Free Republic

Excerpt from the book by Scott H. Moore, The Limits of Liberal Democracy, 2009 Walker Percy's 1971 novel Love in the Ruins is set "in these dread latter days of the old violent beloved U.S.A..." Narrator Dr. Tom More begins with his delightfully disturbing description of life in the Paradise Estates suburb, just before the "end of the world." More tells us that: [start quote}...the scientists, who are mostly liberal and unbelievers, and the businessmen, who are mostly conservative and Christian, live side by side in Paradise Estates. Though the two make much of their differences -- one speaking of...

Sprinklers ran on rooftops while the Camp Fire blazed only a half mile away from some Ridge residents who packed their vehicles preparing to leave at a moment's notice. Rex Boylan lives on Lunar Lane on the east side of Pentz Road. His home was one of the first to be put under immediate threat evacuation notice. "I'm packed and it's just one of those things we'll wait and see," he said. "We'll leave when we have to or when we're told to." Immediate threat is the strongest word firefighters can say, CAL FIRE public information officers say. And in...

LADSON, S.C. (AP) — White House hopeful Fred Thompson called his trip down aisle of rifles, shotguns and pistols at a gun show "a day in paradise," and said he wished he could come back to spend more time and money. It was the former Tennessee senator and "Law and Order" actor's second trip to a gun show since launching his late bid for the GOP nomination in September. He reached out and picked up an old M-1 Garand rifle and raised an over-and-under Winchester shotgun suitable for the skeet shooting he's been known to do as he made his...

BORDER inspectors in the US found an undocumented Chinese immigrant wedged into the dashboard of a car crossing from Mexico, US authorities said today. US Customs and Border Protection said inspectors found the 40-year-old man crammed into the dash of a Mercury Sable mid-size car during a routine inspection at the Calexico port of entry in southern California on Saturday. "Inspectors referred the vehicle for secondary inspection after the driver gave inconsistent answers to their questions," said Vince Bond, the CBP spokesman in San Diego. "They discovered a specially constructed compartment underneath the dashboard area of the car and officers...

<p>Hostage situation may be developing.</p> <p>Not many details available yet, but an incident has been reported from Mine Rd. in Bart Township in Lancaster County involving multiple gunshot victims. Dennis Buterbaugh reports live from our newsroom. abc27 has a news crew on the way. We will update with details as they become available.</p>

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Travellers to an exotic island in the Indian Ocean have been issued with warnings against a rare tropical disease. Seventy seven people have already died in Mauritius from the rare chikungunya virus which is carried by mosquitoes. Mauritius, an island paradise particularly popular with honeymooning couple has about 700,000 visitors annually, generating more than £400 million. Following the outbreak the number of French tourists who normally account for about a quarter of the total, plummeted.

Paradise lost in the Netherlands Maybe America can provide Ayaan Hirsi Ali the true freedom she yearns for. By Bruce Bawer OSLO – If there's anything in Europe today that's more alarming than the number of European Muslims who hold radically undemocratic views (40 percent of British Muslims would like to see Britain under sharia law), it's the feckless way in which government officials tend to respond to those views. Particularly if they include explosions of public complaints and protests. More often than not, most officials choose appeasement over standing up for democratic values. The exceptions are rare. One of...

Tom Hanks and other stars of "The Da Vinci Code" left London for the much-anticipated movie's premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in France, aboard a special Eurostar train. The train, repainted with the face of the Mona Lisa, was hoping to enter the record books by making the longest international non-stop rail journey on the 1,421-kilometre (883-mile) route. Dan Brown, who wrote the best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code", joined the film version's director Ron Howard and actors Hanks, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Alfred Molina and Paul Bettany on the journey to the southern French coast. The film was...

A bill requiring students to learn about the contributions homosexuals have made to society and that would remove sex-specific terms such as "mom" and "dad" from textbooks has passed another hurdle on the way to becoming the law of the land in California. Having already been approved by the state's Senate Judiciary Committee, SB 1437, which would mandate grades 1-12 buy books "accurately" portraying "the sexual diversity of our society," got the nod yesterday of the Senate Education Committee. The bill also requires students hear history lessons on "the contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to...

April 11, 2006 — They were six friends on vacation in the Caribbean, escaping the last bluster of the New York winter on the easygoing island of St. Maarten. One of them, Ryan Smith, 25, and 6 feet 7 inches tall, had the resume of a rising star: a graduate of Columbia University, a former White House intern, a former intern at the David Letterman Show, and now a researcher at CBS News. His mother, Patricia Smith, was at home in Sandusky, Ohio, last Thursday morning. She had just sent an e-mail to her son asking him how his vacation...

HAVANA (AFP) - More than a thousand cigar lovers from 60 countries ringed the center of the cigar universe in Havana, comparing notes and celebrating Cuba's finest smokes. Distributors, specialists and simple aficionados packed opening day of the Eighth Habanos Festival, an annual event sponsored by Habanos, a global distributor of the esteemed Cuban cigar. British actor Joseph Fiennes was among a hundred celebrities on hand for the festivities, dedicated this year to Habanos' leading brand, Cohiba. The presence of the 36-year-old actor at the event, who played the lead of Will Shakespeare in the 1998 film comedy "Shakespeare in...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria's legal system and its insufficient zeal in investigating alleged crimes committed under Hitler's Third Reich make it a "paradise for Nazi war criminals," a top Nazi hunter said on Wednesday. Frustrated at slow progress in finding suspected war criminals in Austria and bringing them to court, Simon Wiesenthal Center director Efraim Zuroff came to Vienna for talks with ministers aimed at accelerating the process. "The law in this country does more to protect Nazis than to bring them to justice," Zuroff told reporters after talks with Austria's ministers for justice and the interior. "There is a...

WATERLOO — The state Commission of Investigation will be asked to look into allegations of inappropriate activities by Democrats prior to the Nov. 8 general election. The Seneca County Board of Supervisors’ Government Operations & Technology Committee voted 4-1 Tuesday to consider four specific points Committee Chairman David Kaiser of Romulus brought up Nov. 7, when the measure was tabled because it was the night before the election and two of the committee’s members were facing a challenge. Kaiser, a Republican, alleges county property may have been illegally used for political purposes. He specifically cites the listing of Democratic Elections...

In his riveting new film, “Paradise Now,” Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad paints an ugly picture of Israeli occupation and the harsh consequences he believes flow from it, namely suicide bombers. The movie, which won the Blue Angel Award for best European film at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, explores the friendship between Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman), and their transformation from unremarkable auto mechanics into would-be bombers. Underlying Abu-Assad’s movie is a chilling but powerful message: Decades of illegal and brutal Israeli rule, he argues, have wiped out hope among young Palestinians and created a growing pool of...

On July 15, I appeared on MSNBC's "Connected" program to discuss the 7/7 London attacks (you can see video of the segment on the linked page). One of my fellow guests was Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the intifada by going undercover in the Palestinian areas. Pierre's upcoming film, "Suicide Killers," is based on interviews that he conducted with the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it. Pierre agreed to my request for a Q&A interview here about his work on the new film....

Easter island, fools' paradise Ronald Wright 18 November 2004 The greatest wonder of the ancient world is how recent it all is. No city or monument is much more than 5,000 years old. Only about seventy lifetimes, of seventy years, have been lived end to end since civilization began. Its entire run occupies a mere 0.002 per cent of the nearly 3 million years since our first ancestor sharpened a stone. The progress of “man the hunter” during the Old Stone Age, or Palaeolithic – his perfection of weapons and techniques – led directly to the end of hunting as...

Summary: SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- What you haven’t heard about the San Diego Wildfires and how changed policies have destroyed lives, property and nature. Full text: Philosophy matters. Ideas have consequences. San Diego's fire-ravaged neighborhoods exemplify a collectivist worldview, ethics, politics, and policy. Wildfires named Cedar, Paradise, and Otay ignited within 12 hours on October 25-26, 2003, incinerating 383,269 acres, destroying 2,453 homes, 22 commercial buildings, 763 outbuildings, and burning 17 people to death, including one firefighter. The Cedar fire started as a tiny 20-acre blaze and roared that night into an inferno fanned by ferocious Santa Ana winds gusting...

Camera rolls as sandbar visitors hang from hooks BY STEVE GIBBS Upper Keys Staff Writer ISLAMORADA — Now they're hanging themselves by meat hooks at the sandbar. On July 12, officers from the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, two Islamorada paramedics and the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a call at the Whale Harbor sandbar, a popular party hangout with a reputation for sometimes over-the-top behavior. What they saw shocked them. Five young people had erected a bamboo tripod, consisting of 15-foot-long poles with a block and tackle attached to the apex. A line extended...

As more and more people come forward with accounts of near-death experiences, new research is about to examine the out of body experience to see whether mind and body really do separate at the point of death. It is only 30 years ago that the term near-death experience was coined. An American researcher, Raymond Moody, used it to describe the reports of a large number of people who, whilst apparently dead, had seen deceased relatives, tunnels of light, life reviews and felt an overwhelming sense of peace, before being resuscitated. Recent studies have shown that one in 10 people who...