... in other news today [Emirates promote modest weddings]

[Haji 2003]

[Haji 2003]

Chinese property market - global repercussions?

 

[Haji 2003]

U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Looking a bit empty and likely to get emptier. If a crisis turns up for which having a fuller SPR would have been useful, Biden and the Dems are going to be toast.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-17/the-us-is-depleting-its-strategic-petroleum-reserve-faster-than-it-looks

[Haji 2003]

Median American monthly mortgage payments

[علوي]

Muhammad ibn Muslim said:

"I heard Imam as-Sadiq (عليه السلام) saying: “Before the advent of al-Qa’im, God will send signs for the believers.”

I said: “May God make me your ransom! What are those signs?”

He said: “The same things that God mentioned:

وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُمْ بِشَيْءٍ مِنَ الْخَوْفِ وَالْجُوعِ وَنَقْصٍ مِنَ الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَنْفُسِ وَالثَّمَرَاتِ ۗ وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ

We will surely test you with a measure of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth, lives, and fruits; and give good news to the patient [2:155]"

Then, he said: “God will test the believers on account of the fear caused by the kings of the dynasties of so-and-so at the end of their rule; what is meant by hunger is price inflation; what is meant by the loss of wealth is trade recession and the inadequacy of income; what is meant by the loss of lives is widespread, sudden deaths; and what is meant by the loss of fruits is the deficiency of agricultural earnings and products. Then, glad tidings be to the steadfast for hastening the advent of al-Qa’im at that moment.”

(Source: Kamaluddin, vol. 2, p. 650; Nu‘mani, Ghaybah, p. 250; Shaykh al-Mufid, Irshad, p. 361; A‘lam al-Wara, p. 456; ‘Ayyashi, Tafsir ‘Ayyashi, vol. 1, p. 68)

[Haji 2003]

Life expectancy in the United States

 

[Haji 2003]

United States oil demand

Looking robust

 

[علوي]

Ukraine mulls legalizing porn

President Zelensky has ordered a review into the legalization of pornography following a petition arguing it could add money to Kiev’s budget

Quote

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has ordered a review into legalizing pornography and erotica. The move comes in response to a petition that collected the required 25,000 signatures for the issue to be considered by authorities.
...
Zelensky noted that the national Constitution grants Ukrainian citizens the right to freedom of thought, speech and expression. However, this provision is limited, among other things, by a law on the Protection of Public Morality, which prohibits production and distribution of explicit materials.

 

[علوي]

Teacher jailed after refusing trans student’s pronouns

Enoch Burke was imprisoned on contempt charges for coming to work despite a disciplinary suspension

Quote

Evangelical Christian schoolteacher Enoch Burke has been locked up in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, Ireland on contempt of court charges after he vowed to continue disobeying a court injunction meant to keep him off campus pending the outcome of a disciplinary proceeding. Burke spent his first night in the jail in isolation on Monday. 

Justice Michael Quinn has vowed to keep Burke behind bars until he agrees to comply with Wilson Hospital School’s demands. However, Burke insisted that doing so would violate his religious beliefs, and admitted that if he were not jailed he would resume showing up for work every day. 

“I am here today because I would not call a boy a girl,” he declared, insisting that doing so was “in violation of my conscience.” Burke and other staff had been told to address a formerly male student who wished to transition by a different name and use ‘they’ pronouns back in May, but the teacher refused to do so, setting off a series of clashes that culminated in his suspension last month with full pay. 
...
Contempt charges carry an indefinite prison term, which is ended only when the person agrees to purge the contempt or the judge opts to order the individual’s release. Burke, who has represented himself in court, insists he will not “purge my contempt by holding my Christian beliefs in contempt” or “go into the school and bow to something I know to be manifestly wrong,” i.e. that his “belief in male and female is wrong.”

https://www.rt.com/news/562392-teacher-jailed-transgender-pronouns-contempt/

[Silas]

2 hours ago, -Rejector- said:

Teacher jailed after refusing trans student’s pronouns

Enoch Burke was imprisoned on contempt charges for coming to work despite a disciplinary suspension

https://www.rt.com/news/562392-teacher-jailed-transgender-pronouns-contempt/

complete lunacy in the west right now. This transgender nonsense has taken over 

[Silas]

On 9/5/2022 at 4:33 PM, -Rejector- said:

Ukraine mulls legalizing porn

President Zelensky has ordered a review into the legalization of pornography following a petition arguing it could add money to Kiev’s budget

while I despise Putin, I don't think Zelensky is any better. He is an authoritarian propped up by corrupt oligarchs.

[Haji 2003]

The burning man festival is anti-consumerist - this is the traffic leaving it

[Haji 2003]

 

[علوي]

Quote

 

Israeli newspaper names most influential Jew of 2022

The Jerusalem Post hailed Vladimir Zelensky for “changing the world” through his use of ‘media and diplomacy’

https://www.rt.com/news/563510-zelensky-influential-jew-jerusalem-post/

 

I can't stop laughing 

Quote

 

The embattled leader has changed the world order in a way not seen since the fall of the Iron Curtain in the late 1980s, getting almost the entire western world aligned against Russia and its powerful president, Vladimir Putin.

https://www.jpost.com/50-most-influential-jews/article-717707

[Guest 12345]

''Danish banks are handing out blankets to help staff cope with colder office temperatures as part of efforts to reduce energy consumption''

My heart goes out to the bankers. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-22/blankets-for-bankers-as-danish-firms-turn-down-office-heating

[Haji 2003]

US Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Quote

“I think the market should be freaking out” about the end of SPR sales, said Phil Flynn of Chicago’s Price Futures Group. “I think when the releases end, it’s going to have the impact of losing a major producer — it will really tighten supplies.”

Flynn said that the end of the SPR draws could tack on between $5 and $10 to oil prices.

https://www.energyintel.com/00000183-5755-de15-a187-d7d5c48b0000

Quote

Once SPR draws end, there are no offsets to the loss on the horizon; a deal that would allow Iranian barrels to return to market remains aspirational, and far from opening the taps, Opec and its allies have announced slight cuts to production.

Well the US had the chance to do a deal with Iran, but they chose to focus on someone's dodgy hijab instead.

[HzAbbas]

No sure this is true, but:

China orders banks to ready for a massive dollar dump

Leave it to the western media to accuse China of both artificially inflating and devaluing its own currency. 

[Haji 2003]

Keep this in mind when Denmark bangs the drum for women's rights

 

Quote

Denmark and Greenland have formally agreed to launch a two-year investigation into historic birth control practices carried out for many years on Inuit Greenlanders by Danish doctors.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63049387

[hamz786]

As Salamu Alaykum,

Posting here in case I have missed it, but has there been a thread regarding the recent suicide blasts targeting Hazaras in Afghanistan??

Inna Lillahi WaInna Ilayhi Rajioon

[Haji 2003]

 

[Haji 2003]

What counts as patriotism or lack thereof?

 

In another thread on this forum we had SAN's views on British Muslims who are critical of Britain.

 

I wonder what his thoughts are about the members of the British establishment who have made money betting on the fall in the value of sterling?

 

[علوي]

British PM Liz Truss: 'I am a huge Zionist, I am a huge supporter of Israel'

Britain's Prime Minister Liz Truss has described herself as a “huge Zionist ... [and] huge supporter of Israel" amid ongoing turmoil in the country's broken financial sector.

Quote

“As you know I am a huge Zionist, I am a huge supporter of Israel, and I know that we can take the UK-Israel relationship from strength to strength,” Truss, who was attending the Conservative Friends of Israel event held at the Tory Party’s annual conference in Birmingham,  said on Monday.

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/10/04/690382/UK-Truss-Zionist

 

[Haji 2003]

 

[Haji 2003]

Christian / Muslim Unity - Dearborn

 

[علوي]

Jordan Peterson storms Al-Aqsa

Quote

The controversial media personality Jordan Peterson joined Israeli settlers Yesterday in trespassing Al-Aqsa mosque, in another Western attempt to white-wash "Israel's" ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by -Rejector-

[Diaz]

6 hours ago, Haji 2003 said:

Christian / Muslim Unity - Dearborn

 

I saw this in the news, I’m glad they are doing something regarding this disgusting issue. Before it was “we stand with love only” to “everyone should accept us forcefully”.

[علوي]

Abbas meets with Putin, rails at ‘Israeli violations against the Palestinians’

Quote

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of an international conference in Kazakhstan, their first face-to-face meeting since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year.

“President Abbas briefed Putin on the latest political developments regarding the Palestinian issue, as well as on the continued Israeli violations against the Palestinian people..." a statement carried by the PA’s official Wafa news agency says.

According to the statement, the two also discussed numerous regional and international issues, while Abbas “further praised Russia’s positions at all international forums in support of the Palestinian people and their just cause.”

Putin reiterated Moscow’s support for a resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict in accordance with UN decisions, according to a translation of his remarks from Russia’s RT broadcaster.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/abbas-meets-with-putin-rails-at-israeli-violations-against-the-palestinians/

Palestinian leader Abbas meets Putin, rules out US mediator role

Quote

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has met Russian President Vladimir Putin, reiterating his mistrust of the United States in resolving the conflict with Israel and expressing appreciation for Russia’s role.

Abbas voiced his support for the so-called “Quartet” of international mediators – Russia, the US, the United Nations and the European Union – but said the US could not be left a free hand to act alone.

“We don’t trust America and you know our position. We don’t trust it, we don’t rely on it, and under no circumstances can we accept that America is the sole party in resolving a problem,” Abbas told Putin at the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Thursday.

“It can be within the Quartet since it is a great country, but we will never accept it as the only one,” he said, in televised remarks.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/13/putin-meets-palestinian-leader-abbas-in-astana

 

[علوي]

Number of non-binary students up 582% in Maryland school district

Quote

A public school district in Maryland has seen the number of students identifying as non-binary skyrocket by 582% in the past two years, according to data published online.
...
The presentation showed that 35 students self-reported as gender-nonconforming to counselors during the 2019-2020 school year, four of whom were in elementary school. The number shot up to 239 students for the 2021-2022 school year, with 18 elementary students, 129 middle school students and 92 high school students identifying as non-binary.

https://www.rt.com/news/564693-nonbinary-students-gender-maryland/

 

[علوي]

Iranian woman makes history in Asian Weightlifting Championships

Quote

Iranian weightlifter Elham Hosseini makes history by becoming the first Iranian female weightlifter to win gold at an international tournament. 

Hosseini snatched three gold medals during the 2022 Asian Weightlifting Championships in Manama.

https://en.irna.ir/news/84911996/Iranian-woman-makes-history-in-Asian-Weightlifting-Championships

 

[Haji 2003]

KPMG Saudi Arabia

FT reports of poor working practices at leading international accountancy firm.

Quote

He and several other former KPMG employees put this down to hostility towards westerners from the largely Arab leadership team at KPMG Saudi Arabia.

https://www.ft.com/content/45f2eda8-9219-4aa5-9434-277d74ea175b

 

This attitude is not surprising. 

In Saudi you have a toxic mix of the local Arabs who think they are superior to others on account of having won the oil lottery and Western expats who think that the Saudis are lazy good-for-nothings.

[Haji 2003]

Retired U.S. military personnel working for repressive regimes

 

Quote

In Saudi Arabia, for example, 15 retired U.S. generals and admirals have worked as paid consultants for the Defense Ministry since 2016. The ministry is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, who U.S. intelligence agencies say approved the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Post contributing columnist, as part of a brutal crackdown on dissent.

 

but at least the DoD has a sense of shame:

 

Quote

In legal motions, U.S. officials argued that releasing the information would violate former service members’ privacy and could subject them to “embarrassment and harassment” and “unfairly harm their public reputation.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/veterans-us-foreign-jobs-saudi-arabia/

 

A alternative way of looking at this is that the Americans are not freelancing. The Saudis are paying their colonial masters so that an eye can be kept on them all the time.

There is no way these retired soldiers won't be reporting everything they see back to Washington.

[Haji 2003]

@Ashvazdanghe can explain further

[علوي]

Defying US sanctions, Iran’s world-class telescope receives first light, records debut images

As the US continues to push for more sanctions to hamper Iran’s scientific progress, the Iranian National Observatory (INO) says its world-class, 3.4-meter optical telescope has received its “first light” after it became operational.

Quote

INO Project Director Habib Khosroshahi announced on Wednesday that the National Telescope’s debut images, simultaneously with its first light, were received late last month.

“It is very rare that the first astronomical images are received simultaneously with the first light, but we received an image of Arp 282, located 320 megalight-years distant from the earth with the first light,” Khosroshahi said.

“In fact, if the Hubble Space Telescope was used on the earth to observe the sky and record images, perhaps the quality of its image of [Arp 282] would be the same as the image that we took with the National Telescope,” he said.

He added that the second image received from the National Telescope was of NGC 23, a spiral galaxy around 173.5 megalight-years distant from the Milky Way.

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/10/22/691406/Defying-US-sanctions-Iran-world-class-telescope-receives-first-light

[Guest Astronomer]

5 hours ago, -Rejector- said:

Defying US sanctions, Iran’s world-class telescope receives first light, records debut images

As the US continues to push for more sanctions to hamper Iran’s scientific progress, the Iranian National Observatory (INO) says its world-class, 3.4-meter optical telescope has received its “first light” after it became operational.

To provide some balance, the astronomical community is not exactly standing around in collective awe at our new telescope. Comparing it to the size of the Hubble space telescope is misleading - the Hubble primary mirror was constructed to the largest possible width that could fit a space shuttle cargo bay. The Hubble will always produce much better images than the INO because it is in Earth orbit with no atmospheric distortion. This much better "seeing" means even though the Hubble's primary mirror is smaller than the INO, it can still resolve down to 0.04 arc seconds, while the INO can only resolve to 0.65 arc seconds. To give you some perspective, this means the Hubble can detect a lit candle on the Moon, while the INO could detect a fog lamp. The James Webb can resolve down to less than 0.01 arc seconds, and could detect a lighthouse on Mars during a conjunction.

The biggest ground based optical telescopes in the world are 8-9 metres wide, while the INO is only 3.4 metres wide. The James Webb space telescope has a mirror that is 6.5 metres wide, which makes it the 14th largest ever built. There are currently 43 operating telescopes with a primary mirror larger the INO's. The next smallest telescope in the world after the INO telescope is the 3.05 metre Shane Telescope at Lick Observatory which was built over 60 years ago in 1959.

The fact that the INO telescope recorded its first light and was imaging so quickly afterwards is not a good sign for the quality of the CCD optical software and systems. Usually the more complicated and powerful the light capture and processing systems and software the longer the time between first light and first imaging. The James Webb had its first light in February 2022, and it was not until July that the mirrors and optics were calibrated before it started imaging.

However, the INO should be a good medium-sized workhorse optical telescope, and we Iranians should be proud of this achievement. Hopefully there will be more to come. In particular we need to build a radio telescope, of which now some 98% of astronomical research is now done. Unfortunately, there are only a couple of small radio telescopes in the entire Middle East.

[Haji 2003]

9 hours ago, Guest Astronomer said:

However, the INO should be a good medium-sized workhorse optical telescope, and we Iranians should be proud of this achievement. Hopefully there will be more to come.

In addition to any first order benefits there will be second order benefits of providing a platform for educating and training future scientists.

In addition Iranians will be able to claim any discoveries as their own and lead and manage teams of scientists - these are opportunities that are not so easily available in developed countries where people of colour face discrimination.