I don’t understand why the news reports on fanatical, violent extremists granting them the title of cleric? I know little of Islam but I’m confident that the people who would threaten to commence suicide bombings if their sham Sharia court is not respected, and then proceed to provoke followers into reactionary fervor, are not clerics or holy men of any kind. Because they spew their trash from a mosque? We need a new word for these people.

But the thing that caught my attention about this story is the photo. Burning DVDs and videos was thier way of calling attention to their demands, as well as going around Islamabad threatening the sellers of film. It seems the Taliban has moved into Pakistan. I recently watched Iran: A Cinematographic Revolution (distributed by the company I work for), which tells about the early days of the Islamic revolution there, films and cinemas were major targets. Bad news as history repeats itself.
(AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)