In the battle of creepiness, the Church of Scientology scored a decisive win against Anonymous, the shady group of internet hackers and hooligans who have spent the past few months protesting the controversial religion. Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly reports that Gregg Housh, a member of Anonymous, will be arraigned in Boston Municipal Court on charges of harassment brought by the Church of Scientology. Anonymous has become well known for protesting in Guy Fawkes masks, inspired......

Star Simpson, the MIT student whose light-up T-shirt caused a panic when she wore it to Logan Airport, appeared in court today. She asked for the charges to be dropped because the shirt was a form of free speech and that she had worn it days before without it causing a problem. Here's the update from the AP/WBZ: Thomas Dwyer Jr., a lawyer for Simpson, said his client didn't think her shirt would scare anyone.......

-- 18 protesters were arrested during yesterday's Veterans Day ceremony at City Hall Plaza. They were members of Veterans for Peace, an organization of former soldiers opposed to the Iraq War. The American Legion had placed the group in the rear of the Veterans Day parade and told them that they could not carry signs protesting the war. The Veterans for Peace responded by blocking the official ceremony podium with gags in their mouths and......

Officials at Tufts University moved to uphold the first amendment after student-faculty groups tried to block racist, unsigned pieces from appearing in campus media. It all started when The Primary Source, a conservative outlet, published "O Come All Ye Black Folk" and a piece about violence in Islam. You can guess where they were going with those. Whoever wrote the pieces didn't have the cojones to put their name or names on it. The Committee......

Just over a year ago (in June 2006) the ACLU threatened the MBTA with a lawsuit, alleging that their unwritten policy against amateur photography on the nation's oldest subway system was unconstitutional. Specifically the ACLU asserted that it was a violation of the first amendment rights (free speech specifically, though a fair argument could be made for freedom of press, we challenge you to give us a legitimate application for freedom of religion.) The......

The Phoenix posted the tenth annual Muzzle Awards. The listing, compiled by Media Nation blogger Dan Kennedy, showcases the offenses against free speech by local individuals and organizations. An apropos way to celebrate liberty for the Fourth of July. He gets the Muzzle this year by stifling the free speech of former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami by refusing to provide state-police protection to the visiting former head of state. Boston Police stepped up to provide......

--The last thing we need, especially with a presidential election coming up, is for someone to add fuel to the flag-burning debate. On Thursday, someone in Natick destroyed a solar-powered trash container by stuffing it with American flags and setting them on fire. The person who did it must be trying to offend as many people as possible - the left by wrecking an environmental device, and the right by burning flags. We are all......

With the sun out, the temperatures high, one can only think of one thing-- what's going on in the World of the -ist's? Bostonist dug deep to uncover Barack Obama's unpaid parking tickets, their Governor's latest ethical lapse, and a plagarizing sports writer. Chicagoist had everything in twos: two views on having the Olympics, losing two members of their Super Bowl team, and two music festivals. DCist put their noses in legal books as......

John DePetro, famous and fired for calling former gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross a "fat lesbian" during his WRKO show, has found a place that will take him. He will be part of the mid-morning lineup at WRPO-AM in East Providence They're already advertising him with a gigantic banner on their home page. In an interesting side note, DePetro starts on Valentine's Day. Somehow, DePetro and romance don't exactly go together. The Herald notes that the......

Our dear old Supreme Judicial Court, whose decisions so frequently bring ire to Americans outside the Commonwealth borders (and, to a lesser degree, to those within it), won a little victory yesterday, much to the chagrin of journalists everywhere. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take an appeal from the SJC by the Boston Globe, after the paper lost a libel suit and had to pay $1.68 million to a doctor implicated in the death......

Bostonist wrote a while back about a mysterious boat that turned up in an empty city-owned property near Somerville City Hall. Turns out the yacht belonged to Frankie Santangelo, a city employee who violated ethics rules by using city property for personal use. Santangelo was reprimanded by the city, and the brief scandal subsided for the time being. Until this weekend, that is. According to the Somerville News, during Sunday's Memorial Day parade through......

There’s nothing like a little (*ahem*) VB roaming around in Beacon Hill to get you going in the morning. Nothing like it, except for Bob Lobel’s sports commentary on WBZ 4’s Sports Final. Well, OK, there’s something a bit more idiotic about those live on location spots that VB has used to spice up Fox 25’s morning newscast. Bostonist has been known on a number of occasions to sit in front of the TV and......

Bostonist has a bit of an obsession with the McCloskey story Make Way for Ducklings and was happy to see the ducklings waddling along Beacon Hill for Mother’s Day. Other news this weekend was also foul, from the scuffle at Faneuil Hall to the real goosestomper in Attelboro. Bostonist is all for free speech, but we can’t stand animal cruelty. The Boston Globe reported in an absurd juxtoposition this morning that a Rhode Island man......