Free Republic

U.S. prosecutors accused two men in Chicago of plotting with a Pakistani terror group to carry out an attack on a Danish newspaper that in 2005 printed controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Criminal complaints filed by federal prosecutors against David Coleman Headley, a 49-year-old U.S. citizen, and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, a Pakistani native with Canadian citizenship, alleged that the men plotted with members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group in Pakistan to carry out unspecified attacks on the offices of Jyllands-Posten in Denmark. Headley was arrested Oct. 3 as he prepared to board a flight on a planned trip...

Gunslingers twice rejected from family dining establishments First, they were turned away from Fuddruckers, then Idaho Pizza Company, farther out. But here at Shari's, just west of the Idaho State Police building in Meridian, John Carter and Mike Ludlow are finally able to sit down to dinner, black Glocks still strapped to their hips. The evening, up to this point, had certainly taken on a no-room-at-the-inn feel. Their objectives were simple: to sit down in a restaurant with their handguns clearly hanging in hip holsters, and to enjoy dinner with other like-minded and explicitly armed individuals. Carter and Ludlow are...

The Muslim call to prayer was heard on Capitol Hill Friday, Sept. 25 at the “Day of Islamic Unity” in Washington, D.C., but the day before, former Muslims announced that they do not feel safe announcing they have left the faith, even in the United States. According to Nonie Darwish, author of “Now They Call Me Infidel” and one of the founding members of new organization Former Muslims United, there are thousands of apostate Muslims “in hiding” across the U.S. Darwish also said that the number of Muslims leaving Islam is increasing because there is a new generation of Muslim...

After World War II, the U.S. government invested an enormous amount of money in medicine; medical research, medical procedures and medical technologies. This investment made contemporary scientific medicine into American medicine, characterized by a continuing flow of new treatment possibilities. These advances raised all kinds of ethical questions. Some were personal and individual, others were social and political. Both type questions are addressed by a new academic discipline called bioethics. The first attempt to develop a scientific medicine took place in Greece in the 5th century B.C. It was called Hippocratic medicine. Closely linked with this first scientific medicine was...

...The pro-lifers alerted authorities 8 days before Woodstock Stop of their plans to erect a display, and then did so on municipal land, in a "good place opposite to the entrance to the festival," according to an email from 1 of the organizers, Mariusz Dzierzawski. On the 1st day of Woodstock Stop, planners threatened pro-lifers to either remove the display or they would. The pro-lifers pushed back, and planners backed away. Pro-lifers took turns guarding the display during the night, but according to Mariusz: At 3 45 a.m. more than 10 men came with knives and in 2 minutes destroyed...

Wow! Christmas, er, Chanukah came early this year. Back in June I wrote this post castigating pseudo-intellectual comedian Jon Stewart, who on his Daily Show declared that Fox News watchers were “extremists who view the world through s**t-colored glasses.” This is ostensibly in contrast to the moderate, intelligent, tolerant, and enlightened folk who call themselves “liberal” and vote Democrat. Lo and behold, this morning my comment box contained this tirade from “Samantha” from Canada (hence the “humour” spelling):

You can always tell on campus who the conservative professors are. They’re the ones not attempting to indoctrinate their students. When I had the opportunity to teach several courses at a local college a few years back, I became a conspicuous example of this phenomenon. I stuck to the facts but could not prevent students from occasionally politicizing discussions as established practices are not easily abandoned. Their interjections always unnerved me. On one occasion, a young lady replied, in response to a mundane comment from a peer, “Well, I’m not surprised. We’re all Democrats in here with the exception of...

ATLANTA (AP) - It's been two months since 2-year-old Cori pulled the gold stud from her left earlobe, and the piercing is threatening to close as her mother, Maggie Anderson, hunts for a replacement. It's not that the earring was all that rare—but finding the right store has become a quest of Quixotic proportions. Maggie and John Anderson of Chicago vowed four months ago that for one year, they would try to patronize only black-owned businesses. The "Empowerment Experiment" is the reason John had to suffer for hours with a stomach ache and Maggie no longer gets that brand-name lather...

QURAN & TORTURE - QURANIC TORTURE - ISLAMIC TORTURE   Ideology - Saddam Hussein - Bin Laden - Islamic republic of Iran - Al Qaeda - Taliban - Saudi Arabia - "Palestinians" - Hezbollah - Islamic barabarians on Ilan Halimi  IDEOLOGY   Torture in the Quran and early IslamBy James ArlandsonJanuary 08, 2006 Three main purposes of torture are to punish criminals, to extract information, and to exact revenge. It is at least one of these three purposes that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, had in mind when he tortured two criminals: a treasurer who would not disclose where...

Let me begin by reproducing a short-but-powerful article: University of Vermont President Engages in Double-Speak and Double-Standards When It Comes to Disavowing Pro-Intelligent Design Commencement Speaker Ben Stein“In today’s academic double-speak, invitations to far-left revolutionaries and race-baiting Congressmen are apparently ‘inclusive,’ while inviting a speaker who favors free speech on the issue of evolution is beyond the pale,” says Discovery Institute’s John West. today’s academic double-speak, invitations to far-left revolutionaries and race-baiting Congressmen are apparently ‘inclusive,’ while inviting a speaker who favors free speech on the issue of evolution is beyond the pale,” says Discovery Institute’s John West. Apologizing for...

'This isn't like a convenient oversight, this is intentional' President Obama's proposed economic stimulus plan makes a deliberate – and unconstitutional – attempt to censor religious speech and worship on school campuses across the nation, according to a lawyer who argued related cases before the U.S. Supreme Court 20 years ago and won them all. "This isn't like a convenient oversight. This is intentional. This legislation pokes its finger in the eyes of people who hold religious beliefs," Jay Sekulow, chief of the American Center for Law and Justice, told WND today. His was the organization that decades ago argued...

Innumerable studies have demonstrated that our universities are dominated by liberals. One of the most thorough surveys, undertaken by Neil Gross of Harvard and Solon Simmons of George Mason University, was published in September 2007. (The study is available at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org.) Gross and Simmons surveyed 1,417 full-time professors at 927 institutions and confirmed what most objective observers already knew: that the university campus is a bastion of left-wing thought. According to the study, 62 percent of professors are liberal, and only 19 percent are conservative. In 2004, 78 percent voted for John Kerry, only 20 percent for Bush. The fact...

In Toronto, anti-Israel demonstrators yell “You are the brothers of pigs!”, and a protestor complains to his interviewer that “Hitler didn’t do a good job.” In Fort Lauderdale, Palestinian supporters sneer at Jews, “You need a big oven, that’s what you need!” In Amsterdam, the crowd shouts, “Hamas, Hamas! Jews to the gas!” In Paris, the state-owned TV network France-2 broadcasts film of dozens of dead Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid on New Year’s Day. The channel subsequently admits that, in fact, the footage is not from January 1st 2009 but from 2005, and, while the corpses are...

In a country with plenty of serious problems, from a flailing economy to a dysfunctional government, attacking Santa is probably not the cure-all, Anes Alic writes for ISN Security Watch. By Anes Alic in Sarajevo for ISN Security Watch Thanks to a rather absurd, and so far unpopular, move by officials in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, Santa will not being coming down the chimneys of public schools this year. Though a strong tradition for the past half a century, a decision supported by the Islamic community and the nationalist Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) party has banned Santa from his usual pre-New...

In Joseph Smith's day some of the most prominent Americans were disgusted with the creeds of Christendom. Thomas Jefferson said: I [Jefferson] am a real Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the preachers . . of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said or did. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man of which Jesus, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature. . . . It is the speculations of crazy theologians...

Someone tell me again about how the Religion of Peace is tolerant of other religions. Christians who went to observe their Christmas at Nazareth, the birthplace of Jesus, were greeting with a giant banner announcing that Allah has no son right in front of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. Just wait to see what will happen if the gain control of all of the west bank holy sites. Read the full story below:

A dissident Democrat who sought to block the legalization of gay marriage says he's being threatened by gay advocates. Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. of the Bronx, a minister, says the gay community is jamming his office phone and making threats to him and his staff

A proud cleric of the Religion of Peace (Submission) wants Obama to return to Islam and is warning of further bloodshed if he should fail to do so. all religions except for Islam are doomed to be humiliated, no advancements in science, medicine or mathematics have ever been made outside of Islam. Civilization itself couldn’t exist without Islam. I therefore have a few puzzling questions for the good cleric above… While it is true that up until 800 years or ago, Islam stood at the forefront of mathematical, medical, and scientific advancements, why is it that since then their contribution...

In the nearly four weeks since Election Day, gay activists and thousands of their supporters have rallied outside Mormon temples around the country, protesting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' support for California's Proposition 8, the ballot initiative to make same-sex marriage illegal in the Golden State.There have been calls to boycott the annual Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah; some activists have called for a boycott of the entire state of Utah. Protesters have defaced some church buildings, and in Arapaho County, Colo., the Sheriff's Office is investigating a possible hate crime — the torching...

Saudi Arabia: Asian immigrant forced to clean mosques for 'skipping prayers' Riyadh, 18 Nov. (AKI) - A Saudi civil court has ordered an Asian immigrant to clean mosques next month during this year's Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca after religious police caught him skipping Friday prayers several times, Saudi daily al-Watan reports. The man will have to clean five mosques along the highway into Mecca twice daily for eleven days, the court ruled... Earlier this month, a judge ordered a young man to memorise part of the Koran and 40 sayings of the Prophet Mohammed as a...

A funny thing happened on the way to same-sex-marriage rights. Mere days before the first such marriages took place in flinty Connecticut, anything-goes California said no in a massive Election Day plebiscite. What happened? A high turnout of black and Hispanic voters, energized by the presidential candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama, apparently spelled doom for same-sex marriage in California. Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee figures the referendum overturning same-sex-marriage rights would have failed were it not for strong black and Hispanic turnout. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts acknowledges, "African-Americans were crucial to the passage of the bill, supporting it...

Bowling for Columbine did it to the gun culture. Super Size Me did it to fast food. Now The God Who Wasn't There does it to religion. The movie that has been astounding audiences in theaters around the world is now available on a high-quality, feature-packed DVD. Own the taboo-shattering documentary that Newsweek says "irreverently lays out the case that Jesus Christ never existed."

New Delhi (AsiaNews) – A representative of the local government in Orissa estimated that more than 500 people died as a consequence of the anti-Christian pogrom launched by Hindu fundamentalists. He said he personally authorised the cremation of at least 200 bodies....

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed deep disappointment on Friday that California voters approved Prop. 8, the measure banning same-sex marriage, and defended her ally, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, against critics who say his actions contributed to its passage. In a wide-ranging interview with The Chronicle, Pelosi said she believes some voters might not have fully understood the initiative, which overturned a state Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. The measure was approved 52 to 48 percent. "Unfortunately, I think people thought they were making a statement about what their view of same-sex marriage was," the San Francisco Democrat said....

Sacramento, /Nov 4, 2008 12:20 pm (CNA).- In what one Catholic bishop called “a blatant display of religious bigotry and intolerance,” a commercial advocating a “no” vote on Proposition 8 depicts Mormon missionaries invading the homes of a lesbian couple. --------------------------------------------------------- The California ballot’s Proposition 8 would restore the legal definition of marriage to being between one man and one woman. Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court imposed same-sex marriage on the state. In the 60 second commercial, produced by the Courage Campaign Issues Committee, two missionaries knock on a door and say they are from the Church of...

With all due respect, I have to disagree with those who say that Sen. Obama has not achieved anything significant yet. He has quite a few impressive record setting achievements to present to America. He has managed to raise more money for his campaign than any other presidential candidate. $600,000,000 is no small amount, even if it comes from very rich people like George Soros, very rich companies like Goldman Sachs and a stream of unidentifiable foreign contributors. He has managed to gather more foreign votes than American ones. As a Kenyan newspaper said recently, the world has elected Barack...

In a decidedly Democratic town awash in a sea of Barack Obama political signs, William Wedemeyer knows he is going against the political grain with the McCain-Palin sign he proudly displays on the front lawn of his Ann Arbor home. Still, Wedemeyer was taken aback when he recently received a package in the mail addressed to "Joe Six Pack'' and containing a couple of bags of dog feces. He said he'd like a few minutes alone with whoever sent it. "I'd like to have a five-minute talk about First Amendment rights,'' said Wedemeyer, who lives on the 1000 block of...

SAN FRANCISCO -- "Extremists." "Indoctrination." "Liars." "Destroy America." "Blackmail." Fiery words and harsh attacks are punctuating the campaigns surrounding Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex marriage in California. In Bakersfield, supporters and opponents of Prop. 8 scuffle on a street corner. In the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, a 23-year-old is charged with a felony hate crime for attacking a gay man with a "Yes on Prop. 8" lawn sign. On the Internet, terms like "homophobe" and "religious zealot" are fired back and forth on blogs and Web sites. "I've been doing campaigns for years, but I wasn't prepared for...

From Seattle to San Diego, from Burlington, Vermont to New York City, from New Orleans to Texas and Midwest towns like Cleveland, I am hearing hushed admissions of a terrible sin: “Father, I’m not going to vote for Obama.” Then I look at the polls. Nationally and in battleground States, Senator Obama is thrashing Senator McCain. So what gives? Pollsters would tell me it’s all very simple. Anecdotal evidence, like my experience on the road, isn’t really evidence at all. It is not trustworthy because it is not scientific. The divergence between what people are telling me and the polling...

I have heard all this talk about hope and change. I see these folks on TV telling me there will be a new tone. But what I have heard sounds like the old nanny state, with class warfare, but going further. I see the cult of "worship" of Obama and it's kind of frightening to be honest. I hear children sing his praises on youtube. I hear preachers of hate (Louis Farrakhan) calling him the messiah.

Group of McCain supporters marching through the Upper West Side....

This audio clip shows just how intolerant Mark Warner is. "...one of the things you're going to see is a coalition that has just about completely taken over the Republican Party in this State; and if they have their way, they're going to take over the State Government. It's made up of the Christian Coalition. It's made up of the right to lifers. It's made up of the NRA. It's made up of the home schoolers. It's made up of a whole coalition of people that all sorts of different views that I think most of us in this room...

The theory of Darwinian evolution is one of the least rigorous scientific theories in modern memory. It cannot address the mathematical probability problems associated with the development of favorable new structures by means of successive mutations. The fossil record looks nothing like it should look if Darwinian evolution were actually the mechanism for the creation of new species. Scientists have never been able to reproduce the development of a new species in a laboratory, even with the simplest life forms. There are no indications, in the laboratory or the fossil record, of anything other than micro-evolution (change within a...

Councillors have been ordered not to eat during town hall meetings while Muslim colleagues fast during the holy month of Ramadan. All elected members at Left-wing Tower Hamlets Council in East London have been sent an email asking them to follow strict Islamic fasting during September no matter what their faith. As well as restricting food and drink until after sunset, the authority's leaders have decided to reduce the number of meetings throughout the month so they do not clash with the requirements of Ramadan. ...continued

Quoting Scripture banned in library community room 'What next? Will board keep patrons from reading Bible?' Posted: June 10, 2008 9:33 pm Eastern © 2008 WorldNetDaily Quoting from the Bible has been banned in a community room at the public library in Clermont County, Ohio, and now a couple who sought to use the facility for a financial planning seminar have brought a court case.snip...However, when Cathy Vandergriff asked in person to use a meeting room for a financial planning meeting, the conversation with the library employee took an unwelcome turn. "When Mrs. Vandergriff indicated that the seminar would be...

ELDORADO, Texas -- Hours after signing an order releasing FLDS children from state custody, 51st District Judge Barbara Walther arrived at the Schleicher County Courthouse in Eldorado to swear in a grand jury that may be considering indictments related to the polygamous sect. By the end of the day, 18 indictments had been issued, although no details were immediately available. The number was more than the usual; it is more typical for five to 15 indictments to be returned, a court clerk said. Walther arrived at at the Eldorado courthouse at 12:30 p.m., accompanied by two bailiffs and her court...

Lately I've been thinking of four left wing incidents that happened in Maine over the course of two years. I feel I should get them off my chest I think some of them would be interesting and I think others should know about them. The first one involves an incident that took place in the Bangor metro area two years ago. This freind of mine and his family were having trouble. He had difficulty getting by and he worked at Edwards Shop'n'save in Hampden outside Bangor. He was on food stamps and his wife was laid off and couldn't get...

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become...

I have no doubt that the members of the Berkeley City Council have acted with conviction and sincerity in their actions relating to the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting center the past two weeks. I have met many of the members of the council, and honestly believe they are good, honorable people. But that doesn't change the fact that many on this council are, to steal a line from John McCain, agents of intolerance. It was a term coined to describe members of the far right-wing in this country who espouse a moral superiority over all who see the world differently,...

Don't mention Islamic terrorists, says guide By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor Last Updated: 1:43pm GMT 04/02/2008 Whitehall officials have been issued with a guide on how to talk about Islamist terrorists without offending Muslims. One thing they should not do is call them Islamist terrorists but instead ministers and civil servants have been told to refer to them as "criminals". Now the language has been codified into a phrase-book issued to departments. It has been produced by the new Research, Information and Communication Unit, a "hearts and minds" outfit based in the Home Office. The RCU has been set...

Latino group says 'hate speech' infiltrates immigration debate © 2008 The Associated Press WASHINGTON — A national Latino group says it's fighting back against what it considers hate speech in the national immigration debate and elections. National Council of La Raza president Janet Murguia said Thursday her group will pressure candidates and network executives to clamp down on the speech. The group has launched a Web site to counter the speech, http://www.wecanstopthehate.org Some of the phrases the Hispanic group identified include referring to immigrants as invaders and associating them with animals. The group claims immigrants are accused of bringing crime...

Sarkozy warns on intolerant religion By Ben Hall in Paris Published: January 18 2008 19:52 | Last updated: January 18 2008 19:52 The return of intolerant religious faith is the biggest challenge facing the world in the 21st century and as important as climate change, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said on Friday. In a speech to foreign ambassadors in Paris, Mr Sarkozy said the “return of religion in most of our societies” was a reality and that “only sectarians do not see it”. The difficulty, he said, was ensuring that a religious revival did not come in the form...

It has taken a long time to happen, but at last an authoritative and senior establishment figure has pointed to the elephant in the room. Before the Bishop of Rochester's article yesterday in The Sunday Telegraph, the debate about immigration focused almost exclusively on who benefits financially. We have tiptoed around its effect on our society and culture. Even the somewhat belated recognition by ministers that newcomers should show a commitment to British values and demonstrate a knowledge of English tends to be couched in economic terms and ones favourable to the immigrants themselves - that they will get a...

 Clinton Foreign Policy Team Adopts CAIRs Twisted Ideology ...The War of the Spooks Against the Administration Continues, with an Ominous New Twist... By William Mayer December 5, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The Congressional Democrat leadership, not to mention the party's hopefuls in the 2008 presidential campaign, are all assiduously avoiding any public mention of what have become the politically loaded terms, radical Islam, jihadism, the Islamist threat or...perish the thought, Islamofascism. It's not difficult to understand the logic behind that stance. Since opposition to the war in Iraq is an integral, perhaps central component of...

A NINE-YEAR-OLD boy was banned from his school Christmas party because he does not believe in God. Douglas Stewart was asked to stay at home while his classmates were treated to jelly and ice-cream, followed by a visit from Santa and presents. Douglas's mother, Dawn Riddell, was informed that he was unwelcome at the celebration because she had withdrawn him from religious education classes at Cluny Primary School, in Buckie, Banffshire, earlier in the school term. Ms Riddell, 38, said the headteacher, Ian Davidson,had told her that as the youngster had no interest in religion, he could not celebrate the...

Matthew J. Schmitz December 15, 2007 Princeton, NJ After receiving multiple death threats, a Princeton student was beat unconscious last Friday in what appears to be a politically-motivated assault. The attack came after emails saying, "WE WILL KILL YOU," were sent to the officers of a student group that promotes traditional views of marriage and sexual ethics. Francisco Nava '09, suffered serious abrasions, bleeding, and a light concussion after being beat until he lost consciousness this Friday. The attack, which occured within blocks of Princeton's campus, appears to be connected to multiple death threats received by Nava and other officers...

Among the statements made by the teacher: What part of the country has the highest murder rate? The South. What part of the country has the highest rape rate? The South. What part of the country has the highest … church attendance? The South. Oh, wait a minute. You mean there is not a correlation between these things … You know, you go down to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, all these states that are as red as they could possibly be, as right-wing Republican as you could possibly be. When you first present these people with the economic policies of the...

My two daughters came home from school the other day singing along to a popular song that the school's third grade will sing for a holiday ensemble. The song was very familiar, written by Johnny Marks and performed by Brenda Lee in 1959, and went something like "Rockin' around, the holiday tree, have a happy holiday. ..." Wait a minute. "Holiday tree"? Is there such a thing? I corrected my daughters' poor translation of the classic Christmas song, only to be harshly criticized for my ignorance that everybody doesn't celebrate Christmas, so the school had changed the words. Hold on....

The Royal Commonwealth Society is at the centre of an embarrassing row after it barred a well-known Roman Catholic commentator from attacking intolerance towards Christians at its annual carol service. Cristina Odone, the former deputy editor of the New Statesman, was to be one of the "celebrity readers" at the service in St Martin in the Fields church in central London next month, which is attended by diplomats and politicians. But she has pulled out of the event, accusing the society of demonstrating exactly the kind of intolerance she had planned to criticise. "I am incandescent," she said. "I was...

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad." The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gillian Gibbons, the teacher who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious punishment of 40 lashes. "Shame, shame on the U.K.," protesters chanted.