Free Republic

QUARTEIRA, Portugal (Reuters) - Officers from a special anti-terrorism unit are in the Algarve seeking three men who spent several hours filming a shopping centre and the main square in Faro, the daily Publico has reported. The newspaper quoted police sources on Saturday as saying the men described as "Arabs" arrived from London and hired a car in Lisbon before driving to southern Portugal. They spent several hours on Thursday filming underground parking lots at the shopping centre and also the main square where hundreds of soccer fans turn out every evening to watch Euro 2004 matches on a big...

AT THE CLOSE of the recent G-8 summit in Sea Island, Georgia, sighs of relief could be heard in palaces across the Middle East where unelected leaders wield near-absolute power. The summit had been expected to produce a clarion call for reform in the only part of the world still largely unaffected by changes that have reshaped global politics since the end of the Cold War. Instead, it settled for a string of bland admonitions. Anxious to avoid fresh charges of unilateralism, and responding to demands from French president Jacques Chirac and German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, President Bush toned down...

What’s Your "TQ"? That’s "terrorism quotient" — also known as "High Terrorism Factor," or HTF. The AP reported on May 20 that Seisint, a federal contractor employed by the Bush administration to develop the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX), "turned over to U.S. and Florida authorities the names of 120,000 people who showed a statistical likelihood of being terrorists — sparking some investigations and arrests." After 9-11, Seisint used a scoring algorithm to trawl through personal data collected on millions of people to identify those displaying HTF. The system was based on "reverse engineering an unnamed ‘Terrorist Handbook’ that reveals...

"The problem runs even deeper. The Saudi state, run by royals who often flaunt their libertinism, enforces the extreme Wahhabi form of Islam at home and subsidizes its practice abroad. Alex Alexiev, formerly of the RAND Corporation, calls this "the largest worldwide propaganda campaign ever mounted." Within this sect, hostile to modernity and the West, political extremism and support for terrorism have flourished in Saudi Arabia itself. Moreover, the threat now reaches beyond the Middle East to Indonesia--witness the bombing in Bali--Malaysia, and even the Philippines. Even the U.S. is not immune. Saudi-funded Wahhabi groups are promoting a series of...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. government renewed its call on Monday for Americans to leave Saudi Arabia after the recent terrorist attacks, saying the safety of U.S. workers was more important than any effect on oil supplies or the Saudi economy. An estimated 35,000 Americans have been working in Saudi Arabia and it was unclear how many have left since the increase in attacks, which have come at the same time the Bush administration has been pressing the Saudis to boost oil production to help lower gas prices in the United States. Referring to U.S. workers in Saudi Arabia, State...

Dyab Abou Jahjah's Arab European League calls for sharia law, celebrates 9/11 and warned Belgian Jews to break with Israel or else. Is he defending Muslims' civil rights -- or inciting hatred?

OF the many and varied depressing aspects of the current Tory leadership campaign, the most dispiriting is the general tenor of the Portillo pitch. Mr Portillo thinks that the Conservative party needs to change not just the odd policy on Europe, the pound and other minor matters, but its entire personality.It needs to cease being Captain Hook, stamping about brandishing its hook and twirling its moustaches, and to transform itself into Tinkerbell, assuring mothers and infants that it believes in fairies. Conservatives, says Mr Portillo, need to chuck out ‘arrogance, complacency and bigotry.’ The generous interpretation of this is that...

It has been a good long while since I've had a sit-down with the U.S. Constitution, but if my junior high school memories serve me correctly, I don't recall the Bill of Rights guaranteeing free speech only to those who espouse one particular opinion. Yet that seems to be the disturbing interpretation preferred by those encouraging a backlash against some celebrities who have been outspoken opponents of the U.S.-led war against Iraq.... A `black' list? A conservative Web site has published a list of more than 100 actors, musicians and filmmakers who, it claims, "use their celebrity status to push...

Since my last vanity announcement on keywords went so swimmingly (it ended up with something like 5000 keywords added to it) I thought a great idea would be to throw some propane on some other fires with a vanity. Breaking news is being abused again, big time. This goes in cycles, with sometimes people being responsible, but other times people not being very responsible. We are in one of the not-very time periods. Please, do not post something in Breaking News because you think it is something you want people to see. Place something in Breaking News only if it...

I would enjoy some opinions and criticisms of this. I have written it and am looking to develop the argument further. What are your opinions and what do you believe should be brought up in this essay? Thank you. ------------------------------------------ Authoritarian Conservatism? Is Conservatism Authoritarian? I think not, but there are those who claim it is. I offer this definition of “authoritarian”: “of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority.” Conservatism does not “favor” this at all. The leaders of the Conservative movement – Messrs. Buckley, Kirk, Meyer, et al – vigorously refuted the supposed authoritarianism of Conservatism when...

Published in 1932, a novel by Aldous Huxley, entitled A Brave New World, described a fantasized society of the far future which has, as time progresses, becomes less a fantasy and more a possibility. This society controlled by an authoritarian centralized government practices mass breeding of humans in laboratories, called hatcheries, replacing normal maternal reproduction; this included mass cloning and the conditioning of groups of fertilized ova to effect classifications of humans with certain physical and mental capabilities. In addition, post birth conditioning provides psychological & physiological effects which results in selected groups having aptitudes and inclinations for specific...