The Amboy Times

Saudis Ban selling of Dogs and Cats

I've posted about the Islamic attitude against dogs many times, but this is the first I've heard of a problem with cats.

DW - Saudi Arabia's religious police have announced a ban on selling cats and dogs as pets, or walking them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men using them as a means of making passes at women, an official said on Wednesday.

Othman al-Othman, head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Riyadh, known as the Muttawa, told the Saudi edition of al-Hayat daily that the commission has started enforcing an old religious edict.

He said the commission was implementing a decision taken a month ago by the acting governor of the capital, Prince Sattam bin Abdul Aziz, adding that it follows an old edict issued by the supreme council of Saudi scholars.

The reason behind reinforcing the edict now was a rising fashion among some men using pets in public "to make passes on women and disturb families," he said, without giving more details.

Othman said that the commission has instructed its offices in the capital to tell pet shops "to stop selling cats and dogs".

The 5,000-strong religious police oversees the adherence to Wahabism -- a strict version of Sunni Islam, which also forces women to cover from head to toe when in public, and bans them from driving.

Here's the text that forbids the sale dogs and cats.

Abu Zubair said: I asked Jabir about the price of a dog and a cat; he said: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) disapproved of that. - Sahih Muslim 10.3808

Saudi Prof to get 600 lashes

Hat tip, ROP.
This story is just so wrong on so many levels. The Professor was wrong to have a relationship with a student. The student was wrong to have a relationship outside of her marriage. The authorities take wrong to new depths by whipping both the professor and the student.

Riad, 30 July (AKI) - A Saudi court has sentenced a chemistry professor to 600 lashes and 8 months in jail for a 'telephone relationship' with a female student.

The student, whose marriage allegedly broke down as result of the relationship got 350 lashes and 4 months in prison.

The academic, who worked in a teaching hospital in the south of the country was convicted on the basis of the student's husband's testimony, according to Arabic satellite TV station Al-Arabiya.

The student's husband claimed his marriage broke down in 2004 as a result of his wife's relationship with the academic, who has said he will appeal the sentences at the Supreme Council of Magistrates.

The academic also hopes human rights groups will back his case.

I can understand the husband being upset with his wife, but I have to wonder, is he ok with her getting 350 lashes and 4 months in prison?

Update:

Dhimmi Watch says,

The original story earlier this month noted that the stated purpose of the calls was to discuss research, but the Saudi court ruled in favor of the husband's allegations that it was a front for an affair.

Israeli Actor offends Muslims

Hat tip, Elder of Zion.

Egyptian actor Amr Waked may be banned from ever working in his home country again, for the crime of acting in the same film with a Jew.

LONDON, July 28 (Reuters Life!) - The Israeli actor playing Saddam Hussein in a new television series once narrowly escaped a missile fired by the late dictator's army.

But for Igal Naor, taking the lead role in "House of Saddam", the BBC/HBO dramatisation of Saddam's 24-year rule airing in Britain from Wednesday, it was not about revenge.

Instead, the 50-year-old from near Tel Aviv believes his experience of the conflicts and complexities of the Middle East, and his childhood effectively raised as an Arab in Israel after his family left Baghdad, gave him the edge over other actors.

"In the street everyone spoke Iraqi. It was a 'little Baghdad' around Tel Aviv," he said of the neighbourhood where he grew up that was dominated by Iraqi Jews who left Baghdad after Israel's founding 60 years ago.

"I could understand much better than, say, a British actor or an American actor about what this man is and the environment he was living in," Naor told Reuters by telephone.

"This is my area, the Middle East, Iraq. I can understand things like the special need for honour, pride. I live in an environment of war and blood."

He recalled how a missile fired by Iraq at Israel in 1991, during the first Gulf War triggered by Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, landed close by.

"As an Israeli, he was an enemy," Naor explained. "In 1991 a missile he sent to Tel Aviv fell 50 metres from my house with one tonne of explosives. Luckily nothing happened to us."

Nevertheless, he added: "I didn't love him or hate him."

Naor, who has appeared in Hollywood movies "Munich" and "Rendition", rejected the idea that casting an Israeli as Saddam should be seen as controversial.

"We are actors, we are artists. Why should we be Israelis, Lebanese or Egyptian?"

Although he encountered no negative feedback at home, there was a backlash against him, and more particularly his co-star Amr Waked, in Waked's native Egypt, he added.

EoZ offers more background on the story from Variety.

Egypt's Actors Union, which opposes normalization of ties with Israel, is furious and says Waked now faces being banned from ever filming in Egypt again.

 "The position of the union is clear in its rejection of normalization and requires that members abide by this position," declared Ashraf Zaki, chairman of the union.

 "He will be facing an investigation as soon as he returns," Zaki added. Waked is in Tunisia for the shooting of the drama, "Between Two Rivers," which is backed by the British Broadcasting Corporation and HBO.

 The actor has defended his position, telling Egyptian papers he did not know an Israeli was involved. Furthermore, he told the Egyptian Mail, the film is pro-Arab and criticizes US foreign policy

. He has made it clear he has no intention of leaving the series, in which he plays Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law who fled from Iraq to Jordan but eventually returned and was executed.

 Were he to quit now, the actor said, he would be in breach of his contract.

Islamist bombers target Olympics

Thanks to trad for sending this in. Emphasis not mine.

A MILITANT Islamic group has threatened to attack the Beijing Olympics with suicide bombers and biological weapons and has claimed responsibility for a string of fatal bombings and explosions in China over recent weeks.

In a video released by IntelCenter, a terrorism monitoring group, a bearded man identified as “Commander Seyfullah” is seen reading a declaration of jihad against the Olympics and warns athletes and spectators, “especially Muslims”, to stay away.

It was issued by a group calling itself the Turkestan Islamic party. The group may be allied with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement – designated a terrorist organisation by the US, China and several other countries – which seeks independence for the Muslim Uighur people of China’s far west province of Xinjiang, which Uighur separatists call East Turkestan.

“Commander Seyfullah” said the group was responsible for three bombs last week on buses in the city of Kunming,

which killed two people, and for two bus bombings on May 21 in Shanghai, which killed three.

The group said it also bombed a plastics factory in southern China and claimed involvement in an attack on police in the city of Wenzhou using explosives on a tractor, both on July 17.

Some of these incidents had been attributed to criminals, local grievances or accidents.

IntelCenter said that in an earlier five-page communiqué the group had promised to unleash suicide bombers against the Olympics and told Muslims that the use of biological weapons would be religiously justified.

The Chinese authorities have mobilised more than 100,000 troops and police to guard the Olympics and have imposed draconian security restrictions in every city where events will take place.

Turkish Soap Operas offend Muslims

Unlike the story of the Indian soap operas, there are no obvious death threats, just spiritual condemnation. But I think what's really behind this is the control of women. While the Sheik is off to work, his wives sit at home swooning over handsome foreign tv stars. There's no burka thick enough to protect their flimsy female minds from the strange, new ideas emanating idiot box.

JEDDAH: The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, has condemned Turkish soap operas, which have charmed millions of people across the Arab world, and prohibited people from watching them, Al-Watan daily reported yesterday.

“It is not permitted to look at these serials or watch them. They contain so much evil; they destroy people’s ethics and are against our values,” said the mufti during the closing ceremony of a forum, which took place in Riyadh on Friday. He added that these “malicious” Turkish soap operas corrupt individuals and spread vice in society.

“Any TV station that airs them is against God and His Messenger (peace be upon him). These are serials of immorality. They are prepared by people who are specialists in crime and error, people who invite men and women to the devil.”

Al-Asheikh was referring to two Turkish soap operas, “Noor” and “Lost Years,” which have become extremely popular in the Arab world over the last couple of months. The soaps are dubbed in colloquial Syrian Arabic and are currently being shown on channels run by the MBC Group. Read on.

Switzerland: Saudi player refuses to play against 'Zionist team'

How complete is the Saudi hatred of the Jews?

A Saudi football star playing for a Swiss team has refused to play against an Israeli team for apparent political and religious reasons.

Hussein Abdulghani, who plays for Swiss premier league club Neuchatel Xamax, said he would not play a game against a 'Zionist team', reported Arabic language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi on Friday.

Neuchatel Xamax is reportedly planning a game with an as yet unnamed Israeli team.

Team officials are said to have accepted his decision not to play in the future match against the Israeli team.

Abdulghani, 31, has represented Saudi Arabia in three world cups, and played most of his life in the Al-Ahli team from Jeddah. He was recently signed to a three-year contract with Neuchatel Xamax.

Bolton: One world? Obama's on a different planet

Your reading assignment for this weekend is a John Bolton piece in the LA Times of all places.

The senator's Berlin speech was radical and naive.

First, urging greater U.S.-European cooperation, Obama said, "The burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together." Having earlier proclaimed himself "a fellow citizen of the world" with his German hosts, Obama explained that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Europe proved "that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."

Perhaps Obama needs a remedial course in Cold War history, but the Berlin Wall most certainly did not come down because "the world stood as one." The wall fell because of a decades-long, existential struggle against one of the greatest totalitarian ideologies mankind has ever faced. It was a struggle in which strong and determined U.S. leadership was constantly questioned, both in Europe and by substantial segments of the senator's own Democratic Party. In Germany in the later years of the Cold War,Ostpolitik-- "eastern politics," a policy of rapprochement rather than resistance -- continuously risked a split in the Western alliance and might have allowed communism to survive. The U.S. president who made the final successful assault on communism, Ronald Reagan, was derided by many in Europe as not very bright, too unilateralist and too provocative.

But there are larger implications to Obama's rediscovery of the "one world" concept, first announced in the U.S. by Wendell Willkie, the failed Republican 1940 presidential nominee, and subsequently buried by the Cold War's realities. Read on.

Other voices, Flopping Aces,

Muslim Women suing McDonalds over hijabs

Here we go again, the Islamic battle over dress codes for work. In February, it was the uniforms at a Torilla factory. In England, a hair salon was sued for rejecting the hijab. There have been complaints over exposed arms in the medical practice for sanitary purposes. This time it's the 'right' to wear a hijab while working at McDonalds. The work place is becoming a testing ground for sharia in the West.

Hat tip ROP.

Two Muslim women said they were denied jobs at a McDonald's restaurant in Dearborn because they wore Islamic headscarves, according to a discrimination lawsuit filed today in Wayne County Circuit Court.

Toi Whitfield, 20, of Detroit, and Quiana Pugh, 25, of Dearborn, said they applied for jobs at the McDonald's on Ford Road in the eastern section of Dearborn, but were told by the store manager "you're not going to work here if you don't remove" the headscarf, known as hijab. According to the women, he also said he couldn't "really hire you due to your scarf."

A spokeswoman for McDonald's did not immediately comment on the lawsuit, but said a statement would be coming soon.

The Dearborn restaurant happens to be one of only two stores in the U.S. that sells Chicken McNuggets that are halal, the Muslim equivalent of kosher.

Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said that it's upsetting that a restaurant with such a large Muslim customer base would discriminate against Muslim women employees.

"They'll take Muslim dollars, but won't hire Muslim female employees," Walid said.

...who don't follow the same dress code for all employees.

The case was filed in Detroit against the store manager, a management company, and McDonald's. It alleges the restaurant violated a state civil rights law.

The store is located in an area with one of the largest Arab-American and Muslim communities in the U.S.

Walid said the two Muslim women were African-Americans born in the United States.

A chain restaurant that caters to halal needs can hardly be considered anti-Muslim. Unless the other employees are wearing similar headgear of personal choice, then how can these two women claim they've been singled out when the dress code applies to all?

It appears the restaurant has given an inch and is expected a mile. 

Other voices, A Blog for All: McSuit Sounds McFishy, Hot Air has a video.

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Experience you can't Believe in

It's official . Obama is a dedicated gaffeaholic. Time for an intervention.

LGF-John at Power Line notices another in a seemingly endless series of gaffes from the Naive Messiah: The Fine Line Between Pandering and Lying.

Obama continued:

Now, in terms of knowing my commitments, you don’t have to just look at my words, you can look at my deeds. Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran, as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon.

But Obama is not a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Obama just made that up so he could count the committee’s action as one of “my deeds.”

Other voices.
Michelle Malkin Ich bin ein Beginner

Jihad Rabbit teaches kids to kill

Hamas TV's Tomorrow's Pioneers has done it again. First it was Farfur, a Mickey Mouse look alike who rallied children to the cause of violent jihad.

The effectiveness of this program is heightened by including child viewers, who phone in to the show and recite poems with images of hate and violence; for example, “We will destroy the chair of the despots, so they will taste the flame of death;” and, "Rafah sings ‘Oh, oh.’ Its answer is an AK-47. We who do not know fear, we are the predators of the forest."

Then it was Nahoul the Bee, who replaced Farfur after he was killed by a 'Jew'. This time it's a killer bunny named Assud. Three cute critters with death on their minds, all for the entertainment of children.

An Islamic TV station using a Bugs Bunny lookalike to preach hatred to children has been slammed by religious leaders in the UK who fear it could brainwash vulnerable British children.

Assud the rabbit, who vows to 'kill and eat Jews' and glorifies the maiming of 'infidels' appears on Palestinian children's show, Tomorrow's Pioneers.

The rabbit is a number of characters who is punished by viewer's vote when he breaches Sharia law.

In one episode, Assud admits stealing money and is seen begging for mercy after young viewers and parents phone in demanding his hands are cut off as punishment.

At that point the 11-year-old presenter intervenes - and rules that the bunny should only have his ears severed because he has repented.

The rabbit is played by an actor in fancy dress and is one of the main characters on the show broadcast in Gaza by the al-Aqsa channel - known as Hamas TV.
(...)

The show originally featured a Mickey Mouse-style character called Farfur who urged children to fight against the Jewish community and form a world Islamic state.

Farfur was later replaced by a bumble bee called Nahoul, who told viewers to 'follow the path of Islam, of martyrdom and of the Mujahideen'.

He was 'martyred' earlier this year and replaced by Assud, who tells children in his first episode: 'I, Assud, will get rid of the jews, Allah willing, and I will eat them up.'