Free Republic

There are some interesting parallels between the state of the Catholic Church prior to the reformation, as recounted by William Manchester, and the state of the professoriate today. When the Harvard Faculty conducted its Diet of Worms and voted "no confidence" in its President, Lawrence Summers, perhaps this was equivalent to excommunicating Martin Luther.

TOKYO - A magnetically levitated Japanese train raced to a new record Tuesday, topping its own record set just last month. The experimental maglev set the world's top speed for a train, clocking 361 mph in a test run in Yamanashi Prefecture (state), west of Tokyo, Central Japan Railway Co., which is carrying out the experiments, said in a statement. Maglev trains differ from conventional trains in that magnets lift them slightly off the track, eliminating speed-reducing friction and reducing noise. (they also cost about 100 times as much) The maglev is part of a government-financed project to develop faster...

<p>A pair of state Senate committees portrayed California's Department of Corrections on Thursday as a bumbling, wasteful giant that relies heavily on hundreds of temporary workers even as it pays full salary and benefits to dozens of employees who never come to work.</p>