Free Republic

(Posted before the memory of Balloongate, and other government idiocy, starts to fade) IN MAKING THIS STATEMENT—which I do of my own free will—I wish first to make it perfectly clear that I am not in any way trying to gain sympathy, nor do I expect any mitigation of whatever sentence the Court may pronounce. I am writing this in an attempt to refute some of the lying reports broadcast over the prison radio and published in the papers I have been allowed to see. These have given an entirely false picture of the true cause of our defeat, and...

News AnalysisThe China-watching community has been going through a bit of a freak-out over the U.S. Defense Department’s (DoD) latest report on the Chinese military. In particular, the report—an annual, congressionally mandated publication—states that China now possesses the “largest” navy in the world.In a nutshell, the DoD report asserts that “The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has numerically the largest navy in the world with an overall battle force of approximately 355 ships and submarines, including approximately more than 145 major surface combatants.”Moreover, the PLAN is expected to grow to 420 by 2025, and 460 ships by 2030. In comparison,...

BERKELEY, Calif., July 1 (UPI) — Electric cars, despite their supposed green credentials, are among the environmentally dirtiest transportation options, a U.S. researcher suggests. Writing in the journal IEEE Spectrum, researcher Ozzie Zehner says electric cars lead to hidden environmental and health damages and are likely more harmful than gasoline cars and other transportation options. Electric cars merely shift negative impacts from one place to another, he wrote, and "most electric-car assessments analyze only the charging of the car. This is an important factor indeed. But a more rigorous analysis would consider the environmental impacts over the vehicle's entire life...

Sweden has the world's most hooked-up economy, according to a new report from the World Economic Ranking (WEF). Nordic countries all performed well on the list in the WEF Global Information Technology report released on Thursday. Sweden displaced Denmark to rank first on the chart, with the Danes sliding to third place. Other Nordic countries were also in the top 10, with Finland in sixth place and Norway in tenth. Singapore crept closer to the top, moving up from fourth place last year to second place now. Fellow Asian economy Hong Kong was in eighth place, also gaining from 12th...

Last week’s dog and pony show known as the bi-partisan health (s)care summit had some funny parts. My favorite part was when Louise Slaughter (D-La la land) made the case for imposing government-run health care on the nation because one of her constituents wrote her a letter and said she had to use the dentures of her dead sister because she couldn’t afford her own. Something else was said at the summit which at the time seemed obnoxious to me, but nothing more. When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pointed out that the Dems got to speak for twice as...

Innate Superiority: An Inferior Idea Innate capacities do not matter so much as developed capabilities. Mixed up with the question of fairness to individuals and groups has been the explosive question of whether individuals and groups have the innate ability to perform at the same levels, if they are all treated alike or even given the same objective opportunities. Intellectuals have swung from one side of this question at the beginning of the 20th century to the opposite side at the end. Both those who said that achievement differences among races and classes were due to genes, in the early...

Ever notice how cats just have this greater then thou attitude towards dogs? Kind of reminds me of the way the self appointed elite in the MSM, politics, Colleges, and Hollywood treat us real Americans. Well this cat rides a remote control vacuum and slaps a dog as it rides by. Kind of like the MSM when doing a drive by story on conservatives, Anyway, you need to see it, it is hilarious.Follow this Link to see the, Drive by attack on a dog by cat. Well, back to work.

Seriously, Why do America think it rules the Earth? It does not. My home country, Sweden, has 9 million inhabitants and we rule Europe, aka the largest economy on the planet. Test me. Does a Koenigsegg embarrass a Lamborghini or what.. China, the US as well as Germany are loosers in the game of industrial achievments compared to my "little" nation. Why is it so hard for you to manufacture real world products?

Opinion: Maintaining air superiority Congress must fund more F-22s By Phil Gingrey, Washington Times 09/09/2008 The F-22A Raptor is the key to America's air superiority, and we need more of them. Recently, however, some have argued otherwise. Many of the dissenters suggest that Congress is considering continuing F-22 production for simple, political reasons. I respectfully disagree. Continuing the F-22 production is not a political nicety for the Air Force or for the defense of our nation. It is a necessity and the current program of record - 183 Raptors - is woefully inadequate to fulfill the National Military Strategy. This...

LONG BEACH, Calif., April 20, 2007 – Maintaining superiority in space will go a long way toward protecting U.S. national interests, the commander of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center said here. “If adversaries are using space in ways that would threaten America or our forces on the battlefield, we have to be able to disrupt or deny their use of those capabilities,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael A. Hamel told American Forces Press Service during the the center’s Industry Days held here April 17-19. “Space capabilities will become increasingly critical to our national well-being.” The center...

FORMER Soviet leader and Nobel peace prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev has turned 75, bitter that the end of the Cold War has left the United States with what he called a "superiority complex". "It would be in everyone's interest if that big country America recovered from that disease," he said. Mr Gorbachev, who launched the democratic and economic reforms that ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, described the end of the Cold War as a gift that the United States has squandered. He also denounced growing Russophobia, saying "some in the West would like to...

The futuristic F-22A "Raptor" fighter jet, designed to dominate the skies well into the 21st century, joined the U.S. combat fleet on Thursday, 20 years after it was conceived to fight Soviet MiGs over Europe. The Air Force said "initial operational capability" had been achieved at the 1st Fighter Wing's 27th Fighter Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. Pilots in the squadron, the Air Force's oldest in continuous operation, have been training on the F-22, the Air Force's most advanced weapon system, for about a year. "If we go to war tomorrow, the Raptor will go with us," Gen....

In World War II and Korea, American fighter pilots compiled impressive "kill ratios" against the Germans and Japanese (8 to 1) and the Chinese and North Koreans (10 to 1). These successes came to an embarrassing halt over the skies of Vietnam in 1967. The North Vietnamese pilots found that they could defeat the larger, more complex and cumbersome American fighter aircraft by shooting them down with unsophisticated heat-seeking missiles and cannon fire. When kill ratios diminished to near parity, the American air services resolved to spare no expense to regain absolute dominance in the air. For the next 40...

Slate.com is presently running a series, called ''Who's Winning, Who's Losing, and Why'' that includes an ongoing dialogue, since the conclusion of the presidential election, concerning the reasons the Democrats failed in this most recent and other elections. The header includes a review of recent editions by such writers and thinkers as Chris Suellentrop, William Saletan, and Timothy Noah who, for their parts, blame the lack of Democratic success on Kerry's ''too nuanced and technocratic'' approach (Suellentrop); on a failure to base campaigns on ''values and moral responsibility'' like Bill Clinton did (wow!) (Saletan); or the lack of the right...

Compared to U.S. military, game over for other nations Stealth drones, GPS-guided smart munitions that hit precisely where aimed; anti-tank bombs that guide themselves; space-relayed data links that allow individual squad leaders to know exactly where U.S. and opposition forces are during battle. The U.S. military rolled out all this advanced technology, and more, in its lightning conquest of Iraq. No other military Analysisis even close to the United States'. The U.S. military is now the strongest the world has ever known, both in absolute terms and relative to other nations; stronger than the Wehrmacht in 1940, stronger than the...

The Eurofighter Typhoon is believed to be the world's most advanced multirole fighter, with the possible exception of the F-22 Raptor. It is entering in service these days , with ceremonies at Farnborough International Air Show (UK) 22nd – 28th July 2002 The four-nation Eurofighter Typhoon is a foreplane delta-wing, beyond-visual-range, close air fighter aircraft with surface attack capability. Eurofighter has 'supercruise' capability: it can fly at sustained speeds of over Mach 1 without the use of afterburner. Development of the aircraft has been carried out by Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH, based in Munich and wholly owned by BAE Systems of...