Free Republic

It has been a season of jolting ups and downs for Bishop John F. Kinney of the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minn., a man who nine years ago was at the center of an effort to focus the attention of the nation's Roman Catholic hierarchy on the problem of priests who sexually abuse young people. Despite that record, a month ago, at one of the four public sessions that Bishop Kinney organized to hear the views of Catholics in his 12,000-square-mile diocese in central Minnesota, he faced what one staff member called booing from some angry church members, but what...

The war we have joined is defined by three simple but brutal facts. Our enemy is able to penetrate our borders and strike us in our homes; he can strike us with weapons of mass destruction; and he has made clear his intention is not to change our policies or to force our withdrawal, but to obliterate us and destroy our civilization. Because of these facts, the imperative of defending ourselves as quickly and effectively as possible is more important in this war – by a factor so great as to be impossible to calculate -- than any we...

BALTIMORE (AP) - Good news for coffee lovers: Space, the final frontier, is the color of a latte. So say astronomers Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry at Johns Hopkins University. In January, the two determined that the universe was a sprightly pale turquoise, then after discovering a glitch in their software in March, they realized that the average color was actually a milky brown. Not knowing what to call it, besides beige, they solicited suggestions, prompting nearly 300 e-mails with ideas including Big Bang Beige, Cappuccino Cosmico, Galactic Gold and Infinite Sand. The winner? Cosmic Latte. Rest of Article

Menu item translations(The following are items found overseas in which people have made inappropriate use of English words for various products, and bizarre menu items in restaurants.)Cold shredded children and sea blubber in spicy sauce - China Indonesian Nazi Goreng - Hong Kong Muscles Of Marines/Lobster Thermos - Cairo French fried ships - Cairo Garlic Coffee - Europe Sole Bonne Femme (Fish Landlady style) - Europe Boiled Frogfish - Europe Sweat from the trolley - Europe Dreaded veal cutlet with potatoes in cream - China Rainbow Trout, Fillet Streak, Popotoes, Chocolate Mouse - Hong Kong Roasted duck let loose -...

The Rough Beast Returns. Anti-Semitism is back, taking the place of intelligent criticism of Israel and its policies. And if that wasn't bad enough, students are spreading the gibberish. The email sent out last month by Laurie Zoloth, director of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University, was chilling on its face. "I cannot fully express what it feels like to have to walk across campus daily, past maps of the Middle East that do not include Israel, past posters of cans of soup with labels on them of drops of blood and dead babies, labeled 'canned Palestinian children meat,...

In other situations, Democrat Rob Andrews might feel a bit lonely. But the six-term U.S. representative likely prizes this sort of solitude: No Republican will run against him in November. No Republicans in Camden and Gloucester Counties could muster 100 write-in votes in the June 4 primary, the last chance in New Jersey to earn a slot on the ballot. While some GOP supporters say the lack of a candidate will display the weakness of the party to voters, others say the party should not waste its limited resources running an underdog against the popular Andrews. Mark Otto, a political...

Welcome to the Official Alec Baldwin Online Guest Book a message from Alec SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL OF OUR VISITORS: Due to the constant and steady stream of offensive material that has been posted here on my Guestbook, regretfully we are closing the Guestbook indefinitely. Soon we will reopen the Guestbook in a new format whereby those who leave Guestbook entries must leave their actual email address by virtue of a signature verification that we will install in the near future. Most of the offensive material has been political in nature. I find that rather disappointing considering the website was...

NORFOLK -- PETA doesn't let political correctness get in the way of a good ad campaign, be it a menacing Ronald McDonald wielding a bloody butcher knife or ``Got Beer?'' billboards mocking the milk industry. But now the attack dogs are PETA's critics, and they're portraying the world's largest animal-rights group as an agent of domestic terrorism. The mention of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in the same sentence as al-Qaida, by critics and on Capitol Hill, has the fur flying at the organization's waterfront headquarters here. There is even a push to revoke PETA's tax-exempt status because...

I have always been an aficionado of science fiction, and was raised on such classics as The Twilight Zone, and the original Outer Limits and Star Trek series. And I’ve been a science fiction junkie ever since. When done well, it’s a very entertaining genre. However, when sci-fi has the added elements of adeptly examining moral truths and piquing our thought processes, it can be downright superb. If the movie industry buzz is accurate, the soon-to-be-released, "The Minority Report", a Steven Spielberg production, may indeed be the riveting science fiction blockbuster of the season. After reading Alexander Walker’s insightful film...

<p>PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) --  A mortar shell meant to be fired in celebration of a wedding in a Pakistani tribal area exploded prematurely Saturday, killing at least 25 people, including the bridegroom and many of his relatives, officials said.</p> <p>The blast occurred in the village of Korez, 180 miles southwest of the northeast Pakistan frontier city of Peshawar, in the tribal area of Orakzai.</p>

Real news headlines 03 These are actual newspaper headlines gathered from papers across the country.Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim Shot Off Woman's leg Helps Nicklaus to 66 Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told Miners Refuse to Work After Death Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant Stolen Painting Found by Tree Two Soviet Ships Collide, One Dies Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter

SFSU pro-Palestinian group loses funding; Jewish group warned By RON HARRIS   03:05 ET Associated Press Newswires Copyright 2002. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - When pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel student groups clashed verbally at San Francisco State University in May, racial taunts and epithets flew but violence was avoided though tensions roiled in for days.Now the university has doled out what it considers just punishments for both sides: The pro-Palestinian group was put on probation for one year during which it loses its university funding and Web site. The pro-Israel group San Francisco Hillel received...

June 22, 2002 - The NYT, Front Page Conspiracy Theory Grips French: Sept. 11 as Right-Wing U.S. Plot [OR: When France went nuts] By ALAN RIDING The new, best-seller French author. PARIS, June 21 - Even before the fires were extinguished at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, conspiracy theories began flooding the Internet. A few quickly spilled out of Web sites and were widely circulated by e-mail before fading into oblivion. One, however, has taken on a life of its own in France. It was turned into a book that has become the publishing sensation of the spring....

CHRISTIAN COALITION OF AMERICA OPPOSES CREATION OF A PALESTINIAN STATE Washington, D.C. - The Christian Coalition of America expressed shock and horror at the latest terrorist attack in Israel. Referring to the suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus where at least 19 died, Coalition President Roberta Combs declared, "Israel can not negotiate with terrorism. Terrorism cannot be rewarded with statehood. Now or in the future, a Palestinian state would sound the death knell of Israel." Combs noted that Tuesday's suicide attack with a nail-studded bomb aboard a Jerusalem bus was the 69th such atrocity in the past 21 months. "Yasser...

I received this as an e-amil from a friend. It's an excellent illustrated summary of the Israeli-Palestinian war. Click HERE

Hollywood actor Bruce Willis and the Girl Scouts of America sent a little piece of home to Wasp Marines and Sailors deployed on the war against terrorism. Recently, the Girl Scouts of San Diego started an operation donating over 100,000 boxes of their signature cookies to ships out at sea, calling it Operation Thin Mint. Meanwhile, Willis purchased 12,000 boxes of girl Scout cookies from his 8-year-old daughter Tallulah Belle to support military personnel serving in the Middle East. His cookies were given to Marines and Sailors onboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp, the aircraft carrier USS John F....

<p>Newspaper can be used to great advantage to start flower beds or extend their boundaries. It will form forming a barrier that kills existing vegetation and then rots away, improving the soil as it does.</p> <p>To start, closely crop the existing grass or vegetation and then place a generous layer (about 10 sheets thick) of newspaper on the ground.</p>

Why is the president endorsing a provisional Palestinian state? IT'S THE BIG ISSUES that matter in President Bush's brand of conservatism. So he's strong and principled on taxes, cloning, the Kyoto treaty, the war on terrorism, Iraq, missile defense, and federal judges. It's a different story with the smaller issues. Bush strays on them--education, trade, farm subsidies, ethnic profiling, campaign finance reform--for shamelessly pragmatic purposes. More often than not, his aim is to prove his conservatism really is compassionate or to broaden his political base. This arrangement satisfies most conservatives and a lot of moderates and independents. The problem comes...

. . until Patrick Leahy allows votes on Bush's judges. BOYCOTTS don't always work, but they usually annoy. Maybe it's time to annoy Vermont and its two senators, Patrick Leahy and James Jeffords, to get across how little the obstruction of judicial confirmations is appreciated. Senator Leahy holds the chairmanship of the Senate's Judiciary Committee, a position he has abused from the moment he assumed it. Eight of President Bush's original eleven nominees to the federal bench have not been given so much as a hearing by Leahy, despite the fact that individually and as a group they represent the...

Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs' acts are legendary stories, we did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, we did not conquer the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon. Those who take an interest have known these facts for years, but Israel is a stubborn people and doesn't want to hear about it. This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did...