Free Republic

The unusually cool summer continued in Southern California, where several new record-low temperatures were recorded on Wednesday. The 68-degree low at Los Angeles International Airport broke the old record low for the day, which was 70 degrees in 1991. Santa Barbara (68) and San Luis Obispo (69) broke records as well. The temperature at USC, 75, tied the record low set in 1999. UCLA also set a record, 56 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. While the region saw a heat wave a few weeks ago, temperatures have been gradually going down again as July comes to an end....

In an unprecedented move, the Israeli Defense Forces have released sensitive intelligence information about the situation in southern Lebanon (available at the IDF blog). Hezbollah forces have taken over more than a hundred villages to store their heavy artillery, and their command posts are near schools and hospitals. This represents a major shift in strategy for Hezbollah since 2006, when they stored most of their weaponry away from habitations, as befits any army that claims to want to protect its own people. But the IDF hit most of their supply in the first days of hostilities.

I came across a historical marker for the Kentucky Confederate Home. There was nothing left of the building itself, but I was fascinated that, well into the twentieth century, these old veterans of a war that had ended sixty years before still lived together, still saluted the old flags, still wore the old uniforms. . .

Who was Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne?

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is very influential in the current administration, almost single handedly responsible for defining “domestic terrorists” for the Department of Homeland Security and ratcheting up the racial rhetoric like never before in U.S. history, in the name of so-called “social justice.” In the latest diatribe to come out of the Montgomery Alabama based mini-ACLU, titled - Rage on the Right - The Year in Hate and Extremism—the group lays out their justification for striking fear in the hearts of every Tea Party, 912 and town hall activist, angry over the federal governments mishandling of their...

Dear Old Friend, It was wholly a pleasure to hear your theory about where the South ends, probably because any theory about the South will get a conversation going around dinner tables, at barber shops, in graduate seminars on Southern history, and just about anywhere else in these talkative latitudes. Your theory is that the South ends where the last monument to the Confederate soldier can be seen. This would mean that Bentonville, up in the far northwest corner of Arkansas, and known far and wide as the capital of Wal-Mart, qualifies as Southern. This might comes as a surprise,...

onathan Bray, one of the organizers of Southern Decadence, a celebration that has become known as the gay Mardi Gras, spent his time this week getting ready for the big party and watching weather reports. "I looked out in the Gulf and didn't see a storm," Bray said. "No Katrina, no Gustav. I'm so happy." In the almost four decades since it started, Southern Decadence has become a traditional Labor Day weekend, end-of-summer, event. But for two of the last four years, hurricanes crashed the French Quarter-centered party. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Gustav last year both generated evacuation orders...

Y'all gotta watch this speech!

My oh my, what would the critics, the Civil War publications, publishers, and bloggers do if it weren't for the bad boys of the Confederacy and those who study them and also those who wish to honor their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy?

David Powell is a retired civil engineer who has resided in Pasadena for the past 37 years. He is a 1949 graduate of Caltech. His engineering career of nearly 40 years with Bookman-Edmonston Engineering was largely involved in the planning of public works projects, including project formulation, evaluation of alternatives (including economic evaluation), preparation of project reports, development of financing programs and related activities. A few thoughts on California water issues from one who had a reasonably responsible forty-year career a a water engineer and water engineering executive. I also can claim some familiarly with Pasadena, having lived in the...

Now comes Time Magazine with a piece saying that Calvinism is back as a dominating force in American culture. What does this mean for our future, politically and culturally. . .

A few months ago, another Civil War blogger mocked my contention that the South remains the last great bastion of Judeo-Christian conservatism in the United States, even though poll after poll shows that to be the truth - the South is still the "Bible Belt." Now comes this story . . .

"Today the division is no longer between slave and free states, or agrarian and industrial states, but between two models of industrial society — the Northern model, based on adequate public service funding and taxation and unionization, [also known as "bankrupt & failed"] and the Southern model, based on low-tax, low-service government and low-wage, non-unionized, [also known as "profitable & successful"] easily exploited labor . . . " It should be pointed out that Mr. Lind has made South-bashing one of his favorite pass-times, so his idiotic, socialist rant is not surprising. . .

Two news reports point to the clear and present danger the deteriorating situation in Mexico poses to our nation and our citizens. The first article, "U.S. Plans Border ‘Surge’ Against Any Drug Wars" appears in today's edition of the New York Times, while the second article, "Obama faces Mexican drug war" was published in the Washington Times last week, on January 2nd. In my judgement, the deteriorating situation in Mexico can be traced back to the relative ease with which the drug cartels were able to move people and narcotics into the United States because our nation's "leaders" have been...

<p>NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Snow is falling in the New Orleans area.</p> <p>The National Weather Service says a mixture of sleet and snow is falling Thursday morning from Baton Rouge east across much of southeastern Louisiana.</p> <p>The winter weather closed some schools and created hazardous driving conditions.</p>

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - December 8, 2008 (OWSweather.com) Rare 50 year Arctic Blast Sets Sights On Southern California. With a week away, and a sure sign of things to come, OWSweather.com is making preparations on the server to handle the traffic from this next event. UJEAS is in line with the majority if not all the other models in keeping a near historical arctic air mass into the Southern California region. With a warm November, Southern California is finally ready for cold storms to make their way in. Resort level snow will be likely next week, and in pretty hefty amounts...

DACULA - As the famous twang of Hank Williams Jr. blasted from an SUV stereo Friday afternoon, about 30 folks socialized, sipped soda and puffed on cigarettes. No, this wasn't a Fourth of July backyard barbecue. It was the run-up to a wedding. In a Waffle House parking lot. The lucky couple, George "Bubba" Mathis and Pamela Christian - both 23 and employees at the Dacula diner located at the Ga. Highway 316/U.S. Highway 29 interchange - wouldn't have it any other way. "I don't know, it's something different," Mathis said while fixing his tie prior to the ceremony. For...

“All the illegal border crossings are down. It looks like the border patrol is doing their job. There’s really no need for a wall like that,” said Mark Abeyta from east El Paso. The El Paso sector has reported that they have apprehended 25,500 illegal border crossers during the first nine months of this fiscal year. This is the lowest since 2000, and it was made possible because of more barriers, increased agents and the zero-tolerance policies. Currently the Department of Homeland Security has completed around 300 miles of pedestrian and vehicle fencing and they expect to have a total...

At the outbreak of the War Between the States, a group of young men who were students at Washington College formed a military company that eventually would become part of the legendary "Stonewall Brigade."

The song is rich with rural, Southern themes. The upbeat melody combined with the sawing fiddles sets the song's mood perfectly. For those of us who grew up in the South, attached to a local church, a close-knit family whose connection to the land is generational, while immersed in the region's hard-core patriotism, it would be hard to imagine a song better suited to voice these sentiments: "Son of a farmer", - "daddy's daddy", - "working on the land", - "married up and settled down", - "pretty daughters", - "a house built with his own hands", - "keep his family...