Free Republic

CHICAGO -- Teens whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study found. Whether it's hip-hop, rap, pop or rock, much of popular music aimed at teens contains sexual overtones. Its influence on their behavior appears to depend on how the sex is portrayed, researchers found. Teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely to start having intercourse or other sexual activities within the following two years as were teens who listened to little or no sexually...

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. -- A mother accused of attacking a student on a Brevard County school bus now faces charges. Video cameras on the Sable Elementary school bus captured the entire incident. The incident took place in mid-October, but first-degree misdemeanor battery charges against Coni Staton were filed Wednesday, one day before the video as released for the first time. State attorneys said there's indisputable evidence the woman in the video broke the law. The video shows Coni Staton putting her arms and hands on a 6-year-old's neck. Staton is a foster mother who told deputies her child was being...

A noted author and media watchdog has decried a decision by the Armed Forces Network to carry the first hour of "The Al Franken Show", a cornerstone program of the liberal Air America Network. Alan Skorski, author of "Pants on Fire: How Al Franken Lies, Smears and Deceives," says from the leftist talk-radio host's "so-called satirical skits that accuse our troops of torture at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, to his accusing talk-show hostess Melanie Morgan of conducting a 'propaganda tour' to Iraq this past summer because she was determined to report 'the truth about our troops' accomplishments,'" the addition of...

However, in March of that very same year Japan Bishops' Conference had sent a memorandum to Rome. Obviously it was the answer to the enquiry conducted by the Papal Commission on Family, which was established in 1963 during Vat II by Pope John XXIII to consider problems of family, population, and birth-rate. It was continued under Pope Paul VI and came to consist of cardinals, bishops, population experts, physicians, married couples. I was able to obtain a copy of this memorandum. It is written in impeccable Latin but its content is not without fault. In it, the Japanese bishops said...

When babies receive shots against diseases like polio and measles, their vaccinations may in the future include protection against getting fat, according to researchers. Infection by certain pathogens triggers rapid increases in fatty tissue in animals, Nikhil Dhurnadha told the annual meeting of NAASO, the Obesity Society, in this western Canadian city. At the same time, the discovery that many more obese people than normal-weight people have been exposed to a certain virus suggests a link between obesity and viral infection.

Kaiser-Hill Co. officials on Thursday said they have completed the $7 billion Rocky Flats cleanup - a major milestone in the former nuclear- trigger plant's transformation into a public wildlife refuge. The cleanup is the largest completed on a U.S. Department of Energy or federal Superfund toxic-waste site, project managers said. More than 21 tons of weapons- grade nuclear material was removed, enough radioactive waste to fill a string of rail cars 90 miles long.

Naval Air Facility Atsugi Japan held its annual Friendship Day on September 23rd. The Traditional Air Show was canceled due to complaints from local residents – all of whom had moved close to the formerly rural base long after it was established in the 1930s at the urging of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, chief architect and chief opponent of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The gates were opened to the Japanese public, but proper security procedures were observed. Various base organizations operated booths preparing American cuisine, all of which trailed long lines until late in the evening. Live music began...

Pope Opposes Harry Potter Novels - Signed Letters from Cardinal Ratzinger Now Online RIMSTING, Germany, July 13, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - LifeSiteNews.com has obtained and made available online copies of two letters sent by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was recently elected Pope, to a German critic of the Harry Potter novels. In March 2003, a month after the English press throughout the world falsely proclaimed that Pope John Paul II approved of Harry Potter, the man who was to become his successor sent a letter to a Gabriele Kuby outlining his agreement with her opposition to J.K. Rowling's offerings. (See below...

... OK, stop grumbling, I'll give you a hint: My research for my new book, "Megashift," has found 52 countries where God has brought people back from the dead, mostly in the last 20 years. And these are not near-death experiences, where someone on an operating-room table passes out and sees himself going down a long tunnel. These are stone-dead corpses. ...

At 0605 this morning, my wife gave birth to a baby girl, our third girl of six children. Both mother and baby are fine. Please pray for them and for our family, for our health, for our finances, that I may become a better husband and father, and that love for Jesus may burn in our hearts.

Despite its many painful and unseemly aspects, the Kobe Bryant rape case and the media storm surrounding it have drawn attention to a severely neglected problem: false rape accusations. In her recent Daily Journal column, high profile feminist professor Wendy Murphy dismisses the problem of false accusations as an "ugly myth," and calls for "boiling rage" activism to address what she perceives as the anti-woman bias of the criminal justice system. Like many victims' advocates, Murphy cannot seem to fathom the possibility that Bryant could be innocent. However, research shows that false allegations of rape are frighteningly common. According to...

My four-year-old wandered off this morning, and we can't find him. Prayers for his safe return gratefully received.

I don’t write “vanities” often, if ever. I think this might be a justifiable occasion. If there is widespread disagreement, I will ask the moderator to zap it. Today’s Mass was concelebrated by Father R. I believe he’s French. On one occasion several months ago, my daughter knelt to receive communion, and he made her stand. I was so shocked, I didn’t say or do anything. In the intervening months, I have been studying, thinking, discussing, and praying about this issue. When I saw him at Mass today, I offered my lack of wisdom to Our Lord and asked Him,...

A new survey by pollster George Barna finds only 9 percent of born-again Christians hold a biblical worldview. Barna, who surveyed 2,033 adults in his study, found only 4 percent of the general population have a biblical worldview and suggests many of the nation's moral and spiritual challenges are directly attributable to this fact. "If Jesus Christ came to this planet as a model of how we ought to live, then our goal should be to act like Jesus," said Barna. "Sadly, few people consistently demonstrate the love, obedience and priorities of Jesus. The primary reason that people do not...

A Palestinian girl who was raped and impregnated by her two brothers was later murdered by her own mother – even though her daughter was the crime's innocent victim – in another of the disturbingly common, if vastly underreported, instances of "honor killings." The mother will be sentenced in two weeks, but a harsh penalty is not expected. According to a Knight Ridder report, court records show that Rofayda Qaoud was raped by her brothers, Fahdi, 22, and Ali, 20, in a bedroom they shared in the family's three-room house in the town of Abu Qash in the West Bank....

European bureaucrats were forced to concede yesterday that the kilt is a male garment after an outcry following its classification as women's wear on an EU form. Scots including Sean Connery were outraged when the EU agency Eurostat said Highland dress should be listed as skirts. Forms sent to kilt makers by the statistical agency did not allow them to register the Scottish national dress as men's clothing. Instead, they were told to give the number of kilts they had sold in a space provided for women's skirts. Kilt makers were also warned they faced a £1,000 fine if they...

A Colorado mother is appealing a child custody decision in which a court barred her from teaching homosexuality is wrong. Cheryl Clark, who says she is a Christian, has been ordered by Denver County Circuit Judge John W. Coughlin to "make sure that there is nothing in the religious upbringing or teaching that the minor child is exposed to that can be considered homophobic." The directive arose from the decision to award joint parenting responsibilities for her daughter to a practicing homosexual. "Forbidding the raising of children in the parent's Christian beliefs is an anathema to parental rights and religious...

At the height of the Vietnam War, civilians were butchered by an army unit and the carnage was covered up. But this was not My Lai. This bloody massacre has only come to light in the past week - and not one of America's elite corps of reporters can claim the credit. It was a huge scoop. Yet the newspaper that uncovered the atrocity was not the venerable New York Times or the Washington Post, still resting on its Watergate laurels. Nor was it the New Yorker, famed for its in-depth journalism. It was The Blade, a daily newspaper with...

Saying she was only following court and doctor's orders, an attorney for Michael Schiavo yesterday would not allow a revered Roman Catholic priest to administer Holy Communion to brain-disabled Terri Schindler-Schiavo, who is being slowly starved to death following the judge-ordered removal of her life-sustaining feeding tube on Wednesday. Attorney Deborah Bushnell told Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski, who has been Terri's spiritual provider for three years, that ''because of court order and doctor's orders, you can't put anything in her mouth,'' not even a morsel of moistened communion wafer. Malanowski recounted the bizarre incident for WorldNetDaily. ''I felt that time was...

Women should be allowed to hear confessions and absolve sinners, a Roman Catholic bishop has suggested. Bishop Vincent Malone, auxiliary bishop in Liverpool, said that the Church should consider choosing lay women to be confessors because some people might prefer disclosing their sins to a woman rather than a man. Writing in a new book, he also said that other sacraments reserved for the all-male clergy might be opened to lay people, including the annointing of the sick. Bishop Malone said he was merely raising questions rather than "starting a revolution", and stressed that any reforms would have to be...