Free Republic

Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the fraternity at the center of the racist University of Oklahoma video, has its roots in the pre-Civil War Deep South. 'We came up from Dixie land,' says a ditty from an old songbook, boasting about SAE's success. Now, nearly 160 years after its founding at the University of Alabama, another song - this one chanted by members of the frat's University of Oklahoma chapter and containing racial slurs and lynching references - hearkens back to the bad old times in the land of cotton and puts a new spotlight on the group's activities over the years....

High-yield bond mutual funds saw outflows total an eye-popping $7.1 billion last week. "HY flowmageddon," said Goldman Sachs' Charles Himmelberg in a research note we saw via @lebullmarche. "This is the largest HY outflow on record – a 6-sigma event when flows are scaled by mutual fund assets under management!" [snip] A 6-sigma event is extremely rare. If you want to put a number to it, think 1 in 500 million. According to Business Insider quant reporter Andy Kiersz, it's like flipping a coin 29 times in a row and getting heads each time. It's like rolling a die 11...

CHICAGO A 2-year-old Indiana boy and his mother contracted a rare and life-threatening infection from his soldier father's smallpox vaccination, according to a published report. The boy and his mother were being treated in a specially ventilated room at the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital, the Chicago Tribune reported Saturday. The family's name and home town were not released at their request. The boy developed a virulent rash over 80 percent of his body earlier this month after coming in contact with his father, who had recently been vaccinated for smallpox before he was to be deployed overseas by...

Labor Raid: The FBI raids the Chicago home of a local union leader looking for terrorist connections as the union's former chief is investigated for corruption. Why are we not surprised? Thuggery and corruption are not quite synonyms for unionism, but it gets very close when you consider the Service Employees International Union, formerly led by Andy Stern. From being involved in fraudulent voter registration in Texas to beating up Tea Party activists outside town hall meetings in Missouri, SEIU's reputation is well-established. Now we can possibly add a linkage to terrorism. On Friday, the FBI searched eight addresses in...