Free Republic

This Christmas Dr. Russell D. Moore might call upon us to think of Joseph, Jesus’ father, and his role in the nativity story. Dr. Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argues that Joseph’s decision to be a father to Jesus reflects God and the way he treats his Christian children. “Joseph acts as a father when he takes Mary into his family, when he takes her as his wife,” said Dr. Moore at a recent Family Research Council event. “He acts fatherly toward Jesus in terms of identity (naming him),” Dr. Moore continues,...

An unsuspecting supermarket employee got an alarming surprise this week. The worker at an Albertsons store in Roswell, New Mexico, opened a container of frozen ribs Wednesday and found a .38 super semi-auto handgun along with seven rounds of ammunition packaged with the meat. He brought the firearm and ammo to a local police department at about 2pm that afternoon and authorities are beginning to piece together some preliminary clues, a police public relations liaison said. However, since the unidentified employee cleaned the pistol before turning it in, tracing its origin has not been easy, authorities say. There are no...

<p>Officials are still trying to sort out what to do about a dead 40-foot fin whale that washed ashore last week in Malibu, creating a big stink.</p> <p>The spit of sand is at the foot of a towering cliff, below Barbara Streisand's neighborhood that features massive estates of groomed lawns, swimming pools and tennis courts.</p>

Featured Term (selected at random):SANTA CRUZ "Holy Cross." A mission church founded on September 25, 1791, on Monterey Bay at Santa Cruz, California. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Assembly member Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) says he will introduce legislation aimed at establishing what he termed “a homeless bill of rights.” “As it stands right now, a homeless person can be prosecuted for breaking into and occupying a vacant house,” Ammiano complained. “This places the property rights of an absentee home owner ahead of the human rights of the poor and impoverished. That's not fair.” While the details of the bill are still sketchy, the gist of the proposed legislation would exempt the deprived from being punished for helping themselves to any unused and inadequately secured private property. In...

Israel promised to respond to the UN General Assembly's recognition of Palestine as a state, in violation of the Oslo Agreement, by building an additional 3,000 settlement units on land claimed by the Palestinians. This immediately prompted cries from the Arab League-dominated UN about Israel's "expansionist" policies requiring immediate UN intervention. The UN General Assembly voted to recognize Palestine based on the pre-1967 borders. If they are pre-1967 borders, then what does that mean? It means the borders which existed prior to the Six Days War, which means the borders as they existed in 1948. Let's fire up the WayBack...

MOUNT PLEASANT (AP) — Central Michigan University has decided to add two women's sports, saying it's an effort to strengthen sexual equality in athletics. The Mount Pleasant school's trustees voted Thursday to add women's golf in 2014-15 and women's lacrosse in 2015-16.

Lincoln County residents can now apply for and purchase gun permits through the Sheriff’s Office website. The agency recently made the switch to online applications to “provide better customer service” and “streamline the permit process,” ultimately cutting back on the public’s flow of traffic in and out of the Sheriff’s Office and increasing the system’s level of convenience for residents, according to a press release. Prior to moving the permit process online, citizens had to make multiple trips to the Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff David Carpenter told the Times-News on Thursday.

Regarding my first op-ed this last week at Fox News on Costas here is some of the reaction. I will update this later when I have time to put in responses. From Entertainment Weekly: As you can guess, his commentary was closely scrutinized, and while some applauded his effort, many criticized him for broaching a politically taboo subject in the midst of Sunday Night Football. Second-Amendment advocates like Fox News’ John Lott dismissed Costas for his “emotional reaction,” and media-watcher Howard Kurtz said, “If Bob Costas wanted to urge gun control during NFL, he should have made his own case,...

1) Can anyone tell me which Supreme Court Justice will swear 0bama in in the proposed private swearing in ceremony . Something unusual is happening again this time and many people feel he may be sworn in using the koran but we will not know for sure . 2) Will they by law be required to use the same exact oath that previous presidents have been sworn in under requiring them to " preserve , protect , and defend the Constitution of the United States"? There are "two" questions I need to be answered . Thank you . . .

SUMMARY The world's oceans are absorbing carbon dioxide at an unprecedented rate and the resulting acidification is transforming marine ecosystems. Hari Sreenivasan reports on how ocean acidification is already affecting oysters and other shellfish in the U.S. Transcript HARI SREENIVASAN: Pacific oysters like the ones grown on Shina Wysocki's family farm near Olympia, Wash., are served in restaurants around the country. SHINA WYSOCKI, Chelsea Farms: We think our water tastes great here, and that makes our oysters taste great. ARTICLE TOOLS Print Email Share HARI SREENIVASAN: But there's trouble in the water. The ocean's pH, which measures the level of...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr: Fox News Has Divided America In a Way Not Seen Since the Civil War By Noel Sheppard Created 12/08/2012 - 11:13am Robert F. Kennedy Jr said of Fox News Friday, "It's divided our country in a way that we haven't been divided probably since the Civil War." This occurred during an online video interview with the Huffington Post (video follows with transcript and commentary): ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR: There’s two things happening. One is the influence of big money in politics, and the other is the right-wing control of the American media, particularly starting with Fox...

USDA chief: Rural America becoming less relevant By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has some harsh words for rural America: It's "becoming less and less relevant," he says. A month after an election that Democrats won even as rural parts of the country voted overwhelmingly Republican, the former Democratic governor of Iowa told farm belt leaders this past week that he's frustrated with their internecine squabbles and says they need to be more strategic in picking their political fights.

What is it about Abraham Lincoln that has captured the hearts and minds of the American public since his assassination nearly 150 years ago? After all, one could argue -- rather persuasively -- that our 16th president was the least qualified candidate ever elected to high national office; in fact, his public service record included just four terms in the Illinois state legislative, one unremarkable term in the House of Representatives, and two unsuccessful bids for the US Senate. In addition, he had virtually no executive experience and, as his contemporaries invariably pointed out, Lincoln seemed wholly unfit to lead...

Net hiring over the past 12 months declined to -12, down from -7 in July. U.S. small-business owners expect to add fewer net new jobs over the next 12 months than at any time since the depths of the 2008-2009 recession. ... In November, 21% of owners say they expect to decrease jobs at their companies over the next 12 months, the most recorded on this measure since the inception of the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index in August 2003. ... small-business owners are pessimistic about their operating environment as 2012 comes to a close. As a result, owners' intentions...

Tens of thousands of people have gathered to attend a rally in the Gaza Strip to mark the 25th anniversary of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal gave a fiery speech during his first ever visit to the territory. He said he would never recognise Israel, and insisted Palestinians would never cede any part of their land. Hamas removed Fatah from Gaza by force in 2007 after winning elections there. Fatah governs parts of the West Bank. 'Made in Gaza' The BBC's Yolande Knell in Gaza City says the event is intended to send a message...

The GOP-e was shaken by the Tea Partyers a couple years back, but fought back and succeeded in pushing the Tea Partyers/Palin backers out of the convention and nominating their man Romney. But the Tea Partyers had some success, like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Who's to say a few well placed Birther candidates couldn't have some success? If we could field a few Birther candidates who promise to make the ineligibility of the current Commander-in-Chief a central issue, even if only one of them gets through the system it will be a 100% gain for conservatives. Simply...

Initial Reaction The establishment report of +146,000 jobs was about what most expected. However, beneath the surface, this report looks grim. The household survey shows a loss of 122,000 jobs. The unemployment rate dropped by .2% because the labor force fell by 350,000 and those "not in the labor force" rose by a whopping 542,000. Thus, we are back to the previous 2012 pattern of witnessing unemployment rate drop largely because of a massive increase of those "not" in the labor force. No Effect From Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy had no effect. The BLS reports "Our survey response rates in...

There are houses for cold climates, which are designed to keep in the precious warmth; there are houses for hot climates where architecture allows for air to sweep through and keep inhabitants cool. However, until now, the two were difficult to combine. But this new incredible folding house is able to, in the words of its creators, 'metamorphosize' into eight different configurations to adapt to seasonal, meteorological and even astronomical conditions. For example, in the summer plan, bedroom one faces east and watches the sun rise as its inhabitan wakes up. It can then rotate so that the user is...

It’s a bad omen for free enterprise, prosperity and liberty when normally warring special interest groups such as big business and progressive activists agree on public policy. During President Obama’s first term big business interests led by the pharmaceutical industry joined the union lobby in successfully making ObamaCare the law of the land. Shortly after Obama’s re-election, history may be repeating itself this time regarding energy policy. While it’s known that politics makes strange bedfellows none can be more bizarre than former White House green jobs czar Van Jones and Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson agreeing on a carbon tax....