Free Republic

There is a question I keep asking myself — is Barack Obama to blame for failing on virtually every front imaginable? I want the answer to be in the negative so badly that I fear I may be shutting out an ugly reality. Domestically and internationally, the US President’s policies have been a mix of brilliance and failure. On foreign policy I had hoped for so much from him. After an inarticulate fool such as George W. Bush, the world deserved something special from America. At the time of his election Obama was the answer most of us were seeking........

MORE than 300 Australian troops will be deployed to Iraq for a training mission, starting tomorrow. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the 300 strong force, first announced last month, will be largely from army’s 7th Brigade in Brisbane and will serve alongside New Zealanders at the Taji military complex, north of Baghdad Federal cabinet has approved the deployment of the additional Australian troops to the Middle East to help train Iraqi forces in their fight against Islamic State. The deployment will be for two years from the middle of May. “It is a dangerous place and I can’t tell you...

Mystery of the 'alien' signals solved: Baffled astronomers trace source of noise to the observatory's kitchen MICROWAVE Strange signals, known as perytons, originated near to the planet Scientists could not explain where they were coming from for decades They replicated signal by opening microwave door while still running For years, scientists have been trying to uncover the source of mysterious radio signals being picked up in Australia. Theories have ranged from evaporating black holes to extraterrestrial communication and mergers of neutron stars. Now researchers at the Parkes Observatory claim they have finally found the source of these 'alien' signals -...

“IF I was running al-Qa’ida in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.” These prophetic words were uttered by John Howard less than 24 hours after Barack Obama announced he was running for US president. Mr Howard was always the master of the understatement, no more so than on this occasion. It wasn’t just al-Qa’ida but rather, practically every sinister outfit on the planet that must have popped the bubbly the day Obama was swept to power in a...

HE’S Australia’s fiercest soldier. One of the most decorated members of the Australian Defence Force, he was singled out for acts of extraordinary bravery when locked in a bloody gunbattle with an unpredictable enemy in 2010. But for Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith, there is a group of men who put his achievements on the battlefield in the shade. Tonight, Roberts-Smith will present a special episode of Sunday Night where he will uncover extraordinary stories of valour that turned 10 of the first Anzacs into legends. There are not many Australians who can truly say that they’ve walked in the...

Consumers in Australia flocked to Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) store in Sydney on Friday to get the world's first up-close look at the tech giant's smartwatch, which the company expects will be its next runaway hit. The Apple Watch, CEO Tim Cook's first new major product, was available for pre-order online and to try out in stores - but not take home. On April 24, consumers will be able to buy it online or by reservation at retail locations including high-end fashion boutiques in Paris, London and Tokyo, part of Apple's strategy of positioning the wearable computer as a must-have accessory.

You can guarantee it. When Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee next year, she and her team will frame the election as “historically significant”. In doing so, they will ignite a great social movement to elect the first Madame President. In the last twelve months, Secretary Clinton’s public speeches and commentary have discernibly shifted in focus and content, to female empowerment, pay equity and her “grandmother glow”. Never far away with a ready and helping hand, the media are showing their intent to advance the Clinton 2016 narrative. Just last month, following the conclusion of her prepared remarks at her...

Protesters waving Australian flags and carrying signs such as "Yes Australia. No Sharia" rallied around the country on Saturday in events organisers said were against Islamic extremism. The "Reclaim Australia" events drew hundreds of supporters but also triggered counter-rallies from other groups who criticised them as racist and called for greater tolerance. "We are pro-Australian values and anti-extreme Islam, but we're not anti-Muslim," Reclaim Australia spokeswoman Catherine Brennan told AFP, adding there was no racism behind the rallies, which she said had attracted people from diverse backgrounds. "Since when is it being racist to love your country and to love...

Protesters waving Australian flags and carrying signs such as "Yes Australia. No Sharia" rallied around the country on Saturday in events organisers said were against Islamic extremism. The "Reclaim Australia" events drew hundreds of supporters but also triggered counter-rallies from other groups who criticised them as racist and called for greater tolerance. "We are pro-Australian values and anti-extreme Islam, but we're not anti-Muslim," Reclaim Australia spokeswoman Catherine Brennan told AFP, adding there was no racism behind the rallies, which she said had attracted people from diverse backgrounds.

Someone's running a poll in Oz. http://www.9jumpin.com.au Let's help them decide.

Not so long ago, The Age made a rather costly mistake by identifying an entirely innocent Muslim lad as the teen terrorist who attacked two policemen in Melbourne, very nearly killing one of them. This sort of error is apt to happen when competent sub-editors are shown the door, replaced by cheap-to-hire, hip-dude children working under the supervision of the few older hands not quite sharp enough to have read the signs of a newspaper in terminal decline and landed jobs at the ABC. Fairfax Media dug deep, slung the slandered kid a sum variously reported to be as much...

A curious condition of early 21st-century life is that for every citizen trained in causal reasoning and dedicated to truth, there is a mob of determinedly unenlightened dolts incapable of distinguishing public opinion from empirical fact, whose greatest champion is the censorial Left. Enter the latest limp cant against Social Services Minister Scott Morrison by former students of his alma mater, Sydney Boys High School. In an online letter endorsed by John Pilger, the moribund band of brothers exhorts the school to withdraw a speaking invitation to Morrison on the charge that he advocated policies in violation of the UN...

CLIMATE change could not just impact agricultural production, but also potentially waken sleeping giants who could in turn exacerbate the warming trend, according to Australian academics.

A MELBOURNE bishop believes the third suspicious church fire in as many days is not linked to clergy sexual abuse. Fire crews and police are investigating a fire at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Foster St, Dandenong, that started about 2.30am. The fire, which caused $250,000 damage, was started in the church’s storeroom. Another was sparked near the altar. A team of about 40 firefighters took about an hour to control the blaze. It comes after fires on Monday at St James in Brighton and St Mary’s in St Kilda East - two parishes home to notorious paedophile priest, Ron...

Australia's most decorated canine war hero, who was at one stage missing in action for nearly 14 months in Afghanistan, has lost her battle with brain cancer. Sarbi, who worked as an explosive detection dog for the Australian Army, suffered a number of seizures in recent weeks and scans revealed a brain tumour. The canine, affectionately known as 'the wonder dog', lost her short battle with the terminal illness on Friday, and died surrounded by her loved ones, according to her handler.

An Australian government official made the mistake that is every office workers’ nightmare: an autofill mistake causing an email to go to the wrong person. Except in this person’s case, the mistaken email exposed the personal details of 31 world leaders, including President Barack Obama. “The cause of the breach was human error,” said an email sent to the Australian privacy commissioner and obtained by The Guardian under freedom of information laws... excerptedThe exposed data included not only names and dates of birth, but passport numbers and visa details as well. On Monday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz...

The personal details of world leaders at the last G20 summit were accidentally disclosed by the Australian immigration department, which did not consider it necessary to inform those world leaders of the privacy breach. The Guardian can reveal an employee of the agency inadvertently sent the passport numbers, visa details and other personal identifiers of all world leaders attending the summit to the organisers of the Asian Cup football tournament. The United States president, Barack Obama, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, the Japanese prime...

The idea of a bank deposit tax was raised by Labor in 2013 and was criticised by Tony Abbott at the time. Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has indicated an announcement on the new tax could be made before the budget. The Government is heading for a fight with the banking industry, which has warned it will have to pass the cost back onto customers. Mr Frydenberg is a member of the Government's Expenditure Review Committee but has refused to provide any details

The Federal Government looks set to introduce a tax on bank deposits in the May budget. The idea of a bank deposit tax was raised by Labor in 2013 and was criticised by Tony Abbott at the time. Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has indicated an announcement on the new tax could be made before the budget. The Government is heading for a fight with the banking industry, which has warned it will have to pass the cost back onto customers. Mr Frydenberg is a member of the Government's Expenditure Review Committee but has refused to provide any details.

Joseph Ratzinger, better known as Pope Benedict XVI, in Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity and Islam, details the rising tide of secularism that seeks to banish Christianity from European history and the public square. While the situation in Australia appears nowhere near as dire, it is the case here that Christianity is often misrepresented and undermined. This happens especially in subjects such as history and in relation to what American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington terms the “clash of civilisations”. The expectation is that school textbooks present a balanced, objective and impartial view of ideas, beliefs and events. Such...