POLLS AND TWO-YEAR-OLDS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS

Zogby takes polls; Gallop takes polls; the Associated Press takes polls; CNN takes polls; Roper takes polls, political parties take polls; the New York Times takes polls; the Little Rascals took a poll—it forced Hayseed to change his name to Alfalfa. The College of Cardinals takes polls. Want to know who’s going to be elected president in 2008? Take a poll. Ask any two-year-old: “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” Albert Einstein might have said, “Are you crazy? I’m too young to vote.” Most two-year-olds wouldn’t be that reticent. They would say, “Daddy Mumblican,” or maybe, “Want cookie.” Obviously a Democrat—they always give themselves away. Some pollsters prefer to ask adults though the maturity level of individual respondents cannot be guaranteed.

Some polls measure trends—take the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Their latest poll showed American Muslims trending away from the Republican Party. Well, maybe trending isn’t the right word—deserting in droves would be more apt. It’s too early to call it repudiation but right now George W. Bush’s popularity among American Muslims is not much higher than Richard the Lion-Heart’s and below Ariel Sharon’s.

The poll asked 1,000 registered Muslim voters their party affiliation—42 percent said Democrat, 17 percent said Republican and 28 percent had no preference. Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR, said, “It shows that Muslim community votes should not be taken for granted. There’s a shift in their political orientation.” (American Muslims had supported the GOP and George W. Bush in 2000. Since 9/11 there has been a change—a sort of political inversion; a seismic shift)

The number one issue for American Muslims is no longer the economy; it’s civil liberties. They’re against racial profiling; they’re opposed to wiretapping; they’re angered at the crackdown on illegal immigration; and the monitoring of mosques—well, that’s an affront to everyone’s religious freedom. Never mind that these restrictions on civil liberties and human rights had been part of the social fabric of their countries of origin from 600 AD to the 21^st Century and they had never before complained. Of course, the victims were Jews, Christians, Kurds, Baha I, infidels, animists and assorted dhimmis.

Another sticking point: the banning of eminent Muslim scholars Tariq Ramadan and the late Zaki Badawi from visiting the United States. They were suspected of having close ties to terrorism. Reason enough to limit their right of free movement from dar al-Islam to dar al-Harb? CAIR didn’t think so. Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell have not been banned from Saudi Barbaria and Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would love to sit down with them and discuss the coming Caliphate.

But the thing that angers American Muslims most of all, is racial profiling. If Rush Limbaugh and Anna Nicole Smith were subjected to the same humiliations Mohammed and Ahmed undergo at US airports they would abandon this un-Islamic practice. Sure, of course… It’s all in the Jesse Jackson Guide to Institutional Racism. Complain loud and long and never stop whining and the PC crowd will give Mohammed and Ahmed a pass and focus their attention on the little old white lady in the wheelchair. Works every time.

Forty-three percent of the survey’s respondents felt they had been discriminated against or been racially profiled. Forty-three percent? Is that a meaningful statistic? It is not. Nobody has polled the Ku Klux Klan or the American Nazi Party or any of the Militias but it would be a safe bet that as least 43 percent of them believe they have been discriminated against—that is why they join such groups. And the number of whites and blacks and Orientals who believe they have been the victims of affirmative actions or political correctness are more numerous than the fleas in the Prophet’s beard. (For fleas in the Prophet’s Beard see the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoons)

Other poll results: 55 percent said they felt the war on terror had become a war on Islam and 88 percent felt that the war was not worth fighting. And now for the piece de resistance: 90 percent thought the United States was using the war to spread democracy round the world. Back up a bit here: 88 percent thought the war—a war to spread democracy—was not worth fighting?

This is a fine how-do-you-do. Frankly, stripping aside all the nonsense, American Muslims do not want to extend the doctrines of Jefferson and Adams and Franklin to Islam. It’s true. Democracy is a dhimmi heresy. It is man’s law and is therefore inferior to Islam. Allah’s law is the Sharia and the only law acceptable to Muslims.

Omar Ahmad, CAIR’s Founding Father, said, “If you choose to live here (in America), you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam.”

That’s not too bad, but what follows could have come from Osama bin Laden, or George Habash or the Ayatollah Khomeini or Iran’s resident little Corporal. This is what Ahmad said: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faiths but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in American, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” No mention of ‘in the course of human events’ or an appeal to the better angels of our nature—just a blunt statement that America is to be ‘Islamicized.’ Hitlerian, of cpurse, though Adolph would have used more words.

Sharia Law is Orwell’s 1984 by another name. There is no more freedom in the Qur’an than in Mein Kampf; no more right of assembly in Islam than in Attica or Soledad; less freedom of conscience than Big Brother gave Winston Smith. Torquemada was a Saint compared to Mohammed, Archie Bunker a feminist. Women are less respected and more brutalized under Sharia Law than the slaves on Jeff Davis’ plantation and less likely to gain their freedom.

What is one to make of this poll?

From the Qur’an 9:3 “Allah is not bound by any contract or treaty with non-Muslims, nor is his Apostle.”

Is it unreasonable to think that CAIR places Qur’an 9:3 above any agreement or pledge of allegiance it might have made to the United States? Ahmad said, “Islam (should be) the only accepted religion in the world,” and Islam has not deviated from this position since 600 AD.

About the only thing the poll proved is that CAIR will be of little help in the war on terrorism and next to none in the spread of democracy. Maybe it they had polled two-year-olds the outlook would be brighter.

PRACTISING TAQIYYA AT PACE UNIVERSITY

“It’s a jungle out there.”—B. Fife, law-enforcement officer.

First a Qur’an was found floating in a toilet; a month later someone scrawled racial slurs on a student’s car and before a stunned citizenry could recover from that outrage more slurs were found on a bathroom wall. Things hadn’t been this bad since Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall broke up the Bowery Boys. What on earth is going on? Sure, there are thousand stories in the Naked City—murder, rape, arson; theft—but racial slurs scrawled on inanimate objects? That wasn’t the way the Amboy Dukes operated. No, sir! Men were men in those days; they called each other names face-to-face and let it go at that.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has worked itself into one of Inspector Clouseau's rits of jealous fage; in other words—a frightful tizzy, planned, of course. They will squelch this unconscionable outbreak of Islamophobia by any means necessary, even it if they have to resort to taqiyya morning, noon and night.

Almost as troubling as the horrendous crimes was the locus operandi chosen by the set of dastards that committed these atrocious acts—Pace University! Yes—peaceful placid Pace University! Can you believe that? The brothers Pace, Homer and Ashford, who founded the school in 1906, would be turning over in their graves. It’s a most respected institution! No less a personage than William Jefferson Clinton has an honorary degree from Pace. Maya Angelou was there when they celebrated founder day on October 4. That’s right—Pace is 100 years old—and with the candles on the cake scarcely blown out some slimy dhimmis rascals have desecrated its hallowed halls with the most unconscionable graffiti! One can only hope they get their just deserts.

This wouldn’t have happened if the Pace brothers were still alive. No, sir—they were from the old school. They would have brought in Bulldog Drummond or Boston Blackie and got to the bottom of this thing before CAIR could have worked itself up into a proper snit. Mike Hammer would have leaned on some creep in a dark alley; put the twist on a some disgusting Peewee Herman type; had him coughing up teeth with his blood. They didn’t fool around in them days. But nothing was done to restore order—not a thing—and last week, as should have been expected, a second Qur’an was found floating in a toilet in the men’s bathroom in the Pace library.

Ah-hah! The library! Very interesting! Pay attention now, Dr. Watson, it’s a clue.

“A clue? A bloody clue! I say, Holmes, are you sure?”

Of course—college students with B and C averages don’t spend much time in the school library. This heinous crime, my dear Watson, was committed by a genius—or by a janitor with a lot of time on his hands.”

“By Jove, you never cease to amaze me, Holmes.”

Of course, the real authorities were summoned and the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force arrived on the scene. One can only assume they dusted for fingerprints, made chalk outlines on the Qur’an and took toilet paper samples. CAIR breathed a sigh of relief. The dhimmi police were on the job—not as good, perhaps, as Black Robes, but at least professionals. CAIR president, Omar Mohammedi, said, “Though we’re happy with the fact that this was recognized as a hate crime, we’re concerned that is has been repeated. This unfortunate incident underscores the apparent lack of dialogue and understanding within the Pace University student population and the greater New York City community.” (Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently appointed Mohammedi to a seat on the New York City Commission on Human Rights over the protests of five Democratic Councilmen from Brooklyn. “It would have been outrageous even if he had been appointed sanitation commissioner,” said Councilman Bill DeBlasio. The five threatened to withhold funds from the Commission. Mohammedi is suspected of having ties to groups espousing terrorism. CAIR dismissed the Councilmen as part of the ‘Jewish lobby.’ Oh, sure—Democrats with names like DeBlasio, Recchia and Nelson!

Pace president, David Caputo, said, “This indicates a set of issues we need to deal with and gives us a moment to act when we have people’s attention. We are facing them squarely and in public.” Does he intend to call in Bulldog Drummond? No, not yet. How about Boston Blackie… Philo Vance? No, Pace will do what has worked best in the past—they will sentence more students to sensitive training.

A note to Caputo and the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force: think taqiyya, the Muslim art of dissimulation, also known as lying for the sake of Allah. Unlike Judaism and Christianity, Islam not only permits lying in certain situations, it recommends lying as a useful tool when dealing with its enemies and in the spreading of the faith.

Ishaq:365 & Tabari VII:94 “Muhammad bin Maslamah said, ‘O Messinger, we shall have to tell lies.’ ‘Say what you like,’ Muhammad replies. ‘You are absolved, free to say whatever you must.”

And that was exactly the course pursued by the much-revered Ayatollah Khomeini. In the run-up to his Revolution, he called on Iranians of all stripes to join in the struggle against the Shah. He needed help and the world was full of fools. The Shah fell, Jimmy Carter was disgraced and Khomeini instituted his reign of Islamic terror. His erstwhile allies, the communists and the Marxists, the democrats and the libertarians, the Bani-Sadrs and the Sadegh Ghotbzdehs, were exiled, dragged off to prison or executed. The Jews, the Christians and the Baha’I simply disappeared. Was Khomeini a liar? No, he was practicing taqiyya.

Faiza Ali, a member of the Muslim Student Association, said, “What we had hoped to be a rumor was in fact our worst nightmare. For a place that we call a second home, we feel that we are being threatened….”

Threatened? Everyday thousands of Muslim round the world—from the little Corporal in Iran to rag pickers in Bangladesh—are screaming “Death to America” and she feels threatened…and in her second home! Is Faiza practicing taqiyya? Maybe Bill O’Reilly could ask her.

In recent years a number of African-Americans have decorated their homes, dorm rooms or vehicles with racial slurs—including the N-word—and then screamed racism to anybody who would listen. Every Liberal worth his salt responded with alacrity. Who couldn’t help but learn from this example? Fortunately, good police work exposed most of these individuals as frauds more beset by personal problems then by hatred or violence.

Maybe it’s time for Caputo and the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force to stop profiling. Not everyone who visits the restrooms at Pace University is a white heterosexual Christian male.

Let it be said once and for all: there is no rising tide of Islamophobia in the United States; there is no a great increase in hate crimes against Muslims. There is, however, a continuing, persistent and relentless effort by groups like CAIR to make any negative reference to Islam a hate crime, to make any meaningful discussion of religion difficult if not impossible. This is not surprising. Islam does not fare well in open debate. There is much in the Qur’an that is indefensible—slavery, mistreatment of non-Muslims, the subjugation of women, perpetual jihad. These things are best kept quiet. Nathan Bedford Forrest did now wash his ‘bed sheets’ in public, neither will Islam..

America’s worst nightmare is Sharia Law and its worst enemies are those who practice taqiyya—and one can start with CAIR

Remember: Ishaq: 442 “By Muhammad’s order we beguiled them.”

The Five Pillars of Islam as taught to Christian dogs at Nyssa, Oregon, compliments of the US Government!

“But, dad, if I dress up like a Muslim I get extra credit. And Aunt Bea can cook up some gefultefish or something. All I have to do is read one chapter out of this book and learn the Five Pillars of Islam. It’ll be easy,” said Opie.

“I don’t know, Opie,” said Sheriff Andy. “Shouldn’t they be teaching you about the separation of Church and State or the Bill of Rights? The Rev. Felcher says you haven’t been to catechism the last three weeks…what would he say? I don’t think it’s time for you to learn a new religion before you understand your own.”

“But, dad,” wailed Opie. “I’ve got a costume picked out. Barney’s making it up. He says it’s what all the al-Qaeda guys are wearing. It’s got a mask and everything. Nobody will be able to see my face…just my eyes. And Floyd the Barber says he can rig up a suicide bomber’s belt.”

“Well, that’s out, Opie…” said Sheriff Andy.

“Oh, let him go, Andy,” said Aunt Bea. “It will be a good experience.”

“Have you learned the Five Pillars of Islam?” asked Alfalfa.

“There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet,” said Spanky.

“Are you going to dress up as a Muslim?” asked Alfalfa.

“There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet,” said Spanky.

“Darla says she is going to dress up as an houri,” said Alfalfa.

“There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet,” said Spanky.

“My dad says this class amounts to religious indoctrination,” said Alfalfa.

“There is no God but Allah…”

“You want to be the hit of the class, little man,” advised the Fonz, “go dressed as a priest.”

“A priest?” said Potsy. “Really? You think so?”

“Unless you got a yarmulka,” said the Fonz.

What’s this? The Five Pillars of Islam…dressing like a Muslim? Ridiculous? Not in Nyssa, Oregon, where schoolchildren are being indoctrinated into Islam under the guise of Social Studies. So far only one parent has voiced an objection. It was the first complaint in four years. Don Grotting, Superintendent of Nyssa Public Schools, teaches the class. “The concerns relate to one of 18 chapters in Islamic Civilization, our history textbook, Journey Across Time,” he says. It has absolutely nothing to do with indoctrination. Uh-huh.

“Our role as educators does not include advocating or admonishing Islam or any other religion or culture,” he explained. “Within our world history curriculum, we provide information regarding all of the major cultures and religions that have shaped and continue to influence our world,” he says. Well, as long as there is no advocating and admonishing.

It’s a class for 7^th graders. With the average 12-year-old’s scant knowledge of world history one wouldn’t want to confuse them with the gritty details. Who knows—some kid could get the idea that the Holocaust in Sudan (two million Christians and animists murdered by the Islamic theocrats in the ‘80s and ‘90s) was merely a replication of the deeds of Stalin and Hitler in the ‘30s and’40s; or that Muslim women in Saudi Barbaria and Iran are treated no better than the slaves on Jefferson Davis’ plantation. Wouldn’t want that.

“This particular chapter covers how, beginning in 600 AD, Arabs began a new empire and how their religion, Islam, developed and influenced the building of the new empire and continues to influence culture throughout the world today,” said Grotting. One can only hope Grotting treats the so-called American Empire with the same clinical detachment.

The protest went nowhere—it was a case of been-there, done-that. The notorious 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had already ruled that it was okay to teach Islam as cultural education. Next it will be Islam as science, economics and animal husbandry with extra credit for touring halal butcher shops.

Kendalee Garner, the parent who lodged the protest, was confused. “I don’t understand the ban on Christianity but Islam has free rein,” she said. She wasn’t alone.

Edward White III of the Thomas More Law Center who had argued the issue in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court said the methods used by Nyssa wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds if they had been used to teach Christianity. Jesus Christ? Maybe as an exclamation in the lavatory but not in a classroom!

According to Grotting the course is a state requirement under a set of mandated standards called Benchmark 3. He admitted that on some issues the textbooks “take a slant.”

And how did all this come about? Harken back to 1995 when the Clinton administration issued its guidelines for Religious Expression in Public Schools. (Thought Slick Willie wasn’t religious, hey? Forget that Monica Lewinsky stuff, he was up to his PBUH neck in religious skullduggery)

It is under Slick Willie’s guidelines that Islam is being taught in Nyssa. “You are beginning a simulation of the history and the culture of Islam,” runs the brochure. “It is impossible to study Islam without understanding the relationship between the teaching of Prophet Mohammed and the entire Mid-Eastern culture.” Therefore the student will become a Muslim, join a caravan, make a pilgrimage to Mecca, learn the Five Pillars, recite prayers to Allah, the Merciful, the Magnificent, the Generous…”you alone we worship and you alone we pray for help PBUH.”

And anyone who says ‘Holy Moses” will have a fatwa pronounced against him. Well, no, fatwas are one of the things not covered—along with beheadings, stonings and mass murders.

Other incidentals among the Clinton guidelines were used by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to end Christmas celebrations in the little red schoolhouse.

When announcing his Doctrine on Religious Expression, William Jefferson Clinton PBUH said it was the product of “35 religious groups,” including the ACLU and other civil rights organizations—some of them more interested in stifling Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson than in enlightening America’s schoolchildren. How Clinton came to the conclusion that the ACLU was a religious group remains a mystery. It may not be solved until the final deciphering of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Prominent among those advising Slick Willie was Abdurahman Alamoudi. Alamoudi has an incredible track record. He has been described as a friend of Hillary Clinton’s. He was Hillary ‘s adviser on Islamic affairs. (He may have temporarily replaced Eleanor Roosevelt as her political guru) One sentence in the guidelines must have come straight from Alamoudi. It says: “Students generally do not have a federal right to be excused from lessons that may be inconsistent with their religious beliefs or practices.” Qur’anic in its majesty!

Alamoudi was arrested in 2003 for failing to notify the U.S. State Department of the numerous trips he had made to Libya and for illegally accepting money from the Libyan delegation to the United Nations. British customs officials caught him with $340,000 in cash intended for Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And Hillary could be the next President of the United States! Are we ready for a president with only a 7^th grader’s knowledge of religion?

Dear Opie: Please wear that al-Qaeda costume when you go to that durn class and fill Floyd’s suicide bomber’s belt with stink bombs. You do that and you will be serving humanity more than the Clinton’s have.

BASEBALL CAPS, SOMBREROES, DERBIES AND HIJABS—AN EXTENSION OF JIHAD BY OTHER MEANS

“I can’t see why if a student wears a head scarf it should be an issue. It’s the same as a shirt or tie—it’s just part of our uniform.”—Zainab Elgaziari, assistant principal of the new Islamic Mandani High School in Leicester, England.

That sounds reasonable. The Chicago Cubs don’t go out on the playing field without caps on their heads and no Tall Texan ever stalked into the Long Branch Saloon without a sombrero glued to his pate. Uniforms are nothing new. When Blackjack Pershing attended West Point he wore the exact same uniform as Douglas MacArthur. When John McCain attended the US Naval Academy he wore the same uniform his dad wore—well, not the same uniform, that would have been ridiculous, but it would have saved the government some money. All the Dead Rabbits who attended PS 79 in the 1850s wore derbies and so did all the other kids. It was the only way they could keep from getting beat-up on the way home from school. Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm dressed exactly like Shirley Temple—in fact, all the girls dressed like Shirley Temple; it was an unwritten rule; and that was years before the Valley Girls and the assistant principal had nothing to say about it.

So why are some Englishmen upset because the new Islamic high school will require all girls to wear a hijab? Really—there’s not much difference between a baseball cap, a sombrero, a derby and a hijab—is there? Of course, a hijab is more likely to be seen in a mosque than on a cattle drive or in a close play at second base in Wrigley Field. Maybe one should ask Rosie O’Donnell, America’s second-ranked theologian after Ted Turner. How about it, Rosie? Can’t blame this one on Jerry Falwell. Don’t know? Give up?

What irks John Bull is that not all of the students at the school will be Muslim. That’s right. Recent legislation requires that 10 percent of the student population must come from non-Muslim backgrounds. Well, that’s sounds PC silly! It is. But there is a reason for this madness. Her Royal Highness will be paying the bills. Mandani High is a voluntary-aided state academy. It’s part of England’s parochial school welfare-on-demand program. So the 10 percent non-Muslim part of the student population will have to wear hijabs. And that could be the easy part. The prayer rug and the Qur’an are just around the corner. They might as well call it Indoctrination to Islam 101. Ten percent of any population is nothing to sneeze at. The Caliphate is entrenching.

Suleman Nagdi, of the Federation of Muslim Organizations, said, “All Islamic schools have certain criteria for school uniform. I can’t see anything different about the criteria they are setting in this instance.” Obviously—what works in Saudi Barbaria should work in Leicester. (Did Prince Bubbadullah wear a sombrero when he visited George W. Bush at the ranch in Crawford, Texas?) The Federation of Muslim Organizations is viewed as ‘moderate.’

When Tony Blair proposed banning the pro-terrorist Islamic organization, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, as part of recent anti-terrorist legislation, Nagdi said, “Those particular laws are too draconian and they are uncalled for. There is existing legislation at present that can deal with this issue (the July 7^th bombings).” Yes, indeed—there is no need for 007, let the Bobbies handle it, let Dr. Watson poke around in the rubble—he may find something. See how moderate they are?

When told that a Qur’an had been flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo Bay, Nagdi, did not call for an immediate execution of the guilty. Levelheaded to the core, Nagdi said, “We believe that once established then the perpetrators behind this horrendous act should be brought to justice.” Horrendous…draconian…what admirable adjectives for a moderate!

In the meantime, a Muslim assistant teacher was suspended for refusing to remove her veil while on the job at Headfield Church of England School in West Yorkshire. The teacher, Aishah Azmi, said, “I have no problem with children, I say I prefer (to work) with a female teacher, but if that’s not possible I can’t take it off in front of a male colleague.” The Headfield School is a Voluntary Controlled Junior School. It has 529 pupils Most Voluntary Controlled schools are church schools, owned by charitable institutions and are publicly funded.

It may be necessary at this point to establish some sort of hierarchical structure. Let’s see—there’s the employer, Mr. Moneybags; the school administration; and the employee; the Queen, the Church of England and Aishah; boss, straw boss, drudge. Drudges do not determine the rules of their employment. They obey orders; they follow guidelines. It is not too hard a concept to grasp. Aishah is not playing point guard for the New York Knicks. She can lose the hijab or go elsewhere.

Doesn’t anybody remember how hard it was for Davy Crockett to take off his coonskin cap the day he sat down for his first class in the little red schoolhouse? It was humiliating! He was emasculated! He blushed from head to toe—but he took off his cap. He did it in the name of education. If his teacher had been wearing a veil he would have thought it was because she was ugly. Davy learned a lot in school; he learned how to abbreviate bear. It saved him a lot of time when he was out woodcarving.

The hijab has moved from amusing, to disturbing, to alarming—to ugly. It was only a matter of time before it invaded the schoolhouse. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations is coming home to roost in England. Clausewitz said war was an extension of politics by other means. For the Mad Mullah everything is politics, everything is religion, everything is jihad. The three are inextricably tangled. No battle is too small not to be waged, no victory too meaningless not to be pursued. Give me Roger Clemens in a baseball cap or Hopalong Cassidy in a sombrero or Oliver Hardy in a derby—not a woman hiding behind a veil. One might not learn much history or biology or English from the Rocket or Ole Hoppy or Stanley’s friend except that freedom is preferable to slavery. When imposed upon non-Muslims in an educational setting, the hijab is, regardless of what Rosie O’Donnell or Ted Turner might say, an extension of jihad by other means.

NO ROOM FOR CHRISTIAN EVANGELICALS IN GEORGETOWN’S BRAVE NEW ABRAHAMIC WORLD

It wasn’t an easy decision. It must have brought tears to the eyes of the University officials who had to tell the off-campus evangelical Christian groups there was no longer any room for them on the Georgetown campus. According to Rev. Constance C. Wheeler, the Protestant chaplain of the country’s oldest Roman Catholic and Jesuit University, they came to that conclusion “only after much dialogue with the Lord.”

That sounds reasonable. It’s what Saint Francis of Assisi would have done. What Jesus Christ did while on the cross. Talking to God is good. William McKinley talked to God before annexing the Philippines; Opie Taylor talked to God before Math tests. George W. Bush talks to God; so did Jimmy Carter—the price of peanuts, lusting in his heart, attack rabbits. Maybe he talks to God about Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong the Ill. Jimmy likes to save souls. Shelley Winters talked to God about ending the Vietnam War. Hillary Clinton talks to God—wait, that’s not right; Hillary talks to Eleanor Roosevelt. It was DeWitt Clinton who talked to God. Jane Baez talked to God—got a Mercedes-Benz out of it. So it must work but, apparently, not for everybody. Maybe some people talk to God longer and louder than others.

The InterVarsity Christian Fellowship was one of the six groups expelled from Georgetown. Tensions had been rising between the evangelicals and other Protestant groups. Maybe it was politics—not leaving to Caesar what was Caesar’s. Maybe if the evangelicals had been more ardent in support of the International Solidarity Movement; maybe if more of them had turned out for Rachel Corrie Day; maybe it was that gay-lesbian thing; maybe they haven’t called George W. Bush a Nazi—not that’s it’s required, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s hard to tell.

This isn’t the first problem InterVarsity has had with university authorities. Its Grinnell College chapter was stripped of its official recognition because of its stance on homosexuality. The University of Wisconsin-Superior refused to grant recognition to InterVarsity because it limits positions of leadership in its organization to Christians. That’s a gross violation of the University’s anti-discrimination policy. There is something rotten in Wisconsin and it isn’t the cheese. There are no born-again Christians in positions of leadership in the Muslim Student Association or in any of the gay and lesbian group task forces.

InterVarsity has been active on the UW-Superior campus for about 40 years. Anybody can be a member but leadership positions are reserved for Christians. If that doesn’t make sense than Michael Newdow should be on the Board of Trustees at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Kim Jong the Ill should represent the San Francisco district in the US House of Representatives. (If Kim were a citizen it would be a possibility) Inter Varsity’s UW-Superior chapter is suing. The same thing is happening at Georgetown.

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has taken up InterVarsity’s cause and has written a letter to the Abrahamists who have taken control of the University. Georgetown has been asked to reconsider the ban. “The real interesting thing,” wrote ADF, “is that Georgetown tossed these groups, but left the Muslim Student Alliance and the Jewish Student Alliance intact. This Christian college is giving more religious freedom to Muslims and Jews than to Christians.”

Was somebody late for vespers? This has been going on for a long time. Georgetown has already rewritten the pater noster to fit the Qur’an. Ave Maria is next. It’s no longer a Catholic University—not anymore; it’s not even a Christian University—it’s an Abrahamic outpost in the dar al-Harb. Doctor Faustus made a deal with the Devil; Georgetown has made a deal with the Prophet. The twenty pieces of silver have already changed hands.

Saudi Barbarian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal didn’t donate X millions of dollars to Georgetown’s Abrahamist Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding because he liked the smile on John Esposito’s face. “It is vital,” said bin Talal, “for the monotheistic religions to reach a common ground of understanding in the Muslim world and the West.”

John J. DeGioia, Georgetown president, echoed bin Talal. It “will deepen Georgetown’s ability to advance education in the fields of Islamic and Muslim-Christian understanding,” he said.

John Esposito was ecstatic. “Americans,” he said, “regardless of their position in the political spectrum, agree that there has to be a bridging of the gap between Muslims and the West. The issue is not who the donor is, but rather what the money is going to be used for.”

That is frightening. Al Capone gave money to select politicians in return for certain favors; Adolph Hitler sent Deutschmarks to pro-German groups throughout Europe to pave the way for the Holocaust; Sadam Hussein used Food-for-Oil dollars to buy politicians like George Galloway. None of this was done out of the goodness of their hearts. It is important who the donor is, very important—and this particular donor prefers dhimmis to evangelicals.

It’s a brave new Abrahamic world—bin Talal, the Wahhabi; DeGioia, the dhimmi; and Esposito (for lack of a better word) the renegade. Christian evangelists will be as out of place as atheists and agnostics in Islam’s revised Christianity. They will have to go and eventually so will the Christians and the Jews, for according to the Qur’an, they are dogs and pigs and must suffer eternal doom.

Last February, Georgetown hosted the International Solidarity Movement’s annual Sieg Heil rally. They didn’t wear white sheets but Joseph Goebbels would have felt at home among them, but not Nathan Bedford Forrest—he was really a decent sort—and would have got sick to his stomach at the sights he would have seen. Old Osawatomie Brown would have taken one look and began sharpening his swords. There is still work to be done and a good place to start would be at Georgetown.

THE HIJAB—GRASPING AT JACK STRAWS

“Muslim woman walks into a psychiatrist’s office. Psychiatrist says, ‘You’re ugly.’ Muslim woman says, ‘I want a second opinion.’ ‘Okay, You’re crazy, too.’”

It’s an old Henny Youngman joke altered to fit the circumstances. Obviously, the psychiatrist’s patient wasn’t wearing a hijab or the joke would have been rendered Bill O’Reilly ridiculous. Henny passed away some years ago. Since then more and more Muslim women in the United Kingdom have taken to wearing the hijab. Some say it is a sign of Islamic piety, others say it reflects a growing radicalization; an angry and developing hatred against the beliefs, mores, and freedoms of the civilization that has given them a chance at the life denied them by their countries of origin.

Jack Straw, one-time British Foreign Secretary and current Leader of the House of Commons, is concerned about this trend. He wants to ban the hijab—not just in the interests of national security but also for social reasons. He says he feels uncomfortable when talking to someone whose face he cannot see. If he feels uncomfortable what does he think the bank teller felt the day the James Gang robbed the Clay County Savings Bank and Jesse stuck a gun in his face, or what coursed through Sidney Carton's mind as he glanced up at the executioner just before he said, “I do a far, far better thing than I have ever done before,” or what the terrified freedman thought as he tried to see the faces behind the white sheets moments before being launched into eternity? Say—who are these masked men?

Whether it is hoods, ski masks or hijabs, hidden faces are scary. Adults should not be playing Halloween 12 months out of the year—but they do. Stickup men, executioners, Ku Kluxers, phantoms of the opera, sadomasochists, Mexican wrestlers, steel-jawed caped crusaders, kabuki dancers, Men in Iron Masks, members of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the al-Aqsa Brigade—who can read their faces? Who can see what lurks behind the grotesque facades. Is it anger, pain, hatred, stupidity, greed, lust, perhaps an indifference to human suffering? Is it necessary when carrying on a conversation to see the other person’s face? Yes, it is. Hatred and contempt are not easily concealed and unless one is a practiced salesman it is difficult to lie or dissimulate when looking into someone’s eyes. The Devil prefers not to show his face in public.

Jack Straw explained his position on the hijab. Wearing the full veil, he said, was “bound to make better, positive relations between the two communities (Muslim and non-Muslim) more difficult.”

“Guy walks into a bank to take out a loan. The Lone Arranger is wearing a mask ’That’s ten percent per annum compounded by X number of duodecimals. Sign on the dotted line, please.’ Guy says, ‘I can’t sign this. It’s written in Chinese!’ The Lone Arranger says, ‘What! You don’t trust us?’”

“Guy is pulled over by a motorcycle cop for doing fifty miles an hour in a graveyard. Cop writes him a ticket. Guy says, ‘Why are you wearing a mask?’ Cop says, ‘I didn’t have time to put on my makeup.’ Guy goes to court; Judge is wearing a mask. ‘That will be a hundred dollars or a hundred days.’ Guy pays the hundred dollars; goes to Hooters; all the girls are wearing flak jackets. Guy says, ‘How am I supposed to tell you girls apart?’”

Masks can come in different sizes and shapes.

Radical Muslims were outraged and pretend-moderate Muslims were scarcely less vocal in berating Straw. Massoud Shadjareh, Chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) said, “It is astonishing that someone as experienced and senior as Jack Straw does not realize that the job of an elected representative is to represent the interests of the constituency (wasn’t that precisely what he was doing?), not to selectively discriminate on the basis of religion.” The IHRC hasn’t been this exercised since the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoons. Oh, sure, they are concerned about the holocaust in Darfur, but Darfur is a long way from the UK. There are things closer to home that demand their attention—the cross in the Union Jack, plays, street signs, underwear ads, the continual use of that hateful, threatening word crusaders—things deemed offensive to Islam.

That’s nice. But where was the IHRC when a Muslim walked into a hospital to threaten a British paratrooper recovering from a wound received in Afghanistan? Where was the IHRC when a 42-year-old mother with two children was beaten with a lead pipe by a group of men coming from an Islamic center armed with pitchforks, baseball bats and, of course, lead pipes? Where was the IHRC when a Muslim mob wrecked a house to prevent four young Household Cavalry officers just back from Afghanistan from renting it? Were they at prayers? Were they reading the collected works of Omar Bakri Mohammed? Were they watching films of 9/11? The Muslim Human Rights Commission has less to do with human rights than Herr Hitler’s Das Reich Division. They should be wearing masks—someday somebody may be able to identify them

Fortunately, Jack Straw has supporters. Prime Minister Tony Blair said, “I think we can have these discussions without people being hysterical either way about it.” Salman Rushdie was more succinct. He said, “Veils suck.” What admirable prose!

A Somali immigrant to the United States unwittingly summed up the hijab flap. When told that he would be in violation of US law if he beat his wife and children, he said, “If I can’t beat my wife how will she know that I love her?” Take out the garbage, you idiot! And a question that he didn’t ask is just as important:: “If my wife can’t wear a hijab, how can I keep people from knowing that I beat her?” Maybe Jack Straw had something like that in mind. Masks, hoods and hijabs, too, can hide a lot of bruises, black eyes and broken noses.

Maybe it’s time to start a little fire. Western women burned their bras in the ‘60s; it never made much sense, they were already liberated, but a towering inferno of torched hijabs and burqas would be just what Mohammed ordered—wouldn’t it? The Mullahs have been telling the West for years that Mohammed gave women complete freedom. Let them prove it. A hundred million burning hijabs wouldn’t hurt anything and the sexist chauvinist pigs that have been dominating Islam for 1,400 years could shave off their beards, find something useful to do or choke on the smoke.

“Henny Youngman walks into a psychiatrist’s office…

THE DHIMMITUDE FILES: ANSWERING ISLAM—HOW HARD IS IT TO SAY, “GO TO HECK?”

A scene we would like to see—among others, of course: Uncle Jed and Granny have just arrived at Precinct 99 to bail Jethro out of jail. A portrait of Joe Friday serves as a backdrop. Just the facts now, Jethro:

“Twern’t my fault, Uncle Jed,” says Jethro. “Ah had Old Duke out for a walk an’ it was getting’ cold an’ commencing to rain. So Ah hails this here cab an’ me an’ Old Duke gets into the back seat, an’ this ole cabbie ups an’ says he ain’t gonna haul us because some rascal called Allah says Old Duke is unclean. Can you imagine that?”

“Now simmer down, Jethro,” says Uncle Jed.

“Well,” says Jethro, “Old Duke is cleaner than any dirty ole camel jockey cabdriver Ah’ve ever seen an’ ah lot friendlier an’ that’s what Ah told that rascal. Then he got uppity. He was a scruffy looking guy. Ah told him he ought to shave once in ah while, an’ to put down that dumb book he was readin’ an’ commence to taxi-driving. Then he says Ah done insulted his religion—blasphemed his Holy Book. Ah told him ah man who would put ah dog out of his taxi on a rainy day ain’t got no religion. Then this other rascal comes over an’ commences to call me ah dumb Jimmy an’ that Ah was as unclean as Old Duke. That’s when Ah got mad.”

“Well,” says Uncle Jed, “you shouldn’t have hit him, Jethro—not as hard as you did.”

“Ah didn’t hit him, Uncle Jed,” says Jethro. “Old Duke got after him an’ he ran into a street sign an’ knocked hisself cold.”

“Say, where’s Ellie Mae?” says Uncle Jed? “She was here a minute ago.”

“Jed, you better come quick!” yells Granny. “Ellie Mae and Bessie has got that cabdriver up a tree and has rounded up a half-dozen dogs and ain’t gonna let him down till he apologizes to Old Duke.”

Jane Vernon had no such luck. Jane is blind and uses a guide dog. She works for the Royal National Institute for the Blind, London, England. She said she was tired and cold and wanted to go home. Unfortunately, Abdul Rasheed Majekodumni was driving the cab she selected. She couldn’t have done worse with a seeing eye Jethro. Abdul told Jane she could not get in his cab because her guide dog was unclean and his religion forbade contact with unclean things. (Apparently, in his own weak mind, Abdul is as pure as the driven snow)

Jane was tired and cold but it didn’t matter. Abdul was like a rock. Even Lassie with Timmy in tears could not have melted his stone cold heart—Rin-tin-tin, FDR’s Fala, the Hounds of the Baskervilles, 100 Dalmations, no understanding at all of God’s precious creations. Obviously, Abdul had spent more time reading the Qur’an than Kahlil Gibran—if he has ever heard of the latter. Maybe some night when the moon is full and the wolfbane is in bloom he will pick up Lon Chaney Jr.—or maybe Jethro Bodine. But there was no poetic justice for Jane Vernon—none at all. Jane was forced to sue.

The law says all licensed cabdrivers must carry guide dogs. Many of them don’t. Abdul was fined 1600 pounds. Did it soften his heard? Not so as one would notice. Abdul might not know much about Common Law, but he reads the Qur’an; he will continue to refuse passengers accompanied by guide dogs. And he is not alone.

Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society said, “The clash between religious rights and the human rights of other people will become increasingly an issue as the Government tries to include all forms of discrimination under the same umbrella.”

Isn’t it time some of these rascals were put in their place? Driving a taxi isn’t a right; it’s a privilege. The Judge should have revoked Abdul’s license or at least sentenced him to watch Lassie Come Home once every weekend for the next ten years. There are millions of dogs—yes, millions from Abra, famous for digging a hole eleven feet deep, to Zvezdochka (which means Little Star in Russian) shot into space in a Soviet satellite—who are more worthy of respect than Abdul and who have served humanity in more ways than some pathetic wretch of a cabdriver could ever imagine. In fact, Zvezdochka got closer to God than Abdul ever will. The list of mutts superior to PBUH cabdrivers is endless. Who in his right mind wouldn’t prefer listening to Huckleberry Hound sing Oh, My Darling Clementine than Abdul Rasheed Majekodumni telling some blind woman he has no room in his cab for her because his religion does not recognize God’s Eleventh Commandment: Be Kind to Animals. Yes, there are Eleven Commandments—maxflack counted them. Pluto, Goofy, Spud MacKenzie—even Cujo had good points compared to Abdul.

Why is it so hard to tell insolent creep cabdrivers to go to Heck when they are already headed in that direction? Jethro and Old Duke would have known what to do. That Abdul rascal would have commenced to run and would be half way to Mecca by now.

Doggies, now there is a scene whose time has come. It should be worth an Emmie—or an Oscar or at least a Melvin.

Say—does anybody know what happened to Old Yeller?

Hi, I’m Rosie O’Donnell Ding-dong, and these are my friends, Oliver and Ted—Don’t kids say the darndest things?

“Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have a separation of church and state. We’re a democracy here.”—Rosie O’Donnell of Sunnybrook Farm on The View.

“We have destroyed the world in the name of security…Mr. Bush has set America back 10 years, maybe more…Terrorism is a manageable action. It can be lived with…I’m deeply ashamed.”—Oliver Stone, Barney Google Junior High.

“Christianity is a religion for losers…(Iran is) a sovereign state. We have 28,000 (Nukes). Why can’t they have ten…It will go down in history (the Iraq War)…as one of the dumbest moves that was ever made by anybody…I am absolutely certain we would not have made it through the Cold War without the U.N.”—Ted Turner, Huck Finn Day Care Center.

These are the kinds of things Potsy and Ralph Malph said that kept them in Junior High an extra year. If Jethro Bodine had offered similar classroom observations he would not have graduated from the 6^th grade at Oxford. Even when advised by Floyd the Barber and Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife, Opie Taylor steered clear of such nonsense.

Rosie O’Donnell may be terrified of radical Christianity and Pope Benedict XVI may not have been craven enough in his responses to Islam to suit her interfaith yearnings but Rosie is not a theologian. She wasn’t even an altar boy! Some facts: Bill O’Reilly is not Torquemada and the CIA is not the Inquisition. They may think so at Cambridge and Berkeley but it is not true. On the other hand, radical Islam has al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The Promise Keepers and Hip Hoppers for Christ are about as radical as Christianity gets. Maybe if Christians stopped using words like ‘God’ and ‘Christ’ they wouldn’t be so frightening. It can be scary when cheating on your homework.

And there is that lesbian thing. But hasn’t Jerry Falwell said a hundred times if once, that he hates the sin and loves the sinner? Sure, he has. The last time anybody checked Islam still hates the sin and the sinner. Jimmy Carter lusted in his heart—maybe Falwell and Pat Robertson are doing the same thing. That would be frightening. God was a woman, you know.

Oliver Stone says terrorism is a manageable action; it can be lived with. How does he know that? He makes movies—he knows everything and what he doesn’t know, he makes up. The Jews lived with terrorism in Nazi Germany for years and there’s still a lot of them left—enough to annoy the bug-juice out of a billion Muslims, the faculty at DePaul University and the Secret Friends and Admirers of David Duke in the Democratic Party. And the Communists have terrorized tens of millions of people over the past hundred years and who is the worse for it—a few kulaks and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? Not Oliver Stone.

Bush has set America back ten years, he says. That should make him happy—ten years ago Bill Clinton was president, the Taliban had seized Kabul and Madeline Albright had restored cultural diversity to Yugoslavia—well, that’s what she said. Wasn’t she the silly goose?

“You don’t start wars just because you don’t like somebody,” said Ted Terrific. This comes from the guy who invented the tomahawk chop, kept poor Chief Nok-a-homa confined to a teepee in Fulton County Stadium, gave a billion dollars to a notorious international crime syndicate, and drove Jane Fonda into the arms of the Lord. He said he wouldn’t start a war even with Rupert Murdoch. (He has a bigger mouth than Rosie O’Donnell. He’s not in the Guinness Book of Records because he never stops talking long enough for someone to measure his mouth)

He is a little shy about one thing—he hasn’t said what he thinks about Islam. Maybe he’s afraid he would start a war. Does he think Islam is a religion for losers? George W. Bush doesn’t think so. The President has said more good things about Islam than Turner has said about Christianity. Actually, Adolph Hitler said more good things about Christianity than Turner. So did Madeline Murray O’Hare. Ted trends in the opposite direction—he says nasty things. It’s part of his persona. He has said more nasty things about Christians than Jethro Bodine said about dogs the night Old Duke mistook him for a burglar and tore the seat out of his pants.

But Ted gave a billion dollars to the United Nations. Maybe it’s because he has more faith in the U.N. than in Condi Rice. Why if it weren’t for the UN, says Ted Terrific, the war in Lebanon would still be going on, there would be no peace anywhere in Africa and ugly religious confrontations would be taking place all around the globe—even in England and France! And he stands up for the underdogs, too! To insure peace for all time, Ted says, the UN should allow Iran to have ten nukes—and North Korea five and Monaco as many as they have room for. It’s an old story—every Dr. Frankenstein should have a least one monster.

KIDS! Some of them never grow up. They say the darndest things—incredibly cute at five, smart-aleck-funny at ten, Bill Clinton foolish at fifteen, straining toward the ridiculous at twenty. After that they sort of lose control of their vowels, and by the time they hit fifty, they are ready for Star Trek—pains in Doctor Spock’s asteroids.

TAXIS, FASHION DESIGNERS AND DHIMMITUDE

About 75 percent of the taxi drivers doing business at the Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport are Somalis and a lot of them are Muslims. Is that bad? Well, it is—sort of. Suppose some weary world traveler—say, Joe Doaks of Swaledale, Iowa—just in from Lower Slobbovia with a suitcase in one hand and a six-pack in the other was looking for a cab. Joe had stopped in the bar to cure his jetlag. When he came out the only available taxi was one operated by a Somali Muslim who had a serious religious grudge against drinking. Joe would be out of luck; he would have to wait for another cab, and in this he wouldn’t be alone. It happens two or three times every day. Muslim cabdrivers have been refusing to service Airport customers—even Airport employees—if they are carrying alcoholic beverages.

Well, isn’t that just grand! What’s a body to do? Crocodile Dundee might get a cab even with a keg of Old Grand Dad strapped to his back but what about poor Joe Doaks? Is he supposed to wait all night in the rain?

“It’s become a significant customer-service issue,” admitted Patrick Hogan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Airport Commission. (It’s been happening for some time now so it’s too late to nip in the bud as should have been done)

This thing could escalate—Ripple and Four Roses today, the Bible tomorrow. “Sorry, Mr. Graham. I don’t haul dhimmis with Bibles.” Now for the classic if: Suppose Tom Arnold flew in for a Viking game and he had Arnold Ziffle on a leash and a Miss Piggy doll the size of Anna Nicole Smith clenched between his teeth and a Somali Muslim cabbie told him there was no room in his vehicle for unclean animals? Arnold is not Crocodile Dundee but he was married to Roseanne Barr; that makes him a mighty tough character and a desperate one too. It could lead to a serious incident.

Not to worry though—the Airport Commission has come up with a brilliant idea. To save infidels like Joe Doaks and Tom Arnold the embarrassment of being rejected by Muslim cabdrivers, taxis will sport color-coded light on their roofs, one color for wets, another for dries. And if that’s not enough, curbside taxi starters will steer the booze-toting hombres to Archie Bunker’s cab. This is a great idea—especially for Archie. As soon as the booze-toting frequent fliers and those who like a snort now and then catch on to what the lights mean they will naturally gravitate to Archie’s wet cab, leaving Mohammed high and dry. The Muslim refuseniks will lose a little business. A good halal lawyer might consider this an unauthorized boycott.

“We can’t promise that we can accommodate every religious belief,” said Hogan. That may be true. But why should they accommodate any religious belief? As far as is known they have never done so in the past. If Jerry Falwell asked them what time it was, they would tell him to look at the clock. They are running an airport, not a mosque. It’s Minnesota, not the Middle East. Somebody should explain the ramifications of the Public Accommodations Act to Mohammed and if he still doesn’t like it, let him pick up his fares in front of Alcoholics Anonymous.

In Italy, fashion designer Brunello Cucinelli gave Italian translations of the Qur’an to all 400 of his employees. “Muslim are our neighbors,” he said, “and in order to learn how to live together with them we must get to know their religion.” Couldn’t he have given them copies of Oriana Fallaci’s The Rage and the Pride or tickets to Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center and let it go at that? Why strain the minds of his employees with propaganda—and impoverish his own? He should stick to the fashion industry instead of playing the good dhimmi. Maybe he could design a bulletproof hijab for Condi Rice to wear the next time she visits Baghdad or air-conditioned burqas for suicide bombers—be of some service to humanity.

In case you don’t know, Brunello, Pope John Paul is dead…there is a new Pope…Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI…he speaks his mind…he has offended millions of Muslims who are threatening to send him to his eternal doom…Eternal Doom—that’s somewhere near Hadesl. They’ve got a room reserved for him next to Salman Rushdie’s…You wouldn’t like it…no half-starved models running around in their underwear…It’s nothing but fire and eternal damnation…The Devil was there once. It was so hot he had to take his shirt off…There are a lot of things Muslims don’t like—one of them is fashion designers. Guys who design short skirts for skinny women are unclean. They’re only slightly better than pigs and not quite so good as dogs.

Instead of passing out Qur’ans to your employees, Brunello, you should give Arabic translations of the Bible to the first 400 Muslims who attend one of your fashion shows. They need Christianity more than Christians need Islam. It’s been a long time since Richard the Lion-Heart tried to explain things to them. If you really want to do your part, maybe you could arrange a suicide bomber exchange program. It hasn’t been tried since Christianity gave up that ‘eye for an eye’ thing.

Cucinelli remains undaunted. “Arab culture has given us architects, doctors, thinkers and philosophers,” he said. “Why don’t we learn something from them?”

We have. The last Muslim philosopher said, “Kill all the Christians.” And when it come to thinkers—well, it’s against the Qur’an. There was this guy, blessed by Allah, Mohammed the Prophet. He did so much thinking there was nothing left for anybody else. They put everything he thought in a book, the Qur’an. For Muslims to speculate beyond this book is heresy. There is this saying “I think, therefore I am a heretic.” That’s what happened to Salman Rushdie—too much thinking.

Sure, Averroes (1126-1198) was a brilliant Muslim philosopher. He was sort of a mentor for Thomas Aquinas, but if he were alive today he would have more fatwas hanging over his head than Rushdie. When he said, “Why don’t we learn something from them?” he meant Plato and Aristotle and Socrates. To the Muslim Brotherhood that’s almost as bad as the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Maybe Brunello hopes to corner the al-Qaeda and Hezbollah market on Cashmere sweaters. That could explain his ‘densilocity’ on religious matters. It’s about time he hit the confessional and asked forgiveness for his ignorance. For your penance, Brunello, say one Our Father, three Hail Mary’s and send the Pope a Cashmere sweater—he already has a Qur’an.

ENGLAND DYING! IN AMERICA—THE ISLAMIC APOCALYPSE! NOW WAIT, JUST A DARN MINUTE! HAVEN’T OUR POLITICIANS HEARD OF RECIPROCITY TREATIES? IT’S AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME! WHAT DO WE PAY THESE MORONS FOR?

It may be too late for England. Cancer, death by a thousand cuts, call it what one will, England is dying. Slowly, surely, Shari’a Law is being implemented in the land that once stood civilization on its head. Say goodbye to Richard the Lion-Heart, to the good Queen Bess, to Pitt and Locke and Shakespeare, to Sir Winston Churchill. Tony Blair may be making a valiant last-ditch stand but the monstrous shadow of Mohammed looms over Merry Olde England like a swastika over a Nazi concentration camp. The beaches and the landing fields are already gone and the streets are being surrendered. Even Tony Blair is sinking inch by inch into a mindless dhimmitude—a concession here, a concession there; the Spitfires are gone and so are the Halifaxes, all that is left are the Red Ken Livngstones and the George Galloways. The stiff upper lip has given way to the trembling chin.

The late Robin Cook, British Foreign Secretary (1997-2001), speaking at the dedication of the Ismaili (Islamic) Center in London in 1998, said, “It is the most wonderful reminder in the very heart of London that the roots of our culture are not only Greek and Roman in origin, but Islamic as well. Islam laid the intellectual foundation for large portions of Western civilization.” Socrates, Cicero…and Mohammed? Surely, he was jesting. It sounds like something Adolph Hitler would have said to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in the 1940s…the Nuremberg Laws, the Shari’a, dhimmitude, the swastika and the crescent, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Mein Kampf; the Qur’an. Cook was hallucinating—Hitler wasn’t.

More recently, Tony Blair said, “The most remarkable thing about reading the Koran—in so far as it can be truly translated from the original Arabic—it to understand how progressive it is.”

NEWS FLASHES! A new multi-racial cemetery in Bulwell, England, will be plotted so that all graves will face in the direction of Mecca! Seventy percent of the population of Bulwell considers themselves Christian. Some people would call this surrender to the inevitable. Others call it cowardice…The Church of Extinction—ah, make that the Church of England—is considering rejecting St. George as the patron saint of England on the grounds that it may be offensive to Muslims…A man running a public car park put up a sign saying ‘Porking Yard’ to honor an area once full of butcher shops. He was lucky he wasn’t tarred and feathered. He was reported to the ABSO police (Anti-Social Behavior Order) and was ‘ordered’ to take the sign down and was given two years probation for possibly insulting Islam ...Pork is being banned in England because it is offensive to Muslims and halal food is being forced on non-Muslims despite the protests of animal rights people…In Brighton, England, and throughout much of Europe, the rape of non-Muslim women by Muslim men—immigrants, converts and native born—has reached epidemic proportions. Cowardly politicians and a media already sunk to the neck in dhimmitude avoid using the word ‘Muslim’ in describing the criminals because it might be considered offensive to the religion of peace and toleration.

How close is the United States to sinking into the Islamic cesspool that has engulfed England? Is it a decade down the road, a half-century away or is it just around the corner? Is there anything that can be done to arrest the incoming tide aside from banning future Muslim immigration to America? There is. But it is doubtful if more than a handful of politicians—mostly Republicans and maybe Joseph Lieberman—would have the guts to give it a try. It’s Reciprocity Treaties. Yes, Reciprocity Treaties, also known as the Golden Rule—Do unto others as you would have them do onto you. Of course, certain changes would have to be made. One would have to ignore the jokers in the State Department, clone Andrew Jackson and send him to the land of the burning sands to negotiate the reciprocity treaties with the Muslim countries. (Actually they would be immigration treaties but that might offend Barbara Boxer and Ibrahim Hoopercrit; nonetheless, they would be so quid pro quo nobody with a sense of justice and fairness could object)

Muslim immigrants to America would face the same disabilities non-Muslims face in Saudi Barbaria, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia and on down the wretched line. Who could complain about that? For instance, Article One: No new mosques could be built in the Untied States and those damaged or destroyed by fire or natural disasters could not be repaired or rebuilt. This might anger Rosie O’Donnell and Howard Dean and outrage Hugo Chavez’s friend, the late Noam Chomsky, but it is how the Copts are treated in Egypt, the Assyrians in Pakistan, the Catholics in Indonesia and Jews and animists wherever they have, unfortunately, come in contact with Islam. It is not unusual for radical Muslim fundamentalists to destroy churches, synagogues and Hindu shrines and then smirk while denying permits to rebuild said edifices.

Article Two: Muslims resident in the United States would not be allowed to issue calls to prayer because the resultant din might disturb the peace, quiet and tranquility of the Christian population. Phil Donohue and Ward Churchill might consider this absurd—they might even take great umbrage, talk about little Eichmanns—but the complaints of those who have blamed suicide bombings in the Middle East on American foreign policy could be ignored for what they have always been; pure, naked, unadulterated anti-Americanism. Muslim voices could not be raised in prayer for the same reason and public funerals would not be allowed.

Here’s one Bill Maher would like. The Qur’an would have to be kept in a closet or in the trunk of a car. The American Civil Liberties Union, which has been trying for years to ban the Bible from public places, could be expected to get behind this one. Uh-huh.

Article Six-and-seven-eights: Muslim men would not be allowed to marry non-Muslim women but non-Muslim men could marry Muslim women. This might or might not affect the prospects of Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith; it would irritate Katie Couric and Christiane Amanpour but they would learn to live with it. Further, Muslim men would be banned from appearing clean-shaven in public and Muslim women would have to wear a burqa or a chador and a headscarf when they ventured out of doors to buy halal food on the Black Market. The beard and the headscarf would not be a sign of superiority; it would be a sign of inferiority.

The farther one gets into the fine print of these treaties the more amazing it gets. Muslim men would be prohibited from driving cars, owning weapons or arming themselves in any manner; they would not be allowed to sell wine or hawk prayer rugs on street corners. And they would have to pay a tax—a jizya. Republicans would see to it that it wouldn’t be too onerous. And what would they get for these modest concessions? Well, they would get what dhimmis—non-Muslims—get in Muslim countries. They would get protection! Yes, protection! They would be as safe as a Copt in Egypt, an Assyrian in Pakistan, a Christian in Sudan—almost as safe as a prisoner on Devil’s Island and with just about the same rights.

They would no longer have to worry about anything! Imagine that! And better yet—Christians and other non-Muslims wouldn’t have to worry about anything either. No doubt about it—Reciprocity Treaties are the way to go. They would work miraculous changes! Consider what would happen if Muslim-Americans were treated exactly the way non-Muslims are treated in Muslim countries. It would be a moment of truth. In a few days, or maybe in a couple of weeks, one could expect many of them to become (a.) suicide bombers or (b.) good citizens—up to now most of them have been neither.