Free Republic

China’s military planners covet the ability to prevent U.S. and allied forces from intervening effectively in the event of a future Taiwan Strait crisis and to constrain the latter’s influence on China’s maritime periphery, which contains several disputed zones of core strategic importance to Beijing. In order to achieve the aforementioned goals, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been pursuing a two-level approach to military modernization, with consistent focus on increasingly formidable high-end ‘anti-access/area denial’ (A2/AD) capabilities to support major combat operations in China’s ‘Near Seas’ (Yellow, East, and South) and their approaches, and relatively low-intensity but gradually growing capabilities...

A series of expensive contracts approved by the federal government following the gulf oil spill were brought to light by the Associated Press. But are those contracts cause for concern?........ ...One of the biggest expenses outlined in the AP report is an environmental group being awarded a hefty $216,625 no-bid contract for a survey of seabirds. That group has been critical of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a political opponent of the President. "Getting almost a quarter million dollars it makes it look a little fishy," said Young

Complete Title: Retired JAG Officer Says Judge’s Ruling Against Discovery for Lakin Could Derail Case Based on Legal Precedent ### A retired JAG officer with over 23 years of experience, says the military judge who ruled against discovery for a Greeley Army officer may have derailed the government’s case based on precedent from another high profile case involving a military officer. Lt. Col John Eidsmoe, a retired Air Force officer who works for former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore at the Foundation for Moral Law, said Lakin is “raising legitimate constitutional questions” regarding President Obama’s eligibility to be commander-in-chief. Eidsmoe...

C-SPAN will provide live national coverage of the Republican Party of Iowa’s Reagan Dinner Sept. 17 at Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines, Chairman Matt Strawn said. C-SPAN’s live coverage on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Radio and www.C-SPAN.org will begin at approximately 7 p.m. Sarah Pailin will be the featured speaker. Tickets to the Reagan Dinner can be reserved online at www.iowagop.org/palin. The cost is $100 per ticket, or $1,000 for a table of 10.

Schools are wrongly labelling almost 750,000 children as having special needs to disguise poor teaching, according to Ofsted. In a damning report, inspectors said as many as half of children with certain categories of behavioural and learning problems were actually “no different” to other pupils. It was claimed that many of those with special needs were simply “underachieving” because teaching standards were not good enough and expectations of pupils were “too low”. The study suggested that state schools were being encouraged to over-identify pupils to attract more funding from local councils and boost their positions in league tables that give...

GOP challenger hoping Tea Party darling will counter presidential trump card played by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid The campaign of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle is preparing to announce an endorsement from conservative darling Sarah Palin, who, it hopes, will motivate the Republican base and turn out voters. Although Angle’s campaign has actively pursued the former Alaska governor’s endorsement, the effect of Palin’s seal of approval remains an open question in a race with so few undecided voters. Republican operatives acknowledged that Palin is a polarizing figure unlikely to sway independent voters, who are key to the race,...

WASHINGTON - Federal health scientists are considering pulling Abbott Laboratories' diet pill Meridia off the market, based on data that it increases heart attack and stroke.

Liberals Defy Economic Reality There is a fundamental problem when the people in power in America absolutely refuse to face facts. Nancy Pelosi is one of these people. I am blue in the face from screaming this but I feel obligated to say it again. I am not rich, I am not a crony, I am simply an economist who wants what is best for this country which is ultimately what is best for me. Liberals and Democrats without regard for the truth keep telling Americans that the rich are getting richer while the poor get poorer. Keeping the tax...

AFTER two failed attempts, a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) Orion has evacuated a seriously ill American man from Antarctica and is heading back to Christchurch. The aircraft, carrying a crew of 12 and three medical staff, landed at the US McMurdo Station science base on the north Antarctic coast and rescued the man, whose condition and identity remained undisclosed. The Orion aircraft refuelled before embarking on a six-hour return mission just after 2pm (12pm AEST), RNZAF squadron leader Kavae Tamariki said. "It was a pretty good turnaround actually; they were only on the ice for about an hour-and-a-quarter,"...

Snip ----- Jet engines rely on Isaac Newton’s third law of motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When a jet is running, a compressor at the front draws in air and compresses it (see illustration). This air is guided and diffused by static blades to allow for easier ignition when it is mixed with fuel and ignited in a combustion chamber. The reaction comes in the form of rapidly expanding hot gases, which blast out of the rear of the jet and thus drive the aircraft forward. As they do so, they pass through another...

We've followed the trials and tribulations of USMC First Lieutenant Ilario Pantano for awhile here on BlackFive. We've supported him since the beginning (and had to fight some of our own to do so), and, now, Ilario is running for Congress in the Congressional District NC-7. The 7th District has not had a Republican since March 3, 1871! Pantano and his family live in North Carolina where, since 2006, he continues to serve his community as a Deputy Sheriff. I'll post his press release after the Jump for you to read, but what you should all do is go visit...

Prosecutors in the manslaughter trial of a Camp Pendleton Marine charged in the deaths of 24 Iraqis in 2005 were given unaired portions of a "60 Minutes" interview he gave months before being accused of the war crimes. A military judge presiding over the trial of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich said he was releasing the tapes because prosecutors believe they could bolster their case. The judge, Lt. Col. David Jones, said the outtakes also might prove useful at sentencing should Wuterich be convicted of leading his squad in the killing of the Iraqis in the city of Haditha after a...

The forced health-care payments and no benefits till 2013 should make all of us suspicious!What will Harry Reid,Pelosi & Obama do with the Money? And they even plan to hire thousands of IRS Agents to make sure we all pay up?Let's hope someone in the MSM/Or reporter does some research and hopefully Exposes The Health-Care Scam!DOES ANYONE TRUST THE DEMOCRATS WITH OUR MONEY? After all the lies from the last 18 Months,would you trust Reid and Obama with a few extra billion dollars to play around with?

September 14, 2010Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Reading 1Responsorial PsalmReading 2Gospel Reading 1Nm 21:4b-9With their patience worn out by the journey,the people complained against God and Moses,"Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,where there is no food or water?We are disgusted with this wretched food!"In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents,which bit the people so that many of them died.Then the people came to Moses and said,"We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you.Pray the LORD to take the serpents from us."So Moses prayed for the people,...

Kansas (Impossible News) -- A highly innovative approach is now being tested in rural Kansas schools when it comes to abstinence education. The new "Ooooh, That's Gross!" program is designed to connect with kindergarten through 6th grade students. Children are taken out to the farm to watch livestock during the mating season. As you can imagine, answers to the many questions they ask are intended to repulse the children and give them the heeby jeebies when it comes to physical contact with the opposite sex. Then after the field trip they are given a "Dick is icky" or Jane is...

Summary: This is a long post, but the bottom line is worth the time to read it. Under oath, in front of the House of Commons Committee on Science and Technology, Lord Oxburgh testified that it is impossible to reconstruct an accurate global temperature record over the past 1,000 years. Especially one that could claim modern climate is significantly different from that seen over the last 1000 years. Main Post: There was a stunning hearing last week in the UK’s House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, wherein one Lord Oxburgh testified about his investigation of the University of East...

Police rescued three children from what they call a "drug den" in Delaware County. The kids range in age from one to four. Police rescued three children from what they call a "drug den" in Delaware County. The kids range in age from one to four. They were found in a home in Gaston where investigators believe methamphetamine was being made. Now their mother, Stephanie Reel, and four other people, including Charles Williams, are under arrest for drug-related crimes. The kids were taken to the hospital to be checked out for possible exposure to meth.

MOSS POINT, Mississippi (WALA) - A Moss Point police officer is being hailed as a hero after saving a Theodore man in a sinking car. Luck never falls on a schedule, but sometimes it falls upon the right person at just the right time. On Thursday, Corporal Frederick Gaston was watching a football game at work, when he left to pick up some burgers. While driving down the interstate, he heard a call about an accident on I-10. "I figured since I was a lot closer to the accident site, I would respond to it," Gaston said. When the officer...

Beware the Dog!!!!

Lankov on the delay in the Worker’s Party conference /snip First, it is possible that the North Korean elite is far less united than it is usually assumed, so some factions are seriously unhappy about the likely choice of successor and/or expected composition of the new leadership /snip Second, the delay might reflect something more sinister – the growing inability of Kim Jong Il to pass reasonable judgments and make rational decisions, his tendency to follow impulses and emotions. Indeed, in the last two years of strange and seemingly irrational things began to happen in North Korea with alarming and...