Free Republic

A Labor Department program designed to train 16- to 24-year-olds to join the workforce spends more per person annually than Ivy League colleges, but participants wind up making minimum wage on average — raising questions about whether it should continue to exist. The Job Corps pays teenage runaways, high school dropouts, and twentysomething ex-cons to live in dormitories and receive their GEDs and vocational training. The national cost per graduate was $188,000, with the average graduate staying 13.5 months. Of more than 110 campuses, the 10 least efficient averaged a cost of $385,000 per graduate. Job Corps participants earn $16,695...

There is something unique about the color purple: Our brain makes it up. So you might just call purple a pigment of our imagination. It’s also a fascinating example of how the brain creates something beautiful when faced with a systems error. To understand where purple comes from, we need to know how our eyes and brain work together to perceive color. And that all begins with light. Light is another term for electromagnetic radiation. Most comes from the sun and travels to Earth in waves. There are many different types of light, which scientists group based on the lengths...

About 71% of the Earth's surface is water, though it only makes up around 0.02% of the planet's total mass.

Steven Freeman felt, in his bones, that something was wrong with the election. It was November 2, 2004, and the exit polls had predicted an overwhelming victory for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. But as the night rolled on, the margins grew for President George W. Bush—especially in Ohio, where the race remained uncalled as the clock ticked into the wee morning hours. For most of the world, the uncertainty didn’t last. Kerry conceded the next day, making a cordial call to Bush, after concluding that a recount in Ohio wouldn’t change the outcome of the race. But Freeman, then...

With news that Israeli intelligence has detected an “irregular presence” of nuclear-capable Russian bombers near Finland and retired general David Petraeus casually saying NATO would likely sink Vladimir Putin’s Black Sea fleet if Russia used a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, it’s perhaps time for a few questions: First, can we discuss a situation that could very well result in thermonuclear war — and the end of life as we know it — intelligently and rationally? Or must all questions about our Dr. Strangelove policy be met with childish name-calling (e.g., “stooge of Putin!”) designed to silence debate?

She couldn't get the microphone in front of her to work. She initially struggled to find the words to express herself.But as the former Georgia election worker unspooled her story of being unfairly targeted by then-President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday before the House select committee investigating January 6, she transformed into the single most powerful witness to appear in these public hearings so far. Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, had been working in relative anonymity in Fulton County until, without warning, Giuliani and Trump fixated on the notion that they had somehow committed actions...

So, how do the COVID vaccines (grouped together for this piece) compare to other vaccines? I’ll tell you. But first, I gotta disclaim: 1. Yes. I am a medical doctor. 2. No. I am not your doctor. 3. No. I am not providing you with medical advice. 4. Yes. I do not know you. 5. What you choose to do re: the COVID vaccine is a choice made among (you) + (your physician) + (whomever else you decide to include) +/- (government/employer mandates). I am completely out of it as far as your health care choices are concerned. As always,...

The two events had nothing to do with one another, and yet they are inextricably linked. I am an inveterate coupon clipper and in the latest mailer from BJ's Wholesale Club (my big box savings store of choice) I noticed an eye-popping deal on LEDs--8 60 watt-equivalent bulbs from Sylvania for $19.99, or roughly $2.50 apiece. The next day, GE announced that it planned to stop manufacturing compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and focus instead on LEDs. The market never really took to CFLs, for understandable reasons noted in my household as well: Most of them could not be used with...

A Civil War battle re-enactment at a historic South Carolina planation has been canceled in the wake of the shooting deaths of nine black parishioners at a Charleston church in June. Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant will not host the re-enactment of the Battle of Secessionville that was scheduled for November, according to local media outlets. Boone Hall marketing director Rick Benthall said the event comes too soon after the slayings at Emanuel AME Church on June 17. Benthall said it was canceled out of respect for the victims' families and to allow the community to heal. "It was...

WASHINGTON, April 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. Congressional Research Service reports it costs an average of $361,000 to put a soldier, Marine, airman or sailor in Iraq or in the region. Costs have risen almost 20 percent in 2006, making it likely the expense per service member has topped $400,000, the Houston Chronicle reported. World War II, in which the United States deployed 75 times as many troops as in Iraq, cost the nation about $20,400 per soldier, adjusted for inflation, researchers said.

When the 17th Street levee broke and the floodwaters of Lake Pontchartrain inundated New Orleans, the immediate imperative was: Fix the levee. Before the cleanup could begin, before the refugees could return, the levee had to be repaired so water stopped flooding into the city. Everybody understood this. Why, then, has it taken five years for the White House to wake up to the first imperative in the immigration crisis: Fix the border, stop the flood? Why is President Bush still chattering on about a "guest worker" program that has nothing to do with the crisis? Since he took office...

Slandering our soldiers recieved 100 posts. Schiavo recieved over 600. I guess Durbin, a United States Senator, will again get away with slander and aiding and abetting our enemies.

For 13 years Terri Schiavo has been in a coma - with her husband, her parents, the Christian right and now the president's brother locked in a bitter struggle over her fate. This week could see a final decision on whether she lives or dies. Suzanne Goldenberg reports from Florida The woman's eyes are open in the video. She slowly rolls her head along the pillow, keeping up a constant low moan, as a man's arm dangles a metallic balloon overhead. "Look over here, Terri," a male voice says. "Can you follow that at all?" The medical community and Florida's...