Free Republic

CHAPTER FORTY THE TIME TO BE EMPLOYED IN THE ACQUISITION OF EACH VIRTUE AND THE INDICATIONS OF OUR PROGRESS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to prescribe generally any determined space of time to be employed in the acquisition of each virtue, as this is dependent on our various states and dispositions, our progress in the devout life, and the direction of our spiritual guide. It is certain, however, that if the diligence and eagerness previously prescribed are not wanting, within a few weeks we shall make considerable progress. A certain indication of definite advancement is perseverance in exercises of piety, in spite...

Kingfish heard this gun fight, near the Arrellano Felix Compound, Thursday Night. It sounded like one party had a glock. At the end, it there was a silence, then two quick shots as if someone were being executed. In the northern Mexican state of Baja California on Friday, police discovered the bodies of three young men who had been shot to death on a ranch near the border town of Tecate. The men — ages 16, 18 and 23 — were killed shortly before midnight Thursday, investigators said. A fourth victim was seriously injured.

"Outside the Church no salvation," 536. Do you maintain that one is obliged to join your infallible, one, holy, catholic, apostolic, and indefectible Church, if he wishes to be saved? If a man realizes that the Catholic Church is the true Church, he must join it if he wishes to save his soul. That is the normal law. But if he does not realize this obligation, is true to his conscience, even though it be erroneous, and dies repenting of any violations of his conscience, he will get to Heaven. In such a case, it would not have been his...

London, England, Jul 11, 2009 / 04:09 am (CNA).- GE Healthcare has formed a biotech partnership to develop products based on human embryonic stem cells in hopes that their use will replace lab rats in drug development and toxic drug tests.The British-based medical research subsidiary of General Electric, GE Healthcare on June 30 announced a multi-year alliance with Geron Corporation to have Geron provide GE scientists with an undisclosed amount of human embryonic stem cells.According to CNSNews.com, GE Healthcare has said it hopes testing which uses human embryonic cells will spare lab rats from potentially toxic drug evaluations."This could...

Alexa Longueira Suffers Deep Cuts, Bruises After Landing In Raw Sewage, Blames DEP For Leaving Hole Unattended: Alexa Longueira, a high school sophomore, was walking along Victory Boulevard near Travis Avenue on Staten Island Wednesday evening when she felt the earth move and was plunged into smelly darkness. She said the manhole she fell in to was left open and unattended with no warning signs or orange cones. She said two workers with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection failed to secure the area as they prepared to flush the sewer. "It was just really gross and it...

FAIRBANKS — Fans and the simply curious packed a narrow sidewalk to hear Gov. Sarah Palin say a few words and sign gun-related legislation Friday afternoon in Fairbanks. The ceremonial event was one of several Palin has staged throughout Alaska this week following her abrupt resignation July 3. She also spent an hour talking about Second Amendment rights and guns with conservative talk radio host and special caller Ted Nugent, a former rock star and a notable pro-gun spokesman. Richard Stevens of Fairbanks stood on the street corner at the bill signing to see history in the making. It wasn’t...

The leadership of the U.S. House was poised to introduce a final version of sweeping health care reform on Friday, but that plan was held up after a pack of 40 Blue Dog Democrats, including Albany's Rep. Sanford Bishop, told leaders some changes - some very sound changes - would have to be made first. In a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the group known as the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition said its members would not support the House bill as it was written. With Republicans not on board with the legislation, the...

ISRAEL and the United States have reached a deal allowing the Jewish state to build about 2500 housing units already under construction in West Bank settlements. But the United States dismissed the report in Maariv as "inaccurate". US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said "the bottom line" for President Barack Obama's administration has not changed, "that all parties in the region have to honour their obligations". He was referring to obligations laid out in the 2003 internationally-agreed roadmap for Palestinian-Israeli peace that calls for an Israeli settlement freeze.

WASHINGTON — Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor are quietly targeting the Connecticut firefighter who's at the center of Sotomayor's most controversial ruling. On the eve of Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearing, her advocates have been urging journalists to scrutinize what one called the "troubled and litigious work history" of firefighter Frank Ricci. This is opposition research: a constant shadow on Capitol Hill. "The whole business of getting Supreme Court nominees through the process has become bloodsport," said Gary Rose, a government and politics professor at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn.

When a gunman went on a spree at New Life Church back in December of 2007, security guard Jeanne Assam stepped in and took down the shooter before he could take any more church members' lives. Assam has only spoken a few times in public about what happened that day. Thursday night she told her story to members of the Pikes Peak Firearms Coalition. She says a lot of what happened that day hasn't been told. She says she actually wasn’t even supposed to be working on that Sunday as a security guard at New Life. She planned to take...

Palin appears on gun rights radio talk show By By MARY PEMBERTON | Associated Press Writer Gun rights enthusiasts welcomed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as she made an appearance Friday on a radio talk show, whose callers included rock n' roller turned avid hunter Ted Nugent.Palin spoke on the Michael Dukes' "Firearms Friday" show on KFAR radio in Fairbanks. She was in Alaska's second largest city to sign a gun rights bill and several resolutions.Nugent, well-known for the 1970s hit "Cat Scratch Fever," told Palin from his home in Michigan that he was firing up the grill to cook up...

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. President Obama had his first audience with the pope yesterday -- one day after he got caught up in an international "tail"-gate incident involving a saucy photo, his wandering eyes, and the shapely rear end of a teenage Brazilian girl. Obama created the booty brouhaha at the G8 summit Thursday, when he appeared to sneak a free peak at the backside of a 17-year-old junior delegate named Mayara Tavares just moments before an official photo was taken. Yesterday, Obama got a chance to discuss the Seven Deadly Sins -- including lust -- when...

Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a figment of Al Gore’s imagination. No more ugly wind farms to darken our sunlit uplands. No more whopping electricity bills, artificially inflated by EU-imposed carbon taxes. No longer any need to treat each warm, sunny day as though it were some terrible harbinger of ecological doom. And definitely no need for the $7.4 trillion cap and trade (carbon-trading) bill — the largest tax in American history — which President Obama and his cohorts are so assiduously trying to impose on the US economy.

The tables were turned on a would-be burglar at a Little Rock business early this morning. It happened just after five o'clock at BMW Motorcycles on Jones Street, just north of I-630. Police say the suspect, Haywood Patterson, 43, was hit in the upper body and face from a shotgun blast, and his injuries are life-threatening. He was arrested a block away from the business. Officers were called to the scene when the burglar alarm went off. An employee who had been sleeping inside told police a loud noise woke him up. When he went to investigate, he found a...

Concern about how a public health care plan might affect Minnesota's health care system dominated a public forum on Friday sponsored by Mayo Clinic. Dr. Douglas Wood, who chairs the clinic's division of Health Care Policy & Research, said a public plan modeled after the Medicare system has the potential to do serious harm to health care in states like Minnesota where quality is high and costs are low. "If it's a government-run plan with government price controls, that could be highly detrimental to states like Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and all across the northern tier of the United States," Wood...

WASHINGTON — Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor are quietly targeting the Connecticut firefighter who's at the center of Sotomayor's most controversial ruling. On the eve of Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearing, her advocates have been urging journalists to scrutinize what one called the "troubled and litigious work history" of firefighter Frank Ricci. This is opposition research: a constant shadow on Capitol Hill. "The whole business of getting Supreme Court nominees through the process has become bloodsport," said Gary Rose, a government and politics professor at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn.

NEW DELHI (AFP) — For India's gay community, the joy that greeted this month's court ruling legalising gay sex is tempered by the fact that, although the law now accepts them, society still does not. For all the celebrations and talk of an historic milestone, many believe it will take more than a court decision to change public attitudes toward homosexuality, which is largely taboo in India and considered by many to be a mental illness. Although the Delhi High Court's verdict has served as a morale booster for men and women who lived in constant fear of being criminalised,...

The Pope gave a little book to US President Barack Obama after their meeting today in the Vatican. “This is a document about bioethics,” the Pope said. And the president replied, “Oh, what we discussed earlier. I’ll have some reading to do on the plane"... "Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't...

"...experts and election watch groups and individuals, who have been monitoring the election process, have found that EVM could be manipulated..."