Free Republic

BAGHDAD — As a military court prepares to try the last of three U.S. snipers on murder charges, the soldiers have accused their commanding officers of pushing to expand rules of engagement to produce more "kills" and then abandoning them when they were accused of murder.

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 July 3 The Vela Pulsar's Dynamic Jet Credit: G. Pavlov, M. Teter, O. Kargaltsev, D. Sanwal (PSU), CXC, NASA Explanation: The Vela pulsar is a neutron star born over 10,000 years ago in a massive supernova explosion. Above, false-color x-ray images from the Chandra Observatory reveal details of this remnant pulsar's x-ray bright nebula along with emission from a spectacular jet of high-energy particles. In this time-lapse...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 17 Star Forming Region RCW38 from 2MASS Credit: R. Hurt, 2MASS Project, UMass, IPAC/Caltech, NSF, NASA Explanation: The star cluster in RCW38 was hiding. Looking at the star forming region RCW38 will not normally reveal most of the stars in this cluster. The reason is that the open cluster is so young that it is still shrouded in thick dust that absorbs visible light. This dust...