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A small rural school district in Fort Bend County and a determined mother are tangled in a dispute over hair. Michelle Betenbaugh says her 5-year-old son, Adriel Arocha, wears his hair long because of religious beliefs tied to his Native American heritage. But the leaders of the Needville school district have strict rules about long hair on boys and don't see any reason to make an exception in his case. The dispute illustrates a problem American schools have faced for decades: how to balance individual student rights against rules designed to maintain order and discipline in the classroom. The case...

So far the internet provides little to no information about Obama's IQ Score, his college transcripts from Harvard, his GPA, his SAT or LSAT scores. Could Obama actually be as dumb as Al Gore? Wait... that's not possible. We know that Obama has less experience than a Home Owner's Association President, but could he have an IQ to match? Help me out if you find information about his IQ and other test scores. Thanks.

What they found was 12 percent of United States high school biology teachers consider creationism a "valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species," and believe "many reputable scientists view these as valid alternatives to Darwinian theory."

<p>A Canadian woman died last year after stepping barefoot on several caterpillars, doctors reported in a teaching case published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.</p> <p>The 22-year old woman from Alberta died 10 days after stepping on five caterpillars while on a trip to northeastern Peru.</p>

Postmodernism by R. Wesley Hurd At the end of this century the big questions about reality and being human rise with unexpected power. We ask ever more agonizingly: What does it mean to be human? How do human beings fit into this vast cosmos? Where to from here? We live in a time of great uncertainty--caught in the transition from a bold and passionate optimism about the future to a deep skepticism and spirit of nihilism about finding any universal ways for mankind. We live in a postmodern time. The term "postmodernism" pops up in newspapers, magazines, and other media....

Classic rock pounded from the sound system and kids broke into spontaneous dance moves. A quartet of robots took center stage in a tiny makeshift arena, preparing to test their metal in a game of skill. The competition culminated a weeklong engineering workshop sponsored by NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Lancaster High School Eagle Robotics Team and the AERO Institute at Palmdale's civic center. More than 40 middle school students attended the workshop, at which they learned about mechanics, engineering and electronics from Lancaster High's robotics team members. Organizers divided each day into two parts - mornings in the classroom...

This week's outrage comes to us courtesy of the fringe animal "rights" group known as the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance (NJARA). We've reported before on animal "rights" groups that try to push their agenda via "educational materials" that are foisted upon our school systems. The propaganda usually consists of the same, radical, scare tactics and lies we've seen time and again and come to expect. This time, however, the NJARA has served up a version that, even by current standards, is utterly ridiculous. "The Zargon Connection" is part of NJARA's "Humane and Responsible Teachers" curriculum designed for grades pre-K...

When it comes to getting a good education, apparently, there's no place like home. When homeschooling first came into prominence in the late 1980’s many viewed it with skepticism, but it has proved itself over and over the past two decades. Whether the average homeschooled student is getting as good an education as the average public school student is no longer a question. The verdict is in. The results of numerous studies show the average homeschooler is receiving a better education than the average public or private school student. In a 1997 study, Strengths of Their Own, Dr. Brian Ray...

This is an excerpt from a Kaplan College Test Prep email I just received. Note they advise prospective college students the colleges don't care what candidate you supported, but apparently that is limited to democrats: "Colleges typically offer students several topics on which to write, with themes that provide focus and encourage introspection. Current events are common essay prompts each year—the 2000 presidential election and controversial Florida recount, terrorism and the aftermath of 9/11, and corporate accounting practices with the meltdown of Enron have all been seen in the past. The current presidential election, the war in the Middle East,...

I'm a twenty-two Virginian girl, and this is my rant at my peers. Every day I peruse the forums of FreeRepublic, scouring the pages and reading of the troubles that face the United States. And to be entirely honest, it breaks my heart. Every time see another article about the efforts of so many to bring radical and harmful changes to America, I can think of nothing except the English landing at Jamestown and one man saying that if paradise existed on Earth, it was Virginia. And now many people are trying to pull the United States down to the...

In my little house we have an HP desktop and an ARCHOS 605 wifi (amongh other things) and for the longest time they worked perfectly together. Then one day they were no longer on speaking terms. Though each by itself worked out-- and checked out-- AOK. So, after some very careful investigation -- and a $$ an hour computer guy -- the problem almost certainly is a virus, or what have you. So, can anyone recommand a good de-bugging program? We just have the plain-vanilla AOL virus protection (quit snickering) and so...well...any recommandations? Thanks

TAMPA - The ankle monitor has come off. Schoolteacher-turned-sex-offender Debra Lafave no longer will have to provide Florida Department of Corrections officials her daily schedule, and they no longer will keep minute-by-minute track of her whereabouts. With Lafave having served more than 2 1/2 years of a three-year house-arrest sentence, a judge commuted the final five months to probation. She will remain on probation for seven years. Probation officials were to remove Lafave's electronic ankle monitor at their Plant City office this morning, said DOC spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger. Shortly before 10 a.m., officials in Plant City said Lafave already had...

COMMENCEMENT SPEECH AT TEXAS A&M Neal Boortz Commencement Address: I am honored by the invitation to address you on this august occasion. It's about time. Be warned, however, that I am not here to wow you; you'll have enough smoke blown your way today. And you can bet your tassels I'm not here to impress the faculty and administration. You may not like much of what I have to say, and that's fine. You will remember it though. Especially after about 10 years out there in the real world. This, it goes without saying, does not apply to those of...

NEW YORK -- A Dutchess County special education teacher has been accused of having sex with a 15-year-old disabled student. Teacher Mandi Weeks, 27, was arrested on Monday in Queens. She admitted to having sex with her student at the Devereux Foundation NY Center for the past month, according to police. Weeks is being charged with two counts of rape with a child under the age of 21 and two acts of acting in a manner to injure a child under the age of 17. The student was in the school’s residential program and lived on campus. He had been...

Scale is impossible to judge when there's nothing nearby with a size you can judge by: this lava fountain on the flow field of Kilauea is 12-15 meters high. Click for full-size. Click: Kilauea Eruption Images to access a Quicktime movie of this fountain.

Diamonds and precious metals found in the eastern United States might have rained down during the last Ice Age after a comet shattered over Canada and set North America ablaze, all leading to a mass die-off of animals and humans. New chemical analyses of diamond, gold and silver found in Ohio and Indiana reveal the minerals were transported there from Canada several thousand years ago. The question is, how? "There are no gold mines or silver mines in Ohio that anyone knows of, but there are plenty of them in Canada," said retired geophysicist Allen West, who was involved in...

A 5-year-old was critically injured in a Brooklyn fire he set Monday as revenge for being punished by his grandmother, police and fire sources said. Jay (Tito) Morales suffered third-degree burns to 70% of his body after he used a lighter to ignite the curtains in Nancy Herrera's Bushwick home, fire sources said. Herrera, 63, suffered minor injuries. "It's all about revenge," a source said. "What's scary is he thought of this and he is only 5." The boy twice prank-called 911 recently and told cops his grandmother was dead or in trouble, sources said. To punish the boy, Herrera...

Just as we teach math and writing, arts and athletics, So when I'm President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you'll have done 17 weeks of service.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2dfD0ryMco

The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge Louisiana today published a front page story about Louisiana’s new law regarding teaching of evolution that contains a completely false statement in the lead. The paper reported an unnamed official stated that “Louisiana is the only state in the nation that has enacted a law that could change the way evolution is taught in public schools.” Louisiana recently enacted the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) which protects teachers that encourage critical thinking and objective discussion about evolution and other scientific topics.

When a science director loses her job, it seems lots of people have an opinion about it. But after all, it's one woman and one job. "It's because this is really about what kind of education Texas students get in their public schools," Kathy Miller of the Texas Freedom Network said. Evolution supporters like Miller are thinking about the bigger picture in regards to what happened to Comer. The Texas Education Agency told Comer she had failed to remain neutral in the evolution versus creationism debate. "It's kind of like asking the science director to be neutral on whether the...

Just thought I'd post a thread where the various fireworks laws, regulations, etc. could be posted. National Council on Fireworks Safety Nice links to each State's fireworks laws. Here's their Safety Video Fireworks Classifications Various histories of fireworks....Fireworks.comWikipedia Fireworks entryPyrouniverse.com (lol) History of Fireworks

Someone once said school board politics can be the roughest politics of all. That wise person probably served on a board and faced voter hostility over proposed budgets and, on more than one occasion, the wrath of parents upset over a school policy affecting their children. All this for an office that comes with no pay and many hours of homework on educational issues and state regulations. And, oh, yes, school board meetings can get testy, even hostile, when there is a controversial issue. It all goes with the territory -- unless you are a member of the Guilderland School...

Hurtling through space 31 years after its launch, the Voyager 2 spacecraft has sent back the most detailed view yet of the shock wave that marks the thinning of the solar wind, the charged particles streaming from the sun. Researchers say the crossing confirms that the heliosphere—the region swept out by the solar wind—is actually lopsided, perhaps due to a tilted magnetic field in local interstellar space. The shock wave, or heliospheric termination shock, occurs when the supersonic wind thins to the point that it can no longer rebuff the denser haze of charged particles flowing through interstellar space. Instead,...

Iran's First Lady - Confirmed Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 11:49:20 am PDT "It’s confirmed. That really is Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s wife in that photograph I posted yesterday. Here are some more pictures of the First Bag Lady..."

Here is a great Independence Day Quiz. Click here.Be sure to think about your answers but most of all enjoy.

Forty-two-year-old Janelle Batkins of Harrison Township pleaded Thursday to two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct in Macomb County Circuit Court. A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt, but is treated as such for sentencing.

GUILDERLAND -- Hundreds of people packed a Guilderland school board meeting Tuesday evening to protest the controversial reassignment of two popular teachers. Dozens of current and former students of Matt Nelligan and Anne Marie McManus spoke against the move even though board members walked out and refused to hear the messages of support in a public forum. There were howls from the crowd and calls to vote board members out of office after President Richard Weisz referred to the involuntary transfer of the teachers to Farnsworth Middle School as a personnel matter that could not be discussed. Nelligan and McManus,...

"No beauty products, No sissy male models, No wimpy articles - Just pure raw masculine information and ideas for real men"

Learn something new every day entry: this image and accompanying article (click the source link above) told me about Nea Kameni, which is in the Santorini lagoon and which had volcanic activity in 1950. I never knew the name of the island and that it was recently active until yesterday. Click for full-size. Here's a view taken from Santorini. And this image is just to put everything into proper perspective.

CCTV:New York,June 10/08:A school prank gone wrong on Long Island is caught on tape. Police said a group of students, dismissed early from Uniondale High School during the June 10th heat wave vandalized a 7-11 store. They're seen grabbing items off shelves and throwing items on the floor. According to police, they also stole candy and beverages from the store. Three teenagers are charged with riot and petty larceny.

If you saw it from a distance, it would look like a small alligator, but if you look closer you would find a fin in the back. In terms of construction, it had already undergone most of the changes from fish towards land animal, but in terms of lifestyle you are still looking at an animal that is habitually aquatic.” said Per Ahlberg, a professor of evolutionary biology at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Officials of a north suburban park district say strong racial language in the musical "Ragtime" prompted their decision Wednesday to cancel the show two weeks before it was set to open. Those involved in the production -- set for Wilmette's Gillson Park -- say the decision means the loss of more than a month of hard work by a cast of nearly 40, and a misunderstanding of the show's message and realistic look at race relations in the past century. Wilmette Park District Executive Director Tom Grisamore said he made the decision to pull "Ragtime" 12 days after learning the...

A pair of former Ware Shoals High School students have filed lawsuits against Ware Shoals School District 51 and its board of trustees in relation to the district’s employment of ex-cheerleading coach and guidance clerk Jill Moore. The lawsuits were filed on behalf of the two WSHS graduates -- one a former cheerleader, the other a former Hornets’ football player -- by Charleston attorney Lionel Lofton. “This is a civil lawsuit being brought by two former Ware Shoals High School students,” Lofton said Wednesday. Each lawsuit levies four causes of action against the district and its board, including gross negligence,...

Conservatives!

The Columbia University professor who gained widespread attention last fall after a noose was found hanging on her office door was fired on Monday after months of wrangling over charges that she plagiarized the work of two former students and a former colleague. Madonna G. Constantine, a professor of psychology and education with a focus on racial issues at Columbia’s Teachers College, was sanctioned in February, after an 18-month investigation into the plagiarism charge, but allowed to stay in her job and to appeal the ruling that she had violated the university’s academic standards. But over the last five months,...

This video is about a true story that happened in the late 60's. My wife and I were visiting a small town called Chepachet R.I on Tanyard Lane, (the old 1910, black & white photo of this video). The song of the video played in Bluegrass Stile, “Precious Memories” sung with mixed artist unknown. The video also has been redone for better visual.

I can't post any of the pictures that I want to, but they're remarkable. 13 June 2008: Strong Activity at the Fissure in Valle del Bove Here's another site from Volcano Discovery on the May 2008 eruptions that's similar. From: Etna eruption May 2008 Here's a couple of context images. The first shows where the Valle del Bove is. The second is from space, and the Valle del Bove is the broad dark-brown area to the right (east) of the summit craters.

JWT survey shows positive side of younger workers By Jeanie Casison While older employees often call out their 21- to 29-year-old Millennial colleagues for not showing respect, lacking a strong work ethic and being impatient on the job, new research by New York-based ad agency JWT reveal that these negative perceptions may be off the mark. According to the U.S. study, "Millennials at Work: Myths vs. Reality," the younger generation is more serious than people think. When asked about the statement "I think a formal appearance at the workplace is important for career success," 67 percent of Millennial respondents agreed...

Children learn many useful things from television shows and cartoon characters. They learn letters and numbers from the characters on Sesame Street; Dora the Explorer helps them hone their reasoning and problem-solving skills. Now, a cartoon character is telling them when they should die. He’s a dog in a lab coat named “Professor Schpinkee.” He is a creation of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Planet Slayer website. Kids who visit the website are invited to pay a “game” called “Professor Schpinkee’s Greenhouse Calculator.” But instead of learning letters or numbers—or even how to take a bite out of crime—they learn “how...

Leduc said they advised her that Victoria's educational assistant (EA) had visited a psychic, who said a youngster whose name started with "V" was being sexually abused by a man between 23 and 26 years old. Leduc was also handed a list of recent behaviours exhibited by her daughter.

This animation is to reveal how demoralizing it must be to wildlife in hunting season’s first day.

Full-size (for full effect). Basaseachi is a 312 meter waterfall.

A missing 14-year-old student and his female teacher both have been found safe — he in a Hamburg mall, she found sleeping in her car in Springville.

Star Prairie, WI - Chako isn't the kind of dog that's likely to find a home through the local animal shelter. An aging Siberian husky, incontinent and partially paralyzed, he needs round-the-clock care that his owner, widowed, and with arthritis herself, can no longer manage. But Chako has a home, along with dozens of other aged or maimed or once-abandoned animals, on a 40-acre spread along the Apple River in western Wisconsin. Chako lives at the Home for Life Sanctuary near Star Prairie, the final residence for an eclectic menagerie of dogs, cats, bunnies, birds - even an African desert...

Hey "School-Bus" Nagin, Has anyone told you the water is coming! No, it's not a hurricane. It's weird, all that flood water from your neighbors to the north just happens to run south, right down the middle of your city! You're been warned! ...for what good that will do.

The show is on now if anyone is interested.

London, England (AHN) -- Princess Eugenie, the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of York was caught running around naked with friends on the campus of her college late Friday night. According to reports, a school staff member was woken by "playful shrieks," and saw a group of girls romping around in a courtyard area. There were no boys, and school officials say there didn't seem to be any intoxicants involved, but a report in The Sun claimed that one student said the girls had been drinking at a pub that night. Upon being caught, the dozen or so girls...

Bikinis and other sexy stimuli can make men more prone to seek immediate gratification — leading to blown diets, budgets and bank accounts, new research suggests.In the study, detailed in the Journal of Consumer Research, men alternately fondled t-shirts and bras (which were not being worn during the test).After touching the bras, men valued the future less and the present more, said lead researcher Bram Van Den Bergh of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. Viewing ads with women in bikinis had the same effect.