Free Republic

September 17, 2006 A HARDLINE cleric linked to Somalia's powerful Islamist movement has called for Muslims to "hunt down" and kill Pope Benedict XVI for his controversial comments about Islam. Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin urged Muslims to find the pontiff and punish him for insulting the Prophet Mohammed and Allah in a speech that he said was as offensive as author Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. "We urge you Muslims wherever you are to hunt down the Pope for his barbaric statements as you have pursued Salman Rushdie, the enemy of Allah who offended our religion," he said in...

WASHINGTON — The recent sharp drop in the global price of crude oil could mark the start of a massive sell-off that returns gasoline prices to lows not seen since the late 1990s — perhaps as low as $1.15 a gallon. "All the hurricane flags are flying" in oil markets, said Philip Verleger, a noted energy consultant who was a lone voice several years ago in warning that oil prices would soar. Now, he says, they appear to be poised for a dramatic plunge. Crude-oil prices have fallen about $14, or roughly 17 percent, from their July 14 peak of...

Men are 'smarter than women' Thursday, September 14, 2006 Ladies. It's a fact. You can argue until you're blue in the face but as of today men are officially smarter than women! New research carried out by a man (we must mention) shows that men's IQs are almost four points higher than women's. British researcher, John Philippe Rushton, controversially suggests his new findings may be the reason why there are so few women at the top in workplaces. Rushton previously sparked controversy by suggesting intelligence is influenced by race. Rushton says the 'glass ceiling' effect is probably caused by women's...

Mullett headed TV bounty hunter Duane 'Dog' Chapman and two of his co-stars were arrested yesterday in Hawaii. Chapman, his son Leland and Timothy Chapman were brought into custody on suspicion of illegal detention and conspiracy in a kidnapping dating back three years. US Marshal Mark Hanohano says the arrest "went down without incident". Mona K. Wood, publicist for Chapman's show Dog The Bounty Hunter, insists he will be vindicated, "He arrests the bad guys - and he is definitely not one of them." The charges date back to Chapman's apprehension of Max Factor heir Andrew Luster in Puerto Villarta,...

HONOLULU (AP) — TV reality star Duane "Dog" Chapman and two co-stars on his show were arrested early Thursday in Hawaii on charges of illegal detention and conspiracy in an alleged kidnapping three years ago in Mexico, U.S. Marshals said. Chapman, 53, his son Leland Chapman, and associate Timothy Chapman were taken into custody in an operation involving 15 officers, said Mark Hanohano, U.S. Marshal for the district of Hawaii. They did not resist arrest, he said. "All three were very compliant," Hanohano said. "It went down without incident." Mona K. Wood, a publicist for the star of the popular...

An outbreak of E. coli in eight U.S. states has killed one person and sickened dozens of others, prompting federal health officials to warn consumers nationwide not to eat bagged fresh spinach. Food and Drug Administration and state officials do not know the cause of the outbreak, although raw, packaged spinach appears likely. "We're advising people not to eat it," said Dr. David Acheson of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. Eight states were reporting a total of 50 cases of E. coli, Acheson said Thursday. The death occurred in Wisconsin, where 20 people were reported ill,...

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned that Europe and the United States must unite to head off a "war of civilizations" arising from a nuclear-armed Middle East. In an opinion column in the Washington Post, the renowned foreign policy expert said the potential for a "global catastrophe" dwarfed lingering transatlantic mistrust left over from the Iraq war. "A common Atlantic policy backed by moderate Arab states must become a top priority, no matter how pessimistic previous experience with such projects leaves one," Kissinger wrote. "The debate sparked by the Iraq war over American rashness vs. European escapism is...

El Mundo reports that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez stated that he believes the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were orchastrated by George W. Bush. In a public speech, Chavez commented that "...the hypothesis is that it was the same North American imperial power that planned and conducted these terrible terrorist acts against its own people and against citizens of the whole world. For what? In order to justify the immediate aggression that they unleashed against Afghanistan and Iraq, and the threats against all of us." Chavez made reference to theories put forth in a state television appearance by journalist and humorist...

It's been more than three years since the Dixie Chicks sparked a media firestorm by announcing they were "ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas." Now, the embattled country stars are reigniting the blaze with a highly controversial documentary featuring lead singer Natalie Maines calling President Bush a "dumb f---." According to Entertainment Weekly, one memorable scene from "Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing" shows the singers watching a news report on President Bush's reaction to their infamous on-stage comment. In the report, Bush says ''the Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind,'' adding, ''they shouldn't...

CAMP PENDLETON – A prosecutor said Tuesday that a Marine accused of kidnapping and killing an Iraqi civilian in April while deployed should not face the death penalty. The recommendation came after the testimony of three investigators in Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr.'s Article 32 hearing – the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding or preliminary hearing. A decision on whether Shumate will face court martial is to come later. During brief testimony in the hearing Tuesday, an investigator testified Shumate became emotional, grabbed a map and wrote a statement on the back of it while she interviewed...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A nurse returning home from work discovered an intruder in her home and strangled him during a struggle, police said. Susan Kuhnhausen, 51, ran to a neighbor's house Wednesday night to report the intruder, identified as Edward Dalton Haffey, 59, whose body was found by police. An autopsy by the Multnomah County medical examiner determined the cause of death to be strangulation, said Officer Catherine Kent, a spokeswoman for the Portland Police Bureau. Homicide detectives were investigating, Kent said.

Activists protesting radical Islam conducted a mock hanging of Osama bin Laden across the street from a mosque on the eve of the anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks. With a crowd of about 100 people shouting "Remember 9-11!" and "No more Jihad!" two men on the back of a pickup truck Sunday slipped a noose around the neck of a dummy wearing a bin Laden mask and strung it up, while the crowd pelted the effigy with shoes. The protest near the King Fahd Mosque was organized by the United American Committee, a group that says it promotes awareness...

Men are smarter than women, according to a controversial new study that adds another cinder to the fiery debate over whether gender impacts general intelligence. "For 100 years there's been a consensus among psychologists that there is no sex difference in intelligence," said J. Philippe Rushton, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Recent studies, however, have raised questions about the validity of this claim, he said. One such study showed that men have larger brains than women, a 100 gram difference after correcting for body size. Rushton found similar results in a study of gender and brain...