Free Republic

A proposed mosque to be built two blocks from the World Trade Center has little support nationwide, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll suggests. According to the new survey out Wednesday, nearly 70 percent of all Americans oppose the controversial plan to build the mosque just blocks away from the solemn site in lower Manhattan while just 29 percent favor the construction. Broken down by party affiliation, 54 percent of Democrats oppose the plans while 82 percent of Republicans disapprove. Meanwhile, 70 percent of independents said they are against the proposal. The poll also showed opposition did not vary widely...

If only the Danish cartoonists had drawn a picture of Dick Cheney shooting ... Well, we have to be careful here, don't we. The way things are today, one could get in trouble for describing a hypothetical, nonexistent drawing. The very mention of the sinful syllables "Danish cartoonists" is sufficient to set 16 cities in Nigeria aflame. So let's just put it like this: If a Danish cartoonist had drawn an image of Cheney unloading a blunderbuss at (THAT PARTICULAR PERSON. YOU KNOW. HIM.), the press might finally have a cartoon they could show. White House correspondents would put it...

Feds Unseal Documents & Pictures in Accused Terrorist Case MEMPHIS - Never-before seen snap shots inside the Memphis apartment of an accused terrorist. Feds say Mahmoud Maawad had a bookcase of flying manuals and books, a stack of aviation DVDs, a pilot's uniform in the closet and even a bomber jacket. We showed the pictures to a former neighbor of Maawad. "It does surprise me. I was like who is this person how come I didn't know this person." The feds also say Maawad ordered pilot's merchandise and books from sporty's pilot shop on the internet. The internet receipts show...

On Monday, the Badger Herald Editorial Board crossed a line they were already dangerously close to. It was bad seeing a Herald redrawing of what it called the “most offensive” of the Danish cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed with a bomb for a turban, but to now see an actual blown-up reprint has gone too far. Among the arguments the editors made justifying their reprint were “free speech,” “news-worthiness,” and a desire not to be “gatekeepers” guided by “prude censorship.” They simply don’t get it. Cartoonists may have a legal right to free expression. The problem exists in a newspaper not...

Muslims who want to live under the Islamic Sharia law were told Wednesday to get out of Australia as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown. Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state and...

White churches are the most frequent targets - and crime is often the motive. ATLANTA - Three torched churches were discovered in Alabama Tuesday - the latest in a string of suspected arsons that damaged five churches in Bibb County. Investigators have not discovered any apparent motives. Four of the five churches in Bibb County - three of which burned to the ground - were white Baptist congregations. The other was black. Nationally, such patterns are not unusual. Most arson targets are white congregations, whereas mosques and synagogues get hit in much smaller numbers. In a country with more than...

In case you weren't paying attention, since yesterday there's been a very public war of words between the Senate's two most hyped members, Barack Obama and John McCain, over lobbying reform. Rather then tell the entire backstory, which you can read here and here, I'll make three points. 1. McCain's lobbying reform bill is incredibly weak compared to the Democrats "Honest Leadership Act." That's why only two Senate Democrats, Joe Lieberman and Bill Nelson, have signed on. 2. As Josh Marshall noted today, it was McCain who assured anxious Republicans that his Indian Affairs Committee investigation of Jack Abramoff wouldn't...

The editors of The Dominion Post and The Press have apologised for the offence caused after they published pictures of the prophet Mohammed. A group of 17 news executives and religious leaders met in Wellington this afternoon over the fall-out from the publication of caricatures first published in Denmark. The two newspaper editors told the meeting they did not set out to insult or offend Muslims, and both have apologised. However, they have not resiled from the decision to publish the cartoons in the first place. Federation of Islamic Associations president Javad Khan says the meeting has opened up dialogue...

Roots of Dispute LONDON, Feb. 7 — As Islamic protests grew against the publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad, a small but vocal Muslim immigrant organization responded with a drawing on its Web site of Hitler in bed with Anne Frank. "Write this one in your diary, Anne," Hitler was shown as saying. The intent, said the group, the Arab European League, was "to use our right to artistic expression," just as the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten did last September when it published 12 cartoons showing Muhammad, several of them satiric. "Europe has its sacred cows, even if they're not...

Well, we have heard it. They have made it crystal clear. The West will be destroyed, and they will sit on the throne on top of the world. Yep, that's the future I envision all right. MIDI - TOP OF THE WORLD Wacky Muslims, what's come over you...you have warned us of the things you're gonna do Much time you spend, we note, doing things to your goat...do you have time to make your dreams come true? You are so upset by a cartoon...Mr. Mushroom Cloud may visit Mecca soon If you're ready for war, you don't know what's in...

Muslim protesters infuriated by cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad raised the diplomatic stakes last night as Iran's best-selling newspaper announced it would retaliate by running images satirising the Holocaust. The decision by the rightwing Hamshari daily to launch an international competition to find the most suitable caricatures came as demonstrators hurled firebombs and stones at the Danish embassy in Tehran and the Iranian government imposed a formal trade ban on Danish imports. Last night mobs were attempting to storm the Danish compound.(...)

Sweden: Muhammad cartoon contest initiated Playing with fire? Online paper representing radical rightist party invites readers to participate in competition, expresses support for Danish newspaper that touched off controversy Roee Nahmias Playing with fire in Sweden? A radical rightist online newspaper in Sweden has joined the cartoon fray Tuesday after initiating a prophet Muhammad cartoon contest. The paper, Sd-Kuriren, justified its decision by saying it supports freedom of expression and backs the Danish newspaper that touched off the controversy by publishing Muhammad cartoons. "Freedom of expression in Sweden outweighs the Islamic ban regarding prophet Muhammad," the paper's editor wrote. The...

The editorial staff of the alternative weekly New York Press walked out today, en masse, after the paper's publishers backed down from printing the Danish cartoons that have become the center of a global free-speech fight. Editor-in-Chief Harry Siegel emails, on behalf of the editorial staff: New York Press, like so many other publications, has suborned its own professed principles. For all the talk of freedom of speech, only the New York Sun locally and two other papers nationally have mustered the minimal courage needed to print simple and not especially offensive editorial cartoons that have been used as a...