Free Republic

<p>Politics makes for strange bedfellows. None stranger than conservative radio legend Rush Limbaugh and politically liberal tech visionary Steve Jobs.</p> <p>Limbaugh launched a passionate defense of Apple and its iPhone 4 on his syndicated radio program Thursday, saying he "had no reception problems" with the one he recently purchased.</p>

Monsignor Joseph L. Luca, pastor of St. Louis Church, sought to ease the grief of family, friends, and classmates from Mount St. Joseph High School and Virginia Military Institute - 1,200 in all - who gathered Saturday at the Clarksville Roman Catholic church to mourn the death of John Alexander Evans. Evans, a 19-year-old VMI cadet from Highland who had graduated earlier this year from Mount St. Joe, died last Saturday in a Lexington, Va., hospital after collapsing in his barracks room upon completion of a 10-mile training march. Autopsy results are expected this week. "Our hearts go out to...

Recently, a Chinese work colleague of mine, who is six months pregnant, was buying pork at a small street market near her apartment. As she was paying for the pork, a man on a bicycle rode by, reached into her purse and removed her wallet. She did not notice the missing wallet until hours later when she wanted to pay for something with an ATM card. While the wallet only contained 500 RMB, she also lost her ID and credit cards which will be more difficult for her to replace. “If you did not see your wallet get stolen then...

SAN FRANCISCO, March 4, 2008—Yesterday, San Francisco State University (SFSU) settled a lawsuit challenging its speech codes by agreeing to modify several unconstitutional policies to make them consistent with the First Amendment. The settlement also requires SFSU to pay damages to members of the university's College Republicans as well as to pay the College Republicans' attorney fees. The lawsuit—part of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's (FIRE's) Speech Codes Litigation Project—was filed in July 2007 by attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). "Unconstitutional speech codes have been dealt yet another blow," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "This lawsuit...

Last month, technology news sites and blogs breathlessly reported on a Federal Aviation Administration document suggesting that Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner passenger jet may be vulnerable to computer hackers. Boeing now says that the problem was fixed even before the FAA issued its warning. But there may be yet another way bad guys could get into the plane's control system, one that neither the company nor the FAA may have noticed. The FAA was specifically concerned that a passenger could use the on-board entertainment network, which personal laptops can plug into, to access the plane's navigation system and disable or...

SAN FRANCISCO, November 8, 2007—In a crucial victory for free speech, a federal judge has ordered San Francisco State University (SFSU) and the California State University System (CSU) to stop enforcing several unconstitutional speech codes. The codes were challenged in a lawsuit filed by attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) in cooperation with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). “This decision is a vital step in the fight against unconstitutional campus speech codes,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “The court’s decision frees hundreds of thousands of students throughout the CSU System from unlawful restrictions on their expression.”...

Man Watches Crime In Downtown Orlando Office ORLANDO, Fla. -- A businessman in downtown Orlando used a motion-detecting Web cam to watch and grab images of a thief inside his home stealing his wife's bras and other items, according to police. Investigators said Thomas Arline's home was recently broken into at the Lake Live Oak subdivision in eastern Orange County. During the crime, a Web security cam was activated by motion in the house and began to send images to Arline's downtown office 20 miles away. Arline said he was forced to watch as the thief grabbed a notebook computer,...

Most Americans know that burning our nation’s flag is protected by the First Amendment. No matter how distasteful to some, the Supreme Court has consistently held flag-burning to be protected as expressive political conduct. So if burning an American flag is protected speech, burning other flags—say, the flags of political parties considered to be terrorist groups by our government—would also be protected speech, right? Right—except at San Francisco State University (SFSU), where the First Amendment takes a backseat to Hamas and Hezbollah. As part of an anti-terrorism rally held on campus last October, SFSU’s College Republicans stepped on homemade replicas...

GLENDALE, Ariz., May 7, 2007—The Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) has placed a professor on forced administrative leave and has recommended that he be terminated for e-mailing a Thanksgiving message to his colleagues last November. On the day before Thanksgiving, Professor Walter Kehowski sent out the text of George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789” and a link to the webpage where he’d found it—on Pat Buchanan’s web log. After several recipients complained of being offended by the e-mail, MCCCD found Kehowski guilty of violating the district’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policy and technology usage standards. Kehowski then contacted...

Michigan State Ends Controversial Thought Reform Program FIRE Press Release EAST LANSING, Mich., May 3, 2007—After months of public pressure, Michigan State University (MSU) has ended its controversial Student Accountability in Community (SAC) program. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) urged MSU to end the SAC program because it forced students whose speech or behavior was deemed unacceptable to undergo ideological reeducation, or else face effective expulsion. “Until now, engaging in free speech at MSU could have resulted in mandatory pseudo-psychological counseling or the end of a student’s academic career,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “We’re overjoyed to...

Student Senate Rejects Punishment of College Republicans PROVIDENCE, R.I., April 26, 2007—In a meeting last night, the Student Senate of the University of Rhode Island (URI) voted against a proposal to derecognize the College Republicans, holding that the group need not apologize for advertising a satirical white, heterosexual, American male “scholarship.” This decision overturns last week’s Student Senate committee vote to revoke the College Republicans’ official recognition after they refused to apologize for advertising the “scholarship.” Heeding pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), national media, URI’s administration, and a concerned public, the Student Senate finally acknowledged...

PROVIDENCE, R.I., April 18, 2007—Displaying a dramatic disregard for students’ constitutional rights, a committee of the University of Rhode Island (URI) Student Senate voted on Monday to derecognize the College Republicans student group. For months, the Student Senate has demanded that the group publicly apologize for advertising a satirical $100 “scholarship” for white, heterosexual, American males. The College Republicans refused to apologize and contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help. FIRE is now calling upon URI President Robert Carothers, who has already informed the Senate that it could not compel student speech, to reverse the decision...

TAIPEI—Within four years, the U.S. government will cease to use SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm) for digital signatures, and convert to a new and more advanced "hash" algorithm, according to the article "Security Cracked!" from New Scientist . The reason for this change is that associate professor Wang Xiaoyun of Beijing's Tsinghua University and Shandong University of Technology, and her associates, have already cracked SHA-1. Wang also cracked MD5 (Message Digest 5), the hash algorithm most commonly used before SHA-1 became popular. Previous attacks on MD5 required over a million years of supercomputer time, but Wang and her research team obtained...

Victory for Free Expression at San Francisco State University: No Punishment for Stepping on Hamas, Hezbollah Flags SAN FRANCISCO, March 20, 2007—In a crucial victory for free expression, San Francisco State University (SFSU) announced yesterday that its College Republicans will face no punishment for hosting an anti-terrorism rally at which participants stepped on makeshift Hezbollah and Hamas flags. SFSU’s decision comes after months of pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), national and local media, and the public—all of which called on the school to uphold the students’ constitutionally guaranteed right to free expression. “We are relieved...

The people who protect us - will be out watching for bad guys -in advance of this week's shuttle launch And they want you to know you'll be seeing some of the F-16's hard at work. The job of keeping terrorists away from the shuttle is in Norad's hands. "We want the American people to know we are on the job, doing what they expect us to do, and we want potential adversaries to know that we can be there and be anywhere in a short period of time." Tyndall Air Force Base's Mike Strickler says now guarding high visible...

A riot broke out in Orlando overnight. Police were making what seemed to be a routine arrest, but they wound up outnumbered 200 to 10. "I don't remember something escalating to this level of violence for the last 10 to 15 years." It looked like a simple drug bust at the Palms Apartments on Mercy Drive. However, Lieutenant Laura Houston says things started getting wild when Orlando police tried to take the suspects into custody. "Another guy came up and started interfering with that arrest." That man said he wouldn't let police arrest the two suspects; one of the suspects...

WASHINGTON, June 19, 2006—Tomorrow, Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), will take part in Religious Freedom Day on Capitol Hill by speaking on a panel about religious freedom in the United States. “Religious freedom is in serious trouble on many college campuses,” stated Lukianoff. “Since FIRE was founded we have seen too many students punished for expressing their religious convictions and too many religious groups denied the same rights that other campus groups enjoy.” The panel discussions will also include U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, Ambassador John Hanford, Senators Norm Coleman and Sam Brownback,...

TOKYO -- If the Japanese government gets its way, educators will soon add a course to the standard curriculum: teaching students to show love for their country. The proposal to make education more patriotic in Japan signals the determination of conservatives here to combat what they see as a self-obsessed youth culture, characterized by rampant school bullying and juvenile crime, which they say is eroding the nation's vaunted social order. Under proposed revisions to the Basic Education Law, which are being debated in parliament, teachers would be required to instill in students "an attitude that respects tradition and culture, and...

There's plenty of advertising in this year's official Gay Days program. But other than Virgin Megastore and Orlando Premium Outlets, no local tourism interests -- theme parks, restaurants or I-Drive businesses -- bought space. Ditto for the Gay Days Expo. Walking among the 75 booths on Thursday, I found several for tourism groups, including the state's Visit Florida and convention bureaus in Sarasota, Clearwater/St. Petersburg and Miami. But the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau? No presence at all. "I think they're losing out," said Chris Alexander-Manley, one of the Gay Days organizers. I think businesses aren't there because they...

LEXINGTON, Va., April 6, 2006 - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld will deliver the commencement address to Virginia Military Institute's graduating cadets on May 16. The commencement exercise is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. in Cameron Hall. This will mark the secretary's first visit to VMI in his tenure as Secretary of Defense. "The Class of 2006 is honored to have Secretary Rumsfeld as our commencement speaker," said class president Cadet Michael R. Pasquale of South Salem, N.Y. "Duty and service to the nation are examples of Secretary Rumsfeld's character which we all should emulate. The sacrifice and...