A small Tennessee-based newspaper has become the center of a free speech firestorm after it was banned from a grocery store chain and a KFC for allegedly publishing "hate" speech. The Rutherford Reader, a family owned and operated business, runs feature columns of local interest, many of which lately have related to controversy surrounding a mosque being built in Rutherford County.

The columns didn't sit well with at least one patron who complained to several companies that they amounted to hate speech after a guest columnist in April referred to Islam as "evil." One month later, the Reader was dropped from Kroger grocery stores, and soon after from a local KFC. Now the paper is threatening to sue, saying this is a blatant breach of its First Amendment rights.

U. S. Constitution, Amendment I:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The last time I checked, Congress doesn't run grocery stores or fast food restaurants... only banks and automobile manufacturers (and possibly oil companies). ;)

Newspaper, Businesses Feud in Tennessee Over Claims of 'Hate Rhetoric'

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court held Monday that the Constitution's Second Amendment restrains government's ability to significantly limit "the right to keep and bear arms," advancing a recent trend by the John Roberts-led bench to embrace gun rights.

Writing for the court in a case involving restrictive laws in Chicago and one of its suburbs, Justice Samuel Alito said that the Second Amendment right "applies equally to the federal government and the states."

Justices extend gun owner rights nationwide.

Switched article

Gizmodo article

Fox News article

Spyder III Pro Arctic Series Laser

The Onion
May 20, 2010 | ISSUE 46•20

By "checking in," users can earn tangible, real-world rewards. For instance, the Foursquare user with the most points at any given venue earns the designation of "mayor" and can receive discounts, free food, or other prizes that, quite honestly, we're thoroughly disgusted with ourselves for having actually researched.

Foursquare

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! is a protest against Islamists who attempt to restrict freedom of speech by threatening violence against anyone who offends them or Islam. It originally began as a protest against censorship of South Park episode "201" by Comedy Central in response to death threats from radical Islamists. It started with a drawing posted on the Internet on April 20, 2010, the suggestion in it that everybody create a drawing representing Muhammad, the founder of Islam, on May 20, 2010, as a protest against efforts to limit freedom of speech, and the movement in support of that protest.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

The premise of The Vader Project is simple -- simply awesome, that is: 100 of the best underground artists and designers working today rethink the iconic black helmet that defined Darth Vader. What started as a simple idea in 2005 became a record-setting exhibition in 2009. Now for the first time, these unique pieces of art will be available to the public in an auction.

Here's the website.

The Vader Project

In this case, two photos of the day: the Cold War Unicorns Play Set.

PowerPoint has become public enemy number one for many US officers who find themselves battling slide presentations rather than insurgents. Some have gone as far as to declare all-out war on the software after the military command was over-run with mind-numbing 30-slide presentations.

Brigadier General H.R. McMaster went one step further and banned the presentation package when he led an offensive in Tal Afar, Iraq, in 2005. "It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control," he told the New York Times. "Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable."

I'm going to start using the term "bullet-izable" at work.

Afghanistreams

The Federal Communications Commission does not have the legal authority to slap Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. A three-judge panel in Washington, D.C. unanimously tossed out the FCC's August 2008 cease and desist order against Comcast, which had taken measures to slow BitTorrent transfers and had voluntarily ended them earlier that year.

Because the FCC "has failed to tie its assertion" of regulatory authority to any actual law enacted by Congress, the agency does not have the authority to regulate an Internet provider's network management practices, wrote Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Court: FCC has no power to regulate Net neutrality

(CNN) -- Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider managed to make two proton beams collide at high energy Tuesday, marking a "new territory" in physics, according to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

CERN videos

Hadron Collider breakthrough as beams collide