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Al-Jazari: The Mechanical Genius
Muslim explains faith’s Sharia law
BY BARBARA HOBEROCK – Tulsa World
Published: November 14, 2010
The man behind a lawsuit seeking to overturn a controversial ballot measure has a passion for the law and his Islamic faith.
Muneer Awad, executive director of the Oklahoma chapter on the Council
for American-Islamic Relations, filed suit last week in federal court to
overturn State Question 755. The measure bans state courts from the use
of Sharia and international law in deciding cases. It passed Nov. 2
with slightly more than 70 percent of the vote.
http://iqsoft.co.in
Sharia law is not used in state courts, but supporters said SQ 755 was needed as a preventive measure.
U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange granted a temporary restraining
order putting implementation on hold. A hearing for an injunction is
set for Nov. 22.
Awad, who has been on the job with the council’s Oklahoma chapter since
Oct. 14, said Sharia law could never replace federal or state laws.
Adoption of a constitutional amendment referencing Sharia law voices the
state’s official disapproval and condemnation of Islam, he said.
And that raises constitutional issues on its own with respect to the
government being able to approve or disapprove of religion, Awad said.
It involves my standing as a Muslim in the political community.
When news of the lawsuit spread, his organization got a lot of hate mail, but it has also received encouragement, Awad said.
Our organization has gotten more donations from non-Muslims in the past
week than we have from Muslims, he said. This has really been a sign
of Oklahomans, I think, realizing that no matter what disagreement we
have here, there is still a need to remain rational and let the courts
consider what is being presented.
Daily guidance
Sharia law is guidance for Muslims on how to practice and interpret their faith in daily interactions and in society, Awad said.
It touches on things that are even beyond law, he said. Simply me
refraining from eating pork is part of following Sharia. Me not drinking
alcohol is part of following Sharia. Me marrying is part of Sharia. So,
Sharia encompasses so many things beyond the law.
He said Sharia changes and is not applied the same in all countries.
One of the main aspects of Sharia is abiding by the law of the land,
Awad said. As a Muslim, I am mandated to abide by the law of the land I
live in.
He said it is disingenuous for critics to point to how Sharia is
followed in other countries. While polygamy is permissible in his faith,
it is not legal in the United States, he said.
Awad said politicians are profiting from the fear of Islam.
I know this element of hate is definitely a fringe element, he said.
So, I don’t actually live my life in fear of someone attacking me or
misunderstanding me. 
By Michael Moore
OpenMike 9/11/10
Michael Moore’s daily blog
I am opposed to the building of the “mosque” two blocks from Ground Zero.
I want it built on Ground Zero.
Why? Because I believe in an America that protects those who are the victims of hate and prejudice. I believe in an America that says you have the right to worship whatever God you have, wherever you want to worship. And I believe in an America that says to the world that we are a loving and generous people and if a bunch of murderers steal your religion from you and use it as their excuse to kill 3,000 souls, then I want to help you get your religion back. And I want to put it at the spot where it was stolen from you.
There’s been so much that’s been said about this manufactured controversy, I really don’t want to waste any time on this day of remembrance talking about it. But I hate bigotry and I hate liars, and so in case you missed any of the truth that’s been lost in this, let me point out a few facts:
1. I love the Burlington Coat Factory. I’ve gotten some great winter coats there at a very reasonable price. Muslims have been holding their daily prayers there since 2009. No one ever complained about that. This is not going to be a “mosque,” it’s going to be a community center. It will have the same prayer room in it that’s already there. But to even have to assure people that “it’s not going to be mosque” is so offensive, I now wish they would just build a 111-story mosque there. That would be better than the lame and disgusting way the developer has left Ground Zero an empty hole until recently. The remains of over 1,100 people still haven’t been found. That site is a sacred graveyard, and to be building another monument to commerce on it is a sacrilege. Why wasn’t the entire site turned into a memorial peace park? People died there, and many of their remains are still strewn about, all these years later.
2. Guess who has helped the Muslims organize their plans for this community center? The JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER of Manhattan! Their rabbi has been advising them since the beginning. It’s been a picture-perfect example of the kind of world we all want to live in. Peter Stuyvessant, New York’s “founder,” tried to expel the first Jews who arrived in Manhattan. Then the Dutch said, no, that’s a bit much. So then Stuyvessant said ok, you can stay, but you cannot build a synagogue anywhere in Manhattan. Do your stupid Friday night thing at home. The first Jewish temple was not allowed to be built until 1730. Then there was a revolution, and the founding fathers said this country has to be secular — no religious nuts or state religions. George Washington (inaugurated around the corner from Ground Zero) wanted to make a statement about this his very first year in office, and wrote this to American Jews:
“The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy — a policy worthy of imitation. …
“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens …
“May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
3. The Imam in charge of this project is the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. Read about his past here.
4. Around five dozen Muslims died at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Hundreds of members of their families still grieve and suffer. The 19 killers did not care what religion anyone belonged to when they took those lives.
5. I’ve never read a sadder headline in the New York Times than the one on the front page this past Monday: “American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?” That should make all of us so ashamed that even a single one of our fellow citizens should ever have to worry about if they “belong” here.
6. There is a McDonald’s two blocks from Ground Zero. Trust me, McDonald’s has killed far more people than the terrorists.
7. During an economic depression or a time of war, fascists are extremely skilled at whipping up fear and hate and getting the working class to blame “the other” for their troubles. Lincoln’s enemies told poor Southern whites that he was “a Catholic.” FDR’s opponents said he was Jewish and called him “Jewsevelt.” One in five Americans now believe Obama is a Muslim and 41% of Republicans don’t believe he was born here.
8. Blaming a whole group for the actions of just one of that group is anti-American. Timothy McVeigh was Catholic. Should Oklahoma City prohibit the building of a Catholic Church near the site of the former federal building that McVeigh blew up?
9. Let’s face it, all religions have their whackos. Catholics have O’Reilly, Gingrich, Hannity and Clarence Thomas (in fact all five conservatives who dominate the Supreme Court are Catholic). Protestants have Pat Robertson and too many to list here. The Mormons have Glenn Beck. Jews have Crazy Eddie. But we don’t judge whole religions on just the actions of their whackos. Unless they’re Methodists.
10. If I should ever, God forbid, perish in a terrorist incident, and you or some nutty group uses my death as your justification to attack or discriminate against anyone in my name, I will come back and haunt you worse than Linda Blair marrying Freddy Krueger and moving into your bedroom to spawn Chucky. John Lennon was right when he asked us to imagine a world with “nothing to kill or die for and no religion, too.” I heard Deepak Chopra this week say that “God gave humans the truth, and the devil came and he said, ‘Let’s give it a name and call it religion.’ ” But John Adams said it best when he wrote a sort of letter to the future (which he called “Posterity”): “Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.” I’m guessing ol’ John Adams is up there repenting nonstop right now.
Friends, we all have a responsibility NOW to make sure that Muslim community center gets built. Once again, 70% of the country (the same number that initially supported the Iraq War) is on the wrong side and want the “mosque” moved. Enormous pressure has been put on the Imam to stop his project. We have to turn this thing around. Are we going to let the bullies and thugs win another one? Aren’t you fed up by now? When would be a good time to take our country back from the haters?
I say right now. Let’s each of us make a statement by donating to the building of this community center! It’s a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization and you can donate a dollar or ten dollars (or more) right now through a secure pay pal account by clicking here. I will personally match the first $10,000 raised (forward your PayPal receipt towebguy@michaelmoore.com). If each one of you reading this blog/email donated just a couple of dollars, that would give the center over $6 million, more than what Donald Trump has offered to buy the Imam out. C’mon everyone, let’s pitch in and help those who are being debased for simply wanting to do something good. We could all make a huge statement of love on this solemn day.
I lost a co-worker on 9/11. I write this today in his memory.
“The man who speaks of the enemy / Is the enemy himself.”
– Bertolt Brecht
Five Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted
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So, the headlines say somebody else has died due to video game addiction. Yes, it’s Korea again.
What the hell? Look, I’m not saying video games are heroin. I totally get that the victims had other shit going on in their lives. But, half of you reading this know a World of Warcraft addict and experts say video game addiction is a thing. So here’s the big question: Are some games intentionally designed to keep you compulsively playing, even when you’re not enjoying it?
Oh, hell yes. And their methods are downright creepy.
#5.
Putting You in a Skinner Box
If you’ve ever been addicted to a game or known someone who was, this article is really freaking disturbing. It’s written by a games researcher at Microsoft on how to make video games that hook players, whether they like it or not. He has a doctorate in behavioral and brain sciences. Quote:
“Each contingency is an arrangement of time, activity, and reward, and there are an infinite number of ways these elements can be combined to produce the pattern of activity you want from your players.”
Notice his article does not contain the words “fun” or “enjoyment.” That’s not his field. Instead it’s “the pattern of activity you want.”
“…at this point, younger gamers will raise their arms above their head, leaving them vulnerable.”
His theories are based around the work of BF Skinner, who discovered you could control behavior by training subjects with simple stimulus and reward. He invented the “Skinner Box,” a cage containing a small animal that, for instance, presses a lever to get food pellets. Now, I’m not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I’m just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box.
This sort of thing caused games researcher Nick Yee to once call Everquest a “Virtual Skinner Box.”
So What’s The Problem?
Gaming has changed. It used to be that once they sold us a $50 game, they didn’t particularly care how long we played. The big thing was making sure we liked it enough to buy the next one. But the industry is moving toward subscription-based games like MMO’s that need the subject to keep playing–and paying–until the sun goes supernova.
Now, there’s no way they can create enough exploration or story to keep you playing for thousands of hours, so they had to change the mechanics of the game, so players would instead keep doing the same actions over and over and over, whether they liked it or not. So game developers turned to Skinner’s techniques.
This is a big source of controversy in the world of game design right now. Braid creator Jonathan Blow said Skinnerian game mechanics are a form of “exploitation.” It’s not that these games can’t be fun. But they’re designed to keep gamers subscribing during the periods when it’s not fun, locking them into a repetitive slog using Skinner’s manipulative system of carefully scheduled rewards.
Why would this work, when the “rewards” are just digital objects that don’t actually exist? Well…
#4.
Creating Virtual Food Pellets For You To Eat
Most addiction-based game elements are based on this fact:
Your brain treats items and goods in the video game world as if they are real. Because they are.
People scoff at this idea all the time (“You spent all that time working for a sword that doesn’t even exist?”) and those people are stupid. If it takes time, effort and skill to obtain an item, that item has value, whether it’s made of diamonds, binary code or beef jerky.
I have easily 500 hours in Zelda bottles.
That’s why the highest court in South Korea ruled that virtual goods are to be legally treated the same as real goods. And virtual goods are now a $5 billion industry worldwide.
There’s nothing crazy about it. After all, people pay thousands of dollars for diamonds, even though diamonds do nothing but look pretty. A video game suit of armor looks pretty and protects you from video game orcs. In both cases you’re paying for an idea.
Happy anniversary, honey.
So What’s The Problem?
Of course, virtually every game of the last 25 years has included items you can collect in the course of defeating the game–there’s nothing new or evil about that. But because gamers regard in-game items as real and valuable on their own, addiction-based games send you running around endlessly collecting them even if they have nothing to do with the game’s objective.
It is very much intentional on the developers’ part, an appeal to our natural hoarding and gathering instincts, collecting for the sake of collecting. It works, too, just ask the guy who kept collecting items even while naked boobies sat just feet away. Boobies.
As the article from the Microsoft guy proves, developers know they’re using these objects as pellets in a Skinner box. At that point it’s all about…
#3.
Making You Press the Lever
So picture the rat in his box. Or, since I’m one of these gamers and don’t like to think of myself as a rat, picture an adorable hamster. Maybe he can talk, and is voiced by Chris Rock.
If you want to make him press the lever as fast as possible, how would you do it? Not by giving him a pellet with every press–he’ll soon relax, knowing the pellets are there when he needs them. No, the best way is to set up the machine so that it drops the pellets at random intervals of lever pressing. He’ll soon start pumping that thing as fast as he can. Experiments prove it.
See? Proof.
They call these “Variable Ratio Rewards” in Skinner land and this is the reason many enemies “drop” valuable items totally at random in WoW. This is addictive in exactly the same way a slot machine is addictive. You can’t quit now because the very next one could be a winner. Or the next. Or the next.
“Holy shit! We almost won.”
The Chinese MMO ZT Online has the most devious implementation of this I’ve ever seen. The game is full of these treasure chests that may or may not contain a random item and to open them, you need a key. How do you get the keys? Why, you buy them with real-world money, of course. Like coins in a slot machine.
Wait, that’s not the best part. ZT Online does something even the casinos never dreamed up: They award a special item at the end of the day to the player who opens the most chests.
And that’s hardly the most ridiculous aspect of the game.
Now, in addition to the gambling element, you have thousands of players in competition with each other, to see who can be the most obsessive about opening the chests. One woman tells of how she spent her entire evening opening chests–over a thousand–to try to win the daily prize.
She didn’t. There was always someone else more obsessed.
So What’s The Problem?
Are you picturing her sitting there, watching her little character in front of the chest, clicking dialogue boxes over and over, watching the same animation over and over, for hour after hour?
If you didn’t know any better, you’d think she had a crippling mental illness. How could she possibly get from her rational self to that Rain Man-esque compulsion?
BF Skinner knew. He called that training process “shaping.” Little rewards, step by step, like links in a chain. In WoW you decide you want the super cool Tier 10 armor. You need five separate pieces. To get the full set, you need more than 400 Frost Emblems, which are earned a couple at a time, from certain enemies. Then you need to upgrade each piece of armor with Marks of Sanctification. Then again with Heroic Marks of Sanctification. To get all that you must re-run repetitive missions and sit, clicking your mouse, for days and days and days. Boobies be damned.
Once it gets to that point, can you even call that activity a “game” anymore? It’s more like scratching a rash. And it gets worse…
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Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted_p1.html#ixzz0yZP6X5BF
Mounting evidence shows that male circumcision dramatically reduces the risk of HIV infection, at least for heterosexual males.
According to researchers writing in a 2009 issue of AIDS Patient Care and STDs, the prophylactic effect of male circumcision is owed to the following physical facts:
There are high densities of HIV target cells in the inner mucosal surface of the human foreskin … These HIV target cells lie beneath a protective layer of keratin, which is absent on the inner surface of the prepuce. By removing all or part of the foreskin, circumcision reduces both the number and susceptibility of target cells to HIV infection.
Since 2007, several randomized clinical trials have established that male circumcision could lower the risk of HIV acquisition in heterosexual men by as much as 62 percent. Sixty-two percent! So far, these studies have been limited to African populations that have been particularly hard-hit by AIDS-related casualties. In South Africa, a third of reproductive-aged women are infected. If you’re a 15-year-old living in that country today, there’s a 59 percent chance that you’ll die before reaching your 60th birthday; just 10 years ago, these odds were only 29 percent.
Here’s how the clinical trials basically worked. Thousands of adult, HIV-negative, sexually active, uncircumcised men in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa agreed to be randomly assigned to a circumcision group or a no-circumcision group. Those randomly assigned to the circumcision group had their foreskins removed by medical professionals, were told to abstain from intercourse until their wounds healed (about three weeks—there may actually be a greater risk of HIV infection during this period, so this is vital), and then were instructed to return to the clinic at six-month intervals to test for the virus. The results were unequivocal: two years later, the circumcised males were significantly less likely than their uncircumcised peers to have contracted HIV. In fact, the researchers decided to end these clinical trials early for ethical reasons: with data so clearly showing the advantages of circumcision in an environment rife with the virus, it’s hard to justify a further wait-and-see approach for those men that had been randomly assigned to the no-circumcision group.
For the Ugandan study, 22 of 2,387 circumcised men acquired HIV over the two-year period compared to 45 of 2,430 uncircumcised men who were infected during this time span. Extensive interview methods confirmed that the two groups did not differ in terms of their actual sexual behaviors, enabling the authors to conclude that the results were owed directly to the circumcision intervention. (For those data heads among you, P < 0.00001.) These numbers may not sound massive, but note that they refer to only a 24-month period; over a lifetime, they would become dramatic.
In fact, using the results from the South African study, one group of computer modellerscrunched these numbers to find out how many lives mass neonatal male circumcision could potentially save in this region over a 10-year period. They concluded that male circumcision could save the lives of 300,000 people in Southern Africa alone. Move forward 20 years, they pointed out, and 2 to 7 million deaths could be averted.
It’s presently unknown whether homosexual males would also benefit from circumcision. The studies simply haven’t been done. But Beijing STD specialist Yuhua Ruan and colleagues suspect that circumcision would protect insertive partners (“tops”) against HIV much more than it would receptive partners (“bottoms”). This is because the anal mucosa is highly susceptible to trauma and so the risk of HIV infection through receptive anal sex is very high. The lesser benefit served by being on the receiving end might also apply to heterosexual couples, however. A study published in The Lancet last year found that circumcision in HIV-infected men from Uganda appeared to offer no protection against the virus to their female partners. Thus, although it’s too soon to tell, the real benefits of circumcision may be reserved primarily for heterosexual men or insertive gay men. But that’s still a lot of people whose foreskins may be compromising their health.
In a 2007 report in The Lancet, UCLA infectious disease specialist Sharif Sawires and his colleagues put it bluntly:
In regions where high HIV prevalence exposes the population to risks that have a devastating effect on entire societies, the risks associated with male circumcision could be outweighed by the potential lives saved …
We encourage multicultural, bilateral, and government agencies, along with non-governmental organizations to make this life-saving strategy affordable and safely available to relevant populations bearing the heaviest burden.
These authors certainly aren’t alone in endorsing male circumcision on HIV-preventative grounds. It is now being recommended as a crucial, relatively simple tool against the threat of AIDS by the World Health Organization and UNAIDS. Importantly, of course, these experts also hastily point out that circumcision is just one effective strategy and must be used in conjunction with other preventative measures such as condoms and education.
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Posted: March 31, 2010 10:38 AM
Does The Hutaree Militia Represent Christianity? A Muslim Knows Better
Read More: Christian Militia , Christianity , Domestic Terrorism , Domestic Terrorists , Hutaree , Hutaree Militia Group , Islamic Terrorism , Militant Christianity , Militant Islam , Religion , Religion And Violence , Religious Violence , Terrorism , Religion News
Nine members of a Christian militia group, Hutaree, were charged Monday with plotting to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more with homemade bombs. According to the indictment, the actions were done in hopes of igniting an uprising against the U.S. government.
News of this terror plot is likely to spark a great deal of discussion around the idea of domestic terrorism. But there are some things that are not likely to be part of that discourse. For example, we’re not likely to hear experts discussing whether or not Christian doctrine teaches its followers to overthrow governments and kill people. And, although the Hutaree website quotes scripture passages that allude to battle and sacrificing lives for the greater cause, the Bible is not likely to become condemned for inspiring acts of terror.
Hutaree means “Christian Warrior,” yet the American public is not likely to blame Christianity. And Homeland Security probably isn’t going to single out all people with Christian names in the airport security line. The FBI most likely isn’t going to start wire-tapping Churches and Christian homes, and it’s unlikely that the whole world will be expecting every peace-loving Christian to apologize for actions they had nothing to do with — just because it was done in their name.
Unfortunately, these rules do not apply to Muslims. When a Muslim commits a crime, the Quran goes on trial. For example, after the failed “Christmas bombing,” a January Wall Street Journal piece highlighted the fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had studied at the San’a Institute for Arabic Language. “He knew how to read and write in Arabic because he had learned to read the Quran being a Muslim, but his speaking abilities were very limited,” recalls Mohammed Al-Anisi, the institute’s director. Abdulmutallab may have also studied French poetry as a student, but that probably wouldn’t have been considered relevant to his crime. The study of the Quran and Arabic, on the other hand, seems to be.
If there’s news of a Muslim terrorist, Islam becomes complicit in the crime. Yet few people are going to accuse Christianity of motivating the terrorism of the Hutaree militia. These Christian terrorists are considered violent criminals who’ve perverted a peaceful religion.
Muslim terrorists, on the other hand, are just following a violent, perverted religion. A Christian terrorist is considered violent in spite of his or her faith, whereas a Muslim is violent because of it. Some might claim that this assumption is because the Quran is full of violent passages while the Bible teaches only peace and love. But in a recent NPR piece, religion historian Philip Jenkins explained that in fact there is more violence in the Bible than in the Quran. “Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible,” Jenkins said. He explained that violence in the Quran is largely defensive.
“By the standards of the time, which is the seventh century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane,” says Jenkins. “Then we turn to the Bible, and we actually find something that is for many people a real surprise. There is a specific kind of warfare laid down in the Bible which we can only call genocide.”
Are we now going to create a new brand of crime called “Christian terrorism”? Is the entire Christian community going to be put on the defensive, while media pundits begin the mantra: “Why aren’t Christians condemning acts of terrorism?” Probably not. The question is: why should someone named Christopher need to condemn the acts of the Hutaree militia any more than someone named Mohammad does? And why should Mohammed be expected to condemn the acts of the “Christmas bomber” any more than Christopher?
As FBI agent Andrew Arena said, Hutaree is just “an example of radical and extremist fringe groups which can be found throughout our society.” Their crimes are committed in spite of their religious affiliations — not because of them.
Nine members of a Christian militia group, Hutaree, were charged Monday with plotting to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more with homemade bombs. According to the indictment, the actions …
Nine members of a Christian militia group, Hutaree, were charged Monday with plotting to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more with homemade bombs. According to the indictment, the actions …
Related News On Huffington Post:
 “Are you ready?” the young driver beside me asked, as we sat in the two-seat Tesla Roadster
convertible, facing a straight, steep, quarter-mile road that rises
from the water of San Francisco Bay up the headland to the Golden Gate
Bridge. Then he floored the accelerator. I was driven into the
seat-back behind me—and I mean driven, like I was strapped into some
insane amusement park ride—for several full seconds as the car
accelerated and accelerated like a rocket up the climb. Only there was
no screaming flame blasting behind us. There was no engine roaring
either. I was being shot up this road so fast my emergency senses were
on full alert, yet all was eerily quiet.
The Tesla Motors roadster is an all-electric vehicle. Which means zero
emissions. There’s no engine, no fuel tank, just a deep bank of lithium-ion batteries
and a single-gear, direct-drive motor that hits maximum torque
instantly (that’s the beauty of electric propulsion). The car is
blistering fast; the sport edition goes from zero to 60 miles per hour
in 3.7 seconds. Not up on car specs? The Chevy Corvette, with a monster
6.2 liter, eight cylinder, 430 horsepower engine takes 4.6 seconds. The
Tesla accelerates faster than the Porsche 911. Faster than the Ferrari
Spider. The typical sedan takes a good 6.0 seconds or more to reach the
same speed.
The Tesla is not a one-trick pony, however. It has a range of 244 miles on a full charge,
which it has proven in real-world driving tests. It meets all the
standard safety requirements and looks and handles like any other
exotic roadster, particularly the Lotus: it is a low-slung, two-door,
hard-top convertible with tight cockpit seats and little room for much
else. The price tag is $128,500, which sounds like a lot until you
start looking up exotic roadsters, which can cost even more. If you
want to save some money for sushi lunches on the pier, you can buy the
regular Tesla Roadster for $101,500, but you’ll have to wait a full 3.9
seconds to hit 60 miles per hour.
Few people can afford this car, of course, but the pin-drop quiet
Tesla makes a loud statement: an all-electric car can compete with
gasoline roadhogs. And if they can do that, they can certainly make it
as mainstream vehicles. The Roadster is much more than a proof of
technology; it proves to the world that all-electric automobiles are
for real. The company has begun offering a four-door sedan for $49,900
that will be delivered in 2011.
Sales manager Dan Myggen gave me my ride outside the GoingGreen conference
in Sausalito, Calif. All day he took passengers for a spin around the
half-mile circle in front of the Cavallo Point hotel, then up the steep
road to the bridge. Every person who returned climbed out of the car
with a big smile on his or her face. It was impossible not to grin. The
car looks hot and rides hot. It’s a smile machine. Whether Tesla will
succeed commercially remains to be seen, but other startups are making
their own all-electric models, and the major car companies are diving
in too. Whether the standard claim that volume production will bring
down cost proves true also remains to be seen, but I can say with
certainty, now, that if anyone doubts whether all-electric cars can
compete: they can.
Credit: Courtesey of Tesla Motors
Read More About:
alternative fuels,
electric cars,
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The Muslim guardian of Israel’s daily bread
For more than a decade, an Arab hotel manager has helped Orthodox Jews to observe the Passover – by buying up forbidden foods. Ben Lynfield reports
QUIQUE KIERSZENBAUM
Jaaber Hussein, a hotel manager, prepares to take control of much of Israel’s bread, beer and pasta
When Jaaber Hussein signs an agreement with Israel’s Chief Rabbis tomorrow, he will be inking the only Arab-Jewish accord sure to be meticulously observed by both sides. The deal will make him the owner for one week of all bread, pasta and beer in Israel – well a huge amount of it anyway. The contract, signed for the past 12 years by the Muslim hotel food manager, is part of the traditional celebrations ahead of the Jewish holiday of Passover.
Jews are forbidden by biblical injunction to possess leavened bread, or chametz, during Passover and ironically an Arab is needed to properly observe the holiday. The agreement with Mr Hussein offers a way of complying with religious edicts without having to wastefully destroy massive quantities of food.
Through legal acrobatics, the forbidden goods belonging to the Israeli state are simply sold to Mr Hussein for the duration of Passover and then revert back to the state once the holiday is over. Like the government’s adherence to the Sabbath and to dietary laws, the ceremony sets Israel apart as a Jewish state that upholds religious traditions.
Mr Hussein, a resident of the Israeli Arab town of Abu Ghosh near Jerusalem, sees nothing odd in the arrangement, believing there are affinities between his Islamic faith and Judaism. He relishes the role the Jewish state has assigned him, one that puts his picture on the front pages of Israeli newspapers year after year.
“I see this as a way to help people with whom I work and live,” he said.
Mr Hussein was a natural choice for the ritual because he works in a hotel that stringently observes Jewish dietary laws. He even keeps some of the strictures at home.
“There are many things that are close in the two religions. If not for politics, the religions would get along very well,” he explains. One example he cites is the halal slaughtering of meat, which he likens to kosher slaughtering.
Passover, which celebrates the biblical exodus from slavery in Egypt, starts on Wednesday night and lasts for seven days, eight outside Israel.
The reason for the prohibition of leavened bread is, according to the Bible, that the Israelites departed Egypt in such haste that their bread did not have a chance to rise and so they ate the cracker-like unleavened bread known as matza.
Many of their descendants in modern Israel defer to this dictum every spring to the extent that a kind of fermented dough fixation suffuses the country. Housewives become the new slaves, scrubbing and vacuum cleaning to remove every trace of chametz. Religious men scald pots in the streets, making them kosher for the holiday.
For the Orthodox, there can be no half-measures. A single crumb that evades detection could spoil everything for Passover.
Those families who do not want the extra workload simply check in to kosher hotels and escape the ardour. Even secular Israelis stock up on pita bread and put it in their freezers so that they too have enough supplies to survive the week.
Tomorrow, Mr Hussein will put down a cash deposit of $4,800 (some 20,000 shekels or £3,245) for the $150m worth of leavened products he acquires from state companies, the prison service and the national stock of emergency supplies. The deposit will be returned at the end of the holiday, unless he decides to come up with the full value of the products. In that case he could, in theory, keep them all.
At the close of the holiday, the foodstuffs purchased by Mr Hussein revert back to their original owners, who have given the Chief Rabbis the power of attorney over their leavened products. “It’s a firm, strong agreement done in the best way,” Mr Hussein said.
But Israelis are divided on whether the state should be enforcing Passover. A law introduced by religious parties in 1986 bans the display of bread in public areas, except in those where there is a non-Jewish majority. But a court decision last year said it was legal for restaurants to sell leavened products during Passover on the grounds that they are not public spaces. The move sparked anger among the ultra-Orthodox Jews.
This year, ultra-Orthodox activists in Jerusalem sent warning letters to stores, telling them not to sell bread or pizza because this could bring divine punishment on the city. And the chief rabbinate called for supermarkets to install a computer program that would enable cash registers to detect unleavened products by their bar codes so sales could be stopped. Supermarkets cover over their chametz with papers, but the rabbis are concerned that some customers lift the covers and buy proscribed foods.
Variations of the contract between the Israeli state and Mr Hussein are being signed all over th
e world between selected non-Jews and rabbis, including those in the UK. The ceremony, like the absence of civil marriages in the country, reflects “some elements of theocracy” in the Israeli state, says Menachem Friedman, a sociologist at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “Israel is a unique state – very modern on the one hand but with very strong religious traditional elements on the other. Every government keeps this ritual.”
In one final Passover twist, the restaurants of Mr Hussein’s town, Abu Ghosh, are gearing up for what is always their busiest week of the year, catering to secular Jews who want to get away from the holiday’s dietary strictures.
“It is also nice that you have people who don’t keep Passover, who eat leavened bread,” Mr Hussein said. “It is good that we are also able to help the people who are not religious.”
Despite his goodwill, the chief rabbinate staffers do not seem overly attached to Israel’s Arab of Passover. “It is true he is enabling people to celebrate the holiday, but if he didn’t do it, there are plenty of other people who would,” said Avi Blumenthal, an aide to Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger.
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