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An 83-year-old Clackamas County woman suffered significant injuries as a result of a common practice by delivery drivers -- leaving a package on a porch without knocking on the home’s door or ringing the bell, a lawsuit claims. Christa Hoven has filed a personal-injury complaint against Amazon, claiming the online retail giant is responsible for her tripping over a box. After a brief March 14 visit with her son at his Happy Valley house, Hoven stepped out of the front door and tripped on a “shoebox-sized package that had been left just in front of (and below) the doorway,” the...

By popular demand we are rebroadcasting a Steyn program first aired two years ago: In this special audio edition of Steyn's Song of the Week Mark celebrates the bicentennial of a beloved Christmas song first performed exactly two centuries ago - Christmas Eve 1818 - in a small church in Oberndorf, Austria - "Stille Nacht", or "Silent Night". For these birthday observances, Steyn welcomes the man who knows more about "Silent Night" and the men who created it than anybody on the planet - the Austrian actor and producer Hanno Schilf, who tells the story of the song, and the...

Pray For the Peace of JerusalemLambs, Sheep, and Shepherds.Micah 5:14A Promised Ruler From Bethlehem 5 [a]Marshal your troops now, city of troops, for a siege is laid against us. They will strike Israel’s ruler on the cheek with a rod. 2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans[b] of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” 3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his...

At long last, 2020 is about to end. This year, one unlike any other in my lifetime, was uniquely terrible. We faced a once-a-lifetime global pandemic, which brought to heel our entire economy and put an abrupt halt to hundreds of millions of law-abiding Americans' very way of life. We endured a once-a-generation national "dialogue" about race, which was unfortunately characterized, in part, by months of intermittent anarchic mayhem the likes of which no first-world country should ever experience. We had a national reckoning about the maturation and rise of an arch geopolitical foe, the Chinese Communist Party. And in...

Way back on Nov. 13, Washington D.C., radio station WASH-FM flipped the switch to its annual 24/7 Christmas music rotation. That's about two weeks before the rest of America. After the severely limited year of 2020, it's understandable more people would haul out the holly and get in the spirit early, but many on social media cried, "No Christmas music until after Thanksgiving!" I love Christmas music, both secular and religious. I have boxes of compact discs, too many to play in one day. So much of the WASH playlist is composed of rock-era standards that celebrate the bells and...

The family and I watched this movie on Christmas Eve night based on a book "The Man Who Invented Christmas" released in 2017 via Amazon Prime. It is the story of how Charles Dickens saved his career as a novelist by writing "A Christmas Carol". As with a Dickens novel, one experiences the whole range of emotions from joy to sadness. The movie goes into detail about the personal demons Dickens was suffering from when his father went into debtors prison and Dickens was forced to work in a boot blackening factory at the age of 12. How this experienced...

Merry Christmas to all. Please remember the REASON God came in the flesh in the form of Jesus, to provide salvation to the world through forgiveness of sins. It also says in the Bible, if one does not forgive, one can not be forgiven. We all want forgiveness when we mess up, but don't want to give it in return. Repentance is also required. One must admit one is wrong and ask God for forgiveness. All of this involves the heart which is a tough thing to change. We must forgive Democrats for being evil and only think about how...

Preposterous and cliche-ridden, this tale of Regency intrigue – with Julie Andrews giving a Georgian Gossip Girl touch – nonetheless leaves you wanting more It cannot be – no, most assuredly and for the good of humanity, it cannot be – that there are people out there who aspire to write like Julian Fellowes. It simply cannot be. And yet. Now has come Bridgerton (Netflix), suddenly into our lives, and as the minutes and the hours and the eight episodes of the new costume drama roll, the thought becomes ever more inescapable. For Bridgerton is the tale, set in 1813...

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The following email was sent to the more than 150 priests of the diocese of Perugia, Italy, on December 24, 2020. Dear fellow priests, With the corona virus, we see each other much less, and we talk among ourselves much less, unfortunately. (Note: When pasting this document into Free Republic, it seems that most of the special formatting is lost, such as bold, italics, underlined words and embedded links. To read the document with the formatting and embedded links go to the link of the document.) At least I want to wish you a Holy Christmas with Baby Jesus in...

It’s just the flu, bro. Tragic to be Christmas Eve Mass and see the church 1/3 filled due to Coronavirus rules, but nobody else was allowed to have a seat. Culture, traditions and core beliefs are important for many reasons. Jordan Peterson talks about the negative physiological changes that occur when something we believe, or expect, doesn’t happen. He also says that traditions, to a degree, are built on thousands of years of shared experience and you don’t ever want to quickly dismiss them. One expects a full church at Christmas and people singing without masks and it was disappointing...

A smart thermostat quickly learns to optimize building microclimates for both energy consumption and user preference. Buildings account for about 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption, and are responsible for one-third of global carbon dioxide emissions. Making buildings more energy-efficient is not only a cost-saving measure, but a crucial climate change mitigation strategy. Hence the rise of “smart” buildings, which are increasingly becoming the norm around the world. Smart buildings automate systems like heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC); lighting; electricity; and security. Automation requires sensory data, such as indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, and occupancy...

Good news exists – even if it rarely appears in the media. During Christmas time, local news outlets are reporting on the goodness of humanity, from strangers flooding a lonely grandmother with Christmas cards to a couple of eight year olds deciding that what they want for Christmas is to help others in need. Here are seven stories exemplifying the Christmas spirit – and demonstrating that the little things sometimes matter the most. Grandma in Nursing Home Receives Hundreds of CardsSusan Wendt, a nursing home resident in Rhode Island, felt alone this holiday season. That’s when she decided to ask...

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Merry Christmas, FReepers & friends. Best to you all, God's blessings, and on our country in these challenging times. Thank You, God.

Humanitarian reasons have been cited for flying home several 'IS' brides and children from internment in Syria. At the height of the civil war, the women allegedly traveled to join the Islamist militia. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Sunday said he was "relieved" that a "humanitarian" recovery operation had brought home 18 children and five "Islamic State" (IS) brides from Kurdish-run internment camps in northeastern Syria. One of three German women brought back, identified in reports as Leonore M., 21, from Saxony-Anhalt state, was arrested a day earlier on arrival in Frankfurt airport, on charges including terror organization membership,...

A black physician in Indianapolis has died with Covid-19 weeks after she accused a doctor of denying her proper medical care because of her race. In a video from her bed at Indiana University Hospital North, Susan Moore said she had to "beg" for treatment. Offering its condolences, the hospital said it took accusations of discrimination very seriously but could not comment on specific patients. Black people are at greater risk from Covid than white people, studies show. Dr Moore, 52, passed away at another local hospital on Sunday. In her 4 December post on Facebook, she described how her...

With the refusal of the US Supreme Court to even hear the facts of the election fraud case, we have reached a political and societal singularity. In physics, a singularity is a condition in which all the known laws of nature seem to break down. In sociology, a tipping point is reached, in which the entire social order can be abruptly dismantled. In either case, the result is unpredictable. No one knows what will happen. We have entered the twilight zone. A few months ago, what is happening now was inconceivable, an Orwellian fantasy. No one could have believed that...

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Healthcare, Government, Family, Military, Business, Farmers, Sanctity of Life, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 JOHN 5:14Religion Forum Threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.