Free Republic

ROME, JAN. 1, 2012 (Zenit.org).- The Fides news agency has published a list of pastoral workers who were killed during the last year. Not all of them were martyrs in the strict sense, as Fides lists all those who lost their lives in a violent manner. In 2011, 26 pastoral care workers were killed: one more than the previous year: 18 priests, four religious sisters and four laypeople. For the third consecutive year, the place with the most deaths was the American continent, with the deaths of 13 priests and two laypersons. Following was Africa, where six pastoral workers were...

Two Maryland doctors face murder charges related to abortions performed on late-term fetuses that were viable, authorities said Friday. Steven Brigham and Nicola Riley are in jails in New Jersey and Utah, respectively, awaiting extradition hearings to bring them back to Maryland, police in Elkton, Maryland, said in a news release. The two face identical charges -- five counts each of first-degree murder, five of second-degree murder and one of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. < snip > The investigation began August 13, 2010, when Riley brought a woman into an Elkton hospital due to a "complication resulting from a...

<p>The computer giant and 3M this week are announcing a collaboration to advance the practice of stacking multiple chips on top of each other, packing much greater computing and data-storage capability together into a small space. Electronics companies now routinely stack a few chips together–particularly memory chips, for use in small devices like cellphones–but IBM is talking about bonding 100 or more chips together, including high-performance microprocessors.</p>

The southern half of the state has been ravaged by flooding following TS Irene on Sunday. The main road north-south in the area (US route 7) is out. The main road east-west (US route 4) is also out. The back roads as you can imagine are just as bad. Food and water must be airlifted by the national guard since some towns can now only be reached by air or ATV. People are also unable to feed their cattle and horses. Crops are gone and kids are unable to start their school year. A 17 year old boy from Brattleboro...

The Marshfield Dam operated by Green Mountain Power is in jeopardy of overflowing. Because of that, officials at GMP are preparing to possibly release water from the dam. That is expected to cause the Winooski River to rise significantly. "We are very aware of the potential flooding of the Winooski River throughout its entire system, and we understand that if we release the water that will increase flooding. However, if the dam were to fail that would be a huge amount of water and that would just be not acceptable. We are needing to make sure that we take all...

Anyone else feel that?

Having purchased an old house, a friend of mine, John, was informed that the house had a number of code violations. Specifically, the railing on the porch, at only twenty-one inches, fell considerably short of the city's required forty-two. This is a safety issue, he was told. Apparently, in 1901, when the house was built, children were only half the size that they are now -- or perhaps twice as aware of their surroundings. In any case, he was going to have to replace the porch railings. So he did. He found a carpenter, who lathed out new balusters in...

Among the pressures facing police officiers working the streets of America is the rising number of people legally carrying concealed guns. But when one such licensee was pulled over in Canton, Ohio, an officer threatened to shoot him on the spot. Here's the chilling video. The arrest took place in early June, but the video only came to light today from a group called Ohioans for Concealed Carry. They had been working on behalf of the driver of the Pontiac Grand Prix, known so far only as William, who was arrested and charged in the stop. As the 17-minute dashcam...

The Bloomberg Businessweek cover story on the U.S. Postal Service a couple weeks ago was a real stunner - filled with so many juicy tidbits that it took a while to digest.  It is just phenomenal that a handful of ingnoramuses (ignorami?) are doing this to a once proud example of American ingenuity. We've heard the story over the past several years - the rise of email has demolished traditional first class mail.  Free markets created the likes of UPS and FedEx, and thanks to better and more reliable service customers willingly paid substantially more for those products.  So what...

A year ago I wrote about the sad story of the Simmons Mattress company, a well run outfit that got caught in the cross hairs of the investment bankers, and while they never had a problem making and selling mattresses at a profit they were bought and sold by a series of investment bankers, each one artificially pumping up the book value of the company, borrowing against the inflated value to pay themselves outrageous fees and to repay their investment, and ultimately driving the company into bankruptcy. Factories closed, people were laid off, suppliers short-changed, as the investment bankers took...

Investigators are looking into a suspicious fire that damaged the sacristy at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in South Sacramento early Monday. “Yeah, fire on the outside of a church at 5:30 in the morning, it’s suspicious,” Sacramento Metro Battalion Chief John Williams told CBS-13 News. Authorities said the fired caused significant damage to the sacristy but the rest of the church was not affected.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood unveiled new fuel-economy window stickers for cars and trucks, saying "we're not just sitting around waiting for high gasoline prices to come down." His ride of choice to the unveiling: This 12-mpg Chevy Suburban SUV.

At approximately 6:52 p.m. on May 7, Fulton County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to a truck that had driven onto the unfinished bridge across the Spoon River, at Ellisville. The truck had been traveling west bound on County Highway 17 prior to the crash. Preliminary investigations showed that the truck had struck a parked motorcycle that was sitting on the outside of the barricade line. The truck then pushed the motorcycle through one of the 8 ft barricades and travelled approximately 50 ft. before becoming airborne for approximately 10 ft. The truck then landed on a single steel "I" beam...

Lake Champlain reached another record high Thursday, and there are fears the only roads on and off the Champlain Islands may have to shut down. The steadily rising water led Gov. Peter Shumlin to declare a state of emergency Thursday. The high water is now covering Route 2 in Milton near the causeway that connects to the Champlain Islands. Crews are working to keep the road passable and it remains open at this point, but if the water continues to rise, the state might be forced to close it down. Route 78 between Alburgh and Swanton is also in jeopardy...

The New York Yankees announced today that they have donated $100,000 to support rescue and relief efforts following the tragic earthquake in Japan. Of the total, $50,000 will be given to the Salvation Army and $50,000 to the Red Cross, both of which are already working in relief efforts on the ground in Japan. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by the terrible earthquake in Japan,” said Yankees Managing General Partner Hal Steinbrenner. “We hope that the international community does everything in its power to support and assist the Japanese people in their time of need.”...

It's been a while since we had a Fun With Statistics post, but fellow blogger Jason Yip just pointed me to PWC's just-released Paying Taxes 2011 report - and that got the wheels turning.  There is so much data here, and so many ways to cut it, that the statistics nuts among us could spend hours diving into it. The study measures the total tax rate (federal, state, municipal, sales, etc) of 183 economies worldwide as a percentage of total commercial profits, but even more interesting are the measures of the cost of complexity, compliance, time required to comply, and...

We've just found a tech repair service worse than the Geek Squad. The owner of a computer repair shop is in custody on larceny charges. Authorities discovered he had charged one customer $6 million over six years for services related to the man's hard drive the repair shop said was infected with a virus. Not just any virus, but one that sat at the crux of a Dan Brown-esque conspiracy. The tech told the customer that there was a hard drive in a Honduran village trying to infect his hard drive, and that was part of a scheme by Polish...

Getting revenge with a snowblower: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkAJ-CQvkwA&feature=player_embedded

A Vermont teenager is dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound he suffered inside a school building. Police were called to Mount Mansfield Union High School in Jericho at 8:15 this morning after a boy was found unresponsive in a bathroom. The boy has been identified as 15-year-old Connor Menning of Huntington. He was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Police say their initial investigation indicates Menning died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. "It's hard to describe in words really," Chittenden East Superintendent John Alberghini said. "I really just feel terrible for this family and this young...

Immediately following today’s ruling that a New York Catholic college is not “religious” under federal law, The Cardinal Newman Society published an analysis from a top legal expert advising Catholic college leaders on ways to protect their religious freedoms by maintaining a strong Catholic identity. “Federal and state laws are increasingly being used to coerce religious institutions into actions and commitments that violate deeply held religious convictions and moral principles,” warns Kevin Theriot, Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, in the analysis entitled “Protecting Catholic Colleges from External Threats to Their Religious Liberty,” which is posted at CatholicHigherEd.org. Theriot...