Free Republic

Who were they? No one seems to really know. But on flight UA-83 of United Airlines, passengers were curious. The two mysterious men were embarked, at the cost of a 46-minute delay even after the Delhi-Newark flight had begun taxiing, after the plane returned to the boarding area of the international terminal of IGI Airport on June 13 night.

Tim Burton is to direct Disney's live action remake of the 1941 classic Dumbo. The iconic cartoon will be remade as a live-action movie with computer generated characters playing the big-eared elephant and his family. To bring the movie into the 21st century, a family story will be added to reflect dumbo's journey.

Anyone else just get an odd Emergency Alert that stopped halfway through?

Nine-year-old Saneie Masilela has become the world's youngest groom for the second time after remarrying the 62-year-old woman he tied the knot with last year. Dressed in a silvery tuxedo, baby-faced Saneie clutched the hand of mother-of-five Helen Shabangu - her children are aged between 28- and 38-years-old - as they repeated their vows a year on in front of 100 guests.

The dramatic recent collapse of the Arab-Israeli peace talks and the ongoing political turmoil involving the Temple Mount have again focused world attention on the centuries-old struggle for that sacred site. Since antiquity, the roughly 37 acres of the Temple Mount and its immediate surroundings have frequently been the focus of interreligious strife. The destruction of the Jewish temple by the Romans in A.D. 70 was a devastating event in the history of Judaism. It served as a transforming catalyst in both the origins of Christianity and the transition of Israelite religion from a priestly sacrifice-centered system to the legalistic...

Why does a mouse's heart beat about the same number of times in its lifetime as an elephant's, although the mouse lives about a year, while an elephant sees 70 winters come and go? Why do small plants and animals mature faster than large ones? Why has nature chosen such radically different forms as the loose-limbed beauty of a flowering tree and the fearful symmetry of a tiger? These questions have puzzled life scientists since ancient times. Now an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of Padua in Italy propose a thought-provoking answer based...

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – School officials at the University of Minnesota are working with black student and facility organizations after they wrote a letter to the school’s president about the racial descriptions given in crime alerts. The letter, sent on Dec. 6, 2013, was issued by members of the African American and African Studies, Black Faculty and Staff Association, Black Graduate and Professional Student Association, Black Men’s Forum, Black Student Union and Huntley House for African American Males. It was directed to University President Eric Kaler and Pamela Wheelock, the vice president of University Services.

One of the more common misunderstandings of the modern age, we might even call it a delusion, is to confuse explanation with meaning. Through scientific method and other empirical ways of studying, we have gotten very good at explaining many of the processes and mechanics of the natural world.But to give explanation, is not the same as to ascribe meaning. To answer how things work is not the same as to answer why.Why, for example, do things exist at all? Why is there existence vs. nonexistence? Why is there observable order in the universe vs. chaos. Showing for example the...

This is just not right.

For nearly three years after I had an abortion at 6 weeks gestation in February 2009, I had a strong desire to return to the abortion clinic to obtain my records. I hoped to find out something, anything, I could about my first baby, though I honestly don’t know what I thought I would find. I just knew I needed to go. At times, it felt as if this child didn’t really exist because I had nothing tangible declaring he did. What I hoped more than anything else was that they would have an ultrasound photo on record. I remember...

A desperate father has been banned from seeing his young son for four years after he was found with an unloaded gun he legally owned in the back of his car among his possessions as he moved house. Brian Aitken was arrested in 2009 as he was moving back from Colorado to New Jersey to be near his child after a divorce. He was later convicted of possessing a gun and sentenced to seven years' prison. Now the New York University graduate and digital media entrepreneur is using a crowdfunding website to raise funds so he can write a book...

Take a look at the following list and tell me if anything strikes you: Prudence Justice Temperance Courage Faith Hope Charity Viewing these, the Seven Cardinal Virtues, anything make an impression? Okay, now try the Seven Heavenly Virtues of: Chastity Temperance Charity Diligence Patience Kindness Humility Anything? What strikes me is that equality is not among them. Scour great works, such as the Bible, and you won't find much talk of equality – that is, unless you consider The Communist Manifesto a great work. One thing about virtues – which are defined as "good moral habits" – is that their...

In the oft-admired model of a decisive lone warrior, President Obama could have ordered strikes on Syria without asking Congress. Instead, the commander in chief chose to ask lawmakers. At the least, all Americans should now reciprocate. They could suspend judgment and listen to what Mr. Obama has to say in his Tuesday evening address to the nation. In decisions of war, bravery is needed in knowing when to be humble – in listening for one’s biases and evaluating new evidence. “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down...

>

Just change it to PMS-NBC and the it is understandable..

The Obama administration, already under fire for the IRS scandal and National Security Agency snooping of the computers and cellphones of Americans, is also spending millions to have private contractors conduct a dragnet for confidential and personal credit and bank transactions without a warrant. Newly obtained documents from the Obama-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reveal that the administration has OK'd a project to accumulate the personal financial data of some 5 million and share it with other agencies to build a "nationally representative panel of credit information on consumers for use in a wide range of policy research projects." The...

The 19-year old Dzhokhar has seen better days...

Mars One co-founder tells CBC about its proposed one-way trip to the Red Planet Mars One hopes to have people living on the planet — for the rest of their lives — by 2023.(Mars One/YouTube) The man behind the private space project dubbed Mars One is looking for people to travel to Mars, but he's not offering a return ticket. "The technology to get humans to Mars and keep them alive there exists," Bas Lansdorp told Day 6 host Brent Bambury in an interview that aired this week on CBC Radio. "The technology to bring humans from Mars back to...

During a House Oversight Committee hearing on Thursday, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) revealed that the U.S. military is currently spending about $20 million on firewood. That’s right, firewood. “It mentions in your report that the U.S. military is spending $20 million for firewood. Is there any justification for $20 million in Afghan firewood?” Chaffetz asks John F. Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction. “Mr. Chairman that was one of the more interesting comments my auditor told me is that — you are absolutely correct we are paying…approximately $20 million a year for firewood,” Sopko confirmed. “And when my auditors...

What happens when millions of people live by the answer to the question - what would Muhammed do(WWMD):