Free Republic

Muslim fanatics plan to hijack the Royal Wedding by burning effigies of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Extremists belonging to the group Muslims Against Crusades were behind the poppy-burning outrage on November 11 last year. According to police, they have now vowed to turn the wedding celebrations into a ‘nightmare’. They plan a ‘forceful demonstration’ with thousands of protesters set to burn the Union Flag, images of the Crown, and effigies of the bridal couple. Muslims Against Crusades applied to protest outside Westminster Abbey on the day of the Royal Wedding. Their group includes Emdadur Choudhury, who was fined £50...

Contrary to Hollywood notions, the 40-year-old virgin is not an awkward yet funny and endearing electronics salesman played by Steve Carell. He is a church-going teetotaller who has neither been to jail nor served in the military, according to a new survey of more than 7000 people. He also represents an estimated 1.1 million American men and 800,000 women aged 25 to 45 who have never had sex. The study, led by urologist Michael Eisenberg of the University of California, San Francisco, will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. His team's survey found that 13.9...

With Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington, there's a lot of talk about the rise of China as an economic and military power. But the Chinese may have only a small window in time to assert global dominance -- and Chinese leaders have to know it. China is, perhaps, twenty years from the start of a demographic implosion, one that will cause enormous internal strains, economically and socially. Could awareness of the hard demographic realities that lie ahead for China drive the Chinese to advance their interests militarily, if need be, before China is hampered by an aging population?...

Saudi Arabia funds the building of mosques around the world, even though no other faiths are allowed to build their places of worship within the socially backward, but wealthy, kingdom. A plan to build a mosque in Tromsø in the remotest north of Norway has been put at risk by a government ruling, states Agence France-Presse, via Khaleej Times. Ragnhild Imerslund, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, said: “It would be paradoxical and unnatural to approve financing coming from a country where religious freedom does not exist.” The donor is a Saudi businessman named Hamad al-Gamas who had pledged 20 million Norwegian...

Diplomats try to defuse tension after artillery strike by North Korea INCHEON, South Korea — International diplomats scrambled Tuesday to defuse tensions in the Koreas after North Korea bombarded a South Korean island with artillery shells, killing at least two people. President Barack Obama pledged the United States would defend Seoul from aggression by its communist neighbor. Yet with its options limited, the U.S. sought a diplomatic rather a military response to one of those most ominous clashes between the Koreas in decades. "South Korea is our ally. It has been since the Korean War," Obama said. "And we strongly...

China keeps pushing. Will President Obama ever push back? Defense Secretary Robert Gates did what he could in Hanoi at this week's gathering of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations. But he can't do much about the impression his boss has left on the world stage. Beijing has been pushing its neighbors around, while forming some worrisome military relations with America's far-flung adversaries, including Iran. In response to North Korea's unprovoked and deadly attack on the South Korean ship, the Cheonan, we recently conducted a naval exercise with South Korea. Beijing answered by conducting a regional naval drill with...

China’s young officers and the 1930s syndrome By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Economics Last updated: September 7th, 2010 Vietnam and the United States staged a demonstration of their military ties last month amid mounting tensions with China over the South China Sea. I try to remain optimistic that the US and China will work out a more or less amicable way to run the world for the next half century, a “Chimerica” of interwoven superpowers. But it was slightly disturbing to hear the warnings of a distinguished China-watcher at a closed-door session of the annual Ambrosetti conference on Lake Como. (This gathering...

Current Government Systems are Failing Us:Current systems in place to identify and manage individuals like Major Nidal Malik Hasan, whose massacre took the lives of 13 soldiers and wounded 29 others, are not working!  How can anyone make this statement?  Months before the shooting, two Terrorism Task Forces evaluated Major Hasan, one had Department of Defense oversight; the other had FBI oversight, additionally, the CIA is also reported as reviewing his behavior, all failed!  Since Terrorism Task Forces fall under the general purview of Homeland Security, every system that we have in place to identify and manage these threats to...

http://www.diploweb.com/Russie-Europe-les-risques-du.html Russia-Europe: The dangers of a "reset" Françoise Thom* French Original here: http://www.diploweb.com/Russie-Europe-les-risques-du.html What strikes a historian when looking at the relationship between Russia and Europe is the unchanging illusions Russia produces in the imagination of Westerners, and Russia’s ability to dictate the conceptual frameworks within which it wants to be interpreted --and misunderstood-- abroad. This explains another mystery in the relationship between Russians and Europeans: the astonishing imperviousness of the Western partners to experience. The successive setbacks suffered by businessmen in Russia, the snubs regularly inflicted on European statesmen, the murders, the insults to diplomats, the abusive nationalizations, the...

A respected domestic violence and anger management counselor in Fairfax County was arraigned in federal court Thursday after he allegedly pulled a gun on two men who he believed were blocking his car on an Annandale street last week. The two men were federal marshals. Jose L. Avila, 57, was ordered held without bond pending a detention hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. He has been held in the Fairfax jail since Jan. 25, when he apparently picked the wrong place and time to complain about thoughtless parking. Avila's attorney said Avila had worked for many years at...

The use of weapons may date back well before the rise of humanity, given evidence that even our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, can use spears to hunt other primates. To see how fighting evolved from hand-to-hand combat to world war, here are 10 major innovations that revolutionized combat.

While our greedy authorities, hungry for other country’s territories, passionately cling to some stolen Japanese islands, tiny pebbles in the ocean, the inhabitants of another island, a large and undoubtedly Russian one, are busy collecting signatures. I received a call from a certain local democrat. His name, address and appearance, I will not reveal for anything, lest some terrorist in Guantanamo Bay remember that said democrat, many years ago, equipped for their last mission the Boeings which crashed into the twin towers. Unbelievable, says you? Well, no more unbelievable than what happened to human rights defender Alexei Sokolov, when a...

N. Korean paper defines nuke deterrent as means of aggression SEOUL, June 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Tuesday described its nuclear weapons capability as means of both self-protection and "merciless aggression" towards those violating its sovereignty, the first acknowledgment by the country that it may use its nuclear weapons other than for defensive measures. "Our nuclear deterrence capability is a powerful defensive measure to secure the peace and stability of the Joseon (Korean) peninsula and nearby regions. It will become a vehicle for merciless attacks on those who even slightly infringe upon our sovereignty," said Minju Joson, North Korea's...

Boys who have a so-called "warrior gene" are more likely to join gangs and also more likely to be among the most violent members and to use weapons, a new study finds. "While gangs typically have been regarded as a sociological phenomenon, our investigation shows that variants of a specific MAOA gene, known as a 'low-activity 3-repeat allele,' play a significant role," said biosocial criminologist Kevin M. Beaver of Florida State University. In 2006, the controversial warrior gene was implicated in the violence of the indigenous Maori people in New Zealand, a claim that Maori leaders dismissed. But it's no...

SPANKING is stressful at first, but it could bring consenting couples closer together. That's the implication of two studies of hormonal changes associated with sadomasochistic (S&M) activities including spanking, bondage and flogging. Brad Sagarin at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and colleagues measured levels of the stress hormone cortisol in 13 men and women at an S&M party in Arizona, before, during and after participating in activities. During S&M scenes, cortisol rose significantly in those receiving stimulation, but dropped back to normal within 40 minutes if the scene went well. There was no change in those inflicting the activity. At...

A Christian minister who has had heated arguments with Muslims on his TV Gospel show has been brutally attacked by three men who ripped off his cross and warned: ‘If you go back to the studio, we’ll break your legs.’ The Reverend Noble Samuel was driving to the studio when a car pulled over in front of him. A man got out and came over to ask him directions in Urdu. Mr Samuel, based at Heston United Reformed Church, West London, said: ‘He put his hand into my window, which was half open and grabbed my hair and opened the...

In a new, year-long University of Pennsylvania survey of dog owners who use confrontational or aversive methods to train aggressive pets, veterinary researchers have found that most of these animals will continue to be aggressive unless training techniques are modified. The study, published in the current issue of Applied Animal Behavior Science, also showed that using non-aversive or neutral training methods such as additional exercise or rewards elicited very few aggressive responses. “This study highlights the risk of dominance-based training, which has been made popular by TV, books and punishment-based training advocates,”Herron said. “These techniques are fear-eliciting and may lead...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2008 – Vice President Richard B. Cheney arrived in Georgia today, delivering “a message of friendship” from the U.S. and condemning Russia’s “illegitimate, unilateral” aggression against the former Soviet republic last month. “Americans are acutely conscious of the great trials your country has faced over the last four weeks, and we stand in solidarity with the people of Georgia,” Cheney said at a news conference in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Russian forces invaded Georgia last month and continue to maintain a military presence there in defiance of a cease-fire deal reached Aug. 13. Moscow further...

About a year ago, I saw a Russian television broadcast in which Vladimir Putin, riding a noble steed, reaches the edge of a lake, deftly removes his shirt and in an impressive display of muscle, leans over and washes his face in the crystal clear water. That is when I began to worry. The leader determined to restore the great nation's lost honor and days of glory was playing the macho worship card. It reminded me of an old Italian propaganda film in which Il Duce - Mussolini - is riding in his official car when he sees a farmer...

<p>TSKHINVALI, Georgia, Aug. 16 -- Nine days ago, late in the afternoon of Aug. 7, Georgian tanks, artillery and infantry began moving out of bases in Georgia and toward South Ossetia, a zone long held by separatists who are backed by Moscow.</p>