Free Republic

(A few years back, Professor Stephen Oppenheimer wrote a book titled "Eden In The East" where he proposed that our culture flowed from east to west instead of west to east. Here's a rebuttal)Cultural diffusion from East to West? 2014/01/12 Oppenheimer’s theory is that “ … the roots of the great flowering of civilisation in the fertile crescent of the Ancient Near East lay in the sinking shorelines of Southeast Asia. The Sumerians and Egyptians themselves wrote about the skilled wise men from the East, a fact often dismissed as the embellishment of a fertile imagination.” Purely as an aside,...

A giant mystery sea creature is thought to have been spotted in the turquoise waters of one of New Zealand’s most idyllic bays. A huge unexplained wake can be seen in a Google Earth image of Oke Bay, in the Bay of Islands, an area on the east coast of the Far North District of the country's North Island, captured by satellite at about 11.30am on January 30. Engineer Pita Witehira, who spotted the wake while on Google Earth researching for his holiday home, told Daily Mail Australia the wake could have been left by a creature around 12 metres...

I know from personal experience at National Public Radio that white liberals can be very intolerant if they suspect they are dealing with a black person who is not afraid from depart from liberal orthodoxy.

Greeting warmly a delegation led by General André Cox, the Pope said Catholics and Salvationists, together with other Christians, recognise that those in need have a special place in God’s heart – so much so, that the Lord himself became poor for our sake. As a result, the Pope said, Catholics and Salvationists often meet at the same peripheries of society. I pray, he concluded, that all of Christ’s disciples can contribute with the same conviction and dynamism that the Salvation Army demonstrates in its devoted and highly appreciated service. Founded by former Methodist minister William Booth in 1865 as...

CBS's Mark Knoller reports that the lights went out briefly at the White House this morning. "Just had a power outage at the WH. Lasted only a few seconds. Perhaps a premature Govt shutdown," Knoller joked.

“F**k Israel / Free Palestine / Jerusalem is Ours / Al khilafah is coming soon.” Why would they hack into the Little Rock School District’s website with such a message? For the same reason that a Muslim cleric would take hostages in a chocolate cafe in Sydney, Australia: to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (Qur’an 8:60). “Hackers Target Little Rock School District Website,” by Susanne Brunner, Fox16.com, December 12, 2014 (thanks to Creeping Sharia): “ LITTLE ROCK, AR- If you typed in lrsd.org in the search engine around 7am Friday morning, chances are a hacking...

In response to a Michigan Capitol Confidential article about higher compensation for union executives, the Michigan Education Association sent a letter justifying the salary increases by making false claims to local leaders. The memo, which was sent Dec. 2 to all local presidents and is reprinted on the union’s Facebook page, says: Yesterday we filed our annual LM-2 filing with the US Department of Labor. The Mackinac Center is reporting ‘huge’ pay increases for MEA Executives. As some of you know, the LM-2 lists every person to whom MEA has written a check to over the past year – for...

SENATE REPUBLICANS VOTE TO WAIVE THE CONSTITUTION There is no question that President Obama's executive amnesty violates the Constitution. Even the president acknowledged back in September that he would be "ignoring the law" to carry out such an action. Ted Cruz (R-TX)U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) raised a constitutional point of order against the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending that, if sustained, would have sent the bill back to the House to remove amnesty funding. Unfortunately, a group of Republicans joined the Democrats in voting to reject Cruz's point of order and to ignore the serious constitutional problems with the president's...

If you’re still looking for the one-percenters, you might try checking out college campuses rather than corporate boardrooms: As tallied by the Chronicle of Higher Education, 36 college presidents were paid more than one million dollars in 2012. Meet the big men and women on campus: • Shirley Ann Jackson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute—$7,143,312 • John L. Lahey, Quinnipiac University—$3,759,076 • Lee C. Bolinger, Columbia—$3,389,917 • Amy Gutmann, Penn—$2,473,952 • Charles R. Middleton, Roosevelt University—$1,762,956 • Susan Hockfield, MIT—$1,679,097 • David W. Leebron, Rice—$1,522,502 • John E. Sexton, NYU—$1.404,484 • Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Rockefeller University—$1,381,341 • Richard C. Levin, Yale—$1,375,365 • Robert...

Chris Christie sparks social media firestorm for sitting with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones during Eagles' loss(full title)New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Dallas Cowboys fan, sat with team owner Jerry Jones during the Dallas Cowboys' 38-27 victory over the Eagles on Sunday night — and the political lightning rod sparked a Twitter blaze.

Radical Muslim cleric Sheik Man Haron Monis has been identified as the hostage-taker in Sydney who held people in a Lindt store against their will for over a dozen hours. Monis is known for writing letters to the families of fallen soldiers and comparing their dead loved ones to pigs. He is also being investigated for rape and was charged for murdering his ex-wife. Allegedly, he stabbed then lit his ex-wife on fire. He was out on bail.

Actor Andrew Garfield may be booted from the Spider-Man movie series, according to the latest revelation from hacked emails at Sony. The correspondence reveals that Sony - which was reportedly already not happy with Garfield - might give up the franchise to comic book giant Marvel. It is believed that Marvel would prefer to start the series from scratch, putting Garfield's role as Peter Parker, which he has played in two movies, in jeopardy.

An 11-year-old Arkansas girl on a mission pilfered $10,000 from her grandmother and called a cab — to go to Florida. Like so many rash decisions that feel like destiny, young Alexis Waller figured it was the only way she could reunite with a boy she met while vacationing two years earlier. They had been communicating ever since, she told KARK. So Waller gathered up the cash her grandmother kept in a sock drawer and quietly left their Bryant home after nightfall. Unsure where to go, she walked to a nearby gas station and convinced a stranger to take her...

We don't know how the Sydney siege is going to end yet but of one thing we can be pretty sure: the main concern of Australia's national broadcaster ABC will not be the suffering and fear experienced by those innocent people who have been held hostage; rather it will be that there might be some anti-Muslim backlash. How do we know this? First, because ABC is so left wing it makes the BBC look like Fox News. Second, because this is how sensitive, progressive types always respond to incidents of this kind. (One of the BBC's first reactions after the...

In the aftermath of the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report focused on Bush-era techniques, the Obama administration's own counterterrorism practices are coming under increased scrutiny. Gruesome details of forced rectal feedings without medical necessity, waterboarding, and sleep deprivation were chronicled in the report's executive summary, dredging up harsh practices employed during the George W. Bush administration. But on Capitol Hill, Republicans charge that the Central Intelligence Agency's approach to counterterrorism has not grown more humane—it's merely shifted. "Obviously, we don't interrogate prisoners anymore," says Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who chaired the Intelligence Committee during the Bush administration....

Tourists have always taken selfies of themselves at Sydney's most iconic landmarks, but on a day that has horrified the city many people are taking macabre snapshots for old times' sake as well. All day people were uploading selfies of themselves on Twitter from as close as possible to where the hostage siege was taking place. Just to make the photos more authentic some even took them with television cameras in the background. Two onlookers even looked like they were taking a 'celebration selfie' than one at a hostage siege. Others smiled happily as if they were standing in front...

There has been a lot of grumbling among the leftist hordes of the Democratic Party that indicate something less than overwhelming enthusiasm for the coronation of Hillary Clinton as their standard-bearer in 2016. It is difficult to imagine why, considering her charm, effervescence, eloquence, and unquestionable past, there would be anything but unanimous support for the good lady – unless it is because none of those qualities are attributable to her. Now comes the proposition that since she has signed on for paid speaking engagements (virtually the only thing she has been successful at) until March of 2015, Hillary can...

Sports on MSNBC? News Outlet Will Launch Streaming-Video Hub To Test New Shows, Hosts MSNBC is getting ready to debut a new show about sports. And one focused on books. And another that will examine celebrity and popular culture. In all, the NBCUniversal-owned cable-news network has 14 new programs ready to roll. You won’t see any of them on MSNBC. At least, not yet.

The head of the Cleveland Police Union is demanding an apology after Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins wore a shirt before Sunday's game that read, "Justice for Tamir Rice - John Crawford." Rice, a 12-year-old boy, died last month after he was shot by a Cleveland police officer who reportedly mistook his air gun for a real firearm. Crawford was shot and killed by police in August while holding an air rifle in a Wal-Mart.

A man who video recorded Denver police repeatedly punching a man in the face, causing his head to bounce off the pavement, before tripping his pregnant wife and causing her to fall on her face – sparking an FBI investigation into the department – was arrested Thursday in what appears to be a case of retaliation. After all, Denver police not only arrested him on what they called a “newly activated traffic warrant” from a nearby county after he had just left the FBI office with whom he is cooperating on the federal investigation, they refused to allow him to...