Free Republic

This past Monday, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the 303 Creative v. Elenis religious liberty case.This case involves basic and fundamental First Amendment religious freedom and free speech issues. The basic facts of the case are simple, but profound. Lori Smith is the proprietor of 303 Creative. Ms. Smith constructs websites using her God-given creative talents. She has concentrated on projects about which she cares deeply, such as children and veterans with disabilities and animal rights and animal shelters.Ms. Smith decided to expand her business by branching out and creating websites for weddings. As a deeply...

Archaeologists in Turkey suspect the church may have been built in the year 325, following the First Council of Nicaea.The remains of a 1,600-year-old Byzantine basilica have been discovered at the site of the Councils of Nicaea, at the bottom of a lake in northwest Turkey. “We have found church remains. It is in a basilica plan and has three naves,” said Mustafa Şahin, an archaeology professor at Bursa Uludağ University, told Hurriyet News. Plans are now underway to open an underwater museum to allow tourists to view the foundation of the church, which was found lying in 5-7 feet...

The foe now has four legs. But a century on, the rugged reliability and brute firepower that made the Lee-Enfield rifle the standard-issue weapon for entrenched Canadian troops during the latter half of the First World War makes it an ideal choice still for a modern group of this country’s soldiers. The Canadian Rangers — a component of the armed forces reserves — conduct sovereignty patrols and assist search and rescue missions in the Far North and in remote coastal regions across the country.

Adopted in 1888, the .303 arrived in the midst of a huge global upheaval in small arms development. It really was a bit much - one had just adopted a single shot breechloading black powder military rifle in a then gee-whiz smallbore .45 calibre (the.450 Martini-Henry), which had all seemed pretty state-of-the-art at the time, and now there were all these .30 calibre repeating rifles with jacketed bullets propelled by some new fangled smokeless powder.~ Furthermore, velocities now approached (and even exceeded) TWO THOUSAND FEET PER SECOND! This was almost unbelievable in the black powder era, and opened up boundless...