In my continuing coverage of Republican racism and anti-Semitism, one of the stupidest Republican memes was "gee, uh, duh, isn't Obama a Moooslim?"

My first reaction was "so what if he was?" Why couldn't a Muslim be an American leader? But that is beside the point. There has never, ever been the slightest evidence that Obama was Muslim.

Those who listen to this lie and believe it are, quite honestly, abyssmally stupid or amazingly gullible.

But who originated the "duh...Obama is a Moooslim" lie?

Seems an unstable anti-Semite, named Andy Martin, started it. And Fox News let this unstable anti-Semite assert lies without questioning him...yet another connection between Fox News, lies, and anti-Semitism.

Right wing terrorism is alive and well in America and being ignored. On 9/11/2006 there was a terrorist attack on a woman's health center in Davenport, Iowa. There was the Delaware Pogrom where Jewish and Muslim families were driven out of a small town for not being Christian. The list goes on. And mostly it is just ignored by the media, but Homeland Security...by everyone.

The latest attack is a chemical attack on children in a mosque in Ohio. From Daily Kos:

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West -- the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail -- were distributed by mail in Ohio, a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to -- Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.

I grocery store bills are ridoncuously high due to the assorted allergies we have to manage. My oldest has something in the order of 15 allergy markers; while the little, their father and me have abut 5 allergy markers each. Eggs, nuts and sesame seeds can lead to life threatening reactions.

No wonder I spend most of my week at supermarkets. A loaf of spelt or gluten-free bread is anything between 4 to 7 dollars. Same with cereals and other sundries. So I spend my days shopping online or checking local supermarkets for sales on anything that is wheat free.

Guess what I saw at the supermarket on Avenue A and 4th Street?

In 2005 there was much sound a fury about a series of Danish Cartoons portraying the prophet Mohammed. The bottom line was that several Danish cartoonists drew cartoons including the prophet as part of a newspaper's publicity stunt. Two of the cartoons were making fun of the newspaper's publicity stunt itself. Two were, arguably, based on racial stereotypes. At least one specifically addressed Western stereotypes of Muslims. In other words, the cartoons were a mixed bag of attitudes towards Islam and the West's attitudes towards Islam.

The overwhelming reaction in the Muslim world was of outrage, often with no real knowledge of the actual cartoons.

This controversy has come back. One of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, was targeted for death by Muslim terrorists. This plot was stopped by the Danish police. In response to the terrorist threat 11 Danish newspapers reprinted Kurt Westergaard's original cartoon...further pissing off Muslim nations.

Again...much sound and fury, signifying nothing.

There has really been a recent dovetailing of Israel related issues. From a Bulgarian friend quizing me on Israel to a discussion among NYC bloggers (offline and private, so none of your business) about Israel/Palestine, to some rather disturbingly anti-Israel diaries on Daily Kos with some outright anti-Semitic overtones. (Note: This statement in NO WAY implies an anti-Semitic bias of dKos in general. The opinions were those of particular individuals, not the community as a whole). And, of course, my recent writing about Jewish issues, including what seemed to be a not so well received piece on the depth and persistence of anti-Semitism historically.

In the context of all of this, I find an editorial that gets to the crux of one key issue in Israeli politics: the balancing of equality for Israeli Arabs with security of Israel as a whole. In an ideal world these two things would not need balancing. But the Middle East is not and never has been an ideal world even if you look back thousands of years.

This is from Abraham Foxman and Ken Jacobson, both of the Anti-Defamation League, and originally appeared in The Jerusalem Post on March 5, 2007:

John Lavelle did not die in vain. A few hours before his death, while at Wednesday’s Council candidate Manny Inamorato's Beekman Pub fundraiser, I learned Lavelle donated his organs with one of his kidneys saving the recipient’s life.

Unless prohibited by religious belief or medical condition, it’s a no brainer to donate organs postmortem. The former Staten Island political boss and legislator positively impacted people, even in death. We all can do likewise by joining organ donor lists.

My favorite organ donor story is that of JJ Greenberg, the son of the former US Holocaust Memorial chair. He died after being hit by a car while bicycling in Israel. His organs saved six people including a Palestinian in need of a liver.

Back in June, I think it was, my blogging about Bush's disastrous foreign policy failures enabling a rising Islamic Fundamentalist Caliphate, as I described it, got the attention of BBC radio. They invited me to participate in a call in program about the rise of Islamic fundamentalists in Somalia, which was my first 30 minutes of fame. I didn't really feel like I came off well on their show as it wasn't really a format I was comfortable with, but it sure was flattering to have my blogging noticed!

Since then I have continued to write about our increasing losses to Islamic fundamentalism and our failures to counter it. Most recently I wrote about the rise of fundamentalists in Bahrain. I criticize the Republicans for failing to back Clinton's attempts to stabilize Somalia and to stop al-Qaeda, instead chastising him for being "obsessed with al-Qaeda" as if that was a bad thing. I criticize Bush for putting the war against the terrorists who attacked us on the back burner in his rush to attack the two Muslim nations arguably most opposed to al-Qaeda: Iraq and Iran. By picking on these three groups, Bush has picked fights with three completely disparate parts of the Muslim world: secular Sunni, fundamentalist Sunni and fundamentalist Shi'ite. Attacking all three in essence confirms in the eyes of much of the world the accusation that Bush has declared a Crusade on all Islam.

At a time when extremists are increasingly dominating the situation in the Middle East, sometimes it is good to remember the efforts for PEACE between Palestine and Israel.

According to Guysen.Israël.News:

Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas met on Saturday evening in Jerusalem to renew their commitment to agreements signed previously. The two leaders also agreed to work to reach a political arrangement of two states based on the Road Map...Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas agreed on several points during their suprise meeting in Jerusalem on Saturday evening, according to Nabil Abu Rudeina, advisor to Abbas.

For those who want to help moderate Muslims and Jews achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East, what follows is something I wrote back in July that is just as important right now.

Israel, Palestine, Lebanon...all are nations that deserve full recognition and viability. Forget sides. Forget who started what. Forget borders. I am not aiming for a solution. I am aiming for the conditions that will allow a solution to be possible and lasting. I don't care, for the purposes of this effort, who committed what terrorist act or which government is the worse. I care about people, whatever their religion or culture, and I care that people will continue to die if something isn't done. Political solutions from the top have failed since 1948, devolving repeatedly into war. Time for bottom up efforts.

Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) is quoted on CNN.com:

"When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Quran in any way.

"The Muslim representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Quran.

"We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country.

"I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped."

Does this idiot really think he's going to help his cause this way? Between W. no longer listening to his generals in the field (and General Abizaid is reportedly retiring this week) and other Republican figures making blatantly bigoted statements, they seem seriously committed to shooting themselves down.

In Bush's "Forever War" crusade against Islam, one of the nations he has touted as a strong ally has be Bahrain, the oil-rich nation that has long balanced Shiite and Sunni Islam in relative stability. Bush's failed foreign policy has destabilized huge swaths of the Middle East, creating conditions that I have been predicting are ripe for a rising, religious extremist caliphate, a united, fundamentalist Islamic movement that will rise from the Republican failures to dominate the Middle East for decades to come.

Muslim extremists are rising in Iraq, a nation that before our invasion was predominantly secular and modern. The Taliban and al-Qaeda is resurgent in Afghanistan and Pakistan, becoming powerful enough that Republican Senate FORMER-Majority Leader Bill Frist is talking of cooperating with the Taliban to save our asses in Afghanistan. Somalia has now been taken over by a new, Somalia Taliban.