By Abby  Zimet/ Common Dreams

Okay, maybe you thought Fox News really couldn’t get any lower or loonier. But life is full of surprises.

Thus did self-appointed terror expert Steve Emerson feverishly declare that Britain has no-go stealth caliphates ruled by sharia enforcers and “there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go.”

In parts of London, he went on, “there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to religious Muslim attire.” Umm. Actually, Steve? Actually, Birmingham, a city of about a million, is 14% Muslim. With – need it be said? – no Sharia law in sight.

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron was among those pretty surprised to hear about all this Sharia stuff; he said he was having breakfast at the time and nearly choked on his porridge. Then he proclaimed Emerson “a complete idiot.”

The Internet did the same – happily, this week of all things Charlie – with savage wit under the hashtag #foxnewsfacts, with more at #Birmingham. There were jokes – “Christian Bale brutally beaten by Moslem jihadists after he refused to change his name to Muslim Bale” – and puns – “Muslims are controlling the weather in Britain – in some places it’s Sunni, but mainly Shi’ite” – and many photos of pets, kids, jars of jam and the Queen being forced to wear burqas, and even a mock change.org petition to allow non-Muslims back into the city.

Eventually, Emerson apologized for his “sloppy research,” donated money to a Birmingham hospital, and compared the “pain and hurt” he’d suffered to waterboarding. There’s clearly no hope for him. But the flood of scorn and umbrage gives us a bit. So does, in Paris, this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Muslim beating up Christian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ditto jam