Free Republic

Feb 01, 2009 — The celebrations in honor of Charles Robert Darwin for his 200th birthday (Feb. 12) and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his influential book On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection (Nov. 29th) are well underway. It is hard to think of any other scientist who gets the kind of gushy adulation heaped on this one man. It borders on religious euphoria. Some examples:...

Filmmaker Ron Howard was chatting in Maureen Dowd's living room, saying he didn't mind spending hours in the cold for the inauguration and that even his conservative brother had come to admire Barack Obama. Outside on the chilly Sunday night, Tom Hanks decided against venturing into the jam-packed row house, mock-announcing to a small crowd on the Georgetown street that the party was paralyzed: "No more hot dogs! The Chinese food never got here!" The country's big-name anchors, actors, commentators, news executives, producers, editors and scribes have been celebrating the quadrennial event -- and themselves -- at one glitzy gathering...

A host of celebrities joined Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore to air their 2009 New Year's resolutions and pledges to the new U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday. Stars like Eva Mendes, Nicole Richie, Ashlee Simpson, Courteney Cox, Eva Longoria Parker all agreed to make pledges on camera for a new MySpace.com campaign backed by Kutcher. Inspired by the new President, in the video Simpson pledged to be "a great mother," Mendes offered to "volunteer more of my time to help children battling serious illnesses," and Longoria Parker promised to "plant 500 trees this year to help our planet." Kutcher,...

Unprecedented press coverage of the Inauguration means an audience which could top the Super Bowl as the whole world makes an American moment into a global one.

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are releasing a film of more than 50 Hollywood stars pledging to support U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's call for unity across America. Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria Parker and Charlie's Angels beauty Lucy Liu are among a host of celebrities who shot segments in which they promise to help out their local community. The footage is set to premiere on social networking website MySpace.com on Monday. And Kutcher has called on all U.S. citizens to take heed and help Obama to make the changes he has promised. He says, "There's an assumption that this one...

Writers for late-night television shows, including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, have lamented recently that they would love to bust President-elect Barack Obama's chops more. But fear of a politically correct backlash and a lack of major stumbles to date on Obama's part make him a tough topic. Stand-up comedians, though, say Obama is fair game. ''Those TV writers have to worry about ratings. They don't like boos or groans from the audience. We thrive off of it,'' said Lisa Lampanelli, a comic famous for her no-topic-is-off-limits policy, and her obsession with...

Kathy Griffin wins Emmy, no thanks to Jesus 09/08/2007 - Kathy Griffin - 59th Annual Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards - The Shrine Auditorium - Los Angeles, CA © David Gabber / PR Photos By Stone Martindale Sep 10, 2007, 3:42 GMT Kathy Griffin's Bravo series "My Life on the D-List" won the Emmy for "Best Reality Program (non-competition). Her speech was memorable, in which she refused to thank Jesus. "A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this. He had nothing to do with this," Griffin said. "Suck it, Jesus. This award is my God now."...

Priest offers festival-goers the chance to confess their green sinsForgotten to recycle any newspapers or tin cans recently? Feeling guilty because you neglected to carbon offset your flight to somewhere, anywhere, outside England this summer? The Roman Catholic Church is at hand with a new line in “green confessions” to help eco-sinners to find forgiveness. Dom Anthony Sutch, the Benedictine monk who resigned as head of Downside School to become a parish priest in Suffolk, will be at the county’s Waveney Greenpeace festival this weekend to hear eco-confessions in what is thought to be the first dedicated confessional booth of...

BLACK ROCK DESERT, NEV. - A San Francisco man was arrested on felony arson charges today after the 40-foot-tall "Man" statue whose torching is the annual highlight of the Burning Man festival in Nevada went up in flames four days early, authorities said. Paul Addis, 35, of San Francisco, was booked into the Pershing County Jail in Nevada on the arson charge and misdemeanor possession of fireworks, Sheriff Ron Skinner said.Festival organizers, meanwhile, pondered the smoldering remains of the Man and promised to rebuild the big guy in time for Saturday's regularly scheduled burn in the Black Rock Desert north...

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Hundreds of people have flocked to a remote village in eastern Nepal to see a "sweating" idol of a Hindu god, a sign of impending turmoil or natural disaster for the devoutly religious nation. Witnesses said that sweat seeped out of the idol of the Bhimeshwor god at a temple in Dolakha, a few hours drive from Kathmandu, during evening prayers at the weekend.

Plans are being drawn up to build a £3.3m working replica of the boat that took Charles Darwin around the world at Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire. Fundraising for the project, which would mark the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth in 2009, is under way. The aim is to built a seaworthy vessel identical to the HMS Beagle on the outside, but with a modern interior. Darwin, who showed how natural selection could explain evolution, sailed on the Beagle between 1831-36. Sitting opposite him on the expedition was mate and surveyor John Lort Stokes. One of Stokes' descendents, Pembrokeshire farmer David...

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan police opened fire at hundreds demonstrating against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Friday, wounding at least one person, as protests across the Muslim world showed no sign of abating. Police in Bangladesh beat back about 10,000 angry protesters marching on the Danish embassy in the capital Dhaka and demonstrators also took to the streets in Afghanistan, India, Jordan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Turkey. The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which has carried out several suicide bombings in Israel, threatened more violence and a leading Saudi Muslim cleric called for no mercy in punishing anyone mocking...

AD CAELI REGINAM ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XII ON PROCLAIMING THE QUEENSHIP OF MARYTO THE VENERABLE BRETHREN, THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHIOPS, AND OTHER LOCAL ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE HOLY SEE Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic Blessing. From the earliest ages of the catholic church a Christian people, whether in time of triumph or more especially in time of crisis, has addressed prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. And never has that hope wavered which they placed in the Mother of the Divine King, Jesus Christ; nor has that faith...

Curiosity seekers joined the faithful today to view what some said was an image of the Virgin Mary at an underpass of the Kennedy Expressway on Chicago's Northwest Side, CLTV reported. About 20 people were among the first to perceive the image shortly before midnight on a concrete wall of the Fullerton Avenue viaduct in the city's Bucktown neighborhood, officials said. By this morning, television news crews were on the scene and media reports were spreading the word of the alleged apparition. People milled about, taking photos and shooting video of what some were calling "Our Lady of the Underpass,"...

Marian Renaissance among Protestants? The surprising answer is yesThe signs do not point to a complete restoration of the Blessed Mother's rightful place in the Church, but the signs are surely intriguing, and thoroughly biblical which is to say, thoroughly Catholic. The Marian renaissance includes pastors from all mainline Protestant denominations: Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists. High -Church Anglicans are mentioned only in passing because they're old hands at this. Here is a favorite quote from the Time Magazine article:In a shift whose ideological breadth is unusual in the fragmented Protestant world, a long-standing wall around Mary appears to...

John 2:1-12 One does not have to venture far into the Anglican blogosphere to recognize that the dominant discussion is on the House of Bishops’ report. This morning, I was led to turn my eyes to Mary rather than the bishops. At the wedding in Cana, Mary comes to Jesus, who had not yet performed any public miracles, with a problem–"They have no wine.” She has a childlike trust that Jesus will do something about it–"Do whatever he tells you.” The scripture doesn’t tell us what she did next. I’ve always thought she went back to the party, but I...

TARTU, Estonia -- Visitors to a Russian Orthodox Church in a small town near the Belarusian capital report that icons there are now weeping blood, a development that the local clergy say reflects God's sadness at the rising tide of evil in the world and may point to impending disaster in that country.     According to an article published in "KP v Belorussii" and posted online late last month(portal-credo.ru/site/print.php?act=monitor&id=5871), approximately a dozen icons in an Orthodox church in Dzerzhinsk began to weep myrrh about a month ago, something that attracted the attention of the local community.     But in the last two weeks of...

You would like me to tell you what 666 means, wouldn’t you? I have to confess that I don’t know. But I am certain that there are more than 666 interpretations as to what is meant! This was written for the benefit of those who will be alive in that day. And believers in the Lord Jesus Christ in the day of the manifestation of the man of sin will have a very clear identifying sign that the one that has come to world power is Satan’s great masterpiece.1 J. Dwight Pentecost, 1961 Yet how could I be sure of...

I am wondering what the Roman Catholic, Coptic, Greek Orthodox or Eastern Orthodox or Charismatic response is to the Nahushtan incident regarding holy relics? Recall that Hezekiah did what was right in God's eyes by destroying the brass serpent Moses made because the people were burning incense to it. How does the candles and insense burned and the whole holy relics industry differ from what the Israelites were doing? Thanks.

The fact is Democrats are angry, desperate, and absolutely beside themselves at facing the prospect of another four years with George W. Bush as President. Frankly, I don' t blame them. With so much invested emotionally, it will be a crushing psychological blow for liberals to see Bush reelected a week from this Tuesday. Furthermore, if Bush wins big it could be a defeat that threatens the very foundations of the liberal movement itself. But even that is no excuse for some of the behavior we're seeing. It's no excuse for bending the rules, breaking the law, and generally treating...