....The most frequent response to the question, "What do you admire least about the West?" was the general perception of moral decay, promiscuity and pornography that pollsters called the "Hollywood image" that is regarded as degrading to women.

An overwhelming majority of the women polled in each country cited "attachment to moral and spiritual values" as the best aspect of their own societies. In Pakistan, 53 percent of the women polled said attachment to their religious beliefs was their country's most admirable trait. Similarly, in Egypt, 59 percent of the women surveyed cited love of their religion as the best aspect....

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the June 8 New York Times, by Helena Andrews,

reporting on a survey released Tuesday by The Gallup Organization, from more than 8,000 face-to-face interviews conducted in 2005 in eight predominantly Muslim countries.

Let me take this opportunity to point something out to you and other infrequent users of this site.

Unlike some other big sites, there is a tradition here on TPMCafe of not downrating comments simply because we disagree with them. Take a quick click, please:

Basic Guidelines on Comment Ratings

by Josh Marshall

In practice, it can be difficult to separate out how we judge the 'quality' of a comment from whether we agree with its content. But readers should never down-rate comments simply because they disagree with the views expressed.

Readers trying to participate in discussions in good faith should never be given ratings of 1s or 0s. Those ratings are reserved for clearly inappropriate behavior or content -- obscene or offensive language, ethnic slurs, spam, disruptive behavior, extreme ad hominem attacks. This isn't an exhaustive list. But the key point is that you do not give a 1 or 0 to someone's comment just because you think their comment is stupid or because you strongly disagree....

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