Free Republic

Solving the "Palestinian Problem" Israel's war against Hamas brings up the old quandary: What to do about the Palestinians? Western states, including Israel, need to set goals to figure out their policy toward the West Bank and Gaza. Let's first review what we know does not and cannot work: Israeli control. Neither side wishes to continue the situation that began in 1967, when the Israel Defense Forces took control of a population that is religiously, culturally, economically, and politically different and hostile. A Palestinian state. The 1993 Oslo Accords began this process but a toxic brew of anarchy, ideological extremism,...

Proposal Uses Private Equity to Keep Government from Buying Mortgage Assets, Assures Wall Street Won’t Get Rich While Taxpayers Get Stuck with Trillion Dollar Bill September 27, 2008 Washington, DC – Rep. Darrell Issa, a businessman and entrepreneur before coming to Congress, today offered a new proposal to protect the economy without a taxpayer-funded bail out of Wall Street. Under Rep. Issa’s plan, private investors would provide the capital for a Rescue Fund through the purchase of government issued Guaranteed Recovery Bonds. The Rescue Fund would be managed by the Treasury Department and would offer troubled financial firms interest accruing...

If this comes to fruition, then I get another "told you so." I would gladly forgo that boastful celebratory gesture however because if this happens, I think it wins the election for John McCain. I believe that John McCain and the House Republicans are working on trying to find a way to finance this $700 billion bailout largely or entirely with private money by giving sweetheart deals to investors. If this happens the Democrats will buck it at first forcing John McCain to figure out an alternative way of getting this passed - the court of public opinion. All polling...

JOSEPH PETROWSKI is president of Gulf Oil. His recommendations are as follows: To Democrats: Supply must be increased, and that will require more drilling. We can responsibly drill. The technology to find, drill and recover oil has evolved tremendously. Careless drillers fear tort lawyers more than government. ators. The claim that the oil companies are sitting on leases and not drilling defies all logic. With oil at $135 per barrel and drilling rigs renting at $300,000 per day, there are no idle rigs anywhere. Furthermore, economic decline – and war induced by basic resource struggles – are greater threats to...

$2 trillion more of collateralised loans and outright purchases of private securities, please This past month or so, the Fed has created facilities capable of pumping about $400bn worth of liquidity into the US financial system. I expect that the Fed will have to do a lot more by way of liquidity injections. Over the remainder of the year, even an additional $1 trillion of collateralised lending by the Fed (over and above the normal levels seen before the second half of 2007) is likely to be inadequate to get key financial markets functioning effectively again and to keep them...

It's true that the U.S. health care system is a mess, but this demonstrates not market but government failure. To cure the problem requires not different or more government regulations and bureaucracies, as self-serving politicians want us to believe, but the elimination of all existing government controls. It's time to get serious about health care reform. Tax credits, vouchers, and privatization will go a long way toward decentralizing the system and removmg unnecessary burdens from business. But four additional steps must also be taken: 1. Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health...

Constructing the Solutrean Solution Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley Smithsonian Institution University of Exeter At the 1999 Clovis and Beyond Conference held in Santa Fe, we presented a hypothesis, now known as the "Solutrean Solution", to explain the origin of Clovis technology. The hypothesis is based on the fact that there is little commonality between Clovis and Northeast Asian technologies on the one hand, while on the other, there are many technological traits shared between Clovis and the Solutrean culture of Paleolithic Europe. In the past, scholars have rejected the idea of a historical connection between the two cultures because...

THE SENATE Democratic leadership spent the past week trying to prove that Congress is deeply divided over Iraq, with Democrats pressing and Republicans resisting a change of course. In fact that's far from the truth. A large majority of senators from both parties favor a shift in the U.S. mission that would involve substantially reducing the number of American forces over the next year or so and rededicating those remaining to training the Iraqi army, protecting Iraq's borders and fighting al-Qaeda. President Bush and his senior aides and generals also support this broad strategy, which was formulated by the bipartisan...

This guy has the solution to the Iraq War and the bid on ebay is upto 99 Million Dollars: A Solution to the War in Iraq

June 15, 2007, 5:00 a.m. A Stem-Cell SolutionReal scientific opportunities. By Mitt Romney Late last week, two developments involving stem-cell research offered a sharp contrast between the great strengths of American biomedical science and the terrible weakness of Washington politics. First, on Wednesday, we learned that researchers in Massachusetts, building on prior accomplishments by colleagues in Japan, had managed to transform regular skin cells into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells in mice. Their work points to a way to produce cells with the qualities scientists value about embryonic stem cells, but without the need to create, harm, or destroy...

The only viable solution in the opinion of this organization is to install in Iraq a moderate Muslim potentate who can effectively limit, with a strong centralized force (and perhaps decentralized provincial decision-making), sectarian conflict and radical fundamentalism. This example is given by the more "moderate" Islamic states, including Turkey, Egypt, and Kuwait, who subdue terrorists while piously imposing sharia-inspired law and order. America should concede Iraq a theocratic governmental structure that substantially limits democracy. This is the best option to preserve stability and facilitate quick withdrawal. The Iraqi constitution should provide as much provincial/ethnic independence as necessary to avert...

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2007 – The U.S. troop surge in Iraq is in its early stages, but seems to be paving the way for a political solution to the country’s woes, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today on CBS's “Face the Nation.” “The way I would characterize it is so far so good,” Gates said in his first network one-on-one interview since taking over at the Pentagon in December. Gates said the situation in Iraq cannot be solved by the military alone, but the troop surge is helping create a political environment where issues can be sorted out...

TUCSON — U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords sees Iraq as a complex problem, and she believes that to solve it will have to include more diplomatic efforts. Although she spent just one day in the battle-torn nation as part of a small congressional delegation, the Arizona Democrat said it doesn’t take much time on the ground to know the United States is facing a determined enemy. “The trip reinforces for me the complexity of the problem facing us in Iraq,” she said at a press conference in the Tucson International Airport on Wednesday. Her time on the ground was limited and...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE LOYALTY, Iraq, Feb. 22, 2007 — Concrete barriers are going up in the eastern Baghdad's Rusafa security district, aimed at providing enhanced security to the Al Shurja market place. As part of Operation Fardh Al-Qanoon, elements of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, started placing concrete barriers this week. Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment emplaced more than 130 concrete barriers at the market place, Feb. 16. "The ultimate success of this depends on the Iraqi security forces, on how they operate and implement the market checkpoints," Maj. Matthew R. Sampson, an engineer...

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have pledged to forge a peace between their countries, calling the vision of two states, side by side, the only path. With Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas watching, Livni told the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum that a Palestinian state is "not an illusion. It's there, it's achievable". Livni urged the international community to support moderates in the Middle East. She told Abbas that "compromising with extremists will not promote anything" - a clear reference to Hamas and other militant groups. Abbas listened intently, nodding his head, and afterwards...

If enacted, the measure, drafted by a committee of politicians and ministers, could help resolve a highly divisive issue that has consistently blocked efforts to reconcile the country’s feuding ethnic and sectarian factions. Sunni Arabs, who lead the insurgency, have opposed the idea of regional autonomy for fear that they would be deprived of a fair share of the country’s oil wealth, which is concentrated in the Shiite south and Kurdish north. The Iraq Study Group report stressed that an oil law guaranteeing an equitable distribution of revenues was crucial to the process of national reconciliation, and thus to ending...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2006 -- A group of American seamstresses is working to apply an old-fashioned skill -- sewing -- to help today’s wounded veterans. The nonprofit group “Sew Much Comfort” includes more than 2,000 people who sew specially made clothing for wounded servicemembers, who often find clothing off the rack doesn’t accommodate a variety of medical devices. Sew Much Comfort is a member of the Defense Department’s America Supports You program, which highlights grassroots and corporate efforts to support U.S. troops and their families. Several of the groups set up tables at the end of the America Supports...

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2006 – Increasing violence in Baghdad is due to sectarian tensions, and the solution to the problem will involve more than increased security forces, a Defense Department spokesman said here today. The U.S. will be shifting more forces into Baghdad to stem the violence, but Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's reconciliation plan and government activities are just as important in resolving the situation, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. "It's a more holistic approach in how you deal with the situation that has developed in Baghdad," he said. A sharp increase in civilian casualties in Baghdad can be...

BAGHDAD, July 12, 2006 – The solution to ending violence in Iraq will be the development of the national ministries and a reconciliation plan that includes all ethnic groups, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld speaks to troops at Camp Anaconda, in Balad, Iraq, July 12. Photo by Airman 1st Class Andrew Oquendo, USAF  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Terrorists' hope to start civil war, make Iraq a failed state they can take over, and gain more economic power in the country by affecting the political process, Rumsfeld explained to a...

WASHINGTON, July 6, 2006 – As the international community unites and sends a clear message to North Korea demanding disarmament, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will become less of a threat, President Bush said here today. "We want to solve this problem diplomatically, and the best way to solve the problem diplomatically is for all of us to be working in concert and to send one message, and that is to Kim Jong Il that ... 'We expect you to adhere to international norms, and we expect you to keep your word,'" Bush said at a joint news conference...