Report: Michael Jackson Converts to Islam, now Called "Mikaeel".....

He can't do any worse than his failed conversion to a white woman....

MICHAEL Jackson has converted to Islam and changed his name to Mikaeel, according to reports.

The singer wore traditional Islamic dress as he pledged his allegiance to the Koran at a friend's home in Los Angeles, The Sun reports.

Jackson, who was raised a Jehovah's Witness, reportedly decided to convert after discussing religion with a music producer and songwriter on his new album - both of whom were converts to Islam.

The Sun reported singer Yousef Islam - formerly knowns as Stevens - turned up to help Jackson celebrate.

Jackson is due to give evidence in court next week after being sued by Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa, second son of the King of Bahrain.

Rest here>>>

ZIP

Source

A Black Bond?

This past week or so has seen a few firsts, and first among these is the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the first black President of the United States of America. Obama showed the world what charisma, hope, and a disciplined message can achieve.

Just the weekend before the F1 world saw Lewis Hamilton become the first black F1 Champion of the World. In Hamilton's case it was all about someone giving him a shot, a shot that he had earned coming up through the ranks, and his driving skills took care of the rest.

This has led the current James Bond, Daniel Craig to suggest that it is about time there was a colored Bond.

Actually, what Craig said was, "After Barack Obama's victory I think we might have reached the moment for a coloured 007."

A black Bond would be not outside the realm of belief. I do not recall anyone saying that MI6 or whatever it is now being an exclusively Anglo or white employer.
Source

Poll / Survey Web Part Options for SharePoint

Clients ask me so frequently for a poll web part for their SharePoint intranets, I would be shocked if Microsoft did not include this in the next version. I have tested three third-party solutions, reviewed below. If anyone out there is aware of another option, please add a comment and let me know!

1. Polling Web Part on CodePlex - http://www.codeplex.com/PollingWebPart

   Cost: free

   How it works: This web part doesn't connect to a SharePoint survey, but rather creates a list item in a simple list and displays that item in the survey. When you want to set up a new poll, you just add a new item to the list and that's the poll that is displayed.

    Pros: It's free, and simpler for the end-user than creating a new survey and connecting it to the web part each time they want to post a poll.

    Cons: There is no way to prevent users from voting multiple times, and survey results are not tracked by user. A maximum of five choices is allowed for any poll question. Graphical results are very simple – bar graphs are the only option. If you add the poll web part to the same page twice, it will display the same poll – you can't display two different polls on the same page at the same time. Data for all polls is stored in a single list, and is not optimized for export and analysis - as the developer states, this is not meant to be an analytic tool, but rather "for fun."

   To note: although there seem like a lot of cons for this web part, I have a client who uses it and is happy with it, as a no-cost way to bring a life to a team site home page.

2. SharePoint Poll Web Part from Bamboo Solutions - http://store.bamboosolutions.com/ps-70-5-sharepoint-poll-web-part.aspx

   Cost: $400

   How it works: This web part doesn't connect to a SharePoint survey, but rather creates a list item in a list and displays that item in the survey. When you want to set up a new poll, you just add a new item to the list and that's the poll that is displayed.

    Pros: It's simpler for the end-user than creating a new survey and connecting it to the web part each time they want to post a poll. It displays results in color, in choice of bar graph or pie chart.

    Cons: There is an administrative web part which you need to set up each survey, and this is clunky to use – when you add it to a page it makes the page really wide so that navigation then involves a lot of scrolling.

1. SharePoint Survey Web Part - Survey Plus from Kwizcom.com - http://www.kwizcom.com/ProductPage.asp?ProductID=333&ProductSubNodeID=353

   Cost: $399

   How it works: This web part connects to a SharePoint survey – you create the survey, then set the URL of the survey in the web part modification pane.

    Pros: I prefer the way this web part works to the two others, because it is most in keeping with how many other SharePoint web parts work – you add the web part to the page and then connect it to a list (the survey in this case). This is a little more overhead for the end-user, but I believe it's a more consistent and intuitive interface in the long run. The fact that you're creating a standard SharePoint survey means you can do more with the data once the poll has ended.

    Cons: The Pro above could be seen as a con if the end-users require the ability to create polls on-the-fly without having to create a survey first. Graphics are not quite a slick as Bamboo's.

Source

Written in stone: know thyself

While vacationing in Turkey last month, we visited Safranbolu, a town famous for its old houses. One large 19th century house, now a museum, is known as Kaymakamlar Evi, the Governors' House.

In the veranda, near the entrance, there was a small exhibit of various artifacts, old farming implements as well as several stone fragments. One of them was this piece inscribed with Greek letters. I photographed it hoping that it was an example of Karamanlica, Turkish written with Greek characters. (If you go to this page and click on the second image, in the enlarged version you can see the subject stone on the right towards the back.)


Later, I transcribed the Greek letters into Turkish characters; but the words I got were meaningless. So, a couple of days ago, I e-mailed the picture to my friend Yorgi Sangiouloglou in Athens and asked for his help.

Yorgi informed me that it wasn't Karamanlica, but Greek and translated the phrase as the ancient dictum Gnothi eafton, "know yourself" (more info)

The date underneath is 1863 Septem[ber] 30.

Before the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), Safranbolu was home to many Greeks. Following the defeat of the Greek forces and the Treaty of Lausanne, the Anatolian Greeks were forced to migrate to Greece never to return. This stone is a fragment of the millennia old culture that disappeared with their departure.

Where did this inscription originally stand and what was the significance of the date on it? We will probably never know.

Source

Pakistan: Allah's Holy Warriors Bomb Girls' School.....

Nothing is more "un-Islamic" than a woman who can read and write.....

Mingora, 20 Nov. (AKI/DAWN) - Four militants and two women were killed and several others sustained injuries while a girls' school was destroyed in Pakistan.

The school was located in the area of Bar Bandai in the volatile Swat valley.

The government girls' primary school was destroyed by unknown miscreants by planting explosives in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday.

The four-room school building was completely destroyed and its furniture and records were damaged in the explosion.

ZIP

Source

The Buddha Reincarnated?

This is a story I have been following for a while. I have not written about it in the past and there is not any reason as to why I have not. I studied a little bit about Buddhism when I was younger and first exploring the idea of my own personal spirituality and what I believe in. I have always believed in an idea that we as people can reach an enlightened state of being and that things become much clearer to us and for us.

For some this is a belief in God and for others this might just be a simple belief that there is something greater than ourselves out there. This post is not getting into a debate on the pros and cons of religion per se and arguments that if one does not accept a belief in God then they are a poster child for the devil.

This is a post about a kid who has meditated for months without food and water. There are some that even go so far as to say that this meditation and no (or reduced) food and water intake has been ongoing since 2005.

The kid, Ram Bahadur Bamjan, was first sighted in the jungles of Nepal. He was by all accounts easy enough to spot, as he was sitting cross-legged in deep meditation under a tree with his eyes closed and no movement.

This ability brought the masses out in order to witness this spectacle. The crowds became so large and so frequent that Ram did a runner. He disappeared deeper into the jungle and was not to be seen again. Well, not until he re-emerged this week at Ratanpur.

Ram looks pretty healthy for an 18-year-old that has been in deep meditation and without food and water for an extended period (photo courtesy of AP).

However, the kid is not without his detractors and skeptics. The skeptics cite the fact that the original Buddha is the enlightened one and that becoming enlightened is the end of the journey and not just another stage on the reincarnation trail.

Simply, the rationale is that being born a Buddha is the last birth, you have attained enlightenment. Now, the problem here is that Buddhists believe in reincarnation. However, I am accepting enough that I can accept that ultimately those few that do manage to reach enlightenment are rewarded with not having to go back to square one and start all over again.

Other scholars seem quick to point out that just being able to meditate and go without food is hardly proof positive of the boy being the reincarnation of Buddha.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of devotees who remain undeterred and unswayed by the skeptics. These devotees are convinced that Ram is the real deal and line up for hours to receive his blessing, which is a touch of one's head.
Source

Syekh Puji, Lutfiana Ulfa, and Pregnancy

It is being reported that Lutfiana Ulfa, the 12-year-old bride of Syekh Puji, is already pregnant. I have written about this case here.

In a legal sense this case is a simple one. There are clear violations of the law which are punishable and the Syekh must be investigated and then prosecuted according to those provisions. There can be no ifs, buts, or maybes here. The man by all definitions is a pedophile and a man with a plan to marry more children if and when he has the chance. This makes him a serial pedophile.

There has been a suggestion that the Syekh has handed Lutfiana back to her parents and feels that this returns things to their previous state and absolves him of any further legal troubles. The law has been broken and sending the girl home does not repair that damage.

The video link above (in Indonesian) seems to indi();} cate that there has been no divorce, although I am not sure how you dissolve a marriage that could never have taken place legally.

To the contrary, the lawyers for the Syekh and the Chair of the National Child Protection Commission indi();} cate that the Syekh needs to be patient and wait until Lutfiana is at least 16 years of age. Hence the reason for returning her to her family.

If it turns out that Lutfiana is really pregnant then this whole affair takes on a completely different dimension. Lutfiana continues to profess her love for the Syekh and if the Syekh is the father of her child, then I would not see this love diminishing in the short-term. I am not sure that a 12-year-old knows love outside of perhaps a love for a parent. However, I am not going to judge the girl or what she believes that she feels for this man.

The outcome of this case is still far from clear.
Source