“If there is going to be a reformist movement among the Achaians, it is going to emerge from gestures like the gift of this beautiful horse.” — Fareed Zakaria, editor, Trojanweek

Some news agency reports.

German authorities say they have closed a Hamburg mosque used by the Sept. 11 attackers as a meeting place before they moved to the United States.

A statement by Hamburg officials says the Taiba mosque was shut down and its cultural association was banned on Monday.

The prayer house, formerly known as al-Quds mosque, used to be a meeting and recruiting point for some of the Sept. 11 attackers.

Weekly news magazine Focus cites a report by a local intelligence agency branch in saying the mosque has again become the city’s “main center of attraction for the jihad scene.

And it is easy to foresee, several more years down the road, the news agency report of police closure of Corboda House, Park51, or whatever they wind up calling the ground zero mosque, built on the basis of empty liberal optimism, like Fareed Zakaria‘s (“If there is going to be a reformist movement in Islam, it is going to emerge from places like the proposed institute.”)

But there is no reformist movement in Islam. There is only taqiyya and kitman, the concealment of real beliefs and intentions in order to mislead, and ultimately to defeat and subjugate, the unbelieving adversary.

The imaginary moderate, reformist Muslim plays the same role in the liberal’s vision of the world that the unicorn does in the bedroom decor of certain particularly air-headed high school girls, as a fantasy symbol representing a whole collection of comforting, emotionally self indulgent illusions with no connection to reality whatsoever.

Spiegel Online:

A Lufthansa jet nearly crashed as it attempted a dramatic landing at Hamburg’s airport during a wind storm on Saturday. All 137 passengers arrived safely after a second landing attempt. German aviation experts say the near-disaster is unprecedented in Germany.

The powerful winter storm system “Emma” that swept across Central Europe this weekend nearly caused a massive air traffic disaster on Saturday in Hamburg. A Lufthansa (A320) jet struggled through 250 kilometer-per-hour (155 miles per hour) crosswinds on its approach into the Hamburg airport. After skidding dramatically across the runway in an aborted landing, the plane’s pilot opted to take off once again. …

Those few seconds were indescribable,” one passenger told German television station N-TV after arriving safely on the ground. A spokesman for Lufthansa told SPIEGEL ONLINE that some of the passengers were quite shaken by their turbulent experience. “Many did not handle it well,” said Wolfgang Weber. “Some were near tears.”

Weber said that the pilot, 39 year-old “Oliver A.”, executed the emergency ascent and re-landing with skill and heroic calm. The pilot told Weber that he had often trained in a flight simulator for conditions like those that besieged his Airbus jet on Saturday — training that he counted on as he guided the plane safely onto the runway on his second approach.

“A situation like that, where a gust of wind hits the plane right as it is landing, is one that our pilots train for time and again,” said Weber.

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Hat tip to Dominique Poirier.