Maybe so.

Illinois State Police in conjunction with the FBI were conducting an investigation Thursday into an excessive amount of money, both in cash and checks, found in a vehicle involved in a deadly multivehicle crash on Interstate 55.

State police investigators along with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force were looking into why a check written for a large sum of money, along with a sizeable amount of cash and multiple IDs, were found in a 1999 Kia Sportage involved in the accident, District Chicago Master Sgt. S. Nowak said.

And New Orleans City Council wants a fresh start.

“We don’t need soap opera watchers right now,” said New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas, during a housing committee meeting. “We’re going to target the people who are going to work. It’s not that I’m fed up, but that at some point there has to be a whole new level of motivation, and people have got to stop blaming the government for something they ought to do.”

…

In other words, people will have to express a willingness to work to qualify for public housing, officials in New Orleans have said.

Later in Monday’s meeting, Thomas, who is black, reiterated that his remarks were intended for African-Americans.

“There’s just been a lot of pampering, and at some point you have to say, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ … If our legs don’t hurt, you can walk somewhere,” he said. “I’m saying these things to motivate my people.”

Kind Hearts. Innocent sounding enough. Worthy of my support perhaps? Think again.

WorldNetDaily is reporting…

A man Hamas identifies as its leader in the United States helped raise $500,000 to build a new mosque in Baton Rouge, La., but channeled most of the money to the terrorist group overseas, federal authorities suspect.

Mohammed El-Mezain coordinates fund raising for an Ohio-based charity called KindHearts, which is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for its potential links to terrorist activity.

The Treasury Department says most of the money raised in Louisiana may have been moved overseas to the Palestinian group, regarded by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, reports the Advocate newspaper of Baton Rouge.

So if you sent money to a nice sounding organization to help with hurricane relief or earthquake victims in Pakistan you’d better know to whom you are donating. It just might be terrorists whose kind hearts don’t include helping people. Their idea of kind hearts is to blow up and maim women and children.

We all need to do our part in the war on terror. Vigilance is imperative. It’s no longer business as usual. Beware.

“A political movement masquerading as a religion,” so says Iranian Amir Taheri, writing for the N.Y. Post.

Here we have a religion without a theology, a secular wolf disguised as a religious lamb.

In an effort to inform the uninitiated, Taheri presents an insightful glimpse into the movement of political Islamofascism, or what he calls “neo-Islam,” juxtaposed to the “religion” of Islam.

That neo-Islam is uncomfortable with the idea of religion as something to do with God is not surprising.

Taheri explains that the problem of neo-Islam is particularly dangerous in the vulnerable West…

Muslims living in the West have no first-hand experience of the intolerance and terror that neo-Islam has practiced in Muslim countries for decades. Instead, they see Islam as an element of their identity and, although seldom going to the mosque, consider neo-Islamist militants as “lobbyists” for themselves.

Anxious to control its constituency within Western democracies, neo-Islam, in its different versions, uses tactics developed by other totalitarian ideologies, notably fascism and communism.

ITS first move was to promote a visual apartheid to distinguish its adherents from the rest of society — in the same way that Lenin, Hitler and Mao wanted their followers to wear specific uniforms.

For men, the props are beards, khaksari (earthly) garments such as shirts falling down to the knees, baggy shalwar (pantaloons), an araqchin (cloth cap), a checkered Palestinian neck-scarf and sandals or shoes without laces.

When it comes to women, the choice of clothes is even more limited.

Once visual apartheid is achieved, the neo-Islamist moves to Phase Two: making his followers brain-dead.

If you’re interested in the “culture wars”, the “west, non-west” conflicts, the “free, unfree” national struggles or the myriad other ways the issue of Islam and its jihad has been framed, you would be well advised to read what Amir Taheri has written.

Whether you agree or not Taheri has provided much food for thought.

One question remains. Why the silence of so many in “religious” Islam? If the neo-Islamists are making all followers of Mohammed look like savage, uncivilized barbarians, why the silence?

Perhaps Taheri will answer that question sometime in the future.

Linda Hirshman, quoted by Good Morning America, is very scared.

An alarming number of college-educated women are leaving the work force to stay at home and raise their children, a trend that is a tragedy not only for the mothers, but ultimately their children and women as a whole.

So said law professor and working mom Linda Hirshman in a 2005 article for American Prospect magazine that has ignited an intense debate among mothers.

Yes, how tragic and alarming that a college educated woman would want to stay at home and raise her children.