Free Republic

May 9, 2013 – Much ink has been spilled in recent months over what social analysts are calling the “rise of the Nones.” The trend describes the seeming surge in people who claim no faith or say they are unaffiliated with any belief system. The term rose to prominence when a Pew Research poll found that the number of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated rose to almost 20%—a nearly 5% leap in just the last five years. In the subsequent months, a Gallup poll showed similar numbers, and most recently, in March 2013, a poll from UC-Berkeley and Duke University...

Twitter has reduced historical memory to minutes, but think back to what had the political class atwitter last week. Back then the air filled with worry on the left that Barack Obama was losing his juice after the gun-control setback, the sequester backfire and the Syrian red-line roll-up. The left can breathe easy. Conservatives this week, clearly over the funk of losing to him last November, have resumed their favorite political blood sport: Tearing each other apart. The conservative tribes are at it again over that most ancient of all grievances: immigration. Here's the rub: Just as this self-immolating civil...

Inside a Mouse's Brain Lies a Chemical Key to the Fountain of Youth By Greg Thomas Source image via Wikipedia If a scientist came to you with a plan to tweak a gland in the center of your brain so that you may live to be 140 years old, you'd probably back out of the room slowly and go to file a police report, because that's creepy. But new research shows that it's not altogether impossible. A new report from researchers at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in the Bronx shows that scientists can tinker with the minds of...

(Vatican Radio) It was truly a day to remember for 44 people who had come to St Peter’s Square to be confirmed by the Pope. The special Mass on Sunday was organized as part of the Year of Faith and those who received the Sacrament of Confirmation had come from all over the world to be in the Square. During his homily Pope Francis offered the thousands of people gathered and in particular those being confirmed three short reflections. The Holy Father began by recalling the second reading in Sunday’s liturgy which describes the vision of St John. Pope Francis...

“What’s the matter with Kansas?” syndrome of young people voting against their economic interests. Thus follows the constant courting of the hip and cool Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Lena Dunham, Occupy Wall Streeters, and others who blend pop culture, sex, youth, energy, and fad — almost anything to avoid the truth that today’s teenagers are starting out each owing a lifetime share of the national debt amounting to more than three-quarters of a million dollars. Those who ran up the debt enjoyed the borrowing, but won’t be around to pay back their proverbial fair share.

Pyongyang, April 10 (KCNA) -- An oath-taking meeting of young people took place before the statues of Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on Mansu Hill Wednesday. They vowed to uphold the leadership of the dear respected Marshal Kim Jong Un with loyalty, true to the behests of the great Generalissimos. Laid before the statues were a floral basket in the name of the participants in the meeting and flowers. Jon Yong Nam, chairman of the Central Committee of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League, read out a letter of pledge. Thanks to the pure loyalty and...

Stephen Schaetzle, college student and Navy reservist didn’t know what was in store early Wednesdaywhen the little kid in a red Liberty Day t-shirt with Betsy Ross flag on the back, asked for a minute of his time. A good sport, he submitted to being politely grilled on the Constitution by Claire Byrnes, fifth grader. It didn’t go so well. “I haven’t a clue,” Schaetzle replied when she asked what the requirements are to be a U.S. Congressman. Sympathetically, she handed him a mini-version of the Constitution and asked him to read the answer: be at least 25 years of...

<p>It is popular wisdom that President Obama’s progressive social agenda is predicated on widespread support from the younger, hip generation. Certainly, concerns like gay marriage, marijuana legalization, abortion, the DREAM Act, gun control, women in combat, and blocking gas and oil exploration and pipeline transportation all get a lot of play on campuses and in popular culture. And these wedge issues supposedly represent the future direction of the country — a wise agenda for liberals eager to cement a majority constituency for decades to come.</p>

22.9%: The unemployment rate for Americans under age 25, adjusting for the decline in the labor force since the start of the recession. Perhaps no group has been hit harder by the recession and grinding recovery than the young. The official unemployment rate for those under age 25 is 16.2%, more than double the rate for the population as a whole. In percentage terms, unemployment has fallen far more slowly for young people than for the wider population. Those figures actually understate the severity of the problem, however. The government only considers people “unemployed” if they’re actively looking for work....

Exactly the same reason Obama doesn't like  small business OR teen workers I guess... could contaminate the NEA's K-12 brainwashing As KGB/Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov made clear, America's public education system -which demoralizes kids and keeps them pliable/stupid- has been infiltrated by low standards of achievement/morality + communist doctrine for decades now. The self-hating, unthinking drones it was meant to produce have already helped to elect Barack Obama -as dangerous a post turtle as there's ever been- to the most powerful office in the world, great. But 13 years of far-left indoctrination by the neo-Soviet zombies of the NEA are apparently...

The Department of Labor estimates that some three million Americans with Bachelor degrees work in jobs that don’t require an education at all–janitors, barristas, bartenders and retail clerks.There are a lot of obvious reasons why junior is now living in your basement at age 25.

Hollywood, the mainstream media and the public school system are all almost entirely controlled by people and groups friendly to the Democrat Party. Yet and still, even with that almost overwhelming advantage, Democrats can't do any better than a rough parity with the Republicans. If the tables were turned and the GOP controlled what you see on TV, in the news and what your kids are taught at school the same way the Democrats do, the Republican Party would win every presidential election and would permanently maintain unassailable majorities in Congress. So, why aren't the Democrats running away with every...

Just after November’s election, I posed three paradoxes of American politics, asking why certain demographic groups make up reliable voting blocs for the left, even though the pro-free-market ideas of the right have so much to offer them. I have begun to revisit these paradoxes. In part one of this series, I laid out the case for why the pro-free-market right needs to reclaim these key demographic groups—young people, racial minorities, and city dwellers—and why I regard these as natural constituencies for the free market whose lockstep voting for the left is a paradox. In this installment, I take up...

Students were well known for their strong opinions at the time, and in that fashion not much has changed. Universities are still a place where feelings are expressed, points of view stated, and every side is convinced, without a doubt, that they are right. Groups gather with home-made signs and shout chants that are spun from the issues at hand. They want their voices heard, and they should. That, within itself, is not the topic of my thoughts today, but rather the disturbing lack of knowledge and education on the subjects for which they speak and protest that seems to...

Glenn Beck just talked about this on his show, I managed to find it online. Here is the full text: I welcome the intention of the German Youth Movement to devote a special issue of their Magazine to the subject of England, and I gladly accept the invitation to contribute to a project which I regard as a sign of the growing desire for mutual understanding between our two countries. In writing to you, the young manhood and young womanhood of Germany, I need to remind you that you are, in the words of the poet Shakespeare, "The expectancy and...

In-N-Out owner Lynsi Torres, is 30-years-old with no college degree and no formal business training. But she has been called the youngest billionaire in America. Lynsi Torres inherited a California icon when she was given half ownership of Baldwin Park native In-N-Out burger when she turned 30 last year. This week, Bloomberg Magazine named Torres the youngest, wealthiest woman in America, given that she will receive full ownership of the estimated $1.1 billion burger empire when she turns 35. Torres inherited the In-N-Out empire from her grandparents, Harry and Esther Snyder who founded the Christian-themed chain in 1948 with their...

The Ocean Springs high cheerleaders. The Ocean Springs High School varsity cheerleading squad competed in the UCA World Cheerleading Championship competition over the past weekend at Disney World in Orlando, Fla. The Greyhounds placed second in the National Championship and took the grand prize in the World Championship.

In light of the skyrocketing popularity of Mormonism in the United States helped along by the Broadway Musical, "The Book of Mormon", Mitt Romney and your nice Mormon neighbors I thought it would be good to recycle this five year old article I wrote. The thesis? Mormons do better youth ministry than the average Protestant church! Read on and see if you agree with me… "Let's face it. Most of us look at the clean cut Mormon missionaries that peddle the streets of our city and knock on the doors of our houses as somewhat out of date. Although they...

Yesterday, thousands of members of the site Reddit answered the question, "What was your biggest "holy **** why haven't I done this sooner" moment?" At the time this article was written, the question had an astounding 14,815 answers... Decidedly more controversial answers, particularly illegal ones, garnered much more approval, however. Unsurprisingly, the answer "pot" received a tremendous amount of "upvotes," which show mutual agreement from other members. User dogslike us responded to the question, in part: Then at 22 I tried pot. Sooo much better than alcohol. At the time of publication, this comment had received more than 3,000 upvotes....

Check out the news anchor power-pose! Foxy blogger/journalist/libertarian commentator Michelle Fields and All-American hero Col Allen West have been brought together by Pajamas Media for a major new online project, the former US Congressman announced on Fox News' On the Record.  The new initiative -to be called NextGeneration.TV- is a reach-out to young conservatives/libertarians, sounds like a superb idea, and what a great paring: we need him out there fighting for us on the front lines -a fresh youth offensive is sorely needed on the right- and I've always said Michelle's going places: ______________________________________________________________ West: To have been the first black Republican member...