Anonymous wrote:aeropress deal at amazon for $20. Will make a great present for dh to use at work.

Also kids wifi headphones.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:I have been having issues with Amazon prime lately ( missing the 2 days shipping almost every time), showing items as delivered when they were never received. I am even thinking about canceling after years of basically doing most of my online shopping with them. Also, I've noticed that some items are very overpriced on Prime which is why I compare prices of things I am not familiar with on other sites first. They also do charge higher for the same item on Prime as opposed to if you're not a prime customer, I guess they do make you pay for that 2 day shipping after all, in addition to the prime fees. I am still using it because of the digital content, and mostly convenience but it's getting worse and worse by the years....

I call bullshit.

Not the first poster but it is true. Why would you think the poster would make it up? Amazon states on an item's page "Note: Available at a lower price from other sellers, potentially without free Prime shipping."

The PP said that Amazon charges a higher price for an item if you're a Prime member than they charge for the same item for a non-Prime member. That's completely different than what you stated.

But maybe Amazon Prime's “free” shipping isn't free at all. That is the allegation made by plaintiffs in two recent lawsuits against the company: that Amazon Prime members who got “free” shipping were actually charged higher base costs to cover it.

The first lawsuit was filed in February, by Amazon Prime member Marcia Burke of Alabama; the plaintiff in the second suit is A. Cemal Ekin of Rhode Island. Both of them make the same general complaint, a specific example of which is taken from Burke's suit:

"[I]f the price of an item is advertised for $10 with $3.99 shipping and the [vendor] wishes to match or top their price, the [vendor] would charge $13.99 or higher."

In other words, an ordinary customer buying that item and nothing else from Amazon would pay a total of $14: $10 for the item and $4 for shipping. In some cases – if the customer bought at least $35 worth of items at once, thus qualifying for free shipping – the total cost of the item would only be $10. Yet an Amazon Prime member, who paid $79 for “free” shipping this year, is charged a base price of $13.99 for the item no matter what.

Amazon has not commented on either suit, citing pending litigation.

Nothing new there, especially not for Amazon. In 2005, CNN's law blog informed readers about the practice of dynamic pricing, and noted that Amazon got burned for it as early as 2000:

In September 2000, Amazon.com outraged some customers when its own price discrimination was revealed. One buyer reportedly deleted the cookies on his computer that identified him as a regular Amazon customer. The result? He watched the price of a DVD offered to him for sale drop from $26.24 to $22.74.

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:We are on the other end of the spectrum. We don't celebrate xmas (Muslim family) . I have a DD in K and she's aware of it, though it makes her very sad. She came home a few weeks ago excited about xmas and I reminded her once again that we do not celebrate it and I could tell she was disappointed. I don't want her to feel left out but I also don't want to compromise her faith so it's a tough one. I don't want her to be the bratty kid that tells all the five-year-olds in the neighborhood that Santa isn't real but I can't tell her he's real either. At first, I didn’t know how to explain to DD that we don’t celebrate Christmas. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and scar her forever or make her feel like a leper. I don't want her to feel different from her classmates even though she is. I think though, at the end of the day, raising children in such a multi cultural society is educational in itself and children should be made aware that it's ok for people to believe in different things..

PP, we don't celebrate Christmas. I said, "Christmas is a Christian religious holiday, and we are not Christian." I also said, "Santa isn't real. People dress up as Santa and the presents come from the parents." I also said, "You are NOT EVER allowed to say ONE WORD to children about Santa because I don't want to hear from somebody's mother or father that you told them that Santa isn't real." -- and as far as I know, they never did.

As for what we said when we were out in public and happened to see a Santa (or an Easter Bunny, or whatever)? I don't remember. If we talked about it, we talked about it in a conversational tone of voice, neither yelling nor whispering.

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:We are on the other end of the spectrum. We don't celebrate xmas (Muslim family) . I have a DD in K and she's aware of it, though it makes her very sad. She came home a few weeks ago excited about xmas and I reminded her once again that we do not celebrate it and I could tell she was disappointed. I don't want her to feel left out but I also don't want to compromise her faith so it's a tough one. I don't want her to be the bratty kid that tells all the five-year-olds in the neighborhood that Santa isn't real but I can't tell her he's real either. At first, I didn’t know how to explain to DD that we don’t celebrate Christmas. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and scar her forever or make her feel like a leper. I don't want her to feel different from her classmates even though she is. I think though, at the end of the day, raising children in such a multi cultural society is educational in itself and children should be made aware that it's ok for people to believe in different things..

So just say "we don't celebrate Christmas." Don't even discuss whether Santa is real or not; for your family it's irrelevant because you do not participate in Christmas.

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

OMG, this again!!!!! I have not read/followed this discussion and just clicked on the last page to see this ridiculous statement. Muslim women do not want western feminism. I appreciate your concerns that we are 2nd class citizens, but do know that those concerns are only existent in your mind. As a Muslim woman living a muslim life, believing in my faith 100%, I have never felt I was a second class citizen, I have never felt men were worth more than me. Why on earth are you blatantly making these ridiculous statements? Whenever women have been treated as less than, whenever women have gotten less than they deserved, it has never been because of Islam, to the contrary, it has always been because of a lack of Islam. I do not know of any institution, any religion, any organization that treats women, loves women, adore women, give a higher status to women than Islam. I feel blessed, lucky, happy to be a Muslim woman every single day of my life alhamdulillah( praised be to God) for Islam.

Your problem is the same as anyone else - inability to imagine that someone may have experiences, feelings and convictions other than your own. You don't speak for all Muslim women. You are just one person in a sea of them. Islam is not an institution or an organization, and when it tried to become one, less than enviable results ensued, much like any other religion that forgot its place.

I guess you failed to read the last paragraph of my response where I stated that sexism does exist in Muslim countries, yes there are Muslim women that are being abused, mistreated, being cheated on their rights every single day, just like there are non-muslim women being abused and killed every single day in America. What I'm not going to accept is your simplification that these realities, events are the results of Islam. Correlation doesn't imply causation

Of course it doesn't. What I take objection to is your statement that every single Muslim woman feels exactly the way you do. There are Muslim women out there that are less than happy about what their birth religion has provided for them - not human practice or country-based sexist, but actual letter of law. You imply they don't exist. That's not true. I am not begrudging you your love and devotion to Islam. If you are happy and content, good for you. I am simply pointing out that you have no grounds to state that all Muslim women feel the way you do.

Circle the part where I wrote every single woman feels the way I do???

Every time you start a sentence with "Muslim women."

If you didn't mean that and reported only your own experiences without claiming they are generic to all Muslim women, then I am wrong and I apologize.

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

OMG, this again!!!!! I have not read/followed this discussion and just clicked on the last page to see this ridiculous statement. Muslim women do not want western feminism. I appreciate your concerns that we are 2nd class citizens, but do know that those concerns are only existent in your mind. As a Muslim woman living a muslim life, believing in my faith 100%, I have never felt I was a second class citizen, I have never felt men were worth more than me. Why on earth are you blatantly making these ridiculous statements? Whenever women have been treated as less than, whenever women have gotten less than they deserved, it has never been because of Islam, to the contrary, it has always been because of a lack of Islam. I do not know of any institution, any religion, any organization that treats women, loves women, adore women, give a higher status to women than Islam. I feel blessed, lucky, happy to be a Muslim woman every single day of my life alhamdulillah( praised be to God) for Islam.

Your problem is the same as anyone else - inability to imagine that someone may have experiences, feelings and convictions other than your own. You don't speak for all Muslim women. You are just one person in a sea of them. Islam is not an institution or an organization, and when it tried to become one, less than enviable results ensued, much like any other religion that forgot its place.

I guess you failed to read the last paragraph of my response where I stated that sexism does exist in Muslim countries, yes there are Muslim women that are being abused, mistreated, being cheated on their rights every single day, just like there are non-muslim women being abused and killed every single day in America. What I'm not going to accept is your simplification that these realities, events are the results of Islam. Correlation doesn't imply causation

Of course it doesn't. What I take objection to is your statement that every single Muslim woman feels exactly the way you do. There are Muslim women out there that are less than happy about what their birth religion has provided for them - not human practice or country-based sexist, but actual letter of law. You imply they don't exist. That's not true. I am not begrudging you your love and devotion to Islam. If you are happy and content, good for you. I am simply pointing out that you have no grounds to state that all Muslim women feel the way you do.

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

OMG, this again!!!!! I have not read/followed this discussion and just clicked on the last page to see this ridiculous statement. Muslim women do not want western feminism. I appreciate your concerns that we are 2nd class citizens, but do know that those concerns are only existent in your mind. As a Muslim woman living a muslim life, believing in my faith 100%, I have never felt I was a second class citizen, I have never felt men were worth more than me. Why on earth are you blatantly making these ridiculous statements? Whenever women have been treated as less than, whenever women have gotten less than they deserved, it has never been because of Islam, to the contrary, it has always been because of a lack of Islam. I do not know of any institution, any religion, any organization that treats women, loves women, adore women, give a higher status to women than Islam. I feel blessed, lucky, happy to be a Muslim woman every single day of my life alhamdulillah( praised be to God) for Islam.

Your problem is the same as anyone else - inability to imagine that someone may have experiences, feelings and convictions other than your own. You don't speak for all Muslim women. You are just one person in a sea of them. Islam is not an institution or an organization, and when it tried to become one, less than enviable results ensued, much like any other religion that forgot its place.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yusuf gave a 2 hour lecture at Oxford University on this subject. I watched half of the video last night. If anyone is interested here's the entire transcript. It's lengthy but discusses whether it would be permissible for Muslims to reform (or "renovate" ) the way Islam is interpreted. Short answer is yes.

I hope that what we all took away from the arguing on the Islam threads is that
1) There is no one interpretation of Islam that speaks for all 1.6 billion people
2) Peaceful Muslims can not be held resposible for the atrocities committed by extremists
3) The Sharia, hadith, or even scholarly views are not infallible and some parts may be corrupted
4) However, reform (or "renovation") is indeed possible. It's a long way off but possible.

Transcript for Rethinking Reform


Transcript Details
Event Name: Rethinking Reform
Transcript Author: Organization
Description: The Rethinking Islamic Reform organization transcribed their own event. Better to follow the link above, as their website has everything formatted nicely.
Date Transcribed: 1/1/2010 12:00:00 AM
Original URL: http://www.rethinkingislamicreform.co.uk/transcript


Transcript Text
Rethinking Islamic Reform conference on behalf of Oxford University Islamic society.
SHAYKH HAMZA YUSUF HANSON KEYNOTE ADDRESS

SHAYKH HAMZA YUSUF HANSON: Bismillah al-Rahman Al-Rahim. Allahumma salli wa sallim 'alaa Sayyidina Muhammad wa ‘ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallim tasleeman katheera. Wa la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah al ‘aliy al ‘adheem In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate and peace and prayers be upon the prophets of God and upon our prophet Muhammad. Alhamdulilah. #00:16:25-9#

YUSUF*[1]: I'm going try to address each one of these points that I've been asked to address but before that I would like to preface my remarks by talking about a specific problem that we have when we look at the Islamic tradition, when we look at Islam as a faith and when we are addressing an audience that contains both peoples from the Islamic faith of various obvious types and backgrounds and then of western people. In science, you have what are called 'non-complementary paradigms' and to give an example of that, Newtonian Physics is a certain way of viewing the world and it works at a certain level, but if you attempt to apply Newtonian Physics to Quantum Mechanics, it doesn't work - you have a non-complementary system attempting to address things that are very different and need a different language to describe them and a different theoretical basis to make sense of them. In many ways, the post-industrial, increasingly post-modern Western Liberalism is akin to Quantum Mechanics and the Islamic tradition is more akin to Newtonian Physics; and so when the two of us attempt to talk, we're speaking completely different languages and it really creates a massive barrier.

[ Edited to comply with copyright laws. ]

He is a Sufi, so its wise not to take knowledge from them, may Allah rectify our deeds, Ameen

A recent Pew poll showed that 75 percent of Pakistanis believe: “Blasphemy laws are necessary to protect Islam in our country.” Pakistan’s blasphemy laws entail that insulting the prophet is punishable by death.

There are about 186M people in Pakistan. So about 140 million people in one country believe it is appropriate to murder innocent people that insult the prophet.

There will be no reform for this cult.

Anonymous wrote:Women in the Muslim world desperately need the voice of Western progressives and feminists. But when it comes to finding excuses to neutralize critical questions about Islamic violence, Western progressives seem endlessly creative. Known by an increasing number of women as "Excuses for Abuses," these include:

Criticizing Islam is racist and reveals "intolerance," "bigotry" and "Islamophobia."

For the record, Islam is not a race. Moreover, if you discuss the violent and misogynous teachings of Islam, it does not mean that you hate or are intolerant of Muslims, just of violence and misogyny.

"What you are seeing is not the real Islam; Islam has been hijacked."

The problem with this view is that Islam actually does teach that a woman is worth less than a man. Many teachings in Islam are misogynous -- from wearing veils; requiring four male witness to prove rape; issues of inheritance; court testimony; rules of marriage; rules of divorce and remarriage; a man's "right" to marry up to four women and then beat them, and so on.

If Western progressives an I d feminists care at all about their Muslim sisters, they need to protest against the actual roots of this injustice: these Islamic teachings.