Originally posted by NGONGE: ^^^ Are you going to dig a hole in your backgraden and start praying the Eid prayer on your own, duqa? . I think King is looking forward to CIID. Ciid Mubarak to you all. I still don't know if Friday will be declared CIID DAY in North America, but I hope CIID is on Saturday.

Originally posted by Kool_Kat: A good read... LST, where have you been? A lot of people have been looking for you...lol Kool, inadeer I was in the underground forum. Not far from here. Yaa i raadinayey?

Adduunyo. Toloow magacaa ba'.

Originally posted by SheekhaJacaylka: Maakhir is gone ... reer Sool started the same process In the process of trying to surpass Duke's hard rhetoric, SHEEKHA inadvertently admitted that these "areas" were part of Puntland in the first place. SHEEKHA waa sidee awoowe?. You have been tricked and I must admit Oodwayne is not happy tonight. You have shamed Somaliland.

The World As I see It by Albert Einstein "How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving... "I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible. "My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..." "My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling. "This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them! "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature." Source

The loonie hit parity this morning and then it leveled to 99 cents. There is a lot of demand in the world for Canada’s natural resources and that has somewhat justified the recent loonie soar. However, the new rush to parity isn’t really justified in economic sense. Yes the days of 60 cents loonie are long gone and Canada has a competitive world class economy primarily driven by hot commodities, but the staggering loonie jump to parity is fuelled more by US weakness rather than Canadian strength. The fascinating thing is that folks are talking about a loonie that is worth 10 cents more than the US dollar in the coming months. Good for working Somali Canadians.

'This Isn't the Way We Want to Spend the Rest of Our Lives' Friday, September 14, 2007; Page A07 Iraqi tribal leader Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, who founded the Anbar Salvation Council, also known as the Anbar Awakening movement, one year ago today, was assassinated in Anbar province yesterday by a roadside bomb. On July 30, he spoke at his residential compound in Ramadi with Washington Post military reporter Ann Scott Tyson. Excerpts of the interview below: * * * "The terrorists were destroying the city [of Ramadi]. People lost their identity because of that. Al-Qaeda did a lot of bad things here in the province. . . . We called [the tribes] together and said, 'This isn't the way we want to spend the rest of our lives.' And we decided to fight al-Qaeda. . . . The government never supported us from the beginning. But my tribe is well-known all over Iraq, and we have a well-known history in the Arab world. When I went to them and told them I have the support of my tribe in my province, they said, 'Okay, we think you're man enough to get this done.' I started fighting al-Qaeda . . . so I was able to prove myself, both to the locals and to the government, and that had a big effect on the prime minister. He helped us to obtain the hiring orders [to hire the tribesmen as police]. The police equipment are few. We don't have enough. And the numbers of police are not enough. Al-Anbar is a third of Iraq. It equals three Iraqi provinces together and four Arab countries put together. This is a desert, with open terrain, rivers, lakes, wadis [rock-studded valleys]. So the numbers we have are not enough to control the whole province. Right now we're fighting the terrorists with the U.S. military, so the U.S. forces pulling out at this time would be a disruption for security. I am happy we'll have a joint defense program with the Americans, an agreement between Iraq and the U.S. long-term. . . . Provincial elections are very important, because the provincial council we have now doesn't represent everyone, and all serve the Islamic Party. No one in this province likes that party. When we were here and al-Qaeda was slaughtering everyone and putting their knives on our throats, this provincial council never lifted a finger to help anyone in this province. . . . Why didn't they come out then and declare a war on al-Qaeda? They were afraid to defend their own people. The Awakening started as a tribal project. Now we have a council that deals with tribal affairs. We have a political side -- its job is the elections. We're going to grab the tribe in one hand and hold onto politics in the other hand. We'll run for local elections. But I won't run. I have a security plan. . . . If al-Qaeda gets away from the Awakening, they won't get away from the American forces. We are allies in the war against terrorism. . . . We thank everyone [in the United States] who is sending their sons here. I'd like to let them know their sons in Anbar are in the safest place they ever could be." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302422.html?hpid=topnews

Good to see the long-bearded old warrior still doing his thing.

Rokko, it is amazing how pressure can get to people. Poor girl got a "total blackout". Let us educate the South African savages.

This is quite interesting. What all the talk about how the US is trying to add Eritrea to its terror blacklist, it is explicable that Afewerki would play politics and request his friends to confuse the Americans. Grand diversion indeed. Eritrea could not have asked for a better announcement.

Watch as the contestant from South Carolina answers the question. She certainly didn't make folks in South Carolina proud.

Juje, what are your thoughts on this killing. Please do tell us what you know. PS: Have you guys read that article on Midnimo.com? This is one of the most disturbing stories I've read recently. Ilaahay ha u naxariisto Cali iyo Mahadkii ka horeeyayba. Aaamiin

Thanks brother Horn. Lots of information there.

Norf, is the place under construction or something? Boy, they need that fake grass. Qiic ayaaba ka bixi meesha.

Nafisooy, inaad runta u sheegtay ahayd cunuga ood tiraahdo "war maandhoow ila qabo".

Ilaahay ha u fududeeyo qarabadeeda raadinaysa gabadha. Ilaahay ha u naxariisto hadii ay dhimatay iyo hadday nooshahayba. Aamiin.

^^Kool_Kat, iska warran inadeer. Yeah, I want to touch down there this November Insha-Allah. Just make sure you don't go there when it is buring hot. Dubai weather can get ferocious.

Abdinuur salaams. I am still here. Are you still at the same city I saw you last time? Good to see you back bro. PS: ask me about any "oldie" and I'll guide you to the nearest match. But ya'gotta keep it on the DL ma man.

Small houses challenge our notions of need as well as minimum-size standards Down a rambling residential road on the outskirts of Sebastopol, the dream house sits like a testament to discriminating taste. This dream house is the love child of artist-builder Jay Shafer, who lovingly hand-crafted it. The stainless-steel kitchen, gleaming next to the natural wood interior, is outfitted with customized storage and built-ins. From his bed, Shafer can gaze into the Northern California sky through a cathedral window. In his immaculate office space, a laptop sits alongside rows of architectural books and magazines -- many featuring his house on the cover. And from the old-fashioned front porch, he can look out on a breathtaking setting: an apple orchard in full bloom. But in an era when bigger is taken as a synonym for better, calling Shafer's home a dream house might strike some as an oxymoron. Why? The entire house, including sleeping loft, measures only 96 square feet -- smaller than many people's bathrooms. But Jay Shafer's dream isn't of a lifestyle writ large but of one carefully created and then writ tiny. Shafer, the founder of Tumbleweed Tiny Houses, began his love affair with diminutive dwellings about 10 years ago when teaching drawing at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. "I was living in an average-sized apartment and I realized I just didn't need so much space," he said. "I always envied people who had smaller homes, because they didn't have to do as much housework." He bought an Airstream trailer, remodeled it and spent two years suffering the long, bitter winters before conceding that insulation was one amenity he was unwilling to forgo. "So I started from scratch and built myself a small house," he told me. He built the 100-square-foot home on wheels and parked it on a friend's farm outside of Iowa City. Eventually, he moved back into town but not without some difficulty. "I wasn't allowed to put the house on a city lot, because it was too small," he explained, referring to the minimum-size standards in the codes of many cities and counties across the country. So he bought a house, put his little house in the backyard and rented out the main house. By 2000, he had decided this would be a way to channel his artwork, feed his hunger for simplicity and escape the rental rat race. After a friend asked him to build a house for him to live in, Shafer launched Tumbleweed Tiny House Co. in 2000. The friend went on to become the president of the Small House Society -- and thus was written one more episode of the small-is-beautiful movement. Shafer began building and designing little houses for people who wanted them as backyard retreats, second homes or primary residences. Eventually, he sold his own first home because he wanted something smaller and then built himself a 70-square-foot home on wheels (now called the XS House on his Web site). "I knew I was going to be traveling out here and didn't know where I was going to put my house," he explained. "I wanted for it to fit in a parking place -- actually, I wanted to be able to parallel-park it." I'd heard of getting a car small enough to parallel-park -- but a house? Shafer pulled his house out West on a U-Haul and parked it in a public lot smack in the center of Sebastopol, hoping he would meet people sympathetic to the pursuit of the simple life and invite him to live on their property. It took exactly 20 minutes. For the next six months, Shafer lived on 40 acres of land with a creek outside the upscale town of Occidental. He then moved closer to Sebastopol, before selling his home to build his current one -- which he dragged to its current location in an apple orchard. Over the years, he has built and sold 10 homes and dozens of house plans, which cost about $1,000. But the real story is that he's become a poster boy for simple living, with interviews or mentions in This Old House magazine, the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and, last February, even on "Oprah." What's behind the rush to peek inside Shafer's tiny living room and grill him about his lifestyle? "Our society's been based on excess for so long, it's still a somewhat novel idea to live simply," he said. At 42, Shafer has a quiet, boyish presence and the unclouded brow of a man content with his choices. But he's also someone who obviously has gone to great lengths to live life according to his own principles -- an intensity seems to flicker in his eyes and in the humility of his explanations. You won't find much in the way of ranting about greed and gluttony. Though he does sometimes utter words like "excess," he maintains it's not for him to judge the needs of others. "I can't say what the definition of a small house is," he said. "Maybe it's 4,000 square feet, if that's what it takes to suit their needs. The idea is that the house is being well-used. Some people need more space than others." Even when asked about the likes of Larry Ellison (whose recent building plans involve battling for a house bigger than a city block), Shafer resisted: "I don't know his needs." Shafer said that small-house fans tend to be a nonjudgmental lot because so many have experienced "discrimination": Most building codes across the nation maintain a minimum-size requirement that prohibits the building of very small houses like Shafer's. Some homeowners associations and towns maintain this high standard in order to maintain high property values -- as well as keep out the affordable-housing riffraff. This has meant that many tiny-house aficionados only live their dream by skirting the law, living in someone else's backyard or heading for a rural county with no planning department. But even in counties where tiny houses are allowed, lenders don't always look kindly on homes the size of a walk-in closet. Indeed, Shafer knows that some people might even see his house as a threat to their property values: That was an argument he heard often from his father, who recently sold his 4,000-square-foot suburban home in Mission Viejo to move into an RV. Now, Shafer thinks his father may be coming around to understanding the inherent beauty of living small. Shafer chose Sebastopol in part because he thinks the politically liberal community will be supportive of abolishing minimum-size standards. His next dream is to create a little community of small houses, with a half-dozen or more connected by walking paths on a small piece of land. "Trailer parks get a bad rap because they are made of cheap materials, but their structure is very conducive to community," he said. "Everyone knows high density is the way to go." Indeed, the tiny house may be the antidote to vertical high density in small towns and rural areas where neighborhoods are eager to preserve views and open space. Unlike in a three-story, lot-covering, mixed-use development, from a cluster of tiny houses, you can still smell the apple blossoms. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/04/27/carollloyd.DTL

From: serviceteam@tdcanadatrust.com To: Libaax-Sankaabte Dear TD customer, TD Customer Service requests you to complete EasyWeb Customer Form. This procedure is obligatory for all customers of TD Canada Trust. Please click hyperlink below to access EasyWeb Customer Form. http://easyweb.ServerID-891282.tdcanadatrust.com/custserv/easywebform.jsp" Thank you for choosing TD Canada Trust for your banking needs. Please do not respond to this email. This mail is generated by an automated service. TD Group Financial Services site - Copyright © TD Now, this pretends to be one of the banks I deal with. If you put your cursor on the link provided and check the domain it is pointing to, you can easly see their game pretty much! ((Kyrghyzstan) BE VERY CAREFUL NOMADS.

Iraq's victory at the Asian games was a setup.

Oscar the nursing home cat can sense death Updated Thu. Jul. 26 2007 10:39 AM ET CTV.ca News Staff His name is Oscar. He's not the friendliest cat. But he has an uncanny knack for predicting within hours when nursing home patients with whom he lives are about to die. Oscar lives at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, and is the subject of a fascinating essay in this week's issue of the prestigious medical journal, the New England Journal of Medicine. What makes Oscar special is his ability to sense when one of the hospice's residents is about to die. Every day, Oscar makes his rounds among the patients, entering each room and giving each patient a sniff. When he senses that someone is near the end of his or life, he will hop onto their bed and curl up beside them. Within hours, without fail, the patient will die. Oscar has demonstrated his prognostication skills at least 25 times. He's considered so accurate that nursing home staff will immediately call family members once Oscar has chosen someone, since it usually means they have less than four hours to live. Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician from Brown University in Providence, tells Oscar's story, noting that the feline has never been wrong yet. "His mere presence at the bedside is viewed by physicians and nursing home staff as an almost absolute indicator of impending death," Dosa writes. Raised at the nursing home since he was a kitten, Oscar is described as aloof -- even, at times, grouchy. But when he is on a death watch, he is as warm as can be. He will nuzzle a dying patient and purr, perhaps trying to offer whatever comfort he can. "For his work, he is highly regarded by the physicians and staff at Steere House and by the families of the residents whom he serves," Dosa writes. The staff appreciates Oscar so much, a local hospice agency has even erected a plaque to him that reads: "For his compassionate hospice care, this plaque is awarded to Oscar the Cat."

This is quite a unique process to say the least. Very interesting. Where do I find more details of these sermons? Any real audio out there?

New England Journal of Medicine Your Fat Friends are Making You Fat By Alice Dembner, Globe Staff A study released today suggests that obesity spreads through social connections, particularly via close friendships. This doesn’t replace the effects of genetics, failing to exercise or supersizing food. But researchers writing in the New England Journal of Medicine say it provides a possible explanation for the rapid increase in obesity over the last few decades. Nationally surveys show that nearly one-third of US adults are now obese. The condition appears to spread though what researchers are calling “social contagion,” a tendency of people who become obese to influence the behavior of others and to convey -- perhaps subliminally -- the message that being overweight is okay. "Obesity is not just an individual problem, but a collective problem," said Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the report. To slow the epidemic, he said, "treating people in groups may be more effective than treating them individually." Studying more than 12,000 people linked to a long-running study of heart disease based in Framingham, the researchers found that an individual's chances of becoming obese increased by 57 percent if someone they consider a friend grew obese. If the friendship was close and mutual and one person became obese, the other's risk soared by 171 percent. The study found similar, but smaller influences between siblings and spouses, but neighbors who aren't friends had no effect. Surprisingly, obesity seemed to spread even if friends were geographically distant. "We were stunned to find that friends who are hundreds of miles away have just as much impact on a person's weight as those who are geographically close," said James Fowler, the paper's other author, who is an associate professor of political science at the University of California San Diego. This led researchers to suggest that the effect wasn't only due to sharing behaviors -- such as eating together -- but to sharing ideas about what constitutes an appropriate weight. Because the study looked at relationships over time, the researchers were able to exclude cases in which obese people chose overweight friends, and therefore were able to make a stronger case for a causal effect. http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/blog/2007/07/friendships_may.html?p1=MEWell_Pos2

Cool stuff. Can't wait to see this live in November Insha Allah.