Free Republic

A senior German official said Wednesday that the government has approved the subsidized sale of another Dolphin-type military submarine to Israel. The official said Germany has set aside €135 million ($180 million) in next year's budget to pay for about a third of its cost. Dolphin-class submarines are capable of carrying nuclear-tipped missiles, but there is no evidence that Israel has armed them with such weapons. Israel already has three Dolphin submarines from Germany — one half-funded and two entirely funded by Berlin, a staunch Israeli ally.

A suspected looter in this week’s riots and his mother are being thrown out of their council home. In the first case of its kind, Daniel Sartain-Clarke, 18, and his mother have been served with an eviction notice as council bosses seek to turf them out of their £225,000 taxpayer-subsidised flat. Sartain-Clarke is charged with violent disorder and attempting to steal electronic goods from the Currys store at Clapham Junction, South London, on Monday night.

...The government’s mandate of ethanol usage distorts energy markets and raises prices for consumers. In order to fully repeal the government’s unfair, anti-free market support of ethanol, all three policies must be eliminated—the mandate, the tax credit, and the tariff. Only the combination of the Coburn and DeMint amendments completely kills the government’s support of the ethanol regime. The DeMint amendment which abolishes the death tax insures that repealing the ethanol tax credit is done in a way that prevents additional money from flowing to the appropriations committees. ATR has always opposed all forms of government support of ethanol. Our...

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -In another sign of the desperation European finance ministers are dealing with headed into 2011, Spain has taken a step that many solar industry watchers thought was unthinkable: retroactively lowering feed-in tariff rates.Ever since the problems across the Euro zone became evident in 2010, Spanish politicians have raised the issue of retroactively lowering solar subsidies. Some argued that the move would be illegal, others that it simply wasn't possible in any rational decision-making process that took into account the fact that Spain approved the FIT structure years ago, and solar project economics were developed based on specific...

...Expect quite vociferous and rightly justifiable anger to soon arise from the livestock and poultry sectors aimed squarely at the idiotic ethanol boondoggle which has helped drive the price of a bushel of corn to a 2 year high with soybeans and wheat riding right alongside of the price spike. Some of this is demand based on increasing world populations plus reduced yields from this year’s crop but way too large a portion of the corn crop is being devoted to government subsidized ethanol production. We are fools burning our food in our damn gas tanks to salvage some guilt-ridden...

Despite the massive repayments of TARP money coming from our biggest banks, the financial system is still very much dependent on the rescue operations of the government. Perhaps the best illustration of this is the massive balance sheet of the Federal Reserve, which has inflated by purchases of $1.058 Trillion of mortgage backed securities. The Atlanta Fed's most recent financial highlights point out that in the last two months, the average weekly amount of MBS purchased has averaged $17 billion. That's a significant slowdown from a prior average of $23.4 billion per week. And last week the Fed purchased only...

CHEYENNE — A Wyoming legislative committee on Wednesday voted against sponsoring two bills to tax wind energy development. Industry representatives and lobbyists warned members of the Joint Revenue Committee at a meeting at the state Capitol that the proposals to tax wind power would increase costs for Wyoming households and hurt the state’s fledgling wind industry. “You need to not cobble together all these tax notions into one bill,” said Larry Wolfe, a lawyer representing Duke Energy, a major wind power developer.

I learned a lot about the cost of health care when I had a hybrid general surgery practice in California 's rural San Joaquin Valley. My practice consisted of uninsured women with breast cancer combined with a smaller percentage of cosmetic patients whose cash payments for "vanity care" subsidized the treatment of women unable to pay for needed medical treatment. Although patients seeking cosmetic services tend to be healthy, I evaluated them like any other patient. I asked about medical history, allergies, medications and genetic disorders. Upon questioning Sherry S., a pretty 46-year-old seeking wrinkle relief, I learned that four...

Russia to help Cuba build space center Author: Conor Sweeney, Reuters News 09/17/2008 MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow is ready to help Cuba develop its own space center, Russia's space agency chief said on Wednesday after talks in Caracas with Venezuelan and Cuban officials, Itar-Tass news agency reported. Russia has stepped up efforts to develop closer links with both countries, which are ideological enemies of Washington, including sending Russian strategic bombers on a mission to Venezuela this month. "We have held preliminary discussions about the possibility of creating a space center in Cuba with our help," the chief of Russia's Federal...

On his way out the door, Kofi Annan has signed new rules meant to curb corruption in UN procurement activities, which since the Feds began investigating last year have been sprouting indictments and guilty pleas pertaining to the abuse of enormous amounts of taxpayer money on Kofi’s watch. It’s thoughtful of Kofi to bequeath brand new rules to his successor, Ban Ki-moon, who takes charge Jan. 1. But this leaves the question of why Kofi, who worked in the UN system for more than four decades, and spent much of that time deep in the nitty-gritty of UN personnel and...

As Secretary-General Annan prepares to leave his post at the United Nations, a mystery is surfacing surrounding his apartment on Roosevelt Island, subsidized by New York taxpayers, which is still in use by the family of his brother, Kobina Annan. The apartment was where Mr. Annan and his wife lived before 1997, when he became secretary-general. The Roosevelt Island home is part of an estate of low-rent state-regulated housing. For years, the Annans saved considerable sums by occupying an apartment meant to help financially strapped low- to moderate-income New York families. One question Mr. Annan has never addressed is why...

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A month ago, the world's largest passenger plane, described by one over-excited spotter as "bloody enormous", made a triumphant debut at London's Heathrow. Now, in two days, the double-decker A380, which can carry 840 passengers, has fallen to earth. EADS, majority owner of the superjumbo's maker, Airbus, lost €5bn (£3.4bn) or a quarter of its market value this week.

Games and circuses once were provided by government. How better to satiate the desire of the Roman masses than to entertain them in the Arena? Today, governments build stadiums to attract sports franchises for the same purpose. But the American masses seem to be tiring of transferring billions of dollars to billionaire team owners. New York City is beset with wealthy supplicants: Major League Baseball's Yankees and Mets, and the National Football League's Jets all want new stadiums. So do the NFL San Diego. The MLB St. Louis Cardinals did too, before the legislature rejected most of their requested public...

One would think that "standing up for a stronger, more secure nation" would also include protecting our borders against the massive onslaught of illegal aliens and tons of illegal drugs entering with near impunity. Unfortunately, that is not the case at all. The federal government talks of terrorism. Well, when American citizens are not able to walk the streets of major cities because gangs of illegal aliens, not police, control those streets, we class that as terrorism. That came about, of course, because of the negligence of the central government. Our country's borders have major holes through which thousands of...

The Washington Times published a very interesting three-part series on illegal immigration.(1) This series should be required reading for those in many states who wonder why their local taxes are so high. According to The Times, there are an estimated 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens living and working in the United States. Worse yet, they have little or no real fear of ever being detained or deported. Because, the federal government only has a total of 2,300 federal agents assigned to apprehend them. As reported, if the current roster of 2,300 agents dedicated to pursuing illegal aliens now...

BLAGNAC, France - European aircraft maker Airbus SAS on Friday launched production of its A380 "superjumbo," the biggest ever commercial airliner, stepping up its challenge to U.S. rival Boeing Co. which has staked its future on a new mid-sized jet. During a ceremony attended by French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Airbus unveiled the first fuselage at its new $435 million assembly plant near the southern city of Toulouse. The 545-acre site will receive sections of the plane built by Airbus workers in France, Germany, Britain and Spain and transported to Toulouse on specially constructed ships, river barges and trucks. The...

The most interesting news of the day is rarely in the A-section; it’s buried in the back pages of the Wall Street Journal, where you get a glimpse into some small aspect of the future that will die or flourish in months to come. My favorite article today concerned the French computer game industry, and yes there is such a thing. Turns out that it’s in the pissoir for all the usual reasons - the companies can’t fire anyone when business heads sud, the taxes are onerous, and, uh, the games suq. But the French PM believes that the industry...