Shauntu شان: News, Politics, & Religion

Blockbuster fights dirty?

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 18:15:05 GMT

Looks like the DVD rental market just became a battlefield for the consumer where the losers are us, the consumer: Blockbuster has reached a deal for exclusive DVD rental rights to movies from the Weinstein Company.

And shoot -- The Protector is one of the movies that Netflix won't be able to get due to this. I wanted to see that movie eventually, and I get Netflix. Sucks to be me I guess.

Left or Right?

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 04:04:56 GMT

Osama links to a CNN quiz about political leanings in this election season, and posts what are, I assume, his results... Well, here are mine...

What about you?

Keep Pakistan on Our Side

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 14:52:12 GMT

An interesting opinion/editorial from The New York Times about Pakistan's assistance of the West.

Quote

Keep Pakistan on Our Side - New York Times
With Pakistan’s help, Britain and the United States were able to prevent a tragedy last week. We must ensure that such help is always available, and hope that it eventually becomes unnecessary through Pakistan’s efforts.

Hitler's Cross

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 13:37:30 GMT

Looks like a restaurant in India has decided it wants to attract people, not based on food, but on controversy. Oh my... they even want to make it a chain/franchise...

Quote

Hitler-themed eatery draws fire - Peculiar Postings - MSNBC.com
“We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we are different in the way he was different.”

Indians blocked from blogger

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:51:13 GMT

It appears that India has started blocking access to blogspot.com now. It joins Pakistan, China, and others (I have heard of Iran and Ethiopia) that block access to blogspot.com in an attempt to prevent the populace from accessing the majority of blogs.

India's rationale? Apparently, "the government is [...] blocking blogs in a crackdown on terrorists".

If you want a refresher on why Pakistan blocked blogspot, check out my summary here...

Interestingly, the article provides a link to http://pkblogs.com/, setup by Pakistanis to get around their block, as something usable by Indians... In fact http://pkblogs.com/ even advertises 'Is your blog blocked in India, Pakistan, Iran or China?'

ABC blasts Government's mistakes with Battlefield 2

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:40:58 GMT

ABC reports on the Government's mistaken assumptions with Battlefield 2's 'terrorist modifications'.

You can read about my coverage of the origins of this story here...

Summary: The US Goverment spent 7 million of our taxpayer dollars investigating the usage of video games by terrorists as training material. They ended up presenting proof of this by showing a video in a special Congress hearing. The video was about a Middle Eastern 'terrorist' narrating his story while blowing up US Army stuff.

The video was of Battlefield 2 and it's expansion pack, a game made and sold by Electronic Arts, a US company. The video was created by the video recording option available in the game. The narration was taken from the American movie Team America. The video was made by someone as a joke, as reported in my previous blog entry about this. ABC just exposed the Congress hearing to be victims to a joke video.

Check out ABC's report (it's in video form). Let me know if you agree with ABC (and me) about the waste of US taxpayer dollars...

Bomb blast during prayer in Karachi

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 17:59:12 GMT

A gathering of people (including 80-100 Islamic scholars) in Karachi, Pakistan, for prayer and to celebrate the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, was torn apart by a bomb blast that has so far known to have killed 40, with many more injured.

People in the West have long wondered why countries like Pakistan, etc, allow or harbor terrorists. The fact of the matter is, they don't. They are themselves targets of these terrorists.

The people who were targetted with this attack were Sunni Muslim -- praying and celebrating the Prophet of Islam. Supposedly, people belonging to the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, along with people like Osama bin Ladin or that Zarqawi guy in Iraq are all supposed to be Sunni Muslim. Even if the terrorists in this case were to claim to be Shia Muslim, they too follow Prophet Mohammed.

It is my opinion that these terrorists, regardless of what they 'claim', follow no religion. They target Western targets and Islamic targets equally, and have done so for years. They have simultanously attempted to create problems between Christians and Muslims, and between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

It's truly a shame if they succeed.

Stick It

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 16:49:03 GMT

This link will take you to a video from a TV show, Boston Legal. I recommend watching it -- its a great speech...

On a side note, can I stop with paying taxes too? :)

For transcript, etc, you can go here...

Not Black & White

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 14:08:07 GMT

There are times when it would be nice, even relieving, if everything were easily divided and identified between good and bad, but the fact is, there is usually a thin (and shifting) line in between... shades of grey...

Here are two news stories. One is about specific individuals in the US, a Muslim couple, and how their attitudes towards the war in Iraq shows how multiple points of view can get along, change over time, etc. The other is by a NBC reporter in Baghdad, in an article that compares life in Baghdad before the war and now -- somethings are definitely better, but other things, atleast for now, are worse...

Pakistanis blocked from Blogger

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 14:28:14 GMT

Due to pressure from stupid political groups, Pakistan's ISPs have blocked access from within Pakistan to 12 websites, including blogger.com. The reason? Cause some blog(s) on blogger posted those stupid Danish cartoons.

End result? All blogger blogs are now blocked from within Pakistan, including those that protested the cartoons in the first place...

Never a fan of censorship, here are some basic ways people within Pakistan can circumvent the ban...

1) Web pased proxies would allow people to reach websites both anonymously, and re-routed out of the ISP's control. Unless the ISP's block access to the web based proxies themselves, they should be easy to use.

http://unipeak.com/
http://anonymouse.org/anonwww.html
http://anonymizer.com/

2) Blogger blogs can be accessed through something called the Coral Content Distribution Network (CCDN). Don't worry about how it works, simply add ".nyud.net:8080" to the blogger URLs...

e.g., take my friend Mamun's blogger blog at http://www.mamun77.blogspot.com/, and use this link instead if within Pakistan to reach it: http://www.mamun77.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8080. The drawback is that while within the blog, whenever you click on a link (e.g., to view comments), you have to manually add the suffix each time.

Hopefully, this stupid censorship ends quickly...

Bush rejects Taj Mahal for Cricket

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 17:51:55 GMT

George Bush is currently in Pakistan, following trips to India and Afghanistan. Lots of serious news in relation to the trip, of course, but there is some humor as well...

A) Bush was admonished by India's Prime Minister Singh for not taking Laura Bush to visit the Taj Mahal -- Bush even admitted he has been 'hearing it' from his wife about it the whole trip.

B) Bush, while in Pakistan, will get to watch a children's cricket match, having 'expressed a desire' to see a cricket match on the trip.

I have to say, I am finding this funny. I doubt most people could give up a visit to the Taj Mahal, especially with a wife who wants to go, and yet watch a sporting event... :)

AZ gives State Workers biggest raise in a decade...

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 02:22:32 GMT

In what seemingly amounts to a 6.3% 'average' raise, AZ has given State Workers their biggest raise in almost a decade...

Unfortunately, there are strings attached... AZ's Governer Janet Napolitano had wanted a 7.5% across the board raise -- however the Senate saw fit to a) decrease it to 6.3%, b) make the across the board part of the raise $1650 rather than 7.5%, c) tack on a 2.5% 'performance based' increase, d) require state agencies to "create new standards to improve productivity and the quality of their services", e) state workers who do not meet those new standards... "could lose the 2.5 percent performance increase", and f) make it so that new hires who make over $47,758 can be fired for any reason like in the private sector (losing the job stability that state jobs are popular for).

Not to mention, come July, we are expected to get a 1.7% increase in the amount the State takes out for Retirement purposes...

So, on one hand, any raise is good... On the other hand, AZ is way behind in offering competitive salaries, not only compared to industry, but compared to neighboring states... as stated in the article: "State workers in Arizona make an average of $32,789 a year, 22 percent below the estimated market value for comparable workers. Employees in nearby states make substantially more: an average of $45,425 in Colorado and $43,550 in Nevada, for example."

Thirdly, this seems to be a 'less than advertised' raise for those who are paid in the higher than 50k category (losing the job stability, and the raise amounts to more like 5% or so -- without counting the upcoming retirement increase!)...

Oh well... :) I predict this as not achieving the stated goal of reducing high turnover and low morale... though if the 'fire for any reason' part ends up applying to older employees as well (and not just new hires as stated in the article), there could be much higher consequences...

For a comparison with past raises, and an apparently gloomy prediction for the future (6.3% raise in the next 4 years? eek), the article ends as such:

"Late in 2005, a state legislative advisory committee recommended employee pay raises of 7.5 percent next year and 6.3 percent during the four years beyond that to bring Arizona up to the market rate.

Lawmakers have approved raises in the past two years for Department of Public Safety and Corrections officers to help stem double-digit turnover rates and close a wide pay gap with other government police forces. Rank-and-file employees got what was termed a 1.7 percent raise last year, but really it was just enough to cover a mandatory increase to their retirement contributions. After that raise was taxed, most employees actually lost a few dollars out of each paycheck.

Rank-and-file workers in other agencies last got a real pay raise in 2004, an across-the-board $1,000 increase that amounted to an average raise of about 2.6 percent. And a $1,400 bump in 2002 was the only other raise they've gotten in the past eight years."

Google, defender of privacy

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 16:39:21 GMT

Looks like Google is gearing up to fight the Bush Administration over privacy rights -- specifically, they are fighting a subpeona to hand over data on what search terms are being used by people...

According to the article, Yahoo has already complied, and so have "Every other search engine served similar subpoenas by the Bush administration"... While MSN Search is not directly indicated, it would appear likely...

Yahoo has justified their compliance by saying the search data asked for didn't identify who performed the searches...

Tablighi Jamaat

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 16:21:32 GMT

First, read this news article: Arizonan tied to terror

The gist of it is, this guy's Permanent Residency application was rejected while he was out of the country, and thus was denied re-entry. Being out of the country, he lost all immigrant rights to appeal etc, and is thus likely gone for good... The guy was a Doctor, a gastroenterologist, at Maricopa Medical Center. He was also apparently a chief executive at a mosque in Mesa...

The reason for his rejection and revoking of his visa, is his affiliation (as coordinator) with Jamaat al Tabligh, a missionary organization. Secondary reasons include not listing his affiliation with the group, or his role with the mosque, in his Permanent Residency application.

I can certainly understand being cautious due to the missing information on the application. What surprises me though, is that among the reasons for the rejection, is that Jamaat al Tabligh is called a 'undesignated terrorist organization'. Now that is a big one... Why isn't this publicized? Why is the group operating in the US if its a terrorist organization? Is this a case of religious persecution of a missionary group, or is it a case of the government allowing a terrorist organization to operate in the US?

When I was studying at ASU on my Bachelors, 1995-1999, is when I first heard of Jamaat al Tabligh, or Tablighi Jamaat as it is called in Urdu... they used to send members around to remind people about Islam and its basics... Basically, I would compare it to Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormon Church's I guess... Initially me and my roommates used to be polite and let them in to hear their lectures -- at the end they would always ask if there are any other 'brothers' they can visit to give their lectures to... my roommate delighted in pointing them to another student he had a grudge with :). Later own we got tired of the lectures and would ignore the knocking on the door and pretend no one's home...

RIAA vs The People

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 21:14:51 GMT

Check out this video... It's an interview segment from CNN with a divorced mom (supporting 5 kids) who is being sued by the RIAA (the music industry basically) because her computer was used, likely by one of her kids, to download music off the internet...

I find it telling that the lady felt she had done everything in her non-technical knowledge to 'protect' her children on the Internet (using AOL Parental controls, for e.g.), but that isn't enough for the RIAA, who just want the lady to pay her way through a settlement, or make an example out of her in court -- which, in my opinion, is code for 'extortion' to force her through a settlement...

Of note, the website I got the link above from indicates that the RIAA have so far sued over 17000 people in this manner, most ending in quite settlements...

Movie Industry Sues Grandfather Over Grandson's Downloads

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 21:01:49 GMT

The grandson, while 12, had downloaded, among others, The Incredibles and I, Robot. MPAA went after grandfather for a $4k settlement, were refused, and are now suing for $600k!!! The rationale is that once the grandson had downloaded the movies, he ended up helping with the distribution of them due to the peer-to-peer nature of iMesh...

Quote

FOXNews.com - Technology - Movie Industry Sues Grandfather Over Grandson's Downloads
The Motion Picture Association of America filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Fred Lawrence of Racine, seeking as much as $600,000 in damages for downloading four movies over the Internet file-sharing service iMesh (search). The suit was filed after Lawrence refused a March offer to settle the matter by paying $4,000.

My question is, this can't be the only case of the MPAA going after people? I mean, why would they only pick a case like this where the MPAA would get particularly bad publicity? Where are the people who distribute movie copies in the first place to such peer-to-peer networks?

Hijab Fashion in the US

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 20:58:43 GMT

An article about western retailers targetting Muslim women who are fashion conscious, written by a Muslim woman...

Hijab Chic - How retailers are marketing to fashion-conscious Muslim women. By Asra Q. Nomani

Pakistan OK's Indian copters, but not pilots

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 16:14:28 GMT

This is a time when Pakistan could use all the help it can get -- and if it helps heal relations with its neighbor, then all the better...

Quote

Pakistan OK's Indian copters, but not pilots - South and Central Asia - MSNBC.com
Pakistan said Monday that it was willing to accept an offer from rival India to send helicopters for earthquake relief operations, but without Indian pilots. "Given the obvious sensitivities, we could not accept involvement of Indian military on our side for relief operations," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

And baby makes ... 18?

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 20:08:30 GMT

Yowzers. Plus, a J fetish...

Quote

And baby makes ... 18? - Women's Health - MSNBC.com
Their children include two sets of twins, and each child has a name beginning with the letter “J”: Joshua, 17; John David, 15; Janna, 15; Jill, 14; Jessa, 12; Jinger, 11; Joseph, 10; Josiah, 9; Joy-Anna, 8; Jeremiah, 6; Jedidiah, 6; Jason, 5; James, 4; Justin, 2; Jackson Levi, 1; and now Johannah.

View from within Pakistan

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 20:27:24 GMT

Hasan Zaidi, an NBC News producer based in Karachi, Pakistan, on Monday visited the devastated cities of Muzaffarabad and Balakot, which lay near the epicenter of the Pakistan earthquake. He describes how people are grappling with the tragedy, maintaining hope in the face of despair and the strains of covering a story that has hit so close to home.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9663418/

30000 killed in Kashmir?

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 18:10:58 GMT

Holy crap. The estimated death tolls have gone up since last night -- instead of 3000, now they are estimating 30000, mainly in Kashmir...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9626146/

India's Prime Minister is offering Pakistan assistance, even with India having suffered casualties and damage from the quake. I seriously think Pakistan should accept the offer. Some good may come of tragedy yet...

Thousands killed in massive earthquake covering Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan

Sat, 08 Oct 2005 18:25:11 GMT

Bad news to wake up to.

Thousands killed in massive Asia earthquake - South and Central Asia - MSNBC.com
A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake near the Pakistan-India border Saturday reduced villages to rubble, triggered landslides and flattened an apartment building. More than 2,000 people were killed in both nations, and a Pakistan army spokesman called the devastation "a national tragedy."

Looks like the worst of the tragedy is going to be villages in Kashmir destroyed by landslides in the mountains caused by the earthquake... I can't quite imagine how people affected must be feeling right now, or how it would have been to go through something like this.

The following picture is from MSNBC of a collapsed 10 story residential building in Islamabad.

New Orleans Photo Map

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 16:08:14 GMT

http://msnbc.msn.com/apps/ve/katrina.htm

An interesting use of MSN VirtualEarth that shows aerial photos of specific locations, before and after shots, side by side so you can get a scope of the damage to the city.

Under 21 cannot marry in India

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 00:09:44 GMT

Ok, so India turns out to have a law prohibiting men to marry before they are 21, though women can marry once they are 18. Also, living together without marriage is not very common. So what do this couple do?

Quote

Indian girl weds lover’s brother to beat the law - Peculiar Postings - MSNBC.com
An Indian college girl has temporarily married her teenaged boyfriend’s elder brother so she can live in the same house as her lover until he is old enough to marry her

That is going to be one nutty household for the next two years...

Don't deviate from the script!

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 13:50:29 GMT

I found this paragraph rather odd...

Later in Biloxi, Miss., Bush tried to comfort two stunned women wandering their neighborhood clutching Hefty bags, looking in vain for something to salvage from the rubble of their home. He kept insisting they could find help at a Salvation Army center down the street, even after another bystander had informed him it had been destroyed.
(Italicized by me for emphasis)

The paragraph was in the second page of an MSNBC article that stated some of the more ridiculous things Bush did in his response to the New Orleans disaster, and how the administration is now trying to repair his image.

Disasters and the Public Response

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 23:58:59 GMT

Over the last few years, a few particularly major disasters (both man-made, and natural) have occured. For the most part, I don't see a lot of people get that concerned or worried about the people affected, or attempt to do anything about it. The news media does generally cover these events a fair amount, but usually these things happen outside the US, so I could imagine that might explain the lack of a public reaction, as well as the at times limited scope of the news coverage. After all, the national (and international) response to the terrorist strikes on Sept 11, 2001, which killed over 3000 people, was amazing.

Stuff like the Earthquakes that affected Bam, Iran (30,000 estimated killed, Dec 26, 2003) and Gujarat, India (16480 killed, Jan 26, 2001).

Stuff like the US cleanup efforts in Fallujah, Iraq (1200-1600 estimated, 2004) and the pilgrims stampede amid fears of suicide bombers in Baghdad, Iraq (800+, Aug, 2005).

Stuff like the Tsunami in Indonesia (Boxing Day, 2004), which is estimated to have killed 100,000+ people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, etc, on Boxing Day. I remember being particularly shocked by this one, as the initial reaction from the Bush administration mirrored the public reaction -- a simple declaration of minimal financial aid package. It was only a few days after the Tsunami disaster when the public seemed to wake up and realize what had happened, and the Bush administration got serious about assisting with the Rescue and Recovery operations.

All of these figures above don't even get close to showing the suffering of the people affected by these tragedies, both short-term and long-term.

That is why I am so surprised over the reaction these first few days following the hurricane that has devastated New Orleans. I am sure as people realize that the dead number possibly in the thousands, and will increase the longer it takes for help to reach the city... that the hit to the country is in more ways than just increased gas prices... that a whole bustling US city is pretty much on the verge of destruction... yes I am sure people will wake up and start all sorts of assistance programs, like they did with the Tsunami. But to see this delay in reaction both from the public and the government to such a disaster striking a US city, still boggles my mind.

PS: I wonder, what would be the government's plan of action to rescue a city if it had been hit by a man-made disaster of this magnitude? After all, they have supposedly been planning for terrorist inflicted dirty bombs, etc, right? Check out this article discussing the failure of the government to act immediately...

PPS: I wonder if the public and government reaction would be more forceful and more immediate if the ravaging of New Orleans had in fact been a terrorist act? I would guess yes.

PPS: One place people from a distance could help, is the American Red Cross. There are many other ways as well, e.g., donating blood -- which could be useful to survivors who manage to last until the government can finally begin rescue operations.

World kicks US when it's down

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 16:46:08 GMT

I was quite surprised to read some of the quotes from this Reuters news article...

Examples:

"I am absolutely disgusted. After the tsunami our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering," said Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36, as he watched a cricket match in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
"Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S. we can easily see where the civilized part of the world's population is."

And:

"In one of the poorest states in the country, where black people earn half as much as white people, this has taken on a racial dimension," said a report in Britain's Guardian daily.

And:

David Fordham, 33, a hospital anesthetist speaking at a London underground rail station, said he had spent time in America and was not surprised the country had struggled to cope.
"Maybe they just thought they could sit it out and everything would be okay," he said.

That said, especially that last excerpt seems rather true. Here I am in Arizona, this natural disaster and it's followup have been going on for about a week now, and while I am sure TV and the Web News are full of reports on it, I haven't yet encountered a single person who has mentioned what is happening in New Orleans.

PS: One place people from a distance could help, is the American Red Cross.

Pakistan and Israel start diplomatic relations

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 13:26:13 GMT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9155938/

"The meeting in Istanbul was at the initiative of Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and was expected to be followed by confidence building measures, such as a relaxation of Pakistan’s ban against travel to the Jewish state, an Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject."

Chavez must be upset...

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 14:15:02 GMT

Pat Robertson, a rather famous televangelist, just asked for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's President, on TV.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9047102/

“You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,” Robertson said. “It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”

“We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,” Robertson said.

The MSNBC story has a link to a live vote on whether Robertson went too far. Currently, 15% think not.

Hurricane Mania

Tue, 12 Jul 2005 21:27:23 GMT

Ok I enjoyed reading this. Its rather overblown for a Hurricane news coverage parody...

http://chris.pirillo.com/blog/_archives/2005/7/10/1013202.html

There is also a separate Audio parody by the same guy here: http://chris.pirillo.com/blog/_archives/2005/7/10/1013300.html#trackbacks

Explore the Quran

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 02:24:58 GMT

USA Today has an article about the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sending free copies of an English translation of the Quran to anyone who requests it.

"The best way to pursue peace is to get to know your neighbor a whole lot better than we do now," says the Rev. Thomas Martin, a retired Presbyterian (U.S.A.) minister in Powell, Ohio, who ordered a Koran. "If I'm going to know my neighbors, I need to know something about their faith."

According to the article, to request a Quran, call 1-800-78-ISLAM or visit www.explorethequran.org

Payback time!

Tue, 26 Apr 2005 00:39:22 GMT

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1053595,00.html

The White House admits as much: "We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that," says White House spokesman Trent Duffy. Those barred from the trip include employees of Qualcomm and Nokia, two of the largest telecom firms operating in the U.S., as well as Ibiquity, a digital-radio-technology company in Columbia, Md. One nixed participant, who has been to many of these telecom meetings and who wants to remain anonymous, gave just $250 to the Democratic Party. Says Nokia vice president Bill Plummer: "We do not view sending experts to international meetings on telecom issues to be a partisan matter. We would welcome clarification from the White House."

Wow... I cannot fathom the repercussions of something like this if it were to start happening everywhere!

How many died?

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 23:28:30 GMT

One of the questions I have sometimes had, and that people seem to have highly varying guesses as to the answer, is how many people have died in Iraq since the war started? Some news articles about the war do tend to mention the number of American soldiers who have died, but it tends to be rare to see numbers for how many Iraqi's have died...

Well, here are some sites that do seem to indicate possible numbers:

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/2/voices-guterman.asp (100,000+ estimate from Fall 2004 -- apparently treated quite seriously in Europe)

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/ (fully tabulated listing of US and allied casualties, including how they were killed etc)

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ (man, if this site is authentic, its the motherload of what I was looking for... Min 17186, Max 19559, definitely more conservative than the first link... with the claim that they use multiple media sources before adding an 'incident' into their database... also they are apparently including people who died due to inadequate healthcare and sanitation, which probably I hadn't thought of before...)

Woman leads Muslim prayers in US, makes the news

Sat, 19 Mar 2005 21:24:11 GMT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7233152/

I have never heard of something like this (Woman leading Muslims, both male and female, in prayer) before, although women leading prayers with other women only is quite common. I have to admit, I can't figure out what my opinion is on this -- on the one hand, it brings up the equalities and unequalities between men and women, a topic that needs more discussion in the Muslim world; however on the other hand, those set in their ways can simply dismiss it as a stunt originating from the West, even though it is originating from part of the Muslim community in the West...

As for why its not normally done, hmm I can't say I am sure. I can say this though -- in Tempe, AZ, having women attend prayers in the Mosque is quite regular and common, yet in Pakistan it was basically unheard off... From what I have read and heard, Pakistan is generally considered to be in the wrong there from a religious point of view, for having managed to have that social effect...

This is the kind of thing that makes me wish there were actual people reading these ramblings of mine, as I wouldn't mind seeing a discussion take place on this here, hopefully with references and whatnot...

Guantanamo Bay

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 14:23:19 GMT

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1406987,00.html

Reading that made me sad... As much as I don't want to believe some of the stuff in that article, it appears more and more likely that the interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay are rather inhumane...

"Then he starts covering me with my own waste, like he's using a big paintbrush, working methodically, beginning with my feet and ankles and working his way up my legs. All the while he's racially abusing me, cussing me: "Oh, the poor little negro, the poor little nigger." He seemed to think it was funny.'"

I'd like to see a real investigation about the interrogation techniques used there, so that we can finally learn officially what is going on there, rather than having people creating rumors and conspiracy theories based on what individuals released from Guantanamo Bay may have said...

Fear Factor -- Rats!

Thu, 06 Jan 2005 23:08:28 GMT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6791453/

"He said the show caused his blood pressure to rise so high that he became dizzy and light-headed, and when he ran away to his room, he bumped his head into the doorway."

The above happened after a guy watched the contestants on the TV show Fear Factor eat rats. He is now suing NBC for $2.5 million.

Nice work if you can get it...

Poll shows U.S. views on Muslim-Americans

Sat, 18 Dec 2004 18:19:19 GMT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6729916/

While polls can be used to show anything, it was still surprising to see this on the front page of MSNBC...

What wasn't surprising, unfortunately, was that the people in favor of limitting Muslim-American rights, were generally Republicans, and those against it, generally Democrats...

Albanian Hijackers

Thu, 16 Dec 2004 02:49:35 GMT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6715678/

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/12/15/greece.hostages/index.html

Apparently a couple of Albanian's hijacked a bus, made demands, wanted to go to Russia. The situation has since been resolved as well.

I just thought it was interesting that in the MSNBC and CNN articles, nowhere does it mention the religion of the hijackers. I mention this, because lately, they do make it a point of mentioning when hijackers/terrorists are Muslim. Add to it that Albania does have Muslims as part of their population, and I have to wonder if the networks checked into the religious backgrounds of the hijackers and didn't find anything 'interesting' to report on.

Reading the CNN article, though, its even more interesting that their religion is not mentioned. That is due to this paragraph:

But late Wednesday, one of the hijackers, who called himself "Hassan," told a local television station of their demands and set the deadline for the bus to be blown up.

Since the hijackers real names turned out to be Mourataj Leonard and Resuli Njazi, which don't sound particularly Muslim to me, its even more interesting that their actual religion is not mentioned.

Who here thinks that if they were Muslim, it would have been mentioned prominently in all the articles that they were of the Islamic faith?

Umm yeah thats right, no one, cause no one knows about this blog... Maybe I should tell some friends/family about it...