Ticket Replay: Barack '8 Years of Failed Bush Policies' Obama tells high school grads: 'Don't make excuses'

Students work up appetite for stardom
To preserve suspense, we will not reveal who won the first challenge in the pilot episode of "A Plate Apart," a proposed Reality TV show featuring a culinary competition among Chicago Public Schools Students. The audience at a recent screening at Kendall College knows. "That's my baby!" a family member of the winning student shouted when the moment played onscreen. From a seat nearby, her 20-year-old baby groaned: "I told you not to do that." Who won? If the show is picked up for production, yo...

Oak Park's snow king
While many people savor their last hours of holiday break, Peter Hermann, the longtime carpenter at Oak Park River Forest High School, is getting ready for his to begin. The arrival of January signals the start of a season that's very important to Hermann, although the Students who have watched him mend broken lockers and repair wobbly desks over the past 22 years might not suspect it. Hermann, 53, is a competitive snow sculptor. He has saved all his 2010 Vacation time and personal days so he c...

The Top Stories We Broke in 2010
Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com As we end 2010 and begin a new year, the media take a look back at the year that gone by. We too wish to look back at all the stories this website alone has broken in the few months of our existence. Some have been ignored, others have been reported nationally — without credit to those who discovered them. Nonetheless, we are happy the information has spread and look forward to leading the charge in 2011. We want to take this time to celebrate all we have ac...

Karen Dalton-Beninato: Long Strange Trip: 10 New Orleans Posts From 2010
From BP Oil Spill coverage on the banks of the Mississippi River where oil did not spill, to the 5 year anniversary of the post Hurricane Katrina levee failure, I've often heard from commenters tired of seeing New Orleans in the news. Aside from the Saints winning the Superbowl, trust me this is not how we wanted to be in the news. The city is in the news again this week for better and worse. There's a Tourism resurgence with Travel and Leisure naming the city the top New Year's Eve destinatio...

Obamas Mouthpiece? ABCs Cokie Roberts Says Voters Will Make Republicans Compromise in
ABC News talking head Cokie Roberts was shilling for the Obama Administration once again on Good Morning America during an interview with former Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos. She wasn’t just shilling for Obama but tying to mold the news and Public Opinion to her left-wing druthers instead of giving an honest review of today’s political climate....

"The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself": Why Do We Allow the Media to Terrorize Us?
When does terror succeed, even if there isn't Terrorism? That's a pertinent question to ask as we enter 2011, in which we will mark a decade since 9/11. Whether Osama bin Laden is dead or alive, a relatively small group of radical religious fundamentalists has made Americans quiver in fear at any news report of a suspected "Terrorist threat." Moreover, "anti-terrorism" has become an industry that puts an enormous economic stress on the American Economy. Just think about the costs of the wars in ...

Top 10 foreign policy challenges facing Barack Obama in 2011
So what will 2011 bring? Here are some of the challenges President Barack Obama will be grappling with in the coming year: 1. Afghanistan/Pakistan No prizes for guessing that this is likely to be the number one issue, though to listen to Obama you wouldn’t know it. While broadly adopting what I think was the right policy in Afghanistan (a Troop Surge and an attempt at a comprehensive counter-insurgency strategy) after years of the country playing second fiddle to Iraq, Obama’s hea...

Obama's High-Speed-Rail Projects in California and Florida (Time.com)
The master builder Robert Moses had a legendary strategy for ambitious public-works projects: start now, and figure out how to finish later. "Once you sink that first stake," he liked to say, "they'll never make you pull it up." And that, in essence, is the Obama Administration's strategy for spreading high-speed passenger rail across the United States. It's an understandable strategy, since a true national network of bullet trains could cost as much as $1 Trillion, and Obama has secured only...

Ujwal Arkalgud: How Internet Startups Are Like Your High School Band
Why does every person I meet today either work for an Internet startup or own one? Everyone seems to want to be in this space one way or another. And ironically, not many are actually making any money off of it. Most don't even have the semblance of a Business Model in place. What is it then about the Internet startup industry that makes it so charming? These are some questions I began asking myself about a year and a half ago as I began to increasingly immerse myself in Toronto's online comm...

Iowahawk Spoofs Ezra Klein's High School Essay, "The Constitution Is Like Super-Old 'n Stuff"
Funny! ...

High school basketball: Friday's scores/highlights
Boys Basketball Cape Henry 64, Bishop Sullivan 57 The No. 9 Dolphins (9-0) will ring in the New Year as champions of the Marlin Mania tournament at Bayside. Bishop Sullivan opened the game on a 25-15 run in the First Quarter, but the Dolphins fought back to trail by just one at halftime. Senior guard Demetrius Pollard was named tournament MVP, scoring 23 points to lead Cape Henry. Pollard and Devon Hall combined for 41 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists. Bayside 56, Princess Anne 54 Jeff Ba...

Who Will Challenge Obama in 2012
Dec. 30, 2010 Who will challenge Obama in 2012 from the democratic party of which half of the Liberal Democrats are highly displeased with his administration’s entire agenda.  Many Democrats believe Obama sold himself out to Corporate Interests making backroom deals with pharmaceuticals guaranteeing higher prices for drugs for a trade off on their support of the Health Care bill. Did Obama sell out to Corporate Interests when he caved to real Wall Street reform that would banish pon...

Students arm with Nerf guns for $800 prize
WINNETKA, Ill., Dec. 31 (UPI) -- About 170 Students at an Illinois High School are playing the parts of Nerf gun-wielding assassins to win an $800 prize. Organizers of the game for New Trier Township High School seniors said the rules of the game, Paranoia, call for teams of five to face off against other randomly selected teams for weeklong periods, ending with the top seven teams taking place in a bracket tournament to see which group splits the $800 prize, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday....

Autistic Teen a Finalist for Rudy Awards
FORT WORTH, Texas - A North Texas Student with Autism is in the running to win the High School football Rudy Award. Michael Harris, a nose tackle for Trimble Tech High School in Fort Worth, loves to play football. He also lives with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism. “All you do is get passed the line and sack the Quarterback and when you do you have a good feeling about it,” the teen said. His passion and his challenges have now landed him in the national spotlight. From a...

Frogs are leaping to extinction at an alarming rate
Seattle’s Dr. Kerry M. Kriger has been on a mission to save frogs for years and the news is not good. According to Kriger's 2010 year end findings, amphibians and frogs are to the planet’s health system, what canaries used to be in Coal Mines, and the planet is losing hundreds of species every year on a global scale. The number one threat to amphibians--is mankind . Humans are in direct competition with many wildlife species for habitat development -frogs and amphibians are no...

Solving California's jobs crisis
As we enter the new year with a new Governor, new Legislature and renewed commitment to restoring California's luster, our singular focus as a state must be on Job Creation in the short term and job competitiveness in the long term. A meeting held in Monterey in November might hold the key that unlocks the door to California's economic future. In a small conference facility and with little fanfare, the University of California Curriculum Integration Institute brought together a group of teachers...

Grebien will be sworn in Monday as Pawtucket mayor
PAWTUCKET -- Donald J. Grebien will be sworn in as mayor on Monday: officially by the city clerk in the morning and ceremonially that evening by Governor-elect Lincoln D. Chafee. The ceremony will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Tolman High School auditorium and is slated to include Chafee’s administering a ceremonial oath of office to Grebien. The new mayor will administer oaths of office to the incoming City Council and School Committee. A procession at the ceremony will include th...

After 2010 setbacks, US environmentalists plot change in course
WASHINGTON — After a bruising year, US Environmentalists are engaged in their most profound bout of soul-searching in more than a decade. Their top policy priority — imposing a nationwide cap on Carbon Emissions — has foundered in the face of competing concerns about jobs. Many of their political allies on both the state and federal level have been ousted. And the Obama Administration has just signaled it could retreat on a couple of key air-quality rules. Hence a shift of foc...

The Tea Party is the movement of the decade
If there is one political movement that has truly shaken the foundations of the American political system in 2010, it is the Tea Party movement. In fact I would describe is as the most influential movement in America of the past decade, even of this generation. What started off as a tiny patchwork of local Protest groups has emerged as a mighty political force across the United States, clearly capable of bringing the White House to its knees. The Tea Party played a pivotal role in igniting the...

Larry Elder: Who's blaming Obama for high gas prices?
The average price on Christmas Day for a gallon of regular gas reached $3.28 in Los Angeles County, the highest price since October 2008. In one month, the price rose 13 cents, up 35 cents year to year. Where are the calls to sic Obama's Justice Department on Big Oil to hold the oil companies accountable for "market manipulation"? Why aren't we hunting down the amoral "oil speculators" responsible for repealing the law of supply-and-demand in order to line their pockets? During President George ...

Obama Bypasses Senate With More Recess Appointments, Including First Ambassador to Syria in 5 Years
Thursday, December 30, 2010 By Matthew Lee, Associated Press President Barack Obama waves from the ninth green at Mid-Pacific County Club while on Vacation in Kailua, Hawaii, on Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2010. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson) Washington (AP) - President Barack Obama has bypassed the Senate and directly appointed four new U.S. ambassadors whose nominations had been stalled or blocked by lawmakers for months. The White House announced Wednesday that Obama would use his power to make recess a...

Water back; boil advisory is still in effect
Water service was restored in Highland Park late Friday afternoon, though the pressure remained low after the city's main pump failed around 2:30 p.m., Mayor Hubert Yopp said. He repeated an earlier advisory for residents to boil water used for drinking or cooking until about 5 p.m. today because of a slight risk of contamination that occurs when a water system loses pressure. Yopp said there was "a slight lapse of time" between the main pump's failure...

Ex-US official sues contractor in Haiti for fees
The U.S. official who was in charge of relief efforts following Haiti's devastating Jan. 12 Earthquake has accused a major contractor of shortchanging him for his assistance in securing more than $20 million in reconstruction deals after he left his post. Lewis Lucke, the former U.S. special coordinator for relief and reconstruction, says the Haiti Recovery Group Ltd., did not pay him enough for consulting services that included hooking the contractor up with powerful people and helping to navig...

Chief Justice Decries Brawling Over Judicial Nominees
WASHINGTON—Chief Justice John Roberts decried the partisan warfare that has slowed the appointment of Federal Judges to a crawl, writing in his year-end report Friday that political gamesmanship on Capitol Hill has left some courts burdened with "extraordinary caseloads." "Each political party has found it easy to turn on a dime from decrying to defending the blocking of Judicial Nominations, depending on their changing political fortunes," the chief justice wrote. He called on Congress an...

Chief Justice Decries Brawling Over Judicial Nominees...
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