Renouncing Islamism, Paul Krugman, Uri Avnery, Robert Murdoch

Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back againHe begins to ask – jabbing his finger – what my alternative is. "In the United States, bestiality is legal in the privacy of your own home," he says. Paedophiles are rampant, with the Man-Boy Love Association on the brink of success. Compare that with the 1,300-year long caliphate. In all those years, he says, "there were only 60 rapes". Do you really believe that if people are not suppressed by a tyrant-God, they will become paedophiles and start fucking animals? Are you so rotten inside? Does Anjum fear Andy that much? He stares at me, flat and emotionless now. "That is your last question," he says. And as I leave and look back at him through the glass, jabbering on his phone and daydreaming of annihilation, I realise how far all my interviewees – and new friends – have travelled.
They have burned in this fire of certainty. They have felt it consume all doubt and incinerate all self-analysis. And they dared, at last, to let it go. Are they freakish exceptions – or the beginning of a great unclenching of the jihadi fist? [To watch Johann Hari taking on Hizb ut Tahrir in a debate on the Islam Channel, click here ]

Paul Krugman: Germany's Jobs, Unemployment Miracle Can Teach US - Germany's jobs miracle hasn't received much attention in this country -- but it's real, it's striking, and it raises serious questions about whether the U.S. government is doing the right things to fight unemployment.

A Scoundrel with Permission By Uri Avnery - Israel - When the TV news starts with a murder, people are relieved. This means that no war has broken out, no suicide bomb has exploded, no Qassam rocket has been launched at Sderot. Ahmadinejad has not test-fired a new missile that can reach Tel Aviv. Just another murder. Not that Israel is the world’s murder capital. We shall have to work much harder to reach the heights of New York or Moscow, not to mention Johannesburg. Statistics even show our murder rate is declining.

SPIEGEL Interview with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle: 'We've Had Enough of Faint-Hearted Politics' - German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle talks to SPIEGEL about new government plans to tackle the economic crisis, Obama's Afghanistan strategy and his own contribution to German society's acceptance of homosexuality.

Eric Boehlert: Why is Rupert Murdoch so clueless about Fox News? By E.B. - Did you know that Sean Hannity is "an academic"? That Obama administration officials love Fox News' White House reporters? That CNN refuses to have Republicans on its program? That Glenn Beck is "purely Libertarian"? Or that there's no bias -- none -- in Fox's presentation of the news?
At least that's the gospel according to Rupert Murdoch this month. In truth, thanks to Murdoch's recent laundry list of public falsehoods, we now know that Fox News' misinformation culture starts at the very top, inside the corner office of Murdoch, the CEO of News Corp., Fox News' parent company. It turns out Murdoch functions as his own one-man misinformation machine. Who knew?