Free Republic

I looked over the Halloween article but I was wondering how to explain that to my eleven year old. Do you have any articles written to children on this?—T.H., U.S. Many people celebrate Halloween without considering the history of the holiday. They put on costumes, attend parties, eat candy, and even pull pranks on neighbors. In fact, Americans spend billions of dollars each year decorating and preparing. But there’s more to Halloween than jack-o-lanterns and scary stories. Let’s take a quick trip back in time to see where some of these customs came from—and if Christians should take part. To...

NYSE Open Disrupted By Flood Of Orders On 2:44 pm EDT, Friday October 30, 2009 NEW YORK (Reuters) - A huge influx of orders prevented the New York Stock Exchange from disseminating quotes shortly after the start of trading on Friday. (NYSE:NYX - News; Paris:NYX.PA - News), the parent of the exchange, said the delays followed "an inordinate influx" of orders received as Friday's session got under way. Later in the session, the company had to temporarily transfer quote processing to a backup system. The exchange's quote delays caused some tickers to be locked, but an NYSE spokesman said "trades...

Researchers are recovering beautiful fossils from the Cerrejón Formation of Colombia. One was a giant snake, called the “Titanoboa.” Most recently, a study examined the formation’s fossilized flora, which looked the same as modern plants, and the rainforest environment in which they lived.[1] This research dovetails nicely with other studies on ancient earth’s turbulent climate. There is evidence of dramatic...

Years ago, National Geographic published a remarkable photograph of a polystrate fossil, a fossilized tree that extended stratigraphically upward through several layers of rock in Tennessee. Its roots were in a coal seam, and the overlying deposits included bedded shale and thin carbon-rich layers. An advocate of any form of uniformitarianism would believe that it took many, many years to deposit this sequence of layers (much longer than it takes for a tree to grow and eventually die and decay), yet one vertical fossil extends through them all. This one fossilized tree offered a direct contradiction to the evolutionary mantra...

"The evolutionary lie is so pointedly antithetical to Christian truth that it would seem unthinkable for evangelical Christians to compromise with evolutionary science in any degree. But during the past century and a half of evolutionary propaganda, evolutionists have had remarkable success in getting evangelicals to meet them halfway. Remarkably, many modern evangelicals…have already been convinced that the Genesis account of creation is not a true historical record. Thus they have not only capitulated to evolutionary doctrine at its starting point, but they have also embraced a view that undermines the authority of Scripture at its starting point.” —Dr. John...

The National Weather Service has issued flash-flood watches this morning for mountain burn areas from Santa Barbara to San Bernardino as a powerful winter storm moved into Southern California. Rain was beginning to fall this morning, with the strongest portions of the storm expected late today and early Wednesday morning. The National Weather Service issued the flood watches for areas burned by the fires in Santa Barbara as well as the massive Station fire is Los Angeles County and the Sheep fire near Wrightwood. The watch also includes areas burned in last year's large Sayre and Marek fires in the...

From Mark Shea's blog, this sad news: And, on a more personal note, my friend Rod Bennett (author of the terrific book Four Witnesses) writes: Just a note to any of our friends who haven't got the word: we Bennetts lost our home and practically all of its contents in Monday's flash flooding here in Georgia. Please be in prayer as we look for guidance on where to go from here and as our kids (who've never really known any other home than this one) try to pick up the pieces emotionally. We'll be staying with my parents in Marietta...

Now that most of the flood waters in the Atlanta suburbs have receded the residents are struggling to find what, if anything, they can salvalge from their homes. Many of the homes weren't in a flood zone and so the owners weren't required to carry flood insurance. This isn't a case of people building homes in flood prone areas. This event was unprecedented in its proportions. The official federal reponse has been a phone call from President Obama to Governor Perdue in which the President expressed his condolences. We've also been assured that Mr. Obama's people are watching the situation....

CHATTANOOGA — With children and other onlookers holding umbrellas, Sylvester Kitchens stood in the flooded street, laughing and bragging he could swim an overflowing Chattanooga storm ditch outside their house. Wearing shorts and shirtless, the 46-year-old Kitchens dared onlookers to bet him $5 he couldn't do it. Even when nobody showed any money, Kitchens jumped in. After bobbing along in the gushing water about 150 feet late Sunday afternoon and grabbing a chain link fence above the ditch, Kitchens lost his grip as family members tried to toss him the end of a water hose. He washed away into an...

ATLANTA — Floodwaters that swept across the rain-soaked Southeast killed at least three people and left five others missing Monday, including a Georgia toddler who disappeared after a mobile home was split apart by a swollen creek. Three Georgia motorists died when their vehicles were swept off Atlanta-area roads, and some major highways were submerged. Officials urged motorists to stay off the roads as a new line of storms threatened the area. Fast-moving water also swept away a Tennessee man who went swimming in an overflowing ditch on a dare. Crews in northwest Georgia worked furiously to shore up a...

Quick background: I found this while searching for events that happened on September 9 (we just had 09/09/09). A Web site mistakenly lists this disaster as happening on September 9, 1963; actually it happened October 9, 1963. Hadn't heard of it before, but it's listed as one of the top engineering disasters in history. The Vajont (Vaiont) Landslide The site linked in the header provides small snapshots of the whole area. Two examples: Here's an annotated picture that helps put it in context. Here's a picture of the immediate aftermath: To really get this in perspective, though, use Google Maps....

South Korea suspects North Korea intentionally flooded a river at their shared border last weekend, a top government official said Wednesday, as rescuers recovered the bodies of a boy and two others engulfed by the surge of water. North Korea unleashed an estimated 40 million tons of water from a new dam without providing prior notice. Six South Koreans camping and fishing at the river were swept to their deaths. The North said Monday that it "urgently" ordered the discharge because the reservoir's water level was too high. Stopping short of an apology, Pyongyang said it would warn Seoul of...

WASHINGTON – It's no surprise that Democratic lawmakers got an earful about health care legislation when they went home this summer. But Texas Republicans in the House who have already denounced the legislation have also been bombarded by correspondence from highly informed constituents. The office of Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington, received an unprecedented amount of mail, spokesman Sean Brown said. In the five weeks prior to the health care debate, Barton received nearly 400 e-mails. In the five weeks after it began, he got almost 2,800. "We have legislative correspondents that are tasked with returning mail, and they have been...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Sept. 8, 2009 – NATO International Security Assistance Force servicemembers have helped Afghan forces in their efforts to aid flood victims in eastern Afghanistan. In Laghman province’s Alingar district, ISAF servicemembers delivered three truckloads of humanitarian aid items to Sundurwa villagers Sept. 3 after a road washed out, destroying a house and killing nine children. Two children were missing after the flood. In an effort to support the Afghan Border Police, who initially responded to the washout and provided humanitarian aid, ISAF servicemembers, including an engineer serving with the Nuristan provincial reconstruction team, assessed the road and...

Yang Chiu-hsing, magistrate of Kaohsiung, said yesterday he is considering turning the mudslide-destroyed village of Siaolin into a memorial park. “I think we should keep Siaolin as a park in memory of those we believe were buried alive,” said the magistrate of the southern Taiwan county, who opposes the rebuilding of the village. One reason for Yang's consideration to create the memorial park is that most of the residents do not want more excavation of tens of thousands of tons of mud to locate the approximately 200 people buried and presumed dead. They do not want heavy construction equipment crushing...

edited the best parts

Pictures of a piece of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat (meaning: sacred land or high land), eastern Turkey or former western Armenia, because Noah's Ark is in pieces!

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. -- Governor Charlie Crist visited flood-damaged areas and devastated families Tuesday as recovery efforts began from the historic floods in Volusia County. The coast is drying up and giving families a chance to rebuild. In Volusia County, 619 houses have major damage and may be destroyed and 912 homes had minor damage. Officials are waiting to find out if federal money will come in to help storm victims and if FEMA will get involved.

Recently the Brits have found out what really separated them from mainland Europe: catastrophic flooding!...

Worldwide FLOOD Worldwide EVIDENCE When the Bible refers to a worldwide Flood in Genesis 7–8, that’s exactly what it means. Not local, not metaphorical, not some crazy dream—the waters covered the whole earth. Don’t just take our word for it, though. Take a look at the evidence right beneath your feet...