Free Republic

Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last month Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard; today Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi will speak by video to a conference at Columbia University that his regime is cosponsoring. (Columbia won't answer questions about how much funding it got from Libya or what implied strings were attached.) Then there's Yale, which for three weeks has refused to make any comment or defense beyond a vague 144-word statement about its decision to admit Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi--a former ambassador-at-large of the murderous Afghan Taliban--as a special student. The three backers of the foundation that,...

Three eco-terrorists were sentenced Friday to federal prison for a series of firebombings that put towns in the Sierra foothills on edge. Ryan Daniel Lewis, 22, the alleged leader of the group, was sentenced to six years, and two sisters - Eva Rose Holland, 26, and Lili Marie Holland, 21 - were each handed two-year prison terms. Prosecutors alleged Lewis recruited the Holland sisters and Jeremiah Dean Colcleasure, 24, on Christmas Eve 2004 to help him burn down two unoccupied upscale homes in Lincoln, a Sacramento suburb, in the name of the Earth Liberation Front. The FBI calls the ELF...

The blogosphere is now an essential part of any candidate’s campaign for any office higher than Dog Catcher in Dover, Delaware. So, when I saw my name mentioned in BlogAsheville, I replied. A group of almost entirely “progressives,” as they label themselves, invited me to meet them in a face-to-face, unscripted encounter. I had no delusions about the political beliefs of the group. As one of them wrote in advance of our get-together last Sunday, “we expect to beat you like a bass drum, come November.” That quote’s from memory and may not be precise. But it captures the spirit...

NBC's anti-Christian program The Book of Daniel has been cancelled! Your efforts, combined with those of hundreds of thousands of other AFA Online supporters, had an impact. NBC's decision to pull The Book of Daniel shows the power of the pocketbook. NBC didn't want to eat their economic losses. Had NBC not had to eat millions of dollars each time it aired, NBC would have kept The Book of Daniel on the air. Because of your efforts, the sponsors dropped the program. NBC then decided it didn't want to continue the fight. Even an impassioned plea by Daniel's producer Jack...

NBC's "The Book of Daniel" may have launched to great controversy and hoopla. But, today, the show ended with a whimper – pulled unceremoniously from NBC's Friday night schedule, effective immediately, with no more of an announcement than an entry on an NBC blog by creator Jack Kenny.

NEW YORK -- A martini-sipping wife, a pot-peddling daughter, a gay son mourning his twin's death, an aging mother battling Alzheimer's disease--and his own habit of popping painkillers and literally seeing Jesus. Daniel Webster, a beleaguered Episcopal priest, clearly has issues. And the American Family Association definitely has issues with him. The Tupelo, Miss.-based Christian family advocacy group unleashed an e-mail protest blitz, mobilizing its 3 million members effectively to try to defrock the fictional Webster and get his new "anti-Christian" television series, "The Book of Daniel," excommunicated from the NBC schedule.

The Book of Daniel was aired by NBC on Friday night. Several NBC affiliates did not carry the program including those in Beaumont, TX; Tupelo, MS; Meridian, MS, Little Rock, AR; and Terre Haute, IN. In addition, NBC lost several million dollars when advertisers pulled out. NBC ended up selling the time for pennies on the dollar. WBIR in Knoxville invited ministers in to see the program. Here are some of their comments. Rev. Brian Kearns, minister of Lighthouse Christian Church: “I think it’s very demeaning to Christianity. If this is their view of Christianity, it’s going to be as...

It's no secret NBC has become a laughing stock of the airwaves, and "The Book of Daniel" is just one more reason to shamelessly snicker. The one-hour Friday night show, which airs at 10 p.m., is the floundering network's attempt to compete with "Desperate Housewives" and other deviously clever dramas that have surfaced over the last couple of seasons. However, "Daniel" is one book that needs to be shredded after watching last Friday's two-hour premiere. (The show debuted poorly, attracting 9 million viewers, to finish third in its network slot, according to Nielsen Media Research.) It's sad, really, that creator...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - NBC's limited-run series "The Book of Daniel" earned its share of advance scrutiny for its portrayals of contemporary men and women of the cloth, but that didn't translate to a large turnout for the drama's premiere Friday. The network had better news on Thursday with the debut of its remodeled 8-10 p.m. comedy block anchored by "My Name Is Earl." ABC also had a pulse for a change that night thanks to the return of its summer sensation "Dancing With the Stars." "Daniel," which stars Aidan Quinn as a conflicted Episcopalian priest grappling with modern-day...

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (Jan. 5) - Two NBC affiliates in Arkansas and Indiana are turning the page on upcoming series "The Book of Daniel," which has been drawing criticism for its portrayal of Christianity. The series depicts an Episcopalian minister, played by Aidan Quinn, struggling with an addiction to Vicodin, among other problems in his diocese. Jesus is actually a character on the series, depicted in imagined conversations with the minister. Last month, the conservative American Family Assn. began calling on affiliates and advertisers to bail out of "Daniel." Many stations have been flooded with e-mails and calls from viewers...

Hundreds of offended East Tennessee Christians are asking WBIR, Channel 10, not to air a controversial NBC drama premiering Friday that features Jesus as a character. Station management said it will decide today whether to air "The Book of Daniel," an hourlong soap opera that depicts a pill-popping minister who has conversations with Jesus. On Wednesday, NBC affiliate WTWO in Terre Haute, Ind., was the first station in the country to announce it will not be airing "Daniel." WBIR has received more than 350 e-mails after commercials began airing in recent weeks. Jeff Lee, WBIR general manager, said the overwhelming...

Terrorism usually comes like a bolt from the blue, but not so the four explosions yesterday in London, killing at least 37. Some British Islamist leaders have been warning for months that such violence was imminent. An Islamist British group called Al-Muhajiroun (Arabic: “the immigrants”) for some time publicly stated that the United Kingdom was immune from Islamist violence because of its acceptable behavior. In an April 2004 conversation, the 24-year-old head of Al-Muhajiroun’s Luton branch, Sayful Islam, announced that he supports Osama Bin Laden “100 percent” in the quest to achieve “the worldwide domination of Islam.” Toward this end,...

Palestinians Who Cling to Israelby Daniel PipesNew York Sun July 6, 2005 Israel's interior minister recently declared that after their release from long jail sentences, four Palestinian Arabs convicted of helping with suicide bombings in 2002, killing 35, will be expelled from Israel. They would, the Associated Press reported, "lose the privileges of permanent residents, such as social security and health insurance."The minister's decision raises a question: Why would Palestinians engaged in destroying the state of Israel feel punished by losing the right to live in Israel? One would expect that anti-Israel terrorists would prefer to live in the Palestinian...

  Report One of FourThe Resurrection of Pastor Daniel EkechukwuBy David Kirkwood Soon after it occurred in December of 2001, I heard the report of Nigerian pastor Daniel Ekechukwu’s resurrection via e-mail from my friend, pastor David K. Aboderin, of Lagos, Nigeria. I also heard about this miracle from my friend Brent Regis, son-in-law of Reinhard Bonnke. Bonnke had been preaching at the church where Ekechukwu was resurrected a short time before it occurred. Brent told me at that time some of the details of pastor Ekechukwu’s experience in hell. Some months after that, I also watched the video documentary...

An American citizen trained by the Saudi government in Virginia will stand trial for plotting to assassinate the president of the United States and yet the media focus on allegations of torture? For a free people in the age of terrorism, what is the proper balance between civil liberties and national security? This debate wracks every Western country. Looking at the United States, the "united we stand" solidarity that followed September 11, 2001, lasted just some months, after which a much deeper divide emerged as conservatives proved far more profoundly affected by the atrocities than did liberals. The result has...

OK, so this is a repeat title from a post last year. But since the folks at "Comittee to protect Bloggers" have made a day for two Iranian bloggewrs in jail, the least that I can do is to put a plug for them. Youy can learn the details and take action by visiting this site. And for those that would poooh poooh this, let me remind them that Chavez is pal with the Mullahs and that the Hebraica was raided while Chavez was in Teheran (!¡*?¿$&). It is very hard not to be paranoid in Venezuela this days when...

An eye-opening examination of worldwide trends that should lead communal leaders and others to re-consider their stances and policies Anti-Semitism may seem to be a static, unchanging phenomenon, but in fact the obsessive hatred of Jews has a history that goes back millennia and continues to evolve. Developments since World War II and the Holocaust have been especially fast-paced and portentous. Here are four of the most significant shifts: From Right to Left:... From Christian to Muslim:... From religious to secular:...The conflation of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism:...

Antisemitism may seem to be a static, unchanging phenomenon, but in fact the obsessive hatred of Jews has a history that goes back millennia and continues to evolve. Developments since World War II and the Holocaust have been especially fast-paced and portentous. Here are four of the most significant shifts: • From Right to Left: For centuries, antisemitism was the hallmark of the Right and merely episodic on the Left. To take the ultimate examples of these trends, Stalin’s Judeophobia was peripheral to his monstrous project but Hitler’s was central to his. Even a decade ago, this pattern still basically...

Pipes criticises Middle East leadersLateline - Australian Broadcasting Corporation February 9, 2005 TONY JONES: Joining us now is Dr Daniel Pipes, the Director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum. 18 months ago, President Bush appointed him to the board of the US Institute for Peace. Dr Pipes was a scathing critic of Yasser Arafat, and he recently claimed that the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is potentially a far more formidable enemy and remains intent on eliminating Israel. Daniel Pipes, thanks for joining us.DANIEL PIPES (DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST FORUM): Thank you, Tony.TONY JONES: It's time, isn't it, to put aside...

Managua, Jan 10 (EFE).- Nicaraguans overwhelmingly reject the new political accord between the Liberals and the Sandinistas to ratify the constitutional reforms they are pushing that reduce the president's power, according to a poll released Monday. The telephone survey by M&R Consultores, conducted Saturday among 620 people of both sexes aged 16-65 and published Monday in the daily La Prensa, shows that 77 percent of the public does not approve of the pact between the country's two largest political forces.