Free Republic

Those of us who pay attention to such things will have noticed a difference between the BBC coverage of the Golden Jubilee in 2002 and of the present Diamond Jubilee. Ten years ago, the coverage was adequate, though reluctant and even a little stiff. This time, it has been gushing and completely uncritical. There are various possible reasons for my observation. The first is that I was mistaken then and am mistaken now. I do not think this is the case, but feel obliged to mention it. The second is that Golden Jubilees are rare events, and Diamond Jubilees very...

All hail, or should we say ‘heil,’ the rise of the Golden Dawn fascists in Greece. It’s all the rage (literally) in the streets of Greece these days. They now hold 21 seats in the Greek government – about 7% of the controlling body – and combined with the Communists, that control is closer to 20%. And their influence is not only growing there, but in Europe and the US. The darkness is rising once again and the Golden Dawn is telling those in power they should fear them now and indeed, they should take those threats to heart. Golden...

When it comes to American exceptionalism, Mitt Romney is going all in. His book “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness” is a love song to the idea that this country merits “the protection of Providence” and has a singular “calling” to be a beacon for freedom. A major theme for him on the campaign trail is the nation’s divine destiny, a heritage Romney said has made him “stand a little taller, a little straighter” when overseas. But what Romney doesn’t say is that, for followers of his made-in-America religion, Mormonism, exceptionalism isn’t political metaphor. It’s theology. The faith’s sacred...

During the latter part of the nineteenth century a coalition of moralists and social reformers sincerely thought that giving political power to women would eliminate all traditional social evils. After all, men had always ruled, and women were supposedly inherently more moral and more religious than men. Maybe this would fix everything. Thus the push for women's suffrage. And when it was all over, women were just like the men. I am going to suggest something absolutely outrageous. But it's been knocking around in my mind for a while, and I hope that the example of women's suffrage will show...

And the demonization of Serbs, Israelis, patriotic Americans, and the ongoing attacks against capitalism.The definition of "nationalism"--Webster's New World Dictionary 1982: a) devotion to one's nation; patriotism. b) excessive, narrow, or jingoist patriotism; chauvinism.the doctrine that national interest , security, etc. are more important than international considerations.the desire for or advocacy of national independence.  The definition most Americans would certainly agree with are,- 1. a)-devotion to one's nation; patriotism and all of # 2 & 3. But certainly not 1. b)-excessive, narrow, or jingoist patriotism; chauvinism.jingo- "a person who boasts of his patriotism and favors an aggressive , threatening , warlike foreign policy; chauvinist"-...

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said ahead of a meeting Friday with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that he would warn his Israeli counterpart about the global economic consequences of a military strike on Iran's nuclear program, adding that he still favors sanctions and diplomacy over a strike.

In a clip from his interview with WSJ's Simon Constable, Dr. Nouriel Roubini insists that it was the policies of George W. Bush that caused the current U.S. economic crisis.

Classical political economists like Adam Smith or David Ricardo never used the term “economy” by itself. They always used the term “political economy.” For classical economists, it was impossible to understand politics without economics or economics without politics. The two fields are certainly different but they are also intimately linked. The use of the term “economy” by itself did not begin until the late 19th century. Smith understood that while an efficient market would emerge from individual choices, those choices were framed by the political system in which they were made, just as the political system was shaped by economic...

Resource nationalism is biggest risk to miners: report Sun Aug 7, 2011 2:11pm GMT LONDON (Reuters) - Resource nationalism is the biggest threat facing the mining sector this year and next as governments seek to take advantage of higher commodity prices to try to restore fragile finances, advisory and accountancy firm Ernst & Young (E&Y) said on Sunday. "Because the mining and metals sector rebounded quickly from the global financial crisis, it became an early target to help restore treasury conditions," the firm said. E&Y said it had identified at least 25 countries in 2010/11 that had increased, or announced...

Tell me who you are and I can tell you how you see the past. That vanishing country falling away behind us. Are we on the way up or the way down? Are we better off than we were four years ago, or forty or four hundred? Is this the best of times or the worst of times? The answer lies inside you. It is defined by your values. For some capacitive touchscreens and infinite channels mean a brighter future. For others, the values of home and family, dignity and country, that were lost matter more than the swipe pass...

The final Space Shuttle mission ended last week, amidst calls for Washington to cut spending. The Shuttle program cost over $200bln, not to mention 14 lives, while giving little in return. Clearly a Shuttle launch was a majestic site; no one had ever assembled a machine so complicated that had to perform perfectly. Still, at over $400 million per pop, these are expensive warm-fuzzy moments. The Shuttles’ accomplishments were few. They launched satellites that could have been delivered to orbit cheaper by unmanned rockets. They built a space station that replaced an existing station – both of which served no...

The live leak online manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik

This ia a Movie by Anders Behring Breivik - Knights Templar 2083 The man behind explosion in Oslo who killed 7 people, and about 90 youth people at Utøya island outside Oslo July 22th . Anders Behring Breivik is A 32-year-old Norwegian he has been arrested over two terror attacks in Norway as 92 are confirmed dead . Police have said the Norwegian man arrested after the twin attacks in Norway is a right-winger with anti-Muslim views, but they do not know whether that was a factor in the attacks. His views are very clear from this video of his...

The management theory is not applicable to the oil industry. This business is peculiar. Of course, if one talks about Western oil companies, then here it is alright. Management theorems and models work in them successfully as in any other corporations like General Motors and Microsoft. However what share of oil does western Big Oil produce? The answer is only 10%. It controls still less – about 6% of all world reserves. The rest is controlled by national oil companies. By the way there are not so many of them – usually one for each petrostate. And as you see,...

The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia established the principle that nation states could run their internal affairs as they pleased – it was no longer acceptable for Catholic states to invade Protestant states because they didn’t like their religion (or vice versa). Westphalianism proved a vital organizing principle for the next 300 years, allowing significant periods of peace to appear between all the wars – and thus mankind’s greatest boon, the Industrial Revolution to become established. We now appear to be abandoning that principle – and the economic and political implications of doing so are dire. The Westphalia principle always had...

Almost half the country would back a new right-wing party that vowed to crack down on immigration and Islamic extremists, a shock poll reveals today. They would also restrict the ­building of mosques and order the flag of St George or the Union Jack be flown on all public buildings. The revelations will spark fresh fears of racial tension in Britain amid a new wave of support for extreme right-wing parties like the British National Party and the English Defence League. Findings of the survey, the largest of its kind and involving 5,054 people, are in a major report called...

18 Bishops [13 Catholic] participated in a silent hunger strike on the property of St. Mark-University of Bangalore, among them the Archbishop of Bangalore, Msgr Bernard Moras. At the protest and the hunger strike the Bishops present, the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) and the Christians of Karnatakas have forged a counter-report with the title: "1000 Day Government, 236 Attacks, 1000 traumatized people". The official report of the Somsekhar-Investigative Commission exonerated the radical Hindu organizations Bajrang Dal and Sangh Parivar. The Bishops called a press conference to make note of this, that this exoneration is "politically motivated". At the...

To My Fellow Conservatives: I have been saying for years that immigrants that come to this country should embrace this country instead of coming and sucking the life out of it while never accepting our culture and never truly becoming Americans. My family came here from Italy in the early 1900's. They wanted to be Americans. They wanted to learn the language. They loved America and all she stood for. Today, immigrants come to this country but...

Anything Reps. Ron Paul (R., Tex.) and Barney Frank (D., Mass.) both support should give the rest of us pause. Their proposal to slash defense spending by $1 trillion over a decade — only the most recent joint effort by the new isolationists on the Left and Right to curtail American military strength around the world — is as foolhardy as it is unrealistic. Were such a policy enacted, the nation and the world would be set on a path not toward peace, but toward instability, conflict, and a lessening of freedom in many corners of the world. As the...

Most men can't take 70-80 hours of hard labor at a tough place of work like an elite assembly line of car manufacturing for weeks in a row. I passed the test, at the age of 37, at one of the largest industrial plants in Europe: Volvo Torslanda. I've also worked as a lumberjack here in Sweden, as a cook ("cooks calling themselves chefs usually are be morons" - Mario Batali) and I've also ran businesses of my own - admittedly with little of success. In both America and Europe, there seems to be a major lack of adrenaline and...