Olbermann: Bush, Cheney Should Resign

Riveting commentary. It is approximately 10 minutes long, and it is essential to watch.

Google Health Advertising Blog Makes Me “Sicko”

First and formest, everyone needs to watch “Sicko”, Michael Moore’s moving documentary about the health care crisis in the United States. The documentary makes a compelling arguments about the need to revolutionize the dysfunctional health care system.

Last Friday, on the opening night of the movie, Lauren Turner, a health account planner at Google wrote a disgusting post, criticizing “Sicko”, and worse, calling on health care companies to offset the negative press generated from the movie by advertising with Google.

The post caused uproar among bloggers, and Turner was forced to backtrack with another post on Sunday, by distinguishing between her personal opinion and that of Google’s. By then, however, the damage had been done to Google’s self-proclaimed “do no evil” image, forcing Google to post on their primary official blog apologizing for Turner’s post.

If Google was sincere in vehemently disagreeing with Turner’s ultra-insensitive post, the correct course of action should have included deleting the original post and terminating her position at Google.

For more:

• Buy tickets to see “Sicko”

Only 41% of Muslim Americans Pray 5 Times a Day

The Pew Research Center recently published a comprehensive 102-page study on Muslims in the United States entitled Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream. The study covered various aspects of the community, among them the population of Muslims in the United States, demographics, religious belief and practice, identity and assimilation, challenges and problems, political and social values, and finally foreign policy, terrorism and extremism.

The study was based on a survey conducted of 1,050 American Muslims from January 24 to April 30, 2007.

I will be the first to admit that the findings of this study should not be granted carte blanche trust. That being said, however, there are some striking, and in some cases even shocking, results in the study.

Perhaps the most shocking of the results was the response to a question about daily prayer. Only 41% of the people surveyed responded that they pray five times a day. If this is even somewhat representative of the community at large, that means that not even half of the community performs its most basic requirement to Allāh.

The Messenger of Allāh (may Allāh bless him and grant him peace) said:

“The first thing people will be accountable for on the Day of Judgment is prayer. Allāh will say to His angels, “Look at my servants’ prayers. Were they complete or not?” If they were complete It will be written as complete. If they were not fully complete Allāh will say. “See if my servant has voluntary prayers.” If he has them Allāh will say, “Complete his obligatory prayers shortage with his voluntary prayers.” Then the rest of his deeds will be dealt with in the same manner.”

(Reported by Imāms Ahmad, Abū Dāwūd, an-Nisā'i, and al-Hakim)

For our own personal salvation, we must solidify our five daily prayers. It will be the primary determinant of our final eternal destination. Furthermore, for the sake of our condition in the dunya (this world), we must realize that Allāh will not grant us success until we fulfill this most basic obligation. As Allāh tells us clearly in the Qur’ān:

إِنَّ اللّهَ لاَ يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّى يُغَيِّرُواْ مَا بِأَنْفُسِهِمْ

Inna Allāha lā yughayyiru mā biqawmin hattā yughayyirū mā bi'anfusihim.

Allāh will never change the condition of a people until they change that which is within themselves.

(Qur’ān, Sūrat ar-Ra‘d, Āyah 11)

Read more:

• The Pew Research Center Report: Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream

FBI Whistleblower Describes Government Muscle Tactics

Frome Wired Blogs:

A whistleblower who lost her job and was gagged by the Bush administration after revealing careerism, corruption and widespread incompetence at the FBI detailed her difficult search for justice to an audience on Monday at the American Library Association’s annual conference. Sibel Edmonds, hired by the FBI as a translator shortly after 9/11, was fired in 2002 after reporting a range of problems at the bureau, including:

• slothful, unqualified employees
• family members of diplomats suspected of spying who translated the wiretaps of their relatives
• ignored or overlooked intelligence warning of Al-Qaeda’s plans to hijack planes and attack major cities
• evidence of a Turkish bribery ring that, according to some accounts, was connected to then-Speaker of the House Denny Hastert (R-Illinois)

Read more:

• Wired Blogs: FBI Whistleblower Describes Government Muscle Tactics

Israeli President Katsav to Resign to Avoid Rape Charges

From Al Jazeera English:

Moshe Katsav, Israel’s president, has signed a plea bargain that will force him to resign but includes no rape charges and entails no jail time, Meni Mazuz, Israel’s attorney-general, said.

In the space of a year, Katsav has sunk from being “Israel’s number one citizen to a convicted sex offender,” Mazuz said on Thursday at a news conference.

Kinneret Barashi, a lawyer for one of the victims, expressed outrage at the plea bargain and a women’s rights’ advocate said it would discourage other women from complaining about sexual crimes.

Barashi said her client “feels she is a victim for the second time”.

Zahava Gal-On, a politician and women’s rights campaigner, accused Mazuz of moral cowardice.

Gal-On said: “Victims of sex crimes will believe they do not have any shield.”

Abrupt end

Israel’s high-level officials, including the prime minister, have been increasingly implicated in scandals.

Read more:

• Al Jazeera English: Israeli president Katsav to resign

Alleged Egyptian ‘Mossad Spy’ Found Dead in London

From Al Jazeera English:

An Egyptian billionaire who allegedly spied for Israel in the 1970s has been found dead outside his home in London.

Ashraf Marwan, the son-in-law of Gamal Abdel Nasser, a former Egyptian president, “lost his balance” while standing on his balcony on Wednesday and fell to his death, Egyptian state media said.

British police said only that they were looking into the death of an Egyptian man in central London, and it was being treated as “unexplained” but not suspicious...

Yom Kippur ‘tip-off’

Gad Shimron, a former Mossad officer turned historian, said Marwan had warned Israel hours before the Egyptian attack in 1973.

“We know now, from testimony given by Israeli spymasters and made public years after the Yom Kippur War, that Marwan was the man who tipped off the Mossad,” he said.

According to The Times, a UK newspaper, Marwan offered his services to Israel in 1969, going on to provide information on Egypt and the Arab world.

He worked as a senior information official for both Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat, Abdel Nasser’s successor as president.

Read more:

• Al Jazeera English: Egyptian ‘Mossad Spy’ dies in UK

Egypt Outlaws All Female Circumcision

From AFP:

Egypt on Thursday finally banned all female circumcision, the widely-practised removal of the clitoris which just days ago cost the life of a 12-year-old girl.

Officially the practice, which affects both Muslim and Christian women in Egypt and goes back to the time of the pharoahs, was banned in 1997 but doctors were allowed to operate "in exceptional cases".

Read more:

• AFP: Egypt Outlaws All Female Circumcision

Hot Rocks Keep us Alive

From the Discovery Channel News:

If it weren’t for the hot rocks down below Earth’s crust, most of North America would be below sea level, report researchers who say the significance of Earth’s internal heat has been overlooked.

Without it, mile-high Denver would be 727 feet below sea level, the scientists calculate, and New York City, more than a quarter-mile below. Los Angeles would be almost three-quarters of a mile beneath the Pacific.

In fact most of the United States would disappear, except for some major Western mountain ranges, according to research at the University of Utah.

• Earth’s Inner Heat Keeps Cities Afloat

U.S. Diplomat: Iran Sending Weapons to Taliban... Yeah, and Saddam Funded Osama

This is yet another claim by the Bush Administration that is so completely outrageous, that anyone with basic knowledge of the Muslim world would be able to refute it. Just as it was basic knowledge prior to the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were bitter enemies, it is basic knowledge today that Iran and the Taliban are enemies as well. This claim by the Bush Administration attempts to capitalize on general ignorance of subtle differences between Muslims in order to build a stronger case to attack them.

From the International Herald Tribune:

A senior U.S. diplomat, lobbying world powers for tougher sanctions against Iran, accused Tehran on Wednesday of violating international law by arming its once-bitter foe — Afghanistan’s Taliban — and of trying to destabilize the Middle East.

If true, the claim by Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns that Iran is supplying weapons to the Taliban could mark a disturbing escalation in Iran’s efforts to resist U.S. policy on multiple fronts, from Iraq to Afghanistan. Tehran is violating a recent Security Council resolution barring it from weapons exports, Burns said.

Read more:

• U.S. official says Iran violating U.N. rules by sending weapons to Afghanistan's Taliban

Leading Human Rights Groups Name 39 CIA “Disappeared” Detainees

From Amnesty International:

In the most comprehensive accounting to date, six leading human rights organizations today published the names and details of 39 people who are believed to have been held in secret US custody and whose current whereabouts remain unknown. The briefing paper also names relatives of suspects who were themselves detained in secret prisons, including children as young as seven.

In a related action, three of the groups filed a lawsuit in US federal court under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) seeking the disclosure of information concerning “disappeared” detainees.

The 21-page briefing paper, Off the Record: U.S. Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the “War on Terror”, includes detailed information about four people named as “disappeared” prisoners for the first time. The full list of people includes nationals from countries including Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan and Spain. They are believed to have been arrested in countries including Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan, and transferred to secret US detention centres.

The list—drafted by Amnesty International (AI), Cageprisoners, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law (CHRGJ), Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Reprieve — draws together information from government and media sources, as well as from interviews with former prisoners and other witnesses.

Read more:

• Amnesty International: Leading Human Rights Groups Name 39 CIA “Disappeared” Detainees

Al Jazeera English: Yahoo ‘sued’ by China reporter

From Al Jazeera English:

Internet giant Yahoo has defended itself against criticism that is has supported China’s censorship laws, saying Chinese authorities should not punish people for expressing political views online.

The comments come a day after the mother of a jailed Chinese reporter announced she was suing the US company for helping officials imprison her son.

Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2005 after sending an e-mail about Chinese media restrictions on coverage of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Read more:

• Al Jazeera English: Yahoo ‘sued’ by China reporter

World Renowned Economist Jeffrey Sachs: Sanctions Won’t Help Darfur

From BBC:

World renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs has condemned the US decision to impose fresh sanctions on Sudan over Darfur.

Mr Sachs said this would do little to address the underlying causes of the four-year conflict, which he said was a squeeze on natural resources.

The ban on companies trading or banking with the US would do little to achieve peace in “one of the most desperate places in the world”, he said.

Read more:

• BBC: US sanctions ‘won’t help Darfur’

CNN: Yahoo Blasts China on Free Speech

From CNN:

China should not punish people for expressing their political views on the Internet, Yahoo Inc. said Monday, a day after the mother of a Chinese reporter announced she was suing the U.S. company for helping officials imprison her son.

Yahoo criticized China in a brief statement that didn’t specifically mention the case of jailed journalist Shi Tao, whose mother visited Hong Kong on Sunday. Shi was sentenced to 10 years in 2005 after sending an e-mail about Chinese media restrictions.

The company has acknowledged sharing information about Shi with Chinese authorities.

“Yahoo is dismayed that citizens in China have been imprisoned for expressing their political views on the Internet,” the company said in the statement faxed to The Associated Press, which asked Yahoo to comment on Shi’s lawsuit.

The Internet company, based in Sunnyvale, California, also said it has told China that it condemns “punishment of any activity internationally recognized as free expression.”

However, Yahoo added that companies operating in China must comply with Chinese law or risk having their employees face civil or criminal penalties.

Read more:

• CNN: Yahoo Blasts China on Free Speech

The Petaflop Frontier: 3 Quadrillion Operations Per Second!

From CNET News:

IBM has devised a new Blue Gene supercomputer--the Blue Gene/P--that will be capable of processing more than 3 quadrillion operations a second, or 3 petaflops, a possible record. Blue Gene/P is designed to continuously operate at more than 1 petaflop in real-world situations.

Read more:

• New IBM supercomputer achieves petaflop

Rebel Serb Leader Milan Martic Sentenced to 35 years for the Murder, Persecution, Torture and Deportation

From Reuters:

The U.N. war crimes tribunal sentenced the former leader of rebel Serbs in Croatia, Milan Martic, to 35 years in jail for his role in atrocities committed while rebel Serbs set up a breakaway state in Croatia.

Martic, 52, was found guilty of criminal responsibility for the murder, persecution, torture and deportation of Croats, Muslims and other non Serb civilians, but cleared of extermination. He was also convicted for ordering the unlawful shelling of the Croatian capital Zagreb in May 1995.

Original Article:

• Reuters: Rebel Serb leader Martic sentenced to 35 years

CNN: Google Privacy ‘Worst on the Web’

From CNN:

Google Inc.’s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet’s top destinations, according to a watchdog group seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.

In a report released Saturday, London-based Privacy International assigned Google its lowest possible grade. The category is reserved for companies with “comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy.”

None of the 22 other surveyed companies -- a group that included Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and AOL -- sunk to that level, according to Privacy International.

While a number of other Internet companies have troubling policies, none comes as close to Google to “achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy,” Privacy International said in an explanation of its findings.

Read more:

• CNN: Google Privacy ‘Worst on the Web’

Los Angeles Times Feature: Jerusalem: Struggle for the Heart of a Holy City

Original Link:

• Los Angeles Times: Jerusalem: Struggle for the Heart of a Holy City

New York Times Editorial: It’s Time to Close Gitmo

Here is a powerful editorial from The New York Times arguing for the need to close the gulag at Guantánamo Bay:

Ever since President Bush rammed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 through Congress to lend a pretense of legality to his detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, we have urged Congress to amend the law to restore basic human rights and judicial process. Rulings by military judges this week suggest that the special detention system is so fundamentally corrupt that the only solution is to tear it down and start again.

The target of the judges’ rulings were Combatant Status Review Tribunals, panels that determine whether a prisoner is an “unlawful enemy combatant” who can be tried by one of the commissions created by the 2006 law. The tribunals are, in fact, kangaroo courts that give the inmates no chance to defend themselves, allow evidence that was obtained through torture and can be repeated until one produces the answer the Pentagon wants.

On Monday, two military judges dismissed separate war crimes charges against two Guantánamo inmates because of the status review system. They said the Pentagon managed to get them declared “enemy combatants,” but not “unlawful enemy combatants,” and moved to try them anyway under the 2006 law. That law says only unlawful combatants may be tried by military commissions. Lawful combatants (those who wear uniforms and carry weapons openly) fall under the Geneva Conventions.

If the administration loses an appeal, which it certainly should, it will no doubt try to tinker with the review tribunals so they produce the desired verdict. Congress cannot allow that. When you can’t win a bet with loaded dice, something is wrong with the game.

There is only one path likely to lead to a result that would allow Americans to once again hold their heads high when it comes to justice and human rights. First, Congress needs to restore the right of the inmates of Guantánamo Bay to challenge their detentions. By the administration’s own count, only a small minority of the inmates actually deserve a trial. The rest should be sent home or set free.

Second, Congress should repeal the Military Commissions Act and start anew on a just system for determining whether prisoners are unlawful combatants. Among other things, evidence obtained through coercion and torture should be banned.

And Congress should shut down Guantánamo Bay, as called for in bills sponsored by two California Democrats, Representative Jane Harman in the House and Senator Dianne Feinstein in the Senate. Both lawmakers are intimately familiar with the camp and have concluded it is beyond salvaging.

Their bill would close Gitmo in a year and the detainees would be screened by real courts. Those who are truly illegal combatants would be sent to military or civilian jails in the United States, to be tried under time-tested American rules of justice, or sent to an international tribunal. Some would be returned to their native lands for trial, if warranted. The rest would be set free, as they should have been long ago.

The Guantánamo camp was created on a myth — that the American judicial system could not handle prisoners of “the war against terror.” It was built on a lie — that the hundreds of detainees at Gitmo are all dangerous terrorists. And it was organized around a fiction — that Mr. Bush had the power to create this rogue system in the first place.

It is time to get rid of it.

Here is a link to the editorial:

• Gitmo: A National Disgrace

Homeland Security Using Muslims to Help Prevent Radicalism

It is very unfortunate that some Muslims allow the Department of Homeland Security to help dictate what is defined as radicalism and how to prevent it. Islam already a very rich history of advancing a moderate society and rejecting extremism. Working with agencies that have proven to be unjust and outright anti-Muslim is not an effective method for Muslims to combat extremism in our communities. Rather, it helps an anti-Muslim agenda more effectively.

As Allāh says in the Qur’ān:

وَكَذَلِكَ جَعَلْنَاكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطًا لِّتَكُونُواْ شُهَدَاءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ وَيَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ عَلَيْكُمْ شَهِيدًا

Wa kadhālika ja‘alnākum ummatan wasatan litakūnū shuhadā'a ‘alā n-nāsi wa yakūnu r-Rasūlu ‘alaykum shahīda.

We have made you a justly-balanced Ummah (worldwide nation), so that you may be witnesses over the nations, and the Messenger may be a witness over you.

(Qur’ān, Sūrat al-Baqarah, Āyah 143)

An excerpt from a San Francisco Chronicle article:

After nearly six years of intense law enforcement scrutiny of Muslims in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is reshaping his agency’s approach to Muslims and invited four prominent Muslims to help the agency prevent homegrown radicalism.

The four leaders Chertoff called on -- a former ambassador from Pakistan, a Santa Monica author who grew up in San Jose, a Houston city councilman and an Austin, Texas, blogger -- suggest increasing youth services, working with bloggers to fight extremist ideology on the Web and even changing the terminology the government uses to describe terrorists.

The May 8 meeting -- the first of its kind the Homeland Security secretary has called with Muslims -- was part of a series of gatherings that Chertoff told Congress in March would be “an unprecedented level of cooperation” with various ethnic and religious communities to “prevent radicalization.”

Read more:

• San Francisco Chronicle: Security agency enlisting Muslims to rebut radicals

New York Times: Google and Utility to Test Hybrids That Sell Back Power

Kimberly White/Reuters
Google’s founders, Sergey Brin, left, and Larry Page, plugging in
a hybrid car Monday at the company’s California headquarters.

An excerpt from The New York Times:

Google and Pacific Gas & Electric have unveiled their vision of a future in which cars and trucks are partly powered by the country’s electric grids, and vice versa.

The companies displayed on Monday six Toyota Prius and Ford Escape hybrid vehicles modified to run partly on electricity from the power grid, allowing the vehicles to go up to 75 miles on a gallon of gas, nearly double the number of miles of a regular hybrid. They also modified one vehicle to give electricity back to the power company.

Read more:

• The New York Times: Google and Utility to Test Hybrids That Sell Back Power

13-Year-Old Girl Refuses to Remove Hijab Despite Public Ridicule by School Supervisor

This 13-year-old girl's bravery is a shining example for us all. From the Monterey County Herald:

A confrontation over a head scarf in the lunchroom of Seaside High School between a school supervisor and a 13-year-old student has led for a call for a public apology from the official by a major Islamic organization.

The San Francisco/Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as CAIR, said the girl, an incoming freshman, was told by the supervisor Tuesday to remove her hajib, an Islamic head scarf.

After explaining that she wore it for religious reasons, the supervisor, according to the CAIR statement, then demanded in front of more than 100 other students, “You have to take it off now.”

The girl, who was taking a summer algebra class, then broke down in tears, said CAIR, but did not remove her scarf.

Read more:

• Monterey County Herald: Muslim girl told to remove scarf

Carter: Bush Administration’s Refusal to Accept Hamas’ Election is “Criminal”, Hamas Far More Organized than Fatah

From the Associated Press:

Former President Jimmy Carter accused the U.S., Israel and the European Union on Tuesday of seeking to divide the Palestinian people by reopening aid to President Mahmoud Abbas’ new government in the West Bank while denying the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was addressing a human rights conference in Ireland, also said the Bush administration’s refusal to accept Hamas’ 2006 election victory was “criminal.”

Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with Abbas’ moderate Fatah movement...

Carter said the U.S. and others supplied the Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza with vastly superior weaponry in hopes they would “conquer Hamas in Gaza” — but Hamas routed Fatah in the fighting last week because of its “superior skills and discipline.”

Read more:

• Associated Press: Carter blasts US policy on Palestinians

Minneapolis Muslim Attacked in Hate-Crime while Leaving Masjid

From the Minneapolis - St. Paul Star Tribune:

A man leaving a mosque in St. Cloud was assaulted in what police described Sunday as a crime motivated by bias.

The victim, a 26-year-old man, was approached about 2:15 p.m. outside the mosque, in the 600 block of 7th Avenue S., by a white man, later identified as a 33-year-old Isanti, Minn., resident. The suspect has been arrested and was awaiting charges.

The suspect, police said, accused the victim of being a Muslim terrorist. The suspect then shoved the victim and elbowed him in the head, sending his glasses flying.

Read more:

• Star Tribune: Police: Bias is behind attack on man leaving St. Cloud mosque