Free Republic

An Iraqi man filled a Koran with bacon and burned it in Stockholm on Wednesday, an event that has angered Turkey as Sweden bids to join NATO. The inflammatory stunt was carried out by two men outside the city's main mosque on the first day of the Muslim three-day Eid al-Adha holiday.

"I may have been a victim that night, but I am not a victim for the rest of my life," said veteran foreign correspondent Lara Logan describing the mindset she adopted in the aftermath of a brutal attack and rape by a mob in Cairo's Tahrir Square in 2011 -- the night that former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was overthrown. In an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on her show "Mornings with Maria" on Thursday, Logan talked about how the experience impacted her. "I think that one of the most significant things for me was that... I had...

WASHINGTON — Erik Prince, the founder of the international security giant Blackwater Worldwide, is secretly backing an effort by a controversial South African mercenary firm to insert itself into Somalia’s bloody civil war by protecting government leaders, training Somali militias, and battling pirates and Islamic militants there, according to Western and African officials. ... His efforts to wade into the chaos of Somalia appears to be Mr. Prince’s latest endeavor to remain at the center of a campaign against Islamic radicalism in some of the world’s most war-ravaged corners. ... Saracen International has yet to formally announce its plans in...

Secret's out for Saracen sabres 15 November 2006 NewScientist.com news service DURING the middle ages, the Muslims who fought crusaders with swords of Damascus steel had an edge - a very high-tech one. Their sabres contained carbon nanotubes. From about AD 900 to AD 1750, Damascus sabres were forged from Indian steel called wootz. Peter Paufler of the Technical University of Dresden, Germany, and colleagues studied samples of a 17th-century sword under an electron microscope and found clear evidence of carbon nanotubes and even nanowires. The researchers think that the sophisticated process of forging and annealing the steel formed the...

(Taken from the old Breviary) While the Mohammedans were besieging Assisi and trying to seize the monastery of St Clare, she desired, though sick, to be carried to the gate of the city, together with a vessel in which the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist was contained, and there she prayed: "Do not hand over to the beasts, O Lord, the souls confessing you, and guard your maid-servants, whom thou hast redeemed by thy Precious Blood!" At whose prayer, a great voice was heard: "I will always protect you!" Indeed part of the Musselmen betook themselves to flight while...