Free Republic

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—In a closed courtroom in one of the few government buildings still standing here, Laura Silsby and nine other American missionaries were charged Thursday with abducting children from this earthquake-ravaged capital. When the proceeding was done, the 40-year-old from a mountain valley in Idaho walked out of Le Tribunal de Paix, past a scrum of microphones, cameras and seething Haitians and into a government minivan with a co-defendant. As they waited to return to a fetid cell with mattresses on a concrete floor, they appeared to pray.

If you think about it, all of our laws – and indeed, the very idea of respect for and equality under the law – are written to protect Tit-for-Tat, because Tit-for-Tat produces the best results. You may sell your product at a profit, but if you lie about what it does we will call that fraud and you will go to jail because successful societies start nice but retaliate against those that decide to Screw the Other Guy. The punishment of fraud is what gives us confidence in the claims made by other products. Retaliating against Screw the Other Guy...

SEEING THE UNSEEN is directly below this post) As I write this, the Democrats have taken control of the House of Representative and look likely to eek out control of the Senate. My friends, this is a Golden Moment. We have been given an opportunity to show what losing with honor should look like. Do not wail and cry. Do not shout CHEATERS! or whine about media coverage. And most especially do not blame the American people. They are not idiots and they are not sheep. Iraq is not lost, the War on Terror goes on and despite what you...

But that doesn't mean Scott is through with making pictures about war and brutality along the lines of "Black Hawk Down," revealing he plans to return soon to the Middle East, the subject of his last period epic "Kingdom of Heaven." He then launched into a treatise on how Hollywood has such great potential to deliver messages about learning from history. "In wars, no one wins, everyone loses. There are no heroes, there's only dead people," he said, referring to what he called the chaos and craziness in the Middle East today. While he conceded Michael Moore has had successes...

Women like Germaine Greer who want to age disgracefully forget why we need moral laws, writes Miranda Devine. Like Ken Park's director, Larry Clark, Germaine Greer deliberately provokes controversy with the cheapest trick. If there's a taboo left, she'll break it, and since one of the few remaining taboos in Western liberal democracies is pedophilia, that's the arena she's most recently entered. Her upcoming glossy book, The Boy, full of pictures of "ravishing" pre-adult boys with hairless chests, wide-apart legs and slim waists, is an "art book", Greer, 64, told this newspaper last week. She wouldn't say exactly how young...

Dear Texas Home Schooler, THSC PAC today (January 31, 2006) releases its initial round of endorsements for the 2006 Republican Primary. Texas home schoolers face a potential crisis in this election the likes of which we have not seen since the TEA ruled that home schools were not private schools and encouraged local school districts to prosecute parents who were teaching their children at home in the early 1980s. Let me explain.

Sheila writes an excellent post about the anniversary of the Fall of Russia...or at least that is how it has formed in my mind in these aftermath times of post-Berlin Wall and the glasnost and perestroika of my own youth.

Hello Fellow Freepers, I am posting this because forum is the biggest, most active place I can think of to help out a fellow Texan and the Katrina survivors at the same time. I posting this letter from fellow Texan Scott Chaffin, a gentleman who lives just up the way from on the rambling river known as "the Arms of God", El Brazos de Dios, who would like to utilize the resources he has at his "tiny bidness." He writes : Dear Sweet, Clean Texas Members of the TFG Blogroll, You might or might not know that I have a...

...it becomes necessary to halt the deterioration of Original content as written, enumerated, and explained by our Founding Fathers, a necessity compelled by a Supreme Court, whose protection is of that Original Content, who has wilfully and arrogantly assumed power never granted them by the Original Content, that one nation of people who are otherwise powerless to defend themselves against such abrogation and dereliction of duty, must necessarily break all ties to that Supreme Court and re-assert aforementioned Original Content.

I GOT THIS TODAY FROM PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S FEDERAL ACTION FUND... Got Curves? Last week, a socially conscious pro-choice advocate asked The New York Times Magazine Ethicist this poignant question: "I am in my month's trial membership at the fitness chain Curves, and I love it. I must decide whether to sign up for a year, and I've learned that the owner of the company financially supports pro-life efforts, whereas I am pro-choice. Do I have a duty to give up my Curves membership?" Many people often ask Planned Parenthood this very same question and we applaud columnist Robert Cohen for...

On August 14, 2004, Communists For Kerry took up position in New York City's Union Square. For those of you not familiar with Union square, it is a sight to behold every Saturday. It is populated with every left wing nut group ranging from the Peoples Front of Judea to the Front For the Liberation of the Madagascar Dung Beetle. Needless to say we had to turn it into Soviet Union Square. The rest of the story

MASTER AND COMMANDER : THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD Avast ye swabs who have been searching the seas for a Man's Captain and a ship to sail. Coming to theatres on November 14 is Peter Weir's adaptation of Patrick O'Brien's series of books chronicling the adventures and lives of two extraordinary men living in extraordinary times : Stephen Maturin and Jack Aubrey. I have just begun reading these books and am completely taken in. I am beginning this thread in the hopes of garnering other fans who are either long time afficianados of O'Brien's writing, or bookworms (like...

Cantina Ping!

Janeane Garofalo says she knows why Fox, CNN, MSNBC and "Good Morning America" have booked her to argue against war with Iraq. "They have actors on so they can marginalize the movement," the stand-up comic says. "It's much easier to toss it off as some bizarre, unintelligent special-interest group. If you're an actor who is pro-war, you're a hero. If you're an actor who's against the war, you're suspect. You must have a weird angle or you just hate George Bush."

Want to forget about terrorism and all those distracting rumors of war? Need to ignore the economy for a while? Got the holiday blues? Our culture has a sure fire cure -- the traditional spate of post-Thanksgiving movies. This year, despite a clamor over the latest Harry Potter film, much of the attention is going to another fantasy called The Two Towers -- part two in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Will it succeed in distracting us for a while, conveying audiences to a world that is at once more beautiful and stirring than humdrum modern life? Naturally, I...

Happening in Houston Reported on KSEV, Houston, The Voice, Jon Matthews show... A soldier on leave from the US Army stopped off in a Conoco station to fill his vehicle and is told by the Middle Eastern man running the place to leave because he is a murderer. Houston FReepers, if you have the information about the address of the station and the number to Conoco, please spread around. Houstonians are already calling into Conoco demanding the oil company take the franchise away from the man who did this to our military. If you live in Houston, please fill this...

In response to the Unity in the Spirit of America service program, in support of which Sean Astin will be appearing in Washington DC on the morning of September 11, 2002, BitofEarth.net would like to announce Project Elanor. With the tear-stained excavations of Ground Zero now turning toward talk of memorial parks and rebuilding, and with the Pentagon scarred but standing, it is time for rebuilding, for planting, for new life and togetherness. As a fan community ostensibly organized in honour of a gardener, a father, a comrade, a companion, a servant, and a community, leader we see this call...

Youth of America Answer The President's Call For a "September of Service" Emcee at "United Day of Service" Closing Ceremony in Washington, D.C. Will Be Actor Sean Astin of "Lord of the Rings" and "Rudy" WASHINGTON D.C. - September 5, 2002 -- Youth nationwide are declaring September 11th as the "United Day of Service" in response to President Bush's call for all young Americans to volunteer. The President is encouraging more Americans to respond to the terrorist attacks with acts of good, and suggesting that they engage in volunteer service as a way of honoring the victims of the terrorist...

Help the Smithsonian commemorate the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks by sharing your September 11 experience. Submissions will be permanently archived in the September 11 Digital Archive and will be made available online on September 11, 2002, when the exhibition "September 11: Bearing Witness to History" opens at the National Museum of American History, Behring Center.

GO to the link HEREThe gospel, fantastical to some, story regardless, is a progressively heightened challenge to the conventions of human power. The Pharisees, the Zealots, and the Romans jockey for position over and against the protagonist who, though born in a manger and invading the city on the back of a donkey, poses an inexplicably terrifying threat. This is strange. They are terrified of the one who among his own in Nazareth could perform no miracles because of their unbelief, who gives good wine to those too drunk to appreciate it. He promises the earth to the meek (disturbing)...