Passengers Sued over Imams' Removal

Ok, this pretty much destroys any credibility these Imams had for (rightly) being offended about (wrongly) getting booted off a plane.

Six Muslim men removed from a plane last fall after being accused of suspicious behavior are suing not only the airline but the passengers who complained — a move some fear could discourage travelers from speaking up when they see something unusual.

It sets a terrible precedent when regular people have to be afraid to speak up if they sense something suspicious is going on at an airport. The right people to sue--and to learn how to properly evaluate such situations--are the airlines themselves. They are the ones, after all, who kicked the Imams off the plane.

I also happen to value freedom of speech, which unfortunately, but necessarily includes the right to be a racist a$$hole.

Passenger Pat Snelson, who lives in a Twin Cities suburb, said he and his wife were not among those who reported suspicious behavior. But he said his wife noticed the men praying, and he saw them moving around the cabin while others were boarding.

"These guys were up to no good," Snelson said. "We think the airport people did a real good job in taking care of it."

click here for full article

I don't like Wudu.

Wudu messes up my makeup and hair, and it dries out my skin. I hate having to take off my shoes to make wudu at work. I hate the fact that praying is such a hassle--not because of the prayer itself, but because I need to go to the bathroom, make wudu, come back, put lotion on my now dry, nearly makeupless face and put more powder on top of the lotion. And THEN pray. Bah! It's even worse if you are in a public place and have to take off your shoes in some yucky public bathroom, make wudu while everying stares at you, wondering if you're a homeless person giving yourself a sponge-bath, and THEN pray, ONLY after you've found a safe place to pray that is low-profile enough not to not provoke someone into calling the TIPS hotline.

But I know that it is obligatory, and that there is good in it..

(5:6) YOU who have attained to faith! When you are about to pray, wash your face, and your hands and arms up to the elbows, and pass your [wet] hands lightly over your head, and [wash] your feet up to the ankles. And if you are in a state. requiring total ablution, purify yourselves. But if you are ill, or are travelling, or have just satisfied a want of nature, or have cohabited with a woman, and can find no water-then take resort to pure dust, passing therewith lightly over your face and your hands. God does not want to impose any hardship on you, but wants to make you pure, and to bestow upon you the full measure of His blessings, so that you might have cause to be grateful.

Here, Dr Muzammil H. Siddiqi gives a detailed response (scroll down to question 4) to someone who had similar complaints to mine (although I am not advocating the abolition of ablution). And here is an essay on cleanliness being part of your faith.

Isn't that normal for you people?

Politicians and Muslim leaders denounced a German judge for citing the Quran in her rejection of a Muslim woman's request for a quick divorce on grounds she was abused by her husband.

The judge argued that her case was not one of exceptional hardship in which fast-track divorce proceedings would be justified. When the woman protested, Datz-Winter cited a passage from the Quran that reads in part, ''men are in charge of women.''

Erm... didn't Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) grant some lady a quicky divorce just because her husband was ugly? ...wait a minute, I'm acting like this German Judge is qualified to interpret Islamic Law! Which is almost as abusurd as a judge doling out judgements based on the Qur'an, in a totally secular country!

While the Quranic verse cited does say that husbands are allowed to beat their wives if they are disobedient, Germany's Institute for Islamic Questions noted that such an interpretation was no longer standard. ''Of course not all Muslims use violence against their wives,'' the group said in a statement.

Good comeback, Germany's Institute for Islamic Questions! That'll show 'em! "Not all" Muslim men beat their wives... indeed!

click here for full article

I Heart Weight Watchers

After I got married, I gained 25 lbs INSTANTLY. About a year later, my husband and I went on the South Beach diet. It was a pretty good diet, and without any portion control, I managed to lose about 20 lbs. The main idea behind South Beach is that any food with a high Glycemic Index (GI) raises your blood sugar too fast, and when it crashes you have big cravings. It's low-sugar and high-fiber and well-suited for diabetics (although I am not diabetic.. And Insha Allah I won't be any time soon). Some people consider it to be low-carb, but it's actually not at all, you just switch to unprocessed carbs like whole wheat bread and brown rice instead of FREAKIN' DONUTS!

Even after I went off the diet, I didn't gain the weight back. But I wanted to lose more weight, and I didn't want to go through phase 1 of South Beach again.. it was too hard! For two weeks, you can't have any sugar, and that includes the sugar in fruit! So I found this other diet, called the Glycemic Load (GL) diet. It's like South Beach, but considers the GL of each food, rather than the GI. Which means it takes into account, not only the GI but the portion size, so you can have small amounts of high GI food, and it's okay. This made more sense to me, because South Beach prohibited CARROTS in the first two weeks because of a high GI, but in fact carrots will only make your blood sugar rise too quickly if you eat like a pound of them in one sitting.

The only problem was... I didn't lose any weight from this diet. And my husband GAINED weight! I THOUGHT it was too easy... I emailed the author personally, and he was surprisingly available for questions, but when I asked him why my husband was gaining weight, he said it was because he wasn't exercising enough, and that you have to exercise for this diet to work. The problem with that logic is that he wasn't gaining any weight before, when he wasn't exercising OR dieting!!! Dude!

But NOW... now.... things are different. One day, I read an article about a guy who lost 50 lbs in 3 months. Now, that's a lot, but what caught my eye were his unconventional tips. Firstly, he didn't diet on the weekends. And he didn't cut things out of his diet, he just found healthier alternatives so he wouldn't feel psychologically deprived. AND, he wasn't a total Nazi about it, so if there was a party or a birthday or something, he would just switch that day with one of his "weekend off" days. And he used the Weight Watchers plan.

Now, he didn't join Weight Watchers. No, no. He just read their Patent. How smart is that?? Well, I did a little reading, and discovered that this is, in fact, all you need in order to do Weight Watchers. So my husband and I have been doing the POINTS program without paying for it for about a week and a half now, and it's working! And it's really easy too! I wish I'd done this to begin with, in fact.

My mom actually joined Weight Watchers some time ago, and she lost a ton of weight. She's in waaaay better shape than I am. Hopefully we can get into great shape as well, and if it continues to be as easy as this from now on, I think we've got a shot!

Don't Be Evil

Wow.. this is horrifying! Makes me want to stick to Google instead. Then again... (as the article below points out), their slogan of "Don't be evil" may too good to be true as well..

Yu's husband is now in Beijing Prison No. 2, serving a 10-year sentence for inciting subversion with his pro-democracy internet writings. According to the written court verdict, the Chinese government convicted Wang, in part, on evidence provided by Yahoo.

click here for full article

Beauty's Only Skin Deep.

A while ago, my bestest friend HijabiApprentice introduced me to this GREAT beauty blog, which shall remain unnamed for the time being... Anyhow, over time I began to realize that whenever this blog would mention a friend of theirs for some beauty-related reason--and link to said friend's blog--I would read that friend's blog and I would each time find... that this friend is a neocon who HATES Muslims.

That makes me sad. Oh, well.

'Nuff Said.

James Madison, revered as one of the architects of the Constitution and the USA's fourth president, might in today's bumper-sticker politics be labeled a flip-flopper. But the country owes him a great debt because he wasn't afraid to change his mind.

Madison, whose 256th birthday is today, was against the Bill of Rights before he was for it. Freedoms that are taken for granted today - of speech, religion and the press - and other invaluable protections against tyranny are in the Constitution because Madison reversed his view that a Bill of Rights wasn't needed.

*snip*

Despite later government attempts to stifle unpopular views, invade citizens' privacy and railroad criminal suspects, the freedoms of generations since have been protected by Madison's prescience. His birthday is a reminder that those who have power will always be tempted to abuse it and that they can be restrained only if they are kept under watchful eyes.

click here for full article

He Stole My Wallet, Too.

The 31 plots that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said he helped organize, according to a Defense Department transcript of a statement he made during a hearing at Guantanamo Bay prison:

-Truck bombing the World Trade Center in 1993.

-The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

-Beheading American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002.

-The plot to use shoe bombs to blow up two American planes, not just the trans-Atlantic flight on which would-be British shoe-bomber Richard Reid was caught in 2001.

*snip*

And last, but not least:

-The assasination of Abraham Lincoln.

I Want this book. Seriously.

Anytime I hear about an Imam like Abdulwahid van Bommel, I feel like there might be some hope left for our community. Sadly, leaders like him are few and far between...

It is a misconception that humour and Islam do not go together, says Dutch convert to Islam Abdulwahid van Bommel. He has written a book with jokes about the Muslim faith.

Van Bommel, who changed his name from Arie Jan to Abdulwahid, was inspired to write the book in response to the violent reactions to the Danish cartoons. He himself did enjoy some of the cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed. "Admit it: the picture of Mohammed saying at heaven's gateway to the umpteenth battered Muslim terrorist that they are unfortunately all out of virgins, that was humorous, was it not?"

click here for full article

hehe.

I Embraced Islam, And It Sucked..

Here's an interesting--and kind of funny--review of My Year Inside Radical Islam, by a guy who converted, and then left Islam after two years:

In 1998, after graduating from college, Gartenstein-Ross took a job with the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation essentially because the group, flush with money from Saudi Arabia and the sole Muslim outpost in town, was looking for an intern. (After 9/11, the FBI shut down Al-Haramain and indicted Gartenstein-Ross' former boss for conspiracy to defraud the United States and for filing a false IRS return by a tax-exempt organization. Gartenstein-Ross was neither involved in nor aware of any of these illegal actions.) This internship encompasses Gartenstein-Ross' "radicalization and the long slow climb out" of Islam, an odd label, considering the entirety of his indoctrination and extrication is less than two years. The book would be better titled My Yearlong Internship at a Charity That I Had No Idea Was Funding al-Qaida. But that would hardly make the front table at Barnes and Noble, would it?

Click here for full review.

So basically, he converted to Islam, found that the people (that he ran with) sucked, and then left the faith. It reminds me a bit of another book written by a convert, Believing As Ourselves. This sister also converted to Islam, found that (some of the) people sucked. But she was able to separate herself from those in the community who made life difficult as a new Muslim, and come out stronger, with the understanding that Islam doesn't ask you to abandon yourself. Interesting contrast.