[mhking]

I posted this on my Ramblings' Journal site yesterday (Thursday) - they want to play that game? No problem. It sounds like it might be time to ratchet this up -- I'm sure that many of the national talk show hosts would be interested in this bit of information....

I love good, strong coffee.

I'm one of those folks who will fix a pot in the morning and drink two good strong cups before 9AM. I'll leave my coffee pot on all day as well. My poison dujour alternates between Starbucks, Caribou and (when I'm a little low on coin) Chock Full O'Nuts.

Well, it looks like it's time to strike Caribou from that list of my preferred brews. This decision pains me - the people that work there are friendly; the coffee is good and strong (two of my qualifiers), albeit different in taste than Starbucks. Plus they have great holiday drinks.

What led me to this decision is a note I got the other day -- one that appears to be circulating on the internet apparently -- and found that my beloved Caribou Coffee is 87.8% owned by an entity called the First Islamic Investment Bank. Now, considering my wariness of things Islamic -- having Islamic terrorists wipe out a couple of skyscrapers will do that to you -- I checked it out.

First place I looked was the venerable Snopes.com. Snopes is the definitive research source regarding urban legends and other such things in the way of rumors on the web. Snopes pointed me directly to First Islamic, and sure enough, there it was in black and white. Well, investigating further, I found that the list of principles of First Islamic included a statement that said, "Above all, ensuring that all activities conform to Islamic Shari'ah."

OK, what does that mean? Looking up the definition, I found:

The Arabic word shari`ah refers to the laws and way of life prescribed by Allah (SWT) for his servants. The shari`ah deals with the ideology and faith; behavior and manners; and practical daily matters.

What that says to me is that they follow the Qur'an implicitly. On the surface that sounds OK, except that also implies that they would then support the more radical elements. Those are the ones that want to see all of us dead. While I certainly don't see any of those sorts of elements within Caribou Coffee, I would rather err on the side of caution. I don't know about you, but I definitely don't want to see any of my hard-earned dollars going to the support of radical Islam, and potentially supporting the murder of innocents in the United States or anywhere else for that matter.

Until Caribou can provide me with some satisfactory assurances that this isn't happening with the money that I spend with them, I'll have to take my dollars elsewhere for my coffee.

[Cachelot]

Take a good look at Sabtech. While this isn't a company that the average American can boycott, it's still interesting. You'll see that they deliver products that are hooked straight into the datastream of American warships. Their president/owner seems to be into various Islamic activism (I've included an example - look at the bottom of the Muhammed film project page).

Sabtech

 

Fundraising Ceremony for Film on Prophet’s Life

The Southern California Fundraising Committee of Unity Productions Foundation (a non-profit organization) is raising funds for the production of a documentary series titled ‘Muhammad the Prophet: His Life and Times’ (peace and blessing be on him). It would be a four-hour documentary for mainstream American television to be filmed in Mecca, Medina and the Hijaz. It will focus on the events in the life of our Prophet (pbuh) as Muslims have preserved and told the story for fourteen hundred years. The program will include interviews with scholars and practitioners of Islam. The documentary will not employ actors to impersonate major figures or characters.

The project is intended to appear on the non-profit Public Broadcasting System in the United States and the British Broadcasting System in the Great Britain. The Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington D.C. has granted permission to film in Mecca, Medina, and the Hijaz in the locations where these events originally occurred. Production begins in the year 2000 .

The fundraising ceremony will take place on Sunday, October 8, 2000 at 5:00 p.m. at the LAX Hilton, 577 Century Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90045. (310) 410-4000.The organizers feel the community’s support is vital for the success of this historical event. “This is an unprecedented opportunity to present Islam to mainstream audiences in the West and around the World. The project is intended to appear nationwide on non-profit public television in the United States and Britain, with subsequent broadcast in world markets. The documentary will be written by two respected Muslim journalists whom you will have an opportunity to meet on this occasion: Michael Abd AI-Majid Wolfe, writer and narrator of the Emmy-nominated ABC Nightline Special Report on The Hajj in 1997; and Alexander Kronemer, American Muslim CNN commentator of the week long coverage of The Hajj in 1997,” says an announcement.

The cost of producing a documentary film of this quality is in excess of $3 million. Significant progress has been made toward the realization of this goal but there is “still a distance to go.”

The Fundraising Committee includes Mariam Rashid, Safi Qureshey, Abu Bakr Vakil, Rauf Gajiani, Nasreen Haroon, Maher Hathout, Rahim Sabadia, Ahmed Ali, Shakeela Hassan, Tanveer Hussain, and Haseena Lakhani.

For information in having your name in the Film credits, sponsorship and tickets, please call:Mariam Rashid (310) 377-1824, Safi Qureshey (949)789-1111, or Ahmed Ali (714) 998-0430.