Free Republic

A century and a half after the opening shots of the U.S. Civil War, nearly four in 10 Southerners say they still sympathize with the Confederacy.

Obama's social experiment would have devastating effects on the finest military force the world has ever known. At issue is a pending vote in the Senate on repealing Section 654 of Title X of the U.S. Code. This law, on the books since 1993, states: "The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability." The authors acknowledge that 67 percent of all Marines, more than...

With its ruthless dictator, network of forced labour camps and iron grip of its ruling party, North Korea is the last country one might expect to see a middle-aged woman berating a policeman for demanding a bribe. But extraordinary video images smuggled out of North Korea, combined with reports of graffiti and posters critical of the regime, indicate a growing willingness among a previously cowed public to speak out and demand change. Such dissent would once have been unthinkable in the reclusive state, but now hunger and plummeting living standards are now triggering demands for freedom - something that no...

Wherever there is a tyrannical government in trouble, you’ll find Jimmy Carter there to defend them. Case in point, his op-ed on behalf of North Korea, published Wednesday in the Post. It begins: No one can completely understand the motivations of the North Koreans, but it is entirely possible that their recent revelation of their uranium enrichment centrifuges and Pyongyang’s shelling of a South Korean island Tuesday are designed to remind the world that they deserve respect in negotiations that will shape their future. Every word of this paragraph is false, willfully ignorant or humiliatingly stupid. Take your pick. For...

A frustrated North Korea is lashing out again, this time with a deadly volley of artillery aimed at reminding rival South Korea — and the world — that it will not be ignored. The barrage of shots fired Tuesday at a South Korean island lying within sight of its shores did not come out of nowhere. For weeks, North Korea has been angling for credit for reaching out to the U.S. and South Korea, and has warned that the cool response would come at a cost. The destruction that set homes ablaze, sent civilians fleeing for underground shelters and killed...

The Leftwing extremist group called 'The Southern Poverty Law Center' of Montgomery, Alabama has with one stroke of the pen smeared conservatives and Patriots in its new, infamous 'blacklist' it entitles, 'Meet the Patriots.' Among those it includes in the blacklist are some of the most reputable conservative Patriots in America today, such as U.S. Representative Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), federal judge and Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, U.S. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), Gun Owners of America (GOA) chief Larry Pratt, Fox News personality Glenn Beck, and U.S. Representative Paul Broun (R-GA), among others.

What chance do you think this would have of becoming the Republican ticket? Would you vote for it?

The American flag, which Robert E. Lee had defended as a soldier, flew at half mast in Lexington, Virginia.

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.