RIYADH (Reuters) - A prominent Saudi cleric has issued an edict calling for opponents of the kingdom's strict segregation of men and women to be put to death if they refuse to abandon their ideas.

Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak said in a fatwa the mixing of genders at the workplace or in education "as advocated by modernisers" is prohibited because it allows "sight of what is forbidden, and forbidden talk between men and women".

"All of this leads to whatever ensues," he said in the text of the fatwa published on his website (albarrak.islamlight.net).

"Whoever allows this mixing ... allows forbidden things, and whoever allows them is an infidel and this means defection from Islam ... Either he retracts or he must be killed ... because he disavows and does not observe the Sharia," Barrak said....

Yet another Islamic cleric misunderstands the Religion of Peace!

This morning I found my almost 10-year old daughter with a towel wrapped around her head so that it was draping down past her waist. She was pretending to be a bride. “This is what my veil will look like when I get married, Mom. Do you think it’s pretty?”

And then, this: “Mom? Why did you say your first wedding was a bigger deal than your second?” She didn’t mean “bigger deal” as in it mattered more; she meant why was it literally bigger.

Like most young girls, my daughter is fascinated with the idea of marriage and weddings. Feminists try to convince us this is a socially constructed phenomenon, but smart, everyday moms know it’s in the genes.

So the time has come for me to guide my daughter in the ways of matrimony: what marriage is like, what it means, and when might be the ideal time for her to get married. At 41, I’ve been married a combined total of 16 years. That’s most of my adult life, so I’d like to think I have some words of wisdom to offer her. She seems to think I do anyway.

But I have an added responsibility: I need to explain why my first marriage ended in divorce. My daughter has asked many questions about my first husband, and I’ve told her bits and pieces. I know the thought of my having had a home with another man I loved and slept with is unsettling to her – so I’ve tried to make my first marriage sound like it was no big thing (“He wanted to live in New York and I wanted to live in St. Louis”), but that makes it sound like I was cavalier about getting married the first time – which is not the message I want to send, and it isn’t true anyway. So what to tell her?

The women of my generation – I was born in 1968 – must now face the reality of having to explain ourselves. Today as many as 25% of first marriages in America fail within two years, and 43% of first marriages end within 15 years. Many of the couples from the first group don’t have children together, but most of these men and women will have children eventually. And their children, like mine, will want to know why their parents failed the first time around. Our children deserve answers.

My generation was the first generation to be taught that marriage is something to postpone in exchange for one’s freedom. These men and women avoided marriage like the plague — all to their detriment. Many find themselves single with no good prospects; others find themselves 40 and childless; and others spent a ridiculous amount of time and money a wedding day that became entirely insignificant later when they found themselves divorced. In my generation, divorce was always an option. No big deal.

What my daughter needs to know is that the emotional disaster that follows the severing of a sexual and spiritual union is a very big deal — and I do not want her to experience it. I want her to know that a happy marriage is absolutely attainable, that all it really takes – aside from making a good choice of partner (which is no small thing) — is the right attitude.

Which means, my dear, when you do marry, assume it will be for life. Though divorce is lawful (as it must be), pretend it is not. Second, do not marry someone just because you love them. It is not enough. There’s much more to a marriage than feeling starry-eyed about a person. Trust me: You will not feel starry-eyed forever. As a man once said who had been married to his wife for 50 years,

“It’s funny: all that falling in love business. I hear myself tell the story and it all sounds so superficial. And it is, when you compare it to what we ended up with.”

And last but not least, do not put yourself at the center of your life as feminists implore women to do. It is a recipe for disaster. Marriage and family is about sacrifice, pure and simple — and it is from this sacrifice that one grows as a human being. Should you wish to read books about marriage, stay away from self-help books and memoirs like the oh-so-popular Committed, by Elizabeth  Gilbert. Almost all of these books are written by feminists who are either trying to figure out how life works (like Gilbert) or will simply confuse you even more. Unfortunately, you will hear more from these women than from any other group of women in America, but I can assure you they have little to offer.

So pull up a chair, my darling; and I will tell you where I went wrong. I will tell you everything you need to know.

Suzanne Venker is an author, blogger, and former teacher. You can read more of her work at No Bull Mom and Right Pundits.

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More than sixty years after World War II, a small group of German men and women are coming to grips with the crimes of their fathers, uncles, and grandfathers. Israeli director Chanoch Zeevi engages us with the descendants of the most powerful figures in the Nazi regime, who were left a legacy that permanently associates them with one of the greatest crimes in history. Adolf Hitler did not have children. Joseph Goebbels and his family died in Hitler’s bunker. But what of the families of Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann, to name a few? How have their descendants dealt with the legacy left by their notorious families — those who still recall whispered conversations between their parents and, in some instances, still remember a pat on the head from the Führer himself?

via Descendants of Göring, Eichmann speak out in Israeli documentary – Israel Culture, Ynetnews.

Now, I want you to remember that no one wins a war. Everybody loses when some poor dumb bastard has to die for his country.

Men and women, all this stuff you’ve heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of war is true. We don’t like to fight, but we will when we are dragged kicking and screaming into it. But don’t worry, we’re not going to spend too much money, or stay at it very long.

When you were kids, just 8 years ago, there was too much macho talk of winning and victory. The new Americans are uncomfortable with that concept. I wouldn’t care a hoot for a man who defeated another and laughed (Unless it was me, defeating John McCain). That’s why America cannot be seen as having won a war ever again. Because the thought of humiliating an enemy is hateful to Americans of today, because they know it just causes others to hate us and creates more enemies.

Now, our military is a team and we will team up with our allies to make a better world. We will eat and sleep as a force for healing. This “killing people and breaking things” is a bunch of crap. The collection of slave owners and rich men who wrote that stuff about “enemies foreign and domestic” didn’t know anything about America’s modern mission to heal. The last 8 years of “going alone” are over. You will be supported by allies who know to ask questions and only shoot later if they are forced to.

Now, we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit, and the best men and women in the world. Even though they tend to come from places where people cling to guns and religion. You know, I pity those poor bastards we’re going up against. By God, I do. So we’re not going to shoot them if we don’t have to. We’re going to leave their country and never profit from them. We’re going to show those misunderstood folks we mean them no harm.

Now, some of you boys and girls, I know, are wondering whether or not you’ll chicken-out under fire. Don’t worry about it. I can assure you that you will have the best possible treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, provided by only the finest Muslim psychiatrists. Intolerance is the real enemy. Resist it. Fight it. Do not tolerate it. And when you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend’s face, you’ll know that a grief counselor will put his or her arm on your shoulder as soon as possible. We know what to do.

Now there’s another thing I want you to remember. I don’t want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We’re not “holding anything.” Not for very long, anyway. It’s too expensive. We’re giving territory back. We are advancing to retreat constantly and we’re not interested in holding onto anything — even enemy combatants at Guantanamo. We’re going to hold onto them on US soil, and we’re gonna kiss him in the ass. We’re gonna coddle the hell out of him all the time, and he’s gonna go through his Miranda rights like crap through a goose!

Now, there’s one thing that you men and women will be able to say when you get back home, and you may thank whatever God or higher power you may or may not believe in for it. Thirty years from now when you’re sitting around your fireside with your grandchild on your knee, and they ask you, “What did you do in the great War on Terror?” — you’ll be able to say, “There is no such thing as a war against a tactic, but we prevented more man-caused disasters.”

Alright now, you sons and daughters, you know how I feel. And the world knows how we feel, that’s what’s most important.

Oh, and be comforted by the realization that I will be reluctant to send you wonderful guys and gals into battle anytime, anywhere.

That is all.

(Notes: Hat tip to my friend Doug Buck for the image above, and for some great suggestions on the text. If this makes you want to relive the real thing– or a reasonable facsimile thereof, click here. That is all.)

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Is she a crackpot conspiracist? Only in the Left's dreams.

You know that this snippet from an interview which Sarah Palin gave to a talk radio host had to have sent tingles up the legs of every leftist polemicist (like those at Salon) who heard it:

HUMPHRIES: Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?

PALIN: Um, I think the public, rightfully, is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think enough members of the electorate still want answers.

HUMPHRIES: Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?

PALIN: I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past associations, past voting records, all of that is fair game. You know, I gotta tell you, too, I think our campaign, the McCain-Palin campaign, didn’t do a good enough job in that area. We didn’t call out Obama and some of his associates on their records and what their beliefs were, and perhaps what their future plans were, and I don’t think that was fair to voters, to not have done our jobs as candidates and as a campaign to bring to light a lot of things that now we’re seeing made manifest in the administration.

HUMPHRIES: I mean, truly, if your past is fair game and your kids are fair game, certainly Obama’s past should be. I mean, we want to treat men and women equally, right?

PALIN: Hey, you know, that’s a great point. That weird conspiracy theory freaky thing that people talk about, that Trig isn’t my real son, a lot of people say, “Well, you need to produce his birth certificate, you need to prove that he’s your kid,” which we have done, but yeah, so maybe we should reverse that and use the same type of thinking on the other one.

[Emphasis added on particularly troublesome statements.]

This was enough for Salon to pronounce Palin a birther. And honestly I don’t blame them for it based on the interview alone.

But is Palin really part of the cult of crackpot conspiracists who know for certain that President Obama was born in Kenya or, is at the very least, “hiding his birth certificate”?

Palin clarified on her Facebook page:

Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask… which they have repeatedly. But at no point – not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews – have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States.

(Hat tip to Hot Air.)

So, no, Palin is not a birther. She was just caught off guard in an interview and chose her words poorly.

(Andrew Sullivan, who has predictably picked up on the story is apparently unaware of Palin’s Facebook clarification of her anti-birther position. Watch for how long it takes for him to come up with some creative explanation for why Palin actually still is a birther in spite of it.)

But the point remains: nothing would make the Left happier than to see Palin as a birther. Why? Because it would be the end of her political career. She would immediately be neutralized as a serious fighter against their agendas. Everything she said could then be dismissed, “Oh what does she know? She’s so nutty she thinks Obama was born in Kenya!” She would never be able to develop the centrist and independent support she needs to be a viable political force. She could never be a Reagan, forging an effective alliance of the Right and the independent center.

And that is why serious conservatives concerned about the Left’s agenda need to have a no-tolerance attitude toward birtherism. If allowed to thrive it will only continue to undermine the Conservative movement and allow the Left more power. It can only be announced for what it is: poisonous crackpot conspiracism.

Update 12/5/09, 4:25 PM EST: This post was mentioned and linked at Progressive Alaska and then reprinted at Andrew Sullivan’s blog. The Progressive Alaska blog had two lies about this post and one pathetic typo which was correct in the Daily Dish reprint:

David Horowitx, excoriating Sullivan, fails to mention Palin’s lie.

First, Horowitz didn’t write this post, I did. My byline is at the top and anyone who has ever read a Horowitz article would not mistake my writing for his. Second, as can be seen clearly above, I in no way “excoriated” Sullivan by predicting what has in fact happened. Palin has clarified her poorly chosen words to demonstrate conclusively that she is not a birther. She does not believe Obama is ineligible to be president and does not support the Birther Movement’s efforts. Yet Sullivan shoulders on with the Palin-is-a-Birther meme because he detests her so much.

Sorry, Progressive Alaska, for not “mentioning Palin’s lie.” I’m not really concerned with refuting the crackpot “Trig Birtherism” conspiracy theories. Just as leftists hope that the Birther conspiracy continues to exist to dog the Right, I fully endorse Sullivan’s efforts to keep Trig Birtherism alive. By all means, please continue to pursue this, Andrew.

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One goal of the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s annual Restoration Weekend is to pay tribute to the men and women in uniform serving the country overseas. This year’s salute to the military featured remarks by Michigan Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, who movingly recounted why America’s troops choose to make such heroic sacrifices. A video of McCotter’s speech can be seen here. — The Editors