The town council of tiny (pop. 1,300) Herouxville, Québec, has issued a declaration informing Muslims and other immigrants from non-Western countries about "normes de vie" (standards of conduct) based on Provincial and Federal laws to which they are expected to conform (quoting from the English translation found in the "avis public" section of the town’s Website):

"We wish to inform these new arrivals that the lifestyle that they left behind when in their birth country cannot be brought here with them and they would have to adapt to their new social identity." …

"[A] woman can: drive a car, vote, dance, sign checks, decide for herself, speak her peace [sic], dress as she sees fit … walk alone in public places, study, have a job, have her own belongings and anything else that a man can do." …

"We consider killing women in public beatings, or burning them alive are not part of our standards of life."

Much of Europe is in need of a similar edict to send a clear message to Muslims who refuse to assimilate that Westerners will not accommodate their repressive customs and intolerant religious beliefs.

Iraq Is Not Afghanistan

A National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq requested by Congress last August that was presented to President Bush yesterday, suggests civil strife is spiraling out of control in Iraq, though the 90-page classified document stops short of concluding that the Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence has reached a state of civil war, reports The Washington Post:

The document emphasizes that although al-Qaeda activities in Iraq remain a problem, they have been surpassed by Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence as the primary source of conflict and the most immediate threat to U.S. goals. Iran, which the administration has charged with supplying and directing Iraqi extremists, is mentioned but is not a focus."

"Glimmers of optimism" are offset by "deep uncertainty about whether the Iraqi leaders will be able to transcend sectarian interests and fight against extremists, establish effective national institutions and end rampant corruption," according to the WaPo.

Elsewhere in the paper, columnist Charles Krauthammer offers this devastating bleak review of why the Iraqis will continue to choose to avenge ancient hatreds over nation-building:

This week the internecine warfare in Iraq, already bewildering - Sunni vs. Shiite, Kurd vs. Arab, jihadist vs. infidel, with various Iranians, Syrians and assorted freelancers thrown into the maelstrom - went bizarre. In one of the biggest battles of the war, Iraqi troops reinforced by Americans wiped out a heavily armed, well-entrenched millenarian Shiite sect preparing to take over Najaf … and proclaim its leader the returned messiah. …

There are, of course, many reasons for these schisms. Some, like the fundamental division between Sunni and Shiite, are ancient. Some of the wounds are more contemporary, most notably the social devastation and political ruin brought upon the country by 30 years of Saddamist totalitarianism and its particularly sadistic persecution of Shiites and Kurds.

America comes and liberates them from the tyrant who kept everyone living in fear, and the ancient animosities and more recent resentments begin to play themselves out to deadly effect. …

Among all these religious prejudices, ancient wounds, social resentments and tribal antagonisms, who gets the blame for the rivers of blood? You can always count on some to find the blame in America. "We did not give them a republic," insists Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria. "We gave them a civil war." …

We gave them a civil war? Why? Because we failed to prevent it? …

Our entire strategy has been to fight one side and then the other to try to prevent sectarian violence - a policy that has been one of the leading reasons Americans are ready to quit and walk away.

Militants on both sides … appear to hate us, and that includes the Shia and the Sunni. We had expected the Shia to welcome us, since they had been persecuted by Saddam Hussein when he was in power. However, any good will has been lost. The Shia, who represent 60 percent of Iraqis, are exacting vengeance upon the Sunnis for all of the persecution they inflicted upon the Shia when they ran the country under Saddam Hussein. The Sunnis, who appear to be more secular in their views, would normally be that part of the Arab population that would identify with us. But no. Even though they acknowledge American soldiers often protect them from Shia revenge, they continue to attack American military forces with roadside bombs and suicide bombers. Sunni militants also appear to be responsible for more casualties among Iraqi civilians than the Shia militias.

We should not take sides in this civil and religious war in which each side is engaged in imposing its will on the population and to establish itself as the rightful religious heir to the dynasty of the Prophet Muhammed. I assume the physical heir amongst today's descendants of the historical figures involved will be the candidate vying to be in charge of the new caliphate that these insurrectionists and terrorists see as the final outcome of the current war with the U.S. and among themselves. We should not spill the blood of American soldiers to assist one side or the other to prevail.

Whenever President Bush ticks through his laundry list of reasons justifying our continued presence in Iraq, one of the items he always mentions is "Sunni extremists blew up one of the most sacred places in Shia Islam - the Golden Mosque of Samarra. This atrocity, directed at a Muslim house of prayer, was designed to provoke retaliation from Iraqi Shia … The result was a tragic escalation of sectarian rage and reprisal that continues to this day."

If one Muslim sect cannot respect the holy places of another Muslim sect, The Stiletto doesn’t understand why a single drop of American blood need be shed over the Golden Mosque - or any other mosque, for that matter. If we are to put this troop surge to good use, we should let the bloodlust between Shia and Sunni take its course while we exclusively concentrate on hunting down Iranian, Syrian and al Qaeda insurgents.

And one more thing: Let’s stop squandering our tax dollars to build soccer fields and schools to win Iraqi hearts and minds. That’s proved to be another losing strategy. When peace has finally been secured – that is, when all the insurgents are lying dead alongside all the Sunni and Shia extremists fueling the civil war – then we can start to use Iraqi oil revenues for nation-building.

The Cost Of Freedom Going Up

To improve the speed with which immigration applications are processed – including the fingerprinting required since 9/11 – the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is planning to sharply raise its fees. Faster processing of the 4.7 million immigration applications filed per year will reduce the wait for green cards from six months to four months; the time it takes from applying for citizenship to taking the oath will be cut from seven months to five months.

The proposed fee to apply for citizenship will go up 80 percent, from $330 to $595; the green card application fee will go up 178 percent increase, from $325 to $905. The USCIS is not funded by tax revenues, but with user fees, so the increase is expected to pump up the $2 billion-a-year agency agency’s bottom line by an additional 50 percent, reports The Washington Post.

Civil rights and immigrant advocacy groups criticize the higher fees as "discriminatory" because they will deter lower-income and less-educated people from becoming citizens. Yes, the fee increases are discriminatory – they benefit legal immigrants. Those who are unable to pay immigration fees will continue to sneak in under the cover of night, just as they always have.

Gavin Newsom’s Not Gay?

Upon learning of frisky Frisco mayor Gavin Newsom’s dalliance with his former campaign manager’s wife, one local wag of The Stiletto’s acquaintance opines that voters who thought they were electing "a gay American" will feel cheated now that he turns out to be just another skirt-chasing pubic servant.