Free Republic

Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches. Benedict approved a document from his old offices at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that restates church teaching on relations with other Christians. It was the second time in a week the pope has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church. Benedict, who attended Vatican II as a young theologian, has long...

A bill to overhaul the way evolution is taught in Louisiana public schools easily cleared its final legislative hurdle Monday despite threats of a lawsuit. Opponents, mostly outside the State Capitol, contend the legislation would inject creationism and other religious themes into public schools. However, the Senate voted 36-0 without debate to go along with the same version of the proposal that the House passed last week 94-3. The measure, Senate Bill 733, now goes to Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is expected to sign it. Backers said the bill is needed to give science teachers more freedom to hold discussions...

NEW YORK - Norman Mailer, the pugnacious prince of American letters who for decades reigned as the country's literary conscience and provocateur with such books as "The Naked and the Dead" and "The Executioner's Song," has died at the age of 84. Mailer died Saturday of acute renal failure at Mount Sinai Hospital, J. Michael Lennon, the author's literary executor and biographer, said. "He was a great American voice," said a tearful Joan Didion, author of "The Year of Magical Thinking" and other works, struggling for words upon learning of Mailer's death. From his classic debut novel to such masterworks...

I often wondered what exactly makes a FReeper a FReeper? Is it the simple act of reading articles on FR? Do you have to post articles or replies? To call yourself a FReeper do you need to engage in effective activism like writing letters to politicians, getting out in the street to carry signs, or, is being a FReeper an attitude. If so, what attitude is that? Knock yourself out.

DALLAS -- A DPD officer was shot and killed in West Dallas after confronting a homicide suspect. The officer died at Parkland Hospital as the suspect entered into a standoff with Dallas SWAT.

Ford will announce on Wednesday plans to rename its Five Hundred mid-size sedan "Taurus," according to a report by Dow Jones Newswires. The name change will be announced at the Chicago auto show. A month ago, a report in BusinessWeek suggested Ford could revive the Taurus name, but it seemed unlikely at the time. CEO Alan Mulally was quoted as saying Ford should have never dropped the nameplate in the first place. "I havent had time to do the deep dive on why we stopped investing in Taurus, but I'd like to," said Ford CEO Alan Mulally. "The Ford Five...

There are still a lot of questions about the suspected drunk driver who killed a woman and two of her children while driving under the influence on Christmas Eve. Carlos Prieto is in the Salt Lake County Jail. In the past couple of hours we've learned that he's been in Utah at least a couple of years and that he may be in the country illegally. Prieto was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on suspicion on vehicular homicide, driving under the influence, and driving without a license. Prosecutors are still screening the case, and formal charges are expected...

We could all use a good laugh - especially at Google's expense. Type "French military victories" into Google and click I'm feeling lucky

Thank you for giving us blanket amnesty for illegals. Thank you for courageously abandoning our troops. Thank you for handing victory to the terrorists. Thank you for guaranteeing higher taxes. Thank you for guaranteeing no more conservative judges. Thank you for empowering John McCain. Thank you for bringing back universal health care. Thank you for endless investigations. Most of all, I want to thank you for showing complete disregard for the tens of thousands who spilled their blood to give you your right to vote. Your callous, self-serving apathy has guaranteed the government actions that you so bitterly complained about....

Images of Uranus reveal for the first time a dark spot. During the past decade, many bright spots have been seen on Uranus, in both red and near-infrared filters. But this is the first dark spot ever seen on the planet. A team led by Lawrence Sromovsky of the University of Wisconsin and including Kathy Rages of the SETI Institute, Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute (Boulder, CO), and Patrick Fry of U. Wisconsin, observed the dark spot on Aug. 23 using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).

John Kerry recently volunteered that he was prepared to “kick [the Swift Boat Veterans’] ass from one end of America to the other” and that he would “demolish” us. He ought to take a Christmas cruise to Cambodia to calm down. Maybe he could take a side trip to tour “Genghis Khan” ruins. It is a little difficult to imagine Kerry (“I voted for it before I voted against it”) kicking the most decorated living serviceman, Bud Day, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, or our salty commander, Adm. Roy Hoffman, anywhere. Perhaps Kerry had in mind using a “Rice...

Sen. John F. Kerry yesterday blasted the Bush administration for war and homeland security policies that he said leave Americans more vulnerable to attack. Kerry’s remarks came in a Faneuil Hall speech on the eve of tomorrow’s five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. In his fourth speech this year at the venue, Kerry accused the administration of using the tragedy that killed about 3,000 Americans to justify the war in Iraq. “It is immoral to treat 9/11 as a political pawn (to) excuse the invasion of Iraq,” Kerry said. “They were attacked and killed not by Saddam...

MOTOR racing legend Peter Brock has been killed in an accident while taking part in the Targa West rally in Western Australia, motor sport officials have confirmed. The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) said in a statement the accident occurred about 1.50pm (AEST). Sixty-one-year-old Brock's co-driver, believed to Mick Hone, has been taken to hospital in a stable condition. CAMS said it would conduct a full investigation into the incident. In the meantime, CAMS and event officials were working with the relevant civil authorities. "On behalf of the motor sport community, CAMS offers its sincere sympathy to Peter's family...

The discovery of a bizarre species of fossil whale from Australia with huge eyes and flesh-ripping jaws provides valuable new insights into the evolution of whales, researchers say. The previously unknown species lived about 25 million years ago and was an early ancestor of modern baleen whales, which feed by filtering plankton from seawater. This group includes the blue whale, the largest animal ever to inhabit the planet. But the newfound predatory whale likely hunted sharks and other fish despite its relatively small size and suggests that baleen whales weren't always the toothless gentle giants we see in our oceans...

by Mark Finkelstein August 2, 2006 - 14:07 On the one hand, liberals enjoy portraying themselves as models of tolerance and racial sensitivity. But woe betide someone who runs afoul of their orthodoxy. Liberals don't hesitate to bring out the crudest racial imagery to mock them. We've all seen the vulgar caricatures of Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice and Ward Connerly. Add Joe Lieberman to the liberal media hit list. Have a look at the image of Lieberman that popped up at Huffington Post today. It's in a column by one Jane Hamsher, who, her bio informs us, is a 'progressive...

After Enron's former chairman Ken Lay died on July 5 of a heart problem, the mainstream media were quick to point out how President George W. Bush affectionately once called the convicted criminal "Kenny Boy." Numerous references were made to the close ties between the two.SNIPHistory shows, however, that Lay supported Ann Richards when George W. Bush first ran for governor of Texas in 1994. While it is true that Lay and Enron gave some $6 million to various candidates and both parties, mostly to Republicans, at least $1.5 million went to Clinton and the Democrats. What did Lay and...

"The Syrian people are ready to extend full support to the Lebanese people and their heroic resistance to remain steadfast and confront the barbaric Israeli aggression and its crimes," said a communiqu¿ from the party's national command issued after a meeting. It said Israel and the United States "are trying to wipe out Arab resistance in every land under occupation" and that President Bashar al-Assad was aware of the seriousness of the situation in the region.

When the New York State Assembly's legislative session ended on June 23, 2006, Assembly Bill 8036 died in committee. If enacted, the bill would have required that "all pupils in grades kindergarten through twelve in all public schools in the state ... receive instruction in all aspects of the controversy surrounding evolution and the origins of man." A later provision specified that such instruction would include information about "intelligent design and information effectively challenging the theory of evolution." The bill was never expected to succeed; its sponsor, Assemblyman Daniel L. Hooker (R-District 127), was reported as explaining that his intention...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—The earliest known hominid fossil, which dates to about 7 million years ago, is actually some kind of ape, according to an international team of researchers led by the University of Michigan. The finding, they say, suggests scientists should rethink whether we actually descended from apes resembling chimpanzees, which are considered our closest relatives. U-M anthropologist Milford Wolpoff and colleagues examined images and the original paper published on the discovery of the Toumaï cranium (TM 266) or Sahelanthropus tchadensis, as well as a computer reconstruction of the skull. Two other colleagues were actually able to examine the skull,...

Investigation Continues as Congressman Enters Mayo Clinic May 5, 2006 — Capitol Police have taken disciplinary action against a watch commander for the handling of Rep. Patrick Kennedy's car accident, acting Capitol Police Chief Christopher McGaffin said. Lou Cannon of of the Fraternal Order of Police for the District of Columbia said there are questions about whether Rep. Patrick Kennedy received special treatment. (ABC News) McGaffin said the incident was improperly delayed due to "poor judgment" on the part of police managers and that a field sobriety test should have been administered to Kennedy after his car hit a barrier...

Commander in Chief has been pulled by ABC. I can't believe that they did this.

A family cat in South Carolina that was stuck in a tree for eight days fell 80 feet to the ground, landed on its feet and then ran away uninjured.

A teacher's aid from Hull, Iowa, is accused of having sex with a 15-year-old student. 38-year-old Kelli Cuperus works at the Boyden-Hull Community School and was arrested on felony sexual abuse charges. The Sioux County Sheriff's Department believes the first incident happened in May of last year, when the boy was still 15 years old. That's where the sexual abuse charges come from, because the boy wasn't old enough to consent.

This is the text of an email I received today. Wouldn't it be fun to string this guy out for a while,then hang him out to dry ? Ideas welcome ! Dear Friend, I am Dr.Daniel Nando presently i am practising with a private hospital here in Ivory Coast W/Africa,And you don?t worry because I got your contact through a chamber of commerce and will like to explain to you about a transaction which I hope you can assist which will benefit both of us. I have a patient, a Sierra Leonia woman who was on admission for some weeks...

(02/16/06 - DURHAM) - A Durham middle school teacher is facing charges after allowing a student to spend the night at her home. According to the Durham County Sheriff's Office, Janet Briggs, 43, allegedly allowed a 14-year-old student to spend the night at her home more than once. Briggs worked at Chewning Middle School as an eighth-grade teacher until she resigned on February 3. Just days later, the boy's father filed a complaint and pressed charges. Briggs was arrested Wednesday. According to police warrants, the first sleepover occurred December 16. Officials say the male student was invited to her home...

NEW YORK (AP) - The National Security Agency's Internet site has been placing files on visitors' computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them. These files, known as "cookies," disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, and agency officials acknowledged Wednesday they had made a mistake. Nonetheless, the issue raises questions about privacy at a spy agency already on the defensive amid reports of a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States. "Considering the surveillance power the NSA has, cookies are not exactly a major...

In all kinds of circles, not just among mystics, is a sense of looming events and in some cases, a year is even attached. Of course, this is always the height of the precarious. We warned before the year 2000 not to place too much importance on that specific year (we all recall Y2K). We warn again of the same thing now. Rarely does prophecy pinpoint matters according to a human timeline, for events are conditional and God is infinite, which means He is timeless. Moreover, there is not

The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google is intended to take you to the most relevant website for your search term without you having to browse a lot of sites. For instance, putting in "cancer" will automatically take you to the American Cancer Society website. Putting in "apples" will take you to the website for the Washington State Apples Commission. Now try the word "failure." Follow the 4 steps below: 1.) Go to http://www.google.com 2.) Type in "failure" without the quotes. 3.) Press the "I'm feeling lucky" button 4.) Were you expecting that?? I suppose it's time to fire up...

Economic woes, political battles have roiled the nation since last year's revolution. By Fred Weir | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor KIEV, UKRAINE – All through the election night of Nov. 21 the rumors flew, by telephone, Internet, and word of mouth. "People were saying, 'The election has been stolen, the fraud is massive.' " recalls Maxym Savanevsky, an activist in last year's Orange Revolution, which shook Ukraine from its formerly docile, post-Soviet mold. Reporters on the Job The Monitor gives the story behind the story. In the Monitor Tuesday, 11/22/05 Israel's new middle way GM cutbacks portend tougher...

The tone on FR is very demoralized. Liberals and their media unfortunately have succeeded in demoralizing a large number of freepers. From their constant savage attacks on the President and the Republican Party with lies and distortions, to their biased polls, to blaming the President for everything under the sun, many freepers are feeling very demoralized. They are further demoralized because President Bush is not fighting back, because the RINOS in Congress are screwing thing up for the President agenda. Add to that a huge numbers of trolls who infiltrated FR in 2004 and 2005 to divide and demoralize by...

The 2005 hurricane season continues to alter the record books. Tropical Storm Wilma has formed in the Caribbean Sea. NHC Public AdvisoriesNHC DiscussionsStorm Floater IR Loop

Why must intelligent design be stopped? Because this—God forbid—could be the moment when the theocratization of America makes a real advance. Will the Yankees win the pennant and the World Series? Don’t know, don’t really much care. It’s the same with religion: I just don’t get it. There may be a God or—I was raised Unitarian—an oversoul or divine oneness of creation, but I have no conviction one way or the other, nor any itch to shuck off my uncertainty in favor of either atheism or firm belief. I realize I’m a freak, entirely out of step with the mainstream....

A tropical wave in the Caribbean became more organized on Tuesday. Residents of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands may have to deal with bouts of heavy rain shortly. An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft may be dispatched to check out the disturbance on Wednesday. Another disturbance being watched is moving westward in the central Atlantic about halfway between Africa and South America near 10 degrees north. Convection is beginning to develop around a low pressure center associated with the system, so further development is possible. In the central Pacific, Tropical Storm Kenneth (50 mph) is located about 910 miles...

Editor's Note: This article is the first in a special LiveScience series about the theory of evolution and a competing idea called intelligent design. TODAY: An overview of the increasingly heated exchange between scientists and the proponents of intelligent design. COMING FRIDAY : Proponents argue that intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory, but a close look at their arguments shows that it doesn't pass scientific muster. Science can sometimes be a devil's bargain: a discovery is made, some new aspect of nature is revealed, but the knowledge gained can cause mental anguish if it contradicts a deeply cherished belief...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: We go to Whitney in Roanoke, Virginia. I'm glad you held on, Whitney. Thanks for your patience. CALLER: Oh, thanks for having me. RUSH: You bet. CALLER: I had a rational and intelligent argument, but now I'm a little nervous. I'm not sure how I'm going -- ha! ha! -- to present it, but it seems like to me that you just dismiss the environmental concerns just right offhand, and what I'm trying to figure out is: Are you dismissing the harbingers of doom and gloom themselves, or the environmental concern? RUSH: Uhhh. Am I just missing...

It sounds so reasonable, doesn't it? Such a modest proposal. Why not teach "both sides" and let the children decide for themselves? As President Bush said, "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes." At first hearing, everything about the phrase "both sides" warms the hearts of educators like ourselves. One of us spent years as an Oxford tutor and it was his habit to choose controversial topics for the students' weekly essays. They were required to go to the library, read about both sides of an argument, give a...

Buttars' pitch can't sway unanimous 'no' vote To borrow a line from Dorothy: We're not in Kansas anymore. Unlike the Kansas School Board, which earlier this summer approved allowing educators to teach theories in addition to evolution that explain life on Earth, the Utah Board of Education on Friday unanimously approved a position statement supporting the continued exclusive teaching of evolution in state classrooms. Only two people out of the dozens who attended Friday's meeting sided with Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, and his proposal to allow teaching "intelligent design" as a theory to explain the origins of life. Intelligent...

Before he struck gold with slick infomercials and the best-selling "Natural Cures" self-help book, Kevin Trudeau was your basic money-hungry convicted felon, a guy whose rap sheet included credit card fraud and grand larceny convictions. On the plus side, Kev once served as president of Junior Clowns of America. For more on the ex-fraudster du jour, go here: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0826051trudeau1.html

My mother says she is a Darwinist. I’m not sure of all the things that could or should imply. I take it to mean the she does not believe that the Cosmos and all that it contains is the result of the will of a Supreme Being. Nature just exists and that is all there is to it. Asking what is the purpose of human existence is a nonsense question. It has no meaning. As we have no conscious origin, we have no conscious destination. Hence no purpose. This idea is quite troubling to many humans as we are quite...

We've seen the little symbols on the backs of cars: The "Jesus fish" and the "Darwin fish." The Jesus fish eating the Darwin fish. The Darwin fish eating the Jesus fish. It makes for entertainment while commuting, but this front of the culture wars won't be won or lost on the freeway. The creationists realized that they were not getting enough traction in their bumper- sticker campaign against the theory of evolution. So biblical literalists have come up with a new strategy: leave the word "God" out of the public argument, and come up with one that sounds more scientific....

On those rare occasions that I write a column touching remotely on science, especially if I depart from the conventional wisdom of the greater scientific community, the contemptuous e-mails fill my inbox. Such was the case a few columns ago when I broached the subject of Intelligent Design (ID) after President Bush indicated his receptiveness to ID theory being taught alongside evolution in the public schools. The hostile e-mailers pointed out what a consummate idiot and criminal trespasser I was for treading on their real estate. They demanded I stick to law and politics, not because I know much more...

WMAL-AM (630) has fired conservative talk-show host Michael Graham, three weeks after the ABC-owned radio station suspended him for calling Islam a "terrorist organization." Mr. Graham also has lost his gig, at least for now, as a panelist on "Eye on Washington," the weekend political talk show produced by WUSA-TV (Channel 9), the local CBS affiliate. "The First Amendment and I have been evicted from ABC Radio," Mr. Graham said in a statement posted to a Web site Sunday night.

WASHINGTON – Michael Graham, the Washington, D.C., talk-show host suspended for linking Islam and terrorism, has been fired by ABC Radio following weeks of pressure applied by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group with its own well-documented connections to terrorism. Graham was the popular mid-morning host on WMAL in the nation's capital until three weeks ago when CAIR demanded he be punished for his on-air statements about Islam. After initially backing the host, WMAL suspended him without pay July 28. "CAIR immediately announced that my punishment was insufficient and demanded I be fired," Graham said in a statement to...

Compared with fields like genetics and neuroscience and cosmology, botany comes up a bit short in the charisma department. But when scientists announced last week that they had figured out how plants grow, one had to take note, not only because of the cleverness required to crack a puzzle that dates to 1885, but because of what it says about controversy and certainty in science -- and about the evolution debate. In 1885, scientists discovered a plant-growth hormone and called it auxin. Ever since, its mechanism of action had been a black box, with scientists divided into warring camps about...

Quick: Define miosis and mitosis. Explain mitochondrion and chloroplast. Now briefly, what's RNA? The biology teachers assembled at the University of Colorado last week for a seminar on teaching evolution know most Americans are clueless about basic science. They find our ignorance exasperating. But it also explains a lot. With most people content with being scientifically illiterate, it's no wonder so many believe intelligent design is a scientific theory. It unequivocally is not. It's a religious belief, a political issue or an abomination destined to cripple Americans in global scientific achievement, depending on your point of view. But it is...

On those rare occasions that I write a column touching remotely on science, especially if I depart from the conventional wisdom of the greater scientific community, the contemptuous e-mails fill my inbox. Such was the case a few columns ago when I broached the subject of Intelligent Design (ID) after President Bush indicated his receptiveness to ID theory being taught alongside evolution in the public schools. The hostile e-mailers pointed out what a consummate idiot and criminal trespasser I was for treading on their real estate. They demanded I stick to law and politics, not because I know much more...

By SEATTLE - When President Bush plunged into the debate over the teaching of evolution this month, saying, "both sides ought to be properly taught," he seemed to be reading from the playbook of the Discovery Institute, the conservative think tank here that is at the helm of this newly volatile frontier in the nation's culture wars. After toiling in obscurity for nearly a decade, the institute's Center for Science and Culture has emerged in recent months as the ideological and strategic backbone behind the eruption of skirmishes over science in school districts and state capitals across the country. Pushing...

The Smithsonian Institution is a national treasure of which every American can legitimately feel a sense of personal ownership. Considering this, I'd imagine widespread displeasure as more Americans become aware that senior scientists at the publicly funded Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History have reportedly been creating a "hostile work environment" for one of their colleagues merely because he published a controversial idea in a biology journal. The controversial idea is Intelligent Design, the scientific critique of neo-Darwinism. The persecuted Smithsonian scientist is Richard von Sternberg, the holder of two PhDs in biology (one in theoretical biology, the other in...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Echoing similar comments from President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said "intelligent design" should be taught in public schools alongside evolution. Frist, R-Tenn., spoke to a Rotary Club meeting Friday and told reporters afterward that students need to be exposed to different ideas, including intelligent design. "I think today a pluralistic society should have access to a broad range of fact, of science, including faith," Frist said. Frist, a doctor who graduated from Harvard Medical School, said exposing children to both evolution and intelligent design "doesn't force any particular theory on anyone. I think in a...

You know that TV crocodile hunting team Steve and Terri Irwin? Well those two can expect some competition in days to come. Scientists in northern Australia have been collecting blood from crocodiles in hopes of saving humans. Studies in the late 90s showed that several antibodies in croc blood killed penicillin-resistant bacteria. More recently it has been discovered that crocodiles’ immune systems can kill the HIV virus. American scientist Mark Merchant says the reptiles “tear limbs off each other, [but] they heal up very rapidly and normally, almost always without infection.” Aussie scientist Adam Britton adds: “The crocodile has an...