Free Republic

AMHERST, N.Y. (WIVB) - The NYS SAFE Act is billed as a necessary law to protect the public and keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people. But Hamburg attorney Jim Tresmond says his client was notified by letter that his gun permit was suspended upon the recommendation of State Police, who learned the man is on anti-anxiety medication."Claiming that he had taken some psychotropic medications, and that he no longer could be eligible for the pistol permit," Tresmond said.The permit holder lives in Amherst and Tresmond accompanied the man as he turned in his seven handguns used...

he past few days, the Internet has been filled with commentary on whether the National Science Foundation should have paid for my study on duck genitalia, and 88.7 percent of respondents to a Fox news online poll agreed that studying duck genitalia is wasteful government spending. The commentary supporting and decrying the study continues to grow. As the lead investigator in this research, I would like to weigh in on the controversy and offer some insights into the process of research funding by the NSF. My research on bird genitalia was originally funded in 2005, during the Bush administration. Thus...

Fracking, the controversial method of extracting shale gas or other petroleum from deep below the earth's surface, might be possible in the Connecticut River Valley, geologists say. But the rock deposits likely to bear gas are thin here and difficult to access, making commercial exploitation of the resource unlikely in the near future. “It's not hard to hit,” said James L. Coleman Jr., a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “It's hard to do anything with once you get it.” Coleman was one of the speakers Thursday at a day-long conference on the future of shale gas, hydraulic fracturing...

For the past two years, Peter Cimino has been selling gourmet tacos in business parks in Amherst, N.Y., a suburb of Buffalo. In his bright lime green truck, creative entrées like chimichurri chicken and tomatillo pork sizzle. His Lloyd Taco Truck was personally invited by the owner of the Amherst Commerce Park to enliven the area and Pete was operating entirely on private property. But on Monday, Amherst shut his business down. A police officer even threatened to tow away Pete’s taco truck, for not having a permit.  There’s just one problem: Amherst doesn’t have a food truck permit yet. The...

Federal environmental officials and the University of Massachusetts have entered into a consent agreement for which the university will remove windows contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyl at the John W. Lederle Graduate Research Center over 15 years. According to a prepared statement from the Environmental Protection Agency, UMass discovered that the window glazing at the research center was contaminated with high levels of contaminants after finishing a window-caulking project in 2009. UMass has agreed to replace and dispose of all 900 PCB-contaminated windows over the next 15 years at a cost of about $3 million. The university will complete window cleaning,...

This town hall meeting took place Sep 10, 2001 in Amherst Mass 12 hours before the first plane struck the towers in New York City, before the Pentagon was hit, and before Flight 93 was taken down in a suicide dive by the terrorists who were beign overrun by brave Americans. This video is significant because of the statements made at the 40 minute to 50 minute mark and again at the 1 hour 10 minute mark which were in response to comments made at the 45 minute mark. Keep in mind this was made 12 hours before the World...

A whimsical student address, forgetting the national anthem – then remembering it after the commencement began -- and a stellar list of honorary degrees recipients were part of Amherst College’s 191st graduation ceremony Sunday. San Francisco native Elias R. Johansson-Miller, summa com laude with a bachelor of arts double major in English, and Theater and Dance was selected by his peers to speak for the senior class. His thesis is “Creating and Believing in Going Public.” Though he had some serious things to say at the tail end of his speech, Johansson-Miller spent most of it making jokes, talking about...

Former Vice president Al Gore on Friday refuted claims that global warning is a myth, saying that 97 to 98 percent of the worlds’ scientists attest to its veracity. Gore was the keynote speaker at the inauguration of Hampshire College President Jonathan Lash Friday. The theme of Lash’s inauguration was “Educating for Change: critical thinking in a critical time.” “Now there are some talk radio show hosts, they say that (global warming is) not (real)," Gore said. "It’s up to you; my point is we must respond. What the scientists tell us is going to take place if we do...

FREEZE WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 10 AM EDT SUNDAY... THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN TAUNTON HAS ISSUED A FREEZE WARNING... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 10 AM EDT SUNDAY. THE FREEZE WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT. * LOCATIONS... NORTHERN CONNECTICUT... NORTHERN RHODE ISLAND AND MUCH OF MASSACHUSETTS. * HAZARDS... FREEZING TEMPERATURES. * TEMPERATURES... RANGING FROM THE MID 20S TO THE LOW 30S. * TIMING... AFTER MIDNIGHT THROUGH 10 AM. * IMPACTS... FREEZING CONDITIONS COULD KILL ANY CROPS OR OTHER SENSITIVE VEGETATION.

Former Vice President Al Gore is scheduled to speak at the inauguration of Hampshire College President Jonathan Lash, which is set to start at 3:30 p.m. Friday. Gore served as Bill Clinton's vice president from 1993 to 2001, lost his bid for the presidency in 2000 and won a Nobel Peace Prize with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. You can watch a live stream of the event put together by Hampshire College below or follow along on Twitter by searching the hashtag #jlash.

Former Vice President Al Gore will be in town Friday as the keynote speaker at the inauguration of Hampshire College President Jonathan Lash. Gore, who served as vice president under President Clinton for two-terms, ran unsuccessfully for president in 2000. In 2007, Gore won the Nobel Prize with the U.N Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “An Inconvenient Truth,” a film about his campaign to educate people about global warming, won two Oscars in 2006. In 2005, he co-founded Current TV. Lash has been serving at the college's sixth president since July. ... The theme of the inaugural is “Educating for...

(Image: Everett Collection/Rex Features) A document has just gone on display at Mount Vernon, Virginia - the museum in the former home of George Washington, first US President. It is an order dated 1777 and signed by Washington himself to send troops that had not been vaccinated for smallpox - or survived it - to Philadelphia to be vaccinated. These troops were then to join up with the main army, where the disease was raging. It sounds like amazing foresight for its day. "Washington's careful handling of the smallpox epidemic at the beginning of the war was a significant...

The various "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations around the country declared Thursday to be a "day of action" in the ongoing protest of big banks and Wall Street policies that they blame for a sagging economy. While thousands protested in Manhattan, Los Angeles and other cities, several hundred people took to the streets of downtown Amherst. According to video supplied to The Republican by Julie Varney of Amherstwire.com, demonstrators assembled in front of Bank of New England branch at South Pleasant and Amity Streets. At one point, the footage shows demonstrators storming into the bank lobby to disrupt business. After several...

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain fears that Sharia law could permeate the U.S Court system “if we allow it." In Oklahoma, the 10th Circuit court is examining the constitutionality of a 2010 law banning Oklahoma courts from citing, or using, Sharia law. But Sharia law, law based on Islam and its central religious text the Quran, could not be imposed in this country, says Dr. Mohammad Ali Hazratji. Hazratji is hoping to address some of the “disinformation” he sees out there about the law Wednesday at the South Congregational Church as part of the Hampshire Mosque lecture series “Understanding Islam.”...

More than 200 students gathered outside the University of Massachusetts Student Union to continue their call for economic justice as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which enters its 26th day. ... Student after student on Wednesday told stories of parents losing jobs and health care, or of having mounting student debt caused by what they say is Wall Street greed. Some bore signs reading “1 percent stop bogarting your stash.” There were chants of “one solution, revolution,” and a call to spread the word about Occupy UMass so there would be enough students and others to occupy a...

A feud between two Transit Road neighbors -- a homeowner and a mosque -- turned ugly this weekend when the homeowner staked a sign on his front lawn insinuating that the new 11,600-square-foot Islamic worship site is home to a "bomb making" operation. Michael Heick, who lives next door to the Jaffarya Islamic Center of Niagara Frontier, put a small sign that reads "Bomb Making Next Driveway" to northbound traffic on Transit Road. The next driveway on the same side of the road as Heick's home heading north is the Jaffarya Center, at 10300 Transit. Mosque members and other area...

AMHERST – Organizers of the 20th annual Extravaganja on the Town Common admitted Tuesday that they were wrong when they told the public police had agreed not to cite anyone caught smoking marijuana. Emily Butler, a spokesperson for the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Cannabis Reform Coalition, said there had been “a simple miscommunication with the police” and “we didn’t mean to mislead anybody.” “We should not have led them to believe that smoking would be tolerated,” Butler said in an email. “The current (coalition) officers will make sure that this miscommunication does not occur in future years.” In the...

AMHERST – Rocker Steve Miller is a self-declared “midnight toker,” but he’s got nothing on hundreds of people on the Amherst town commons Sunday who sparked up at noon. The 20th annual Extravaganja festival, put on by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Cannabis Reform Coalition, kicked off Saturday and continued for two days, the first time it has lasted more than one day since its inception. The event was chock-full of speakers, vendors and bands and was meant to raise awareness of the pro-marijuana legalization movement. This year was also the first time participants were allowed to smoke marijuana...

When I saw that Coons spent time in Yale, and was a two-time National Debate Champion, I had to look him up.The name wasn't familiar to me at first. While the Yale debate team was good, they weren't tops when I was involved. First, I saw Coons' age ... 47. That means we attended college at the same time, and then I saw that he did his bachelors' work not at Yale, but at Amherst. Then everything clicked. I don't have television, and I tend not to view much video on the Internet for news. I remembered the Amherst team....

President Barack Obama misses his own deadline for closing Guantánamo on Friday, amid difficulties in relocating inmates overseas and delays in putting dozens on trial. But a university town in Massachusetts is doing its utmost to encourage his effort, having become the first in the country to pass a resolution welcoming detainees from the prison on the US naval base on Cuba. Amherst remains a liberal hot spot in a state that until the shock election of Republican Scott Brown to succeed Edward Kennedy in the Senate was regarded as reliably Democratic. Unlike Thomson, Illinois, where residents expect a jobs...