Free Republic

How Education Has Empowered Me What is education? There are many who would say that an education is merely an entity that is to be possessed and others who say that it is only a means to move forward in the world, however I believe that education is a key, a key to freedom. Nelson Mandela once said "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world", I truly agree with the wise words of Mr. Mandela and hope that one day I can use my education to do great things. When I was young...

President Obama was not the only member of his household that fought to improve the P-20 education system in 2014. Michelle Obama carried out an impressive education agenda that rivaled her husband's in many respects. It seems that the two are a tag team for the ages, and P-20 education is lucky to have this duo championing it. Michelle Obama spent 2014 front and center for education -- in more ways than one. 1. First Lady endorses arts education. This past spring, First Lady Michelle Obama joined the stage with middle- and high-schoolers who performed in the first ever White...

Michel Houellebecq, who first stirred controversy with sex novel Atomised, makes waves with book describing country after Islamist becomes president. Put France’s literary enfant terrible together with Europe’s most combustible political talking point, and sparks were always going to fly. Michel Houellebecq, whose tale of sex, mother-hatred and cloning Atomised was the French literary scandal of the Nineties, is turning his attention to “Islamisation”. His new novel Soumission (Submission), will not be published until January 7 but has already triggered a flurry of accusations that he is pandering to the growing Islamophobia gripping France. It is set in 2022 and...

Rep. Michele Bachmann, founder of the House tea party caucus and a high-profile spokeswoman for conservatives during her eight years in Congress, has no plans to run for another office right now. Instead, she’ll live in Minnesota, give speeches around the country and write a nationally syndicated column. Here's a look back at her political career.

Okay, not wearing a conspiracy hat here. But I’m simply not buying that the North Koreans were behind the hack of the decade. And no, I’m not blaming the U.S. Government, either (accept maybe for their own incompetence). Everything I’m seeing points to this hack as an ‘inside job’.

  TRIGGER WARNING* This has to be the best real estate deal since Whitewater.  Through a complex series of events that even our 24-hour news junkies have trouble following, Al Sharpton will now get to produce rap music in Cuba, while the U.S. sets up its embassy on the current site of North Korea’s diplomatic mission in Havana.  And Kim Jong Un will get to share a Cohiba cigar with Dennis Rodman, Al Sharpton, Amy Pascal and President Obama. It’s all in this one infographic.   Sony Pictures greenlights a film titled The Interview, a comedy which depicts the assassination...

This is of course about the upcoming movie "The Interview." My wife and I saw this preview the day before it got pulled, and it's a shame because it looks like it's REALLY funny!Also, the reaction across the political spectrum has been unified in a way we rarely see.

Now they're canceling 'The Interview' because North Korea threw a hissy fit? Man, this is such an embarrassment. I have no idea if this movie is any good or not. It sounds pretty stupid and it has Seth Rogen in it, so I doubt we're dealing with Citizen Kane here. Still, that fat little psycho in North Korea deserves to be ruthlessly insulted. Mocking genocidal maniacs is as American as apple pie. I'm all for it. As long as we remember that, as enjoyable as it is to make fun of this puffy dimwit, there really isn't anything funny about...

Sony’s capitulation in the face of threats by unidentified sources, who are presumed to support the odious Kim dynasty, serves to confirm what most of us have known for some time. Namely, the extent of allowable political discourse in popular culture is inextricably linked to the willingness of the objects of political criticism to violently suppress that criticism. Or, at the very least, intimate the unpleasant nature of the response in store for those willing to offer a dissenting voice. An interview the iconic Indo-British author and apostate Salman Rushdie did with Irshad Manji several years ago is worth watching...

Yesterday, moments before the North Korea "hacking" tragicomedy escalated into full retard mode with Sony pulling The Interview, or a movie that absent the attention would certainly be a flop, Wired released an article titled: "North Korea Almost Certainly Did Not Hack Sony" (title subsequently changed to the one below as can be seen in the URL alias "http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north-korea-did-not-hack-sony-probs"), which however, and for the better, retains its content as it is quite critical in debunking the latest government "certainty."

These pictures of a unique bedroom set came to me via the Internet.  I do not know the location of the set or the source of the revolvers. Counting the revolvers that make up the bed frame, the vanity, the lamps, table, chair, chandelier, and window decoration, and assuming that there is symmetry on the sides of the objects that are not visible, I believe there are at least 100 revolvers used in the construction of the set. The revolvers are an eclectic mix of Smith & Wesson (or clones) and Colt (or clones) revolvers.  They appear to mostly...

Brethren: Peace be with you on this Feast of Christ the King. Before I launch upon this post, I have a confession to make: I am first and foremost, a monarchist. Yes, I am! Don't feel threatened, though, for neither my King nor his Kingdom are of this world. While on earth, I'm a republican and a constitutionalist, with all the attending messes these typf of government entails. Why am I a republican? Because I agree with the Founding Fathers of the USA, who denied some people were better than others by reason of birth and therefore, some were born...

Is Turner Classic Movies back on Dish ?

Hall Of Heroes': Michigan School Replaces Mural With Paintings Of Oprah, Obama, And Other Celebrities Michigan parents are infuriated that the “Hall of Heroes” mural depicting historical figures at South Arbor Charter Academy has been replaced with paintings of Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, and other celebrities. South Arbor Charter Academy in Ypsilanti, Michigan, removed the likes of Albert Einstein, Betsy Ross, Gandhi, astronauts, Mother Teresa, and other accomplished historical figures and replaced their images with those of Oprah, Obama, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, and J.K. Rowling. “This is no longer a hall of heroes. Now we have a hall of...

Where Saturday Night Live meets Forbidden Broadway, Erica Vlahinos and Benjamin Simpson present PALiN: the Live Televised Musical Campaign (www.palinthemusicalcampaign.com), an outrageous new one-act comedy hit that follows Sarah Palin as she embarks on a one-night only, live televised event to set the record straight and announce her candidacy in the 2016 Presidential Election. A fast-paced, witty book paired with show tune parodies, PALiN sharply satires both musical theatre and politics in this laugh-out-loud musical-comedy campaign. So pack your bags, because we're about to have a Tea Party! Erica Vlahinos is a promising new writer, performer, and comedian thrilled to...

By the time John Kennedy Toole won the Pulitzer Prize for his great American novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, he had been dead for 12 years. Toole reportedly killed himself in part due to years of frustration over unsuccessful attempts to get his outrageously funny book about New Orleans published. It was only after his mother browbeat author Walker Percy into taking up the cause that Louisiana State University Press published the book in 1980. The following year, it won the Pulitzer for fiction. It went from being considered a cult classic to a must-read: More than 1.5 million copies...

I knew a man with perfect pitch who was so handicapped by it, he couldn't play anything if it he was hearing the music sung in a different key.I learned to sight-read while transposing on the fly into a different key. It used a certain neurological pathway; it got to be difficult to play in the written key—the customary neurological pathway was different, "too simple".What is perfect pitch? Neuroscientist Diana Deutsch at UC San Diego found that people whose native language is tonal—Chinese—have a higher propensity to have perfect pitch. Also people with mixed-hand preference, the form of left-handedness that...

 The worst rub is the learning curve. There needs to be a hierarchy of the most common tasks.  Audacity is free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds.   "Audacity is available for Windows, Mac, Linux; and other operating systems. Check their feature list, wiki, and forum."  Audacity is a great success, a user-community produced and managed application program that does what it's supposed to. Years ago you used to have to pay for this software, now it's free, but you have to invest your time in learning how to use it. The worst rub is the learning curve. So many...

The Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA) has received court approval of its seizure of the art studio of James Dupree. It plans to bulldoze it and sell the land to a private grocery chain. Despite renovating a dilapidated warehouse and converting it into an attractive and bustling center for artistic expression, Dupree’s property rights are being sacrificed to the PRA’s vision of what the City needs. “It’s a question of whether the rights of the collective community should take precedence over the rights of a single individual,” PRA Executive Director Ed Covington explained. “Far more people will eat the food sold...