Free Republic

.... The International Monetary Fund is in very serious trouble. Events have reached a point in Greece where the Fund's own credibility and long-term survival are at stake. The Greeks are not withholding a €300m payment to the IMF because they have run out of money, though they soon will do. .... They knew exactly what they were doing. The IMF’s Christine Lagarde was caught badly off guard. Staff officials in Washington were stunned. .... The IMF’s Original Sin in Greece was to allow the urbane Parisian Dominique Strauss-Kahn to hijack the institution to prop up Europe’s monetary union and...

If, as seems likely, the Supreme Court will shred the Constitution and impose Gay "Marriage" on all 50 states, here is what states could do to nullify that decision. I have often argued that the state can't "get out of the marriage business" because the state has an interest in it, but I think I have come up with a way that the state could deal with what it has as a legitimate interest, change some labels, legally, and not have to deal with the question of gay marriage, all in one fell swoop. Granted, it is ridiculous that the...

Let's forgive Senator McCain for confounding Middle Earth with The Shire. The Senator's sudden insertion of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings into the debate over the U.S. national debt immediately evoked in me the reaction "Senator McCain is, evidently, casting himself as Saruman." Saruman and his minions are the only characters in the entire trilogy to sneer at hobbits, and Senator McCain's brand of bipartisanship so often seems to echo the fallen wizard: "But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see." "And listen, Gandalf, my old...

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Christos Anesti! Aleithos Anesti! Khristos Voskrese! Voistinu Voskrese! Al-Masih-Qam! Hakkan Qam! Hristos a înviat! Adevărat a înviat! Kristus aq ungwektaq! Pichinuq ungwektaq! Xris-tusaq Ung-uixtuq! Iluumun Ung-uixtuq! Harisutosu fukkatsu! Jitsu ni fukkatsu! Atgyfododd Crist! Yn wir atgyfododd! Christus resurrexit! Resurrexit vere! Cristo ha resucitado! Verdaderamente, ha resucitado! Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

The mostly European-oriented counter-jihad blog, The Gates of Vienna, has been declared in violation of the terms of service of Google's blog-hosting arm, Blogger. I would urge all FReepers to protest this action to Google and boycott Google's products to the maximum extent feasible until it is reversed. The Gates of Vienna was a valuable resource for those opposing the Islamization of Western Civilization, and the violation of the terms of service is almost certainly based on accepting the Islamic notion of "slander of religion" under which telling the truth about Islam, if doing so impedes the spread of Islam...

There is something deeper going on than the fact that this is a domestic-policy election with both candidates dragging the discussion into their domestic agendas. Neither Romney nor Obama shows any evidence of comprehending the nature of Islam, or the policy implications of the nature of Islam, or even of Salafist Sunni Islam, which is the dominant force in the "Arab Spring". I think it is a matter of not wanting to face reality. The refusal to face the reality of Islam is endemic in Western society, as Bill Warner says in his talk the history of Islam on Gates...

Young people should welcome austerity measures because it means huge government debts are less likely to blight their futures, historian Niall Ferguson has said. The economic historian, who is affiliated to Oxford and Harvard Universities, says wise young voters should insist politicians pay off debts as soon as possible.... “It is surprisingly easy to win the support of young voters for policies that would ultimately make matters even worse for them, like maintaining defined benefit pensions for public employees,” ... He adds: "If young Americans knew what was good for them, they would all be in the Tea Party." Professor...

As no one has yet done so, it seemed right to post a thread for the virtual version of the exchange of forgiveness at the end of Forgiveness Vespers. If anyone who has the Orthodox ping list ventures onto the thread, ping the others. Wishing all a blessed and holy Great Lent. Struggle well!

It was nearly eleven hundred, and in the RECORDS DEPARTMENT newsroom at MSNBC, they were dragging the chairs out of the cubicles and grouping them in the centre of the hall opposite the big telescreen, in preparation for the Two Minutes Hate. The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's neck. The Hate had started. As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein Sarah...

Muslims turned up in droves for the Coptic Christmas mass Thursday night, offering their bodies, and lives, as “shields” to Egypt’s threatened Christian community Yasmine El-Rashidi , Friday 7 Jan 2011 Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside. From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge...

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. --Chinese proverb While my own tradition holds that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, as regards worldly affairs there is something to be said for the Chinese view. We have of late been treated to headlines about rallies protesting “against health care”. As I have noted in other forums, with the exception of devotees of faith healing and in certain narrow circumstances involving incurable terminal illness, no one is against health care, at least if the words are used as we speakers of English...

UPDATE 15:49 NZDT - NIWA's news release in response to this story appears to have been delayed, and according to a radio news report a few minutes ago Rodney Hide, leader of the minority Act Party and a minister in the National Government, is now calling on his Cabinet colleague, Climate Change Minister Nick Smith, to "please explain" [normal transmission now resumes] The New Zealand Government's chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn't there. The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate...

ANAXIOS! A brief outline of some of the grievances regarding Metropolitan PHILIP of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America: * Documents forged by +Philip have been presented as official to the faithful. By many verifiable accounts, this is not the first time this has happened. These forgeries have served one purpose only - to preserve the power of a man who has no qualms creating division and discord in order to achieve his own ends. * +Philip has demanded obedience from others; he has demanded those bishops he paid to be designated "auxiliary" to be obedient to a...

The Content of His Character Well, the American people decided to elect an empty suit. One might try to take some comfort from the thought that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream of a day when Americans were judge by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin has been realized. But that is not what happened on Election Day. For those who got their news from the 'elite' print media or the alphabet networks, the content of Barack Obama's character remained a complete unknown. He was elected not for the content of his character, but for...

"Palling around with terrorists" Gov. Sarah Palin has correctly characterized Barack Obama as "palling around with terrorists." The Obama campaign and "mainstream" media are spinning like tops, trying to turn Obama's having been hired by Weathermen founder William Ayers to head the Board of Directors for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, appointed to the Board of the Woods Fund of Chicago by Ayers, Ayers' hosting of the 'meet-and-greet' that launched Obama's political career, and their appearing together on two academic panels into something enough less than a close working relationship to make Obama's characterization of Ayers as "a guy who lives...

"A guy who lives in my neighborhood" Here is a bit of documentation on the ties between Barack Obama and Weatherman terrorist William Ayers. Even the most tenuous of the ties, even taken in isolation from the others, show that Ayers had a closer relationship to Obama than Obama admitted when he characterized Ayers as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood". I've not found any contemporaneous online confirmation of the coffee-klatch at Ayers' home that launched Obama's political career, or of the donations Ayers gave to Obama's early campaigns, but no one seems to be denying them. "A guy...

Who won: Palin or Biden?

Different activities, different virtues The recent remarks of former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, asserting that none of the major party candidates for President or Vice President could run a major corporation, prompt me to set forth some thoughts I regard as fundamental to a true conservative understanding of the world. One of the hallmarks of conservatism according to Russell Kirk is its respect for the particular. Sadly too many so-called conservatives at the turn of the 21st century fail to embrace the respect of the particular. Just as those on the left seem to think that all human activities can...

A Fundamental Absence of Empathy We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular...

Every man is like the company he is wont to keep. Euripides' dictum has prompted many to look at the company Senator Barack Hussein Obama is wont to keep: Frank Marshall Davis K-State dropout, poet, labor organizer, Communist Party member, journalist for a newspaper published by a Communist front labor union, 'Frank' is described by Senator Obama in his autobiography as a mentoring figure for whom he had great affection: "It made me smile, thinking back on Frank and his old Black Power, dashiki self. In some ways he was as incurable as my mother, as certain in his...