Free Republic

The new Pope had a meeting today with Buenos Aires governor Daniel Scioli, at the Santa Marta residence in the Vatican City. “We should fight against wild capitalism and confront social injustice”, expressed the official in a press release.

Hello FRiends. Lately I've noticed that whenever I have a question about something, my first impulse is to look it up on FR. Anyway, that explains this vanity. Do any FReepers (guys) have experience giving themselves a haircut? My hair grows faster'n a weed and I don't care to waste time and money constantly running to the barber. Plus my hair is thick, coarse, and wavy, so once it gets even moderately long I end up looking either like the 'Hall' in Hall and Oates, or else a 1950's greaser. Not pretty. I have an electric clipper with a few...

Here are some pictures my brother snapped in Estabrook Woods* in Concord Massachusetts in May. He did it freehand with a 2005-ish stock digital camera. From Wikipedia; *"The Estabrook Woods is a wild tract of more than 1,200 acres (4.9 km2) of woodland, hills, ledge, and swamp two miles (3 km) north of the Town of Concord.[1] It is the largest contiguous and undeveloped woodland within thirty miles of Boston."

Here are some pictures my brother snapped in Estabrook Woods* in Concord Massachusetts in May. He did it freehand with a 2005-ish stock digital camera. From Wikipedia; *"The Estabrook Woods is a wild tract of more than 1,200 acres (4.9 km2) of woodland, hills, ledge, and swamp two miles (3 km) north of the Town of Concord.[1] It is the largest contiguous and undeveloped woodland within thirty miles of Boston"

'It felt like I had the bends, like in diving. I had no choice but just to lay there, blowing up like a balloon' When he became a lorry driver, Steven McCormack probably felt he could handle the stresses of the job. But the 48-year-old New Zealander couldn't have anticipated quite what sort of pressure he would have to endure. Mr McCormack was blown up like a balloon after falling on to a compressed air tube in a freak accident. The end of the tube pierced the flesh of his left buttock, forcing compressed air at the rate of 100...

Jose Guerena, 26,survived two tours of duty in Iraq as a marine, only to be gunned down in a hail of 71 bullets in his own Tucson, Arizona home, while his wife and four-year old son hid in a nearby closet. Mr Guerena's wife, Vanessa, said she heard her husband moaning as he lay dying, his body struck by 60 of the bullets. Ms Guerena told ABC News: 'I saw his stomach, all the blood on the floor' She said her goal now is to 'clear his good name'. Ms Guerena said their son Joel keeps asking about his deceased...

Bristol Palin isn't the only one living fast these days. Sarah and Todd Palin's second oldest daughter, Willow Palin, 16, was ticketed in Alaska for driving nearly 20 miles per hour over the speed limit in the family's black Cadillac Escalade SUV. According to a TMZ review of documents filed in Alaska, Willow was said to be driving 84 miles per hour in a 65 mph zone. According to the website, she was issued a 'minor offence' citation for $162 and let go 'without further incident'.

What ever happened to class? Link

Santa Cruz Media, Inc. is the owner of all of Fr. John Corapi’s intellectual property and the DVDs, CDs, and books that flow from it. We are a secular corporation and not affiliated with the Catholic Church in any way. As such, we are not under the jurisdiction of any bishop or other official in the Catholic Church, although we have the utmost respect for Church authority. We fully support Rev. John Corapi in this terrible trial, not surprisingly having begun on Ash Wednesday. Through the sacrifice and struggle of the desert and all of the dark moments that this...

Protestantism all of species is filled with errors. What follows is a small selection of their errors, and rebuffs to said errors taken from Scripture. I've caucused this because there would be a firestorm discussion if I didn't. I don't believe that Christians should have raging arguments, hence my decision. Sola Fide There are many examples given in Scripture of the necessity of good works. "Then shall The King say to those on His right hand, Come ye, the blessed of My Father, inherit the reign that hath been prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I...

ROME (Zenit.org) -- "Welcome, Mr. President, this meeting of ours is very important," Benedict XVI told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Feb. 17 when the president visited the pope in the Vatican. These words underscore something of the visit's significance, Medvedev's first after the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Russia. It was at their first meeting in December 2009 that the president and pope agreed to upgrade existing ties to the level of full diplomatic relations. The customary press release from the Vatican's press office described Thursday's meeting in positive terms: "In the course of the...

For a scholarly work I may try to crank out, I was wondering...Under what conditions do a people, according to Jefferson, have a right to revolt or rebel? The obvious answer is; "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,...

(CNN) -- On Monday night, with millions of fans watching every play, Auburn will take on Oregon for the national championship of college football. If you're viewing at home, you may notice the same thing you can observe each season at every massive college football stadium or glistening big-time college basketball arena: Everyone working in the place is being paid: the hot dog vendors, the television broadcasters, the guy peddling game-day programs, the person who manufactured the university-logo jerseys and caps that are for sale at the souvenir stands, the employees changing lightbulbs in the tunnels. ... Everyone except the...

Can we blame political rhetoric such as Sarah Palin's inflammatory 'Don't react, reload' for triggering the Safeway massacre? It is not yet clear why a gunman, believed to be 22-year-old Jared Loughner, went on a terrifying rampage in Arizona yesterday, killing six people and wounding a further 12. But whatever his reasons, the local sheriff - who is coordinating the investigation with the FBI - believes it is time for America to do some soul-searching 'When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government,' Pima County...

I need some help! Lately, I've been getting a vile pop up. Its far beyond any other ad I've encountered on the web. Appearing randomly, in the sidebars and ad spaces of completely innocuous websites, is an ad which says 'sl*ts of facebook', or some other offensive message, but always referring to facebook. In every ad is an uncensored image of a completely naked woman. I don't know is there's some virus on my computer; I've tried running spybot several times, with no result. If any other FReeper has faced such a problem, and/or knows how to stop it from...

(CNN) -- The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote Tuesday on a set of regulations designed to ensure that internet providers grant everyone equal access to the Web. The "net neutrality" rules, proposed by the Obama administration, would be the government's biggest foray yet into one of the Web's fiercest debates. In announcing the proposed rules earlier this month, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said they would require high-speed internet providers to treat all types of Web content equally.

Ireland has been ordered to change their law banning abortion, likely sparking outrage from religious leaders. The European Court of Human Rights ruled today that the constitutional ban on abortion violates the rights of pregnant women to receive proper medical care in life-threatening cases. The judgment harshly criticised Ireland's long inaction on the issue. The judgment from the Strasbourg, France-based court will put Ireland under pressure to draft a law extending limited abortion rights to women whose pregnancies represent a potentially fatal threat to their own health.

Two white British men who were fighting alongside Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan have been killed in a drone attack, it was reported last night. The two men are believed to have been ‘white converts’ to Al Qaeda who changed their British names to Islamic ones after becoming radicalised. They died five days ago when a Hellfire missile

West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin has hit out at Sarah Palin after she was seen shooting a caribou on the latest episode of her TV reality show. The screenwriter, who also recently penned the Facebook film The Social Network, accused the contender for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination of killing an animal 'for political gain'. And in a statement on the Huffington Post website, he accused her of making a 'snuff film' and branded her a 'phony Pioneer girl' and a 'witless bully'.

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea bombarded a South Korean island near their disputed western border Tuesday, setting buildings ablaze and killing at least two marines and injuring 16 others after warning the South to halt military drills in the area, South Korean officials said. South Korea said it returned fire and scrambled fighter jets in response, and said the "inhumane" attack on civilian areas violated the 1953 armistice halting the Korean War. The two sides technically remain at war because a peace treaty was never negotiated.