Round-ups for Wednesday

Well, ladies and gentlemen, since there seems to be absolutely nothing today that I'm vehemently opinionated about, here is a round-up of bloggers and stuff THEY happen to be interested in.

First of all, I got this via e-mail this morning - anyone have any thoughts?

More than two years after it began offering Islamic-friendly banking products, Ann Arbor-based University Bank said it has formed a subsidiary to focus solely on serving Muslims.

The subsidiary will initially focus on home financing, deposit accounts and selling Islamic mutual fund shares. All are products already offered by University Bank, which has been a local leader in Islamic banking.

What makes banking Islamic-friendly is mainly how products are structured: For example, Islamic law prohibits payment or receipt of interest. Traditional loans typically charge interest.

To facilitate Islamic loans, University Bank has offered mortgage-alternative loan transactions, dubbed MALTs, since July 2003. Essentially, these types of mortgages are structured without interest payments.

Similarly, deposit accounts are set up to share any profits rather than pay them into individual accounts as interest.

Debbie Schlussel responds via e-mail:

"It's through the University Bank in Ann Arbor. It allows them (Muslims) to buy their homes from the bank on a land contract, with interest already figured in--rather than making interest payments, which are against Islamic law. The bank has several Islamic employees and a prayer room, which they're allowed to pray in five times a day facing mecca. I read and saw about it in paper and on TV."

The original e-mailer asks:

"But the point still is, I'll bet we couldn't have a Christian Banking Division. At what point do they intend to actually assimilate?"

Michelle Malkin discusses the mining tragedy in W. Virginia. Lots of information and links, as usual. I can't imagine what the families of those 13 men are going through right now.

She also has a fantastic roundup of the Abramoff scandal. This will become Bush's fault somehow...so I'm bored already.

From LaShawn Barber, has anyone heard about Ted Hayes? He's a black Republican who was forced out of the homeless shelter he runs in LA by his white liberal landlord. The silence from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton is deafening.

Apparently Iran wants to go nuclear. Have they learned NOTHING from Iraq? Libya?

Cheney speaks about this NSA/Eavesdropping non-scandal:

"He has made clear from the outset, both publicly and privately, that our duty to uphold the law of the land admits no exceptions in wartime," Cheney said.

Cheney said as more time passes since the September 11 attacks, "some in Washington are yielding to the temptation to downplay the ongoing threat to our country, and to back away from the business at hand."

"This is perhaps a natural impulse, as time passes and the alarms don't sound," he said.

But he said "America has been protected not by luck but by sensible policy decisions by decisive action at home and abroad and by round-the-clock efforts on the part of people in law enforcement, intelligence, the military, and homeland security."

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Cheney.

Speaking of protecting Americans and really important stuff like that, Right Wing News has more about the Washington Post story from yesterday about the Democrats' "strategy" to "attack the Bush administration and Republicans as having little regard for the privacy of Americans."

We have Democrats opposing the Patriot Act, which is designed to stop Al-Qaeda. Wanting to immediately pull our troops out of Iraq, where they're fighting Al-Qaeda. Getting up in arms about the President authorizing wiretaps on people who talk to Al-Qaeda. Fretting about captured members of Al-Qaeda at Gitmo and in Iraq...geez, they're practically acting like Al-Qaeda is one of their constituency groups.
On the other hand, Republicans treat Americans who don't want to be in a building when Al-Qaeda flies a plane into it like they're an important constituency group. Which group do you think is bigger? Maybe the Democrats should ask themselves that instead of continuing to live down to their reputation of being, "Blame America first," wimps who can't be trusted to defend the country because of their quasi-suicidal level of naivete about matters of national security.

Well said.