Free Republic

Throughout our nation's history, the size and scope of government has grown by leaps and bounds during times of crisis, financial or otherwise. The political class' natural instinct is for government to rush to the rescue, particularly when an election is near. The current financial meltdown appears to be no exception, as our government responds with a $700 billion taxpayer-funded bailout proposal that was at best a Band-Aid and at worst a more deadly strain of the same disease. Rather than punishing taxpayers, an array of smarter options is at the government's disposal: abandon cheap-money policy; remove financial incentives that...

Laser creates brightest light on Earth By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 3:01pm BST 08/04/2008 The brightest light on Earth now shines in a laboratory in Texas, one which will enable scientists to create a tabletop star. The $14m Texas Petawatt laser reached greater than one petawatt - one thousand million million watts - of laser power in the past few days, making it the highest powered laser in the world, says Prof Todd Ditmire, a physicist at The University of Texas at Austin. The laser in action in the lab, the blue glass amplifiers can also be seen...

AUSTIN – It took 124 years, but the largest university in Texas on Tuesday unveiled a monument to a Latino leader, Cesar Chavez. “Cesar would be humbled to be acknowledged in this way,” said Juan C. Gonzalez, vice president for Student Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Chavez’s granddaughter, Christine Chavez, and the nation’s head of higher education were among the speakers as more than 1,000 people sang, cried, cheered remembered the legacy of the Mexican-American labor organizer who grew up picking crops in California and went on to found the United Farm Workers union. The statue is...

This is absolutely hillarious! The Young Conservatives of Texas - University of Texas Chapter announced today that they will be displaying an “ACLU Nativity Scene” on the West Mall of the University of Texas campus on Monday and Tuesday, December 4th and 5th. The group’s intent is to raise awareness on the extremity of the ACLU, and bring to light its secular-progressive efforts to remove Christmas from the public sphere. The display, the first of its kind in the nation, will feature characters that are quite a bit different than the standard crèche. “We’ve got Gary and Joseph instead of...

Conservatives, welcome back to campus, that bastion of hostility toward your faith, politics and lifestyle, where Marx is revered, common sense eschewed, and multiculturalism matters more than mathematics. Are you ready for the semester—ready to stand up for those principles, to fight for your right to express opinions that are unpopular, and ready to make a difference for the conservative movement? Brendan Steinhauser, a former executive director of the Young Conservatives of Texas at Austin, wants you to fight and win battles against liberals on your campus and in order to help you he has some advice. His advice is...

When children can support themselves, they generally leave their parents’ home. When state colleges and universities can do the same, they find it difficult to leave the nest of taxpayer-subsidized state and federal supports. “Ours is an economy of scarcity,” Gary A. Olson writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education. “Even well-endowed institutions find themselves in a constant struggle to find enough money to do everything that they want to do.” “That economy of scarcity extends to salaries: Most academics and administrators are not compensated at the level that their education, skills, and experience would garner in business and industry.”...

The DallasBlog reported over the weekend the story about the UT zoology professor, Eric Pianka, who reportedly advocated in a speech at a Texas Academy of Science meeting in early March -- the elimination of most of the world’s population by airborne Ebola -- What is even more disturbing than the professor’s bizarre remarks was the reaction of his audience, according for Forrest Mims III, who was in attendance at the event: "I watched in amazement as a few hundred members of the Texas Academy of Sciences rose to their feet and gave a standing ovation to a speech that...

Abbott says goal is to shut down 'one of the world's worst' spammers AMERICAN STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, January 13, 2005 Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on Thursday sued a University of Texas student who is ranked by watchdog groups as one of the world's biggest spammers. The federal complaint says that Ryan Pitylak and his California business partner, Mark Trotter, sent out huge volumes of illegal spam through three companies: PayPerAction LLC, Leadplex LLC and Leadplex Inc. Dewey Coffman, who runs an Austin Internet service company, helped in the investigation by setting up "trap" e-mail accounts to capture the spam...

Robert Jensen (rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu) is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the author of "Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity." In an article written for The Austin American Statesman, Jensen recently claimed that “The United States has lost the war in Iraq, and that's a good thing.” While Jensen was careful to say that the loss of American lives is not to be celebrated, he insulted our soldiers deeply by saying that their deaths “haven't protected Americans or brought freedom to Iraqis.” Instead, he brushed off their service to our...

A friend’s daughter had freshman orientation at the University of Texas in Austin and there were some shocking questions asked during the days she was there. The students were divided into groups of 50 and standing in a room with the following stands on issues. Strongly agree on one side of the room and strongly disagree on the other side of the room, with different degrees of agreement or disagreement. Here are the questions that were asked. 1. Are Christians judgmental? 2.Do you understand atheism? 3. Would you be uncomfortable with a homosexual roommate? 4. Do you agree with same-sex...

Capital city lets it hang out By Jeremy Schwartz AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, June 11, 2004 So just what does it feel like to get on a bicycle and fly through the city streets without a stitch of clothes on? "It's liberating; it's an adrenaline rush," swears Michael Bluejay, a local bicycling and nudity enthusiast. "It's not an exhibitionism thing, but you're testing the law, and you're also testing people's reaction to it." Like any city with a healthy counterculture, Austin has had its share of spontaneous, guerrilla naked bike rides, often a smallish group of riders ditching the bondage of...

Guidelines intended to supplement rules, curb acts of academic dishonestyBy Erik Rodriguez AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, April 30, 2004 Seeking to curb dishonest behavior and promote integrity in its city-size community, the University of Texas has adopted a campuswide honor code. The 41-word statement, announced Thursday by students and university administrators, implores the campus's 70,000 students, faculty and staff to uphold the university's core values through "integrity, honesty, trust, fairness and respect toward peers and community." It's a first for UT, which now is one of about 100 universities across the nation with a formal honor code. Officials say the code...