Free Republic

Imam Mohamed Lunat helps debunk common myths about his religion The image of Imam Mohamed Lunat as he walks in the doors of the Islamic Center of Elizabethtown looks like one from the evening news. He is medium height and thin, with dark, intense eyes and a fist-length beard with no mustache. He has a prayer cap on his head, an ankle-length robe and sheds his shoes as he enters. Based solely on appearance he could, to biased eyes, be mistaken as the cliché of any of the Middle-Eastern terrorists who scream into shoddy video cameras around the world about...

Next month sees the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, and a fresh flurry of books and articles “unmasking” the man referred to by cognoscenti simply as “Throat”. The former White House counsel John Dean, who testified against Nixon, claims he will identify him on the Internet on June 17. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist William Gaines is offering A Finder's Guide to Deep Throat, the fruit of two years’ study by a team of journalism students which he compares to the Warren Report. Deep Throat, Gaines insists, is “a middle-level White House official. It’s not anybody a lot of people...

Could dandruff be altering the world’s climate? Along with fur, algae, pollen, fungi, bacteria, viruses and various other “bio-aerosols” wafting around in the atmosphere, it may well be. A global study has found that tiny fragments of biological detritus are a major component of the atmosphere, controlling the weather and forming a previously hidden microbial metropolis in the skies. Besides their climatic influence, they may even be spreading diseases across the globe. Scientists have known for some time that aerosols of soot, dust and ash can influence climate by reflecting or absorbing the Sun’s rays and by providing the condensation...

US Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who had hoped to replace George W. Bush as president yesterday, instead sat in the cold and clapped as the Republican began a second four-year term. Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin patted Senator Kerry on the back shortly before the inauguration Senator Kerry had hoped would be his. As Mr Bush delivered his inaugural address, Senator Kerry, about 10m away on the steps of the US Capitol, joined other lawmakers and the crowd in repeated applause. Senator Kerry looked relaxed, at times wistful. He frequently smiled, able to hide any disappointment over what...

Inside Saddam's lair, the detritus of a fugitive's life Rory McCarthy in Ad Dawr, where Saddam existed in squalor not far from his former palace Tuesday December 16, 2003 The Guardian (UK) There is a rickety wooden ladder leading to the corrugated iron roof on top of the brick hut and if he had climbed up, leant against the date palm and peered out on a clear day, Saddam Hussein might just have been able to make out his opulent Tikrit palace further upstream on the far bank of the Tigris. Perhaps he took that image with him and with...

A PLAN by a group of peace campaigners to travel by bus to Baghdad to offer themselves to Saddam Hussein as human shields has been threatened with collapse by the personal clashes, logistical chaos and the loss of their leader. One of the group’s three double-deckers has been abandoned in Italy with engine trouble and plans to travel through the Balkans were aborted as “too dangerous”. The head of the delegation, a former American marine, has been deported from Turkey for trying to enter the country with a “world citizen” passport after renouncing his United States citizenship. The second of...