Free Republic

Pope Francis has met privately with a Sudanese mother in Rome who was put on death row for refusing to renounce her Christian faith and become a Muslim. The Vatican said Pope Francis had 'a very affectionate' meeting with Meriam Ibrahim, 27, her husband and their two small children. Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the pope 'thanked her for her faith and courage, and she thanked him for his prayer and solidarity' during the half-hour meeting. He blessed Ms Ibrahim as she held her baby daughter Maya in her arms whom she gave birth to in prison two...

A pencil-necked geek harasses thugs in the ghetto who in response gets beat up. This insane individual then does it again and again and again, despite how often and severe he gets beat up.

A Colorado Springs man woke up to find a strange woman cooking breakfast in his kitchen Wednesday morning. ... Police say the woman got into the apartment through an unlocked door. She left before police arrived. While officers were responding to the call, they received a report of a woman trying to break into a house in the 900 block of Hutchinson Dr. The owner of the home detained the woman until police arrived. Josefina Gonsalez-Nieves, 27, was arrested.

After more than 30 years on the charts, comedian-singer "Weird Al" Yankovic earns his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, as "Mandatory Fun" debuts atop the list. The album is the first comedy set to top the chart since 1963, and logs the largest sales week for a comedy album since 1994. "Mandatory Fun" was released July 15 through Way Moby and RCA Records, and sold 104,000 copies in the week ending July 20, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It was promoted by a well-receiveddaily viral video campaign that launched Monday, July 14. Starting with his parody of Pharrell's...

There’s plenty of bad news already coming over the transom today and we’ll get to all of it, but one story we’ve followed here has a happy ending. Meriam Yahia Ibrahim, the woman sentenced to death in Sudan for her Christian faith, has left Khartoum and landed in Rome, greeted by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi at the airport. Italy helped the US mediate her release with Sudanese officials in a quiet effort launched a few weeks ago:

Things are going well for NASCAR's top team, Hendrick Motorsports, which includes some of the sport's top drivers, including Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. But a closer look at the value and profit of the other top teams reveals a sport that is trending in the wrong direction. According to Forbes.com and its valuations of NASCAR's top nine teams, the current value of Hendrick Motorsports ($348 million) is relatively unchanged since 2010 ($350 million). However, the average team has seen a 31.1% drop in profit since 2010 which has translated into an average team value...

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ordered a review of the state's execution process after a convicted double murderer gasped and snorted for more than an hour and a half before his death Wednesday. Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne's office said Joseph Rudolph Wood was pronounced dead at 3:49 p.m. local time, one hour and 57 minutes after the execution started. Wood's lawyers had filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court while the execution was underway, demanding that it be stopped. The appeal said Wood was "gasping and snorting for more than an hour." In ordering the review, Brewer said...

Change Blindness: In visual perception, change blindness is a normal phenomenon of the brain which show in light that the brain does not have a precise representation of the world but a lacunar one, made of partial details. Despite the name, this phenomenon does not affect the eyes but the brain, and as such is bound to happen to all the human senses. This phenomenon is still in research, but results suggests that the brain estimates the importance and usefulness of information prior to deciding to store them or not. Another issue is that the brain cannot see a change...

A curious 4-year-old in Monroe, Conn., is going to have to get his doughnuts elsewhere after asking a Doughnut Inn customer the wrong question. Justin Otero's mother says the boy asked the customer if she had a baby in her belly and was told no. "My response was, 'Oh my goodness, I'm so embarrassed, I'm so sorry,'" the mom tells WFSB. But she says that while the customer was forgiving, managers refused to allow her in the store with her son, saying, "'He's not allowed in here, he's rude.'" The mom says she plans to get doughnuts somewhere else with...

Californians continue to strongly support their state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gases – until they find out it involves higher gasoline prices, according to a new poll released Wednesday. The Public Policy Institute of California’s annual environmental survey also found majorities oppose the greater use of fracking for oil exploration (54 percent), increased offshore oil drilling (51 percent) and building more nuclear power plants (64 percent). California’s cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will include fuels as of Jan. 1. That has prompted an oil industry-backed campaign for a delay or repeal amid predictions that the cost of gas...

The Architect of the Capitol took emergency measures Wednesday to handle a bed bug problem in a Senate Office Building, including closing off a restroom for a couple of days with yellow police tape. So watch out Senate aides and tourists approaching the sixth floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Bedbugs are not easy to shake. The trouble began prior to a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing held Wednesday in which some attendees—lobbyists, presumably—employed people to wait in line for them. This is a common practice and sources tell us it falls under the jurisdiction of the Rules Committee...

The Christie Administration today announced that approximately 267,273 households throughout New Jersey receiving home energy assistance through the federally-funded Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) will soon receive supplemental benefits.  “I am pleased that my administration will be able to help New Jersey families this year by providing additional benefits to eligible households to help them pay their home heating bills for the current winter season,” said Governor Christie. Eligible households do not need to reapply for the program to receive supplemental benefits. The benefits are available because LIHEAP funding for the year increased beyond the original projection provided...

Please...any suggestions on good online pharmacies? Need long-term meds.

In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". mot juste \ moh ZHYST \ , noun French . the exact, appropriate word. Example sentences: I felt very bad because here was the man I liked and trusted the most as a critic then, the man who believed in the mot juste —the one and only correct word to use—the man who had taught me to distrust adjectives as I would later learn to distrust certain people in certain given situations...-- Ernest...

Upon first glance of Brazilian artist Adriana's creations you wouldn't know they were actually made of condoms. But they are. And they're kind of beautiful. The Sao Paulo-based artist makes dresses from expired or defective condoms to promote safe sex as social activist encouraging AIDS/HIV prevention. The 43-year-old's designs are currently being exhibited at the International AIDS conference in Melbourne and are a sight to behold.

Click on link.

Quinn and Rose are off the air, and we await word that they are returning soon. (Stand by) Meanwhile, our friendly group of dedicated FReeper Q&R fans will meet in our usual spot - same time, same station - as we always have! So grab your coffee - or whatever you choose to start your day - and drop in for some political chit-chat, or just to shoot the breeze! We are all coming from - or going to - work, but we all stop in to say ‘hi!’ Feel free to join us!

Abortion activists claim pro-lifers are engaging in a “war on women:” by passing legislation to protect women and unborn children from abortion. But a new expose’ video catches a Planned Parenthood staffer engaging in her own war on women. The pro-life group Live Action released the third installment today in its “SexEd” investigative series, showing a Planned Parenthood staffer in Portland, Oregon offering disturbing sex counseling to someone she thinks is a fifteen-year-old girl. The video clearly shows the counselor encouraging the young girl to allow herself to be victimized in violent sexual encounters with her partner. The staffer tells...

It is either the funniest thing on the internet, or the creepiest, but one thing is for certain: a guy called Owen Mundy knows where your cat lives.No matter where you are in the world, if you have posted a photo of your feline friend on social media, chances are Professor Mundy’s supercomputer has captured it, collated it, and pinpointed your location.Professor Mundy combines art, design and computer programming in his addictive site – simply titled iknowwhereyourcatlives.com - highlighting our obsession with cats and the trends of the internet.On his website, Mundy reveals that there are 15 million photos tagged with the...

China Has Given More Than $40 Billion in Loans Since 2008 in Exchange for Oil. Mr. Xi and his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, signed more than a dozen financial and bilateral cooperation agreements, including a renewal of a joint development fund in which China will contribute $4 billion that Venezuela will repay with an additional 100,000 barrels a day in crude. "Everything we do with China is for the happiness of our people," Mr. Maduro said during a televised signing ceremony on Monday. Venezuela exports more than 500,000 barrels of oil a day to China, with nearly half of it...