Free Republic

My ostentatious being is what you must become, The nectar of my spirit attracting others to My kingdom, For you are my lilies out in the field, Sobriety to the weak so my spirit may harvest as they yield, Now a light in the darkness just as you, Release "my" wisdom my children for you are my morning dew, Just as My tribes harvested The Manna early each day, You are my hidden Manna revealed in a new way, For now the veils are lifted for through my spirit you shall have breakthrough, Both to the Gentile and the Jew,...

The nation’s top military commander painted a dark picture Tuesday of future U.S. defense capabilities clouded by shrinking Pentagon budgets and adversaries’ technological advances that he said would erode American battlefield superiority. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provided his sobering views as part of the Quadrennial Defense Review, a congressionally mandated evaluation of U.S. military strength issued every four years. Dempsey predicted that it would become increasingly difficult to balance the competing demands of protecting allies abroad, securing Americans at home and deterring future wars. “The smaller and less capable military outlined in...

Troops based at the Kadena Air Base in Japan know how to party. On Saturday, six gay and straight service members applied some of their finest makeup and lip synced to "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" in what is believed to be first drag queen and king show on an American military base. The show was thrown in support for the base's recently formed OutServe-SLDN chapter, a nonprofit advocacy group for the army's LGBT community.

The recent violence and political upheaval in Syria put the spotlight on the strong alliance the Assad government has with the Islamic Republic of Iran. No sooner than protesters threatened to topple the regime of Bashar Al-Assad, did Iran step up its defense of its Syrian ally both in words and in actions. This left many observers to wonder why Iran reacted so strongly to the possibility of Assad's demise, when it has not done so during the downfall of Gaddafi or Mubarak in Libya and Egypt. To understand why, and to determine the best course of action for the...

For the next several months, Washington won’t be seeing as much of President Barack Obama as usual. In February, March and April, the president is traveling to nine countries: Mexico, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. His trip to Mexico is next week. He is heading to Europe in March and Asia in April. On Friday, Mr. Obama is traveling to California to visit the drought-stricken Central Valley and meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at Sunnylands, the Annenberg estate in Rancho Mirage. The president’s domestic travels are expected to pick up as the midterm...

Russia, flush with new-found wealth from oil exports, expands its military reach and political influence abroad. A war-weary America slashes defense spending and retreats from the world. The president embarks on a massive government-subsidized program to develop alternative energy to replace fossil fuels. Pundits cluck about America in retreat, and point to the rise of an Asian economic superpower. That’s the world circa 1976, but it sounds like quotes ripped from today’s headlines. History has a way of repeating itself, or to quote the great Yogi Bera, it’s déjà vu all over again. The Obama administration is looking a lot...

Some very disturbing thoughts are laid out in this blog post written by Dai Xu. He is a Chinese author, social commentator, and the president of Marine Institute For Security And Cooperation, he also a professor at the National Defense University. First posted in the US China Perception Monitor. The year 2013 was a year without fighting, but there was a strong potential for conflict. This year, the impact of local wars on the world situation is much more serious than in previous years. This year, the U.S. behaved very arrogantly, and Obama’s intentions were unclear; the Middle East retreated,...

Wednesday marked the 69th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima – one of the worst battles of World War II. Across the nation many remembered this day from 69 years ago. In Newington, Connecticut, a memorial was recently built and is the only flag raising memorial built by survivors of the Battle of Iwo Jima. The flag flown at the memorial is historically correct with 48 stars. There is also sand from Iwo Jima beaches in the concrete base. The memorial also includes inscriptions of the names of 100 men from Connecticut who died during the battle. The 69th...

At least the bride was definitely going to show up. In November 2009, a Japanese man stood before a congregation to marry the woman he loved, Nene Anegasaki. In doing so, he became the first man to marry a computer game character – Nene is one of three "virtual girlfriends" in the Nintendo DS game Love Plus. The marriage might not be recognised by the state, but to the groom, who goes by his on-screen name Sal9000, the relationship is very real. In the months leading up to the wedding the couple went everywhere together, they chatted intimately, held hands...

My substance is your makeup but do not look for it to be anatomical and my atomic number is eternal never wasting away for truly I AM Wonderful in ALL aspects of this one word "ETERNAL". I AM thus an eternal constant and there is no slide rule that can measure my kingdom for I have no beginning or end to measure yet I have storehouses ,does my Word not proclaim this ?! So tell me my children is there really a need to be earthbound when even now you carry this makeup within you ?! Let me allow you...

With the help of Google Translate (and an ability to interpret completely random sentence structure), an American can find out what kind of advice the Japanese give to their own countrymen on how to handle the peculiarities of American culture. Here are some things to look out for if you are visiting America from Japan. 1. There is a thing called “Dinner Plates.” And what goes on them is a mighty disappointment. In Japan, each person eating gets as many individual dishes as needed for the meal. Sometimes more than 10 dishes per person are used. In America, there is a...

(snip) China does not have a grand ­imperial plan to invade its neighbours, in the way the Soviets did. But in any country with a ­rapidly growing military – one that is flexing its muscles and is involved in a score of unresolved territorial disputes – there is always the risk that its leaders might be tempted by some sort of military solution, the lure of a quick win that would reorder the regional balance. If China and its neighbours all believe that the US has a credible plan for a conflict, this both deters any eventual Chinese adventurism and...

It’s Wednesday. So it’s time for more bad news. If you’ve been paying attention, you will have already noticed that the United States is headed toward a cliff of imminent destruction at astonishing speeds. Our financial situation is dire, our political situation is dismal, our international situation is tenuous, and our cultural situation is pathetic. It’s sad. I didn’t think my generation would live to see this, but it looks like America is past the point of no return in its drive toward complete collapse.The most recent sign of doom in the financial sector is the alarming news that China...

China plans to build four aircraft carriers in total to boost its naval power and exert its maritime claims, according to a Russian media report. Official reports in January said that the PLA plans to have at least two aircraft carriers by 2015 or 2016 and said the country's second aircraft carrier is indeed under construction as previous unofficial reports had claimed. The country plans to build four aircraft carriers in total, the state newswire Xinhua citing a Russian weekly newspaper as reporting. China commissioned the Liaoning, a refitted Soviet-era carrier purchased from Ukraine, in 2012. Future carriers are expected...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Navy will swap three ships stationed in Japan with newer, better-equipped ones to boost American deterrence in the face of China's continued military buildup... http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Policy-Politics/US-upgrading-naval-power-in-Japan-with-eye-on-China

Faced with China’s increasingly assertive military posture, as well as a continuing ballistic missile threat from North Korea, Japan plans to spend more on defense, boosting its air and maritime forces. The plan commits to buying 28 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II combat aircraft, 17 Bell-Boeing MV-22 Osprey tiltrotors, and three Northrop Grumman Global Hawk UAVs over the next five years. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) will also upgrade existing fleets of F-2 and F-15 fighters. The National Security Strategy that was published last December adjusts the Japanese force structure to create an amphibious brigade–promoting the plan to buy...

Asteroid sampling mission probably failed 16:01 07 December 2005 NewScientist.com news service Maggie McKee and AFP The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa is likely to have failed in its landmark mission to collect the first-ever samples from an asteroid, mission officials said on Wednesday. It also faces trouble returning to Earth. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) had earlier said the Hayabusa probe "most probably" succeeded in gathering material from the Itokawa asteroid, 290 million kilometres from Earth, on 26 November. The spacecraft was thought to have landed on the space rock for just one second, firing two metal pellets to throw...

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's space agency said Wednesday its spacecraft had successfully touched down on an asteroid 180 million miles from Earth despite an earlier announcement that it had failed. On Sunday, JAXA officials had said the Hayabusa probe, on a mission to land on the asteroid named Itokawa, collect material, then bring it back to Earth, failed to touch down after maneuvering within yards of the surface. However, the agency said Wednesday that data confirmed that Hayabusa had landed on the surface Sunday for a half-hour, although it failed to collect material. JAXA officials had said earlier that Hayabusa...

TOKYO - A Japanese spacecraft that landed on an asteroid to collect surface samples for analysis has developed trouble with its thruster system, the nation's space agency said Tuesday. The problem is the latest facing Japan's attempt to complete the world's first two-way trip to an asteroid, following earlier problems with the probe's gyroscopes and two botched practice landings.The Hayabusa probe appeared to have touched down Saturday, just long enough to collect powder from the asteroid's surface and lift off again to return to Earth.But it soon began shaking due to a gas leak from a thruster, and that continued...

A Japanese spacecraft that visited an asteroid in 2005 is returning to Earth this weekend and should put on a brief, but spectacular, light show for fortuitously placed Australians late on Sunday. The Hayabusa probe was launched by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on May 9, 2003 and rendezvoused with the Itokawa asteroid on September 12, 2005. [Photos of Japan's asteroid mission.] Now it is set to land back on Earth, hopefully with asteroid bits in tow.