Free Republic

What was the shape of Noah’s Ark? For millennia Jewish and Christian clerics, scholars, and academics, as well as others with too much time on their hands, have pondered this question. Artist rendering of the one true shape of Noah’s Ark, scientifically provenILLUSTRATION: JON BERKELEY What makes it tantalizing is the precision of the numbers in Genesis 6 (here, in the King James translation): [13] And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. [14] Make thee...

The primary election defeat of House majority leader Eric Cantor by the little-known Tea Party conservative David Brat has shocked business and financial elites as well as politicians and pundits. Conservative intellectuals such as Tim Carney have been arguing for a while that the right should adopt a new populism that targets “crony capitalism” and the collaboration of public and private elites at the expense of workers and small businesses. Brat is the first conservative candidate to have achieved a major electoral success by taking this line. He denounced Cantor for being too close to Wall Street and K Street,...

Democratic critics of John Bolton’s nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations have concentrated on personal attacks, rather than on policy differences because they know that if the confirmation debate is about policy, the public will support Bolton as a strong advocate of U.S. interests at the UN. Liberals must hide their ideological embrace of the UN as a supranational font of moral authority and a constraint on American power. During the run up to the Iraq War, opponents of a Congressional resolution to use force did not question intelligence assessments or the dangerous nature of the Iraq regime....

In a second inaugural address tinged with evangelical zeal, George W. Bush declared: "Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world." The peoples of the world, however, do not seem to be listening. A new world order is indeed emerging - but its architecture is being drafted in Asia and Europe, at meetings to which Americans have not been invited. Consider Asean Plus Three (APT), which unites the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations with China, Japan and South Korea. This group has the potential to be the world's largest trade bloc, dwarfing the European...

Many Democrats blame the unenlightened people of red-state America for John Kerry's defeat. But most working-class Americans remain politically centrist and a rising number simply want to live in the fast-growing suburbs of middle America. Liberals should stop sneering at the people they aspire to lead Is the United States turning into the Republic of Gilead? That was the name of the theocratic Christian America that Margaret Atwood imagined in her novel The Handmaid's Tale. Following the November election in the US, a map circulating on the internet showed the blue states of the east and west coasts annexed to...

How neoconservatives conquered Washington -- and launched a war First they converted an ignorant, inexperienced president to their pro-Israel, hawkish worldview. Then 9/11 allowed them to claim Iraq threatened the U.S. The rest is on CNN tonight. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Michael Lind - April 9, 2003 America's allies and enemies alike are baffled. What is going on in the United States? Who is making foreign policy? And what are they trying to achieve? Quasi-Marxist explanations involving big oil or American capitalism are mistaken. Yes, American oil companies and contractors will...