Dave Gaubatz spoke at the New English Review conference in Nashville back in May.  He is an intrepid investigator of what is actually being said in mosques across the U.S. as part of his Counter-Terrorism Research Tour (CTRT); he is an extremely brave and patriotic man, and a very good egg.  From AtlasShrugs (h/t George McCallum):

Dave Gaubatz writes:

Quick synopsis, of course more coming out later tonight/tomorrow:

1. Went to ISNA/DC to check in. I had prepaid $100.00 fee and had my registration..
2. It was apparent I was 'flagged'.
3. 8 or 9 ISNA and other men surround me.
4. They refused to tell me who they are or why they want me to leave.
5. One then said CAIR wants you out.
6. They began crowding me. I was professional and told them to step away from me, tell me who they are, and why was I being illegally detained.
7. I told them this could have been avoided if ISNA would have emailed me a cancellation. I told them I want my $100.00 back. Meanwhile I was asking them some tough questions they could not answer.
8. Then the group led me out of the convention; still no names of who they were.
9. I was on the street and noticed at least 3 DC patrol cars. I took pictures. Then I started walking toward my parked car. One patrol car was following me slowly. I stopped took a few pictures of him. Then walked to my car.
10. I got in my car. Three Patrol cars surrounded me and surrounded my vehicle. I was told to get out.
11. I asked what was the problem. Finally one officer showed me a picture CAIR had given them and told them I was a threat. It had four pictures. 3 were with me in Iraq with my M-16 and 9mm, and two I was holding AK-47s in Iraq. CAIR had photocopied the picture of me helping a sick iraqi child from the picture. Then CAIR had cropped my head shot onto a Nazi uniform (which was obvious).
12. The lead cop said this is all CAIR had given them. I told them about the pictures, my background in Iraq, and who I was. They knew nothing of this.
13. CAIR and ISNA had essentially tried to get me killed. The officer said they just had the holocaust shooting. CAIR intentionally misled the officers to make them believe I was just someone who carries guns. CAIR failed to tell them these were pictures from Iraq when I was serving my country.
    Bit frustrated right now and hope we can get American people to respond legally or more and more of this will happen to innocent Americans.

[...]

Gaubatz is making his statement and filing charges tomorrow, he did feel threatened because of being surrounded, and felt like he could not safely leave the area.  DC police will decide, based on his statement, which charge is appropriate. 

 When Gaubatz was leaving the convention, there were two police cars out front.  Two officers left behind him (he did not see them at any time), and they subsequently got in one of the cars and tailed him to his car (parked across the street).  He got into his vehicle, and then an officer approached and asked him to step out of the vehicle.  The officer said, "you know why we're asking you to get out of the vehicle", to which Gaubatz replied, "No I don't".  To which the officer said, well, we've got this picture, "can you tell me about all these guns" (referencing a picture of Gaubatz serving in Iraq with M-16, and 9mm military issue).  Gaubatz then told him that they were pictures of him in the war for this country.  Gaubatz then told him that the picture of him in a Nazi uniform was obviously a photoshop.  The officer then stated, "you understand with the holocaust shooting...".  They asked if they could search his trunk.  He stated, no, I have been harassed enough, if you want to get a warrant, I'll wait all day.  The officer exchanged cards with him.  The officers were just doing their jobs because they had been duped into following up this lead based on faulty intel.

Pamela includes some quotes from Dave Gaubatz from his Frontpage article.  I thought that this one was particularly relevant:

4] Many of our law enforcement executives of various agencies have lost sight of who they work for. They do not work for Saudi financed CAIR or ISNA, they work for America and its citizens

In the article, it was clear that at that time he was referring to the F.B.I.'s relationship to C.A.I.R. and the Justice Department's relationship with ISNA.  But those same words could now apply to the Washington D.C. police department.  When the Washington D.C. police are tailing/detaining Dave Gaubatz, a former Federal Agent and former Sheriff, based on the word of CAIR/ISNA, you know the nation has gone topsy-turvey.  Our own police departments are being used to harass and silence us (U.S. citizens) in order to protect unindicted co-conspirators to Islamic terrorism who are funded by the Saudi government.

How did it come so far, so fast?

A father in Pakistan agreed to swap his 8-year old daughter for another man's sister.  And the court decided not to prosecute.  From StopHonorKillings.com:

A court in Pakistan has turned down hearing the case of an eight-year-old girl who was married off in exchange for her father’s second wife.

The Judicial Magistrate East declined on Monday to hear Zahida’s case whose father Abdul Rasool was booked by the police. Abdul Rasool is accused of marrying her off to a man identified as Dilshad. Rasool wanted to marry Dilshad’s sister Haseena. The little girl’s mother, Parveen (Rasool’s first wife) told SAMAA that the marriage was contracted on June 25, following which she went to the local union council nazim and registered a case with the police.

The wedding ceremony was performed by Qazi Naqeeb Shah who was also presented in court. He claims that he only did what he was told and thought the girl was 15 years old as her father had said.

Judicial Magistrate East Ghulam Farooq Sheikh declined to hear the case and ordered the police to produce the accused men before the district officer so that the matter could be resolved out of court.

It it not permitted in Islam to marry off a girl without her consent or if she has not attained the age of maturity, or puberty. It is also illegal according to Pakistani laws, but marrying in exchange, locally referred to as 'Wata Sata' continues among many families.

The marriage of an 8-year old girl is not against the laws of sharia, as long as the "husband" waits until she is 9 before "consumating the marriage" (raping) her, in keeping with the example of Mohammad and his child-"bride" Aisha.  What chance at life does this 8-year old girl have, what say does she have in any element of her life whatsoever?  She is a mere commodity, to be sold or traded for the sexual use of the Muslim paedophiles surrounding her.  She cannot turn to her neighbors, to the police, to the courts, to the local politicians, or most of all, to her family.

To my mind, this is a horror-movie come to life.  To Muslims, this is the proper way, for all people for all time, because it is following the example of Mohammad, the final and true prophet of Allah.  To criticise a man for marrying an 8-year old girl is to criticise Mohammad.

I stand against the forced marriage of prepubescent girls.  I understand that to apologists for Islam, this makes me an "extremist". I can live with that.

Mail on Sunday gets exclusive access to a British Muslim court
For the first time, the Islamic Sharia Council has granted access to a newspaper to observe the entire sharia legal process in Britain. Over several weeks, I was allowed to witness the filing of complaints, individual testimony hearings and the monthly meeting of imams, or judges, where rulings are handed down.
Work includes issuing fatwas - religious rulings on matters ranging from why Islam considers homosexuality a sin to why two women are equivalent to one male witness in an Islamic court.
The Islamic Sharia Council also rules on individual cases, primarily in matters of Muslim personal or civil law: divorce, marriage, inheritance and settlement of dowry payments are the most common.
However, in the course of my investigation, I discovered how sharia is being used informally within the Muslim community to tackle crime such as gang fights or stabbings, bypassing police and the British court system.
A few hardline leaders would like it to be taken even further. One told me that Britain should adopt sharia punishments such as stoning and the chopping off of hands to reduce violent crime.
There are 12 councils or courts operating in Britain under Dr Hasan's group, based in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Rotherham and Bradford. Scores more imams dispense justice through their own mosques.
Astudy last week by the thinktank Civitas claimed that there could be as many as 85 sharia courts in Britain, although Dr Hasan says most of these are not formal courts. But it is certainly a growing network.
In his courts, support staff interview plaintiffs and compile a case study. Judgments are delivered by senior imams at closed monthly meetings and are sent in writing to the concerned parties. Up to 7,000 cases have been handled so far.
The Islamic Sharia Council is listed as a charity but people seeking a divorce, or talaq, must fill in a form and pay a fee. For a man it is £100; for women, it is £250 because the imams say it takes more work to process a woman's application as her word has to be corroborated.
The literal meaning of sharia is 'source of water in the desert', meaning the source of all spiritual life for Muslims. This is not just a code of law, but a way of life.
In Britain, sharia courts are permitted to rule only in civil cases, such as divorce and financial disputes. Until last year, these rulings depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims. But now, due to a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996, they are enforceable by county and high courts.
Sharia courts are classified in the same way as arbitration tribunals - with rulings binding in law provided both parties in the dispute agree to give them the power to rule on their case.
However, a Muslim couple must still be divorced in the British courts for it to recognised under British law. The same provision in the Arbitration Act applies to Jewish Beth Din courts, which resolve similar civil cases.
Sitting behind a plywood desk, flanked by shelves of books on Islamic law and copies of the Koran, Dr Hasan hears evidence from an Afghan woman called Ameena (her name has been changed for her protection). She claims her husband is violent towards her and their five children, and she wants a divorce.
Ameena, 35, is backed by the testimony of two social workers, one of whom is Muslim, from a women's refuge.
Ameena's evidence is corroborated by statements from one of her daughters. The teenager said that as well as hitting her mother and the children, the father, who is in his 40s, forced her into an arranged marriage in Pakistan. She wants her marriage dissolved, too.
So far Ameena's husband has refused to grant her a divorce, accusing her and his daughter of being 'not mentally fit'.
Dr Hasan decides the case, which has been going on since 2008, is sufficiently serious to merit the consideration of the monthly meeting of senior judges at Regent's Park Mosque. Now Ameena's future lies in their hands. A woman aged 35 has a married daughter - how young they must have been when married! 16 or 17.
Later that week, seven imams gather in a sparsely furnished committee room in the shadows of the mosque's magnificent golden dome.
Ameena's case is then raised. It is decided that her husband will be given another opportunity to respond. If all efforts to reconcile fail, then the marriage might be dissolved, but it is unclear who will care for the children. Under Islamic law, a child over seven usually goes to the father unless he agrees otherwise.
Ameena's fate remains in limbo. The following week I accompany Dr Hasan into enemy territory: he has been asked to speak to a group of female students in East London about sharia. The audience is made up of educated, articulate feminists, both Muslim and non-Muslim.
He tells them his organisation is concerned simply with implementing sharia law in Muslim personal legal cases and that 90 per cent of the clients are women seeking a divorce. The women nod.
Then he explains that sharia is about preserving the dignity, health and honour of the individuals. The nodding continues.
Confident, Dr Hasan tells them that in every part of the world, there can be only one authority.
'In Britain, the ultimate authority is the Prime Minister. In an army, it is the commander-in-chief. On the bus, it is the bus driver. And in the house, the smallest unit of society, sharia says authority must be with the man to maintain the house.
'The woman's duties are much harsher. Biologically, she differs,' he says. Her duties lie with the cleaning and childcare.
The mood turns black as Dr Hasan continues that under Islam, the woman is seen as someone who needs the protection of a man. In matters of divorce, the right of ending a marriage lies with the man because 'women have emotions, whereas a man thinks first before he speaks'.
At this, one white woman berates Dr Hasan. 'If you had said these things about a Jew or a black person, it would be totally unacceptable. Yet you think it is OK to say women are inferior. I cannot listen to this without making a stand.'
Another woman, an African professor, adds: 'In my house, my husband and I look after each other. It is an equal partnership. I don't need anyone to protect me.' Applause ripples through the audience.  An hour later, Dr Hasan emerges from the meeting - he has been attacked verbally but physically he is unscathed.
He refuses to accept that there is an inherent conflict between sharia and British law in areas such as equality for women and human rights.
'The problem with the feminist movement is they don't listen to the other side,' he observes gravely, stroking his beard.
I ask if he believes sharia is the best code of law. 'People say it's harsh, but we say it's a deterrent. In Saudi Arabia very few hands are cut. People will not commit the crime as they know the punishment is so horrible, unlike the UK system where people are jailed and the prison system does not work.
'But we cannot ask for sharia in Britain for criminal cases,' he concludes. 'For that to take place, the State needs to support sharia and I recognise Britain does not.'
Despite the feminists' fury, Dr Hasan is a relative moderate on the subject. Some hardliners want Islamic law to be extended to all criminal cases, tackling problems ranging from knife crime to robbery and under-age sex.
One such figure is Sarfraz Sarwar, leader of the Basildon Islamic Centre in Essex. His views have attracted controversy - his mosque was torched three times and eventually destroyed, and his home has also been attacked.
He tells me the windows of his living room are smashed every six months but the police have never caught the perpetrators. He now leaves the windows permanently broken in defiance.
Mr Sarwar insists sharia should be adopted to address rising crime in Britain. 'The British legal system is fair, but it's also very sweet for criminals,' he tells me.
'Sharia is the ultimate deterrent. If you commit a crime and you're punished by sharia, you won't commit it again. But if we praise anything from Islam, people jump down our throat.'
When I suggest that many people in Britain would find some of sharia's provisions extreme and difficult to accept, he agrees. 'We need to adapt sharia for British law. We could use some of the more moderate measures.'
Such as? 'Child abuse, under-age sex, teenage pregnancy, for example.'
I ask what the penalty would be for under-age sex. 'You won't like it. But sharia says if they're caught doing it, you stone the woman.' 
Mr Sarwar adds that the violence and intimidation he has faced will not silence him. 'I am not a sheep. I am a British Muslim. I pay my taxes, I obey the law.
The Somali community in Britain has long relied on the sharia principle of mediation and arbitration in criminal cases.
Saynab Muhamad, leader of the Somali Family Support Centre and one of the few prominent females in the Somali community, tells me how sharia law was used to resolve the case of knife attacks among teenagers a few years ago.
The family of one victim and the attacker came together under Somali elders and an informal hearing decided that the victim should be compensated by the attacker, who in turn was forgiven for the crime. The police were not involved and the matter was settled amicably.
She believes this way of getting community elders involved and taking direct control is more effective than simply relying on the courts, and if the British police wished to attend the hearings, they would be welcome.
For her, this is an example of how the sharia way has been adapted successfully to the British way of life. But critics remain unconvinced and see it as the route to a two-tier legal system, pointing out that under sharia, the law is heavily rigged against women.
Equality before the law for all, regardless of sex, race or religion, is one of Britain's enduring principles. Women's and gay rights are now firmly enshrined in our law - a law that has evolved over centuries to reflect the pluralist democracy Britain has become.
But sharia is a law still rooted in the 7th Century; it sees modernity as the path to an immoral society.
While sharia gives Muslim women a chance to escape unhappy marriages, it fails to grant them equal status - they are considered inferior to men as witnesses, they have unequal status in divorce and custody of the children, and abuse by the husband is not directly tackled by the courts.
All these things go against the equality of British law.
Sheik Haitham Al-Haddad, one of the most senior imams in Britain, is once more contemplating the fundamental split between religion and state.
'There is a conflict between these two sets of values,' he concedes. ' Muslims believe our values are best. The non-Islamic British believe theirs are better. But at the end of the day, understand this: Muslims are never going to give up certain principles, even if they are in conflict. That is a fact.'

Pajamas media has a story, “The Fog is not lifting: a new DvD whitewashes Islamism”, that illustrates the brazen attempt to proselytize Islam.  The patently Da’wa (preaching in Arabic)  film, ‘The Fog is not lifting: Part 1”   was produced by Radical islamists to rebut the mass distribution of 28 million copies of  the film “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West ” by the Clarion Foundation in Sunday newspapers across the US in September , 2008.      The film, “The Fog is not Lifting: Part I” is an example of the enormous effort behind less than stealthy cultural Jihad in America and who is producing it.

The Pajamas media article notes the following:

North Carolina proved to be particularly fertile ground for the validation of Islamist woes. One newspaper, the Greensboro News and Record, flatly refused to distribute the DVD, while another, the News and Observer, “allowed” the paid distribution of free speech but enclosed an editorial board op-ed, which served as an insert warning to readers.

But that wasn’t enough for Islamists. Some are now fighting back with their own DVD, entitled The Fog Is Lifting (Part 1): Islam in Brief, produced by an Egyptian nonprofit group, the Bridges Foundation. Some 20,000 copies of the DVD were distributed to three zip codes within Wake County, North Carolina. Bundled in an issue of the News and Observer, the DVD aims to “repair the image of Islam” and is allegedly designed to counteract the Obsession DVD distributed in the same paper in September of last year. While marketed to “explain” Islamic precepts and theology, it does so from only a single point of view. Islamist apologist Omid Safi, a professor of religion at UNC-Chapel Hill, described the DVD as follows:

It’s a full-throated defense of the tradition in which Islam is presented as the perfect egalitarian, scientific, pluralistic, modern religion that doesn’t have the flaws of all the other religions. … It remains to be seen if it will be seen as preaching to the choir, or if it will succeed in persuading people outside the Muslim community.

Apparently, Professor Safi believes that a video proselytizing to the general public, which proclaims Islam not to “have the flaws of all the other religions” and declares scientific doctrines like evolutionism wrong, is somehow preaching to the choir and constitutes an appropriate American message.

So, who and what is behind this Da’wa of Salafism?  The Pajamas Media   report reveals that:

Consider the Bridges Foundation itself. Founded in Egypt, the birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islam as envisioned by its founders, Sayyid Qutb and Hassan al-Banna, should the Bridges Foundation not be speaking out against the grand design of the Brotherhood?

This isn’t likely when one considers its director, Fadel Soliman, who is also the main narrator in the DVD. Soliman is a former national chaplain of a Saudi-based charity named the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) in Northern Virginia. According to the Washington Post, in May 2004, WAMY was shut down in a raid by the FBI, the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force in connection with a terrorism investigation. In addition, the U.S. branch of WAMY was founded in 1992 by Osama bin Laden’s nephew, Abdullah bin Laden, whose connections with WAMY were suspect.

The Post notes, “An affidavit signed by Customs Senior Special Agent David Kane contends that a WAMY publication lists people who have attacked Israelis, including a man who killed 14 people by driving a bus off a cliff, as ‘heroes from Palestine.’” Moreover, the same affidavit states that the document also claims that “Jews are humanity’s enemies: they foment immorality in the world.”

Author of the Pajamas media report Sid Shahid is the director of research and publications for the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) founded by M. Zhudi Jasser. Jasser is the narrator in a New Clarion foundation film, “The Third Jihad.”   Shahid  had support for Pajamas media article from Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.   Our colleague, Tom Trento of the Florida Security Council has been involved through the Watch Obsession project  with the Clarion Fund in the distribution of  both” Obsession” and “The Third Jihad.” 

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Suspected Muslim guerrillas detonated a bomb near a Roman Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippines on Sunday, killing at least five people and wounding 46.
Pope Benedict XVI condemned the attack.
The bomb exploded outside the Immaculate Conception cathedral in Cotabato city as churchgoers were attending Mass. Two people were killed instantly in the attack and three others, including a militiaman, later died in hospitals, military officials said.
Among the wounded were six soldiers and militiamen who were in an army van that passed by the cathedral when the device, fashioned from a mortar round, exploded, Cotabato city Mayor Muslimin Sema said.
The improvised explosive, which was set off remotely by mobile phone, was hidden near a row of food stalls selling roasted pig Maj. Gen. Alfredo Cayton said.
At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI deplored the bomb attack.
"While I pray to God for the victims of this ignoble gesture, I raise my voice to condemn yet again the recourse to violence, which is never a worthwhile way to solve existing problems," Benedict told pilgrims in St. Peter's Square.
Chief nurse Norma Reyes said at least seven of the wounded were in critical condition and needed surgery.
Cayton immediately blamed the 11,500-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has been targeted by a monthslong military offensive in nearby Maguindanao province and outlying regions.
"Nobody has the motive, the capability and the track record to carry out this terrorist attack except" the group, Cayton told The AP.
Rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu denied his group was involved and condemned the bombing. He said the rebels would not do anything to foment a religious war.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Romero Brawner said investigators were trying to determine if the attackers targeted the military van.
"They will hit any place where civilians congregate. They have no regard for life," Brawner said.
A similar bomb went off on a roadside in Datu Piang township in nearby Maguindanao late Saturday, wounding three people in an attack believed to have also been staged by the rebels, Brawner said.

Salman Massod writes in New Duranty:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide attack Thursday on a bus in Rawalpindi was the first that singled out workers of Pakistan’s prized nuclear labs, military analysts and prominent national newspapers said, raising new questions about the government’s ability to withstand increasingly bold assaults by the Taliban against the country’s military complex.

The attack comes as Pakistan’s army is fighting the Taliban on several fronts and is about to begin an even more ambitious campaign in the insurgents’ heartland in Waziristan.

Government officials have said that the attack hit a bus carrying workers from a nonnuclear military plant, but military analysts said they believed that was an effort to avoid the embarrassment of admitting that a vehicle connected with the nuclear program had been hit.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda have announced that their goal is to topple the government and gain control of its nuclear arsenal. Singling out nuclear workers, even though they were miles outside the weapons lab, military analysts say, carries heavy symbolism in a nation that believes its ultimate strength lies in its nuclear capability. It also suggested a worrisome level of sophistication.

“It showed that their intelligence is current,” said Talat Masood, a retired general and a military analyst. “It was a deliberate strike. They are trying to give a hint that they can strike the personnel who are working for the nuclear facilities.”

The attack killed the suicide bomber, who rammed the bus with his motorcycle, and wounded 30 workers, the Rawalpindi police said. Military analysts said the workers were from the Kahuta Research Laboratories, where weapons-grade uranium is produced. No high-level official or scientist was on board.

The lab was once run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program and one of the most successful nuclear proliferators in history.

The United States has spent almost $100 million in training Pakistani security personnel how to make the country’s nuclear warheads safe and how to store them separately from the missiles and trigger devices. But in the last year, officials in Washington have expressed growing alarm about the nation’s nuclear laboratories.

Immediately after the attack, the police said the bus, which was idling at a busy intersection when it was struck, was carrying workers returning home from the nuclear lab. But since then, government officials have said that the bus belonged to a military engineering lab in Taxila...

From the Jerusalem Post (with thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

A Palestinian female journalist complained over the weekend that Hamas policemen attempted to arrest her under the pretext that she came to a Gaza beach dressed immodestly and was seen laughing in public.

The journalist, Asma al-Ghul, said that the policemen instead confiscated her passport. Since the incident, she added, she has been afraid to leave her home, especially after receiving death threats from anonymous callers.

"They accused me of laughing loudly while swimming with my friend and failing to wear a hijab," Ghul told a human rights organization in the Gaza Strip. "They also wanted to know the identity of the people who were with me at the beach and whether they were relatives of mine."

In a phone interview with the Dubai-based Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news Web site, the journalist said that the policemen who stopped her belonged to the Hamas government's Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice security force.

The special force reports directly to the Ministry of Waqf Affairs and is said to be a copy of units that have long been operating in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

The Hamas government, according to local reporters, has refrained from publicly admitting that the force exists out of fear of being branded fundamentalist.

The Hamas force consists of dozens of plainclothes police officers who patrol beaches, public gardens, restaurants, hair salons and coffee shops to make sure that males and females are not mixing together and that the women are dressed modestly...

It has been hotter in the UK these last few days than I personally find pleasant so I cut housework to the bare minimum and settled down with a book. I was feeling too lazy for anything new or that would require too much concentration so I picked up my old copy of A Modern Comedy which is the middle volume of the trilogy of trilogies that John Galsworthy wrote about the Forsyte family. More accurately the final three books are about the Cherwell family, Fleur Forsyte's in-laws which is probably why the BBCTV series of the late 60s stopped at book 6, Swan Song.
This particular edition was published in 1970 and has photographs of some of the cast of the BBC production in character on the dust jacket.
I looked at the photographs of Nicholas Pennell who played Michael Mont and Martin Jarvis, who played Jon Forsyte. Nicholas Pennell continued his career after the Forsyte Saga as a Shakespearean actor on the Canadian stage and died young of cancer. Martin Jarvis appears regularly on British TV but I have not seen or heard of him recently.
This is what he has been up to according to The Telegraph.
Just five months after they sacked Carol Thatcher as a contributor for comparing a tennis player to a golliwog, the producers of The One Show have felt the need to apologise for another alleged racial faux pas.
Some viewers of the BBC One programme complained after Martin Jarvis, the actor best known for his readings on Jackanory, (a children's programme where to encourage children to read books are read aloud) complimented a fellow guest, Fatima Barkatullah, who was wearing a niqab, a face veil in which only her eyes could be seen.
"You have wonderful and lovely eyes," he told her after she had explained during a discussion about Muslim women's dress that wearing niqab or burka was partly intended to discourage unwanted attention from men.
"The producers were apologising in the green room afterwards," she tells me. "But I knew he meant it in good spirits. Martin said afterwards that he was just saying what the whole nation was thinking. I think some people were offended on my behalf. My husband met him in the green room afterwards and told him he wasn't going to ask him to step outside."
Warning to all normal people. No matter what work you have to promote avoid The One Show. Its very boring anyway.

Mary is out of town, so it should be safe to post this without any fear of comments about the relative intelligence of us A'merkins.

By the way, not a single one of the people in this video are in any way affiliated with New English Review.

Obviously.

This Reuters news article, “ Oil brokerage PVM names rogue trader behind oil spike, “about an alleged unhedged rogue London OTC commodity energy futures trade causing a 'spike' in Brent oil prices last week caught our attention.  It is emblematic of what Senator Lieberman and others were concerned about in the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee (HSGAC) hearings last summer and what we wrote about in the NER "Oil Bubble" article of June 2008.  Note what the Reuters account says:

PVM Oil Futures Limited said on Friday Steve Perkins, a senior broker based at the firm's London office, was responsible for unauthorized trades earlier this week which landed the firm with a loss of nearly $10 million.

The London-based brokerage said Perkins had taken the positions in Brent crude futures early on Tuesday.

The heavy buying during the Asian trading day when volumes tend to be lower caused global crude prices to spike to their highest level this year. Traders and analysts initially struggled to explain the price move.

Brent was trading at about $66 a barrel on Friday, down from the high of $73.50 struck on Tuesday.

After discovering the trades, PVM said in a statement on Thursday it had closed them out "in an orderly fashion," resulting in losses approaching $10 million.

The brokerage said on Thursday PVM was conducting a full investigation and it had informed the Financial Services Authority (FSA), Britain's regulatory body, as well as the InterContinental Exchange (ICE), where the majority of Brent futures trade takes place.

PVM is the world's largest independent broker, trading more than 100 million barrels of over-the-counter and oil futures a day on average. The company said it had met all margin calls caused by the unauthorized trades and was conducting business as usual.

In May, the FSA banned a former Morgan Stanley trader who built up a hefty unauthorized oil futures position following a long liquid lunch, before hiding the deals overnight.

Note this comment about “regulation” or the lack thereof.

Excessive speculation in oil and commodities markets has been high on the regulatory agenda since crude prices soared to a record of nearly $150 a barrel last July.

PVM head David Hufton has been an outspoken critic of oil market speculation, describing some exchanges as "electronic oil casinos" that boost the price of oil.

Oil analysts said this week's events could add further ammunition to those already pushing for tighter regulation on futures exchanges and over-the-counter markets following last year's price surge and the global financial crisis.

The U.S. government wants to boost oversight of commodity markets and expand the power of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), including looking at tightening the number of speculative positions any one firm or trader can hold.

Analysts said the FSA was expected to follow any moves to reduce position limits taken by its U.S. counterpart in commodity markets.

The actions of the rogue oil trader at PVM Oil Trading in London are indicative of the lack of oversight in the OTC commodity energy futures market.  This should require regulations on the limits of such orders, monitoring of trades to distinguish between ‘good versus bad’ speculations, and assure   that there are actual counterparties.  This one caused Brent oil to spike to $73.50 a barrel last Tuesday. 

At issue is whether the CFTC has the current authorities and monitoring capabilities of daily trading to spot and rein in such aberrant trades.   The actions of the FSA in London and the ICE electronic OTC offshore trading market appear after the fact and are inadequate to control these abuses.  The CFTC appears to have been caught unaware of this aberrant trade that lead to 'casino-like speculation' in the volatile energy commodity trading markets.  The London rogue trader example should give rise to a follow up investigation of energy commodity futures OTC market trading deficiencies led by Senator Lieberman, HSGAC and the Senate Permanent Investigating Committee.

This is something that is clearly out of control and the CFTC, which many of us believe has the authorities to monitor these OTC markets, hasn’t exercised them properly.

We want to avoid the excesses of last summer that saw oil futures trading near $150 a barrel or even spurting to $90 to $100.  For sure, that would put a damper on recovery from the recession.

From all the emails that I have been bombarded with I must judge that I have obviously opened a can of worms with my post here, I’d absolutely no idea that so many of you felt so strongly about these voices and this great aria.

Billionaire Formula One (F-1) owner Bernie Eccelstone and  F-1 President Max Mosley have disgraced F-1 motorsports with their neo-Nazi like S&M games (Moseley) and  Ecclestone’s  shameless pro- Hitler remarks,  praises for Saddam and the Taliban. Mosley is the son of infamous British Fascist, Oswald Mosley.  He was caught on video  in a Nazi S&M romp with prostitutes.  Note what Times on-line report, “F1: Hitler Remarks Touch Off Fire Storm “ has to say about their outrageous interview with Ecclestone:

In an outspoken interview with The Times, the 78-year-old billionaire chastised contemporary politicians for their weakness and extolled the virtues of strong leadership.

Mr.  Ecclestone said: “In a lot of ways, terrible to say this I suppose, but apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was in the way that he could command a lot of people, able to get things done.”

“In the end he got lost, so he wasn’t a very good dictator because either he had all these things and knew what was going on and insisted, or he just went along with it . . . so either way he wasn’t a dictator.” He also rounded on democracy, claiming that “it hasn’t done a lot of good for many countries — including this one [Britain]”.

“Politicians are too worried about elections,” he said. “We did a terrible thing when we supported the idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein. He was the only one who could control that country. It was the same [with the Taliban]. We move into countries and we have no idea of the culture. The Americans probably thought Bosnia was a town in Miami. There are people starving in Africa and we sit back and do nothing but we get involved in things we should leave alone.”

Mr Ecclestone, who plunged the Blair Government into a row about donations in 1997 after it emerged that he had given the party £1 million, has a reputation for being outspoken. Last month he said that Formula One needed a “black, Jewish woman who, if possible, wins some races”.

In 2008 he provoked uproar when he suggested racist comments directed at Lewis Hamilton on websites in the build-up to the Brazilian Grand Prix “started as just a joke”. However, he told The Times yesterday that he was deeply concerned when he saw fans “blacking up” to mock Hamilton, an act he described as racist.

Note these comments about Max Mosley and criticisms of Ecclestone from British Jewish groups and others:

Mr Mosley, the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, was recently accused by Formula One racing teams of being a “dictator”.

Mr Ecclestone said: “I prefer strong leaders. Margaret Thatcher made decisions on the run and got the job done. She was the one who built this country up slowly. We’ve let it go down again. All these guys, Gordon and Tony, are trying to please everybody all the time.

“Max would do a super job. He’s a good leader with people. I don’t think his background would be a problem.”

Mr Ecclestone’s remarks last night drew a strong reaction from Jewish groups and politicians.

A spokesman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews said: “Mr Ecclestone’s comments regarding Hitler, female, black and Jewish racing drivers, and dictatorships are quite bizarre. He says [in the interview], ‘Politics is not for me’, and we are inclined to agree.”

Stephen Pollard, Editor of the Jewish Chronicle, said: “Mr Ecclestone is either an idiot or morally repulsive. Either he has no idea how stupid and offensive his views are or he does and deserves to be held in contempt by all decent people.”

Denis MacShane, the Labour MP and chairman of the all-party inquiry into anti-Semitism, and chairman of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism, condemned Mr Ecclestone’s decision to align himself to a “growing” anti-democracy movement.

 “But this fashionable contempt for the right of people to elect their own leaders is frankly frightening.”

“If Mr Ecclestone seriously thinks Hitler had to be persuaded to kill six million Jews, invade every European country and bomb London then he knows neither history and shows a complete lack of judgment.”

It is time for the control of this billion dollar  international motor sport ruled by  an aging autocrat to be turned over to a governing body composed of the racing car constructors (FOTA) and the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA). 

FOTA was about to start their own race series after being unable to agree to fiscal and technical terms for the 2010 F-1 racing season.  At the last minute, an agreement was reached.  It is time to tear up that agreement and start their own series.  It is not possible to really negotiate with people who support autocratic rule.  The teams involved in F1 are:

Major constructors such as Mercedes Benz, BMW, Renault, Ferrari and Toyota should be pressured to start their own series away from Ecclestone and his autocratic rule. 

Whatever it takes to build a competitive organization to regulate F-1 ought to be done, so that neither Ecclestone nor Mosley will have anything further to do with this international and important sporting activity.

Perhaps a boycott by F-1 drivers protesting these scabrous remarks by Ecclestone would be a good start.