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Indonesian ISIS supporters circulated posters online warning that Satan is behind the American financial system as well as media and entertainment, threatening to attack a handful of entities. The first poster, telling adherents to "think smart," shows a devilish figure looming over several icons in flames: the United Nations, the Federal Reserve, Universal Studios Hollywood, CNN, NATO Allied Command Transformation and NASA, along with the reverse of the Great Seal on the U.S. dollar bill. An ISIS jihadist fires a gun up at the seals, with the words "Allahu Akbar!" above his head. "Those who believe fight in the way...

Not content with backdooring the unequivocally unpopular cap-and-trade legislation through regulating carbon emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has looked to further cripple American energy producers, manufacturers, and businesses by blanketing the industries in bureaucratic uncertainty. Last Thursday, the EPA revoked a permit it issued more than three years ago for the Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan Country, West Virginia citing the Clean Water Act Mingo Logan, a subsidiary of Arch Coal, obtained the permit in 2007 after a decade of review and costly analysis determined the project to be in accordance with the CWA. Since obtaining the permit...

A plant that started life during the last Ice Age is still going strong in the arid scrublands of California, scientists revealed today. Researchers believe the Jurupa Oak has been around for 13,000 years, making it the oldest living plant in the world. The oak is made up of a community of cloned bushes and scientists believe it has managed to survive the extreme effects of climate change by regenerating.

Organic molecules organize themselves to form a bridge between electrodes.A team of European physicists has developed an integrated circuit that can build itself. The work, appearing in this week's Nature1, is an important step towards its ultimate goal — a self-assembling computer. Today's computer chips are made by etching patterns onto semiconducting wafers using a combination of light and photosensitive chemicals. But the technique is being pushed to the limit as ever more processing power is being packed onto chips, requiring engineers to etch details just a few tens of nanometres across. So scientists are hunting for alternative ways to...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba will continue to build up its defenses against the United States and Cubans should be prepared to make more sacrifices to remain independent, Cuban leader Fidel Castro said in an editorial published on Monday. In his commentary in the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma, the first time in a series of such articles that he has turned his attention directly to Cuban affairs, Castro called on Cubans to safeguard the island's socialist system against Havana's long-time ideological foe the United States. Castro, 80, has not been seen in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July...

US casualties cut by half as Baghdad tears itself apart By Aqeel Hussein and Gethin Chamberlain (Filed: 17/09/2006) The sectarian violence that has brought Iraq to the verge of civil war has had one unexpected benefit: a marked fall in the number of United States military casualties in Baghdad. American combat deaths in the capital are down 50 per cent on this time last year and some terrorists say the US has succeeded in deflecting attention from its own troops. American deaths are down 50pc "Now we are fighting each other," said one insurgent. "That is what the Americans wanted...

Sunnis enraged as Iraq prepares to divide itself into regions By Oliver Poole, Iraq Correspondent (Filed: 07/09/2006) The future of Iraq as a sovereign nation was thrown into jeopardy yesterday after a new law was introduced to parliament that would enable the break up of the country into semi-autonomous regions. If passed, a self-ruling Shia state is likely to emerge in the south, based on the autonomous region Kurds have already established in the north. It would not only be able to levy its own taxes and govern itself but, Shia politicians say, would have its own armed guards posted...

Cleaning bathrooms may become a thing of the past with new coatings that will do the job for you. Researchers at the University of New South Wales are developing new coatings they hope will be used for self-cleaning surfaces in hospitals and the home. Led by Professor Rose Amal and Professor Michael Brungs of the ARC Centre for Functional Nanomaterials, a research team is studying tiny particles of titanium dioxide currently used on outdoor surfaces such as self-cleaning windows. The particles work by absorbing ultraviolet light below a certain wavelength, exciting electrons and giving the particles an oxidising quality stronger...

Hamas vows to defend itself after three die in Israeli air strike By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem (Filed: 06/02/2006) Hamas reacted angrily yesterday to the first Israeli air strikes on Gaza since the Islamist group won the Palestinian election, vowing that it would never give up the right to "self-defence". The missile raids - in retaliation for a rocket fired from Gaza that injured three Israelis, including a baby - were a setback for international efforts to persuade Hamas to recognise Israel and give up its armed struggle. Palestinians gather around the wreckage of a car destroyed after being targeted...

Prehistoric jawbone reveals evolution repeating itself By Catherine Gianaro Medical Center Public Affairs A 115-million-year-old fossil of a tiny monotreme, an egg-laying mammal related to the platypus, provides compelling evidence of multiple origins of acute hearing in humans and other mammals. The discovery of a prehistoric jawbone, reported in February in the journal Science, suggests that the transformation of bones from the jaw into the small bones of the middle ear occurred at least twice in the evolutionary lines of living mammals after their split from a common ancestor some 200 million years ago. “The earbones are still attached to...

Lost society tore itself apart By Nick Davidson BBC Horizon The largest pyramid constructed by the Moche, the Huaca del Sol Two thousand years ago, a mysterious and little known civilisation ruled the northern coast of Peru. Its people were called the Moche. They built huge and bizarre pyramids that still dominate the surrounding landscape; some well over 30m (100ft) tall. They are so heavily eroded, they look like natural features; only close up can you see they are made up of millions of adobe mud bricks. These pyramids are known as "huacas", meaning "sacred site" in the local Indian...

Source: Ohio State University Date: 2004-12-24 Major Climate Change Occurred 5,200 Years Ago: Evidence Suggests That History Could Repeat Itself COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Glaciologist Lonnie Thompson worries that he may have found clues that show history repeating itself, and if he is right, the result could have important implications to modern society. Thompson has spent his career trekking to the far corners of the world to find remote ice fields and then bring back cores drilled from their centers. Within those cores are the records of ancient climate from across the globe. From the mountains of data drawn by analyzing...

The Arab world is all one big happy family again. OK, dysfunctional, but happy. No, well, unhappy and as twisted as usual. While visiting Kuwait today, Palestinian presidential front-runner, Mahmoud Abbas, apologized for his people’s support of Saddam’s invasion of the Gulf emirate in 1990. Isn’t that special? (remember Dana Carvey as the “Church Lady” on SNL?). This happened just after Kuwait’s sultans (or whatever they’re called) forgave the Palestinian people for supporting Saddam’s invasion. Kuwait’s leadership went so far as to say they didn’t even expect a public apology for Palestinian support of the 1990 war. Now, isn’t that...

Throughout the 1990s, Turkish foreign policy analysts had an easy job. After all, Turkish foreign policy was predictable. Ankara cooperated enthusiastically with Washington, whether in the Middle East or in the Balkans. Turkey aligned itself with Israel and kept at arms length from Middle Eastern neighbors such as Syria and Iran. In Europe, Ankara traded heavily with the European Union (EU) but did not allow the EU to dictate foreign policy. The European Union's frequent allegations and criticism of human rights abuses in Turkey, especially with regard to Turkey's fight against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK, Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan) terrorists, soured...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - In a deepening political crisis touched off by anti-corruption efforts, Nicaragua's congress has voted to give itself the power to ratify and dismiss Cabinet ministers and other officials. The constitutional amendment, which was approved late Thursday and would have to be affirmed again in next year's legislative session to take effect, grew out of a power struggle between President Enrique Bolanos and the party that put him in office, the Liberal Constitutionalist Party. Bolanos lost its support after his anti-corruption campaign landed the party leader and former president, Arnoldo Aleman, in prison, where he is serving 20...

Gal Luft is executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington, D.C. He is a specialist on strategic issues and energy policy with a PhD in strategic studies from Johns Hopkins University. A former lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces, his writings have appeared in Commentary, Foreign Affairs, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Review of International Affairs, the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Mr. Luft addressed the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia on October 27, 2004. Introduction In both World War Two and the Cold War, the side best deploying scientific...

Israel now finds itself more isolated than ever (Filed: 23/03/2004) European foreign ministers were quick yesterday to condemn the "extra-judicial killing" of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, by Israel. Jack Straw was particularly indignant about Israel's failure to abide by international law. A whiff of hypocrisy emanates from such moralising ministers, some of whom have cheerfully countenanced assassination attempts of their own - most recently against the leaders of Iraq, al-Qa'eda and the Taliban. Tony Blair, for one, is well aware that Hamas belongs on the same terrorist continuum as the bombers of Madrid and Manhattan, not...

The new security fence runs 3,034 miles along a contorted path that lurches east, then west, and then doubles back - the antithesis of a straight line as it contrives to include this village and exclude that one. Many in the international community charge that in addition to being a grievous breach of human rights, the fence is part of a scheme to monopolize water resources, stealing the flow of rivers and further depriving people who already have little access to water. The course of the security fence divides families, separates herdsmen from their traditional grazing land and it can...

<p>The Golden State - once a symbol of optimism and opportunity for the rest of the nation - has become a very angry place.</p> <p>Californians are angry at each other and at the people who are supposed to be running things.</p>