Free Republic

THE daughter of hate cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed is a POLE DANCER, The Sun can reveal. Busty Yasmin Fostok, 27, leads a secret life after rebelling against her fanatical Muslim dad — who rants against Western “depravity”. She has performed in London pole dancing bars and gyrated half-naked in cages at club nights. And she admitted: “I’m willing to go topless if the venue is right.” Yasmin, a party-loving girl who quit the family home in North London four years ago, added: “I don’t get on with my dad.” Bakri, 50 — in Lebanon after being kicked out of Britain...

After a nightmare evening trapped between two egos, Sabine Durrant set out to discover when and why men started boring for Britain Recently, at a friend's 40th birthday dinner, I sat between an advertising executive who expounded on his son's musical talent and academic promise, and a commercial lawyer who was keen to drum home the possessive in the phrase "my team". 'There seem to be genuinely primitive pairings between vivacious, chatty women and men who are the opposite' By pudding, I wanted to push back my chair and introduce them. "John, meet Josh. You've a lot in common. He's...

Conservative bloggers and talk radio hosts have noticed the rash of gaffes — some goofy, some more serious — emanating from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama lately, but the mainstream media’s coverage of Obama’s bouts with foot-in-mouth disease has been sparse, to say the least. In the case of one of Obama’s more recent gaffes, however, a CNN reporter did Obama the favor of editing the gaffe right out of his story. On Monday, Obama weirdly talked about honoring the nation’s “unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience today.” In a report...

The names of over 31,000 American scientists that reject the theory of anthropogenic global warming are to be revealed Monday. ... this will occur at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

One of the nine Afghans who won the right to live in Britain after hijacking a plane is now working at Heathrow airport as a cleaner, it emerged last night. Nazamuddin Mohammidy was one of a group who took over an internal Afghan flight in 2000 and landed it in the UK, where they threatened to kill those on board unless they were granted asylum. Now it has emerged Mohammidy, 34, was recently arrested while driving a car around the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport. Police suspected he was an unlicensed cab driver but were stunned when checks revealed...

When the U.S. Navy deploys a battle fleet on exercises, it takes the security of its aircraft carriers very seriously indeed. At least a dozen warships provide a physical guard while the technical wizardry of the world's only military superpower offers an invisible shield to detect and deter any intruders. That is the theory. Or, rather, was the theory. Uninvited guest: A Chinese Song Class submarine, like the one that sufaced by the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close...

A KEY suspect in the alleged plot to mount an attack in Germany on the scale of 9/11 is on the run in Britain, German security officials disclosed yesterday. Scotland Yard counterterrorism detectives are hunting the man, who escaped from Germany after a plot to explode bombs at Frankfurt airport and a US airbase. The collective power of the bombs would have exceeded those in Madrid and London in 2004 and 2005. The plot was foiled on September 4 when three men were arrested at a rented holiday apartment near the central German town of Kassel. Police recovered chemicals and...

Prominent politicians, religious groups and some alumni were outraged yesterday at Columbia University's decision to allow the accused terrorist and Holocaust denier to spew his hate on campus. Even as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad backed off his insensitive plans to visit Ground Zero, critics blasted Columbia for inviting him to speak on Monday. Abe Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called Ahmadinejad's planned visit "a perversion of the concept of freedom of speech." "There's no requirement, no moral imperative, to give him a platform that he will not give in Tehran," Foxman said of Ahmadinejad - who has declared...

Public libraries are stocking hundreds of Islamic books by advocates of "holy war", with many glorifying acts of terrorism, a new report claims. Council taxpayers' money has been spent on the books, with one library stocking works by the convicted preachers Abu Hamza and Abdullah al-Faisal. An investigation by a leading think-tank found extremist literature at six libraries, three in the London area, two in the Midlands and one in the North. It raises fears that public libraries could inadvertently fuel the radicalisation of young Muslims. The recent case of Dhiren Barot, who was jailed for 30 years for plotting...

Steve Jobs, Apple’s showman nonpareil, provided the first public glimpse of the iPhone last week — gorgeous, feature-laden and pricey. While following the master magician’s gestures, it was easy to overlook a most disappointing aspect: like its slimmer iPod siblings, the iPhone’s music-playing function will be limited by factory-installed “crippleware.” If “crippleware” seems an unduly harsh description, it balances the euphemistic names that the industry uses for copy protection. Apple officially calls its own standard “FairPlay,” but fair it is not. The term “crippleware” comes from the plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit, Melanie Tucker v. Apple Computer Inc., that is...

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources. Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout. “As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources....

Encouraging signs from the Wikipedia project, where co-founder and überpedian Jimmy Wales has acknowledged there are real quality problems with the online work. Criticism of the project from within the inner sanctum has been very rare so far, although fellow co-founder Larry Sanger, who is no longer associated with the project, pleaded with the management to improve its content by befriending, and not alienating (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25), established sources of expertise. (i.e., people who know what they're talking about.) Meanwhile, criticism from outside the Wikipedia camp has been rebuffed with a ferocious blend of irrationality and vigor that's almost unprecedented in our...