Free Republic

Finally, yes finally, a government of a major world power no less, recognizes that the holy war being waged by Muslims in China and all around the world is rooted in Islamic text and teachings. The Quran incites to jihad terror much the way Mein Kampf incites to hate and murder.

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office has gone to the dogs. Well, at least its rugs have. [snip]

Soldier fulfilling promise to deliver Afghani rug to president BY BECKY MALKOVICH, THE SOUTHERN U.S. Army Lt. Col. Grayson Gile of Marion holds up a rug that he received while serving in Afghanistan as a member of the Combined Joint Special Operation Task Force. The men that gave it to him asked if he could get the rug to President Bush, who is depicted in the center of the rug.(STEVE JAHNKE/THE SOUTHERN) MARION - Grayson Gile may have completed his broader mission in Afghanistan as a member of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, but he returned stateside with...

Six animal rights advocates, arrested in December during a protest at Wawayanda State Park on the final day of the 2005 black bear hunt, went on trial Tuesday in Vernon Municipal Court. The six -- Lynda Smith, Elenor Hoffman, William Crain, Catherine McCartney, Kristen Sondej and David Stewart -- are all charged with obstruction for allegedly jumping a plastic fence that park police had set up to corral demonstrators, then sitting down on the pavement before being led away in handcuffs. The trial began after all six pleaded not guilty before Municipal Court Judge C. William Bowkley Jr. The state...

I'd like to thank Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for his observation that the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews was just a "myth." You just don't see world leaders expressing themselves so honestly anymore — not about the Holocaust but about their own anti-Semitism and the real character of their regimes. But since Iran's president has raised the subject of "myths," why stop with the Holocaust? Let's talk about Iran. Let's start with the myth that Iran is an Islamic "democracy" and that Ahmadinejad was democratically elected. Sure he was elected — after all the Iranian reformers had their newspapers shut...

Iranians raising money for Katrina victimsThe Best Iranian Ice Cream by Akbar Mashti

After speaking with soldiers, sailors, and civilians who collectively staff the Joint Task Force - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on my recent visit to that base, I left convinced that abuse definitely exists at the detention facilities. But not the slander and hyperbole about alleged mistreatment of the unlawful combatants confined there that we've all heard. There is far more serious abuse: the relentless, merciless attacks on American servicemen and women by these same terrorist thugs. Many of the orange jumpsuit-clad detainees fight their captors at every opportunity. They attack guards whenever the soldiers enter their cells, trying to reach up...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - James Traficant, a flamboyant former congressman, lost an appeal on Monday seeking U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) review of his conviction on corruption charges and of his eight-year prison sentence. Reuters Photo Traficant, a Democrat from Ohio and a member of the House of Representatives from 1985 until his expulsion in 2002, urged the court to hear the appeal "to remedy the constitutional violations that undermine his conviction and sentence." Traficant, who represented a district based in Youngstown, was known for using the phrase "beam me up" during his colorful and controversial one-minute daily speeches...

THE US House of Representatives thinks that Pakistani rug-makers are more deserving of American aid than Turkish rug-makers. Without ceremony, Turkey was removed from the list of beneficiaries in a trade Bill before it was passed on Wednesday; an act of legislative sabotage that lifts the lid on the furious horse-trading surrounding the build-up to war with Iraq. The bazaar economics which lavished up to $500,000 (£312,000) of aid on Pakistan, but denied Turkey a cent, has nothing to do with textiles and everything to do with rounding up both into President Bush’s “coalition of the willing”. Not for nothing...