Free Republic

Political leaders and the mainstream media have been blindsided by the sudden mood shift of the country in the last few years. The reason they have been blindsided is they believe world history is linear. Liberals have now begun referring to themselves as progressives. These people think the world only progresses. The facts indicate otherwise. History is cyclical. History is replete with grand empires like Rome, Spain and Britain. It is also replete with Dark Ages, depressions and wars. Strauss & Howe have established that history can be broken down into 80 to 100 year Saeculums that consist of four...

Ode to Orly Taitz by the Freeper, parsifal Mississippio Countrio It was late February, and the year it was twenty ten. I was surfing on line, slurping down a little lime and gin. Well I was scrolling all around when the words flashed upon the screen. And it nearly laid me out, now let me tell you what I seen. Well it was something out of Outer Limits, something off of the Deep End. Today, Orly Taitz, the Birther Queen, went seeking help at the U.N. --- Well my glasses fogged over and I nearly had a heart attack I...

My secret sources have discovered another bizarre twist in the ongoing Climategate scandal: Breaking! Al Gore Demands Partial Recount of Climate Data As the impact of the global warming scandal widens, Nobel Prize winner and long time spokesperson for the movement demanded a partial recount of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) data. In asking for the partial recount, Mr Gore asked that any data tending to show global cooling should be re-counted while data tending to show global warming be left as it is. When asked whether this would tend to skew the data in favor of global...

Someone asked earlier today if the theory of global warming has been finally discredited. I posted this clip which I think is one of the funniest scenes I have ever seen. The answer is "no." Some things never die. No matter how stupid an idea, a theory, a philosophy, it will get recycled at some point. As humans, we do not learn from the lessons of history. Often, we even fail to learn from our own personal experiences. Of course, a self-absorbed, scene-stealing actor aids and abets in these fruitless enterprises. So, I offer this pictorial tribute to Al Gore...

I have learned from my secret, and usually reliable, sources that the nefarious Rahm Emanuel has devised a sinister contingency plan to save the Democrat majority in both houses of Congress. The plan is named “Operation Albatross.” If the economy has not significantly improved within 30 days of the upcoming elections, and the polls continue to foreshadow massive loss of seats by the Democrats, President Obama plans to switch parties and become a Republican. It is thought that the high negative ratings Obama brings to the table will then work to insure a massive Republican defeat. Part of this plot...

This was a hard piece to write, because guns by definition are manly, except for Berettas, gold-plated TEC9s, .25 caliber pistols or anything made by the French. To simplify things, I have limited it to modern cartridge firearms a man might, can, and should collect and shoot. There are certainly other manly weapons, and you may have a different list. As long as the list contains nothing French, gold-plated, .25 or with pearl grips (which Patton correctly observed are the mark of a New Orleans pimp), it is a good list.

Dear Attorney General Holder: We write to demand an immediate investigation into the activities of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. We believe there is an abundant public record which establishes that the actions of the White House have blocked any investigation into his activities while on the board of Freddie Mac from 2000-2001, and facilitated the cover up of potential malfeasance until the 10-year statute of limitations has run out. The purpose of this letter is to connect the dots to establish both the conduct of Mr. Emanuel and those working with him to thwart inquiry, and to...

"A wonderful, free, light consciousness" born of the utter absence of any understanding of "the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people." Obviously, Ayn Rand was most favorably impressed with Mr. Hickman. He was, at least at that stage of Rand's life, her kind of man. So the question is, who exactly was he? William Edward Hickman was one of the most famous men in America in 1928. But he came by his fame in a way that perhaps should have given pause to Ayn Rand before she decided that he was a "real man" worthy of enshrinement in her...

In his almost 30 years of crusading against global warming, Al Gore has worn a variety of hats. In roughly chronological order these include: congressman, senator, author, vice president, traveling evangelist, filmmaker, investment adviser, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Now, with the publication of his new book, Our Choice, Gore has unveiled a fresh and most unexpected talent: the book's opening chapter of concludes with a poem he wrote-21 lines of verse that are equal parts beautiful, evocative, and disturbing. Here is how the poem begins: One thin September soon A floating continent disappears In midnight sun Vapors rise as...

The Sweet Singer's verse is concerned to a large extent with total abstinence and violent death -- the great Chicago fire, the railway disaster of Ashtabula, the Civil War, the yellow fever epidemic in the South. She sings death by drowning, by smallpox, by fits, accidents by lightning-stroke and sleigh. "Julia is worse than a Gatling gun," wrote Bill Nye; "I have counted twenty-one killed and nine wounded, in the small volume she has given to the public." She also greatly relishes normal infant mortality, especially in cases where the little victim possesses blue eyes and curling golden hair; but...

….the finance sector is worse than parasitic. In the title of his recent book, The Predator State, James Galbraith aptly names the problem. The financial sector functions as the sharp canines that the predator state uses to rend the nation. In addition to siphoning off capital for its own benefit, the finance sector misallocates the remaining capital in ways that harm the real economy…:

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He was--at least up to a point--the most durable human being in American history, possibly in world history. Over 30 attempts were made to murder him. He survived them all. He was truly incredible. His name was Michael Malloy, and he was a bleary-eyed, unsteady diminutive Irishman originally from County Donegal. While his insurance policy would later falsely give his age as 45, he was actually 60 years old. Once, in better times, he had been a fireman, but now in 1933 his almost full-time occupation was alcoholic.

In the 19th century many American cities had what were known as bucket shops. A bucket shop had a New York Stock Exchange ticker and would post quotations as they came in. Rather than buy the stock, the customer bet on the tape—e.g., 20 shares of sugar at $100. The shop took a commission: If the stock went to $105, the shop paid; if it went down, the customer lost. Customers could also short a stock. Edwin Lefèvre’s 1923 classic Reminiscences of a Stock Operator vividly describes the turn-of-the century bucket shop. The shops were partially blamed for the Panic...

Will regulation hobble capitalism? I think the opposite is true. Properly done – and I think most of the financial regulation that is envisioned fits into this camp – government regulation of the financial industry will move the industry closer to the capitalist ideal. By capitalism, I mean where those who take the risks and put up the money get the fruits of their labor. And, importantly, where those who take the risks and put up the money actually do take the risks, bearing the full costs of failure as well as success.

It was hard to believe, but the bankers were running low on risky assets. After low-rated bonds and loans had been pooled once, they were gone, and therefore no longer available to be pooled again. It was truly incredible, but there simply wasn't enough crap on Wall Street. This is where derivatives entered the picture.

As Winston Churchill might have put it, capitalism is surely the worst economic system,except for all the others that have been tried. It's capitalism's risk takers -- often using borrowed money -- who produce many of the innovations that spur economic growth. But now, a year to the day since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it's clearer than ever that capitalism without effective regulation is a disaster waiting to happen.

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus When the trailer hit for writer/director Jack Perez’s ‘Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus’, the Internet was a buzz with excitement and the hope that a true B-Movie had returned. Pitching two extinct goliaths of the oceans, the megalodon, a sixty feet long mega shark and a giant octopus, against each other sounded like a stroke of genius but the execution harks back to the very worst of the B-Movie era to produce a film that even Ed Wood would be ashamed of. A low budget, B-Movie will never attract a big name star but they...

In 1975, Indiana lobbyist Frank Cornelius, whose clients included the Insurance Institute of Indiana, helped secure passage of a $500,000 cap on medical malpractice awards and elimination of all damages for pain and suffering in Indiana. As he wrote in the New York Times on October 7, 1994, he now “rue[s] that accomplishment.” Beginning in 1989, Frank Cornelius experienced a series of medical catastrophes that resulted in his wheelchair confinement, respirator-assisted breathing and constant physical pain.

Dems' Ace in the Hole on Health Care: Tort Reform "It will be tough to make some of these changes if doctors feel like they're looking over their shoulders for fear of lawsuits... some doctors may feel the need to order more tests and treatments to avoid being legally vulnerable." (President Obama, American Medical Association June 2009). "Anyone who denies there is a crisis in medical malpractice is probably a trial lawyer." (Barack Obama 1996 Illinois State Senate race). "I'm not advocating caps on malpractice awards." (President Obama, AMA convention June 2009). The first two statements are right on Mr....