From The BBC
The British government is to fund a board of Islamic theologians in an attempt to sideline violent extremists.
The move will see Oxford and Cambridge Universities host a group of scholars who will lead debate on key issues such as women and loyalty to the UK.
Under the plans, the two universities will bring together about 20 leading thinkers, yet to be named, to debate critical issues affecting Muslims in the UK. The Department for Communities is responsible for the government's strategy to combat violent extremism, known as "Prevent".
It will provide funding and support for the project but maintains that the board's work will be completely independent of political interference.  The board's work will focus on examining issues relating to Islam's place in Britain and obligations as a citizen.
Ministers say the board's membership will "reflect the diversity of Islam and Muslim communities in the UK" and the work will include seminars around the country.
Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, a leading imam with the Muslim Council of Britain, said establishing a specialist board was the brainchild of a group of Muslims, not the government.
Ms Blears said the department's support for the project emerged out of debate with Muslim communities who asked ministers for help in supporting the work of key thinkers across the UK.  “We have made significant progress working with communities to build an alliance against violent extremists," said Ms Blears. "It is not for government to dictate on matters of faith or religious teaching. But Muslim communities themselves have told us that stronger leadership is needed on what are often controversial issues."
But Islamic groups who have clashed in the past with the government have already attacked the plans.
Taji Mustafa of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group that fought government attempts to ban it, predicted that many ordinary Muslims would be suspicious. "The British government's interference amongst the Muslim community and matters of Islam, is unprecedented in comparison with any other religion," said Mr Mustafa.

From The Express and Star the newspaper for the Midlands.
A mosque and training centre costing £18 million could still be built in Dudley after an appeal was upheld by a planning inspector sparking accusations the views of thousands of protesters have been ignored. But there is still a chance the scheme, featuring a 65 feet minaret, will fail if it has not been “substantially” built by the end of the year.
The decision to allow the appeal for the project on land in Hall Street was announced yesterday following a public inquiry held in June.
One of the key arguments against the plan was the fact the site had been designated for employment use. But the planning inspector said there were plenty of other pockets of land in Dudley which could be developed for industry.
Council leader David Caunt has described the decision as a “sad day” for local democracy saying it ignores the 23,000 people who signed a petition in opposition.
He said: “Once again the views of local people and councillors have been ignored by a planning inspectorate in Bristol. It is a sad day for local democracy when the council and the people are ridden roughshod over by a government quango. We will be reviewing the decision in detail to ascertain whether there are legal grounds to challenge it.”
Dudley Muslim Association which is behind the plan now has outline planning permission but still needs to submit a detailed application which the council has up to 13 weeks to determine.
When the site was transferred to the association in 2003 there was a legal agreement that if the project was not “substantially” completed by the end of this year the land would be returned to the council.
Council Caunt added: “I don’t think there will even be a bucket and spade on the site by then. There is every chance this will end up in the courts because the association will not back down.” Mr Caunt added he would be writing to Hazel Blears and branding her white paper “Communities in Control” a joke.
In contrast the PCBBC baldly states:-
The government has given permission for a new £18m mosque and community centre to be built in the West Midlands. . . The town's Muslim Association appealed to the government's Planning Inspectorate which has given the go-ahead for the project.
Less than 7 months to get something which looks like the photo on the left substantially built, assuming the detailed application is granted. I doubt it is likely. The association will then return to court to argue against the 2003 agreement and the council will be put to more expense, all of which will be born by the Council tax payers. This is a war of paper and cunning which we can all fight no matter how old we are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8D2EngX-tA&feature=related

There was no Beatle about the Bush, but Barack Obama is the "Fab One", according to Gerard Baker. From The Times:

You have to go back to the Beatles' first US tour to find a transatlantic trip freighted with the sort of pregnant excitement that attends the one Barack Obama is about to make next week.

The faces of the crowds expected in Berlin when he arrives on Thursday will be portraits of the same devotional ecstasy that greeted the Liverpool quartet on their way from JFK to Manhattan that February day in 1964. In London next weekend Gordon Brown will play Ed Sullivan to the Fab One, hoping to borrow, just for a day, a little of the superstar charisma to bolster his own ratings.

The parallels between the former Quarrymen and the son of the Kenyan goatherd don't stop there. Both built their success on a pleasing facility for the harmonious marriage of words and cadence. (“We have a righteous wind at our backs and we stand on the crossroads of history”, says the Senator. “Please please me, whoa yeah, like I please you!” sang John and Paul.)

Just like the Beatles, Mr Obama is a prodigiously talented revolutionary, the tribune of a rising generation, whose evident talent is only slightly compromised by an unsettling precocity. He hasn't claimed to be more popular than Jesus yet, but looking at the latest opinion polls in secular Europe, it might just be plausible.

Here are some more songs by Obama the Beatle:

The Taxman
All You Need is Love
Michelle, Ma Belle
Love Me Do
Ob A Me, Ob A Ma
Get Black

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgpfSp2t6k&NR=1

Martin Creed, an important "conceptual" artist of our epoch, who won the Tate Prize in 2001 for his Work No. 227,  the lights going on and off. This work consisted of an empty room in which the lights kept going, at intervals, on and off. Some people weren't sure this was even art; they were of course laughingly dismissed. 

Creed was this year give a commission, sponsored by Sotheby's, to create an original work of art for the Duveen Galleries at the Tate, to be on display this summer. He finished it in record time; in fact, it hardly took any time at all to complete it, and the sophisticated and the discerning, who do not go to galleries to see Norman Rockwell or Grandma Moses, are delighted with Creed's Work No. 850.  

Work No. 850 consists of a series or relay of runners who, every 30 seconds , sprint through the gallery, apparently in it's-a-bird-it's-a-plane-it's-Superman fashion.

Oh, why?

Well, as an official statement put out by the Tate Gallery puts it, "Work No. 850 is about the purest expression of human vitality. This investigation into the body celebrates physicality and the human spirit, the constant ebb and flow of nature."

How true. And isn't that what a work of art is supposed to do, to offer "the purest expression of human vitality" and to conduct an "investigation"(not sure about exactly how this investigation part works with the running-as-fast-as-you-can-through-the-Gallery part, but I'm sure they somehow blend) "into the body" that "celebrates physicality and the human spirit," which -- in the twinkling of a comma, becomes the same thing as "the constant ebb and flow of nature."

So run, Balthus, run. Run, Matisse, run. Run, Velazquez, run. All of you, run run run, tso as to offer the purest expression of human vitality, and what's more, to celebrate physicality and the human spirit, the constant ebb and flow of nature.

Martin Creed's hired sprinters will show you how. 

And we, who are living at this hour, can only admire, can only be grateful, can only stand astonied, at the Progress of Art.

There were three bands that played around East London in the mid to late 70s in particular but not solely the Ruskin Arms in East Ham.
We all know what happened to Iron Maiden. This, by special request of Artemis is what became of Angel Witch. But whatever happened to Zorro?
I still am an Iron Maiden fan and was sorry not to have been able to see them at Twickenham two weeks ago. I was never so keen on Angel Witch myself but they had their admirers.

 I believe I heard that in the U.K., unlike the U.S., truth is not a defense in a libel case - Artemis

"Justification", i.e. that the allegation is proved to be true, is the main defence in a libel case. "True" and "proved to be true" are not the same thing - complicated rules of evidence apply. The main problem with our law is that the burden of proof is on the defendant, who must prove, in minute detail, that what he said was true. It is often very difficult to prove that the whole of an allegation is true, plus the plaintiff, especially if he's a rich Saudi, has money to pay lawyers, while the defendant often hasn't.

I think our libel laws should be changed, particularly to reduce damages and to exclude foreign litigants, but I have seen the other side. Our tabloids are notorious for making wild accusations, which can ruin the life of an ordinary person who can't fight back. That said, the laws were not intended, and shouldn't be used, to crush free speech, which is what they're doing, especially where Muslims are concerned.

In this particular case, unlike the Harry's Place one, I can't get worked up. It seems that the allegations were not true. I know that Yusuf Islam has worked with Dolly Parton, who, to be fair, doesn't show her real hair, or possibly even her real tits, but she's hardly a niqabette. Should a paper be able to tell lies about someone, even a Muslim? What if a Muslim were to libel a non-Muslim? Would it be OK for the non-Muslim to sue?

Jerry Gordon, Elizabeth Noble and I have covered the numerous problems with Iraqi refugees in Nashville. Muslim gangs are notoriously violent. This is from The Tennessean:

Two Kurdish Pride Gang members were found guilty today on charges they conspired to kill a drug dealer they suspected of robbing them.

Ako and Aso Nejad were among several people waiting in a wooded area of Edwin Warner Park in August 2006 for a person they intended to kill. Ako Nejad was also convicted on a charge of attempted second-degree murder for firing shots at a park police officer who approached the group and gave chase when the suspects took off.

The brothers face sentences of at least 15-25 years at their next hearing on Sept. 2, according to the Davidson County Attorney General’s office. Ako Nejad faces an additional 8-12 years for the attempted murder conviction.

Both men had been charged in the past on violent offenses, according to Metro police.

Aso Nejad was one of two people charged in the shooting of an 18-year-old at Glencliff High School’s graduation in 2007. Ako Nejad was arrested in October 2007 related to a shooting in Whitfield Park but the charges were dropped when witnesses didn’t come to court.

Witnesses didn't come to court because they were threatened and went into hiding.

W. Thomas Smith writes in World Defense Review (thanks to Jeffrey Imm): The saluting soldiers – one wearing wearing a light-blue (United Nations color) helmet, the other a beret – are actually members of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

They are saluting, of course, the Lebanese flag. But they are also saluting the remains of terrorists returning to Lebanon from Israel following the recent “swap” between Israel and the terrorist group, Hezbollah.

Notice what else they are saluting: The giant photograph on the truck bearing the terrorists’ remains is that of recently assassinated Imad Mughniyeh, the infamous Hezbollah-butcher who was responsible for blowing up the American Embassy and the U.S. Marine barracks (also a French paratrooper barracks) in Beirut in 1983 , and then torturing and murdering an unarmed American sailor in 1985. Beyond those attacks and over the years, Mughniyeh directed a series of lesser-reported kidnappings and murders against Americans and others...

National Journal: Q: You know, you have really changed the world with your conversation about wind energy. [PickensPlan.com] is really an incredible Web site -- these videos, the ads, what you're doing. For those who haven't seen it, which means they don't live here in the United States -- but why don't you just give us a quick one minute on how you think you have the answer to the energy issue?

Pickens: OK. The problem first: We are paying now $700 billion a year for foreign oil. We're going to break the country, is what's going to happen. If we go 10 years at this, and we've been doing it for 40 -- not at that level, but we have... our imports have gone up from 24 percent in 1970 to now -- we're almost 70 percent, and by 10 years from now, in 2018, we'll be up to 80 percent. It's crazy, we're insane to do what we're doing.

OK. That's where I'm approaching the problem. Now, when I look at the solutions -- we only have one natural resource in America that can replace foreign oil, and that is natural gas. Natural gas is a better transportation fuel than gasoline, so if that's the case, it's cheaper, it's cleaner and it's a domestic resource. So we have to go to natural gas; we don't have any choice if we're going to reduce the $700 billion. And I think within less than 10 years we could reduce that by 30 to 40 percent -- the import of foreign oil.

So you know, when I see it, I see only winners here. And then I fold in a wind project to help it all, but you'll get into that on some questions here.

Q: Absolutely. In fact, let me ask you about that. Let's start with wind, because your own state of Texas yesterday agreed to a $4.9 billion plan -- now it's new transmission lines. Can you explain the transmission lines and how it works with the wind power?

Pickens: Yes, they're going to build -- that's a [unintelligible] system, that's our transmission in Texas -- and they're going to build these lines and extend it into the wind area -- which is up in the panhandle of Texas -- which will be very helpful for us.

Q: But how? I mean, if it's such an effective way, why wasn't it done before?

Pickens: Listen, that is a question you can ask about the problems with energy in America. I mean, why wasn't it done before? For 40 years, Tammy, 40 years, we have had no leadership on energy in this country. Can you imagine that we drifted, drifted, drifted like we have, and we're so dependent on foreign oil? You know, it's the same thing; government moves very slow, as you know, and they are reactive instead of proactive. Government is not like business and industry is.

Q: So business right now has to push and prod governments to get into this?

Pickens: What we've got to do, is we've got to come up with some leadership in Washington that recognizes the problem and you know, then has a plan, and they tell us this is what we're going to do, because the American people are fed up with this...

I have a bone to pick with T. Boone Pickens - and there's a lot at steak.

Can that be his real name? Does he know Sir Jock Stirrup and the other muckamucks with monickers to match?

The Onion:

NEW YORK—Hailed by media critics as the fluffiest, most toothless, and softest-hitting coverage of the presidential candidate to date, a story in this week's Time magazine is being called the definitive Barack Obama puff piece.

"No news publication has dared to barely scratch the surface like this before," columnist and campaign reporter Michael King wrote in The Washington Post Tuesday. "This profile sets a benchmark for mindless filler by which all other features about Sen. Obama will now be judged. Just impressive puff-journalism all around."

The 24-page profile, entitled "Boogyin' With Barack," hit newsstands Monday and contains photos of the candidate as a baby, graduating from Columbia University, standing and laughing, holding hands with his wife and best friend, Michelle, greeting a crowd of blue-collar autoworkers, eating breakfast with diner patrons, and staring pensively out of an airplane window while a pen and legal pad rest comfortably on his lowered tray table.

According to political analysts, the Time piece features the most lack-of-depth reporting on Obama ever published, and for the first time reveals a number of inconsequential truths about the candidate, including how he keeps in shape on the campaign trail, and which historical figures the presidential hopeful would choose to have dinner with.

"The sheer breadth of fluff in this story is something to be marveled at," New York Times Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet said. "It's all here. Favorite books, movies, meals, and seasons of the year ranked one through four. Sure, we asked Obama what his favorite ice cream was, but Time did us one better and asked, 'What's your favorite ice cream, really?'"

Time managing editor Rich Stengel said he was proud of the Obama puff piece, and that he hoped it would help to redefine the boundaries of journalistic drivel.

"When the American people cast their vote this November, this is the piece of fluff they're going to remember," Stengel said. "Not the ones by Newsweek, Harper's, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Economist, Nightline, The Wall Street Journal, or even that story about lessons Obama learned from his first-grade teacher we ran a month ago."...

Here is video of the execution of two women said to be prostitutes in Afghanistan.