Free Republic

MIAMI (Reuters) - As courts across the United States struggle to determine the legality of red-light cameras, drivers are slipping through a patchwork of often conflicting laws to avoid millions in fines. Two south Florida judges dismissed 24,000 red-light tickets worth an estimated $6.3 million earlier this week over concerns Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions Inc (ATS), which provides the cameras, was too involved in the outcome of cases. By Florida law "the police have certain powers they cannot delegate to private vendors," said Ted Hollander, who represented the Florida drivers. "What we found in testimony is that (the company) had...

Lawyers for a Massachusetts pastor have asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed against him by a foreign homosexual advocacy group accusing him of “crimes against humanity.” During a 90-minute hearing on Monday in U.S. District Court, Judge Michael Ponsor said the lawsuit filed by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) against Springfield-based minister Scott Lively poses a test of free-speech protection and the rights of sexual minorities to equal protection under the law. Ponsor heard arguments from lawyers representing both Lively and SMUG. SMUG, represented in court by the George Soros-funded “Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR),” accused Lively of...

Full headline: American Traffic Solutions -- red-light camera vendor for Houston, Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving and Amarillo --- suspends exec for posting pro-camera comments under fake identity -- As far as anyone can tell, American Traffic Solutions Inc. has resorted only to the conventional lobbying method of throwing money around to grow its red-light camera business in Texas. Until last week, at least one business development executive was making inroads in Washington state by cheerleading for the company and personally attacking opponents under an assumed name in dozens of comments left on the website of a local newspaper, according to...

The stop at the Peace Bridge vaulted Shearson on a legal odyssey that delved into a secret world of watch lists and something called the Automated Targeting System, a massive computer program that border officials use to track and rank suspected terrorists. As the computer files grow in size and scope, the inaccuracies grow as well, according to Shearson, security experts and U.S. Justice Department reports. For Shearson, the errors surfaced on Jan. 8, 2006, as she was returning from one of her favorite escapes. "That's my de-stresser -- to go on a road trip," she said. "Everyone goes to...

A committee of American Roman Catholic bishops announced Wednesday that a popular book about God by Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson, a theologian at Fordham University in New York, should not be used in Catholic schools and universities because it does not uphold church doctrine. The book, “Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God,” examines different understandings of God through the experiences of the poor and oppressed, Holocaust victims, Hispanics, women and people of religions other than Catholicism. Among the chapter titles are “God Acting Womanish” and “Accompanying God of Fiesta.”The bishops’ committee on doctrine said...

Red light camera company sues Baytown, Texas over results of anti-camera referendum. Traffic camera vendor American Traffic Solutions showed no municipal love as it filed a breach of contract suit against Baytown, Texas on Monday. The St. Valentine's Day complaint accused the city of failing to approve the mailing of an expected number of red light camera citations generated by the company. According to court filings, ATS generated 2420 tickets in November 2010, and the city accepted all but 425 -- an 82 percent approval rate. The next month, ATS generated 2837 tickets, but the city only approved 587 --...

He played late-night marathon games of Monopoly with his buddies. He went with friends on family vacations. He would hang with pals at IHOP on Fridays. He had a girlfriend. He laughed and he loved and he knew things - about jazz, cars, fantasy games. And then Jared Loughner slipped into a world of fantasy that was no online game. Slowly but steadily, his intelligence warped into a distorted, disconnected series of obsessions. He developed an illogical fascination with logic. Math, grammar, logic - the systems civilization has developed to make sense of the world became the means through which...

This is my first post ever though I lurk here a lot and send Jimbo money on occation, hope I get this right. The events of today were so shocking and Free Republic was so slow that I was jumping around looking for info on the shootings. I stumbled onto a thread on AboveTopSecret where the posters have identified the shooter as having posted there in the past. The writtings sure look like him and in one of the posts from the past another poster identifies him as someone else who had posted pics of themselves. Just thought I'd throw...

As information about the assassin Jared Lee Loughner slowly comes out, new facts are slowly trickling in. One of the newest is that he was a member of the conspiracy website Above Top Secret, whose website's motto is "deny ignorance." Under the username of "Erad3," a simple rearrangement of his first name, Loughner wrote perplexing and, quite frankly, insane posts several times on the website. Under his "More Stuff You Should Know" section, he wrote, "Eating a Chicken Pot Pie in a voting booth with the option for a Spanish vote..." Loughner also rambled on about "infinite currency," which he...

"UP cops nab IM terrorist planning aerial strike" Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui, TNN, 2 February 2010, 01:48am IST SNIPPET: "LUCKNOW/NEW DELHI: The arrest of Shehzad alias Pappu — one of the key accused in the September 2008 serial blasts in Delhi and the Batla House encounter — by the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) of UP Police from Azamgarh on Monday evening is being seen as a major breakthrough in exposing a module that was planning to unleash air strikes. Shehzad, intelligence agencies had recently discovered, had undergone a training to fly planes from an institute in Bangalore and had surfaced as a...

Note: Posting older video at this time for archival purposes. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgvUB9woVgM "NewsX Video: ATS warns of terror strike" Video Description - Quote: The Anti-Terror squad has warned that the Indian Mujahideen could be planning another terror attack. The ATS has sent a letter to the Mumbai Police, alerting them to the threat. Category: News & Politics Tags: terrorism ATS Mumbai Police Indian Mujahideen NewsX

Good, despite themselves Article Last Updated: Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 12:54:17 PM MST By DONALD KAUL, Retired Washington columnist, Des Moines Register The Democratic National Convention got off to a rip-roaring start last week with its parade of Golden Oldies - President Jimmy, Uncrowned Prince Al and, of course, Big Bill. Taken together, their speeches constituted the best first day of a political convention in memory. The trio managed to offer a scathing critique of the Bush Administration's preemptive-war strategy, as well as his reverse Robin Hood economic policies, without getting too personal about the president himself (although Jimmy...