Free Republic

Greece’s Supreme Court has published the final list of parties that will compete in June’s European elections with the roster excluding the far-right party Spartiates (the Spartans). The ruling party New Democracy, along with opposition parties PASOK and New Left, filed a memorandum challenging the Spartans’ participation. The far-right group has been under scrutiny as a result of their associations with convicted members of the now-defunct neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, notably Ilias Kasidiaris. The prosecution process has been started against eleven Spartan parliamentary members for potential parliamentary and electoral fraud linked to their leadership roles. The electoral court has not...

The warriors from other Greek city-states were usually farmers first and soldiers second — but Spartans dedicated their lives to battle. Bret Devereaux has a problem with the Spartans. He’s concerned that so much of U.S. culture admires ancient Greece’s most famous bronze-clad warriors. In a Foreign Policy article published this July, he claims ancient Sparta’s military reputation is a myth, and that the city-state was a “proto-fascist” entity “unworthy of emulation.” The article completely ignores Sparta’s well-merited, legendary military reputation and falsely tars Sparta as “fascist.” This characterization is not only vague but also self-defeating. One of the...

Sparta is a warrior society in ancient Greece known for its harsh military training. Classicist Dr. Michael Scott travels across Greece to experience Spartan food and clothes to discover the best warriors' secrets to fitness. Video at the site.

My take: Well, of course, for any number of modern troops, armed with whatever modern weapons you want to arm them with, there is a theoretical huge number of primitive sword swingers who could overwhelm them in a battle. So what? Fun though.

ORLANDO, Florida — They say elephants never forget. Well, neither does Nick Saban. In No. 9 Alabama's 35-16 Citrus Bowl win over No. 17 Michigan, Saban's Crimson Tide scored a touchdown in the game's final minute. At the time, the Crimson Tide commanded a 12-point lead. Football fans were quick to debate whether or not Saban ran the score up on purpose, digging up an old rivalry between the five-time national champion and Harbaugh.

LINCOLN — Finally. It was Nebraska's turn for some late-game heroics. The Huskers stunned undefeated Michigan State and snapped the Spartans' 12-game winning streak Saturday night with an improbable game-winning drive — covering 91 yards in 38 seconds — to earn a 39-38 victory. NU got the ball back without any timeouts trailing by five. And quarterback Tommy Armstrong went to work. He found Jordan Westerkamp for gains of 28 and 33 yards on back-to-back plays.

Michigan State University (MSU) officials will investigate anti-Republican comments award-winning professor William Penn was secretly recorded making to his literature class on Thursday, a school spokesman told Campus Reform Tuesday evening. “At MSU it is important the classroom environment is conducive to a free exchange of ideas and is respectful of the opinions of others,” Kent Cassella,an MSU spokesman wrote. “MSU is thankful we’ve been made aware of the situation,” he said, referring the secret video recording which was viewed by hundreds of individuals on Tuesday. “We will be looking into it,” he added.

A new video uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday shows a professor at a public university slamming Republicans as old, white individuals who want to keep black people from voting. The eight minute video, released by college news outlet Campus Reform, reveals Michigan State University Professor of Creative Writing William Penn opening the first day of class with an anti-Republican rant. “If you go to the Republican convention in Florida, you see all of the old Republicans with the dead skin cells washing off them,” said Penn. “They are cheap. They don’t want to pay taxes because they have already raped...

Transcript via The Right Scoop: But when you understood what made the Spartan men strong, it was the Spartan women. Because the Spartan women at the age of nine gave up their male sons. And their male sons went into a training that was called the Agoge and they stayed in that training for the next eleven to twelve years. And when they were finally qualified, when they were finally ready to join the ranks for the Spartan army, it was not their father who gave them their cloak and shield. It was their mother who gave them their shield....

Spartans, UNC to play on an aircraft carrierBy Reporter, Deseret News Published: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 12:11 a.m. MDT SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Sports Commission has confirmed that Michigan State and North Carolina will play in the Carrier Classic on Veterans Day, the first NCAA basketball game to be played aboard an aircraft carrier. The commission, working with Morale Entertainment Foundation, says it has received written commitments from the two schools and that approval from the U.S. Navy is expected soon. Organizers haven't announced which aircraft carrier will host the Nov. 11 game.

Engine will likely offer in excess of 100 mpgAn artist's render shows the overall design of the Wave Disc Generator (Source: MSU/Norbert Mueller)Michigan State University (MSU) mechanical engineering associate professor Norbert Mueller [profile] has invented an engine quite unlike those that the world is familiar with today.  It has no transmission.  It ditches the piston, valves, and crankshaft.  It doesn't need to use cooling liquids. Meet the Wave Disc Generator [video], the engine that could be the death of traditional gas and diesel internal combustion engines (ICEs). When people claim to have a novel alternative to the ICE, they're typically peddling...

The original makers of Côtes-du-Rhône are said to have descended from Greek explorers who settled in southern France about 2500 years ago... The study, by Prof Paul Cartledge, suggested the world's biggest wine industry might never have developed had it not been for a "band of pioneering Greek explorers" who settled in southern France around 600 BC. His study appears to dispel the theory that it was the Romans who were responsible for bringing viticulture to France. The study found that the Greeks founded Massalia, now known as Marseilles, which they then turned into a bustling trading site, where local...

(2) Michigan State 82, (1) Connecticut 73 Associated Press DETROIT -- Raymar Morgan grinned and lifted his right arm high in the air, saluting a stadium filled with Michigan State fans with a little wave. The Spartans promised their downtrodden state something good, and boy, did they deliver. Morgan broke out of his late-season slump with 18 points, Kalin Lucas added 21 and the smaller Spartans ran roughshod over Hasheem Thabeet and Connecticut in an 82-73 upset in the Final Four on Saturday night. The Spartans will play the winner of Villanova-North Carolina for the NCAA title Monday night, a...

Spartans did not throw deformed babies away: researchers Mon Dec 10, 1:22 PM ETAFP/File Photo: The statue of King Leonidas of ancient Sparta stands over the battlefield of Thermopylae, some... ATHENS (AFP) - The Greek myth that ancient Spartans threw their stunted and sickly newborns off a cliff was not corroborated by archaeological digs in the area, researchers said Monday. After more than five years of analysis of human remains culled from the pit, also called an apothetes, researchers found only the remains of adolescents and adults between the ages of 18 and 35, Athens Faculty of Medicine Anthropologist Theodoros...

BAGHDAD, Nov. 13, 2007 – When what was supposed to be simply a short meeting turned into a grand tour of the National Museum of Iraq, some 1st Cavalry Division soldiers got to see a part of early civilization that was beyond their imagination -- in some cases, artifacts that dated back to more than 5,000 years ago. National Museum of Iraq director Dr. Amir gives Army Lt. Col. Kenneth Crawford, commander of 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, and the U.S. State Department culture heritage liaison officer, Diane Siebrandt, a tour of...

I. Presidential aspirant Mike Gravel recently opined on the advantages of having gays in the military: “...the Spartans trained their people to be homosexuals because they were better fighters.” Not quite. I think the popular myth that has fooled Gravel has arisen lately because of the movie 300 — and the natural confusion between the Spartan 300 who died holding the pass at Thermopylai (480 BC) and the 300 of the Theban Sacred Band (378-338 BC). The Spartans did not instruct their youth to be homosexuals (no word really exists in the Greek vocabulary for our notion of homosexual). Xenophon...

`Glory of Persepolis' goes on screen in response to insulting movie `300'Tehran, May 1, IRNA Iran-Movie-Persepolis A number of experts and critics attending the screening and analysis session of the documentary dubbed `Glory of Persepolis' said that it reflects the dignity of Iranians and Persepolis, adding that it is a proper response to the insulting Hollywood movie `300'. The screening of a new series of films started at Nour film house of Imam Ali (AS) Religious Arts Museum on Monday afternoon and `Glory of Persepolis' was the first film that was screened and analyzed. The session was attended by the...

Paris, March 17, IRNA Paris-UNESCO-Movie `300' Iran's representative to the Paris-based UNESCO, Mohammad-Reza Dehshiri, in a letter to UNESCO director general criticized screening of Warner Brothers anti-Iran movie `300' and called for its severe reaction and condemnation of such an insult. In his letter, Dehshiri protested over the inciting nature of the movie, deliberately insulting the Iranian nation, as the founder of dialogue among cultures and civilizations. Meanwhile, he underlined UNESCO's responsibility towards this sensitive issue, given the need for promotion of international peace and solidarity based on the introduction to the UNESCO Charter, calling for a proper reaction to...

I was fortunate that nearly all of my commanders had it when I was in the Marines. In fact, I would argue the Marine Corps breeds it. Though he served before my time, my friend U.S. Marine Col. John W. Ripley — who received the Navy Cross for single-handedly blunting the North Vietnamese Army’s Easter Offensive in 1972 when he blew up the Dong Ha Bridge — certainly had it. Marine Maj. Douglas A. Zembiec, who was killed in Iraq (and has since been compared to a leader of Spartans), also had it.

Spartans Overwhelmed at Thermopylae, Again March 22, 2007 by Eugene Borza A technically exciting videogame of a film, 300 loses touch with a critical and moving event in Greek history. Herodotus, the ?Father of History,? told many good stories, but there are few tales in his repertoire that surpass his narrative of the last-ditch stand of the Greeks against numerically superior forces at the pass of Thermopylae in August, 480 B.C. A huge military force led by Xerxes, the Persian King of Kings, crossed the Hellespont from Asia into Europe, intent on the subjugation of Greece. Whether Xerxes intended this...