Free Republic

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's religious police have banned red roses ahead of Valentine's Day, forcing couples in the conservative Muslim nation to think of new ways to show their love. The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shop owners in the capital Riyadh to remove any items coloured scarlet, which is widely seen as symbolising love, newspapers said. "They visited us last night," the Saudi Gazette quoted an unidentified florist as saying. It is not unusual for the Saudi vice squad to clamp down ahead of Valentine's Day, which it...

Living On 'The Red Edge': Rare Form Of Chlorophyll Discovered In Newly Sequenced BacteriumSea Squirts and sea stars. The Acaryochloris marina lives beneath the sea squirt, which is a marine animal that lives attached to rocks just below the surface of the water. The cyanobacterium absorbs "red edge" light through the tissues of its pal the sea squirt. (Credit: iStockphoto) ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2008) — Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Arizona State University have sequenced the genome of a rare bacterium that harvests light energy by making an even rarer form of chlorophyll, chlorophyll d. Chlorophyll d...

Debby Hutton gives a comfort kit to Army 2nd Lt. Larry Cook at the Combat Support Hospital on Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Tikrit, Nov. 19. Hutton, of Kingsport Tenn., is the assistant station manager of the Red Cross Station on COB Speicher. Cook, of Greensboro, N.C., is a platoon leader with 3rd Battalion, 1st Aviation. Photo by Spc. Eric Rutherford, 115th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment. TIKRIT — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines have a lot to worry about in a forward-deployed combat zone. Besides roadside bombs, sniper attacks, and ambushes, they also have to worry about their families back home...

AL ASAD, Iraq (Nov. 6, 2007) -- The Marines of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 arrived at Al Taqaddum to support service members operating in the Al Anbar province, Sept. 15. The 'Red Dragons' assumed responsibility of the general support helicopter mission in the Western Al Anbar province after a transfer of authority ceremony with HMM-161. The Camp Pendleton-based CH-46E squadron offers helicopter assault support to ground units and general support to air elements, including water drop off at combat outposts, troop lifts and equipment transport from camp to camp to sustain operations. In addition to general and assault support,...

U.S. Marines with Viking Red Section, Mobile Assault Platoon, Regimental Combat Team 2, observe an Iraqi personal security detachment fire AK-47 rifles on a firing range at Camp Gannon. The Iraqis are training to be personal security officers for local judges. Viking Red Marines Train Iraqis to Keep Judges Safe Troops employ visual cues to bridge language barrier. By Cpl. Eric C. Schwartz 2nd Marine Division CAMP GANNON, Husaybah, Iraq, Aug. 31, 2007 — It’s not news to read that politicians, famous athletes and even entertainers have bodyguards protecting them from dangerous people, but in Iraq, their judges need...

Pakistan struggles to contain Red Mosque fury By Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad Last Updated: 2:05am BST 14/07/2007 Hardline protesters burned effigies of Gen Musharraf shouting 'Long live the martyrs' President Pervez Musharraf's regime sought to reassure Pakistan's Muslim clergy yesterday as the authorities tried to contain public anger over the siege of the Red Mosque. Minor protests took place in cities across the country. The regime is braced for an Islamist backlash after commandos stormed the mosque and killed about 100 people. Protesters burned effigies of Gen Musharraf and President George W Bush, shouting "Long live the martyrs" and "Musharraf...

Pakistan's army says an operation to flush out militants from a mosque in Islamabad is in its final stages - 24 hours after troops stormed the complex. Several explosions were heard after dawn on Wednesday and sporadic gunfire. During heavy fighting on Tuesday, the Red Mosque's militant cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi and some 50 of his supporters were killed, the army said. Students at the mosque and its attached religious schools have waged a campaign for months pressing for Sharia law. On Tuesday, eight soldiers also died, and some 50 women and children were freed. Pakistan's military spokesman Gen Waheed...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani troops raided Islamambad's Red Mosque on Tuesday and attempted to flush out the remaining militants entrenched inside a women's religious school in fierce fighting that left at least 50 militants and eight soldiers dead, the army said. He said the army attack was now focused on the women's school but that some militants were still firing from the tops of the mosque's minarets. He said the entire compound included 75 rooms, large basements and expansive courtyards.

TWO aid workers and a soldier were killed in fierce fighting yesterday between the Lebanese army and al-Qaeda-inspired militants at a Palestinian refugee camp. A Palestinian cleric trying to mediate an end to the fighting between the army and the Fatah al-Islam group was also wounded at the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon. Two members of the Lebanese Red Cross were killed and a third was wounded when they were hit by a shell, while a soldier was also killed. At least 133 people have been killed, including 57 soldiers, in three weeks of fighting - the worst internal...

"Rotten Tomatoes UK can exclusively reveal that Kevin Smith's next project - a horror movie - is called "Red State". Up until now Smith has revealed little about the film other than the fact it's a horror movie and it'll be decidedly less joke-y than his back-catalogue. But, in addition to the title, Smith was keen to give us a head's up on the plot of the film. If you've seen any of his "An Evening With..." DVDs, you'll know how much fun it can be to sit down in an audience and listen to "Clerks II" director Kevin Smith...

This is a lengthy, comprehensive and well written account of the pros and cons of the Chinese economy. One must read the whole article to grasp its balance and fairness but it begins thusly: China is securing an ever-bigger share of the world market with the methods of a planned economy. Competitors and economists alike are astounded by the country's seemingly unstoppable march to becoming a global economic superpower. The development has left many wondering: Does communism work after all?

Russia has suffered terribly at the hands of Islamic terrorism over the centuries and continues suffer today. Yet, Russia is the best friend of the terrorism-exporting Muslim countries. Russia is actively helping Iran towards its ambition to extiprate Israel. Will Russia learn a lesson?

Paviland Cave and The Red Lady Paviland Cave, on the south coast of the Gower peninsula, South Wales, is an Early Upper Palaeolithic (Early Stone Age) archaeological site, dating to roughly 30,000 - 20,000 years ago. It is the richest site of its kind in Britain, with four and a half thousand finds, including worked bone and stone (lithic) tools. The Red Lady of Paviland was a fairly complete human skeleton dyed in red ochre that was discovered in 1826 by the Reverend William Buckland in one of the Paviland limestone caves at )Goat’s Hole Cave). The "lady" has since...

Families are Red, Singles are Blue: Marriage, Fertility, and the Mid-Term Elections After the 2000 election, the terms "Red state” and ‘Blue state” became a popular shorthand for describing the political and cultural divide that separated Democrats and Republicans. The flawed but useful metaphor implies that idealogical leanings and political affiliations are clustered around geographic areas. But a recent analysis by Census data by USA Today reveals a pair of factors that are even more determinative of political affiliation than race, income, education or geography: family and fertility. In fact, when it comes to Congressional representation, marriage and parenthood are...

In the reprehensible Sunday Star Tribune story by Paul McEnroe and Rochelle Olson on the expunged 1995 arrest of Republican Fifth District congressional candidate Alan Fine, the reporters omitted relevant facts. Fine was charged by his then wife with domestic assault, but the police report (quoted by the Star Tribune) indicated only that Fine had been attacked. What's the rest of the story? The charge was dropped and Fine was never prosecuted for the incident. In 2004 Fine's arrest was expunged by court order -- a court order that was apparently violated by someone who supplied the police report to...

Democrats and liberal judges say terrorists have the same rights as you. Democrats will impeach President Bush for spying on terrorists. Democrats will cancel the Patriot Act, terrorists surveillance and missile defense programs. Stop obstruction and the filibuster. Vote for a Republican majority! If you're not an extremist, you're not a democrat. Take the red pill (R). Take the blue pill (D). VOTE!

The division of America into red and blue is a totem of our times. The red states voted for Bush, the Blue for the Democrats. The blue states are on the coasts, the red states are flyovers. More importantly to Republicans, and invidiously to Democrats, the red states are -- at worst -- no less prosperous than the blue states, and probably a good bit better off if we pay attention to migration patterns. The Democrats know they are in real trouble if they don't start turning some of those red states, because the electoral college will shift away from...

"As a child, Ned's family dinners were animated by political discussions, with lively exchanges between his grandfather, a banker, and his uncle, a Democratic activist," reports Ned Lamont's Web site. This passage could just as easily have been written by the mainstream news media in one of their incurious biographical sketches of the state's newly minted Democratic U.S. Senate candidate. But this is how the Lamont propaganda machine wants it. As The New York Times reported Aug. 3: "Mr. Lamont prefers not to talk about his background. 'I've been blessed,' he will say, but beyond that he can turn testy."...

The Silicon Valley Young Republicans Federated would like for you to attend this event this August.This is a funraiser to help raise funds for many Pro Troop causes. SVYRF Club Socials SVYRFC Annual BBQ Location: Sanborn Skyline County Park, Saratoga When: August 12, 2006 Registration: starts at 3pm Food: 4pm Program/Speakers: 5pm Clean-up: 8pm Confirmed Speakers: Claude Parrish, BOE member and Republican candidate for State Treasurer Mike Wasserman, Los Gatos town councilman, former Los Gatos mayor Elsie Gufler, Republican candidate for CA Assembly District 19 Larry Hileman, Republican candidate for CA Assembly District 24 Rob Smith, Republican candidate for CA...