Free Republic

CONCORD, N.H. --A former Republican National Committee official convicted in an Election Day phone-jamming plot against New Hampshire Democrats faces up to seven years in prison at his scheduled sentencing Wednesday. James Tobin of Bangor, Maine, was found guilty in December on two telephone harassment charges. He also faces up to a $500,000 fine. His lawyers have asked for a new trial, and on Monday, they filed a motion objecting to a sentencing document filed by prosecutors. Tobin, 45, stepped down as New England chairman of President Bush's re-election campaign in 2004 when Democrats accused him of playing a role...

A secretive new video game about school bullies could be targeted by Miami-Dade School Board members, who fear the repercussions of a game that is set in a school and includes fights, slingshots and possibly much more. Little is actually known about the game, Bully, which was scheduled for release last fall but has been repeatedly delayed. Opponents of violent video games have been driven largely by its pedigree -- the game is being developed by Rockstar, the controversial designer of the ultra-violent Grand Theft Auto series. In those games, which have been top sellers for years, players steal cars,...

A Missouri couple say they were denied an occupancy permit for their new home because they're not married. Olivia Shelltrack and Fondray Loving have been together for 13 years and have three children, ages 8, 10 and 15, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The couple are appealing the occupancy permit denial from the Black Jack, Mo., board of adjustment, which requires people living together to have blood, marriage or adoption ties. Loving is not the father of Shelltrack's oldest child. I was basically told, you can have one child living in your house if you're not married, but more than...

Following the Dec. 7 season finale of South Park, titled "Bloody Mary," the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights slammed the network for its irreverent portrayal of church icons and sought to block the episode from being rebroadcast. It appears the group may have met with success. A repeat of the finale was scheduled to air Wednesday night, but was seemingly pulled from the Comedy Central lineup without explanation. In the episode, a statue of the Virgin Mary is believed to be bleeding from its rear end, inspiring faithful parishioners to flock from miles around to be healed by...

The American Civil Liberties Union sued Polk County on Friday, saying the county's policy to use the free speech zone is unconstitutional. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Tampa, alleges several elements of the policy violate First Amendment rights, including a rule that requires users of the site to have a $500,000 insurance policy. The lawsuit comes a week after the county officials denied the ACLU use of the site because it did not provide the insurance. ``The real problem here is that (the county) has set a policy in place that purports to create a free speech zone,...

Sony is in trouble but we might be the ones who lose out in the end, says technology commentator Bill Thompson. Sony says it has been using XCP for months Sony BMG, the record company part of the multinational corporation that makes laptops, TVs, movies and many other things, is in trouble this week thanks to a copy protection scheme it has used on a number of its CDs. The software, called Extended Copy Protection or XCP, hides itself on your hard drive using techniques normally reserved for viruses, worms and trojans, which use similar "rootkits" to evade detection. And...

Internet DVD renter Netflix has put its plans for a movie download service on hold after failing to agree terms with Hollywood. In a conference discussing its third quarter numbers Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said the company would continue working on the infrastructure for the planned service, Reuters reports. However, due to problems obtaining license agreements with Hollywood studios, the test phase of the service has not been postponed. Hastings said the company would hit the play button on its plans “when the content climate beings to thaw.” The studios' reluctance to let Netflix squirt their movies down the wire...

Topeka — From Darwin to intelligent design to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The debate over teaching evolution in Kansas public schools has caught the attention of a cross-country Internet community of satirists. In the past few weeks, hundreds of followers of the supreme Flying Spaghetti Monster have swamped state education officials with urgent e-mails. They argue that since the conservative majority of the State Board of Education has blessed classroom science standards at the behest of intelligent design supporters, which criticize evolution, they want the gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster taught. “I’m sure you realize how important it is...

The family of a man shot dead by police who mistakenly suspected him of being a suicide bomber are calling for the "shoot-to-kill" policy to be suspended. It comes after leaked documents contradicted previous accounts of the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July. Investigation papers, leaked to ITV, suggest the Brazilian was restrained before being shot eight times. His family say they want a full judicial inquiry to reveal the "truth". The documents, seemingly from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation into the shooting, contradict first reports which suggested Mr de Menezes...

Nicholas and Loan Gatai used to cringe when they received power bills that routinely topped $200. Last September the Sacramento, Calif., couple moved into a new, 1,500-square-foot home in Premier Gardens, a subdivision of 95 "zero-energy homes" just outside town. Now they're actually eager to see their electric bills. The grand total over the 10 months they've lived in the three-bedroom, stucco-and-stone house: $75. For the past two months they haven't paid a cent. Story continues below ↓ advertisement Almost unknown outside California, ZEH communities are the leading edge of technologies that might someday create houses that produce as much...

Scientists have developed a new weapon for the war on drugs: a novel method for tracing the illicit substances on currency. Study results indicate that the pattern of contamination on money recovered from drug-related crime scenes is significantly different than that seen on notes in regular circulation. Previous studies had revealed that many bank notes around the world contain trace amounts of cocaine, but contamination with other controlled substances is still relatively rare. In the new work, Karl Ebejer of Mass Spec Analytical Ltd. in Bristol, U.K., and his colleagues analyzed currency using mass spectrometry to look for a fingerprint...

A Quincy woman carrying $46,950 in cash through Logan International Airport claims she was on the way to see a Texas plastic surgeon when federal drug agents seized the money she planned to use for a procedure on her buttocks and breasts. ``The agent looked at my buttocks and told me that I do not need an operation,'' Ileana Valdez, 26, told a federal court yesterday in an affidavit contending she got the cash from selling her Dorchester business and two homes. Valdez claims a male agent from the Drug Enforcement Agency asked her to take off her clothes to...

TALLAHASSEE — Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out “leftist totalitarianism” by “dictator professors” in the classrooms of Florida’s universities. The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, passed 8-to-2 despite strenuous objections from the only two Democrats on the committee. The bill has two more committees to pass before it can be considered by the full House. While promoting the bill Tuesday, Baxley said a university education should be more than “one biased view by the professor, who as a...

Gasoline prices are about to go through the moon roof. One analyst predicts a 24-cent-a-gallon increase in the next few days and other experts say average prices could go as high as $2.50 a gallon this summer, the peak driving season. "$2 a gallon we think is easily within reach and probably in the next couple of months," the American Automobile Association's Robert Sinclair told CBS Radio News. Tom Kloza, senior analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, expects the jump much sooner: The end of this month. "Petronoia is in full flower," he told USA Today, but added he's...

Arrests for possession of cannabis fell by a third in the first year since it was downgraded to a Class C drug, official Home Office figures show. An estimated 199,000 police hours were saved, according to data from 26 of the 42 English and Welsh police forces. Cannabis was reclassified so that officers could target hard drugs. Minister Caroline Flint said new crime survey figures also showed that fears for a rise in cannabis use among young people were "wholly unfounded." (emph. mine)

A new bill before Congress may eventually have DVD-viewers thinking twice before fast-forwarding through the ads and previews. The proposed legislation would make fast-forwarding through those ads illegal -- not only in theaters, but also at home, NBC News reported. The bill allows technology that lets families edit out explicit scenes or material to track the DVD use. But broadcast companies have lobbied hard to keep commercials and movie trailers off limits. "Their concern is if it becomes easy for people to skip ads, then their whole business model goes down the drain," said Gigi Sohn, of a consumer advocacy...

Fort Collins - Law enforcement problems at football games have intensified since Colorado State University banned beer sales at its stadium in the wake of a binge-drinking death. "The drinking has increased," campus Police Chief Dexter Yarborough said Thursday at a meeting of CSU's alcohol task force. "People are coming to the stadium more intoxicated than they were before." Yarborough told the panel, formed after the death of 19-year-old sophomore Samantha Spady, that his officers have been spit upon and hit with objects thrown by unruly fans who sneak liquor into the stadium or get drunk before arriving. The task...

CHICAGO — Mayor Richard Daley (search), a former prosecutor, runs the nation's third-largest city with a pragmatic, law-and-order style. He wears his hair short, and you'll never catch him in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. So when he starts complaining about the colossal waste of time and money involved in prosecuting small-time marijuana cases, people take notice.

Chinese prison officials have forced a pregnant inmate found guilty of transporting heroin to undergo an abortion so that she could be eligible for the death penalty, according to a report published on Wednesday, AFP/Yahoo! News reports. Ma Weihua in January was arrested in Gansu province for transporting 56 ounces of heroin from Xinjiang province. Under China's criminal code, individuals convicted of trafficking that amount of heroin can be executed. However, following Ma's arrest, prison doctors discovered during a routine physical exam that she was approximately seven weeks pregnant. Under Chinese law, pregnant women and people younger than age 18...

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials say the detailed surveillance photos and documents that prompted higher terror warnings dated from as far back as 2000 and 2001, and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Tuesday the government concluded "it was essential" to publicize it and raise the terror alert. Speaking at a news conference in New York, Ridge said that because of the heightened security steps, "We have made it much more difficult for the terrorists to achieve their broad objectives. ... We will not become fortress America." Officials had said earlier that it wasn't clear whether the individuals who amassed the...