Free Republic

Report: Members of Iranian Revolutionary Guard arrested for joining 'people's movement' According to Cyrus News Agency (CNA) in Iran, at least 16 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly attempting to join the "people's movement." Protests, riots and violence broke out in several cities in Iran on Saturday night following an election which many in Iran and the world say was fraudulent. "These commanders have been in contact with members of the Iranian army to join the people's movement. Three of the commanders are veterans of Iran-Iraq war. They have been moved to an undisclosed...

Internet Censorship: How Cute Cats Can Help

BNP wins European Parliament seat The British National Party has won its first seat in the European Parliament after gaining more than 120,000 votes in the Yorkshire and Humber region. Labour could be on course to dip below 20% of the vote in what Harriet Harman has called a "very dismal" night. After the first three English regions to declare, Labour is third on 15.9% of the vote behind the Tories on 26.8% and UKIP [UK Independence Party] on 18.1%. There are still nine regions to declare their results. But if repeated across the UK it will pile pressure on...

[a little noticed item in the Federal Register, gutting a provision intended to protect US personnel against the International Criminal (Kangaroo) Court ] Presidential Determination No. 2009-14 of January 16, 2009 Waiving the Prohibition on the Use of Economic Support Funds with Respect to Various Parties to the Rome Statute Establishing the International Criminal Court Memorandum for the Secretary of State Pursuant to the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, including section 671(b) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008 (Division J, Public Law 110-161), I hereby:...

Winchester, UK - Cambridge University's Centre for Gallium Nitride has developed a new way of making GaN which could produce LEDs for a tenth of current prices and may see household lighting bills reduced by up to 75 percent within five years. [snip] Currently GaN LEDs can only be grown on 2-inch sapphire wafers. Following the Cambridge innovation nine times as many LEDs can be grown on a 6-inch silicon wafer compared with a 2-inch sapphire wafer. In addition, edge effects are less, so the number of good LEDs is about 10 times higher. The processing costs for a 2-inch...

A jet has made a crash landing at Philadelphia International Airport after having landing gear trouble Sunday evening. The US Airways Express regional jet reported an emergency after the crew was unable to extend the left main landing gear. Emergency crews were waiting the plane’s arrival and followed the aircraft down the runway as it skidded to a stop. There were three people on board the aircraft. The plane was doused with fire-retardant foam as the people on-board were evacuated. No injuries have been reported. The airport has been closed because of the crash landing. All departing and arriving flights...

The flyover [overpass] outside the domestic airport in Mumbai and a taxi driver’s unfamiliarity with the new slip route to the terminal perhaps went a long way in averting a major disaster that could have taken the toll into hundreds on Wednesday night itself. Shortly before the terrorists moved into their targets in South Mumbai, a black and yellow taxi, with three passengers and enough ammunition to bring down a dome, sped in the direction of the airport. Instead of taking a slip road that would have taken the passengers straight to the airport, the driver took the flyover which...

Do you think Sarah Palin is qualified to serve as Vice President of the United States?

Federal investigators are probing whether convicted developer Tony Rezko paid for all or part of a $90,000 fix-up of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's bungalow. The Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday it has learned the FBI has been looking into how Rezko billed the Democratic governor for his work and whether Rezko ever arranged for cash to be passed in envelopes to the Blagojeviches. Rezko was convicted in June of mail fraud, wire fraud, aiding and abetting bribery, and attempted extortion. Work on the Blagojevich home was completed in 2003, after Rezko had succeeded in placing his friends and associates on state-government...

Hey DNC....We're Over It. Now You Get Over It! We watched in horror as you told your base that they were no longer needed and that we could just "stay home". We watched in stunned outrage when you were silent on sexism and propelled the race card. You called us uneducated, old, blue collar, gun toters, clingers, not urban, souless, clueless, and basically threw us to the dogs. You told us to shut up, get over it and fall in line. Many of us have donated, worked hard for the DNC for years if not decades. We have been true...

The shifts in Barack Obama’s policy toward Iraq show a remarkable correlation with the rise and fall of Tony Rezko’s business prospects in the Chamchamal Power Plant. As the story of the Rezko syndicate is exposed in his Chicago trial, the subject of its Iraqi commercial interests will come under a brighter light. Barack Obama has already said of his convicted ex-fundraiser, “this is not the Tony Rezko I used to know.”

Back in May 2006, a few programmers working on an open-source security project made a whopper of a mistake. Last week, the full impact of that mistake was just beginning to dawn on security professionals around the world. In technical terms, a programming error reduced the amount of entropy used to create the cryptographic keys in a piece of code called the OpenSSL library, which is used by programs like the Apache Web server, the SSH remote access program, the IPsec Virtual Private Network (VPN), secure e-mail programs, some software used for anonymously accessing the Internet, and so on. The...

[translation thanks to Gates of Vienna] Oriana Fallaci Square in place of the mosque VERONA — Goodbye mosque. In its place, Oriana Fallaci Square. This decision was taken by the committee of Oppeano (Verona, Italy), where yesterday morning a building used by Muslims for prayer was bulldozed. In its place, the Municipality will create a public square named after the writer of The Rage and the Pride, which promoted a bitter campaign against Islam. The decision to raze the structure which had been opened by ONLUS [translator’s note: Organizzazione Non Lucrativa di Utilita’ Sociale, a non-profit registered Italian charity] “For...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may sign a contract for four Russian diesel submarines on a visit to Moscow next month, the Kommersant daily has reported, citing unidentified officials. Chavez has been invited to the May inauguration of Dmitry Medvedev as Russian president. If he takes up the invitation, the Venezuelan leader may use the opportunity to sign a contract to buy four Kilo-class diesel submarines agreed to at the start of this year, the paper said. Kommersant said the submarine contract, worth about $1 billion ($1.27 billion), had been set to be signed in February. Venezuela is seeking a loan...

It has now been reported that has now learned that a neurologist at the hospital where O.J. Simpson’s girlfriend Christie Prody is being treated has told police her injuries are consistent with an assault, not a fall. O.J. Simpson's long-time girlfriend has severe injuries that are consistent with an assault, rather than simply a fall. Christie Prody, 32, remains hospitalized at Baptist Hospital in Miami and may be facing brain surgery. The National Enquirer broke the story yesterday of Prody's injuries and revealed that O.J. was questioned by police detectives at his home in Florida. The police are still investigating.

Dancing "Rage Boy" Elves

Gun Control - OSHA's covert role For a long time, we've been seeing and discussing incidents where people have been fired for having firearms in their private vehicles, or carrying concealed while at work. The argument from one side has been that businesses should be able to set their own rules about their own property, and the assumption has been that the rules have been the idea of the businesses in question In a thread yesterday, I noticed a reference to a federal judge in Oklahoma who struck down an Oklahoma law that would have permitted employees to have their...

Georgian [the country south of Russia, not the US state ] customs officers sent a car carrying a mixture of plutonium and beryllium back into Azerbaijan after foiling an attempt to smuggle the materials over the border, Georgian television reported. Customs officials found the materials, which can be used in nuclear bombs, in what appeared to be a routine check as the car was driven over the border from Azerbaijan, the Imedi television station reported.

LAHORE: An additional district and sessions judge on Wednesday sentenced a blasphemy accused, Younis Masih, to death after a video jail trial. The court also fined him Rs 100,000. Factory Area police had registered a blasphemy case under Section 295 C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) against Masih on September 10, 2005, after he had allegedly made derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) at a Qawali function on September 9, 2005. The accused challenged the whole legal process in his case and said that the investigation against him was illegal. He said that according to the law, a police...

BLACKSBURG, Va. - He made overtures so unwelcome to young women that their ultimate rejections had to be delivered by the campus police. They in turn were troubled enough to send him to a mental health facility after a court magistrate declared him "mentally ill" and "an imminent danger" to himself or others. That was in 2005. ... Police revealed that Cho first caught their attention in the fall of 2005 when he contacted two women who didn't like his attention. The first incident, on Nov. 27, involved phone calls and e-mails to a fellow student who felt uncomfortable enough...