Free Republic

DURHAM, N.C. -- The Durham City Council will recognize seven athletic teams from Duke University that captured championships or reached the Final Four in 2006-2007. The ceremony will be a part of the council's Monday, October 15 meeting. The seven teams include field hockey, men's soccer, volleyball, women's basketball, women's golf, and men's and women's lacrosse. ... The 2007 men's lacrosse team secured the ACC regular season and tournament championships. The tournament title was the fourth in the program's history. The Blue Devils won 17 games, which tied the NCAA record for victories in a season, and advanced to the...

Even though public opinion is inexorably shifting toward concern about man-made climate change, we are still treated to the rants of warming skeptics who trot out the same old arguments. The interesting thing is how these objections have changed over time, moving the goal posts if you will. It's late in the fourth quarter, though, and the deniers are backed up almost to their own end zone as the melting glaciers of evidence creep slowly forward. Warming deniers have used two types of counter arguments: ones that attack the messenger or message, and others that try attacking the science. The...

Most reasonable people will concede that public housing projects failed. We’ve all seen the spotless new apartment complexes paid for by taxpayers to help the needy be transformed into filthy, crime-ridden slums. Now, a new generation of leftists carps about “substandard housing” — as if those developments were built in the first place with cracked windows, urine in the stairwells and hypodermic needles on the playgrounds. In fact, irresponsible residents and their guests destroy housing projects, and now — thanks to the federal government — they can do the same thing to your neighborhood. The leading theory among those paid...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US beekeepers have been stung in recent months by the mysterious disappearance of millions of bees threatening honey supplies as well as crops which depend on the insects for pollination. Bee numbers on parts of the east coast and in Texas have fallen by more than 70 percent, while California has seen colonies drop by 30 to 60 percent. According to estimates from the US Department of Agriculture, bees are vanishing across a total of 22 states, and for the time being no one really knows why. "Approximately 40 percent of my 2,000 colonies are currently dead...

Link to video...

Don't be fooled by Republicans in the state Legislature who are crying foul about Democrats turning back proposed laws that would require photo IDs before someone could vote because the measure has nothing to do with voters and everything to do with politics. It's also a political strategy that the Republicans are using nationwide. Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania are just three nearby states controlled by Republicans where the same tactic has been tried. In Georgia, the Republican-led legislature last year passed a voter ID bill, but a judge late last year ruled it unconstitutional. The judge in the Georgia case...

His State of the Union speech was yet another indication that our president, George W. Bush, lives in an alternative universe.After hearing what the president had to say last week, one might think that he was unaware of the actions of his own administration, as well as those of his Republican Party, for the past five years. Are we supposed to be impressed that Bush just realized that Americans are addicted to oil? Where has he been? And doesn't he know that his polices and those of the Republican majority in Congress continue to reinforce America's addiction to oil? Doesn't...

Somebody is lying. That's not an accusation or a criticism, just a logical conclusion based on comparing statements by various administration officials. There is no way all of the people involved in the Valerie Plame case can be telling the truth, because they contradict each other, and sometimes themselves. Whether a law was broken when her identity as a CIA agent was revealed in the press back in the early summer of 2004, the more important issues of why she was exposed and the subsequent cover-up tell us more about the integrity of the Bush administration than any legal action...

This is a link to the video "Christmas Shoes"

When the Firm Foundation Worship Center got the call that a family of nine escaping Hurricane Katrina had arrived in Westminster needing a house, church members jumped into action. "They came here with nothing," said Marge DiMaggio, the church's co-pastor. As quickly as possible, church members made a house on church property look like a home. When the Brown family left on Sunday, the DiMaggios were horrified to find the house in shambles. "Hurricane hits Firm Foundation," said Marge DiMaggio. While answering the call in September, church members' hearts were filled with compassion for the unknown family. "We brought our...