Unemployment: what, me worry? Sharia: Act now!

Fox News revs up the anti-Muslim hysteria :(

I am so glad I don't get Faux News.  Why this anti-Muslim propaganda?  Awful!  The "mosque-ing of America?" Seriously, how low will these guys go?  One of the worst things that Murdoch could have ever done to America ... am so glad he is in trouble across the waters :)

If only we had bold, responsible, and no-nonsense leaders like Gov. Christie

What an awesome statement from Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey. (ht)  And in time for Ramadan ...
Makes me damn proud to be an American :)



What a crazy anti-Muslim hysteria we have in this country. 

I wonder how this anti-Muslim mania compares with the anti-Catholic and anti-Semite viruses of the past. It is awful that we haven't learnt from those and many other ugly aspects of our history.

Even more pathetic: there are very few politicians like Governor Christie who bluntly dismiss such hysteria with the kind of an attitude and words he uses.  Yes, "crazies" and "crap" are the best way to deal with them.

And, by the way, what ever happened to the Islamic Center project across from NJ, in the Empire State?  Remember that one?

Taliban executes a 47-year old pregnant widow :(

What an awful news!  May the people who inflicted this punishment die the worst possible torturous death!

The Taliban has executed a pregnant widow accused of adultery in western Afghanistan, provincial and district officials said Monday.
The 47-year-old woman, Sanam Gul, also known as Sanam Bibi, was killed in Badghis province Saturday morning, said Ashrafuddin Majidi, the provincial governor's spokesman.
The district governor of Qades, Hashim Habibi, confirmed the execution. He said the woman was accused of adultery that left her pregnant. The Taliban shadow district governor, Mullah Abdul Hakim, and his judge ordered the woman to be executed, he said.
Mohammad Yousuf, a Taliban commander, carried out the execution, shooting the woman in her head, Habibi said. ...

... The statement from the ISAF cited reports that the widow was whipped 200 times before she was shot.

"The Taliban shadow district governor"???? WTF!!!

A "Christian Sharia" in Texas? OMD!

According to this news item from the Times (HT),

A Texas man is due to be executed next month despite admissions by jurors that they consulted biblical passages advocating death as a punishment to help to decide his fate.
Before sending Khristian Oliver to his death after he was convicted of murdering his victim — who was bludgeoned with a gun barrel — jurors read passages of the Old Testament, including one that states that a killer who uses an iron object to kill “shall surely be put to death”.

Note that there was no reasonable doubt regarding the guilt of the accused.  So, the issue is not with establishing whether or not the accused was indeed guilty.  But, it is with the punishment--even though capital punishment is legal in Texas, and even though "the jurors were instructed by the judge not to refer to anything that was not presented as evidence in the courtroom" the jurors' decision to go with the death sentence was guided by passages from the bible :-(

Amnesty International called on the Texas authorities to commute Oliver’s death sentence because since his trial, jurors had admitted that they read the Bible while they decided whether he should live or die. In particular, they said that Bibles were passed around with specific passages highlighted, and that one juror read aloud to his fellow jurors the passage, from Numbers XXXV, 16: “And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death.”

This is not a new case--the homicidal act was in 1998.  And apparently the consultation with the bible was known soon after, which is why the death sentence had been appealed:

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said last year that jurors had wrongly used the Bible and that it had amounted to an “external influence” prohibited under the US Constitution. Yet the court said there was not enough evidence to show they were prejudiced when they decided to send Oliver to death row.
In April the US Supreme Court — the final chance Oliver had to appeal against his death sentence — refused to hear the case, despite being urged to do so by 50 former and current federal and state prosecutors.

Hmmm ....refused to hear the case?  How awful!  So, does the refusal legitimize jurors consulting the bible to award punishments?  What if a few other juries decide to follow this "precedent?"  Isn't the role of the Supremes to essentially make sure we have the correct constitutional precedents for law?  Oh wait, according to Chief Justice Roberts their job is only to call balls and strikes.  Yeah, right!  And this is not a case where he didn't have to worry if it was a ball or a strike :-(

BTW, what an odd coincidence that the Christian jurors consulted the bible to arrive at the death sentence for the accused whose name sounds the same as the faithful, with one difference in the lettering: Khristian!!!

F%&*ed up in Pakistan

I earlier blogged about reports that the pilotless drones that the US was using to bomb militants in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border were flying out of bases in Pakistan. And my fear was that crap will start flying all over the place.

Now, there is more evidence of our base(s) in Pakistan. Yes, real photo evidence. Thanks to Google Earth!

The Times (London) reports with photos that the US has been flying drones from the Shamsi airbase in Baluchistan--as early as 2006. Does the acronym FUBAR come into your mind?

An investigation by The Times yesterday revealed that the CIA was secretly using Shamsi to launch the Predator drones that observe and attack al-Qaeda and Taleban militants around Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
US special forces used the airbase during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but the Pakistani Government said in 2006 that the Americans had left. Both sides have since denied repeatedly that Washington has used, or is using, Pakistani bases to launch drones. Pakistan has also demanded that the US cease drone attacks on its tribal area, which have increased over the last year, allegedly killing several “high-value” targets as well as many civilians.
The Google Earth image now suggests that the US began launching Predators from Shamsi — built by Arab sheiks for falconry trips — at least three years ago. The advantage of Shamsi is that it provides a discreet launchpad within minutes of Quetta — a known Taleban staging post — as well as Taleban infiltration routes into Afghanistan and potential militant targets farther afield.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani government has okayed shaira law in the Swat region. Hey, more power and influence for the Talibans, and we are not worried, right? Again, FUBAR! The BBC reports that the US is concerned. "Concern" is not the right word here, Mr. President. Concern is if the Pakistani president has a fall and fractures his hip. In this situation, the master of the language that Obama is, I bet he can easily use way more powerful words.

Hail a cab, explore the world

Whether I travel for work or pleasure, whether I go to cities in the United States or abroad, I find it difficult not to engage in one activity: talking with cab drivers about global economics and politics.

It was the night after the elections when I flagged a cab at the airport in Phoenix to head to the hotel and conference venue. I resisted the temptation to ask the driver if he was from Ethiopia, because once before in a different city I asked a driver that same thing. The driver informed me that he hailed from Eritrea, and his brusque tone indicated that he did not quite appreciate my question.

The small country of Eritrea became independent from Ethiopia after a 30-year war, and border and ethnic tensions persist. So it was understandable that my Eritrean driver felt a tad offended when I asked him if he was Ethiopian.

Having learned from my mistakes, which is something my wife says I don’t do enough, this time I asked the cab driver if he was from somewhere in East Africa. Yes indeed — he was from Somalia.

That was all I needed to engage him in a conversation about Somalia and his take on the United States.

I asked him about a news item from the previous day about reports of a female who had been stoned to death. According to news reports and Amnesty International, the female was a 13-year-old rape victim. According to a few Somalis, she was a 23-year old woman who had confessed to adultery. I asked the cab driver for his views.

The driver was convinced that the victim was not a 13-year-old, but a 23-year-old. And that it was not rape, but adultery. And, finally, it was not a case that was initiated by society, but was triggered by her admission of guilt — confession. The cab driver’s logic was that people had no choice in the matter because her confession automatically warranted the punishment.

When I suggested that stoning somebody to death was harsh and cruel, well, he did not think so. His response was strange to me, given that this conversation was happening in the United States, and more so in Arizona, which is known for its libertarian tendencies.

The item and the conversation with the cabbie was a refreshing reminder of the rule of law that we have in this country. While a sexual relationship outside of marriage might be considered by some Americans as immoral, we clearly make a distinction between individual notions of morality and a collective sense of legality. Death by stoning, which is thankfully a rare practice anywhere, introduces a harsh and extreme version of legality.

On the other hand, if Amnesty International and news agencies are found to be correct in their reports that a 13-year old rape victim had been stoned, then the story takes on an entirely different dimension and surpasses any discussion of morality, legality and cruel and unusual punishment. It is simply atrocious.

I could not discuss these matters further with the driver because we had reached the hotel. But neither am I able to shake off the news. It was my first conversation with somebody who defended anything as terrible as death by stoning. The clichéd conversation with cab drivers that commentators often rely upon, as if we are hard-wired that way, turned out to be anything but ordinary.

But this story is only a small part of the tragedy Somalia has become. It has been a failed state for a number of years. Piracy off its coast is not a Hollywood-style “Pirates of the Caribbean” swashbuckler but real, with economic and human costs. Neighboring Kenya has been warned by warring Somali factions that it should stay out unless it wants to be drawn into the conflict.

Perhaps there is no better time than now to follow up on these and many other global issues that we need to understand, and to see if there is something we could do constructively in order to make it a better world. This is a good time because the week of Nov. 17 is celebrated as International Education Week as well as Geography Awareness Week.

And, yes, please continue to have conversations with cab drivers, too.

For the Register Guard, November 17, 2008

Islamic (Sharia) law in the UK?

ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.
The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence. ...
... Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a “parallel legal system” based on sharia for some British Muslims.
Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so.” Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “I think it’s appalling. I don’t think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state.”

That is an excerpt from a Times report. These issues will not go away anytime soon. In fact, we can expect such issues to pop up more and more in continental Europe too. India and many other countries have had a tough time figuring out how Sharia might coexist along with a uniform legal system for all citizens. Before you jump into conclusions, this is neither the clash of civilizations, nor the trigger for THE clash.