Free Republic

Think sex and drugs destroy America? Try naive chastity. Oh, and "Purity Balls" There are these things. These unholy events called "Purity Balls" and you should probably fall to your knees right this minute and thank a merciful and lubricious and happily polyamorous God that you do not know what they are and that you have access right this minute to vast quantities of wine to deflect their nasty karmic arrows because, you know, oh my God. But hey, free country. Purity Balls. No, not some sort of newfangled spherical chastity device to be inserted using vacuum tubes and pulleys,...

It's a shockingly eco-friendly plan from the world's most toxic retailer. Did hell just freeze over? Sometimes you just have to let the possibility breathe. Sometimes you just have to allow that something grand and good and healthy might actually be born from the bowels of the dank and ravenous megacorporate world, like flowers from a dung heap, like vodka from old potatoes, even if it comes right alongside the nastiest, most abusive federal environmental policy you will see in your lifetime. Take Wal-Mart, the most famously offensive, town-destroying, junk-purveying, labor-abusing, sweatshop-supporting, American-job-killing, soul-numbing, seizure-inducing, hope-curdling retailer in the known...

WASHINGTON, May 11, 2006 – The Armed Services YMCA honored individuals and organizations for their support of military families in 2005 at its 19th Annual Recognition Luncheon here today. Bryce Moorehouse, 11, shows Navy Force Master Chief Dave Pennington his art contest entry that earned first place during the Armed Services YMCA 19th Annual Recognition Luncheon in Washington. Bryce's mother, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Andrea Palermo, is stationed at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington. Photo by Samantha L. Quigley  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The ASYMCA provides social and support services for military families, organization officials said. Last...

A Christian organization betrays its mission and early beliefs and sides with Muslim terrorists. Then this organization finds out the truth about the Muslim terrorists too late. The group then becomes the target of the Muslim terrorists' wrath only because of its empty "Christian" name...YMCA gets its just deserts

JERUSALEM -- The leadership of a West Bank Palestinian city now controlled by Hamas has warned a local Young Men's Christian Association to close its offices and leave town or face likely Muslim violence, WorldNetDaily has learned. The move highlighted long-standing fears Hamas would use its win in last January's Palestinian parliamentary elections to impose an anti-Christian, anti-Jewish hard-line Islamist regime in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Flushing YMCA said four people were killed in an accident on the New York State Thruway at 7 a.m. en route to a swimming meet in Buffalo, N.Y. The victims included a 47-year-old woman, her two sons and a 14-year-old girl, who died when a tanker truck slammed into their minivan, New York 1 reported. Two other passengers in the vehicle were removed from the battered minivan and taken to a local area hospital, New York 1 reported. In addition, the driver of the tanker truck was taken to the hospital, according to New York 1. Neither the Flushing...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The lifeguards find bare breasts distracting. That's one of the reasons officials at the Ann Arbor, Mich., YMCA said they've banned breast-feeding at the pool. But nursing moms counter that's no excuse. The breast-feeding mothers plan a nurse-in at the Y Saturday to protest the ban. However, Krista Dragun, one of the protest organizers, said they'll be nursing their babies in the lobby, not the pool area. She said they want the Y to adopt a more mother-baby friendly policy for the pool. Y officials note there's no eating or drinking allowed at the pool for...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - The lifeguards find bare breasts distracting. It's News that Dares to be News! Click here for more Bizarre Bazaar. That's one of the reasons officials at the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Y-M-C-A say they've banned breast-feeding at the pool. But nursing moms counter that's no excuse. The breast-feeding mothers plan a nurse-in at the Y tomorrow to protest the ban. However, Krista Dragun, one of the protest organizers, says they'll be nursing their babies in the lobby, not the pool area. She says they want the Y to adopt a more mother-baby friendly policy for the pool....

A man who helped make famous the songs "YMCA" and "In the Navy" will soon be featured on the television show "America's Most Wanted," after failing to appear in a San Mateo County courtroom for his sentencing in October, according to San Mateo County Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. (snip) Willis was found to be in possession of 3.23 grams of cocaine and a loaded .45-gauge, semi-automatic handgun, according to the district attorney's office... (snip) ...also charged with violating his probation from a 2003 incident in which he was found in possession of 4 grams of cocaine.

In what may be the oldest Thanksgiving Dinner for the homeless in New York City, if not the country, The Salvation Army will be providing a holiday feast for thousands of men, women and children in the Greater New York area at the McBurney YMCA on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24. The centerpiece of the Thanksgiving Dinner program for the hungry and homeless will be held at the McBurney YMCA, located across the street from The Salvation Army's Greater New York Divisional Headquarters, 120 West 14th St., from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. "We are thrilled to be able to partner...

LOS ANGELES A consultant to top state Democratic leaders has admitted that he molested two brothers while working at a Y-M-C-A more than 30 years ago. John Robert Stevens was an adviser to former Governor Gray Davis and Assembly speakers Antonio Villaraigosa (vee-yah-ry-GOH'-sah), Herb Wesson and Fabian Nunez. In April, he testified in a deposition for a lawsuit accusing the Y-M-C-A of Metropolitan Los Angeles of failing to protect the boys from Stevens' abuse. He admitted he fondled and masturbated the brothers, who were then 13 and 10, when he was youth director of the Rio Vista Y-M-C-A in South...

Yes, I know you were drunk. Must've been. Either drunk or on serious meds and/or you just didn't give much of a damn about anything anyway because you're just one of those people, one of those types who comes lurching around the city like a chunk of numbed pain in your big-ass mid-'80s burgundy car with the white top and chrome bumpers -- an old Cadillac? Monte Carlo? -- early last Sunday morning to wreak casual havoc. Is that about right? Do you remember any of it? Here is what I'm guessing: probably not. Let me tell you what happened,...

Arkansas mom gives birth to a whole freakin' baseball team. How deeply should you cringe? Who are you to judge? Who are you to say that the more than slightly creepy 39-year-old woman from Arkansas who just gave birth to her 16th child yes that's right 16 kids and try not to cringe in phantom vaginal pain when you say it, who are you to say Michelle Duggar is not more than a little unhinged and sad and lost? And furthermore, who are you to suggest that her equally troubling husband -- whose name is, of course, Jim Bob...

Apparently, it wasn't just "invade Iraq and Afghanistan in my name." A special report: Scene: White House private residence, night, not long ago. President Bush present in his most favoritest guns 'n' bunnies PJs. Laura asleep, knocked out by a combination of too much Good Housekeeping and excessive hair-spray fumes. Suddenly, a burst of black smoke. A deep, resonant voice speaks: "Psst! George! God here, taking a break from supervising the well-being of eight billion troubled souls along with infinite galaxies of unimaginable vastness to speak with you directly one more time because, well, you're special, aren't you, George? Yes...

Leather, techno, sex & war: more only-in-SF juice to make you proud. Take that, uptight neocons. It was the moment when we walked by a jam-packed S.F. City Hall and realized it was open to host a VIP techno dance party, while immediately outside its gilded doors upward of 50,000 revelers wandered and shimmied and flaunted their costumes and drank nasty Red Bull cocktails in the huge Civic Center plaza for the third annual Love Parade, everyone baring flesh and shaking their groove thangs to any one of 200 world-class (well, some of them) DJs spinning their wares on over...

At last, one scientist BushCo will definitely -- albeit resentfully -- listen to. Sometimes. So now we know. This is what it takes. This is how far the nation has to crumble and this is how many people have to die and this is how many tens of billions it has to cost and this is how far his dirt-low poll numbers have to fall before Bush will finally come out and say he agrees with one of those godforsaken gul-dang book-learned scientist types. You know the ones. Those informed and well-educated data-crunchers he normally despises like a kid hates...

TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif., Sept. 13, 2005 – For more than 140 years, the Armed Services YMCA continues to increase quality of life for service members and their families by offering support to communities and families. For director Anita Neu-Fultz and her staff at the Combat Center ASYMCA, that goal is paramount and unwavering as they volunteer to help others year-round. "Many people do not even know the Armed Service YMCA even exists," said Neu-Fultz. "They hear YMCA, and they think of sports programs and hotels and gyms and pools. But not many realize what we actually do here. We are...

Body of Thread. body of thread.

The New York Sun takes on the Air America story today and advances it by leaps and bounds, talking with the president of the non-profit which had its money taken by Air America founder Evan Cohen. It turns out that Cohen didn't just get money for the netlet, but also managed to get plenty for his own pockets as well while sitting on the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club board: Initially, members of the executive committee viewed Mr. Cohen fondly because he had thrown a tremendously successful fund-raising affair for Gloria Wise in Manhattan last year. They recalled being...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...