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This is a Ukrainian language performance of the Ukrainian Bell Carol which is often performed in English as the Carol of the Bells. It was introduced by a visiting Ukrainian Chorus in America a century ago.

There are still hotel/motel rooms available in the Washington area for the nights of January 5th and 6th. I had no reservation before this morning and just made one for Vienna, Virginia. That Courtyard by Marriott is only a four-minute walk to the Dunn Loring Fairfax Metro station for the Orange Line subway trains. The latest weather forecast has the high for January 6th at 45F and the low will be 31. It is expected to be "mostly sunny". When more of the schedule of events is established we Freepers may chose a place to meet. After the main festivities...

Nashville Bar Association symposium on the Marcia Trimble case which consists of a multi-part series on YouTube.

On Thursday, September 7, the Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, Lawrence J. Laurenzi, announced the federal sentences given to Larry Bates and three other members of his family for their convictions in a gold and silver Ponzi scheme that defrauded customers from around the country of over $26 million USD in unfulfilled orders. Sentencing had been delayed due to legal motions filed by the defense. After a five-week-long trial in May of this year, former Tennessee state representative and Christian talk radio host Larry Bates was convicted of the 46 counts of mail and wire...

Disney Junior has a popular show for younger children called Doc McStuffins. The cartoon features a young Black girl who runs an imaginative clinic for doctoring toys and stuffed animals. In a recent episode the Doc noted that Michelle Obama was an "inspiration" to her. She even won a student contest and participated in a White House trip and danced with a cartoon slenderized Michelle Obama. But the specifics of this admiration for MO involved Michelle's fitness and nutrition initiatives which of course include her ever-unpopular school lunch influence. An earlier ad campaign for the show featured a Black female...

Trump has run a successful campaign thus far and it looks as if he will win the GOP nomination and with a well-run campaign he should win the presidency. Do any Freepers have any inside info on some of the personalities involved in Trump's campaign staff. Corey Lewandowsky has the title of campaign manager but Barry Bennett may be of equal influence. Some of the staffers have TEA Party backgrounds like Katrina Pierson who serves as the campaign's official spokesman. Stuart Jolly is the National Field Director and was involved in something called the Education Freedom Alliance.

FRiends, I need to tap Freeper expertise. My little business needs a web site and I was wondering what my FR comrades thought of godaddy.com, domain.com, wikihow.com, namecheap.com and any other web-hosting sites that folks may have experienced. I have a storefront coffee and chocolate shop and I'm thinking of adding shipping to our gift basket offers. Our business is very new and small but we have some great lines of Belgium chocolate and value-packed gift baskets with teas, coffees, chocolates, and premium cookies.

...Illustrating how testy relations with Washington have become, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, earlier the target of American monitoring of her cellphone, issued an unusually sharp statement saying that Ms. Nuland’s remarks were “completely unacceptable.”...

The color photograph below is one of the Army PR pics currently running on the Army Knowledge Online website. Two of our female soldiers who are part of a cultural "Engagement Team" are shown standing with Afghan police women. The photograph is heartbreaking when contrasted to the black and white photographs showing Afghan females in the 1960s. The location is not in the far flung areas but is "near" the capital according to AKO.

Much of the academic treatment of the famous German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer leaves one unaware of the fact that the young pastor was a strict constructionist regarding scripture. Even the film Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace leaves the viewer unaware of his traditional perspective on Biblical truth. Because of the attention received in journals, books, and films many are aware of the courageous stand of Bonhoeffer in the face of Nazi persecution but far fewer learn that he first stood against liberal Biblical “criticism” of Schleiemacher and Harnack. The relatively recent 2010 biography by Eric Metaxas goes far in setting the...

No matter what the circumstances, the Army has no business bowing to the will of a group that has been named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas funding case, and has had several of its officials convicted of jihad terror-related charges. And given Franklin Graham's explanation of his remarks, now the Army is abetting the whitewashing and coverup of the institutionalized mistreatment of women in Islamic law...

Freepers!...we're losing the image war. Photographs of the wounded at Fort Hood do not circulate among the major media. The wounded in Vietnam were commonly depicted in a way which maximized the public disgust with the war effort but the victims of jihadists are not shown in such an emotional way. The blood of civil rights demonstrators and marchers were commonly shown in the '60s and the image of the murdered and mutilated Emmett Till is a common icon to this day. But there is a lack of circulation of 9-11 pics (outside conservative media), mall shootings, Jihad victims, and...

Check out the tennis top 100 ratings in men's and women's singles. America is no longer producing competitive players in numbers equivalent to our population. On the men's side there are only four Americans in the top 50. France alone has nine. In the women's game there are only three Americans in the top 50. The Czech Republic alone has three. Slovakia has another three. So the old unified Czechoslovakia has twice the number of pro tennis players in the WTA top 50 as all of America.

Saturn caravan helps welcome new president, promotes energy conservation. "Change starts in your driveway!" declared Saturn General Manager Jill Lajdziak, as she launched the trip outside the North American International Auto Show in downtown Detroit. ...To gather promises and greetings, the VUE's planned stopovers at Saturn retailers, grade schools and colleges, including three of the 17 involved in the EcoCAR contest--Ohio State, Penn State, and Howard University... Here students and others signed oversized greeting cards (infused with plantable wildflower seeds) for the newly elected chief executive. The card read: "Change: Thanks to you the word is no longer a cliche....

Back in 1976 and early 1980 everybody knew about Ronald Reagan's political operatives. He had John Sears and Charlie Black. After they were fired we all learned about the late great Lee Atwater. During Senator Jesse Helms early hard-fought campaigns his top political brains Carter Wreen and Tom Ellis developed a nationwide reputation for great campaign strategy. But who does Governor Sarah Palin have who really thinks through her political fund spending decisions?. Perhaps there are many good thinkers with her. Does anyone know who has influence with her and her campaign tactics in Alaska?

Alabama is all sewn up for McCain so my wife and I were thinking of driving down to the battleground state of Florida. We're thinking of campaigning on E-day eve on busy streets waving McCain-Palin signs and flags. My wife's three and a half foot length blonde hair should attrack some attention as well. Is anybody interested in helping us show enthusiasm in Pensacola? Does anybody have suggestions for exact locations in Pensacola? We want a great turnout in that conservative area.

On NPR this morning, the relatively new American commander in Iraq, David Petraus, was quoted as saying that eventually the Iraqi Government would "have to talk" to the people that it is now fighting.

The pilgrimage of the human zoo came to the front gates of Fort Benning this weekend just as it does every November. Thousands protest against the training of Latin American officers and NCOs at Fort Benning's Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. This year we had a God Bless Fort Benning Day counter demonstration that virtually matched the size of the protest. We had Lee Greenwood headline the bill. Columbus Georgia's Jack and Miriam Tidwell were the chief organizers of the effort. We also have a Friends of WHINSEC group which counter punches the propaganda of the Left. Today as...

The lanquid voices of NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED were celebrating the defeat of longtime conservative Republican Phil Crane. This information was mentioned twice during a twenty minute span of covering the outcome of the election. While many of us would consider that anyone who had served over three decades in the House had served long enough we would have to make an exception for Phil Crane who has been one of the greats of conservative activism. He is also a very nice fellow, a handsome man, has a great sense of humor, and goes the extra mile to make us...

Many of us have complained about potty humor and other earthy humor becoming very common in films and shows made for children. To counter this, one can select to use the DVD or VHS player more than television and put better quality material in front of our children. I feel it is something of a sin for a sixth-grader to see a movie like GREAT EXPECTATIONS before reading the book so the following list is intended only to offer some suggestions for when electronic entertainment can follow or supplement reading. Many of these films provide good starters for discussions on...