If you're a "word" person, consider Ben Schott's best-selling "Schott's Almanac 2007," a treasure trove of the useful, useless and quirky. Win a bar bet with these facts: The U.S. Mint produced 668,800 $100 bills in 2006. The top baby names of 2006? Jacob and Emily. The 73rd-most popular? Jesus and Mary. Schott's Almanac also offers a barometer of Americans' views on moral issues such as gambling, adultery and drug use. Some of it appears ... [full story]

Fueled with Silicon Valley money, longtime conservative activist Rod Martin's 'TheVanguard.org' intends to carry the 'revolution forward' The history of the modern conservative movement -- circa 1964 to the present -- is replete with its share of hucksters, snake oil salesman, rhetoricians, sexual deviants, mudslingers, marketers and one-hit wonders. But it also has had more than its fair share of visionaries, opportunists (in the best sense of that word), motivated entrepreneurs, perhaps even revolutionaries. Rod ... [full story]

On the first day that H-1B visas became available, corporations snapped up all that are allowed. Our government received 150,000 applications for the 85,000 slots set aside to bring in foreign skilled workers. Corporations whine that H-1Bs are needed because of a shortage of Americans with skills, but major studies at the University of California Davis and Duke University conclusively prove we have thousands of unemployed or underemployed Americans with all the needed technical skills. ... [full story]

Talk show host Don Imus has been suspended for two weeks from the CBS radio network and MSNBC has dropped the simulcast of the Imus show altogether because the shock jock touched the "third rail" of free speech: he insulted African Americans, some of whose self-appointed "leaders" have a direct line to the media to express their outrage. In the past, networks have stood against onslaughts from conservative political and religious groups outraged by program ... [full story]

The Maryland Legislature recently passed a law restoring the right to vote to all ex-offenders who have fully completed their sentences and finished parole and probation, with the exception of people convicted of election fraud. And in Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist and his Cabinet took the first steps toward ending the civil rights crisis in that state by proposing new rules to restore the civil rights (including the right to vote) for ex-offenders. These are ... [full story]

When was the last time you greeted your neighbor? I'm talking about that person who lives in front or next to your house. That family with whom you have contact once in a while. That recognizable face who shops at the same supermarket. What's the name of that old lady you see every Saturday in the park, where you take your kids to play? Where does that lone man who lives around the corner work? ... [full story]

Now we know what really happened in the Shatt al-Arab waterway on March 23 and in the 13 days of captivity that followed for 15 British sailors and marines. It wasn't the lies you heard from Iran's top officials, starting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the cruelly coerced statements of the British captives in Iran's propaganda videos. The 15 Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines were finally free to talk Friday, and they did, volubly. ... [full story]

We love a good bargain. We may even love it more than the post-death stories about Anna Nicole Smith. But what if you stumble on a bargain that's a mistake? I was listening to an audio version of "The Right Attitude to Rain," the latest installment in Alexander McCall Smith's series about a woman who edits an ethics journal and solves mysteries on the side, when I heard an intriguing conundrum. The dilemma: A man ... [full story]

Rudy Giuliani is playing the role of a contortionist in his attempts to convince enough pro-life voters to support his presidential candidacy.After an unblemished record as a pro-choice mayor of New York City (if you don't count the "blemish" of babies not allowed to live), Giuliani surprised a lot of people when he said if he is elected president he would name only "strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court. That sounded pretty good to some, ... [full story]

With the end of the school year a few months away, the prospects of putting America's youth to work to keep them off the streets this summer are pretty meager. Given the lack of federal support and competition for these jobs from other sectors of society, that is especially true for those living in urban areas. In 1974, President Richard M. Nixon injected nearly $400 million into Uncle Sam's so-called Summer Jobs Program, which has ... [full story]

Portstewart, Northern Ireland - Everywhere one looks in Europe there are signs that free people are prepared to surrender without a fight to those who would place them in bondage. In England, a new government-backed study has found that British schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons. Teachers are afraid to teach about the Nazi atrocity because Muslim students might take offense. The study also discovered resistance by teachers to cover the 11th-century Crusades, ... [full story]

American Enterprise Institute 'Scholar' and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances One day he's being gently quizzed on the radio program of Focus on the Family's Dr. James Dobson and he's confessing to marital infidelity during the Clinton impeachment brouhaha -- a reality that most political observers already knew -- and another day he's bashing Hillary Clinton. One day he's ... [full story]

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings says that the federal government needs some accountability for the billions taxpayers pour into university education. That's right, we do; but her plan, to set up a national database to track students, plus a system of testing like those in the No Child Left Behind Act, is not the solution. The problems Spellings identifies - students transferring to different colleges, dropouts, and the years of time it takes to graduate - ... [full story]