Low Earth Orbit

Rumsfeld says "we're not completely stupid"

Rumsfeld lays down the smackie on Belgium, saying that because of the Belch law that claims to allow Belgium to try people for crimes that do not involve Belgium at all, the US may stop funding the new NATO headquarters in Brussels. Tthe current attempted prosecution of General Tommy Franks is a case in point of why. Rumsfeld said that the Bush administration

"was not prepared to send either civilian or military officials to Nato if they were going to be harassed [by the courts]. […] It does not make sense to have a new headquarters [in Brussels] if you cannot come to meetings

– [source]

Sixth Republic Watch

Students and instructors at a French university are being intimidated into following Wahhabi type strictures. [source]

France's preeminent institution for Eastern language studies (INALCO), commonly knows as "L'Ecole des Langues O.", is falling prey to an unprecedented Islamist surge in its Arabic department. Students have described unimaginable incidents : students wearing burqas, women refusing to pass exams with male professors, female Muslim professors harassed for not being modest, professors told not to quote the Koran

ACLU more religiously fanatic than Saudis

Sultaana Freeman is a recent convert to Islam who has been engaged in legal action to be able to wear a veil for her picture on her driver's license. The ACLU has been supporting her action. That in itself is a bit mysterious, given that the ACLU far more frequently supports actions aimed at suppressing religion. But aparently the ACLU believes that this is a reasonable exercise of religious belief. Howver, the Arab News, a state newspaper of the Saudi Entity, disagrees:

To put it mildly, Sultaana Freeman of Florida is wrong. Going to court to have a veiled picture of her on an official document such as a driver’s license is utter madness. She might as well ask for an exemption.

The author notes that in no Islamic country, not even the Saudi Entity, is remaining veiled for a photographic identification permitted. Women who refuse simply don’t get the ID (such as a passport). This makes the ACLU more concerned with Islamic propriety than the Saudi's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. One would be tempted to call the Freeman / ACLU position objectively wrong as one would think that a practice followed by all Islamic organizations on the planet is properly Islamic. [source]