Free Republic

IT’s nearly here! The birthday of the selfless one himself. The man, the myth, the legend, saviour of all humanity, Jesus Christ. However, it is actually widely debated that, if he did exist in flesh and blood, his birthday was actually on December 25. One theory suggests that the ‘Star of Bethlehem’ may have been Venus and Jupiter coming together to form a bright light in the sky, a rare event that occurred in June of 2 B.C. Another possibility is that it could have been a similar conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter, which was in October of 7 B.C....

A federal judge has ruled that California's 32-year-old assault weapons ban is unconstitutional -- and that the state cannot limit civilian access to weapons he considered to be "fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles."

If you still can’t figure out what the heck a bitcoin is… I have one apple with me. I give it to you. You now have one apple and I have zero. That was simple, right? My apple was physically put into your hand. You know it happened. I was there. You were there. You touched it. We didn’t need a third person there to help us make the transfer. We didn’t need to pull in Uncle Tommy (who’s a famous judge) to sit with us on the bench and confirm that the apple went from me to you. The...

Why the disconnect between conservative electoral wins these last thirty-five years, and how leftward American culture and law has slithered? How did it come to this? Thought being the father of action, ineffective efforts spring from flawed worldviews. Our ballot box wins having proven at best delaying actions against the Left’s Borg-like assimilation of the United States, it is time for conservatives to take a hard look at how conservatism views itself and the Left. Ultimately, much of the problem results from certain conceptual metaphors inherent in modern conservatism. Change those metaphors, and different, more effective actions will result. [skip]...

Police are going door-to-door in a coastal Georgia town in a frantic search for two young suspects after a gunman shot an infant dead in the stroller his mother was pushing. Officer Todd Rhodes of the Brunswick Police Department told FoxNews.com that numerous tips had been received in connection to the Thursday morning shooting, but no suspect or weapon had yet been located, police said Friday. Investigators were also checking school attendance records for leads. Several nearby residents called 911 after hearing gunshots fired, but Rhodes said investigators believe the mother was the only witness to what happened. "Understand this:...

Police are hunting for four thugs wearing Yankees baseball caps who attacked a veteran Boston Fire Department commander outside a Charlestown firehouse, leaving him with a broken eye socket and 14 stitches across his forehead. But the deepest wound Lt. Christopher Corwin suffered in the assault was that his injuries forced him to miss a fellow firefighter’s funeral yesterday. Corwin, 42, was helping a tractor-trailer driver turn around, using the apron of Ladder 9/Engine 32’s lot in Sullivan Square around 11:30 p.m. Sunday night, when a dark-colored sedan allegedly tried to race around the truck, almost hitting another firefighter.

Sights of Silence By RICHARD RAGAN as told to JAMES BROOKE Published: May 23, 2004 North Korea is a whisker smaller than my home state, Mississippi. But when I heard about the explosion last month at Ryongchon train station, I knew I was in for a long, hard drive. As the crow flies, it was 300 miles. But I was in the northeast corner of the country, near the Russian border, when I heard the news on the BBC. With North Korea's bumpy dirt roads and circuitous routes, our convoy of white Toyota Land Cruisers faced a three-day, 800-mile road...

Archaeology / Judging by these remains, the Tanakhic description is anchored in reality By Ran Shapira Unlike other cities from the biblical period, Bethsaida has been well preserved. Buildings discovered there indicate an organized and stable society from the 10th century B.C.E. A road paved with basalt stones, four meters in width, leads to the gate of the city of Bethsaida, which overlooks Lake Kinneret from the northeast. About 50 meters of the road were exposed during the most recent digging seasons at the site. Dr. Rami Arav says that an investigation with ground-penetrating radar revealed that the paved road...

THE GREAT HERESIESby Hilaire BellocIntroduction: HeresyWhat is a heresy, and what is the historical importance of such a thing? Like most modern words, "Heresy" is used both vaguely and diversely. It is used vaguely because the modern mind is as averse to precision in ideas as it is enamored of precision in measurement. It is used diversely because, according to the man who uses it, it may represent any one of fifty things. Today, with most people (of those who use the English language), the word "Heresy" connotes bygone and forgotten quarrels, an old prejudice against rational examination. Heresy is...

It would be a great help if more FReepers would fill out their profile page. Come on now; some of you have been here for years and have not so much as a state flag flying. You don't need to tell your life story, but at least a state or national flag would help. For instance, I know there's more Wisconsin FReepers out there than are on the WI location page. How can anyone alert you to the upcoming (state) FReeper event UNLESS your screen name is on the (state) page?