Free Republic

PIERRE, S.D. - Four Republican state senators who voted against a bill to ban most abortions in South Dakota were defeated in Tuesday's primary election. Just how much their opposition to the legislation led to their losses was not immediately clear, but abortion opponents in the state have long had a firm grasp on the Legislature. Several lawmakers who supported the abortion ban were successful in the primary. The most contentious race involved Sen. Stan Adelstein of Rapid City and challenger Elli Schwiesow, vice chair of the state GOP and a staunch abortion foe. Schwiesow, who had lost in 2004...

In a Republican primary in which both candidates agree abortion was a hot topic, political newcomer Isaac Latterell defeated incumbent Duane Sutton. Latterell will now face Democrat Ted Kneebone of Aberdeen in the Nov. 7 general election for District 3 state Senate. The winner will serve a two-year term in Pierre. No independent candidates filed nominating petitions. With all 13 Brown and McPherson county precincts reporting, here are the final vote tallies: Latterell: 613 or 52 percent Sutton: 566 or 48 percent Latterell of Aberdeen said he didn't know what to expect heading into the election but had a feeling...

TOTAL PERCENT PRECINCTS TOTAL VOTES OF VOTE REPORTING PRECINCTS DIST 02 DEM STATE HOUSE (D) DENNERT H PAUL BROWN 615 45 12 12 SPINK 479 45 9 9 *******TOTAL: 1094 45 21 21 (D) ELLIOTT BURT BROWN 582 42 12 12 SPINK 398 38 9 9 *******TOTAL: 980 40 21 21 (D) GRAHAM JOHN BROWN 180 13 12 12 SPINK 177 17 9 9 *******TOTAL: 357 15 21 21 DIST 03 REP STATE SENATE (R) LATTERELL ISAAC BROWN 483 49 10 10 MCPHERSON 130 66 3 3 *******TOTAL: 613 52 13 13 (R) SUTTON DUANE BROWN 500 51 10 10...

At roughly the same time Christianity began to spread in the Roman world, another belief system was spreading almost as rapidly, a religious philosophy we call Gnosticism. Gnosticism takes its name from the Greek "gnosis," a word that means knowledge. But the Gnostics didn't have in mind ordinary human knowledge. They claimed to possess a deep, hidden knowledge - a knowledge denied to the rest of us ordinary human beings. The Gnostics believed in one ultimate god. But they believed that below that god there were a vast number of intermediate spiritual powers they referred to as archons, "rulers." Now...

A giant sinkhole that swallowed an Alta man in his living room Friday night was still growing Sunday, precluding rescuers from recovering the victim. Family friend Rick Armstrong said the missing man is presumed to be Jason Chellew, 32, though he deferred to authorities for an official identification.

Many years ago, a Christian friend excitedly shared with me a document collection he had found. The front cover proclaimed the collection to be "Historical Court Records Concerning JESUS the CHRIST, Found in the Libraries at Rome and Constantinople." And, sure enough, there they were: Caiphas' reports to the Sanhedrin on the execution and resurrection of Jesus, Pilate's report to Tiberius on Jesus' arrest, trial and crucifixion, Herod Antipas' letter to the Roman Senate justifying the execution of John the Baptist, and a series of letters from Rabbi Hillel describing his reaction to the preaching and teaching of Peter and...

Renew: I cringe whenever the library calls. Overdue. Your books are overdue. To avoid overdues, I avoid the library. We have enough books at home as it is. A better solution? Renew. All I have to do is call before the book is due and the library renews it. But do I take advantage of book renewal? Almost never. I, too, am renewable. But I forget. Restore: For years, my grandmother's bed and dressing table deteriorated in the basement and gathered cobwebs. I dreamed that someday we'd hire someone who could repair them. Then, one astonishing day, a strong, chemical...

FOR THE LEFT, “FITZMAS” CAME YESTERDAY. A court brief filed by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald states President Bush and Vice President Cheney declassified portions of the National Intelligence Estimate, allowing I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to defend the administration in interviews with the press. In a typically mendacious sleight-of-hand, the Left has conflated this with the outing of non-covert CIA desk jockey Valerie Plame, intimating this “proves” Bush named her to “punish” her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV. Although Fitzgerald’s brief actually has nothing to do with the Plame leak – which he has never been treated as a crime –...

RAPID CITY - Last week, abortion-rights groups began calling for a boycott of South Dakota tourism as a response to the Legislature’s controversial law banning nearly all abortions. This week, it is being countered by the anti-abortion camp urging supporters to make a point of vacationing here. “I will visit and support South Dakota BECAUSE of the abortion ban, and the predictable crazed response from the abortion industry,” wrote Kenneth Munro of Des Moines, Iowa, one of about 10 anti-abortion folks who sent e-mails to the Rapid City Journal. A Web site called ivotemyvalues.com, is formally urging anti-abortion groups to...

Meet the infant at the center of the debate about a mother's rights to give up her child anonymously. Pavel Müller, a doctor at the private medical clinic GynCentrum in Prague 9, was watching the Winter Olympics when he heard the alarm ring. He rushed outside to find a healthy, 1-month-old girl lying on her back and wearing an oversized wool cap inside the clinic's so-called baby box, which is rigged with a sensor that goes off whenever its doors are opened. Soòa was born prematurely to a 23-year-old single mother, and is one of a set of twins. Her...

SANTA ANA, Calif. - Mockingbirds sing all night long. Mountain lions take wide detours around the wildlife crossings they're supposed to be using. And two species of nocturnal snake slither quietly toward oblivion in the scrub lands of Orange County, Calif. The reason? The nights have grown far too bright. That's the message delivered powerfully in a new book, "Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting" - maybe not in Oprah's book club, but for many scientists trying to preserve native wildlife, a must-have. A product of four years' labor, the book pulls together the latest scientific findings on effects of...

Hear that silence? It’s the sound of America going deaf from an earful of technology. What’s that, you say? Popular technology — not just the iPod — threatens everyone’s hearing, especially children and teenagers, according to a new report by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). While much attention has focused on the iPod and other personal music players, the association randomly chose and tested nine devices that can be turned up to potentially damaging decibel levels. Among those tested were Bluetooth headsets that allow wireless communication and laptop components that let travelers listen to private concerts while blocking out the...

BERKELEY, Calif. - Dozens of University of California, Berkeley, students took advantage of a break in the recent cold and rainy weather Wednesday to strip naked and protest the use of sweatshops to make college apparel. The revealing display in front of the building housing Chancellor Robert Birgeneau's office quickly attracted a crowd of about 300 onlookers, many of whom snickered and kept well away from the protesters. Some of the 36 or so male and female protesters remained fully clothed, while others demonstrated in nature's own. Past sweatshop protests - which did not feature nudity - drew little response,...

All of the meat products withdrawn by producer Gilde after a series of E. coli poisonings will now become fuel for buses in Fredrikstad The recalled meat will be sent for treatment and recycling, newspaper VG reports. "There we will grind everything up, then warm it up to 136C (277F), then we separate the plastic," said manager Bjørn Bu at MEG recycling. After this process the meat goes to firm FREVAR in Fredrikstad where it will be converted to biogas, which will then power the city's buses. By Monday evening about seven tons of ground beef from shops in Hedmark...

A church has introduced a come and go system to make it easier for worshippers to attend Sunday Service. The Reverend Robert Harrison of St John's Church in Hillingdon, west London, said traditional service times were out of touch. Parishioners can now attend half-hour slots between 0800 GMT and 1230 GMT. Mr Harrison said there has been a "gentle increase" in its congregation since the church introduced the system which he believes is a first in the UK. He added: "It crossed my mind that in today's world, especially in Western culture, people don't have to wait to attend things,...

The recent US Supreme Court decision concerning Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law was really about whether a federal drug-control law provided a US attorney-general the authority to punish a state's doctors for acting in accordance with a state statute. But by contending that physician-assisted suicide is a "legitimate medical purpose" for the prescription of a drug, there can be little doubt that the ruling helped bring the idea of abetting suicide a bit closer to mainstream thinking. That's a deeply unfortunate thing. As it happened, the decision came exactly seven days after a New Jersey nurse who has confessed to killing...

This week's Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Samuel Alito appear to have given rise to a new sport in the blogosphere: Whack-A-Pol. Here's how the game is played: Every time a senator pops up with a comment on Alito, bloggers whack 'em down with a rhetorical hammer. But unlike the game Whack-A-Mole, where the nimble moles often avoid the blows by ducking into their holes, no senator -- regardless of party or popularity outside the realm of mouth-to-mouth combat over judicial nominations -- can escape the jabs of bloggers. Even worse, bloggers tend to prefer hammers of the sledge...

Unruly home owners face eviction Launching a barrage of measures to combat yobbish behaviour, he said the Government was consulting on a new "house closure order" to bring relief to those suffering from the "misery" of nuisance neighbours. This included "noise, constant visitors at all hours, rubbish and vandalism". It would empower the authorities in England and Wales to seal a property for up to three months, and evicted families would be rehoused in special residential units. Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister, confirmed the measures would apply to people with mortgages or who owned their homes outright, and would...

GUANGZHOU: Guangdong Province is to build at least two special prisons for HIV/AIDS inmates within the next two years. Relevant departments are currently selecting cities for the construction of the two special prisons, according to sources from the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Justice. "Currently, we have no further details regarding the special prisons," said an official from the bureau yesterday. The decision came after an increasing number of AIDS and HIV carriers were reported in the province's prisons in recent years. Many local deputies from the People's Congress and members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) have also...

Bishop Says Teacher's Participation In Abortion Procurement Is Morally Unacceptable SACRAMENTO -- Some students don't know what to make of popular drama teacher Marie Bain's dismissal from her job at Loretto High School. She was fired from the all girls school by Bishop William Wiegand after a parent sent in a picture of her escorting clients into a Planned Parenthood medical clinic. 'It's very disappointing," said Katharyn McLearan of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood says Bain volunteered once a week to help clients past abortion protestors who picketed here several times a week. "It's very daunting to have people yelling at...