Free Republic

[I] thought the slight shake up in Dubai was interesting [the other day]. Piddly little country couldn’t pay its tiny $60 billion debt, and the global marketplace shuddered. The Dow lost 160 points. What happens when we can’t print enough money, and no one will loan us anymore? What happens when the U.S. $100 trillion debt collapses? [analogy alert] In the early 1970s Eastern Airlines flight 401 suffered a slight mechanical failure in its landing lights. For four arduous minutes, the flight crew screwed around with the lights not noticing that the auto pilot had been inadvertently turned off. They...

You write: “I don’t know what to write anymore. America is ignorant, hubristic, in denial, agenda pissed, and agenda blind all at the same time.” Well, riddle me this, Batman: Imagine people on board a jet airliner doing 550mph at 53,000 feet. There’s a series of bumps and jolts, and the pilot comes on and announces, “We’re experiencing some turbulance. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts. Nothing to worry about folks.” Question: Is there any reason for the passengers to think otherwise? They entrust their lives to the pilots. Now the pilots may be in the cockpit...

I recently was included in an exchange of emails between two friends, and was so impressed by the insights contained and the ideas expressed that I immediately requested permission to publish the emails on Grand Rants. Permission from both authors having been received, I am pleased to present Part One of Point:CounterPoint:Repoint. Parts Two and Three will be posted tomorrow and Thursday. Enjoy!

RUSSIAN investigators have confirmed that the derailment of a passenger train which killed dozens of people was caused by a "terrorist attack", the Interfax news agency reported. "We are indeed talking about a terrorist attack," Vladimir Markin, spokesman for Russia's federal investigative committee... Investigators have found "elements of an explosive device" at the site...

For those who believe that Barack Obama is little more than a puppet on a string, Obama gave them strong evidence today.The AP reports Obama and his wife messed up protocol at a White House event by leaving early from a ceremony where he honored Zimbaweans with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award.A flustered Obama returned shortly and quipped, "I never know what I'm allowed to do."

NOVEMBER 20, 2009 The Coming Deficit Disaster The president says he understands the urgency of our fiscal crisis, but his policies are the equivalent of steering the economy toward an iceberg. DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN President Barack Obama took office promising to lead from the center and solve big problems. He has exerted enormous political energy attempting to reform the nation's health-care system. But the biggest economic problem facing the nation is not health care. It's the deficit. Recently, the White House signaled that it will get serious about reducing the deficit next year—after it locks into place massive new health-care entitlements....

Okay, don’t listen to me… I admit that I don’t know spit about sunshine. But when it comes to universal economic implosion, I’ve ranted about David Walker, Glen Beck, and Lou Dobbs forever. I’m pretty sure I’ve put up at least eight rants on this issue. Fine… Don’t listen to me or any of us for that matter. But at least consider what France’s Société Générale bank had to say...

The world is beset by a series of outlandish catastrophes in the much-hyped Sony Pictures movie. An earthquake-devastated Los Angeles slips into the sea, the Vatican collapses, its dome crushing worshippers and a tsunami dumps an aircraft carrier atop an exploding White House. Meanwhile a tidal wave sweeps across the Himalayas and a meteor shower strikes Earth. The director Roland Emmerich - a veteran of catastrophe in his earlier films Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow - was inspired by theories that the calendar of the ancient Mayans foretells the end of civilisation on Dec 21, 2012. "The famous...

If a major disaster struck and you couldn't live in your home would you have a place to go? Don Kubley claims he has an answer. It's called the InterShelter™ and Kubley said it could provide safe shelter for everyone within two hours. The solar dome's President and inventor spoke before Congress and now FEMA is considering the InterShelter™ as the emergency shelter of choice across the nation. It can withstand winds up to 200 miles per hour and temperatures from 120 degress Fahrenheit down to 70 degrees below. All you need is a screwdriver, a wrench and a step...

After more than a decade of public health care with mandatory coverage, so many Canadian doctors have left the practice and so many young people have entered other fields that Canada ranks 26th of 28 developed nations in its ratio of physicians to population. Once, Canada ranked among the leaders in the number of physicians — but that was before government health care drove doctors out of the practice in droves.

Gold prices yesterday surged to an all-time high after India's central bank bought 200 tonnes of the precious metal, swapping dollars for bullion as the country's finance minister warned that the economies of the US and Europe had "collapsed". India's decision to exchange $6.7bn for gold, equivalent to 8 per cent of world annual mine production, sent the strongest signal yet that Asian countries were moving away from the US currency. The purchase by New Delhi's Reserve Bank from the International Monetary Fund pushed gold prices to a record $1,087.45 per troy ounce, up 2.7 per cent on the day,...

Major Republican victories in two states last night left the fate of President Obama's signature health reforms in doubt and Democrats licking their wounds a year before the 2010 mid-term elections. The defeat of Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine by an estimated five points in the New Jersey governor's race was a serious blow for Mr Obama, who had campaigned intensively for Mr Corzine and urged crowds across the state to turn out for him as they did in the historic White House race a year ago. In Virginia, Republicans won a clean sweep in contests for Governor, Attorney General and...

BENEATH ALL of the anger and frustration surrounding the current flu vaccine supply problem is a simple fact - as we gear up to fight a new flu strain in our first pandemic winter in 40 years, we employ a really old technology to make flu vaccines. The nation needs to find a better option. The basic way we make flu vaccines has changed little since the 1950’s. It relies on hen’s eggs. Each year, a seasonal flu vaccine is developed to cover three strains of flu that are circulating. And, each year the flu viruses change a little bit,...

Just in from the Senate Majority Leader’s press shop: Washington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will hold a press conference this afternoon to give an update on the merger of Senate health insurance reform proposals. Today, Monday, October 26, 2009, at 3:15 p.m. Practically every report agrees that Reid will deliver a bill to the CBO today for scoring, and that it will include a public option with the potential for states to opt out.

"In the moments immediately after another unsettling defeat that prompted the Washington Redskins to question much about themselves, many team leaders were united on this: Changing the head coach alone will not solve their problems. To be sure, many things are going poorly for the Redskins, as evidenced by a 20-17 loss to the formerly winless Carolina Panthers on Sunday afternoon at Bank of America Stadium. Washington was undone, in large part, by a strange sequence of events on a punt in the fourth quarter that resulted in a turnover that Carolina quickly capitalized on to score the go-ahead touchdown....

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP BUTLER, Japan, Oct. 2, 2009 – The U.S. military is providing critically needed disaster-relief supplies to mitigate suffering and prevent further loss of life in the wake of Tropical Storm Ketsana, which struck the Philippines on Sept. 25. "Marines and sailors are working with the Philippine government to rapidly deliver humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to the areas the Philippine government deems most in need," said Marine Corps Lt. Col. Douglas Powell, spokesman for the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force. U.S. military personnel are delivering relief supplies to remote areas by way of air and ground, providing...

President Obama has declared the U.S. territory of American Samoa a major disaster after an undersea earthquake caused a tsunami and massive flooding that has reportedly killed more than 80 people in the South Pacific Samoan Islands. The declaration makes federal funding available to people in American Samoa, which has a population of about 65,000 people.

1)URGENT -- Two freight trains and a passenger train have been involved in a collision near Barendrecht, the Netherlands. 2)Some injuries have been reported following the major train wreck in the Netherlands, but further information is not yet available. 3)Several explosions have occurred after a major train wreck in the Netherlands, the ANP news agency reports.

Quick background: I found this while searching for events that happened on September 9 (we just had 09/09/09). A Web site mistakenly lists this disaster as happening on September 9, 1963; actually it happened October 9, 1963. Hadn't heard of it before, but it's listed as one of the top engineering disasters in history. The Vajont (Vaiont) Landslide The site linked in the header provides small snapshots of the whole area. Two examples: Here's an annotated picture that helps put it in context. Here's a picture of the immediate aftermath: To really get this in perspective, though, use Google Maps....

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States wants to enlist its 3.4 million Girl Scouts in the effort to combat hurricanes, pandemics, terror attacks and other disasters. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched a campaign Tuesday to entice the blue, brown and green-clad multitudes to be even more prepared, with the promise of a new patch if they pitch in. The young scouts will be able to emblazon their sashes or vests with the patch if they undergo the training which readies them for an emergency. "This new preparedness patch will increase citizen preparedness and enhance our country's readiness for...

3 killed, 880 people rescued from Philippine ferry By JIM GOMEZ (AP) – 59 minutes ago MANILA, Philippines — At least three people drowned and more than 800 terrified passengers, many roused from their sleep, were rescued early Sunday from a ferry that listed and then sank in the southern Philippines, officials said. More than 80 people were missing. Coast guard chief Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo said 880 of 964 passengers and crewmen on board the Superferry 9 were transferred to two nearby commercial ships and a navy gunboat hours after the ferry began to list off Zamboanga del Norte province...

Virginia Slims used to run an ad campaign called, "You've come a long way, baby." The ads for the women's-marketed cigarette brand ran on the theme that it was hip and modern for women to smoke. But the hidden subtext of the campaign was, "Look how far you've come: now you can die a nasty preternatural death of cancer just like the men." In a lot of ways, Barack Obama is the new "You've come a long way, baby" poster boy. He was marketed as the historic first black president in American history - but now that we've come this...

FAITH AND FAMILY "Dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is about the government's coming into homes and usurping parental rights over child care and development. It's outlined in sections 440 and 1904 of the House bill (Page 838), under the heading 'home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children.' The programs (provided via grants to states) would educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills. The bill says that the government agents, 'well-trained and competent staff,' would 'provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains ... modeling, consulting,...

"Our entire emergency management team has a role to play when it comes to preparing for and responding to the next disaster," said Administrator Fugate. "One of the most important parts of that team is the public. The more prepared the public is now, by getting an emergency response kit, making an emergency action plan, and getting a skill, like CPR, the stronger our emergency response team will be."

WASHINGTON - Despite his public-relations blitz over the past two weeks to promote his plans to reform the nation's health-care system — including holding two town halls on Wednesday — President Barack Obama has lost ground on this issue with the American public, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Pluralities now say that the president’s health care plan is a bad idea, and that it will result in the quality of their care getting worse. What’s more, just four in 10 approve of his handling on the issue.....

"The fresh news about Washington - the White House and Congress - is that things are not going very well," Pete Du Pont writes at www.opinionjournal.com. "A new president in full command of public-policy matters is having problems, from health care to taxes to massive federal spending and now to the Waxman-Markey bill, one of the oddest and most far-reaching pieces of legislation advocated by the new administration...."It passed the House a few weeks ago by a 219-212 vote - not much of a margin. Most interesting was the fact that of America's 50 state delegations in the House, 28...

Doctors start their careers with an oath: “First, do no harm.” Obviously, politicians don’t take an oath like that, because President Obama’s healthcare reform plan is the classic case of a “cure” that’s worse than the disease. But, tragically, misplaced belief in seven dangerous myths about the plan is deceiving many well-meaning people into supporting ObamaCare: Myth #1: Everyone will have access to good healthcare. It doesn’t take an economic whiz-kid to predict what happens when government gets involved in providing anything for free, or at a below-market price. The laws of supply and demand kick in and, next thing...

xxxx -- Last week, Republican Senator Jim DeMint made it pretty clear why the opponents of health care reform are fighting so hard. As he told a special interest attack group, "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Here's how the President responded: Think about that. This isn't about me. This isn't about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America's families, breaking America's businesses and breaking America's economy. And we can't afford the politics of delay and defeat when it comes to health care. Not...

Obamageddon Almost a year ago I wrote an editorial letter warning the Barack Obama posed a grave threat to the Republic because, like Bill Clinton, he was a facile liar whose radical roots and affiliations were being actively concealed by the mainstream media. I predicted that he would be the most liberal and destructive President to hold the Executive Office since Jimmy Carter. I now admit that I was wrong; I was entirely too charitable. Obama makes Jimmy Carter look like Milton Friedman. In the span of just six months, President Obama and the Democrat party have done more damage...

Big admission from Vice President Joe Biden today. "The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy," Biden told me during our exclusive "This Week" interview in Iraq. Biden acknowledged administration officials were too optimistic earlier this year when they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at 8 percent as part of their effort to sell the stimulus package. The national unemployment rate has ballooned to 9.5 percent in June -- the worst in 26 years.

The linebacker is a fashion plate?

GARNER, N.C. -- Three people were missing and 20 taken to hospitals after an explosion at a Slim Jim meat products plant in North Carolina, officials said Tuesday. Jeffrey Hammerstein, district chief with Wake County Emergency Medical Services, said five people taken to hospitals were tagged as priority patients with serious conditions. Hammerstein said officials were searching for three people missing from the site in Garner, a Raleigh suburb, but it wasn't clear whether they were inside during the explosion. Garner Mayor Ronnie Williams said injuries ranged from burns to smoke inhalation. Emergency crews were keeping people away because of...

To understand why the woes of California's economy threaten the nation's, we must understand the state's road to insolvency. The Age of Reagan did not commence with the Great Communicator's inauguration in 1981. For its real beginning, we need to go back to June 1978, when Californians went to the polls and enacted Proposition 13. By passing Howard Jarvis' malign initiative, California voters reduced the Golden State to baser metal. Under Republican Gov. Earl Warren and Democratic Gov. Pat Brown, California epitomized the postwar American dream. Its public schools, from kindergarten through Berkeley and UCLA, were the nation's finest; its...

The London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi has published what it claims are key details of the new Middle East peace plan to be presented by President Obama in his speech in Cairo on June 4. Details of the plan made the front page of two leading Israeli newspapers. If the revelations prove accurate, they reveal a US administration as yet unacquainted with several basic facts of life concerning politics and strategy in the Middle East. There were those in Israel who suspected Obama of being a kind of wolf in sheep's clothing, preparing with a friendly smile to offer up...

The Art Archive/Biblioteca Braidense Milan/Gianni Dagli Orti “Our minds should be sent forward in advance to meet all the problems, and we should consider not what is wont to happen, but what can happen.” It’s been clear for a while, at least since the collapse of Lehman Brothers last fall, that what we have to fear above all is hope itself. Attempts to trust that the worst is over and to stop frightening ourselves seem doomed to propel us into yet worse disappointment. We are not only unhappy, but—believing calm and happiness to be the norm—unhappy that we’re unhappy....

Big Brother Obama is lying to the American people again on television...IT IS NOT ILLEGAL FOR CORPORATIONS TO USE TAX HAVENS LIKE THE CAYMAN ISLANDS BECAUSE CONGRESS CREATED THE LOOPHOLE TO BEGIN WITHTOTUS is running the country now...and George Soros tells TOTUS what B O should say

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Sarita Malviya wasn't born when an explosion at a Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India, on Dec. 3, 1984, sent a cloud of deadly gas containing the compound methyl isocyanate into the old section of the city, searing the lungs and causing the deaths of at least 4,000 people. When her family moved to Bhopal years after the world's worst industrial disaster, "we had no idea that Union Carbide left toxic waste in three ponds," she said through an interpreter. Heavy metals and toxins were seeping into the groundwater, she said, contaminating drinking water used by...

NEW YORK – Investors are back to worrying about banks. Long-present unease about soured loans bubbled over on Monday after Bank of America Corp. said it set aside $13.4 billion to cover lending losses, even as it posted a profit for the first quarter, and as anxiety grew about the results of the government's "stress tests" to determine if banks will need more government bailout money. While Bank of America and other big banks like Citigroup Inc. have fared better so far this year than many believed they would, nervousness is growing now over the massive losses from defaulting loans...

The Government was urged today to make contingency plans for a freak solar flare that could 'knock out' the National Grid and create severe water and food shortages. Labour former minister Graham Stringer said Britain should be prepared for a repeat of the solar storm of 1859, which hit Earth and paralysed much of the telegraph system. In a Commons motion, Mr Stringer said such an event could now 'knock out the National Grid, which would lead to a loss of water supply,

IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power. A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation's infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe,...

Help us choose a name for our next website that best matches your sentiments right now: AmericavsObama.com ObamavsAmerica.com ObamaLiedFreedomDied.com RecallCongressNow.com RemoveTheBastards.com FlushBarackObama.com WhiteHouseCommie.com ItIsTimeToFlushCongress.com GovernmentIsAPonziScheme.com ReplaceCongressNow.com FlushGovernment.com FlushTheFederalGovernment.com FlushFederalGovernment.com FlushFederalGovernmentNow.com ItsTimeToFireCongress.com FireCongressAndStartOver.com CongressNeedsToBeFlushed.com

This is a pdf file of an ACORN Brochure. Ladies and gents, ACORN and other "Community Organizers" along with predatory lenders used laws passed by congress to screw America. Don't forget, ACORN was founded by wade Rathke, protegee of George Wiley. Wiley was a follower of Robert Cloward and Francis Fox Piven, and ACORN uses to this day the strategy of Orchestrated Crisis they developed. http://www.capitalresearch.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/toeachtheirhome.pdf

Booming preparedness industry says Americans are stockpiling To some, the term "survivalist" conjures images of camouflage-clad men stockpiling freeze-dried food in a mountain cabin, but in the current economic crisis, the people quietly preparing to survive catastrophe may just be your next-door neighbors. In his column in last month's Financial Times, business and technology expert Ade McCormack writes, "The world is in crisis and with it the world of business. Many of us have two plans. Plan A involves President Barack Obama performing some economic magic. Plan B involves a revolver, a vegetable patch and a subscription to Survivalist Monthly."...

There has been a number of post about preparing yourself for what could be a dramatic economic and societal 'crash'. And I was wondering how many of you have just in the past year started 'preping'? How many have don it for years? How far are you into it? I read a great post somewhere that there where three types of survivalist they discribed them something like: Type 1: The Prep Survivalist- Regular people possible owns one or to guns strictly for home/person defense. And has prepared for himself and famliy to get by small disasters hurricanes, earthquakes,ice storms, tornados,...

Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases...

The Republicans' Bizarre New Strategy Dan Gerstein, 03.04.09, 12:00 AM EST Instead of trying to out-Bush Bush, they should outsmart Obama. Ever since last fall's deck-shuffling election, the strategist in me has been very curious to see what the Republicans would do both to repair the damage the Bush presidency had done to their brand and to reposition their party to compete in a radically different political environment. In particular, I wondered how would they win back the trust of the sensible center that thoroughly repudiated their governing approach in November. Well, just six weeks after the official start of...

Let The Inquisition Start With Frank By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, March 06, 2009 4:20 PM PT Oversight: Congressman Barney Frank says he wants some of those responsible for our current financial meltdown to be prosecuted. And we couldn't agree more. First up in the court dock: Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read More: Budget & Tax Policy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Even by the extraordinarily loose standards of Congress, it takes some chutzpah for someone such as Frank to suggest that he'll seek prosecutions for those behind the housing and financial crunch and for what he called "a strongly empowered...

<p>"Obama's election will trigger a stock market crash and likely devastate the already slumping real estate industry. A selling psychology usually feeds upon itself and can often induce a market-wide panic. So the nearer Obama gets to power the faster the markets are likely to dip. So look for a sharp downturn as election day approaches, and especially in the period between the Democratic victory and Inauguration day. Obama will doubtless blame the drop on the outgoing Bush Administration, but it will be his own tax plans that send the markets into a tizzy."</p>

Doug Casey's 1979 book Crisis Investing became the largest selling financial book in history as Americans desperately sought to survive in the disastrous economy created by President Jimmy Carter. He is clearly one of the best men you could turn to in finding out how to survive the economic mess created by an incompetent Democrat in the White House. So, with that in mind, it would be interesting to ask the guy who wrote the book on the disastrous Carter economy what he thinks about the mother-of-all-disastrous economies that is about to be hatched while Barack Obama sits on the...

The 72-hour Kit: Gotta Rosary for the run? By Ben Fisher - Jesus Be With Us Published February 13th, 2009 In the event of an emergency, do you have a 72-hour or Bug-out Kit? Gotta Rosary for the run? A 72-hour kit is a bag, bucket, or box of everything you will need (food, water, medicine, …) to survive 72-hours as you flee a natural disaster, terrorist event, or civil unrest. The idea is that you should be able to get where you’re evacuating to within three-days, or that civil authorities (police, national guard, etc.) will have brought the unrest...