Free Republic

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced she’ll be traveling to Japan later this month to talk about global warming just as Congress is demanding she testify about the agency-caused toxic waste spill in Colorado that happened earlier this month. “After spilling millions of gallons of toxic chemicals into the Animas River, the EPA has an obligation to be forthcoming about what went wrong and potential long-term impacts on local communities,” Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith said in a release, demanding McCarthy appear before the House science committee to answer lawmakers’ questions about the spill.

A North Korean military official says a meeting of senior party and defense officials led by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Thursday night and "reviewed and approved the final attack operation." He gave no details on what kind of military retaliation North Korea would see as appropriate punishment for South Korea's shelling of its territory on Thursday. Kim Yong Chol, director of the general reconnaissance bureau of the North Korean army, on Friday denied South Korean allegations that Pyongyang has been raising tensions on the peninsula. He denied the North fired anything across the Demilitarized Zone and says...

I AM moving you into Michael's Domain , Your life will never be the same , For from Glory to Glory I will bring you to see, The Truth of My Majesty, So hold onto My virtue for here we go, Straight through Zion's gates and onto the show, Where truly myriads of Angels you shall see, And the fullness of My glory, For few are the eyes that look into, My glory that not even Moses then knew, But now even He you shall find there, Sitting beside Me in his chair, Yet I have reserved a place for...

Should the United States apologize for the nuclear bombing of Japan at the end of World War II? The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 70 years ago this month, killed as many as 250,000 people, most of them civilians. For many of the victims, it was a horrible, excruciating death, and for many others, the effects of burns and radiation, although not immediately lethal, produced years of agony. Should we say we’re sorry? My answer is no, but I do not dismiss the question out of hand. It is, after all, naggingly relevant, raising issues of proportion, race and culture....

One of the surest signs that late summer is here in the northern hemisphere is the arrival of the Milky Way in the early evening sky....the star-dappled plane of our home galaxy sits almost due south and stretches far to the north. This is also why we refer to the triangular shaped asterism formed by the bright stars of Altair, Deneb and Vega as the Summer Triangle. Two of these stars are the focus of a fascinating mythos from the Far East, and a poetic celestial configuration that commemorates star-crossed lovers lost. We first heard of tales of Tanabata while...

Japan economy shrinks in second-quarter in setback for 'Abenomics' TOKYO | By Leika Kihara and Tetsushi Kajimoto Japan's economy shrank at an annualized pace of 1.6 percent in April-June as exports slumped and consumers cut back spending, a bad omen for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policy drive to lift the economy out of decades of deflation. China's economic slowdown and its impact on its Asian neighbors have also heightened the chance that any rebound in growth in July-September will be modest, analysts say. The gloomy data adds to signs that Japan's economy is at a standstill and may rekindle market...

A week after Nagasaki, Tokyo had still not surrendered. A third weapon was already on its way and a dozen were to follow.LONDON — American military archives reveal that if the Japanese had not surrendered on August 15, 1945, they would have been hit by a third and potentially more powerful atomic bomb just a few days later and then, eventually, an additional barrage of up to 12 further nuclear attacks. Documents highlighted during commemorations to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima on August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9, which forced the end of World War...

Japanese Emperor Akihito Saturday expressed "deep remorse" for his country's role in World War II, 70 years to the day following Japan's surrender to the Allies. Akihito makes a highly ritualized comment on this anniversary day every year, but this this is first year featuring such a statement. Akihito was born in 1933, and has reigned since 1989. He is the son of Hirohito, who was the reigning emperor during the war. Though the emperor's formal powers were degraded in the settlement with the Allied Powers, Hirohito was allowed to retain his throne in a largely ceremonial fashion, and famously...

On August 11, Kyushu Electric Power Company's 846 megawatt (MW) Sendai Nuclear Power Station Unit 1 became the first reactor to restart after nearly two years with no generation from nuclear power plants in Japan. Following the disaster at Fukushima in 2011, Japan began a temporary shutdown of all nuclear power plants as each reactor entered scheduled maintenance and refueling outages. By September 2013, all 54 reactors in Japan's nuclear fleet were shut down. Following its restart, Sendai Unit 1 will begin generating electricity within days and return to normal operation in early September. The restart of Japan's nuclear power...

...In 1945, however, we also soon heard much of the other side of the story, and how that same appalling tragedy might have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of American and British servicemen who could well have died in the invasion of Japan which would otherwise have been necessary to end the war. Only more slowly did it come to light how the atom bombs had also saved the lives of anything up to a million prisoners in camps across south-east Asia, whom the fanatical Japanese commander, Marshal Terauchi, intended to massacre if the allies landed on the...

In China, the anniversary of Japan’s surrender from the Second World War will bring public holidays and a military parade that will shut down the city’s airport, one of the busiest on earth. In North Korea, people will wake up to a new time zone. The 70th anniversary of the end of fighting has prompted an outpouring of global remembrance – but nowhere are the plans more outsized than in Asia.The creation of “Pyongyang Time” by North Korea, which will involve setting back clocks half an hour on Aug. 15, ranks among the most bizarre efforts to rekindle public anger...

Russian legislator Sergei Naryshkin called for an international military tribunal to open an investigation of the United States' bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, calling the bombings "a crime against humanity." While most historians agree that the bombings resulted in fewer Japanese casualties than would have been the case had the country been invaded, Naryshkin contended that "the use of unconventional weapons had unforeseen and irreparable consequences on both Japan and Russia." "Instead of being permitted to sacrifice their lives in suicidal attacks on invading US and Soviet troops, the Japanese people were forced to endure the humiliation of...

The title of this short piece is actually the title of an essay by Paul Fussell, the writer, literary and cultural critic who just passed away at the age of 88. His New York Times obituary notes his “withering scorn for the romanticization of war,” which was due, in part, to his own experience of battle in World War II as an infantryman wounded in southeastern France. His most well-known book is probably The Great War and Modern Memory (about World War I), of which Steven Hayward at Power Line says: Fussell managed the extraordinary feat of weaving together a...

Seventy years ago, the B-29 Enola Gay, piloted by Paul Tibbets, Jr., dropped an atomic bomb, Little Boy, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The blast and ensuing radiation killed an estimated 150,000 people. Though the devastation from the bombing was astounding, it did not bring American’s war with Japan or World War II to an immediate end. Three days later, the United States dropped another atomic bomb, Fat Man, on Nagasaki, and the Empire of Japan’s leaders finally capitulated.

Deuteronomy passages are about to come True, My WORD spoken over you , My blessings to the righteous and pure in Heart, It is the first place I look and where I always start! For your Heart IS your Wellspring so it can not lie to Me, It always reveals the truth of who you are and will be, So let your Yes be Yes and your No remain No. Stand on My WORD and I will never let you go! But waiver in your belief That I AM the One and Only True God?! And you will live in...

Airbus has won a patent for a hypersonic passenger plane, but Concorde’s hydrogen-powered successor is unlikely to leave the drawing board any time soon. The proposed aeroplane would cut the journey time from Paris to Tokyo from 12 to under three hours. The idea, first published in 2011, is to use three different kinds of engine power to jump above the atmosphere while still using regular runways for takeoff. It has now won approval from the US Patent Office. The concept comes as commercial space companies such as Virgin Galactic pursue plans for low-level space flights. Airbus’s proposed plane has...

The history of a 390-year old bonsai tree at the National Arboretum that survived the Hiroshima atomic blast is being honored this week. Thursday marks the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. The Japanese White Pine is in the Arboretum’s National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. The tree was donated in 1976 by bonsai master Masaru Yamaki as part of Japan’s Bicentennial gift to the American people.

On July 16, 1945, the United States Army detonated the world’s first nuclear weapon in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert. The test, code-named “Trinity,” was a success, unleashing an explosion with the energy of about 20 kilotons of TNT and beginning the nuclear age. Since then, nearly 2,000 nuclear tests have been performed. Most of these took place during the 1960s and 1970s. When the technology was new, tests were frequent and often spectacular, and they led to the development of newer, more deadly weapons. Since the 1990s, there have been efforts to limit the testing of nuclear weapons,...

Three years after the Obama administration announced its “pivot to Asia,” American allies in the region are looking somewhat unconvinced. While no one disputes that managing China and its multiple neighborhood conflicts remains on Washington’s radar, this effort is often overshadowed by other priorities. In particular, the Middle East and confrontation with Russia — both historic preoccupations that had been expected to subside — keep on emerging at the top of the agenda. The result is relatively simple. Those countries in Asia most worried by China — Japan, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia and others — are increasingly banding together....

Beware the perils of a ‘Little Britain’ and a ‘Little Japan’ by Yoichi Funabashi Jul 10, 2015 Article history Japan and Britain have responded in completely different ways to the China-led initiative to create the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which the United States has opted not to join. In a rebuff to the U.S., Britain was the first Group of Seven member to announce that it would join the AIIB as a founding member. Out of courtesy, Britain informed the U.S. government of its intention just one day before its official announcement. Some within the U.S. government are still...