Free Republic

So, the other night, my friend Dr. Mo called to tell me about his close encounter with the tea party people, or 912 Patriots, or whatever those people who messed up traffic on Market Street last Saturday call themselves. Dr. Mo's real name is David Moyar, but if I were to identify him as that, at least half the people who know him wouldn't know who I was talking about. In the interest of full disclosure, Mo is an old friend, by which I mean he's old and a friend. (He has also taken money from me in poker games,...

Terrible lizards trapped by terrible Flood Tas Walker A trail of fossilized claw marks found in northern Spain reveals the desperation of animals struggling to escape drowning in the Genesis Flood. ... That the footprints were preserved at all indicates the dinosaurs were engulfed by abnormal conditions. Today footprints are quickly obliterated, especially on a beach or in a strong current. But in the sandstone in Spain even the delicate features of the scratches were preserved, which means that sediment covered the tracks (and the ripple marks) soon after the dinosaur struggled past...

For example, Dr Eugenie Scott of the staunchly anticreationist National Center for Science Education (NCSE) revealed their agenda when she said: “ … I would describe myself as a humanist or a nontheist. I have found that the most effective allies for evolution are people of the faith community. One clergyman with a backward collar is worth two biologists at a school board meeting any day! … What we [such clergy and atheists] have in common is that we want to see evolution taught in the public schools … .”4

For most, they are innocent tales that define childhood. But some parents are ditching fairytales, believing they are politically incorrect or 'too dark' to read to children, a survey has found. One in four mothers has abandoned the likes of Cinderella and Rapunzel in favour of The Gruffalo or The Very Hungry Caterpillar, written in 1969 by Eric Carle. One in ten parents even said Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs should be re-titled - because 'the dwarf reference is not PC'. Rapunzel is considered 'too dark' and Cinderella outdated, because she is forced to do the housework. The poll...

Favourites such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Rapunzel are being dropped by some families who fear children are being emotionally damaged. A third of parents refused to read Little Red Riding Hood because she walks through woods alone and finds her grandmother eaten by a wolf. One in 10 said Snow White should be re-named because "the dwarf reference is not PC". Rapunzel was considered "too dark" and Cinderella has been dumped amid fears she is treated like a slave and forced to do all the housework.

Camelot or the return thereof...

CHAPTER 39 MINISTRY OF THE RESURRECTED CHRIST ON THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE By considering the apostolic ministry in immediate sequence to our study of the Lord's ascension from the Mount of Olives, we have departed from the chronological order of the several personal manifestations of the risen Savior to mortals; for very soon after His final farewell to the apostles in Judea He visited His "other sheep," not of the eastern fold, whose existence He had affirmed in that impressive sermon concerning the Good Shepherd and His sheep. Those other sheep who were to hear the Shepherd's voice and eventually be...

Welcome to Warm Fuzzy Wednesday and Thursday at the Finest. For those who start counting the days on Monday until the weekend, we're halfway there! So we're here to banish those doldrums and make you smile inside! Please feel free to post sweet graphics and/or little stories that make you feel all warm and fuzzy - or just come by and give us a smile. Only two more days 'til the weekend! A special addition this week is we are adding Fairy Tales. What Fairy Tale in your youth made you happy and provided the aura of “magic“ in...

As the economy weakens and the campaign intensifies, we'll hear more of James Carville's familiar refrain: It's the economy, stupid. Well, it ain't — or, at least, shouldn't be. I'm not claiming that Carville is wrong about voting. People vote their pocketbooks. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, the economy overshadows Iraq as the most important issue by a 39% to 19% margin. What I'm saying is that this sort of voting is shortsighted. It rewards or punishes candidates for something beyond their power. We have a $14 trillion economy. The idea that presidents can control it lies between...

Many people here know that socialists/liberals like to tell people/voters sedative fairy tales as one can see during this US presidential electoral campaign... But the facts are hard and true.... A new study about the french National Healthcare from Georges LANE,economy professor at Paris-IX-Dauphine University,was published by "Contribuables associés" very recently(=associated taxpayers)and aired by the magazine "Valeurs Actuelles" last week.... And the result is stunning: 1/Actually the average french worker is paying more than a half of hese incomes for a partial health coverage.For a full health coverage french have to take another insurance. 2/Despite this huge taxes the "Social...

<snip> There are plenty of reasons to be perturbed when loons and hate-mongers support a candidacy. But this game of guilt-by-association can be played endlessly. I tend to place greater emphasis on loons and hate-mongers that candidates actively seek out. Pat Robertson is a loon and an anti-Semite and a vicious homophobe who blamed Americans for 9/11. Giuliani didn't receive some unsolicited money from him; he actually stood on a platform and embraced him. Why one standard for Paul and another for Giuliani? If Obama embraced Louis Farrakhan as a supporter, you think Goldfarb and Kirchick would be silent? They'd...

It’s fall, the temperature is falling, the leaves are turning and with November here, we have some repeats to watch on the cable networks. The History Channel will show one of their favorites, ABC’s documentary “Beyond Conspiracy” featuring Peter Jennings and a computer animation which shows a bullet that hit President Kennedy’s back four inches below his collar but then the bullet allegedly exited his neck after nicking the upper part of the knot of his tie, and then it goes down at approximately a 25 degree down angle to hit Governor Connally in his back. It’s amazing what computers...

Let Sleeping Beauties Lie By Dorothea Israel WolfsonPosted August 2, 2006This essay appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of the Claremont Review of Books. Click here to send a comment.   A review of The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature: The Traditions in English edited by Jack Zipes, Lissa Paul, Lynne Vallone, Peter Hunt, and Gillian Avery  Parents have always fretted about what to read to their children, and experts have always been ready with advice. In their educational writings, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau together mentioned only three books worthy of a child's mind. Locke recommended Aesop's...

It’s Time To Go RINO Hunting By Herman Cain June 7, 2006 The split in the majority party between conservatives and RINOs – Republicans in Name Only – first became apparent during last year’s debate over proposals to restructure the Social Security program. The chasm has only deepened this session in debates and votes in Congress on immigration, tax policy, spending and judicial nominees. Whether we agree or not with all aspects of President Bush’s agenda, we at least know his positions. Conversely, Congressional Republicans are like a lost ship adrift at sea with no captain or compass. President Bush’s...

John Edwards is still a rock star. The former U.S. senator was in the nation's capital Thursday to help U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy push for an increase in the federal minimum wage. The pair, joined by about 100 supporters, held a short rally in a park outside a Senate office building. Kennedy, a darling of liberal Democrats, seemed nearly an afterthought for many of the supporters. They wanted Edwards to shake their hands, pose for pictures, sign their posters. A nearby rally of parents with autistic children wrapped up (there are a lot of rallies on Capitol Hill), and the...

Bill Maher: Christians have neurological disorder Says parents 'drill' religion into kids' heads using biblical 'fairy tales' Posted: February 18, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Bill Maher Television personality Bill Maher, host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," says Christians and others who are religious suffer from a neurological disorder that "stops people from thinking." Appearing as a guest on MSNBC's "Scarborough County" this week, Maher told host Joe Scarborough: "We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies....

Mention the word “Fairy Tale” and suddenly the mind is full of animated heroines, picture books and counterpanes, and the fatal name of nursery. “Oh yes!” the sage parent exclaims, “Fairy Tales. I remember those. Dragons and knights and damsels in distress. Frogs what needed kissing. All nonsense of course—but good enough for children. Nothing real in them at all, though. Fit for Pan.” But not, apparently, for Hook. We have become, alas, a world of disillusion, robbed of those uncharted lands that the imagination could label Here be dragons. We are told, like Wendy, that we must “grow up.”...

Doesn't appear this has been posted on FR for discussion? The proposed 2004 is located in PDF form here http://www.dems2004.org/atf/cf/{59B09D55-4544-4D5F-965C-8DBD20B51054}/Platform%202004%20-%20by%20Comm%20(2).pdf For comparison, the 2000 platform is located here http://www.democrats.org/about/2000platform.html

"My Life" by Bill Clinton, the long-anticipated memoir of the former president, will be published in late June. The announcement was made today by Sonny Mehta, president and editor-in-chief of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House. The first printing will be 1.5 million copies. Clinton will be reading an abridged version of the book for Random House Audio.

<p>An Indian tribe has forced distributors of an Arab studies guide for U.S. teachers to remove an inaccurate passage that says Muslim explorers preceded Christopher Columbus to North America and became Algonquin chiefs.</p> <p>Peter DiGangi, director of Canada's Algonquin Nation Secretariat in Quebec, called claims in the book, the "Arab World Studies Notebook," "preposterous" and "outlandish," saying nothing in the tribe's written or oral history support them.</p>