Banks, Obama, Islam, and...What the...?

Think Sharia Law will not come to the states? Think again.

University Bank now has an entire subsidiary devoted to financial products that comply with Muslim religious law, or Shariah. It has done nearly $80 million in Islamically approvable “mortgage-alternative” financing for residential and commercial real estate in 15 states.

For the past decade, Dow Jones has computed a stock index for Shariah-compliant companies. The law schools at Harvard, Fordham and the University of California, Berkeley, have held academic conferences on Islamic finance.

In fact, the Harvard Business Review had an article that detailed how numerous business mergers and actions had been forced to become Sharia compliant due to involvement by Muslim companies or nations. It has even been reported that Muslim financial institutions have remained much more stable during this financial crisis. I will readily admit the need for more stringent controls to be in place for lending. A sizable portion of the financial crisis is the extension of too much credit to too many people. But, is Sharia Law the way to go? As it did in Lebanon, this could lead to a very slippery slope giving the religion of Islam control of America.

Speaking of strange successes, Obama is being credited for success in Iraq. The sad thing is the success is due to policies and procedures during the Bush administration. The frightening part is…he is welcoming giving power to Taliban leaders, albeit moderate ones.

"Yesterday, Mr. Obama accepted and approved the path of peace and talks with those Afghan Taliban who he called moderates," Karzai said during a function in Kabul to mark International Women's Day.

The part of the article I found most amazing…

The Taliban, who often operate out of bases across the border in Pakistan, could not be reached Sunday but have turned down similar overtures from Karzai in the past.

(…like the Taliban is going to respond to interview requests to verify news…)

Finally, in an odd piece of news Friday, Spanish police arrested a man with a caast made of cocaine.

A Chilean man with a broken leg was arrested at Barcelona airport after his "cast" was found to be made of cocaine not plaster, Spanish police say.

The 66-year-old carried six cans of beer and two hollowed-out stools that also contained cocaine, they add.

I have a couple questions on this one. First, he was arriving in Spain. How did he get past airport security in Chile? And, second…I want to know what tipped of the cops to check the cast in the first place.