Things We Learned on the BBC Today- Turkish People to Make Important Decision

Turkey, my late father's homeland, should be a united country, at least for the next 24 hours. Thanks to a 19-point effort from Ersan Ilyasova, Team Turkey defeated Slovenia 95-68 to reach the semi-finals of the World Basketball Championships in Istanbul.

But, as the team faces Serbia on Saturday, the Turkish people will be getting ready to make a potentially historic decision at the ballot regarding the country's constitution.

According to the BBC, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is pushing the referendum, is in a virtual war of words with his political opponents, such as CHP (Republic People's Party) head Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

The CHP leader effectively says that Erdogan wants to take even more control of the central government in Ankara and the passage of the weekend referendum would allow him to appoint high-ranking federal judges and potentially trespass Turkey's long-standing policy which separates 'mosque and state.'

Erdogan has used arguments that the likes of Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, who both ironically oppose the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York, have used in stating the religion is a vital part of political life in Turkey as it is in any country.

The vote also comes as the month-long Ramadan holiday is coming to a close, the ninth anniversary of September 11th, the 28th anniversary of the last Turkish coup in 1982 and the likely prospects of a crazy Florida preacher burning copies of the Koran.

The referendum has some secularist support since it would address concerns that the Turkish military has too much political control of government affairs, but for the most, this is essentially a vote that religious people in Turkey support and secularists strongly oppose.

Eda Utku, a woman who works for a Turkish fashion magazine, stated on a BBC message board that she is voting 'hayir/no' because she think the government has a hidden agenda.

I fully sympathize with her view.

SIDEBAR: While the whacko Rev. Terry Jones is getting ready for his Koran bonfire in Gainesville, Fal., that will assuredly assist radical jihadists in places like Yemen and Afghanistan, the liberal blog Jesus' General (http://patriotboy.blogspot.com) is reporting that Sept. 12 is supposedly Burn the Confederate Flag Day. Though we sympathize with that political viewpoint and one's constitutional right to take up such matters, we also don't recommend that one does that in Fort Mill, SC, or anywhere else south of Frederick, Md.!

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- Angelina Condemns Koran Burning Project

It may not be often that a liberal movie star like Angelina Jolie would agree with a leading member of the U.S. military brass like Gen. David Patraeus, but they are on the same page when it comes to being against the Rev. Terry Jones' dubious plans to burn copies of the Koran at his radical church in Gainesville, Fla., this weekend.

Jones has said that he is going to burn the Korans to protest Sept. 11th even though virtually the entire Muslim world, including an imam from Iznik, Turkey, who I spoke while visiting his historic village just days after the terrorist attacks, condemned the events of 9-11.

"The Gainesville Sun" (gainesville.com) tweeted that the star of "Salt" was agast with the news of Jones' proposition.

Jolie, 35, said the following to members of the media about the Koran burning project in Islamabad, Pakistan, where she is visiting after a trip to nothwest Pakistan where the movie star talked to refugees of the recent horrific flooding that occured in that region:

"I have hardly the words that somebody would do that to somebody's religious book."

Jolie's trip is part of her mission as a goodwill ambassador for The United Nations' refugee agency. The U.N. has issued a $460 million pledge to help the flood victims.

The Koran burning project, which has also been condemned by Vatican officials, has been the buzz of Twitter and other chatrooms/discussion boards.

On Twitter, Nathan Tabor, a Christian conservative activist in Winston-Salem, NC, asked his followers on Twitter if they thought the Koran burning project was a good idea or not.

The film critic Roger Ebert, also on Twitter, compared Rev. Jones to Satan for his actions.

I will simply add my two cents and say that as the son of a Muslim immigrant, I think Rev. Jones is a 'budala,' that's the Turkish word for idiot.

Rev. Jones is with the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, which contrary to its name is not a progressive religious organization. His efforts also come as Muslims around the world are concluding the month-long Ramadan holiday.

Ironically, the actor Terry Jones, as a member of Monty Python, appeared in the highly controversial 1979 satire film "Life of Brian," which was considered to be blasphemous by many Christian groups at the time.