Free Republic

Based on the love story of two devout Christians, the movie version of "The Vow," starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum, strips the tale of its overt religious themes, which has some Christian reviewers concerned. The film is based on the true life story and book, “The Vow” by Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, which draws heavily on that couple’s Christian beliefs and the power of God to heal and shepherd a marriage through difficult times.

Latest Levin show transcription. Hour 3. 2/13/12. We need to transcribe his radio program more often. Mark, enjoy Hillsdale. I pray for you, buddy, every single day by name. God Bless Mark Levin, keep him healthy, and give him strength and endurance and grace to lead and spread his word of liberty and peace. We need you. Stay well. God Bless and keep kicking ass.

Restored, rare document will go on public display later this month. Starting next week, anyone visiting the U.S. National Archives can gaze at the only original Magna Carta in the United States, thanks, in part, to the work of Iowans. Nestled perfectly beneath the 700-year-old legal document is a sheet of pure white cotton paper, specially made by the University of Iowa’s Center for the Book. “Anyone from the state of Iowa can now go to the National Archives rotunda, get in line, wait your turn, and you can literally lean down your face a foot away from [the documents],”...

Nearly 200 years after Jane Austen‘s untimely death, crime novelist Lindsay Ashford has come up with a new explanation: arsenic poisoning. Austen, the English author of such classic novels as “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility,” died in 1817 at age 41. Her death has been attributed to everything from cancer to Addison’s disease. But Ashford, who moved to Austen’s village of Chawton three years ago and started writing her new crime novel in the former home of Austen’s brother, stumbled across another possibility — that Austen died of arsenic poisoning. ... Ashford recognized that Austen’s symptoms could be...

For those who are unfamiliar with the growing self-published/indie novel world, John Locke is the undisputed king. He's sold almost 2 million books at $0.99 a pop. He has many, loyal fans. Not bad for doing it on his own. That has to be admired. Lethal People is the first book that Locke published in his Donovan Creed series. Creed is best described as an independent contractor for the CIA who does his own assassin for hire work in his free time. On its face, that is a cool concept. My problem with the Creed character is not that his...

Author and columnist Mark Steyn talked about topics such as American culture, free speech, terrorism, the economy, and the worldwide demographic shift to Muslims. He responded to telephone calls and electronic commmunications. Mark Steyn is a regular guest host of Rush Limbaugh's radio show, a visiting fellow in journalism at Hillsdale College, and the author of nine books: Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then and Now (1997); The Face of the Tiger: And Other Tales from the New War (2002); From Head to Toe: An Anatomical Anthology (2004); America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (2006);...

Freepers Everywhere! Will you be at CPAC? If so, I hope to meet you! Look for Pamela Geller table and Marinka Peschmann's table in the Exhibit Hall space on the lower level of the Marriott. I will be there and hope to meet you! Pamela Geller's MUST READ book, "Stop The Islamization Of America will be available. http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/atlas-articles/ Marinks Peschmann's MUST READ book, "The Whistleblower" (How the Clinton White HouseStayed in Power to Reemerge in the Obama White House and on the World Stage) will be available too! http://www.marinkapeschmann.com/2012/02/08/in-the-dc-area-come-to-my-book-signing-at-cpac/ Also look for the events on Friday that you won't want...

There is a scene in the film "Bad Teacher" in which Cameron Diaz, an irresponsible lush of a seventh-grade instructor, pulls aside a boy who has just publicly declared his love for a girl in his class. The boy, Garrett, is shy and writes poetry but is convinced that some show of bravery will win the girl's heart. Forget it, Ms. Diaz tells him. This girl is only interested in hot, popular boys. Garrett is sensitive, she points out, and "that's not a compliment." Maybe eighth grade will be better, the boy says hopefully. "I'm thinking college," Ms. Diaz tells...

Nice google script for Charles Dickens' 200th birthday. Happy Birthday Boz!

British author Samuel Youd, who wrote SF as John Christopher, died [February 3] in Bath, England, at the age of 89.

In many countries, journalists who investigate political corruption or major crime figures get thrown into prison, gunned down or kidnapped -- never to be heard from again. In the United States, however, few people have been crazy enough or bold enough to assassinate a journalist to stop a story. It has happened twice. In 1976, when Arizona Republic Reporter Don Bolles was mortally wounded in a car bombing in Phoenix. Then, on Aug. 2, 2007, when a brainwashed 19-year-old man with a sawed-off shotgun ambushed journalist Chauncey Bailey as he walked from a McDonald's in downtown Oakland to his newspaper...

(CNN) -- Fidel Castro has released a previously unannounced two-volume memoir of his life, Cuban state-run media reported Saturday. In a six-hour presentation Friday, the leader of the Cuban Revolution and former president was jovial as he spoke about the 1,000-page work, the Granma newspaper reported. Castro, 85, spoke together with a panel of cultural and literary officials at the unveiling of the books. "They are going to talk to you about two books that you had no idea about," Castro said, according to Granma. The two volumes, titled "Fidel Castro Ruz: Guerrilla of Time," is based on conversations with...

SAN CLEMENTE (CBS) — An employee at the San Onofre nuclear plant fell into a reactor pool last week, but did not present any radiation threat, federal regulators said Friday. KNX 1070′s Tom Reopelle reports the news marks the second recent incident at the plant northern San Diego County Victor Dricks with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the unidentified employee did not receive a significant radiation dose after he lost his balance while leaning over to retrieve a flashlight and fell into the reactor pool in Unit 2 on Jan. 27. “The exposure came largely because he ingested or swallowed...

I’ve edited a monthly magazine for more than six years, and it’s a job that’s come with more frustration than reward. If there’s one thing I am grateful for — and it sure isn’t the pay — it’s that my work has allowed endless time to hone my craft to Louis Skolnick levels of grammar geekery. [snip] Who and Whom This one opens a big can of worms. “Who� is a subjective — or nominative — pronoun, along with "he," "she," "it," "we," and "they." It’s used when the pronoun acts as the subject of a clause. “Whom� is an...

"Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work," Jennifer Egan once said. This intersection of reading and writing is both a necessary bi-directional life skill for us mere mortals and a secret of iconic writers' success, as bespoken by their personal libraries. The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books asks 125 of modernity's greatest British and American writers—including Norman Mailer, Ann Patchett, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, and Joyce Carol Oates—"to provide a list, ranked, in order, of what [they] consider the ten greatest works of fiction of all time- novels, story collections, plays, or poems." Of the...

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century. Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world...

From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin provides an iconoclastic new history of the entrance of evangelical Christians into national American politics. Examining the key players of the “Religious Right” — Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Chuck Colson, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and many others — D. G. Hart argues that evangelicalism is (and always has been) a bad fit with classic political conservatism. Hart shows how the uneasy alliance of these unlikely political bedfellows has contributed directly to the fragmentation of today’s conservative movement. He contends that the ongoing burden of reconciling the progressive moral idealism of religious conservatives with the...

Just finished this book..it will blow your mind..check the reviews on amazon.....this must be chump change compared to the Chicago way..

Edith Wharton, the very incarnation of old New York, is a role model for latter-day feminists, and also an authority on having it all. In both instances she is perhaps a corrective to the national obsession with Jane Austen, and, given her privileged circumstances, a consummate ally for those who, unlike herself, endure social and emotional disadvantages – lack of money, like Lily Bart in The House of Mirth (1905), lack of emotional warmth, which she herself suffered in an unsatisfactory marriage and which she used in her depiction of the eponymous Ethan Frome (1911), which is being dramatised on...

A club night in Glasgow is offering its own unique take on Burns night – with haggis-stuffed calzone, Irn Bru ice cream floats and Scottish hip hop artist Loki giving a very special Toast to the Lassies.The LAID Burns Night takes place at Glasgow’s Bar Bloc this Wednesday from 9pm, with free entry. The event includes performances by Trapped in Kansas and Poor Things, alongside a toast to the lassies by Scottish hip hop artist Loki. Bloc will be offering up haggis-stuffed calzone and Irn Bru ice cream floats as their alternative Burns supper, with the bar serving Irn Bru...

What books are people currently reading? Any particular fiction or non-fiction of note? Any recommendations from some recent reads? I just downloaded the novel Hunter by Robert James Bidinotto for my kindle. It's an indie novel and has received good reviews on Amazon. Will report back once I finish up.

Madison - Alicia Rheal is an artist who lives on a quiet street within sight of the Capitol. She's also a librarian. Instead of rows and rows of bookshelves filled with Dewey Decimal System-categorized tomes, Rheal's library is decidedly low-tech and charming. No library cards are required. There are no fines. In fact, library users are encouraged to take any book they want and keep it. Rheal is one of many caretakers of the growing phenomenon of Little Free Libraries - tiny boxes designed to promote literacy and the love of reading through free book exchanges. Each Little Free Library...

Bartending Tips From Days of Old What's old is new again, and nowhere is that more true than in the cocktail world. New twists on classic cocktails are popping up everywhere, but most of us haven't even figured out how to make them sans twists yet. Luckily, the bartenders of yore have reached forward in time to give us invaluable advice on mixing these drinks of yesteryear. And publishers looking to capitalize on the cocktail craze have reached back to the of bartenders at the turn of last century to reprint some of the most storied mixology guides. Long before...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A class reading assignment infuriates the parents of a 14-year-old Valley Traditional High School student. They said their daughter's questions about the book left them speechless. The book is called "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian." "She was masturbating and (describing) how to masturbate and how she did it and also giving a boy a (expletive) and going into great detail of how to perform it," said Vincent. Vincent took the book to her daughter's step-father, who became speechless. "Her being the age that she's in right now, you just freeze up. You don't know...

How many ordinary Americans, much less 18 year olds, have heard the name Van Jones? If you've been engaged in the fight to hold onto the real American dream, you know him, but most law abiding citizens simply don't have the time or the will to be aware of all the destructive people threatening to tear our country down. A college student brought to my attention a textbook she uses for public speaking class. The first chapter in The Art of Public Speaking by Stephen E. Lucas opens with a tribute to Anthony "Van" Jones "one of the most powerful...

Who’s Really To Blame For America’s Catastrophic Financial Meltdown And Devastating National Recession? Contrary to what the “Occupy Movement” might tell you, it’s not greedy Wall Street executives. No, as one of America’s top financial professionals reveals in this shocking new book, the real culprit is economic warfare, with our foreign enemies exploiting our lurking financial weaknesses. In Secret Weapon, Kevin D. Freeman unveils how all the evidence – including motive, means, and opportunity – points to America’s foreign enemies as deliberately pushing our economy over the brink. In this stunning expose, Freeman reveals: * The evidence linking Communist China...

[This is the entire article:] According to a movie and book that came out in 2010, everyone is Waiting For Superman. That would be the heroic, miraculous, too-good-to-be-true school that will swoop down into even the worst neighborhoods and rescue all those bad-luck kids. Me, I’m not counting on Superman. Public schools are too weird. The Man of Steel will look foolish fighting to the death against silly putty. To speak truth about this demented demimonde, we need a voice, a mind, a way of thinking as deranged as the system itself. We need Lewis Black. You know him, of...

The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all. The Online Books Page was founded, and is edited, by John Mark Ockerbloom, He is a digital library planner and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. He is solely responsible for the content of the site. The site is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, who provide the server, disk space, and network bandwidth for the site. They also employ the editor,...

So what is new to justify Sally Bedell Smith's massive "Elizabeth the Queen"? What is left to uncover, and what should be left uncovered and unknown in the life of this exemplary lady whose predetermined existence of regal obligation is yawningly unenviable, however bejeweled the box it comes in? (Snip) ... an American acquaintance says the queen collects pepper grinders. And sometimes it's about the queen's own words on her ancient calling in the 21st century. With characteristic briskness, she told her cousin Margaret Rhodes that her sanctified role means no retirement until death, "unless I get Alzheimer's or have...

In June 1942, Thomas Mann, who was living in exile in California, delivered a commentary on a German-language BBC radio program that decried the sanguinary actions of the Third Reich in avenging the assassination of the leading SS official Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. After Heydrich’s elaborate funeral ceremony at the new Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Hitler screamed at the Czech president, Emil Hacha, “Nothing can prevent me from deporting millions of Czechs if they do not wish for peaceful coexistence.” It wasn’t an idle threat. “Since the violent death of Heydrich,” Mann lamented, “terror is raging everywhere, in a more...

[MORE ABOUT READING, SPECIFICALLY, THAT SO-CALLED BALANCED LITERACY IS ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE LONG-RUNNING HOAX:] So here’s the deal. The same people who lied to us about reading for 70 years now want us to believe they are finally telling the truth. They said that English isn’t phonetic, that children don’t need the alphabet and the sounds, that children need only to look at words and memorize the shapes. All this was utter nonsense. They further said that if children didn’t recognize a word (which they typically didn’t as it’s hard work to memorize a word by its shape), they...

Joe Rochefort's War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway by Elliot Carlson http://www.wabcradio.com/sectional.asp?id=33447 Saturday 1/712 10 PM

I think Americans need to be reminded of the corrupt Clinton administration and the horrifying effects of their elite rule! Read The Whistleblower, written by Marinka Peschmann. Best line in this chilling book: "The Obama administration is the Clinton administration on steroids!" It is available on Kindle and it is a fast read.

Great Book...A review from Amazon says it all...Obama should read it... a story of a real American...Aviation from WW II to the space age done by one man.. 5.0 out of 5 stars Balls Out!!!, August 3, 2000 By Richard Ross-Adams (Johannesburg, South Africa) - See all my reviews This review is from: Yeager: An Autobiography (Paperback) Legendary flying ace Chuck Yeager has put on paper not only his life, but his amazing character as well. Since I was a child I was told the stories of Chuck Yeager by my brothers.One of whom was an aviator himself, and was...

On the 3rd January 1892 JRR Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. To celebrate this event, on this day each year Tolkien fans around the world are invited to raise a glass and toast the birthday of this much loved author. The toast is "The Professor". For those unfamiliar with British toast-drinking ceremonies: To make the Birthday Toast, you stand, raise a glass of your choice of drink (not necessarily alcoholic), and say the words 'The Professor' before taking a sip (or swig, if that's more appropriate for your drink). Sit and enjoy the rest of your drink.

How you equip yourself for a zombie apocalypse depends largely on your personal belief systems. Are you going to focus solely on self-preservation? Or is restoring order to your country a transcendent objective? How willing are you to share your resources with strangers? And how discriminating will you be in shooting other human beings? Author Daniel Drezner tackles such moral dilemmas on a global level in his book Theories of International Politics and Zombies. Drezner is the real deal, by the way, a professor of international politics at Tufts University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Here’s...

Does anyone out there have a direct connection to Glen Beck? I have a manuscript that I need to get in his hands. It is about the homefront war effort in WWII based around the Manhattan Project and describes the day-to-day living of the partiots that came together for a brief time in Uravan, Colorado to mine uranium. It was written by my wife's grandmother - who would be 121 if she lived today - edited by my wife and now turned into an e-book. It is a great picture of what America and Americans used to be. Yes, it...

When University of Chicago professor William Dodd assumed the post of U.S. ambassador to Germany in 1933, he hoped for an undemanding position that would allow him spare time to write a book. At the time, few in the United States or Europe considered then-Chancellor Adolf Hitler a serious threat, and few expected him to remain in power long. Dodd was no exception, says Erik Larson, author of In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. Having studied in Germany as a college student in the 1890s, Dodd began his term as ambassador with...

Pa and the Rifle Pa never had much compassion for the lazy or those who squandered their means and then never had enough for the necessities. But for those who were genuinely in need, his heart was as big as all outdoors. It was from him that I learned the greatest joy in life comes from giving, not from receiving. It was Christmas Eve 1881. I was fifteen years old and feeling like the world had caved in on me because there just hadn’t been enough money to buy me the rifle that I’d wanted for Christmas. We did the...

A Reddit.com user posed the question to Neil deGrasse Tyson: “Which books should be read by every single intelligent person on the planet?�Below, you will find the book list offered up by the astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium, and popularizer of science. Where possible, we have included links to free versions of the books, all taken from our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks collections. Or you can always download a professionally-narrated book for free from Audible.com. Details here. If you’re looking for a more extensive list of essential works, don’t miss The Harvard Classics, a 51 volume series...

A Christian publisher pulled its Breast Cancer Awareness Bible after anti-abortion bloggers complained about where the money raised by the project was going Americans can promote breast cancer awareness with everything from ribbons to coffee mugs to women's designer boots. But one pinkified book is drumming up a wave of controversy. It's a special Breast Cancer Awareness edition of the Holman Christian Standard Bible, which has been yanked from store shelves by its publisher after customers complained about who was getting the money raised from sales. Here, a brief guide: So what happened? Nashville-based LifeWay Christian Resources recalled its special...

I'm looking for a Wizard of Id cartoon by Johnny Hart. Sir Rodney & the Squire are watching the King begin archery practice. The King prepares to shoot at a blank wall. Sir Rodney asks, "Where is the target?" The Squire replies, "Just watch." The King hits the blank wall and immediately a servant boy runs out with a paint bucket & brush. He proceeds to paint a target around the King's arrow, which ends up in the center of the bulls-eye.

Three Sax Rohmer titles will return next year, plus a new novel by William Patrick Maynard "The Destiny of Fu Manchu". I guess 2012 can be called the year of the return of Fu Manchu.

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created By Charles C. Mann (Knopf, $30.50) A god’s-eye view of the world in 1493 that explores the economic and ecological shifts unleashed by Columbus’s discovery of America. AGE OF GREED: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present By Jeff Madrick (Knopf, $30) Looking for the roots of our financial decline, Madrick narrates a history that brims with powerful men, ugly fights, infamous scandals, twists and turns, and, true to the book’s title, lots of shameless cupidity. ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE: The Hidden History of the Financial...

Sit on a bench on the Thompson Hall lawn -- the "green" at the University of New Hampshire -- and watch the students walk past. Scattered among legions of women you may sight the occasional male. Observe his attire, and you will likely see a discordant trifecta: Timberland work boots, sweatpants and a backpack. Is he headed to the field and manual labor, to his dorm room for a Donkey Kong marathon, or is he shooting towards a professional career? We're told to dress for the job we want. If their dress is any indication, these young men reply firmly,...

The term "extra-virgin olive oil" means the olive oil has been made from crushed olives and is not refined in any way by chemical solvents or high heat… "In the past, the technology that had been used had been used really by the Romans, you grounded the olives with stone mills [and] you crushed them with presses." One olive oil producer told Mueller that 50 percent of the olive oil sold in the United States is, in some ways, adulterated.

Running for president is supposed to help candidates sell their books. But for Michele Bachmann, book sales seem to be mirroring her faltering campaign. Bachmann’s new memoir, “Core of Conviction: My Story,” was released on Nov. 21, and sales are off to an incredibly slow start, despite the congresswoman’s media blitz. Just 3,000 copies have been sold in the two weeks since its publication. The sales figures come from Nielsen BookScan, which monitors 75 percent of the hardcover and paperback book market. The numbers don’t include e-book sales, or books sold at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, according to The Associated...

The Rev. John Becker, S.J., sat at the front of the classroom, paperback in hand, glasses pushed to the end of his nose. As he spoke, he looked intently from one student to another. “This semester, I am going to teach you how to read 'King Lear,'” he said. “It may be Shakespeare’s most difficult play. But it has a powerful message to tell.” When we were done reading “Lear,” the priest promised, we would not only understand it, but we would have learned the secret of understanding any thing written in English -- anything, that is, with a meaning...