Great news! Anglican bishops are moving toward the same position on facial hair as Mullah Omar:

Vicars should grow BEARDS to reach out to Muslims in their areas, says Bishop of London

Yes, the Taliban comes to the Angliban Communion:

One of the priests praised by the Bishop of London, the Rev. Atkinson told The Telegraph he found having a beard had helped provide a connection with many people in his parish, around 85 per cent of whom are Muslim...

The heart of the Cockney East End: 85 per cent Muslim. As they sing in Oliver!, "Consider yourself at 'ome!" So one must adapt as one can:

He said he had forged new links with people after growing his facial hair. He explained: 'It is an icebreaker – St Paul said "I become all things to all men that by all possible means I might save some"...

Really? The C of E is back in the conversion game?

The second vicar - the Rev Rogers - told the newspaper he was approached by a man who told him he respected him because he had a beard. The man went on to tell him his beard showed dedication and commitment to something and it showed wisdom.

In a very real sense, the Church of England is a beard for Islam.

~Alas, for those on the distaff side, making "a connection" with the hirsute lads all around is more fraught:

The young Fräulein's name is Bibi Wilhailm. Watch her video while you can, because its presence on the Internet seems to be somewhat precarious, given social media's enthusiasm to be Chancellor Merkel's thought-crime commissars. At any rate, Fräulein Wilhailm poses an interesting question: Where are the men?

One time in summer, the Muslims said we were sluts for walking outside in a t-shirt. Yes, we were wearing t-shirts. It's summer! Another day, I was wearing this. My friend and I purchased it while shopping hehe. If we feel like wearing it, we will wear it! And you Muslims have no right to physically assault or rape us for it! God willing, never in my life. You have no right to attack us because we are wearing t-shirts. You also have no right to rape. The life of Germany has changed because these people cannot integrate. We give them so much help. We support them financially and they do not have to work. But they only want more babies and more welfare and more money. Men of Germany, please, patrol the streets and protect us. Do this for your women and your children.

But the men of Germany are preparing to grow such beards as they can.

~Sooner or later, in any discussion of American political hardball, someone says, "Politics ain't beanbag." Being a foreigner, I have no very clear idea of what "beanbag" is in this context. But, at any rate, for me personally there was over the weekend what I'd call an unforeseen development.

The story so far:

In 2013 I bust up with National Review, for various reasons, some of which I'm not at liberty to disclose but all of which fall broadly under the banner of free speech. I'm very big on that. It's my core issue. So in the dispute between National Review and me I'm cheering for me. Go, Steyn!

On the other hand, fraudulent climate mullah Michael E Mann is suing National Review for defamation. So in Mann vs National Review I'm cheering for National Review. Because we happen to be co-defendants in that case. Given that it was filed four years ago, I had hoped that even the sclerotic, dysfunctional craphole of District of Columbia "justice" might have got on with it and held the trial by now, but not so. Two years ago I filed a motion asking to be "severed" from National Review and have my own trial, but Judge Weisberg, the second trial judge (don't ask), gave me the bum's rush. So we remain yoked together. So, as I said, in Mann vs National Review I'm cheering for National Review, faute de mieux.

National Review has been opposed to Donald Trump since he entered the Republican race. I wasn't, because aside from jollying things up tremendously I think Trump performed a very useful service in utterly destroying then frontrunner Jeb Bush's presumed nomination. I regard the attempt by a third Bush in a quarter-century to occupy the White House as obnoxiously un-republican, with a small "r". So in Trump vs Bush, I 'm cheering for Trump.

Which means that in National Review vs Trump, I'm cheering for Trump. I thought their anti-Trump issue was a strategic disaster that did more damage to them than to its intended target. The danger to the frontrunner last week was Bob Dole saying he could live with Trump, and Trent Lott doing likewise. And for all I know John Boehner and Denny Hastert were all lined up to do the same. Fortunately, just as The TimeServers Who Brought You This Mess were readying their class-action endorsement of Trump, National Review stepped in to restore the old narrative: The Establishment vs Trump. In that one, I'm cheering for Trump.

But Trump didn't like National Review coming at him. So over the weekend he Tweeted an approving link to a two-year-old column arguing that National Review is doomed. Unfortunately for me, its thesis is that National Review is doomed because of the Michael E Mann lawsuit. So, when it comes to global-warming fanatics vs free speech, Trump is apparently cheering for the global-warming fanatics.

More to the point, the column's argument is that National Review is doomed because of my supposedly defamatory remarks about Mann. The doom prediction isn't correct, by the way: National Review would survive losing the Mann suit. But I wouldn't. I'd be over, in every sense. Yet, in Mann vs Steyn, Trump is apparently cheering for Mann.

Which meant that over the weekend I got assailed by various Trump fans who'd carelessly skimmed the piece and erroneously concluded that Steyn "is an editor of National Review". So I have the fairly unusual distinction of being denounced as both a "Trump sycophant" and an anti-Trump National Review editor. When it comes to Steyn the Trump sycophant vs Steyn the anti-Trump editor, no one is cheering for Steyn.

Oh, well. Mann hasn't endorsed Trump yet, but Trump endorsing Mann may yet be, as they say, a game-changer - at least in the sense that the 45th president taking the plaintiff's side will make it harder to get an unbiased DC jury. Assuming that is, the trial starts before President Trump's second term is over.

I don't know how Ted Cruz feels, but I occasionally get the sense that American politics is too much for a simple Canadian lad. It may be time to take up beanbag.