is reportedly set to impose major new tariffs on electric vehicles (EVs), semiconductors, solar equipment and medical supplies imported from China, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the plan. Tariffs on electric vehicles, in particular, could quadruple from the existing 25% to 100%. The people described the plan on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide...

<p>'Any car company that’s not paying attention to them as a competitor is going to be lost when they hit their market. BYD’s entry into the U.S. market isn’t an if. It's a when....'</p><p>The car, launched last year by Chinese automaker BYD, sells for around $12,000 in China, but drives well and is put together with craftsmanship that rivals U.S.-made electric vehicles that cost three times as much. A shorter-range version costs under $10,000.</p>

GLP-1 agonists may be able to treat addiction, prevent Alzheimer’s, and more. This article is an installment of Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox by subscribing here. If the COVID-19 vaccines were the most significant FDA approvals of the 2020s so far, GLP-1 agonists to treat obesity are a strong runner up. Though these drugs have been used to treat type 2 diabetes for nearly two decades, it wasn’t until 2021 that the FDA approved one of them — Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy (semaglutide) — as a treatment...

An amazing big picture view, both looking to the past history of nations and rebellions, and looking forward to how we course correct.

When you fight a war against a backdrop of shortages, emerging threats and Slavic ingenuity, perhaps it's not surprising that you end up with a bunch of systems being used that aren't exactly factory standard. One of the first images of the Russian invasion were tanks equipped with add-on overhead cages, but in 2024 the most extreme examples of anti-drone protection now include vehicles with entire structures built over them to provide near all round protection. In this episode, I look at vehicle modification in Ukraine, examine some of the main classes of modification and ad-hoc vehicles we've seen and...

[Excerpts of excerpt of over 2700 word article] in the first days of the Yom Kippur War, when Golda Meir descended into her darkest hour,...the problem of resupply weighed on her mind, she called her ambassador to the U.S. at three in the morning and told him to wake up Kissinger and Nixon to get things flowing. In her memoirs she explained her behavior. “I knew that President Nixon had promised to help us, and I knew from my past experience with him that he would not let us down,” she writes. “Let me, at this point, repeat something that...

A coalition of Arab nations, led by Egypt and Syria, had surprised the Israeli military with a coordinated, all-out assault on the Jewish nation as it observed the holiest day of its year, Yom Kippur. Armed with the latest in Soviet weaponry, Arab forces quickly destroyed Israeli warplanes and tanks in numbers so shockingly large that a complete conquest of Israel — previously unthinkable — suddenly seemed all too possible. In desperate need of rearmament, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir sent multiple appeals to the United States for military aid. Some of President Richard Nixon’s military advisors counseled against such...

A car thief behind the wheel of a Lamborghini in Los Angeles fled the police at more than 100 miles per hour and moments later crashed the vehicle, totaling it and getting thrown hundreds of feet from the wreck. He died at the scene. Thieves are not usually very smart and this guy was no exception. People who have never been behind the wheel of a vehicle like the Lamborghini have no idea how much power these cars have and how easily you can lose control. This man found out the hard way. This happened in April but the footage...

It was set to be the world's first flight test for an aerospike rocket engine, but the MIRA I prototype crashed on takeoff before the most innovative part of its propulsion system could fire. Undeterred, Polaris is building two bigger prototypes. The MIRA I, from German aerospace startup Polaris Raumflugzeuge, was traveling at approximately 105 mph (169 km/h) during takeoff when a "landing gear steering reaction" plus a side wind caused a "hard landing event," rendering the space plane inoperable and it's fiberglass airframe damaged beyond repair. Its subsystems remained mostly intact – however, rather than attempt to repair the...

Three Marines who graduated boot camp in April were looking forward to representing their recent accomplishment at their Colorado high school graduation later this month. That was until they were told by school officials that they would not be allowed to wear their dress blues unless it was covered by a cap and gown. Thomas Pencis, Jacob Dalton, and Christopher Ferguson went to summer school in order to finish their credits early and attend Marine Corps boot camp before graduating from Centennial High School. Their school is in Pueblo, Colorado also known as the “Home of Heroes” because it was...