Free Republic

If the United States wants to avoid falling like the Roman Empire, it must avoid “overconsumption” and distribute resources equally, according to a study funded by NASA. “The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent,” reads the NASA-funded report published in the Ecological Economics journal. “Two important features seem to appear across societies that have collapsed,” the study adds. “The stretching of resources...

The spitfire showdown between Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa last week underscored two prevalent themes woven through U.S. sociological fabric. First, black men and white men remain polarized, perhaps more than ever. Secondly, black men still feel a need to scream to be heard, and not just because the white guy controlling the panel’s microphone silenced his feed. This United States ship lists in troubled waters. Our most recent disengagement reverts to a national election that raised Barack Hussein Obama into the White House in spite of his inability to gain major support from...

4. Make Everything Owned by EverybodyHoarders blow. Take, for instance, the infamous one percent, whose ownership of the capital stock of this country leads to such horrific inequality. "Capital stock" refers to two things here: the buildings and equipment that workers use to produce goods and services, and the stocks and bonds that represent ownership over the former. The top 10 percent's ownership of the means of production is represented by the fact that they control 80 percent of all financial assets. This detachment means that there's a way easier way to collectivize wealth ownership than having to stage uprisings...

I have believed for some time that the left is intellectually bankrupt. I can’t think of a single new idea from the left of the political spectrum since the end of the Vietnam War. The left has no idea what to do about our failing public schools. It has no solution to the problem of entitlement spending. It has no earthly idea what to do about all the problems in our health care system. There is no coherent proposal on the left to reform the tax system. I think it is no exaggeration to say that the left has no...

Vatican newspaper compares marriage equality to communism Vatican City • Faced with recent setbacks in the United States and Europe, the Roman Catholic Church has intensified its increasingly uphill battle against gay marriage. The latest salvo came this week, with a front-page article in the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. Historian Lucetta Scaraffia compared proponents of gay marriage, with their championing of “marriage equality,” to 20th-century communists who wooed millions with their promise of perfect social and economical equality. Scaraffia, a 64-year-old former feminist activist who later became a fervent Catholic, has often written in the Vatican newspaper on the...

Kenyan mother names twins Barack Obama and Mitt Romney - Millicent Owuor, 20, shows off her newborn twins named after U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and GOP challenger A young Kenyan mother has named her newborn twin sons after the U.S. president-elect and his defeated Republican challenger. Millicent Owuor, 20, gave birth to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on Wednesday at the Siaya District Hospital in southwest Kenya, according to the Standard. Owuor told the Kenyan news outlet her sons' names will always remind her of the election in the United States. The hospital is near the village of Kogelo,...

(Reuters) - Plans to save Big Bird, the fuzzy yellow character on U.S. public television's "Sesame Street," from possible extinction are taking shape in the form of a puppet-based protest next month dubbed the "Million Muppet March." The demonstration is planned for November 3 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., three days before the general election. Before the presidential debate between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney had concluded on October 3, two men who had never met each floated the Million Muppet March idea on social media. They immediately united to defend public broadcasting. Romney...

Now it's getting REALLY dirty: "Outrageous" film claiming Obama's mother once posed for pornographic pictures is sent to a MILLION swing voters - The film claims that Mr Obama's real father is left wing poet and Communist party activist, Frank Marshall Davis - 100,000 copies of the DVD, containing extraordinary claims, have already been mailed to voters in Ohio with up to three million more planned to go out - As Mitt Romney lags in the polls the material could be potentially damaging for the Obama campaign - It has already won the support of Alabama's Republican Party chairman Bill...

Wall Street is today braced for its first major demonstration in a year, as hundreds of people are expected to take to the streets to mark the first anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. A series of "sit-ins" are planned throughout New York's financial district from about 7:30am, according to the organisers' website. The New York Stock Exchange, the headquarters of bailed-out insurer AIG and the New York Federal Reserve are expected to be among the targets. Monday's action follows a series of largely peaceful marches over the weekend in New York, where more than 200 people descended on...

I suppose it can said of a Virginia elementary school teacher who allegedly told her students “Republicans are stupid” that she at least spoke her mind. Her actions are more defensible than those of a fellow Old Dominion State colleague who deviously tasked her students with finding flaws in the GOP presidential candidates but not in the lone Democratic candidate. The Daily Caller reports that “as Republican voters were filing into the halls of [Colin] Powell Elementary School in Fairfax County to vote on Super Tuesday,” teacher Kristin Martin told her sixth-grade class that “Republicans are stupid” and “they don’t...

Unfortunately for traditional America – the one that values independence, free market capitalism and limited government – too many aging radicals from the 1960s and ‘70s have found their way into government school classrooms. Some, like Bill Ayers, found a home in the hallowed halls of higher academia. Today he collects a pension from the very government he vowed to destroy just a few short decades ago. Others, like Robert Roth, set their sights on K-12 education. As these former Abbie Hoffman wannabes matured a bit, they realized they had to – in the words of modern-day radical Van Jones...

This writer does not question that the late, great Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was deservedly one of the most monumental and pivotal figures of the 20th century. King's inspirational leadership, oratory, and profession of non-violence may have very well saved this nation from a race war. I am grateful that the Rev. Dr. King emerged as the most visible and influential leader of the civil rights movement as opposed to an advocate of violence such as Malcolm X or a radical communist. No, the Rev. Dr. King was not a communist, however, he did business with communists and...

Fox Business News Calls Muppets Communist; Debate Goes Viral A segment on the network was highlighted by Media Matters, reigniting a conversation about whether or not there are political messages in children's movies. If you Googled news about “Muppets” on Monday you were treated to hundreds of news stories and blog items debating whether Disney’s lovable creatures were Communists or not. You can thank Fox Business News and Media Matters for that. Eric Bolling of Follow the Money set the stage on Friday when he hosted a 7-minute segment that argued that The Muppets film – featuring bad-guy oilman Tex...

Joseph Wambaugh solves the great UC Davis pepper-spraying incident Forget hiring Bill Bratton. You can learn all you need to know by reading the papers. In light of the terrible financial crisis at our California universities, I feel the need to rescue UC Davis, whose administrators are, according to The Times, negotiating a price with the Kroll security firm in New York for none other than former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton to fly West and tell us what went wrong on the day that students were pepper sprayed. I can save the university a hefty Kroll consulting fee by suggesting...

How To Identify A Zombie (Updated) How to Tell the Difference Between Zombies and #Occupy Protesters. Hope it helps.

Where Turkey Is The Guest, Not The Entree (Isabella Colbdorf feeds salad to a turkey at this year's Feeding of the Turkeys ceremony in Watkins Glen, in upstate New York, on Nov. 20, 2011.) Most people think of turkeys as the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal. But at one farm, the turkeys are the guests. At the 26th annual Feeding of the Turkeys ceremony in Watkins Glen, in upstate New York, a line of turkeys come walking out the door of the barn. They stroll towards long low tables set up on the lawn, with scarlet tablecloths and seasonal squash...

Man throws aluminum water bottle at UC Berkeley student’s face A man threw an aluminum water bottle at a UC Berkeley student Thursday evening on campus, causing minor injuries to the victim’s face. At about 5:09 p.m., the female student was approached by a man at “the northeast exterior of the Haas Pavilion,” according to a UCPD crime alert. The man asked the student if she was going to the protest on Sproul Plaza, and when the victim answered “no,” the suspect yelled at her. “People like you are the reason that California is in debt,” he said, according to...

Frank Miller Doesn't Think Much of Occupy Wall Street Frank Miller, the legenday comic artist behind Sin City, 300, and The Dark Knight Returns unloaded on the Wall Street protesters in a recent blog post, and plenty of his fans are firing back. First, the blog post. In a long statement posted on his website, titled "Anarchy," Miller says he has decided to say what others are "too damn polite" to say: The “Occupy” movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of...

The most persuasive argument for legalizing pot might just be a dollar sign. California's pot crop is worth $14 billion, according to a state report. The Press Democrat points out that crushes the wine crop which comes in at $2 billion. Legalization would be a huge shot in the arm for plenty of ancillary industries, such as banking and construction.

I'm still in shock from reading this news on Stereogum about primitivist drummer and doll-voiced Velvet, Moe Tucker being a Tea Party fanatic. Say it ain't so Moe. It's like finding out that Henry Rollins has just been wearing a fake muscle suit all these years and he's really a skinny, mild-mannered pushover. Moe's strayed a long way off from being in a band at center of 1960's and 70's American counter culture. She's best known for her unrelenting, tribal drumming style of the time -- opting to take her bass drum, turn it upright and pound away on it...