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.

8/24 Morning Report

It must be due to the weekend arriving. This was a day for strange news. So, I’ll share what I found. You can go find more for yourself, I’m sure.

I generally don’t get deeply involved in the immigration issue. My stance is, simply, if you are here illegally you have broken the law and should be treated as a criminal. If you haven’t, then, of course, nothing should happen. Normally, I state my case, if the subject comes up, and move on. But, the courts have gone WAY over the top on this one. It seems that an appeals court has ruled that while entering the country illegally is a crime, remaining in the country afterwards is not.

(…yeah, I know…the logic doesn’t make sense to me either….but keep reading…)

All of this stemmed from Nicholas Martinez being sentenced to a year in jail after pleading guilty to possession of cocaine and endangering a child. Normally, this would have caused probation. But, since Martinez is an illegal immigrant, he couldn’t go on probation because that would have automatically violated his parole. Sounds logical, even sensible. The case went to appeal (…why did this go to appeal in the first place?... which, of course, generated a ruling

But then an appeals court panel threw out that sentence, saying that while it is illegal to enter the country without permission, it is not necessarily illegal for an illegal alien to remain in the country. In the opinion of that court, Congress has criminalized illegal entry into the U.S., but has not made the "continued presence" of an illegal alien in the country a crime "unless [he or she] has previously been deported."

Because Judge Kitts did not determine whether Martinez had ever been deported, the appeals court ruled she had no legal basis to deny probation.

If I am not mistaken, this court decision may have just rendered the entire current debate over immigration null and void. This court decision, I believe, sets the legal precedent which will allow illegal immigrants to remain in the country without penalty.
(…so much for the need for a fence…saved US taxpayers lots of money…yeah…sure…)

Of course, this is right on par with a $27 million research project over an animal that may not even exist now.

Federal wildlife officials say spending more than $27 million to research the suspected habitat of the ivory-billed woodpecker is worth the cost, despite conflicting views on whether the elusive bird even exists.

"There's enough out there that we've got to keep searching," said Jeff Fleming, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "It'd be irresponsible not to."

The agency this week released a 85-page draft plan aimed at preventing the extinction of the bird. The draft plan, which is open for public comment until Oct. 22, recommends spending more than $27 million in federal dollars on recovery efforts for the woodpecker.

The bird was thought to be extinct, until a possible sighting in 2004. So, they created a 185-page report? That’s where most of the cost comes from. More people will probably work on that report than will actually search for the bird, even though it is a four state effort.

And, in one final piece of odd news, it seems a wealthy Russian tried to buy a B-52 at a recent air show.

An astounded member of the U.S. delegation said the bomber was not for sale but that it would cost at least $500 million if it were to be sold on the spot.

"That is no problem. It is such a cool machine," the Russian was quoted as saying…

Wouldn’t you just love to have that kind of cash lying around?