Free Republic

Japan’s Navy: Sailing Towards the Future While China's growing naval power grabs headlines, Japan's evolving navy might just be the real story. While Japan's dispute with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands has been notable for a number of reasons — mostly negative — one of the few positive elements has been the refusal of either side to send in the military. That may have changed with the recent deployment of Chengdu J-10 and Mitsubishi/Boeing F-15 fighter aircraft after a Chinese Y-8 maritime patrol aircraft headed toward the islands, but so far, at least, the confrontations have been limited to coast...

GLOUCESTER TWP. — Despite a 21 percent increase in the number of eligible students taking advantage of free and reduced-price school breakfast between 2010 and 2012, New Jersey is still ranks 46th in the nation when it comes to participation in available programs. According to Nancy Parello, from the Newark-based nonprofit Advocates for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ), the challenge lies in convincing schools to change often decades-old ideas about how and when the breakfast should be provided to students. “One problem is that most schools only serve breakfast before school starts, but, really, no one is there before school...

FRANKLIN COUNTY, Ind. - As the highly charged debate over gun control rages in Washington, an Indiana county is taking a stand against federal gun laws. Franklin County commissioners recently adopted what they call the Second Amendment Preservation Act, declaring that all federal laws on gun control violate the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment. "If you have a license for an assault gun, than yes, you should be able to own one," said Donald Grizzell, one of the county's 24,000 residents.

IN FOCUS: Chinese air force not yet a match for Japan's On 11 January, China's defence ministry confirmed that Chengdu J-10 fighters had been dispatched to keep an eye on two Boeing F-15 aircraft operated by Japan. According to its statement, the F-15s were trailing a Shaanxi Y-8 patrolling near a cluster of islands in the East China Sea that are contested by Beijing and Tokyo. Irrespective of the merits of either party's claim to these islands, neither side appears willing to back down. Although the prospect of an all-out war over what Tokyo calls the Senkaku and Beijing the...

Documents published online for the first time Thursday indicate that the FBI opened an inquiry into New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez on August 1, 2012, focusing on repeated trips he took to the Dominican Republic with longtime campaign contributor and Miami eye doctor Salomon Melgen. TheDC reported in November that Menendez purchased the service of prostitutes in that Caribbean nation at a series of alcohol-fueled sex parties. The documents, which The Daily Caller had obtained hours earlier from an anonymous source, also indicate that Carrie Levine, research director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), was alerted...

OTTAWA - Federal Conservatives were cheering the destruction of hundreds of thousands of gun registry records Thursday night, the culmination of what has been a core campaign promise by the Tories for a decade. The records were destroyed on Halloween, an extra treat for thousands of long-gun owners across the country who had long complained the registry made them feel like criminals. The records, though, still exist for long-gun owners in Quebec, where there is a court order in place to protect them. (snip) Tony Bernardo, spokesman for the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, said he was "delighted that the data...

Kongsberg studies JSM for submarine launch By Richard Scott 1/24/2013 Norway's Kongsberg Defence Systems has revealed plans to develop an encapsulated submarine-launched variant of its Joint Strike Missile (JSM), with development expected to be considered as an option for Norway's submarine fleet beyond 2020. A derivative of the Nytt Sjomalsmissile/Naval Strike Missile (NSM) surface-to-surface guided missile, which entered service with the Royal Norwegian Navy (RNoN) in October 2012, JSM was initially conceived as an air-launched multimission precision-guided weapon designed for internal carriage on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). While retaining the imaging infrared seeker and GPS-aided navigation and guidance...

According to figures revealed in California Gov. Jerry Brown's 2013-14 budget proposal, the number of Hispanics will be equal to the number of whites by July of this year--39% of Californians will be Hispanic and 39% will be white then. By the end of the year, the number of Hispanics will outnumber whites. In addition, the report found that 80% of Hispanics in California are younger than 50, compared to only 73 percent of whites. The report notes that "as many in the non-Hispanic white population retire, they will be replaced by a more diverse workforce.” Hispanics made up 12...

The Iranian government’s recent restrictions on the use of minority languages are in clear violation of the constitution, says the country’s opposition Green Movement. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Coordination Council of the Green Path of Hope, an important body within the movement, voiced its criticism of government measures aimed at curbing the use of Kurdish in the Province of Kermanshah. The statement, which addresses the Iranian people, is in response to a leaked Education Ministry letter that calls on teachers to refrain from using any language other than Persian at schools in Kermanshah Province, where the majority...

As the federal government moves forward on its plans to tighten gun restrictions, Texas lawmakers are proposing legislation to expand gun rights in the state. The latest proposal is HB 700 filed Thursday by state Rep. George Lavender, R-Texarkana, that would allow individuals with concealed handgun licenses to carry weapons in plain view on a belt or shoulder holster. “For some it is a matter of personal safety, for others it is simply a convenience/personal preference issue,” said Lavender, who carried similar legislation that failed last session. He added others view it as a constitutional issue. [Snip] Other recent...

Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Obama’s health-care law, according to experts who are teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation. The Affordable Care Act — or “Obamacare” — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1. For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year...

David Cameron's pledge for an 'in-or-out' referendum on Europe will be overtaken by internal events long before we reach 2017. The vote may never be necessary. He is entirely right to play for time. The eurozone's North-South misalignment has not been resolved. The Club Med bloc is still sliding into deeper depression. The financial crisis — never more than a symptom — has graduated into a more intractable economic, social, and therefore political crisis. The ECB's Mario Draghi has taken the risk of a sovereign default in Spain and Italy off the table, but he has not restored these countries...

VAN, Texas -- Van Independent School District green-lighted a concealed carry proposal this week, saying it will help protect the district's 2,000-plus students. "The sad reality is, [a shooting] could happen here," said VISD Superintendent Don Dunn. The district already locks school doors. But most of the parents News 8 talked to Thursday said that wasn't enough anymore. "This makes it better," said parent Kassy Gandy. The district said it is outlining strict guidelines, including mandatory hostage and crisis training with local police for any staff member that wants to carry. Police will be coming in to familiarize themselves with...

If gun control worked, the president’s hometown would be safe. Instead, gangs of fatherless youths daily kill other fatherless youths. How about an executive order endorsing marriage and intact families? We do not know how history might have been different had the parents of Newtown shooter Adam Lanza not divorced in 2009, leaving the troubled young man with his mother in a single-parent home. But if there’s a thread that links the carnage at Sandy Hook with the 500-plus murders in Chicago in 2012, it’s not just the use of guns to kill. It’s also the absence of an intact...

What is so interesting about this is what Rogers (who hails from the great state of Texas) is upset about; Obama’s lack of leadership and association with corrupt financial interests. Hmmm. She has a point there. The response from Democrats? Wait for the tolerance… They pulled her campaign funding. She won her primary anyway. Via Your Black World: Kesha Rogers is no longer getting any form of backing from the Democratic Party. The woman who once had aspirations of running for Congress, has lost the support of the party for committing a serious political sin: Calling for the impeachment of...

The majority of human melanomas contain mutations in a gene promoter, suggesting mutations in regulatory regions may spur some cancers.Human metastatic melanoma cellsWIKIMEDIA, NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTEMutations in the regulatory, or non-coding, regions of the telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) gene—a cancer-associated gene that encodes a component of telomerase, an enzyme known to help protect the ends of chromosomes and support cell longevity—may be at the root of most melanomas, according to two papers published today (January 24) in Science. In both studies, researchers identified mutations that created new binding sites in the TERT promoter for particular transcription factors and resulted in...

Yes, women in combat. Women, who can’t figure out how to go to the Target pharmacy and $9/month birth control, will be gunning down terrorists. Women, who think that telling them to buy their own birth control, cupcake, is a “war on women,” will be seeing actual combat. Women who complain about a “rape culture” want girls out into the front lines as rape-bait if captured by the enemy (and those front lines will be six thousand miles away from the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic). The same people who think that it’s a right wing nutjob idea for women teachers...

Fans of the Seattle SuperSonics, the beloved NBA team whisked away to Oklahoma City in 2008, will soon have reason to stand up and cheer. No, the Oklahoma City Thunder isn’t headed back to the Pacific Northwest – but the Sacramento Kings will be calling Seattle home before too long. The resurrection of the SuperSonics has spirits soaring in the Evergreen State. On Monday morning, the Seattle Times reported that a Seattle group helmed by...-- SNIP --...The marginal personal-income tax rate for wealthy Californians – a category under which professional ballplayers almost certainly fall – is a whopping 13.3 percent....

The decision to open up ground combat, front-line roles to women should not be viewed in isolation from a number of significant military policy changes during President Obama’s administration. Some changes have made headlines — the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” women in combat roles, and planned troop reductions– while others, like the ever-increasing influence of international human-rights law in combat operations, have not. There is a common theme, however, and it is decidedly not one of increased combat effectiveness. Following the collapse in morale after the Vietnam War, our nation has labored long and hard to create a...

California’s Democratic Governor Jerry Brown compared efforts by the California state government to build the first-ever high speed rail project in the United States to the popular children’s story “The Little Engine That Could.” … Earlier in his remarks, Brown cited high-speed rail projects in countries such as China, Spain, and Morocco as part of the justification for the project in California. …