Free Republic

Teacher declares doll hanging from noose in Watchung is racist: WATCHUNG — The owner of a Halloween costume store here said a window display depicting a man hanging from a noose will be removed after a Scotch Plains woman complained, saying it was appalling and racist. Delores Jackson, a fifth-grade teacher at the Charles H. Skillman Elementary School in Plainfield, said the display she saw Sunday in the window at the Halloween Scene store in the Blue Star Shopping Center on Route 22 West depicted a stuffed doll resembling a black man, wearing a labor suit and hanging from a...

Historians depict Gov. Hiram Johnson's successful 1911 crusade to give voters the power to make laws via initiatives as a triumph of idealism. Ninety-five years later, initiatives inspire far more cynicism than idealism among voters – and the batch on the Nov. 7 ballot shows why, according to Union-Tribune editorial writer Chris Reed. He breaks the 13 measures down into three categories. The good and pretty good PROPOSITION 1A advances the novel notion that the 6 percent state sales tax on gasoline should pay for transportation projects, as voters decided via Proposition 42 in 2002, and not be a kitty...

See for example this thread first. "Don't beat your meat in Ramadan." No wonder the Moose-limbs look wan! No sex, and no drink That must be, I think why they want all us infidels *gone*!

An Ohio auto dealership, declaring that "terrorists are fair game," is promising to launch "a jihad in the automarket" with an Islamic-themed promotional campaign, despite several radio stations' rejection of its ad for being "insensitive." Keith Dennis of Dennis Mitsubishi in Columbus, who appears in the ad, promises prospective customers that the salesforce "will be wearing burqas all weekend long." One of the featured vehicles "can comfortably seat up to 12 jihadists in the back," he says. "Our prices are lower than the evildoers' every day. Just ask the pope!" the ad continues. "Friday is fatwa Friday, with free...

It was one of those made-to-order moments: On September 12, on the women’s show, “The View,” carried by ABC, co-host, comedienne, and political activist Rosie O’Donnell compared “radical Christianity” to the fanatical Islamic beliefs that produced over 3,000 dead innocents on September 11, 2001. “Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America,” judged O’Donnell, “where we have a separation of church and state. We’re a democracy here.” There is too much wrong with O’Donnell’s statement to address it in its totality, including the misunderstanding of the place of religion in our Constitution and...

Washington - US Muslim groups criticised US President George W Bush on Thursday for calling a foiled plot to blow up airplanes part of a "war with Islamic fascists," saying the term could inflame anti-Muslim tensions. US officials have said the plot, thwarted by Britain, to blow up several aircraft over the Atlantic bore many of the hallmarks of al-Qaeda. "We believe this is an ill-advised term and we believe that it is counterproductive to associate Islam or Muslims with fascism," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group. Restraint"We ought to take advantage of...

BATMAN, Turkey For 17-year- old Derya, a waif-like woman, the order to kill herself came from an uncle and was delivered in a text message to her cellphone. "You have blackened our name," it read. "Kill yourself and clean our shame or we will kill you first." Derya said her crime was to fall for a boy she met at school. She knew the risks: Her aunt had been killed by her grandfather for seeing a boy. But after being cloistered and veiled for most of her life, she said, she felt free for the first time and wanted to...

Days after a leading Somali cleric declared the death penalty for Muslims who failed to pray five times a day, militiamen loyal to the Islamic court cracked down on band music by raiding a wedding party in Mogadishu, confiscating instruments and beating a woman. Twenty heavily armed men fired shots in the air and took musical instruments from the band performing in a home in Somalia's capital city yesterday. According to the Brisbane Courier-Mail, the band entertaining guests at the wedding party was told by the gunmen it was performing "satanic" music contrary to the Quran. Mogadishu was taken over...

Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the jizya (poor-due), then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. -          Qu’ran, 9:5   If the above might look familiar, it’s known as Ayat al-Sayf, or the Verse of the Sword. And unfortunately, it’s quite a significant passage in governing the relationship between Muslims and the rest of the world.   Obviously, as is true with any passage from the...

  Cover of the Insurgent (image altered for propriety). A Catholic activist organization has written to Oregon's governor and state lawmakers to protest a University of Oregon student newspaper for having published cartoons showing Jesus Christ naked and with an erection. In its March edition, the Insurgent, an "alternative" student paper on the Eugene, Ore., campus printed 12 hand-drawn cartoons of Jesus as a response to rival paper the Commentator having published the controversial cartoons of Muhammad originally published in Europe that sparked Muslim riots worldwide. The Insurgent claimed it published the drawings to "provoke dialogue." William Donohue, president of...

AYHAN SURUCU was so angry when his sister started to wear make-up and date German men that he put a gun to her head at a bus stop and killed her. The 18-year-old Turk fired three bullets into her brain and calmly walked away. Boys at a nearby school, attended mainly by the children of immigrant Muslim families, cheered and applauded when news of the murder reached them. The so-called “honour killing” of Hatun Surucu, 23, last year shocked Germany and sparked intense debate about a conservative Muslim immigrant community at odds with a secular society. That anger was rekindled...

PHOENIX ¡ª State election officials are scrambling to interpret a ruling that Arizonans do not need to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote with a federal registration form. Issued Monday by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the ruling amounts to a potential loophole in Proposition 200, the voter-approved initiative that made Arizona the first state in the nation to require proof of citizenship for voter registration. The ruling says "Arizona may not refuse to register individuals to vote in a federal election for failing to provide supplemental proof of citizenship," as required under Prop. 200. In a...

Do you remember Chuck Quackenbush? He was the insurance commissioner who lost his job because he used fines that he collected from insurance companies to buy television commercials to promote his political career. It was a huge scandal at the time, and Quackenbush, who was a colleague of mine in the Assembly, left his job in disgrace, having been run out of office by Legislative Democrats for abusing state money. Another boondoggle is brewing, only this time Legislative Democrats are strangely silent. A few years ago, Rob Reiner (“Meathead” from the old television series, “All in the Family”) sponsored an...

A Muslim teenager was stabbed 46 times in an "honour killing" after getting engaged to a girl whose father had decided should marry someone else, a jury heard yesterday. Chomar Ali, 44, a Bangladeshi, had organised an arranged marriage for his only daughter, Manna Begum, 19, and was furious when she not only started going out with Arash Ghorbani-Zarin, an Iranian, but became pregnant by him. Ali confined his daughter to her room, where she slashed her wrists and had to be taken to hospital. On her return home she remained defiant and she and her boyfriend insisted they should...

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New School Calendar Omits Muslim Holidays TOWSON, Md. (AP) - A school calendar that omits two Muslim holidays has been presented to the Baltimore County board of education. Muslim activists say they will continue to press school officials to amend the calendar. But school officials say adding the Muslim holidays would set a precedent for other religions and ethnic groups. Baltimore County superintendent Joe Hairston said tonight that school officials have to look at a much broader view than just one community, and be sensitive to three-quarters of a million people. But Muslim leader Bash Pharoan says the calendar "feels...

TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) -- A car bomb exploded near the police headquarters in the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Thursday, killing at least 10 people, witnesses said. Twenty cars were set ablaze after the massive blast, and at least 10 charred bodies could be scene in the street. Police Lt. Sha'alan Allawi said the bomber drove a vehicle into a parking lot park inside the police building and detonated it. Tikrit, located 80 miles north of the Iraqi capital, is former dictator Saddam Hussein's hometown.

This weekend, Aspen will play host to a slew of the nation’s top experts in the fields of terrorism, the environment, global climate change and the political climate. This may come as no surprise to most of you but the physical state of the world at this moment SUCKS. Global warming, famine, war, bad water, bad air, environmental destruction, children sick from pollution, breast cancer on the rise with no real solutions on the horizon, threats of terrorist attacks looming each day, corporate polluters and looters being given free reign to pollute as they please. In case you haven’t noticed,...

Washington will prop up the House of Saud - for now Saudi Arabia has descended into a cauldron of hatreds and divisions Mai Yamani Saturday June 5, 2004 The Guardian (UK) Long before the latest violence erupted, Saudi Arabia's immaculately suited spokesmen were out on the stump, telling anyone who would listen that the situation in the country was completely under control. They're now doing it again - only this time nobody believes them. All the signs suggest that in the face of mounting violence and international pressure, the House of Saud has sunk into terminal denial and paralysis. Convinced...

[Me]?  this just in.  You still in the mood for posting at fr?  If not, not to worry. Best, [Her] Yes, Ma'am. Now sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Justin Jones Thursday, September 11, 2003 916-444-2278 or jj@racialprivacy.org FORMER GOP GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE BILL SIMON JOINS WARD CONNERLY TO ENDORSE PROP 54 SACRAMENTO, CALIF.Ward Connerly, chairman of the Yes on Proposition 54 campaign, announced today that former Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon has endorsed Prop 54. Mr. Simon released the following statement of endorsement: Prop 54 will accomplish exactly what Californians deserve: a color-blind government that will no longer require its citizens...