Free Republic

September 17, 2008 The tenth and final nuclear-powered Nimitz-class supercarrier, George H. W. Bush, enters service in 2009, but the next-generation is on its way. The Gerald R. Ford CVN 78 is the first ship in the first new carrier class in over 40 years. Northrop Grumman has received a $5.1 billion, seven-year contract for construction of the CVN 78, which is scheduled to be delivered to the Navy in 2015. Northrop Grumman began advance construction of the Gerald R Ford in 2005, under a separate $2.7 billion contract. Roughly one third of the ship’s 1,200 structural units are currently...

George Ledin teaches students how to write viruses, and it makes computer-security software firms sick.In a windowless underground computer lab in California, young men are busy cooking up viruses, spam and other plagues of the computer age. Grant Joy runs a program that surreptitiously records every keystroke on his machine, including user names, passwords, and credit-card numbers. And Thomas Fynan floods a bulletin board with huge messages from fake users. Yet Joy and Fynan aren't hackers—they're students in a computer-security class at Sonoma State University. And their professor, George Ledin, has showed them how to penetrate even the best antivirus...

In her remarkable story, "Beyond Rape: A Survivor's Journey" Joanna Connors, a reporter at The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, writes about her experiences getting raped. But the story isn't just about rape. It also addresses important issues of race and class. The essential tension resides in a simple and explosive event, now 20 years old: A black man raped a white woman. The history of that potent narrative is packed with truth and lies, racist injustice and racial suspicion, cliché and mythology. This story lurches powerfully into race in the first of five chapters, as Connors speculates that she might have...

On the night of Apr 24, a group of 300 men and women, armed with bows and arrows and sickles and led by gun-wielding commanders, emerged swiftly and silently from the dense forest in India's Chhattisgarh state. The guerrillas descended on an iron ore processing plant owned by Essar Steel [Get Quote], one of India's biggest companies. There the attackers torched the heavy machinery on the site, plus 53 buses and trucks. Press reports say they also left a note: Stop shipping local resources out of the state - or else. The assault on the Essar facility was the work...

<p>Last summer, in Detroit’s St. Paul Church of God in Christ, I watched Bill Cosby summon his inner Malcolm X.</p> <p>He began with the story of a black girl who’d risen to become valedictorian of his old high school, despite having been abandoned by her father.</p>

<p>Last summer, in Detroit’s St. Paul Church of God in Christ, I watched Bill Cosby summon his inner Malcolm X. It was a hot July evening. Cosby was speaking to an audience of black men dressed in everything from Enyce T-shirts or polos to blazers and ties...</p>

...He's releasing a "campaign" video for Christmas that suits his political and movie character style perfectly...We don't even see the tall guy from Tennessee at all...Thompson's effort stands out in its simple eloquence and contrast from the other candidates' obvious Christmas ad wars that desperately -- but, oh, so politely -- want to plug the candidates and their families...

The full title of this book is--CLASS AND SCHOOLS: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform To Close The Black-White Achievement Gap by Richard Rothstein INTRODUCTION This book discusses the black-white achievement gap and how to eliminate it. Dr. Rothstein no longer believes schools are the answer; he has other remedies. While this book was published in 2004, it has the imprimatur of both Economic Policy Institute and the Teachers College of Columbia University. Such formal recognition suggests educators are changing their focus in respect to the genesis of both the black-white and social class achievement gaps. SUMMARY Professor Rothstein on...

The newest sensation at the center of Hollywood's fashion scene isn't a famous designer or starlet. It's a 56-year-old homeless man who spends his days dancing on roller skates.... In a plot twist worthy of Tinseltown, Mr. Jermyn now has a clothing label named after him. Since it was introduced last month, "The Crazy Robertson" brand of T-shirts and sweatshirts, created by a trio of 23-year-olds, has flown off the shelves at Kitson, a haunt of tabloid stars like Paris Hilton. The clothes feature stylized images of Mr. Jermyn, including one design -- available on a $98 hoodie -- that...

OK, "hokum" is our word. The study, to be released today, is a careful, detailed piece of research by professional economists that avoids political judgments. But what it does do is show beyond doubt that the U.S. remains a dynamic society marked by rapid and mostly upward income mobility... The Treasury study examined a huge sample of 96,700 income tax returns from 1996 and 2005 for Americans over the age of 25. The study tracks what happened to these tax filers over this 10-year period. One of the notable, and reassuring, findings is that nearly 58% of filers who were...

Nearly half of African Americans born to middle-income parents in the late 1960s plunged into poverty or near-poverty as adults, according to a new study -- a perplexing finding that analysts say highlights the fragile nature of middle-class life for many African Americans. Overall, family incomes have risen for both blacks and whites over the past three decades. But in a society where the privileges of class and income most often perpetuate themselves from generation to generation, black Americans have had more difficulty than whites in transmitting those benefits to their children. Forty-five percent of black children whose parents were...

Middle classes abandon state schools By Graeme Paton and Toby Helm Last Updated: 2:27am GMT 10/11/2007 A growing proportion of middle-class parents are giving up on state education after 10 years of Labour rule by paying to educate their children in the independent sector, official figures have disclosed. Many families outside the traditional fee-paying heartland of the South East are shunning comprehensives The scale of the exodus is shown for the first time in statistics indicating that many families outside the traditional fee-paying heartland of the South East are shunning comprehensives in favour of private schools. In almost a third...

A You Tube video featuring a Williams Field High School teacher dancing in front of her class is causing controversy in the district. Somebody using a recording device captured Christina Mallon, a cheer coach and Humanities/English teacher, performing a cheer dance in front of her Gilbert class. The You Tube video, called WFHS Humanities Class, does not explain why Mallon was performing the dance or what the circumstances were, but students are worried their teacher's job could be in jeopardy. At least one You Tube comment indicated the viewer thought the dancing was inappropriate for inside a classroom. School officials...

St. Paul man was catching a bus to his anger management class when a fellow bus rider reportedly ticked him off. Justin John Boudin's anger management class didn't help him avoid the confrontation, police say. But his paperwork from the class helped authorities nab Boudin on suspicion of assault, according to a criminal complaint. Ramsey County prosecutors charged Boudin with felony fifth-degree assault, alleging he hit a woman at the bus stop. Police identified him after he dropped his class paperwork at the scene.

BASIC CONCEPTS This book is now 5 years old and has yet to receive a formal, academic review. Payne’s last book, A Framework For Understanding Poverty, also never received an academic review. In spite of academic inattention, both books are popular. The Understanding Poverty book sold over 1,000,000 copies. In Hidden Rules of Class At Work both Dr. Payne and her co-author, Don Krabill, explore social class as an important facet of workplace adjustment and success. To make their point they use a mental model for discussion---a triangle comprised of resources, connections and hidden rules. By using this oversimplification, they...

June 25, 2007 -- A Brooklyn mother and father got the shock of their lives when school officials informed them their brilliant 11-year-old girl was denied admission to an elite public school - solely because she's of Indian descent. "I feel bad because I would have gotten in if I was white," Nikita Rau lamented over her failed bid to attend the Mark Twain School, IS 239, in Coney Island, a magnet school for gifted students. It turns out Mark Twain - unlike all but one other city public school - admits students according to racial quotas established in 1974...

One of the most touching photos in years taken by an AP photographer moved across the wires last night (Thursday) and few newspapers published it. The Daily Mail did. It showed President Bush helping Robert Byrd walk. The occasion was the overdue awarding of a congressional Gold Medal to the Tuskegee airmen who served in World War II. There is irony there. But there also is compassion from President Bush. This may be why the photo received so little play in the newspapers today.

I wanted to write something about the degenerative effects of incivility in politics in the wake of the comments and commentary today. Instead, a CQ reader sent me a link to a speech three years ago by Heritage Foundation president Dr. Edwin J. Fuelner. In speaking to the graduating class of Hillsdale College on May 8, 2004, Dr. Fuelner warned the young men and women that our democracy depends on the healthy exchange of ideas and arguments -- and that incivility degrades the social compact on which that debate depends: This is the real danger of incivility. Our free, self-governing...

GREENCASTLE, Ind. — When a psychology professor at DePauw University here surveyed students, they described one sorority as a group of “daddy’s little princesses” and another as “offbeat hippies.” The sisters of Delta Zeta were seen as “socially awkward.” Elizabeth Haneline, who was among those evicted, said, “The Greek system hasn’t changed at all, but instead of racism, it’s image now.” Worried that a negative stereotype of the sorority was contributing to a decline in membership that had left its Greek-columned house here half empty, Delta Zeta’s national officers interviewed 35 DePauw members in November, quizzing them about their dedication...

With high school students under mounting pressure to achieve high grades and gain acceptance to select colleges, a new trend is taking hold—getting rid of class rankings, which some say just intensify the pressure teens already feel in the competitive college application environment. A recent story in Time reports that Naperville, IL, noted for its excellent school system, has jettisoned the rankings, which colleges have traditionally used to sort the academically weak from the strong. The rankings will be phased out over the next year; 2007's upperclassmen will choose whether to include a rank in their official transcripts, Time reports....