Qur'aniyun Spreading?

Is it just me, or is this Qur'an-only nonsense spreading?? It's driving me nuts! Every time that I think that I have found a decent Muslimah journalist, she turns out to be a hadith rejectionist. AAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!

[end rant]
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I Disagree With Mike Huckabee

I did not appreciate Mike Huckabee's commentary today, Friday 03 April 2009, on the radio. I respect him as a reverend and a politician. However, I did not appreciate his attitude towards the protesters who have turned out in massive numbers in London in response to the G20 summit. In fact, I think it immature to refer to the protesters as "idiots."

I have a good deal of experience with six-year-olds. When they don't like what they hear, they plug their ears and chant "nah nah nah," or they call someone "stupid." While this is not good behaviour, it is something that I would expect of a six-year-old. I would not expect it from an adult.

I do not necessarily agree with anti-abortion protesters or pro-war activists. This does not mean, though, that I need to turn the channel when they are covered on the TV or try to talk over their voices as broadcast on the radio by calling them names or telling them where to take their messages. Those are, after all, behaviours that one would expect from a child - not an adult. And even though I am a liberal, I do not necessarily agree with everything that anarchist protesters advocate. This does not stop me from listening to what they want to say, however, and taking ideas that I like from them or discarding ideas that I dislike.

For me, the bottom line is that protesters and activists have freedoms that are enshrined in the US Constitution: speech, assembly, press, belief, the pursuit of happiness. We have every right to disagree with them. Endeavoring to curtail those freedoms is un-American. Namecalling or plugging our ears and chanting "nah, nah, nah" just because we do not like their ideas is juvenile. Let's grow up.

Israel's Assault on Palestine is an Attack on the Family

This BBC news article describes the correlation between Israeli attacks on Palestine and the increase in domestic violence against women. "The United Nations Development Fund for Women says there is anecdotal evidence that domestic violence - verbal, physical, sexual and psychological - has increased noticeably since Israel's recent bloody operation in Gaza and in general since Hamas took over sole control of the strip almost two years ago."

And another quip: "Abu Fahdi is a former abuser, turned counsellor. 'For us, the war really begins after the military war is over,' he told me. 'Here in Gaza men are supposed to be providers. The siege, the strikes, in one way or another they affect all households in Gaza - poverty, hunger, homelessness. 'Men are really frustrated. They sometimes take it out on their wives. She's in front of them every day.'"

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Finally! Wagoner is Gone!

It is about time, too.

GM CEO Wagoner forced out as part of gov't plan
By TOM KRISHER and DAN STRUMPF, AP
30 Mar 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ihDmcAFFtCO_yZDi-IPKEpLwZb8wD978B7080

Time and time again, General Motors Corp.'s board of directors reaffirmed its support for Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, even as the company piled up billions of dollars in losses and begged for government loans to stay alive. But Wagoner is now a high-profile casualty of government intervention, forced out as part of the Obama administration's sweeping last-ditch effort to save the century-old auto giant.

Wagoner, 56, who spent 32 years with GM working all over the world, stepped down effective immediately, the company said in a statement early Monday. He was replaced as CEO by Fritz Henderson, the company's vice chairman and chief operating officer.

GM board member Kent Kresa, a former chairman and CEO of Northrop Grumman Corp., was named interim chairman and said new directors will make up the majority of GM's board when a new slate is nominated for election at the company's annual meeting in August.
...
While CEO, he cut its U.S. work force from 177,000 to roughly 92,000 today. Wagoner also closed factories; ... globalized GM's engineering, manufacturing and design to save billions...
...
Wagoner, a former Duke University basketball player, joined GM in 1977, serving in several capacities in the U.S., Brazil and Europe. He became president and chief executive in 2000 and has served as chairman and CEO since May 2003.

In a December interview with The Associated Press, he declined to speculate on suggestions that he step down.

"I'm doing what I do because it adds a lot of value to the company," Wagoner said. "It's not clear to me that experience in this industry should be viewed as a negative, but I'm going to do what's right for the company and I'll do it in consultation with the (GM) board (of directors)."

So Rick Wagoner tried to fix GM by slashing jobs and shipping plants to foreign countries. That did not fix anything. It cost proud, hard-working Americans their jobs and contributed to the downward spiral of our failing economy. Alhamdulillah this crooked businessman has finally paid the price for failing our country.

But wait, complains our governor (much appreciation and respect to you otherwise, Jennifer) and auto analysts: Wagoner is being made into the sacrificial lamb. Why aren't financial CEOs treated the same way?

Mich. gov. says Wagoner was 'sacrificial lamb'
AP
30 Mar 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jLy3WiS04vGMIedWdDmUM74xepVQD978B1NO0

The governor of Michigan says Rick Wagoner, the General Motors chairman and CEO forced out of his job in the Obama administration's final effort to revive the ailing U.S. auto industry, is a "sacrificial lamb."

Interviewed Monday on NBC's "Today" show, Governor Jennifer Granholm noted that Wagoner has worked for GM for more than 30 years and was trying to turn the company around.

She said that Wagoner agreed to step aside for the good of the carmaker and its workers.

The Obama administration announced late Sunday that neither GM nor Chrysler has come up with acceptable business plans to merit receiving additional federal bailout money. The two automakers were each given a brief deadline to try one last time to persuade Washington they're worth saving.

Say I, it is because Wagoner was at the helm while GM went down the tubes. See, for example, the chart made by the Detroit Free Press showing the cascade of GM profits since Wagover took over in 2000. Wagoner is tied to GM's failure in a way that no financial CEO or even Bob Nardelli of Chrysler can claim. Henry Blodget of the Business Insider said,

In the past three and a half years, General Motors (GM) has lost more than $67 billion. In the past eight years, the company's market cap has dropped by $37 billion. Add the two numbers together, and GM's shareholders have lost more than $100 billion so far this decade. GM's CEO Rick Wagoner has presided over all of this value destruction.

He even killed the hybrid before it was born, a decision he later came to regret: "Axing the EV1 electric-car program and not putting the right resources into hybrids."

And all of this while his compensation rose continuously. For years, Rick Wagoner has received millions of dollars in compensation. In 2005, Forbes put his total compensation at $8.5 million. The New York Times reported that in 2006, the figure rose to $10.2 million. In 2007, his compensation rose 64% to $15.7 million. And Michigan Business carried an AP report stating that in 2008, Wagoner pulled in $14.9 million. GM fails, and Wagoner got more money.

So, then. Good-bye and good riddance.

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Congratulations, Bay City

You made international news. This is what I found when I searched Google for "bay city" taser:
Police in Bay City Taser boy, 15, who then died | Herald SunA TEEN boy has died in the US after police used a Taser to break up a fight. www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25227299-663,00.html

Isn't it wonderful to be recognised internationally as the city that murdered a teenager by electric shock? It is time to throw away the taser. Law enforcement personnel do a much better job when they interact with the communities that they serve, not when they build walls between themselves and communities.

Here is the AP report:
Michigan 15-year-old dies after police Taser him
The Associated Press
22 March 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j5s7uUFwkDEAJK7Tg1J8Z8GUohGgD9739KQ82
(AP) — Police in Michigan say a 15-year-old boy has died after being Tasered by officers who were trying to break up a fight. Police didn't release his name and say state police are investigating. A Bay City police news release says officers answered a report of an early morning fight on Sunday. The statement says two males were arguing in an apartment, and one of them "attempted to fight the officers." Police say officers Tasered him, and his reaction led them to immediately call for emergency medical help. He was pronounced dead at Bay Regional Medical Center. Deputy Chief Thomas Pletzke tells WNEM-TV police placed one officer on administrative leave.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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Baby Beaten to Death While Adults Watch

There are no words. Click. Read.
http://www.whataboutourdaughters.com/2009/03/1-year-old-lilianna-goodmann-beaten-to-death-by-mamas-boyfriend-for-being-disrespectful-while-others-watch
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The Longevity of a Nation Depends on the Life of Others

A society that turns a blind eye to the human deaths which its government causes belongs to a culture of death. Such a society is rotting from within and bringing on its own demise. How much longer do you wish to exist as a nation?
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Include Other Viewpoints

My email to a local TV station:

I have seen two interviews with Israelis on WJRT to hear their comments on the crisis in Gaza. I have not yet seen any interviews with Palestinians, though I am certain that we have plenty of Palestinian-Americans in Michigan. Neither have I heard the interviewers challenge the points raised by the Israelis who were interviewed, even when statements were made that were obviously less than accurate. See, for example, the following:

Israel began shooting at Palestinians in Gaza the very day after the
six-month 19 June 2008 Egyptian-brokered truce began. On 20 June 2008, "Israeli army troops near the border east of the southern Gaza town of Rafah opened fire towards Palestinian farmers working in al-Amoor, according to U.N. sources." (1)

The first injury that ocurred during the truce was a Palestinian at
the hands of Israeli troops. On 23 June 2008, "Israeli troops near the
border north-west of Beit Lahiya opened fire at a group of people collecting wood, seriously wounding a 70-year-old man, according to U.N. sources." (1)

The first fatality during the truce was a Palestinian at the hands of Israeli troops. "Salim Jum'ah 'Odeh al-Hamedi, 22 year-old resident of a-Zawayda, Deir al-Balah district, killed on 10.07.2008 next to Kissufim, Khan Yunis district, by gunfire. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Killed [when] he tried to sneak into Israel via Kissufim Crossing. Was not armed." (2)

And while the truce called for Israel to open the borders for humanitarian aid, the paltry amount of humanitarian aid that Israel
allowed into Gaza during the truce fell far below the 500 trucks that John Ging, UNRWA director of operations in Gaza, says is required
daily to meet needs. (3)

This, in spite of the fact that "there was no substantial rocket fire from Gaza during the ceasefire until Israel launched an attack last November 4th" and that "during the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of Israel's 1967 borders," according to Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories. (4)

To have initiated hostilities at a time when a cease fire was doing precisely what it was supposed to do was unreasonable enough. For Israel to then use the ensuing conflict as an excuse to use the full force of its military against the tiny strip of Palestinian land was unconscionable. This is especially so when we realise that Israel had been planning Operation Cast Lead for at least six months. (5)

In other words, Israel entered a truce knowing full well that it expected to launch a heavy military assault on Gaza whatever the case.

Rashid Khalidi, whose books have cast light on the history and context of the situation in the Middle East, said that "the cease-fire broke down when Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in early November" after rockets fired from Gaza dwindled to "a total of less than 20" from July to October. (5b) Avi Shlaim, an Israeli author whose books have debunked several Israeli myths, was even more forward in his pronouncement: "It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the
ceasefire. It did so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six
Hamas men." (6)

In the end, 1300 Palestinians died. This compares with 13 Israelis. 65% of the Palestinians killed, or 845, were civilians. (7) Conversely, three of the 13 Israelis killed - 23%, when one does the math - were civilians. (8)

Try for a bit more of a balance in your coverage, please. A dose of reality every now and then is also appreciated. Thank you.
-MyName

(1) "FACTBOX-Israel, Palestinians trade blame for truce violations," Reuters, 26 Jun 2008, at http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26679526.htm

(2) "Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in Gaza Strip 2008," B'Tselem, at http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties_Data.asp?Category=1&region=GAZA

(3) "'Nowhere is safe' for trapped Gaza civilians-UNRWA," By Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters, 13 Jan 2009, at http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSLD195131

(4) "Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe," Richard Falk, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc., 21 Jan 2009, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-falk/understanding-the-gaza-ca_b_154777.html

(5) "Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about," By Barak Ravid, Ha'aretz, 31 Dec 2008, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050426.html

(5b) "What You Don't Know About Gaza," By RASHID KHALIDI, 07 Jan 2009, New York Times, at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

(6) "How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian
catastrophe," Avi Shlaim, The Guardian, 7 January 2009, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine/print?2

(7) "UN chief to visit Gaza on Tuesday: Israel," AFP, 19 Jan 2009, at http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iMtw_wL5atg1xH8Mjhg6PxexU2dg

(8) "Deadly roadside bombing threatens Gaza truce," by MATTI FRIEDMAN, AP, 27 Jan 2009, at
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD95VFC200
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1,000

bismillahi rahmani rahim
Inna lillahi wa inna 'ilayhi raji`un.

A terrible milestone has been reached.

There are no words.

We Muslims grieve together. May Allah have mercy on our shuhada' and comfort those who remain.

wassalamu `alaykum wa rahmatullah
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Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

So Crunchy reminds us that supporting Israel does not stop when the protest ends, but affects our walletbooks.
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