—"Wow, easy Diss, did you just have Optimus Prime, Commander of the Autobots say that the only way to end this war was to smoke the Kaaba?⁽¹⁾"

—"Ouais, I suppose so."

—"And do you mean that, like, literally?"

—"Of course not. Yet."

After all, this is an interesting piece of historical architecture that offers a certain value as a tourist attraction. Now that under the combined efforts of the Three Musketeers of Global Warming, Al "Arnie" Gore, Nicolas Sarkozy and Kevin Rudd, the Planet will make the big switch from Oil to Carrot Juice, the Saudis — who, despite being at the receiving end of History's biggest transfer of wealth without lifting a finger, never managed to reinvest the petrodollars cash flow in the development of their own economy — will have to find another source of revenue⁽²⁾, and they will need any resource they can get.

Having said that, I remember reading a few years ago how the Israelis finally managed to bring the Egyptian leadership to their senses by pointing out, confidentially, how that big huge Aswan Dam looked quite fragile from an Air Force point of view, and how, if that dam was to meet with a few tons of falling explosive ordnance, all of Egypt's infrastructure and habitations would share a rather wet similarity with the legendary city of Atlantis.

This, as the article contended, put an end to Egyptian belligerence towards Israel.

This might be just an urban myth, I honestly don't know, but I find the concept quite compelling. Broadcast a message to both radical and moderate Muslims, and let them know that if anything — nuke or not — should happen to one of our cities and people again, or if they let anything happen or do not work hard enough towards rooting out the radicals⁽³⁾, then without warning or apology that big black cube over there is just smoking history — possibly glowing the color of Islam⁽⁴⁾ at night.

Just for a start.

Oh and Transformers was a surprisingly good entertainment, totally devoid of the usual anti-American and anti-military junk that comes out of Hollywood these days, and even going, for once, in the right way: it was very refreshing to see a Rumsfeld-like Secretary of Defense character, interpreted by John Voight, talking about US Marines and saying that for these guys "losing was not an option".

Once, the root cause was "poverty", now it's "thugocracy". If you won't beat them, just call them any other name:

The Associated Press: French Leader: Thug Culture Caused Riots

President Nicolas Sarkozy rejected the notion Thursday that a recent bout of rioting was part of a wider social crisis, blaming instead a "thugocracy" in France's housing projects. (...) He insisted the unrest had "nothing to do with a social crisis. That has everything to do with the thugocracy."

That's not being very nice to these poor disaffected "youths", already discriminated against as they are by the racist white French mainstream society that would rather submerge them with a complete array of social welfare and services than let them access their privileged unemployment economy. Greedy bastards, heh?

However, it does serve a double purpose for the French president, by first denying the "wider social crisis", as he brushes aside the fact that there is a serious problem with a second - and sometimes third, considering the young age of some of the "rioters" - generation of immigrants that drops out of the Republic's school as soon as possible, learn and speak Arabic rather than French, would sooner abide to Sharia Law and customs than to the Napoleonic Code, and regards the rest of the society they belong through a racial and racist scope, explicitly excluding themselves from the French appellation and dubbing every white people "Gauls" - when they're being polite. And, I'm sorry to say, have been strongly and consistently encouraged to do so by some 30 years of politically correct and multicultural French politicians and self-proclaimed elite, present President included.

Next, reducing those organized and hierarchized "rioters" to mere thugs serves the purpose of hiding⁽¹⁾ the fact that Islam(ism, I suppose...) is the main driving force behind the "riots", that it fits a pattern observed and verified worldwide but particularly in Europe, and that far from a "wider social crisis", it is the visible effect of a wider cultural, civilizational and political⁽²⁾ crisis. It is the result of a concerted and consistent long term project - that Western counterintelligence agencies called flatly "The Project" - and that everything we've witnessed in Europe these past years is working according to a plan⁽³⁾.

Sarkozy has been one of the main empowering agents of radical Muslims in France, through his stubborn pushing of the establishment of the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman (French Muslim Cult Council) that - unsurprisingly - saw French Muslims vote and elect a majority of radical Islamic associations and organizations to this state endorsed national council, rather than the more "moderate" ones back in 2002, even though Mr. Sarkozy claimed he would "never let the [Islamic] fundamentalists sit at the table of the Republic", in his usual pompous rhetoric.

So hey, I'm not drawing any conclusions yet, but I'll keep trying to match the man's words with his actions.

Little luck so far.

• Chirac and his government (Sarkozy included) had left the suburban French Jihad Youth and their Elder Imam Hierarchy rule the battleground as they started and ended the stepped-up hostilities of November 2005 on their own terms — a shocking evidence of defeat and failure of the French state, in every strategical and political meaning of the word.
• No more than it managed to quench the insurgents, the French state never managed to reoccupy the lost territory and regain, even partially, the authority it lost in November 2005. While a low-intensity guerilla had been raging in the banlieues for the last 15 to 20 years, with cars burned as well as police and firefighters ambushed practically every night since the late 1990s⁽⁷⁾, the November 2005 riots that lit up streets not just around Paris but all over France at the (quickly unreported) cries of "Allah'u ackbar" marked a serious step in the covered French Intifada that called for a strong, immediate and uncompromising answer from the state... Or else.

Police unions worry about the level of violence recorded these past two days. "Tonight, we reached a new level of violence. We're getting close to a disaster by asserting the use of firearms against the Police forces" said Unsa, [Police officers union -- DF]. For Synergie [another Police union -- DF] the police was "confronted with scenes of urban guerilla" during the clashes. "A new line was crossed with the use against them of weapons, including shotguns."

An alarming situation, according to the officers on the field. "We've crossed a new level in urban violence explosion" says Patrice Ribeiro "Now, it must be called insurrection". David Barbas, of the SNOP, [Again, Police union -- DF] speaks of "urban guerilla". "Our colleagues in the field are stunned, they're facing super organized youths, very mobile and prepared for anything. It's a very hot situation, they [the officers in the field -- DF] really have the feeling that they're out to kill cops".

"The riots started much faster and with more savagery than in 2005" confirms Synergie "the youths were ready, and only waiting for a pretext to break and loot everything."

What's changing as well compared to 2005, is the level of young delinquents armed. On the 82 policemen wounded in Villiers-le-Bel Monday night, nearly half of them were by buckshot. "Delinquents in these suburbs increasingly use weapons. At first, it was to commit their exactions, then to fight with other gangs. Now they're using them against police forces."

SNOP intends to ask the Ministry of Interior to quickly provide riot-control gear, including rubber bullet weapons, for an appropriate counter-offensive.

I can only laud the decision of the wise Sudanese court of Justice & Flogging For All, upholding respect for the Islamic faith in the face of smug British teachers:

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudan on Wednesday charged a British teacher with insulting religion and inciting hatred, a crime punishable by up to 40 lashes, six months in prison or a fine, after she named a class teddy bear "Muhammad."

Outrageous it is indeed. Everybody should know how inappropriate it is to name a teddy bear Muhammad. Many deserve to be named Muhammad, for Muhammad is a very handy name indeed, with many M's in it, making the spelling of Muhammad much easier to remember for the orthographically challenged. A man can be named Muhammad, a boy can be named Muhammad, a baby can be named Muhammad, and verily many are named Muhammad nowadays, or Mohamed which is the same really, only with a bit less M's in it.

But a teddy bear is the worst possible choice, whenever one needs to name a mascot Muhammad.

Now, if only I could get someone at Toys 'r Us interested, I'm sure this could make a killing this season.