From The Local in Sweden:

A Swedish army gender adviser in Afghanistan has taken the Armed Forces to task for only employing local men to perform massages on troops stationed in Mazar-E-Sharif.

In a written internal document submitted from Swedish headquarters at Camp Northern Lights, Gender Field Adviser Captain Krister Fahlstedt of Afghanistan force FS17 took exception to an army contract specifying that on-base massage services should be provided exclusively by men.

"The agreement specifies, with no further explanation, that the physiotherapists (masseurs/masseuses) should be men," wrote Fahlstedt in his November submission.

The captain's investigations showed that the recommendation was followed to the letter, as two men were brought in to perform massages.

"It is the opinion of FS17 that there are no reasonable grounds for gender to be one of the profile requirements," he wrote.

Fahlstedt further stressed that his force was committed to strengthening the position of women in society by helping create the conditions in which they could become self-sufficient.

"It's not important as such whether women eventually get the job, what's important is that there's equality of opportunity and they are treated on the same terms as men," Fahlstedt told The Local.

"Contracts of this kind must always be gender neutral, and this is actually the only time I've seen an army contract worded in this way," he added.

Fahlstedt, active in both the Centre Party and the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL), returned earlier this month to Sweden from service with the FS17 force. He remains hopeful that the army will rectify the situation and begin considering the possibility of employing Afghan masseuses.

"I haven't received a formal response yet but I have been led to believe that the necessary changes will be made to the contract," he told The Local.

There is just one thing that can be said in favour of our dangerous, dishonest and dull Prime Minister: he kept us out of the Euro. From The Telegraph:

These are testing times for the eurozone, the group of 16 EU countries that subscribe to a single currency and the diktats of the European Central Bank. In Ireland, Spain and now Greece, the system is under the greatest strain since it came into being 10 years ago. While Greece is not about to fall out of the euro, its government is putting in place a terrible austerity package to rescue the country's economy, and it is predicted that prolonged civil unrest will follow. This seems an appropriate moment to remember that, for political reasons, the rules governing eurozone membership were bent to facilitate the entry of countries that were unsuited to the financial rigour required.

Advanced accounting and economic jiggery-pokery let countries with weak economies into what, if it was to work at all, should have been an exclusive club with very tough membership criteria. Political imperatives trumped economic common sense, and the consequences are now being felt. There is little clear understanding of what might happen next.

It has taken the eurozone's first recession to make fully apparent the contradictions in the design and implementation of the currency. Fast-growing and immature economies such as Spain, Greece and Ireland gained instant monetary policy credibility when they were admitted. But they needed to be able to set higher interest rates than their mature cousins in Germany and France, in order to deter unsustainable booms. Because they could not do so, their bubbles grew too large; now that these have burst, their crises are worse. Greece, Ireland and Spain need desperately to devalue as part of wider efforts to right their economies, but, again, are unable to do so.

I can't summon up much sympathy. These countries took, indirectly, from hard-working British taxpayers to fuel their booms. Ireland's handout was almost equal to Britain's contribution - a fine reward for bombing us for thirty years. And having bombed us and bleated at us for home rule, Ireland sold its sovereignty for a mess of EU pottage. Let the Irish stew in their own juice.

Listen here.

The Holly and the Ivy:

From Islam In Europe:

The court in Amsterdam sentenced Younis K. (39) to nine years on Monday.  They were shown evidence that he beat his wife, Aisha K (36), to death in their home in Amsterdam-Zuidoost in August 2007.  His cousin, Tariq S (38) was acquitted.  The prosecution had asked for 14 years in prison for both men.

K. supposedly murdered his wife because she wanted to divorce him and go live with another man.  In this way the mother of four shamed the honor of his Pakistani family.  The man killed his wife buy [sic] beating her many times, probably also with cricket bats. 
 
The court called the murder 'horrible' and said that Aisha K. must have suffered 'terrible pain'.  "That the victim wanted to divorce can in no way even somewhat justify the acts of the suspect."
 
During the trial K. more of less blamed his cousin for the death of his wife.  He had asked him to come and mediate on that day.  After which he had gone outside for a minute. When he came back, his wife was lying seriously injured in their home.  The court did not deem this plausible, as nobody saw K. outside at the time of the murder.
 
The prosecution said that K. didn't beat his wife to death on his own, but that his cousin helped him.  The court concluded that there were indications this was so, but that there was insufficient evidence that the injuries of the victim were caused by two people.
 
The court gave K. a lighter sentence than demanded by the prosecution. They sentenced him for manslaughter and not for murder, which was the demand of the prosecution.
 
With time off for good behavior, Younis will be out of prison by his mid-40's, in plenty of time to marry another woman, or women.

From Gulf Times in Qatar:

Israel’s chief rabbi invoked the memory of the Nazi Holocaust to condemn vandals of a West Bank mosque during a visit to the site yesterday.

The burning of carpets and copies of the Qur’an in the mosque in Yasuf on Thursday, where graffiti in Hebrew called the act “a price tag,” has been condemned by Israeli leaders wary of rising Jewish-Muslim tensions.

Palestinian protesters threw stones at Israeli military jeeps on a security patrol outside the village, as Rabbi Yona Metzger, one of Israel’s two government-appointed chief rabbis, made his way to the mosque in a separate, civilian vehicle.

The Nazis burned hundreds of synagogues at the outset of a Holocaust in which 6mn Jews were killed across Europe, Metzger told Palestinians gathered at the mosque.

“Seventy years ago, the Holocaust, the biggest tragedy of our history, began with the torchings of synagogues during Kristallnacht,” Metzger, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi, said.

He was referring to a pogrom in 1938 during which synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses were torched and ransacked in Germany.

“Therefore I came to say to our neighbours, the Muslims, that we are against burning any holy place ... whether a mosque, a church or synagogue.”

Metzger said every house of worship was an “embassy of God.”

The vandalism at the mosque marked a rise in violence by Jewish settlers mounting protests against a temporary freeze on construction in their enclaves, which Israel says was aimed at persuading Palestinians to resume stalled peace talks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday he had ordered security forces to take special measures to apprehend the vandals.

A group of Israeli rabbis visited Palestinians from the village on Sunday and handed them copies of the Qur’an to replace those ruined in the fire.

The mosque attack has been condemned across the political spectrum in Israel.
 

From The Copenhagen Post
One of the accused in the case involving a plot to blow up Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, says he’s a pacifist.
Tahawwur Rana is defending himself against the accusation he took part in planning to blow up the newspaper that published the infamous Mohammed cartoons by saying he only deals in non-violent actions, reports public broadcaster DR.
Rana, who is accused of financing and planning an attack on the paper, has told the police he believes in the late Mahatma Ghandi’s methods.
This stands in sharp contrast to the covert recordings the US police took of Rana and another man accused in the case, David Headley. In those, Rana praises a Pakistani terror organisation and says they ought to have details of their work.
Rana also reveals in those recordings that he knew about the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. He is due in court in Chicago today to try to be released on bail.
We are always being told that Islam means Peace, and soI'm sure that Islamic pacifism is quite compatible with terror.

A few weeks ago I posted about epilepsy as art: a dozy bint - sorry, dance artist - trying to induce a seizure on stage. Last night Esmerelda alerted me to a huffy comment from a reader, who quibbled that the public money used for this "transgressive" freak show, this latter-day Hottentot Venus, came from the National Lottery rather than general taxation. Surprisingly, this observer of nice distinctions failed to make one important point, picked up on by David Thompson:

Here’s an update to the ‘seizure-as-art’ evening discussed here recently. The Telegraph & Argus reports, 

Rita Marcalo’s controversial attempt to have an epileptic fit on stage at Bradford Playhouse ended in failure. The Portuguese dancer, who has epilepsy, was attempting to induce a seizure during a 24-hour arts performance. By the 1pm finish she had not managed to do so - despite exposing herself to strobe lights and depriving herself of sleep and food. Playhouse director Eleanor Barrett described the performance as “emotionally demanding” to watch.

Readers saddened to have missed Ms Marcalo’s adventure in self-preoccupation should, however, take comfort. Clearly determined to justify the £14,000 of Arts Council funding, Marcalo promises a second, no less challenging, instalment.

The second part, featuring footage of Miss Marcalo trying to induce a seizure, will be at Bradford’s Theatre in the Mill in January.

One for the diary, definitely.

Watching something not happen is art too, in its own way.  Look at that Godot business.

Googling concolorous to see the word's application outside the literary triumvirate of Flann O'Brien, Nabokov and Borges - bet that Pied Beauty bloke wouldn't get a look in -  I came across a note on the Concolorous Moth Action Plan:

The Concolorous moth has a very limited distribution in Britain, but is found in a number of woodland sites in Northamptonshire. The larvae feed on small-reeds (Calamagrostis spp)., and in our woodlands appear to use purple small-reed (Calamagrostis canescens), but will also use the wood small-reed (C. epigejos) if this is the only species present.  Wood small-reed is often considered to be a weed species in standard woodlands management, and is often removed from plantation areas as it can out-compete the young trees.

[...]

In Northamptonshire it has been recorded at several woods, including Glapthorn Cow Pasture SSSI and Geddington Chase SSSI.  The County Moth Recorder, J. Ward, has collated records from many of the sites where the moth has been recorded, and these show a steady decline in numbers from being locally plentiful in the early 1990's, to few anywhere since 1996.

[...]

English Nature are overseeing a survey to establish the status of the moth both locally and nationally. 

The site was last updated in 2001, and notes the contribution of Mr. and Mrs. J. Ward of the Northamptonshire Moth Group in developing the action plan.

Where are they now? How often do they meet? Once a moth, or never in a moth of Sundays?

CJ Joy of the Florida Security Council sent us this story from today’s Knoxville Times:” Store operator in trouble over jihad comments.”  The story concerns a 35 year old naturalized Yemeni American convenience store operator, Hasan Ali Ahmed, who appeared at a US magistrates hearing prior to a trial. His defense counsel, attorney Barbara Cook, said he was “just joking,” your honor, about jihad. Sure. 

Here are the salient excerpts from the Knoxville Times report:

The 35-year-old Ahmed was charged with being a felon in possession of firearms after authorities last week found two guns inside the Central Convenience Store on Keith Avenue that he operated.

However, testimony at Monday's hearing shows Ahmed has been on the radar screen of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force since at least January 2006.

FBI Agent Mark D. Murphy testified that an informant clandestinely recorded chats with Ahmed in early 2006 during which Ahmed allegedly tried to recruit the informant into the terrorist network al-Qaeda.

"He referred to jihad," Murphy said of Ahmed. "He asked the confidential source if he would be interested in joining jihad. He stated that he was connected to al- Qaeda that he had worked for them for several years. He wanted the informant to join al-Qaeda. "

According to Murphy's testimony, Ahmed told the informant, with whom he was acquainted, that he planned to wait "until his son reached the age of seven" before putting into action a plan to carry out a terrorist attack at a shopping mall.

However, defense attorney Barbara Clark elicited testimony from Murphy that Ahmed told agents "he was joking." She also noted that although the FBI had been monitoring Ahmed for nearly four years now, they had not unearthed any proof that Ahmed had taken any steps to craft or carry out such a plot.

"You knew about these statements in 2006," Clark said to Murphy. "Why was there not any indictment then?"

"Unfortunately, we cannot indict based on statements alone," Murphy responded.

Clark said Ahmed is a U.S. citizen. He has a 1997 conviction in Pennsylvania for "interstate transportation of securities," Theodore said. Although he did not elaborate, court records indicate that conviction may be related to admissions Ahmed made to Knoxville FBI agents that he had been smuggling cigarettes to avoid taxes levied on those goods.

Theodore argued that terror threats - even if unformulated - should not be ignored.

Guyton managed to sidestep a decision on whether Ahmed poses a terror threat by limiting his detention ruling to Ahmed's ties with Yemen and lack of roots in the U.S. Guyton noted Ahmed's wife and five children live in Yemen, and he has a business venture under way there.

"The government has established that the defendant does not own any property in this country," Guyton said in ordering Ahmed held behind bars pending trial.

This leads to a number of questions. How did Ahmed gain entry to the US and became a naturalized citizen? As he operates a convenience store, was there another nefarious item to add to his rap sheet that might surface in his trial: fraudulently skimming food stamps?  Why does it take the FBI JTTF three years to bring these home grown Jihadis to trial?

Our colleague Ann Corcoran of Refugee Resettlement Watch had some possible answers for these questions in an email exchange and post on this story at her website.

On the matter of how Ahmed got into the US, Corcoran noted the E-2 Treaty Investor program that others have used to expedite their application for US citizenship-see here. Individuals could be sponsored to apply for E-2 visas as a means of setting up enterprises in the US to engage in nefarious financial activities and repatriate the profits to their respective home countries.

On the food stamps fraud, Corcoran noted in her post:

Note to FBI:  If you are looking for more to get this guy on, check his food stamp transactions. These Muslim convenience stores are notorious for buying food stamps from people in need of cash for 50 cents on the dollar and then being reimbursed by the taxpayer for the full dollar.  Use our search function for key words ‘food stamp scams.’   The fact that he owns nothing in the US and has a family in Yemen tells me he is likely sending those funds back ‘home.’

Corcoran and I speculated about FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and federal prosecutors taking over three years to bring suspect Ahmed to trial. Perhaps, the JTTF was hoping that the informant’s wire might lead to more substantive third party information about Ahmed and his network. Perhaps it may be that in the wake of allegations about the JTTF’s sloppy handling of Fort Hood mass shooter Major Hasan’s internet email and chat room exchanges with another Yemeni Jihadi - Imam Anwar  al-Awlaki, that they needed to publicize what they are doing to stop home grown Jihadis. Corcoran noted that the recent FBI press conference revelations about Minneapolis Somali émigré Al Shabaab recruiter indictments took over two years.  As to what the outcome might be in Ahmed’s trial, perhaps he will serve a brief stint in a federal jail for illegal weapons possession and then be deported to Yemen to rejoin his family and business partners.

Annette Hanshaw doing  her imitation of Helen Kane, singer and aunt of Joyce Kane, who attended Camp Wicosuta in Bristol, New Hampshire and, in her early teens, was -- I am told -- a writer of wonderful songs herself.

Listen here.

As expected today, the US House of Representatives passed HR 2194, the  Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA) by a vote of 412 to 12.  That will gratify Iranian American Amil Imani, of Former Muslims United. The bill, authored by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) had more than 343 co-sponsors which ensured its passage in the House. The Senate Banking Committee passed a companion IRPSA measure (S. 908) in late October. The Senate bill has over 76 co-sponsors. That may facilitate quick passage of the measure for possible enactment should President Obama sign it into law.   

If that occurs it will mean for Imani and other opponents of the oppressive Islamic Republic that another important squeeze will be placed on an already tottering Iranian economy. For those throughout Iran engaged in current protests against the Mahdist Mullahs and President Ahmadinejad, intent on completing their nuclear project, the passage of IRPSA will send a signal of American commitment and the unofficial end of the wavering ‘engagement’ project of President Obama.

There are, in our opinion, two men who have been effective stalwarts in pushing this most important sanction against Iran: Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), the architect of the original House IRPSA bill and Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Stuart Levey. Kirk had formed the bi-partisan House Iran Working Group in 2004 and co-authored the original refined petroleum sanctions proposal with Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ).  Levey, a Bush holdover has been a very effective government appointee leading the enforcement of both tough financial and petroleum sanctions.

We had interviewed Kirk in a wide ranging NER article in September 2008. In a response to the question about his efforts pushing for refined petroleum sanctions he responded:

We looked at options with regard to US foreign policy with Iran. Option one; let the United Nations deal with this issue using sanctions. 50 percent of UN General Assembly resolutions condemn Israel. So there are no prospects for a fair shake. The other option is boycotting Iran’s oil shipments, but that is an extremely unpredictable and expensive option. Rob and I have spent hundreds of hours. We have met with our allies, British, Israelis, and French, UN officials, State Department and Defense Department. We even had an extraordinary lunch with the Iranian UN Ambassador reviewing our options. We found that Iran’s greatest strength and weakness can be used for power diplomacy. The Mullahs have certainly mishandled Iran’s energy picture. This nation has, with its own technicians, produced a lot of oil but is still behind in their refinery capacity so that they have to import over  40 percent of their gasoline from overseas. This would give the United States the opportunity to implement what Jack Kennedy would have called a ‘gas quarantine’ which would bring tremendous pressure on the Iranian government to live up to its commitments to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. Recently, we have obtained a lot of support for this idea. About two months ago, Senator Obama endorsed the idea. Senator McCain endorsed it. Prime Minister Olmert of Israel endorsed it. However, we don’t have the full support of the State Department; currently Secretary Rice is against this idea. The likelihood is that the coming Administration which will be sworn in, whether a President Obama or a President McCain will look very favorably towards this option. 

 “Iran sanctions are in Obama's hands.” He noted the relentless chronology that he and others has doggedly pursued to arrive at today’s IRPSA vote and the necessity of President Obama to implement it:

To stop the emergence of a nuclear Iran and avoid military conflict, Congressman Andrews and I conducted a comprehensive analysis, searching for vulnerabilities in Iran's economy.

With the help of the Congressional Research Service, we discovered a critical Iranian weakness. Despite its status as a leading oil exporter, Iran so mishandled its domestic energy supply that the regime relied on foreign sources of gasoline for 40 percent of its supply. A restriction of gasoline deliveries to Iran administered though multilateral sanctions and enforced by the world's most powerful navies would pit the Western democracy's greatest strength against Iran's greatest weakness - all without a shot being fired.

In 2005 and again in 2006, we introduced congressional resolutions calling for a multilateral restriction of gasoline deliveries to Iran as the most effective economic sanction to bring Iran's leaders into compliance with their commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 2007, we introduced the Iran Sanctions Enhancement Act to expand existing US sanctions to the provision of gasoline to Iran - including suppliers, brokers, shippers and insurers. This April, Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and I reintroduced this bipartisan legislation. Following our bills, Iran imposed an unpopular gasoline rationing scheme, showing it was worried.

Last year, candidates Barack Obama and John McCain both endorsed the gasoline restriction, and this year, House and Senate leaders reintroduced the gasoline sanctions bill as the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, now headed by Congressman Berman and our coalition of 343 congressmen and 76 senators behind the bill.

After four years and six months, Congress will finally consider our gasoline restriction legislation this week. While this bill could emerge as the key tool to peacefully end our standoff with Iran, it will prove meaningless if the president keeps gasoline sanctions locked in his diplomatic toolbox.

Our Petroleum Sanctions Act would add a ban on the provision of gasoline to Iran under the old 1996 Iran Sanctions Act, a law that already makes it illegal to invest more than $20 million in Iran's oil and gas sectors.

Under this old law, our president must declare someone in violation before sanctions take effect. Few realize that no American president has ever enforced this provision. According to the Congressional Research Service, at least 20 companies are currently violating the 1996 law.

For the threat of sanctions to change Iran's decision-making, Iranian leaders must believe an effective gasoline sanction is credible. If President Obama, like his predecessor, lacks the will to enforce the 1996 Sanctions Act, we should not expect Iranian leaders to believe a new threat of additional sanctions.

In October, Congressman Ron Klein (D-Fla.) and I authored a bipartisan letter to the president urging him to enforce the Iran Sanctions Act and demonstrate to Iranian leaders the credible potential for a restriction of their gasoline. Fifty Democrats and Republicans signed our bipartisan letter. When asked why the administration failed to enforce the 1996 law, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman promised a 45-day review for the State Department to determine whether it would pursue sanctions against current lawbreakers. Secretary Feltman's clock ran out this weekend.

For the House's new 2009 Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act to succeed, the Iranians must believe the president will enforce it. Otherwise, we will continue down a failed path of diplomacy in the absence of effective sanctions.

As the architect of this legislation, I hope the House and Senate will pass our Iran gasoline sanctions bill into law. As an American, I hope the President will enforce it.  

Foreign companies doing business in Iran are already coming under pressure. Among them is Reliance, the giant Indian energy and petrochemicals firm that for years has been supplying refined gasoline to Iran. In early 2008, under pressure from Levey, two giant French banks—BNP Paribas and Crédit Agricole—cut off letters of credit for Reliance's Iran deals. Then late last year an Arizona State University law professor and former State Department nuclear-nonproliferation official, Orde Kittrie, discovered that Reliance had benefited from two U.S. Export-Import Bank loan guarantees totaling $900 million. Members of Congress—led by Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman of California and Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois—demanded that the Ex-Im Bank cut off U.S. taxpayer assistance. After consulting with its high-priced Washington lobbying firm, BGR, Reliance quietly passed the word to members of Congress: it was halting all sales to Iran and would insist that its trading partners do the same. "We are not selling gasoline to Iran either directly or through third parties," Reliance said in a statement to NEWSWEEK. "To this end, we include a destination-restriction clause in our contracts to prevent sales to Iran."

Kirk may get recognition from his Illinois constituents for this and other important efforts at thwarting Iran’s nuclear program. He is a candidate there for the 2010 US Senate race in a seat previously held by President Obama. The current incumbent Roland W. Burris has been an embarrassment to both himself and to the floundering Democratic Party in Illinois.

Levey, will, we hope be retained by the Obama Administration to enforce what Kirk has authored and his House colleagues may enable with today’s passage of IRPSA. At least that is the hope. If so, it will doubtless bolster Kirk’s election prospects in the 2010 Illinois US Senate race. Either way, as Kirk’s op ed title on the House IRPSA vote in the Jerusalem Post said, “it is in Obama’s hands.”

Remember the infamous Seattle Mass shooter, Pakistani American, Naveed Haq?  He was convicted today by a Seattle Jury in a second trial.  The AP report noted what he did in 2006:

Haq made several trips to gun stores in the weeks prior to the attack, wrote two documents on his father's computer criticizing Israel and U.S. policy in the Middle East, and used MapQuest to find directions to the center from his family's home in Pasco, 180 miles east of Seattle

 Haq drove from his eastern Washington home to Seattle the day of the attack and forced a teenage girl at gunpoint to let him into the Jewish Federation. Once in the second-floor office, he opened fire, shooting some people in their cubicles, some in the hall and one, Pamela Waechter, fatally as she fled down a stairwell.

He shot and seriously injured five others. One of the shooting victims a woman who was pregnant was shot in her arm shielding her unborn fetus. Her child, a boy was born unharmed seven months later.

Here is the Seattle Times ‘harrowing testimony’ of Layla Bush in the first Haq trial in 2008. She has not been able to walk again:

As Layla Bush lay bleeding from a gunshot wound on the floor of her boss's office, her thoughts were a jumble.

Against a backdrop of gunfire and screaming coming from other parts of the building, Bush thought about how, as the receptionist, it was her duty to call 911 and report the rampage at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.

But the pain in her side anchored her to the floor.

"I realized that I couldn't move, so there was nothing I could do even if he was reloading," she said.

Suddenly, the gunman, Naveed Haq, returned.

"We made eye contact, and he shot me again. I believe he was trying to kill me," she testified.

According to the AP report on today’s outcome:

Haq was found guilty of all eight counts against him. The 34-year-old man will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Haq's first trial ended last year with jurors deadlocked on whether he was legally insane during the shooting spree on July 28, 2006, that left one woman dead and five others injured.

The eight counts against him included one count of aggravated first-degree murder; five counts of attempted first-degree murder; one count of unlawful imprisonment; and one count of malicious harassment, the state's hate-crime law.

Jurors on Tuesday rejected Haq's defense that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. His lawyers acknowledged that he committed the shooting but said his mental illness kept him from understanding what he was doing.

They also conceded he poses a danger to the public and should never be free, but asked jurors to send him to a state mental hospital rather than prison. They declined comment after the verdict.

Prosecutor Don Raz said he was pleased the verdict would bring closure to the victims.

Raz argued Haq wasn't insane - just angry - when he stormed the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.

"He was tired that no one was listening to the Muslim point of view. He wanted that point of view heard," Raz told jurors as Haq's second trial opened in October.

A major difference between this trial and the first was the playing of jailhouse phone calls.  

In a recorded phone conversation after the shooting, Raz said, Haq told his mother, "I did a very good thing. I did it for a good reason."

She said, "I know you're not well," to which Haq replied: "Whatever, Mom."

One of Haq's lawyers, John Carpenter, argued that his client believed he could change the course of wars by attacking the Jewish Federation.

"There could be no defense for this act if it was borne by an undiseased mind," Carpenter said. "But it wasn't."

Carpenter described Haq's condition as schizoaffective disorder with bipolar tendencies and said his troubles became worse when he studied at the University of Pennsylvania. He said his client would hear voices that called him a "loser" and a "homo."

Today’s Seattle decision in the Haq case has relevance to the pending courts martial of Fort Hood mass shooter, Major Hasan.  Hasan’s defense counsel has indicated that he will mount on insanity defense. In our opinion the military courts marshal should take due judicial notice of this Seattle decision. It affirms what Hasan had articulated in his Jihad Power Point presentation that he was fulfilling the will of Allah. So did Haq. Now, Haq will spend the rest of his life in prison for his Jihad. Will Hasan?
 

That's "Arab world," not "Muslim world."  And the problem is "traditional values," not "Islamic values".  "Religious leaders" are encouraging the behavior, but this has nothing to do with Islam. 

No surprises here for anyone who has been paying attention, but AP provides some hard numbers.  From AP:

CAIRO – The sexual harassment of women in the streets, schools and work places of the Arab world is driving them to cover up and confine themselves to their homes, said activists at the first-ever regional conference addressing the once taboo topic.

Activists from 17 countries across the region met in Cairo for a two-day conference ending Monday and concluded that harassment was unchecked across the region because laws don't punish it, women don't report it and the authorities ignore it.

The harassment, including groping and verbal abuse, is a daily experience women in the region face and makes them wary of going into public spaces, whether it's the streets or jobs, the participants said. It happens regardless of what women are wearing.

With more and more women in schools, the workplace and politics, roles have changed but often traditional attitudes have not. Experts said in some places, like Egypt, harassment appears sometimes to be out of vengeance, from men blaming women for denied work opportunities.

Amal Madbouli, who wears the conservative face veil or niqab, told The Associated Press that despite her dress, she is harassed and described how a man came after her in the streets of her neighborhood.

"He hissed at me and kept asking me if I wanted to go with him to a quieter area, and to give him my phone number," said Madbouli, a mother of two. "This is a national security issue. I am a mother, and I want to be reassured when my daughters go out on the streets."

Statistics on harassment in the region have until recently been nonexistent, but a series of studies presented at the conference hinted at the widespread nature of the problem.

As many as 90 percent of Yemeni women say they have been harassed, while in Egypt, out of a sample of 1,000, 83 percent reported being verbally or physically abused.

A study in Lebanon reported that more than 30 percent of women said they had been harassed there.

"We are facing a phenomena that is limiting women's right to move ... and is threatening women's participation in all walks of life," said Nehad Abul Komsan, an Egyptian activist who organized the event with funding from the U.N. and the Swedish development agency.

Harassment has long been a problem in Mideast nations. But it was little discussed until three years ago, when blogs gave posted amateur videos showing a crowd of men assaulting women in downtown Cairo during a major Muslim holiday in one of the most shocking harassment incidents in the region.

The public outcry sparked an unprecedented public acknowledgment of the problem in Egypt and elsewhere in the region, and drove the Egyptian government to consider two draft bills addressing sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment, including verbal and physical assault, has been specifically criminalized in only half a dozen Arab countries over the past five years. Most of the 22 Arab states outlaw overtly violent acts like rape or lewd acts in public areas, according to a study by Abul Komsan.

Participants at the conference said men are threatened by an increasingly active female labor force, with conservatives laying the blame for harassment on women's dress and behavior.

In Syria, men from traditional homes go shopping in the market place instead of female family members to spare them harassment, said Sherifa Zuhur, a Lebanese-American academic at the conference.

Abul Komsan described how one of the victims of harassment she interviewed told her she had taken on the full-face veil to stave off the hassle.

"She told me 'I have put on the niqab. By God, what more can I do so they leave me alone,'" she said, quoting the woman. Some even said they were reconsidering going to work or school because of the constant harassment in the streets and on public transpiration.

Where segregation between the sexes is the norm and women are sheltered by religious or tribal customs, cases of sexual harassment are still common at homes and in the times when women must venture out, whether to markets, hospitals or government offices.

In Yemen, where nearly all women are covered from head to toe, activist Amal Basha said 90 percent of women in a published study reported harassment, specifically pinching.

"The religious leaders are always blaming the women, making them live in a constant state of fear because out there, someone is following them," she said.

If a harassment case is reported in Yemen, Basha added, traditional leaders interfere to cover it up, remove the evidence or terrorize the victim.

In Saudi Arabia, another country where women cover themselves completely and are nearly totally segregated from men in public life, women report harassment as well, according to Saudi activist Majid al-Eissa.

His organization, the National Family Safety Program, has been helping draft a law criminalizing violence against women in the conservative kingdom, where flirting can often cross the line into outright assault. Discussion of the law begins Tuesday.

One man's "flirting" is another man's "raping."   It's all one big morally equivalent panoply of cultural diversity.

We're on the verge of 2010, and Saudi Arabia is beginning DISCUSSIONS to DRAFT a law criminalizing violence against women.  It has only been 1,400 years, but , a new gender-friendly Islam is just around the corner, change is in the air, be patient, stay the course, these things take time, yadda yadda yadda.

If we (the West) are so d*mned driven to "help" Muslims, we should start by (diplomatically) forcing them to immediately enact and enforce these sorts of laws, as opposed to building roads, water treatment plants, soccer stadiums, and the rest in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Or, G*d help us, giving or selling state-of-the-art weaponry to Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

I found at www.memri.org, that indispensable site, a video of one MIsh'an al-Jabouri, a Sunni Arab from Iraq, now in Syra, inciting on Arrai TV, a satellite channel he owns, a campaign of murder against American soldiers in Iraq on, because, as a Sunni Arab, al-Jabouri will never accept the new, lesser status of the Sunni Arabs - who are going, of course, to have to accept this status, or find themselves in an oil-less rump state consistiing of Anbar Province, and some of Diyala Province, and not much else.

What interested me is not the hysteria followed by suavity followed by suavity-with-an-undercurrent-of-hysteria. That I am used to from Muslim Arab spokesmen. That is par for the course. No, what interested me was that he knows he is being recorded by MEMRI, knows that the record of what he says, and what his satellite television channel beams to its audience displays, can and will be known, through the good work of MEMRI, to members of Congress. And that gives him pause. That causes him to think about toning things down.

But "toning things down" a little or even a lot is not enough. He should be put off the air entirely. And so should Al Manar, and a dozen other Arab or Muslim channels.

And here's what I learned that was of most interest. Apparently, the American government has power over the owners of these satellites, and can threaten them if they carry stations deemed inimical to the United States. Any channel spreading Islam is inimical to the United States, and to the other Infidel nation-states. But at least let's start, now that we know such a power exists, to exercise that power, and shut down, by way of warning, all of the channels mentioned by Al-Jabouri. Every single one, whether they promise to "tone things down" as he does on this show, or not. It doesn't matter.

Once upon a time it was "we have the Maxim gun, and they have not." Today, "we have the satellite technology, and they have not." It is true that in the field of nuclear weapons, some Muslims -- A. Q. Khan's name heads all the rest -- have managed to steal secrets from the West, and then, Muslims who trained in the West have constituted the cadre of weapons scientists who work on the development of such weapons. But the Arabs and Muslims have no real technological base, and it is Islam itself that is the greatest barrier to the development of both theoretical and applied science in the lands of Islam.

Right now, if the Americans can dictate to the satellite owners what programs they can carry, they should dictate away. Start with banishing Al-Jabouri and all his tribe.

Meanwhile, watch al-Jabouri at MEMRI.

In this corner we have Mr. Mish'an Al-Jabouri, representing Sunni Arabs who miss the Sunni Arab ascendancy under Saddam Hussein, and in that corner, Mr.  Sadeq Al-Musawi, a Shi'a Arab who does not miss Saddam Hussein one bit. Both men are Iraqis, though Mr. Al-Jabouri wishes to convince himself and everyone else that Mr. Al-Musawi is that cursed thing, a "Persian." 

Watch the Arab version of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates right here.

Listen here.

Watch here.

Listen here.

And here is an octopus Greekly-depicted not on the inside, but on the outside, of a spherical shape.

Watch here, as  Iraqi "researcher" Samir Ubeid,-who now lives, and does his "scientific" research, somewhere in Europe ( where? what kind of research? under whose auspices? using what money? to what end?) as he discusses, in the usual crazed conspiratorial fashion to which we have all grown so wearily accustomed, what lurks behind the awarding of the Nobel Prize.

I will leave to others to note that, pace Obeid, the Egyptian chemist Zuwail was heard from again, for he recently  was head of the National Institutes of Health. As for Chekhov being kept from getting the prize, the Nobel Prizes were first given in 1901. Chekhov could have been considered for three years, for he died in early 1904, not yet having achieved the fame that later, thanks partly to the Hogarth Press (that is, the Woolfs,and S. S. Koteliansky), would be his in the West. His body arrived in Moscow in a refrigerated railroad car marked "oysters" ("Flensburgskie -to Flensburgskie, da svezhi li"?).But what about Tolstoy? He was famous, and he didn't die until 1910, so there were nine years in which the relevant Nobel committee had to consider him, compared to Chekhov's measly three-year vasisdas of opportunity. Samir Obeid has a point.  As for Tolstoy himself not winning the Nobel Prize, there can be little doubt that that too was the result of a plot hatched in Israel. Hatched in Israel,  way back in 1907 -- or might it have been 1908? 

Watch and listen here.

UK law probe after Livni warrant

The warrant was granted by a London court at the request of Palestinian plaintiffs, provoking Israeli anger.

It was revoked on Monday when it was found Ms Livni was not visiting the UK.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Israel was a "close friend" of the UK's and stressed he was keen to "avoid this sort of situation arising again".