Free Republic

Whom Would Jesus Bomb? by Bill Walker There's an unfortunate tendency today to forget that real Christianity isn't about black-robed pedophile cults, Vatican offshore accounts, and Republican Party front groups. Real Christianity is about the example of Yoshua Ben-Yosef, 1st-century rabbi, his thoughts and his life. George Bush, of course, has taken every media opportunity to assure us that he is guided by Christian belief. As George Bush has assumed the unlimited power to declare war once reserved to Congress, in this Christmas season it is now his sole responsibility to ponder: Whom Would Jesus Bomb? According to last week's...

U.S. House of Representatives September 10, 2002 QUESTIONS THAT WON'T BE ASKED ABOUT IRAQ Soon we hope to have hearings on the pending war with Iraq. I am concerned there are some questions that won’t be asked- and maybe will not even be allowed to be asked.  Here are some questions I would like answered by those who are urging us to start this war. 1. Is it not true that the reason we did not bomb the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War was because we knew they could retaliate?2. Is it not also true that...

Christianity and Libertarianism: Harmony or Heresy? by Mark Andrew Johnson How can a Christian, knowing he owes his existence and salvation to Jesus and is determined to serve God, also support Libertarianism? To answer this question, we must determine what is Christianity and what is Libertarianism. Christianity, in short, is the acknowledgment that man was created by God and that mankind, through Adam and Eve, sinned against God of his own free will. God showing His unconditional love for mankind sent His son Jesus to pay the price for our sins upon the cross. Our acceptance of His free gift...

Man, Reason, Rights… Inescapable Truths OWK 07-02-02 Reality is that which exists. It is objective and absolute. It is the standard of measure for the true, the false, and the arbitrary. Things are what they are, independent of ours or anyone else’s feelings, ideas, wishes, desires, and emotions. To be, is to be something: finite, limited, and non-contradictory. Regardless of how they may have come to be there, human beings exist in an objectively real world. Reason (regardless of how it may have been acquired) is man’s only means of discerning that reality. In fact, man’s survival is contingent upon...

In a discussion in THIS thread, a Freerepublic poster identifying himself as a conservative made the following comments concerning public education: Public schools are not much in dispute except among the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe and their haters generally are not enlightened spiritually or otherwise. Thus, spiritually inclined people understand that the establishment of school systems to train the citizens of the future is very important and cannot be entirely done by private endeavors. Most of the attackers of public schools simply don't know what they are talking about. Millions of children are educated every year successfully by ...

What is the Purpose of Government? In order to return government to its proper function and secure the blessings of liberty in this nation, we must begin by understanding the reason for which government exists at all. So what is the purpose of government? In searching for an answer, the best place to begin is with the document that gave rise to our national existence, The Declaration of Independence. In severing our ties with the unlimited and oppressive power of a tyrannical monarch, Jefferson penned these words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; ...

01/11/14 09:26:10 36.01N 90.50E 10.0 7.9M A QINGHAI-XINJIANG BORDER, CHINA No reports yet of damage, and I believe the region to be relatively remote, but still.... That's a whopper of a quake.

CNN is reporting the emergency evacuation of a large passenger aircraft on the ground at Dulles airport. The plane is isolated, and the passengers are exiting the aircraft via the emergency slides (as opposed to the gate). Developing

-- Washington D.C 10/27/01 In a quiet ceremony attended by only a few close friends, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in an abandoned lot on Constitution Avenue in Washington D.C. While quite popular in his youth, The Fourth Amendment had fallen on hard times in recent years. "The Fourth" as he was known to his friends, served bravely as the protector of the rights of all Americans but had grown increasingly weak and anemic over the last several decades. With his resistance all but depleted, The Fourth contracted an ...

Giving Up Liberty for Safety by Tibor R. Machan In my circle of friends and pals this quote from Benjamin Franklin has been making the rounds during the last several days. Franklin did say that “They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” (Look it up, and a lot more, at http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/quotable/quote04.htm.) It is a pregnant remark, to say the least, and comes easy to mind as one hears and reads commentators these days, such as Attorney General Ashcroft and many others, calling for greater and greater powers for government ...

Washington, Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- A worker at a Washington postal facility died of a respiratory illness last night, and doctors are awaiting test results to see if he was infected with anthrax, according to the mayor's office. ``We've had one fatality at the Greater Southeast Hospital, a man who reported there last evening with respiratory complaints,'' said Tony Bullock, a spokesman for Mayor Anthony Williams. ``Doctors there are suspicious of a possible anthrax exposure because he worked at same facility where we have a confirmed anthrax case.'' Overall, 10 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with anthrax infections, ...

I did some sleuthing this morning. Some interesting observations (not sure if they mean anything)... but here goes. The return address on the Daschle letter was fictitious. It did however, contain a zipcode which was NOT fictitious. The zipcode (08852) is one code over from the code of the US Post Office which processed the Daschle and Brokaw letters. The Post Office in question is just off US Route 1 in Hamilton Township. Just about 7 miles north of the Post Office, (and also on US Route 1) is the Building of the Islamic Society of Central Jersey containing a ...

It would seem that with the recent events regarding the private mailing of anthrax laden letters to high-profile public figures, that a significant area of vulnerability is exposed. Terrorists with the intent of widespread distribution of anthrax spores might take advantage of relatively low security, and relatively high distribution volumes of newspapers, magazines, and mass-mailed billing from credit card companies, utilities, and other monthly billed services. Most of these billing services (and certainly newspapers and magazines) use high volume production and printing equipment which I suspect is not subject to high levels of security monitoring. The disastrous effects of such ...

CNN Reports (on broadcast news) that over 90 Offices of Planned Parenthood (Nationwide) recieve envelopes with a mysterious white powder. The envelopes have been forwarded to authorities for evaluation.

ABC News reports that the 3rd and 4th floors of the New York Times have been evacuated and sealed for investigation of a suspicious item of mail. (this is in addition to NBC's woes.)

While the terrorists who conducted the attacks on September 11th managed to organize and coordinate a highly complex theft and delivery of US commercial aircraft, the technical requirements of such an attack were well within their reach. These latest attacks involving the dissemination of Anthrax spores demonstrate the same low-tech approach to delivery, but the question arrises as to the source of the spores themselves. Whether we consider the Al Quaeda terrorist bases in Afghanistan, or the terrorist cells here in the United States, it would seem quite unlikely that the laboratory facilities and technical knowledge necessary to produce large ...

IRGC-US-Safavi /POL/  Safavi says US attacks are aimed at regaining lost strength Tehran, Oct 8, IRNA -- Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi here Monday said that the U.S. is seeking to regain the strength it lost in the recent explosions on its territory by conducting missile attack and air raids on Afghanistan. Addressing a group of IRGC cadets, Safavi said that explosions in three axes, namely the World Trade Center twin centers, the Pentagon, and the State Department, showed that the U.S is vulnerable from within. He said that in fact, ...

Nothing follows

Fox News Reports that two Ryder trucks have been detained in Gaithersburg Md. (north of DC). Trucks being held pending arrival of bomb squad.

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Moderate Arab countries were slow to comment on the U.S. and British strikes on Afghanistan, but in the streets across the Muslim world, many denounced it as a war against Arabs and Muslims. Moustafa Abdel Salam, a 28-year-old Cairo accountant, said "America is now fighting terrorism, when it is the one that has created terrorism from the beginning." He said he was worried the United States would use the attacks to falsely accuse Arab and Islamic countries of terrorism. In Pakistan, several influential clerics swiftly denounced the military strikes, calling them an attack against Islam. ...