Free Republic

JERUSALEM — Sheldon G. Adelson is perhaps best known as a conservative casino mogul who spent tens of millions of dollars last year trying to defeat President Obama. But he is a larger-than-life lightning rod in Israel, too. He owns the largest-circulation newspaper here, a right-leaning tabloid which he calls “fair and balanced” but which some competitors denounce as speeding the decline of good journalism. He has sprinkled $200 million across the state’s hospitals, museums and universities. He is married to an Israeli, and close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Why so much violence against the tongue? As the Sheikh of Islam himself: Ibn Tamiyyah, once wrote, "Waging war verbally against Islam might be worse than waging war against it physically." A professor of Islamic exegesis at Cairo's preeminent Islamic university, Al Ahzar, Dr. Abdullah Badr, recently proclaimed on Egyptian television that a new day has arrived: apparently from now on, there will be absolutely no more toleration for anyone who speaks against Islam—including people who speak against the implementation of Sharia law and its seventh century punishments. Badr is currently on trial for possibly libeling and defaming a female...

“The Small But Powerful Tongue” (James 3:1-12)It is one of the smallest parts of the body, but it is also perhaps the most powerful. What am I speaking of? The tongue. Your tongue is a very powerful instrument. It can do a lot of damage, and it can do a lot of good. “The Small But Powerful Tongue.” To what shall we compare it? Let’s find out, shall we? To what does James compare the tongue, in our Epistle reading for today? St. James makes several comparisons in this passage, and they are instructive for our self-awareness as to how...

God is not a man that He should lie and there are benefits to agreeing with what He says. There is power in agreenemt. When you voice your agreement with God certain things take place. 1. You kill the root- The curse and all the works of the devil are rooted in the spiritual so to get rid of it or change it you have to attack it at the root. If you kill the root then the fruit has to die. And the word of God is a sword (Ephesians 6:17). So when you voice your agreement with the...

God has set before you life and death, blessing and cursing and He is so good that He tells you which one to pick (Deuteronomy 30:19). He said choose life, so the choice is yours. Which ever one you choose it is going to be by the words of your mouth. Because the Bible says life and death, and blessing and cursing is in the power of the tongue. They are all in the power of the tongue and whichever one you speak is what you will have. There is a law behind each one of those things that many...

Student Rhiannon Brooksbank-Jones dreams of living and working in South Korea once she finishes university, even though she has never visited the country. But while taking language lessons, the 19-year-old found that she couldn't pronounce certain crucial sounds in the Korean alphabet. Her dentist suggested it may be because she was born with a slightly shorter than average tongue, caused by having an unusually thick lingual frenulum - the flap of skin that joins the underside of the tongue to the floor of the mouth. Language barrier: Rhiannon Brooksbank-Jones, from Nottingham, had her tongue lengthened by 1cm to help her...

STAMFORD, Conn. — A woman fought off a sexual assault by biting off part of her attacker’s tongue, police said, and a suspect was hospitalized. The attempted attack happened in an alley off Atlantic Avenue near a Roman Catholic church in Stamford around 10 p.m. Thursday, the Stamford Advocate reported. The attacker grabbed the woman and forced his tongue into her mouth after she had left the church. The woman fought back by biting the man, lopping off about an inch of his tongue. “It was a substantial piece of his tongue," Sgt. Paul Guzda told the Advocate...

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — A Wisconsin woman is accused of biting off her husband's tongue as he was giving her a good night kiss. Sheboygan (sheh-BOY'-gan) police say the man in his late 70s called authorities about 11 p.m. Monday, but was having trouble speaking. An ambulance was dispatched to the house. Sgt. Terry Meyer says the husband and wife were singing Christmas carols when paramedics arrived. Meyer says the woman, in her late 50s, threw a coffee cup at them.

FRESNO, Calif. -- An experimental device that uses the tongue instead of the eyes to "see" could be on the market next year, and a blind Fresno, Calif., teen hopes to be among the first to take one home. Researchers say their BrainPort device does not replace the sense of sight, but lets the blind perceive images, making it easier for them to navigate their surroundings. One group they foresee benefiting: Troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who are blind because of brain injuries. BrainPort consists of a tiny digital camera mounted on sunglasses. The camera is attached by a...

In a recent post, a FReeper accused me of being paid by the GOP to post about the "Birther" issue... boy, how I wish... LOL. The following is my reply: Ummm... (actually) it’s the GOP who have been talking to me about my posting... :-) They’ve said ... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Blood Clots/Stroke - They Now Have a Fourth Indicator, the Tongue!         I will continue to forward this every time it comes around! STROKE:Remember the 1st Three Letters....S.T.R.  My nurse friend sent this and encouraged me to post it and spread the word. I agree. If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some folks. Seriously.. Please read: STROKE IDENTIFICATION: During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics).  She said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new...

Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18 A woman called her husband and told him she was in an auto accident. "What’s the damage to the car?" the husband asked. "I don’t know. They towed it away." "So where are you calling from?" he asked. "The hospital." Oops! Have you ever wanted to take back something you said immediately after it came out of your mouth? We have all done it. Careless words. Unkind words. Thoughtless words. If we catch ourselves, we try to salvage the situation. Most of the time,...

Carrie Dashow dropped a large dollop of lemon sorbet into a glass of Guinness, stirred, drank and proclaimed that it tasted like a "chocolate shake". Nearby, Yuka Yoneda tilted her head back as her boyfriend, Albert Yuen, drizzled Tabasco sauce onto her tongue. She swallowed and considered the flavor: "Doughnut glaze, hot doughnut glaze!" They were among 40 or so people who tasted under the influence of a small red berry called miracle fruit. The berry rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy. The miracle fruit, Synsepalum dulcificum,...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The evolution of human speech was far more complex than is implied by some recent attempts to link it to a specific gene, says Robert Berwick, professor of computational linguistics at MIT. Berwick will describe his ideas about language in a session at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Sunday, Feb. 17. The session is called “Mind of a Toolmaker,” and explores the use of evolutionary research in understanding human abilities. Some researchers in recent years have speculated that mutations in a gene called Foxp2 might have played a fundamental...

A human tongue has been served up in a hospital canteen's chicken risotto — and bosses reckon it was accidentally dropped into the food by a doctor.

A human tongue has been served up in a hospital canteen's chicken risotto — and bosses reckon it was accidentally dropped into the food by a doctor. Slovenian officials are investigating after a doctor complained about a strange piece of meat on his plate.

An Israeli woman has accidentally bit off part of her boyfriend's tongue during a heated French kiss. Nahariya Hospital said in a statement the man, injured while "passionately kissing his girlfriend", was discharged after an operation to reattach his tongue and advised to sip iced drinks and "avoid wet kisses" until the stitched wound healed.

Jammu, April 11: A jobless devotee was admitted to hospital after he cut off his tongue and offered it to Goddess Kali, police said on Wednesday. Doctors stitched the wound but said the man, identified as Suresh Kumar, 24, may not be able to speak again. The incident took place on Tuesday evening when Kumar visited a temple dedicated to Hindu goddess Kali on the outskirts of Jammu, the winter capital of Indian Kashmir. Inside the temple, he cut his tongue off with a knife and gave it to the priest to offer it to the deity. He was immediately...

A teacher was sacked in Italy yesterday after cutting a seven-year-old boy's tongue with a pair of scissors to silence him during a lesson.The unnamed 22-year-old substitute teacher was asked to keep control of the class at a school in Milan for a few minutes. She is alleged to have held a pair of scissors in front of Walid Dhaouadi, a Tunisian, and to have said: "Stick your tongue out so I can cut it. That way you will stop talking." Although she later claimed it was a "game" and allegedly asked the pupil not to tell his parents, the...

Southwestern Seminary’s theology dean, David Allen, doesn’t expect any surprises from faculty when he sends them a memo soon about a new trustee statement regarding the neo-charismatic practice of private prayer language. Prospective faculty members have been quizzed on the subject for years, Allen said. If a current faculty member practices “a private prayer language” as one trustee alleges five of them do, then the pertinent question becomes whether that view is advocated in the classroom. “I would not bring that professor in and say, ‘You cannot say that outside of class.’ I’m not going to restrict anyone in that...