Free Republic

<p>A U.S. military charter aircraft flying from Afghanistan has been forced down in Iran by Iranian fighter jets, according to officials familiar with the incident.</p>

Do You Believe in War? By J. Neil Schulman Recently my participation in an IMDb message-board discussion of an article Brad Linaweaver and I wrote regarding the movie Flightplan -- a recent feature film we were identifying as anti-war propaganda -- expanded to general discussions of terrorism, bigotry, and war. As a libertarian who has spent most of his career attacking collectivism of all sorts, I found myself in the odd position of having to explain why it's not bigotry to blame Muslims for 9/11, why a global jihad against the West is several orders of magnitude more of...

What If They Made a Propaganda Film and Nobody Noticed? By Brad Linaweaver and J. Neil Schulman On March 30, 1981 outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, an insane young man named John Hinckley, Jr., in an attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, shot the President, the White House press secretary, James Brady, Secret Service Agent Timothy McCarthy, and DC Police Officer Thomas Delanty. The president’s life was saved by emergency surgery at George Washington University Hospital, as were Agent McCarthy’s and Officer Delanty’s. Press Secretary Brady suffered incapacitating and permanent brain injury. When asked why he attempted to kill...

Three groups representing flight attendants are calling for a boycott of the box-office hit "Flightplan." In the Jodie Foster thriller about a mother looking for her missing daughter aboard a plane, a flight attendant colludes with an air marshal as part of a plot to extort a ransom from the airline. Other flight attendants are shown treating passengers rudely and being unsympathetic to Foster's character, whom they think might be delusional.

SCHLUSSEL COLUMNS GET RESULTS!: Unions Boycott "Flight Plan"; GOP Cancels Terror Supporter By Debbie Schlussel Sometimes, even a little website, like mine, can make a difference: * As a result of my column on the outrageous Jodie Foster movie, "Flight Plan," the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA)--the flight attendant's union--is boycotting the movie, APFA spokeswoman and flight attendant Lori Bassani told me. Also as a result of my column, the Federal Air Marshals Association (FAMA) also has sent out mass e-mails calling for the boycott of this irresponsible, PC-mad movie. * As a result of my column about the...

If I could just ask everyone to return their seats to the upright position and make sure their tray tables are raised and securely fastened. Mmm-hmm. OK? We are cleared for takedown. "Flightplan"'s ambitions soar 37,000 feet in the air but its skills are dragging ass along the BQE at that point in the late winter when the city basically announces, "You know what, potholes? You win."--snip--Onboard the plane are several passengers of the Muslim persuasion. I won't tell you what part they wind up playing in the story, but when I saw them I chuckled, which was pretty much...

The movie begins with Jodi Foster (Kyle) in a morgue. You don't see who is in the casket she is approaching. The director asks if she'd like a few minutes alone. Kyle asks if "she has to". The director informs her that a code is required for international flights (he means a keycode to lock the coffin, but this is explained later). While she is approaching the casket, the scene flashes back to Kyle and her husband, David (uncredited), walking home in Berlin. When they get home, she asks her husband to sit in the courtyard for just a minute,...

It's been four years of bad news for flight attendants. First, 9/11 happened. Then, they were laid off. With airline bankruptcies like Northwest's, they are being laid off again. Now, in another blow, the movie, "Flight Plan," is hitting theaters, tomorrow. Starring Jodie Foster, it's an outrageous piece of propaganda and incredible display of the irresponsible. I'm embarrassed to say that a very distant cousin of mine--Charles J.D. Schlissel--is executive producer of this outrage. The J.D. must stand for "Just Despicable." If you're a freedom-loving American like me, the rotten tricks of this movie will disgust you. If you want...

It's been four years of bad news for flight attendants. First, 9/11 happened. Then, they were laid off. With airline bankruptcies like Northwest's, they are being laid off again. Now, in another blow, the movie, "Flight Plan," is hitting theaters, tomorrow. Starring Jodie Foster, it's an outrageous piece of propaganda and incredible display of the irresponsible. I'm embarrassed to say that a very distant cousin of mine--Charles J.D. Schlissel--is executive producer of this outrage. The J.D. must stand for "Just Despicable." If you're a freedom-loving American like me, the rotten tricks of this movie will disgust you. If you want...