An anomaly in the British structure of Government is that members of the Cabinet can also hold seats in the Parliament. We know that most politicians are eager to hold onto their positions of power. Jack Straw, the Foreign Minister of England, recently rationalized (and in a sense justified) the riots occurring throughout the Arab world over the issue of the Mohammed cartoons by  this absurd statement: If people looked at these cartoons and were to replace the images of the Holy Prophet with images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary, they can see that, even in our culture, if they were directed at the Judeo—Christian traditions, there would be similar outrage. Of course, one cannot imagine this happening in the Western World. Christian symbols are routinely mocked (see "Piss Christ"). Why would Straw make a statement that appears so nonsensical and craven? We know that European governments face a rapidly growing Muslim population and also have monetary reasons to...(Read Full Post)