Imam Shafi’i (rahimuAllah) “Never do I debate a man with a desire to hear him go wrong in his articulation, or to expose the flaws in his argument, and thus vanquish him.
Whenever I face an opponent in debate I silently supplicate, ‘O Lord, help him so that truth may manifest itself in his heart and on his tongue. If it be that the truth is on my side, may he follow me; and if the truth be on his side, may I follow him.”
Zerina Usman's take on my bio:
Zahra never dealt with dating and breakups in high school. She believes Islamic etiquette between the sexes kept her focused and emotionally un-entangled. Now a law student, the pragmatic Zahra remains dedicated to her career goals, only considers men who can handle her ambition, and watches her Muslim friends, one by one, succumb to cupid's arrow.
The world is coming to an end, or so it seems.
I think I just suffered thru one of the longest days, of the year. The straw that broke the camel's back arrived at Safeway about an hour ago. I might blog about the rest of the day later, but here's what you're getting for now:
I needed milk and bananas. Nothing else. However, I saw the ice cream sale signs. So I thought I'd take a look. Dreyers' was the featured brand; $6.49 a carton. However, if you bought one you'd get a 2nd one for free. Sounds great, right?
What? No. It can't be. I've been eating ice cream religiously since my early days in this world. How could I not remember what a carton was supposed to look like?
And then it hit me. Look at the Breyers' and Safeway cartons to compare. Sure enough, something was wrong. Approximately 80% of the containers were "1.5 L" in size and the other 20% were "1.75 L" - needless to say, the 1.75 L containers reminded me of my childhood while the 1.5 ones made me think "omA! The world is coming to an end."
Maybe it is, because I was able to find this when I got home:
Grocery shoppers have come to expect certain sizes in cans and bottles, but a check of three Edmond grocery stores found some changes in packaging. For instance, Breyers Ice Cream recently shrank the size of its cartons from 1.75 quarts to 1.5 quarts. The manufacturers of Edy's Ice Cream have followed suit. The change comes down to a choice of making the products cost more or creating a container slightly smaller and maintaining the same price.
As Salaam Alaikum Zahra's family and friends,
My name is Mona Khalil and I am currently a second year Peace Corps volunteer serving in Morocco.
At the moment, I am working on raising money for a Computer and Resource center for my local youth center that serves my community and neighboring villages. My proposal includes 6 computers and 15 dictionaries at a total cost of $2,880.00. Any amount* you can donate to this project is appreciated. If you are not in a position to donate, I completely understand. But if you forward this email along to people you know, you are still contributing to our cause. Every bit helps in any way possible.
*Your gift supporting this project is tax-deductible.-Mona
So tragic, think of the work conditions (and gas prices) the truck driver is suffering because of AND think of the Oreos:
Police say a trailer loaded with 14 tons of double-stuffed Oreos has overturned, spilling the cookies still in their plastic sleeves into the median and roadway.
Illinois State Police Sgt. Brian Mahoney says the truck's driver was traveling from Chicago to Morris on Interstate 80 around 4 a.m. Monday when he fell asleep at the wheel and slammed into the median.
"The boxes came out of the trailer and boxes were ripped open," he said.
The crash about 50 miles southwest of Chicago remains under investigation.
Mahoney says no charges have been filed but both lanes of traffic remain closed while authorities remove the cookies.
May 15, 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, when Palestinians were forced from their homes and ethnically cleansed en masse in a premeditated and organized campaign carried out by armed Zionist militia.
The events of 1947-49, and specifically 1948 itself, are known as Al-Nakba, the Catastrophe. It was the time of the forced expulsion of at least 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias, but has the catastrophe now finished? Another year has now passed, this one marks the 60th since May 1948, and the pain is no less now than it was all those years ago. Once again 15 May has come around without answers and justice. Still millions wait for their rights. Still millions are forced to live crowded together in the refugee camps of Palestine and surrounding countries. But while some are marking this as the 60th year since the Nakba, should we not be marking this as the 60th year of the ongoing Nakba?
Source: Redress Information & Analysis
Sixty years on, the state of Israel has given the world the Palestinian Nakba, the killing of Palestinian children for sport, the targeted assassinations of innocent Palestinians, the Apartheid Wall, and house demolition. Israel has given the world the most racist state in modern history, characterised by laws for Jews and discriminatory laws for none-Jews. Israel has given the world Zionist Jews who appropriating the Nazi Holocaust for shameful ends and too often tried to tar any legitimate criticism of Israel with the cliché of “anti-Semitism”. Israel has also given the world war criminals such as David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barack, Shimon Peres, and Isaac Shamir, to mention just a few achievements.
Thank God my dreams did NOT include being a judge in Denmark:
Denmark's government said Wednesday it will prepare legislation that would bar judges from wearing Islamic head scarves and religious symbols in court.
While the law would also ban crucifixes, Jewish skull caps and turbans, it highlights ongoing debate over Islamic traditions in Denmark, an issue that gained world attention in 2006 when Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad triggered violent protests in Muslim countries.
Although there are no known cases of a judge in Denmark wearing a traditional Muslim head scarf known as a hijab, Justice Minister Lene Espersen said the law was needed because judges "must appear neutral and impartial" in court.
The new legislation has created a rift in Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's government. It was prompted by discussions over a set of dress code guidelines issued last year by the court administration, which noted that Danish law does not bar judges from wearing head scarves.
The guidelines went largely unnoticed until the government's ally, the nationalist Danish People's Party, decided to politicize the issue last month.
The party, known for its anti-Muslim rhetoric, created a poster showing a woman wearing an all-encompassing burqa and holding a judge's gavel. The party urged the government to introduce legislation ensuring that courts remain "neutral instances in the Danish judiciary."
Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen's Liberal-Conservative coalition was sympathetic to the idea, but Immigration Minister Birthe Roenn Hornbech broke with the party line.
Roenn Hornbech wrote an opinion piece in a Danish newspaper saying lawmakers have no business regulating the dress of judges.
The premier criticized her Wednesday, saying her article was "unfortunate" and should have been cleared with him first.
Danish Muslim groups have been quiet on the issue, although the Muslim Council of Denmark said this month no one should be disqualified from a job "because of one's clothes, religious beliefs or political views."
The justice minister said the government bill, to be presented later this year, would be directed at judges, and would not affect prosecutors, defense lawyers or other court officials.
The considerable savings is perhaps one reason Forrester Research, based in Cambridge, Mass., has projected the offshoring of 29,000 legal jobs by the end of the year and as many as 79,000 by 2015. It's part of India's inevitable move up the corporate food chain, from lower-value business process outsourcing--like call centers--to knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). The latter category encompasses higher-skilled jobs, such as engineering and medicine, and relies on the KPOs to behave more like branch offices of U.S. companies.
ValueNotes, a business-research firm based in Pune, India, says a subset of KPO called legal process outsourcing (LPO) has grown revenues 49% from 2006, to $218 million last year. The figure will nearly triple, to $640 million, by 2010, it says. ValueNotes counts more than 100 legal-services providers in India, ranging from a handful of overseas corporate legal offices, such as Oracle's and General Electric's, to companies that contract to provide low-cost legal services to U.S. and British businesses. Leaders include Integreon and LawScribe, both in Los Angeles, and New York--based Pangea3.
Jenna Welch Bush and Henry Chase Hager were married at the Bush family’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. Check out that cake!(From a Friend, About a Friend: subhana'Allah)
Assalamu `alaykum wa rahmatullah,
It is at moments like these that we say "Subhan'allah and Alhamdulillah!" To see the work of one of our very own sisters in the community flourish and grow to this level is simply inspiring. Please take a moment and read this article. It references Lena Khan and her most recent movie "A Land Called Paradise."
NY Times: Young Video Makers Try to Alter Islam's Face
In addition, please make du`a' for her and her career. Do it NOW! The du`a' of one person on this list could make a very big difference. Please forward this email to as many people as you'd like!
Jazakum Allahu khayr!
--
wassalamu `alaykum wa rahmatullah.
akhukum fillah,
mohammad mertaban
Two kilograms of cocaine were seized, along with 350 Ecstasy pills, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, hash oil, methamphetamine, illicit prescription drugs, several guns and at least $60,000 in cash, authorities said.
Of the 96 people arrested, 75 were students. Eighteen of the students were arrested Tuesday when nine search warrants were executed at various locations including fraternities, said Jesse Rodriguez, San Diego County assistant district attorney.
The undercover probe, dubbed Operation Sudden Fall, was sparked by the cocaine overdose death of a student in May 2007, authorities said. As the investigation continued, another student, from Mesa College, died Feb. 26 of a cocaine overdose at an SDSU fraternity house, the DEA said.
Those arrested included a student who was about to receive a criminal justice degree and another who was to receive a master's degree in homeland security.
"A sad commentary is that when one of these individuals was arrested, they inquired as (to) whether or not his arrest and incarceration would have an effect on him becoming a federal law enforcement officer," said Ralph Partridge, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in San Diego.
Tesco is known as "The Wal-Mart of Britain," and they have a record of breaking food safety laws abroad. Now they're opening markets in the United States under the name Fresh & Easy.
We think it's important that you know about Tesco's record before you decide to shop at a Fresh & Easy market. That's why we've launched a new website: Fresh Easy Facts.
At "Fresh & Easy Facts" you can get the facts on:
* Tesco's record of breaking food safety laws
* The latest food safety tips from our experts
* Important Information on Fresh & Easy that you can share with your family and friends
Activists are very concerned that Tesco's Fresh & Easy may lower the high standards of the U.S. grocery industry, something that our grocery workers have worked very hard to establish.
Please join me in signing the pledge to not shop at Fresh & Easy. With your support, we'll send a clear message to Tesco that in the United States we expect nothing but the highest possible standards.
When Wendy Gonaver was offered a job teaching American studies at Cal State Fullerton this academic year, she was pleased to be headed back to the classroom to talk about one of her favorite themes: protecting constitutional freedoms.
But the day before class was scheduled to begin, her appointment as a lecturer abruptly ended over just the kind of issue that might have figured in her course. She lost the job because she did not sign a loyalty oath swearing to "defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
The loyalty oath was added to the state Constitution by voters in 1952 to root out communists in public jobs. Now, 16 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its main effect is to weed out religious believers, particularly Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses.
As a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, Gonaver objected to the California oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom. She offered to sign the pledge if she could attach a brief statement expressing her views, a practice allowed by other state institutions. But Cal State Fullerton rejected her statement and insisted that she sign the oath if she wanted the job.
"I wanted it on record that I am a pacifist," said Gonaver, 38. "I was really upset. I didn't expect to be fired. I was so shocked that I had to do this."
...
The loyalty oath was added to the state Constitution by voters in 1952 to root out communists in public jobs. Now, 16 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its main effect is to weed out religious believers, particularly Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses.
As a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, Gonaver objected to the California oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom. She offered to sign the pledge if she could attach a brief statement expressing her views, a practice allowed by other state institutions. But Cal State Fullerton rejected her statement and insisted that she sign the oath if she wanted the job.
"I wanted it on record that I am a pacifist," said Gonaver, 38. "I was really upset. I didn't expect to be fired. I was so shocked that I had to do this."
...
"The way it's laid out, a noncitizen member of Al Qaeda could work for the university, but not a citizen Quaker," she said.
...
"It makes no sense that they do this to people," she said. "It's people who take it seriously who don't get hired."
1. Two years later, and they've kept my name on it.
2. Mikey got it!
(Photo credit: Mikey's cell phone)Gangsta Seven Year Old Steals Car:
This is sad beyond words.
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