Free Republic

A movement to drag the teaching of science in the United States back into the Dark Ages continues to gain momentum. So far, it's a handful of judges -- "activist judges" in the view of their critics -- who are preventing the spread of Saudi-style religious dogma into more and more of America's public-school classrooms. The ruling this month in Georgia by Federal District Judge Clarence Cooper ordering the Cobb County School Board to remove stickers it had inserted in biology textbooks questioning Darwin's theory of evolution is being appealed by the suburban Atlanta district. Similar legal battles pitting evolution...

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- Police said a 22-year-old man was charged with filing a false report about a hate crime. Floyd Elliott Floyd Elliott, of Independence, told police that on Dec. 14, two subjects attacked him in the parking lot of his apartment complex. He said the attackers cut him in the stomach, branded him with a hot knife, and attempted to carve the word "Fag" on his forehead. Investigators were suspicious about the report because the head carving was backwards, as if done while looking into a mirror.Later, Elliott admitted to police that the injuries were self-inflicted. He said...

Police detain Marie L. who claimed she had been attacked by youths of Arab and African origin who drew swastikas on her stomach on a suburban train. A French woman who claimed to have suffered an anti-Semitic attack that sent shock waves throughout the entire political system in France, told police on Tuesday that she had made up the incident, a judicial source said. The 23-year-old woman and her male companion were detained after police called them in to discuss the alleged attack, in which she said six knife-wielding youths of Arab and African origin who drew swastikas on her...

Behind CAIR's Hate Crimes Report CAIR says bias crimes against Muslims are up 70 percent in the last year. Could that be true? by David Skinner 05/06/2004 2:00:00 PM   THIS WEEK the Council on American-Islamic Relations released its annual report "The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States 2004." Newspapers (the Washington Post in particular) dutifully gave prominent play to CAIR's claim that hate crimes against Muslims increased 70 percent in 2003. Little skepticism, however, was applied to CAIR's shoddy information-gathering or its politicized interpretation of the "data."According to CAIR, George W. Bush's war rhetoric is...

Environmental charities are exaggerating the threat of climate change in an attempt to raise more money from public donations, according to a report by Oxford University academics. The red kite is said to be at risk but the Oxford report says it is not facing imminent extinction The charities, including WWF-UK, the world's biggest independent conservation organisation, claim that a quarter of the world's species are facing extinction by 2050. However, the report says that this is a "woeful misrepresentation of the underlying science". Many species said to be at risk - including the red kite and the Scottish crossbill...

POMONA, Calif. (AP) - A Claremont McKenna College psychology professor who claimed someone vandalized her car with racist and anti-Semitic slurs was charged with filing a false police report and insurance fraud. Kerri Dunn's claim of being the victim of a hate crime shocked Claremont and associated colleges 30 miles east of Los Angeles, leading to rallies against intolerance last month. Police and the FBI began investigating, but within days police reported there were witness accounts of Dunn vandalizing the car herself. Dunn, 39, was charged Monday and will be arraigned May 19 on one count of filing a false...

The Critics Don’t Complain Anymore, No. Sir. by Daniel M. Ryan Last October, I settled down to write a Net novel, Life In A Mirror. When I was about three-quarters of the way through it, I discovered that I had attracted the hostility of a certain type of Internet pest with access to crippleware. Every time my CD-ROM drive turned on, the computer shut off. At the time, I though it was just one of those annoyances that you have to face in the wired world. I assumed that someone got pissed off at one of my writings and decided...

(LOUISVILLE, February 25th, 2004, 6 p.m.) -- Hate literature has appeared at another local college campus, this time at Spalding University. School officials there say racially inflammatory fliers were placed on approximately 15 to 20 cars on campus Tuesday night. Meanwhile, two African-American UofL students admitted Monday they placed racially charged fliers on another African-American's car, calling it "a prank." WAVE 3's Craig Hoffman reports. A string of such "pranks" in recent weeks has many UofL students saying the the school address racially insensitivity on campus. The big question on the minds of many students is how the top brass...