Free Republic

forty-year old homeless man almost died when he was beaten up in Brussels by a man and his father, both Muslims, because he was drinking beer during the Ramadan. Rachid, the 19-year old culprit, beat his victim Serge with an iron bar with nails. A few days ago Serge had an appointment with a doctor in a policlinic in Blaes Street. He arrived early and, since he had to wait, Serge opened a can of beer. At that moment an elderly Muslim who lives above the policlinic came downstairs. He objected to Serge drinking a beer in public during Ramadan,...

In the increasingly possible case of an electoral tie this election, the 12th Ammendment requires that Congress vote to select the next POTUS/VPOTUS. The vote is on a state-by-state basis (each state gets one vote). The House votes to select the President. The Senate votes to select the Vice President. McCain loses in this case: there are only 21 states with a majority of GOP House members and two that are tied. However. There are 17 states with 2 GOP senators, 16 states with 2 DEM senators, 2 states with a dem plus an independent and the rest have one...

...the project will cost an additional $7 billion in interest, bringing the total to $22 billion... It will not be paid off until 2038. Big Dig payments have already sucked maintenance and repair money away from deteriorating roads and bridges across the state, forcing the state to float more highway bonds and to go even deeper into the hole. Among other signs of financial trouble: The state is paying almost 80 percent of its highway workers with borrowed money; the crushing costs of debt have pushed the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which manages the Big Dig, to the brink of insolvency;...

The Integrity of the Written Word by Henry Morris, Ph.D.   "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you." (Deuteronomy 4:2)In addition to the numerous times when the writers of the Bible asserted that what they wrote came directly from God (e.g., Leviticus 1:1; Jeremiah 1:4; Revelation 1:1), there are at least four warnings against tampering with these revealed words.The first is our text above, in which Moses commanded neither to add to nor...

Vote "Yes" or "No" at the link, one vote per customer. And tell your friends. This show featured a brief documentary they filmed before Sarah was picked for the Republican ticket—had to be before, since it was positive. The doc was about how popular she is as governor, and how she isn't afraid to negotiate with the oil companies.

Alexander Pope’s original quote was, of course, “all’s fair in love and war,” meaning you can get away with anything in those two areas. Now, as we all know, the entire economy of the United States is threatened with collapse because of supposed “errors and outright fraud on Wall Street.” Let’s step back a bit. The crisis began with the financial collapse and federal take-over of the two “private” organizations which insured and/or bundled and marketed a major part of all home mortgages in the US. These two organizations had gone along for decades, serving the public one mortgage at...

Voters overwhelmingly agree the economy should be the next administration’s top priority, with growth and job creation trumping the financial crisis as the No. 1 issue. Poll Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are tied, 46% to 45%, respectively, in the latest national Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. And voters are, above all, pessimistic about the state of the economy. More than 3 in 4 voters believe the economy is in a recession and of those, three-fourths say the worst of it is yet to come. Forty-one percent of voters said job creation and economic growth should be the...

Rep. Alcee Hastings told an audience of Jewish Democrats Wednesday that they should be wary of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin because “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.”

The McCain campaign had better pay attention to what she says without a prompter or she’ll become just another ordinary number two, one that doesn’t lift the ticket and doesn’t boost him to the brass ring on election day.If she doesn’t pack some substance based on experience she must surely have, she’ll fade out like a shooting star....

(IsraelNN.com) Four Arabs from the Judean Mountains area managed to enter the IAF's Nevatim Air Force Base Wednesday without tripping any alarms and without arousing suspicion. They seem to have been looking for work. The Arabs managed to pass multiple security rings monitored by closed circuit cameras and wandered about the base, passing near advanced jets, bombs and advanced weaponry and in clear sight of officers and soldiers who did not take special notice of them. Only after they approached a contractor for work was the base's command notified of their presence. The IDF says the incident will be investigated.

Everyone in the press -- myself included -- is whining about the inability to interview Gov. Sarah Palin. Or, at least shout-out a question or two to Sen. John McCain's choice for vice president. Although considering the speed of light in which a gaffe can travel in this campaign season, her decision to steer clear of reporters may be a very wise one. Reason enough to contact my fellow journalists to help me compile a Top Ten List of "I can't believe he/she just said that" reasons why Sarah Palin doesn't want to take questions from us:

Worried that welfare costs are rising as the number of taxpayers declines, state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, said Tuesday he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied."We're on a train headed to the future and there's a bridge out, " LaBruzzo said of what he suspects are dangerous demographic trends. "And nobody wants to talk about it."LaBruzzo said he worries that people receiving government aid such as food stamps and publicly subsidized housing are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated people who presumably pay more tax revenue to the...

Well, at least if you're a Latino who supports democracies, that is. Yesterday here in New York, VP candidate Sarah Palin met with President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. Thank you Governor Palin. Thank you for taking the time to sit down with Colombia's president and showing the respect to listen to the democratically elected leader of one of our most important allies. And thank you President Bush for greeting Colombia's president warmly on Saturday and having your Commerce Secretary do the same. I can't thank any Democrats for doing the same, though. Even though Uribe's concerns are not partisan ones,...

Iraq's parliament has reached an agreement to proceed with long-sought provincial elections after forging a compromise on the disputed city of Kirkuk. A compromise will allow parliament to deal separately with oil-rich Kirkuk, which is claimed by Kurdish, Sunni Arab and Turkman interests, the BBC reported Wednesday. Under the deal, provincial elections seen as crucial to a larger goal of political reform and national reconciliation in Iraq can go ahead in other parts of the country, analysts told the broadcaster."We tell our brothers in the south, the center of Iraq and Kurdistan, that this is an achievement by parliament," Bahaa...

IsraelNN.com) The man that Israeli leaders consider to be the Number One threat to the existence of the State of Israel told the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday that 'Zionists" are the cause of the current financial disaster sweeping the world. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also told world leaders, "A few bullying powers have sought to put hurdles in the path of Iran's peaceful development of nuclear power. These are the same countries that possess stockpiles of nuclear arms that no one is monitoring." It is believed that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon of mass destruction despite Ahmadinejad's denials....

WASHINGTON -- The crisis in the financial markets and increasing anxiety about the economy is playing to Sen. Barack Obama's political strengths, but it has not given him a substantial lead in the presidential contest, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows. Amid turmoil in the nation's financial sector that threatens to harm the broader economy, more voters say they believe Obama is best equipped to handle domestic issues, such as the economy and healthcare, than his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain. Nonetheless, the contest remains close: In a head-to-head choice, Obama is supported by 49% of likely voters and...

On Wednesday the Internet search giant unveiled an altruistic scheme called Project 10100, pronounced "ten to the one hundredth," which invites anyone and everyone to submit ideas that can "change the world by helping as many people as possible."

Disturbing details are emerging from that train crash in California: Engineer Robert Sanchez called back to the conductor that the first signal was flashing yellow … and then no other communications. The train would then run two more lights, a solid yellow and a red signal … never did the train slow and never did the engineer or the conductor pull the emergency brake. The railroad investigators are blown away that, 1.) the engineer blew thru all the signals and the switch (I am told you’d either have to do it on purpose or be disabled); and, 2.) that the...

VERMONT -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman. "PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," the statement says. PETA officials say a move to human...

Sioux Falls, Sep 24, 2008 / 12:47 am (CNA).- Pro-life activists in South Dakota have launched a television ad featuring Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founding members of NARAL, who calls on South Dakotans to vote to ban the use of “abortion as birth control.”   In a TV ad supporting Measure 11 in South Dakota, Dr. Nathanson explains that he and his colleagues who founded NARAL created it to “export our pro-abortion mentality across the land.” He also reveals that, “One of our strategies, in order to mislead the American people, was to deny what we knew to be...