Free Republic

Russia skewers US election as undemocratic, ‘the worst in the world’By Julian Pecquet - 11/04/12 06:00 AM ET The Russian government is lambasting the U.S. presidential race as an undemocratic spectacle amid growing concerns about the country’s own commitment to free and fair elections. The Foreign Ministry this week accused America of hypocrisy following reports that some U.S. states would turn away international election monitors at the polls. The Kremlin-funded Russia Today television station, meanwhile, is serving up a steady stream of outraged U.S. election coverage, reporting on topics such as the lack of polling places in Indian country and...

WASHINGTON -- The third and final presidential debate Monday raised deeply troubling questions about President Obama's handling of foreign policy in the last four years -- especially on the question of keeping Americans safe in the midst of growing terrorism throughout the world, and resurgent jihadist attacks across the Middle East. Former governor Mitt Romney entered the last debate with a preplanned strategy of calmly addressing the big, overriding issues that threaten our safety and those of our allies. He deliberately toned down both his delivery and his demeanor, as if to demonstrate his confidence that he had already beaten...

The relatively small glaciers that drape the planet's mountains will play an important role in future sea level rise, according to a new study that estimated glaciers' collective size. Researchers calculated the ice thickness for 171,000 glaciers worldwide, excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which hold the bulk of Earth's frozen water. Through a combination of direct satellite observations and modeling, they determined the total volume of ice tied up in the glaciers is nearly 41,000 cubic miles (170,000 cubic kilometers), plus or minus 5,000 cubic miles (21,000 cubic km). If all the glaciers were to melt, global sea...

The four minute segment that appeared on "World News" tonight is part one of a two part series on the Mormon Church.

A U.S. supercomputer has won back the crown in the never-ending battle for the world's most powerful supercomputer. Its victory is the latest milestone marking the steady climb of computing power all across the globe. The Top500 industry list gave its No. 1 ranking to the Sequoia supercomputer housed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California — a spot earned by Sequoia's ability to crunch 16.32 quadrillion calculations per second (16.32 petaflops/s). Such supercomputing power is used by the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration to simulate nuclear weapons tests for older weapons that have been sitting in the U.S. arsenal....

In an interview on CNN in advance talks between Iran and Western countries on Tehran's nuclear program, President Shimon Peres said that “time is running out” for Iran. You cannot provoke the world, assuming the world is made of fools only," Peres told the network. The talks got underway in Moscow Monday, after several inconclusive sessions over the past several months in Baghdad and Istanbul. The talks, with the U.S., Britain, China, Russia, France and Germany on one side of the table and Iran on the other, were “not going well,” an Iranian source quoted by European news agencies said...

In an article yesterday explaining why I switched from the WSJ to the Financial Times, I cited the FT's far more international orientation as a prime reason for the switch. With that in mind, consider this point from yesterday's statement from the Bank of Japan regarding interest rate policy: Regarding risks to the economic outlook, there remains a high degree of uncertainty about the global economy, including the prospects for the European debt problem, the momentum toward recovery for the U.S. economy, and the likelihood of emerging and commodity-exporting economies simultaneously achieving price stability and economic growth. Regarding risks to...

The head of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has called on Arab forces to confront Israel and for the international community to pressure the “Zionist government to withdraw from the land of Palestine.” The statement – the existence of which was revealed Wednesday by the Investigative Project on Terrorism blog – reminds Brotherhood followers of the movement’s decades-long “sacrifices” in efforts to destroy the Jewish state. “On this day, like every year, the Arab and Islamic nations remember the worst catastrophe ever to befall the peoples of the world,” Badie wrote in the text, translated by The Jerusalem Post. “We demand the

After reading Ocean Springs, Mississippi Mayor Connie Moran’s rebuttal to a letter to the editor in our local newspaper, I was compelled to respond. In the spirit of temperance, I am willing to give the Democrat Mayor Moran the benefit of a doubt and assume that she is simply uninformed rather than disingenuous. I will also overlook her condescending tone and her calling those of us who have researched and studied this issue “conspiracy theorists” who are “proliferating” under a “delusion” about the promoters of the tenets of Agenda 21. Putting all that aside, I would like to take a...

"Today, you step forward into a different world," President Obama said, before implicitly giving his own policies credit for changing perceptions of American leadership and his nation's position in the world.

The blue ball represents all of the earths water. Not that much...

And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my...

A nine-year-old Israeli girl was nearly abducted from her parents at Disney World, in Orlando, Florida, during the Pesach holiday. Channel 10 news reported that two Israeli parents and their two children were standing in line for one of the rides in the huge theme park when they discovered that their daughter had disappeared. They immediately ran to the park's security officers, who locked all of the park's exit gates. The parents were taken to a control room, where they were asked to look for the girl on the numerous security cameras.

The headline-grabbing all-white adult killer whale spotted off Russia this month may well be one of a kind. But the sighting may not be the first time he's been caught on camera. Scientists were studying acoustic and social interactions among whales and dolphins off the North Pacific's Commander Islands (map) when the team noticed a six-foot-tall (nearly two-meter-tall) white dorsal fin jutting above the waves—hence the whale's new name: Iceberg. "The reaction from the team for the encounter, which happened on an ordinary day for spotting and photographing the whales, was one of surprise and elation," researcher Erich Hoyt said...

New York's Freedom Tower reaches 100 floorsAFP Relax News – Wed, Apr 4, 2012 **SNIP** The Freedom Tower, scheduled to be opened in 2013, is being built to a height of 1,776 feet (541 meters), which is a symbolic figure reminiscent of the US year of independence. The glass walls have been built to the 70th floor while the concrete floors are poured to the 87th floor, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said on its website. The building is planned to be the tallest in the United States when it is completed.

We are born in this world with hands from heaven. We must live in it, because we dont have the facilities to get or live out of it ( as so it seems). So, our love for one another in this world must be strong through all of our different comprehensions of what we are seeing, hearing, believing, and trying to analyze in order to live with one another.

On Sunday, Japan’s corporate tax reform kicks in and the United States will have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Including average state taxes the corporate tax rate in the United States reaches an astounding 39.2 percent, much higher than the OECD international average marginal tax rate of 25.5 percent. Obama’s own former Council of Economic Advisers chairman, Austan Goolsbee, documented firm sensitivity to taxation. Goolsbee’s paper, published at the University of Chicago, highlighted increased deadweight loss as a significant adverse consequence of corporate taxation. Simply put, taxes create inefficiencies while giving governments more money to spend. Businesses,...

Every day let us pray and ask GOD to help us shave off the learnings of this world that has effected us and many that we love. Though we have to live in this world, we dont have to do the things the world has taught us. There are ways around all situations when GOD is the focus.

Every day let us pray and ask GOD to help us shave off the learnings of this world that has effected us and many that we love. Though we have to live in this world, we dont have to do the things the world has taught us. There are ways around all situations when GOD is the focus.

What places are calling your name for 2012? Whatever your mood, Traveler magazine has a recommendation for you—from the romantic hills of Croatia to the perfect beach in Thailand.