Free Republic

GRAND RAPIDS, MI—Scott Allan Herrick, 40, of Twin Lakes, Michigan, was sentenced to serve 95 years in prison, U.S. Attorney Donald A. Davis announced today. Herrick surreptitiously videotaped boys as they were dressing in the boys’ locker room in the YMCA in Muskegon and kept a massive collection of 100,000 images of child pornography with him at the Gerber Boy Scout Camp in Twin Lakes, Michigan. He was convicted at trial of three counts of attempting to produce child pornography. On the first day of trial, Herrick pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing child pornography and one count of...

He was scared, but the 12-year-old Boy Scout still knew what to do when he got lost during a Utah wilderness outing: He built a shelter made of tree branches and wood to get through a cold night and he covered himself in dirt to stay warm...

(snip) 2.28am An Oslo caller to BBC News has said a youth camp run by the Labour Party has been attacked by gunmen, just outside of the city. 2.12am AP reports police have sealed off TV2's offices and are investigating a suspicious package. There are also widespread reports of shots fired in an attack on a children's summer camp, also in Norway. There is no further information at this stage and it is not known if the attack is connected to the bombing. (snip)

The close-knit Orthodox Jewish community insists that rabbis, not the NYPD, get the first phone call about a suspected child abuser. "There are prohibitions and a psychological fear about saying bad things about people or talking about negative things that bring shame," said Long Island psychologist Michael Salamon, author of the upcoming book "Abuse in the Jewish Community. " The taboo had tragic consequences for Motty Borger, 24, who leapt to his death from a Williamsburg hotel the night after his wedding in November 2009. He had confided to relatives that he'd been molested while attending a yeshiva, but they...

Hamas is reporting record turnouts for its summer camps for children in 2011. The 'summer camps,' combining Islamic indoctrination, paramilitary training, and social activities are set to begin again this year as United Nation’s summer camps, considered competition by Hamas, are being openly denigrated by jihadists. Children and adolescents are an important target demographic for Hamas, from which its future army of terrorists will be recruited. Summer camps are an important means for indoctrinating Gaza's youth with Hamas' jihadist ideology. In 2010 Hamas ran camps for an estimated 100,000 campers, a number similar to 2009. The Islamic Jihad terror group...

I'm not exactly sure what they're trying to prove by banning several popular kids games at summer camp except that maybe the bureaucrats were always picked last when teams were selected. NY Daily News: State bureaucrats have identified a potentially deadly hazard facing our children this summer - freeze tag.That's right, officials have decided the age-old street game - along with Wiffle Ball, kickball and dodgeball - poses a "significant risk of injury."And classics like Capture the Flag, Steal the Bacon and Red Rover are also deemed dangerous in new state regulations for day camps."It looks like Albany bureaucrats are...

State police are investigating an apparent suicide after a body was found at Camp Good News in Sandwich — the same Cape Cod camp where U.S. Sen. Scott Brown said he was molested as a boy. The dead man, who has not yet been publicly identified, apparently took his own life with a gunshot to the head and was found in his car just outside the camp, according to a law enforcement source. A state police spokesman confirmed to the Herald today they are treating the death as a suicide. The 43-year-old man left a couple of notes indicating he...

Who better to teach Kate Gosselin's kids about Alaska than its most famous resident, Sarah Palin? Gosselin and her eight children have traveled to Alaska to meet up with the self-proclaimed "hocky mom" for an episode of new TLC reality show, "Kate Plus 8," reported In Touch Weekly. "Sarah, Kate and the kids will go camping," a source told the mag. Palin's brother, a third-grade teacher, and father, a retired science teacher, will reportedly give hands-on natural history lesson to Gosselin's 9-year-old twins and 6-year-old sextuplets. A mother of five herself, the former vice presidential candidate is said to be...

Twin Falls, Idaho » The headquarters for 620 Girls Scouts in south-central Idaho is moving because too many registered sex offenders live near its current downtown office, officials said. "Do we feel this is the safest environment for girls being served in the area?" asked Shelli Rambo Robertson, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Silver Sage Council, which includes Idaho, Oregon and Nevada. "We did not." The group last month discontinued meetings at the southern Idaho office and is moving to a new office near the College of Southern Idaho. The headquarters on Fourth Avenue was in an industrial part...

Camp David's woodsy confines lure him to 10th visit WASHINGTON - -- Why hasn't President Barack Obama kept his pledge to make Chicago's South Side his "Kennebunkport"? Two words: Camp David. The ultra-private, presidential mountain retreat -- a half-hour from the White House by helicopter -- has quickly found fans within the First Family. Their stay for Labor Day weekend was Obama's 10th visit.... ...With Obama's return Sunday, he has logged all or part of 26 days at Camp David, White House officials say.

New advice published in Scouting, the official in-house magazine, says neither Scouts nor their parents should bring penknives to camp except in "specific" situations. Scouts have traditionally been taught how to use knives correctly, using them on camping trips to cut firewood or carve tools. At one point Scouts were allowed to carry a sheath knife on their belt as part of their uniform although this is no longer the case. In recent years the Scout Association guidance has been that parents should carry knives to camps or meetings. Dave Budd, a knife-maker who runs courses training Scouts about the...

An Israeli Arab man has been indicted for allegedly working on behalf of Hezbollah in a plot to assassinate Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, a gag order lifted on Monday revealed. Tira resident Rawi Fuad Sultani, 23, was arrested by Shin Bet and Israel Police forces earlier this month and indicted at the Haifa District Court. According to the charge sheet, Sultani first made contact with Hezbollah agents at a multi-national Arab summer camp in Morocco organized by the Israeli Arab political party Balad. Lebanese Hezbollah agent Salman Harev, who also took part in the camp, spent...

A federal warning to beware of campers in national forests who eat tortillas, drink Tecate beer and play Spanish music because they could be armed marijuana growers is racial profiling, an advocate for Hispanic rights said Friday. The warnings were issued Wednesday by the U.S. Forest Service, which is investigating how much marijuana is being illegally cultivated in Colorado's national forests following the recent discovery of more than 14,000 plants in Pike National Forest. "That's discriminatory, and it puts Hispanic campers in danger," said Polly Baca, co-chairwoman of the Colorado Latino Forum. A spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service had...

A 78-year-old man was hospitalized Friday with injuries he received when he was attacked by a black bear in a remote area of eastern Utah. The bear was shot and killed by another camper. About 12:30 a.m., a river-rafting party of 13 people, including nine family members and four guides, were sleeping after finding a spot off the Green River near Rock Creek Ranch in Carbon County's Desolation Canyon to stop for the night, said Brad Crompton, Division of Wildlife Resources' southeastern region wildlife biologist. The family was awakened upon hearing the sound of a bear attacking a family member...

Even in the heart of the Bible Belt, Texas isn’t immune to the proliferation of atheistic propaganda, whether in its public schools or now in atheist summer camps. Camp Quest—with the tagline “It’s beyond belief!”—bills itself as “the first residential summer camp in the history of the United States for the children of Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists, Brights, or whatever other terms might be applied to those who hold to a naturalistic, not supernatural world view.”[1] The first UK Camp Quest, which received funding from the Richard Dawkins Foundation and other private donors, launched late July in England, and five other...

IT’S NOT TOO LATE! The end of summer rapidly approaches, but there is still time for your child's indoctrination at Kamp Obama! At Kamp Obama we educate young skulls full of mush in such progressive activities as groupthink, activism, denunciations, and show trials. From Marx and Engels to Alinsky and Ayers, your child will learn the best tactics, thinking techniques, and viewpoints. In addition to fun, your child will be trained in the following useful skills that he, she, or it will need as a progressive adult: * Pie Throwing * Bullying * Shout Down * Physical Intimidation * In...

One of the favorite places for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and wife Ginni to grab some sleep is in a Wal-Mart parking lot, Mrs. Thomas told National Public Radio on Wednesday. In fact, the Washington power couple spends each summer touring the United States in a mobile home, she said. The justice and his wife have cruised through 27 states since buying their used recreation vehicle in 1999.

TASHKENT CITY, Uzbekistan (ABP) -- Authorities in Uzbekistan cracked down on Baptists after a government-sponsored news agency ran articles alleging illegal religious activity at a summer camp for children. Forum 18, a Norway-based news service that monitors alleged violations of religious freedom, reported July 28 that Pavel Peichev, head of the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists of Middle Asia, faces criminal charges of unlawfully teaching children religion and misusing resort facilities. Local Baptists fear huge fines, confiscation of the property, imprisonment or some combination of penalties if Peichev is convicted

Even though there was a slight hitch in their plan, a group of Boy Scouts who while on their way to a national competition in Indiana found themselves stranded in Atlanta, are now on their way. After exhausting all other options to find a flight that would get them to Indiana before 8 a.m. Sunday, the Scouts were able to rent a charter bus, which Delta will be covering the cost, said Carlos Santos, Delta spokesman. Although they bought their plane tickets in April, the group of 30 Boy Scouts and their eight chaperones were forced to rent the bus...

Dawkins Supports First UK Atheist Kids' Camp by Christine Dao* The God Delusion author Richard Dawkins has sponsored a week-long summer camp geared towards making atheists out of children...

Camp Quest UK, which is being held near Bath, offers 24 places. Its website claims the camp is for the children of 'atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers and all those who embrace a naturalistic rather than supernatural world view.' There are currently six branches of Camp Quest operating in North America. Organisers said the purpose of the camp was to encourage critical thinking and provide children with a summer camp "free of religious dogma". The camp, supported by scientist Richard Dawkins, plans to expand after receiving hundreds of inquiries. The event has been set up by Samantha Stein, a postgraduate psychology...

I was by Paddys at Misquamicut Beach, Rhode Island, it USED to be NON-state beach, no lifeguards anyways, I was 50 to 60 yards offshore, bobbing in the water, I am 6'4" so I need deep water to float 30 yards inland, 10 to 15 yards from the waterline, there was a sandbar, the waves were breaking over the sandbar, kicking up sand, making the water brownish lifeguard came over, blew his whistle for 2 or 3 minutes, I didn't know it was for me, I ignored it Some guy swam out to me, called me, I went in to...

Keep that towel handy. California parks officials can enforce a ban on nudity at any state beach, even in areas that have been informally designated as "clothing optional," a state appeals court says. The new policy will take effect immediately, although officers will decide whether to warn, cite or arrest violators, said Roy Stearns, spokesman for the state Parks and Recreation Department. "I'm pretty sure that we will try to tread lightly to get compliance at first," he said Monday, three days after the appellate court in Santa Ana published its ruling as a statewide precedent. "We're not in the...

Camp Quest bills itself as the first sleep-away camp for atheists, with funding from Richard Dawkins and special programs designed to replace faith in God with faith in "community." Guaranteed to creep you out.

NEVADA CITY – At Camp Quest, campers may not believe in God, but they do have faith in their community. On Sunday evening, 49 children from across the western United States arrived at the camp nestled in the hills outside Nevada City. It is one of five summer camps in the country for the children of atheists and other nonbelievers. In a campground in Malakoff Diggins State Historical Park, the campers have many of the traditional summer experiences. They practice archery in the meadow, participate in team competitions and gather around the campfire at night to sing. Their activities, however,...

I just read on the Stand Firm in Faith site that there as been a very tragic accident involving a church bus from the First Baptis Church of Shreveport, La. The bus was on the way to camp when the accident happened in Meridan, Mississippi. One child died at the scene and 23 others have been taken to area hospitals.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A private suburban swim club accused of racism after it canceled the memberships of dozens of minority children says it will seek a meeting with the kids' camps to work out an agreement for them to return. Amy Goldman, a member of The Valley Club, said those able to attend a hastily called meeting Sunday afternoon voted unanimously in support of reinstating the memberships of the Creative Steps day camp and two other camps as long as safety issues, times and terms can be agreed upon. The Creative Steps camp had arranged for 65 mostly black and...

More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason. "I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor. The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.

For five months of the year, Marj Rawls and Janice Pollack make New Hampshire their home. After selling their house in Harpersville, Ala., 12 years ago and using the money to buy an RV, the two have been traveling all across country – and stop at a little campground in Brookline each summer to enjoy the Granite State. But after making New Hampshire their home for so many summers, they may start rethinking their travel plans due to the state's newly revised rooms and meals tax. "We love this area and we love coming here," Rawls said. "But now we...

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, has helped launch an atheist summer camp for children. Alongside the more traditional activities of tug-of-war, swimming and canoeing, children at the five-day camp in Somerset will learn about rational scepticism, moral philosophy, ethics and evolution. Camp-goers aged eight to 17 will also be taught how to disprove phenomena such as crop circles and telepathy. In the Invisible Unicorn Challenge, any child who can prove that unicorns do not exist will win a £10 note - which features an image of Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory -...

Britain’s most prominent non-believer is backing its first atheist summer camp for children..... WHEN schoolchildren break up for their summer holidays at the end of next month, India Jago, aged 12, and her brother Peter, 11, will be taking a vacation with a twist. While their friends jet off to Spain or the Greek islands, the siblings will be hunting for imaginary unicorns in Somerset, while learning about moral philosophy. The Jagos, from Basingstoke, Hampshire, are among 24 children who will be taking part in Britain’s first summer camp for atheists. The five-day retreat is being subsidised by Richard Dawkins,...

New atheist summer camp launched An atheist summer camp for children set up in Somerset is to offer a "godless alternative" to religious camps. The 24 places on Camp Quest UK, which will be held next month near Bath, have already been booked up. Organisers said the purpose of the camp was to encourage critical thinking and provide children with a summer camp "free of religious dogma". The camp, supported by scientist Richard Dawkins, plans to expand after receiving hundreds of inquiries. The event has been set up by Samantha Stein, a postgraduate psychology student from London. She said: "It...

CLAYTON, Ga. — Naked time got a little out of hand for a former Gainesville mayor. Authorities arrested Mark Musselwhite and charged him with public indecency last weekend after state Department of Natural Resources officers found him sitting nude at his Rabun County campsite. Officers had received a complaint about a naked man walking along a nearby road earlier in the day, but the 43-year-old Musselwhite said he was not the same man.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Friday, June 26, 2009 A former mayor found sitting naked and holding a beer at a Rabun County campsite told police he wasn’t the same naked man seen walking around earlier. Mark Musselwhite, 43, said he was hot and had been in the creek, according to a Georgia Department of Natural Resources incident report. He apparently didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. Musselwhite, of Gainesville, was arrested last weekend after being confronted by state DNR authorities. He was charged with public indecency. “He told me he was the ex-mayor of the city Gainesville and he was...

The YMCA is offering up a free week of summer camp for the first 150 kids whose parents are unemployed or serving in the military. The children would be treated to a free week at Camp Nissokone in Oscoda. It's a $500 value, per child, being offered at no cost to qualified families on a first come, first-served basis. Parents and guardians are encouraged to follow the guidelines and register on the YMCA Web site at www.ymcadetroit.org Children must be 9 to 16-years-old. Camping sessions begin the week of June 28 and go through August 15. You can also get...

One adult and three teenagers at a Boy Scout camp are accused of forcing a boy to drink human urine because they were "teaching him a lesson" for supposedly making racial slurs to another Scout, the Putnam County Sheriff's Office reported Monday.Investigators arrested Joseph Wendell Reid, 21, two 16-year-olds, and a 15-year-old, all from Ocala, last week on a charge of kidnapping.Officers allege the four held a 12-year-old boy against his will, first taping his mouth shut and then forcing him to drink urine, according to the Sheriff's Office.The four were attending Camp Shands at Baden Powell Road near Hawthorne,...

I am sure this will get moved by maybe a little exposure first and you can forward to friends you might be able to help. My son (12) has been doing speed camps and I have met two completely different schools of thought on the proper workout. Running on angled treadmills or running flat and level on the ground. One place uses angled treadmills. They say they are just fine and the newest technology. However, I am told that running on them moves your enter of gravity back and changes your running stance, stretch and timing and tends to open...

Eagle Scouts need not apply. Valedictorians, ditto. So you say English is your native language? Tough break, kid. You live with your mother and your father? Strike 2. Never been arrested? Strike 3, you’re outta here. Come back after you drop out of school, or get pregnant. Now comes the latest memo from the Department of Transitional Assistance, formerly known as welfare. If you liked the welfare Cadillac program, you’ll love the “DTA Youth Works/Summer Employment program.”

Many Summer Internships Are Going Organic By KIM SEVERSON May 23, 2009 Erin Axelrod, who graduated from Barnard College last week with an urban studies degree, will not be fighting over the bathroom with her five roommates on the Upper West Side this summer. Instead she will be living in a tent, using an outdoor composting toilet and harvesting vegetables on an organic farm near Petaluma, Calif. Gina Runfola, an English and creative writing student, feeds lambs as an intern at 3-Corner Field Farm in Shushan, N.Y. She was one of over 20 applicants for the job. As the sole...

It's been 62 years since conservationist Virgil McCroskey gave the Boy Scouts 400 acres of timberland near this village in Idaho's panhandle, with big ideas for a big new camp. But don't expect any pup tents or even the faintest whiff of smoke from Camp McCroskey these days. Rarely used for camping, the land instead has become a moneymaker for the Inland Northwest Council of Boy Scouts. Over the past 35 years, the council has repeatedly logged the property, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of the money helped pay the mortgage on council headquarters in far-off Spokane, a...

The National Council of Churches is partnering with the Committee on Outdoor Ministries to call on faith-based camps and conference centers in the United States to sign onto a pact agreeing to treat the environment with respect. Participating camps and conference centers are asked to make decisions about how to use their land while keeping in mind the “sacred nature” of God’s creation; to conserve energy and water; to recycle waste; to purchase environmentally sustainable products; and to continue to educate those who use the camps and conference centers about the preciousness of nature they are experiencing. “Camp and conference...

CBS's 48 Hours is re-airing a special on a unique Christian camp -- and the camp's founder is encouraging people to tune in. The Lord's Boot Camp is located in south Florida's swampland and is run by Teen Missions International. Both were founded in the early 1970s by Bob Bland and offer teenagers an intense two-week training session before they embark on overseas mission trips. Bland told OneNewsNow that the camp portion was created after one of the mission teams encountered some close calls. "And in [19]72 we took a team to Peru and we said, 'Boy, so many things...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

CAMP TAJI, Iraq, Aug. 13, 2008 – Youths from Taji teamed up Aug. 11 as part of a summer youth hire program to clean up the Taji Market, northwest of Baghdad. Army Capt. Timothy Cho (right), part of the provincial reconstruction team embedded in Multinational Division Baghdad with the 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, along with Rudy (left), the team’s bilingual bicultural advisor, stands with Taji youth at the Taji Market, northwest of Baghdad, Aug. 11, 2008. The children are part of the summer youth hire program, which engages them in community-oriented tasks. U.S. Army photo...

Gore Hits the Waves with a Massive New Houseboat Former Vice President Al Gore, the Nobel-winning self-proclaimed global prophet of green, has made a lot of money from the so-called “crisis” of global warming. He has profited from best-selling books that tout the looming climatic catastrophe, won an Academy Award for a movie about his slideshow presentation that focuses on his “sky is falling” message about a world on the brink of environmental disaster. His business interests have been focused on the profit side of the equation when it comes to “global warming,” creating a “carbon credits” program that has...

UC Berkeley, poised to clear the Memorial Stadium oak grove for a sports training center, has asked the city for help to control a growing encampment on a nearby street median of people who support tree-sitting protesters. Campus Police Chief Victoria Harrison last week asked the Berkeley police and city manager's office to remove the encampment, which includes 10 to 20 people, tents, dogs, sleeping bags and banners along about 100 feet of the city-maintained divider on Piedmont Avenue. "The median is not meant to be a campground or a park. It's a major traffic artery for campus," said Harrison....

Members of the honor society for the Boy Scouts of America who had to change their service project plans in Wyoming when the U.S. Forest Service instead allowed the Rainbow Family hippie group to use a location the Scouts had sought now are helping the federal agency fight a forest fire in the state. According to a report in the Casper Star-Tribune the Scouts, some of an estimated 1,000 members of the Order of the Arrow in the state, have "stepped in" to help firefighters in the Bridger-Teton National Forest fight the New Fork Lakes fire, about 19 miles north...

Palestinian children on annual vacation can choose between Hamas or Islamic Jihad summer camps, both of which boast militia-style training, Koran classes, lessons on political prisoners Ali Waked Published: 07.31.08, 01:45 / Israel News In the Gaza Strip, as in Israel, children are currently in the midst of summer vacation, and the Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s “summer camps” are in full gear. In the past few weeks, the Palestinian groups have been holding camps throughout the strip, some of them proudly displaying rockets and other weaponry. Hamas alone is currently conducting no less than 300 summer camps for tens of...

...Karin Miller, 43, a stay-at-home mother during the school year with a doctorate in psychology, who is redefining the role of camp counselor. She counsels parents, spending her days from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. printing out reams of e-mail messages to deliver to Bryn Mawr’s 372 female campers and leaving voice mail messages for their parents that always begin, “Nothing’s wrong, I’m just returning your call.” Jill Tipograph, a camp consultant, said most high-end sleep-away camps in the Northeast now employ full-time parent liaisons like Ms. Miller......The liaisons are emblematic of what sleep-away camp experts say is an increasing...