Free Republic

The United States voiced concern Friday over a report that China manipulated international Internet traffic intended for a major Chinese Web service company and used it for a cyberattack on U.S. sites. State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke’s comments follow complaints from anti-online censorship group Greatfire.org that Chinese authorities carried out denial-of-service attacks in late March that intermittently shut down San Francisco-based Github, a U.S.-based computer-code sharing site that hosts some of Greatfire’s data. Greatfire.org said it was a direct target of similar attacks earlier that month. […] The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for...

For some time, observers have expected the final outcome for Bishop Robert Finn, former head of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese, who was ordered by Vatican officials to tender his resignation last month. The predictable sides have lined up: either condemning and saying, ‘It’s about time,’ or defending him. With all the noise made, it may be difficult for most readers to tease out the truth, but an examination of the facts of the Finn case and that of another high-profile prelate may be enlightening. If Finn, why not the many, and much worse, others? With Finn’s 2012 conviction of...

Many supposed "theological differences" between Catholics and Evangelicals are, I think, founded in semantics rather than in substantial disagreement. For example, when I was an Evangelical one of the periodic arguments I ran across against Catholic moral theology was that the concept of mortal and venial sin is unbiblical. Sin is sin, say Evangelicals, and there's no good in trying to make out some sins as "minor." To us Evangelicals such nice distinctions smelled a great deal like rationalization and looked like an escape clause from the commandment "Be holy, for I, the Lord, am Holy." After all, James wrote,...

Those who bemoan what happened to Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown often argue that George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson should just not have gotten out of their SUVs. Are they right? Is the best policy really just to see young blacks roaming loose as likely to be vicious, wild animals, unable to restrain themselves from violent attacks on human interlopers? As we all heard Baltimore’s mayor put it, official policy is to simply “give them space to destroy.” Last July in Indianapolis, a black thug with a long history of illegal drug and weapons charges named Major Davis Jr., murdered...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Friday that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records should continue and the Patriot Act should be renewed in its current form. The potential 2016 Republican presidential contender said he doesn’t see the government's collection of phone records as an overreach. A federal appeals court has ruled the practice is illegal because Congress didn’t authorize it. […] Christie said he believes Congress can provide “appropriate oversight” of the program. …

The pilot who rescued a popular barbershop owner and and his family, who were missing for more than two days, said it felt great to hoist up the dad, his kids and a chihuahua to safety late Thursday night in rugged terrain. "It was a very happy cockpit," California National Guard Chief Warrant Officer 4 Robert Brockly, 49, of Folsom told NBC Bay Area on Friday morning. "We were all giving them high-fives." Brockly and his crew were searching in their Blackhawk helicopter for Nick Vlahos, co-owner Temescal Alley Barbershop in Oakland, along with his 5-year-old son Nick Jr., 3-year-old...

Venezuelans are criticizing electricity rationing that government officials began carrying out this week after the country’s electrical system continued to overload because of an ongoing heat wave. Ministries and other public institutions will now work until 1:00 p.m., reducing their workday from 8 to 6 hours. Private companies have also been required to cut their electricity intake by 10 percent. The overall goal is to achieve a 20-percent reduction of country’s power consumption in order to prevent overloading the system. "We are in the presence of a significant increase in the temperature," said Jesse Chacón, the country's Energy Minister, according...

How beliefs about what makes us happy have changed in the last 80 years. Eighty years ago the top three things people thought were most important for happiness were security, knowledge and religion. By 2014 only security was still in the top three, and the other two spots had changed to good humour and leisure. Meanwhile religion had dropped to tenth, and last place. The results come from two surveys carried out almost 80 years apart.

A mistrial was declared Friday in the New York trial of the man charged with the 1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz. The jury sent State Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley a note -- the third since April 29 -- saying it was unable to reach a unanimous decision on the guilt or innocence of bodega worker Pedro Hernandez. On two previous occasions, including Tuesday and Friday, the judge ordered the jury to keep deliberating. A new court date has been set for June 10. It's unclear whether Hernandez will be retried. The case involves a boy whose disappearance more...

If you are under the age of 45, chances are that at some point somebody over the age of 45 has condemned your alleged overuse of the word “like.” This person may or may not have said it politely. He or she may have been motivated by an altruistic desire to make you look respectable to others, a self-interested impulse to stop you from irritating them, or something in between. Either way, how we use “like” is one of the most gaping generational divides this side of those who ask, “Did you get my email?” (Of course we got your...

In a bizarre legal twist in a jaw-droppingly hateful proposal that calls into question the entire California ballot initiative process, the author of a bill proposing murdering California’s gays may ask a court to place his proposal on the ballot without gathering a single signature other than his own. In a letter quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, Matt McLaughlin writes to the state attorney general, “Take notice that if your office and the California secretary of state refuse to clear the Sodomite Suppression Act for signature circulation, I may demand as remedy that it be placed on the election...

A new study this week from RAND Corp. estimates that just 4.1 of the 11.2 million people enrolled in exchanges were previously uninsured. The majority, 7.1 million, had coverage prior to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Indeed, a higher number of uninsured gained coverage through Medicaid than through the exchanges, according to estimates, despite exchanges being the face of the law’s implementation. Though the study found that a net 16.9 million people have gained coverage since the Affordable Care Act took effect—22.8 million gaining coverage, and 5.9 million losing—the estimates are based on a survey of just 1,589 people. Authors...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)DENVER — Black History Month is February. Hispanic Heritage Month is Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. And at one Colorado barbecue joint, June 11 is White Appreciation Day. Two Hispanic restaurant owners, Edgar Antillon and Miguel Jiminez, who recently bought Rubbin Buttz BBQ in Milliken, Colorado, have decided to offer a 10 percent discount that day to white customers. “We have a whole month for Black History Month,” Mr. Antillon told 9News in Denver. “We have a whole month for Hispanic Heritage Month, so we thought the least we could do was offer one day to appreciate white Americans.” It...

A man seen on security camera video assaulting a 13-year-old girl after forcing his way inside her home has been arrested, according to a source close to the investigation. Investigators believe the same person who sexually assaulted a woman in a grocery store restroom last month. The suspect – described as a white man about 30 years old with a medium height, a thin build and a beard – was arrested in the East Bay Friday morning, according to the source. He has not yet been identified. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS ITEM. MORE DETAILS TO FOLLOW.

Who can blame them? It took months just for Hillary Clinton to cough up the e-mails that should have gone through their system in the first place, and that happened only because of the probe by the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Investigating the confluence of money and connections at the Clinton Foundation might take too much work, and the only evidence would have to come from the Clintons themselves. Besides, what difference at this point does it make, or something? The State Department said Thursday it has no plans to review previously undisclosed donations to a branch of...

Fox & Friends had Geraldo Rivera on the show Friday morning to discuss Pamela Geller and the shooting incident outside her “Draw Muhammad” contest. As you might expect, given his recent comments, Rivera had a plethora of harsh things to say about the anti-Islam activist. “She most reminds me of the Aryan Nation, KKK, racists,” he said. “I see them on television now and I feel like taking a shower.” Tell us how you really feel. “If Pamela Geller, if you put ‘Jew’ in there or ‘Irish’ in there or ‘black’ in there, any other groups, she would not be...

Hillary Clinton, Marty O’Malley, Liz Warren, and other 2016 Democrat candidates for the presidency are apparently trying to differentiate themselves from the real-world economics of Republicans by returning to the tried-and-true method of promising to rob Peter to pay Paul, while giving the impression that YOU don’t have to worry, because, dear voter, YOU’LL never be Peter. The latest method is in capitalizing on the headlines about crippling college debt by setting "debt free college" as their goal. Now, as far as that goes, it’s a perfectly worthy goal. “Pay as you go” living has always been the responsible advice...

An archeological dig in Pocklington has unearthed a prehistoric man buried with a shield. The skeleton was found in one of the square barrows at the recently discovered Iron Age burial ground on Burnby Lane, which is where developer David Wilson Homes is planning to build 77 new houses. MAP Archaeological Practice, the company which is carrying out the excavation work, says it has also discovered a man "of an impressive stature." The site has so far yielded more than 38 square barrows and in excess of 82 burials... Several of the square barrows contain personal possessions, including jewellery, and...

President Obama on Friday lashed out at critics within his own party as he accused fellow Democrats of deliberately distorting the potential impact of the sweeping new trade agreement he is negotiating with Asia and standing in the way of a modern competitive economy. With the same tone of disdain he usually reserves for his Republican adversaries, Mr. Obama said liberals who are fighting the new trade accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, were “just wrong” and, in terms of some of their claims, “making this stuff up.” If they oppose the deal, he said, they “must be satisfied with the status...

Via Mediaite. We live in strange times when MSNBC’s 8 p.m. guy is more likely to defend Pam Geller for goofing on Mohammed than Fox News’s is.Touche: @allahpundit @JohnEkdahl Jesus also wouldn’t point his pen holding finger at guests on a talk show either. WWBD?— Danger Zone (@dtom_molonlabe) May 8, 2015 Yeah, the “I’m more like Jesus than you are” game is a hard one to win. But his point here is mainly tactical … I think. If you want to convince Muslims to accept values like free speech that are championed by the Christian west, the Golden Rule...