Free Republic

...Another project, Forecasting Religiosity and Existential Security with an Agent-Based Model, examines questions about nonbelief: Why aren’t there more atheists? Why is America secularizing at a slower rate than Western Europe? Which conditions would speed up the process of secularization—or, conversely, make a population more religious? {snip} ….Using a separate model, Future of Religion and Secular Transitions (FOREST), the team found that people tend to secularize when four factors are present: existential security (you have enough money and food), personal freedom (you’re free to choose whether to believe or not), pluralism (you have a welcoming attitude to diversity), and education...

Prior 03/22/2017, |by SeekAndFind Mohammad Rauf, (aka Iyman Faris, a Pakistani) came to us from Bosnia in 1994, claiming asylum). By 2002 he had joined Osama bin Laden at an Al-Qaeda training camp, then returned to join up with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In 2003, Rauf pled guilty to planning a second wave of attacks with al Qaeda. He’s due for release in 2020. Justice Department (is) seeking to strip U.S. citizenship // Snipp // July 11 2018, Judge Staci Yandle, an outstanding Obama appointee to the Illinois District Court, is having none of it. She has ruled, the government has...

The hirings will give the online furnishing company 550 employees at its recently expanded space at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, where sales and service consultants will start at $16 per hour, according to Wayfair's website. BRUNSWICK — Online furnishing and home decor giant Wayfair plans to add 150 jobs at its Brunswick location, meeting a hiring goal it set when it opened the office two years ago by bringing its workforce there to 550 employees. Positions being added at its recently expanded space at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station include roles in customer service, business-to-business sales, supplier...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Friday that a lawsuit by supporters of Donald Trump against San Jose police officers who allegedly failed to protect them from an anti-Trump riot in June 2016 could proceed, defeating the city’s appeal. The three-judge panel upheld the lower court’s decision that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity from suit because they “violated clearly established rights” — assuming, for the moment, that the plaintiff’s factual claims against them were true.

The Obama administration approved a $200,000 grant to a group in Sudan with ties to Al Qaeda even though it had been designated a terrorist-financing organization by the U.S. years earlier, a conservative think tank revealed this week. Further, an agency official acknowledged the prior administration allowed taxpayer money to flow to the group even after its designation was discovered. The 2014 grant to the Islamic Relief Agency, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, was revealed by Sam Westrop of the Middle East Forum in a story for the National Review. “More stunningly, government officials specifically authorized the release...

PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) - A shipbuilding firm in Mississippi is hiring hundreds of skilled workers after it was awarded several contracts for the U.S. military. Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula is searching for test engineers, first class welders, pipefitters, pipe welders and shipfitters. Company spokesman Bill Glenn says Ingalls is planning to hire 500 people by the end of the year....

(photos at link) Amateur skywatchers and photographers from around the world – as well as the stargazing professionals – have sacrificed sleep to share spectacular images of the blood moon on social media. NASA put up a handy explainer (even though North and Central America were left out of the shade), and streamed the eclipse’s progress from a variety of planetariums across the world. Other space experts also made their contributions, including from the international space station. Meanwhile, earth-based photographers shared incredible shots...

A federal judge on Friday tossed out a motion from three national gun control groups seeking a last-minute halt to a settlement that would allow for blueprints of 3-D printed firearms to be posted and dowloaded online. Reuters reports that U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin, Texas, blocked the motion filed earlier this week seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on the case to halt design plans for 3-D printed guns from going online. The federal government had argued until recently that such blueprints posed a national security risk to the United States, but in June abruptly...

A former Florida police officer has pleaded guilty in a civil rights case regarding false arrests in which he admitted to framing innocent black men. Guillermo Ravelo, 37, pleaded guilty on Thursday in Miami federal court to conspiracy to deprive a person of his civil rights and deprivation of civil rights under color of law. Ravelo is accused of making the false arrests while working for the Biscayne Park Police Department in Miami in 2013 and 2014. Prosecutors say Ravelo falsely arrested 35-year-old Clarens Desrouleaux in January 2013 for two residential burglaries, claiming at the time that he had confessed...

Red Semidouble NAZARIUS AND CELSUS bring glory to the Church of Milan, by appearing on the cycle today. After lying forgotten for three centuries in the obscure tomb that had received their precious remains in the time of Nero, they now receive the united homage of East and West. It was nine years since the triumphal day when Gervase and Protase, no less forgotten by the city once witness of their combat, had come to console and strengthen an illustrious Bishop who was persecuted for his profession of the Divine consubstantiality of the same Christ who had had all...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Police have cleared the scene of a protest that blocked elevators in a Kentucky building that houses an immigration court. The group Occupy ICE Louisville says a group of people went into the building in downtown Louisville on Thursday morning to protest the separation of immigrant families. The protesters linked their arms together inside plastic tubes. A large number of police outside the building dispersed just before noon as the protesters were taken away in a paddy wagon.

The Democrats don't deserve the title of "Progressives". They're campaigning on undoing all of Trumps achievements by repealing the tax cuts, returning to voluminous regulations, etc. Let's call them what they truly are....Regressives.

<p>A U.S. judge on Friday rejected a last-ditch effort by gun control groups to block the Trump administration from allowing the public to download blueprints for 3-D printable guns, declining to intervene just days before the designs are expected to go online.</p>

Please pray for my Aunt in Ireland who is terribly ill and the socialized medicine doctors don't seem to have a clue what it is. Please pray that Deirdre gets the diagnosis and care she needs somehow. It seems it may take a miracle.

RedWolf Pope is a well-known native activist. He hosted a TedxSeattle talk about his experience at Standing Rock and spent time with KING 5 journalists, discussing issues in his community. He has now been arrested and is facing a slew of charges, including rape, battery and false imprisonment. The case against him involves both his apartments in Santa Fe, New Mexico and on Boylston Avenue in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.

A very funny clip. Not everything is politics Hit the Couch

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush offered a rhetorical hat tip to one-time rival President Trump on Friday for the nation’s surging economy. The man deemed “low-energy Jeb” on the 2016 campaign trail by Mr. Trump took to Twitter to marvel at America’s high-octane economic growth — 4.1 percent in the second quarter. “Today’s news confirms that 4% growth isn’t just aspirational, it’s achievable through policies that unleash the power of the market,” Mr. Bush wrote. “Credit to @POTUS’s economic policies. To sustain this growth, we must pursue a free trade agenda and move to a merit-based immigration system.” Mr. Bush...

New York Times best-selling author and populist conservative columnist Ann Coulter said “nothing” will compare to the hysteria from the establishment media and the left if President Trump is able to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. “And wow, I hope I’m here to live through Trump being able to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg because everything you’ve seen, the Cohen tape, the Helsinki meeting, oh it’s going to be nothing compared to Trump being able to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” Coulter said. Coulter said she was “very happy” with Trump’s appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice...

Tesla is a bit of a control freak when it comes to repairing its electric vehicles. If you try to buy parts to make your own repairs, they won’t let you. The company views it as a way of protecting its reputation and ensuring quality. But YouTuber Rich Benoit believes Tesla owners should be able to work on their own cars, so he found a way to do it.

A mutated strain of HIV spotted in Canada is driving sufferers to develop AIDS quicker than usual, a study reveals. The strain is circulating in Saskatchewan, where 80 percent of people diagnosed with the illness are Indigenous. Doctors started reporting alarmingly rapid declines among patients in 2016, when the rate of HIV infections rocketed to 10 times the rate of other regions. Now, a new study carried out by Simon Fraser University in Vancouver warns there is concrete evidence that this community is the birthplace of a particularly aggressive strain, which is developing faster than modern medicine can keep up...