Free Republic

In America, it seems perception is everything. Amid our economic turmoil, it may seem egregious to say that our standard-of-living has continued to rise, but that is exactly what has been happening. Through pretending and borrowing, we have continued to live in a land of make-believe where we can always afford to live a little better, despite any real basis for this assumption.

Vladimir Dubinin, President of the Russian Bodybuilding Federation, revealed: "He liked [revolution leader] Lenin's bust very much, and later in a letter he wrote that this bust always gives him a charge of energy, so he keeps it in his office rather than in the museum." Dubinin said Schwarzenegger was also sent busts of Stalin, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.

What if Nancy Pelosi passed a Health Care Law and nobody complied? What if doctors leave the profession in droves and work on the black market? What if private citizens buy their health care under the table for cash, as is done in all socialist countries? What if Catholic hospitals, opposed to mandated abortion services, acting alone or as a group, refused to comply with the Pelosi / Reid take over of the US Health Care System? How would the Federal Government respond to this defiance? I am not talking about civil disobedience. When groups of people get together and...

We conservatives must understand that the Obama Presidency is not our Winter of Discontent but a magnificent historical opportunity to roll back the forces of Progressive Liberalism that have for over a century watered down and diminished the liberty of the individual American citizen. We must understand clearly what the election of Barack Obama really means for our nation in this time of crisis so that we can seize the opportunity and make it serve our cause of restoring liberty to this great nation.

More than two dozen Ukrainian intellectuals are appealing to U.S. President Barack Obama and other Western leaders, warning of a greater Kremlin threat. Specifically, the group of influential Ukrainians is calling for stronger security guarantees to protect Ukraine from Russia, whose leaders they accuse of meddling in Ukrainian affairs.....In an open letter made public on Sept. 10, the authors expressed fears that Russia could use military force against Ukraine. They called on Western leaders to hold an international conference to provide guarantees for Ukraine’s security.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s open letter and Aug. 11 video blog attacking Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko turned out to be a PR windfall for Ukraine, judging from international reaction...Many outside of Russia – and some within -- sided with Ukraine and Yushchenko. "The language [of Medvedev] was reminiscent of [former Soviet leader] Leonid Brezhnev in its detachment from reality,” wrote Anders Aslund, author of “How Ukraine Became A Market Economy and Democracy,” in an Aug. 17 opinion piece published by the Financial Times.

Stay warm with Steve Lonegan This is the most important priority in order for Christie to achieve his goals with the Republican base. Regardless of one’s views of Steve Lonegan politically and personally, he performed far better in last night’s vote than the Trenton GOP conventional wisdom pundits predicted six months ago. Considering where he started in this race, one must respect both Lonegan and his followers for achieving a vote total of 42 percent. Steve Lonegan and his followers will be a force to reckon with in New Jersey politics for the foreseeable future. No Republican can win statewide...

Since the Supreme Court's notorious 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which allowed that municipality to seize private property on behalf of the Pfizer Corporation, 43 states have passed laws protecting property rights against Kelo-style eminent domain abuse. Mississippi is not one of those states. But that nearly changed in March 2009 when the Mississippi legislature voted overwhelmingly in support of a proposed law which would have guaranteed that "the right of eminent domain shall not be exercised for the purpose of taking or damaging privately owned real property for private development or for a private purpose;...

Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works is offering 1,000 plots of land around Russia's biggest steel plant on which its employees can grow potatoes free of charge. Transport to the farms and 24-hour security will be included. "Sowing will begin next week, weather permitting," Alexander Derunov, chairman of the steel plant's trade union committee, was quoted as saying in Magnitogorsk's in-house newspaper.

Russia has stationed its forces just 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the Georgian capital, in violation of the EU-brokered cease-fire that ended last year's brief war. And in recent weeks, it has sent even more troops and armored vehicles to within striking distance of the city ahead of street protests against Georgia's president.

Thomas Woods talks about his book, MELTDOWN, BOOK TV , CSPAN 2

It seems that we take our good fortune for granted, and when fortune turns ugly we lament the world’s unfairness. What do those who are blessed by fortune really know about the unfairness of the world? If the U.S. economy collapses and America goes hungry, will we remember the misfortunes of Bangladesh, Biafra, or Sudan? If millions suffer abroad, do we imagine that we are immune? The happiness of America, suggests Philosophy, is chance happiness. By its very nature, this happiness cannot last. It is temporal, it is transitory. One day our material happiness must turn to physical suffering and...

At only 24 she is already tipped to become a minister, and perhaps achieve her goal of ruling Russia. Happy to exploit her glamorous looks, Maria Sergeyeva has emerged seemingly from nowhere to become a leading propagandist for her hero, Vladimir Putin, her country's 'Iron Man' Prime Minister. Critics, who have dubbed her 'Putin's pin-up', say that she is being used by the former KGB leader to target the young and to whip up jingoism and loathing of the West as Russia stares into the abyss of an economic crisis.

Sounding more like a rebel leader than the president of a democratic republic, Daniel Ortega last week called for a permanent Sandinista insurrection to “struggle constantly” against what he calls “the enemy.” Ortega's inflammatory words came hours after Sandinista mobs clashed violently with anti-government protesters who marched on nine cities Feb. 28 to protest last year's alleged election fraud and what many consider the return to dictatorship here under the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). Sandinista mobs shot mortars and threw rocks at opposition protesters, who responded in kind. Liberal Party lawmaker Luis Callejas – one of several people injured...

Catholics and all men of goodwill and sanity in this country need to begin serious­ly considering the question of whether the government we live under today in Ameri­ca is a lawful government, one that we are obliged, in conscience, to obey; or wheth­er it is, on the contrary, a tyranny which lacks lawful authority ( de jure sovereignty) and can claim our obedience only because it has the power of coercion ( de facto sov­ereignty), a regime which we have a right and a duty to resist. To answer this question, we need first to answer another one: Where does...

We have now reached the stage where the banker’s charade of paper money and debt can no longer expand fast enough to even minimally service the debts it has created. What is next has been brewing for over three hundred years. An era is now ending as are the advantages and inequities of that age. Unnatural cycles introduced by the hand of man are inevitably subsumed in the greater cycles of life. Were it not so, we would be in far greater trouble than we are now in—and we are now in very deep trouble. Just as those who live...

Job offers seeking secretaries for work and intimacy can now be found on almost any Ukrainian recruitment website. Perhaps they should be called “sexretaries.” Some savvy, not to mention salacious, entrepreneurs have decided that more than sexually suggestive advertising is needed to stimulate the recession-bound economy. So two-for-one job offers seeking secretaries for work and intimacy can now be found on almost any Ukrainian recruitment website.

-------------------------- I said yesterday that I would summarise what the crew went through the other day so here goes... Reports state geese were flying at 2900'. This would imply that the A320 would have already cleaned up from its original take off flap setting (most likely config 1 which would have a small amount of flap on the trailing edge and a small amount of slat on the leading edge) to a clean configuration and acceleration to 250 kts indicated airspeed, the maximum permitted speed below 10,000' in the US. The engines would have been in the 'climb gate' which...

Investment bankers by virtue of their privileged position at the spigots of credit have over the years garnered for themselves a disproportionate slice of the world’s wealth. The best description of their wealth is from a banker himself, Sir Josiah Stamp, at the time in 1927 the 2nd richest man in England and former head of The Bank of England: Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits...

Zimbabwe's central bank will introduce a 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollar banknote, worth about $33 on the black market, to try to ease desperate cash shortages, state-run media said on Friday.