Free Republic

Theater of the Absurd, by the Absurd, for... Ionesco as Political Consultant February 16, 2007 Every time I go to the United States (I have just returned from two weeks in Washington), I am astonished by the antic security, by the proliferation of admonitions and alarms and inchoate fear. Now it is illegal to carry toothpaste on airplanes. I find myself wondering: Is this just another spasm of periodic hysteria, like Prohibition, the Sixties, and a Commie Under Every Bed? Or is it calculated political programming? Most of it impinges at best lightly upon reality. For example, measures for...

China Facing Major Gender ImbalanceNew slogan for folks in Asia... "Hide the women!" Also, please note that the largest population of communists in the world has an untenable social policy. Where's Socialism when you need it? China Facing Major Gender Imbalance Report: China Will Soon Have 30 Million More Men Than Women of Marriageable Age The Associated Press BEIJING - China will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women in less than 15 years as a gender imbalance resulting in part from the country's tough one-child policy becomes more pronounced, state media reported Friday. Traditional preferences for...

Great Dane, Great Pain By Henrik Rasmussen 11 Jan 2007 "It is entirely possible to have a large welfare state, with generous benefits, without choking the economy," says Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic in a new series of articles, glorifying the Danish economic model. He enlists the support of several prominent economists from left and right. Economist Kevin Hassett: "The Scandinavians show that you don't have to have a terrible economy if you have a big welfare state and high taxes." Columbia University's Jeffrey Sachs: "A generous social-welfare state is not a road to serfdom but rather to high...

January 10, 2007 Washington Versus America: Grim “Two Party” Reality By: Christopher G. Adamo Despite the complete disdain that conservative America holds towards former Assistant Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, it is hardly likely that she actually intended to help Bin Laden’s terrorists to successfully perpetrate the September 11 attacks. Rather, her goal was to stifle the ability of the justice system to hold her boss, Bill Clinton, accountable for the corruption being conducted from his office. Bin Laden merely benefited from her enablement of Clinton’s exploits. Unfortunately, her lack of sinister intent, at least as it might pertain to the...

<p>WASHINGTON — Iran is supporting both Sunni and Shiite terrorists in the Iraqi civil war, according to secret Iranian documents captured by Americans in Iraq.</p> <p>The news that American forces had captured Iranians in Iraq was widely reported last month, but less well known is that the Iranians were carrying documents that offered Americans insight into Iranian activities in Iraq.</p>

Hundreds of cars torched overnight From correspondents in Paris January 01, 2007 10:18pm Article from: Reuters VANDALS set fire to about 400 cars overnight and police said they arrested more than 250 people, as violence marred France's New Year celebrations. However, a police spokesman said there were fewer problems than in 2005, when youths attacked trains in the Paris region and southeast of the country. 25,000 police were on duty throughout the country during the night, including 4500 in Paris, where the authorities banned fireworks and firecrackers. Police said that they had arrested 258 people nationwide by early morning, including...

Global Hawk to Fly 1st Mission Over U.S. Nov 19 2:59 PM US/Eastern They've become a fixture in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan, a new breed of unmanned aircraft operated with remote controls by "pilots" sitting in virtual cockpits many miles away. But the Air Force's Global Hawk has never flown a mission over the United States. That is set to change Monday, when the first Global Hawk is scheduled to land at Beale Air Force Base in northern California. "This landmark flight has historic implications since it's the first time a Global Hawk has not only flown...

Is Democracy Like Sex? By Glenn Harlan Reynolds So the elections are over, and happily my fears of last week weren't borne out. A cynic may say that it was because the Democrats won, but for whatever reason there weren't major complaints of fraud or miscounting. That said, I hope that these issues will get addressed more thoroughly before 2008. But enough on that topic, which I've been hammering on for a while. This week I want to explore a feature of electoral turnover that doesn't get enough attention: Its effect as a limit on political parasitism. We always hope,...

Helen Thomas Convinced Fossil Remains of "Lucy" Are Her Long Lost Daughter White House Correspondent Helen Thomas reportedly erupted in a startling orgy of joy yesterday when she saw the recreation of "Lucy," a 3.3 million year old skeleton discovered in Ethiopia. According to insiders who were able to decipher Ms. Thomas' grunts and squeals, Lucy is the spitting image of a baby the famed reporter gave up for adoption when she was a teenager. "I've never seen Helen quite like this," said one anonymous colleague. "She was squatting in her chair and pointing at her computer screen, yelling, 'LUCY...

Fear over the 'lunchtime facelift' as experts say Botox is addictive By Beezy Marsh, Health Correspondent (Filed: 17/09/2006) Botox has been dubbed the "lunchtime facelift", loved by women – and a growing number of men – for its miraculous ability to erase wrinkles and restore youthful good looks. But the concern is that once you start keeping the unwanted effects of ageing at bay, you will not be able to stop, according to research to be presented at a conference this week. Botox is the No1 non-surgical cosmetic treatment The first study of its kind, carried out by a...

Playing for your country Recently, COL Brown, former Commander of 1-/25 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, and a few wounded soldiers formerly under his command, participated in a team building exercise with the U.S. Olympic Men's basketball team. Attached at the end of this string is a link to a short collection of excerpts from that event. As time permits, please review the clip. It speaks volumes about valor, leadership, duty, commitment, stewardship...and why the contribution you make to Army readiness remains critically important. Coach K was COL Bob Brown's coach at West Point prior to moving to Duke, hence the...

Conflict in The Middle East: Progressive Solutions By Prof Peter Kurgman, PhD^37/21/2006, 8:22 pm Now that we have identified the problems of the Middle East, it is now time to present high-powered academic solutions to this crisis. And whereas the average policy maker is hard-pressed to find a single solution, I, with my vast intelligence, have developed seven solutions: 1) Establish Scientific Socialism. The tranquility of the late Soviet Union can be easily moved to the Middle East -- with the assistance of a violent revolution to terminally smash the ruling class and establish a workers' paradise where everyone...

India admits 'technological error' in blog blockade By Somini Sengupta The New York Times Published: July 20, 2006 NEW DELHI After two days of angry inquiries and accusations of censorship, the Indian government tried to explain Thursday why it had ordered blog sites blocked, calling it "a technological error" that would be repaired soon.... snip ...In an e-mail sent early Thursday, an official at the Consulate General of India in New York said that the order to block a handful of Web sites, including the popular blogspot.com, which hosts thousands of personal Web logs, had been prompted by the discovery...

STONED FOR PREACHING AGAINST ISLAM By Michelle Malkin · July 09, 2006 09:35 AM It happened in Nigeria: The life of a 20yr old girl (name withheld) was prematurely terminated in Izom in Gawu Babangida Local Government Area of Niger State yesterday as she was stoned to death by irate youths for distributing inciting leaflets bordering on religion. Yes, "prematurely terminated." Another report pegs her age at "about 14." Trouble started at about noon when the girl whose identity is yet to be ascertained was said to have walked straight into the Jumat Mosque in Izom where she dropped...

June 19, 2006 Murtha Slams Rove's Bottom Congressman John Murtha was pulling no punches when he recently responded to assertions Karl Rove made in a New Hampshire speech that the Democrats are "profoundly wrong" in wanting to cut and run from Iraq.In an appearance on NBC's Meet The Press, Murtha stuck to the issues, replying, "He's in New Hampshire, he's making a political speech. He's sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big fat backside saying, 'Stay the course.'"The remaining transcript of Murtha's Meet The Press interview follows:Tim Russert: So Congressman Murtha, it is your assertion then that Karl Rove...

Monday, June 12, 2006 Quick-Thinking Army Doctors Tried to Save Al-Zarqawi with Manual Prostate Exam Medical records indicate that Army doctors who tended to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in his final minutes bravely tried to save the terror mastermind with a series of prostate and colon exams they thought might reveal the true extent of his injuries. "Since there were no real external injuries, we had to make some quick decisions about what we were dealing with," said Army Field Surgeon Sgt. Cal Harper. "We voted, and it was unanimous: a rectal exam was the logical first step. " "It...

Source Thursday, March 30, 2006 Anti-War Hostages Air-Dropped Back into Iraq The British military announced today that they had air-dropped former hostages Norman Kembler, James Loony and Harmeet Singh Sooden into the Iraqi desert, just a week after their rescue from a house west of Baghdad. The men had been held by insurgents for four months. Since their release, the three men, all from a Christian Peacemaker team, have spoken with deep admiration and respect for their captors, while not offering any degree of gratitiude to the British commandos who risked their lives to save them. “We realize now that...

Thursday, March 23, 2006 Abu Ghraib Dog Sentenced to Live with ACLU Lawyer David Lane With the sentence handed down yesterday that Sgt. Michael J. Smith of Fort Lauderdale must serve 179 days in prison, many wondered about the consequences for the snarling dog the solder used to help relieve constipated Iraqi prisoners. That issue was cleared up last night in a private session of the court, when it was revealed the dog would be adopted by ACLU Lawyer David Lane, who currently represents semi-notable liberals Ward Churchill and Jay Bennish. At the reading of the terms the dog whined...

Moussaoui Prosecutors Now Confident of Executionby Scott Ott (2006-03-22) — Justice Department officials said today they have a new plan to get the so-called 20th hijacker executed, despite a TSA attorney’s bungling that may have allowed Zacarias Moussaoui to escape the death penalty under U.S. law. The novel prosecution approach calls for getting Mr. Moussaoui converted to Christianity, then shipping him to Afghanistan with a Bible verse tattooed on his forehead. The latest rendition of the death penalty strategy, which lawyers acknowledge faces some significant obstacles, was sparked by news that an Afghani man, Abdul Rahman, faces execution under Muslim...

Source March 22, 2006 Practical blasphemy In the toss up between cartoons and killing people, one might conclude that ending the lives of the children of God might rank as a greater offence than mocking either God or God's prophets. So, one might expect that a few Sudanese embassies have been put to the torch by crowds angry at genocide in Darfur, but apparently not. The protests against mass murder in Darfur have been impressively peaceful. A number of religious institutions have started displaying banners calling for the Darfuris to be saved. A list is here. Oddly, one kind...