Free Republic

Given its rich mercantile heritage in the Mediterranean, Greece should be the Hong Kong/Singapore/ Switzerland of the Balkans. Its emigrants and their descendants have been huge business successes in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Canada and elsewhere. Yet Greece is bankrupt, fiscally and politically. Why is Greece such a basket case? And what are the implications for Europe and the U.S.? Greek Power Summit 2011--Helping Greece Rebuild, which was held in Athens. Here's a wee incident that underscores how clueless and irresponsible the Greek government has become. The bulk of attendees at this confab were business and financial executives who...

American Taxpayers: Meet Your New Friends And Neighbors The Greeks Fred N. Sauer, Fred Sauer Matrix Jul. 11, 2011, 5:33 PM America expended tens of thousands of lives and immeasurable national treasure, including the Marshall Plan, during and after World War II to liberate and rebuild Europe. The United States also defended Europe throughout the Cold War while they pinched their defense budgets and capabilities in favor of massive social expenditures. With the bailouts of Europe just beginning, it looks like we might get entrapped in Europe again: Greece shook global markets, intensifying fears of a default, as tens of...

Just last year Europe’s politicians set up a euro-rescue organisation that has done very well since then. It began with loans of 110 billion euros for Greece. Then came billions in bailouts for Ireland and Portugal. Now Greece is back in the line-up. The politicians have flouted the harsh prohibition against solidarity in the EU Treaty [“The Union is not liable for the debts of the central governments.”], claiming that a kind of emergency is afoot. Emergency aid, indeed, is permitted if a country has been swamped by a natural disaster. The fact that Greece’s public debt now stands at...

New Delhi, April 18: Mariners from India's east coast exploited monsoon winds to sail to southeast Asia more than 2,000 years ago, an archaeologist has proposed, challenging a long-standing view that a Greek navigator had discovered monsoon winds much later. Sila Tripati at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa, has combined archaeological, meteorological, and literary data to suggest that Indian mariners were sailing to southeast Asia riding monsoon winds as far back as the 2nd century BC. A 1st century AD Greek text, Periplus of the Erythreaean Sea, and a contemporary Roman geographer named Pliny have claimed that the...

The Metaphor of the Dawn in The Odyssey Throughout Odysseus' journey, the metaphor of the dawn symbolizes his odyssey from immaturity, maturity, and fulfillment. The progression of Odysseus' development of strength is like the development of day, from dawn to dusk. The epithet, "rosy-fingered dawn" marks the beginning of Odysseus' odyssey. After his journey, the epithets "gold-throned dawn" and "bright-throned dawn" replace the "rosy-fingered dawn" however, after Odysseus returns home from his journey, he plans to rid his house of suitors, and the "rosy-fingered dawn" returns. After accomplishing the destruction of the suitors, finally, the "gold-throned dawn" replaces the "rosy-fingered...

Greek archaeologists on Friday said they had discovered five long-lost friezes from the 2,500-year-old Parthenon in the walls of the ancient Acropolis. The friezes, which had been taken away to be used as building materials for the ancient Acropolis which at one point served as a fortress, were located along its southern walls by a weather balloon camera, officials at the Culture Ministry said. The fragments were detected by air during a vertical scan of the walls of the Acropolis by the Culture Ministry, where a total of 2,250 photographs were taken. The Parthenon has suffered extensive damage over the...

Greek archaeologists on Thursday announced the discovery of 37 ancient tombs dating back to the iron age in a cemetery near the ancient Macedonian capital of Pellas. Discoveries at the site included a bronze helmet with a gold mouthplate, with weapons and jewellery, in the tomb of a warrior from the 6th century BC. A total of 37 new tombs were discovered during excavation work this year, adding to more than 1,000 tombs since work began in 2000, researchers said. The tombs date from 650-280 BC, covering the iron age up to the Hellenistic period (323-146 BC). The tombs contain...

Chinese archeologists have found new evidence of international cultural exchange on the ancient Silk Road. Four European-looking warriors and lion-like beasts are engraved on an empress's 1,200-year-old stone coffin that was unearthed in Shaanxi Province, in northwestern China. The warriors on the four reliefs had deep-set eyes, curly hair and over-sized noses -- physical characteristics Chinese typically associate with Europeans. The 27-tonne Tang Dynasty (618-907) sarcophagus contained empress Wu Huifei (699-737), Ge Chengyong, a noted expert on Silk Road studies, said Tuesday. Ge said one of the warriors was very much like [Zeus], the "father of gods and men" in...

A wall painting (fresco) of Tyche, the Greek goddess of fortune, was exposed during the 11th season of excavation at the Sussita site, on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee, which was conducted by researchers of the University of Haifa. Another female figure was found during this season, of a maenad, one of the companions of the wine god Dionysus. "It is interesting to see that although the private residence in which two goddesses were found was in existence during the Byzantine period, when Christianity negated and eradicated idolatrous cults, one can still find clear evidence of earlier...

Ancient Cypriots were worshippers, not only of the Greek gods and goddesses, but also of faceless male and female deities, latest finds at the Idalion site have revealed... ancient Cypriots borrowed religious symbols from many nations to represent their own native gods... "With the removal of several years of accumulated rain wash, extraordinary vessels were revealed sitting on what appeared to be the last used floor of the sanctuary. These finds indicate that the sanctuary was in use until the first century BC. The cluster of whole vessels on a floor covered with mud brick detritus may indicate that the...

A Treaty (Berit, Covenant, Amana) between Jewish and Greek believers in Yeshua haMashiah (Jesus Christ).

How radical Islam makes you: a bigot religiously - a racist ethnically UNIQUENESS OF ISLAM'S INTOLERANCE While Christianity, ever since the termination of the Crusades and the Spanish inquisitions has no plans to "convert by force" anybody else, nor is ever Buddhism or Judaism, Islam --on the other hand-- even modern day Islam is about to Islamize the world, with any means possible. When (thank God) not "yet" accomplished, the Islamists bigotry has a few levels, the "people of the book" a.k.a. Christians & Jews are "allowed" to stay as an inferior class [Dhimmis], the other non-Muslims are "totally"...

ATHENS, May 31 (Reuters) - Greek police fired teargas on Monday at demonstrators protesting outside the Israeli embassy in Athens over Israel's storming of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla and the killing of pro-Palestinian activists. "Dozens of protesters tried to break a police cordon, and police responded with teargas," said a Reuters witness. About 2,500 protesters rallied outside the embassy, police said, chanting "Hands off Gaza".

AINA) -- All over the world, Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks are remembering the victims of the genocide perpetrated during World War One, where the Christian population of Asia minor was annihilated systematically by the so-called Young Turk government. While Assyrians call the genocide Seyfo (Sword), Armenians refer to the events as Aghet (Catastrophe). In worldwide initiatives, Assyrians too work for the recognition of the genocide that Turkey still denies. Most recently, the Swedish Parliament recognized the genocide (AINA 3-12-2010), calling on Turkey to acknowledge it. Turkey as the legal and political successor state of the Ottoman Empire vehemently rejects...

It began in Athens. It is spreading to Lisbon and Madrid. But it would be a grave mistake to assume that the sovereign debt crisis that is unfolding will remain confined to the weaker eurozone economies. For this is more than just a Mediterranean problem with a farmyard acronym. It is a fiscal crisis of the western world. Its ramifications are far more profound than most investors currently appreciate. There is of course a distinctive feature to the eurozone crisis. Because of the way the European Monetary Union was designed, there is in fact no mechanism for a bail-out of...

While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand new, even more unsustainable entitlement at the health care "summit," thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen - because they're part of the same story. It's just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They're at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided, instead, that what it needs to do is catch...

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has announced tough austerity measures aimed at cutting his country's soaring public debt. These include a public sector pay freeze and fuel duty increases. [interview with 3 citizens]

Who are the Palestinians and who is occupying what? [...] But 3000 years ago there were no other languages that used the same verb forms as are found on this piece of Hebrew inscribed pottery. The Arabs were not there. They were in Arabia.

A Greek man dressed in animal hide was mistakenly shot dead while out hunting wild boar for a Christmas dinner.

I just witnessed a couple of Orthodox posters get kicked off a "Catholic Caucus" thread. I thought, despite their differences, they had a mutual understanding that each sect was considered "Catholic". Are not the Orthodox considered Catholic? Why do the Romanists get to monopolize the term "Catholic"? I consider myself to be Catholic being a part of the universal church of Christ. Why should one sect be able to use a universal concept to identify themselves in a caucus thread while other Christian denominations need to use specific qualifiers to identify themselves in a caucus thread?