Free Republic

Yet another student has landed in trouble for having something that represents a weapon, but isn’t actually anything like a real weapon. This time it’s an autistic middle school student in South Carolina who was suspended until further notice after he brought a cartoonish drawing of a bomb he drew to school, reports local NBC affiliate WYFF. The student, 13-year-old Rhett Parham, showed his drawing to some older students at Hill Crest Middle School in Greenville. They reported it to school officials. They boy said he got the idea to draw the bomb from a video game called Bomberman Hero....

October 11, 2013 (WND) - So much for the left’s “consenting adults” rhetoric on sex. Forever the consummate conservationists, our self-described “progressive” friends at the ACLU, MSNBC and elsewhere have been ramping-up efforts to downsize from “consenting adults” to merely “consenting” – a far less cumbersome qualifier in the noble struggle for unrestrained sexual license. Tolerating “intergenerational romance” for “minor-attracted” adults is all the rage these days. Ever hear of Kaitlyn Hunt? Over the past year or so this poor, misunderstood lesbian woman’s “anti-gay persecution” has become a cause célèbre among “gay rights” activists and other left-wing purveyors of perversion....

WINTER HAVEN — For more than a year, Rebecca Ann Sedwick's bullies tormented the girl by calling her ugly and urging her drink bleach to die. The harassment didn't stop — even after Rebecca's parents moved the 12-year-old Lakeland girl to a different middle school. The bullies reached her on her smartphone. Rebecca brought it all to an end by jumping to her death from a silo at an abandoned concrete factory Sept. 10. But even after her suicide, the cruelty didn't cease, family members and investigators say. 15 girls identified after cyber-bullied girl jumps to her death in Lakeland...

Unrepentant former terrorist Bill Ayers was an invited dignitary at the University of Chicago’s International House last week, plugging his latest ode to himself in book form, reports The College Fix. The book, “Public Enemy: Confessions of an American Dissident,” describes — from his vantage point – his disappointment with America after his friendship with Barack Obama became a focus of controversy during the 2008 Democratic primary and subsequent general election. At the University of Chicago event, Ayers said he was “amazed” to be “cast as some kind of public enemy” just because he had been a co-founder of the...

School “zero tolerance” policies claimed another victim as Massachusetts high school student Erin Cox was suspended from her volleyball team after giving an intoxicated friend a ride home from a party. Police determined that Cox had not consumed alcohol, and agreed that the honors student had only come to a party featuring underage drinking in order to make sure a friend got home safely. But Andover High School decided to punish Cox anyway, determining that she had violated the school district’s zero tolerance policy against drug and alcohol use. Cox was demoted from her position as captain of the volleyball...

Administrators at Texas Christian University repeatedly shot down conservative students’ attempts to publicize an event by using a picture of a gun, and vetoed a gun safety course entirely. Administrators at the private university in Fort Worth, Texas prohibited student members of a Young Americans for Freedom chapter from advertising conservative commentator Bay Buchanan’s visit to the university by circulating a picture of an antique shotgun with the caption “Fully Loaded.”

The rights of a transgendered Colorado high school student are being put ahead of girls the boy harasses in the girls bathroom. A male student at Florence (CO) High School who claims to be transgendered has caused controversy by harassing female students in the girls room, but will not face any discipline – this despite vocal protests from the girls’ parents. ‘The boy’s rights as a transgender trump their daughters’ privacy rights,’ the school has told concerned parents, according to CBN. Unidentified because all involved are minors, the students are being threatened with removal from sports teams or even hate...

I'd like to supplement my income by using the internet. I have gone to certain websites to read up or inquire about certain ways to produce income, but most the time, I am overwhelmed by the myriad of choices. There are some work at home sites where the numbers and combinations of choices are literally inexhaustible. I like to read (and occasionally write) about social issues, some science, some psychology, religion, international commerce as with the EU, particular types of music and visual arts. I have also produced much creative writing. The subjects I just listed may be interesting to...

Crystal Dixon has run out of options. Dixon, the former associate vice president of human resources at the University of Toledo (UT), sued her former employer in 2008 after she was fired for publishing a column expressing her opinions on homosexuality. In February 2012, a federal judge ruled against Dixon. Later that year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit concurred with the lower court. Now, this week, the United States Supreme Court has declined to hear Dixon’s appeal. In her column, published in The Toledo Free Press, Dixon, who is black, had expressed her disagreement with comparisons...

A divinity school in Tennessee has installed an openly homosexual clergywoman as the school’s new dean. Vanderbilt Divinity School (VDS), located in Nashville, Tennessee, has developed a reputation for progressive policies and teachings. An article last week in Nashville Scene described the institution as a “liberal oasis” and “a bastion of the religious left” where scholars tend to “challenge rather than uphold orthodoxy.” In keeping with these beliefs, the school has officially appointed Emilie Townes as the 16th dean of the school. Not only is Townes an ordained American Baptist clergywoman, but she is also an overt homosexual. Townes’ liberal...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —An Albuquerque mother says a school bus driver will no longer allow her daughter, who has cerebral palsy, to board the special needs bus. Related Carol Montoya told KOAT Action 7 News she received a threatening text message from the driver, after Montoya made it clear her daughter Valarie, a second-grader at Chaparral Elementary, requires extra attention and special care. "I guess she was fed up," Montoya said of the driver, "and she told me my daughter has too many medical problems that she couldn't handle." Montoya said she received an obscenity-laced text message from the driver that...

A popular 15-year-old student has committed suicide after he reportedly faced expulsion and could have been placed on the sex offenders' register simply for streaking at a high school football game. Christian Adamek, from Huntsville, Alabama, hanged himself on October 2, a week after he was arrested for running naked across the Sparkman High football field during a game. The teenager died two days later from his injuries and on Wednesday, friends and family gathered at a memorial service as they struggled to comprehend the beloved student's death. A video of Adamek streaking during a game against a rival team...

[Summary: The Education Establishment likes to pretend that new digital options mean kids don’t need traditional skills. That is a non-sequitur and probably dishonest. ] A new development in education is deciding what “literacy” should be in the 21st century.  With a swirl of technological breakthroughs all around us, elite educators are gaga at the plethora of excuses for pooh-poohing subjects routinely taught in the dark age known as the 20th century.  The National Council of Teachers of English recently announced: “Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change,...

San Jose State University students were on lockdown Thursday morning at Sweeney Hall after someone called in a report about seeing a man with a gun. SJSU spokeswoman Pat Harris said only Sweeney Hall was on lockdown after a "credible" report with a white man wearing all black clothes, possibly armed with a handgun was seen walking near the hall. Student Jonathan Aguayo told NBC Bay Area that he saw the man, and it looked like he was carrying a rifle. About 10:30 a.m., an NBC Bay Area photographer witnessed an undercover femal police officer detaining a man - wearing...

Pro Familia, Germany’s leading family planning group, published articles years ago that appeared to advocate for pedophilia, university researchers say. The findings by researchers at Gottingen University were published Wednesday by the newspaper Tagesspiegel, The Local.de reported. An institute at the university has been involved since May in finding past statements by politicians and others that seem to make light of sexual relations between children and adults. …

Liberals don't just indulge in magical thinking - the entire point of liberalism is to live inside magical thinking. As a result, liberals allow themselves to believe that their chosen method of power, namely soft-totalitarian socialist-communism, is not just powerful, but infinitely powerful. Because magical thinking is not just a partial break from personal responsibility, it is an absolute break that requires an absolute power to protect them from every having to come out of it. So, when the limits of their power finally are broken by the realities of the actual world they live in, they literally cannot grasp...

I’m waiting for the American Psychological Association to declare that Peter Pan Syndrome is not only nothing to be ashamed of, but something to celebrate. Why should those in what used to be called the young adult years bother to grow up, when our benevolent government is encouraging them to remain dependent well into their 20s? In this, the first leg of our glorious new non-workers’ paradise of Obamacare, there are dozens — probably hundreds — of ways that the new regime will make health care less effective, more expensive, less efficient, more dysfunctional, more confusing and more byzantine. But...

A decision to cancel some Halloween celebrations at an elementary school in Montgomery County is stirring controversy among some parents. Parents received a letter Tuesday from the principal at Inglewood Elementary School. The school is located in Towamencin Township, near Lansdale, and is part of the North Penn School District. The letter, obtained by Action News and signed by the school's principal, Orlando Taylor, announced Taylor's decision not to hold Halloween parades or celebrations at the school this year. It reads in part: "Some holidays observed in the community that are considered by many to be secular (ex. Halloween, Thanksgiving,...

WASHINGTON — It’s long been known that America’s school kids haven’t measured well compared with international peers. Now, there’s a new twist: Adults don’t either. In math, reading and problem-solving using technology – all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength – American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.

A parent in Bryant, Ark., claims her sixth-grade daughter brought home a history class assignment that asks students to “revise, omit two and add two amendments” to the “outdated” Bill of Rights. Her daughter is reportedly a student in the Bryant School District. Lela Spears, the girl’s mother, told the Digital Journal that the worksheet requires students to take part in a theoretical special committee, the “National Revised Bill of Rights Task Force.” The committee is charged with the task of revising the Bill of Rights to “ensure that our personal civil liberties and the pursuit of happiness remains guarded...

The athletic department of Cornell University was chided — and eventually apologized — over its Cinco de Mayo-themed marketing campaign, which involved the most heinous of racist stereotypes: the consumption of tacos and the donning of sombreros.

The United States is at the bottom of the heap in numeracy skills of youths among all countries of the 22-nation OECD grouping, while Britain is among the bottom three in literacy skills among 16-24 year-olds, a survey has found. In a survey on adult skills, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development evaluated skills in 22 OECD member states as well as Russia and Cyprus. The study involved tests on 166,000 people aged between 16 and 65 years. In literacy skills of 55-65 year-olds, Britain ranks among the three highest-performing countries. In numeracy, the US is about average when...

IoT to Generate Global Revenue of $8.9 Trillion by 2020 The Internet of Things (IoT) represents a new construct in the information and communications technology (ICT) world that is occupying the minds of IT vendors, service providers, and systems integrators as it represents huge potential for new streams of revenue and new customers. The ongoing development of smart cities, cars, and houses; enhanced connectivity infrastructure and increasingly connected culture are just some key enablers to the rise of IoT. In fact, Internet of Things is not something that is coming, but something that has already been partly implemented, but will...

Communist Goals (1963) Documention below ________________________________________ Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963 Current Communist Goals EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, January 10, 1963 Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America. At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies...

School headmistress, who noticed the girl had fallen ill, informed officialsA Saudi school girl aged around 10 years was forced by her father to marry and the case was disclosed by the school headmistress who noticed the girl had fallen ill. The head of the school in the southern province of Jazan said she had sent a letter to the police telling them about the forced marriage of the girl. “The school head said in her letter that the girl was not well and that she told her she had been forced by her father to marry,” Sabq daily said....

Accurately measuring the body temperature and heart rate of a sprinting Komodo dragon isn’t easy. Feeding it a thermometer is doable. Hide it in some meat and let the 9-foot, 200-pound lizard scarf it down. The issue is making it run in a controlled environment. “We would look at their running costs,” Hank Harlow said. “What is their cost of motion?” The answer could ultimately lead to the conservation of the world’s largest lizards by helping locals know what kind of habitat the dragons need to survive. Which is why Harlow, a University of Wyoming professor and researcher, needed to...

Students at a Connecticut elementary school have been irritating teachers because they imitate the Geico 'Hump Day' commercial featuring a camel that walks around an office and asks workers what day it is. Some students at the Vernon Center Middle School reportedly disregard what day it is when they use the phrase, and use it on days that are not technically 'hump days.'

Murphy's Law famously states that "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." But many are unaware of the lesser-known corollary to Murphy's Law, known as Fox & Friends Law, which states that "anything that can be derped on Fox & Friends, will be derped." Consequently, from the moment it was decided to pair the hosts of Fox & Friends with Hispanic meteorologist Maria Molina for a segment on National Taco Day this morning, the derp was inevitable. It was inevitable that Brian Kilmeade would ask Molina, "What are tips we need to know to do it correctly? You grew...

It was lost for so long that it had assumed mythical status for art historians. Some doubted whether it even existed. But a 500-year-old mystery was apparently solved today after a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci was discovered in a Swiss bank vault. The painting, which depicts Isabella d’Este, a Renaissance noblewoman, was found in a private collection of 400 works kept in a Swiss bank by an Italian family who asked not to be identified. It appears to be a completed, painted version of a pencil sketch drawn by Leonardo da Vinci in Mantua in the Lombardy region...

"militant Tea Party radicals"?Who said it?Obama,Reid,Pelosi?Place your guess!

October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month. It is a time when scores of advocacy organizations and individuals across the country do their utmost to raise awareness about this genetic condition. I was thinking about Awareness and how unaware I was about Down syndrome prior to the birth of Sadie, my second daughter, almost 15 years ago. It got me thinking, what are some of the things I would like others to be aware of? In particular, because such a high percentage of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted—estimates run as high as 90%– I thought I’d use this post...

(Summary: In many ways, public schools seem deliberately organized to diminish intellect, not to enlarge it.) An acquaintance sent this note: “My sister tells of teaching math to college freshmen. The question was: If X plus 5 = 10, what is the value of X? It took her an entire week to get the kids to finally say ‘5.’ So the following Monday, just on a hunch, she gave them another problem: If Y plus 5 = 10, what is the value of Y? And no one could answer!” Remember, these students have been admitted to a community college. Presumably,...

CHASKA, Minn. (WCCO) — It’s watched by millions of television viewers each week — a show featuring a family of camouflage-clad characters and their ZZ Top theme song. A & E’s Duck Dynasty is a reality TV series like no other. “Everybody can really relate to them. They’re just everyday people, just doing funny things we can relate to everyday,” said high school sophomore Sarah Verdoorn. The reality show follows members of the Robertson family and their hugely successful duck call business, Duck Commander. But it’s the character’s clean and quirky humor that is creating so much buzz. “To bring...

The arrests of several students who unwittingly and accidentally violated school weapon policies has some Georgian lawmakers saying “zero tolerance” makes zero sense. A Cobb County high school senior was charged with the felony of bringing weapons into a school zone after police found fishing knives in a tackle box in his car. Cody Chitwood, a 17-year-old student at Lassiter High School and avid fisherman, turned himself in and was released on $1,000 bond. If the district attorney decides to prosecute, Chitwood could face two to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. “It’s pretty ridiculous,” said Chitwood in...

Adventurers have stumbled across a cave so enormous that it has its own weather system, complete with wispy clouds and lingering fog inside vast caverns. A team of expert cavers and photographers have been exploring the vast cave system in the Chongquing province of China and have taken the first-ever photographs of the natural wonder. They were amazed to discover the entrance to the hidden Er Wang Dong cave system and were stunned when they managed to climb inside to see a space so large that it can contain a cloud.

Warning: Graphic details A teacher at a South Florida high school was shocked when he returned from summer vacation to find a formalin-soaked human fetus placed in a jar inside one of his cabinets. The fetus, a white female, was 16 to 19 weeks old and 8 inches long with its umbilical cord still attached. The fetus' eyes, toes and other features were all well preservedand there appears to be no trauma. The mason jar was found covered in a brown paper bag in Robert Snyder's classroom at Cape Coral High School on Aug. 7.

Begin a challenging and exciting internship with the Executive Office of the President (EOP) providing support to the President of the United States. The EOP is comprised of The White House, Executive Residence, Office of the Vice President, Office of the United States Trade Representatives, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Office of the National Drug Control Policy, Office of Management and Budget, Office of Administration, National Security Staff, Council on Environmental Quality, and Council of Economic Advisers. The EOP has responsibility for tasks ranging from communicating the President's message to the American people to promoting our trade interests abroad....

MORGANTOWN, West Virginia - The West Virginia University Police Department is investigating an incident that may have involved WVU students. Video of a car being flipped is going around the Internet. The video first showed up on Instagram Sunday morning and was deleted. The video was then added by a third party to YouTube with 'WVU Car Flip' as the title

Welsh schoolteacher Norma Walmsley has opened up on her time when she worked for one of the richest families on the planet - the Brunei Royal Family.It's a tale straight out of Oscar Hammerstein’s classic musical The King and I. Former Holywell schoolteacher Norma Walmsley has lifted the lid on her time as a governess to the Brunei Royal Family, who have ruled the country for more than 600 years. She tutored their 12 children for 10 years after being personally head- hunted by the Sultan of Brunei himself. Now 73 and settled in Pantsasaph, near Holywell, Norma’s life now...

The Agriculture Department says 524 schools—out of about 100,000—have dropped out of the federally subsidized national school lunch program since the government introduced new standards for healthier foods last year. The new standards have been met with grumbling from school nutrition officials who say they are difficult and expensive to follow, conservatives who say the government shouldn’t be dictating what kids eat and—unsurprisingly—from some children who say the less-greasy food doesn’t taste as good. But USDA says the vast majority of schools are serving healthier food, with some success. Data the department is planning to release Monday shows that 80...

First-time college students who want to attend the University of Florida but can't make the move to Gainesville won't have to anymore, thanks to a new UF online bachelor's degree program. The Board of Governors Friday voted to approve the business plan for the online bachelor's program. The business plan contained an 82-page summary of courses and degree programs, student services, tuition and fees, budget, admissions and enrollment projections. Tuition for in-state students at UF Online will cost 75 percent of the price of on-campus classes, while out-of-state students will pay market rates. UF Online students will also be exempt...

A 12-year-old boy was suspended from a Coventry middle school after his parents said he brought a small gun keychain to school. Joseph Lyssikatos said the keychain was in his backpack at Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School on Thursday when it fell out. A classmate picked it up and started showing it to other students. A teacher confiscated it and before Joseph knew it, he was suspended. Speaking to talk host Matt Allen, on 630AM/99.7FM WPRO, Joseph’s father, Keith Bonanno, said that school officials have not been anxious to speak with the family. The school’s behavioral specialist told Mr. Bonanno...

"One of the most startling revelations of moving back to the U.S. is the ubiquitous friendliness and I’m rolling around in it like a dog in fresh grass....none of which could really explain this truly awesome bit of reverse culture shock for me. It’s not that Europeans are exactly un-friendly, especially Italians, who are in fact very polite and kind to strangers, and warm to friends and family, but I lived in Texas for 15 years before moving to Europe and being openly friendly to complete strangers was (is) deeply part of my personality,....

A thoughtless phone call forced a bereaved father to begin grieving all over again. Brooklyn teen Jean Fritz Pierre drowned on a class field trip in June, but that didn’t stop school officials who called his devastated dad last week to tell him his son was skipping class. Jonas Pierre, who this month filed a notice of claim for two $5 million suits against the city over the 16-year-old’s death, said staff from Prospect Heights International High School called him to set up a meeting to discuss his son’s awful attendance record. The distraught dad said the school’s insensitive phone...

The Reading Wars were always chaotic and confusing. Here’s the gist: ----On the one side, you had earnest, sincere people warning the country about the dangers of non-phonetic approaches (these were called Look-say, Whole Word, sight-words, and other jargon). The warning was always the same. Nobody can learn to read that way. It’s a hoax. Don’t do it! You’re being punked. On the other side, you had patronizing professors of education saying the exact opposite. Phonics is old-fashioned. Dull and dreary. We’ve got the fun new way to learn to read. Kids think of words as graphic designs and memorize...

College students who major in physical sciences tend to be smarter than those who major in psychology, judging from the 2013 SAT Report on College & Career Readiness from the College Board. The report includes data on SAT scores by intended major for the college-bound class of 2013. We've taken the liberty of ranking majors based on these scores, which are the best commonly available proxy for intelligence.

Imagine scraping together $45,612 for tuition and 11,620 for room and board for your child to go to Brown University this year. Why, an Ivy League degree must be worth it, right? Learning at the feet of renowned scholars, making lifelong friendships with ambitious and capable people, and developing social skills are supposed to make the financial sacrifices worthwhile. Here is the reality, via Timothy Dionisopoulos of  Campus Reform: Brown University is set to host a weeklong "nudity" event featuring nude student performances starting next Monday, Campus Reform has learned.Brown University is set to host a nudity week featuring body...

With all the obamascare going on, I wonder about my situation as a retiree ...

This flows in perfectly with the Warmist notion that debate is great, and theyÂ’re willing to debate anyone anytime anywhere, but when challenged disappear and refuse. Why WeÂ’re Shutting Off Our Comments Comments can be bad for science. ThatÂ’s why, here at PopularScience.com, weÂ’re shutting them off. It wasnÂ’t a decision we made lightly. As the news arm of a 141-year-old science and technology magazine, we are as committed to fostering lively, intellectual debate as we are to spreading the word of science far and wide. The problem is when trolls and spambots overwhelm the former, diminishing our ability to...

Florida Governor Rick Scott issued an executive order Monday rejecting the Common Core educational initiative adopted in 2010 by the Florida State Board of Education (BOE) and endorsed by former Gov. Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future as a “Federal government intrusion” into his state’s right to set its own academic standards.