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Pig humor with a moral, the moral is, a pig is a pig and beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

Melancholy Serenades by: Malcolm A. Kline, June 11, 2008 Education professionals think that they have come up with a way to get middle school students to share their life experiences in a way that is both therapeutic and instructive but the exercises they have concocted may prove to be intrusive at best. “In their writer’s notebook, students draw a horizontal line across the page,” Karen D. Wood writes in the May 2008 issue of Middle School Journal. “Above the line, they note the highlights of their lives; moments that are fond memories.” “Below the line, they note the lowlights of...

Pig humor with a moral, the moral is, a pig is a pig and beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

It was a simple commercial, with Mike Huckabee posed in front of a set of scandalously empty white bookshelves that, when framed just right beside a Christmas tree, formed a glowing cross behind the candidate. And, lo, the former Southern Baptist pastor told the voters: "Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you've been seeing, mostly about politics? I don't blame you. At this time of year, sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is a celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family...

NEW YORK - A magazine gets a hot story straight from a soldier in Iraq and publishes his writing, complete with gory details, under a pseudonym. The stories are chilling: An Iraqi boy befriends American troops and later has his tongue cut out by insurgents. Soldiers mock a disfigured woman sitting near them in a dining hall. As a diversion, soldiers run over dogs with armored personnel carriers. Compelling stuff, and, according to the Army, not true. Three articles by the soldier have run since January in The New Republic, a liberal magazine with a small circulation owned by Canadian...

Digg.com reveals news stories fade after 1 hour 16:18 24 April 2007 NewScientist.com news service Belle Dumé Online news articles can lose their appeal in as little as an hour. That is the message from two statistical physicists who analysed the way people access information on the user-driven news site Digg.com. Fang Wu and Bernardo Huberman of HP Labs in Palo Alto, California, US, studied Digg in an effort to understand the way online news readers consume stories. Through a statistical analysis of the site, the researchers discovered that just a handful of stories hog most people's attention and most...

WASHINGTON, April 12, 2007 – It was supposed to be a routine security patrol in Mosul, Iraq, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, 2005. Army Pfc. Stephen Sanford and his fellow soldiers of the Company C, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, from Fort Wainwright, Alaska, planned to arrest suspected insurgents, take them back to the detention center and “relax, stretch out a bit.” Instead, squad members would find themselves in an intense firefight. “There was just this massive explosion,” Sanford said. “You could see flashes and automatic weapons fire. It was sensory overload. It was incredibly loud. You could smell the...

Gun ban groups often claim that private citizens rarely, if ever, use guns in self-defense. ABC News’ "20/20" is now putting that claim to the test, asking viewers to submit their own real-life "Armed Citizen" stories. ABC’s website asks: Have you ever defended yourself from a crime in your home, in your business, or in public by using a gun? Perhaps you warded off a potential attacker by simply showing a gun? If you’ve personally used a gun in a legitimate act of self-protection against a criminal attacker, we encourage you to tell your story to ABC News. To tell...

10 most underreported stories of 2006 WND readers, editors compile annual 'Operation Spike' list -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: January 3, 2007 The controversial movement to merge the U.S., Mexico and Canada into what critics call a "North American Union" – in the face of what is already a massive, national illegal immigration and border security crisis – tops the list of the 10 most "spiked" or underreported stories of the last year, according to an annual WND survey. At the end of each year, news organizations typically present their retrospective replays of what they consider to have been the top news stories...

Col. Hunt filling in for Howie today. Happy...Howie-Days! Read below for Howie's latest column...can I get me a huntin' license here?

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Oct. 5, 2006 – At each stop during a visit here yesterday, people asked Marine Gen. Peter Pace what stories are not getting out to the American people about the war on terror. In response, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff listed the three most significant stories from the war on terror that are not getting coverage. Pace said one of the most significant aspects of the war not getting coverage is the enormous number of women going to school in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban in Afghanistan forbade women from attending school. Now, almost...

ATLANTA (Army News Service, July 12, 2006) – Producers from The History Channel’s “Mail Call,” a one-hour weekly show highlighting military history and events, arrived to an enthusiastic reception at Third Army’s Digital Video and Imagery Distribution hub in Atlanta, Ga., last week. The television series is filming its 100th episode on the DVIDS mission and how Third Army Public Affairs tells service members’ stories around the world through DVIDS and satellite technology. “Third Army’s DVIDS and ‘Mail Call’ are trying to do the same job,” said R. Lee Ermey, host of “Mail Call.” DVIDS has provided Ermey and his...

Top editors from the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, responding to criticism over publishing stories about a government program that tracked millions of financial records in search of terrorists, on Saturday defended their decisions to publish government secrets. "We weight the merits of publishing against the risks of publishing," wrote Dean Baquet, Los Angeles Times editor, and Bill Keller, New York Times executive editor, in an op-ed piece that ran in both newspapers. "There is no magic formula, no neat metric for either the public's interest or the dangers of publishing sensitive information," the piece continued. "We...

Keeping stories alive Museum showcases history of area soldiers. RIC ROUTLEDGE The (Muncie) Star Press PORTLAND, Ind. -- The Museum of the Soldier does more than just tell the story of war; it tells the stories of soldiers from our area, and makes the museum very personal. The museum "is a mission to preserve and to remember all of the service men and women and (keep) their stories alive," said museum director and co-founder Jim Waechter. "I know it sounds trite, but it's true and, for me, it's very emotional." Bill Hinkle understands. His father, Wayne, practiced law in Portland...

The lawyer for a sergeant who led a squad of Marines during an incident that left civilians dead in Haditha, Iraq, says his client insists his unit was following military rules of engagement, did not intentionally target any civilians and did not try to cover up what it had done. No one has yet been charged in the Haditha case, which centers on allegations that a small number of Marines from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment killed 24 Iraqi civilians - included unarmed women and children - on Nov. 19 after a roadside bomb in the town killed...

My web site JunkScience.com celebrated its 10th anniversary on April 1, 2006. To mark the event, this column spotlights 10 big junk science stories of the last 10 years. In no particular order, they are: 1. The most toxic manmade chemical? That’s what some called dioxin, a by-product of natural and industrial combustion processes and the “contaminant of concern” in the Vietnam-era defoliant known as Agent Orange. Billions of dollars have been spent studying and regulating dioxin, but debunking the scare only cost a few thousand dollars. Keying off Ben & Jerry’s claim on its ice cream packages that “there...

U.S. Army Sgt. Dennis Gravelle photographs a member of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team searching an Iraqi suspect in the streets of Mosul, Iraq. U.S. Army photo U.S. Army Sgt. Dennis Gravelle Sergeant Tells Soldiers’ Stories By Maj. David Albano 138th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment MOSUL, Iraq, April 3, 2006 — Soldiers do what soldiers do; they fight wars. When they do, who better to tell their stories of heroism, commitment and sacrifice than a public affairs soldier? Reporting and photographing combat soldiers is the “Fighting” 138th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment’s mission...

Top 10 overlooked stories of 2005 -------------------------------------------------------- © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com If you're tired of hearing the rehashes of Katrina, Iraq, terrorism, et al., this will give you a little breather. 1. World evangelization. The Earth is becoming Christian at a very fast clip. My best estimate is that there are 64 million more Christians now than a year ago. That breaks down to 175,000 a day (births plus conversions minus deaths). The numbers are debatable, of course, but I've consulted with several of the best religion statisticians on the planet, and my stats are defensible, being partly based on denominational...

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world. A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in...

Wow, what a year! It seems just yesterday that Sandy "Burglar" Berger had found a novel way to preserve classified documents by pickling them in his pants and socks. But alas, those were the good ol' days of 2004. Thankfully, we have a fresh batch of classic comic events from 2005, so let's get right to it.