This is a very good question, and one that needs to be answered by balanced reporting and hard facts. Neither can be found in this video, posted at Gates of Vienna, and taken completely at face value by the normally sensible Roger Kimball:

The film clip linked is marred by major inaccuracies, a smug tone and ill-concealed Schadenfreude.

The inaccuracies first, some of which could have been avoided by using Wikipedia:

1. On Lord Phillips and Sharia law, please see my article here, which shows what he actually did say. Basically, Lord Phillips defined the limits of Sharia law which are the same as any other private form of arbitration, namely that it is strictly subordinate to English law. Thus there is no question of legalising honour killings or forced marriage. Those things are happening in Britain – and America, of course – but it doesn’t mean they are legal, or likely to become so.

2. I cannot comment on the details of "ex-drug dealer and born-again Christian" Paul Ray’s case. However, I find it difficult to believe that it is purely on the content of his blog that he has been arrested. If that were the case, then many writers for Standpoint, the Spectator, and even the Times would be arrested.

3. Some of those preaching violence outside the Danish Embassy were indeed arrested and charged with incitement to murder and later sent to between four and six years imprisonment. So they didn’t “get away with it” as is implied.

4. Regarding Channel 4’s Undercover Mosque, which exposed violent preaching in Britain’s Mosques, nobody was “charged” (You can’t charge a news programme anyway.) An investigation was carried out by West Midlands police, and a complaint made to the regulator, Offcom. There was insufficient evidence and no charges were brought. The complaint was rejected. The programme makers sued for libel – Britain’s evil libel laws in action. West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service apologised and paid them £100,000. Of course the investigation should never have been carried out in the first place - this should have been the focus of the news clip.

5. On “unIslamic activity” – this is absurd, perhaps more so even than the American government forbidding the use of the word “jihad”. But nobody has taken any notice of it as far as I can see, and it certainly doesn’t have the force of law.

Inaccuracies aside, the tone of the film clip, as I said, is smug and gloating. Such smugness is unwarranted in those who fail to do even the most basic research.

It seems Imran Raza made a fairly serious mistake in his film "Karachi Kids" and now the entire documentary is called into question. The children have clearly been coached as to what to say now that they are back in Atlanta.

KARACHI, Pakistan (CNN) -- It's a documentary with an alarming message: Two American boys are held captive in a madrassa, a Pakistani religious school, once visited by Osama bin Laden and with ties to the Taliban.

The film, "Karachi Kids," describes threats to artistic freedom of expression from the teaching of conservative Islam. Early copies of the film prompted outrage after the story of the American boys appeared on Fox News, CBS and other news outlets. It also led to demands from Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, for the boys to be returned home.

But the independent filmmaker may have confused the madrassa with one with a similar name tied to Islamic extremists.

The madrassa the boys attended isn't linked to bin Laden or Muslim radicals; instead, it's one the U.S. State Department says is preferred by Pakistani-Americans for its moderate Islamic teachings and one recently visited by a top U.S. diplomat in Pakistan.

How could the filmmaker have got it so wrong? He blames the error on researchers he says he has since dismissed.

"I do need to take responsibility for these things in terms of these were errors that sort of spun out of control," filmmaker Imran Raza said. "I have to take responsibility for the mistakes. I take responsibility for the error in the allegation that Osama bin Laden was there. I take responsibility for the error that some of the Taliban leaders were there."

CNN learned about brothers, Noor and Mehboob Khan, ages 17 and 16, when Raza offered CNN the documentary this summer. The film focuses on the brothers, whose father, a Pakistani-born taxi driver in Atlanta, Georgia, sent them to Pakistan to get them in touch with their religious heritage.

In the film, Raza describes the teens as captives being force-fed radical jihad. In interviews over three years, the boys describe their longing for America and say the terrorist attacks of September 11 weren't carried out by Muslims. One of the brothers described punishment by beatings at the madrassa.

Raza started a campaign to return the boys to the United States. McCaul offered to help, even asking Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to intervene.

(...)

Back in Atlanta, Noor Khan said the whole experience gave him a better appreciation of America, his family and his faith.

"I am glad I was sent to Pakistan because it taught me to be a better person. It taught me to appreciate what I had before, and I knew when I came back I wasn't going to make the same mistake of not appreciating what I have," he said.

He added, "I was never held against my will."

Noor said the "beatings" he referred to in the film were the equivalent of when American teachers years ago used to smack students on their wrists to reinforce a lesson.

"Pakistan is, what, 50 years behind America, so they do the same thing. They take a stick and hit you softly on the hand so you learn a lesson, but that didn't bother me," he said.

Did he see radicalism there?

"Look, I am Muslim, and one of the main things they teach us to do is not to lie," he said. "I witnessed with my own eyes: no Taliban, no Taliban training, no terrorist, no extremism -- nothing at all at the madrassa. The only thing they wanted to do was teach the history of Islam. That's all."

He says the comments of his talking about September 11 in the documentary were twisted and taken out of context. He said what he meant was that the hijackers weren't "true Muslims."

"If those were Muslims, they weren't true Muslims," he said. "We Muslims, we don't kill people. We're not terrorists. ... We're not violent people. We just want to live a happy life."

He then sought to make clear: "I've never met the Taliban; no one showed me how do any terrorist training or activities. I've never witnessed that with my own eyes, and when the media comes to our madrassa, our principal tells to their face, 'All the classes, all the rooms are open to you. You are free to go wherever you want.' "

Pakistan's religious affairs ministry said the Jamia Binoria school is a moderate Islamic institution. A U.S. State Department source confirmed that, saying the school "is known to U.S. officials as a moderate institution, favored by Pakistani-Americans for its moderate and tolerant Islamic instruction."

In fact, a report by the International Crisis Group -- provided by McCaul's office and the documentary filmmaker -- says the Jamia Binoria Madrassa is often mistaken for another. "Because of its name, this madrassa is often confused with the more prominent and powerful Binori Town Madrassa," the report says.

The other madrassa is the one that intelligence sources say is the school bin Laden visited and, according to the report, is the "fountainhead of Deobandi militancy countrywide. ... It also boasts close ties to the Taliban."...

Jeffrey Imm writes at Counterterrorism blog:

As mentioned in Andrew Cochran's July 28 posting, the Investigative Project on Terrorism's (IPT) counterterrorism leader Steven Emerson will be testifying on Thursday July 31 at a Congressional hearing on "Foreign Aid and the Fight Against Terrorism and Proliferation: Leveraging Foreign Aid to Achieve U.S. Policy Goals." This hearing will take place at the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade this Thursday at 10:30 AM ET in room 2200 of the Rayburn House Building.

In the past day, however, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) have been working on a public relations campaign to silence Steven Emerson at this July 31 hearing. ISNA sent out an "Urgent Action Alert" to its membership calling for them to lobby Congressman Brad Sherman to either have "balanced, qualified testimony"... [or demand that] "the session be canceled." MPAC sent a similar letter to Congressman Brad Sherman and also issued "demands" calling for its membership to lobby for silencing Steven Emerson or for Congress to "cancel or postpone" the hearing. ISNA charges Steven Emerson with "Islamaphobia" [sic] and "hate mongering," while MPAC charges Steven Emerson with "bigotry." Not surprisingly, ISNA and MPAC don't support their accusations with any facts or specifics, just ad hominem name-calling to silence and discredit those who speak out against Jihad.

As reported tonight, Congressman Sherman refused to buckle under such lobbying efforts stating that "[t]his hearing will go on. We need to make sure that the State Department is not giving U.S. tax dollars to those on the other side in the war on terrorism."
 

ISNA's and MPAC's efforts to either silence Steven Emerson or ensure that an "expert" hand-picked by such pro-Islamic supremacist groups provides "balanced" [sic] testimony should be another wake-up call that such groups seek to not only impact the debate on Jihad and Islamic supremacist terrorism, but also control that debate entirely. Yet ISNA and MPAC remain unwilling to be accountable for their own organizations' and members' actions, statements, and ideological support.

Both ISNA and MPAC have a lot to explain about their own organizations and members.

ISNA remains an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror retrial scheduled for August 18. But a few weeks before the retrial, ISNA's court-appointed attorneys now seek to delay the retrial, claiming that "they haven't been paid enough to present a good defense." Could that have anything to do with ISNA's legal defense's inability to challenge the authenticity of documents linking ISNA to the Hamas terrorist organization?

ISNA is also in the process of preparing for its annual 2008 convention scheduled to start on August 29, where it has announced that it will have such speakers as:

-- Muzammil Siddiqi - Steven Emerson reports that "when Siddiqi was President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in 1997, his organization received special thanks from Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, who wrote that ISNA supported him through his jailing and extradition process, writing that such efforts 'consoled' him." The report points out, "Siddiqi has made numerous pro-jihad statements in the past and has denied that 9/11 was carried about by Muslims." Muzammil Siddiqui has been a member of Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), whose members have been connected to Islamic extremism and terrorism.

-- Siraj Wahhaj - a character witness for convicted 1993 World Trade Center terrorist "blind sheik" Omar Rahman, and a man who reportedly called for replacing the American government with a caliphate.  This same Islamic supremacist Siraj Wahhaj is currently promoting ads for the New York subway system to "teach" people about Islam.

-- Abdallah Idris Ali - has been on the board of the American Muslim Council, an organization whose leaders have openly supported terrorist groups, such as Hamas

-- Ihsan Bagby: "we [Muslims] can never be full citizens of this country... because there is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country."

-- Zaid Shakir: "Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country"

-- CAIR's Nihad Awad - historical supporter of Hamas terrorist group: "I am in support of the Hamas movement"

-- ISNA's Ingrid Mattson - charges that right-wing Christians "are really anti-semitic. They do not like Jews"

Yet ISNA dares to charge others with "hate mongering," while they cannot address their own organizations' statements, speakers, and activities.

ISNA is well aware of the history and criticism of such speakers, and the challenges to ISNA that these individuals represent an Islamic supremacist viewpoint. It is not a surprise to ISNA. ISNA simply does not care. They believe that they can bully public opinion to accept such Islamic supremacist ideologues, like it or not. Moreover, ISNA feels sufficiently empowered to try to silence those who would address the truth about the ISNA organization, such as Steven Emerson.

MPAC also has failed to address its leader's links to publications defending Islamic supremacist terrorist Osama Bin Laden. MPAC spokeswoman Edina Lekovic was managing editor for Al-Talib when it instructed Muslim readers to "defend our brother" Osama bin Laden, and "refer to him as a freedom fighter, someone who has forsaken wealth and power to fight in Allah's cause and speak out against oppressors. We take these stances only to please Allah." Edina Leckovic was named as MPAC's point of contact on a recent article by MPAC praising efforts by the government agencies to create a terror lexicon where the use of "Jihad" would be forbidden.

MPAC has lobbied to remove Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hizballah from U.S. terrorist group listings. For the past three years, MPAC has had a campaign to attack Steven Emerson. But MPAC is unable to respond to questions about its own organization.

The challenge by groups like ISNA and MPAC is not merely their efforts to silence Steven Emerson. Their challenge is really to any American who dares to speak the truth about Jihad, Islamism, and Islamic supremacism. Groups such as ISNA and MPAC may or may not silence any one individual. But we must make it clear to Islamic supremacists everywhere that they will never silence all of us who will defy the ideology of supremacism that is inimical to our freedoms, our values of equality and liberty, and our nation.

Jerusalem Post: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert intends to hand his resignation letter to President Shimon Peres the day after the September 17 Kadima primary and ask him to entrust the new party leader with forming a new government, Olmert's associates said Wednesday night.

They spoke soon after the prime minister had made a somber speech at his official residence in Jerusalem in which he announced that he would not seek to retain the leadership.

By law, Olmert will remain prime minister until a new government is formed. If the new Kadima leader forms a government soon after the primary, Olmert will then leave office. But if no new government is established, Olmert, despite having formally tendered his resignation, could remain prime minister until after a general election that would likely be held in spring 2009.

Olmert decided 10 days ago to announce his imminent departure on Wednesday - to coincide with the last day of the Knesset's winter session and the Kadima election committee's formal decision to set the September 17 date for the primary.

He kept his decision a secret. However, before his speech, Olmert called US President George W. Bush to inform him of his impending move, he briefed his lawyers, and his office alerted the four Kadima leadership candidates.

"He didn't want to humiliate himself by waiting until the last minute as some people thought he would," an Olmert associate said. "He is the most realistic person in the world. He didn't want to look like he cared only about himself by staying as long as possible. He decided he wanted to play the responsible adult." ...

All answers to the If Quiz have been Quite Interesting, particularly the references to muffin the mule, so I'll depart from my usual meritocratic ways and declare that All Shall Have Prizes. After all, what is winning and what is losing? We should treat these two impostors just the same.

The only correct answer to the question "Do you like Kipling? is "I don't know, I've never kip(p)led." I was hoping that someone would triumphantly come out with one or the other so that I could say: "Wrong - it's kipled/kippled." You could go for either. From Kipplipedia:

The term [Kipple] first appeared in print in May 1960, when science fiction fan Ted Pauls started publishing a fanzine named Kipple. In the final issue of Kipple, in 1984, Pauls said that the name had originally had no meaning, and that he had borrowed it from a very old play on words: 

"Do you like Kipling?"

"I don't know, I've never kippled."  

According to Pauls' account, a Kipple reader had jokingly redefined the title to mean "worthless junk that seems to multiply, as for example coat hangars [sic], paper clips, etc." As Pauls recalled, the reader in question was editor Terry Carr, after which Philip K. Dick (also a Kipple reader) picked it up and used that meaning of it.^[1]

A sequence incorporating the above "kippled" joke appears in Dick's Galactic Pot-Healer (1969): 

Q. Do you like Yeats?

A. I don't know, I've never tried any.

For a time his mind was empty and then he thought this:

Q. Do you like Kipling?

A. I don't know, I've never kippled.  

Kippled is attested, at least in a fanzine,  but kipled, as Hugh, A.K.A. His Nibs (geddit?), pointed out a while ago, is strictly more correct as a past participle of a verb of which kipling is a present.

Perhaps it's an inkhorn term. I have no inkling, perhaps because I've never inkled.

And don't get me started on Wankel rotary engines, to say nothing of Darkling Thrush.

From The Telegraph
A terrorist bomb maker has been sentenced to seven years in jail for manufacturing explosives in soft drinks bottles and providing instructions in Arabic on how to mix them together.
Hassan Tabbakh, 38, an unemployed science graduate from Syria, wrote notes to the terrorists he intended to use the devices telling them: "I have put everything separately for safety and quick transport.
"Don't use the bottles in which I put the liquids because my fingerprints are on them. I pray that Allah would keep you safe and grant you success in the work for the sake of Allah." Another said: "Step back at the time of execution."
Max Hill QC, prosecuting, told Birmingham Crown Court: "This defendant was caught in the process of a practical attempt to create improvised explosive devices, or bombs in everyday language. Because he was caught in the act, neither the written instructions nor the bomb mixtures had reached their destination. Who, when or where the bombs were going to be used is not known.  The truth is that Hassan Tabbakh was stopped by the police before he had the chance to finally prepare his bombs, and before any atrocity could be attempted. That is our good fortune, and his bad luck."
The court heard Tabbakh, who was born in Damascus, Syria, and has a university qualification in mathematical and physical sciences, was building the bombs for "al-Qaeda-style jihad."
Analysis revealed the bottles, which were stored in a hallway cupboard, contained a mixture of Growmore plant food, acetone, nitrocellulose and white spirit along with handwritten notes in Arabic which seemed to be instructions on how to construct the bombs.
The notes told the user to mix the ingredients of the bottles with fertilizer and aluminium foil, transfer the mixture into tin cans and insert a detonator to make a bomb.
Tabbakh, who admitting building the devices and writing the notes, told the police he was only making fireworks, but yesterday he was unanimously found guilty of preparing an act of terrorism.
Sentencing him, Judge Frank Chapman said the materials were "third rate" but had "great potential for destruction, injury and death."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U5MlmOwVNY

Do you like Kipling?

L’if, lifeless tree! Your great Maybe, Rabelais:

The grand potato.

Institute (I) of Preparation (P)

For the Hereafter (H), or If, as we

Called it—big if!—engaged me for one term

To speak on death (“to lecture on the Worm,”

Wrote President McAber).

 

Pale Fire, Canto 3

“O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have
books for good manners: I will name you the degrees.
The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the
Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the
fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All
these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may
avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven
justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the
parties were met themselves, one of them thought but
of an If, as, 'If you said so, then I said so;' and
they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the
only peacemaker; much virtue in If.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhLANWiKCJA

From the BBC:

David Miliband has insisted he is not "campaigning" for the Labour leadership - despite writing about the party's future with no mention of Gordon Brown.

He said he was prompted to write his Guardian article because of the sense of "fatalism" in the party after its defeat in the Glasgow East by-election.

"Can Gordon lead us into the next election and win? Yes. I'm absolutely confident about that," he said.

He said his article was challenging David Cameron, rather than Mr Brown.

Twice more and you'll hear the cock crow.

A disappointing outcome to this story. From the BBC (h/t Alan):

The House of Lords has ruled that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) acted lawfully when it halted its investigation into a Saudi arms deal.

The SFO dropped its inquiry into the £43bn deal with BAE Systems over fears it would threaten national security.

Ministers said that the Saudi government had threatened to withdraw cooperation on security matters.

The High Court had ruled in April that this was unlawful, but the Law Lords have reversed that decision on appeal.

The Law Lords voted 5-0 in favour of the SFO appeal.

One of them, Baroness Hale, said she would have liked to have been able to uphold the court's decision that the SFO's director acted unlawfully because it was "extremely distasteful that an independent public official should feel himself obliged to give way to threats of any sort".

Despite this, she said: "I agree that [the director's] decision was lawful."

Another, Lord Bingham, said the SFO director Robert Wardle "was confronted by an ugly and obviously unwelcome threat".

But he asserted that whether his decision was right or wrong was not at issue, rather whether it was one he was lawfully entitled to make. The House of Lords decided that it was.

Meanwhile the new director of the SFO, Richard Alderman, told The World at One on Radio 4 that the ruling would not stop it from pursuing other investigations.

"What we've got to do is to look at what's being said and look and do the balancing that the House of Lords are talking about and approach it in the light of the guidance that the House of Lords have given to us.

"I regard this as being an extreme circumstance, an extreme case.

"From my point of view, we've got a number of other cases and I'm very determined that we pursue those as vigorously as possible."

The threat by the Saudi government to "[withdraw] co-operation on security matters" is pretty empty, unless you trust the Saudis in the first place. And why should we trust them, or any other Muslim government, when Islam states that war is deception?

So, farewell then, Tommy
Cooper
Super
Right until you died on stage
Just like
That was your
Catch phrase

© E. J. Throbb, aged 17¾

On this day, July 30^th, in 1989, an Iranian-linked terrorist group in Lebanon threatened to kill hostage U.S. Marine Corps Col William Higgins. Col. Higgins had been kidnapped by Hizb'Allah a year-and-a-half earlier while working as a UN observer in Lebanon.

A musical interlude:

One of the better Tommy Cooper jokes is the crossword one:

I met the bloke who invented crosswords today. I can't remember his name - it's P something T something R.

This reminded me of my favourite crossword clues of all time:

Apotheosis of the palindrome (seven letters)
Answer: deified

And:

The overloaded postman
How many letters?
Answer: too many

Tommy Cooper, who died on stage in 1984, was an instinctive comedian. Much of the time neither he nor his audience knew why he was funny. Doing the email rounds today is a selection of his jokes and jokes in his style. The punch lines are what might be called clenches, in that they are best said through clenched teeth. I defy readers not to chuckle or groan – in agony or ecstasy.

I met this bloke with a didgeridoo and he was playing Dancing Queen on it. I thought, 'That's Aboriginal.'

This lorry full of tortoises collided with a van full of terrapins. It was a turtle disaster.

I told my girlfriend I had a job in a bowling alley. She said 'Tenpin?'

I said, 'No, permanent.'

I went in to a pet shop. I said, 'Can I buy a goldfish?' The guy said, 'Do you want an aquarium?' I said, 'I don't care what star sign it is.'

I bought some Armageddon cheese today, and it said on the packet. 'Best before End'

I went to buy a watch, and the man in the shop said 'Analogue.' I said 'No, just a watch.'

I went into a shop and I said, 'Can someone sell me a kettle.' The bloke said 'Kenwood' I said, 'Where is he then?'

My mate is in love with two schoolbags. He's bi-satchel.

I went to the doctor. I said to him 'I'm frightened of lapels.' He said, 'You've got cholera.'

I met the bloke who invented crosswords today. I can't remember his name, it's P something T something R.

I was reading this book today, The History of Glue. I couldn't put it down.

I phoned the local ramblers club today, but the bloke who answered just went on and on.

The recruitment consultant asked me 'What do you think of voluntary work? I said 'I wouldn't do it if you paid me.'

I was in the jungle and there was this monkey with a tin opener. I said, 'You don't need a tin opener to peel a banana.' He said, 'No, this is for the custard.'

This policeman came up to me with a pencil and a piece of very thin paper. He said, 'I want you to trace someone for me.'

I told my mum that I'd opened a theatre. She said, 'Are you having me on?' I said, 'Well I'll give you an audition, but I'm not promising you anything.'

I phoned the local builders today, I said to them 'Can I have a skip outside my house?' He said, 'I'm not stopping you!'

This cowboy walks in to a German car showroom and he says 'Audi!'

I fancied a game of darts with my mate. He said, 'Nearest the bull goes first' He went 'Baah' and I went 'Moo' He said 'You're closest'

I was driving up the motorway and my boss phoned me and he told me I'd been promoted. I was so shocked I swerved the car. He phoned me again to say I'd been promoted even higher and I swerved again. He then made me managing director and I went right off into a tree. The police came and asked me what had happened. I said 'I careered off the road'

I visited the offices of the RSPCA today. It's tiny: you couldn't swing a cat in there.

I was stealing things in the supermarket today while balanced on the shoulders of a couple of vampires. I was charged with shoplifting on two counts.

I bought a train ticket to France and the ticket seller said 'Eurostar'

I said 'Well I've been on telly but I'm no Dean Martin.

I phoned the local gym and I asked if they could teach me how to do the splits. He said, 'How flexible are you?' I said, 'I can't make Tuesdays or Thursdays.'

I went to the local video shop and I said, 'Can I borrow Batman Forever?' He said, 'No, you'll have to bring it back tomorrow'

A waiter asks a man, 'May I take your order, sir?' 'Yes,' the man replies. 'I'm just wondering, exactly how do you prepare your chickens?'

'Nothing special, sir. We just tell them straight out that they're going to die.'

If you can take it - are you a man or a mouse? - there's more here.

Standpoint Magazine is not available in the newsagents until tomorrow. The Telegraph has an advance report on one of the articles, by Simon Gray the playwright.
Nicholas Hytner, the fashionable director of the National Theatre, has been happy to offend Christians by staging shows such as Jerry Springer: The Opera, in which Christ was portrayed wearing a nappy and saying he was "a bit gay".
However, according to Simon Gray, the leading playwright, Hytner is wary of putting on anything which could upset Muslims.
"If there's going to be a play about 'inside radical Islam', it'll be a profoundly sympathetic, inquiring play, I'm sure," says the writer of such acclaimed works as Otherwise Engaged.  "I can't imagine a play that's violently opposed to Islam … you can't be publicly … and certainly not at the National Theatre." Graydescribes Hytner's "fearlessness in attacking Christianity" as "a very easy sort of liberalism that allows [only] yourself, so to speak, to be beaten up".
The National, he adds for good measure, is "run by a Left-wing orthodoxy".

From The Times
A woman pretending to be pregnant walks up to a hospital in one of Iraq’s most dangerous regions and blows herself up.
Minutes later a man, also laden with explosives, attacks the rescue workers who rushed to the scene in Diyala province, north of Baghdad. Thirty-two people are killed and 52 wounded.
The co-ordinated bombings that ripped through the town of Baladruz in May are one of twelve attacks involving thirteen women suicide bombers to strike Diyala so far this year – a huge jump, signalling a new tactic by insurgents. US officials suspect that al-Qaeda has built a network of cells that recruit women and turn them into killers.
Women are the perfect weapon in a country where it is frowned upon culturally for a man even to approach a woman without her husband or father in tow, let alone frisk her for weapons at one of the many checkpoints that are the bombers’ favourite targets. In addition, it is easy to hide a vest packed with explosives under the traditional Islamic robes worn by women in Iraq without drawing suspicion.
In total, there have been 24 attacks involving women suicide bombers since January...
In the past, al-Qaeda fighters have used mosques to hold meetings and hide weapons, knowing that the US military will not raid religious buildings. “Now they’ve adapted to try to use female suicide bombers.”
The military believes that al-Qaeda employs a variety of tactics to get women to become suicide bombers. Some are easy prey because their husband or children have been killed or detained by US forces, said Captain Matthew Shown, the intelligence officer for “Sabre Squadron”, 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, which is based in southeast Diyala.
Another method is for a member of al-Qaeda to marry a woman and then dishonour her in some way, such as letting someone else rape her. “This would leave her with no choice but to end her life,” Captain Shown, 34, said. So why not die taking out one's rapist, or unsatisfactory husband - so much more satisfying a revenge than killing unknown hospital visitors? Or am I being too logical here?
There are also reports of women being told that their husband or child will be killed unless they agree to become suicide bombers.
The US military is also hiring women to stand alongside male guards at checkpoints to ensure that all women get a full body search.“It is not possible for males to search females. It is a cultural thing,” said Staff Sergeant David Schlicher. There are few female volunteers, however, just as there are not many women in the police and Army because it is not part of their culture.
The female bomb threat appears to be changing attitudes. In Baladruz, twenty-five women are due to start civilian guard duties this week, and an appeal has been made for another ten.

Jamie Glazov has written up this excellent interview with the Rev. Keith Roderick,a defender of religious prisoners of conscience since 1982 as the Director of the Society of St. Stephen and Co-Director of the International Taskforce on Soviet Jewery, over at Front Page Magazine.

Conceptual art is cheap. Just neglect to make your bed, or get your light switch fixed. Alternatively, put an apple on top of a plinth. Best of all, break wind -  that comes free if anything does.

Damien Hirst doesn't like this - oiks may get in on the act. Last year he tried to price the plebs out of the market with a diamond-encrusted skull. The Telegraph commented at the time:

Would you spend £50 million on a platinum skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds? If so, Damien Hirst might like your telephone number, for the object, called For the Love of God, has just been bought from him by a consortium of which he himself is a member, and it is still for sale.

As with a garage bill, it is interesting to see the breakdown. Materials cost about £10 million, labour a few thousand. The rest is profit. If the skull were made of cheese, it would only cost about £40 million. Unlike cheese - or sharks - diamonds do at least endure.

The £40 million profit is the price of Damien Hirst's inspiration. He did not make the object, nor is he capable of doing so. You could always get a craftsman to run you up another for £10 million. Or you could commission an effigy of Damien Hirst, say, composed of 8,601 gold dollars. The title? In Art We Trust.

That was last year. Hirst is older and wiser now, and he has realised that it was quite unfair for a dealer to get his hands on any of that hard-earned "inspiration" profit. So he's cutting out the middle man. From The Telegraph:

An auction of new works by Damien Hirst - including a pickled zebra, a unicorn and a calf with 18-carat gold hooves - is expected to fetch over £65 million.  

Hirst has taken the unusual decision to bypass his art dealers and sell direct to the public.

The sale, which he has titled Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, comprises 223 lots and will be sold over two days at Sotheby's in London, on September 15-16.

Star lot is The Golden Calf, one of Hirst's formaldehyde animal sculptures. Its hooves and horns are cast in 18-carat gold, and there is a solid gold disc above its head. The piece carries a price tag of between £8 million and £12 million.

Hirst will also present a pickled tiger shark (£4 million - £6 million), zebra (£2 million - £3 million) and 'unicorn' (£2 million - £3 million) - the latter is a foal with a resin horn. All are new works created this year.

Elsewhere, the sale features the artist's spot paintings and butterfly paintings, many of them decorated with gold and diamonds.

Cheyenne Westphal, chairman of contemporary art at Sotheby's Europe, said: "This is Damien Hirst as we know him, but everything is basically up one notch. Damien is the leading artist of his generation. "The extraordinary body of new work to be showcased at Sotheby's is among his best yet: ambitious, exquisite and incredibly powerful."

Even the most affordable pieces, a range of new drawings, carry a price tag of £15,000 - £20,000.

A proportion of the proceeds from the sale, including four butterfly paintings each estimated at £400,000 - £600,000, will go to charities of Hirst's choosing.

Hirst's last auction was in October 2004, when 168 lots from the Pharmacy restaurant in west London fetched over £11 million in total.

He said of his latest sale: "After the success of the Pharmacy auction, I always felt I would like to do another auction. It's a very democratic way to sell art and it feels like a natural evolution for contemporary art. Although there is risk involved, I embrace the challenge of selling my work in this way." 

What does "democratic" mean in this context? That he isn't a snob, and will sell to any common or garden hedge fund manager?

This is an update to a posting of mine on 6:vii:2008 which you can find here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ2yuw1IN5Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjlmcfeAU2U&feature=related