Free Republic

Hi, FReeper Friends. Hope this new year finds you and yours well. I have some cyberstalkers/cyberbullies coming here and cutting and pasting comments, then taking them to other websites, calling FR a 'hate site' full of 'hate speech'-here's a comment from a hater hiding behind a 'sock puppet' front attacking me for being a Christian conservative & for the 'extreme' views of FR (I'm CJ): "Yes, we should all live up to these ideals, but particularly those who claim to be Christians. So when you reflect upon your documented comments that bash whole groups of people - homosexuals, people who...

THIS month brought news that could alter the landscape of American pregnancy. Tests using DNA to determine a fetus’s sex were shown to be remarkably accurate, able to tell with 95 percent certainty as early as seven weeks into pregnancy, if a woman is carrying a boy or girl. The tests, which detect the fetus’s DNA in a mother’s blood or urine, are available in drugstores and online, and reports about their accuracy are likely to increase their popularity. But the tests also raise ethical questions: whether couples will abort fetuses of an unwanted sex — as has happened in...

Sesame Street denizens Bert & Ernie are just friends, according to an anonymous spokesman for the eternal children’s program, and will not be getting married.

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Will the Children’s Television Workshop give way to same-sex puppet love? An online campaign is calling for the producers of TV’s “Sesame Street” to allow characters Bert and Ernie to get married in an attempt to “put an end to the bullying and suicides of LGBT youth”, according to the group’s Facebook page. The petition letter adds that “[w]e are not asking that Sesame Street do anything crude or disrespectful by allowing Bert & Ernie to marry”, suggesting that the show “even add a transgender character to the show…in a tasteful way”.

The little truck was used by the troops to run ahead of them on patrols and look for roadside bombs. Fessenden has had it since 2007, when Ernie and Kevin Guy, the owner of the Everything Hobby shop in Rochester, rigged it with a wireless video camera and shipped it to him. Last week, it paid off. Chris Fessenden said he had loaned the truck to a group of fellow soldiers, who used it to check the road ahead of them on a patrol. It got tangled in a trip wire connected to what Fessenden guesses could have been 500...

Did anyone else catch the sci-fi show dissing the Tea Party last night? Little background: Torchwood is a spin-off of the old British tv series Doctor Who, (Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who) only more gritty and sadly, with VERY adult situations at times ...this year the series apparently was bought out by Starz and brought to America and is quite Americanized now. The current storyline is called "Miracle Day" when no one dies, no matter what. No miracle healings, just no deaths. You can just imagine some of the grisly outcomes from this phenomena!

Twitter's Breaking News feed just posted this a few minutes ago... BreakingNews Breaking News Numerous websites for House and Senate members appear to be down following speech from Obama - HuffPost http://huff.to/rf3qyb 7 minutes ago (Don't want to link to HuffPo, but there's the URL if you want to copy and paste)

Allen West and Sarah Palin at Rolling Thunder 5/29/11

DOWNLOAD: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/be-ok-united-for-joplin-single/id440229014 For the next 60 days, starting on May 26, 2011, The CO is donating 100% of net earnings on the brand new song "Be OK" to United Way and Heart of Missouri. Many families...hundreds of families have been affected by the travesty of this awful tornado outbreak ... and The CO is taking a stand to try and give a little back. Collin Brace grew up in Mexico, Missouri, and this place has deep ties to us, for sure. Take a stand with us. Download the song, and spread the word out. We are praying for you Missouri....

Will Norton was the young man who had just graduated from high school when the Joplin tornado hit. He was pulled through the sunroof of his SUV while his dad tried in vain to hold onto him. A massive search for him has been underway since last Sunday. His family is reporting tonight on Facebook that sadly his body was found today. :*(

He’s a lean, mean terrorist smashing machine. The Osama bin Laden-killing “Rambama” action figure is rolling off the assembly table at Herobuilders.com, an Oxford company that has specialized in making action figures out of high public profile personalities for a decade. Emil Vicale, president of the company, said the action figure sells for $34.95 plus shipping. Orders have been coming in as fast as a commando on a night raid. The figure went on sale Wednesday. It sports urban camouflage pants, combat boots and a T-shirt with a grinning skull design with the numeral six to represent the Navy SEALS...

How Obama SHOULD have delivered the news of OBL's death to America. If this guy were really president, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat! :-)

Folks partying at Ground Zero, celebrating death of Osama bin Laden...turning into a giant campaign party for Obama...I would like to think it is a spontaneous mixed outpouring of support for America, but wonder if there's an astroturf, pro-Obama flash mob setup happening here?

"monster storm hit st.louis april 22 2011 and the lightning was pure crazy. here is a timelapse of it."

General Electric Co. reported a 77% increase in first-quarter earnings, lifted by marked improvement at its GE Capital financing arm and gains at most of its industrial units. The company also boosted its quarterly dividend by a penny to 15 cents. The move marks GE's third dividend increase in the past year, although the payout remains well short of GE's 31-cent dividend before the financial crisis and economic downturn. Many companies have been boosting dividends, looking to give cash back to shareholders as the need to hoard it wanes amid an improved economy.

Does your 5 year old need an iPad? School officials in Maine certainly think so, where the Auburn Schools Committee voted unanimously to provide all kindergartners with a brand new iPad 2 next year -- with the process repeated for each new incoming class. It's a move that will ultimately cost the school system about $200,000 next year, including Apple's $25 discount from the designer tablet's regular retail price. While the thought of a bunch of grubby kindergartners running around with $500 equipment may seem ridiculous, school superintendent Tom Morrill is a staunch believer in what he considers "a game...

(CNN) -- Reports that surfaced last week about the remains of a "gay caveman" found in the Czech Republic have prompted scientists to take on an unlikely foe -- an overhyped news media that may be overblowing the archaeological find. "Dudes! I could be wrong, but I think that to have a 'gay caveman,' you need a skeleton that is both gay and a caveman. And this ain't either!" John Hawks, an associate professor of anthropology at University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote on his blog in bold type. Hawks joined a chorus of fellow paleoanthropologists, archaeologists and other bone experts who...

Brig. Gen. Yoav (Poly) Mordechai says that IDF has operated in a "very focused and determined manner" in the Gaza Strip. IDF Spokesperson also praises the achievements of the Iron Dome anti-rocket system "In the past day, the IDF has operated in a very focused and determined manner - and I believe that the message to Hamas is clear," IDF Spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Yoav (Poly) Mordechai said in an interview on Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) on Sunday (Apr. 10). Talking about the recent escalation in the south, Brig. Gen. Mordechai said that "in recent hours we have still seen rocket...

World-renowned Egyptian archeologist and former head of the country's Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass has been renamed Egypt's Minister of Antiquities. Hawass resigned earlier in March saying that he was leaving because the Egyptian Army could not protect all the ancient sites during the uprising that led to the ouster of Hosni Mubarak after 30 years in power, AFP reported. The veteran archeologist said on March 29, 2011, that he did not ask to come back, but that there was no one else who could do the job. “I cannot live without antiquities, and antiquities cannot live without me,”...

"The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry," Obama said in a statement released by the White House.