Free Republic

This might be a good time for investors to pick up a copy of the Koran. Stocks and other investments that adhere to sharia, or Islamic law -- though hardly unscathed -- have fared better than the broader market. That's thanks largely to rules that forbid investing in collateralized debt obligations and other toxic assets that have caused the carnage in conventional financial circles. A big part of the appeal of Islamic finance is its simplicity. Speculation is taboo under sharia, and there's a ban on assessing interest because the Prophet Mohammed said debts must be repaid in the amount...

The new pastor at Barack Obama's church says his predecessor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was in a sense crucified just like Jesus Christ at the hands of the Romans. According to Fox News, Rev. Otis Moss III titled his Easter sunrise sermon "How to Handle a Public Lynching," focusing mainly on the media firestorm over the Chicago church attended by the Democratic presidential candidate. Moss reportedly did not specify Wright by name, but told the congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ that Wright, who has delivered sermons in which he likened the U.S. to the Ku Klux Klan and...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U2 lead singer and activist Bono visited the Pentagon to discuss Africa and the fight against global poverty with U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, representatives of the two men said on Wednesday. Among the topics at the 20-minute meeting on Tuesday afternoon were U.S. plans to set up a new U.S. military command for Africa, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. "I think this was a chance for two people who care about the problems facing the continent of Africa to talk about their shared interest in solving those problems," Morrell said of the meeting that was...

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Two days after naming its mascot "PorkChop," the Philadelphia Phillies' new Triple-A affiliate abruptly dropped the moniker after receiving complaints from Hispanics that it was offensive. The Lehigh Valley IronPigs, whose mascot is a large, furry pig, had selected PorkChop from more than 7,300 fan submissions. The team, which begins play in 2008, announced Monday that the mascot will be named "Ferrous" instead. General Manager Kurt Landes said he heard from several Hispanics who said PorkChop was derogatory.

DENNIS TOWNSHIP - A single mother said the school district overreacted by suspending her 7-year-old son for drawing a smiling stick figure shooting another smiling stick figure with a gun. Shirley McDevitt said her son, Kyle Walker, was suspended Thursday for one day after school officials found out about the drawing, sketched on a piece of paper. Kyle attends second grade at the Dennis Township Primary School in Cape May County. McDevitt, of Belleplain, said she was told he was suspended because of the school's zero-tolerance policy for guns. "Are they abusing the zero-tolerance law? I'm sure it's a judgment...

"DENNIS TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A second-grader's drawing of a stick figure shooting a gun earned him a one-day school suspension. Kyle Walker, 7, was suspended last week for violating Dennis Township Primary School's zero-tolerance policy on guns, the boy's mother, Shirley McDevitt, told The Press of Atlantic City." " A photocopy of the picture provided by McDevitt showed two stick figures with one pointing a crude-looking gun at the other, the newspaper said. What appeared to be the word "me" was written above the shooter, with another name scribbled above the other figure." "Kyle drew other pictures, including a skateboarder,...

At the new mainstream voice of the Democratic Party, Jewish lesbian “sallykohn” explains: Daily Kos: Why I Have A Little Crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. No, it’s not a joke. And no, this is not an unusual sentiment at Daily Kos. I know I’m a Jewish lesbian and he’d probably have me killed. But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon... Okay, I admit it. Part of it is that he just looks cuddly. Possibly cuddly enough to turn me straight. I think he kind of looks like Kermit the Frog. Sort of....

A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity". As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction. All of them "preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality". Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public...

Republican presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney has cited the social welfare network of the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group as a role model the U.S. should copy to help promote "goodness" and "freedom" around the world. Sections of Hezbollah's social welfare network, including schools and camps, are routinely used by the terror group to indoctrinate students in anti-Israel propaganda, instruct in military tactics and promote Shiite Islamic beliefs, including the waging of a final, apocalyptic world battle against "evil." The former Massachusetts governor this weekend was asked during a campaign stop in Iowa whether he would renew President Bush's $50 million...

AMSTERDAM, 27/04/07 - A school in Amsterdam has halted lessons on rural life because the Islamic children refused to talk about pigs. Reporting this, Alderman Lodewijk Asscher said he wants to take "tough measures." Subsidies for all kinds of dubious groups must stop and parents of unruly children penalised financially. Asscher told newspaper De Volkskrant: "A primary school in Amsterdam-Noord has decided no longer to teach about living on a farm. Various pupils began to demolish the classroom when the pig came up for discussion. Apparently it has gone that far. These children, 9, 10 years old, have not been...

Pakistani minister defies fatwa over hug By IANS Wednesday April 11, 11:24 AM Islamabad, April 11 (IANS) Pakistan Tourism Minister Nilofar Bakhtiar has defied the country's Islamic clergy which issued a decree against her for hugging a male coach after para-jumping, by saying she did it for a 'good cause'. Bakhtiar told a TV channel that she had 'jumped' to collect funds for the victims of the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, and would do it again for a good cause. 'We don't need to be intimidated by these people,' Bakhtiar said. The chief cleric of Islamabad's Lal Masjid last...

A convicted felon barred from carrying a firearm broke the law when he started toting a BB gun, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled. John Fleming Jr. couldn't legally carry a gun because of two felony assault convictions, so he packed a BB gun instead. Ramsey County prosecutors decided Fleming was splitting hairs and charged him with unlawful possession of a firearm. Fleming won when a Ramsey County District judge threw out the charge, ruling the statute doesn't apply to BB guns. But the appeals court ruled prosecutors could again take aim at the two-time felon. The appellate court...

All Things Considered, August 14, 2006 · In an effort to reduce the stabbings and slashings that stem from the country's "booze and blade" culture, Scotland is cracking down on the sale of swords, machetes, meat cleavers and other knifes. Knife violence accounts for almost half of the homicides in Scotland each year.

The United States will allocate $US10 million ($13 million) dollars for the Lebanese army so that it can move into the border zone near Israel currently controlled by the Hezbollah militia, the State Department said overnight. The aid is meant to help Lebanon modernise its force by purchasing spare parts for armoured personnel carriers and other vehicles needed to patrol the zone, as well communications equipment, Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman said. Congress must still approve the assistance, which is aimed at helping Lebanon work with an international force for the zone backed Friday in Washington by US...

PETA asks prosecutor to study fish deaths BY MARIA BARAN News-Democrat EDWARDSVILLE - A national animal-rights organization petitioned the state's attorney Wednesday to criminally investigate the recent death of several fish after the draining of Leclaire Lake. Kristin DeJournett, cruelty caseworker for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said allowing the fish to suffocate from lack of water constitutes a violation of the Illinois Humane Care for Animals Act, which states, "No person or owner may beat, cruelly treat, torment, starve, overwork or otherwise abuse any animal." Madison County State's Attorney William Mudge was out of the office...

CARBONDALE - Adrienne Davis graduated from Carbondale's Roaring Fork High School in 1999. She is now a teacher at Edwards Elementary School where in a few years all the classes will be taught in both Spanish and English. Starting this fall, all kindergarten classes will be dual language. And as those classes move up, eventually the entire school will be bilingual. It is a solution that is working in Edwards, Davis said, where formerly about 80 percent of the kids in the elementary school were Hispanic. "It is definitely a positive thing," Davis said. "The kids are all playing together....

KRASNODAR, Russia, July 24, (IslamOnline.net) - The United States has agreed to grant citizenship to 7,000 Ahiska Muslims who will be settled in Pennsylvania, reported a Russian newspaper on Friday, July 23. The first 11-strong batch of the Ahiska Muslims, living in the Russian province of Krasnodar, left for Geneva on Thursday, July 22, before flying to Philadelphia, reported Novie Izvestia. It added that the Muslims would be housed near the grand mosque in Philadelphia. The paper recalled that Krasnodar governor Alexander Tkachev was notified of the American decision on February 15. Izvestia said the Russian government does not treat...

<p>Let the record show that it took the MSM less than a day to float the possibility that Dick Cheney intentionally shot Harry Whittington.</p> <p>And who better to surmise that the Vice-President might have been trying to bump off his buddy than Ron Reagan, that primetime speaker at the Kerry convention who moonlights as an MSNBC "political analyst"?</p>

A Contra Costa County water supplier has laid eight miles of pipe across rural grasslands to prevent California red-legged frogs from drying out and dying in the blistering summer heat. The $163,000 project delivers water to 16 artificial ponds, breaking new ground in helping the threatened frog species celebrated in Mark Twain's story ``The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.''

CHICAGO, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- The largest annual Kwanzaa celebration of African-American culture in the United States began Monday at Malcolm X College in Chicago. Ayoka Samuels, a consultant for the college's Kwanzaa committee said a major misconception is that about the seven-day festival is that it's meant to be "the black Christmas," the Chicago Sun-Times said. Samuels said many who celebrate it do substitute it for Christmas, and if gifts are exchanged, they must be either educational or a symbol of African heritage. Maulana Ron Karenga, now a professor of black studies at California State University, Long Beach, created...

Bush's Approval Rating Slips In New Hampshire More Voters Would Choose Kerry, Edwards POSTED: 10:58 am EST February 19, 2004 DURHAM, N.H. -- A new poll shows President George W. Bush's approval ratings in New Hampshire have fallen to their lowest levels since his election. In a University of New Hampshire Granite State Poll conducted this week, 47 percent of New Hampshire adults said they approve of the job Bush is doing as president, 48 percent disapprove and 5 percent are neutral. That's down from a high of 71 percent in April and down 9 percentage points since October. Looking...