Free Republic

As Russian pilots fly home from Syria, they can look forward to triumphant welcomes. Their commander-in-chief, Vladimir Putin, is the focus of almost as much fawning adulation — even from the supposedly hostile Western media. Once again, the Russian president is being portrayed as a strategic genius, adept at wrong-footing America and Europe. Yet the self-congratulation conveniently ignores some awkward truths. Far from making a cool and calculated decision to intervene in Syria, Putin was compelled to deploy his forces in order to rescue a feckless ally. His campaign has yet to achieve any of its stated goals. Worse, Russia...

"We found that if lunar lava tubes existed with a strong arched shape like those on Earth, they would be stable at sizes up to 5,000 meters, or several miles wide, on the moon," said David Blair, a graduate student in Purdue's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary sciences. "This wouldn't be possible on Earth, but gravity is much lower on the moon and lunar rock doesn't have to withstand the same weathering and erosion. In theory, huge lava tubes -- big enough to easily house a city -- could be structurally sound on the moon." The researchers applied known...

Nicole Martin shows a confidential handwritten memo found in the rubble of the looted Iraqi foreign ministry to the man who used to arrange the dictator's scheduleSaddam Hussein's former head of protocol said yesterday that the document found by The Daily Telegraph saying that George Galloway received substantial payments from the Iraqi regime was "100 per cent genuine". Haitham Rashid Wihaib, who fled to Britain with his family eight years ago after death threats, said he had no doubt that the handwritten confidential memorandum addressed to the dictator's office apparently detailing how the Labour MP benefited from Iraq's oil sales...