In our upcoming October edition, I discuss "Vanishing Christianity" and contend that when churches become enmeshed in politics, they are reduced to being simply an arm of this or that political movement or party.  From the Washington Post:

CROWN POINT, Ind., Sept. 28 -- Defying a federal law that prohibits U.S. clergy from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, an evangelical Christian minister told his congregation Sunday that voting for Sen. Barack Obama would be evidence of "severe moral schizophrenia."

The Rev. Ron Johnson Jr. told worshipers that the Democratic presidential nominee's positions on abortion and gay partnerships exist "in direct opposition to God's truth as He has revealed it in the Scriptures." Johnson showed slides contrasting the candidates' views but stopped short of endorsing Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain.

Johnson and 32 other pastors across the country set out Sunday to break the rules, hoping to generate a legal battle that will prompt federal courts to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.

The ministers contend they have a constitutional right to advise their worshipers how to vote. As Johnson put it during a break between sermons, "The point that the IRS says you can't do it, I'm saying you're wrong."

The campaign, organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative legal consortium based in Arizona, has gotten the attention of the Internal Revenue Service. The agency, alerted by opponents, pledged to "monitor the situation and take action as appropriate."

Each campaign season brings allegations that a member of the clergy has crossed a line set out in a 1954 amendment to the tax code that says nonprofit, tax-exempt entities may not "participate in, or intervene in . . . any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office."...

Pastors need to leave their politics at the church door and get back to the higher purpose of religion.

Financial institutions on the island of Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia are reporting a dramatic and sudden increase in foreign investments.   Finance Minister Louis Pitmag said today in the city of Gagil outside the capitol of Colonia, "We've seen a one-thousand-fold increase in foreign currency exchange since the recent downturn in the global economy.  Investors are looking for a safe hedge in an uncertain market, and apparently see our currency as their safest investment."   Masons at the local mint have been working around the clock to try to keep up with demand.  Gagil said, "We want investors to know that the Rai is a solid, durable investment.  It is also almost immune from the threat of theft or embezzelment."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHyIrI5iWeM

In a passage from James Bruce, Travels to Discover The Source of the Nile, the intrepid explorer who in Scotland would later become known as "The Abyssinian" recounts some advice he received from Adelan, a local sheik he encountered at Aira, a village 3 1/2 miles from Sennaar: 

"Shekh," said I, "when I pass these Arabs in the square, I hope it will not disoblige you if I converse with some of them out of curiosity?" Adelan. "By no means, as much as you please; but don't let them know where they can find you at Sennaar, or they will be in your house from morning till night, will eat up all your victuals, and then, in return, will cut your throat, if they can meet you upon your journey." 

I returned home to Sennaar, very well pleased with my reception at Aira. I had not seen, since I left Gondar [in Ethiopia], a man so open and frank in his manners, and who spoke, without disguise, what apparently he had in his heart...." 

On the subject of moving alcohol around Tescos I was in there the other afternoon. I was feeling a bit glum but I managed to resist the dubious temptation of a large bottle of own brand value gin for £6.54. ($12.07)
I am not a huge fan of gin but there have been times in my life when it has featured.
For some reason, which sociologists may have followed up, the two Essex new Towns with which I am most familiar were closely associated with the distilling of gin. The Gilbeys gin factory in Harlow and the Gordons gin factory which used to be in Laindon, just outside Basildon. Gordons was much favoured by the Queen Mother; I used to navigate my way to my Aunt’s house (Laindon being rather boring and featureless) by keeping the gin factory to my left. It closed in July 2000 and the gin is now distilled in Scotland.
The Gilbey family were originally wine merchants in Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire who expanded into other fields, including Elsingham Jam and Gilbeys gin with a factory in Harlow. When I was a student in the 70s I had friends in Harlow and got invited to a lot of student and nurses parties.
Everybody knew someone who worked at the gin factory and could usually find someone who could provide drink for the party very, very cheaply. The stuff was smuggled out in numerous ways, in lunch boxes and tea flasks, or a tube, plugged at both ends and wrapped round the waist. It then found its way to the party in whatever bottle the provider had handy. I recall several HP sauce bottles. A milk bottle sealed by a red laboratory bung was not uncommon. I also recall refusing to drink out of said milk bottle and being given a tea cup. Very speakeasy.
But at £6.54 for 700 ml, which is nearly 4 sauce bottles worth, gin is no longer worth the effort of nicking.

Foolish Western tourists, who insisted on travelling to unguarded parts of Muslim lands, simply because they felt like seeing this or that, have after nearly a week been rescued from their local kidanppers,  by German and Italian Special Forces, at great expense.  Egyptian soldiers were much in evidence to welcome the tourists when they landed in Cairo; the official story will remain, no doubt, that it was "the Egyptians and the Sudanese" who were responsible for rescuing the Western hostages. But don't be fooled. It was a Western operation in the important respects.

Western governments know that Muslim regimes, given their dangerous disarray and lack of systematic planing, cannot be counted on to rescue Westerners. They can't even be counted on to re-capture the holiest site in Islam: when rebels  seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca in November 1979, the Saudis proved hapless and helpless, so French troops --  no doubt having first been made to hastily recite the Shehadah before entering the city -- came in and routed the rebels. 

The last time the Egyptians tried a similar large-scale rescue, by having Egyptian "Special Forces" storm a plane, sixty passengers were killed.

The immediate rescuers may have been "Egyptian and Sudanese" as is now being claimed, but the intelligence, the planning, and possibly even a major part of the execution of the plan, must have been by the Italians and Germans.

Western governments know how Egyptian forces dealt with that plane,  or with the attack in Luxor, and must long ago have decided that they will not entrust such rescues to the locals alone. And the other day, somewhere in Egypt or Sudan or Chad, they didn't.

Bath for baby with aluminium bottom.

Lady with large chest for sale.

Air hostess seeks new position on ground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VolOT4cMVGU&feature=related

The Western world should not discourage the deepening divide between Sunni and Shi'a within the Camp of Islam despite the hopes of the Bush Administration that the Shia and Sunni will put aside their differences and settle down to create a unified and prosperous Iraq. Clever propagandists, such as existed during WWII and the Cold War, might even stoke the flames. In this case, it appears Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheik Qaradawi is doing the work for us. Hugh had posted on Qaradawi's comments earlier. This is from the  LATimes:

CAIRO -- A popular Sunni Muslim cleric with a television show and a website that churns out religious edicts and dieting tips agitated centuries-old animosities in the Islamic world recently by referring to Shiite Muslims as heretics seeking to invade Sunni societies.

The bitter, often bloody, divide between the two main branches of Islam has been an undercurrent since the 7th century, but Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi's vitriol comes at a fragile time, when Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt are wary that the predominantly Shiite nations of Iraq and Iran could destabilize the region.

Why deprive yourself of the pleasure of Tina Fey doing imitations of Sarah Palin for four more years? 

Mary writes about the Employment Tribunal. My experience of Employment Tribunals is that they are Byzantine in their operation. Employers complain that they are weighted in favour of the employee, employees that they are weighted in favour of the company. 
Some reform would not go amiss and it might deter actions like this one reported in the Express.
A MUSLIM forklift truck driver who is suing Tesco because he was expected to handle alcohol was accused yesterday of “trying it on”.
Mohammed Ahmed, 32, said he was unaware that the retail giant sold booze.
He added that coming into contact with drink was against his beliefs and he was forced to quit because bosses failed to resolve the dispute.
But furious Tory MP David Davies said: “This is absolutely disgraceful. It seems to be a simple case of someone trying it on. Immediately this man discovered he was expected to do something which was against his beliefs he should have handed in his notice.”
The Monmouth MP added: “He should be told to go and take a running jump because I refuse to accept that he was unaware that he would be expected to handle crates of alcohol.”
An industrial tribunal heard how Mr Ahmed began at Tesco’s distribution depot in Lichfield, Staffordshire, in September last year but left after eight months.
He said that when he realised the job involved alcohol he asked for another role. But he claimed the company did not help him and that one supervisor told him “Do your job or go home” and another said angrily: “Do not take the p***.”
The tribunal in Birmingham also heard last week that he suggested at one stage that he could handle Budweiser beer. I have heard some beers criticised as “near beer” or “like making love in a punt” (ie f***ing near water) but I think it is a bit unkind to single out Budweiser as “acceptable to Islam”.
Mr Ahmed is due to find out this week if his claim for racial discrimination, victimisation and harassment has been successful.
Mr Ahmed was raised in Saudi Arabia where enforcement of Sharia law regarding alcohol is among the harshest in the world.

In case any readers need a reason to vote Conservative - I don't - the Tories intend to tackle employment tribunals, thereby clamping down on hijabbed lawfare. From the London Evening Standard:

Britain's employment tribunal system will be radically overhauled by the next Tory government in a bid to stop "bonkers" rulings against firms, shadow business secretary Alan Duncan signalled today.

Mr Duncan said it was time the 40-year-old system was shaken up to give bosses more flexibility to hire and fire in line with their company's needs.

His call for urgent reform was sparked by the verdict of a tribunal this summer which force a London hair salon to pay £4,000 compensation to a Muslim woman who was refused a job because she wore a headscarf. The woman had been rejected for 25 hairdressing jobs.

In another case this month, a Scottish woman is taking action against Lothian and Borders Police because it refused her a Pc post on the grounds that she had poor eyesight. The woman is claiming discrimination on grounds of disability.

Businesses now feel that the tribunals are so heavily stacked against them that it makes it easy for employees with a grudge to use the system to extract outof-court settlements.

The Confederation of British Industry has found that all firms with fewer than 50 staff now settle every claim despite legal advice that they would win almost half of the cases.

Among the plans being considered by the Tories are moves to impose a fee on any litigant who loses their case. At present there is no deterrent from a claimant lodging a complaint.

Other changes will be aimed at restoring employer confidence in the system by changing statutory dispute resolution procedures. The CBI wants to require all claimants to make clear in writing they are lodging a grievance before the situation can escalate to a tribunal.

Mr Duncan said he believed some small firms felt "intimidated" by the current system, adding: "Some of the recent employment tribunals have been bonkers."

I wrote about the hairdressing case here,  pointing out the aggressive nature of victimhood, and the demand by the Muslim that the Infidel make sacrifices:

Forgoing the opportunity to work in an “urban and edgy” salon would seem a small price to pay for God’s approval. Wouldn’t God prefer Noah to work in a more traditional salon? And shouldn’t Noah accept this sacrifice as part of the deal? It seems not. Noah is a Muslim, and Allah is not God. Islam demands sacrifice, but the sacrifice must be made by the unbeliever, not the Muslim. Desrosiers sacrificed, but not enough. And for Noah? Nothing ventured, everything gained.

Aggressive victimhood is not confined to Muslims - a Christian recently jumped on the gravy train - but it is a tried and tested means of Jihad.

It is good to see the Tories speaking openly about Muslim abuses of our laws, and taking steps - however tentative - to put a stop to them. Perhaps it is more than talk. When I expressed scepticism about their proposals to put a stop to Sharia tribunals, Esmerelda pointed out that they may have something constructive and specific in mind:

As they are talking elsewhere in the article about amendments to the Convention on Human Rights, or more practically under UK legislation our own Human Rights Act, to facilitate the deportation of undesirables my feeling is that they do intend legislation if that proves necessary. Either an amendment to the Arbitration Act 1996 or new legislation.
Dominic Grieves thought that the status of the sharia tribunals was unlawful and could be challenged in a higher court so he may have something of that sort in mind. Legislation is more certain, and once in power a Conservative government could submit a bill. A challenge in the courts would be a second option if they either lost the next election, didn’t carry out this promise once in power, or it is felt that it is too long to wait for the next election. 

Incidentally, the inclusion of the quotation mark before 'bonkers' is very important. The long arm of the law has not yet reached into the bedroom.

From The BBC. Ramadan Day 28.
A suicide attack east of the Algerian capital, Algiers, has killed three people and injured another six, the state news agency has reported.
The attack took place at Dellys, about 100km (60 miles) east of Algiers on Sunday, APS news agency said.
Reports said a suicide car bomber hit a checkpoint there at the end of iftar, the meal that breaks the fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Algeria has suffered regular suicide attacks by rebels linked to al-Qaeda.

Rosh Hashanah the Jewish New Year begins at sunset tonight, a period of 10 days which concludes with Yom Kippur.
I wish you all a good year.
I have had to look this up but I read that Rosh Hashanah, like Passover and Easter in the spring is a moveable feast which can begin between 5^th September 5^th October. It will begin 163 days after the first day of Passover. The beginning of the month and the beginning of the year are also linked in with the new moon.
Easter and Passover are also both linked to the cycle of the moon. I know that in Western Christianity Easter Day will be the Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.
And we can know in advance for centuries ahead when Easter and Passover and Rosh Hashanah and Whitsun will be because we can calculate the phases of the moon and the passage of the sun and we know that God will run them both in their courses and can be trusted to continue to do so. And because the phases of the moon and the journey of the sun are not exactly the same man has used his God given intelligence to arrange a calendar for both so that festivals aligned to a season occur during that season.
Psalm 104 says it nicely.
Thou has made the moon to measure the year and taught the sun where to set.
Muslims have no such security around Ramadan.
The new moon is tonight.
But Muslims are writing in their newspapers that “Ramadan may end on Monday, say Muslim leaders”. According to the Philippines Inquirer
Aleem Omar Pasigan, Mindanao’s oldest mufti (guardian of the House of Opinion, the decision making body of the Muslims), said a reconvened moon-sighting committee will determine whether the holy fasting month is to be 29- or 30-day, through naked eye lunar observation and credible organizational networking with similarly tasked groups and institutions here and abroad.
An English local paper the Burton Mail warns readers this morning that taxis may not be available one day this week.
Depending on when the new moon is sighted, which may be tomorrow or Wednesday morning, taxis will not be available in the morning as many of the drivers will be celebrating Eid. . . People are being advised to check with taxi services the night before if they require the service on any of the days.
Such uncertainty about God's reliability is sad.

Andrew Bostom posted Geert Wilders' speech of the 25th in New York in full here. The following are excerpts:

by Policywatcher:

Oh Henry at the battle of the Bail Out
The Bail Out, the Bail Out
Henry at the battle of the Bail Out
While the banks came tumbling down.

You may talk about your men of Lehmans
You may brag about your men of AIG
There's none like good old Henry
And the battle to keep the bankers free.

Oh Henry at the battle of the Bail Out
The Bail Out, the Bail Out
Henry at the battle of the Bail Out
While the banks came tumbling down. 

Up to the office of the White House
He marched with cash in hand
Go blow that cash shouted Henry
Cause I'm holding seven hundred million grand.

Oh Henry at the battle of the Bail Out
The Bail Out, the Bail Out
Henry at the battle of the Bail Out
While the banks came tumbling down.

They tell me Great God that Henry's pot
Was seven hundred billion strong
And upon his hip was a cheque book
That absolved the bankers from all wrong

Oh Henry at the battle of the Bail Out
The Bail Out, the Bail Out
Henry at the battle of the Bail Out
While the banks came tumbling down.

Yet Bold and Brave he stood
Other people's cash in his hand
Go blow that cash cried Henry
'Cause the deficit can't do you no harm

Oh Henry at the battle of the Bail Out
The Bail Out, the Bail Out
Henry at the battle of the Bail Out
While the banks came tumbling down.

The country's cash began to flow
The mortgages continued to fall
And Henry shouted Glory
While the banks came tumbling down

Jerusalem Post: American elementary and high school textbooks contain many "gross misrepresentations" of Judaism, Christianity and Israel, according to a book-length study released this week by the San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish and Community Research.

"It is shocking to discover that history and geography textbooks widely used in America's elementary and secondary classrooms contain some of the very same inaccuracies about Christianity, Judaism and the Middle East as those [used] in Iran," the IJCR said in a summary of the findings of the five-year study.

In examining the 28 most widely-used history, geography and social studies textbooks in America, researchers Dr. Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra found some 500 instances of "errors, inaccuracies and even propaganda" on these issues. Tens of millions of schoolchildren in all 50 states use the textbooks, according to Tobin.

Among the "outrageous misrepresentations" the study found was "a denial of the Jewish roots of Jesus," as when the textbook The World relates that "Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus."

"Textbooks include negative stereotypes of Jews, Judaism and Israel," the authors write. "For example, textbooks tend to discredit the ties between Jews and the land of Israel."

According to Tobin, "you're much more likely to learn about Jewish terrorism before the founding of Israel [in the textbooks] than about terrorism against Israel since that time."

Among the claims made about Israel in some of the textbooks are that Arab countries never initiated wars against Israel, Arab nations desire peace while Israel does not and that it was Israel that placed Palestinians in refugee camps in Arab lands, not Arab governments. No mention whatsoever was found relating to the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries who were forced out after the establishment of Israel.

In their treatment of Judaism, too, the textbooks showed a negative bias, according to the study. They often expressed a view that "Jews and Judaism are legalistic," and that "Jews care only about the letter of the law and ignore its spirit," the study found. The Jewish God is presented as "stern and warlike," and not compassionate, as is highlighted in other religions. In some instances, Jews are charged with deicide in the killing of Jesus.

The study also found that 18 textbooks used "unscholarly and disparaging 'Old Testament' terminology for the Jewish scriptures when discussing the origins of Judaism."

The study compared language used in describing Jewish and Christian belief with that describing Muslim belief. "The textbooks tend to be critical of Jews and Israel, disrespectful about Christianity, and rather than represent Islam in an objective way, tend to glorify it," says Ybarra.

"Textbook publishers often defer completely to Muslim groups for their content [on Islam] because they want to be sensitive to Muslim concerns," he explained. "So they write that Mohammed is a prophet of God, without the qualifier you should have in a public school that shows you're teaching about religion, rather than teaching religion."

One example among the many cited in the study is in World History: Continuity and Change, in which a glossary entry on the Ten Commandments describes them as "Moral laws Moses claimed to have received from the Hebrew God Yahweh on Mount Sinai."

The same glossary describes the Koran as a "Holy Book of Islam containing revelations received by Muhammad from God" - without a conditional qualifier...

From The Sunday Telegraph this evening. 
Islamic extremists have warned of a wave of reprisals over a controversial book about the Prophet Mohammed after the home of its publisher was firebombed.
Hardline clerics said that further attacks would be "inevitable" if publication of the novel, The Jewel of Medina, goes ahead as planned next month.
. . . the radical cleric Anjem Choudhary said the book was an insult to the Prophet Mohammed's honour, something he said would warrant a "death penalty" under Sharia law. (Choudhary) who lives in Ilford, east London, said he was "not surprised at all" by the attack and warned of possible further reprisals over the book.
"It is clearly stipulated in Muslim law that any kind of attack on his honour carries the death penalty," he said. "People should be aware of the consequences they might face when producing material like this. They should know the depth of feeling it might provoke."
He denied any involvement in the attack but said he "understood" the feelings of the perpetrators. "If the publication goes ahead then I think, inevitably, there will be more attacks like this - this is the thin of the wedge," he said.
Speaking from Lebanon, the radical cleric Omar Bakri, added: "If anybody attacks that man I cannot myself condemn it."
Not that his threats to Paul McCartney, whose concert in Tel Aviv this week seems to have been a success, came to anything. Mind, his daughter Yasmin the pole dancer is said to now be in hiding. But she may not be hiding from Dad. And Dad is now suggesting that the pole dancer is not his daughter but an imposter. Well he has not seen her for ages and he probably never knew what she looked like under the veil anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q8sDA-OUYY

IPT: DALLAS – After two days of background, prosecutors in the Hamas-support trial against five former officials at the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) got to the heart of their case Thursday, presenting evidence that the charity was the fundraising arm of a vast Muslim Brotherhood plan to help Hamas and to infiltrate the United States.

In doing so, they showed how two active national organizations, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and its parent, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) were both tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and to HLF.

The Brotherhood is an 80-year-old Egyptian religious and political movement that seeks to instill Sharia, or Islamic law, as the controlling basis for society throughout the world.

In court papers filed in July, prosecutors spelled out ISNA's and NAIT's connections to the case:

"During the early years of the HLF's operations HLF raised money and supported HAMAS through a bank account it held with ISNA and NAIT," prosecutors wrote earlier this summer. "ISNA checks deposited into the ISNA/NAIT account for the HLF were often made payable to "the Palestinian Mujahideen," the original name for the HAMAS military wing. From that ISNA/NAIT account, the HLF sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to HAMAS leader Mousa Abu Marzook; Nadia Elashi (defendant Ghassan Elashi's cousin and Marzook's wife), Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's Islamic Center of Gaza, the Islamic University, and a number of other individuals associated with HAMAS."

In court Thursday, FBI Agent Lara Burns pointed to translated bank records showing a letter written in Arabic requesting payments to defendant Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu Baker.

ISNA and NAIT have petitioned the court to have their names removed from a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the case. Prosecutors pointed to those bank records and other exhibits in justifying the designation. The original petition was filed in June but U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis has not ruled on the request.

Burns also explained that HLF was part of an alliance of Brotherhood-connected groups in America, called the Palestine Committee, which was created to advance the Hamas agenda in the United States. On page 6 of the committee's original bylaws, the Brotherhood's roots are made clear.

"The Palestine Committee is a specialized committee emanating from the Palestine Section which was formed by the executive office of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Levant countries."

Burns reviewed a chilling internal memorandum from 1991 outlining the committee's ultimate agenda:

"The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack."

Jurors also learned about a lecture by Zeid Noman, who was introduced as an official in the Brotherhood's executive office in America. Noman is listed in the personal phone books of both convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad supporter Sami Al-Arian and Hamas deputy political bureau chief Mousa Abu Marzook. The speech isn't dated, but is believed to date back into the early 1980s. In it, Noman gives a history of the Brotherhood, describing its roots in the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the establishment of other front organizations.

"A front is not formed until after a study and after an exhaustive study. I mean, the last front formed by the Group is the Islamic Association for Palestine. So, Ikhwans [Brothers], this did not come out over night or it was not like the Ikhwans who are in charge went to sleep, dreamed about it and met the next day and decided to do it. Not at all, by God. This went through lengthy meetings and took long discussions."

Noman was asked about a reference to "securing the group" and whether that meant military training. It didn't, he said, explaining that it referred to "outside dangers. For instance, to monitor the suspicious movements on the...., which exist on the American front such as Zionism, Masonry .... etc. Monitoring the suspicious movements or the sides, the government bodies such as the CIA, FBI. ..etc, so that we find out if they are monitoring us, are we not being monitored, how can we get rid of them. That's what is meant by ‘Securing the Group.'"

Federal prosecutor Barry Jonas and Burns then showed the jury videotapes of HLF officials at rallies and other events.

Those tapes show the defendants' stated support for Hamas. Prosecutors say HLF was used to illegally funnel more than $12 million to the terrorist group through a series of Palestinian charities, known as zakat committees. Defense attorneys argue that the HLF was a charity seeking to help needy Palestinian women and children.

All of this evidence was used last year, when jurors were unable to reach unanimous verdicts on most of the counts against the five defendants. Mohamed El-Mezain was acquitted on all counts against him except for a conspiracy to provide material support to Hamas. Prosecutors, seeking to streamline their case, then dropped 29 counts each against defendants Mufid Abdulqader and Abdelrahman Odeh, preserving four conspiracy counts for the retrial....

Geert Wilders has been in the United States, speaking about the Muslim threat, in Western Europe. that is the Jihad conducted primarily by means of demographic conquest. He has been soberly grim as he attempts to explain the situation to Americans, those he now thinks of as the last country that may withstand, in the West, the assault of Islam.

What most depresses is the realization that in about a month the Presidential election is to be held, and neither candidate, nor their claque, their loyalists, appears to be capable of grasping what Wilders describes.

One of those candidates has accepted the idea that Iraq is the "central front" in the war of self-defense against Jihad and believes the "surge" is "working" but to what end, and how "victory" in Iraq should be defined, he never says and cannot say, but simply takes it for granted that we will all understand that it is better that Iraq be left unified and prosperous rather than as a "failed state."

The other candidate tells us that the "central front" in the "war on terror" is not Iraq but rather Afghanistan, and we are supposed to be mightily pleased with his "realism."

The first candidate, however, does recognize that Islam is a threat, a mortal threat, to the non-Islamic world, even if he still uses such words as “extremist” and “radical” and even if he continues, irrationally, to believe that “success” in achieving the stated or hinted-at American goals Iraq can be achieved and that – and here neither he nor any of those who now claim to admit that the “surge has worked” have been asked to explain the most important thing – how that supposed “success” in Iraq will weaken the threat of Jihad in the places that really count, and above all, right now, in the conduct of Jihad in Western Europe, next to Israel, and India, the most immediately threatened part of the Infidel world – when what happens in Iraq, if it stays together and prospers, cannot conceivably mitigate the threat in Europe, will have no effect on the deployment of the Money Weapon, on campaigns of Da’wa, or on the most important weapon – the one which Wilders is consumed by (and one can just imagine what Wilders thinks of the squandering of men, money, matériel, and above all, American attention, to the war in Iraq), that is demographic conquest.

He reminds us that we, focusing idiotically on Iraq, the “central front” for McCain, or on Afghanistan/Pakistan, the “central front” for Obama, ignore these instruments of Jihad, and are seeing the historic heart of the West slip away, slowly but inexorably, while one of the candidates, a military man all his life, appears to believe that “war” is made by military means alone, which is entirely insufficient when the major instruments of Jihad (Money Weapon, Da’wa, demographic conquest) have nothing to do with, and cannot be countered by, military means, and the other candidate, deeply invested in the idea that most conflicts are the result of misunderstandings or of “poverty.” From 9/11/2001 on he has continued to speak, or to prate self-assuredly, about how we must “reach out” to the Muslims rather than to do the more difficult, unpleasant, and indispensable thing, which is to take the contents of Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira seriously, to take Muslim beliefs seriously, and to understand that the division of the universe between Believers and Infidels is central to Islam, that the “struggle” or “Jihad” to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam is taking place wherever Muslims meet any resistance, and even in lands already dominated by Islam and ruled by Muslims, they continue to persecute, humiliate, and sometimes murder non-Muslims (see the southern Sudan, see Pakistan, see Bangladesh, see Iraq, see Egypt, see Indonesia) when it is felt that they are behaving with insufficient submissiveness, or can be blamed for whatever goes wrong, and in Muslim states and societies, a lot goes wrong. And for personal reasons, that candidate cannot possibly recognize Islam is not merely or mainly a religion, but also a politics and a geopolitics, and he cannot – his entire being goes against it – because of his background, be fully trusted by leaders and peoples in Western Europe, who are unclear about where he stands, and whether they can level with him about the nature of the Muslim threat to the legal and political institutions, to the social arrangements, to the individual liberties, to the conduct of art and the enterprise of science, all threatened by the presence of large numbers of Muslims.

That large-scale presence of Muslims has created a situation, both for indigenous non-Muslims, and for other, non-Muslim immigrants (Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Christians from black Africa and the Caribbean, Latin American Catholics) that is more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous, than would be the case without such a large-scale Muslim presence.

Can the leaders of the Western world, those who manage to come to their senses in time, risk leveling about this with someone who bears a Muslim name and had a Muslim father, even if he is, and we know he is, “not a Muslim”? Is not being a Muslim, under the circumstances, sufficient to allay fears? Barack Obama has had every chance to say something about the ideology of Islam; he has had every chance to meet with such famously articulate apostates as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. He has not said a word about the ideology of Islam that gives one confidence; he has made not a single move to meet with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or Wafa Sultan, or Ibn Warraq. In the past, in fact, he took tuition on the Middle East from Rashid Khalidi, a full-time PLO propagandist and professor (with a D.Phil. from the diploma mill for Arabs run out of St. Antony’s by the late Albert Hourani).

Nor has Obama chosen to express his opposition to the war in Iraq as one which is wrong because military invasions, occupations, and transfers of wealth to “solve” problems in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan, the very problems that are caused by Islam itself, does not do a thing to weaken the Camp of Islam. He might have said that. He might have hinted at that. Had he done so, had he asked McCain to explain, for example, just why keeping Iraq together, or keeping Afghanistan together, or keeping Pakistan intact, and pouring two trillion dollars into the overall effort, makes sense, when it might be far better to allow the sectarian, ethnic, and economic divisions or fissures within the Camp of Islam to work their inexorable way, dividing and demoralizing the Camp of Islam, and buying time so that the peoples of Western Europe can rouse themselves (“methinks I see a puissant nation” etc.) and save themselves, merely through new immigration and naturalization policies – policies that would allow for the halting of all Muslim migration, and for expelling those incapable of truthfully swearing allegiance to the Infidel nation-state, its legal and political institutions, and for constantly monitoring those who have obtained citizenship to make sure that they are not engaged in any activities that demonstrate that they perjured themselves when they took that oath, or have had a change of heart – “reverted” to the normal understanding of Islam – and so are no longer capable of being regarded as loyal citizens of any non-Muslim nation-state. It is not wicked, but just, to take the minimum steps necessary to preserve the West, the culture and civilization of Europe.

The last half-century and more of self-flagellation, by too many in the West, must come to an end, and that can happen, if those whose task it is to protect and instruct us were to learn more, or know more, about their own national histories and the history of the West, to which their nations belong, if they were able to describe what makes the Western world superior, in every way, to the world of Islam, and to thereby offer good reasons for defending it,  which does not mean having to defend some transient and debased version of the West, with the untrammeled grotesque version of hyper-capitalism fundamentalist free-marketeers have permitted, nor to defend the indefensible nastiness and crudity and triviality of so much that goes on. We can identify, and celebrate, and defend what is best and what most deserves to last, that is to be preserved, along with the conditions that allow non-Muslim men, Western men, to add -- despite everything -- to that civilizational store.
 

This is from several news sources (h/t Awsti)
Afghanistan's most senior woman police officer has been shot dead by the Taliban at her home in Kandahar.
Malalai Kakar, a mother of six in her late 30s, was ambushed by gunmen as she left her home to drive to work. She was killed by wounds to the head and one of her sons was seriously wounded.
"She died on the spot and her son was badly injured and is in a coma," said a doctor in the city's main hospital.
Mrs Kakar, who was celebrated for her courage, rose to national and international prominence as the most high-profile female police officer in a country known for its male-dominated society and rigid enforcement of conservative Islam.
A spokesman for the Taliban movement, which targets government officials as part of a growing insurgency, said that the assassins were from his group.
"We killed Malalai Kakar," Yousuf Ahmadi told the AFP news agency. "She was our target, and we successfully eliminated our target."
Kakar, who had risen to the rank of Captain, led a team of 10 female officers in Kandahar's department of crimes against women. She had reportedly received numerous death threats. Night letters she and her colleagues called them. "Give up work and stay in your house or else" seemed to be the theme.
She has figured prominently in the national and international media, partly due to a famous episode in which she killed three would-be assassins in a shoot-out - although she said her everyday life involved tackling theft, fights and murders.
Ms Kakar joined Kandahar's police force in 1982, after her father and brothers were also police officers. But when the hard-line Taleban regime took over Afghanistan she was prevented from working.
Two years ago she and other officers were interviewed by the Independent.
Increasingly, women are also turning to the same legal system used to punish them to argue forcefully that the law has been subverted and to demand their rights.
They are encouraged in this by Commander Malalai Kakar, Kandahar's most senior female police officer who leads a team of 10 female officers focusing on women's issues. Commander Kakar has led raids to free wives and daughters held captive by families, and her office has become a refuge for women being threatened and mistreated.
"I have been accused of being rough with husbands who beat up their wives, and I admit this has happened at times. I had become angry," she said. "But what we try to do is apply the law in the right way and the constitution is supposed to protect women's rights."
Commander Kakar, 38, cooks breakfast for her husband ("I recently got him a job in a construction company" ) and six children before going to work. She was a police officer under Afghanistan's successive leftist governments before the Taliban came to power. Like other women she was confined to the house under Islamist rule, fleeing to Pakistan after hearing that they were trying to track her down. "I have been wearing the burqa at work until only eight months ago, I decided then that I must make a decision on this. I have been using the media to tell women about their rights, so I felt that I should make a gesture. I think my male colleagues were quite curious to see what I looked like. I have to say that I have not had any discrimination from them."
The young women’s magazine Marie Claire did a feature on her last year.

As well as being quite unreasonably good looking:

and by all accounts a good egg - just the one, not fifty - Paul Newman could actually act. In fact, I don't recall him in any bad films. But I missed this one. From The Sunday Times:

Marlon Brando was mesmeric in A Streetcar Named Desire and James Dean’s performance in East of Eden was one of the most exciting film debuts ever made. Newman’s first film, The Silver Chalice, was a biblical dud in which he played a slave improbably called Basil, flaunting his tanned calves in a male mini-dress.

I bet he looked better in a male mini-dress than most slaves called Basil. What is a male mini-dress, anyway? Wouldn't it show his tanned thighs as well as his tanned calves?

Time for a cold shower.