Police investigate ‘backlash’ attacks in the UK.
I might also add that Hammurabi’s eye-for-an-eye came hand-in-hand with innocent-until-proven-guilty.
A couple of recent interesting notes from the Arab and Muslim blogging world:

I really don’t want to trivialise the deaths and the pain in London — a human life is a human life and we all matter. But as long as we keep on thinking of this violence as something they do to us, this is never going to end. To remember the Iraqi innocents who have [...]

“My client was delighted. She would much rather work in her field of interest than work in a soup kitchen,” said Lyle Yurko, Heredia’s lawyer.

If you’re an American, you may have learned, recently, that there’s a good chance you’re crazy. Harvard says so.

Interesting and thoughtful interview with Lebanese American University journalism professor Ramez Maalouf, about whom I’ve been able to find next to nothing on-line. Not much surprising, but first-hand information always beats speculation. Approximately nine minutes.

Next Monday’s issue of Time Magazine is running a story entitled “Fast Times in Tehran” by Iranian-American journalist and author Azadeh Moaveni. I don’t speak Farsi, have never been to Iran, and know very little about Iranian culture or history. That said, Moaveni’s article seems like a pretty good human interest story. But here’s what [...]

The CIA is (openly) secretly training anthropologist spies.

How can an unsure invisible man drown out the testimonies of a slew of ex-Gitmo detainees with faces and names?

The other day, whilst reading Rosie O’Donnell’s free verse r blog, I was wondering what it was that drove the semi-famous to blog. Evidence indicates that I’ll soon be able to answer this question from personal experience:

“The rate of suicide bombings - the seemingly endless supply of people prepared to blow themselves up - leaves a western audience utterly bewildered. What kind of psychology motivates people to such violent extremes? The incomprehension prompts revulsion that this form of warfare is historically unprecedented and reveals a peculiar, aberrant irrationality - a kind of inhuman madness. All too quickly, Islam is blamed for deluding its believers into martyrdom with promises of 72 virgins; the old prejudices about Islam as a faith uniquely associated with violence and unquestioning belief are fanned into life again…”