Free Republic

Oakland's City Council, amid a rowdy crowd of protesters, narrowly backed off a resolution Tuesday that would have beefed up law enforcement at Occupy protests. The resolution, which lacked the five votes necessary to pass, would have increased police enforcement of laws against blocking streets and assembling without a permit. The proposal came in the wake of a Jan. 28 protest downtown in which 400 people were arrested. Even as they defeated the resolution, council members expressed anger at the tactics of Occupy Oakland during the meeting, particularly group members' persistent shouting. "I am disgusted with the complete lack of...

Lutheranism is dead, or at least soon will be and it wants to take the Catholic Church with it. Herbert W. Chilstrom is former presiding bishop of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Chilstrom has written an open letter to the Bishops of Minnesota asking them to accept gay 'marriage' becuase gays are like blacks or something. May I share a word with all of you who now lead the Roman Catholic community of faith in Minnesota?First, I would go to the wall to defend your right to work for the adoption of the so-called marriage protection amendment. Having said that,...

The names of the jurors who determined Casey Anthony’s fate when they found her not guilty of first-degree murder will be made public Tuesday. Juror identities are usually released in Florida once a verdict is rendered. But, in Anthony's high-profile case, Orange-Osceola Chief Judge Belvin Perry ordered the names remain private. Anthony, 25, was found not guilty in July of killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee Marie in the summer of 2008. The 12-member jury, comprised of Pinellas County residents, also found Anthony not guilty of aggravated child abuse and not guilty of aggravated manslaughter of a child.

Adriane Thatcher has written a book (Savage Text) where in he offers an argument for the acceptance of homosexuality in the Christian church. His argument runs along the lines that we should look at the passages that condemn homosexuality as savage text (text that renders scripture holy) – in the same way we should look to passages in the Old Testament that show God’s predilection for child killing, his wrath and vengeful wars against local tribes as savage text. These texts should not be used by the church because they contradict the loving character and message of Jesus. It should...

Several dozen people partook in a discussion about same-sex marriage Sunday morning at Westminster Presbyterian Church, settling nothing but sharing their opinions openly. It was a part of the church’s series of adult education forums; one last week focused on interfaith marriage. Always a controversial topic, same-sex marriage has become yet more prominent in New York this year since the Legislature passed a law legalizing it. The Ledyard town clerk objected to that law and declined to sign same-sex marriages licenses on religious grounds, thereby putting herself near the center of a nationwide debate and drawing a write-in election challenge....

YEKATERINBURG, Russia — The treatment center does not handcuff addicts to their beds anymore. But caged together on double-decker bunks with no way out, they have no choice but to endure the agonies of withdrawal, the first step in a harsh, coercive approach to drug treatment that has gained wide support in Russia. “We know we are skirting the edge of the law,” said Sergei Shipachev, a staff member at the center, which is run by a private group called City Without Drugs. “We lock people up, but mostly we have a written request from their family. The police couldn’t...

As a rule, the press is the scourge of presidents. They’re expected to endure unending scrutiny, mistrust, and badgering—plus hostility if they’re Republicans—by a hectoring herd of reporters and commentators in the mainstream media. But there’s an exception to the rule: President Obama. It’s counterintuitive, but Obama has been hurt by the media’s leniency. Both his presidency and reelection prospects have suffered. He’s grown lazy and complacent. The media have encouraged him to believe his speeches are irresistible political catnip, though they aren’t. His overreliance on words hasn’t helped. The kind of media pressure that can cause a president to...

Long time readers might recall that it was a demonstration at Auckland University against the ACT political party just before the 1999 election that got me motivated in respect of NZ politics. I witnessed a large collection of neo-communists from the university shouting down, with a degree of hate and venom that appalled me, speakers from a political party that advocated a traditional liberal political viewpoint. Here we were in a university, where freedom of political expression should be sacrosanct and the Communists had such a grip on the political discussion, true liberals (or at least as close as NZ...

A defense lawyer is calling for calm after death threats have been made against teenagers charged in the death of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide after she was allegedly bullied by schoolmates. "Not to minimize what happened to Phoebe Prince in any way, but translating this into death threats and public harassment has got to stop," says Colin Keefe, who represents Sharon Chanon Velazquez, accused of tormenting Prince, who hanged herself on Jan. 14. "It's gotten way out of control," adds Keefe, who says Velazquez has been driven temporarily from her home.

DUBLIN - Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation Wednesday of Bishop John Magee, a former papal aide who stands accused of endangering children by failing to follow the Irish church's own rules on reporting suspected pedophile priests to police. Magee apologized to victims of any pedophile priests who were kept in parish posts since he took charge of the southwest Irish diocese of Cloyne in 1987. "To those whom I have failed in any way, or through any omission of mine have made suffer, I beg forgiveness and pardon," the 73-year-old Magee said in a statement.

The immigration debate takes a technological turn with a new cell phone device that helps illegal immigrants crossing the desert into the U.S. find water. The Transborder Immigrant Tool was developed by UC San Diego prof and activist Ricardo Dominguez and UCSD lecturer Brett Stalbaum. Both believe it will save the lives of hundreds of people who die each year during their trek across "Devil's Highway." Here's how the tool works. The phone, loaded with free GPS software, displays a digital compass that locates water stations installed by John Hunter, founder of the Water Stations project. Stations that are too...

Tucson, Ariz. (AP) -- A judge has threatened to sentence an Arizona man to 25 days in prison for leaving jugs of water in the desert for illegal immigrants. A federal jury in June convicted Walt Staton of Tucson of littering in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. . . . Staton is a member of the group No More Deaths, which supports humanitarian aid along the border. He was scheduled to be re-sentenced Friday after he told a U.S. magistrate last month that he objected to the court's punishment on moral and legal grounds.

Elizabeth Edwards always seemed like the yin - a genuine human being - to her smarmy husband's too-slick yang. No more. With the release of her memoir "Resilience" and self-flagellation book tour about her life with her cheating hubby, Mrs. E now seems about as believable as her husband. That is: Add the prefix "un." No one should expect the wife of a man with Edwards' hobbies to be completely forthcoming - which is why she never should have written the book. Unless she had decided to show him the door - or if she had come out and said...

[The following is the only known transcript of an interview last week by Independent Star reporter Bias Jones with International Brotherhood of Polar Bears President Grumbles the Bear about the union's dissention from the list of global warming enablers. The interview occurred on an ice floe somewhere north of an Inuit village on Canada’s Ellesmere Island.]

LAKE FOREST – The conversation dealt with transgendered individuals, homosexuality, and theology. Representatives of the gay community today shared their "coming out" stories and discussed religious attitudes toward homosexuality with Saddleback Church staff. "I feel the foundation is being built for other dialogue between Saddleback and the gay community," said Richard Finch... One person talked about being transgender and Christian, attendees said. Another individual talked about being in the brink of suicide because of his childhood church's views on homosexuality. ... Jeff Lutes, executive director of Soulforce — a gay rights advocacy group that organized the project — said the...

....Overall, the results presented in this paper suggest several important facts. First, the findings suggest that there is an explicit and quantifiable cost to public debate during wartime in the form of increased attacks. Based on these results, it appears that Iraqi insurgent groups believe that when the U.S. political landscape is more uncertain, initiating a higher level of attacks increases the likelihood that the U.S. will reduce the scope of its engagement in the conflict. However, the magnitude of the response by Iraqi insurgent groups is relatively small. To the extent that U.S. political speech does affect insurgent incentives,...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2008 – As Iraqi maneuver units continue to make great progress, coalition trainers must concentrate on “enablers” of the force, the general in charge of the effort to train Iraqi forces said today. Army Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, commander of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, spoke to military analysts by phone from his headquarters in Baghdad. He said coalition and Iraqi planners understand that enablers -- combat service support functions for the military -- must make progress for the Iraqi military to be a balanced force. The combat units of the Iraqi army are doing well;...

A third homeless shelter near River Street has some business owners in the area upset and planning to move. Last week, a diverse group of religious leaders gathered outside an older commercial building just off Interstate 184, the Connector, to make an announcement they'd held back for months: Boise's Interfaith Sanctuary had secured funding and bought a building to shelter homeless men, women and families. Interfaith Sanctuary provides an alternative to traditional men's and women's shelters, which some people will not use because of religious affiliations. Sanctuary allows families to stay together and will take intoxicated people. For two years,...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Weak law enforcement and compliant Church authorities make Mexico a haven for U.S. pedophile priests fleeing justice, a victims' group said on Wednesday. The Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, which helped bring a lawsuit this week against two of North America's top cardinals, said it knows of 46 mostly U.S. priests hiding out south of the border. "Mexico has really become a secure place because here judicial authorities don't track them down and nothing happens," said group spokesman Eric Barragan......."

ISLAMIST fanatics attacked us and yearn to destroy us. The Muslim civilization of the Middle East has failed comprehensively and will continue to generate violence. The only way to deal with faith-poisoned terrorists is to kill them. And the world's only hope for long-term peace is for moderate Muslims - by far the majority around the globe - to recapture their own faith. But a rotten core of American extremists is out to make it harder for them. The most repugnant trend in the American shouting match that passes for a debate on the struggle with Islamist terrorism isn't the...