Bombing Churches and Islam

So they bombed a Coptic church in Egypt killing 21 people. SubHanAllah. When will such insanity stop?

Did not God check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of God is commemorated in abundant measure. God will certainly aid those who aid His (cause);- for verily God is full of Strength, Exalted in Might, (able to enforce His Will). (Qur'an 22:40)

They dishonor none but themselves and Muslims as a nation. Shame on us Muslims that some of our own think they can behave worse than beasts in the name of Islam. Shame on our societies that permit this to happen. How they besmirch our teachings, traditions and history! How they disobey God!

Between shame, outrage we must turn to God to remove this affliction and calamity that has befallen us whereby we have lost our humanity and have become more vicious than beasts.

Peter King - Good or Evil?

Congressman Peter King of New York has been making headlines. In case you missed it, he will be chairing the powerful committee on Homeland Security in the 112th Congress that takes office right after the New Year and has promised to use his powers to hold congressional hearings on the causes of radicalization of American Muslims.

Our friends at CAIR and other Muslim advocacy groups are alarmed by this and are calling it a form of racial profiling.

I spent some time today reading all I could about the Congressman. I must say, I can't find anything objectionable about what he is doing or his positions. I invite you to read an ope-ed he recently penned in Long Island (NY)'s Newsday:

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/ny03_king/radicalizingmuslimamericans.html

Which of his facts do we disagree with? Which of his positions do we find unreasonable?

1. Let me address the Congressman and one of his key concerns first. Congressman, there are Muslims who hang their heads in shame by the denials within our community that 9/11 was the work of others. Let this serve as an unconditional apology to the broader community of fellow humans for our failure in what would be our religious duty to bear witness even against our own and ourselves in defense of the truth. Our faith prohibits us from holding our tribal affiliations above the truth but we certainly haven't been living by our faith for some time.
2. The Congressman's history with the Muslim community and the facts he states about the rampant state of denial among local Muslims leaders in many communities is absolutely on the mark.
3. Those of us who know the Muslim community well cannot deny he fact that that somewhere deep down in our psyche we always put a BUT when it comes to our position on suicide bombing and terrorism. We see the wrongs done by terrorists and the flaws in the ways of the Radicals, yet we feel the injustices done against Muslims somehow leave room for those reactions. Shame on us. Islam in absolutely unequivocal about fitnah. Until we get past this first step, this cancer is going to devour our communities, here in the US and globally.
4. Like the Congressman I want to know what in the world is going on. Why was the fool in Portland, OR thinking there was anything noble about killing women and children from an early age? Yes he felt the pain of Muslims around the world, but why didn't his faith teach him to cause a peaceful struggle (the greater jihad) to bring peace to Muslim lands? What about Faisal Shehzad - the man claimed he would love to die many times over for his cause. Why did his brain shrink to such a narrow way to respond to the crisis in Muslim lands? Why didn't he seek a real albeit slow solution that requires constant striving? What about the Zazi? What about the imam who tried to tip Zazi off?

Fact is, Muslims have good hearts but we are LOST in this world. Any nation that fell so far down so quickly would have a crisis of the sort we are having. Many of of our formal and informally placed leaders are steeped in frustration, lack clarity in their thinking and struggle at best on taking a position on issues. This lack of clarity about what our faith mandates us under such circumstances is confusing many in the community-at-large.

There is ABSOLUTELY no room in Islam for random acts of violence against people who are not armed and standing in combat against you. Even in such circumstances you don't fight to cause greater harm to others, you do so to disarm the fool who is fighting you.

Suicide bombing or bombing of civilians is against the most fundamental teachings of Islam. Absolutely no exceptions.

Fellow Muslims, step 1 is to acknowledge we have a problem. Let's get rid of our shabby tribalism and side with the truth, even if such truth condemns us in the short run.

Peter King, go ahead with the hearings.

Our Lord, have mercy on this community and give us leaders who will help us think with clarity and help restore our position as the standard bearers of truth and justice.

Radicalized American Muslims

The devil has made a nest in the American Muslim community and has successfully taken to hell some of our young men. The case of Somali boys from Minneapolis area returning to Somalia to join "Jihad" is about a year old. More recently, we had that Khabees Major Nidal Malik Hassan and now the bunch of young boys in Pakistan.

What's at stake is our very future and it doesn't get more serious than this. We need to find out who's doing it and weed them out. Thankfully, a first stone has been cast in this direction, but there is a lot more to do.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/12/11/muslim.policing/index.html

Where's Obama's Savvy?

Has Obama lost it? Where's the passion and the constant vigilance of his campaign?

Extremists have taken hold of the so-called debate on healthcare. Downright lies and scare tactics are growing roots. During his campaign, Obama's team would be there to fact-check and fix the nasty stuff. Not so on this healthcare reform issue.

We had a president of questionable intelligence aided by a vice president who had no respect for this country's constitution or traditions. Yet, they managed to get their way for most of their 2 terms. Yet, on healthcare reform we have people screaming "we want our country back" and "say no to socialism" - funny how that works.

If Obama lets others define him and his position on healthcare reform, it doesn't bode well for the rest of his presidency. Maybe instead of going on ritzy vacations, he ought to bring back the troops from his campaign to set the record straight on this critical issue?

Lastly, I mourn the nivite of my fellow citizens. The only people protesting this reform should be the super-wealthy insurance companies (i.e. the major shareholders in those companies). To say our healthcare system is broken is such an understatement. Yet, they have been scared into thinking the fix is better than their present state. Sigh!

Twitter Hype Machine - Give me a Break!

If Twitter ran for President of the United States last year, I have a feeling Obama would not have made the history he did. Twitter's PR department seems to have embraced and proven the observation of some perceptive figure in history who had noted that the bigger the lie, more readily people believed in it.

Her Royal Highness Queen Nur of Jordan has a Twitter account, she actually posts stuff so the rest of us can know how grateful she is to be married. His Highness, the Ruler of Dubai, Shaikh Mohammed has an account verified to be his (yeah, with a Twitter ID of HHShaikhMohammed). I am waiting for their press release that Michael Jackson has been Tweeting from the other side (Suggested Tweeter ID NDMichaelJackson for Now Deceased Michael Jackson). This last one would be really helpful, it would save California courts a lost of time and California taxpayers could use a break.

This morning Twitter's server went down (again). My reaction to this cataclysmic event:

This is yet another irrefutable proof of the fact that Twitter is the fastest growing company in the history of humans, apes, microbes and celebrities. Data center cables must have literally burst into flames and melted as a result of the heavy traffic to Twitter’s servers…needing liquid Nitrogen to control the imminent fire.

Northern Air Command (NORAD) must appeal the Armed Services Committee to buy Twitter more cryo-server farms so homeland security is not compromised.

The only down side to this outage is that the democracy movement in Iran will not be able to oust Ahmadinejad for another 48 hours. Oh, not to mention, Obama’s economic recovery is going to take a few days longer. Sigh! We hope there has been no impact on the timeline for the cure for cancer and AIDS. This certainly must have disrupted the routine of the 200 million malnourished humans around the world, imagine, having to wait for their tweets!

On a serious note, Twitter’s PR department must be away on summer break. I was shocked Bill Clinton did not attribute his success in bringing home the journalists to Twitter and he didn’t post tweets during his dinner with KJI.

Update: Obviously, I am not the first to have figured out this hype machine's amazing performance. However, as with any lying...it eventually starts to catch up with you.
http://www.webguild.org/2009/08/twitter-hype-bombs-iran-key-to-acquisition.php

Compromised Bedrock

A set of common core values and systems have served as the foundation on which America became a wealthy, powerful and even great nation. Many of these core values and systems have constantly been under threat and the onslaught has never been more blatant as in the present times.

Consider capitalism. A system that establishes rights of individuals and private enterprises and defines a framework in which people invest, buy and sell in order to advance their personal interest. The magic in capitalism was that in pursuing such self interest the common interest was also advanced (within limits of course, and often regulation was required to ensure that). I believe those days are over - regulation can't keep up with the thieves and the abuse has become shamelessly blatant.

Let me explain. Capitalism was epitomized by Wall Street which, in theory, provides a level playing field by making information available to everyone so the collective marketplace can determine the true value of any publicly traded company and no one has any unfair edge on information (knowledge) which translates into money and wealth. Tell me how badly this institution must be breached when Goldman Sachs reported making over $100 Million on 46 out of roughly 60 trading days in April, May and June of this year (and that in a bad economy). A bunch of people sitting in posh offices made money at such amazing levels merely "trading" which generates absolutely no tangibel or intangible asset of value (no inventions, no products, no new ideas from which any human derives any benefit). On all but two days in those three months, they made over $50MM.

Legally sanctioned heists of this sort will leave our society weakened and permanently damaged.

I say the fort called the United States of America has been breached and it cannot stand intact too long unless corrective action is taken. Thieves have figured out paths and channels that the rest of us do not know and it is only a matter of time before this thing collapses. Is anyone doing anything about it?

Google's 2009 April Fool Hoax

They call it CADIE technology. Clever :)