Free Republic

I think the violence that broke out this weekend on the Syria–Israel border is a clear indication that the revolutions in the Arab world are engendering more rather than less radicalism and instability in the region. I think they show that another Arab war against Israel is more likely now than at any time in the last 25 years, as Egypt, Syria and other countries reassess their options and come to the conclusion that war and other aggression against Israel serve their interests today in a way they didn’t in the past. I think Israel’s response was weak and that...

Barack Obama cautioned a stunned public on Friday against drawing quick conclusions on a shooting rampage by an officer at a Texas military base that killed 13 people. The president made the comments as the commander of Fort Hood, the US’s largest base for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, quoted witnesses as saying the suspected gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, shouted the Muslim declaration “Allahu Akbar” – God is great – as he opened fire. Speaking at the White House, Mr Obama said: “We don’t know all the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we...

WASHINGTON, July 10, 2007 – Defense officials do not want Americans to jump to “premature conclusions” about the troop surge in Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman said today. The last of 21,500 combat troops ordered into Baghdad and other hot spots for surge operations arrived in Iraq just three weeks ago. “It is important to give our commanders in the field the opportunity that we said we were going to provide,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters today. The Bush administration will deliver an initial report to Congress by July 15 on progress of 18 benchmarks specified in legislation granting funding...

WASHINGTON, May 11, 2006 – The decision to delay deployment of one Army brigade from Germany to Iraq does not mean officials have decided to draw down troops in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday. Concluding that putting an Army brigade's deployment to Iraq on hold makes a statement about Iraq's stability or a troop drawdown ahead is like "taking one tulip and deciding it's spring," the secretary said on a radio talk show. It's premature to draw sweeping conclusions from the decision to keep the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, in Schweinfurt, Germany, until further notice, Rumsfeld...

Most published scientific research papers are wrong, according to a new analysis. Assuming that the new paper is itself correct, problems with experimental and statistical methods mean that there is less than a 50% chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper are true. John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece, says that small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias, and selective reporting and other problems combine to make most research findings false. But even large, well-designed studies are not always right, meaning that scientists and the public have to...

Just as there is a War on Drugs and a War on Terrorism ongoing in this country, there is a war without such a catchy name that continues unabated in America. That is the War on Guns. And just as the War on Drugs has spent billions of dollars with quite literally nothing to show for it but growing incidences of violence and the highest incarceration rates in the world; and as the War on Terrorism has cost untold losses of liberty to date; the War on Guns has prohibitive expenses all its own. The grassroots forces in the War...

In 2000, Michael Bellesiles published what the nation took to be a groundbreaking work of history. His book, Arming America, argued that Revolutionary Americans disdained gun ownership. He said the idea that individuals had a right to bear arms came from a myth created in the post Civil War era in order to justify the new boom in gun ownership. The book was an instant hit. Walter Wink of Christian Century flatly stated that the book "debunks this myth [of widespread gun ownership]" (March 21, 2001). In Insight on the News, Phillip Gold called it "a brilliant history with unintended...

Black Sea Trip Yields No Flood Conclusions By RICHARD C. LEWIS Associated Press Writer July 30, 2004, 2:06 PM EDT PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Four years ago, scientists thought they had found the perfect place to settle the Noah flood debate: A farmer's house on a bluff overlooking the Black Sea built about 7,500 years ago -- just before tidal waves inundated the homestead, submerged miles of coastline and turned the freshwater lake into a salty sea. Some believed the rectangular site of stones and wood could help solve the age-old question of whether the Black Sea's flooding was the event...