Free Republic

Bruck’s message to President 0bama: Give it back. My first thought upon hearing that President 0bama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, or, I should say my first rational thought was, “couldn’t they find anybody who’s actually done anything for peace or human rights in the last year?” Well, of course there are many people working on various fronts, in the less sexy places of the world, toiling thanklessly against the ravages of poverty, genocide, human trafficking, and other scourges of the human condition. Perhaps in a future column I could highlight some of our modern human rights warriors whose...

More than 50 gun rights advocates protested police conduct during an incident at a city restaurant with some calling for the firing of several of the officers involved at Monday night's Manassas City Council meeting. The public outcry comes two weeks after Springfield-resident Russ Troxel filed a complaint against the police department about an incident involving him and six friends who were openly carrying their weapons while dining at Tony's New York Pizza on Mathis Avenue on the evening of Jan. 13. A second complaint was filed Friday by Fairfax resident Mark Anderson who states that among other things the...

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors signed letters to Vice President Cheney in his role as President of the U.S. Senate and Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, asking them to consider repaying the county for the cost of illegal immigrants. Supervisor W.S. "Wally" Covington, R-Brentsville, initiated the resolution to charge the federal government $2,731,705. The county determined the $2.7 million figure by figuring out how much it cost to jail illegal immigrants at the Prince William-Manassas regional jail and at the Prince William County Juvenile Detention Center. The county also counted the cost of...

ROYAL OAK — The school and day care center at Calvary Christian Church will be gun-free zones from now on. Police Chief Ted Quisenberry said he warned church and school leaders not to carry concealed weapons near the children anymore after he read in the Daily Tribune about the Rev. Mark Byers' firearms policy. Byers, 54, heads the non-denominational church on 11 Mile Road just west of I-75, where he encourages members to take advantage of an exemption in the state law regulating the carrying of concealed weapons that allows congregants to pack pistols at church with the pastor's permission....

Ashleigh Stroich packed her bags at 17 years old and poured out her heart in a letter that ordered her parents not to contact her until they repent. Their sin? She said they refused to submit to a spiritual leader. Ashleigh's parents said she left her high school, abandoned her puppy, gave up her old life, and moved from their home because they didn't accept the spiritual authority of the Rev. Mark Byers, pastor of Calvary Christian Church. Ashleigh's story and Byers' well-documented gun policies have some ready to accuse the pastor of making the Royal Oak church a cult....

John Stroich said he had no idea what his family was getting into when his daughter began courting the pastor's son at Cavalry Christian Church in Royal Oak. Within three months, they feel their daughter, Ashleigh, was brainwashed by the head pastor, Mark Byers. Then she was gone. "It bothers me so much that I didn't see this coming," Stroich said. "I put a lot of trust in a man who calls himself a minister. But a lot of dynamics were at work that we didn't realize. We were 'snowed.'" Stroich and his wife, Dinah, who live in Shelby Township,...

Pass the Lord and pass the ammunition Christy Strawser Daily Tribune Staff Writer PUBLISHED: March 20, 2005 Local church under fire for gun policy ROYAL OAK — Packing heat and praising Jesus are cornerstones of an unusual local church where hundreds worship every Sunday by singing, dancing and screaming out messages delivered, they say, by the Lord. But when Calvary Christian Church members raise their hands to heaven, Bibles aren't the only thing under their Sunday blazers. Pastor Mark Byers urges the congregation to get concealed weapons permits and carry firearms to church. The pastor also urges his flock to...

Spread Thin Enron's Kenneth Lay and Global Crossing's Gary Winnick weren't just spreadsheet jockeys, they were the last great heroes of the self-delusional business culture. BY MICHAEL WOLFF Bizarro CEO: The business culture of Kenneth Lay's Enron wasn't just crooked; it had fostered a new, parallel reality. The business culture, which may now be ending, started twenty years ago as the Reagan era took hold and the bull market got under way. Before that, before corporate man became a sexy thing, corporate America was a white-bread, repressed, deeply uncool place to be. A host of structural changes nurtured this new...

 1. WOW! I never saw THAT coming! - Miss Ann Thrope 2. At least the vital personnel got to keep their jobs! - Losing_control_over_fists_of_death 3. Here is the list of twelve-character, alphanumeric system-level passwords that only I know. - Mata Harry 4. I'll just leave the backup copies of all my files and the only hard copy detailing my day-to-day processes on your desk, right beside the box of office supplies I brought back from home. - Anything I can do to make your job easier... 5. Wait! Let me finish this conference call with our most difficult client and ...

"4.92": And it does not behoove a believer to kill a believer except by mistake, and whoever kills a believer by mistake, he should free a believing slave, and blood-money should be paid to his people unless they remit it as alms; but if he be from a tribe hostile to you and he is a believer, the freeing of a believing slave (suffices), and if he is from a tribe between whom and you there is a convenant, the blood-money should be paid to his people along with the freeing of a believing slave; but he who cannot find ...