Free Republic

At least 137 people were killed and hundreds more injured as several churches and hotels were rocked by simultaneous explosions on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka. Eight explosions took place, including in three Christian churches and three hotels, some commonly used by foreign visitors. In addition to those who were killed at least another 500 were wounded, according to officials with police, the Colombo Hospital and St. Sebastian Church. There were at least nine foreigners among the dead in Colombo, according to the officials. Two dual citizens of the U.S. and U.K. were among the dead, as well as one...

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. — A New Port Richey man has been arrested on a first-degree murder charge 18 years after the homicide occurred. Officials with the New Port Richey Police Department said Randy Petersilge, 51, killed Simon Clark, 41, in 2001. No arrests were made, but police said they had investigated Petersilge as a suspect in the case. In 2017, New Port Richey detectives reopened the case and on Jan. 11, 2018, a grand jury indicted Petersilge on one count of first-degree murder. Petersilge was incarcerated in federal prison during the time of his indictment and a detainer was...

Notice how big and bold they made the new date? In blood red font. The cities of Lansing and East Lansing announce that the 9th annual Ramadan Unity Dinner, co-hosted by Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and East Lansing Mayor Nathan Triplett, will be rescheduled to Friday, September 18, at 6:30 p.m. at the Lansing Center in downtown Lansing.After due deliberation, the event organizers have decided that the community’s remembrance of the tragic events of 9-11 and the celebration of diversity and inclusion embodied in the Ramadan Unity Dinner should be held at separate times.All tickets purchased for the original...

Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel, at a summit he convened last Wednesday on open government, stressed that Wisconsin's public records laws must not be weakened. At the same time many of you were contacting elected representatives on Independence Day weekend, you were urging us to keep investigating until we found out who was responsible. We've been doing just that with the aid of our open records law. On the same day Schimel held his open government summit, we reported on a new batch of emails. They show it was Gov. Scott Walker and staff who added language exempting "deliberative process"...

In discussing the scandal engulfing former House speaker Dennis Hastert, who is due in court this week, one thing must be made absolutely clear. What he is alleged to have done to young boys has absolutely nothing to do with being gay or gay rights. * Almost immediately after the news broke of Hastert’s indictment, folks looked to Congress for signs of hypocrisy. Former representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is gay, made an assertion during an appearance on Huffington Post Live last Monday that was flat-out inappropriate. “Dennis Hastert twice as speaker tried to get the house to pass a...

....Two weeks ago, on April 10, in a manner reminiscent of King’s carefully controlled original unveiling of the fragment, the Harvard Divinity School issued a press release declaring that a “wide range of scientific testing indicates that a papyrus fragment containing the words ‘Jesus said to them my wife’ is an ancient document” and that “its contents may have been composed as early as the second to fourth centuries.” Harvard had given an advance viewing of the test results and an interview with King to reporters for just three newspapers—the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Harvard student...

If you have a chance, I recommend each of you carve out the evening of Dec 20, from 7-9pm, to watch CNN. The show is called After Jesus: The First Christians, and it is an excellent and stimulating presentation of the first four centuries of the Christian faith. CNN kindly sent me an advanced copy and I have watched it in its entirety. Dec 21, in the morning, I would like to begin a conversation on this blog with those who watched it the evening before. (It will also be replayed Friday Dec 22 at 10pm and 1am; Saturday Dec...

Obama Is Prominent in ‘SEAL Team Six,’ Weinstein Film LOS ANGELES — Thanks to the magic of editing, President Obama will have a starring role in a television drama about one of his biggest accomplishments — the killing of Osama bin Laden — that will be shown just two nights before the presidential election. But promotional materials and a copy of the movie provided to The New York Times this week also show that the film has been recut, using news and documentary footage to strengthen Mr. Obama’s role and provide a window into decision-making in the White House.

If you're in a room of 100 people, odds are likely about 40 think God created humans about 10,000 years ago, part of a philosophy called creationism, according to a Gallup poll reported Friday (Dec. 17). That number is slightly lower than in years past and down from a high of 47 percent in both 1993 and 1999. And 38 percent of Americans, the poll estimates, believe God guided the process that brought humans from "cavemen" to today's incarnation over millions of years, while 16 percent think humans evolved over millions of years, without any divine intervention. This secular view,...

Of course, the timing for the revelation on the day of the elections is a total coincidence. As per the revised tables, average incomes of top earners did not quintuple as had been released on October 15 to $519 million, but instead declined by 7.7% to $84 million.

COOL:

The French national archive has released footage of John McCain as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, showing him lying injured in bed and smoking a cigarette during an emotional interview with a French reporter..... .....The video shows McCain shirtless and unshaven, smoking a cigarette. Answering questions from Chalais, he spoke about being shot down over Hanoi on Oct. 25, 1967, and parachuting into a lake.

WASHINGTON -- The congressional apology for slavery, passed Tuesday, made headlines across the country and generated calls to U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen's office from newspapers and radio news outlets around the world. But in Memphis, the message was mixed, measured by more than 200 comments posted on The Commercial Appeal's Web site. Some called the measure, which Cohen introduced in the House in February 2007, an effort to pander to black voters less than 10 days before next week's Democratic primary. One of Cohen's opponents, airline lawyer Nikki Tinker, while agreeing with the resolution in principle, found the timing of...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Some cash-strapped US municipalities are resorting to slapping fuel surcharges onto tickets issued to speeding drivers in order to fill dwindling city coffers hit hard by skyrocketing gas prices. Beginning July 1, the Georgia town of Holly Springs, near the city of Atlanta, will add a surcharge of 12 dollars for each moving violation as a means to avert a budget deficit brought on by high fuel prices. "It's a creative and innovative idea of our police chief," said Holly CothranDrake, spokeswoman of the city administration which on Wednesday received queries from several American municipalities that are...

OBAMA hijacks Media at exact point millions would be waiting for WALLACE SPECIAL ON CONGRESS USE OF EARMARKS ON FOX NEWS. What is wrong with the news media that they allow a CANDIDATE for a Nomination, and NOT a PRESIDENT to hijack their news media channel when millions are wanting to see the illegal use of their tax dollars for EARMARKS that benefit congressmen/women. Now people had prepared for 8 PM to hear Wallace Special, so OBAMA picks that very time to make a statement about resigning his church...THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS to give Obama an advantage to the viewers at...

Today, the Washington Post editorial board urged Cindy McCain to release her tax returns, repeating a call made four years earlier to Teresa Heinz Kerry. But the timing seemed coincidental, given that Media Matters just wrote a letter to Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt last Friday. In that letter, the organization brought up the Heinz Kerry editorial from 2004, and asked why a similar request was not made to McCain. Hiatt tells Politico that the letter wasn't the reason for publishing Wednesday's editorial. "The editorial actually had been drafted before the [group's effort] began, or at least before I...

NYT: MCCAIN'S BIRTHPLACE IN CANAL ZONE RAISES ELIGIBILITY QUESTIONS...

How to Rig an Election: Convicted Phone-Jammer Tells All Disgraced Ex-GOP Consultant Allen Raymond Reveals His Dirty Tricks as Party's 'Fall Guy' By MARCUS BARAM Jan. 6, 2008 — What does it take to win the New Hampshire primary  dirty tricks or retail politics? Stick to good old-fashioned politicking, says disgraced former GOP consultant Allen Raymond. "Retail politics and authenticity," he tells ABCNEWS.com. "Up in New Hampshire, they have great expectations of what you need to do as a candidate and you have to do it." Raymond should know. After all, he's the one who ran an illegal scheme...

The CIA will declassify hundreds of pages of long-secret records detailing some of the intelligence agency's worst illegal abuses -- the so-called "family jewels" documenting a quarter-century of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying, kidnapping and infiltration of leftist groups from the 1950s to the 1970s, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday. The documents, to be publicly released next week, also include accounts of break-ins and theft, the agency's opening of private mail to and from China and the Soviet Union, wiretaps and surveillance of journalists, and a series of "unwitting" tests on U.S. civilians, including the use of drugs....