Free Republic

President Barack Obama has set a goal of a "world without nuclear weapons" but the Pentagon is leaning in a seemingly contradictory direction: a modernised nuclear arsenal. The new administration has signalled its intent to swiftly engage Russia in negotiations on deeper cuts in their respective arsenals, with the ultimate aim of reducing them to zero. But US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been leading another kind of charge, arguing in the final months of the previous administration that deeper cuts must be underpinned by production of a new warhead to replace an ageing nuclear stockpile. "To be blunt, there...

It came to me in a flash: I finally understood why Hollywood stars and other celebrities so loathe war. It's because war brutally, profoundly, irrevocably confronts them with their own irrelevance. As narcissists, they can't stand this. They're used to being the centre of the universe. A world in which they're not is intolerable. And war shoves them to the periphery. It's inarguable that, with a few prominent exceptions such as Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, Charlton Heston and Bruce Willis (oh yeah, and Ted Nugent), virtually all actors, musicians and other pop culture celebs are left-wing. (If there are more...

DAILY NOTEBOOK.... A Word From The Wise (Regarding The Foolish)... February 20, 2003: Shocked and saddened by the outpouring of stupidity and mindlessness expressed in the name of "peace" on the streets of various Western democracies of late? Then perhaps a few celebrated quotations from the wise will provide some solace, as well as buttress your beliefs in taking concerted action against the forces of tyranny: War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who...