The North African nation of Mali is in the midst of an uprising by strict conservative Islamist rebels who have captured Timbuktu and locked it down under harsh Sharia law and are running around with guns and making all the women wear veils and chasing off all the Westerners and generally just throwing a wrench into any fun summer bikini party plans that Timbuktuans may have had. This is all very troubling, we grant you, (LIP SERVICE ABOUT 'RIGHTS'). But the New York Times' excellent story yesterday on the situation really buried the scariest penalty of all that the cruel extremists are imposing on the not-even-allowed-to-fuck-casually citizenry:

As expected, the moderate Islamist party Ennahda is headed to victory in Tunisia's first post-dictatorship elections. Party leaders—who are likely to form a coalition with liberals—say the government's first priorities will be "economic development and internal security."