Free Republic

Should the display of an American flag be banned, even if a school administrator feels that display could lead to fights? No. This is a lame decision. Teach the kids what the flag means, instead of banning it. 46% (147,117 votes) Yes. The safety of students comes first. 53% (167,868 votes) Not sure, but of all things to ban, the American flag would seem the least 'incendiary.' <1% (1,268 votes) Other (post a comment) 1% (3,241 votes) Total Votes: 319,494 PLEASE FREEP!!!

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced today a moratorium on official city travel to Arizona after the state enacted a controversial new immigration law that directs local police to arrest those suspected of being in the country illegally. The ban on city employee travel to Arizona takes effect immediately, although there are some exceptions, including for law enforcement officials investigating a crime, officials said. It's unclear how many planned trips by city workers will be curtailed.

A father-of-four has been banned from driving for three years after getting behind the wheel of a toy car when drunk. Paul Hutton, 40, was over the legal alcohol limit when he climbed into the seat of a 4ft by 2ft electric Barbie car, which has a top speed of just 4mph. A police patrol car spotted the 6ft-tall former RAF aeron Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267136/Father-banned-driving-getting-wheel-toy-Barbie-car-drunk.html#ixzz0lY2qUqd4

GODLIKEPRODUCTIONS.COM Does anyone around here know about this site? It is a conspiracy forum that I frequented for about a year to get the "inside scoop" on news as well as conspiracy theories on various topics. Well, I was reading a thread on the Site that hinted at the fact that it could be a social experiment - a conspiracy to track the conspiracists, so to speak. Well the thread was deleted almost immediately and the poster was banned. Doing a little research, I found out the disturbing possibility that the site is truly run by the government or an...

A Southern California school district has pulled dictionaries from classrooms because a parent complained when a child came across the term "oral sex." District officials said Friday that the Menifee Union School District -- which serves 9,000 kindergartners through eight graders in Riverside County -- is forming a committee to consider a permanent classroom ban of the Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. A memo from Assistant Superintendent Karen Valdes acknowledged it is a respected resource but district officials found that "a number of referenced words are age-inappropriate." Some parents and free-speech advocates said the district is overreacting. Peter Scheer, executive director...

Right-Wing Flame War! By JONATHAN DEE Published: January 21, 2010 Charles Johnson has been writing a blog for almost as long as the word “blog” has existed. A bearish, gentle-voiced, ponytailed man who for three decades enjoyed a successful career as a jazz guitarist accompanying the likes of Al Jarreau and Stanley Clarke, Johnson has always had a geek’s penchant for self-education, and in that spirit he cultivated a side interest, and ultimately an expertise, in writing computer code. His Web log, which he named “Little Green Footballs” (a private joke whose derivation he has always refused to divulge), was...

Talk radio host Michael Savage is considering legal action against Britain’s top homeland security official after she released today a list grouping him with terrorists and neo-Nazi murderers banned from entry because the government believes their views might provoke violence. In a telephone interview with WND, Savage said he is still waiting to hear back from attorneys, but he noted Britain has very strict anti-defamation laws.

West Hollywood is moving toward banning outdoor smoking and has directed city staff members to draft an ordinance that would prohibit such activity in outdoor areas of dining establishments. But business owners and those from West Hollywood's bustling nightclub industry say the regulation would hurt the local economy. Read more in the WeHo News: Following in the region’s wake, Mayor Abbe Land, the co-executive director of the Saban Free Clinic and a long-time health advocate, joined with constitutional law professor Mayor Pro Tem John Heilman in a resolution to direct the city attorney to draft a ban on smoking in...

Don't you dare show Shekih Mohammad bin Rashid al-Maktoum drowning. Foreign media better be on notice. Dubai's mess doesn't give you an excuse to take shots at the ruling family. WSJ: The Sunday London Times newspaper was removed by authorities from shelves in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday amid intensive reporting of Dubai's debt problems, an executive at the paper said. The National Media Council ordered the paper blocked by distributors without providing a reason, an executive at the paper in Dubai told Zawya Dow Jones. The Sunday Times edition available in the U.A.E. on Nov. 29 featured a...

A Brookline business that lets customers roll their own cigarettes has banned "pipe tobacco" from its rolling machines in response to a judge's order, the shop's lawyers said yesterday. The court order takes away only a portion of the business Tobacco Haven has been doing, but it is a portion that is of particular concern to the state. The state Attorney General's Office, which sued the retailer in August, alleges it is illegal for Tobacco Haven to stuff "pipe tobacco" into cigarettes unless the company pays taxes on it. The state has also argued that "pipe tobacco" is singularly

An Oregon apartment complex is banning its residents from flying American flags, not only from their dwellings but also their vehicles, KATU in Portland reported..... Sharron White, a long-time resident, was told by management to take down the flag she's flown on her car for eight years because "someone might get offended."

The novelist and children's writer Philip Pullman has been showered with awards that include a CBE, a Carnegie Medal and several honorary professorships. This week he notched up a new distinction: he is ranked second in the top 10 books that people have tried to ban across America. Pullman's fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials, has leapt to the top of the target list of would-be censors in the new rankings issued this week by the American Library Association. Several schools across America faced requests from parents to remove the book. One challenge at a school in Winchester, Kentucky was made...

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How ironic it is that when news emerges of Governor Palin's book becoming available prior to its expected date, she shows up in my school's library. No, she didn't show up in person and no, there was no announcement to inform interested students about her book, which reportedly is already number one on the Barnes and Noble list. She showed up in the center of a display highlighting Banned Books Week.

Hard-edged propaganda now suffuses America's history textbooks. A thorough cover-to-cover reading of almost any high school history text leaves you with the impression that the United States is at best embarrassing, and at worst a menace to world peace. I think I was in fifth grade when I began to suspect that textbooks weren't entirely on the level. The first tip-off came from the word problems in math class. They typically began with scenarios that, even to a 10-year-old, seemed a little unlikely: "Julio's mom is a welder. His father is a pediatric nurse. If his mom welds for 9...

Apparently, more than ever before, it’s in vogue to compare people to Hitler. Though some of the collations may be stretching at times, it seems that a Russian citizen found the connection between Winnie the Pooh and the National Socialist Workers’ Party so startling (probably saw this video) that he decked out his Winnie – the Pooh that is – with swastikas. The Russian Justice Ministry, instead of maybe questioning the sanity of a grown man who owns and dresses up a Pooh doll, took prudent action and added “Winnie the Pooh with a swastika” to its list of banned...

The Speaker of Iran’s eight Majlis Ali Larijani denied allegations of sexual abuse of detainees yesterday while several Majlis lawmakers confirmed such reports in interviews with Rooz. They added, however, that they had been banned from discussing the matter. Meanwhile, pro-government media outlets demanded the prosecution of Karoubi for disclosing the existence of rape in prisons. These debates are broiling while one Majlis lawmaker told Rooz, “During the special Majlis committee’s visit of the Evin Prison, several prisoners openly talked about sexual abuse; even though they did not specifically use the word ‘rape’ and only spoke about sexual abuse.” Expressing...

. He'd never have made the elementary error of putting the real reasons for banning Savage in a confidential e-mail. He'd know that the final destination of confidential Labor government mail is the front page of the conservative Daily Mail. Which is where the internal Home Office e-mails relating to Savage's exclusion from Britain ended up this week. ---------------------------------- The answer is that naming and shaming Savage was a low exercise in cheap politics all too characteristic of the Brown government

Official correspondence, released under the United Kingdom's Freedom of Information law, reveals that U.S. radio talk-show host Michael Savage's name was placed on a list of people banned from Britain in order to provide "balance" to a "least wanted" list dominated by Muslim extremists, and the decision was made "at the highest level of government," the London Daily Mail reported today. "We will want to ensure that the names disclosed reflect the broad range of cases and are not all Islamic extremists," reads a draft recommendation, marked "Restricted," that was obtained as part of Savage's libel lawsuit against the government...

Dr. Michael Savage confirmed on his radio show "The Savage Nation" last night, that he is still banned from the United Kingdom, and also drops a potential bombshell that in his words is "a very dangerous situation that will put a chill through every fair minded American and that will set off a shockwave through the British and American governments." According to Savage, after researching the information he and his lawyers obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, there is significant evidence to suggest that there are more American talk show personalities whose names are also on the United Kingdom's...