Free Republic

When painting the portraits of great figures in the history of Christendom, we have a distinct tendency to airbrush the warts. Hagiography is the perennial and natural temptation of the devout historian. When it comes to church history, the love that "believes all things" (I Cor. 13:7), does not always exhibit the serpentine wisdom enjoined by Christ (Matt. 10:16). The problem is complicated by the secular myth surrounding the study of history, i.e., that it is a value-free, neutral discipline. Under the cover of this myth, the secularist historian debunks various popular heroes from the past. This type of debunking...

When San Jose police officer and military reservist Derrick Boler answered his country's call, the city promised to make up the difference between his military and police pay so his family wouldn't suffer financially from his sacrifice. When Boler returned home after 34 months in Iraq, the city handed him a bill for more than $52,000. City officials said they overpaid him by mistake and needed him to repay the difference in three years. With interest. ``I just about had a heart attack,'' said Boler, 42, an 18-year veteran of the San Jose police. Boler isn't the only one. San...

A fellow UFC fan emailed me about the greatest Closed Captioned faux pas ever in the history of UFC captioning, or so I believe. I honestly somehow believe that this "faux pas" closed captioning was done on purpose with malice when Matt Hughes was introduced to the crowd as "Saddam Hussein." The email sender, Dave, sent me a few pictures of the Tivo'ed shots of the CC faux pas.

Hunt for 900 dangerous criminals freed in error By John Steele (Filed: 26/04/2006) More than 1,000 convicted foreign criminals, including killers, rapists and child abusers, have been freed from prison without being considered for deportation and hundreds are missing, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, admitted yesterday. All of the prisoners had committed crimes that should have triggered automatic assessment for removal from the country and the majority should have expected to be expelled. Charles Clarke: ‘I take responsibility for it [the fiasco]’ About 160 were released without being considered for removal despite explicit recommendations by judges that they should be...

Merit Abridged by Annalex FOREWORD This is an abridgement of long and detailed Catholic Encyclopedia article on Merit where I condense the necessary definitions and distinctions in a more concise manner, omitting discussion that seemed to me too arcane. I follow the same subtitle structure as the original and invite the reader to study the original sections for deeper understanding. Much of this abridgement is directly copied from the original, but for the ease of reading I do not use quotation marks. None in this is my own thoughts; my only input was in shortening and paraphrasing. MERIT Merit (meritum)...

The disciplinary arm of the N.C. State Bar dropped charges of felonious misconduct against two former Union County prosecutors Friday because of a 1999 clerical error at the state Supreme Court. The State Bar had charged Kenneth Honeycutt and Scott Brewer with lying, cheating and withholding evidence in a 1996 death penalty case. The ruling Friday marks the second time that Honeycutt and Brewer won on procedural grounds before the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission, which sits as judge and jury in disciplinary cases. . . . Prosecutors around the state are concerned that the case is damaging their reputation and...

An indulgence is an action of the Church which spreads her treasure of merits to the suffering members of the family of God. Indulgences: Spreading the wealth By Dermott J. Mullan I. Introduction Indulgences have to do with how God handles evil and good. To God, sin is always horrible, but humans do not always think so. The Church’s teaching on indulgences is meant to impress on us some of God’s horror of sin. The Church says sin is never an isolated event: rather, each sin has after-effects, not only in the person who sins but also in other parts...

Ooops! We all make mistakes. But some mistakes are bigger than others. Here's an example--when a newspaper prints incorrect information. Newspapers frequently run corrections and retractions. But you usually have to search for them. Well, Regret the Error lists corrections, retractions and clarifications printed in newspapers around the country. It also includes a short commentary. Sometimes the mistakes are humorous. But I [Kim Komando] don't visit the site to gloat over others' mistakes. I read it because it makes me feel a little better about some of the mistakes I've made.

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be." Rom. 8:7 Our theology really reflects how we think about God. When we have poor theology it reveals that we are thinking wrong thoughts about God. Wrong thoughts about God dishonor Him. Good theology, then, means that we are thinking more closely in line with His revelation about Himself, and therefore honor Him with our thoughts. A.W. Tozer once remarked: "The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him." I would...

UNDERGROUND UTILLITY ALUMINUM ELECTRICAL CODE HELP!!!

December 08, 2005 Renteria's gone By Gordon Edes, Globe Staff Edgar Renteria's tenure in Boston was a short one. The Sox dealt Renteria and cash considerations to Atlanta today in exchange for top prospect Andy Marte (third baseman). Commissioner Bud Selig needed to OK the money exchanging hands between the teams. The Red Sox are expected to pick up part of the $29 million remaining on Renteria’s contract over the next three years. The exact dollars are still unclear, but the commissioner needs to approve any deal in which $1 million or more exchanges hands. The Red Sox are now...

CHICAGO (Nov. 12) - Online travel agency Expedia.com said a glitch last week allowed some travelers to book hotel stays in Japan at stunningly low prices and that only some of these reservations would be honored. Expedia.com, run by Expedia Inc., posted incorrect prices for two Hilton International hotels in Japan. Some customers reported prices as low as $2 a night. The agency blamed the mix-up on an "isolated processing incident" at Hilton. A hotel spokeswoman described it as a "technical glitch" on Hilton's side. Expedia said Friday that Hilton would honor some of these bookings and that other customers...

WASHINGTON - The puzzling difference between warming temperatures on the ground and not-so-warm readings in the sky above may have been resolved. Atmospheric researchers studying global warming have sought for years to determine why readings taken from weather balloons didn't show the same increases as readings on the ground. The difference has fueled skeptics of global warming. Now, researchers at Yale University say exposed instruments on the balloons may be the problem. Weather balloons are sent up around the world twice a day — at local times equivalent to noon and midnight Greenwich mean time — and older versions of...

An AIDS patient writes a letter to the HIV virus, forgiving it for the harm it’s done him and thanking it for inspiring him to live a fuller life. A recovering alcoholic reminds herself to “let go and let God.” Parents pray to see their son as “the perfect child of God” rather than call a doctor to prescribe medication for his earache. A collective of incorporeal beings sends this message to a best-selling author: “There is nothing you cannot be, do, or have.” What do these people have in common? All of them are heirs of the religious philosophy...

I stay current on updates, but have issues when I turn this idiot box off. I only turn off power when I hear thunder coming in, although I restart at regular intervals. Today I had to unplug everything for over an hour, then the system came back in good shape. Is there a solution other than just unplugging everything? Use little idiot words, please.

Newsweek floundered in journalistic purgatory over the weekend, unable to confirm or completely retract the "Periscope" item from its May 9 issue that incensed rioters in Afghanistan and Pakistan; 16 people died in the melees. I wonder why Newsweek wasn't more skeptical about Quran-desecration charges. Muslims so venerate the Quran that they are outraged if anyone touches one without first washing their hands, let alone put it into a dung-hole. Compare the ubiquity of the toilet story with other kinds of Quran desecration. In my Nexis sifting I found only a handful of examples from the last 25 years: A...

Extreme left-wing MK Yossi Sarid (Meretz/Yachad) now says he "made a mistake" when he objected to the unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon - which likely led to the Oslo War and the 1,031 casualties. The IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000, 18 years after the Peace for Galilee War. In an article for the Ynet site today, Sarid writes that he originally "was not enthusiastic, to understate it," over then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak's plan to quit Lebanon. He does not explain why he objected - "I had various reasons at the time, which, in retrospect, there is no need...

For an object lesson on Old Media liberal bias, read the transcript of the May 17 press briefing by White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. The recurrent themes jumping from the condescending reporters' questions were anti: President Bush, American military, U.S. Constitution, Republican Party, and pro: Democrat obstructionism, terrorist-sympathizing and Old Media arrogance, unaccountability and elitism. I can provide but a few examples in a short column, but they're telling. Question: "Scott, the Senate has managed to function -- or not function, as the case may be -- for more than 200 years without a ban on judicial filibusters. Is...

Having read Michael Isikoff and John Berry’s May 9 th article in Newsweek magazine I was forced to come to a conclusion: Cuban toilets were much better than those in the United States. But, with Newsweek’s retraction of Isikoff and Barry’s ‘Quran flushing story’ it would appear that Kohler is safe, at least for now. You may ask me how I could have possibly come to the conclusion that Cuban toilet artisans were superior to their American counterparts, what with the travel ban to Cuba and all. My conclusion was based in common sense and deductive reasoning. In Isikoff and...

CHICAGO -- Two grieving families were shocked to discover recently that their loved ones' bodies, which were driven to the county morgue in the same van, had been mistakenly swapped and sent to the wrong funeral homes. One of the families buried the wrong person in their mother's grave, while the other family noticed the error when they viewed the body in an open casket. Rodger Taylor, whose sister Vivian Fairman died on April 21, said he asked an attendant at the funeral home if they were at the wrong chapel. "My sister had toes that crossed, so we had...