Free Republic

By Mr. Curmudgeon:Abdullha Ismail is dead. As one of 10,000 angry Islamic protestors attending a Lahore, Pakistan, American hate-fest, Ismail joined in the obligatory U.S. flag burning. He was standing too close to the flaming emblem of the land I love. "Witnesses said he had complained of feeling unwell after the smoke from a U.S. flag burnt at the rally," said the International Herald Tribune. He died shortly after he was admitted to that city's Mayo Hospital.The late Ismail, like many of his fellow Muslims, was angry at Western encroachments on his "civilization." There is little doubt anti-colonial anger is...

You can't burn a Koran in a crowded theater, and Supreme CourtJustice Stephen Breyer suggests that to placate foreign extremists, Koran burning might be banned everywhere else in America too. In an interview aired Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America,"Justice Breyer, who is on tour promoting his new book, averred that in the Internet age, speech traditionally protected by the First Amendment may have to be weighed against its global impact. George Stephanopoulos asked the justice about the canceled Sept. 11 Koran burning proposed by Pastor Terry Jones, and whether the fact that people riot in Afghanistan over what happens...

A Muslim activist and lawyer in the U.K. is calling on Muslims worldwide to burn U.S. flags outside American embassies on Sept. 11. The activist, according to CBS news, is considered a radical, and says his “international burn the Stars and Stripes Day” is in “direct retaliation” against pastor Terry Jones and his Florida church’s plan to burn the Koran on the same day. The man calling for the mass burning is Anjem Choudary, former leader of the banned hardline Islamic group Islam4UK. According to CBS, Choudary regularly organizes demonstrations in Britain calling for the implementation of Islamic law. The...

Hi gang, nice to be back. Unfortunately, as I describe further in today’s column, it’s like I never left. In the column, I suggest we can assess the silliness of the rationalizations of the Ground Zero mosque by applying them to Pastor Terry Jones’s similarly provocative Koran-burning escapade — entirely legal, but a gratuitously offensive thing to do.But that doesn’t begin to cover how vapid the commentary continues to be, particularly from the commander-in-chief — as President Obama took pains to remind us he is in an interview by George Stephanopoulos this morning.According to Obama, Jones’s “stunt” (a fair...