Free Republic

Seoul, South Korea - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il may have traveled to China in what would be his second visit to the country this year. The Yonhap news agency cites a high-ranking Seoul official as saying there are signs Kim went to China early Thursday. YTN television in Seoul is also reporting a possible Kim trip to China. A National Intelligence Service spokesman tells the AP the reports "appear to be true" but gave no further details. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy. China's Foreign Ministry did not comment.

I usually post this to the Science forum, but I brainlocked and didn't. So I'm reposting the link to the thread in the Science forum. Geology Picture of the Week, August 6, 2010: Four from the Faroes At least I didn't forget to ping the ping list.

A high school student from California is dead after falling 30 metres from a viewing platform into a rocky canyon at the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. The teenage boy reportedly fell from a viewing platform on the west side of the canyon at around 7 p.m. Sunday. Rescue crews were able to reach the boy quickly, but he was not alive by the time they arrived, according to RCMP Inspector Davis Wendell. "Emergency responders attended the scene and undertook a very difficult high-angle rescue attempt. Unfortunately the male in question had fallen to his death," said Wendell. It...

South Korea deploys troops in border zone to ‘punish’ North Friday, May 28, 2010 By Iftikhar Gilani PANMUNJEOM: An eerie tension is building up on the border between South and North Koreas as the South is amassing troops to take punitive action against the communist North. The tension is also threatening future of Kaeseong, a joint industrial zone, which has often been touted as a model for Pakistan and India to build cooperative relationship along the Line of Control (LoC). The tension runs high after a North Korean submarine torpedoed a 1,200-tonne South Korean ship, killing over 50 sailors. It...

What Richard Blumenthal has been doing through much of his public career is to walk on the backs of those who really did serve in Vietnam – and falsely build affinity with those who serve today. A hero is a person who puts him or herself at risk for the benefit of others. That certainly characterizes anyone who donned a uniform and went to war, voluntarily put themselves in harm’s way in our armed forces and those who serve or served far from home in difficult or dangerous circumstances. That’s an apt description of those with whom I served in...

A New Jersey judge-cum-filmmaker has chosen to step down from the bench rather than abide by a dictum from state judicial authorities that he not publicize his satirical movie painting President Obama as a modern-day Faust. Kenneth Del Vecchio quit his North Arlington municipal court judgeship on May 3, the day the New Jersey Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on Extrajudicial Affairs directed that he should not be interviewed or participate in any press or publicity that may accompany the film, "O.B.A.M. Nude," which was to be released the next day. It was a letdown for Del Vecchio, who has been...

At a United Nations nuclear nonproliferation conference this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid out our nuclear cards, expecting Iran and North Korea to have a “come to Jesus” moment and start playing nice. In reality, this naive and delusional approach to dealing with members of the Axis of Evil simply reaffirms North Korea and Iran’s target concerning the number of nuclear warheads they need to cause political, economic and cultural instability throughout the world.

Claudia Rosett has a must read description of North Korean logging camps in the Russian wilderness: In 1994 I was working as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Moscow when a story turned up in the Russian press, saying that North Korea was running lumber camps in remote areas of Russia. In Moscow, Russian officials confirmed to me that they had two big logging operations manned and policed by North Koreans. Both were in the Russian Far East, in areas once part of Stalin’s old gulag. One was based in a place called Tynda. The other was headquartered...

South Korea's Foreign Minister, Yu Myung-hwan, confirmed on Wednesday that North Korea actually initiated its secret nuclear weapons program as early as 1994. This would mean it began violating its agreement just after Democrats started appeasing the regime with food, oil, money and nuclear technology...

BISMARCK, N.D.—North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said he expects the state to file a lawsuit against Minnesota over its plan to tax carbon dioxide created by electrical generation. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission wants to add a fee of $4 to $34 per ton of carbon dioxide to the cost of electrical generation starting in 2012. The majority of electricity in North Dakota is generated by coal-fired power plants, which emit carbon dioxide. North Dakota officials consider it an unfair tax on electricity produced in the state and say it would discourage its use by Minnesota utilities.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 2 minutes and 44 seconds. Pretitle Sequence “This Never Happened to the other Fellar” Maurice Binder’s Title Sequence The Real James Bond, George Lazenby (Born 09-05-1939) Diana Rigg (born 07-30-1938) as the Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo Telly Savalas (01-21-1922 – 01-22-1994) as Ernst Starvo Blofeld Rest of the Cast Gabriele Ferzetti as Marc-Ange Draco - Head of the Union Corse, a major crime syndicate and Tracy's father Ilse Steppat as Irma Bunt - Blofeld's henchwoman who takes part in his quest to try and eliminate Bond. Bernard Lee as M - Head of...

North quotes one brave Marine: "That's what we do, we're Americans!" A must see video clip from Ollie North.

Oliver L. North, host of FOX News Channel’s documentary series "War Stories," is temporarily off the air while he undergoes treatment for prostate cancer, POLITICO has learned. North’s prognosis is excellent, according to sources. North, the Iran-contra figure, became a popular conservative radio host and U.S. Senate candidate in Virginia in 1994. “War Stories” bills itself as profiling “the wars and warriors that shaped American military history.” When he visits military bases, soldiers and Marines scramble for the autograph of the man they call “Colonel North” but who introduces himself with a breezy, “Ollie North.” From North’s biography on FoxNews.com:...

What I think about secession basically is that it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, but a dangerous pursuit to advocate publicly. Janet Napolitano and the alphabet soup guys do not take kindly to the notion of freedom in any way, and for the precise reason that Abraham Lincoln did not. When asked why he didn’t just let the South go, Lincoln exploded in a rage, “Let the South go? LET THE SOUTH GO? How, then, should I fill my coffers?” Documented historical fact. Look it up for yourselves. Winners write history and the North/Leftists have had nearly 160...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Starry-eyed children writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole this holiday season likely won't get a response from Santa Claus or his helpers. The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks. Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender.

Lt. Gen. Gary North was to assume command Wednesday of Pacific Air Forces at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. Before the ceremony, he was to be promoted to the rank of general, according to a news release. North succeeds Gen. Howie Chandler, who took command in November 2007. Chandler is heading to the Pentagon to be the vice chief of staff of the Air Force. North commanded the 9th Air Force and U.S. Air Forces Central, at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C. There, he ran air campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the release said.

PHUKET, Thailand | So much for diplomacy with North Korea. The Pyongyang government and the Obama administration's chief diplomat Thursday escalated a war of words, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton telling Pyongyang it has "no friends" and North Korea calling her "vulgar" and criticizing her appearance. Representatives of both nations were at an annual Asian security summit that the countries have used in the past to engineer high-level encounters. This year, the two traded insults and even found themselves competing for the same stage to address the media. The back-and-forth further diminished hopes that the Obama administration will...

BOGOTA — He calls himself "Cesar," but his real name is Gerardo Aguilar Ramirez. As "comandante" of the 1st Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — and one of the top 10 leaders of the hyper-violent FARC — he has well-earned credentials as a drug-dealing terrorist with a penchant for trading in hostages. This Thursday, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents put Ramirez, aka Cesar, in shackles, marched him aboard an aircraft here in Bogota, and took him to the U.S. to stand trial for his crimes. Our Fox News' "War Stories" team was here to record the event...

Community Standards Your problem is a theological one. But you did address a real problem. The problem you addressed is the problem you would not admit. The problem is that the American community agrees with the Supreme Court of the United States. The general American public agrees that abortion should be legal. Maybe it does not agree that the third-trimester abortions should be legal, but it is not going to throw out of office the civil magistrates who enforce the Supreme Court's ruling. In fact, the Supreme Court has authorized third-trimester abortion and any other kind of abortion, but the...

Our Goal and Solution:We are seeking a long-term and sustainable peace with North Korea. We can't be afraid of them just because they have nuclear weapons, and we should make that point clear. But we should offer them our markets to compete in. The Situation:There are supposedly two more missiles in the works one from each coast with a 4000 mile range. Seattle is 4,700 miles away, which makes it not far-fetched to consider North Korea a nuclear threat. Let’s look at the blast that they set off last week. Some called it a fizzle, but the blast itself was...