When I first started OneUmmah.Net back in 1999, it was intended to be my small attempt at uniting Muslims by offering a few thoughts on the subject.  I was ignorant and young, but I hope and prayed I could contribute what little I knew.

Today, I am still ignorant but a little older.  The site has outgrown me and not the other way around.  Of the thousands of monthly visitors who view the site, most are looking for the most pure guidance, the Qur’an, rather than my ramblings or the ramblings of our many hundreds of writers in the Muslim Writers Society.

People liked the way we had the Qur’an translation side-by-side with the Arabic text, but there were serious flaws in the Arabic text that were spreading all over the Internet, and I fear that we may have contributed to the spread.  There is no need to ask for copying permission for the Qur’an, so people freely distributed the same flawed text on a viral scale.

The Tanzil project leaders recognized this and began work on an authenticated textual database that they released to the public under a Creative Commons license.  Allah blessed me to be able to complete the synthesis of that database onto our site earlier this year, using programming skills I did not previously possess.

I have announced it before, but since it is Ramadan, the month of the Qur’an, I thought I would remind everyone that we have this free resource available online.  Futhermore, for those who want a desktop/laptop application for more in-depth Qur’an study, consider the Zekr project.

As a Muslim who enjoys religious freedom in this country, as an African American who has experienced firsthand racism, and as an American who truly believes in the principles of freedom that this country claims to support, it has been sickening to read all of these reports about the mosque that New York Muslims want to build 2 blocks away from “ground zero”, and how 70% of Americans allegedly oppose it.

First of all, I will use the term “racism” in my comments, only because there is really no good term to describe someone who has malicious feelings or even evil intentions against someone of another religion.  ”Religist” simply isn’t a word.

The funny thing about racism is that it can hide in plain sight for years, and even the person who harbors it is unaware of its presence.  We saw this when Obama ran for office, when people threatened him and at times even went so far as to question his citizenship.  We saw it after 9/11, when anyone who even looked like he or she might be Arab was suddenly a potential terrorist in the eyes of many angry Americans.  And if you spend enough time living in brown skin of any shade, you experience it routinely in the work place, with law enforcement, at stores, and elsewhere.  Racism is far from dead.  In fact, in some ways, it has increased, while only becoming more discreet.

Racism against Muslims, for lack of a better term, is apparently at an all-time high.  Not only were Muslims responsible for 9/11, after all, but they are also the “enemy” of what is becoming the next Vietnam in Afghanistan, with no end to the war in sight.  Just as Japanese were the “enemy” in WWII, with Japanese Americans being shunned and even sent off to concentration camps, so too have Muslims become the “other” suspiciously watched in America.

The difference, much to the chagrin of those racist Americans, is that Islam is much more prevalent in this country and Muslims are much more numerous.  We have Muslims in Congress, and your doctor, police officer, judge, or even your nanny may be Muslim, and you may not even know it.  There are generations of Muslims with names like mine, with no hint of Arab, Pakistani, or other middle-eastern/south asian blood.  So, yes, even your librarian may be Muslim.

Does that mean you should freak out now because we’re “invading” America?  No, it’s too late for panic anyway, but there’s nothing to be afraid of, people.  Islam in America is not new.  Muslims came over with Columbus (and even BEFORE Columbus).  In fact, according to many reports, Columbus would not have even made the journey, if it were not for the sea navigation tools of Muslims.

Since that time, slaves and former slaves, farmers, factory workers, and all types of Muslim Americans, from sea to shining sea, have lived peacefully in this country.   And yes, on September 11, 2001, there were Muslims who died as a direct result from those attacks.  There was at least one Muslim prayer room in the World Trade Center itself!

Therefore, people like Mike Lupica of the NY Daily News who ramble off nonsense about “sensitivity to 9/11 victims” are simply finding ways to openly express their racism, without directly mentioning it.  I mean, really, Mr. Lupica, what “sensitivity” is it that these victims, and apparently you also, have?  Are they “sensitive” to having to look at brown people?  Are they “sensitive” to the smell of ethnic food?  Are they “sensitive” to seeing people dressed differently?  What exactly is the “sensitivity”?

He did not answer it in his article, despite taking up two pages.  Instead he danced around the issue, never quite mentioning what exactly it was that offends people so much.  What about the mosque is so wrong?  Don’t the families of Muslim victims of 9/11 also have “sensitivity”?  Don’t they have the right to also honor their loved ones?  Or is that right only reserved for white Christian Americans?

These are not rhetorical questions.  I challenge anyone who opposes the building of the mosque to answer them.  Please tell me you actually have some legitimate reason for opposing the mosque, other than outright racism, and I may very well change my opinion.   I will say this.  Mike Lupica is right.  It’s not about “freedom of religion” at all.  It’s about racism, plain and simple.  They hate us, and they want us gone.

At the end of the day, what really matters is the Qur’an.  It is a book, about which there is no doubt.  Muslims tend to be very intellectual people, questioning just about everything, but regarding the Qur’an, there is no doubt.  It is the book of Allah, and we treasure that above all else.

This month, I pledge to become more intimate with the Qur’an, not just in a race to finish reading it by the end of the month, but to savor each verse, ponder its wisdom, and make lasting, meaningful change in my short life.

Since I was a teenager, in my early days of Islam, Ramadan has always given me almost a magical feeling.  The moment the first day of fasting begins, I can always feel the curtain covering infinite blessings lift and allow the light to pour in on all of us.  Special things always happen to me, even when I show mediocre devotion and am probably not deserving of them.

The moment Ramadan begins, my dreams increase, or at least my memory of them.  They are so vivid and clear, and often provide insight into aspects of existence I had never considered.  I don’t know what this means or why it happens, but it affects me in ways I do not fully understand.  Therefore, this year, I also pray for guidance and more revealing knowledge of what this month of blessings really means.

I pray that Allah blesses all of those striving to seek His divine light in this holiest of months.  And may Allah send blessings of peace on His messenger, on the prophetic household, on all of those who follow them, and on all believers and people of guidance, everywhere.

From this day forward, all of my professional writing and any reference thereto will appear on my new site, TavisOnline.com, a domain I have actually held for nearly a year.

This blog will once again return to what it was intended to be: creative illumination.  My writing always reflects my state of mind, and for the past year, mine has been far too preoccupied with business as usual.  But I have no completed my master’s degree, and I can now safely return to the world of the living.  After all, this life is nothing if we are not consciously living it, rather than just going through the motions.

With Ramadan fast approaching, I cannot help but start to reflect on where I am, where I have been, and where I am going, insha’Allah.  I pray that Allah makes this a fruitful journey and one worth traveling.

May “changing gears” is not even the best analogy.  From this point on, it is a whole new ride.

I happened to like QtCurve (style and window decorator) anyway, so I compiled the latest version and installed it.  As soon as I started using the window decorator, replacing the default Oxygen one, poof, instant speed.  The response time is excellent with absolutely no hiccups at all.  Is QtCurve just that much faster than Oxygen, or did building it from source specifically for this hardware make enough of a difference to increase the speed?

Either way, it is smooth sailing from here on out.

Photo by Rachael Voorhees

It may not have been a pretty exit, as President Obama himself called it “offensive”.  But the fact remains that by saying Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” Helen Thomas amplified the stifled voices of native peoples all over the world.

Much of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and yes, America, was occupied through violence, oppression, and murder.  Israel’s bloody chapter of history has been no different.

The fact that Jews left Europe to occupy Palestine because of their own plight does not make it right.  If anything it reflects the cycle of abuse we see on an individual basis.  The abused child grows up to become the abuser.  Being the victims of a Holocaust does not give Israelis the right to inflict one on the Palestinians, one that has lasted 60 years.

Helen Thomas was right.  They should leave, but they probably will not.  Their children have grown up in Israel, unaware of the crimes of their fathers.  Those children are innocent, just as the children of American slave owners are, but they still reap the benefits of the suffering inflicted on others.  For that, there must be some resolution.

When Mandela opposed Apartheid and spent the better part of his life in jail, much of the western world turned a blind eye.  Voices like Helen Thomas were ignored or even shunned.  Today, they will ignore her, shun her, and maybe even hate her, but she is right.  History will record just how right she was.

SublimeVideo does just that.  It feels like you are watching an HD video from a Blu Ray drive on your computer.  If you have an HDMI out on your laptop, you could display it on your TV, and it would be picture-perfect.  Flash never functions exactly like native video, and it hogs CPU and RAM.  Anyone with dual monitors like me knows that playing Flash in fullscreen is a pain as well.

HTML5 video requires no additional browser plugin, and the webmaster has the freedom to customize the interface and fullscreen support (which is built in to browsers anyway).

To view the video, you will need the latest release of Safari (v4.0.4+), Google Chrome (v4.0+), or Firefox (v3.6+).  It also works with Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame installed.

From the perspective of historical preservation, appreciation of literature, and a general love of books, I would certainly miss holding a book in my hand — the smell and texture of the pages, the feeling of turning each one with my fingers, and the weight of the object in my hand.

Nevertheless, I recognize that a change must come.  Printing anything on paper is destroying our environment, the only earth we have. Something must replace the traditional book, but the real question here is whether e-book readers like Amazon’s Kindle or over-glorified e-book readers like the new iPad are the answer to this dilemma.  I think not.

There are two main problems with this theory.  The first is cost.  While there may be future devices that are inexpensive and easily distributable, these devices are not.  As much as Apple fanboys would have you believe that everyone and their mama is going out to buy an iPad, that simply is not the case.  If people have to pay more or even as much for a reading device as they do for mobile service or cable television, people will simply stop reading.

The second problem is format.  Digital media is currently laced with poison (i.e. DRM).  It is a hassle that you cannot share your e-books with others as easily as you would shared a print book.  It is ridiculous that libraries cannot do this, and until they can, e-books will always be second-rate.  The format problem is also reflected in the devices themselves.  No matter how thin they get, they are not going to replace the look and feel of a real book.

I believe the real solution is something like I saw on Caprica: a page that looks and feels like paper but is electronic.  We have the ability to synthesize almost anything these days.  I am lactose intolerant but can eat soy cheese and hardly notice the difference.  Paper can be synthesized and so can book covers that are stronger and more resilient than the current offerings.  Imagine hold a book that looks and feels just like a real book, but you can press a button when you are finished reading and turn it into the book’s sequel.

I am not writing this because of nostalgia or my love of books but just based on my observation of library patrons and people in general.  I believe that until we reach the point where the benefits of e-books outweigh the inconveniences and high cost, print books are safe.

Miniaturize Your Photos With TiltShift Generator

How to Install QtCurve in KDE

How to Install OpenOffice.org 3.2 in Ubuntu 9.10

How to Install And Setup Ubuntu One In Kubuntu

XMind: A Cross-platform Mind-mapping Solution

How to Run Fullscreen Games In Linux With Dual Monitors

I am also writing for a new website, ServerSchool.com. Make sure you check it out too.

Grandson of Malcolm X in Rajae El-Mouhandiz’s latestvideo

Rajae El-Mouhandiz is a young Muslim woman from Amsterdam. She is also a world renowned singer of North African descent whose second CD, Hand of Fatima, was released in December 2009. One of the singles in the video, Malcolm Lateef Shabazz, has garnered a lot of positive attention in the past few months.

Read the rest

Watch the music video

The solution is to remove sun-java6 and its associated components and reinstall (You can also downgrade in Synaptic by using "force version" and selecting the Karmic version).

When will computer manufacturers finally get it right? For a serious computer user, four or even six USB ports is just not enough. In this day and age, I should not have to attach a HUB just so I can have all of my devices connected at once. Everyone is different, but let me give you an example of everything I need plugged in at once:

1. keyboard

2. mouse

3. graphics tablet

4. external hard drive

5. printer

6. game controller 1

7. game controller 2

Then, I need at least one free port for card readers and/or flash drives that I might attach. Is that really too much to ask? 8 to 10 ports on every desktop PC should be standard. A laptop should at least have four (I’m looking at you, Apple, with a disappointed expression on my face). It’s time to get it right. My computer should have more ports than an island nation, more ports than a submarine, more ports than…you get the idea. Four in the front and six in the back. That’s all I need.

As a writer, I have long wished for tabbed word processing (outside of Google Docs), and now that will be possible with this KWin feature.

Download it now in PDF format.

Some hardware vendors, such as Dell, now sell Linux desktop computers, although you have to page through their online catalog to find it, and their promotion of it seems spotty at best. The netbook craze has also seen the rise of several Linux offerings, but even the company that arguably started the netbook craze with its Eee PCs, Asus, still proudly displays “Better with Windows” on their website.

According to some estimates, there are now more Linux desktop computers in the world than Apple computers running Mac OS X. Most of them are in countries outside the United States, however, where some countries have issued large scale adoption for their government offices. Still, the recognition of Apple’s product line is better known, and services and software vendors are still more inclined to support Apple before they support Linux (take Netflix’s Watch Now service as an example).

Despite all of those setbacks, Linux has begun to ascend in an entirely different arena: the mobile phone market. The number of Linux-based phones has not only surpassed the “handful” mark, some of them are now becoming serious contenders. Google shifted the playing field when it released Android, an open-source Linux-based mobile operating system. Android-based phones (including their MyTouch G3) are featured prominently on mobile carrier websites (see T-Mobile’s website).

The world was rocked yet again when Palm released its long anticipated Palm Pre. Just when people had all but left Palm for dead, the Palm Pre has become highly competitive in mobile sales. Its WebOS is a revolutionary Linux-based operating system that has drawn gawking even from iPhone users.

Now, another major vendor is entering the Linux fold in a big way. Nokia, which is still the world’s leading smartphone seller, has invested years of research and financial backing into development of the open source Maemo operating system. It powered the Nokia 770, N800, and N810, all of which were not phones. The release of the N900, however, could very well solidify Linux’s position in the mobile market.

Rather than a Linux whim, like that of Asus or Dell, Nokia seems poised to make Maemo their OS of choice. Their recent acquisition of Trolltech highlights this. Trolltech was responsible for the QT graphical user interface and framework that powers KDE (a Linux desktop environment) and the Opera web browser, among other software. Nokia is in it for the long-haul, and the N900 will most likely be the first of many maemo-based mobile phones.  Furthermore, Nokia’s acquisition of Symbian, which makes the most prominent mobile operating system, has committed to releasing Symbian OS under an open source license.

Will Android, WebOS, and Maemo surpass other operating systems in the cellphone market? Will other smartphone manufactures follow? (Motorola is now shipping Linux-based phones, among others). The writing seems to be on the wall, so I am calling it. 2009 will be the year of the Linux mobile phone. There…I said it. I don’t even know what it really means, but I do know the game has changed.

Three popular services that Digikam can handle are Flickr, PicasaWeb, and Facebook. The first two are social photo sites, and the last is a social networking site. All three support photo plugins used by Digikam. This makes uploading photos quick, easy, and painless.

I am operating under the assumption that you already have accounts on the services you want to use. If not, you will need to register and activate whichever accounts you want before you proceed.

Read the rest

“Tonight you have killed a man on a night in which the Qur’an came down, a night in which Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him) was taken up, and a night in which Joshua the son of Nun, the champion of Moses (peace be upon him), was killed. By God, none of those who were before him are ahead of him and none of those who will come after him will overtake him. By God, if the Prophet (may Allah bless him and his progeny) sent him on a raid, Gabriel was at his right hand and Michael at his left. By God, he did not leave (at his death) gold or silver except for 800 or 700 dirhams, which he set aside for a servant woman.”

“Be obedient to Allah and have faith in Him. The loftiness of those who know the greatness of Allah is expressed in their modesty. The safety of those who know the power of Allah is expressed in their surrender to Him. Do not be influenced by the ignorant. Seek knowledge from its bearers. They are the light with which one can enlighten oneself.”

Imam Hasan was born on the 15th of Ramadan in Madinah, city of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his progeny). He was the second to take the office of Imam after his father Ali (peace be upon him).

The Prophet once said of Imam Hasan and his younger brother Imam Husayn: “Al-Hasan and Al-Husayn are the leaders of the youths of Paradise and Fatimah (their mother) is the leader of its women.”

He (may Allah bless him and grant him and his family peace) said:

“They (Hasan and Husain) are my two sweet-smelling flowers in this world.”

OK, I am making a joke to cover my concern about the news that Disney is purchasing Marvel for $4 billion.  Sure, it means that we will probably see an X-Men theme park in the future.  And yes, Disney has an impressive history of not injecting their own products into their subsidiaries (i.e. we haven’t seen Miley Cyrus giving commentary on SportsCenter — as far as I know).

Still, it just seems like Marvel has lost some of its innocence in a weird, twisted kind of way.  Yes, Disney is supposed to be the juvenile innocent one, but Marvel’s purity was its humble beginning and its fanboy attraction.

My one and only fear is that Marvel will become more of a commodity than it already has.  Disney is all about pushing merchandise.  The cash register goes cha-ching for Disney like every millisecond (note: I have no actual proof of this, but you get the point).  My hope is that Marvel does not become too commercialized.  I shutter at the thought of Disney characters dominating Comic-Con, but technically it could happen.

I’m just going to keep hoping that all will turn out for the best.  After all, our favorite superheroes have faced greater odds, more sinister plots, and villains with bigger speech impediments than Donald Duck.  We will live to fight another day.

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The Web is buzzing about Nokia’s announcement of the next in the Nokia Nxxx series, the N900.  I found it odd that Nokia had chosen to make this version a phone when the previous three versions, the 770, N800, and N810 were all “internet tablets”.  The only reason I even believed this one would be a phone is because of all of the buzzing, with numerous tech news sources reporting it as Nokia’s new phone.

After looking at the website for the device for a few minutes this morning, however, I found absolutely no mention of it being a phone.  They have pictures of its interface but never show a dialing pad.  The specs mention mobile broadband but not mobile voice.

It does run the new Linux-based version of Nokia’s Maemo operating system, which will probably not be compatible with previous versions of the tablet, since this tablet will finally introduce a 3D graphics chip with iphone-ish effects (as if that’s important).

But no, it is not a phone, unless Nokia just really wants to minimize the significance of it being a phone.  According to Nokia’s own website, it is the “Nokia N900 mobile computer”.

UPDATE (2009-08-27): The features site now mentions “phone” as one of the features.  It actually looks pretty cool.  Let’s just hope they don’t tie customers to a 2-year contract with a crappy service provider like a certain other company who shall remain a nameless red fruit.

There have been numerous reports lately about employers checking up on employees or potential employees on Facebook, MySpace, and other forms of social media.  I do not have a problem with this in principle.  I am one who has always believed that you should be real wherever you are.  If the real you is a crazy, backbiting, vendetta-seeking drunk, it is going to catch up with you.

Being denied employment because someone found out ahead of time instead of firing you later might actually do you a favor.  It might just give a person the motivation he needs to get his life together.  What bothers me more than extreme cases like that is, in most instances, the information that people provide about themselves on Facebook and other social media sites is personal information.

It is already difficult enough for people to get jobs because of personal matters that an employer might be able to see.  A pregnant woman will never know if she did not get that job because she tanked the interview or because the employer saw the bulge in her belly.  The Muslim woman never really knows if it was because of her hijab or her CV.  And of course, despite what some affirmative action opponents may think, a black man never knows if he failed to get a job because of his skill set or because of the color of his skin.

Those are the apparent issues.  Now throw in all of the other personal issues that are not apparent.  For example, maybe an employer is fine with the pregnant woman and her interview, but then he goes on MySpace and sees an entry she wrote about abortion.  She might be for or against it, but suddenly that woman’s personal views are under the scrutiny of someone who might have the power to hire or fire her.

Perhaps that Muslim woman was all set to get the job until her interviewer read her blog post about supporting Palestinians’ right of return.  Maybe he could overlook her hijab but not her views on Israel.  The possibilities for discrimination are multiplied tenfold.

You can learn a lot about a person on such sites: political views, religious views, sexual orientation, personal plans, lifestyle, even information about their family members.  All of it is personal, and despite the fact that it might be readily available on the Internet, none of it should affect employment.  Companies should set policies against social media snooping or at least establish stringent guidelines over what is and is not fair game.  After all, your love for shooting people in Grand Theft Auto IV and then bragging about it on Twitter, might just cost you your job, and you will never know.

Here are some of the scholars and intellectuals speaking on the English Ramadan lecture circuit.  All of these are video and audio.

Hajj Hassanain Rajabali

Sheikh Jehad Ismail

These are being broadcast live and then the recordings will be uploaded to YouTube.

Sayyid Hossein Al-Qazwini

This will be broadcast live, and the recordings will be available on the YMA website.

What makes KDE unique is that there are over 50 KIO slaves available for use. These include everything from basic file management (file:/directoryname) to remote network management (remote:/). I have selected a few notable KIO slaves to demonstrate how they are used and have also included a list of useful ones at the end of this post.

Read the rest at MakeTechEasier

KWin

Read the rest at MakeTechEasier

Part 1 (if you missed it)

Part 2

Part 3

In an effort to bring more exposure to KDE and its features, I have created two videos.  One is a brief introduction to KDE and some highly acclaimed features.  The second is about a specific application: Krunner.  It is based on an article I wrote for MakeTechEasier.

Both videos are available for streaming and download.

Introducing KDE 4.3

10 Awesome Features of Krunner in KDE 4

The production plan is also available in PDF format.

There is a long list of reasons why you might need to prepare an OpenOffice.org document in book form, and once you have learned how to do it, you will have a useful skill that you or people you know may need in the future. You can use this method for both print publications and e-books.

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Sorry I had to say it. The full story is here.

The drop shadow glitches from 4.2 are gone from Kwin, but it seems as though they fixed it by regressing back to their earlier unmodifiable shadows. Nevertheless, I can live with that for now, and that is not the topic of this blog post.

The issue that I have on my mind is the problem with certain plasmoids in KDE that seem to take Plasma to its knees. What is supposed to happen when you drop a bad plasmoid onto the desktop or your panel is that a big red box with an “X” appears informing you that the plasmoid does not work.

Unfortunately, what sometimes happens is plasma crashes completely. Usually it restarts itself, and everything is fine. Still, it is shocking for a user who is not familiar with KDE or, even worse, new to Linux, to have their entire desktop disappear — even if momentarily. I am not a programmer, so I cannot offer any concrete solutions.

What I believe needs to done, however, is to isolate plasmoids so that the plasmoid itself crashes rather than the entire plasma desktop. I would much rather have a widget literally disappear and even uninstall itself with prejudice, than to have my desktop go black.

Many KDE 3 users depended on Krun, a simple yet effective application used to execute commands. Executed simply by pressing “Alt-F2″, it was much easier to start applications using it, rather than navigating through a launch menu or opening a terminal window. The only catch with Krun was that you had to know the exact name of the command you intended to launch. With the advent of KDE 4, that has all changed.

Krunner operates independently of the Plasma desktop system as a standalone application. It includes a ton of features that make it useful beyond simple command launching. It has retained many of the features present in KDE 3 and greatly expanded them. We would fail to do it justice if we did not give it a top ten list.

Read the rest…

Four weeks after Ruper Murdoch tried to kill our fun by announcing that many of the newspapers you (not I) read will soon charge for access to certain online content, his new attack dog (a.k.a. chief digital officer), Jonathan Miller, claims that Hulu will start charging for content as well.

Forget the fact that Miller’s company is only a partial owner of Hulu, along with NBC and Disney, but let us just stop and think for a moment. What was it that attracted people to Hulu in the first place? I will give you a few minutes to think about it.

Give up? It is free! And I use the term loosely since their content still contains advertisements. For those people who had not already ignored Hulu and reconnected their BitTorrent clients, Miller might as well be Hulu’s messenger of death. No silly, people will not pay for your content when they can get it elsewhere for free.

I am beginning to wonder if News Corp and the cable companies are not all in league together in a final desperate attempt to ruin our lives. Nice try. Instead of trying to exploit people to make themselves rich, they should try working for a living like normal human beings. Then again, we all know they are aliens. They told us on national TV.

Note: This HOWTO assumes that you are using the opensource drivers for your video card (ATI or Intel). Nvidia and AMD proprietary drivers come with their dual screen components.

Read the rest at MakeTechEasier

Read the rest…

I believe we are living in the time of the Islamic reformation. In fact, I think we are living in the twilight of that reformation.

For me, the word reform is defined by its inevitability. This process cannot be stopped; it can be slowed down for a time but reform is inevitable. It’s an historic reformation taking place within Islam — it’s adapting itself to the realities of the world around it.

I think we’ll see the same process we saw in the Christian reformation from doctrinal absolutism to doctrinal relativism; toward a truly indigenous Islamic enlightenment.

And it’s up to us as Muslims in the US to give voice to that for our brothers and sisters who don’t have the voice or the same ability to speak out as we do.

Reza, I love you as my brother in Islam, but I think you missed the mark.  I want to write a refutation right here and now, but I think this will need some time, research, and consideration.  Look for an article in the coming weeks.

Nevertheless, I will leave this for everyone, especially Muslims, to ponder:

reform (\ri-ˈform)
transitive verb
1 a: to put or change into an improved form or conditionb: to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses

2: to put an end to (an evil) by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action

From Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary

I am no linguist but “reform” seems to refer to “fixing” something that is fundamentally flawed.  And “doctrinal absolutism” is something that is alien to Islam, aside from the most extreme fringes. More on this later.

I can remember turning on my computer, dialing into IndyNet, and opening the World Wide Web inside of a terminal window.  My first web experience was through a text browser.  At $10 a month, that was all I could afford.  Eventually, I learned to hack it and give myself access to the graphical side of the web and my first experience with Netscape Navigator.

Back then, web sites usually consisted of long single pages with mostly text, a few static images scattered about, some horizontal rules, and maybe an animated GIF, if you were lucky.  For those of you too young to remember, I am not reminiscing about the 70s or even the 80s.  It was not until the 90s when the World Wide Web burst onto the scene, drawing people away from their television sets for the first time in a way that nothing else before it could.

When I graduated from Lawrence Central High School in 1996, our school still did not have Internet access available to students.  Only two years later, in 1998, universities were offering high-speed Internet access across their campuses, in dorm rooms and even in family housing.  By the time I graduated in 2000, I was addicted to high speed Internet and could never dream of going back to dial-up.  DSL was not yet widely available.  So, I subscribed to cable Internet access, and never looked back.

Since then we have seen a revolution, both in distribution of and access to information.  Encyclopedia salesmen used to travel door-to-door promising to unlock tens of volumes worth of knowledge to their customers.  Such information is now accessible with the click of a button.  Moreover, few would be satisfied if the Internet only offered them encyclopedic knowledge.  They expect more: more details, more photos, more video, more social interaction, and more personal insight.

The turn of the century was described as the “Information Age” when knowledge was literally at an individual’s fingertips.  The immense power that information provides an individual was evident by the premium Internet services that emerged, turning some ordinary citizens into millionaires.  But with great power, comes great responsibility.

When the Internet was in danger of becoming nothing more than a commodity, a revolution quietly began.  The phenomenon that people call Web 2.0 is really only the technical side of it.  It is much more than new technology.  People made a conscious decision to keep information and the tools to access it free.  They formed organizations such as the Free Software Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation long before the term Web 2.0 was even envisioned. This led to innovations such as Creative Commons and Wikipedia.

In 2009, newspapers are on the verge of collapse; the music industry is floundering; movies are shared through BitTorrent before they are even released in theaters, and the cable television mega-corporations are lashing out with a vengeance.  They have learned little from the past.  Those who resist progress fade into the annals of history, and so some have chosen to embrace it.  What has emerged are DRM-free online music stores, online television content providers, and the hundreds of newspapers and media outlets providing nearly real-time coverage of events around he world, free of charge.

People of the 21st century want content when and where they want it.  They want to be able to watch Heroes or Dancing With The Stars from their laptops in coffee shops or their mobile phones on a train.    They want streaming up-to-date news at the push of a button.  They want to download a song, pass it on to a friend’s MP3 player, and then upload it to their social network site to share with their 500 other friends.  They are no longer satisfied with one news station’s account of events in a war zone, when actual footage from a witness’ cellphone is captured and uploaded to YouTube.

People want seamless, real time, unrestricted content, access, and portability.  The future beyond the Information Age is the age of global connectivity.  The only question is, will you be part of this new movement or part of what we must move aside to make room for it?

You would be hard-pressed to go anywhere or even watch television without hearing some reference to “Twitter”, “tweets”, or “tweeting”.  From your cousin in Iowa to Shaquille O’Neal, all types of people from all walks of life have taking a liking to Twitter.

Whether or not Twitter will become a technological standard as email or just a passing fad, remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that if you want to use Twitter while it is hot, you will probably want some type of client so that you do not always have to open your web browser and go to Twitter.com.

For KDE there are a few options, but there is one that I have found to be superior to them all.  Keep reading, or if Twitter has convinced you that you can only process 140 characters of information at one time, scroll to the end of this article.

Read the rest at Make Tech Easier

One of the most innovative and simultaneously controversial features of KDE 4 is the Plasma widget, Folderview. Simply put, it allows a user to display the contents of a file system folder within a widget on the desktop.

Beyond just displaying files on your computer, Folderview can be used to launch applications, display remote file systems, filter large folders for particular types of files, or serve as a traditional desktop.

Read the rest at Make Tech Easier

Rupert Murdoch has once again made headlines (pun intended) by telling CNN that visitors to the web sites belonging to some of the numerous newspapers that his News Corporation owns will soon have to pay to access certain content. Instead of having free access to the Wall Street Journal or the New York Post, a visitor would have to “pay handsomely”, according Murdoch.

I know the man is old, but is he really that out of touch with technology and the development of new media?  Does he really believe that people cannot live without his newspapers?

When a news organization is failing, as many newspapers are, why would it benefit them to make it more difficult to get news to people who could use it?  Their goal should be to gain readers, not drive away the few they have left.

If a person has to pay to find out a piece of information on one site, they will simply find it on another site for free.  Instead of arrogantly thinking that they can just muscle people into giving them money, they should try earning it.  Give people a real reason to come to your web site.  Come up with something innovative that makes your site worth their time.

We live in an age where media is interactive, collaborative, and, most importantly, open to all.  If News Corporation or any other mega-news conglomerate fails to realize that, it might very well be the last mistake they make.  And maybe the world will be a better, more truthful place without them.

May 6th, 2009. The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.2.3, another bugfix and maintenance update for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop. This is a monthly update to KDE 4.2. It ships with desktop workspace and many cross-platform applications such as administration programs, network tools, educational applications, utilities, multimedia software, games, artwork, development tools and more. KDE’s award-winning tools and applications are available in more than 50 languages.

See the full announcement.

“The style is very different from what we’ve done in the past,” Cooper said. “It’s far more mobile than we’ve done in the past on SG-1. The concept is that we wanted to shoot this a little bit like a documentary crew would shoot a ride-along to a space ship out in the universe — that maybe we could get audiences to embrace the science fiction elements and the characters in a realistic way if we shot the show using the ‘language’ of documentary and reality.

What the flip?  OK, my skepticism just escalated.  Please tell this does not mean a wobbly camera running through the forest chasing aliens.  Please, tell me that.  Please?

I am about to start trying to fix this now, but in the meantime, consider yourself forewarned. From what I have heard, this bug seems to only affect the 900 model, and the newest array.org kernel is not yet available for Jaunty.

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Hijrah calendar gadget

Kubuntu ships with a modified version of KDE’s plasma that has Google Gadget support disabled.  If you care, their justification for it is here.  I have wanted to add Google Gadgets seemlessly to my desktop for some time and had hoped that the new version 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope would fulfill my dreams.  As of Release Candidate 1, however, it appears it will not.

Nevertheless, hope is not lost. Someone has put together a nice quick and easy guide to getting Google Gadgets into Jaunty’s plasma desktop.

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1. The semester is closing, and I have two big projects to complete: one cataloging final project and an annotated bibliography for my reference class.

2. In the next few days, I am expecting to receive a contract from the publishing company that is commissioning me to write a book. I will give more detail on that when it is signed and sealed.

3. I am looking for freelance writing jobs and might have found a long-term gig. Again, I will provide more information on that when available.

4. Summer classes start in May. I have already planned out the rest of my master’s program, which concludes a year from May (2010).

5. My kids are growing like weeds and eating like bottomless pits. I will post pictures soon.

6. We are about to push the TV show online in a big way; more on that as it develops.

Applicants must demonstrate their commitment to enhanced diversity in Indiana libraries and agree to work in an Indiana library for at least two years after completing the 16-month program. (And Indiana is a great place to live, in case you were wondering).

I am 1/4 of the way through the program and have enjoyed it thoroughly thus far. It is hard work but well worth it in the end. Contact me if you need help applying. For more general information, see here.

“Hugh Jackman has described himself as “heartbroken” by the leak of X-Men Origins: Wolverine which saw an incomplete version appear on several BitTorrent websites ahead of the official 1 May US release date…”

What the flip?  Heartbroken?  Come on Wolverine!  Man up!

No, this is not an ad for Google.  There are plenty of services for RSS, but I normally use Akregator to handle mine on my desktop.  I never bothered to set it up on my netbook.

The funny part of it all is that I have no recollection of ever setting up Google Reader.  I would have needed to import my .opml file (the file that contains the feeds) in order for my feeds to be there on demand, that is unless Google somehow scooped off of my hard drive (I’m working on a new conspiracy theory).  So much for getting work done.  Darn cloud computing.

News has been circulating about the patent lawsuit between Microsoft and a company called TomTom.  Microsoft claims that, by using the Linux kernel, TomTom is infringing upon some of its patents.  By settling out of court, it seems to give Microsoft an opportunity to go after other Linux-based vendors.

I, however, believe this move from Microsoft comes too little and too late.  We saw what happened with SCO vs. the World.  Novell, IBM, et al ate them for lunch.  One might think that it still means that Microsoft can bully the smaller companies, but I do not think that is practical for them.

The reality is that Linux started outside of the business world, and it will continue to thrive on its own whether or not Microsoft sues companies that use it or not.  Free software is free and continually changing.  Suing a company for using Linux is like suing them for using the Internet.  It sounds to me as though Microsoft is getting pretty desperate, pathetically desperate.

See more at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1562173/a_review_of_the_80s_movie_the_last.html

“The outrageous agitation…will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues…[It casts] doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government…

“The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views…and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those it [the Lobby] favors.”

Read the rest here.

We need to hold President Obama accountable for his promises.  If he truly wants peace in the Middle East, it will never come when America is eating out of Israel’s hand.

]]> http://www.lanterntorch.com/politics/866/obama-caves-to-the-israeli-lobby/feed/ 0 http://www.lanterntorch.com/technology/862/phonon-issues/ http://www.lanterntorch.com/technology/862/phonon-issues/#comments Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:55:58 +0000 Tavis J. Hampton http://www.lanterntorch.com/politics/862/phonon-issues/ Amarok 2.0.2 was recently released, and I am happy to say that, unlike the few naysayers, I believe it is a fantastic product that will propel KDE to the next level.  I would not go back to Amarok 1.4.

Now that I have made that clear, I can freely discuss the problems I am currently having with it.  The phonon Xine backend has never worked with Alsa on my computer.  It simply produces no sound.  The Gstreamer backend worked with KDE 4.1 and 4.2.  With KDE 4.2.1, the Gstreamer backend ceased functioning.  I do not know if this is a local Kubuntu issue or a KDE-wide one, but it is a serious problem.  In order to get sound back into Amarok, I had to enable the Xine backend and then use Pulseaudio.

There is an Ubuntu forums thread here.  If anyone has any suggestions regarding this, please leave a comment.  I will post a bug report soon.

I could not help but chuckle at their gimmicky slogan:

“Give a laptop.  Get a laptop. Change the world.”

Being the avid Heroes fan that I am, I could not help but picture the futuristic Hiro Nakamura saying, “Save the laptop, save the world.”

Click the image for a larger peek.  I did not have my camera while driving to work.  The picture came from here.

All Things Considered, February 21, 2009· Google wants to give you access to its huge database of scanned, out-of-print books, but the company is going to charge for it. Robert Darnton, head librarian at Harvard University, says the deal violates a basic American principle — that knowledge should be free and accessible to all.

When I first saw the headline, I thought, “So what? What major online content provider actually gives their content away for free?  Academic and public libraries pay premium prices to get access to paid-content databases, only to turn around and offer it to the public for free.”

After hearing what the librarian had to say, however, I can see his point.  Those paid-for databases are already a commodity, but if Google might in fact provide us with the “future of books” (when we’ve overspent our use of trees and can no longer print physical books), it will be an travesty if our only access to libraries will be through commercial corporations such as Google.

Why do authors (or their lawyers), the RIAA, the MPAA, etc. get so uptight about their content being offered over the internet but yet are perfectly fine with them being offered through brick and mortar libraries?  Do they somehow think that because something is digitized they lose all control and copyright over it?  I would never read a novel sitting in front of my computer screen unless someone forced me to, but if I could preview a book, or just fine a quote from a particular page online, that would be fantastic.  Would I pay for it?  Definitely not.

The Board of Trustees at Hampshire College has agreed to divest from six companies because of their involvement in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Hampshire is believed to be the first U.S. college or university to divest from companies tied to the Israeli military. The companies are Caterpillar, United Technologies, General Electric, ITT Corporation, Motorola, and Terex. The Board agreed to the divestment following a two-year campaign by the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine. 32 years ago Hampshire College became the first school to divest from apartheid South Africa.

I have a 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP  (yes, the engine is supercharged — that actually felt good to say when gas was under $2.00).

At some point, perhaps more than a year ago, the heating/air conditioning blower stopped blowing on the lowest setting, #1.  Over time, it gradually started losing higher settings, 2, 3, and finally 4.  At that point, heat or a/c would only work on the highest setting, 5.

There was only one thing more unbearable than heat or a/c set constantly on 5, and that is no heat or a/c at all.  On the coldest day of the year, when the temperature was -11 F, and you could see the vapor from your mouth crystallize and fall to the ground when you breathed, the number 5 setting died.

At that point I still had heat.  The blower motor was still blowing full-blast no matter what setting it was on.  When I was leaving work, heading to my car on Wednesday, I noticed a noise coming from the car.  I was standing outside of it, and the doors were still locked.  Upon opening it, I realized that the blower motor was still churning at full power.  Before I could get home, it shut itself off.  Apparently, however, that was just a temporary safety mechanism.

When I went to start the car the next day, the battery was dead.  Charging the battery again would only last until the blower motor zapped the juice again.  I knew I could not delay any longer.  I did not have $300+ dollars to shell out for repairs on my car, so I took matters into my own hands.

Apparently, Grand Prix owners have been plagued with the same failing part: a blower motor resistor that regulates the air output of the blower motor.  If part of it fails, you’ll lose functionality on some settings.  If and when it fails completely, it will never shut off until you pull the fuse, which is what I was forced to do.

It is not just 1997 Grand Prix’s affected by this problem.  Owners of models form every year even up to 2004 seem to have the same problems with this little resistor.  I knew it was a small part and knew that it was located inside of the car (not under the hood or underneath), but nothing could prepare me for the ordeal of trying to replace this part.

In my next post, I’ll detail what it took to obtain the part and finally get it installed into my car.

What is also not surprising, however, is that her conclusions are often wrong when dealing with issues that only “grownups” would understand.  It got my thinking about why this is the case.

For some logic and reason are more important than anything.  Someone with sound logic skills can work out any problem and do so without the tainting of emotional interference.  The true logician is like the Vulcan race from Star Trek, unflinching in their reasoning.

How then can such people ever fail to understand something?  Why does understanding often elude someone steeped in logic?  The answer, which I determined through observation, rather than pure reasoning, is that a person of logic also needs wisdom.

Wisdom is nothing something obtained through first principles or through studying.  Wisdom comes only through life experience, empathy, emotional trials, and often divine guidance.  The child can become very advanced and logic but still does not possess the wisdom that comes naturally with age.  Thus, understanding is not guaranteed.

I am reminded of a story about Luqman (peace be upon him), one of the wisest men mentioned in the Qur’an.  He wanted to teach his son that he cannot please everyone all of the time, but rather than preaching to his son, he allowed him to experience it.

They were traveling with their donkey one day.  Luqman was walking in front of it, and his son was seated on top of it.  A group of passersby saw this and talked amongst themselves (but loud enough for Luqman and his son to hear) saying, “Look at this young selfish boy who lets his old father walk while he enjoys the ease of riding.”

Luqman’s son felt bad after hearing them say this and got down from the donkey, insisting that his father ride it instead.  His father mounted the donkey, and they continued on their way.  Later they came upon some more people, and one of the said, “What a cruel father he is who makes his son walk while he rides in luxury!”

Upon hearing this the two of them both got off of the donkey and walked behind it.  They then came upon another group of people and one said, “How foolish!  They have a perfectly good donkey, yet they walk behind it!  Why do you not ride it?”

Upon hearing this, Luqman’s son decided perhaps it would be best for both of them to ride.  So, they continued with both of them mounted on the donkey.  They eventually passed some more people, and one of the said, “How cruel this duo are, putting all of that load on a small, innocent donkey!”

Luqman and his son dismounted, and he said to his son, “You have heard and seen what the people said. It must have assured you, by now, that whatever you do or whichever way you move, one is not able to please the people of the world.”

“He grants wisdom to whom He pleases; and he to whom wisdom is granted receives indeed a benefit overflowing; but none will grasp the Message but people of understanding.” (Qur’an 2:269)

Aside from switching from C to C++, it adds features such as a non-compositing option to the window-manager (handy if you need to turn off compositing while playing a 3D resource leach like SecondLife).  Also, it adds the option of using non-3D rendering such as XRender, handy for older machines without decent 3D cards.

It is not part of the main branch of Compiz, and it will be up to the community to decide, but it looks promising.

Interestingly enough, as of KDE 4.1, those features mentioned above are already present in KWin.  One wonders if that served as inspiration for the Compiz++ developer.  KDE 4.2, which just released Beta2 (and is scheduled for full release in 25 days), will add even more features to its compositing arsenal, putting it pretty much on an even plane (or perhaps even surpassing) Compiz-Fusion.

Let us see what’s going on in the world:

Halal Food on a university campus

Make sure to vote for the Brass Crescent Awards

KDE 4 Video Editor, KDEnlive Released

Alan Keyes and Uncle Clarence Thomas are questioning Obama’s Citizenship

I’ll post more later.  There, I blogged something.  Happy?

In all seriousness, I believe it to be a monumental achievement for a man of color to reach the White House.  He climbed up the backs of many African Americans (and others as well) who have struggled for equal rights for all people in this country.  It is inspirational to so many youth who have been told that they can’t reach their dreams.  Well, my children, rest assured, you can.

Now, however, the business begins.  Like any president, Obama has to put his words into action.  He is a fallible man who will make plenty of mistakes, but my hope is that, unlike Bush, he will learn from them, listen to the people he serves, and make himself and the country better.

I’ve always believed in the power of people to make a difference.  Bush did not drag the American people into two wars.  We let him do it.  He did not care about opinion poles or protesters, and we, the American people, allowed him to continue in his deviance.

My hope, to use Obama’s own favorite word, is that he is someone who will listen to the people, who will not beat the drums of war when the people prefer the melody of peace.  That is my hope for change.  It is up to you, President-Elect Obama, to make the dreams of Americans a reality.

Sure enough, when I arrived, in the cold, in complete darkness, there was already a line formed outside of about 60 people.  I stepped up behind a friendly couple and waited.  Everyone there was excited and upbeat.  No one complained about the cold or the wait.  It was as if everyone had a purpose, a mission to make something positive happen.

As we gradually moved into the building when the doors opened at 6, it was clear that the line would move pretty quickly.  They had 6 booths set up in the gymnasium of our community center.  I live in a predominantly African American area, and to see so many faces of color exercising their right to self govern this country was sight to behold.

At one point, we all paused at the sound of the vote-counting machine giving a loud beep, kind of like a microwave.  A woman stuck her ballot into the machine again, and it beeped a second time.  More people who had finished voting formed a line behind her, and a volunteer quickly got on his mobile phone to ask someone, apparently an expert on the machines, what to do.  After a few minutes, the situation was resolved and voting resumed.

By 7:00 I was finished and extremely tired.  I prayed salatul-Fajr and headed to work.  There was no point in returning home.  I stopped at a store to pick up some donuts and orange juice, and even the cashier and other customers were so upbeat and enthusiastic about voting.

The overall experience made feel like I was a part of something important.  I only pray that the votes are counted without hassle and that history is made.  More than anything, I’m hoping my first voting experience is not my last.

We always knew that Jim Brown had multiple talents: playing football, acting, er…um… diplomacy?  Apparently he has been masquerading as Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations.  Take a look at the photos.

Nevertheless, I will leave the idea of reviewing it for now and just enjoy the new release, codenamed Intrepid Ibex.

His argument, an overly dramatic one I might add, is that the mainstream media is flushing itself down the toilet because of its open bias towards Senator Barack Obama.  The evidence of this, according to Malone, is the sheer sparsity of negative coverage of the Obama campaign.  There have been so many negative stories about McCain and Palin, he argues.

Before I continue my critique of Malone’s McCain ad (ahem) I mean article, I should make two things clear:  1.  I have experience as a journalist but am not employed in the mainstream media and 2. I have decided to vote for Obama in this election.

Malone, on the other hand, does belong to the mainstream media, and the bias which he laments is partially his own.  And I must say that, at least on the surface, I agree with him.  There has undoubtedly been more negative coverage of McCain, his running mate, and his family.  On this issue, Malone and I are in complete agreement. 

Where I believe Malone falters, however, is in assuming it is because the media is biased in favor of Obama.  We’re talking about the same media, Malone’s own ABC in particular, that has bent over backwards for the past eight years while George W. Bush covered up his prior knowledge of 9/11, committed war crimes, authorized the torture of prisoners (some of them innocent people), spied on his own people, illegally detained some of his own citizens, exposed an undercover CIA operative, and dissolved the fat US economy into leftover grease.

Any one of W’s offenses could have been impeachable (some of them are even treason), yet the mainstream media, while reporting it, has essentially condoned it.  When they could have relentlessly exposed and reported the president’s crimes, they did little more than mention them.  Whenever a protest occurred and police invariably beat and arrested protesters, the mainstream media cameras were absent.  You would think that the country was still relatively pleased with Bush because very few anti-Bush or anti-War coverage was ever given.

Therein lies the problem, Mr. Malone.  The mainstream media rarely cracks the surface.  They’ll report the story but very rarely will they go beneath the surface on important controversial issues.  McCain has plenty of surface faults, and they have done their job to report them.  Obama simply does not have as many.  Am I saying this because I like Obama better or think he’s a better man?  No.  I’m saying it because McCain is older, a lot older.

McCain has been in office for decades and goes out of his way very often to remind us of that.  He is never going to let us forget about Ronald Regan (even though many of us would like to forget him).  So of course there is going to be more negative material to cover on McCain.  He has simply done more negative things.  He has done a lifetime of negative things.  You could write volumes on his deeds (as one day someone will).

This is where Malone’s argument falls flat, and the example he uses proves to be his own tragic flaw.  In speaking about the “war” in Lebanon three summers ago, Malone writes:

I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNNi would get around to telling the rest of the story…

Thank you Mr. Malone.  You proved my point very nicely without even realizing it.  When Israel attacked Lebanon, the death tolls were enormous.  1,191 Lebonese civilians lost their lives.  There was indiscriminate bombing of homes, villages, and even relief aid vehicles. Less than 250 Hezbollah fighters were killed.  Hezbollah, which launched missiles day and night into Israel, killed 121 soldiers and only 44 civilians. 

Again it is a simple matter of numbers.  How can you give equal coverage to a “war” that is not equal.  When people are literally dying left and right of you, how can you leave that to report what, by comparison, is only a handful of deaths?  What is surprising is that the media actually did report them and never failed to mention Israeli deaths to the point where people until this day believe that the “war” was an equal and just one, that Israel was justified in the atrocities they committed, and that Hezbollah are the terrorists.

Mr. Malone, it is a simple problem of logic.  Yours is flawed.  Media coverage is quantitative.  It can be measured.  Your mainstream media, Mr. Malone, has long argued that the independent candidates (such as Ralph Nader) or even alternative candidates (such as Dennis Kucinich [D] or Ron Paul [R]) do not deserve as much media coverage because they are not as popular (which is a circular argument).  Well, Mr. Malone, like it or not, Senator Obama is popluar, extremely popular, despite the McCain campaign’s relentless attempts to smear him with negative ads, many of which are outright lies.

I can think of plenty of criticisms of Obama, so do not think that I am in love with the man.  His show (and I emphasize this word) of unbiased support for Israel during his campaign and his rather muffled show of what can best be described as “blackness” are both disturbing yet not upsetting.  I can understand why he felt he needed to behave that way in a predominantly white America that is still electrically charged with racist particles, and his previous record indicates that he is not so black and white (no pun intended).  But the McCain campaign’s criticisms have been paltry at best, and Mr. Malone’s last ditched attempt to rescue John McCain is simply too pathetic and too late.

In what is being called the final season of Stargate Atlantis, how dare they toss in a flashback episode!  The latest episode, “Inquisition”, is perhaps aptly named.  Watching it was almost like being tortured in the Spanish Inquisition.  Naturally, they did develop a little story around the flashbacks, but it was not worth remembering, unlike the flashbacks themselves, of which I didn’t need a reminder.

If you don’t have the manhood to make a full episode, just show a rerun.  Don’t tease into thinking we’re getting a new show, only to see a rerun in disguise.  That’s just wrong.

One thing that has always turned me off from books like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and others is the complete whiteness of all of the characters and the Euro-centric locations and motifs.  It seems to be understood, without any questioning, that such characters are to be painted white, and the films based on those books seem to confirm that reality without fail.

To find fantasy books with African, Indian, and Middle Eastern motifs that are not polluted with stereotypical characters and plots is rare.  When I set out to write my book, I did not consciously insert such characters into it.  It was rather an expression of the type of fantasy that I had already envisioned in my head as a young adult and later as an author.

I think most authors write about what they know, and it is not unusual for white authors to write about white characters in white settings.  I can, therefore, only conclude two relative rarities:  1. A black author who writes about fantasy and adventure.  2. A black author who writes about fantasy and adventure and includes black characters without making the story a stereotypical “black issue”.

I’m hoping that I’m just making a generalization and there are at least a few exceptions out there.  If there are, please feel free list them in comments.

We participated in several other sessions, two of which were about the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him and his family peace), a topic that never grows old and always softens the heart.  Imam Mohamed Magid, in particular, had beautiful stories to tell of the Prophet that nearly brought the crowd to tears at times and laughter at others.

My wife and I had a nice quiet dinner in the corner of the convention center while the wealthier Muslims among us dined with Congressman Andre Carson and other dignitaries.  At $40 per person for tickets to the banquet, we opted for some $6.99 Chinese food.

They ran severely over their time limit, and those of us who were not in the banquet went ahead and prayed Salatul-Isha without them.  Finally, after waiting at least another hour, the entertainment began.  It started with a Muslim comedian whose name escapes me and whose comedy was not particularly memorable.  That was followed by a nasheed band called the Travelers who seemed a tad inexperienced but nevertheless very soothing and reflective.

After four songs the main attraction, the premiere of Allah Made Me Funny began.  It was spectacular, side-aching humor that left us with a much better impression of the convention than we had the first day. If I can scrounge up some time, I’ll post a full review of the movie.  For now let’s just say that I highly recommend it.

Overall, the convention is still not what it should be.  The price of attendance is steep, $40 per person (or $60 for husband and wife), and the organization, which is supposed to represent the entire body of Muslims in Indiana, is still heavily populated with people from the subcontinent.  It was rare treat to see a african american face in the crowd, even on Saturday.  Despite that, it was a noble effort, and the jewels of prophetic wisdom that we collected from the people of knowledge during those few sessions made the trip not only worth it, but priceless.

The rest was disorganized, rescheduled, and pretty much boring.  The bazaar was bare and pathetic, and the people were mostly of one ethnicity, which certainly does not represent the body of Muslims that we have in this state.  There were truly only a handful of people there.

The part that could have been the best, the film festival, was late getting started (actually, for all I know, it never started).  My wife and I were tired and decided to just leave.  The only thing that could redeem this convention is the showing of “Allah Made Me Funny” today.  Let’s just pray they don’t find a way to screw that up too, insha’Allah.

I’ll post updates and maybe some pictures later, insha’Allah.

I’m sure the majority of people would answer yes, but what I’ve also found is that everyone says, “Oh, I never win those things.”  So, my question is, does anyone really win?  If you’ve ever won anything, any of those contests that say “no purchase necessary” as if they’re daring you to not buy the product and see if you can actually still win just by mailing in your entry, then please post a comment here telling us about your experience.

I want to meet some real winners, real people who have actually opened a bottle cap and seen something other than “We’re sorry.  Please try again.”

Let’s just talk a little about this “financial crisis.”  It is truly amazing that the powers that be have the audacity to spend our money (and it is our money anytime it comes from the government) to bail out organizations that have been swindling us for every penny we own anyway.

The average American is suffering and will continue to suffer, because instead of bailing us out, they’re going to reward the snakes for their venomous bites.  I know all too well what it feels like to not be able to pay the bills, especially hospital bills.  We have been struggling for the past two years, and just one false slip could leave us out on the street like so many others who have lost their homes.

Why are Americans so stupid to allow this to continue?  How can anyone still support these corrupt tyrants?  I’ve lost all respect for the politicians and the people who elected them, and I have no sympathy for whatever happens to them as a result of this mess.  I’m tired of not knowing whether or not I’ll be able to afford to drive to work just so I can pay for more gas to continue driving to work.  Meanwhile, we can’t even afford health care or child care.

And I’m not on minimum wage.  I have what used to be considered a reasonable salary with “benefits”, but it seems not to be enough.

In the end, Allah is enough for me, and I know He will remove us from this condition. Nevertheless, it is sad to see a country I love go down the tube because of a greedy few.

Those greedy few, possibly about 400 people, have more money than the rest of Americans combined.  The world would be better of if the earth just swallowed those 400 people and their pet Zionist Regime along with them.  Yes, I’m an angry black man.  Do something about it if you don’t like it!

In times like these, the world could truly benefit from the wisdom of Islamic economics, ethics, and social values, but unfortunately, too many Muslims are part of the problem.  Leaders in predominantly Muslim countries are just as corrupted, and Muslim-owned businesses tend to deal in the same sinister financial practices.  Meanwhile, there are enough wealthy Muslims to support the weak and poor, but we do not see this either. Instead we see a glittering mosque to the north of the city and storefront mosques in the inner-cities.  There is little cooperation, even less compassion, and absolutely no shame.

The Holy Prophet [may Allah bless him and grant him peace] said: “There will come a time
for people that: they will not respect their scholars except for their
good clothing; they will not hearken to the Qur’an except for the
pleasant voice; and they will not worship Allah except for during the
fasting month; there will be no shyness in their women, no patience in
their poor ones; and no prosperity for their rich ones, they will not
be contented with a small (portion), and they will not be satiated with
abundance. They will strive (only) for their stomach; their religion is
their money (wealth); their women are their Qiblah (direction of
worship); and their homes are their mosques; they run away from their
scholars just as lambs run away from wolves.

We ask Allah to remove the suffering and oppression of those who have suffered and are oppressed.  We ask Allah to uplift the downtrodden and destitute, to heal the wounds of the weak inflicted by the tyrants, and to return justice to the earth.  We ask Allah to remove from the earth the enemies of justice and equality wherever they are, whoever they are, and however He pleases.  We ask Allah to hasten the reappearance of the one who will fill the earth with justice and equality after it had been filled with injustice and tyranny, the champion of the oppressed, the proof of Allah on earth, the beloved of our hearts, Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi.

The majority of us have been experiencing a “financial crisis” since Bush stepped into office, but we’re only now hearing about it in the media when the fat cats need to be bailed out to save their billions from flushing down the toilet.  The rich stay rich, and according to Michael’s analysis, they might even get richer after this bailout. 

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin: “We don’t have to
second-guess what their efforts would be if they believe that it is in
their country and their allies, including us, all of our best interests
to fight against a regime, especially Iran, who would seek to wipe them
off the face of the earth. It is obvious to me who the good guys are in
this one and who the bad guys are. The bad guys are the ones who say
Israel is a stinking corpse and should be wiped off the face of the
earth. That’s not a good guy who is saying that. Now, one who would
seek to protect the good guys in this, the leaders of Israel and her
friends, her allies, including the United States, in my world, those
are the good guys.”

Why does this woman sound like an 8 year old talking about an episode of Power Rangers?

These “good guys” she speaks of are the same ones who have illegally occupied Palestinian land for 60 years; “good guys” who repeatedly abuse, bulldoze homes, kill, and torture Palestinians; “good guys” who occupied Lebanon for 20 years and even knowingly attack reporters, UN observers, Red Cross vehicles, and even ships belonging to their own allies.

She is correct to use the phrase “in my world” because Sarah Palin obviously does not live in the real world.

1. It greatly increase my respect for and admiration of the Iranian president.  He is both intelligent and tactful in his response and also seems genuine.

2. Larry King, all things considered, did a pretty good job of letting Ahmadinejad talk without bombarding him with ridiculous accusations and misquotes (although he did not shy away from many of the dumb controversial questions that many Americans have asked).

Above all else, however, I came away with a new understanding about the Iranian position on Israel.  Although many people in the west commonly assume that Iran wishes for Israel to be destroyed (whatever that actually means), the words of the Iranian president were quite different.

He apparently advocates something that few Americans, Israelis, or even Palestinians dare to even consider: a one-state solution.  For decades now we’ve been inundated with the concept of two states, both a Jewish one and a Palestinian one.  But the only truly fair solution, according to Ahmadinejad, is for the people of that region to unite under one state, hold a referendum for the future makeup of their new government, and reform their country into something open, democratic, and just.

This, of course, would mean that the Palestinians, especially if one includes the ones who are living in exile, would hold a majority vote, just as the black South Africans did when the Apartheid regime was overturned.  Had they instead formed a separate “black” state, they would have been isolated and decimated by their white counterparts.

The real reason for the insistence upon the two-state solution is that it is the only way to preserve a “Jewish” state.  Although westerners commonly refer to Israel as “the only democratic state in the middle east,” it is actually anything but democratic.  It serves the interests of Jews and Jews alone.  It ignores the rights even of the arabs who are citizens while also denying citizenship to the majority of Palestinians.

To give the Palestinians citizenship in Israel would effectively end the reign of the Zionist (Apartheid) regime.  Replacing it with something democratic and free for both Jews and Palestinians is the only way to ensure lasting freedom and success for both parties.

This is Iran’s stance on the issue.  It is not one of violent uphevil and extermination of the Jewish people.  It is a stance that is probably the only realistic (yet bitter-tasting) solution if the Israelis expect to ever live without fear and the Palestinans ever hope to truly have freedom.

But the new Google G1 phone is fruit and cake.*

If I were to ever buy another mobile phone, it would most likely be one of these.  It is slick, user-friendly, and reasonably priced.  The best thing, however, is that it runs Android, a free and open source Linux-based operating system.  It is extendable, expandable, and oh-so-cool.

*My apologies to Nabisco.

Granted, I could labor it at it and possibly get it to stream through the mplayer plugin, but then I’d be tied to my browser.  The benefit of at least having an mp3 download is that I can drop it into my nokia n800 and go or at least stop it and come back to the place where I left off earlier.

At any rate, I turned to youtube in my search for another lecturer and found one who has not left me disappointed at all.  In fact, he’s been quite a pleasant surprise.  His name is Sheikh Jehad Ismail.  He has his own website called The Awaited One Foundation.  It is certainly worth a visit.  This brother, who is quite laid back and even amusing at times, even has a Facebook account and will answer your questions directly on Facebook.

Imam Sayid Hassan Al-Qazwini met on Wednesday May 14, 2008 with Senator Barack Obama, the democratic presidential candidate. The private meeting between the two took place at Macomb Community College – Michigan. In this meeting Imam Qazwini and Senator Obama discussed the upcoming presidential election, the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East and the War in Iraq.

Furthermore, in the end of the meeting Imam Qazwini offered a copy of his newly released book “American Crescent” to senator Obama. Imam Qazwini also invited Senator Obama to visit the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn.

(alqazwini.org)

A few narrations about how and when the Prophet (pbuh) used to fast.

Read it here.

For those of you who do not know, Zekr is an cross-platform, free and open source, Qur’an study tool.  It allows you to read the Qur’an in Arabic, numerous language translations, transliteration, and audio recitation.

Two features that I’m really digging are:

1. Searching arabic root words.
2. Searching arabic and english translation

Zekr will also recite line-by-line or continuous, which is really handy if you are trying to memorize a sura.

You can download Zekr for Linux, Mac, and Windows here.

May Allah bless him, forgive him for his shortcomings, and have mercy on him, and there are none who are more merciful than the Most Merciful.

You can listen to his current lectures here.

Also, for other dynamite lecturers and scholars, see this site.

The new Google web browser called Google Chrome, is currently available for download for Windows and will soon (we are told) be available for Linux and Mac OS X.

What could possibly go wrong you ask? Think Internet Explorer and ActiveX back in the 90s. When you already dictate a big chunk of the web, providing the browser to view can become a self-serving activity. Imagine opening Firefox and navigating to the new Google Music site (not saying there really is or will be one) and you get a nice little message stating, “We’re sorry, but this website is only viewable with Google Chrome 2.0 or later.”

As I mentioned, however, Google tends to be more open than that, but stranger things have happened. By the way, the new browser engine is based on Webkit, which is based on KHTML, which comes from KDE, which is free and open source software.

This morning, my alarm clock did not go off or was not loud enough for me to hear. At that time, I was having a dream that a boy was supposed to come and wake me up, but he was absent that day (yes, as if I lived in a school). When I realized that, I fumbled around looking for my clock only to realize that I had missed suhoor.

Momements later, I realized, “Wait! I’m dreaming!” Then, as I gradually became conscious, I said to myself, “And it’s happening in real life!”

I woke up and reached for my clock to discover that I still had about 30 minutes to eat suhoor. Allahu Akbar.

Here is my formal greeting card to all of you.

Shake your wanny fanny fu-unky song!

I’ll give a prize to the first person who can comment with the show where that song originated.

Islamway radio

Qur’anEnglish.com

MP3 Qur’an Online

Any of these can be downloaded, installed on an MP3 player, or burned to several CDs.

If you have the money, there are also many Islamic bookstores that sell complete CD sets of Qur’an recitation in arabic with english translation. They run anywhere from $150 to $200. You can also buy DVD sets with added features.

Today I’m blogging on my new EeePC (more on that later).

Also, Ramadan is right around the corner — truly excited about that. I just pray my health will be better than it has in the past few Ramadans. I suppose that’s a sign that I’m getting old.

Anyway, back to this job. It’s a great school with a brand new building. The Library (media center) is huge with nice wooden shelves, soft new carpeting, plush lounge chairs, built-in media devices, including a projector on the ceiling, HP computers, as well as macbook laptops. The entire school is wireless as well. And my office, don’t even get me started. It’s large, complete with a refrigerator, sink, and a microwave.

I have large windows overlooking a green field and a forest near the river. I’m still getting adjusted, and that has taken more of my time than usual.

There are many issues to blog about, so expect to hear more from me soon, insha’Allah.

July 29, 2008

In a recent interview, Ayatollah Fadlallah, one of Lebanon’s chief theologians, stated that any notions of strife between Shi’ites and Sunnis was untrue. Most Muslims value unity, and simply need some sort of motivation to work together said Fadlallah, suggesting a large scale collaborative project. He admitted that there were elements in the Arab community who wanted to promote discord, but that they were the extreme minority and did not represent Islamic views. For more information, please click here.

Do not get me wrong here. I am not criticizing the new propaganda machine at work. If anything, I think it is brilliant and well played. I have been using the release candidate of 4.1, and I can tell you that it is phenomenal and will live up to the hype. It won’t please everyone, but it is revolutionary for desktop computing. There is nothing else like it on the market, not from Microsoft, not from Apple, not from Sun, and not even from Gnome.

But is Barack taking his own advice? For he pledges to shift two U.S. combat brigades, 10,000 troops, out of Iraq and into Afghanistan, raising Americanforces in that country from 33,000 to 43,000.

For, without any visible strategy for victory, Barack is recommending thesame course LBJ took after the death of JFK. Johnson bombed North Vietnam in 1964, landed Marines in 1965 and built U.S. forces from 16,000 advisers on Nov. 22, 1963, to 525,000 troops in January of 1969.

The Soviet Union, whose 115,000-man army in Afghanistan reached more than twice the size of U.S.-NATO forces, even with the Obama surge, went home defeated in 1988. The Soviet Empire did not survive that humiliation.

Obama – and John McCain, who has endorsed the build-up – should, before committing any more combat brigades, explain how and when this war ends in an American victory. For as of today, the Afghan war resembles Vietnam far more than Iraq ever did.

Obama and the other democrats want to continue the war in Afghanistan. He intends to send some of those PTSD patients currently serving their 2nd, 3rd, or even 5th campaigns in Iraq and dropped them into the heart of Taliban inssurection. This comes at a time when more Afghan civilians are being slaughtered by indiscriminate U.S. bombing raids. The total number of innocent Afghans killed has far exceeded the number of Americans killed on 9/11.

Therefore, it is clearn that Mr. Obama is not interested in peace, rather he wants a war he thinks we can win. Well, I hate to disappoint you, Senator, but America is not winning in Afghanistan, and they will never win. No one ever has.

And that is the end of the matter.

As someone who has been using KDE 4.1 (a Beta version mind you) on my production system for quite a few weeks now, I am wondering what the big fuss is really about. No doubt, I agree with some in that KDE developers should have not called a “work in progress” “4.0″. That is misleading. Heck, Google keeps things in Beta for years. The word “beta” is in fashion to the point where they could just always have “Beta” after any KDE release and it would probably attract users.

Therein lies the problem. This time around, “still in development” was a literal warning, not a modest display of humility. The KDE developers warned everyone that 4.0 was not ready for production. Certain distributions, such as Kubuntu, took heed and left KDE 3.5 as the main desktop, offering 4.0 as an option.

If a distribution left KDE 4.0 as the only option, that means KDE 3.5 applications were no longer available. There is no question that certain applications are much further along than others. Dolphin, the file manager, for example is very stable and feature-rich, whereas most of the KDE-PIM applications are still under heavy development.

With both desktops still installed, one can use KDE 4.0 as the desktop and still use some KDE 3.5 apps without any decrease in performance and with no difficulty. That is drastically different from an operating system upgrade. There is no problem with compatibility between 4.0 and 3.5 apps. Therefore, comparing it to Windows Vista carries little weight.

I think those who hate KDE 4 can be placed into four categories:

1. Those who just dislike the new features (plasma, krunner, etc). That is fine. Everyone has their opinion.

2. Those who actually did not use KDE anyway and are just making noise for the sake of making noise.

3. Those who are not very patient and/or not very good at making things work for them (They were used to using KDE 3.5 which “just worked” out of the box — KDE 4 will eventually reach that stage, but it is not quite there yet).

4. Those who miss their favorite component fromKDE 3. Some people especially miss the “kicker” (KDE’s desktop panel), but a lot of them miss it for the strangest reasons. For example, someone mentioned that he did not like that plasma does not have the various options for different types of secondary panels. My response to that is, how many people actually used any of those secondary panels? I’ve seen plenty of KDE desktops and have seen very few, if any, who used the “Mac OS” menu bar or any of the other available features. Having a feature only for the sake of having it only leads to bloated software.

I for one think KDE 4 is coming along nicely. I am in love with plasma. However, I will be the first to admit that it has some way to go, as did KDE 3 when it was first released.
The truth is some people just hate change, but change is going to come with or without them. That is the nature of this world and is certainly the nature of technology.

With previous versions of Firefox, dragging an image to the KDE desktop produced an empty clipboard text box and no image. Now, icons on the KDE desktop are essentially gone, replaced with the Folderview plasmoid. Firefox 3.0 also allows for perfect dragging and dropping. I can drag an image not only into folderview or one of folder icons but also directly into Dolphin (file manager).

It just keeps getting better and better.

Other cool plasmoids:

1. Prayertimes plasmoid
2. Weather plasmoid (I have been waiting for this one)
3. Quick Access plasmoid (just so useful).

Oh yeah, and it never hurts to head butt the flag of a communist country now and then.

Imagine going to the beach in a solar powered swimsuit. (Obviously you’d want to avoid diving into the water with your electric power pack on — but still). You spend the day there absorbing the sunlight, which is collected into your stylish power pack.

When you’re finished, you have two options:

1) Go home and deposit your power into your personal home “power cube”.

2) Before leaving the beach you stop at the “power exchange machine”. You attach your power pack to the machine, which extracts the energy. It then pays you for the amount of energy deposited in cash (or more likely change).

Here is just one word of caution. In the past, if an SSL certificate was expired, not verified, or not recognized, Firefox would initiate a pop-up window telling you this. Now, it takes you to a very scary error page that, if you are like many Americans who don’t bother to read such pages, will make you think the page could not be reached.

In order to view the page (and there are many self-signed certificate pages that you will want to view), you’ll need to add an exception by clicking the “add exception” button at the bottom. The next time you visit the page, you will have no problems.

Then, I read this. Whoever you are, Tiger, you rock.

Circle Soup = Spaghetti O’s

Tindo DS = Nintendo DS

Doll waffle = Waffles with pictures of Barbie on them

Brooming = Sweeping the floor with a broom (actually makes sense)

smacks = Gummy snacks (I pretend to smack her when she asks for it)

There are many more. I’ll post them when I hear them again. Keep in mind, she knows how to say all of these correctly. She just prefers her way and will violently oppose you if you try to correct her.

In their 2006 working paper The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government professor Stephen Walt accuse AIPAC of being “the most powerful and best known” component of a larger pro-Israel lobby that, they say, distorts American foreign policy. They write: “AIPAC’s success is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. … AIPAC makes sure that its friends get strong financial support from the myriad pro-Israel PACs. Those seen as hostile to Israel, on the other hand, can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to their political opponents. … The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress. Open debate about U.S. policy towards Israel does not occur there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.”

Cited on Wikipedia 

It seems very few have been willing to admit what we really knew all along: Barack Obama is just another American politician. He is not some savior of humanity, as some would like to portray him, and he is certainly not going to step on the toes of the corporate demons who fund his campaign.

In times such as these, when America is being ruled by a president who will do anything to please his corporate sponsors, whose policies have killed hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, sacrificed thousands of American soldiers, opened the door for torture, championed the imprisonment of innocent people, and welcomed the contempt and disgust of the entire world, there is something the American people need more than politics as usual.

The American people need morality and honesty. Above all else, a leader who is willing to do what is right and to speak the truth even when he does wrong is the type of leader who can truly turn this country and this race (the human one) away from the brink of extinction that it has now brought upon itself.

Instead, Obama has become glossy eyed with the prospect of becoming president and is willing to bend over backwards for Israel and the AIPAC, even if it means echoing Israel’s call to attack Iran, a country that has not invaded nor even threatened to attack another country (something even Iraq could not claim).

Obama sounds like Bush, albeit a more eloquent and intelligent upgrade from the first two Bush versions. He proudly proclaimed, “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.”

The evidence, Senator Obama, indicates that Iran is not even trying to obtain a nuclear weapon, so why even mention this? You might very well pressure Iran into doing the very thing you swear you will prevent them from doing. And what does “everything in my power” mean? Surely, a president’s power includes control over the military. Obama is threatening to attack Iran. That is not quite as strong as Hillary Clinton’s language, but the end result would be the same.

” … There is no greater threat to Israel or peace than Iran,” he went on to say.

Any intelligent (and honest) person can easily see that the greatest threat to Israel and peace is Israel itself. It is Israel that invaded Palestinian territory. It is Israel that drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land. It is Israel that committed massacres, one after another, against thousands of innocent Palestinians. It is Israel that continues to hold scores of Palestinians in dungeons, without any formal charges against them. It is Israel that has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran, not the other way around. It is Israel with the track record of invading another country (Lebanon) and occupying it for 20 years, not Iran. It is Israel that has nuclear weapons and refuses to sign the NPT. It is Israel that has had over 40 U.N. resolutions passed against it condemning its atrocities, yet it refuses to take heed of any of them. It is Israel, Senator Obama, that forces the Palestinians to live in Apartheid-like conditions, and that is not just my opinion, Senator Obama. Former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, agree.

So like Reagan, Senator Obama, you are supporting yet another Apartheid regime, another regime that has acquired and is threatening to use its nuclear weapons against a country that is guilty only of defending the rights and lives of the Palestinian people when everyone else in the world, including you, Senator Obama, is unwilling, or too much of a coward, to do so.

Obama was not finished. He continued with, “This audience is made up of both Republicans and Democrats. And the enemies of Israel should have no doubt that regardless of party, Americans stand shoulder to shoulder in support of Israel’s security. …”

Do we? Do Americans really care about Israel’s security while the policies of our own government continue to degrade our own security? Senator Obama wants us to believe that Israel is a symbiont inside of the heart of America, but there is another more appropriate name for such an organism: parasite.

“The Iran regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and …”

If we really wanted to make this statement true, it should probably be uttered by the Iranian supreme leader, “The American regime supports violent extremists (Israel) and challenges us (Iran) across the region. It already has a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and …(blah blah blah)…”

Finally, Senator Obama either wants us to believe he is a complete idiot (just as Bush expects us to believe that about him) or he is a liar in the esteemed tradition of liars who have occupied the oval office, both republicans and democrats. Senator Obama decided to echo the propaganda that has infected our airwaves and television sets, “Its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. … [M]y goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

I see no point in even trying to disprove this lie again. He never denied the Holocaust (he said that it should be studied by independent historians) and he certainly never threatened Israel (but rather said that Israel will fade from the pages of history).

So how, Senator Obama, do you plan to eliminate a threat that does not exist? I suppose you will do as other presidents before you have done: you will create one.

I’m certainly not voting for McCain, and unless Obama grows a conscience, I’m afraid he has lost my vote as well.

“I get 100 miles to the ounce on water. I can run any water, distilled water, drinking water, tap water,” said Brown.

The self-proclaimed inventor said he has almost done the job and has fixed his car to run mostly on water, Firstcoastnews.com reported.

“Right now it’s using a little bit of gas. If anything it’s getting a fuel vapor. I’ve got the fuel injection system shut down,” said Brown.

“When you separate the water from the oxygen from the hydrogen, it cooks and it cooks down to a brown color. We’re not having any waste product off of it. Everything is consumed and burned,” he explained.

Brown said the invention would be complete within the next few months and the profits would be used to help missionaries around the world.

– First Coast News, Jacksonville
(emphasis is mine)

Grandfather: “If you’re good, maybe I’ll give you two some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

My 4-year-old daughter: “I don’t like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

Grandfather: “Yes you do.”

Daughter: “No I don’t because they make me throw up.”

Not true of course.

Now the dolphin is the default file manager, it only makes sense to add this feature to dolphin.

McClellan went on to say President Bush had personally told him he authorized the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity. McClellan says he asked President Bush aboard Air Force One if he was the one who approved outing Plame to the media. McClellan says Bush replied, “Yes, I was.”

McClellan would have to be crazy to lie about something like that, knowing that his very life could be in danger for even suggesting that Bush is a criminal.  Here we have a witness testifying to the public that Bush committed a federal crime (in addition to all of his war crimes), and they still will not impeach him?

Whatever little faith I had left in the democrat majority congress just leaked out onto the floor.

Now, the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) program, which had the noble goal of trying to provide laptops to children in third world countries equipped with educational software running a customized version of Linux, has come under Microsoft’s scope. They knew what it would mean. Generations of young people would grow up not using Microsoft’s products. They could not allow this. They found it so damaging, so dangerous, that they’re practically giving Windows XP away (notice I said practically — they still intend to turn a profit) to what’s left of the project developers (apparently after the moral few were weeded out) to ensure that windows will make its way into every shack in the developing world.

Now these children will have laptops running bloated, battery hogging, soon to be no longer supported, security hole-filled software with little to no educational value (as you know Windows XP does not come with any office software or much else for that matter).

Thanks Microsoft. Once again you have managed to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Prophet: “Your mother.”

Man: “And then who?”

Prophet: “Your mother.”

Man: “And then who?”

Prophet: “Your mother.”

Man: “And then who?”

Prophet: “Your father.”

Click here to watch.

Update: It seems Liquid weather for Superkaramba also supports Accuweather, as does the Mac OS X widget, but that still involves dependence on a particular organization.

OLBERMANN: Can you clarify…which hypothetical Middle East conflicts would incur massive retaliation by this country and what constitutes massive retaliation?

CLINTON: What we were talking about was the potential for a nuclear attack by Iran. If Iran does achieve what appears to be a continuing goal of obtaining nuclear weapons. And I think deterrence has not been effectively used in recent times. We used it very well during the Cold War when we had a bipolar world. And what I think the president should do and what our policy should be is to make it very clear to the Iranians that they would be risking massive retaliation were they to launch a nuclear attack on Israel.

I always knew Hillary was a Zionist, but it seems she’s even more willing to start World War III than Israel itself. And how many average citizens living in Israel truly feel the way she does? What would even warrant an Iranian attack on Israel? Are we forgetting that a nuclear disaster for Israel is also a nuclear disaster for the Palestinians, the very people Iran has sworn to defend?

It seems in Hillary’s efforts to please the Devil, she’s lost all reasoning ability. It’s amazing that she’s so eager to perpetuate the bigoted depiction of middle eastern people (and nations) as mindless ogres who would attack and kill anyone if given the chance.

Meanwhile, Iran has accomplished more calculated strategic victories in the past four years than any country with interest in the region. Senator Clinton, if you insist on bullying a smaller country and labeling them an enemy threat, at least take the time to know your enemy.

“[My energy policy] will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East,” said republican presidential candidate John McCain.

The “again” implies that it has been done before, and the fact that it is his energy policy that will prevent it indicates that it was done in order to get oil. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

Amen, brother. Amen.

“Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Dutch critic of Islam, will publish a fictional children’s book about a twelve-year-old Muslim boy who faces many difficulties after befriending a Jewish girl. It is unclear as to what her motivation is for advocating such false and bigoted views that Muslims are opposed to Jews, when it is clearly stated in the Quran that Muslims and Jews come from the same “Family of the Book”. The Quran also speaks highly of Abraham and Moses, insisting that they were righteous Prophets of God.”

She can spread hatred as much as she wants. We must continue to spread love.

The operating system, Internet Tablet OS 2008, is a Debian GNU/Linux based distribution with a customized GTK-based graphical interface. Beyond surfing the web, here are some of my common uses for it:

1. Media player (mp3s, videos, podcasts, mostly using Canola)
2. Sync/backup using a wireless GRsync connection.
3. Server maintenance – It is Linux after all. I can SSH into my remote server and make updates, security changes, restart services, etc.
4. HTPC control – I run a Freevo box in my living room. I currently don’t even have a keyboard attached to it, but I can wirelessly use my n800 for any tasks not accessible with the remote control
5. Alarm clock – Yes, I sleep with my n800, and it wakes me up in the morning.
6. PDA – I use the calendar program to keep track of tasks and do a three-way sync with my Google calendar and with KOrganizer.
7. Thin Client – Using a handy graphical program called kerez, I can setup an SSH connection to my desktop PC, forwarding the X server all with the click of a button. Then, I can remotely start an application and run it within my n800.

Those are just some of the less obvious uses. With a fully functional web browser, anything accessible on the web is pretty much fair game. It also behaves as an internet phone using Skype and has a built-in camera for video conferencing (currently only through Google Talk or Gizmo…not sure when the latest Skype version with video support will be released).

What more can I say? I think I’m in love with my Nokia n800. I call her “Kia” for short.

On another note, I’ve been working with the Derwin Smiley Show, mainly doing the online content distribution side of things (although also some video editing when needed). It airs on a local station here in Indianapolis, but we also have a podcast. The latest episode is now available.

Warning: this is not for the faint of heart or a weak stomach.

Meat.org

The first was about the United states’ role in Haiti’s food riots:

“As people around the world continue to protest the soaring prices of basic food items, the World Food Program has described the crisis as a silent tsunami. The head of the Food and Agriculture Organization blamed the current global food crisis on “inappropriate” policy decisions over the past two decades. Nowhere is this more clear than in Haiti, where hungry people are rioting in the streets because they cannot afford to buy rice. Haiti imports most of its rice from the United States, which in turn remains heavily subsidized. We speak with human rights lawyer, Bill Quigley.”

The other dealt with the UN Forum on Indigenous Issues and climate change:

“Representatives of the world’s 370 million indigenous people are
gathered at the United Nations this week to demand that their voices be
included in future talks on climate change. Over 3,000 delegates are
attending the seventh session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous
Issues. We speak with Casey Camp-Horinek, a member of the Ponca Nation
of Oklahoma”

Hope for what? Is their hope misguided? Will the democratic process once again fail us as it did in 2000 when thousands of black voters were disenfranchised and the withering Al Gore laid his own head on the chopping block? Perhaps, but the glimmer of hope in democracy is that people have the power to make changes. The question, however, is whether or not simply casting a ballot is actually enough to effect reasonable change.

Must all of us become CEOs of major corporations in order to have our voices heard? History would argue that when people come together for a common cause, no dictatorial regime or corporate driven machine can stand in their way. The problem that exists now is that so many Americans are still satisfied with the current situation or at least not dissatisfied enough.

Americans get upset on cue. It is as if automatic triggers are set in our brains. The Chinese have been subjugating the people of Tibet for decades, but suddenly it has become an issue. The same people who have found a new cause in Tibet would turn a blind eye to the oppression faced by the Palestinians in the occupied territories. The suffering of the people in Darfur no longer seems so relevant. Add Somalia and nearly the rest of Africa to that list, and it just seems peculiar that some have chosen to protest China’s occupation of Tibet. Do they protest the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan?

In reality many of the liberal democrats who are displeased with the president’s invasion of Iraq are not upset because it is immoral, unjust, or because of the ulterior motive of establishing a permanent military stronghold on the doorstep of Iran (after all, both Clinton and Obama seem poised to strap bombs to their chests and lead the suicide mission into Iran even after Bush stumbles down from the oval office). No, the democrats’ opposition to the war is not so complex. The reason is simple: we are losing.

When our military was defeating Saddam’s crippled and undernourished army, and the president stood under a banner reading “Mission Accomplished,” few democrats shivered as I and a few others did. Those of us who had opposed the war from the beginning knew what was on the horizon, but those who claimed they “ignorantly” voted for the war were only stating so to cover their own embarrassed rear ends.

Money talks, and as it stands, the black-colored greasy money flowing out of Iran in the form of Euros is so bitter to the American palette that even the most well-informed liberal proudly proclaims that Iran is a “serious threat” that must be stopped. Without a doubt, the corporations, more specifically the oil companies, spun this, and Israel piggybacked their scheme, albeit for different reasons. Controlling the oil flow to and from Iran would grant them full access to the Middle East and all its resources.

Unfortunately, the plan went sour before it ever had a chance to brew. By invading Afghanistan and ousting the Taliban, the US created a new ally for Iran, an Afghan government that is increasingly suspicious of the seven-year sleepover of coalition forces. By invading Iraq, the US solidified Iranian power in the region, installing a regime dominated by the SCIRI (not their original plan, I should note) and the powerful Mahdi Army, both strong allies of Iran. Then, they gave free reign to a corrupt and possibly delusional Musharraf in Pakistan, allowing him to plunder his nation like a pirate and fashion himself as the dictator for life, only to be snubbed by his less-than-willing people. The only marginally powerful ally the US has left in the region is Turkey, which seems to care little about US interests, now that the Kurds have been turned loose on them. They seem more interested in bombing Iraq than even the US themselves.

Instead of surrounding Iran with a wall of military muscle, the corporate regime led by Mr. Bush has handed central Asia to Iran on a silver dish. The best they can hope for now is to make diplomatic ties with Iran, as they once did with China. But even that will take a president and a group of citizens united behind him or her, who are more concerned with peace and safety than with filling the tanks in their SUVs. God help us all.

“States in the West loyally commit themselves to it, living under a grandiose fantasy of superior humanity and a higher civilization. With this narcissistic perception comes the license to play the global Big Brother, dictating the order of things arbitrarily”

It’s worth reading.

DRM

In other news of corruption:

• Papa John’s stole money from me.  We ordered pizzas with Sprite.  They failed to deliver the Sprite and then refused to refund us.  Sure, it might only be $2 from us, but add up how many others they’ve probably ripped off and it becomes massive fraud.  Don’t buy their pizza.  It sucks anyway.

• My sister-in-law was arrested and charged for a crime she didn’t even know about, much less commit.  The cops are pigs, but you already knew that.

• The EU is fining Microsoft $1.45 billion.  Yeah I know it sounds like a lot, but Microsoft makes $1.5 billion in profits each month.  It’s like fining a lemonade stand $0.25.

• Exxon’s case is being heard by the supreme court, yes the one bought and paid for by the Bush family.  Exxon has proved that oil is thicker than water, and so is cold hard cash, with annual profits at $36 billion.

• Black History Month isn’t quite so short this year.  After all, we get an extra day.

It was a video-sharing website that got right what Youtube and others failed to do.  They were able to provide high quality videos and get some pretty decent content.  Granted, it’s a proprietary format (but then again so is Flash) and the video sizes were quite a bit larger, but it was lovely. 

I could download full-length episodes of shows and short films with little effort.  It will be sad to see it go, but I always wondered what their revenue-making scheme was.  Although it was a nice idea, they seemed to have no method of sustaining such a large project with huge video files (some of them in HD).  At lease with Vuze, the Azureus people are footing the bill for server bandwidth (since it uses peer-to-peer torrent technology).

At any rate, farewell, Stage6.  Many good things die young.

I had two hard drives in my computer, an older 80GB one with the operating system and applications on it, and a newer 250GB one for my data. Unfortunately, the 80GB started to make whining and clicking noises. My experience tells me that those sounds are the beginning stages of its demise. Rather than wait around for it to crash completely, it was the perfect time to upgrade.

I bought a second 250GB drive and reinstalled Kubuntu on it, transferring all of my home folder settings and files in the process.

I decided that I would try KDE 4 on a fresh install. Lo and behold, the Plasma issues were largely resolved. Icons on the desktop worked, and it doesn’t seem to have the stability problems that it had before. Apparently, one bug that I’ve found is that setting the mouse to double-click fails to activate icons, whereas single click works just fine.

The downer has been Konqueror. Since I’ve started using Dolphin as a file manager, I’ve been using Firefox more and more anyway, but with a still unusable Konqueror on KDE4, I’ve gone to Firefox full time. There are two problems with it currently:

1. The location bar disappears. I can get it back by putting it inside the main toolbar, but when I restart Konqueror, it hangs.

2. I cannot get SSL enabled sites to work. Any site that uses https fails to load. I’ve read that it is a certificate issue, but for me, this is a show stopper.

When I feel the need to use Konqueror, which I still prefer for its slimness and speed, the KDE3 version works just fine in KDE4. In fact, all KDE3 apps work perfectly well, which is much better than people’s experiences with upgrading other desktops/operating systems, such as the transition from Mac OS 9 to OS X or from Windows XP to Vista.  Hats off to the KDE and QT developers for that.

In the end, KDE4 is already beautiful and does add notable usability features. Over time it will mature into the best desktop environment in the world, a title KDE 3 currently holds.

Salat al-ayat is an obligation during such events.  Please be sure to perform it during the appropriate time.

Total eclipse begins at 10:01 PM EST in the US.

So, what do you think?  Did Toshiba take the red pill or the green pill?  It was always a delusion.  They never had a chance.

But don’t expect me to rush out and buy a Blueray player, not until Sony shoves their DRM up their corporate behinds (or someone successfully hacks it — maybe they already have???).

– W.E.B. DuBois

It shows not only an ignorance of the people and culture but also an ignorance of how human beings in general behave. Under occupation, there is always resistance. This is a fact. If a foreign power were to invade the US today, plenty of people would resist, and it would be viewed as completely legitimate.

Until this very day, however, American policy makers (both democrat and republican) have stood by the invasion of Afghanistan under the justification that it somehow vindicated the attacks of September 11, 2001. That in itself is preposterous, but when you also consider that they believe a continued fight against the Taliban, which, as far as we know, had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, is necessary, the picture begins to become even more distorted.

There are several changes that must occur in order to eventually relieve the Afghan people from anymore unnecessary suffering:

1. The occupation forces there must develop an exit plan. (It is ridiculous that so many people are opposed to the occupation of Iraq but mention nothing of Afghanistan, as if they somehow deserve to be occupied).

2. The Afghan government must have full control of the policy making (no puppet-regime tactics).

3. The Afghan government must sit down with the Taliban and make peace, whatever the cost. This is the only way to end a war, aside from everyone on both sides being dead. Both sides must be willing to compromise, but in the end, both sides should share the power.

4. Any illegal immigrants (from Arab countries or elsewhere) must be deported (if they are innocent) or legally tried in court (if they are members of al-Qa’idah). This will be much easier if the Taliban are working in coordination with the government.

5. If #4 is not possible alone, then outside assistance should be sought by the new unified government. Preferably, that outside help should come from friendly neighbors (Pakistan and Iran, but not perceived enemies such as the US).

6. The government should nationalize, even if temporarily, the production of their natural resources in order to strengthen their economy and sever any dependence on foreign money.

7. They should establish strong trade agreements with neighboring nations and rely on the United Nations, Red Crescent, and other “impartial” (and I use the term loosely) organizations when necessary.

8. They should setup micro-finance institutions similar to the ones in Bangladesh.

9. They should coordinate military and police training with Iran and Pakistan instead of western powers.

These are just some of the ideas that will make Afghanistan strong for Afghans, rather than occupiers with only their own interests in mind. If you have any other ideas that should be added or better ideas than the ones I’ve listed, please post them in the comments.

It is neither a time of pure sadness nor a time to remember defeat, because from it sprang a movement, one that rescued Islam from the clutches of tyranny and strengthened the message of the Messenger of Allah that morality and justice must always prevail over avarice, oppression, and miserliness.  For this, the Muslim Ummah should experience the ultimate joy, knowing that, as Allah has promised, the believers will be victorious.

It is not a time in which Muslims should be divided because all of us owe our debt to the struggle of the Imam and his companions on that day (the 10th of Muharram) in that desert (in Karbala, Iraq).  The movement that emerged after the tragedy, under the guidance of the Imam’s surviving son, Ali Zain-ul-’Abideen (peace be upon him) and with the tenacity, loyalty, perseverance, wisdom, and honor demonstrated by his sister, Zaynab bint Ali (peace be upon her), the message of Islam not only survived, it championed righteousness over treachery and lewdness.  It summoned the people of knowledge to their feet and challenged them to deny the truth.

For this reason, there is essentially only one version of this event.  For most other events, there is a Sunni version and a Shi’i version, but for Karbala, for the struggle of Imam Husayn, the Muslim Ummah stands in unity.  The account in At-Tabari’s Tarikh is essentially identical to the account given in al-Mufid’s Irshad. 

So on this day and on all days, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon the sweet basil flower of the Messenger of Allah, the grandson of the Last Prophet, the son of the Commander of the Faithful and the Leader of all believing women, one of the two leaders of the youths in Paradise, the chief of martyrs and nephew of the chief of martyrs, the standard bearer of justice and freedom, the pillar of excellence, the one for whom Allah is forever pleased, the love of our hearts, Imam al-Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib.  As-salaamu ‘alayka Yabna Muhammad-al-Mustafa!  As-salaamu ‘alayka yabna Ali-al-Murtadha.  As-salaamu ‘alayka yabna Fatimat-az-Zahra`!  As-salaamu ‘alayka ya Aba Abdallah!

Here are some of the reasons why I am not currently using KDE 4.0 despite having it installed:

1. Plasma, all-in-one the desktop, panel, widget system is simply not finished.  Desktop icons don’t work, panel icons don’t work, sometimes the background image doesn’t load, there are no, absolutely no panel options.  Those used to resizing the panel, changing the color, etc will be mortified when faced with the generic plasma panel

2. Applications tend to crash or behave erratically.  Dolphin, the file manager, gives me an error everytime I click on a file to open it.  Open a text file, get the error, “Could not open Kwrite”.  That’s not the strange part.  The strange part is that Kwrite actually does open, despite the error.  Other applications, like Kopete just crash.  The Kword version is an alpha version.  The apps simply aren’t ready.  The one set of apps that do look and work nicely are the games.  Mahjong Solitaire on KDE4 is simply magnificent.

3. Konqueror – Once the be all to end all, there was a time when KDE was synonymous with Konqueror.  It is a web browser, file manager, ftp transfer program, and many more things.  It has to work.  If it doesn’t, KDE doesn’t work.  When using it as a web browser, most of the web sites I went to did not work.  Google, Yahoo, and a few other sites did.  I couldn’t get a coherent error out of it, only something about not being able to paint widgets correctly.  This is simply not acceptable for production use.

As I mentioned before, I understand that this version is not a finished product.  I remember when Mac OS X was first released.  There were few apps for it and plenty of usability issues.  After a few versions, most of those issues were worked out and more people started to adopt it. My hope is that something similar will happen with KDE.  I like the direction they’re headed, and aside from the problems I’ve mentioned, it is beautiful, faster, and more organized that any desktop environment I’ve seen.

At this point, however, it’s simply not usable for me.

“F**kin’ with Saddam will bring a new Saigon…”

Truer words have rarely been spoken.

The long awaited 3D effects built into KWIN were also activated in the Kubuntu release. It is very impressive, albeit not as many effects as Beryl/Compiz.

Overall, the visual presentation was so nice that I hated going back to KDE 3.5, but it just simply is not yet stable enough for production.  It is, however, getting very close.  It will be nice to start off the new year with a brand new, beautiful, and lightning fast desktop environment.  Ready or not, here KDE4 comes.

I’ve heard of Korean children growing up in such an environment and then making the choice to go back to their home country to find out who they really are.  But that is not even why I am questioning the real motivation behind such programs that are financed by large Christian missionary organizations.

Why are they choosing Muslim children?  Do they think that they are somehow “saving” them not only from poverty and orphanhood but also from the pyres of Hell?  Is it not only a humanitarian mission but also a crusade?  After all, there are plenty of countries where Christian children need to be adopted (America included).  Why don’t we hear about more Christian families adopting Palestinian Christian babies?  Oh yeah, maybe it’s because most of the organizations support the Israeli occupation of Palestine.  It’s not politically convenient to support Arab Christians.

God knows best what the true intentions of these people are.  Maybe they are just naive political tools or maybe not.  What I do know is that Muslims need to adopt more frequently.  The Prophet did it, the Qur’an highly recommends it, and it seems close to being an obligation for those who can afford to do it.

This also means that Eid al-adha will soon be upon us.  It will be close to Christmas, and I’m sure that many non-Muslims will confusingly assume that Muslims have a “December” holiday every year like Christians and Jews.  This, of course, is not the case, and we should try to clarify the nature of our lunar calendar for them.

Zekr is an open platform Quran study tool for simply browsing and researching on the Holy Quran. It is a Quran-based
project, planned to be a universal, open source, and cross-platform application to perform most of the usual refers to Quran. The main idea is to build an as generic as possible platform to accept different Islamic resources.

The Website
The Sourceforge project page

1.  Survivor’s Guide to Desert Islands  (if that doesn’t exist, someone should write it).
2. The Qur’an
3. Nahjul-Balagha
4. Any book about Mulla Nasruddin (I’ll need humor and some spirituality rolled into one).
5. Survivor’s Guide to Escaping Desert Islands (yes, definitely)
6. Mathnawi (Maulana Rumi will comfort me on my lonely nights)
7. Essentials of Islamic Metaphysics (since I’ll have time, I can finally try to figure out this book).
8. A book with blank pages (so I can write my own)
9. A Thousand and One Nights (I love the stories, and it just sounds appropriate)
10. Survivor’s Guide to Accepting that You Will Not Be Rescued, including the 3-step easy guide to learning any island language so you can marry the native girl stranded on the island with you.

That’s “Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play” in case you were wondering.

And if you’d prefer a quiet, cute, energy-efficient desktop PC, check out the newly released gPC from Everex, running the new gOS (I’m not making this up).  Did I mention they’re both inexpensive?

(Note: I am in no way promoting either of these products.  If they crash, burn, and destroy your data, please complain to the companies that sell them.  I am, however, promoting free and open source software.  Discover it, Use it, Share it.  [umm, DUS!])

Honestly, they both look like something ideal for children.  They’re not going to cost you a lot, but you can still provide your kids with something fun and easy to use.  I’m considering getting the EeePC for my wife who has been anxiously desiring to get a new desktop PC.  I will NOT, however, buy it from Wal-mart, no matter how green it is.

That is all for now.

Anyway, some guy’s Google Summer of Code project has saved me from withdrawal with his Flash-based port of the Java-based port of Frozen Bubble.  God is Most Merciful.

For those unaware, niqab is a complete covering where only the eyes are visible. My co-worker’s argument and the argument of the state of Florida, is that, after 9/11, police need to be able to quickly and easily identify “terrorists?” The word terrorists is in quotes because I have serious doubts about their line of reasoning.

It is flimsy at best. First, there is no law on the books in Florida preventing a person from getting a license without a photo at all, let alone a veiled photo. Revoking the woman’s license was illegal, but they got away with it for the same reason Bush got away with illegal wire-tapping: fear. Americans are afraid, and nothing represents their fear more than a Muslim woman wearing a veil. She is mysterious, shady, and probably a terrorist in the making (if not one already). Right?

I, like most Muslims, do not believe that the niqab is required by shari’ah, but a minority of Muslims do. And is not this a country that upholds the religious rights of all, even a minority of a minority?

There are really two questions:

1. Are photos truly a reliable form of identification?
2. Will having photo identification in any way curb terrorist activity?

The answer to both is no, and here’s why:

1. People have the ability to change the way they look very easily.  Women do it all the time.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a woman after a year or so and could hardly recognize her.  Different hair, different make-up, even a little plastic surgery, and a tiny little driver’s license photo is useless.  The truth is that a photo is completely unreliable and there is no way of knowing that the person who took the photo was indeed the person the license claims to be.  Why?  The BMV does not require photo identification.  As long as you can produce a social security card or even a piece of paper saying you once had a social security card, you can claim to be anyone.

More reliable identification methods include fingerprints and, guess what, eyes.  Yes, iris and retinas are very hard to fake.  Unlike faces and hair, you can definitely ID someone based on their eyes.  In order to accommodate niqab, all the BMV would have to do would be to take a zoomed-in picture of the woman’s eyes.  She’d have no way to fake her identity.  In fact, it would be more reliable than photos.  The flaw is not in the claim against taking the photos but in the concept of photo identification itself.  It is unreliable, and my second point further illustrates this.

2.  You’re a criminal on the run.  The police are after you.  You’re in disguise.  You’re carrying photo identification?  Uh, no.  Criminals don’t do this, and trust me, terrorists definitely don’t do this.  Even after 9/11, the authorities still couldn’t identify the terrorists.  They had names and photos, but the names were as common in the arab world as “John Smith” in America and the photos could have easily been forged.

Furthermore, if a niqabi was really prepared to commit a terrorist attack, why would the lack of a driver’s license stand in her way?  She could hop on the next bus downtown and blow herself up.

The truth is that the objections of the state of Florida, of my co-worker, and of anyone else claiming that if a woman fails to show all of her face for a driver’s license photo, “the terrorists win,” are just spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt).  It is not based on anything credible, relevant to criminal justice, the war on terror, or the first amendment.  It is simply another way the government is taking away our freedoms.  Today it is the freedom of a young veiled Muslim woman, but tomorrow it might be blue-eyed, blond-haired, Christian Sally from Newport, Indiana.  Then, we’ll see if people are so quick to dismiss the First Amendment we all claim to hold dearly but very rarely defend when it comes to the “other.”

available at inminds.co.uk

Please read it and let me know your thoughts.

I hate it so much, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, HATE it….almost as much as I despise Halloween.

And that is the end of the matter.

Test one
Test two
Test three

“The US President (George W. Bush) made an atomic bomb threat,” Chevez said on Thursday, referring to Bush’s war rhetoric against Iran.

“In other words, he’s threatening a third world war but now with atomic weapons.

It’s like he should be taken to the psychiatric hospital. I think he’s on the edge of the psychiatric hospital,” he added.

Full story

Collective punishment.  Sounds a bit like Nazi Germany doesn’t it?  Their oppressors became their teachers.

Nevertheless, I am concerned about one thing: Plasma.  It looks cool, no doubt, but here we are at Beta 3 and the thing is still broken.  Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but I still can’t get a kmenu, and half of the time, the little applets, widgets, whatever you want to call them don’t work.  They slide all over the place with no apparent way to lock them.

I don’t think the KDE developers will release it if it doesn’t work by the time December comes around.  But the question is, if it’s not ready does KDE 4.0 ship without it, or do they delay it yet again?  Am I overreacting?  Is it all going to fall into place within the next month when the release candidates start rolling out?  I don’t know.  Maybe all of the problems I’m having are related to only a few bugs that need fixing.  I really don’t know.  I’m just concerned.

Meanwhile, KDE 3.5.8 was just released and is smoother and more stable than ever.  So many questions, so little time.

It is reported that Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq (peace be upon him) said:

Truthfulness is a light which radiates its reality in its own world: it is like the sun, from whose reality everything seeks light without any decrease occurring in this reality. A truthful person, in fact, is a man who believes every liar, due to the reality of his own truthfulness. It means that nothing which is opposed to truthfulness, nothing, even, which is not truthfulness, is permitted to coexist with it; just as happened with Adam, who believed Iblis when he lied because Iblis had sworn a false oath to him and there was no lying in Adam. Allah said,

We did not find in him any determination. (20:115)

because Iblis originated something previously unknown, both outwardly and inwardly. Iblis will be gathered with his lie, and he will never benefit from the truthfulness of Adam.

Yet it benefited Adam that he believed the lie of Iblis, as Allah testified for him when He said that he was not constant in what was contrary to his custom. This really means that his being chosen was not at all diminished by Satan’s lies.

– Lantern of the Path

Oh yeah, and Eid Mubarak to you all.

My advice to any young brothers out there: when it comes time to choose a wife, think deeply about it.  Certain physical and even personality traits will come and go, but a sister who is serious about the Deen, someone who has a connection with Allah that cannot be broken, that is priceless and timeless.

Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq (peace be upon him) narrated that once a man came to the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him and his family peace) and asked him to give him a piece of advice.  The Prophet asked him three times: “Will you make a point of following the advice if I advise you?”, to which the man responded each time, “Yes, O Prophet of Allah.”

So, the Prophet continued, “Then I advise you that when you intend to carry out an action, consider its consequences first.  If they are sound, then go ahead with it, and if they are corrupt, then abandon it.”

– From Wasa’il-al-Shi’a by Shaykh al-Hurr al-Amili in the book “Jihad al-Nafs” #20516.

It’s called, Sunan An-Nabi: A Collection of Narrations on the Conduct and Customs of the Noble Prophet Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant him and his family peace).

The original work was written by the venerable ‘Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Taba’taba’i (may Allah make his grave fragrant) and was translated by Tahir Ridha Jaffer.

Here is an excerpt from the back cover:

Outsiders have understood his political genius, his power of oratory, and his great statesmanship, but few have understood how he could be the religious and spiritual guide of humanity and how his life could be emulated by those who aspire proximity to the Almighty Creator.  From the Muslim point of view, the Prophet is the symbol of perfection of both the human person and human society.  He is the prototype of the human individual and the human collectivity and as such, he bears certain characteristics in the eyes of the Muslims which can only be discovered by studying the accounts of conduct and behavior – as seen in this monumental work, Sunan an-Nabi.

If you haven’t seen it, check it out, and if you haven’t joined, now is a great time to do so.  It’s free.  Free as in price, and free as in freedom of expression.

Taubah, who is the creator of N~Flow Magazine, is the executive editor.

In modern secular societies, success often means wealth, so the judgment of someone’s success is based on the amount of money they’ve earned, the investments they’ve made, and even the fame that they’ve achieved as a result of their wealth.  It is only then, that we say of someone, “He is a successful man” or “She is a successful woman.”

For Imam Ali and all of those who walk the path of righteousness, success is something more profound.  To be successful is to know God, and once a person truly knows God, he serves Him in his life.  Therefore, success comes from service to God.  The successful ones, the victorious ones, are those who strive in the way of God with their minds, their words, their wealth, and their lives.

“If moderation and gentleness were physical creations that could be perceived, there would be nothing more beautiful, out of all that Allah has created, than these two attributes.”

– “Jihad al-Nafs” (from Wasa’il al-Shi’a) by  Shaykh Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Hurr al-’Amili (#20482)

Still, The Death Clock, as it is aptly named, is an amusing distraction, and they provide nice health tips to help you take better care of your decaying body.

The New One Ummah Network 

by Tavis Adibudeen, Director of Publishing

“Verily, this community (ummah) of yours is one community (ummah), and I am your Lord, therefore, worship only Me.” (Qur’an 21:92)

For the past decade, One Ummah Network has striven to uphold this principle of unity (tawhid). As is narrated from the Messenger of Allah, the Muslim ummah is one body; whenever one part of the body hurts, the rest of it shares in that pain, and when one portion experiences felicity, the entire body shares in that joy.

Now, in a time when outside forces are consciously seeking to divide Muslims along political, ethnic, and even sectarian lines, One Ummah Network reaffirms our commitment to unity and peace. Our main principles have always and continue to be the following:

1. Educating Muslims about Islam is the best way to unite them.
2. All people who claim to be Muslim must be respected as such.
3. All people, Muslim and non-Muslim are welcome to contribute to this cause.

The World Wide Web has evolved rapidly over the years. OneUmmah.net began in 1999 as a small web site that mainly relied on rhetoric to promote unity. As I grew in my understanding, the site also grew, and I realized that unity would be achieved not through preaching but through active dialog and by educating each other about our similarities and differences.

In the 1990s, email mailing lists were extremely popular, and we employed that method to disseminate our message. At the turn of the century, discussion boards rose to popularity, and MuslimMessage.net succeeded our mailing list and became one of the premier forums for Muslim expression on the Internet. Now, as the popularity of discussion boards begins to wane and MuslimMessage.net seems to have run the course of its short life, community sites, portals, blogs, podcasts, and other open methods of content delivery and interaction seem to be riding the wave of the future.

In light of the above, we are reorganizing OneUmmah.net to suit the developing trends. Over the course the next few weeks, during this sacred month of Ramadan, you will notice the following improvements and changes:

1. MuslimMessage.net will be shut down. Most of the articles in the Question/Answer section will be archived in our FAQ section. The domain name will be allocated to other resources or organizations.

2. Registration is now open on the OneUmmah.net main site. Users will have their own profiles, can upload images, connect with other users, comment on articles, rate their favorite content, share content, post videos, and many more features.

3. We will have a full staff of writers as well as guest authors in order to keep a steady flow of knowledge on a weekly basis.

4. The Muslim Writers Society will become more of a standard publication. We have three editors who will more closely select content and also post stricter guidelines for submission.

5. One Ummah will establish an advisory board of intellectuals and scholars from various schools of thought to guide our staff in better serving the community.

This is an exciting time for us at One Ummah Network, and we hope that, insha`Allah, it will be an exciting time for our visitors and friends. As always, if you would like to contribute now, in the future, or on a regular basis, you can contact us at any time. I pray that Allah blesses this venture to be a successful one and that this Ramadan proves to be a fruitful month filled with blessings for us all. May Allah send his peace and blessings upon the last Prophet, upon his honorable family, upon his righteous companions, and upon all followers of truth and justice.

The only problem is, I didn’t make this blog, yet the user wears my name. No other information is given. I’ve heard of this happening to famous people, but I’m not famous…really, I’m not.