Free Republic

"Missouri Governor Jay Nixon said he was 'thunderstruck' by images he saw of police forces responding to protests in Ferguson after the shooting of teenager Michael Brown as the midnight to 5am curfew enters its second night. Nixon, speaking to ABC News' Martha Raddatz on This Week on Sunday, said the sight of police in riot gear with armored tanks led to his decision to replace the local police force with highway patrol. The measure had a calming effect at first, but last night saw one man shot and seven arrested after resisting the curfew order. A picture has emerged...

Saddam Hussein: Portrait of a dictator as a young man National Post reporter Patrick Graham recently visited Al-Ouja in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein grew up. He also travelled to Syria, where he found Ibrahim Zobedi, one of the few to have been friends with Saddam in his youth and lived to talk about it. - - - Ibrahim Zobedi leans back in his chair and recalls his childhood friend, Saddam Hussein. "We used to go fishing with dynamite and the fishermen would always tell us to make sure our stomach and legs were out of the water," says Mr. Zobedi...