text: "Georges Fahmi, an Egyptian scholar, detects a conservative mood among Muslims: “What is shocking is how many people support IS’s actions even if they would not do them themselves.”"
  "But how serious of a threat can all of this be, at least domestically, if the FBI continually has to resort to manufacturing its own plots by trolling the Internet in search of young drifters and/or the mentally ill whom they target, recruit and then manipulate into joining?"
  "QUESTION: Frankly, I had another subject. On Yemen, how come if this president when he left his capital is still technically president in his country?
  "At current rates it could take more than 100 years to complete essential building of homes, schools and health facilities in Gaza unless the Israeli blockade is lifted," "Gaza needs more than 800,000 truckloads of construction materials to build homes, schools, health facilities and other infrastructure required after repeated conflicts and years of blockade, according to aid agencies on the ground." (thanks Amir)
  Western and Saudi media are now talking about a personal fortune of $60 billion for the former Yemeni dictator, `Ali `Abdullah Salih. I am sure that the number is exaggerated just as Western media exaggerated the size of Qadhdhafi's fortune and just as they exaggerated the number of civilian casualties prior to NATO intervention. (They actually counted the foreign reserves of the Libyan Central Bank as the personal fortune of Qadhdhafi). But they don't mention that whatever fortune Salih had amassed it was from US and Gulf financial assistance and bribes.
  It should be noted that the reference to the PLO charter by Arafat as "caduc" was at the suggestion of Rouleau.
  Obituaries of Rouleau should mention that the Saudi regime banned Rouleau from entering the Kingdom back in 1974 during a visit of the French foreign minister because Rouleau was Jewish. Of course, the Saudi royal family exempted Henry Kissinger from its ban, and almost offered him the Ka`bah as a gift.
  Of course Mother Teresa was motivated by desire to convert the Indian people to Christianity--as if there is doubt
  "The head of a prominent Hindu organization came under criticism Tuesday for remarks he made about Mother Teresa, in which he said that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s service to the poor in India had been motivated by a desire to convert them to Christianity."
  Why don't Westerners speak out? Why don't Priests issue Fatwas against this? Where is the Christian outrage?
  MATTHEWS: I think they might. They`re going all the way to Spain, but I guess we can stop them before they get there, I hope."
  From a reader: ""Mosques and churches have been vandalized in recent years, in so-called "price tag" attacks by suspected Jewish ultra-nationalists, who describe them as the price they will impose for any limits to Israeli settlement in occupied territory and Jewish religious supremacy over the Holy Land. The graffiti on the seminary included the slogan "Zion will be redeemed" and an insult against Jesus and his mother Mary."
  "A Palestinian mosque was set alight in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday and graffiti in Hebrew at the scene suggested the attack was carried out by a far-right Israeli group, officials said."
  "Sharif al-Namlah, three, plays in the bath at his home in Rafa, Gaza. The lower part of his left leg was blown off when Israeli rockets hit the family." (thanks Amir)
  "The case against the three men relies in part on a confidential informant paid by the government, court documents show. Defense lawyers have criticized the government’s use of informers in similar cases, saying they may lure targets into making extreme plans or statements. In some cases, the threat has turned out to be overstated."
  "Netanyahu's ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, has tried, without success, to recruit Arab ambassadors to come to his boss’s speech, e-mailing them personally to plead for their attendance."
  A long story about a "document" with this caveat: "The authenticity of the document could not be independently verified. The newspaper did not publish any pictures of the memo or provide any proof that the policy described in it had actually been adopted." Why publish the story then, damn it?
  "Parliament on Wednesday passed a law that seeks to regulate how Islam is administered, singling out Austria’s Muslim minority for treatment not applied to any other religious group. The law bans foreign funding for Islamic organizations and requires any group claiming to represent Austrian Muslims to use a standardized German translation of the Quran. It met with little opposition from the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic population and was grudgingly accepted by Austria’s main Muslim organization. But it upset Turkey’s state religious establishment. Austria’s half a million Muslims make up about 6 percent of the population and are overwhelmingly the families of Turkish migrant workers."
  Eric Rouleau is dead. This is a unique foreign correspondent who belonged to a group of distinguished foreign correspondents that we don't see today. How sad. The Western media coverage of the Middle East has become an anthology of recycled cliches; they all repeat what everyone else is saying. What is the difference between Anne Barnard of the Times or Liz Sly of the Post in their coverage of Syria. They talk (or skype) with the same people, and share the same sources and repeat the same cliches. Eric Rouleau (like Arnold Hottinger or David Hirst or Peter Mansfield or even Patrick Seale--before he fell in love with House of Asad AND House of Saud) was an independent foreign correspondent who charted his own course of coverage. His knowledge and insights far exceeded those of academic specalists of the Middle East. Just read this classic article by him in New Left Review from 1967 ("The Syrian Enigma: What Is the Baath?") to decide about his qualify. He was fluent in Arabic (but he didn't know Hebrew, contrary to some articles about him) and conducted interviews in Arabic. He struck up friendships with Nasser, Haykal, Arafat, Kamal Jumblat and other Middle East political figures. Politically speaking, Rouleau can be criticized: when he served as French ambassador in Tunisia (in the administration of Mitterrand) he pretty much covered up the human rights violations and corruption of the Bin Ali regime--like a typical Western ambassador. He also pressured PLO and Arab Left leaders over the years to establish contacts and undertake dialogue with Israeli "leftist" parties. But how much the quality of Western media journalism has changed: from Eric Rouleau to Thomas Friedman or Georges Malbrunot, for that matter.
  When a sentence starts in US media with "as a Muslim I...", I know that someone is about to offend Muslims
  "But, as liberal Muslim feminist journalists who reject the vision of the Islamic State, we can say that the Islamic State, al Qaeda and the alphabet soup of Islamic militant groups, like HUM (Harkut-ul Mujahideen) and LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba), rely very much on the scholarship of “religious leaders,” from Ibn Tamiyyah in the 14th century to Sayyid Qutb in the 20th century, who very much have credibility and authority among too many Muslims as “religious leaders.” " If she knows about Islam I would have asked her about the status of Ibn Taymiyyah without the Saudi regime and its money.
  "Originally designed to create an instant clearing in the jungle, it has been used in Afghanistan as an anti-personnel weapon and as an intimidation weapon because of its very large lethal radius (variously reported as 300-900 feet) combined with flash and sound visible at long distances. It is the largest conventional bomb in existence but is less than one thousandth the power of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb."
  "Hellfire Systems LLC, Orlando, Florida, was awarded a $144,044,911 modification (P00143) to foreign military sales contract W31P4Q-11-C-0242 (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Australia) to exercise option for FY 14 Hellfire II Missile production requirement consisting of 2,060 Hellfire II tactical missiles in containers, Air-to Ground (AGM) missiles model AGM-114R, AGM-114R-3, AGM-114P-4A, ATM-114Q-6 and AGM-114R-5."
  "The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site." "At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead." (thanks Amir)