Free Republic

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday morning made an offering to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine during its autumn festival, according to local media. The offering is amid strained relations between Japan and its neighboring countries, namely China and South Korea, due to territorial disputes and Japan's attitude toward war-related history. The shrine, which honors Japanese war dead, including 14 class- A war criminals during the World War II, is considered as the symbol of Japan's past militarism. Repeated visits to the controversial shrine by Japanese cabinet ministers and lawmakers have been a major obstacle for Japan to mend ties...

Tuesday, October 15, 2013 No Business Like Gov Business Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Imagine a big corporation. A really big corporation that monopolizes everything and compels you to buy its low quality overpriced services and imprisons you if you refuse to pay whether you use them or not. Now imagine a CEO who picks and chooses which laws to follow, who breaks the law, embezzles huge sums for his friends, lies repeatedly and is never.held accountable for it. We are all shareholders of the corporation of government whose board and CEO we vote for, but...

Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae has hinted at the possibility of adapting a cold-war West Germany's policy by buying the freedom of political prisoners and abduction victims in North Korea. West Germany paid hard currency to East Germany to win the release of political prisoners there under a scheme known as "Freikauf." Ryoo told the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on Tuesday previous administrations here "discussed a Freikauf policy of the kind implemented in pre-unification Germany, and we'll also review the possibility of introducing it." Ryoo was replying to Democratic Party lawmaker Shim Jae-kwon, who asked, "Do you have...

A presidential aide yesterday reiterated that the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚�) and their surrounding waters are an inherent part of the territory of the Republic of China and that territorial disputes should be solved peacefully. “Taiwan has been very clear: The Diaoyutais are an inherent part of the sovereign territory of the Republic of China,” Presidential Office Secretary-General Timothy Yang (楊進添) said at the opening of the Taiwan-US-Japan Trilateral Security Dialogue forum in Taipei. Taiwan has consistently stated that the Diaoyutais issue should be addressed based on the principles of “safeguarding sovereignty, shelving disputes, pursuing peace and reciprocity, and promoting joint...

A tactical map of Taiwan shown in a China Central Television (CCTV) report on an ongoing People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military drill has raised concerns on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, a local news report said. Unidentified Chinese sources were quoted by the Chinese-language United Daily News as saying that CCTV military news reports tend to be carefully selected and should be taken seriously. CCTV reported over the weekend that the PLA started a large-scale exercise codenamed “Mission Action 2013B” at 7:30pm on Friday. More than 20,000 soldiers from the Chinese army, navy and air force took part in...

The 2013 edition of the Forbes China Rich List published today identifies a record 168 billionaires from the country, surpassing the previous high of 146 in 2011 and last year’s total of 113. The increase adds to China’s standing as a country with one of the world’s fastest-growing number of billionaires in the past decade. Real estate tycoon Wang Jianlin, chairman of Dalian Wanda Group, ascends to the No. 1 spot from No. 3 with a fortune worth $14.1 billion, an increase from $8 billion year, amid a recovery in the country’s real estate market. Underscoring his wish to make...

How do you settle a rather sizeable bill for your milk delivery? If you are a cash-strapped superpower the answer is, apparently, to offer up a pair of fighter jets and a nuclear submarine as payment. The extraordinary offer was made by Russia to New Zealand in 1993, a new book reveals. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was struggling to pay the $100m it owed New Zealand for a range of imported dairy products. In a meeting with Russian officials to thrash out payment terms, Jim Bolger, then New Zealand prime minister, was "absolutely stunned" to be...

Monday, October 14, 2013 The Battle of the Redskins Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Over the summer, those two legendary sources of sports coverage, Salon Magazine and MSNBC, or as they are known in some places the S Word and the M Word, announced that they would begin referring to the Washington Redskins football team as the R Word. Ordinarily liberals would not be too eager to call a team with 40 black players, a black quarterback and a passionate black fan base a hyphenated euphemism. But there are only so many politically correct causes out...

President Barack Obama is solely responsible for the current government shutdown. He used the Republican opposition to his health care plan to manipulate them into a situation he could exploit. He wants to use his media sheep to make the Republicans look bad so he can pursue his goal of gaining dictatorial control over the budget process. He wants the type of power the British monarchy lost centuries ago. I wouldn't trust former President Thomas Jefferson with the type of control over the federal debt that Obama wants. Jefferson was not only a more honorable man than Obama, he may...

SEOUL, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Hatred against Japan's military ambitions and no repentance over its past atrocities deepened among South Koreans after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the conservative nationalist, received a green light from the United States for the right to collective self-defense and denied its colonial wrongdoings. According to a survey on 1,000 South Koreans aged over 19, more than 85 percent of respondents said that they oppose Japan's right of engaging in collective self-defense. Over 70 percent even said that Japan is not South Korea's ally. The poll was unveiled Monday by Rep. Kim Jae-yun of the...

BEIJING — Armed with tens of billions of dollars in investment deals and romantic tales of ancient explorers, Chinese President Xi Jinping has spent much of the past month promoting his vision of two new “Silk Roads” to connect his country to the West and secure its energy supplies — one by land and another by sea. In the process, he has eclipsed an American vision of a New Silk Road that was advanced with much fanfare by then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton two years ago and was supposed to revitalize Afghanistan as the link between Central and South...

“As U.S. politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world,” writes Liu Chang in Xinhua, China’s official news outlet. But can China build a de-Americanized world? Can China lead the global economy? As we wrote in previous pieces, the answer is most likely not, as China lacks four conditions that make its economic growth sustainable. First, China...

Britain must show more respect for China and stop treating the country like a “sweatshop on the Pearl River”, George Osborne has said. Chinese leaders are determined to tackle corruption and organised crime and Britain must take advantage of their booming economy, Mr Osborne said, as he announced a radical relaxation of visa rules intended to boost the number of Chinese business travellers and tourists to Britain. Under plans revealed by the Chancellor in China today, Chinese visitors will be able to apply for a British visa using the same form as that used to enter the EU's 'Schengen' zone....

While there are always many currents roiling the waters for foreign currency (FX) traders, two broad trends now heaving up over the horizon are set to change the game fundamentally. Today, everyone takes it for granted that the U.S. dollar is the deepest pool of liquidity on the planet, and therefore the world's dominant reserve currency. There is no doubt that the Federal Reserve's succession of quantitative easing (QE) programs has deeply irritated countries with large U.S. dollar reserves - who wouldn't be irritated if someone else's actions took, say, 20% off their wealth without them being able to do...

American Consumer Culture = Debt Slavery A lot of concern – well founded, in my opinion, centers around the skyrocketing growth of our national debt. To everyone with a solid grounding in economics and history, this is a dark, ominous cloud hanging over America. I’ve noted that our grandchildren will despise us for bequeathing to them a collective burden of taxation and stifled economic growth that will be theirs from birth. But there’s an equally fearful debt problem that doesn’t attract nearly as much attention, even among conservatives. That’s our consumer spending culture driving the accumulation of personal debt. How...

Patrick J. Buchanan has raised the question asked here fifteen months ago: Is there a peaceful civil secession of Red States underway? Originally raised here in July 2012, we asked if there wasn’t a real possibility of what we described as a “constructive secession” which would accomplish what The Confederacy could not achieve. As we described the situation those states that have grown tired of the overbearing Barack Obama Administration and see it as no longer intolerable could engage in conduct that would amount to de facto if not a de jure secession from the United States. Red Staters have...

In a Presidential Address delivered today, President Obama calmed Wall Street and the rest of the nation by reversing course. Here is the text of the Presidential Address: My fellow Americans, some of you believe that my "no negotiations" stance toward Republicans was ill considered and that by intentionally causing unnecessary pain for you, my Fellow Americans, I was just being nasty. Now, I can tell you why I had to do it.As some have noticed, I have been a wuss in dealing with our foreign enemies. That was, I thought, the best I was able to do. Recognizing the...

Sunday, October 13, 2013 Goodbye Columbus, Goodbye America Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Columbus may have outfoxed the Spanish court and his rivals, but he is falling victim to the court of political correctness. The explorer who discovered America has become controversial because the very idea of America has become controversial. There are counter-historical claims put forward by Muslim and Chinese scholars claiming that they discovered America first. And there are mobs of fake indigenous activists on every campus to whom the old Italian is as much of a villain as the bearded Uncle Sam. Columbus...

The Pentagon has been holding phony “arrival” ceremonies for fallen soldiers at a base in Hawaii for over seven years, according to recent statements made by the United States Department of Defense to NBC News. For nearly a decade, military personnel transported flag-draped coffins containing the bodies of troops killed in action from seemingly just-arrived cargo planes during ceremonies near hangar 35 at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. In reality, however, the remains of those soldiers may have spent upwards of months in military custody before being paraded out during partially-fabricated ceremonial presentations carried out by the government’s Joint Prisoner of...

Moscow legislators backtracked on claims that they are considering the return of a monument honoring the founder of the Soviet secret police to the center of the city. The city parliament made no plans concerning the return of the statue of Felix "Iron Felix" Dzerzhinsky, legislature speaker Vladimir Platonov said on Ekho Moskvy radio Saturday. City lawmakers have no right to pitch such initiatives anyway and can only rule on their funding, said Platonov, a member of the ruling United Russia party. Fellow city lawmaker Andrei Metelsky said earlier Saturday that the Dzerzhinsky statue was a historical landmark and could...

American action film star Steven Seagal will become the face of a new Russian firearm, the actor announced at a Moscow news conference Friday. Seagal also used the occasion to practice some local phrases, give two thumbs up to the Russian army and criticize the weapons used by President Vladimir Putin's bodyguards. The U.S. actor has established friendly relations with Putin, who shares a penchant for martial arts with Seagal, and Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. One of Putin's associates, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, asked the American star earlier this year to lobby for easing restrictions on the sale of...

PUTRAJAYA: The court of appeal allowed the government's appeal over the usage of the word "Allah" in the Catholic weekly The Herald. The three-man panel, led by Datuk Seri Mohamed Apandi Ali, in an unanimous decision, said the usage of the name "Allah" is not an integral part of the faith and practice of Christianity. "We found no reason why the respondent was so adamant to use the word Allah in their weekly publication. "Such usage if allowed, will inevitably cause confusion among the community," he said. The panel was also comprised of judges Datuk Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim and...

A map of Taiwan appeared in a video feed of Guangzhou Military Area Headquarters during China Network Television's broadcast of a drill by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) codenamed “Mission Action 2013B” yesterday. An unnamed source familiar with China's military affairs stated that China has always been attentive to Taiwan's naval affairs and that the Nanjing Military Area Command (MAC) and the Guangzhou Military Area Command are in charge of observing China's southeast seas. The drill was carried out by PLA units stationed in Guangzhou; therefore, it should not be surprising to see a map of Taiwan in Guangzhou...

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英�) statement that cross-strait relations are “not international relations” during his Double Ten National Day speech has further weakened Taiwan’s sovereignty and was meant as a hint for the US and Japan not to interfere in cross-strait issues, a local academic said. “If by including such words in the National Day address Ma intends to make the cross-strait issue an internal matter and not open to international interference, it would cause serious repercussions in the days to come,” said Wong Ming-hsien (�明賢), director of Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies. Pointing to the...

Niccolo Machiavelli had been a revolutionist. He challenged traditional thought and order. He emancipated politics and ruling power from religion and moral philosophy. He delved into the mechanism behind power and human nature. What he discovered and bared was hypocrisy and deceitfulness in power and darkness and two-facedness in human nature. His empirical findings were turned into a literary masterpiece, “The Prince,” written in 1513. The Roman Catholic Church banned the book and labeled him a teacher of evil. Machiavelli willingly chose to play the bad guy with the book, making “Machiavellian” synonymous with deceit, tyranny and manipulation for personal...

The Japanese government is producing video clips in 11 languages to publicize its colonial claim to Korea's Dokdo islets and other territories in dispute with neighboring countries. They are to be put on the Internet. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun on Sunday said the Japanese government is about to open a website publicizing its territorial claims to Dokdo and the Senkaku (or Diaoyu) islands. The daily said the clips are to be ready in March next year and will be put on the website in rotation.

On October 3, the United States and Japan held the Security Consultative Committee (SCC) meeting, often referred to as "two-plus-two" because it includes the US secretaries of state and defense and Japan's foreign and defense ministers, in Tokyo. The joint statement issued at the end of the meeting, "Toward a More Robust Alliance and Greater Shared Responsibilities", described the vision of the US-Japan alliance that is "more balanced and effective." It included an extensive list of action items in three categories: "bilateral security and defense cooperation" (previously called "roles, missions, and capabilities"), "regional engagement," and "US force realignment in Japan"....

BANGALORE - India's current account deficit is arguably on the mend now. The same cannot be said about the country's fiscal deficit. The government, though, seems to believe otherwise as it reiterated its borrowing plan for the current financial year, which ends in March 2014. The government said it will stick to its overall borrowing target for the fiscal year of 5.79 trillion rupees (US$93 billion) as it announced plans to borrow 2.35 trillion rupees during the second half. What this means is that the government believes that it will be able to stick to its overall fiscal deficit target...

Thailand has the highest number of political dynasties in the world, according to a report released Sunday. The report by King Prajadhipok's Institute shows the extent of certain families' influence on...

The Yomiuri Shimbun The following are excerpts from an interview with Yoichi Funabashi, chairman of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation (RJIF) and former editor-in-chief of The Asahi Shimbun: In our book “Worst-case Scenario for Japan,” published by RJIF this spring, we wrote that “the loss of the Senkaku Islands would lead to the loss of Okinawa.” We reached this conclusion after thinking through what could happen if Japan lost them. The row over the Senkaku Islands can be said to represent a diplomatic clash between Japan and China. Beijing is currently aiming to achieve three goals: make Japan’s effective control...

Saturday, October 12, 2013 The Rabin Delusion Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Call it Rabinstock or Rabinpallooza. It's the annual anniversary of Yitzchak Rabin's death transformed into a tawdry spirit rally for the even more tawdry remnants of Israel's left. The assassination of the former Israeli PM has become the "Camelot" of the left with Rabin as an unlikely JFK. American liberals nourished themselves on the fantasy that race relations would have been solved and Vietnam would have been avoided if only their golden boy hadn't been shot in Dallas. It was more soothing than dealing...

Oh what it was like. “Mission Control, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.” “America on the moon.” “Godspeed, John Glenn.” “Come on and light this candle.” “A-OK.” “Four 3, 2, 1, and liftoff, we have liftoff.” Oh, we did. Those are words and phrases of America’s space program, especially the Mercury program, one of whose astronauts died this week, 88-year-old Scott Carpenter. In 1962 he became the second American to orbit the Earth. He was the one they couldn’t find for a while, when he missed his splashdown point by about 250 miles. It’s tempting to write that all...

The powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. ~ Thomas Jefferson writing in Notes on the State of Virginia Some historians are either woefully ignorant about our Republic or intentionally deceitful. You're reading false claims that the House of Representatives "shutdown the government" . . .

With the Parks' restrooms at the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC closed, a truckload of portable restrooms of the sort used at construction sites was donated by private citizens. NPS Rangers blocked these from being unloaded. “The President has instructed us to shutdown this site,” explained NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis. “As everyone knows, our efforts have been thwarted by aged veterans breaching our barricades. We certainly can't reward this disobedience by allowing bladder and bowel evacuation facilities near the Memorial.” Jarvis scoffed at the notion that this could be construed as vindictive. “Hah, these guys faced worse when...

Friday, October 11, 2013 Friday Afternoon Roundup - Out of Rushmore Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES HIM MEANING The Obama myth is that he is a reasonable man being blocked by unreasonable Republicans at every turn. There are plenty of things wrong with that myth, but the biggest one is that Obama isnÂ’t being handicapped by Republican obstructionism. He seeks out and cultivates Republican opposition. The ideas of the left donÂ’t just fail because theyÂ’re bad. They also fail because the left is more energized by hostilities than by any...

As the Global Warming gang has done in recent years, over the centuries the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) have destroyed the lives of perhaps millions of people with their bogus “predictions” of the end of the world. Both have fooled people into radical changes in their lives to avoid the phony Armageddon they have been preaching. It has been painful to watch and listen to these poor deluded people regardless of which hoax was destroying them. Nevertheless, as destructive as the JW’s phony predictions have been to individuals at least the rest of us have not been forced by some government...

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gave tacit backing to the Philippines' stance in a tense maritime dispute with China on Thursday, saying that all countries had a right to seek arbitration to resolve competing territorial claims. The Philippines, a U.S. ally, has angered China by launching an arbitration case with the United Nations to challenge the legal validity of Beijing's sweeping claims over the resource-rich South China Sea. The United States has refrained from taking sides in the dispute, one of Asia's biggest security headaches, but has expressed a national interest in freedom of navigation...

The Russian-Japanese relations are going through tough times. There is no war, but there is no peace treaty either. The current state of affairs has to do with the fact that the Russian state border in the Kuriles was not recognized by Japan and a number of other countries. Over 65 years this border has not been legally protected. These islands can be called a conflict and destabilizing point in the Asia -Pacific region. The Russian and Japanese leaders discussed issues of bilateral relations on October 7th. According to the press-secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, the parties paid...

This clip is from Västerås, Sweden. Each year, a festival celebrating classic American cars is held in this Nordic city. See link below.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Revolution is Duty of the People https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af5KJ2aD8F0

History is full of wars beginning by mistake. Please read the linked history. My intention with this post is not to rehash who was right or wrong, but to make the point that this Sunday's super rally at the DC veterans' memorials is full of the echoes of history. http://www.theirishstory.com/2012/01/29/today-in-irish-history-january-30-1972-bloody-sunday-in-derry/ In January 1972, a march was called by Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in for Sunday January 30th in Derry. Its purpose was to protest against internment without trial, which had been introduced in August of the previous year. The city was already in a state of low-intensity conflict. Since...

Thursday, October 10, 2013 The Obama Blockade Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog In the spring of ’48, the collision of wills between the free world and the red slave empire of the east came to a head in Berlin. The Communist strategy had been to push forward, to violate the spirit of the agreements and then the letter of the agreements while always claiming to be the aggrieved party. The Allies had treated the Soviet Union as if it were a credible partner that wanted to work together with them on rebuilding Europe. The Soviet Union...

In an interview with Beijing Review and other media, Abdul Ibrahimi, Speaker of the Lower House of the Afghan Parliament, said that the peace-loving nation of China plays an important role in South Asia and the Asian continent as a whole. The interview was conducted during the International Day of Peace 2013 & China-South Asia Peace and Development Forum, which took place on September 21-22 in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province. Excerpts follow: Beijing Review: What is your view on peace and security in Asia? Abdul Ibrahimi: Peace is one of the needs of human beings for the protection of...

(Reuters) - The United States and Vietnam on Thursday signed a pact that would allow the transfer of nuclear technology to the Southeast Asian nation and open the way for U.S. investment in the burgeoning industry, in another sign that Washington is seeking stronger economic and strategic ties in the region. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S.-Vietnam Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement would allow U.S. firms to tap Vietnam's future nuclear power market, although the State Department said the deal will not allow Vietnam to enrich or reprocess U.S.-origin nuclear materials. "This agreement will create numerous opportunities for...

1. kafli Óleifur hét herkonungur er kallaður var Óleifur hvíti. Hann var son Ingjalds konungs Helgasonar, Ólafssonar, Guðröðarsonar, Hálfdanarsonar hvítbeins Upplendingakonungs.

Democrats keep saying "Obamacare is the law of the land; just accept it and stop trying to change it!" Never mind the fact that the Democrats have already changed it, again and again, by issuing over 1200 waivers and postponements for their cronies. Even though the law doesn’t make any provision for such waivers, the Democrats issue them at the drop of a hat to the politically connected, and reject any proposal for waivers for the rest of us. Nope, the rest of us can’t change it. They say that it is settled law, so we must accept it. But...

Lake Mead Property Owners forced Out Until Shutdown Ends Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- The government shutdown is being felt close to home for some locals. They say they're being forced out of private homes on Lake Mead because they sit on federal land. Joyce Spencer is 77-years-old and her husband Ralph is 80. They've been spending most of their time in the family ice cream store since going home isn't an option. The Spencers never expected to be forced out of their Lake Mead home, which they've owned since the 70s, but on Thursday, a park ranger said they...

Watch all 49 minutes of the fantastic documentary, An Impossible Job, which followed England's distasterous World Cup qualifying campaign with Graham Taylor at the helm and was originally aired in January 1994.

Monday, October 07, 2013 Let's Have a Government Sale Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog The giant scissors of destiny are clicking and clacking their way to our national credit card. If we don't raise the debt limit, so we can borrow more money to pay the interest on the money we borrowed before, the scissors will snip and snap like economic armageddon. And then the big shiny credit card that pays for everything gets cut up in two pieces. But never fear. If worst comes to worst, we still have options. Our government is big. Really...

This is the third and final part of a 3-part article by our new guest writer, Stephen St. George, a Catholic born in Iraq who now lives in the United States. The first part, in which he describes his early experiences in Iraq, is here: Let’s Throw Pebbles in the Ocean!. The second part is here: How to Answer Muslim and Liberal Untruths . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Around the world, we have situations and events that as a whole resemble an “ocean” of crooked laws, injustices, oppression, greed, lies, killings, and all sorts of evils that man is capable of perpetrating...