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GOLDENDALE, WA - Rollicking Beth Allin bee-bops wildly, sways her hips and laughs out loud, banging her tambourine and lifting it overhead in exultation while her long-time pal Duane Young draws three-chord rock 'n' roll from his keyboard. The whole motley crew at New Hope Farms rocks around them, playing triangles, bells and whistles. They gather in an activity center among five modular homes where they live on a 40-acre farm, isolated among the wheat fields and cow pastures six miles east of Goldendale. They're on a plateau above the Columbia River with clear views of both Mount Hood and...

Man has long asked how a loving God could allow evil to exist in the world.  It's an age-old philosophical question that can cause those who want faith to doubt and those who want to doubt to mock faith.  A Christian's answer to this question is "free will," a concept critics may regard as something reduced to a convenient cliché.  The truth is, though, that this is a most fascinating subject to inquisitive minds. The two qualities that make us like God are intellect and free will, despite the fact that the former can seem as lacking as the latter is...

Source: University of Chicago Press Journals Date: October 4, 2007 When Taking A Long Time Is Seen As A Good Thing Science Daily — Consumers often use the length of time a service takes as a measure of its quality. The longer a session lasts, the better the value. Indeed, a new study shows that this holds true even when judging something primarily by its duration can backfire -- for example when a longer exercise program is actually less effective than a shorter regimen or for a lock-picking service. In a series of real-world and lab studies, the researchers reveal...

Isn't it always? But enough about Iran, let's talk about me! The same university that shouted down an American anti-illegal-immigration activist and the same university culture that just deemed former Harvard honcho Larry Summers too misogynist to be permitted on campus is now congratulating itself over its commitment to "academic freedom." True, renowned Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo is not happy. "They can have any fascist they want there," said professor Zimbardo, "but this seems egregious." But, hey, don't worry: He was protesting not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presence at Columbia but Donald Rumsfeld's presence at the Hoover Institution.... Lots of prime...

Source: Association for Psychological Science Date: August 28, 2007 We Remember Bad Times Better Than Good Science Daily — Do you remember exactly where you were when you learned of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? Your answer is probably yes, and researchers are beginning to understand why we remember events that carry negative emotional weight. In the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Boston College psychologist, Elizabeth Kensinger and colleagues, explain when emotion is likely to reduce our memory inconsistencies. Her research shows that whether an event is pleasurable or...

CINCINNATI, Aug. 24 A 10-year-old boy who said he hated snakes killed a 10-foot python at petting zoo by stomping on the reptile's head. Scott Braunstein, a reptile handler who brought the snake to the St. Bernadette Festival in Amelia, Ohio, last weekend, said he was shocked by the boy's violence, The Cincinnati Enquirer said Thursday. The snake, named Popcorn, was a non-poisonous albino Burmese python. Braunstein, who operates House of Reptiles in Dry Ridge, Ky., said the boy approached him and told him that he hated snakes. The child then raised his leg and stomped down on the snake's...

(IsraelNN.com) Hevron activist Baruch Marzel, interviewed on Kuwait's television station, explained why the Disengagement was good and why a PA state won't be formed. Marzel, a leading member of the currently-outlawed Kach organization, and the Kuwaiti TV station recently came to a surprising agreement to speak to one another. A resident of Jewish Hevron with his wife and nine children for over two decades, Marzel explained to the NRG-Maariv website why he agreed to the interview: "I don't see that BBC has any fewer anti-Semites than the Kuwaiti television - and even on the Israeli channels there is great anti-Semitism..."...

The peace of Christ is not "the absence of conflict" but the "struggle against evil," Benedict XVI says. The Pope said this today to those gathered at the pontifical residence at Castel Gandolfo to pray the Angelus. He added that being instruments of Christ's peace means "defeating evil with good." Speaking about the words of Jesus from today's Gospel -- "Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division" -- the Holy Father clarified that this saying "means the peace that he came to bring is not synonymous with...

Breaking from Congressman Peter King. The whistleblower protection remains in the Homeland Security bill. This is the amendment that protects citizens from lawsuits if they report suspicious activity such as the flying imams. This is good news.

University of Colorado regents voted 8-1 to fire controversial professor Ward Churchill this afternoon. Regent Cindy Carlisle, D-Boulder, cast the lone dissenting vote. There was no discussion. After the quick vote, dissenters in the crowd at the Glenn Miller Ballroom shouled "bullshit" and "cowards." Regent Steve Bosley, R-Louisville, introduced the motion for dismissal shortly after the regents convened, and it was seconded by Regent Kyle Hybl, R-Colorado Springs. Churchill supporters converged in the back of the ballroom after the vote, playing drums and chanting. The dismissal of the controversial professor is the first of its kind in CU’s 131-year history...

More Republicans have defected to the withdraw-from-Iraq Democrats. They have read the polls that show falling support among the American people for the war in Iraq, and have concluded that continuing to support the war will cost them their Senate or House seat. Is it possible that some of these Republicans have simply consulted their consciences and decided to abandon positions they have held since the beginning of the war? It is possible. But consider this: If the American people continued to support the war, does one reader of this column believe that one Republican defector would have in fact...

WASHINGTON, June 26 (UPI) -- A U.S. lawmaker says the United States and its allies would recognize a unilateral declaration of independence by the Serbian province of Kosovo. The comment by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-Calif., came during a heated discussion with Russian lawmakers in Washington last week and highlights sharp differences with Russia over the future of Kosovo, whose majority ethnic Albanian residents want independence from Serbia. Lantos and Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said the United States supported the U.N. plan for Kosovo independence drawn up by Finnish diplomat and former President Martti Ahtisaari. Russian officials...

EL DORADO, Ark. (AP) - A man irritated by children throwing rocks at his house shot and killed a 9-year-old boy, police said Tuesday. Officers were called shortly Monday afternoon and found Demotric Moore with a gunshot wound to the neck. The boy was pronounced dead at a hospital. Officers saw Jonathan Watts, 50, inside his home, ordered him to the ground and arrested him. "I've had it with these kids and the rock throwing," Watts said as he was being handcuffed, El Dorado police Capt. David Smith said. Watts told officers that he'd thrown the gun away. Initial calls...

WASHINGTON, June 13, 2007 – Before I left for my current deployment, an 8-year-old asked me out of the blue, “Why do you have to go to Iraq?” It stopped me in my tracks. I remember thinking, “How can I possibly answer such an immense question without somehow tainting her view on this unpredictable world?” When I deployed to Southwest Asia in 2002, a fellow airman told me that he explained to his daughter why he had to deploy by telling her, “Daddy has to go help feed the camels in the desert.” After about two months into his tour,...

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., June 12--In a shocking turn of events, a progressive coalition of conservative and moderate congressional leaders have come together to propose new legislation which could completely redefine the meaning of the word "amnesty." In this newly proposed "AMNESTY BILL," illegal aliens would have 120 days to leave the US without any penalty or incarceration. In other words, "amnesty" does not mean they have the right to stay, but rather that they have the "RIGHT TO LEAVE" without consequence within the 120-day "AMNESTY PERIOD." The most surprising aspect of this "AMNESTY BILL" is that it could actually work! Proponents...

The immigration deal foundered yesterday, on the verge of collapse under its own weight just days after it appeared to have a clear path to pass the Senate. By late in the afternoon, Republicans were accusing Democrats of trying to "stuff" them, and Democrats said Republicans were trying to kill the bill by obstructing the process. Both sides were saying they don't know whether the process can be put back on track. A showdown is scheduled for tomorrow, when Democrats said they will force a vote to set a time limit on the bill, and Republicans have promised to block...

Democratic leaders fear that Rep. William J. Jefferson's indictment yesterday on racketeering and bribery charges, coming exactly one year after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi engineered his ouster from the powerful Ways and Means Committee, could rekindle a smoldering dispute between the speaker and black lawmakers who were once pillars of her power. For months, the Louisiana Democrat's mounting legal peril has bedeviled Democrats as they sought first to point to corruption as a tool to oust Republicans from control of Congress, then pressed for ethics and lobbying changes that they said would usher in a new era of clean politics...

A Saudi Arabian prisoner died of an apparent suicide at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on Wednesday, the U.S. military said. "The detainee was found unresponsive and not breathing in his cell by guards. The detainee was pronounced dead by a physician after all lifesaving measures had been exhausted," the U.S. Southern Command in Miami said in a statement.

SIERRA VISTA — In what has proven to be an ongoing partnership between local Boy Scout Troop 445 and the Southern Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery, the helpful youths were at it again. In the spirit of Memorial Day, troop members and volunteers planted more than 150 American flags near the grave sites to honor veterans. The Saturday morning event was commemorated with a patriotic reading at the cemetery’s assembly area. “It shows their respect and honor for fallen comrades and symbolizes our thanks from a grateful nation,” said Joe Larson, cemetery administrator for the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services. “It...

Dear American Soldier in Iraq: There are a few things you should know about how tens of millions of us back home feel about you and the fight you are waging. These things need to be said, especially now, given the fact that the head of one of America's two major political parties has announced that the war in Iraq is lost. This war has not been lost. What has happened is that many Americans, for all sorts of reasons -- some out of simple fatigue, some because they do not believe that war solves anything, some out of deep...

Shifty eyes may be a sign of good memory By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 11:41pm BST 04/05/2007 Moving your eyes from side to side for 30 seconds can boost your power of recall, researchers say. Horizontal eye wiggles are thought to cause the two hemispheres of the brain to interact more, improving the ability to retrieve memories. Scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University found people who made horizontal eye movements recognised significantly more previously studied words than subjects who did not make such eye movements. They also had fewer errors in their recall. Dr Andrew Parker, whose findings are...

Every man who has preserved or defended his country, or has made it greater, is reserved a special place in heaven, where he enjoys an eternal life of happiness. Of all those things one might do on earth, nothing is more pleasing to the Supreme God, ruler of the universe, than the gatherings of men who are bound together by law and custom in those communities we call states. In fact, it is from this place, here, in heaven, that the rulers and preservers of states come from, and to which they eventually return. -- Cicero: The Dream of Scipio...

He may have come down from the trees, but prehistoric man did not stop swinging. New research into Stone Age humans has argued that, far from having intercourse simply to reproduce, they had sex for fun. Practices ranging from bondage to group sex, transvestism and the use of sex toys were widespread in primitive societies as a way of building up cultural ties.

Most contracts for goods and services contain an "Act of God" provision. Such provisions typically allow contracting parties to dissolve a contract in case of an unexpected and unavoidable catastrophe: an earthquake, a tsunami, a lightning strike. This is perfectly logical. Man can act based on predictions about human behavior, but has no control over forces of nature. Conversely, human actions demand human responsibility. Only Divine action should be written off as inevitable tragedy. The Virginia Tech massacre was not an act of God -- it was undeniably an act of man. Yet many Americans have instinctively treated this massive...

NEW YORK, (AP) -- A civil rights lawyer convicted of helping an imprisoned terrorist sheik communicate with his disciples was disbarred Tuesday. The New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division denied Lynne Stewart's request to voluntarily resign from the practice of law. Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to terrorists. She had released a statement issued by one of her clients, Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind sheik sentenced to life in prison for plotting to blow up five New York landmarks and assassinate Egypt's president. The appellate panel said Stewart became subject to losing her law license immediately upon...

WASHINGTON, April 22, 2007 – Changes in Iraq’s Anbar province and the failure of the Taliban spring offensive in Afghanistan are good signs, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said during an interview today on his way home from Iraq and Afghanistan. During his flight home, Marine Gen. Peter Pace spoke about his trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq he took part in a series of meetings with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; Navy Adm. William J. Fallon, the commander of U.S. Central Command; Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of Multinational Force Iraq; and Army...

How could a loving god allow one crazed maniac to kill in such horrible fashion so many innocent people at Virginia Tech University last Tuesday? How could he allow one person filled with such loathing of those around him to take away life from so many people who had worked so long to make such a difference for good in the world? People at VTU whose minds and hearts are reeling, spinning madly while they try to orient themselves and catch their mental balance, are incessantly finding their minds going back to ask "Why?" WHY? And the question is even...

WOMEN are more prone to ogling than men despite the widespread belief they are less focused on the physical, a study suggests. Scientists used eye-tracking technology to pinpoint what people looked at when shown a series of sexy photos. They expected women to be more interested in faces, and men in genitals. To their surprise, they found almost the reverse was true. Men were more likely than women to linger on the face before diverting their attention to other parts of the body. But women spent longer poring over images of couples performing sexual acts. Desire ... women ogle more...

This morning, a sincerely contrite Don Imus was on MSNBC asking for forgiveness for saying that the women of the Rutgers University Women's Basketball Team were "some nappy haired hos." What we consistently hear from people who mis-speak is that, "Those words didn't reflect who I really am. Those were bad things to say, but I'm really a good person." Once again, we hear these words echoing, from Trent Lott, Mel Gibson, and now reverberating from the mouth of Don Imus. Could it be that these words "I'm really a good person" might just not be true?

SIERRA VISTA ? Actions by America?s Congress and continued killings in Iraq create a difficult path for the Iraqi ambassador to the United States to navigate. As Congress heads toward a possible showdown with the president calling for the removal of American troops from Iraq next year that is part of a supplemental spending bill to fund the troops, Ambassador Samir Shakir Mahmood Sumaida?ie knows he cannot step into the American political arena. ?It?s a very important debate. It?s a matter for Americans to decide,? the ambassador said during an interview with the Herald/Review after speaking to nearly 350 people...

NEW ORLEANS -- The hot new strategy of trying to prevent heart disease by raising good cholesterol had more setbacks Monday as new studies showed that experimental drugs didn't work and also had safety problems. The news follows Pfizer Inc.'s abandonment in December of an $800 million investment in torcetrapib, the leading contender in this class of drugs, because it raised the risk of heart attacks and deaths. Heart specialists have been anxious to know whether the problems extend to all such drugs and doom this approach. "A lot of people think it's the next big thing, and we'll need...

WASHINGTON, March 13, 2007 – Active-duty recruiting is in good shape, with all services making or exceeding their goals in February, but four of the six reserve components did not make their numbers, Defense Department officials announced yesterday. The two ground services exceeded their recruiting goals for February -- historically a slow month for recruiting. The Army had a goal of 6,000 recruits and actually enlisted 6,196, for 103 percent. The Marine Corps had a target of 1,696 and enlisted 1,792, for 106 percent of its goal. The achievement is all that more impressive, DoD officials said, since it...

WASHINGTON — Reporters will be barred from hearings that begin Friday in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for 14 terror suspects transferred last year from secret CIA prisons, officials said Tuesday. Interest in the 14 is particularly high because of their alleged links to the Al Qaeda network. Among them is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He was captured in Pakistan in March 2003. A New York-based human rights group that represents one of the 14 men accused the Pentagon of designing "sham tribunals." The organization contended that its client, Majid Khan,...

A proposal that once inspired fears and jokes about drug abuse -- legalizing the use of marijuana for medical reasons -- stands a good chance of passage in the Minnesota Legislature this year. Political support for that controversial step is coming from unlikely places. Advocates for a bill to allow seriously ill patients to use marijuana with their doctors' recommendation say that as many as half of the 49 Republicans in the House would support the measure in a floor vote. Former House Speaker Steve Sviggum, a Republican, is co-author of the medical marijuana bill and says he became a...

For much of my life, I, like most people, regarded the pursuit of happiness as largely a selfish pursuit. One of the great revelations of middle age has been that happiness, far from being only a selfish pursuit, is a moral demand. When we think of character traits we rightly think of honesty, integrity, moral courage, and acts of altruism. Few people include happiness in any list of character traits or moral achievements. But happiness is both. Happiness -- or at least acting happy, or at the very least not inflicting one's unhappiness on others -- is no less important...

A prize-winning Iranian nuclear scientist has died in mysterious circumstances, according to Radio Farda, which is funded by the U.S. State Department and broadcasts to Iran. An intelligence source suggested that Ardeshire Hassanpour, 44, a nuclear physicist, had been assassinated by Mossad, the Israeli security service. According to Radio Farda, Iranian reports of Hassanpour’s death emerged on Jan. 21 after a delay of six days, giving the cause as “gas poisoning”. The Iranian reports did not say how or where Hassanpour was poisoned but his death was said to have been announced at a conference on nuclear safety. Rheva Bhalla...

NEW ORLEANS -- More than 16 months after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita forced an unprecedented exodus from the Louisiana Gulf Coast, tens of thousands of homeowners have decided not to rebuild or have yet to make up their minds, an Associated Press analysis found. The AP looked at applications to the federally funded Louisiana Road Home program, which dispenses up to $150,000 per homeowner to rebuild or sell out to the state. Nearly 98,000 people have applied so far. Two-thirds of all applicants said they want to rebuild their damaged properties, while more than a quarter have indicated they want...

Cook Rosa Maria Salazar's eyes dart anxiously to the door as customers file into the Salvadoran cafe in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles. "We're terrified. The police could come for us at any time and deport us," she said in Spanish earlier this week as diners fingered maize tortillas stuffed with beans and pork scratchings and chatted softly. break "We hadn't seen anything like this here before, and it came as a shock," said Antonio Bernabe, a community worker who runs a day labor program at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. "The police...

Have you ever wondered where the term racism comes from? Have you asked yourself whether or not you are a racist? No, no. You don't have to answer that now, but consider everything you've ever known about racism, and turn it upside down. Surely America didn't just make up the term because it was all bad.

18 Ways To Be A Good Liberal 1. You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand. 2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity. 3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are more of a threat than U.S. Nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Iran or Chinese and North Korean communists. 4. You have to believe that there was no art before federal funding. 5. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical changes in the earth's climate and more...

The End of the World is closer than at any time since the Cold War, a group of scientists is set to declare this week. The keepers of a symbolic Doomsday Clock - a world-famous symbol designed by the US-based Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to chart how close we are to Armaggedon - have announced they are moving its hands forward. According to the University of Chicago-based organisation, worsening climate change and the increasing threat of nuclear war are threatening our survival. The clock's hands will be moved forward next Wednesday. The clock, which has appeared on the Bulletin of...

WASHINGTON -- Senator Tim Johnson has been transferred out of intensive care and has said some words, his doctor said yesterday, nearly a month after the South Dakota Democrat had a brain hemorrhage. An MRI on Wednesday showed the speech centers in the senator's brain were spared injury in the initial hemorrhage Dec. 13, said Johnson's neurosurgeon "This is confirmed by the fact that he is following commands and has started to say words," Deshmukh said in a statement released by Johnson's office. Johnson will be participating in "aggressive therapy" in the inpatient rehabilitation unit at George Washington University Hospital,...

President Bush's plan to send tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi reinforcements to Baghdad to jointly confront Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias is likely to touch off a more dangerous phase of the war, featuring months of fighting in the streets of the Iraqi capital, current and former military officials warned. "The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq are without conscience, and they will make the year ahead bloody and violent," the president said last night in explaining his revised approach. "Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue -- and we must...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8, 2007 – The National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve is looking for a few good employers to recognize this year. The committee, in conjunction with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, announced today that it has begun accepting nominations for the 2007 Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Awards. The nomination process will conclude Feb. 28. Founded in 1972, ESGR’s mission is to gain and maintain active support from public and private employers for the men and women of the National Guard and reserves. It also is a member of America...

A split California Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Indian tribes, some of the state's biggest political donors, are bound by campaign-finance disclosure rules. In a 4-3 ruling, the justices upheld a lower court decision that said tribes were subject to campaign-finance enforcement lawsuits from the Fair Political Practices Commission, the state agency that oversees elections. The case is significant for California's political culture. The more than 100 tribes in California, some flush with casino revenue, are major campaign donors that have reported giving at least $200 million to candidate and ballot measure campaigns during the past decade. Most already disclose...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- NATO forces launched an airstrike Wednesday against a known Taliban command center in southern Afghanistan, NATO officials said in a statement. Officials said the "precision-guided munitions impacted exactly on target destroying it completely." There was no indication how many Taliban fighters may have been killed or wounded in the bombing. The southern Afghan province of Kandahar is a known Taliban stronghold. "This clinical strike shows the Taliban leadership that there is nowhere for them to hide from the combined might of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) and the Afghan security forces," the statement said....

Leaving Budget Decisions To Democrats Could Disrupt New Leadership's Agenda WASHINGTON -- Like a retreating army, Republicans are tearing up railroad track and planting legislative land mines to make it harder for Democrats to govern when they take power in Congress next month. Already, the Republican leadership has moved to saddle the new Democratic majority with responsibility for resolving $463 billion in spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. And the departing chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Bill Thomas (R., Calif.), has been demanding that the Democrat-crafted 2008 budget absorb most of the...

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If today’s Catholic bishops lived during the Nuremberg trials, they would have condemned the execution of nine of the defendants – including Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Hans Frank. Kaltenbrunner was responsible for mass executions of civilians and prisoners of war as Heinrich Himmler’s chief SS lieutenant; Frank oversaw the Nazis’ numerous atrocities as the governor of occupied Poland. Such a presumptuous proposition seems plausible given two Vatican officials’ opposition to Saddam Hussein’s death sentence – and the Catholic Church’s moral revisionism concerning capital punishment. Iraq’s High Tribunal convicted Saddam of committing crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death on Nov....

NEW YORK Consolidated revenue at Belo jumped 9.8% in October on huge gains in its Television Group. The Newspaper Group reported that total revenue declined 5.4% in October compared to the same period last year. Advertising revenue fell 6.6%. At The Dallas Morning News, total revenue was down 4.3%. Ad revenue dropped 6.3%. Retail revenue inched up 0.5% on gains in the auto and real estate categories. General ad revenue decreased 9% due to weakness in the financial and auto categories. Classified revenue plummeted 13%. All three categories, auto, help wanted, and real estate declined. Part-run advertising grew 15% mostly...