Free Republic

In a medical first, doctors used plastic particles and a 3-D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of a baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day. It’s the latest advance from the booming field of regenerative medicine: making body parts in the lab. In the case of Kaiba Gionfriddo, doctors didn’t have a moment to spare. Because of a birth defect, the little Ohio boy’s airway kept collapsing, causing his breathing to stop and often his heart, too. Doctors in Michigan had been researching artificial airway splints, but had not implanted one...

Student activists at more than 200 colleges are trying a new tactic in hopes of slowing the pace of climate change: They are asking their schools to stop investing in fossil fuel companies. The Fossil Free campaign argues that if it’s wrong to pour pollution into the air and contribute to climate change, it’s also wrong to profit from it. The strategy, modeled after anti-apartheid campaigns of the 1980s, aims to limit the flow of capital to fossil fuel companies by making their stocks morally and financially unattractive. In theory, that could lead to a slowdown in how much fossil...

With the cost of higher education skyrocketing, student loan debt growing, and youth unemployment persistently high, a former United States Secretary of Education asks "Is College Worth It?" In Is College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education, William J. Bennett and David Wilezol examine the costs and benefits of American higher education. The book explains the tough jobs market, a potentially repressive academic culture, and the benefits of alternative options. Wilezol, an associate producer of the Bill Bennett's Morning in America show, discussed the economic...

Tigers, Lions, Leopards, all cat species can catch fleas, so at Big Cat Rescue we have to treat all of our 100+ residents with flea prevention just like your domestic cat at home every single month! It's expensive and hard work to keep the cats flea free and happy at the sanctuary! Watch our volunteer vet Dr. Liz Wynn cover the 55 acres and treat all of our cats.

A US teacher has returned to work after a three-day suspension for allegedly touching a girl with a banana during a class on Freudian psychology. A discipline letter said Florida teacher Jonathan Hampton was suspended without pay last week after he "rubbed a student's head and neck area with a banana" during a lecture about "cylinder objects, phalluses and/or sex symbols", Click Orlando reported. A school district spokesman said the Freudian topic of the class was district approved but using the prop to touch a student was inappropriate. He said the girl's parents complained because she felt embarrassed and many...

A Nova Scotia school is causing controversy after deciding to stop celebrating Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, instead opting to recognize the International Day of Families instead. The Dartmouth elementary school said it is aiming to celebrate diversity and inclusivity while avoiding making children who are part of non-traditional families feel left out.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, May 17, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Jamaican Minister of Education, the Hon. Rev. Ronald Thwaites, has given a resounding "No" to a proposal to have condoms freely distributed in schools. The suggestion was made by the chairman of the country's National Family Planning Board, Dr Sandra Knight. Ronald Thwaites Ronald Thwaites Thwaites made it clear that Jamaican schools were not "romping shops" during the 2013/14 Sectoral Debate held at Gordon House in Kingston on May 15. “This government, lead by this Prime Minister, lifts up to our children, the ideal of faithful love and marriage between a man and...

As families celebrate graduation around the country, former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett asks if this is really cause to celebrate. He and coauthor David Wilezol discuss their book Is College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education with National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez. KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: “Students pay $100,000 or more for what they could get for almost nothing. With new technology and online breakthroughs, you could get a better education in a coffee shop or your parents’ basement than you will get...

What some are calling a local high school prank left one school a smelly mess and students out of the classroom on Friday. A worker at Wayne High School said when staff arrived early Friday morning they found a mess in the school. Someone broke a window and opened a fire escape, then trashed a classroom. The school employee told 13News that deer urine was spilled all over the floor and a desk. Workers also found rancid dead deer parts in the hallway and blood on the floors.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Whistleblower 9 investigation uncovered a new grading practice in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools.

The title of a New York Times article by Raymond Hernandez reads, “Weiner’s Wife Didn’t Disclose Consulting Work She Did While Serving in State Dept.”. However, the headline for another story pops up in the eighth paragraph when a potentially very interesting claim is made. Take note of when Abedin allegedly stepped down as Deputy Chief of Staff for Hillary. Via NYT: "Ms. Abedin reached her new working arrangement in June 2012, when she returned from maternity leave, quietly leaving her position as deputy chief of staff and becoming a special government employee, which is essentially a consultant. A State...

A Northwestern University student was rejected for a “diversity and inclusion post” in student government because he is a white, heterosexual male, resulting in a sharp rebuke from the university’s student newspaper. Northwestern University’s Associated Student Government rejected the nomination of Stephen Piotrkowski for associate vice president of diversity and inclusion last week. The student-run committee “oversees diversity initiatives that stem from the undergraduate student body.” …

As the cost of education continues to rise, people are questioning the value of a degree. And according to Penelope Trunk, the founder of Brazen Careerist, 85% of people today are wasting their money — and time — in college. “Colleges have been selling this idea that going to college will get you a job, but this isn't the case any more,” she says. And if getting a college degree no longer guarantees you a job offer, then you need to really pinpoint your reasons for going. In fact, unless you're really great at school or got accepted into a...

Once upon a time, a teacher would teach American History. On exams, students would be asked questions about American history. Testing was straightforward and needed little discussion. In the modern era, however, content is disparaged and facts are scorned. The goal, seemingly, is to keep kids busy but to teach as little as possible. The big problem is, how do you design exams when the teacher hasn’t taught much, the kids don’t know much, and there is little actual knowledge that the school intends the children to retain? In this fact-free world, what would a valid examination look like? At...

William J. Bennett and David Wilezol’s “Is College Worth It?” asks and authoritatively answers one of life’s biggest questions. The orthodox answer to the question, the authors write, is “Of course it is. Though the cost of attendance is ever increasing, those who go to college make more than those who don’t. And while the job market is bad, it's worse for those without college degree.” “Is College Worth It?” provides a thoroughgoing deconstruction of the “of course it is” delusion. It turns out that for too many, and maybe even most of our young people, the answer to this...

If you’re not already following The College Fix, run by author and Yale alum Nathan Harden, you should be. It exposes the depraved, anti-woman atmosphere that dominates too many campuses. I interviewed Harden last year, after the debut of his book, Sex and God at Yale: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad. An entire section of Harden’s book is titled “Yale’s War on Women.” He exposed how Yale women are constantly degraded on campus. They are valued for their looks, bodies, and sexual prowess – not their minds. They are often required to watch hardcore porn in...

Cadets from across Arizona who are enrolled in Army JROTC, Air Force JROTC, and the Civil Air Patrol met on April 20, for the first annual Kentucky Camp Orienteering Meet. Kentucky Camp is located in Santa Cruz County, near Sonoita. Orienteering is a land navigation competition. Armed with maps and compasses, teams consisting of two cadets race across the desert searching for certain control points on the map. At each control point, cadets will find a hole punch of varying shapes that they use to stamp a score card. All teams have two hours to find as many control points...

TEMPE, AZ (CBS5) - A 19-year-old Arizona State University student with a blood-alcohol level five times the legal limit was left at a Tempe hospital with a Post-it note attached to his body to alert doctors he had been in a drinking competition earlier in the night. Tempe police Sgt. Michael Pooley said the unidentified student was found in a wheelchair between 1 and 2 a.m. Saturday in the emergency room lobby of St. Luke's Hospital. The student had passed out and started shaking and turning blue before the student's fraternity brothers dropped him at the hospital with the note,...

Private colleges are offering record financial assistance to keep classrooms full, according to the Wall Street Journal's Ruth Simon. Some schools are seeing just 20% of the students they accepted enrolling, versus the usual rate of 33%. These schools have raised tuition discount rate — the price after grants and scholarships — to an all-time high of 45%. Meanwhile, the median sticker price increased just 3.9% last fall, the smallest gains in 12 years. And at public schools, the sticker price climbed just 4.8%, also a 12-year low. For the Washington Examiner's Michael Barone, this makes it official: the college...

Ariel Castro was charged Wednesday with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape in the Cleveland, abductions now dominating national news. Castro was a school bus driver from 1991 to 2012, during which time he was accused of domestic violence. Do they perform background checks on school bus drivers? Yes. Potential Ohio school bus drivers submit to a state and federal criminal background check before they can be hired. Once they are behind the big wheel, a computer checks the drivers’ names against state arrest records on a nightly basis. A federal criminal background check is supposed to...

To wit: Let's roll back a few years to the day my mother was attacked at her volunteer job at the Republican Party HQ in Appleton Wisconsin. Her attacker was a known offender with a history of violence. He had barged in yelling obscenities over perceived offenses against him consisting of phonecalls (like we all get at campaigning time). Luckily all the man did manage to do was knock her down then storm off. He was arrested the same afternoon as eyewitnesses knew who he was. (Had I been there he would have been the next recipient of a knockdown...

Mini doc on Central Texas Tools of Abilene TX, 3 generations of machinists. 7:35

Applying for federal student aid? The application no longer asks about a student’s “mother” and “father.” Instead, the U.S. Education Department is replacing those terms with “Parent 1” and “Parent 2.” “All students should be able to apply for federal student aid within a system that incorporates their unique family dynamics,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in the April 29 announcement. “These changes will allow us to more precisely calculate federal student aid eligibility based on what a student’s whole family is able to contribute and ensure taxpayer dollars are better targeted toward those students who have the...

Archdiocese of Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley will boycott the commencement at Boston College because the Catholic educational institution is hosting the Prime Minister of Ireland at a time when the nation faces a government bill that would okay some abortions. The College is scheduled to award Edna Kenny an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Pro-life advocates, led by Students for Life of America, are galvanizing pro-lifers against Ireland’s first pro-abortion Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s planned address to Boston College graduates. It has launched a web site, NotAtBC.com, to gather supporters to protest the speech. “Since the university has not withdrawn...

As some of you know, my wife is a private piano voice and piano teacher however this year, she had the opportunity to work in one of the public schools here in town on a limited basis for an opportunity she couldn't refuse. She left the public school system a few years ago because of the politics within the school, no surprise. This, however, is one of those opportunities she couldn't turn down as she was working with 1-2nd grade and special needs students. Enough background. One thing she has been privy to is the plans for the school for...

Virtual tour of Herculaneum, documenting the site, and the work of the Herculaneum Conservation Project. Click on the node-markers to view an interactive 360-degree panorama (in a new window). The plan above shows the locations of panoramas made mainly in 2001 (a few are from 1999), where the aim was to provide an overview of the site (as it was then), along with tours of a few selected houses. The menu of houses and other areas at left accesses additional, more recent coverage (including revisits to some houses and other structures) made from 2003 onward.

Hundreds of villagers have gathered in traditional Bavarian costume to celebrate one of the most important dates in the Catholic calendar. With religious flagpoles hoisted above their heads and dressed in their best lederhosen, men and women of all ages parade through their picturesque mountain villages to commemorate Ascension Day. In contrast to the rest of Germany, Bavaria is heavily Catholic and the religious calendar plays a strong role in its deeply-ingrained folk traditions.

Is Jodi Arias a Man-Eating Tiger?A Darwinian Perspective Last month science evangelist Bill Nye the Science Guy weighed in from a Darwinian perspective on the problem of suicide. His advice? Give him your stuff then take the black capsule. Last week evolutionary biologist and aspiring science evangelist Jerry Coyne weighed in on the intersection of free will, moral responsibility, crime and punishment, all from a Darwinian perspective. As fate would have it, yesterday this intersection was illustrated by some front-page news. On Wednesday, an Arizona jury convicted Jodi Arias of first-degree murder, which puts the death penalty on the table....

Today's college graduates carry an average student loan balance of $25,000. Is college and a mountain of debt the only path to employment?Public Policy Promotes College. Though the majority of jobs today require specialized training beyond the high school level, many jobs do not require a four-year degree. In fact, economists have noted that degrees serve as credentials on a potential employee’s resume, but they are no guarantee of needed skills.1 The federal government has poured billions of dollars into college aid to those who want to pursue a college degree. The U.S. Department of Education now makes below market-rate...

Link to Live Leak video

When I was a child, back in the Parenting Stone Age (a.k.a. the Parentocentric Era), your parents were the most important people in the family. They paid the bills, bought your clothes, prepared the food you ate, took care of you when you were sick, drove you to where you needed to be, tucked you in, and kissed you good night. They were essential. Your parents acted like they were bigger than you were too, like they knew what they were doing and didn't need your help making decisions. In fact, your opinion really didn't matter much. When they spoke...

The new Holy Grail in American life appears to be a four-year college degree. Almost all high school students and their parents aspire to go to college, and high school graduates are enrolling in much higher numbers than in the past. The problem is that too few of them are graduating. Dropout rates from four-year schools are over 40 percent and from community colleges they are closer to 70 percent. The need for remedial courses to compensate for what kids are not learning in high school is distressingly high and not all that effective. For those who actually graduate, a...

Four years ago, psychologist Leonard Sax (MD, PhD) wrote a well-received book titled “Boys Adrift.” The doctor tried to answer the question, why have so many young males fallen into passivity and indifference? Dr. Sax had heard more and more parents complain that their boys stayed indoors most of the time, spent hours on video games, and in general seemed to lack the confidence and esprit de corps that had characterized boys throughout history. “Something scary is happening to boys today,” Sax concluded. “From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were...

A North Carolina high school pulled a teen’s senior portrait because she had the portrait taken with her baby boy. As ABC reports: A high school student is fighting back after her senior photo was pulled from the school yearbook. The photo shows North Carolina senior Caitlin Tiller holding her now one-year old son. The school asked students to have their picture taken with something that best represents them or an achievement. Tiller chose her son because he represented her drive to stay in school. The school didn’t see it that way. Caitlin says she was told the picture promoted...

The best advice I ever got about reading came from the critic and scholar Louis Menand. Back in 2005, I spent six months in Boston and, for the fun of it, sat in on a lit seminar he was teaching at Harvard. The week we were to read Gertrude Stein’s notoriously challenging Tender Buttons, one student raised her hand and asked—bravely, I thought—if Menand had any advice about how best to approach it. In response, he offered up the closest thing to a beatific smile I have ever seen on the face of a book critic. “With pleasure,” he replied....

The U.S. is home to some of the greatest colleges and universities in the world. But with the student debt load at more than $1 trillion and youth unemployment elevated, when assessing the value of a college education, that’s only one part of the story. Former Secretary of Education William Bennett, author of Is College Worth It, sat down with The Daily Ticker on the sidelines of the Milken Institute's 2013 Global Conference to talk about whether college is worth it. “We have about 21 million people in higher education, and about half the people who start four year colleges...

Michelle Obama is going to speak at a Bowie State University function at the Comcast Center on the campus of the University of Maryland. As a result of security concerns, U of MD students who still have to finish finals will have to pack up and move out of their dorms BEFORE they have taken their final exams. This, when they should be studying ... In-state students whose parents DO NOT live locally AND out-of-state students have NO IDEA where they are going to live during the interim. MUCH LESS, how much time they will LOSE because they are moving...

Master etymologist Gerald Cohen knows how jazz got its name, why they’re called hot dogs, and much moreOut in the wilds of western Missouri, in Rolla, which is not far from the tornado-devastated town of Joplin, lives a scholar who has made etymology his life’s work. He is Gerald Leonard Cohen, professor in the department of arts, languages, and philosophy at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, and grand impresario of American etymologists—as well as the world’s leading corraler of language historians, who often join him in tackling some of the most challenging puzzles of word origins. Cohen does...

The housing market has been steadily improving, lifting the stocks of homebuilders like Beazer Homes (NYSE: BZH ) , Hovnanian (NYSE: HOV ) , and PulteGroup (NYSE: PHM ) to heights not seen since the mortgage crisis. Indeed, a recent Federal Reserve survey noted that housing helped buoy the economy during the first two months of this year, along with auto sales. But housing isn't out of the woods yet. While the most recent Census Bureau data shows that housing starts were up considerably, building permits were down from February, putting the brakes on many homebuilders' upward stock price trajectory....

Kansas governor Sam Brownback heard something recently. He received a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder stating that Kansas' newly enacted legislation prohibiting government agents from enforcing federal gun laws in the state "directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional." Unconstitutional, Eric? My, how antebellum of you. Meanwhile, the South Carolina House just passed a law criminalizing the enforcement of ObamaCare within its state borders, a move that critics will also attack with talk of the Supremacy Clause. Speaking of supremacy, AG Holder also told Brownback that the feds would litigate if necessary "to prevent the State of...

Last week, Yale announced that its student health plan will cover sex-reassignment surgery for students, deeming it an important part of “equal-access” health care. This might shock anyone who doesn’t follow academia, but I wasn’t the least bit surprised. This is just the latest of seemingly endless efforts by colleges to accommodate the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) student community. “We hope that this represents a commitment to catch up to our peers in terms of offering transgender students an equitable student life and health care experience,” Gabriel Murchison, a member of Yale’s Resource Alliance for Gender Equity, told...

When I mention online learning to my colleagues at Wesleyan University, most respond initially with skepticism. But based on my experience, I know that real learning can take place on the Web. I am currently teaching a massive online open course, or MOOC, on Coursera. Most MOOCs have great attrition, and mine is no exception: There were almost 30,000 students registered at the start, yet 4,000 remain active as we near the end of the semester. Unlike most MOOCs, which focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, mine is a classic humanities course. "The Modern and the Postmodern" starts off...

Penetration and expansion test of the 9mm Hornady Critical Defense, 115 grain JHP. The ClearBallistics test block is comparable to 10% ordinance ballistic gel, and includes four layers of denim. The inclusion of denim is an IWBA protocol. Test gun is the Glock 19, 4" barrel. Video includes brief overview of the cartridge, recoil shots, and one shot test. Advertised velocity is 1140 fps. Chronograph velocities from the Glock 19 are noted in the video. VERY IMPORTANT INFO REGARDING AMMO TESTS ON THIS CHANNEL: Please understand that these techniques are merely representations to indicate possible ballistics; they are not intended...

Is getting a bachelor's degree still worth the cost? Payscale, a salary data provider, answered this question by comparing the average cost of education to predicted income over 30 years for graduates at 1,060 schools in the United States. It turns out that most schools are good investments — though Payscale economist Katie Bardaro warns that students should consider individually whether college is worth it for their intended career. At around 3% of the schools, however, the return on investment over 30 years is negative, due to some combination of high tuition and low graduate pay. We've highlighted the worst...

So it seems daughters school is stressing "service hours" (volunteer hours) as the only way to get into a decent college. Daughter has high grades in every class, has a full course load, band, two varsity sports and a couple of clubs. More then I ever did and I went to a respectable institution of higher learning! And... Gasp... May even have to get a job in a year or so when she wants that car she keeps talking about! But no! Not enough! Now the school demands, and backs it up with college admissions material, that kids must have...

San Antonio Park police violently beat a woman who had walked into the wrong room at a gas station, then arrested her brother for trying to video record the altercation. They also deleted the footage from her brother’s camera while charging the woman with felony assault on a peace officer. But her brother managed to recover the footage that contradicts the police version of the story. Christina Oliver, who ended up with a broken nose and black eye, told her story to KENS 5:

wesome!!! She nailed it!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2cX85u57teE

The live stream event will start May 3. Friday, May 3 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM CT: ILA Leadership Forum 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM CT: NRA News | Cam & Co on Sportsman Channel Saturday, May 4 9:50 AM – 2:00 PM CT: NRA Members Meeting 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM CT: Special Saturday Edition of NRA News | Cam & Co 7:20 PM – 10:30 PM CT: NRA Stand and Fight Rally Sunday, May 5 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM: Special NRA News Wrap-Up Show

Good News, a trend has begun that will transform our media and in turn our culture. The culture warriors on the right are positioning themselves in areas that were unheard of just 5 or 10 years ago. The tipping point is like picking a top or bottom in the Stock Market, something I would like to avoid, however I can assure you the trend has begun and will feed on itself as the new reality sets in.

By Mike Dawson — mdawson@centredaily.com UNIVERSITY PARK — The candidates endorsed by the grass-roots group Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship won the three seats on the university’s board of trustees, unseating the two incumbents who include local surgeon Paul Suhey. Barbara Doran, William “Bill” Oldsey and Edward “Ted” Brown won in what was a runaway election, and Suhey, the first candidate out, finished a distant fourth. The other incumbent to lose was Stephanie Deviney, a Chester County lawyer. Doran received 15,085 votes; Oldsey got 13,940; and Brown got 11,403. Here’s the full list with the results. The election results, released...