Free Republic

A significant anniversary has just passed us by, and if there was any mention of it in the press, I missed it. It's probably too late to hang up bunting and arrange for a parade to mark an event that happened 200 years ago last month, but surely it is always timely to relearn a bit of instructive history. And, notwithstanding Santayana's too-often repeated mot about forgetfulness and history repeating, it is sometimes possible to see in such repetition not error or futility but constancy. ... The Tripolitan War may well be counted the first instance of America's stepping forth...

"...Testifying earlier this year before the House Agriculture Committee, Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) explained that GM foods are banned in Europe "under the cloak of food safety" while protectionism is the true object. If higher yielding, less expensive and more nutritious foods enter their markets, domestic European agriculture is threatened. If Third World farmers are more able to feed their domestic populations with such crops, competing European imports would also be threatened - so much for Green Benevolence vs. Corporate Greed..."