More Obama Rumors

The Case for Calling Them Nitwits – Magazine – The Atlantic. They blow each other up by mistake. They bungle even simple schemes. They get intimate with cows and donkeys. Our terrorist enemies trade on the perception that they’re well trained and religiously devout, but in fact, many are fools and perverts who are far less organized and sophisticated than we imagine. Can being more realistic about who our foes actually are help us stop the truly dangerous ones?

For Muslim politicians, running for office is the American way – CNN.com. Across the country, dozens of Muslims have actively engaged in the American political process, running for — and winning — elected offices. From a mayor in New Jersey; to state representatives in North Carolina, New Hampshire, Iowa, Maryland and Missouri; to congressmen in Minnesota and Indiana, American politicians from the Muslim faith are increasingly in political positions.

Islam and the Lagging Economies of the Arab World : The New Yorker. But, before consigning a fifth of humanity to the dustbin of economic history, one might consider, more broadly, whether it makes sense to place such an emphasis on religion in explaining the underdevelopment of so many Muslim countries. To start with, it’s worth noting—and Kuran and Lewis, to their credit, do note it—that Islam, at least in its original formulation, was far from hostile to business. As the centuries passed, many Muslim regions fell badly behind the West, but the most immediate explanation involves not Islam but…