THE MUFTI, THE NAZIS, AND MODERN ISLAMISM

Bryan at Hot Air points to a video in German that talks about the connections of the Mufti and the Nazis during WW2.

As Bryan says, it's about:

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem before and during the WWII years, Haj Amin El Husseini, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood (founded 1928) aligned with the German Nazis in 1937 and recruited Muslim SS units in Bosnia during the war.

And Yasir Arafat was a relative of Husseini's. This is a very recommended video documentary to see.

Google Must be Doing Something Right

We read:

"Iran has blocked access to the Google search engine and its Gmail email service as part of a clampdown on material deemed to be offensive, the Mehr news agency reported this week. "I can confirm these sites have been filtered," said Hamid Shahriari, the secretary of Iran's National Council of Information

Source

After all that Google has done for them! Ungrateful wretches! Google is already big on censoring anti-Islamic sites. Maybe it will now censor all criticism of Iran! Or maybe it will start a special Google Iran service the way it did for China.

It would of course be too much to expect Google simply not to be evil. That would be too big a change in their corporate culture. No doubt Google are chatting to the Ayatollahs already.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

MAMMOTH DUNG AND CYCLICAL CHANGES IN THE SIBERIAN PERMAFROST

Read the bit of attention-seeking below (excerpt) then see immediately after it part of what you are NOT being told:

Sergei Zimov bends down, picks up a handful of mud and holds it up to his nose. It smells like a cow patty, but he knows better. "It smells like mammoth dung," he says. This is more than just another symptom of global warming.

For millennia, layers of animal waste and other organic matter left behind by the creatures that used to roam the Arctic tundra have been sealed inside the frozen permafrost. Now, climate change is thawing the permafrost and lifting this prehistoric ooze from suspended animation.

But Zimov, chief scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences' North Eastern Scientific station, three plane rides and eight times zones away from Moscow, believes that as this organic matter becomes exposed to the air, it will accelerate global warming faster than even some of the most pessimistic forecasts. "This will lead to a type of global warming that will be impossible to stop," he said.

When the organic matter left behind by mammoths and other wildlife is exposed to the air by the thawing permafrost, his theory goes, microbes that have been dormant for thousands of years spring back into action. They emit carbon dioxide as a byproduct and -- even more damaging in terms of its impact on the climate -- methane gas.

Zimov, who has studied climate change in Russia's Arctic for almost 30 years, says the microbes are going to start emitting these gases in enormous quantities....

Source

I reproduce below a report from 16 Jan 2006

SIBERIANS SHIVER IN RECORD COLD

Record low temperatures were felt in western Siberia over the weekend, with temperatures in the Tomsk region reported at minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit and lower. "This morning people felt Arctic weather," a local meteorologist told the Interfax news agency Friday. A state of emergency was declared in the Tomsk region, where at least one man died because of the cold and hospitals treated dozens of people daily for cold-related health problems, while public transportation and electricity supplies were disrupted, The Moscow Times reported Monday. In the Novosibirsk region, temperatures fell to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit -- the lowest in 100 years. In the city of Krasnoyarsk, celebrations for the Russian holiday known as Old New Year's Eve were canceled Friday after temperatures were also predicted to fall to minus 40. In the Komi-Permyatsky autonomous district, where temperatures were as low as minus 49 Fahrenheit, 85 people -- mostly preschoolers -- were evacuated from a settlement after a heating system serving 600 residents failed, Interfax reported Saturday. There was some good news, however: Scientists in the Tyumen region said the thousands of school closures across Siberia would reduce the spread of an expected flu epidemic among schoolchildren.

Source

So what is going on? Simple: Siberia is affected by a regular climate cycle called the Arctic Oscillation. So its temperature can vary considerably from year to year. There is no evidence of an overall change beyond the changes due to the oscillation. Read all about it here and here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

No Price To Pay

The New York Sun reports that a prominent Saudi cleric, Salman al-Awdah, once praised by Osama has turned against him. Howerver, that is not the most interesing point of the article.

Mr. al-Awdah asks, "Have we reduced Islam to a bullet or a rifle? Has the means become an end?"

The editor of an Arabic International Daily, Asharq Alawsat, Tariq Alhomayed, suggested the letter was published too late.

"Sheikh Salman al Ouda's distancing himself from Bin Laden at a time when those absolving themselves of Al Qaeda's leader have nothing to lose and no price to pay." Mr. Alhomayed wrote in an editorial published yesterday. "This comes at a time when no one is shedding any tears for the leader of Al Qaeda organization."

It seems Osama is no longer the hero he once was and the cleric has joined the bandwagon.

The big deal of course is the bandwagon. Osama is no longer driving it. In fact he appears to have been thrown under the wheels.

H/T Insatpundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

HILLARY IS A HSU-MUCK

PROOF HERE.

(VIA EVIL GLENN.)

BTW: THIS IS AS ALMOST AS BIG - IN DOLLAR TERMS - AS ABRAMOFF, BUT IT DOESN'T SEEM TO BE GETTING THE SAME MSM ATTENTION. I WONDER WHY?


AND ANOTHER THING: REMEMBER HOW HARD THE MSM HUNTED AND HUNTED AND HUNTED FOR A JPEG OF ABRAMOFF WITH BUSH?

WELL, HERE'S ONE OF HSU AND HILLARY. IT SHOULD BE ON EVERY FRONT PAGE IN THE COUNTRY.

RICHARD REEVES BASHES THE USA WHILE IN GERMANY, AND HIS WORDS ARE USED BY THE TYRANTS IN IRAN

DURING WW2, PEOPLE WHO SAID THIS KIND OF STUFF WERE CONSIDERED TRAITORS; (VIA NRO):

There is not a single American who believes US President George W. Bush can eventually win the Iraq war, said a prominent US journalist in Berlin Monday evening.

"I don't think any of the 300 million (Americans) think we can win this war," said Richard Reeves in his lecture at the Berlin-based American Academy think-tank.

Reeves who is a writer, syndicated columnist and lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles added, "It (the Iraq war) was a huge mistake and now it's a disaster."

The expert stressed the US will be forced to withdraw a major portion of its troops from Iraq as a result of American public pressure.

Reeves lambasted also Bush's "insane" military threats against Iran in the wake of the failed Iraq military campaign.

• REEVES IS NO BETTER THAN TOKYO ROSE.
• HE'S WORSE THAN A DEFEATIST AND AN APPEASER.
• HE IS TRAITOROUS SCUM.
• HE IS WORSE THAN TOKYO ROSE - SHE GOT PAID; HE'S DOING IT FOR FREE!
  

MORE PROOF FROM IRAQI HOSPITALS THAT WE'RE WINNING IN IRAQ:

POLIPUNDIT: “Empty wards in Baghdad hospital offer hope”

WMD ACCIDENT IN SYRIA?

JPOST - VIA WILLISMS:

'Dozens died in Syrian-Iranian chemical weapons experiment'

Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane's Defence Weekly report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.

According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a Scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas.

Reports of the accident were circulated at the time; however, no details were released by the Syrian government, and there were no hints of an Iranian connection.

MAYBE THE CW WERE SADDAM'S? MAYBE THIS IS WHY THE IAF WHACKED'EM?

BTW: LAST WEEK KUCINICH - THE DARLING OF THE LEFT - SAID HE WAS HONORED TO SPEND TIME WITH ASSAD.

DISCIPLES OF ALGER HISS STILL AT WORK AT STATE

The disciples of Alger Hiss appear still to be on the job at the State Department:

Yesterday, a State Department spokesman confirmed that Sheik Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi had applied for a visa to visit Washington. "We cleared him with absolutely no reservations, and the visa was being held up due to paperwork with the application and sponsor," the spokesman said.

Sheik Abdul Sattar, or as Iraqis called him, Abu Risha, was the leader of the Anbar Awakening, a political front that President Bush and General David Petraeus credit with driving Al Qaeda from its base in Anbar province this year. The late sheik was also emerging as a national Sunni politician who could provide Iraqis an alternative to the corrupted Sunni Tawafuq faction that started a boycott of the government in August. The Tawafuq bloc comprises three Sunni fundamentalist Muslim parties that have called for a withdrawal of American troops and supported violence against American troops. Some of the party's leadership has been implicated in acts of terrorism.

An American military official yesterday said the delay in Abu Risha's visa was in part political. This source pinned the decision to scuttle the trip on senior leaders at the State Department. However, the State Department spokesman yesterday dismissed the charge. [Emphasis added.]

Heaven forbid anyone should suggest Bush-hating apparatchiks at the State Department set up Abu Risha for an Al Qaeda hit. But it seems clear that "American military officials" realize that the United States and our Iraqi allies have enemies down at Foggy Bottom.

Where is Senator Joe McCarthy now that we really need him?

(Hat tip: Eli Lake's article via Stephen Spruiell.)

PERUVIAN METEORITE CAUSING WIDESPREAD ILLNESS - video of crater

• OVER 200 SICKENED - MANY SERIOUSLY ILL TAKEN TO HOSPITAL.
• NEWS HERE AND HERE. AND HERE.
• I DON'T THINK THIS IS MASS HYSTERIA. IT COULD BE VERY SERIOUS.
• OTHERS HAVE MENTIONED "THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN" - HALF-JOKINGLY.
• (INFO RE: CRICHTON'S CLASSIC BOOK HERE. MOVIE INFO LINK HERE.)

HERE'S A TRAILER FOR THE MOVIE:


JOKES ASIDE, IF IT'S REAL THEN IT COULD BECOME MORE SERIOUS THAN BIRD FLU. AND FASTER.

HERE'S A REAL NEWS VIDEO REPORT:

Bad News for the Left: STOCK MARKET REBOUNDS - NEARS ALL TIME HIGH

One little rate adjustment and the market is closer to 14,000 than 12,000. (More here.)

Too bad for the Left; they're wishing for a recession here at home as much as they're wishing for defeat in Iraq.

PREDICTION: we will hit 15,000 before we hit 12,000.

WHAT IF ANDREW MEYER - THAT TASERED WEIRDO IN FLORIDA - HAD BEEN A JIHADIST IN GITMO?

THEN HE'D BE A CAUSE CELEBRE! (Complete round here.)

Yup: we treat nutty journalism students tougher than we do hardened jihadists taken from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

MURTHA ON TAPE: A COWARDLY TRAITOROUS RAT TURD

TIME TO LET THE PUBLIC SEE THAT FOOTAGE ALREADY, FRANCE 2

Finally, there's been some protests rising, demanding that France 2 TV release the full footage from their little blood libel against the IDF for supposedly shooting Mohammed al-Durah dead. Melanie Phillips reports that attention is now being given.

LEFTIST HYPOCRISY REGARDING CULTURAL HEGEMONY

Leftists often whine about how "you can't impose democracy" as if democracy was cultural and not just merely the means of discovering and implementing self-governance by mutual consent. This is absurd because democracy is actually the ABSENCE of imposition: a tyranny is imposed; mutual self-governance is BY DEFINITION NOT IMPOSED.

Leftists also often whine about how "it's wrong for the USA to impose its culture into other cultures", as if when other nations copy us it's bad and crass, because indigenous cultures are more "real".

This position flies in the face of the common Leftist position on immigration here at home.

HERE, they don't defend American culture for America; they support the forces which would dilute, diminish and otherwise destroy the cultural values which have made this country great; for example, they support unlimited immigration without assimilation, and other "progressive" polices which would banish our traditional values to the margins: they support "gay marriage" and fight heterosexual marriage; they want bi-lingual education and ballots, not English first.

Simply put: the Left CLAIMS to support nativism abroad because cultures should be protected from external onslaught. Yet the Left supports the destruction OF OUR OWN CULTURE.

They are being hypocritical. But it is NOT mere hypocrisy.

WHY?

The Left's claim - to be about protecting cultures - is A TOTAL LIE.

The Left is really arguing for the protection of ONLY foreign, non-Western, non-Judeo-Christian cultures and the destruction of American culture. for the same reason: they are deeply anti-American and anti-Judeo-Christian and anti-West.

Will Blog For Abuse

So I'm reading Stuart Taylor guest blogging over at The Volokh Conspiracy and one commenter notes that a previous guest blogger only lasted for two posts.

No disrespect to her but maybe she was unfamiliar with the level of discourse on the blogging medium?

Well yeah.

So my friend Eric at Classical Values makes a similar point today.

I'm convinced there has to be a blogging gene. I mean, who would do this voluntarily without pay, day in and day out? Think about it.

And then a bit earlier I had a couple of real charmers show up at this post: Conspiracy Theories. My attitude? Some of us enjoy the abuse.

So my motto is "Will blog for abuse. At least it increases the traffic." I'm in this for the abuse. Pile on.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

German "Diplomacy" on Display

Would an Irish ambassador to Germany start telling Hitler jokes?

"Ireland is a coarse place with a sad history where the natives are obsessed by money. That, at least, is the view of the German Ambassador to Dublin. Christian Pauls earned a rare official rebuke from the Irish Government after he aired his unflattering opinions before a group of 80 German industrialists, many of whom were potential investors in the Celtic Tiger economy.

Mr Pauls poured scorn on Ireland's recent affluence and its Government, telling his audience at Clontarf Castle in Dublin that "junior ministers earn more than the German Chancellor" and that "20 per cent of the population are public servants" - neither of which is true.

Mr Pauls ploughed on regardless, describing Irish history as "even sadder than Poland"

Source

Nobody is beyond criticism and some of the things the ambassador said about Ireland have an element of truth but in view of Germany's own sensitivity about mentions of its past, this official German onslaught on Ireland can only be viewed as gross hypocrisy -- or double standards at least. The Irish in me says that the ambassador should be recalled.

The probable background to the incident is that high-tax Germany resents the striking economic success of low-tax Ireland.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Why Fred Thompson?

Excerpt:

Nobody is more surprised to see former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson in the 2008 race for the White House than Fred Thompson himself. At age 64, with a successful acting career, a stable financial future, a second chance at family life, a bright beautiful young wife and two small children, running for President of the United States was likely not on his list of things to do.

That's before the conservative core of the Republican Party drafted him. Fed up with out of control federal spending, deteriorating individual liberties, a lack-luster national defense and the growing tolerance for leftist notions exhibited by the current crop of "moderates" busy running their GOP into the ground, conservatives passed on all RNC panderers and drafted their own presidential candidate.

Why Fred Thompson? I could run down the list of conservative votes that make up his two term senate career, but others have already done that. I could talk about his down home southern charm, his good ole boy nature, his face and name recognition as a result of a life filled with personal accomplishments or even talk about those red pickup truck campaign stops reminiscent of much simpler days. But you already know these things.

Unlike all other candidates, it's hard to find someone with anything bad to say about Thompson, someone besides his political challengers of course. In a fever to find trash on Thompson somewhere, the Democrat war room tracked down every girl he ever dated between his two marriages, looking for dirt. When every woman who ever knew Thompson had only praise for what a kind, gentle natured southern gentleman he really is, Democrats knew they had a real problem on their hands. Even his ex's still like him? Never seen that before.

All of these reasons are true and valid. They all mean something. But there is an even bigger reason why Fred Thompson is the likely winner in 2008, a reason few political analysts can comprehend.

On the campaign trail this week, Thompson was asked why he was not participating in the Values Voter debate in Fort Lauderdale on Monday. In typical Thompson form, he responded, "Debates are important, but let's don't let the tail wag the dog here. Standing up there 10 in a row, you know, like a bunch of seals waiting for someone to throw you the next fish is not necessarily the best way to impart your information to the American people," Thompson said. "I'm not above acting like a seal every once in a while and waiting for the next fish. I just don't want to do it all the time."

And that's why Fred Thompson could be the right man with the right stuff for 2008!

Atop the list of many disappointments in our federal government today is the clear message that nobody in Washington DC has the least bit of common sense or honesty about them. Okay, let's say a few do, but so few that they aren't worth counting. Modern politicians are just career politicians. They aren't the pillars of our communities anymore and I don't care which political party you're trying to blindly defend.

Washington is full of career liars and every American knows it. Now, the average American voter can not always detect a lie when it's told by a really good liar and let's face it, our nation's best liars aren't reading scripts in Hollywood, our village idiots are. Our best liars are reading campaign cue cards in Washington DC.

The people may not always catch the lie as it's told by the best liars in the business. But Americans inherently know the truth when they see it or hear it and that's what they seem to like about Fred Thompson.

There isn't a single American who wouldn't describe modern campaign debates the same way Fred did, or feel about them just as he does, as a result. But what politician has the nerve to say it out loud for God and the whole world to hear? Besides Thompson I mean. I was starting to wonder if I was the only American who noticed what a ridiculous scam the alphabet network debates had become.

Much more here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

US BOLSTERING OF SUNNI REGIMES NOW GETTING STUPID - NUKE TECH TO JORDAN EDITION

The country is historically unstable, subject to invasion by its more militant Arab neighbors, and 70 percent Palestinian. What could possibly go wrong:

The United States has signed an accord with Jordan aimed at supporting the peaceful development of the kingdom's nascent nuclear program, the U.S. Embassy said Sunday. The agreement comes at a time of heightened tensions over Iran's controversial nuclear program, which the U.S. suspects is a cover for weapons development - a charge Tehran denies. Jordan and several other Sunni Arab countries have recently announced plans to develop peaceful nuclear programs. U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman and Jordanian Minister for Scientific Research Khaled Toukan signed Sunday's memorandum of understanding on the sidelines of a nuclear energy summit in Vienna.

No worries though - it's not like sub-weapons grade uranium can be packed into a dirty bomb. Or a suicide belt. And it's not like large swaths of their population are pathologically anti-Semitic.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

ASSAD WAS PLANNING TO USE NUKES AGAINST ISRAEL (PLUS: THE TOTALLY AWESOME IAF COMMANDO OPERATION THAT SLOWED HIM DOWN)

So that's why he's been so confident lately:

Meir Dagan, chief of the Mossad intelligence agency, presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in late spring with evidence that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea. Dagan apparently feared such a device could eventually be installed on North-Korean-made Scud-C missiles, the paper reported. "This was supposed to be a devastating Syrian surprise for Israel,"... The report suggested intelligence including satellite images revealed a facility in Syria which may be used to build nuclear warheads.

The absolute impunity with which the IAF violated Syrian airspace obviously represents a humiliating failure for Assad. But how bad was the breakdown in Syrian counter-intelligence? This bad:

According to the report, the force included F-15s and F-16s equipped with Maverick missiles and 500 pound bombs. Flying among the warplanes at great height, The Observer reported, was an electronic intelligence gathering aircraft. According to the Times report, an IAF commando team that had arrived on the ground days earlier directed laser beams at the target for the jets.

They were hanging out for days waiting for the jets to come in, then presumably they got the hell out of Dodge without Syrian forces being able to stop them from coming in or out of the country. No wonder the Syrians are trying to buy nuclear weapons off the shelf - they're too incompetent to build them, and something tells us that their army is not really ready to go against the IDF.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

HAMAS: ARAB AND MUSLIM WORLD RESPONSIBLE FOR GAZA STRIP DETERIORATION

Guess it's not Israel's fault after all. Not that it will stop human rights groups, academics, and the UN from blaming Israel. But if we're still pretending that the truth matters to somebody somewhere, this should probably get some play:

Both the Saudi Arabian and Egyptian governments have refused a proposed visit by Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas' political bureau in Damascus, stating that the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip must be reversed before they would allow him to enter the countries, Al-Jareeda reported. A Hamas leader, who wished to remain anonymous, told the newspaper that Hamas refused to accept these conditions. He said that under such pressure from the Arab states and other international countries, Mashaal's efforts to improve the situation in Gaza has been made virtually impossible. According to the anonymous Hamas leader, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are also demanding that Hamas accept the government of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as the legitimate government in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

It's getting tough to be an Iranian proxy in the Middle East these days. Syria tried to get the Arab world to support it last week and failed spectacularly. Now Hamas can't get a hearing in any of the Sunni capitals of the Arab world. Think it has anything to do with the prospect of a Shia bomb? We think it might have something to do with the prospect of a Shia bomb. If you click through, make sure you check out the part of the article where the Saudis accuse Hamas of committing humanitarian crimes against Palestinians in Gaza? Sound familiar? It should.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

SARKOZY'S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY DEBATES NEW STRICT IMMIGRATION RULES

BBC:

Proposals to tighten entry conditions for the relatives of immigrants who want to join their family in France are to be debated in the French parliament.

Under the new bill, immigrant families would have to prove they are solvent financially and can speak French.

In some cases the legislation would demand the relatives take a DNA test to prove their applications were genuine.

Civil liberties groups say the bill is inhuman but the government has vowed to clamp down on illegal immigration.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has set up deportation quotas, promising to send home 25,000 illegal immigrants this year alone.

The bill would require immigrant family members aged over 16 to take a test in their country of origin demonstrating a good knowledge of French language and values.

Applicants would also have to prove their family in France can support them and earn at least the minimum wage.

If immigration officials doubt an applicant is truly a genuine relative of the person he or she seeks to join in France, that person could be asked to take - and pay for - a DNA test to prove a biological link with other family members.

CSM:

Last year, France's famously open doors began closing on individual immigrants. This week, France starts making it harder to bring families and spouses to a country where joblessness and welfare are seen as draining the treasury and creating reservoirs of ill feeling, particularly among the middle class.

In a new measure expected to pass the French Assembly in 15 days or less, new family arrivals must speak French. Immigrant parents must guarantee their kids will behave. And breadwinners must show earnings of up to 1,600 euros a month.

When then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy pushed tough limits on immigrants last year, the left called it an attack on France's African and Arab populations. In a country roiled by changing complexion and identity, and on the eve of national elections, Mr. Sarkozy's new "contract" set a high bar: Know the French language, embrace civic values, and show means of support.

Some 600 pro-immigrant groups hit Paris streets, protesting how quickly Europe and France were closing to the foreign-born and how aggressive the measures seemed to be. But the law passed.

Now, President Sarkozy has again upped the stakes. Not only will incoming families face a higher hurdle, but an amendment quietly introduced DNA testing as a way to prove biological ties among them. In addition, French embassies abroad will be newly empowered to conduct extensive background checks of prospective residents.

OTHER LONG-OVERDUE SARKOZY REFORMS DISCUSSED HERE.

I HOPE SARKOZY WINS. IF HE WINS, FRANCE, EUROPE AND THE WEST WIN.