From The Times
Pass beyond what is described as government territory in the Somali capital — a few blocks between the airport, the harbour and the presidential palace — and you are at the mercy of al-Shabaab, the extremist Islamic group that holds sway across southern and central Somalia. Where it rules, it has implemented laws and punishments reminiscent of Afghanistan under Taleban rule.
It has banned bras, football, dancing and musical ringtones. This weekend al-Shabaab decreed that men must grow beards and shave their moustaches. Its fighters have destroyed Sufi tombs and disinterred colonial-era Italian corpses. Its Sharia courts have ordered public floggings, the chopping off of hands and feet of thieves, the stoning to death of adulterers and beheadings of apostates and spies.
Suicide attacks and roadside bombs have grown in number, leading Western intelligence agencies to conclude that there are growing links between al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda. The agencies warn that the country is becoming a haven for international terrorists.
Today the Transitional Federal Government cowers behind 5,000 AU protectors in the piece of Mogadishu that it controls — although recently a suicide bomber struck within the supposed safe zone. In other attacks this month dozens of medical students were killed with three government ministers in a suicide attack. At the weekend 14 people died as Government and insurgent forces traded mortar fire. Every week fresh reports of death and horror cement Mogadishu’s reputation as the worst place on earth.
Harakat al-Shabaab — meaning “Youth Movement” — emerged in 2005 as a cross-clan Islamist militia designed to support the Islamic Courts Union, which aimed to defeat the clan warlords that had devastated the country since the collapse of the last functioning administration in 1991.
Many of al-Shabaab’s leaders are radical Somali veterans of the Afghanistan wars. Last year Ahmed Abdi Godane, known as Abu Zubeyr, became its top commander. He is believed to have fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and is described by one observer as “a hardcore jihadi”. . . Other senior commanders, all of whom enjoy a large degree of autonomy, include Mukhtar Ali Robow, also known as Abu Mansoor, an experienced fighter who ran the training camp from which al-Shabaab emerged, and Ibrahim Haji Jaama who won his nom de guerre “al-Afghani” thanks to years of fighting in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
Because of the growing military pressure in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, hundreds of foreign fighters have flocked to Somalia to fight Sheikh Ahmed’s UN and US-backed administration. They have brought with them a radical ideology of global jihad and some — including a white US citizen known as “al-Amriki” — have taken leading field commander roles.
Their influence is changing al-Shabaab from a local insurgent group into a player in the wider battle between Islamic extremism and the West. “There is increasing control exercised by the foreign leadership of al-Shabaab,” said Peter Pham, associate professor at James Madison University. “It is not just control of resources, foreign fighters and trainers, but of the actual decision-making.”
At the same time, al-Shabaab has fallen out with its former ally, Hizb ul-Islam, with whom it launched a joint offensive to oust Sheikh Ahmed in May. This staunchly nationalist group of Islamists is led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who helped to train the first al-Shabaab fighters and is wanted as a terrorist by the US.
This year fighting erupted between al-Shabaab and Hizb ul-Islam over control of revenues from the southern port of Kismayo. This has since turned into a deeper split. “Hizb ul-Islam’s orientation is domestic but al-Shabaab’s focus is on a broader ideological Islam,” said Dr Pham.
I don't understand why we have so many Somalis in London - there are no Commonwealth connections to attempt to justify their presence - they have no skills to make them desirable as immigrants - only the Christians subject to persecution command public sympathy.

From Daily Times in Pakistan:

Mosques to be locked after Isha prayers

ISLAMABAD: Clerics from various sects agreed on Sunday that mosques across the country would be locked after Isha prayers in order to curb terrorists from taking refuge in mosques.

The decision was announced in a press statement issued after Interior Minister Rehman Malik met the clerics.

The clerics praised the interior minister’s efforts to combat terrorism and assured him of their full cooperation in the government’s anti-terror drive. The clerics criticised elements that are involved in terrorism and suicide bombings.

“The clerics appreciated the efforts of the government to ensure security and safety of the citizens. They unanimously agreed that ... all mosques would be locked after Isha prayers so that the premises cannot be used as a refuge by any miscreant,” the statement said.

The measure would be enforced by the heads of various sects without the involvement of the government,” the statement added.

The interior minister appealed to the religious leaders to promote peace and harmony during Muharram.

The clerics agreed to promote harmony in the society.
 

Pakistani Muslim clerics agree that locking mosques promotes harmony in society.

Fascinating.

From The London Evening Standard
Police are investigating about a dozen cases of missing children in Britain who they fear may be victims of “honour-based” violence, it emerged today.
Prosecutors say they are assisting in cases where children have been taken out of school without any explanation, and who have since disappeared.
Police are investigating about a dozen cases of missing children in Britain who they fear may be victims of “honour-based” violence, it emerged today.
Prosecutors say they are assisting in cases where children have been taken out of school without any explanation, and who have since disappeared.
The first comment is a writer from Dewsbury and he or she is right.
Anne Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley has for over two decades been trying to bring local and national attention to forced marriages. The tip of the iceberg is the few cases which are DISCOVERED to end in murder. She has tried to spearhead the anti Forced Marriage Act and has had to fight the fierce opposition from some communities in her constituency. They campaigned vigorously against her, always resorting to calling her a racist because she 'didn't understand' their traditions.
They even made it hard for her to have local schools put up posters telling girls to tell their friends and teachers if they suspected the Pakistani 'holiday' was in fact a marriage trip. Many girls in her area disappeared suddenly from schools. Even very young girls returned married. Some of those girls on arrival in Pakistan, tried to hold out and refuse marriage. They would be held prisoners, starved and be treated violently until they agreed. Rape by the prospective bridegroom was used as a weapon to obtain agreement.
More common than the murders are the everyday forced marriages but kidnap and violence doesn't have to be used against the majority. Parental anger at refusal to marry the fathers choice is enough to coerce most of these young girls, so too is the ultimate weapon of family exile.
Every perpetrator should be given maximum goal sentences. Even if girls aren't murdered, their lives are effectively destroyed when their fathers make loveless and violent choices for them.

As I wrote in yesterday's post I consider the distinction between Christmas Carols and Christmas songs to be rather artificial. Many of our modern Christmas songs mention a certain Santa Claus – a semi-magical being that brings presents at Christmastide – and some would argue that such songs cannot be carols.

From the Daily Mail:

A clergyman has been criticised as 'highly irresponsible' after advising his congregation to shoplift following his Nativity sermon.

Father Tim Jones, 41, broke off from his traditional annual sermon yesterday to tell his flock that stealing from large chains is sometimes the best option for vulnerable people.

It is far better for people desperate during the recession to shoplift than turn to 'prostitution, mugging or burglary', he said.
 

The married father-of-two insisted his unusual advice did not break the Bible commandment 'Thou shalt not steal' - because God's love for the poor outweighs his love for the rich.

But the minister's controversial sermon at St Lawrence Church in York has been slammed by police and a local MP, who say that no matter what the circumstances, shoplifting is an offence.
 

Delivering his festive lesson, Father Jones told the congregation: 'My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift.  I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or  because I think it is harmless, for it is neither.

'I would ask that they do not steal from small family businesses, but from large national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices.

'I would ask them not to take any more than they need, for any longer than they need.

'I offer the advice with a heavy heart and wish society would recognise that bureaucratic ineptitude and systematic delay has created an invitation and incentive to crime for people struggling to cope.'

He added that he felt society had failed the needy, and said it was far better they shoplift than turn to more degrading or violent options such as prostitution, mugging or burglary...

The Burton Mail reports this thus.
A ROYAL British Legion boss says vandals have “dishonoured those who have given their lives for our country” by defacing Burton?s war memorial.
Roy Whenman, vice-chairman of the town’s Legion branch, received calls from members saying an extremist message had been written on the statue. Having been informed at 9.20am, borough council chiefs had cleaned the graffiti from the relic, situated outside Burton College, in Lichfield Street, by 9.40am.
Mr Whenman, of Birches Close, Stretton, has described whoever committed the offence as “diabolical”. "I don’t know how long it was there for, but I was pleasantly surprised by the council’s quick action and I commend them for it".
Dennis Fletcher, chairman of East Staffordshire Racial Equality Council, said he suspected someone from the far right was responsible.
“I suspect members of the far right have done this to stir things up and there are generally very good inter-cultural relations in East Staffordshire. Graffiti of any type is terrible but when it includes racist material it has to be considered utterly unacceptable.”
An East Staffordshire Borough Council spokesman said: “We would say that this vandalism is deplorable and we do our best to clean such graffiti as soon as we possibly can.”
? The Mail has manipulated the mainpicture to remove some of the content of the message.
They give no indication what the "message" was that was so distasteful. Non UK readers will not know of the widespread anger that there was last month when a very drunk and silly young man, needing to relieve himself after he came out of the pub in Sheffield, used the War Memorial opposite and found himself in court facing a potential jail sentence. He was given a community service order after the Judge said he was satisfied that he was genuinly ashamed and contrite. So War Memorials are pretty sacred.
But (Hat Tip Europe News) there is a photograph of the whole of the War Memorial where the offensive graffitti can be seen clearly.

 
Islam Will Dominate the World.
Why is the Burton Mail hiding what was said? Even if the allegation on this forum that the grafitti is the work of the BNP and/or Stromforce to discredit Muslims has any credence why is the local paper failing to report all the facts? It was cleaned off remarkably quickly by the council.

One very disturbing aspect of the burgeoning Muslim-Jewish dialogue is the oft repeated line that Hitler was a Christian. This, along with the myth of the Muslim golden age, when Jews were supposedly treated better under Muslim rule than in Christian Europe, is a transparent effort by Muslim propagandists to drive a wedge between Jews and Christians. In reality the Nazi movement was anti-Christian as this article from The Independent demonstrates:

A Yuletide fir tree decorated with sparkling swastikas, apple- cheeked children in uniform eager to bake SS insignia-shaped cakes for the whole family, and festive Germanic candlesticks hand-crafted in a concentration camp – such were the dubious delights of Christmas under Nazi rule.

Sixty-five years after Germans celebrated the last Christmas of the Third Reich, a new exhibition at Cologne's National Socialism Documentation Centre offers, for the first time, an insight into the elaborate propaganda methods devised by the Nazis in their campaign to take the Christ out of Christmas.

The exhibition contains selected items from a vast private collection of Nazi Christmas memorabilia, including swastika and Nazi SS tree decorations, Aryan department store catalogues featuring presents for boys – toy Nazi tanks, fighter planes and machine guns – and music for carols that have been stripped of their Christian content.

"The baby Jesus was Jewish. This was both a problem and a provocation for the Nazis," explained Judith Breuer, who organised the exhibition using the items she and her mother collected at flea markets over 30 years. "The most popular Christian festival of the year did not fit in with their racist ideology. They had to react and they did so by trying to make it less Christian."

The regime's exploitation of Christmas began almost as soon as the Nazis took power in 1933. Party ideologists wrote scores of papers claiming that the festival's Christian element was a manipulative attempt by the church to capitalise on what were really old Germanic traditions. Christmas Eve, they argued, had nothing to do with Christ but was the date of the winter solstice – the Nordic Yuletide that was "the holy night in which the sun was reborn".

The swastika, they claimed, was an ancient symbol of the sun that represented the struggle of the Great German Reich. Father Christmas had nothing to do with the bearded figure in a red robe who looked like a bishop: the Nazis reinvented him as the Germanic Norse god Odin, who, according to legend, rode about the earth on a white horse to announce the coming of the winter solstice. Propaganda posters in the exhibition show the "Christmas or Solstice man" as a hippie-like individual on a white charger sporting a thick grey beard, slouch hat and a sack full of gifts.

But the star that traditionally crowns the Christmas tree presented an almost insurmountable problem. "Either it was the six-pointed star of David, which was Jewish, or it was the five-pointed star of the Bolshevik Soviet Union," said Mrs Breuer. "And both of them were anathema to the regime." So the Nazis replaced the star with swastikas, Germanic "sun wheels" and the Nordic "sig runes" used by the regime's fanatical Waffen SS as their insignia.

Housewives were encouraged to bake biscuits in similar shapes. One of the exhibits is a page from a Nazi women's magazine with a baking recipe: "Every boy will want to bake a sig (SS) rune," proclaims the accompanying text.

The Nazification of Christmas did not end there. The Christmas tree crib was replaced by a Christmas garden containing wooden toy deer and rabbits. Mary and Jesus became the Germanic mother and child, while dozens of Christmas carols, including the famous German hymn "Silent Night", were rewritten with all references to God, Christ and religion expunged. At the height of the anti-Christian campaign, an attempt was made to replace the coming of Christ the Saviour with the coming of Adolf Hitler – the "Saviour Führer."

"We cannot accept that a German Christmas tree has anything to do with a crib in a manger in Bethlehem," wrote the Nazi propagandist Friedrich Rehm in 1937. "It is inconceivable for us that Christmas and all its deep soulful content is the product of an oriental religion," he added.

One of the exhibition's more disturbing items is a so-called Yule lantern – a Germanic candlestick that was produced on the orders of SS leader Heinrich Himmler by the inmates of Dachau concentration camp. They were meant as gifts for faithful SS members.

Yet during the course of the Second World War, the Nazis' attempts to take the Christ out of Christmas became increasingly overshadowed by the war effort. The festival quickly turned into a scramble to send gift boxes and cards to troops at the front. By the end of the war, the Nazis had tried to turn Christmas into a ceremony of mourning for the fallen but, by then, hardly anyone took notice.

Mrs Breuer's mother, Rita, began collecting antique Christmas decorations in the 1970s. Her husband had said he wanted the sort of old-fashioned German tree that his grandmother used to have. But Rita Breuer and her daughter soon started to unearth bizarre tree decorations that had little to do with the traditional Christmas. First World War items included a miniature glass soldier carrying a hand grenade and military tree baubles in the shape of shells and tanks.

"The trend continued into the Nazi era," Mrs Breuer said. The church was too intimidated to protest, and the majority of Germans continued with the traditions they had become used to. "The Nazi Christmas ideology appears to have been adhered to most by the families of party activists who lived in towns," she added. The Nazi version of some German carols that were stripped of their Christian content survive and are still unwittingly sung by today's Germans.

The hijacking of Christmas did not end with the Nazis. There were also attempts to de-Christianise the event in the former communist East Germany. Prominent communist authors tried to substitute the birth of Jesus with that of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who just happened to have been born in a humble Russian hut on December 21. "It may seem peculiar now, but in some cases the transition was almost seamless," Mrs Breuer said...

  `Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There's nothing much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.'
 
Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.
 
  Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour
The better for the embittered hour;
It will do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.
 
  There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that sprang to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
-- I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

Guinea (not to be confused with Guinea-Bissau) in another one of those nations overcast by the fog-of-war.  It is filled with coups, massacres, assassinations, and mass rapes that inexplicably occur out of the blue for no clear reason.  Guinea is 85% Muslim (mainly Sunni, but with a growing Shia minority), 10% Christian, and 5% animist.  From AP:

PARIS – A French news report says U.N. investigators believe Guinea's September massacre of protesters qualifies as a crime against humanity.

Le Monde reported Monday that investigators want the International Criminal Court to take up the case. It says the U.N. commission considers "there is sufficient reason to presume the direct criminal responsibility of president Capt. Moussa 'Dadis' Camara."

The paper cites a U.N. report saying 156 people were killed or disappeared. It says at least 109 women or girls were victims of rape and sexual mutilation.   It did not say how it obtained the report, which it says was turned over Saturday to the Security Council.

Camara was shot by his presidential guard earlier this month and the state of his health is still a mystery.

Some background:  First, the cast of characters:

• Ahmed Sékou Touré - President of Guinea from 1958 to 1984.  Muslim.
• Lasana Conté - President of Guinea from 1984 until his death in December 2008.  Muslim.
• Ahmed Tidiane Souaré - Prime Minister of Guinea from May 2008 to December 2008.  Religion unknown, but was considered closely tied to Lasana Conté.
• Aboubacar Somparé  -   President of National Assembly of Guinea from 2008 to 2008. Muslim.
• Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara - Chief of Fuels of the Guinean army.  Christian.
• Lieutenant Abu Bakr "Toumba" Sidiki Diakité  - Member of the "berets rouges" unit of the Guinean army, and bodyguard to Moussa Camara.

Lasana Conté gained the Presidency in 1984 in a coup following the death (by natural causes) of  Ahmed Sékou Touré.  Conté's long reign was marked by rampant human rights abuses and widespread corruption.

On December 23rd, 2008,  Aboubacar Somparé  announced that Lasana Conté had died of natural causes.  Two days later,  on Christmas Day, Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara claimed control in a military coup.  Both Ahmed Tidiane Souaré and Aboubacar Somparé  made public statements denouncing the coup attempt, and denying that it had been successful.

Camara met with Souaré and said that he and other members of the former government could keep their positions.  Souaré announced his loyalty to the new Camara government, but on December 30th, Camara replaced Souaré with a rival.

On March 23rd, 2009, Souaré was arrested for embezzlement, and was ordered to pay back 12 billion Guinean francs.

On September 28th, 2009, protests broke out after Camara announced new elections and hinted that he might run for president, breaking an earlier pledge to withdraw from government.  Members of the "berets rouges" unit of the Guinean army attacked protesters, raping and killing many.  The victims were mainly from the Muslim Peuhl ethnic group.  This is the incident that the UN was commenting on in the story above.  In interviews, Camara claimed that the responsible troops were "uncontrollable elements in the military", and "Even I, as head of state in this very tense situation, cannot claim to be able to control those elements in the military".  Ironically, Camara called for the UN investigation into the massacre.  

On December 4th, 2009, Camara and his bodyguard Lieutenant Abu Bakr "Toumba" Sidiki Diakité  argued over who would take the blame for the September massacre.  Many Guineans blame Toumba.  The meeting ended with Toumba shooting Camara in the head.  Camara apparently survived and was flown to Morocco for treatment.  His condition is unknown.  Would-be assassin Toumba fled and is still on the loose;  other reports say that Toumba has been arrested.  Others involved in the assassination attempt are Master Sergeant Mohamed "Beugre" Camara, Second Lieutenant Mohamed Soumah, and Lieutenant Mabinty "Magie" Sylla, all members of the "berets rouges".

The role of religious affiliation in these conflicts is hinted at obliquely in news reports, if at all.  The fact that Camara is the first non-Muslim to rule Guinea since independence in 1958 may or may not be related to the attempt on his life.  G*d knows there have certainly been many non-Muslim tyrants throughout African history.  But it also wouldn't be the first time that a Christian was blamed by Muslims (and their apologists at HRW and the UN) for the actions of Muslims.

Forget all that stuff about Quranic indoctrination being the driving force behind Jihad attacks like Major Hasan’s mass shooting at Fort Hood that killed 13 and injured 30. Or the June attack in Arkansas in which a Muslim convert killed an Army recruiter at a mall or the mother of all attacks 9/11 that killed 3,000 people in Manhattan, southeastern Pennsylvania and the Pentagon.    

Now, as revealed in a Science Daily report,”Predicting Insurgent attacks with a Mathematical model”,  we have a handy dandy mathematical model developed by Physics boffins at the University of Miami (UM) that predicts terrorism attacks. Note this from the UM investigators:

The unified model of human insurgency establishes a quantitative connection between insurgency, global terrorism and ecology, and this model demonstrates that insurgency behaves "soup-of-groups, with no permanent network or leaders, but with common decision-making processes," says Johnson. This "mathematical law of war" challenges traditional ideas of insurgency based on rigid hierarchies and networks, explains Johnson.

The University of Miami (UM) researchers and their collaborators analyzed the size and timing of 54,679 violent events reported in Afghanistan, Colombia, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Northern Ireland, Peru, Senegal and Sierra Leone. The findings show that there is a generic way in which humans carry out insurgency and terrorism when faced by a large powerful state force, and this is irrespective of background history, motivation, ideology, politics and location, explains Neil Johnson, principal investigator of the study and professor of Physics at the UM College of Arts and Sciences.

"We have found a unified model of modern insurgent wars that shows a fundamental pattern in the apparent chaos of wars," says Johnson. "In practical terms, our analysis can be used to create and explore scenarios, make predictions and assess risks, for present and future wars."

The study finds a common statistical distribution for insurgency attacks that is significantly different to the distribution of attacks in traditional wars. This finding supports the belief that insurgent wars represent "fourth generation warfare" with different dynamics from conventional wars.

"Despite the many different discussions of various wars, different historical features, tribes, geography and cause, we find that the way humans fight modern (present and probably future) wars is the same," he says. "Just like traffic patterns in Tokyo, London and Miami are pretty much the same."

This research looks like statistical justification for the leaderless networks propositions of alleged counterterrorism policy wonks who frequently appear before Congressional committees to explain Islamic terrorism. Who knows this absurd research might even mislead CENTCOM planners desperate to craft a ‘surge’ strategy in Afghanistan. 

A previous statistical analysis cited by Science News  by operations researchers Kress and Szechtman indicated why it may be difficult for CENTCOM  to come up with a winning strategy in defeating the Taliban:

Insurgent groups like the Taliban can only be effectively engaged with timely and accurate military intelligence, and even good intelligence may only succeed in containing the insurgency, not defeating it, according to a new study.

At least that analysis was plausible. But not this UM fantasy model.

But get this, the UM model, according to its authors, offers explanation for the madness of financial panics, traffic patterns in major cities of the world like London, Tokyo and Paris, and may enable doctors to develop battle plans for individuals to conduct personal wars against cancer!  I wonder what kind of Kool-Aid they were drinking to come up with those implications.

Without inspecting  the mountain of data , the statistical methods and tests for determining significantly different results from zero and such I reached into my dog eared copy of Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds  published in 1841 by Scotsman, Charles McKay. He offered the following comments applicable to this ‘research’:

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."

"Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome."
 

Listen here.

Deep inside the world's oldest known building, every year, for only as much as 17 minutes, the sun -- at the exact moment of the winter solstice -- shines directly down a long corridor of stone and illuminates the inner chamber at Newgrange. --more here

Breaking News:  The United States has finally realized that the motivation for jihad is ... [drum roll please] ... poverty!  A brilliant new plan is now ready to be unveiled: we will offer money and jobs to Mullah Omar and his minions.  If only the United States had thought of this earlier, and tried this years ago.  From the Washington Times:

The United States and its allies are stepping up efforts to persuade Afghan insurgents to put down their arms by negotiating with representatives of Mullah Mohammed Omar and other Taliban commanders and offering cash and jobs to low-level fighters, according to Pakistani, Middle Eastern and U.S. officials and analysts.

The efforts, coupled with an increased U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, are meant to weaken the insurgency and promote a negotiated end to the region's violence.

"The strategy is to peel away so many fighters" from the insurgent chiefs that they will be left like "floating icebergs and have no one left to command," said Kenneth Katzman, an Afghanistan specialist at the Congressional Research Service.

Several Pakistani, Middle Eastern and U.S. officials said in interviews that Saudi and Pakistani officials, acting with tacit American encouragement, are talking with "second tier" Taliban leaders connected with Mullah Omar. The Washington Times reported recently that Mullah Omar has been hiding in the Pakistani metropolis of Karachi and was brought there with the knowledge of Pakistani intelligence.

"You've got a lot of players involved in the effort," said a U.S. official with knowledge of the talks, "not just within the U.S. government, but foreign partners, too."

The Saudis and Pakistanis.  Are negotiating with the Taliban.  For our benefit.

The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic, added: "U.S. intelligence isn't the lead on talking to members of the Afghan Taliban who may be interested in discussing reconciliation. But when it makes sense, the [U.S.] intelligence community is brought in for its expertise, relationships and judgment."

Matthew 15:14:  "Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."

WorldNetDaily (WND) had this stunning report: 'Muslim Mafia' lawsuit response: Legally, CAIR doesn't even exist.”

Defense attorney for Muslim Mafia co-author, Dave Gaubatz and son Chris, Daniel Horowitz, in a court filing in the CAIR matter contend that the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) doesn’t exit, legally.

Here’s the WND revelation based on the court filings:

Just two weeks after CAIR was named by the Justice Department in May 2007 as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist finance case in U.S. history, the organization changed its name to the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network, explains attorney Daniel Horowitz in a motion to dismiss the case filed in federal court in the nation's capital.

"CAIR is not a valid entity and even if it were, the exposure of its inner workings is part of the price it pays for being a controversial group in a hotly contested arena," Horowitz declares in his reply to CAIR's lawsuit.

Horowitz says if the group responds to his brief by filing an amendment to change its registered name back to Council on American Islamic-Relations, he will seek an evidentiary hearing "to establish whether there is a genuine corporate entity that is 'CAIR' or whether 'CAIR' is a moniker used to represent the activities of a ruling group that oversees (in some way) the operations of other CAIR related groups."

As WND reported, CAIR alleges P. David Gaubatz and his son, Chris Gaubatz, who served as an unpaid volunteer for CAIR last year, obtained access to the Muslim group's property under false pretenses, removed internal documents and made recordings of officials and employees "without any consent or authorization and in violation of his contractual, fiduciary and other legal obligations to CAIR."

The reply to CAIR also contends the Gaubatzes' actions to expose the group are protected by the First Amendment.

(A federal judge in Washington issued a restraining order Nov. 3 barring the Gaubatzes from further use or publication of the material – 12,000 pages of documents along with audio and video recordings – and demanding that they return it to the Muslim group's lawyers. But the FBI also has shown interest in the material, stepping in with a warrant Nov. 23 to examine the papers and recordings, apparently as part of its concern about CAIR and its terrorist links to Hamas.

An exhibit filed by Horowitz with his reply to CAIR shows a search on the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs website for the name Council on American-Islamic Relations produced no results. Further, a search for "name availability" on the same site showed Council on American-Islamic Relations was available while the names Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network and Council on American-Islamic Relations Foundation were not. Both of the latter names turned up in a search for incorporated names.

"CAIR is not a valid entity and even if it were, the exposure of its inner workings is part of the price it pays for being a controversial group in a hotly contested arena," Horowitz says in the brief's conclusion. "If the press or publishers had to prove the purity of their sources before publishing we would never hear about the various romances of Tiger Woods (which might be a relief) but we also never have heard of the Pentagon Papers."

The implication is that CAIR doesn’t exist, legally, then, how can it bring this case requesting punitive damages against the Gaubatzes on the grounds of trespass, breach of contract, conversion – the unlawful use of someone else's property – and breach of fiduciary duty?  Credit this revelation to the sleuthing of the Gaubatzes, father and son.  We have posted on some of the CAIR documentation that Gaubatz obtained about its strategic plans here. Things in the CAIR suit against the stellar Gaubatz undercover team get “curioser and curioser.”  We can’t wait to see the next series of potentially devastating court filings by defense counsel Daniel Horowitz.