Having spent time getting to know young British Muslims, I believe that comments like Mr. Straw’s will be counterproductive. That is because the niqab is a symptom and not a cause of rising tensions.

"The young women who choose to wear the niqab, Mr. Rehman told me, are "rebelling against what their parents tell them to do, they’re trying to differentiate themselves.”

Following up on the "let it go" thread. This article offers some perspective...

Covered Faces, Open Rebellion

As a defense against terrorism, militarizing the Great Lakes is a symbolic defeat. And it is another in a series of incremental changes that threaten to change everything that we take for granted about our country.

Fire on the Water

The tone of the video -- a seven-minute clip, entitled “Impossible is nothing” -- seems too serious to be parody, yet too over-the-top to be credible.

Mr. Vayner’s experience shows the not-so-friendly side of the social-networking phenomenon.

He said he may have lost his chance to work on Wall Street, and added that he may not succeed in securing a financial job at all.

A Student’s Video Résumé Gets Attention (Some of It Unwanted)

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that "no court, justice, or judge" can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.

The relevant section from Section 9 of Article 1 of the Constitution:

The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Court Told It Lacks Power in Detainee Cases - washingtonpost.com

Her case fuelled the debate on full-face veils, originally sparked when Commons leader Jack Straw said he asked Muslim women to remove veils when they visited his constituency advice surgeries.

Prime minister Tony Blair also added his voice to the debate saying the full-veil was a "mark of separation".

I think this is a really interesting issue. A woman was fired from her teaching job for wearing a full face veil. She is suing (of course), but the Prime Minister got involved and made some comments about the need for dialog about the integration of British Muslims into society.

On the one hand, you've a right to freedom of religion. But I think it goes without saying that wearing these things goes beyond simple religious expression to the point where it becomes deliberately anti-social. I've been told that Muslim women want to wear them. I'm concerned that this is a bit like the arguement that southern slaves were comfortable and didn't want to be free. The objective truth about the social position of these people is not justified by the fact that they have grown accustomed to it and find it comfortable or even desirable.

I think its probably reasonable to ask that these things not be worn in particular professional contexts. If my religion required me to wear a dead rat on a chain around my neck I imagine I would also have trouble getting a job.

I'm generally interested in the dialog between British Muslims and the rest of their society. There is a radical fringe there. The people who attacked the underground summer before last were locals. They grew up in Leeds. There seems to be, on some level, a unhealthy lack of rejection in regard to certain events by some of the spokesmen for the British Muslim community. There was a press release put out just a few days after the airplane "liquid bombers" were arrested which essentially said "this wouldn't happen if your foreign policy conformed with our views." Something worries me that having grown up in England these people have looked at the IRA as a model for how to behave. In any event, I think that the global dialog between western and Islamic society is going to start here. This is the space to watch.

BBC NEWS | Politics | MP tells veil woman 'let it go'

President Bush discussed his policies with conservative radio hosts last month at the White House, including, from left, Mike Gallagher, Neal Boortz, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Michael Medved.

The fact that the President gives these people personal audience is troubling. They are not serious people. Does the president take them seriously? Does he take their counsel?

As Talk Radio Wavers, Bush Moves to Firm Up Support - New York Times

National Geographic often shows dual standards in the way it portrays women from different cultures. While they would never print a full-page picture of a topless 19 year-old Californian girl, they have no problems doing to with a native African woman. This practice has been called colonial and is, in a way, also censorship – although not made with black ink.

Pictures of western magazines censored by the Iranian government. I wonder how many copies of these come into the country and how many people they employ blacking out flesh?

j|turn » More pictures of Iranian Censorship

The software maker said it will merge its security response unit, its Trustworthy Computing effort and an engineering excellence product in one group to be led by Scott Charney. That unit will be part of the Windows Core Operating System Division, now headed by Jon DeVaan.

By moving the unit inside Windows, DeVaan said Microsoft believes it can "become more effective and efficient at understanding what's going on with security".

This is an important move.

Microsoft moves key security into Windows unit

The war I knew was infinitely more complex, contradictory and elusive than the one described in the network news broadcasts or envisioned in the new field manual. When I finally left Baquba, the violent capital of Iraq’s Diyala Province, I found myself questioning many aspects of our mission and our accomplishments, both in a personal search for meaning and a quest to gather lessons that might help those soldiers who will follow me.

We learned that counterinsurgency cannot be conducted from afar.

But did we make a difference?

In theory, security should have improved with the development of capable Iraqi Army and police units. That did not happen. This is the central paradox of the Iraq war in fall 2006.

This paradox raises fundamental questions about the wisdom and efficacy of our strategy, which is to “stand up” Iraqi security forces so we can “stand down” American forces. Put simply, this plan is a blueprint for withdrawal, not for victory. Improving the Iraqi Army and police is necessary to prevail in Iraq; it is not sufficient.

Counterinsurgency is more like an election than a military operation.

Waging War, One Police Precinct at a Time

After years of misrepresentation and pillorying by a variety of groups like the A.C.L.U. that ended up making a lot of money by opposing it and developed a lot of membership by opposing it, its renewal passed by 89 votes in the Senate.

They didn’t oppose the Patriot Act in order to make money, or as some kind of marketing scheme.

If you think they don’t care about membership, I think that’s a naïve understanding of the way politics works in America.

I find this assertion deeply dishonest and offensive. I expect this kind of tripe from mindless conservative koolaid drinkers but from a former public official its really not acceptable.

First, and foremost, the ACLU did not oppose the Partiot Act. They had a very limited list of specific reforms, that mostly related to requiring better oversight for the powers granted rather than curtailing them, and centered around a specific provision that has been found unconstitutional by a federal court.

Second, the people who work at the ACLU are not "in it for the money" as there is no money in it. These are mostly lawyers who could walk away from the 30-40k they make a year to jobs in the 100-200k range at the snap of a finger, but they are so devoted to the causes they are fighting for that they cannot do it. They are like civil liberties nuns. Of course they "care about membership." Show me an organization that doesn't "care about membership" and doesn't promote membership! The black and white politicizing of the Patriot Act came first from John Ashcroft, and second from certain Democrat politicians.

The bottom line is that there is a subset of the Republican party that simply does not beleive in civil liberties. They do not beleive in freedom of speech, nor of religion, and they absolutely do not beleive in the right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure, etc... They beleive in unrestrained majoritarian power and state coersion, and these rights stand in the way of that.

The first step in getting rid of those rights is to demonize people who've devoted their lives to defending them. This is, of course, a bit like shooting fish in a barrell, as civil liberties are by definition a check upon the power of the majority, and are apt to come up in unpopular circumstances. Once the majority is totally convinced that the ACLU is a corrupt organization and that the court system is activist and radical, they won't be concerned when these people complain about decisions that are made, and in the long run the structures that make the United States a free society can be disassembled under the approving eye of most of it's people. Unlike the people who maintain the website linked above, John Ashcroft is too smart to be confused about this, and so he must be complicit.

For God and Country - Questions for John Ashcroft