Free Republic

   Folks, please excuse the vanity, but I would like to get others to look at this.   If there is anyone in Dallas with a telescope or a good set of binoculars, get outside and point them SE, towards Kaufman Cty.   There are currently thousands (literally) of wispy, white 'streamers' of something drifting down through the sky. This stuff is falling all over my yard, all over Forney, and all the way out to Terrell.   Could this be the same 'harmless' stuff which fell in Trappe, MD. last week? I don't know, but it is truly bizarre.

Following is the text of communiques between a friend of mine and her local school district. I have withheld information which would serve to identify her specifically, but I can vouch for the authenticity of these documents.===================================================Dear Sir or Madam:I live at ** with my husband and three school age children. We have lived in the same house for twenty (20) years. My children attend three different schools in *** . I called the transportation department today regarding bus service from our neighborhood to *** . Currently there is a bus that stops in front of my house, at the ...

Generally speaking, Americans have a certain amount of animosity for our Federal government. It ranges from simple disdain to outright anger. We even fear the Federal government- why else do we pay our income tax. Few here I am sure make our "voluntary" contributions from the goodness of our hearts. Get the feds out the affairs of our lives, our states, our schools, our gunsafes, our bedrooms, our doctors' offices, our banks, our wallets and anywhere else they ought not to not be in one simple step-vote Libertarian. As far as the title of this post, please think about the ...

The Last Gasp of Jim Crow By Jonathan Rauch National Journal, November 21, 1998 &nbsp At a moment when Washington's eyes are fixed on Kenneth Starr and Saddam Hussein, I make bold to ask you to divert your attention, for just a few moments, to two other men, named John Geddes Lawrence and Tyrone Garner. In the occasionally great state of Texas, in the sometimes peculiar United States of America, the two of them are scheduled to be arraigned before a judge on Nov. 20--the day this column is published--for the crime of having sex in the privacy of ...

TAKING CASH INTO CUSTODY: Across U.S., police dodge state seizure laws Related Sites: • To Protect and Collect: A special report on state seizure laws By KAREN DILLON - The Kansas City Star Date: 05/20/00 22:15 &nbsp Police and highway patrols across the country are evading state laws to improperly keep millions of dollars in cash and property seized in drug busts and traffic stops. &nbsp Most states don't want law enforcement agencies to profit so easily from such confiscations -- they see it as a dangerous conflict of interest. For that reason, they have passed laws blocking seized ...

Police Nab Five-Year-Old Mugger Updated 7:40 AM ET April 26, 2000 LONDON (Reuters) - A five-year-old boy has set an unlikely new British record -- becoming the country's youngest known mugger. Police in South Yorkshire said the boy had been stopped along with a nine-year-old companion after mugging a woman in her 70s in Mexborough Sunday afternoon. "The boys have since been given a good talking-to by police," a police spokesman said. "At the age of five, it must be a new record." A man allegedly saw the pair snatch the woman's handbag and kept hold of them while ...

Hell, recently downgraded to a state of "nothingness" by the Church of England, will make a comeback this week in a new report. A group representing millions of Christians will insist that hell is all too real and sinners consigned there will face unimaginable torment. The strongly worded study by a working party of five - including an Oxford theologian - argues that the level of punishment meted out to the wicked will be linked to the severity of their sins in life. And while it warns against a literal interpretation of biblical images of lakes of fire, undying worms ...

The Third Way Heads Up02/07/97 by: Doug Fiedor A Weekly edition of News from around our country by: Doug Fiedor Did anyone notice that not one single domestic program proposed by Slick Willie in the State of the Union address is a function authorized to the federal government by the Constitution? Nope, not one! Therefore, every penny of our tax dollars Slick plans to spend on these domestic programs is also devoid of Constitutional authority. Oxford trained Bill Clinton is, of course, a socialist. That is exactly what the Rhodes Scholar program is over at Oxford University: A training ground ...

A man dressed in black walked into the Wedgewood Baptist Church in far SW Ft. Worth, muttered a few 'anti-religious' phrases, then opened fire.Indications so far six (6) victims and the gunman, who shot himself. The Ft. Worth bomb squad is on the scene now.

What is wrong with godlessness?That is the question I got the other day in response to a column I wrote about all the good news in America lately. I had noted that, despite charges of ungodliness, we are, as always, an ardently churchgoing nation.A reader wrote, "As an agnostic married 23 years to an atheist, I just have to ask, what is so unhealthy about godlessness?"Mary Anne Stanley, a librarian from Lancaster County, Pa., continued, "As for myself, I have noticed that godlessness has contributed to my sense of responsibility for the world, since the world is all we have. ...

First of two partsFor the thousandth time, the next millennium doesn't begin until 2001. But by then everyone will be sick of Millennium Top 10 lists. So now's the time to start listing the winners from science -- from ideas and inventions to theories and experiments.Let's begin with the millennium's Top 10 Scientists -- one per century. No voting by a panel of experts here, just arbitrary choices, with a slight bias toward scientists who also happened to be journalists. Starting with:Century 11: Abu Ali al'Hasan ibn al'Haitam, also known as Alhazen, an Arabian expert on lenses and mirrors. He ...

When religion and politics interfere with science, scientists sometimes get annoyed.Consider these comments, straight from the pen of one Italian physicist:"Professors of theology should not claim the right to regulate with their decrees such professions that do not fall under their authority," wrote the physicist, "because you cannot impose on a scientist an opinion about natural phenomena.....Our opponents .... call everything that they cannot disprove a lie and a heresy. These philistines make themselves a shield out of their hypocritical religious ardor, and dishonor the Holy Scriptures by using them as a tool for pursuing their own end."Such harsh words ...

Here are a couple of links from earlier thread, pertinent to this discussion:It's Elementary web-siteIt's Elementary, a video about homosexuality, from PBSThe question has evolved to one of the nature of homosexuality, and the rest of society's response to same.

P.S. Is there enough interest here to start a new thread, or would that simply lead to re-hashing much of the previous with those who would not bother to read this thread? Yes there is enough interest... and I'd like to focus on a particular aspect of this discussion. Consider this question. If man is inherently flawed (evil) and hence must be governed, how can he be governed by those which are inherently flawed (evil)?OWK

The original article is located HERE. It was posted by lizavetta, and has generated a lively discussion. This link provided for those with slower connections.

There is a thread that connects all black people's experiences: the burden of skin color. This fact was brought home to me twice in the past few days, and the fault lines in American race relations were twice exposed. A discussion on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission always evokes some of those deep currents that run through the American historical memory. But sometimes there is an attempt to redefine, harness or, worse still, to silence these deep-running currents. This silence was ruptured recently in a sermon by the assistant priest of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Mass. The ...

The Foolish Abandonment of Pat Buchanan Steve Farrell June 30, 1999 Sometimes our memory plays tricks on us. Back in the 1980’s and right up into the early 1990’s Pat Buchanan was widely acclaimed as the toast of the Republican party. Possessing a rare combination of hard hitting yet inspiring commentary; extraordinary debating skills, yet an affable personality; a history of brawling as a youth, yet heartfelt religious devotion as an adult; here was a onetime Democrat turned Republican who by the time he had written "Right from the Start,” had earned himself the title "the conscience of conservatism.” Even ...

The House's approval of a constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to protect the Americn flag against burning or other desecration proves that the House majority:a) Opposes the free-speech guarantees of the First Amendment.b) Is made up of conservative (and inconsistent) demagogues who will do whatever it takes to play to the ignorant prejudices of the masses.c) Cares deeply about America and worries that patriotism is on the wane.d) Is incapable of understanding the distinction between a symbol and the thing itself.A good case could be made for any of the listed choices, and probably all of them are true ...

A group of parents concerned about changes in the middle-school math curriculum repeatedly has been slapped down by the Plano Independent School District. In the Plano public schools, such antagonism toward parents is typical, but if a nonprofit legal foundation from San Antonio has its say in the matter, the Plano public schools finally may have to acknowledge parents' rights. During the past two years, the Plano I.S.D. has used a curriculum based on Dale Seymour Publications' Connected Mathematics textbooks in several middle schools. Called a pilot program, the test really has run on autopilot, neither soliciting nor welcoming input ...

NEW YORK -- Leaders of evangelical Protestantism, who rarely speak with one voice, have issued a joint statement of doctrine defining what unites the movement and what distinguishes it from other forms of Christianity. Among other things, the statement reaffirms the evangelical belief that Jesus Christ "is the only way of salvation........the Bible offers no hope that sincere worshippers of other religions will be saved without personal faith in Jesus Christ." Some other Christians have promoted a more liberal and universal concept of salvation. Evangelicalism -- a conservative wing of Protestantism representing, by some estimates, one-fourth of Americans -- is ...