Free Republic

The season’s first heat wave is already baking the Southwest with triple-digit temperatures as firefighters in Phoenix — America’s hottest big city — employ new tactics in hopes of saving more lives in a county that saw 645 heat-related deaths last year. Starting this season, the Phoenix Fire Department is immersing heatstroke victims in ice on the way to area hospitals. The medical technique, known as cold water immersion, is familiar to marathon runners and military service members and has also recently been adopted by Phoenix hospitals as a go-to protocol, said Fire Capt. John Prato. Prato demonstrated the method...

TUSCALOOSA, AL—The leadership of 4th Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa has just approved baptism "boosters" for their entire congregation starting at 5 years old. Elders believe these boosters will be at least 70% effective at saving those who weren't quite saved after their first and second baptisms. "We recommend people attend this year's week-long revival and get their boosters," said head pastor Dale Smithers. "Sometimes the first baptism doesn't quite do the trick and it's always best to be safe! AAA-MEN? AMEN!" Sources say teens are best protected against eternal damnation in the lake of fire, as they routinely get booster...

HOUSTON, Texas — Opponents of a Texas Arabic Immersion Magnet School (AIM) call the pre-K and kindergarten program “civilizational jihad.” The program was imposed by the largest school district in the state, and the seventh largest school district in the United States. Opponents say that Americans simply do not know what is happening in this school, and in America.

Except for the angry protesters, the first day of school at the Arabic Immersion Magnet School in Houston in late August was a joyous occasion. The school welcomed its inaugural class of 88 kindergartners and 44 pre-kindergartners with an assembly in the cafeteria. The kids wore their school uniforms, green-and-white polo shirts embossed with the school’s calligraphic logo. They learned their new school song. They recited the Pledge of Allegiance and the Texas Pledge. Alicia Kahn, whose 5-year-old daughter Maiara attends the school, described the mood as “positive and upbeat.” Outside, though, she said it was “mayhem.” A small crowd...

Progressive media ridiculed a handful of harmless middle aged and senior citizens peacefully protesting outside the gates of the nation’s first Arabic Immersion Magnet School in the Houston Independent School District (ISD). The Arabic immersion school opened yesterday for 132 pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students. The protest group numbered about 30 people, at its height. They waved American and Israeli flags in solidarity of Western and Judeo-Christian values. Some had held two flags, others, held homemade protest signs that read: “Everything I ever cared to know about Islam was taught to me by Muslims on 9-11-2001,” “American Schools, American Kids,” and...

INTRODUCTION:        This is another chapter in the study of the Seven Baptisms, one book of the series entitled, Fundamental Facts For Searching Saints (Acts 2:41,42). Baptism has quite a significant meaning in The God’s Word according to the viewpoint of The God. What does baptism mean to you? How does your meaning of Baptism by The Holy Spirit compare with The God’s as clarified by His Dearly Beloved Son?    In order to fix the basic facts firmly in our minds, a brief review is always helpful. The word “baptism” is the translation of the Greek noun βάπτισμα (Báhp-teesmah). It comes from the verb βαπτίζω (bahptéez0) translated ‘baptize’ and...

Amber Tracy spent the past academic year studying Arabic. But with a full-time job and other classes, she wasn't progressing as quickly as she had wanted. On June 23, she began an intensive Arabic program at Cal State San Bernardino, learning Arabic all day and practicing it in residence halls well into the night. "I think I've learned more in the last week than I did all last semester," Tracy said after finishing a lunch of Arab-style chicken, rice and salad with her tutors and other students. "Being able to focus on Arabic and not think about anything else is...

Declaration and Confession of the True Orthodox Christians We, the hierarchs, clergy, and people of the True Orthodox Church, under the presidency of His Beatitude, Auxentius, Archbishop of Athens and all Greece, seeing that Ecumenism teaches of a Church of Christ consisting of branches with differing or even opposing doctrines and practices; that it attributes efficacy for salvation to the sacraments of the non-Orthodox—who have lost or never had the canonical form of baptism, and of whom many ordain women to the priesthood and episcopacy, while others do not recognize the priesthood at all; that it manifests these beliefs in...

study released Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, reports that in families like the Peredas, for whom Spanish is the dominant language among immigrant parents, English fluency increases across generations. By the third generation, Spanish has essentially faded into the background. Latinos recognize that learning English is key to economic success, according to the study, which was based on survey data collected between 2002 and 2007. "The ability to speak English is a crucial skill for getting a good job and integrating into the wider society," said D'Vera Cohn, a senior writer at...

FACT: As Governor Of Massachusetts, Governor Romney Took Action To Enforce Immigration Laws.ENFORCEMENT: In December 2006, Governor Romney Signed A Memorandum Of Agreement With The Federal Government To Allow State Troopers To Enforce Federal Immigration Laws. "Governor Mitt Romney and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and ICE, which will give specially trained Massachusetts State Troopers the authority to administer and enforce federal immigration laws in the Commonwealth. " (Office Of The Governor, "Governor Romney, ICE Sign Immigration Enforcement Pact,"...

A Critique of a Critique In Response to Professor John Erickson Professor John Erickson's critique [1] of Father George Metallinos book I Confess One Baptism... [2] poses a challenge to the Orthodox conscience, since it deals with a subject which is at the center of theological speculation today: ecumenism. The very fact that Professor Erickson is a former Lutheran renders the issue even more substantial. Indeed, the conclusion that he draws in his critique clearly betrays his desire to uphold a theological pluralism which he considers Orthodox and, together with this pluralism, certain fundamental theological deviations which have encumbered such...

With two teenage daughters at home and triplets still in diapers, Angela Magdaleno's family overflowed from a one-bedroom apartment in South Los Angeles that they strained to afford. Diapers had to be changed 15 times a day, feedings held every three hours. One triplet, 3-year-old Alfredo Jr., needed special attention because he was born with liquid on his brain and partially paralyzed. Even simple events — like going to the store — required complex orchestration. And that was before the quadruplets arrived. On July 6, Magdaleno gave birth to two boys and two girls, drawing national media attention as a...

FORT LEE, Va. (Army News Service, Dec. 15, 2005) – Students of Advanced Individual Training at Fort Lee’s Quartermaster School will begin carrying weapons with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week, starting Jan. 15. The weapons immersion program being implemented by the 23rd Quartermaster Brigade at Fort Lee is designed to better prepare Soldiers for future deployments, officials said. A number of other Army schools began weapons immersion earlier this year for AIT students, an Army Training and Doctrine Command spokesman said. The TRADOC plan was to begin with combat-arms branches last spring and have all AIT...

The semantics of immersion Some good conversation has come up lately about baptism. For the sake of clarity, I'm simply going to refer to it as immersion, because that is what the word meant to the first century believers. Why it has been transliterated in most Bibles rather than translated into English, I don't know. But the meaning of the word is really not in dispute by anyone. The semantics of Christian immersion is far more divisive than the Biblical treatment of the subject. No doubt some will read a few sentences and either assume I'm one "position" or the...

What do you when 3000 persons respond to a sermon and want to be immersed in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins? What do you do when this number of 3000 is added to daily?...

When kindergartners and first-graders start their day at John Stanford International School, they are greeted either with "hola" or "konichiwa" as "hello." But it doesn't stop there. They spend half their day learning Spanish with Maria Buceta-Miller, or learning Japanese with Mihoko Tsang, studying math, reading and writing entirely in one of those languages. The foreign language to most of the students in class, however, isn't a learning block. Instead, the immersion language program is one of the beauties of this north Seattle school, described as the first public elementary in Washington with an international focus. The Stanford school is...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of three stories on recent school test results and the No Child Left Behind Act. Teachers and administrators are struggling with a paradox built into the state standards under the No Child Left Behind Act. Federal standards require that students with learning disabilities and English learners meet the same level of proficiency as their peers. And that has put a failing label on many otherwise adequate or improving schools. No Child Left Behind requires all students meet the same standards, which are set by states. The act divides test-takers into subgroups based on ethnicity,...

Are our schools producing green zombies? Ask any student in any grade what causes global warming; odds are that their reply will be cars, or fossil fuels or "human activity." Why is there a presumption that global warming is real when thousands of scientists have publicly declared, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial...