Another Kennedy docu-drama born of newly discovered FBI files:
The FBI report says Kennedy had promised Monroe he would divorce his wife and marry her, but the actress eventually realised he had no intention of doing so. About this time, he had told her not to worry about 20th Century Fox cancelling her contract – “he would take care of everything”. When nothing happened, she called him at work and they had “unpleasant words. She was reported to have threatened to make public their affair.”
So, according to this article in the Sidney Morning Herald, Bobby was part of a plot, including Peter Lawford, to induce Marilyn to take a lethal dose of Seconol.
French Asshole: We Hate You, So Give Up
More Eurolove, from the German Minister of the Environment.
First-Class Treatment on Qantas
It’s like I was hit in the gut.
Moderate Muslims Sighted in Florida
A small group of self-proclaimed secular Muslims from North America and elsewhere gathered in St. Petersburg recently for what they billed as a new global movement to correct the assumed wrongs of Islam and call for an Islamic Reformation.
Across the state in Fort Lauderdale, Muslim leaders from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Washington-based advocacy group whose members the “secular” Muslims claim are radicals, denounced any notion of a Reformation as another attempt by the West to impose its history and philosophy on the Islamic world.
And a warning from the author, who spoke at the CAIR event:
Instead of championing the loud voices of the secular minority who are capturing media attention with their conferences, manifestos and memoirs, the United States would be wise instead to pay more attention to the far less loquacious majority.
Meanwhile, in Europe. (h/t Reynolds)
Anybody know where Ted was when Anna Nicole collapsed?
Of course, in Ted’s case she’d commit suicide if she believed he was going to divorce whatever poor, benighted woman is married to him these days, in order to take Anna Nicole for a moonlight drive by the water.
De Villepin’s advice about regaining our moral standing and setting an example for the rest of the world would be more plausible, if only the French hadn’t invented the related tactics of fighting with their feet, and fucking with their faces.
You must remember that de Villepin and Chirac (and most of the French right) are de Gaullists, and their primary interest is in maintaining French supremacy. Being unable to do this via industry or the arts, they attempt to do this by running down the great powers, via the UN, the press, or simply by back door arms sales to the enemies of ther great powers. Translated into English, de Villepin’s statement is “we really wish you would run away, because then France would look better by comparison.
Not that I hate the French or anything.They make wonderful fries.
I thought the op-ed on Muslims was very definitely a threat. Not, shall we say, a veiled threat, either.
Yeah, we hardly ever hear from CAIR.
Or did they just admit that they are not representative of the majority?
When asked who’d be getting some needed rest, Robertson’s unit declined comment.
I fully expect the EU authorities to close the Brusslesjournal down. Soon. That was a surprising last part of their article.
Here, it would be protected speech. In EUropa – nope.
Major John:
If they do, we’ll just have to publish it from here, wot?
Meanwhile . . .
From the BrusselsJournal article:
Please, Bat Ye’or is a crackpot Milosevic apologist and all around delusional conspiracy theorist:
So, AJB, do you have anything beyond ad hominem to contribute?
That was more ad wominem, wasn’t it?
What is a “secular” Muslim, by the way? Is it like a devout atheist?
No such thing. Religious authority in Islam works up, not down up. It is not structured along the board of directors model we’re familiar with in western religions. Every muslim following the pure form of the faith is a muslim first and secular pursuits must always be secondary to that.
There is no hierarchical division between clerics and faithful. No muslim has greater intrinsic or assigned authority over other muslims on religious matters. A mullah is not ordained. He is simply a man whose understanding of the Koran has attracted the attention of enough of the faithful to gain a following. Mullahs in the purest sense are simply learned men capable of adjudicating differences of opinion over Koranic interpretation. Think of yourself as a mullah, and you’re a mullah. Koranic interpretation being complicated, many mullahs do have religious education, but it’s by no means required or even formal. It’s not along the lines of a seminary. It’s instruction by another mullah who decides to run a school. There is formal Islamic education, but it has to do with application of Islamic law, not interpretation.
The authority of an mullah comes from his followers. The larger the number of followers, the more authority he has. Congregations as we understand the term in the west doesn’t apply. Mosques do not fall under the direction or authority of anything along the lines of a minister. Any muslim can preach their interpretation of the Koran within it’s precincts and it’s self-policing, though in practice the most charismatic mullah usually dominates any particular mosque and runs whatever administrative activities are necessary. Mullahs who preach exclusively – it’s part time for the vast majority – are supported by freely given offerings by their faithful. There is no financial maintenance from a higher organization any more than dogma flows down. Such organization does not exist.
Upshot is that there is no formally definable division between the secular and clerical in Islam. The guy running the 7/11 has as much right to issue a fatwa as the most powerful mullah.
Heh.
You are kidding, right? I mean, you might as well ask whether alphie has anything beyond abject stupidity.
Hey, that is what happened, wasn’t it? Al Zawahiri
‘s brother was running the local Saudi charity/
jihadi atm; IIRO. Al Hazmi and Al Midhar, the
Mecca twins living in San Diego, last seen on Flight 77, KSM hung around there before sequiing
to Pakistan and Phillipines. the IRGC hung out
a shingle in Zagreb; one of the London tube bombing planners tied to an Oregon cell, served
in some capacity there.