Free Republic

Hours after a pilot’s suicide plane crash into a federal building in Austin, Texas, local talk-radio host Jon Alvarez created a tribute Internet page for the dead pilot. In less than a day, Facebook, the social networking Web site where Alvarez created the page, took it down and issued him a warning: He could lose Facebook privileges if he violated its policy again. “The Joe ‘Take my pound of flesh’ Stack fan page” included the killer’s manifesto, which is an angry rant against big government, big business and the Catholic Church. It quickly drew about 40 fans, Alvarez said. He...

There are no ploys from Marvin Harrison, no antic bids for attention, look at me, look at me, look at me. So, it may come as a surprise to learn that Harrison is the best wide receiver in the NFL, and perhaps on his way to being the best of all time, certainly better than any other wide receivers you have heard of, those garrulous self-promoters with their megaphone egos, and Klaxon mouths, and stage props hidden in their socks. Compared with him, those guys are insufferable bleaters. They are merely good. Harrison is great.

This just in: The St. Patrick's Four have been convicted on three lesser charges but found innocent of conspiracy for a March 2003 blood-pouring protest at a military recruiting station. The defendants were on trial in Federal Court in Binghamton. The four Ithacans--Daniel Burns, Peter DeMott, Clare Grady and Teresa Grady--were acquitted of conspiring to impede a federal officer, but convicted of damaging federal property. Conviction on the conspiracy charge could have carried a six-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A lawsuit claims the video game "Grand Theft Auto" led a teenager to shoot two police officers and a dispatcher to death in 2003, mirroring violent acts depicted in the popular game. The suit announced Tuesday seeks damages from the game's manufacturers and two stores that allegedly sold it to Devin Thompson, now 18.

CLINTON, N.Y. (AP) -- Hamilton College said Tuesday it has received death threats and was canceling a panel discussion featuring a professor who provoked a furor when he compared Sept. 11 victims to Nazis. Hamilton spokesman Michael DeBraggio said multiple death threats were made against both college officials and guest speaker Ward Churchill, who resigned Monday as chairman of the ethnic studies department at the University of Colorado. In an essay written in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Churchill said the World Trade Center victims were "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who organized Nazi plans...

CLINTON, N.Y. (AP) -- Hamilton College said Wednesday that a former radical who served 16 years in federal prison for possessing explosives will not teach a half-credit writing seminar in January. Susan Rosenberg withdrew from teaching "Resistance Memoirs: Writing, Identity and Change" as an artist-in-residence because it was in the best interest of all parties, college officials said. During a faculty meeting Tuesday, Vice President of Communications and Development Richard Tantillo said donors rescinded hundreds of thousands of dollars in pledges in protest. Prospective students had also withdrawn their applications. The college launched a $175 million capital campaign Friday with...

By The Associated Press WATERTOWN, Wis. (AP) - Mark Hamill, best known for playing Luke Skywalker in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, has replaced actor Rod Steiger, who died this week, in a movie filmed partially in Watertown. Steiger was cast as a small-town funeral director in the independent feature "Constricted." He died Tuesday of pneumonia and kidney failure at 77. The film's director had taken Steiger off the cast list a few weeks ago because of his illness, said Nick Langholff, location manager and a Fort Atkinson native. In his place, the director chose Hamill, who originally was cast...