Saudi Savagery Spotlights Culture Clash; Mosque Worshippers Pickpocketed

The Morning After Obamania
Krauthammer concerned about complications the morning-after Obamania (hat tip, Israel-Commentary.org, Attackcartoons.com)


Obama has an astonishingly empty paper trail. He's going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can't possibly redeem:

• ·Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad;


• ·Promises to transcend the conundrums of entitlement reform that require real and painful trade-offs;


• ·Promises to fund his other promises by a rapid withdrawal from an unpopular war -- with the hope, I suppose, that the (presumed) resulting increase in American prestige would compensate for the chaos to follow.
  

President Bush waived congressional restrictions to directly transfer $150 million to the Palestinian Authority.

President Bush waived congressional restrictions to directly transfer $150 million to the Palestinian Authority. The transfer ordered Friday is part of a package of more than $500 million in Palestinian assistance earmarked for use this year.

Congress in recent years has banned direct transfers of cash because of fears that the money could end up in terrorist hands and because of concerns about P.A. corruption.

Much of the pro-Israel community also strongly opposes direct transfers. The Bush administration says the Palestinian Authority needs the cash to leverage loans at a time that it is confronting extremists and pursuing peace talks with Israel.

Global News: Dutch Wilders looking for a broadcaster for his Qur'an film

(AP) Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders said Monday he has begun negotiations with Dutch broadcasters about airing the 15-minute film, "Fitna." He said he will only allow them to show it in its entirety, and if they refuse, he plans to show it to the media and post it on the Internet.

"We have never learned to be intolerant toward people who are intolerant toward us, toward cultures that are intolerant toward us," he said in a recent Associated Press interview....

If it airs, Dutch Muslims are expected to file criminal complaints for racial or religious vilification. Prosecutors would then have to decide whether to charge Wilders with any offense.

JihadWatch publisher, Robert Spencer, augments:

Will accuracy be a defense in that event? After all, the Qur'an does teach violence against, and the subjugation of non-Muslims (see 9:5, 9:29, etc. etc.). And jihadists do point to such verses to justify their actions. So if Wilders' film sticks to the facts, will it really constitute religious vilification?

Islamic World News: From the "Islam is Peace" blotter:

Muslim Uncle Butchers his 15-Month-Old Nephew in Jeddah Supermarket

JEDDAH, 3 March 2008 — Early morning shoppers at a supermarket in Jeddah were left reeling yesterday, with some falling unconscious, after a well-built Syrian man clinched a knife and decapitated his 15-month-old nephew in front of his mother in the store’s fruit and vegetable section.

Saudi royals withhold oil-riches from human-welfare programs, leading Muslims to steal wallets from Mosque pray-ers.

Police said they had received reports from a number of locals that their wallets had been stolen while attending prayers in a mosque located in the north of the capital. Police later monitored the mosque and were able to apprehend one suspect, who had in his possession a stolen wallet. The man led police to his accomplices.

Armed Robbery Rate Alarming in Saudi Capital City; High-Unemployment Blamed

Riyadh police announced that they apprehended three suspects — two of them of Arab nationalities and the third an African — in connection with a number of muggings in Riyadh, the capital.

Over the past year armed robberies have increased in the capital at an alarming rate. Police have exerted efforts in apprehending suspects, the majority of them local youths who are also involved in car thefts and muggings. In one incident reported by the local police a few months ago, three suspects threatened a foreign worker in a grocery store with a machine gun.