Meeting Of Moderate Muslims Cancelled Due to Lack of Interest

Asked and Answered
Many ask, Is there something about Islam that leads inexorably to violence, terrorism and subjugation of women?

The question arises because fanatical Muslims so often seem to murder in the name of God, from the 2004 Madrid train bombing that killed 191 people to the murder of hostages at a cafe in Sydney, Australia, last month. (Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, 1/8/2015)

Yes, that horrible Madrid train bombing and the Sydney cafe shooting. Were there other incidents where fanatical Muslims "seemed" to murder in the name of Islam? Kristof does not say, but we were sure there were others, some even worse. 

So we googled it. 

At the top of the list was an event that happened in 2001 wherein some Muslims "seemed" to hijack several planes, crash them into buildings and kill 3000 Americans.  That was probably the worst one. But there were others including Army base shootings, various attacks on embassies, assorted beheadings, etc. 

Maybe Kristof is saving those for a latter column?


Squares
Lawyers for abortion clinics squared off with Texas state attorneys in a federal appeals court here on Wednesday, arguing over the constitutionality of stringent abortion clinic rules that would force more than half the remaining abortion providers in Texas to close. (New York Times, 1/8/2015)

Liberals want to regulate every aspect of your life: taxing your soda, banning plastic bags, forcing you to buy health insurance, etc. There is no regulation they will not consider...unless it affects your God-given right to have an abortion, wherever and whenever you want.


Life during Wartime
Past some point, it is feckless to call these events “incidents.” They are acts in a war. The people committing them think so and they say so. Why don’t we?
...
One may assume that many, if not most, of the thousands in Paris’s streets over the Hebdo massacre believed in 2013 that Edward Snowden was a hero for stealing software from the U.S. National Security Agency, the world’s primary surveillance instrument for identifying terrorists before they kill.

Here we have two symbolic and broadly embraced beliefs about the West’s posture toward the reality of fundamentalist Islamic terror—that Edward Snowden is a hero and “I am Charlie.” They are incompatible. (Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal, 1/8/2015)

The best commentary we read on the attack on Charlie Hebdo by Muslim extremists.