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UP to a million Hindu devotees have gathered in a village in Nepal to witness the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals in a mass sacrifice that has drawn widespread criticism. Worshippers travelled long distances, many coming from India, to attend the two-day Gadhimai festival, which honours the Hindu goddess of power and takes place once every five years in southern Nepal. A huge cry of "Long Live Gadhimai!" went up after the village temple's head priest launched the event with the ritual sacrifice of two wild rats, two pigeons, a rooster, a lamb and a pig. The crowd...

11/18/2009 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFNS) -- He was there, and then he was gone. It was just a glimpse in the night of Oct. 31. She continued to exit the C-130 Hercules that had just landed at this air base in Southwest Asia, still scanning her surroundings to see if it could be. Then she saw him. Her face lit up as she joyfully greeted her husband at the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing reception area. Although she was ecstatic to see her husband for the first time in six months, Capt. Kieran Dhillon-Davis, the newly arrived chief of the 380th...

Because modern life is so marked by prosperity for the greater portion of the earth, we rarely grasp the full impact of our spiritual position as a people, nation, or global family. Tragedy and evil seem so removed simply because it does not dwell in our own homes, or does not seem to.The reality of evil is eerily similar to the reality of holiness. It is hidden in the clothes of daily life, so that its horror is disguised, and the evil that seeks entrance is casually allowed and even ignorantly embraced by those who would resist it if they...

Pennsylvania SPCA workers had the unwelcome task yesterday of sifting through the remains of five animals that apparently had been sacrificed, officials said. A passer-by found the beheaded animals - a dog, a cat and three chickens - near a bike path on Bingham Street near Roosevelt Boulevard in Olney about 1 p.m., said George Bengal, the PSPCA's director of investigations. "It looks like the act was done somewhere else, and the remains were left here in the park," Bengal said. PSPCA officials often see a rise in animal sacrifices at this time of the year, Bengal noted, because it...

PARIS (AFP) – Former foes France and Germany held a joint World War I Armistice Day ceremony for the first time as events around the globe Wednesday honoured the millions killed in the conflict. President Barack Obama, speaking at a ceremony in the United States, hailed "the brave men and women of this young nation, generations of them, who above all else believed in and fought for a set of ideals." In London, Queen Elizabeth II led tributes to the war dead, including the growing number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. But the last British veteran of the 1914-18 conflict...

A bomb disposal specialist who had defused more than 60 improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan died when one went off as he tried to disarm it. Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, 30, was on his last day before two weeks of rest and recuperation after a five-month tour in charge of an improvised explosive device (IED) search team in Helmand province. He was due back there next month. He died instantly when an IED that he was examining by the British forward operation base in the town of Sangin exploded on Saturday. The Ministry of Defence said that Staff Sergeant Schmid...

Following their exchange in July, author Moyra Doorly and Aidan Nichols discuss the merits of post-Vatican II liturgical reform Dear Fr Aidan, In your kind reply to my first letter you made the point that I was drawing "unnecessarily sharp" contrasts between a theology of "propitiation and supplication" on one hand, and teachings on the "fruits of Communion" on the other. But what I was trying to demonstrate is that the pre-Conciliar sources give ample teaching on both, whereas the documents of Vatican II ignore the theology of propitiation and supplication. Now, to me this represents a doctrinal discontinuity of...

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and AnthropologyBURIAL PITA CT scan, left, of a female skull at a burial site at Ur. Women were buried with elaborate adornments, right, and warriors with their weapons. A new examination of skulls from the royal cemetery at Ur, discovered in Iraq almost a century ago, appears to support a more grisly interpretation than before of human sacrifices associated with elite burials in ancient Mesopotamia, archaeologists say. Palace attendants, as part of royal mortuary ritual, were not dosed with poison to meet a rather serene death. Instead, a sharp instrument, a pike perhaps,...

It's hard out there for a first lady of the United States. Take it from travel-weary Michelle Obama. On Tuesday night, she boarded a luxury 757 for Copenhagen. Think of the stairs she had to climb. Oh, the agony of the feet! Upon arrival, Mrs. O, her "chit-chat buddy," Chicago-based talk-show queen Oprah Winfrey, and Chicago powerbroker/interest-conflicted real estate mogul/senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett immediately embarked on a grueling, grip-and-grin campaign to secure the Olympics for their hometown. Our smile muscles ache in sympathy. You will be comforted to know that the gracious FLOTUS feels your pain for her...

In her speech in Copenhagen today, First Lady Michelle Obama said her trip to Denmark, along with the travel of her "dear friend" and "chit-chat buddy" Oprah Winfrey, as well as tomorrow's visit by President Obama, is a "sacrifice" on behalf of the children of Chicago and the United States. "As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days," the first lady told a crowd of people involved in the Chicago project, "so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring...

Michelle Obama: It's a 'sacrifice' to travel to Europe to pitch for the Olympics. For Oprah and the president, too. But we're doing it for the kids. By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent09/30/09 5:12 PM EDT In her speech in Copenhagen today, First Lady Michelle Obama said her trip to Denmark, along with the travel of her "dear friend" and "chit-chat buddy" Oprah Winfrey, as well as tomorrow's visit by President Obama, is a "sacrifice" on behalf of the children of Chicago and the United States. "As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or...

In her speech in Copenhagen today, First Lady Michelle Obama said her trip to Denmark, along with the travel of her "dear friend" and "chit-chat buddy" Oprah Winfrey, as well as tomorrow's visit by President Obama, is a "sacrifice" on behalf of the children of Chicago and the United States. "As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days," the first lady told a crowd of people involved in the Chicago project, "so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2009 – Ruth Stonesifer dreamed of a quiet life in Kintnersville, Penn., passing her days quilting for her three grandchildren. Left, Ruth Stonesifer and her son Kristofor pose for a picture in July 2001, just months before the Army Ranger was killed in an October 2001 helicopter crash over Pakistan, and right, Ruth pictured today. Ruth is now the president of American Gold Star Mothers Inc., a nonprofit group made up of mothers who have lost sons and daughters in the line of duty while serving in the U.S. armed forces. Courtesy photos  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution...

I've made a decision. After thoughtful reflection I've come to the conclusion that my life can have no greater purpose than to sacrifice it for the sake of another. But this sacrifice cannot be for some Jack Nobody. No, I am looking to lay my life down for a very specific type of person. If you are a young person of privilege, perhaps the black sheep of your family, and have an alarming drinking problem and been thrown out of an ivy league university, you might be the person I am looking for! Oh, quick question, were you a legacy...

COLLINSVILLE -- Human sacrifice! Victims buried alive! Read all about it in "Cahokia -- Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi." According to this new book by University of Illinois archaeologist and professor of anthropology Tim Pauketat, the mound builders were not always the idyllic, corn-growing, pottery-making, fishing-hunting gentle villagers depicted in various dioramas at the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Collinsville. Pauketat said these long-vanished people practiced human sacrifice of women and men on a mass scale and weren't always careful to bury only the dead. Based on years of study of artifacts including many from the extensive...

GEORGETOWN, S.C. -- He was standing at the counter when I entered the store. As he paid the clerk, he turned, and I noticed, in this order, his beard, his T-shirt, which had "Marines" emblazoned on the front, and his cane. His prosthetic foot still was masked by the counter when I said, "Semper fi, leatherneck." He smiled and replied: "Semper fi to you, too, Colonel. You were embedded with my unit in Afghanistan last year." We spoke for a few minutes. He had been wounded by the favorite weapon of radical Islamic terror, an IED. He's minus some of...

I got this video today on the Facebook group: Let's find over 1,000,000 supporters of the U.S. Marine Corps It will touch your heart...I know it has mine. Thank God for USMC LC Seth Sharp and all like him who understand the cost and worth of liberty. God rest his soul and God comfort and bless his family, loved ones, and friends...may they be sure in the knowledge of a glorious resurrection and reuniting with this fallen hero. Video of USMC LC Seth Sharp Motorcade July 10, 2009 - Adairsville, GA, KIA Afghanistan July 2, 2009.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ii4j7Y-SOs

BAGHDAD -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki struck a conciliatory tone ahead of his trip to Washington, talking about his gratitude for U.S. sacrifices in Iraq, and offering to negotiate a settlement between Iraq's federal government and the country's Kurdish enclave as tensions heighten between the two. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal as he prepared for a visit to the U.S. on July 21, Mr. Maliki said he planned to thank America for its shared sacrifice with the Iraqi people in the tumultuous post-Saddam Hussein years since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. "We have [achieved] a combined victory...

For the past two days, visitors to a park in Staten Island's Fort Wadsworth section have stumbled upon a gory mystery -- a mutilated animal, possibly a dog or a goat, wrapped in a white sheet. Parkgoers found two such animals in Von Briesen Park yesterday and this morning, city Parks Department officials confirmed. The discovery has sparked speculation of ritual sacrifice and cult activity, and has led one Port Richmond woman to douse part of the ground where one animal was found with holy water, in an attempt to ward off what she believes is an evil presence. Several...

SEGUIN — For some of us, Independence Day is more important than for others. But back in 1942, it all nearly came to naught for the forward observer with the first Texas military unit to ever see combat on foreign soil. One of the very first to see action in World War II and the most decorated military unit in the history of the Lone Star state, Buzzo’s unit, the second battalion of the 131st Field Artillery, was surrendered and captured at Java on March 8, 1942. Of some 900 men taken prisoner at Java, about 670 were shipped to...

NEW ORLEANS | It's "A Gathering of the Greatest Generation" - though this year only a small group of that era's aging heroes will commemorate the invasion of France at Normandy 65 years ago. On Saturday afternoon, veterans will attend a National World War II Museum ceremony in New Orleans recognizing soldiers, sailors and airmen who made that invasion a turning point for Allied forces. However, organizers acknowledge few members of an already dwindling population are hardy enough to make the trip. "We won't have a veteran from each state, unfortunately," said William Detweiler, who is in charge of the...

Let us compare two historical situations. One took place several thousand years ago. The other took place on Monday. According to legend, during the 13th century B.C., there was a Greek king named Agamemnon. He was bound and determined to attack and raze the city of Troy. When Agamemnon sought to launch his ships for Troy, however, the goddess Artemis sent a stagnant wind to stop Agamemnon's fleet. Agamemnon responded by calling out his daughter, Iphigenia, and sacrificing her to appease Artemis. Fast forward to last Monday. In announcing the bankruptcy of General Motors, President Barack Obama spoke directly all...

A Texas woman put up an American flag for Memorial Day, and was told to remove it because it was offensive to a coworker. The kicker is the offended employee is not from the United States. I know ... shocker.

THE TRUE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY - PLEASE WATCH God bless & keep all who do serve, or have ever served, in defense of this Republic & her Constitution...and particularly may He rest all those who have given the last full measure of devotion in that service. That includes my Uncle Albert Spacil, my mom's only brother & my dear, deceased grandparent's only son. He died in a B-17 over Germany in 1944. God continue to rest his soul until we're all gathered over yonder, across Jordan in our Father's Kingdom. ...and may God grant that we have the strength,...

A society as blessed as ours - its people safe even while at war, prosperous even amidst economic crisis - needs to be reminded that such blessings come at a cost. Memorial Day is a time to remember, but it is more than that. Good men and women go off to war on our behalf, and some do not return.

It is once again time for America to remember the reason why we celebrate Memorial Day... From the current War on Terror, to World War's I & II, along with Vietnam, Korea, Grenada and even the Spanish American and Civil War's we honor the memory of all of those who have died serving America in our Armed Forces so that we might now all be free and safe... To those of us who have survived serving in the Military during combat or peace, we take the time to stop and remember those brave young men and women who served right...

America's annual door into summer, Memorial Day, is found at picnics and cemeteries. Spring's brief flowers dance in the same soft breezes that move the Memorial Day flags so many families have planted at the graves of those they love. Families grow stronger, nourished by sensations sweeter and more sour than hotdog relish. This sacred secular holiday, like the drinking glass ritually broken under foot at Jewish weddings, reminds us that joy and sorrow are seasons that come and go and come again in every human life. In Europe, the red poppies are in bloom once again, as they were...

To those we lost, it is a debt we can never repay. What we can do is try to keep America strong and keep it the country for which they died. Freedom, liberty, capitalism, and our way of life must be preserved or we dishonor them and their sacrifice. SING ALONG, SAY A PRAYER, AND HONOR THOSE WHO HAVE PRESERVED OUR FREEDOM

.NEVER FORGET.National Guard Supporter/Country Singer LAURA BRYNA shares her warm patriotic heart with us on a most compelling CD's 'Hometown Heroes'..!.Just for the LOVE of FREEDOM..!!! .NEVER FORGET.

.NEVER FORGET.March 25th, 2009 =9/11 Lifesaver RICK RESCORLA: Above & Beyond Citizen Medal Awardee..."Just for the LOVE of FREEDOM"...NEVER FORGET.

Bad press, including major mockery of the plan by comedian Jon Stewart, led to President Obama abandoning his proposal to require veterans’ private health insurance to cover the estimated $540 million annual cost to the federal government of treatment for injuries to military personnel received during their tours on active duty. The President admitted that he was puzzled by the magnitude of the opposition to his proposal. “Look, it’s an all volunteer force,” Obama complained. “Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their...

In California, in order to resolve the budget crisis, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided to eliminate five days per year from the public school schedule. So, rather than 180 days, the kids will be in school a 175 days per school year. Those five days, according to the governor, will save the State of California enough money to give them the opportunity to somehow fix a state economy in trouble. Meanwhile, the rest of the country is watching. Of course, when this news of cutting school days hit the air waves and newspapers last month, a lot of people...

Just after midnight on Feb. 3, 1943, an act of extraordinary unselfishness by a group of men became a legend of martyrdom and sacrifice. When the Army ship Dorchester was torpedoed by the Germans just south of Greenland that night, its passengers and crew had 25 minutes to get off the boat. As 902 people went for the life jackets, it quickly was discovered there weren't near enough. Of the 13 lifeboats, only two functioned. In the ship's final minutes, Methodist senior chaplain George Lansing Fox, Rabbi Alexander Goode, Dutch Reformed minister Clark V. Poling and John P. Washington, a...

The next day, I got an email from the retired Navy Seal buddy who'd talked me into speaking at NSWF. He shared a picture of the sign the wounded Seal put on his Baghdad hospital door. On it, the Seal had scrawled that visitors shouldn't "feel sorry" for him. "The wounds I received," he wrote, "I got in a job I love, doing it for people I love, supporting the freedom of a country I deeply love. I am incredibly tough." And on his sign he promised "a full recovery" and wrote that his hospital room was a place of...

John P. Pryor, 42, of Moorestown, the dedicated leader of the University of Pennsylvania's trauma team and a decorated major in the Army Reserve who wrote eloquently about the painful parallels between battlefield deaths and urban homicides, was killed on Christmas by enemy fire in Iraq while serving as a combat surgeon. Dr. Pryor deployed Dec. 6 and was with a risky frontline surgical unit when he was killed by shrapnel from a mortar round. It was his second tour of duty in Iraq.

Freedom is not free. It never has been, and never will be. America has paid the price of freedom in its own blood, both here on our own shores, and abroad throughout the world. From Concord, to Bunker Hill, to Trenton, to Lake Champlain, to Cowpens, to Yorktown...to Tripoli...to Ft. Mieg, to Lake Erie, to Horseshoe Bend, to Chippewa and to New Orleans... to The Alamo, San Jacinto, Buena Vista, Palo Alto, Monterrey and the Halls of Montezuma...to Bull Run (twice), Antietam, Fredericksburg, Shiloh, Vicksburg, The Wilderness, Gettysburg, Atlanta and Appomattox...to Manila Bay, Guantanamo Bay, to Santiago and San...

And I really want to emphasize the word responsibility. I think that whether you are a white executive living out in suburbs who doesn’t want to pay taxes to inner city children for them to go to school. Certain portions of the African American community are doing as bad if not worse and recognizing that my fate remains tied up with their fates that my individual salvation is not going to come about without a collective salvation for the country. Unfortunately, I think that recognition requires we make sacrifices and this country is not always been willing to make the...

A millionaire banker has been beaten to death after intervening to save a couple being assaulted by a mob. Frank McGarahan, 45, was out with relatives the night before his niece's christening when he saw the pair being attacked near a taxi rank. But as he shouted at the gang of ten men to stop, they turned on him. In the fracas, he suffered a serious head injury. The father-of-two was the chief operating officer of Barclays Wealth, the bespoke finance arm which caters for the bank's richest customers, and managed their combined assets of £133 billion.On Saturday evening the...

If you ever ran into Nokesville dad Thomas S. Vander Woude, chances are you would also see his son Joseph. Whether Vander Woude was volunteering at church, coaching basketball or working on his farm, Joseph was often right there with him, pitching in with a smile, friends and neighbors said yesterday. When Joseph, 20, who has Down syndrome, fell into a septic tank Monday in his back yard, Vander Woude jumped in after him. He saved him. And he died where he spent so much time living: at his son's side.

"When you call the Iraq War a mistake, you disrespect the service and the sacrifice of everyone who has died promoting freedom". I haven't seen this posted on FR before, but even if it has been, it is such a powerful and moving message it's worth re-posting. It will bring tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat, guaranteed.

Dear Friend, I don't need to tell you that gas prices are high, but there is someone I do need to tell... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. ...and I need your help to do it. Please mail me your gas receipts and a short note about what your family has had to sacrifice because of out-of-control prices at the pump. I'll bundle together all the receipts and stories I receive and send them to Senator Reid. Together, we will send a message to Washington and show Harry Reid that high gas prices are hurting Oklahomans. Please mail your gas receipts...

GAUHATI, India - A lawmaker said he sacrificed more than 200 goats and four buffaloes at a temple in northeastern India to thank a goddess for delivering victory to the prime minister's government last week.....

United States Army Corporal Matthew Britten Phillips, age 27, of Cumming, GA, died Sunday, July 13, 2008 while bravely and proudly serving his country at a forward operating base in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province. Cpl. Phillips was one of nine soldiers to die that day; just days before his unit was scheduled to leave the base. "We feel angry, even bitterly so, because our young men lived better lives, had higher hopes and more perfect love, than their attackers," Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Stevan Horning said during a memorial service held in Vicenza, Italy. "Please help us to not become...

Americans can be good at collective sacrifice. During World War II, they were encouraged to buy war bonds and lived with rationed gas, coal, and foods. During the 1970s oil crisis, they had to slow down to 55 m.p.h. But what about now, when the country faces pricey challenges, from global warming to over-heated healthcare costs?

ISRAEL’S PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE By Reverend Dr. ELDER CUMMING (At Glasgow Conference, June, 1894) Let us return to Romans 9:3-5: "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsman according to the flesh," &c. this is one of the most eloquent, and it is, without doubt, the most solemn passage in the writings of St. Paul. For what he declares them that passage is, that he has been brought into such sympathy and fellowship with Christ to that, if it were possible, which he well knows it is not, it is in his...

History vs Noise. An Iraq vet in the Air Force spells it out in plain language. Support our troops. Video at the link.

The life of Sgt. 1st Class L. David Ezell can be summarized by his last moment on Earth. Unafraid, the man nicknamed "Easy" by his Army comrades waded into a pile of garbage to disarm a bomb April 30 in a Baghdad neighborhood. He knew the bomb could kill him, but his goal was to save the lives of the Iraqis the homemade device could have slaughtered. Something went wrong on the delicate job. The bomb detonated and Ezell died. But hundreds of times before, with the same calm demeanor, Ezell won his fight with insurgent explosives in Iraq and...

This Memorial Day, with its familiar trappings of parades and decorated graves, finds the nation at a crossroads. Americans will soon vote in a presidential election that will serve partly as a referendum on the wisdom of continuing to fight a war in Iraq. That discussion can wait. Today imposes a more solemn duty -- to put aside differences and honor those who have fallen in their nation's service. Soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors -- these are not the ones who start wars. In answering the call of honor, duty and tradition, these brave Americans have strived only to end the...

WASHINGTON, May 22, 2008 – President Bush today honored the courage, sacrifice and service of several 82nd Airborne Division soldiers who served with distinction in Afghanistan and Iraq. During a ceremony at Fort Bragg, N.C., Bush made posthumous awards of the Distinguished Service Cross to Sgt. Charles Wyckoff’s wife, Erika, and the Silver Star medal to Barbara Walsh, mother of Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin Sebban. The Distinguished Service Cross is the highest military award after the Medal of Honor. The Silver Star is the third highest military award. “America is fortunate to have courageous men and women who volunteer...