Category: Sign of the Times

No tight pants or adultery -- or else

Extreme Islam, a sliver of the whole, is still nutty after all these years, firmly rooted in the 7th century.

If you want an idea of how strict Shariah, Islamic law, be:

"...the Shariah police will be wielding a new and more potent threat: death by stoning for adulterers," reported The New York Times out of Banda Aceh, a backward corner of Indonesia.

We'd have to stone half of Congress, were Osama and the boys to have their way here.

And then there's the public canings in Banda Aceh for gambling, the kind of thing that would all but kill Detroit's casino industry. The Times ran a photo of the Shariah police chastising a man for eating in a restaurant during prayer time.

Oh yeah, one district in Aceh banned tight pants for women. Officials even ordered 7,000 pairs of baggy pants. If the cops think you tush is too prominent, they're authorized to shred your clothes and give you government-issue, one of those 7,000 non-designer pairs.

Too bad. Most of Indonesia, a Muslim country, is moderate. Voters are rejecting Islamic extremists. Yet the hard core can wield power, as Aceh shows.

Here and here.