A professor at a public university in West Virginia has forbidden her students from using Fox News as a research source because it’s biased and icky. Seriously. She also said they couldn’t use The Onion (a parody site), but if they had to choose between the two, she’d take The Onion over Fox News.

WOTV, a local NBC affiliate, got the scoop that a syllabus for a political science course at West Liberty University informs students that the two sources are unacceptable. Let me repeat: A professor of a political science course has banned Fox News from the classroom.

A federal judge in North Carolina has banned pro-life license plates as unconstitutional unless the state also offers a pro-choice option. U.S. District Court Judge James Fox ruled on Friday that the “Choose Life” plates violate the First Amendment.

Yes, that is the one having to do with free speech. Oh the irony.

In news that will shock no one, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of North Carolina Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit on behalf of North Carolinians seeking a specialty license plate for the pro-choice crowd. Apparently, amendments were introduced to the legislature and rejected six times to authorize a new plate that would read “Trust Women. Respect Choice,” or “Respect Choice.”

There are many frights a woman can encounter while she’s out on a jog, but few as visually assaulting as potentially bumping into another person running buck booty naked just a few feet away. Things move, you know, and flap and jiggle and jostle about. Yikes. But that horror is a potential reality for residents of the Netherlands, where just any ol’ body can peel out of a T-shirt and sweats and run completely unclothed. A judge has OKed an appeal by a man who is a self-described “naturist,” legally giving citizens the green light to leave their clothes at home and do their daily road work completely nude. "If it was [offensive] then God wouldn't have given us genitals," said Andrew Lyall Pointon, the one-man catalyst behind the whole run-in-the-buff movement. "It is a win for all libertarians and a setback for all conservatives in the country." 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere except Rhode Island, apparently, where Governor Lincoln Chafee has zapped an annual celebration of that pesky “C” word. If you, like an evident number of residents in the Ocean State, tire of all the repeated mentioning of and hoopla about the birth of this Christ guy ‘round this time of year, head on over to their upcoming celebration, where onlookers will light a “holiday tree.” That, in case you’re unsure, is like a Christmas tree 4.0: all the glitz, all the decorations, none of that overt, in-your-face Christianity. Phew. Sweet relief. Finally a place to celebrate Christmas without the cumbersome mentioning of Jesus. Wait. Whaaaaat? 

A Christian group has been effectively banned from Tufts University in Massachusetts. Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF) has lost its recognition as an official campus group because it discriminates by requiring the group leaders to be Christians and adhere to a set of values.

The group is the Tufts chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, which describes itself as “an evangelical campus mission serving students and faculty on college and university campuses nationwide.”

So basically Tufts said that it wasn’t fair to require the leaders of the Christian group to actually be Christians. One has to wonder if they went to every other religiously affiliated group on campus to make sure that none of them were requiring their leaders to follow the tenants of their faiths.

Last summer the town of Middleborough, Massachusetts, voted to ban loud, public swearing by enforcing a 1968 law that would allow police to fine violators a $20 fine. Apparently, teenagers and other young people were deterring customers from businesses by being loud and obnoxious in public areas in front of stores.

This week it was reviewed by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who said Tuesday that the original bylaw violates First Amendment free speech guarantees. She called for the town to take it off the books or amend it.

The tragic attack on the United States Embassy in Libya last week has spurred the natural question asked whenever such events occur: Why? Why were Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American diplomats killed? Why have there been uprisings from the Arab Spring against United States Embassies in Yemen and Egypt? Why are the attackers burning American flags while laughing and dancing in the ash?

The instigator seems to be a little video on YouTube titled, Innocence of Muslims. The horrendously low-budget, incredibly offensive preview mocks Mohammad as a womanizer and pedophile. Understandably, Muslims were offended by the depiction.

Ah, election season. It always brings out the best of the armchair political analyst, the every man and woman with something to contribute to the election time banter. But some witty folks in Hanson, Mass., a small town about 18 miles south of Boston, have generated some buzz during RNC week with a billboard that makes their sentiments about the president quite clear: “Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing its idiot. Obama, One Big Ass Mistake America. Vote Mitt Romney for 2012!”