Star Parker gets incensed by the New York Times' claim that "the attacks of September 11 were not a religious event" and writes that building a mosque at Ground Zero is "obviously provocative." But, for some reason, as Little Green Footballs rightly notes with cynicism, the mosque at the Pentagon wasn't. Matthew Yglesias says, It's the economy, haters. And what's up with no Muslim holidays in New York schools? Charisma magazine capitalizes on the heightened head-turning (or link-clicking) nature of the word mosque to report that Zanzibar has a problem too!  Government officials on the 99% Muslim island off the coast of Tanzania have successfully prevented a church from being built.  Instead, they opted for a mosque. Talking Points Memo reports that the race for New York governor has come down to which candidate hates the mosque more. Get a load of Paladino's campaign ad. Religion News Service offers tips to reporters writing about the mosque.  Apparently, a lot of reporters haven't yet read the memo. Salon's Steve Kornacki writes that criticism of the mosque is a symptom of an old GOP hatred, recussitated under a new Islamophobic guise:  anti-communism: That Miller, who supports abortion and gay rights, found common ground with Robertson on Bush’s war on terror illustrates the political power of Islamophobia for the GOP. In many ways, it has become the glue that anti-Communism used to be: a demon that fundamentalist Christians and white ethnic voters from outside the Bible Belt (Reagan Democrats used to be the term for them) can both agree to curse. Ouch!  Meanwhile, Science & Religion Today explores a new study that shows racism hurts...the racist. Fareed Zakaria returns an award to the Anti-Defamation League for their opposition to the mosque. Max Fisher at The Atlantic gives us six reasons why Islam has become so controversial in the U.S. Robert Shrum sees the mosque controversy as part of a larger GOP war on the constitution.