Free Republic

Winston Churchill Day Share By Hillsdale College Apr 8, 2015 5:57:00 PM As the publisher of the Official Biography of Winston Churchill, Hillsdale College plans to host a celebration on April 9 in honor of national Winston Churchill Day!To mark the anniversary of Churchill's honorary US citizenship, Hillsdale College and RosettaBooks are offering free Kindle downloads of all 8 volumes of the official biography on April 9-11 – An $80 value, absolutely free!Download your free copies here:  Youth, 1874–1900 (Volume I)Young Statesman, 1901–1914 (Volume II)The Challenge of War, 1914–1916 (Volume III)World in Torment, 1916–1922 (Volume IV)The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939...

When Mary Kay Letourneau Fualaau was forced to go public in 1997 with an affair she was having with her former sixth grade student, Vili Fualaau, after she became pregnant with his child, it was the teacher-student sex scandal heard around the world. At the time, Mary was a 34-year-old, married teacher in Seattle, who already had four children of her own. Vili was just 13 years old. Mary was arrested and served seven and a half years in prison. Today, Mary is 53 and Vili is 31. The couple is still together and are about to celebrate their 10th...

An Orange elementary school teacher has been suspended for having her third-grade students write “get well” letters to an inmate convicted of killing a cop, school officials announced today. In a statement provided by Orange Superintendent Ronald Lee, district officials sharply criticized the assignment given by teacher Marylin Zuniga to write letters to former death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. School officials said they “vehemently deny” having prior knowledge of the assignment, and said Zuniga neither sought prior approval nor notified parents about this “unauthorized activity.” “The school’s principal and district administrators vehemently deny that it had any knowledge of the...

Subject: Great Analogy If you read this and do not feel compelled to do something else, at least forward it to others- it is very good Crash Position The pilot was locked out of the cockpit. That phrase finally revealed the full horror of the crash of Germanwings flight 9525. Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz waited for the pilot to leave the cockpit, then locked the door to prevent his re-entry. After which Lubitz, for reasons unknown and perhaps unknowable, deliberately steered the jet into a harrowing 8 minute plunge ending in an explosive 434 mph impact with a rocky mountainside. 150...

The University of Michigan made headlines this week for initially canceling a screening of the blockbuster film American Sniper because some Muslim students said that it being shown would make them feel “unsafe.” The college has since reversed this decision, but it’s not the only time something like this has happened. Here are seven other things that a school or its students have declared hazards to campus safety: 1. Bill Maher When the University of Berkeley announced that Bill Maher would be its graduation speaker last October, more than 6,000 students signed a petition demanding that he be banned because...

The Secret Service has stepped out of its lane of protection to assist in another crucial task for the first family: teaching teenaged Malia Obama how to drive, CNN reports. First lady Michelle Obama revealed the details in an interview with television cook Rachael Ray for a show that will air Thursday, CNN said. "The Secret Service [taught her], actually, because they wouldn't let me in the car with her," Obama told Ray, adding that she hasn't been behind the wheel in several years, having been driven during her family's White House years.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – The University of New Mexico’s student paper has started using new pronouns for people who don’t identify as a man or a woman. “I thought that was ridiculous,” said Samantha Peters. “I think the names are kind of funny,” said Paul Talley. “I feel it’s weird,” said Michael Peters. The names “zi” and “zir” have people on UNM’s campus talking. Thursday, the university’s newspaper, The Daily Lobo, explained in an editorial it will now be using the two words as pronouns when writing about people who don’t identify as a male or a female. “The only non...

A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee teaching assistant is offering extra credit to his students—but only if they’re bisexual. In an email sent by Jonathan Dellinger to students enrolled in his public speaking class on April 1, the TA promised three extra credit points to any of his students who were bisexual. “I’m just writing to inform you of another extra credit opportunity (3 points),” Dellinger wrote in the email obtained by Campus Reform. “To be eligible to participate in this study, you must identify as bisexual, so not everyone will be able to do this one.” A student in the Communications...

Former Destrehan High School teacher Shelley Dufresne pleaded guilty to obscenity Thursday (April 9), admitting in court that she had sex with a 16-year-old student. The plea lets her and the student avoid a public trial and allows her to avoid a three-year prison sentence. She must spend 90 days at an inpatient mental health facility, serve three years of active probation and pay a $1,000 fine. If she fails to enter the court-approved mental health facility by the end of August, she must report to the St. Charles Parish jail Sept. 1 for a 90-day sentence, Judge Anne Simon...

From cost to employment prospects, the state of American higher education is dismal for students. Modern American universities used to assume four goals. First, their general education core taught students how to reason inductively and imparted an aesthetic sense through acquiring knowledge of Michelangelo, the Battle of Gettysburg, “Medea” and “King Lear,” Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” and astronomy and Euclidean geometry. Second, campuses encouraged edgy speech and raucous expression — and exposure to all sorts of weird ideas and mostly unpopular thoughts. College talk was never envisioned as boring, politically correct megaphones echoing orthodox pieties. Third, four years of college...

"[..... Currently, the NCAA is coming under close scrutiny for the “one-and-done” recruiting policy schools are using to secure highly-touted freshmen, and McCaskill used her congratulatory tweet to the Blue Devils as an opportunity to criticize the collegiate athletic body. .....]"

La Paz, Mar 27 (EFE).- The government of Bolivia announced it will start exploratory excavations this year at the ancient fortress of Tiahuanaco after a buried pyramid was detected. Ludwing Cayo, director of the Tiahuanaco Archeological Research Center, told Efe that the formation is located in the area of Kantatallita, east of the Akapana pyramid. In a presentation for the media, Cayo outlined a five-year for further research at Tiahuanaco, an archaeological site 71 kilometers (44 miles) west of La Paz that was the cradle of an ancient civilization predating the Incas. Excavations may start in May or June, depending...

IÂ’ve written many times about the shortcomings of government schools at the K-12 level. We spend more on our kids than any other nation, yet our test scores are comparatively dismal. And one of my points, based on this very sobering chart from one of my Cato colleagues, is that AmericaÂ’s educational performance took a turn in the wrong direction when the federal government became more involved starting about 40-50 years ago. Well, the same unhappy story exists in the higher-education sector. Simply stated, thereÂ’s been an explosion of spending, much of it from Washington, yet the rate of return...

What Could Be More Appropriate on Easter? Jerry Coyne Challenges Francis Collins on Metaphysics Michael Egnor April 5, 2015 3:15 AM | Permalink National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins, who is a devout Christian, did an interview recently with National Geographic about his faith and his science. Predictably, Jerry Coyne, an atheist biologist from the University of Chicago, took exception to some of Collins's answers about the compatibility of faith in God and science. Collins: [Question asked of Collins] Are science and religion compatible?I am privileged to be somebody who tries to understand nature using the tools of science....

Bombing, beheading, hijacking, mosque sermons — these are just a few of the instances where the proclamation “Allahu akbar” is shouted. But what does it really mean? The mainstream media tells us that the Islamic statement is a pledge of allegiance to the god of the Prophet Muhammad and is an admirable demonstration of faith and piety. It’s portrayed as a humble utterance of praise that is too often misused by jihadists during acts of terror. However, the real meaning behind the most controversial term of our time is much more sinister than the liberal left would have you believe....

“Furious 7″ raced to the top of the domestic box office, picking up a massive $143.6 million in its opening weekend. That establishes a new high-water mark for the month of April, blowing past the $95 million debut of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” as well as marks the highest grossing kick-off for any film in the “Fast and Furious” franchise. It also ranks ninth among the top ten openings in history. Audiences flocked to see star Paul Walker in one of his final roles. The actor died in a 2013 car crash at the age of 40 and his...

"Rolling Stone’s fundamental mistake, Mr. Dana said, was in suspending any skepticism about Jackie’s account because of the sensitivity of the issue." ... “We didn’t think through all the implications of the decisions that we made while reporting the story, and we never sort of allowed for the fact that maybe the story we were being told was not true,” ...

Napoleon had extraordinary political and personal as well as military gifts. His genius was not limited to the ability to read a battlefield and take the right action at the right time. He had a gift for reading people, for knowing what each one most desperately wanted and needed. He then had the ambition and singleness of purpose to decide which people mattered to him, and then to give them what they wanted. As Napoleon rose, he had to judge how to keep people loyal to him. This again required an exquisite sensitivity to what others want. One man can...

Runaway Slave is an American independent political documentary hosted by Baptist minister C.L. Bryant. The film premiered in Los Angeles on January 13, 2012. The film follows Rev. C.L. Bryant as he travels across the United States and speaks with members of the African-American community, various conservative leaders, and different public faces about the belief that the African-American community is immersed in a welfare state and prevented from being successful on their own.[1] Andrew Breitbart, Glenn Beck, Herman Cain and Rep. Allen West are among the notable figures featured in the film who offer their insight and opinion into the...

The Internet is teeming with photographs and videos of the starry night sky that dazzle the eyes and tickle the imagination, but have you ever wondered how the imagery compares to what photographer’s naked eye actually saw while the camera was taking a picture?