Free Republic

I know why Obama is in trouble. Non-political guys like my husband are all of a sudden excited! He's been reading news stories he finds to me. This morning, he told me "Palin has the most charisma of any leader he's seen since JFK." He's come a long way. He still won't say anything really positive about Reagan, but when he said that, my mouth dropped open. It's reactions like that all over the country which are being reflected in the polls. Way to go!

The money for fighting forest fires is coming from the very program needed to thin the fuels that increase the size and cost of fires. The Bush administration's decision to force the U.S. Forest Service to pay to fight forest fires out of its budget has created a funding crisis. It has brought back attention to how to pay for the agency that manages 193 million acres of national forest, including 20 million in Idaho. In the past decade, Congress has cut more than 5,000 employees from the Forest Service, more than half. This year, the Bush administration has proposed...

On Dec. 7, 2001, nearly three months after the terrorist attack that had made him a national hero and a little over three weeks before he would leave office, New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani took the first official step toward making himself rich. The letter he dispatched to the city Conflicts of Interest Board that day asked permission to begin forming a consulting firm with three members of his outgoing administration. The company, Giuliani said, would provide “management consulting service to governments and business” and would seek out partners for a “wide-range of possible business, management and financial services”...

Those familiar with this blog know that I usually post one essay per week. There are several reasons for this: I like my essays to be of quality rather than necessarily quantity and a week gives me time to think of a topic, an approach, and write and refine the product; having done all that, I don’t want to dilute my own effort by having more than one active essay going for people to read and comment upon; lastly it leaves me time to actually have a life outside the blogosphere. However, an event that I consider of huge significance...

Wildland Fire News, 2007 Updates, news stories, weather, and other information about wildland fire news in the US for 2007 If you would like to be on this pinglist, click here or ping Knitting a Conundrum

Patriotism is easy to understand in America; it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country. Calvin Coolidge I challenge you, FRiends and FReepers, to take the pledge. ...Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. Ronald Reagan, 1975 It...

The Primary Election Campaign season is now upon us.  I ask you to join me in prayer that the right and conservative persons stand up, get noticed, and get elected.  I ask you to join me in daily prayer that no deceits of the enemy blind us, that all persons who try to deceive us about the right and good be shown for what they are, and that we can all come together to do what we need for our nation in harmony, clarity and with the blessing of God. Some quotes to consider: If men of wisdom and knowledge,...

Lord, on this day when so many people are affected by the loss of life, the loss of their loved ones, the vision of the evil that men do, we ask you for your mercy. Bring your healing to those who have been so harmed by this, students, teachers, parents, friends, loved ones, law enforcement officers, and all who are touched by this tragedy. Teach us Lord, to love, to forgive, and to walk in your light, and when we fail, be with us, and pick us up out of the mire we slip into, and bring those so hurt...

TWIN FALLS - The Bureau of Land Management plans to deploy fewer but more experienced firefighters in southern Idaho this fire season, an official said. One-truck teams led by veterans of previous fire seasons will replace three-truck teams. That way crew chiefs will oversee only one truck and a five-member team, rather than three trucks and 15-member teams. The new arrangement will mean about 30 fewer BLM firefighters in southern Idaho this season. "I'm convinced we can do more with less," Chris Simonson, BLM fire management officer in the Shoshone Field Office, told The Times-News. "The changes we are making...

Thread 4 Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, our nation has fought a global war against violent extremists who use terrorism as their weapon of choice, and who seek to destroy our free way of life. Our enemies seek weapons of mass destruction and, if they are successful, will likely attempt to use them in their conflict with free people everywhere. Currently, the struggle is centered in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we will need to be prepared and arranged to successfully defend our nation and its interests around the globe for years to come. DOD Our enemies include...

One Another Thread, 4/12/07 Verse for the Day 1 Peter 4:8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. ONE ANOTHER DEVOTIONAL CHRISTIAN CAUCUS: Knitting a Conundrum: We are coming together in love, and to share the love of Christ, and therefore, even if we disagree, we need to remember to avoid things that are not said kindly and in love. Each of us holds our beliefs because we do it for the love of Christ, and even if you don’t accept the conclusion of a person, honor it by...

One Sad But Holy Day A Meditation on the Death of Jesus One Sad But Holy Day But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ - Galatians 6:14 RSV He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised...

HESPERIA, Calif. A wildfire is burning out of control in the Southern California community of Hesperia (heh-SPAYR'-ee-uh). Authorities say the blaze has consumed about 200 acres of brush. But no structures are immediately threatened. A fire spokeswoman says the fire is burning through hills and canyons within the city limits, but far from populated areas. More than 100 firefighters and a pair of water-dropping helicopters are battling the blaze. Hesperia is about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

When you prayed in the garden, Lord, and the heaviness pressed all around you from the weight of all we had had done and would do echoing in the quiet night, and you knelt there while the full moon's light peaked through the olive trees, Silent witness alone that sees how you were sweating blood in the depths of your grief. How heavy did today weigh on your shoulders, Lord, How this war-torn world of anger and tears mad with lust, demands and fears Despising you for what you said about right -- Choosing the darkness and calling it light,...

Thread 3 Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, our nation has fought a global war against violent extremists who use terrorism as their weapon of choice, and who seek to destroy our free way of life. Our enemies seek weapons of mass destruction and, if they are successful, will likely attempt to use them in their conflict with free people everywhere. Currently, the struggle is centered in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we will need to be prepared and arranged to successfully defend our nation and its interests around the globe for years to come. DOD Our enemies include...

So few Catholics today know the most basic points of the Catholic faith. They attend CCD for years, and can't give a clear reason for being a Catholic. Those of us who have learned our faith well, have studied the best source, the Baltimore Catechism. We are the traditional Catholics. Do you remember your catechism? Are you able to recall those fundamental, immutable tenets of the Faith? Could you defend the Church if you had to in a discussion? Before you fail when it really matters, take this quiz, and see how well versed you are in the Faith. See...

Spring fever has got me. I want to get out of the house, away from the computer, and dig in the dirt. Getting ready to start a new rose bed. Anybody else out there nuts about roses?

Pieta No day like this, ever. Did you sit there, Mother, When they laid Him in your lap And remember the angel with his words of promise, And remember the words of Simeon with his words of warning, And remember your Son nestled in your lap, Small and warm and new, Smiling in the sun? As you brushed the blood soaked hair off His forehead, And washed his face, one last time, Counting every bruise, mark, wound, Did you think of all the times of danger, Fleeing with Him next to your breast On the road to Egypt? Or how...

The Crowning Once they mocked Him with a crown of twisted thorns, the soldiers there, a game to amuse themselves while they passed the time, to prove how secure they were in this foreign land how much stronger, how much in control. No threat, He, beaten, bloody, bound, an interesting toy to play with in the morning. Now they mock Him with a crown of twisted words, those who choose to despise Him, soliders in a different war, yet still in need of games to amuse themselves with, to prove how much wiser, stronger, smarter they are, how they can...

We believe in Global Warming the Sea-Raiser, the All-Powerful, maker of tsunami and hurricane, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Cause, The Activities of Man, the lowest of all creatures, except the ones that are brown. Gasses from Coal, not Recycling from Blight, true Cause from true Gasoline, made, not begotten, of Driving when One Could Walk; through Man all pollutions were made. For us and for our salvation Gore came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Nader and the Virgin Chomsky and became truly political. For our sake he was un-elected under...