Free Republic

Every May, Russia proudly marches its biggest, fiercest-looking military hardware across Red Square in a show of force one might expect from one of the biggest militaries in the world. Tanks, missile launchers and rockets worth billions of dollars thunder across the cobblestones. But in a small field outside Moscow, two men wheel out a small package that could save the Russian military millions and prevent it from needing to deploy that fearsome arsenal. The men fire up an air pump and within minutes there stands a towering S-300 anti-aircraft missile launcher. Russia's Defense Ministry is in talks with a...

The Obama administration’s insistence on fiscal rectitude is dictated not by financial necessity but by political considerations. The US is not in the position of Europe’s heavily indebted countries, which must pay hefty premiums over the price at which Germany can borrow. Interest rates on US government bonds have been falling and are near record lows, which means that financial markets anticipate deflation, not inflation. President Barack Obama is under political pressure. Americans are deeply troubled by the accumulation of public debt. The Republican opposition has been extremely successful in blaming the crash of 2008 and the subsequent recession and...

Guards at the Los Angeles County jail complex in Castaic will start using a newfangled weapon that produces a deep burning sensation -- which is not to be confused with a “warm fuzzy feeling” -- in whomever it is aimed at. The 7 1/2-foot-tall “Assault Intervention Device,” which sheriff's deputies demonstrated Friday at the Pitchess Detention Center, emits an invisible beam that causes an unbearable sensation, reported the Daily News.

"Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition," said Klaus. "We learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom."