Free Republic

For most Americans, toilet paper is an absolutely necessary grocery list item, but some women are opting out for both economic and environmental purposes. In a HuffPost Live discussion, bloggers Angela Davis, Kathleen Quiring and Makala Earley explain why they've decided to go paperless, revealing that it's not as messy or unhygienic as it may sound. 'It is definitely possible,' insists Mikala, who says she and her husband stopped using toilet paper about a year ago. 'It is almost seen as a necessity [and] it doesn't have to be, and it's been a lot of fun to learn how to...

One of the great voices of folk rock...

Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, D-Va. Military veterans are pressuring Congress to move quickly when it reconvenes this week to cancel cuts in pensions for working-age vets - a change set in motion as part of last month's budget deal. However, reversing the decision to reduce cost-of-living pension increases could be difficult and, at best, would take some time to negotiate, say some legislators and lobbyists. Federal lawmakers from Hampton Roads, which has one of the nation's largest concentrations of retirees and active-duty service members, strongly support undoing the cuts. Most have already proposed or are co-sponsoring legislation...

I had a familiar feeling at my first tea party rally. It was a sunny spring afternoon and Boston Common was packed with people passionate for change, excited to hear Sarah Palin speak and having a great time. It brought me back to my first political rallies, those glorious gatherings devoted to stopping the Vietnam War and demanding racial justice. How thrilling it felt to be surrounded by thousands of people who shared our commitment, joining their voices to demand new policies. We had flags with peace signs on them. The tea partiers had flags with coiled snakes. We shook...

I had a familiar feeling at my first tea party rally. It was a sunny spring afternoon and Boston Common was packed with people passionate for change, excited to hear Sarah Palin speak and having a great time. It brought me back to my first political rallies, those glorious gatherings devoted to stopping the Vietnam War and demanding racial justice. How thrilling it felt to be surrounded by thousands of people who shared our commitment, joining their voices to demand new policies. We had flags with peace signs on them. The tea partiers had flags with coiled snakes. We shook...

Chuck Smith, the evangelical pastor whose outreach to hippies in the 1960s helped transform worship styles in American Christianity and fueled the rise of the Calvary Chapel movement, died Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, after a battle with lung cancer. He was 86. Diagnosed in 2011, Smith continued to preach and oversee administration at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa (California), where he'd been pastor since 1965. In 2012, he established a 21-member leadership council to oversee the Calvary Church Association, a fellowship of some 1,600 like-minded congregations in the United States and abroad.

Greenpeace activists arrested after trying to board a Russian oil rig are likely to face piracy charges, local media reports. Two New Zealanders are among the crew of the protest vessel Arctic Sunrise who were confronted and detained by armed members of the Russian coastguard on Thursday. Authorities said the rig was in an exclusion zone, but Greenpeace argues its boat was in international waters. All the activists will be prosecuted for the "attack" on the oil rig, an investigative committee told Russian media. In a statement the committee said it had opened a criminal case on suspicion of piracy....

Dale Vince sits in a spartan office in the corner of Ecotricity, one of the UK’s few green energy electricity networks, and taps away on an Apple Mac at his standing desk. The office is bare, other than a normal desk, a couple of chairs and a Union Jack flag hung on the wall. But the Union Jack is not sporting its normal Red White and Blue. This is a Union Jack fashioned in various shades of green. For Vince is a died-in-the-wool ecologist. While running his company, he blogs from a site called “Zero Carbonista” which has an image...

Prepare to be outraged.....Shocking Surveillance Video Captures Cop Brutally Beating Female Shoplifter In Front Of Her 1 Yr Old Child in Iowa. I worked in corporate loss prevention a long time ago...let me tell you...this is beyond lawsuit...these cops should be in prison. Video: http://www.ktrh.com/pages/michaelberry.html?article=11556885

No need for psychedelic substances: The cultural milieu at the week-long annual art festival known as Burning Man is enough to alter your mind. Research published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Emotion Science in July found that an individual’s social and cultural environment influenced how they controlled their emotional responses

OLYMPIA – Estately.com names Olympia the second best city for hippies in the country. Estately used information including, marijuana legality and availability, number of stores selling hemp, local counter-culture icons, tie-die availability, festivals and a Facebook poll. Read more: http://q13fox.com/2013/08/02/local-city-named-one-of-the-grooviest-places-for-hippies/#ixzz2apnTpWIW

The DUmmies are engaged in Hippie nostalgia as you can see in this THREAD, "Sometimes I wish I could have been a hippie." However, in order to fully appreciate this DUFU edition, you MUST watch this VIDEO of the South Park Episode, "Die Hippie, Die." That isn't a request. It is a requirement since this is probably the BEST South Park episode ever and tells you all you need to know about what the hippies were really like. While watching the VIDEO you will be struck by how hippies sound EXACTLY like DUmmies with all their blather about blaming...

"...and the county's conservative lawmakers have been passing silly-season unconstitutionalities, like a law prohibiting a man from being naked in the presence of a child..."

Who among us used to be one of those long-haired flea-infested dope-smoking denizens of the rock concert world? Guilty. And recovered. Post up some old tunes for a Saturday night.

Hippies were rude, dirty, Satan worshipers, according to a paragraph that apparently appears in a Louisiana state-funded school’s history book. The book, entitled “America: Land I love” is an eighth-grade history textbook that Mother Jones reports is used in at least one Louisiana voucher school. The textbook is published through Pensacola, Fla.-based A Beka Book. According to an image obtained at AmericaBlog.com, the passage on hippies paints a stark, unflattering image: “They went to Canada or European countries to escape being drafted into military services. Many young people turned to drugs and immoral lifestyles; these youth became known as hippies....

A lot of FReepers tend to blame Baby Bomers for the ills of the world. The fact is that the Baby Boomers didn't originate a lot of the counter-culture activities of the 60s, they learned them from the Beatniks. So, to help clarify where the Hippies came from, you have to know and understand who the Beatniks were. Here is their story: Beatnik History Imagine it is the year 1959. You are seated at a table with a bottle of cheap red wine, a cigarette glows red in the ashtray. The place; a smoky, dimly lit, seedy, little bar in...

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press Contact: Wayne Terhune Delegation Chair, Nevada Six States Nominate Congressman Ron Paul for President at the Republican National Convention TAMPA, August 28, 2012-- Supporters of Congressman Ron Paul have collected the necessary signatures to nominate him for President of the United States at the RNC. The current rules state that a plurality of delegates from five states are required to nominate a candidate for President. The Secretary of the Convention, Kim Reynolds, was presented with the forms over an hour before the call for nominations. “We are excited to get Dr. Paul nominated,” said...

'Scott McKenzie has died in Los Angeles at the age of 73. ‘If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear a flower in your hair’ is one of the great hippy songs of its era and defined San Francisco in the 60s. Scott was born Philip Blondheim on 10 January, 1939. He died on Saturday in Los Angeles after two weeks in hospital.'

A NUN who has been superior at a Syrian monastery for the past 18 years has warned that media coverage of ongoing violence in that country has been “partial and untrue”. It is “a fake”, Mother Agnes Mariam said, which “hides atrocities committed in the name of liberty and democracy”. Superior of the Melkite Greek Catholic monastery of St James the Mutilated in Qara, in Syria’s diocese of Homs, which is in full communion with Rome, she left Ireland yesterday after a three-day visit during which she met representatives of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Maynooth. She told The...

Female G20 protestors sue Toronto police for $1.4MILLION after they were 'profiled for having hairy legs' A group of women is suing the Toronto police, saying they were profiled and arrested for having hairy legs during the G20 summit in 2010. The women are part of a $1.4 million lawsuit filed by seven friends, men and women, who were locked up during the protests against the gathering of world leaders. The lawyer for the friends, who had traveled to Toronto from their hometown to take part in the demonstrations, said police use of 'hairy legs' as a cause for detention...