Armed Liberal at Winds of Change notes the latest "experts say" headline at the Washington Post

Strike on Iran Would Roil Oil Markets, Experts Say

Some more no-shit-Sherlock headlines we'll never see:

Saudi Arabia was responsible for 9/11

Gun control and building youth centers in troubled urban neighborhoods does not prevent crime

The film industry is awfully boring lately. Most movies aren't worth seeing

Irrational hatred of all members of the opposing political party leads to headaches, ulcers and lost elections

Women and men are from the same planet. Both like sex and companionship.

George Bush won the 2000 election. Al Gore lost

Are these European right-wing groups racist?

Charles at LGF has deep misgivings about these parties. Pamela at Atlas Shrugs believes that they're fighting the scrouge of the Islamization of Europe.

My take: Racism is defined as "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race"

Political supremacists, whether we call them White supremacists, fascists, Muslim supremacists, Nazis or whatever - all share one feature; They believe that the people they consider to be "inferior" (dhimmis, subhumans, mud people, etc.) should be punished, exiled or even killed for what they are, not what they do.

Muslim supremacists believe that non-Muslims, or Muslims who follow the rules of a government that's "insufficiently Islamic" should be punished for what they are, not what they do. White supremacists believe that people who have non-European heritage should be punished for the qualities they were born with - not for any crimes they may have committed, or for any criminal or enemy organizations they may have joined.

Therefore, if group A promotes the idea that people should be exiled or thrown in jail for their heritage or for the religion, race or tribe they were born into, then group A is racist, supremacist and (at the very least) leaning towards fascism. Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Stormfront belong in that category.

If group B promotes the idea that people should be exiled or thrown in jail for criminal acts that they have committed, for criminal organization they have voluntarily joined, or for politically-oriented enemy organizations they have joined in a time of war, then group B is not racist, supremacist, or leaning towards fascism. Groups like the US army, most Western governments and most democratic institutions fall in that category.

People from group B usually oppose people from group A on the principle that punishing or exiling people based on what they are, not on what they have done, is anti-democracy and anti-equality. That's why we oppose violent and 'non violent' supremacist groups.

If people want to decide whether these European groups fall into category A or B, they should probably look at the evidence on both sides.

Phyllis Chesler interviews the man who helped expose the Al Dura hoax, Philippe Karsenty:

Philippe Karsenty is tall, handsome, charming--and very determined; un homme, tres serieux (a very serious gentleman).

Karsenty, a 41 year-old former stockbroker, media analyst, and founder of Media-Ratings, came to America on a lecture and media tour shortly after his interim victory in a Paris courtroom in the matter of the Al Dura Hoax. The state owned TV channel, France 2, sued him for defamation when Karsenty insisted that their airing of a brief (55-59 second) portion of the (27 minutes of raw footage) constituted a Blood Libel. The staged event took place on September 30, 2000 at the Netzarim Junction and became the Face that launched far more than a thousand Islamist riots, anti-Israeli petitions, and successful and intercepted Palestinian suicide bombings.

This past September, almost seven years later, a Paris judge finally ordered that France 2 turn over the film to the court by November 14th. The trial itself is set for February 27th of 2008.

Karsenty recently visited me one afternoon and he returned two days later to speak at a gathering to honor him at my home. Among those whom I invited were a direct descendent of Captain Alfred Dreyfus (my friend and neighbor, Gilles Dreyfus) and yes, I took a photo of us all. After all, the Al Dura case exemplifies how powerful a single photo can be.

In my opinion, Karsenty is a hero who would not allow me to introduce him as one. Karsenty interrupted me each time he thought I was about to do so. He said that he is "just doing the right thing and standing up for the truth" --the implication being that anyone can do so.

He is right, but only a handful of people do so--or continue to do so once they find themselves on trial and very much alone. Thus, I believe that Karsenty and I are both correct. He IS a hero but mainly because such heroes are scarce; they are forced to "work alone" as they assume their bone-crushing historical burden. Organizations do not support them.

Indeed, organizations sometimes obstruct and sabotage their own heroes. Such collective bodies do not intervene even when it might be in their national or organizational interest to do so. What they do instead is stand down, slander, or showcase the hero in an exploitative way--and then rush to take credit when the hero crosses the finish line at the end of a long, hard race...

...When asked why he is doing this--since anti-Semitic anti-Zionists will only continue to defame Israel; exposure will not stop them, he usually tells people this: "Sir, did you shave yesterday? And you will shave again tomorrow? Why bother?" And then he says: "It is important to stand up for the truth, no matter the cost. That should not make you a hero."

That's true - if more people took that advice, the truth-tellers would be in the majority, and the process wouldn't be so difficult.

Sometimes, organizations and people don't know how to look after their own interests.

RICHARD LANDES has more on the Al Dura Hoax and its effects

I just got back from a few days spent with Tatyana at Spa Eastman, located in Quebec's lovely countryside, about 1 hour from Montreal.

I've returned detoxified and refreshed, with a few extra words of French. The treatments (les soins) and long hikes in the countryside (la campagne) were a perfect (parfait) treat for myself and my daughter, who took a day's break from her studies at McGill.

Since the very well-heated pool and the sauna were easily accessible, I indulged my inner Finn and took a few dips in Spa E.'s pond. Since caffeinated coffee was hard to find, the cold water was a refreshing jolt.

The massages, the hikes and the pond were fine, but the best part of the spa was the food. It was light and mildly spiced, two things that usually don't appeal to me, but the expert chef made dishes that were hearty and interesting. I bought the cookbook, which is all in French. If I can make the same techniques work at home, I'll post about it.

On the last day of the trip, I managed to break several speed records to arrive just in time to a book signing featuring No Reservations: Around the world on an empty stomach written by the culinary world's Indiana Jones, Anthony Bourdain.

Another person who's managed to create an excellent job for himself - wart hogs and all.

Saudis and the Islamists in Iran are, once again, working together to maintain plausible deniability. No fascism to see here. Move along..

Phyllis Chesler discusses Saudi and Iranian efforts to shout down their critics:

We have just been informed that President Amadinejad, who himself enjoyed no disruption when he spoke at Columbia University has said he “supports” the disruption, by American students and faculty, of the handful of panels and lectures at Columbia University and at the more than one hundred other universities where Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week will take place from October 22nd to October 26th, 2007.

By the way, the term “Islamo-fascism” was coined by Algerian Muslims and ex-Muslims to characterize the Islamic fanatics who slaughtered 150,000 of their Algerian Muslim brethren in the 1990s—and all in the name of Allah.

I am speaking at Columbia on a panel with my esteemed colleagues Ibn Warraq and Christina Hoff-Sommers on the evening of October 24th. David Horowitz, whose Freedom Center has organized the week-long Teach-In, is speaking there at noon on October 26th.

There will be security, cameras, and perhaps even media. These add-ons have become increasingly necessary in order that those who hold minority anti-fascist viewpoints may nevertheless engage in the joys of academic freedom.

We have also just been informed that Saudi money, (what an everlasting surprise), has apparently funded the various pro-Palestinian, anti-American, and anti-Israeli campus groups to launch a defamation and disruption campaign against us. And, the religious Jewish left has also weighed in with an emailed campaign that opposes our telling the truth about how Muslims are blowing other Muslims up, and persecuting women, intellectuals, and homosexuals.

Phyllis will have more to say about the anti-fascist awareness week. Stay tuned..

Off to a retreat near Montreal for a few days. Be back soon -

Every once in awhile, I find a soulmate on the web.

His job is almost as much fun as this one..

At MJT's and at Winds of Change - discussing the Case for Kurdistan...

...when the media reports on Iraq:

As violence falls in Iraq, cemetery workers feel the pinch

NAJAF, Iraq — At what's believed to be the world's largest cemetery, where Shiite Muslims aspire to be buried and millions already have been, business isn't good.

A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that's cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds...

..."Certainly, when the number of dead increases I feel happy, like all workers in the graveyard," said Basim Hameed , 30, a body washer. "This happiness comes from the increase in the amount of money we have."

Death is something everyone must face, he noted. "My job demands death, and this is our fate, all of us."

Osama's latest video diatribe gave me the impression that he was hiding in someone's basement reading the Daily Kos every day.

That basement may be closer than I thought... *

Osama bin Laden may be hiding in the impenetrable mountains near the Afghanistan border, but FBI counterterror officials say they have identified several of his associates in a far more accessible spot — northern New Jersey.

The FBI's elite Joint Terrorism Task Force in Newark says it is not only monitoring a number of North Jersey residents with ties to al-Qaida, but that agents have quietly "disrupted" their activities and even deported a few.

These glimpses into North Jersey's war on terrorism, from a series of interviews with task force leaders, come on the heels of revelations last summer that Bin Laden's terror network had regained strength. But that rebuilding was thought to have taken place overseas.

This is the first time since the 9/11 attacks that FBI counterterror officials have revealed an al-Qaida presence in North Jersey.

North Jersey - it's not just the embroidery capital of the world..

Sign seen when exiting the Lincoln Tunnel

* Link thanks (and a booyah) to Ben L., who knew US operations in Iraq would enable our intel agencies to break into Al Queda communications nets around the world

Lawyer Ron Coleman provided expert advice on this clip. Of his newfound media stardom, Ron says:

I was interviewed in the article, and I explained a little bit more about the issues at LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION, my trademark law blog. Then on Friday all academic and scholarly insight was thrown to the wind as Fox News sent a car to my door in the dead rain of an early north Jersey October morning and, a little while later, turned me into ... entertainment!

It was a blast!

Now, "Move On" encourages and incites partisan warfare. Could a case be made that Move On is in violation of truth in advertising standards?

When we lived in California, we decided that our kids were at about the right age to have a cat. They agreed, even though they already had toads, parakeets and a few frogs. At age 4 and 10, you can never have enough pets.

Unfortunately, we believed that our cats shouldn't be cooped up in the house - a fatal error in the crowded, car-clogged suburbs of Silicon Valley. We had many great, affectionate, smart, adventurous cats who never returned from their afternoon outing.

One of our cats wasn't as smart as the rest. She wasn't much of a cat at all - she never cleaned herself, she never left the house, she never exercised. My husband thought she might have been dropped on her head as a kitten. Our vet called her a bratty cat. She got fatter and fatter, and had a habit of pooping on every surface of the house that wasn't her litter box. But we had to keep her since my 4 year old daughter loved her so much. She called our fat, dirty cat "Lovable"

We banished Lovable to the garage, where she remained for many years, after her clever, cute cat companions died or disappeared on the road.

I just thought of Lovable when I read this story about Ted Kennedy. The Lovables of the world do survive...

* Link thanks to Ron Coleman

I'm not a big fan of Tony Blair, but politics is more interesting with beat you can dance to.

[link thanks to Judith]

From the American Spectator:*

MS. BARTIROMO: Mayor Giuliani, is London going to replace New York as the financial capital of the world?
MR. GIULIANI: Pardon me?
MS. BARTIROMO: Is London going to replace New York as the financial capital of the world, and if so, what are you going to do to change that?
MR. GIULIANI: (Laughs.) No how, no way. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. (Applause.)
MS. BARTIROMO: Well, we're seeing an increased number --
MR. GIULIANI: Come on.
MS. BARTIROMO: We're seeing increased amounts of business go to London. (Cross talk, Laughter.)
MR. GIULIANI: Let's stop all this stuff with our head down. London going to replace New York? Give me a break. Of course, London's not going to replace New York.
MS. BARTIROMO: Well, the number of IPOs is higher in London in '07 than in New York.
MR. GIULIANI: Or is the U.K. going to replace the United States of America? This is the strongest economy on earth. It's the last best hope of humanity. We have been like that. If this generation can't keep it that way, shame on us. This country is the leader in the world. When Congressman Tancredo talks about the immigration problem, how about — look at it this way.
What country do millions of people want to come to — the United States of America. What country — I don't care if they bash us all over the world. What country do they most want to come to? What country do they most want to copy? What are China and India trying to do? China and India are trying to develop themselves to be like us, which is why we've got a heck of a lot we can sell to them, if we just put on our entrepreneurial hats and act like confident Americans.

Adassi was one of several terrorist leaders quoted threatening Giuliani in the new book, "Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans – to a Jew!," by author and WorldNetDaily Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein.

Klein asked dozens of senior terrorists from several groups to sound off on U.S. politics and whom they prefer to see in the White House.

Multiple leaders of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades had harsh words for Giuliani, who in 1995 famously booted Arafat from an invitation-only concert at New York's Lincoln Center celebrating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.

Arafat attempted to crash the event, and when Giuliani saw the PLO leader and his entourage making their way to a private box seat near the stage, the mayor immediately ordered Arafat off the premises, calling him a murderer and a terrorist.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the declared "military wing" of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization, was founded by Arafat. The Brigades, together with the Islamic Jihad terror group, took responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel the past three years and for hundreds of shootings and rocket attacks. ..

...Giuliani explained his antipathy toward Arafat went back to his days as a federal prosecutor when he investigated several terrorist incidents to which the PLO was linked, including the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship.

"Arafat has never been held to answer for the murders that he was implicated in," Giuliani said at a 1995 news conference.

* link thanks to Karol

Vermont, New Hamshire and Maine offer updated autumn foliage reports online.

UPDATE: Thanks to Andy, foliage reports for the whole country.

Two Pravda journalists write about their road trip through depression-era America *

The two were not just any journalists sent by Stalin to expose the "Coca-Cola country": They were already cultural heroes, both back home and in the United States. In 1927, the two - Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov - co-wrote "The Twelve Chairs" (recently published in Hebrew for the third time); in 1932, they had written "The Golden Calf." In both works, the same protagonist, Ostap Bender, a brilliant conman, makes a mockery of the Russian social regime..

...The choice of a car as their mode of transportation was probably made not only for economic reasons. The writers' love of cars stands out in "The Twelve Chairs" and even more emphatically in "The Golden Calf," which opens with a paean to automobiles in the guise of a lament for the fate of pedestrians. The journey in the footsteps of millions in "The Golden Calf" takes place in a car with four passengers - just like Ilf and Petrov's American adventure.

The twosome is bowled over by the highways: "The roads are one of the most remarkable phenomena of American life. American life specifically, not just American technology." They are awed by the gas stations, by the free service given cheerfully, by the helpful signs showing the number of each road: "A child, even someone deaf and dumb, could drive by himself on these roads." In San Francisco they saw the bridge suspended over the bay under construction, and wrote: "Engineers should get on their knees and cry tears of joy at the sight of this brilliant construction."

Gradually, as they drive from one city to the next, they reach the conclusion that this is what America looks like: "[an] intersection of two roads and a gas station against a background of [electrical] wires and advertising billboards." They admit to having arrived in America with a preconceived notion of skyscrapers, subways, blaring horns and the cries of stock-market brokers rushing about, trying to dump their plunging shares. But they are ready to revise the image: They discover that most of America is single- or double-storied. It's a land of small towns, all of which look alike...

..During the trip, Ilf and Petrov spent two weeks in Hollywood, intending to work on the screenplay of their novel. They met distinguished directors, such as Rouben Mamoulian (with whom they saw "Porgy and Bess" in New York), and related that in the past, during the silent-film era, there were many good films with original ideas and witty plots. There were also clumsy ideas, but at least there were ideas, and occasionally one saw real life reflected on the screen. Now that was all over, they wrote - "not counting Chaplin and two or three other directors. Their genuine art is as far away from Hollywood hack work as is the Soviet art of film. We watched at least 100 picture shows and were simply depressed by the amount of vulgarity, stupidity and lies."

There are four categories of films, they claimed: musical comedies, historical dramas, gangster films and films with opera singers. "Each kind of movie has only one plot, with endless and excruciating variations. So year in and year out, American audiences are actually watching the same thing. And they are so used to it that sometimes a picture with an original plot doesn't do well at the box office."

* link thanks to Karol at Alarming News

Seablogger Alan Sullivan links to this study of the current political supremacist movement in the Middle East, saying:

It’s hard to kill a religion — and Aryan supremacism was consciously, if sometimes cynically contrived from pagan sources. Crushed in Russia and the West, the Nazi movement seemed to be over by the late Forties. A handful of escapees reached South America, where Paraguay remains a little dodgy to this day. But the abiding Nazification of the Middle East was not recognized. Now some scholars have worked through German archives and found that the "remarkable similarity between Nazi propaganda that was broadcast into the Middle East and the treatises of today’s terrorists is not accidental."

With the defeat of El Alamein in November 1942, it was clear that the German military invasion of the Middle East would not materialize. The Nazi government therefore concentrated German policy on mobilizing "the Arab resistance." In this way the advance of the Allied armies could be hindered (though not stopped). The connection of all this to the Jews, however, soon embodied itself in the everyday consciousness of the masses. "What do the Americans want? They want to help the Jews," was the type of propaganda the Nazis were spreading at that point. "Take up weapons, where you find them. Do damage to the cause to the enemy, wherever you can."

As Mallmann and Cuppers write, the "remarkable similarity between Nazi propaganda that was broadcast into the Middle East and the treatises of today's terrorists is not accidental;" the one is the ancestor of the other. Mallmann and Cuppers show that virulent Arab anti-Semitism is older than the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, and they demonstrate what part Nazi Germany had in its propagation. Their work is based on investigations in German archives.

Almost every major Islamist group can trace its roots to the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 by the Hassan al-Banna, a pan-Islamicist who opposed the secular tendencies in Islamic nations. Hamas is a direct offshoot of the Brotherhood. Hassan al-Turabi, who offered sanctuary in Sudan to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda allies, is a leader of the Brotherhood. He also sat on the boards of several of the most important Islamic financial institutions, such as DMI.[4]

Bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam was a stalwart of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood. Ayman Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s chief strategist, was arrested at age 15 in Egypt for belonging to the Brotherhood. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdul-Rahman, and chief 9-11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, were members of the Brotherhood.

There has been some understanding of the Brotherhood’s relationship to Islamist groups, and of those ties even in the United States. In 2003 Richard Clarke said “the issue of terrorist financing in the United States is a fundamental example of the shared infrastructure levered by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda, all of which enjoy a significant degree of cooperation and coordination within our borders. The common link here is the extremist Muslim Brotherhood—all these organizations are descendants of the membership and ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.”[5] However, this understanding has not taken root in the intelligence, law enforcement and policy communities, nor has the financial network of the Brotherhood come under intense scrutiny.

What we call Arab Nationalism, Islamofascism, terrorism, or "our Saudi allies" is really Naziism, strategically and tactically modified for a militarily weak group. Instead of pincer movements and Blitzkrieg, they have:

"Take up weapons, where you find them. Do damage to the cause to the enemy, wherever you can."

We didn't call the original fascism Aryan-o-fascism It was just plain old vanilla fascism. This made objective analysis of the political and military organization a lot easier.

Calling this new fascism something simple, like neo-fascism would probably clear our heads too.

Kudzu is a medicinal and decorative plant in Japan, but in the U.S. Southeast, it's a destructive, invasive species. Areas like North Carolina have near-perfect conditions for kudzu to grow — hot, humid summers, frequent rainfall, temperate winters with few hard freezes. Without those low freezing temperatures, kudzu grows out of control. From a plane, you can see how much of the land in the area is overtaken by Kudzu.

Homer Hickam (former NASA designer, astronaut trainer and author of nine bestselling books, including the acclaimed memoir, "Rocket Boys," which was made into the film "October Sky) debates the usefulness of the program * with aerospace engineer and blogger Rand Simberg.

Meanwhile, the private sector is doing just fine.

* Link thanks to Instapundit

The press admits that the surge is working

BAGHDAD - Deaths among American forces and Iraqi civilians fell dramatically last month to their lowest levels in more than a year, according to figures compiled by the U.S. military, the Iraqi government and The Associated Press.

The decline signaled a U.S. success in bringing down violence in Baghdad and surrounding regions since Washington completed its infusion of 30,000 more troops on June 15.

A total of 64 American forces died in September — the lowest monthly toll since July 2006.

The decline in Iraqi civilian deaths was even more dramatic, falling from 1,975 in August to 922 last month, a decline of 53.3 percent. The breakdown in September was 844 civilians and 78 police and Iraqi soldiers, according to Iraq's ministries of Health, Interior and Defense.

...I seriously wondered why I hadn't waited for October or even November. The heat in Iraq during the summer is enough to make a religious man rail against God. I'm baffled, frankly, at how human civilization began in a place so inhospitable to human beings. Someone, I forget who, compared facing the afternoon breeze to sticking a hair dryer in your face while pouring sand on your head. That pretty much says it. It is much worse than in a place like Arizona, for instance, because you can hardly catch a break from it unless you stay on base in one of the buildings.

“It's ridiculous here in the summer,” he said. “At Camp Ramadi you take one step outside and dust explodes.”

“It must be nice in the winter,” I said.

“Actually, it's worse,” he said. “All this dust turns to mud.”

The dust was finely grained, almost like talcum powder. The soldiers call it moon dust, and it's more than six inches deep in some places, like a soft inland beach.

“It has the consistency of chocolate pudding when it's wet,” he continued. “Sometimes you think it's okay to walk on because the ground looks all cracked and dried up. So you go ahead and step on it, and then....GLORK!...your foot breaks through and you're more than boot-deep in the mud. You get that shit on you and it's not coming off. Winter is miserable.”....

....One of the kids ran up to him, pointed to the east, said something in Arabic, and laughed.

“He asked if we would go over to the next tribal area and kill everybody who lives there,” the lieutenant told me and rolled his eyes. “He’s only kidding, but you see how it is here.”

We walked together in silence for a few moments.

“They think we can do a lot more for them than we can,” he said. “Like we’re all-powerful.” I’ve heard that many Iraqis think the Americans are so powerful they can fix Iraq at will any time, which means there must be some sinister reason why they want Iraq to remain broken. Some Lebanese I’ve met think the same way.

“President Bush can fix Lebanon in ten minutes,” a Beirut taxi driver once told me. “So why doesn’t he?”

“Some of them call me Sheikh Daoud,” Lieutenant Davies said. Daoud is Arabic for David, which is not exactly his name, but it’s close. “They say hey, you’re a sheikh, you can make stuff happen. I say, well, that’s just a nickname you gave me. We’ll see.”

What are we going to do tonight?"
"The same thing we do every night: Try to take over the world!"
-- Pinky and The Brain, Pinky And The Brain

One financial branch of Islamists Inc., the United Arab Emirates, reveals their plans to take over the world:

What is developing in Dubai, and at the cutting edge of Islamic Economics, is an ability to encourage and enforce peaceful behavior based on economic, cultural, and theological arguments and solutions, not military ones. While the USA, China, Russia, and Europe invest in new weapons systems, Dubai is investing in new cities and new worlds. The military expansion of the Middle Eastern nations, with the exception of Iran, has for the most part stopped. Instead, the focus is on developing new economies and new opportunities for the citizens of Islam. Instead of an arms race, the focus is shifting to a more potent form of power, what I call the Theology Economy.

This Theology Economy is focused on achieving the objectives of a global Islamic community centered on staying true to the theological teachings of stewardship found in the Qur’an. One of the primary motivators for Mohammed was a desire to fight the poverty and corruption that was affecting the people of his day in Arabia. The result of his search for answers was the Qur’an, which very clearly states the requirement for mankind to be khalifas, or stewards of God's creation.11

A Theology Economy is therefore, first and foremost, an economy of stewardship before it is one of profit. The profit motive of modern day economics is not forbidden, but is instead incorporated into the theological basis of stewardship. Stewardship of resources also means stewardship of finances, which means intelligent investments that yield a positive return. In a capitalist system, maximizing utility and returns all to often leads to a big winner and a big loser. As the world is witnessing today, the disequilibrium this model creates leads to an increase in corruption and poverty which, in effect, is a tax on investment returns. The result is the proliferation of sick societies that Peter Drucker wrote will ultimately lead to sick corporations instead of "functional societies".12 The model of a Functional Society is a core component of the Theology Economy of Stewardship. By finally addressing the issues of systematic corruption and abject poverty, the Theology Economy will incorporate the best of the teachings of stewardship, the vision for a just economy, and equal rights for all people to fully participate in the global economic system.

Herndon VA, like the Saudi outpost of Falls Church (which is right down the road from Herndon and Washington D.C.), has a higher than average number of al Qaeda members per square acre.

From Daniel Pipes' "Bin Laden and Herndon, Virginia"

This story began in early 1998, when John Miller of ABC News sought an interview with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Needing an intermediary, his producers found Tarik Hamdi of Herndon, Virginia, a self-described journalist who helped make contacts and then accompanied the ABC news team to Afghanistan.

Hamdi, it turned out, had his own purposes for traveling there; he was to bring Bin Laden a replacement battery for his vital link with the outside world, his satellite telephone. From the remoteness of Afghanistan, Bin Laden could not simply order a battery himself and have it overnighted to him. He needed someone unsuspected to bring it. So, one of Bin Laden's top aides ordered a replacement battery on May 11, 1998, and arranged for it to be shipped to Hamdi at his home in Herndon. Hamdi took off for Afghanistan with Miller on May 17 and shortly afterward personally delivered the battery.

Just over two months later, two bombs went off nearly simultaneously at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 and wounding thousands...

...The article then focused on the huge body of evidence made public in the trial proceedings, noting that Bin Laden had "set up a tightly organized system of cells" in six American cities, including the small town of Herndon - an allusion to Hamdi...

...This episode clearly demonstrates three problematic Western responses to Islamist violence: Law enforcement officials resist the fact that this scourge exists in their jurisdictions. Reporters fail to do the spadework needed to dig out stories in their own backyards. And the most prominent Islamic organizations shamelessly talk away Islamist terrorism and smear anyone who points out the realities of this hideous phenomenon.

If Bin Laden and his band of killers are to be stopped, it will take more vigilance from law enforcement officers like Summers, better journalism from reporters like Baumann, and the rise of moderate Muslims who will take the microphone out of the hands of extremists like Hooper.

Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?
Wha, I think so Brain, but - *snort* No, no, it's too stupid.
We will disguise ourselves as a peaceful theology economy.
Narf. That was it *exactly*.

[Link thanks to Pamela at Atlas Shrugs]