Free Republic

The essay section is out and sociology is in, and test-takers will need to be as familiar with psychology terms, such as “reciprocal determinism,” as they are with organic chemistry. ... [A] large new section—one quarter of the test—covers psychology, sociology and the biological foundations of behavior. Official review material includes concepts such as social inequality, class consciousness, racial and ethnic identity, “institutionalized racism and discrimination” and “power, privilege and prestige.” ... The committee considered making the test pass/fail. “There was some sentiment that a person’s future shouldn’t rest on a mathematical score,” said Dr. Lucey. But it was ultimately...

Some people pretend to be tough guys but R. Lee Ermey, a.k.a The Gunny, is the real deal. The U.S. Marine Corps veteran and movie star best known for his role in “Full Metal Jacket” talked to FOX411 about his new series on Outdoor Channel, "GunnyTime,” and why he loves to blow stuff up.

WASHINGTON (RNS) Late on a Saturday night in 2012, I received word from my sister in Mississippi that my mamma had passed away. My home was silent as my wife and two boys slept upstairs. I was reading when the sad call came. I woke my wife to tell her; we sat on the edge of the bed and hugged. In my sadness, around midnight, I started cleaning the kitchen, likely because my mamma was always cleaning something. I also reached out to two friends. It was within minutes that I heard back from Hillary. Secretary Clinton joined me in...

There are classic films, like the ones on TCM and AMC, and there are modern films. There are few modern classics. "Little Boy," in theaters April 24, could be a modern classic. The film is set in a Southern California town during World War II. A couple's oldest son, London Busbee (David Henrie), is drafted, but is barred from service because of his flat feet. The father, James Busbee (Michael Rapaport), goes instead and his youngest son, Pepper Flynt Busbee, 8, beautifully played by Jakob Salvati, is devastated. Pepper and his father have a very close relationship (they call...

Hillary Clinton sounded like a woman on a mission after her long drive into the heartland: “There’s something wrong,” she told Iowans on Tuesday, when “hedge fund managers pay lower taxes than nurses or the truckers I saw on I-80 when I was driving here over the last two days.” But back in Manhattan, the hedge fund managers who’ve long been part of her political and fundraising networks aren’t sweating the putdown and aren’t worrying about their take-home pay just yet.

A prominent Ukrainian journalist known for his pro-Russian views was shot dead on Thursday in Kiev by two masked gunmen, the interior ministry said, a day after a former lawmaker loyal to ousted President Viktor Yanukovich was also killed. Oles Buzina, 45, was known for his pro-Russian opinion pieces published in Ukraine's Sevodnya daily newspaper, which is part of the media empire of Ukraine's richest businessman Rinat Akhmetov. He ran in last year's election for a parliamentary seat for the Russian Bloc party, but was not elected.

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Samuel New International Version (NIV) 12 The people then said to Samuel, “Who was it that asked, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ Turn these men over to us so that we may put them to death.” 13 But Saul said, “No one will be put to death today, for this day the Lord has rescued Israel.” 14 Then Samuel said to the people, “Come, let us go to Gilgal and there renew the kingship.” 15 So all the people went to Gilgal and made Saul king in the presence of the Lord....

The stat comes from a new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. It may be hard to believe that professional athletes, who earn so much money at such a young age, could possibly end up bankrupt. But nearly 16% of those in the National Football League do—just not right away. According to a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 15.7% of NFL players have filed for bankruptcy 12 years after they retired. The paper, entitled “Bankruptcy Rates Among NFL Players with Short-Lived Income Spikes,” examines the traditional model of consumption smoothing (save money...

Sometimes, 7 shots are not enough.  10 Shots are not enough.  20 shots are not enough, 30 shots are not enough.  In the case related below, 40 shots were required to defeat a determined attacker. Most predators retreat in the face of resistance.  If a predator faces armed resistance very many times, they will be killed or wounded.  In nature, that makes for a short life.  But there are motives for aggression other than predation.  Defending territory and competing for mates are two of them, often intertwined.  Those conflicts are engaged in with fierce dedication.  Without territory or mates, ...

The Obama administration is eyeing an auction of offshore oil drilling leases along the East Coast in 2021, but that’s not enough to keep the United States competitive with other Atlantic nations, a Shell executive told Congress on Wednesday. “The Gulf of Mexico has kept the United States globally competitive for decades,” Mark Shuster, Shell’s executive vice president of upstream Americas exploration, told a House Natural Resources subcommittee. “The U.S. stands to lose a lot if we don’t make new acreage available.” At issue is the Interior Department’s draft plan for selling oil and gas leases on the U.S. outer...

Pray For Our American Heroes and Our Nation Stand Firm Psalms 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

New research that shows poor children have smaller brains than affluent children has deepened the national debate about ways to narrow the achievement gap. Neuroscientists who studied the brain scans of nearly 1,100 children and young adults nationwide from ages 3 to 20 found that the surface area of the cerebral cortex was linked to family income. They discovered that the brains of children in families that earned less than $25,000 a year had surface areas 6 percent smaller than those whose families earned $150,000 or more. The poor children also scored lower on average on a battery of cognitive...

“I know people who get out, officers and chaplains, who’ve said, ‘I can’t serve the way I want to in this environment,’” said Mr. Lee, who also served as an Army chaplain. “People who’ve said, ‘Because of the religious liberty challenges I see, I think I’ll serve somewhere else.’” Not being able to recruit or retain these individuals is very dangerous from a national security standpoint, said Mr. Berry, because they could be the military’s next group of leaders, but will never serve because they don’t think they’re welcome. “We all used to sit around and talk about planning on...

<p>JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The fear among some foreigners and South Africans that anti-immigrant attacks will escalate reached such a peak Thursday that foreigners sought refuge in camps and a police station, a peace march was planned and the president was to address the nation.</p>

The jumbo jet, for many years the workhorse of modern air travel, could be close to running out of runway. Last year, there were zero orders placed by commercial airlines for new Boeing 747s or Airbus A380s, reflecting a fundamental shift in the industry toward smaller, twin-engine planes. Smaller planes cost less to fly than the stately, four-engine jumbos, which can carry as many as 525 passengers.

Word For The Day, Thursday, April 16, 2015-- palliate ; In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". palliate [pal-ee-eyt]hear it pronounced verb, transitive (used with object) palliated, palliating. 1. to relieve or lessen without curing; mitigate; alleviate. 2. to try to mitigate or conceal the gravity of (an offense) by excuses, apologies, etc.; extenuate. Origin: 1540-50, from Late Latin palliāre to cover up, from Latin pallium a cloak, pallium Related forms palliation, noun palliator, noun nonpalliation, noun unpalliated, adjective palliative, adjective,...

For the second time in eight months, an unruly teen mob has been caught on video attacking a defenseless victim, stirring outrage in Memphis and beyond. The first incident happened Sept. 6, when a large mob of teens ran through a parking lot outside the Kroger grocery store in Poplar Plaza. The mob assaulted at least three people in a brutal attack that attracted negative attention across the country after the cellphone video spread across social media. The latest incident happened around 4:20 p.m. Friday at the BP convenience store at the corner of Poplar and Cleveland. Orrden Williams, 35,...

This year, the Huron Valley School district in Oakland County will get $7,126 per student under the state of Michigan’s “foundation allowance” funding formula. Foundation allowance money is the main revenue stream flowing into Michigan public schools each year, but by no means is it the only one. For example, Huron Valley will get another $12.4 million from the state, or $1,293 per student, in so-called “categorical” funding. This money covers things like employee pension benefits, special education, school lunch subsidies and even a program to teach students how to build a robot in six weeks. These “categoricals” add an...

Explanation: While most spiral galaxies, including our own Milky Way, have two or more spiral arms, NGC 4725 has only one. In this sharp color composite image, the solo spira mirabilis seems to wind from a prominent ring of bluish, newborn star clusters and red tinted star forming regions. The odd galaxy also sports obscuring dust lanes a yellowish central bar structure composed of an older population of stars. NGC 4725 is over 100 thousand light-years across and lies 41 million light-years away in the well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. Computer simulations of the formation of single spiral arms suggest that...

Pope Francis is in no doubt that those who are not able to speak and listen, do not obey the Lord and want to silence anyone who preaches the newness of God, Vatican Radio reports. Today’s liturgy of the day was about obedience: “Obedience often brings us along a path that is not the one I think should be, but along another path,” Francis said. But what does it mean to obey? It means “to have the courage to change paths when the Lord asks this of us”. “The one who obeys has life eternal,” while for “the one who...