Free Republic

We have allowed our rights to be woefully diminished by continually voting for numskulls and not doing our homework when it comes to this most important civic duty.

In western Massachusetts, a group of a dozen or so climate activists tried to stop a trainload of coal heading for a power plant in New Hampshire…by standing on the railroad tracks in front of the train. Evidently they thought the train could, and would, screech to a halt. This short video is dark and doesn’t show much, but it conveys some sense of why this was a poor idea:

Relatives of Prince have asked President Trump to stop playing “Purple Rain” at campaign rallies, echoing similar requests made previously on behalf of fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees ranging from Aerosmith to Queen.

The Concerned Faculty group at the University of Missouri is to begin a two-day walkout today in support of student activists who say the school has done too little to address their concerns about racism and racial intolerance on campus. "We, the concerned faculty of the University of Missouri, stand in solidarity with the Mizzou student activists who are advocating for racial justice on our campus and urge all MU faculty to demonstrate their support by walking out on Monday.....

The University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU) is pushing to have people never use the word "idiot" because, according to them, it promotes "ableism." According to "StopAbleism.org," ableism "are the practices and dominant attitudes in society that devalue and limit the potential of persons with disabilities." UTMSU believes that the word "idiot," even if you are calling yourself that, promotes ableism. They feel so strongly that they are now putting up posters around campus to get the word out:

A Maine school superintendent is allowing students to display a poster protesting grand jury decisions not to indict two white police officers who killed unarmed black men.

Ferguson protests against the police shooting of a black teenager have crossed the pond to England, where demonstrators gathered at the U.S. embassy in London.

We joke about it here in the U.S. that maybe the UK should ban kitchen knives since they can be used to kill someone. It looks like the UK may have taken those jokes a little too seriously because theyÂ’ve been considering banning long, pointed kitchen knives for the past several years. Researchers from West Middlesex University Hospital found that crime in their country was on the rise, and that kitchen knives were used in as many as half of all stabbings.At least theyÂ’re being consistent. They thought guns were dangerous, so they banned guns. Now, theyÂ’re acknowledging that knives...

The good news is that if we ever do get that assault rifle ban, followed by a handgun ban, followed by a ban of anything that can shoot bullets, the “Banners” will still have a banner year of banning all the other ways with which people kill other people. Violent crimes haven’t gone away with the UK’s gun control. They’ve actually gone up. Britons suffer 1,158,957 violent crimes per year, which works out at 2,034 per 100,000 residents. The U.S., meanwhile, has a rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, which is lower than France’s, at 504 Instead of gun...

A veteran’s memorial in the form of a “peace cross” in Bladensburg, Md., has come under criticism by the American Humanist Association, which has said the memorial is a “religious symbol” on public land and that the government “should not be in the business of promoting religion.” “This cross amounts to an unconstitutional government endorsement of Christianity on public land. It is an exclusively Christian symbol that does not represent the sacrifice of non-Christian soldiers. Its prominent presence on public land leaves any observer with the notion that Christianity is exclusively favored and promoted by the government, said Bill Burgess,...

God help us. Could so many Americans really be that dumb, ill-informed, paranoid, gullible and goofy? It must be tricky being Barack Obama, winding down the U.S. presence in volatile Iraq, trying to keep Afghanistan from degenerating, pondering war with Iran, even as, according to the latest bulletin, one in five Americans thinks he is a Muslim. Why not just believe he's an alien from outer space? Or a Manchurian Candidate, programmed by, say, the Chinese to bring America to ruin? Crazy times.

Uh Oh, Spaghettios.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors today voted 3-8 against a resolution urging the San Francisco Congressional Delegation to support the permanent berthing of the USS Iowa as a museum at the Port of San Francisco. The congressional delegation secured $3 million in 2000 to move the USS Iowa, which was present at the signing of the treaty between Japan and the U.S. in 1945, from Rhode Island to the Bay Area, the proposed resolution says. A study commissioned by the Port of San Francisco concluded that the ship would attract more than 500,000 people during its first year at...