Free Republic

“Anybody here?” No response. He scratched a balding pate. “WAITER!” A girl of sixteen with too much makeup applied in too isometric a fashion sauntered up to the podium, apologizing quickly: “Sorry about the wait. The Rex’s were in the grass-pool again. They had to remove an outside wall and wheel in a forklift—” “Fine. Just get me a table. Now.” “How many?” “How many does it look like? ME! C’mon…”

Freeps. My son is a tremendous fan of history and devours books and media on the subject constantly. Today, while rummaging through some sale items at my local library I acquired a copy of "The Hornet's Nest" by former US president Jimmy Carter. The book is a fictionalized account of events in the south during the American Revolution. It is read by Edward Herrmann. I would not have purchased the CD had it been read by Carter. Has anyone read this book, or know anything about it? I'd like to just spin it up and listen to the story with...

Durham, N.C. — The woman at the center of the 2006 scandal that rocked Duke University, Durham and the lives of the three lacrosse players she accused of raping her is coming out with a book. Crystal Gail Mangum worked as an exotic dancer in March 2006, when she performed at a party hosted by several Duke lacrosse players. It was at that party, Mangum alleged, that three white members of the team trapped her inside a bathroom and raped and sexually assaulted her. David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann were later indicted on the allegations. The claims also...

It is the stuff of escapist fantasy. A tall, dark and handsome type sweeps a cream-and-roses Home Counties heroine off her feet. In its 100 years of publishing, the exotic alpha male has been a staple of the Mills and Boon romance. The tale of the passionate desert sheikh who sweeps secretary Janna Smith off her feet in Violet Winspear's 1970 romance Tawny Sands is perhaps the quintessential Mills and Boon story. "His tone of voice was softly mocking, but she knew he didn't really jest. He was Raul Cesar Bey and the further they travelled into the desert the...

"You promised me a honeymoon but trapped me in a Bible-boot camp. Why was sex okay before and not now?" Synopsis: (Part 1 introduces Carl, the main antagonist in the story.) Since the death of his fiancée, Carl has become a drop out, heavy drug user and, most recently, a homeless street performer in Washington, D.C. Recovery seems possible after he saves the life of a congressman's relative and gains access to her wealth, but hidden enemies and his own inner turmoil threaten to drag him to new lows.

Tagline: "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." In this segment, Helen's sudden mid-flight outburst about an Islamic passenger makes Carl fear arrest upon landing. Watch segment 10 and comment.

"Theodicy" Part 1: Carl's Choice "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."Watch and comment on Part 1. (Part 1 introduces Carl, the main antagonist in the story.) Since the death of his fiancée, Carl has become a drop out, heavy drug user and, most recently, a homeless street performer in Washington, D.C. Recovery seems possible after he saves the life of a congressman's relative and gains access to her wealth, but hidden enemies and his own inner turmoil threaten to drag him to new lows.

To great popular culture fanfare, the Sex and the City movie opens on Friday. I don’t expect that I shall see it, so I thought I might offer a comment beforehand. Indeed, I rather missed the entire television series, but for a rather extraordinary confluence of events. Some years ago, I was asked by my friends at Maclean’s to arrange for the participation of Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Archbishop of Quebec City, for their big 100th anniversary bash in Toronto. The program featured leading Canadians from industry, literature, science, show business, politics, etc., all giving various summaries of the decades of...

Short film: Join recent college grad Rachael as she goes on a job interview in New Orleans that might actually kill her. Will she conspire to extort a federal official? Please watch the video and comment. "JOB INTERVIEWER Make a list. Name all the types of news stories someone might manufacture to push a client's scandal off the front page. RACHAEL My job interviewer had introduced himself on the phone as Frank McCoy, a partner at one of the world’s top public relations firms. What type of client? I asked. JOB INTERVIEWER That's not important. Make one up in your...

Maybe the reason the misperception persists that there are no atheists in foxholes is that nonbelievers must either shut up about their views or be hounded out of the military. Just ask Army Spc. Jeremy Hall, who is making a splash in the news because of the way his atheism was attacked by superiors and fellow soldiers while he was risking his life in service to his country. Hall, 23, served two combat tours in Iraq, winning the Combat Action Badge. But he's now stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., having been returned stateside early because the Army couldn't ensure his...

Fiction (short film) Detective Milton Comeaux investigates a double murder involving an academy award winning actor. Please rate and comment. Has anyone here ever heard of LisaNova?

Today, John McCain detailed what he envisions achieving as President by the end of his first term in 2013. John McCain will put the national interest ahead of partisanship to build an America that is safer, freer and more prosperous than when he was elected. When John McCain is President, the era of the permanent campaign will end. He will work with anyone who wants to get this country moving again and will listen to any idea intended to solve our problems, not make them worse. In forming government policy, John McCain will work with members of Congress from both...

'Wolf woman' invents Holocaust survival tale By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels  Last Updated: 4:14pm GMT 29/02/2008     A woman's best-selling account of how she lost her parents to the Holocaust and survived by living with wolves in the forests of Europe has been exposed as a fabrication.   Mrs Defonseca's book became a runaway bestseller   "Surviving with Wolves", first published 11 years ago, has been translated into 18 languages and was recently turned into a film. But in a statement issued by her lawyers, Misha Defonseca, who was born Monique De Wael, confessed that while her parents, members...

Transformers: Genesis actually. Years ago I was reading philosophy and watching daytime cartoons and out of this unlikely combination I told myself a story as an effort to explore the concepts I was reading about. As a result, this is not your average fanfic. It is set a long, looooong time ago in Cybertron's Golden Age. There are absolutely NO humans mentioned (except in the forward, which briefly speculates on if South Park's creators had made the old Transformers show). Expect to be entertained and maybe even challenged. The worst you can say is it was worth everything you paid...

...I don't know about you but I have had it with the legions of hustlers, grifters, drunks, junkies, pathics and drooling layabouts that keep waddling and teetering up to the public trough from that swamp of puke called New Orleans...

Just to let everyone know the 26th book in the long running popular military/history/fiction series "Casca" had just been released. This is the series begun by Vietnam Green Beret legend Barry Sadler back in '79. The publisher in Tennessee released this latest book - about the American Civil War - in late October this year.

There is a excellent book on the bookshelves titled Mass Exodus by Carlos Perez (SgtMaj USMC). Though it is written from conversations with his father, it can be realted to real life exploits. Support this fine American!

RUSH: I had some rudimentary information on this two weeks ago, and it wasn't enough for me to trust going with. But since then, it has been verified, and most of it's been verified by a "Freeper" at Free Republic. Everybody is writing about this now, since the Freeper posted it over the weekend. This 12-year-old kid that the Democrats used in the Saturday radio address to whine and moan and cry to President Bush about the S-CHIP children's health program, it turns out that the family of this kid sends its kids to "one of Baltimore's expensive private schools."...

Harry Potter and "the Death of God" - by Michael D. O'Brien Special to LifeSiteNews.com Editor's Note: LifeSiteNews.com, the news service which first put online the letter signed by Cardinal Ratzinger - now Pope Benedict XVI - against the Harry Potter books, is proud to present Michael O'Brien's latest essay on the Potter series.  The author, North America's foremost Potter critic, has written many articles that analyze in detail the Harry Potter novels. Here he reflects on the significance of the series as a whole. Well, July 21st has come and gone and the world is muggling onward. The date,...

<p>WASHINGTON -- For a month, the veracity of The New Republic's Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the Army private who has been sending dispatches from the front in Iraq, has been in dispute. His latest "Baghdad Diarist" (July 13) recounted three incidents of American soldiers engaged in acts of unusual callousness. The stories were meant to shock. And they did.</p>

The Internet: to some a New "New Testament" ?

When he spoke this week at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Islamic Center of Washington, President Bush said: “In the Middle East, we have seen instead the rise of a group of extremists who seek to use religion as a path to power and a means of domination. This self-appointed vanguard presumes to speak for Muslims. They do not.” There we are again. The Administration and the mainstream media (both Left and Right) take it as axiomatic that the jihad we see all over the world today represents a perversion of Islam, repudiated by...

Freeper Book Club Thanks to all who gave me some great ideas for conservative novels to read this summer. I compiled a list of the ones mentioned most and some I checked on Amazon.com. I read the Amazon.com reviews and they seem worthwhile. I ranked them purely by what I think would be good. It is totally arbitrary. I have only read a couple ( which I noted). The rest are Freeper recommendations: 1- Everything by W.E.B. Griffin ( He wrote several series of books "Brotherhood of War"; "The Corps" – I read "Semper Fi"; "Badge of Honor" – this...

Need some ammunition for the culture war. Anybody have any suggestions?

A greater tragedy was averted today at Virginia Tech, where an early morning shooting rampage left four students dead and another two in the hospital, thanks to the quick thinking and brave action of a student hero. This morning, the school's on-campus police received an emergency 911 call at around 9:45 AM, reporting that several gunshots had been heard in Norris Hall, devoted primarily to engineering classes. Responding quickly, police arrived at the hall to find that one student, with a legal concealed weapon, had prevented another from massacring students attending classes in the building. According to police reports a...

For some time now, years actually, my family and friends have been trying to get me to write fictional stories for publication. For a long time I resisted that notion because I write non-fiction and to tell you the truth I haven’t really considered fiction to be nearly as important an effort as non-fiction since I was a kid. But they’ve kept at me, and to tell you the truth I ain’t as opposed as I used to be to the idea, and in some sense I’ve even warmed to the proposal. The idea doesn’t automatically revolt me like it...

I'd be interested in hearing from any FReepers who write and/or publish fiction. It seems most published fiction these days is by liberals or non-political sorts, and I am curious how conservative fiction writers are doing in the marketplace.

Every Easter season the anti-Jesus crowd comes out of the woodwork creating some "controversy" about Jesus. This latest one, like many, is years old and was dusted off for the latest round of baseless attacks on Jesus' historicity. Historian Paul L. Maier explains further: Thanks for the profusion of e-mails I’ve received over the last two days regarding the Talpiot tombs discovery in Jerusalem, a.k.a., “the Jesus Family Tomb” story. Some of you also suggested that “life seemed to be following art” so far as my A Skeleton in God’s Closet was concerned. Believe me, this is not the way...

The Old Sergeant was sitting at his make shift desk drinking a Jack, smoking and looking through a photo album that Sam had sent to him from Missouri. Dog was in his corner sleeping.

It's time again for my quarterly "What Are You Reading Now?" thread. I like to do this to gauge what Freepers are reading. It can be anything...a best-seller, a literary classic, a trashy pulp novel, even a magazine, etc. I usually get a good number of responses from those of you in the Freeper universe. I'll start. Right now, I'm reading "Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden" by Douglas Cazaux Freeman. It's about the birth and growth of California's citrus industry. Well, what are you reading now?!

Eragon The Movie Dec 20, 2006, posted by Yosemitest Synopsis:When a young farm boy named Eragon (Speleers) discovers a dragon's egg in the forest, he learns that he's destined to take up the mantle of the Dragon Riders and defend his homeland of Alagaesia from the evil Galbatorix (John Malkovich). The author of the book "Eragon", Christopher Paolini was born on November 17, 1983 in Southern California. Christopher was homeschooled by his parents. The story of Eragon began as the daydreams of a teen. Christopher's love for the magic of stories led him to craft a novel that he...

Fact Sheet Updated July 16, 2006 Benefits of Stem Cells to Human Patients Adult Stem Cells v. Embryonic Stem Cells Peer-Reviewed References (not a complete listing, sample references) Adult Stem Cells Embryonic Stem Cells Cancers: Brain Cancer Retinoblastoma Ovarian Cancer Skin Cancer: Merkel Cell Carcinoma Testicular Cancer Tumors abdominal organs Lymphoma Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Acute Myelogenous Leukemia Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukemia Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukemia Cancer of the lymph nodes: Angioimmunoblastic Lymphadenopathy Multiple Myeloma Myelodysplasia Complete list is impressive - as yet Embryonic Stem Cells have not been successful in any use other than cloning...

I recently attended an advance screening of ABC’s outstanding, epic miniseries "The Path to 9/11" (airing this September 10-11), and I came away enormously impressed. Writer/producer Cyrus Nowrasteh ("Into the West"), director David Cunningham ("To End All Wars"), and the whole production team have done a magnificent job in presenting the complex events leading up to 9/11 with accuracy, fairness, and artistry. The writing, acting, directing, editing, cinematography, and overall story-telling are first-rate. "The Path to 9/11" is fast-paced and thoroughly gripping the entire way. The five-hour miniseries (aired over two nights) is based on the 9/11 Commission report, and...

It is the year 22006 A.D. and through the wonders of literary license, we are able to look down on a group of scientists who have made a stunning and grisly discovery. An archaeological expedition is being led by Professor Ralph Jameson from Belize University. Jameson is one of the foremost authorities in pre-Ice Age antiquity. Jameson's discoveries have changed the way the world views North America's ancient history. During a trip to the North American continent, which for the past 18,000 plus years has been buried under more than a mile of glacial ice, Jameson is accompanied by a...

ABC Presents The Path to 9/11, an Epic Miniseries based on the 9/11 Commission Report -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Governor Thomas H. Kean, Chair of the 9/11 Commission, is Senior Consultant Historic Broadcast Airs on September 10 and 11 with Limited Commercial Interruptions Cast Includes Harvey Keitel, Shirley Douglas, Patricia Heaton, Penny Johnson Jerald, Dan Lauria, Amy Madigan, Michael Murphy, Stephen Root, William Sadler, Katy Selverstone, Shaun Toub and Donnie Wahlberg On September 11, 2001 the world stood still as terrorists used four planes as lethal weapons against innocent Americans. The 9/11 Commission was formed to determine how such an attack could happen,...

I came up with a list: Metropolis, When Worlds Collide, Flash Gordon(1940s,1980) War of the Worlds(1953,2005) The Matrix Series Soylent Green Planet of The Apes Series Star Trek(the even ones especially the "Wrath Of Khan) The Omega Man Colossus: The Forbin Project Close Encounters ET Damnation Alley 2001 War Games The Day After A Clockwork Orange Slaughterhouse Five Star Wars(especially "The Empire Stike Back") Blade Runner(The Director's Cut) Dune Silent Running Alien and Aliens The Terminator and The Terminator II The Blob Honorable mention:Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

What is your favorite Science Fiction television series? My Favorites 1.Babylon 5 2.Time Tunnel 3.Star Trek(All Of them) 4.Space:1999 5.UFO 6.Adventures of Lois and Clark 7.Seaquest DSV(only some of them) 8.Land of the Lost(though loosely science fiction) 9.Planet of the Apes(Television series and Movies) 10.Max Headroom

The essay below was originally written in the early Spring of 2001: With the passing away of LEXX ends an intriguing albeit tawdry experiment in Sci-fantasy. One that breaks with conventions, or should I say cliches of TV sci-fi of the 90's . The politically correct pabulum, the multicultural indoctrination, the BladeRunner motifs, and not the least; the steroid mutated superbabes that can punch the lights out of men, but never get punched back in return !? How about creating a new sci-fi anthology with none of the puerile baggage of Rod Serling, Rockne Obannon, Michael J. Stracinsky, etc .....

2008 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton wowed the crowd at a pre-nomination breakfast in Buffalo Wednesday morning with a story about how she had befriended the maid who cleans her hotel room. With just hours to go before she accepts the nomination for a second term as New York's junior senator, Clinton huddled with party faithful in a downstairs banquet room at Buffalo's convention center. The former first lady recalled how, during her first Senate run, she began staying in a downtown hotel when she traveled to Buffalo - claiming that as time went by she and the maid became good...

LOS ANGELES — Back during the '70s recession I was a real estate expert with Morgan Stanley. We helped banks and REITs work out billions of loser portfolios, reorganize, file bankruptcy, even advised the U.S. Dept of Housing & Urban Development on the collapsed Federal New Towns program. I've worked for developers and mortgage bankers, got degrees in architecture and city planning, taught commercial real estate at Cornell University. But oddly, like the rest of America, most of the time I don't think about the housing bubble that's about to pop. We ignore the coming storm.

In the world of Hollywood fantasy, no occupation has been quite as mythologized as the private detective - the gumshoe in the shadows bending the law while spying on cheating spouses or lying business partners. In their endless push for fame and fortune, some Hollywood power brokers bought into the character and found a real-life private eye with a dubious reputation. Federal prosecutors now say Anthony Pellicano used wiretaps, threats and blackmail to help lawyers and their clients win high-stakes legal disputes. Other private eyes complain the case has confused fact and fiction about their work while showing how far...

The best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code has seriously damaged people's faith in the Christian Church, a survey has found.Two thirds of Britons who have read Dan Brown's thriller believe that Jesus fathered a child with Mary Magdalene, a claim rejected as baseless by historians and Bible scholars. Those who have read it are also four times as likely to think that the conservative Roman Catholic organisation Opus Dei, whose members include the Cabinet minister Ruth Kelly, is a murderous sect. Seventeen per cent of readers are convinced that the lay group, whose founder was canonised by the late Pope...

Scratchcards, usually associated with National Lottery games offering "instant cash prizes", are to be put to a more elevated use - debunking The Da Vinci Code.The Christian Enquiry Centre is distributing 270,000 specially designed cards today to every cinema screening the Hollywood version of the Dan Brown bestseller when it is released next week. The film is expected to be one of the biggest hits of the year despite being denounced as "stridently anti-Christian" by Vatican officials. The cards feature 10 claims made in the book. Cinema goers are asked to judge whether they are fact or fiction by scratching...

After a long slump, Christian literature is finally experiencing a rebirth—and that’s something to celebrate. The state of Christian fiction was so poor for a while that most Christians have forgotten what a rich heritage we actually have in fiction, from the likes of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Austen, O’Connor, and so many more. These writers understood that moral literature is one of the most important ways of transmitting Christian truth. That’s why I’m so thrilled to see the success of recent works such as the heartwarming Mitford series by Jan Karon; Susan Howatch’s penetrating novels about the Anglican church; and the...

LONDON (AP) — The code has been cracked. London lawyer Dan Tench and The Times newspaper on Friday both claimed to have solved the riddle of a code embedded in a judge's ruling in "The Da Vinci Code" copyright lawsuit. It reads: "Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought." The message was created by Peter Smith, the High Court judge who presided over the copyright infringement suit brought by authors of the nonfiction book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" against the publisher of Dan Brown's mega-selling thriller.

Synopsis: Since the death of his fiancée, George has become a drop out, heavy drug user and -- most recently -- a homeless street performer in Washington, D.C. Recovery seems possible after he saves the life of a congressman's relative and gains access to her wealth, but hidden enemies and his own inner turmoil threaten to drag him to new lows. Please read story at http://eudaimonia4u.blogspot.com/2006/04/short-story-by-mt.html and offer constructive criticism. Thanks for your help.

KRAKOW, Poland (Reuters) - Polish author Stanislaw Lem, one of the world's leading science-fiction writers, died on Monday in his home city of Krakow at the age of 84 after a battle with heart disease. Lem, whose books have sold more than 27 million copies and have been translated into more than 40 languages, won widespread acclaim for "The Cyberiad," stories from a mechanical world ruled by robots, first published in English in 1974. "Solaris," published in 1961 and set on an isolated space station, was made into a film epic 10 years later by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. A...

Remember the earlier days of the NCAA tournament, before the days of the mega-conferences? As a conservative, I miss the old days, and I still find myself routing for the old nine-team Big East. I happen to like Pittsnoggle and the current West-Virginian team, but I’m not prejudiced towards them the way I am for the old Big East, and the way I sense many people root for given conferences. So, may I present to you, a fictional wrap-up of the NCAA tournament, the way it would’ve been with all these “newfangled, whippersnapper, Wal-Mart conferences.” (Imagine me saying that in...

ENCINITAS, Calif., Mar. 9 /Christian Wire Service/ -- Da Vinci Outreach, a national initiative to expose the anti-Catholic lies in the upcoming movie The Da Vinci Code, is joining the request made by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights for director Ron Howard to clearly state that his film is a work of fiction. This week, the Catholic League ran an ad in the New York Times (http://www.catholicleague.org/linked%20docs/Da_Vinci_ad.htm) calling on Ron Howard to have the decency to do what Dan Brown, author of the novel, did not do: declare up front and in no uncertain terms that the...

3/1/2006 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- A global outbreak of disease -- that is what many people think when they hear the words “bird flu.” But is it really the next pandemic or just fowl play? Properly named avian influenza, this virus has spurred global awareness and growing concerns about the possibility of the virus mutating into a more lethal form. “(Bird flu) is caused by a specific strain of flu virus (H5N1) that usually infects birds,” said Senior Master Sgt. Mark Mellinger, U.S. Central Command Air Forces public health noncommissioned officer. “The strain of flu has been around since...