Open Thread Sunday 8/9/09

Less than two weeks to Ramadan… are you ready/preparing??  How is the approach of Ramadan affecting your psyche?

• Iphone/ipod touch users should notice a new look for MM when loading the site, we’re still fine tuning it but let us know what you think
• Shaykh Abdullah Hakim Quick’s house was burnt down a week or so ago… donations being called for. See MR’s post
• Twitter knocked out by lone blogger. Can’t we live a few hours without sharing tweets anymore??
  

The outage that knocked Twitter offline for hours was traced to an attack on a lone blogger in the former Soviet republic of Georgia — but the collateral damage that left millions around the world tweetless showed just how much havoc an isolated cyberdispute can cause. [Story]

• Most Muslims have seen the youtube hit put together by fear-mongers, and actually secretly reveled in by Muslim optimists is debunked by BBC.  But Telegraph says 20% of EU will be Muslim with a report that has the word “bomb” in the title and a photo of a woman in niqab– just innocent reporting!

Population projection is an inexact science. No-one knows how many Muslims will be living in Europe or anywhere else by 2050. The current trends suggest that by 2050 Europe will have a bigger proportion of Muslims, although nothing like the level suggested in the video.

• Human Rights beef over salami– sometimes, you can just get a bit too greedy:

The couple, William and Micheline Issa, filed a complaint with the tribunal on behalf of themselves and their three children, saying the store served them salami containing pork a year ago. [Story]

• Islamic & Hispanic cultures intertwine in South Texas:

Peña felt unfulfilled after he completed his studies at St. Anthony’s Seminary in San Antonio. As Peña’s interest in Islam took root where his Catholicism had fallen flat, he opened the newspaper and read an article about a new mosque on Elsham Road in Edinburg. He went to the mosque and decided to become a Muslim three weeks after his visit. Peña said the Shahadah, the Muslim declaration of faith, for the first time when he was 56 years old.

• Houston “taliban-supporter” gets 4 1/2 years jail-time.  Kobbie Williams was in solitary confinement for 33 months!   It is now well known that the “paramilitary operations” conducted at a camp in Willis, Texas were part of  a grand set-up by a couple of guys whose bank-accounts inflated during these “operations”.  Those who know Kobbie remember a person who spent tons of his time helping out in a soup kitchen for Houston’s homeless, and a person actively engaged in dawah, who was hardly capable of hurting a fly, let alone engage in physical conflict. His crime (33 months of solitary confinement for this??)

Practicing paramilitary operations on camping trips in anticipation of fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan and by contributing $350 to a group he understood would give the money to the Taliban, a terrorist organization. [Story]

• French Muslims’ Veils Ignite Debate on Values, while the British police are trying to actually build bridges and understand veiling:

“There is real ideological work underway to refute the best parts of what makes up Western civilization,” [French Story]

Two of the women covered their heads so completely only their eyes could be seen, while the third wore a headscarf but left her face showing [British Story]

• Let’s shed some alligator tears for Algeria’s bars and clubs… the Islamists are yet again responsible for inflicting this terrorism:

Rachid Tlemcani, a political science professor at Algiers University says: “We’re witnessing the slow growth and triumph of Islamism through society.” [Story]