Free Republic

Tuesday, August 28   Notre Dame Motu Proprio Update I was greeted this morning with excellent news from our friend the Sober Sophomore regarding the implementation of Summorum Pontificium on the campus of Our Lady's University. After several weeks of promising rumors, Campus Ministry has determined on a very favorable course of action regarding the Tridentine liturgy: a regularly-scheduled recited mass in the Extraordinary Form will be celebrated in the chapel of Alumni Hall dorm (it's generally considered one of the most beautiful on campus, and possessing a fine high altar, shown above) at 8 AM on Sundays, starting after...

WHEN Michael Moore challenged Fred Thompson to a debate on health care, back in May, Mr Thompson declined the invitation but decided to have a bit of fun on YouTube instead. Sitting in a leather armchair and sucking on an unlit Cuban cigar, he lambasted Mr Moore, a conservative hate-figure if ever there was one, for his naive views on Cuba and its health-care system. Next time you're down in Cuba visiting your buddy Castro, he said, why not ask about another film-maker, Nicolás Guillén, who was put into a Cuban mental institution and subjected to devastating electric-shock treatment. “Mental...

If women are from Venus and men are from Mars, the former valuing peace and the latter reveling in war, Hillary Rodham Clinton is a lot more like Mars than Venus. She loves war.

Federalization of Public-Safety Union Monopoly Would Harm Police, Firemen, Taxpayers So-Called ‘Exclusive Representation’ Hands Union Bosses Inordinate Political Power *** Currently, each state has very broad authority to set its own policy regarding the unionization of state and local government employees in general and public-safety officers in particular. Elected officials in a number of states have caved into Big Labor demands by enacting state laws empowering union officials to seize monopoly-bargaining control over public-safety employees. Under state monopoly-bargaining laws, public-safety officers, including those who have chosen not to be union members, can be forced to accept union officials as their...

Are You Smarter Than a Democrat (Liberal and/or MSM Talking Head)? Take this test and find out! www.daypo.net/test-iraq-war.html

Dear Friend, Mark your calendars and set your Tivos and VCRs -- you don't want to miss Hillary's two upcoming TV appearances! Tonight she'll be making her seventh appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman -- her first as a candidate for president. And this coming Tuesday, September 4, she'll be Ellen's guest on the season premiere of the Ellen DeGeneres show. Ellen is soliciting questions from her viewers to ask of Hillary, and we want to turn it around on her. So if you have a question for Hillary to ask Ellen, submit it here: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/questionsforellen Also on...

DUBAI: Royal Dutch Shell and Dow Chemical are in talks with the Iraqi government to renovate and expand a chemical plant in southern Iraq at a cost of up to $2.1 billion, the Iraqi industry minister said. The talks on creating a joint venture or reaching a profit-sharing agreement could be concluded this year, Fawzi Hariri said. "We are looking to upgrade this, and evaluate what type of products and facilities we need for the local market and beyond," Hariri said of the plant near the city of Basra. Alexandra Wright, a spokeswoman for Shell in London said: "We are...

#1: Elephants on Acid What happens if you give an elephant LSD? On Friday August 3, 1962, a group of Oklahoma City researchers decided to find out. Warren Thomas, Director of the City Zoo, fired a cartridge-syringe containing 297 milligrams of LSD into Tusko the Elephant's rump. With Thomas were two scientific colleagues from the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine, Louis Jolyon West and Chester M. Pierce. 297 milligrams is a lot of LSD — about 3000 times the level of a typical human dose. In fact, it remains the largest dose of LSD ever given to a living...

A high school student who tricked football fans from a crosstown rival into holding up signs that together spelled out, "We Suck," was suspended for the prank, students said. Kyle Garchar, a senior at Hilliard Davidson High School in suburban Columbus, said he spent about 20 hours over three days plotting the trick, which was captured on video and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube. He said he was inspired by a similar prank pulled by Yale students in 2004, when Harvard fans were duped into holding up cards with the same message. At the end of the video,...

James Carville is quoted in the original NewsMax story, "We have to constantly remind people of the stakes involved, and the choice they have." (see Orignial NewsMax Story) I couldn't agree more, James! Here's our contribution to your efforts. This is a compilation of my favorites from original thread posted by 2ndDivisionVet plus a number of my own. Vote Democrat: You'll Look Great in a Burqa. Democrats: Pandering to anyone who'll vote for us since 1932. Democrats: Just Win, baby! Vote Democrat: Have it our way! Democrats: We cry harder! Vote Democrat: The antidote for civilization. The Democratic Party: The...

Judges (unlawfully) do not read the pleadings or letters of the non-attorney, self-represented, plaintiff. Judges have abandoned decision to their clerk, who relies upon the opposing attorney. Busy Judges have given their clerks rubber-stamps of the Judge's signature, and have them write orders, and the like, creating unlawful position where motive and opportunity lie for clerks to decide the cases of non-attorney plaintiffs. The law presumes unlawful acts occur in unlawful positions.

AUSTIN -- Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday commuted death row inmate Kenneth Foster’s sentence to life, following a 6-1 recommendation by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. “After carefully considering the facts of this case, along with the recommendations from the Board of Pardons and Paroles, I believe the right and just decision is to commute Foster’s sentence from the death penalty to life imprisonment,” Gov. Perry said. “I am concerned about Texas law that allows capital murder defendants to be tried simultaneously, and it is an issue I think the legislature should examine.”

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said that after reviewing a draft of the Government Accountability Office report — which has not yet been made public — policy officials "made some factual corrections" and "offered some suggestions on a few of the actual grades" assigned by the GAO. We have provided the GAO with information which we believe will lead them to conclude that a few of the benchmark grades should be upgraded from `not met' to `met,'" Morrell said. He declined to elaborate or to spell out which of the benchmark grades the Pentagon was disputing. A bar was set...

Group calls New Rule A Form Of Racial Profiling (CBS) NEW YORK The new federal policy of checking hats when going through airport security is causing a serious controversy, with many now asking: Is it a necessary security measure or another act of racial profiling?

It is Back to Dysfunctional Schools Week in the District, where lagging test scores, dwindling enrollment, dilapidated buildings and an incompetence-protecting teachers' union have become the focus of another savior in chief, Michelle A. Rhee. The city's public school system has been befuddling superintendents since the 1960s, each as committed as the next to uplifting the future car jockeys of America. Now here comes Mrs. Rhee, energetic, full of ideas and ever committed to overhauling the worst darn education money can buy. Give the city this. It prepares the future car jockeys of America as well as any municipality in...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The private sector and Congress should create new, affordable mortgage products that would help some homeowners refinance their mortgages and keep their homes, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested in a letter released Wednesday. In the letter to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Bernanke repeated that the Fed is closely monitoring markets and stands ready to act if needed. The Fed issued a statement with almost identical wording on Aug. 17 after it cut the discount lending rate to 5.75%. The letter from Bernanke was dated Aug. 27 and released by Schumer's office on Wednesday. Calling it a...

Prince William County's Human Rights Commission will hear presentations from groups opposed to a recently adopted resolution limiting services to illegal aliens, despite a warning from the Board of County Supervisors that the commission not critique its policies. "This thing will have consequences for years to come," commission member Carlos Labiosa said yesterday. "We want to make sure it's done properly. The Board of County Supervisors wants to make sure it's done properly." A four-member committee of the county's nine-member Human Rights Commission was scheduled to hold its sixth of 10 meetings last night and to hear from the Council...

[“The Democratic House leadership yesterday agreed to plug last year’s budget deficit with a temporary, 18-month hike in the state’s income tax.” - Boston Herald, July 4, 1989.] Here we go again. First we had the “temporary” tolls on the Mass Pike to cover the 30-year bonds issued in 1952. Then there was the “temporary, 18-month hike in the state’s income tax” in 1989. And now, according to Casey Ross’ story in yesterday’s Herald, our “Lucy Van Pelt” Legislature is counting on voters to have another Charlie Brown moment as they pick up the “temporary tax hike” football yet again....

TIMONIUM, Md. — Marylanders may not know all the gritty details of the state's $1.5 billion budget shortfall, but many of those who attended the state fair yesterday said they don"t want Gov. Martin O'Malley to address it by raising their taxes. "Why is he putting the taxes up?" asked Bud Jones, 65, a retired truck driver from Glen Burnie, Md. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, is scheduled today to visit the Maryland State Fair at the Timonium Fairgrounds in Baltimore County. Since the 2007 General Assembly session ended in April, one of Mr. O'Malley's most pressing tasks has become to...