Free Republic

Oh, milk chocolate. Wherefore art thou? Apparently not in some Hershey’s products that contained milk chocolate for years, and that has passionate chocolate aficionados fighting mad. Products such as Whatchamacallit, Milk Duds, Mr. Goodbar and Krackel no longer have milk chocolate coatings, and Hershey’s Kissables are now labeled “chocolate candy” instead of “milk chocolate.” What’s going on here? On Friday, TODAY consumer correspondent Janice Lieberman reported that Hershey’s has switched to less expensive ingredients in several of its products. In particular, cocoa butter — the ingredient famous for giving chocolate its creamy, melt-in-your-mouth texture — has been replaced with vegetable...

Patrol fires 12 troopers in cheating case Thursday, September 11, 2008 3:21 AM FROM THE (CANTON) REPOSITORY CANTON -- Twelve officers accused of cheating on a certification test for a device used to gather evidence against intoxicated drivers have been fired from the State Highway Patrol. Patrol spokesman Lt. Tony Bradshaw said it's the first time in the law-enforcement agency's 75-year history that so many officers have been let go at once. The patrol said the three sergeants and eight troopers from the Canton post and one Wooster trooper cheated on a certification exam for administering breath tests to determine...

This is just too good! The Obama Campaign, in their desperation to explain away John McCain's masterful performance at the Rick Warren "Civil Forum on the Presidency" Saturday night, have allowed their minions in the press to put forth the vile assertion that John McCain cheated by listening in on Obama's time with Rick Warren. Byron York is now reporting that actually it was Barack Obama who had more information going into the questioning than did John McCain! It turns out that Rick Warren shared a third question with Obama, in addition to the first two he shared with both...

The moonbats a barking that McCain didn't hide in a cone of silence. What can this exchange mean except that Obama knew a question in advance? REV. WARREN: Okay. This one is dear to my heart. Most people don't know that there are 148 million orphans in the world. One hundred forty-eight million kids growing up without mommies and dads. They don't need to be in an orphanage, they need to be in families, but a lot of families can't afford to take these kids in. Would you be willing to consider and even commit to doing some kind of...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – While many studies have examined cheating among college students, new research looks at the issue from a different perspective – identifying students who are least likely to cheat. The study of students at one Ohio university found that students who scored high on measures of courage, empathy and honesty were less likely than others to report their cheating in the past – or intending to cheat in the future Moreover, those students who reported less cheating were also less likely to believe that their fellow students regularly committed academic dishonesty. People who don’t cheat “have a more...

Huffington Post's female pundits enraged over cheating John EdwardsBy David Paulin Over at the lefty Huffington Post, John Edwards' confession of being a cheat has, interestingly, provoked fury among some of the gal pundits. They're mercilessly trashing the pretty boy populist -- spitting a toxic venom that even their like-minded male counterparts cannot match. Some, incredibly, are even digging their nails into Edwards' wife Elizabeth (who is battling cancer) for having aided and abetted her husband's public lies. What's going on? Could these ladies be writing with some deeper understanding of the issues at play, perhaps having suffered, like so...

A bizarre series of incidents during last year's Women's World Cup in China is raising questions about the security of visiting delegations in China at the upcoming Olympics. In the days before their World Cup opener against host China last September, members of the Danish women's soccer team say they faced ongoing harassment that culminated in the discovery of two men attempting to secretly videotape a team meeting at their hotel through a two-way mirror. Breaking an 11-month silence about the incidents, Danish coach Kenneth Heiner-Möller told SI.com that he discovered the two intruders behind the mirror as he prepared...

A NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation has uncovered John Edwards’ mistress, Rielle Hunter – the mother of his “love child” – has been secretly receiv­ing $15,000 a month as part of an elaborate cover-up...

Virginia GOP Chairman calls for criminal investigation into mounting evidence of coordinated voter fraud activities 7/28/2008 11:05:00 AM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Richmond, Virginia (July 28, 2008) – Delegate Jeff Frederick, Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, this morning called on Governor Kaine and Attorney General McDonnell to open a thorough and rigorous investigation into what appears to be coordinated and widespread voter fraud activities occurring throughout Virginia. Frederick’s request is in response to a report last week of three individuals in Hampton, Virginia being arrested and charged with voter registration fraud, a Class 5 Felony, as well as reports...

To most Americans, the 1980 Olympics never happened. The Carter administration sponsored a boycott ostensibly designed to punish the Soviet Union for its invasion of Afghanistan. The U.S. government used all its diplomatic power to get its allies in the Cold War to join the boycott. More than 40 countries went along. With no Americans participating, NBC canceled its coverage of the Games. Most American newspapers, which had planned to send hundreds of reporters and photographers to Moscow, scrubbed their plans, too. In all, no more than 20 American reporters traveled to Moscow for the Games. I was one of...

The Pascua Yaqui Tribe's top casino executive encouraged tribal members to vote early last week by offering free meals at Casino del Sol worth up to $20 per vote. Like laws governing Arizona and federal elections, the tribe's code makes it unlawful to give anything of value to someone as an incentive to vote or to refrain from voting. CEO Wendell Long issued a memo on the eve of early voting for the Tribal Council that urged tribal gaming enterprise employees to clear it with supervisors and then "leave their work post to cast their vote." "As a small token...

Schools and universities could soon be facing a different kind of drug problem: a rise in students taking brain-enhancing pills to boost their exam results. Government advisers warned yesterday that new drugs to treat conditions as varied as Alzheimer's disease, attention deficit disorder, and narcolepsy are in danger of being misused by students eager to bump up their grades. The use of brain-boosting drugs, many of which are designed to improve memory and attention span in people with serious degenerative brain diseases, could become as big a problem for the education system as performance-enhancing drugs are in sport, the experts...

A shocking 34 percent of mothers reported having had an extramarital affair after the birth of their children, according to a study released yesterday. More than half, 53 percent, of women polled in the "Sex and the American Mom" survey also said they had entertained the idea of straying on their spouses. "That's a far cry from just fantasizing about it, which I think is an important distinction," said Pilar Guzman, editor-in-chief of Cookie magazine, which conducted the survey in conjunction with the "AOL Body" Web site. "They're thinking 'when and how can I do this?' " Celebrities whom moms...

The Democrat Party resorted to handing out handbills linking Mayor Greg Davis, the Republican candidate for the House of Representatives (MS-01), to supporting a leader of the KKK. The DCCC was caught distributing handbills and flyers that accused Greg Davis of supporting a KKK leader. This action by the DCCC will escape press coverage on election day. It is a last minute surprise to motivate core Democrat supporters without press scrutiny. This ad could have been posted weeks ago but it wasn't because of the embarassment that would have resulted. A copy of the handbill can be seen at Yallpolitics.com.

What was he thinking? What exactly was running through the expensively educated, politically astute mind of Eliot Spitzer when he allegedly hired a prostitute for a tryst in a Washington hotel? In the days since the Emperors Club became the most notorious escort service on the planet, and in the hours since Spitzer resigned, the question has been asked a thousand different ways: Is he nuts? If not nuts, some kind of sexaholic? If not a sexaholic, what? If past sex scandals are any indicator, here's what we can safely predict: Spitzer won't say. There is plenty of ritual to...

Rueban Navarrette shows mendacious dexterity in appropriating the language of competitive economics to support an agenda that has nothing to do with improving the economy of the United States. He understands well that competition fosters excellence, but seems to deliberately elide the fact that it also reveals hard truths about the people who lose. Anyone who lays into the Democrats with a quarterstaff for being anti-competitive will usually get my seal of approval. In Navarrette’s case, I withhold my utterly unimportant benediction. He got one or two points correct, but failed to tell the whole story. I’ll do my best...

CHAPEL HILL - Chapel Hill High School officials busted a cheating ring this month in which students used a master key to enter teachers' offices at night and, in at least one case, used a camera phone to copy exam answers. Officials learned of the stolen key Feb. 15 while investigating students for having the answers to a mid-term, Principal Jackie Ellis said in an e-mail message Monday. The key opened most of the school's doors, she said. The cheating apparently went on for several years, with the key being passed from one year's graduates to the next and with...

Frustrated at the obstacles confronting his investigation of "Spygate," Sen. Arlen Specter accused the New England Patriots of "stonewalling" on Friday and suggested the NFL might never get around to questioning key witness Matt Walsh, a former Patriots video assistant. Specter's comments are in stark contrast to remarks on Wednesday from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who told reporters that the NFL was moving toward an agreement that would allow Walsh to tell what he knows about the Patriots' spying practices without fear of being sued.

A team of out-of-state attorneys has filed a lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages from the Patriots [team stats] and coach Bill Belichick claiming that the team defrauded St. Louis fans and players when they allegedly taped a Rams practice before narrowly winning the 2002 Super Bowl. The complaint, filed today in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, is one in a series of attacks on the team and Belichick, who were fined and sanctioned in last year’s “Spygate� scandal for videotaping signals during a 2007 New York Jets [team stats] game. The lawsuit, brought on behalf of former Rams...

A day after meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in Washington, Sen. Arlen Specter said he continues to be troubled by a number of issues surrounding the league's handling of Spygate and will continue his investigation. Specter, R-Pa., told ESPN.com that Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., offered support Thursday for his inquiry into the New England Patriots' questionable videotaping practices, saying Leahy is "prepared to have the committee pay for people who travel and investigate." Leahy sat in on a part of Wednesday's session with Goodell and league counsel, Specter said. Sen. Arlen Specter, ranking Republican on the Senate...

NEW HAVEN - Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton's Election Day visit to New Haven poll workers Tuesday prompted state election officials to caution that politicking within 75 feet of polling sites is against state law. Two television station reporters told state officials Tuesday morning that Clinton brought poll workers coffee and talked with a firefighter at a New Haven precinct when polls opened at 6 a.m., said Adam Joseph, a spokesman for the secretary of the state's office. WTNH-TV reported that Chelsea Clinton immediately went outside after election moderator Nilda Torres announced that the polls were open.

"The illegal tactics the New England Patriots evidently employed Sunday against the New York Jets -- capturing signals and corresponding audio with a sideline camera -- might have allowed the Patriots to sniff out blitzes had security officials not intervened, scouts and coaches said. "With the computer and video technology, you can dial it up at halftime," an AFC personnel evaluator said. "You can say, 'This is their such-and-such blitz. We'll give you the signal, the code word, and let you know it's coming.'" " (emphasis added).

No Stigma for Cheaters In the past there was great shame attached to being a "cheater." Today, it seems to be accepted. A Duke University study shows that 75 percent of students admit to cheating. 90 percent of student admit to copying someone’s paper.

So many New York City students received extra time and other accommodations on a respected national test this year that several testing experts are saying the results should be considered invalid. On the test known as the nation's report card, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, New York state gave accommodations to more fourth-graders than any other state in the nation, and New York City gave more help than any of the ten other major cities that participate in a separate city-by-city comparison. On three of four tests the accommodation rate hovered around 20%. On the last — a fourth-grade...

MANLIUS, N.Y. (AP) - Six students at suburban Syracuse high school and two graduates are accused of hacking into the school's computer system and changing their grades and test scores. Authorities say 6 of the teenagers involved are current students at the school. Of the other two suspects, one attends Syracuse University and the other is a student at John Hopkins University in Baltimore. They're accused of breaking into the school's computers to change their scores on Advance Placement exams, SAT tests and classroom examinations.

The NFL is looking into allegations that the Indianapolis Colts piped in noise during the game Sunday between the Colts and the Patriots. The charge comes after Patriots President Jonathan Kraft became the latest NFL team executive to accuse the Colts of the distracting tactic that is against the rules. "We're aware of it and we're looking into it," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Monday. "It may just be the TV feed from CBS, but we're checking it out." Observers at the game said there seemed to be a "skip" in the sound during the game Sunday, which the Patriots...

For about an hour last August, Gary Hoffman was a very lucky man. Hoffman was playing the nickel slot machines at the Sandia Resort and Casino on an Indian reservation in New Mexico when he appeared to hit the jackpot: the machine said he won nearly $1.6 million. "I became ecstatic," he said. But the ecstasy was short-lived. Hoffman says in a lawsuit filed earlier this year that Sandia refused to pay, claiming that the machine malfunctioned. Instead, he said, they gave him about $385 and a few free meals at the casino. "I won money, fair and square, and...

A CANDIDATE for the US presidency is being buoyed by a huge online campaign that may be a fake a grassroots movement organised by party staff. YouTube footage of Texan Republican Senator Ron Paul, whose candidacy has been overshadowed in the media by competitors Rudi Giuliani, Fred Thompson and John McCain, has been viewed by tens of thousands of people in the last week. As of 11am AEST today, a compilation of different clips of Senator Paul was the top rated video of the past 24 hours. The clip had been viewed nearly 60,000 times since it was uploaded yesterday....

[blah, blah, blah... at the end he makes his point] Sue has been fairly typical of the women I have encountered on this website. She seemed lonely, bored and dissatisfied with her life. All she could see ahead of her was an endless round of cooking, cleaning, career and children. Of course, there's nothing wrong with wanting to interrupt a destructive, depressing cycle to your life. But what is shocking is the cold and calculating approach of these women, and the assumption that secret meetings with a married man can cure all the ills they see in their own families....

A married couple who didn't realise they were chatting each other up on the internet are divorcing. Sana Klaric and husband Adnan, who used the names "Sweetie" and "Prince of Joy" in an online chatroom, spent hours telling each other about their marriage troubles, Metro.co.uk reported. The truth emerged when the two turned up for a date. Now the pair, from Zenica in central Bosnia, are divorcing after accusing each other of being unfaithful."I was suddenly in love. It was amazing. We seemed to be stuck in the same kind of miserable marriage. How right that turned out to be,"...

Cyber cheats married... to each other A married couple are divorcing after they chatted each other up on the Internet using fake names. Sana Klaric and husband Adnan poured their hearts out to each other over their marriage troubles. Using the names 'Sweetie' and 'Prince of Joy' in a online chatroom, the pair thought they had found a soulmate with whom to spend the rest of their lives. It should have turned out like a real-life version of the 1979 Rupert Holmes song, Escape, where a couple meet through advert by someone 'who likes pina coladas and getting caught in...

VANCOUVER, Wash. - A woman is accused of shooting her husband four times with a 16-gauge double-barreled shotgun after learning of an affair. Eddie Martin, 51, survived the attack, but may have to have a limb amputated. Sheryl Martin, also 51, had to reload after the first two shots. Martin made her first appearance on Monday in Clark County Superior Court. Martin was released on bail and will live with her parents. She will be formally charged September 21st. Eddie Martin told his wife he was having an affair and wanted a divorce. They argued and Eddie went to sleep...

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today announced that she will introduce a resolution to abolish the Electoral College and provide for the direct popular vote of the President. Senator Feinstein's announcement comes against the backdrop of a bid in California to qualify a ballot initiative that would skew the outcome of Presidential elections. "This proposed California initiative is very dangerous – it is an attempt to tinker with state law in order to influence the outcome of national Presidential elections," Senator Feinstein said. "There is no question that our system of electing a President is outmoded, but this initiative is...

The likely winner of the most controversial Tour de France in history, Spain's Alberto Contador, will step off the victory podium in Paris this afternoon and walk straight into an investigation into alleged links with a doping doctor which could ultimately cost him his title. That prospect would be a catastrophe both for cycling and for the organisers of the Tour de France, who had hoped the man wearing the yellow jersey on today's final sprint down the Champs-Élysées would help to redeem an event that has seemingly been heading for oblivion. Scroll down to read more: Sadly for those...

Swedish benefit cheats can no longer trust their neighbours, friends and colleagues to keep their secret from the authorities: in the first three months of 2007 the number of anonymous tip-offs to Stockholm's Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) has increased by 72 percent compared to the same period last year. Up until the end of June this year there were 881 anonymous tip-offs in the capital. That compares to 1,175 for the whole of last year. "People have always called us, but it's suddenly much more common," said Therese Karlberg, project leader in the agency's benefit fraud department. "When they see...

Newspaper says suspected cheating common at charter schools AUSTIN — Suspected cheating on the state's standardized test is particularly prevalent at the state's charter schools, according to an analysis of test scores by The Dallas Morning News. The study flagged answer sheets from classrooms that had many more answers in common than experts say would happen by chance. In the top 50 most egregious cases of likely cheating, 37 of them took place in charter schools, which make up only 2 percent of the state's campuses. One charter school, Jesse Jackson Academy in Houston, was home to the most...

Collusion and Tricks -by Kate Reynolds One in a Series of Articles from Agorics, Inc. Which auction type is the best? As discussed earlier, there is no single answer to that question, but one way of approaching that subject is to think about collusion; the extent to which incentives to collude vary under different auction types can help determine which type of auction to choose. All auction types are susceptible to collusion, but degrees of incentives vary. Rings Rings are simple to understand. A subset of bidders gather together and agree not to outbid each other which has the overall...

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - A lawyer for Asian students caught in a cheating scandal at Duke's business school says they were punished more severely than others. Durham lawyer Robert Ekstrand represents 16 students. He says most of those caught in the scandal didn't understand the honor code because they'd been in the country less than a year. Ekstrand has filed appeals for the students. He says students quickly wrote confessions after a faculty investigator pressured them to admit wrongdoing, even though some didn't understand the allegations. The scandal began when professors at Duke's Fuqua School of Business noticed similarities in...

Some help students during standards test - or fix answers later - and California's safeguards may leave more breaches unreported and California's safeguards may leave more breaches unreported Teachers have helped students cheat on California's high-stakes achievement tests -- or blundered badly enough to compromise their validity -- in at least 123 public schools since 2004, a Chronicle review of documents shows. Schools admitted outright cheating in about two-thirds of the cases. And while the number reporting problems represents a small fraction of the state's 9,468 public schools, some experts think the practice of cooking the test results is...

OK I need to know where to look for pictures of this Candian heiress, and stories of Bill's romances abroad. --especially pictures of the two of them together! If you could post a picture, great, but I don't know the names to google this stuff. I'll be happy with just fingers pointed in the right direction.

HARDLINE Muslim clerics are encouraging their followers to cheat the tax system because they consider paying income tax contrary to Islamic law. Muslim leaders have warned that fundamentalist imams who put sharia law ahead of Australian law are also condoning welfare fraud and the cash economy as tax-evasion methods. Sydney-based Islamic leader Fadi Rahman told The Australian that the extremist clerics who were preaching messages against paying income taxes were also staunchly opposed to Western ideologies, including the Australian way of life. He said he had heard hardline clerics at Friday sermons in Sydney highlight the importance of cheating the...

ATLANTA (AP) -- Hank Aaron doesn't plan to be at the ballpark if and when Barry Bonds breaks his home run record. "Uh-uh. No, no. I'm not going to be around," Aaron was quoted as saying in Tuesday's editions of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. [snip] "I'd probably fly to West Palm Beach to play golf," Aaron was quoted as saying in Moore's column. "Again, it has nothing to do with anybody, other than I had enough of it. I don't want to be around that sort of thing anymore. I just want to be at peace with myself. I don't want...

How Important Are Tests? by Ed Snyder March 20th, 2007 Cheating Yesterday, I was on one of the OpenDiary boards where a public school teacher was lamenting that it seems to have become a socially acceptable practice for students to cheat. This got me thinking quite a bit about the topic of cheating. My actual reply was as follows: My opinion:It all depends on how you define cheating. As someone who has homeschooled and will homeschool again when my sons are of school age, it is difficult to cheat. Except for things like plagiarism, how does one cheat if one...

SAN ANTONIO (AFNEWS) -- U.S. Air Force Academy officials are investigating an incident of cheating involving more than 19 freshman cadets. "We have an honor code here at the Academy," said Capt. Capt. Kim Melchor, the deputy director of public affairs during a telephone interview Feb. 8. "From the first day they arrive, we teach the cadets to be trustworthy and to understand that integrity is integral to every Air Force officer. Simply put, we don't tolerate cheating." Nineteen cadets have already admitted to Academy officials that they were involved somehow. "In light of this horrible situation, our cadets came...

LONDON (UPI) -- An Islamic school in England has been accused of poisoning the minds of its pupils with textbooks that portray Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs." The charges against the King Fahad Academy in Acton were made by Colin Cook, 57, a former English teacher and Muslim convert, The Daily Mail reports. Cook says the school where he taught for 19 years was very good until 2005 when the majority of British teachers left. Cook says he was told, "This is not England. This is Saudi Arabia," when he complained to school management about the content of...

NEW YORK -- It was an ethics exam in a journalism class, and someone may have cheated. Ironic? Yes. Unfortunate? Certainly. But what made the incident particularly notable was where and when it took place: at Columbia University, one of the premier journalism schools in the country, at a time when media ethics are much in question. On Friday, Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism convened a meeting to discuss misconduct in the final exam for the required ethics course "Critical Issues in Journalism." But the school was so wary of making specific accusations that, afterward, it was not even clear...

This may be the stupid question of the week: How can the Democrats say they have Majority leaders of their respective Houses (Senate and House) in place? There hasn't even been a vote on Nancy Pelosi yet... Don't they even bother to wait until January? The election results aren't in/finalized in several races. I know they figure that they have all the little machines operating just so they are guaranteed a win, but aren't there precedents and rules to follow? What if they DON'T elect Nancy? Is the media NOW the final say in our elections? Where are the Board...

Graduate business students take their cue from corporate scandals The corporate scandals that have plagued Wall Street in recent history are setting a fine example for young students looking to make their mark in the business world: They are learning to cheat with the best of them. Students seeking their masters of business administration degree admit cheating more than any other type of student, from law to liberal arts. "We have found that graduate students in general are cheating at an alarming rate and business-school students are cheating even more than others," concludes a study by the Academy of Management...

A ESPN poll asks what punishment, if any, Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush should incur for having been paid during his college career.The results so far look strangely familiar: (The gray areas represent states where the vote was too close to make a call.)It's beginning to look more and more like the US is comprised of two different countries.One that believes in playing by the rules, and one that doesn't.

Imagine going to get your car repaired, paying for it, and then finding out that the work was never done. With the help of insiders, NBC4 uncovered an apparent scheme at several Los Angeles area Jiffy Lube stores. The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has asked customers who have had problems at Jiffy Lube stores to contact the DA's Consumer Protection Division, by e-mail, at jiffylube@lacountyda.org