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Oink Oink! Just dropping in to say hello from MN! How is everyone?
Not much to report minus missing Somalians, possible swine flu, and a huge Cinco de Mayo celebration happening here this Friday...

Are taxpayers footing bill for Islamic school in Minnesota?

By KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune
March 8, 2008

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) — named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain — is a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Its approximately 300 students are mostly the children of low-income Muslim immigrant families, many of them Somalis.
The school is in huge demand, with a waiting list of 1,500. Last fall, it opened a second campus in Blaine.
TIZA uses the language of culture rather than religion to describe its program in public documents. According to its mission statement, the school “recognizes and appreciates the traditions, histories, civilizations and accomplishments of the eastern world (Africa, Asia and Middle East).”
But the line between religion and culture is often blurry. There are strong indications that religion plays a central role at TIZA, which is a public school financed by Minnesota taxpayers. Under the U.S. and state constitutions, a public school can accommodate students’ religious beliefs but cannot encourage or endorse religion.
TIZA raises troubling issues about taxpayer funding of schools that cross that line.
Asad Zaman, TIZA’s principal, declined to allow me to visit the school or grant me an interview. He did not respond to e-mails seeking written replies.
TIZA’s strong religious connections date from its founding in 2003. Its co-founders, Zaman and Hesham Hussein, were both imams, or Muslim religious leaders, as well as leaders of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota (MAS-MN).
Since then, they have played dual roles: Zaman as TIZA’s principal and the current vice-president of MAS-MN, and Hussein as TIZA’s school board chair and president of MAS-MN until his death in a car accident in Saudi Arabia in January.
MAS-MN came to Minnesotans’ attention in 2006, when it issued a “fatwa,” warning Muslim taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport that transporting passengers with alcohol in their baggage is a violation of Islamic law.
Journalists whom Zaman has permitted to visit TIZA have described the school’s Islamic atmosphere and practices.
“A visitor might well mistake Tarek ibn Ziyad for an Islamic school,” reported Minnesota Monthly in 2007. “Head scarves are voluntary, but virtually all the girls wear them.” The school has a central carpeted prayer space, and “vaguely religious-sounding language” is used.
According to the Pioneer Press, TIZA’s student body prays daily and the school’s cafeteria serves halal food (permissible under Islamic law). During Ramadan, all students fast from dawn to dusk, according to a parent quoted in the article.
In fact, TIZA was originally envisioned as a private Islamic school. In 2001, MAS-MN negotiated to buy the current TIZA/MAS-MN building for Al-Amal School, a private religious institution in Fridley, according to Bruce Rimstad of the Inver Grove Heights School District. But many immigrant families can’t afford Al-Amal. In 2002, Islamic Relief — headquartered in California — agreed to sponsor a publicly funded charter school, TIZA, at the same location.
TIZA claims to be non-sectarian, as Minnesota law requires charters to be. But “after-school Islamic learning” takes place on weekdays in the same building under MAS-MN’s auspices, according to the program for MAS-MN’s 2007 convention. At that convention, a TIZA representative at the school’s booth told me that students go directly to “Islamic studies” classes at 3:30, when TIZA’s day ends. There, they learn “Qur’anic recitation, the Sunnah of the Prophet” and other religious subjects, he said.
TIZA’s 2006 Contract Performance Review Report states that students engage in unspecified “electives” after school or do homework.
Publicly, TIZA emphasizes that it uses standard curricular materials like those found in other public schools. But when addressing Muslim audiences, school officials make the link to Islam clear. At MAS-MN’s 2007 convention, for example, the program featured an advertisement for the “Muslim American Society of Minnesota,” superimposed on a picture of a mosque. Under the motto “Establishing Islam in Minnesota,” it asked: “Did you know that MAS-MN ... houses a full-time elementary school”? On the adjacent page was an application for TIZA.
In addition to the issues raised by TIZA’s religious elements, there are reasons to be concerned about the organizations with which it is connected.
Group linked to Hamas
Islamic Relief-USA, the school’s sponsor, is compared to the Red Cross in several TIZA documents. In 2006, however, the Israeli government announced that Islamic Relief Worldwide, the organization’s parent group, “provides support and assistance” to Hamas, designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist group.
Meanwhile, MAS-MN offers on its web site “beneficial and enlightening information” about Islam, which includes statements like “Regularly make the intention to go on jihad with the ambition to die as a martyr.”
At its 2007 convention, MAS-MN featured the notorious Shayk Khalid Yasin, who is well-known in Britain and Australia for teaching that husbands can beat disobedient wives, that gays should be executed and that the United States spreads the AIDS virus in Africa through vaccines for tropical diseases.
Yasin’s topic? “Building a Successful Muslim Community in Minnesota.”
TIZA has improved the reading and math performance of its mostly low-income students. That’s commendable, but should Minnesota taxpayers be funding an Islamic public school?
Katherine Kersten • kkersten@startribune.com Join the conversation at my blog, Think Again, which can be found at www.startribune.com/thinkagain.

check mail

Teenager in Georgia finds military TNT explosives in the woods:

http://www.wjbf.com/midatlantic/jbf/news_index.apx.-content-articles-JBF-2007-09-13-0059.html

Perhaps I am missing something, and this is some kind of joke, but it was posted publicly, and there is no reference to a joke, so I am left to take it at face value, and I think I have to speak up here: Your post strikes me as being remarkably rude and arrogant. I don’t know what “us” you are talking about, and I want it clear that you are not speaking for me.
May I recommend you do a “CLT-F” using the phrase “posted on” for your “Find:”? This will allow you to just jump and click through each post. In the meantime, please drop your posts into a Word document for grammar/punctuation corrections before posting. Your post contained no less than 41 grammatical errors, and reading it gave me a headache and I sure don’t want to charge you for the Advil.

More about the “Massive Put Option” (I hope this is the real reason for the contracts!) Managers adopt new volatility tactics Renée Schultes, 13 Sep 2007 Hedge funds and institutional managers look for profitable trading strategies from the market turmoil The summer credit crisis and the precipitous changes it has produced on a daily basis across almost all asset classes has left fund managers facing a new world of higher volatility. Strategies such as box spreads, dispersion trades and put spread collars have become increasingly common as managers attempt to turn the volatility to their advantage. Traders say the new levels of volatility are likely to become the norm for some time. Several spectacular trades have caught the eye of investors over the past few weeks. Options trades flashed across Bloomberg screens last week, which suggested some investors were betting on a 50% decline in equity markets by September 21. The number of options taken out assuming a fall in the S&P 500 index to 700 – less than half its current levels – reached almost 120,000 contracts last week, compared with 819 on the equivalent contract a year ago, according to the Chicago Board Options Exchange. But far from being so-called Bin Laden trades – referring to bets that were allegedly placed on a sharp fall in US stock markets just before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks – a large part is down to a cheap funding strategy known as a box spread. A box spread involves combining two pairs of options with the same expiry date. For example, a trader buys S&P 500 calls with a strike price of 700, which gives it the right to buy the index at a set price and time, and sells 700 puts, which gives it the right to sell the index at a set price and time. The third and fourth legs involve buying puts with a strike of 1,700 and selling 1,700 calls simultaneously. This structure has a pre-determined pay-off, regardless of where the index is trading on September 21 at expiry. It is called a funding strategy, because it allows one party to lend money, typically a bank with a high credit rating, at a more attractive rate to another borrower, which does not have a balance sheet and usually pays more to borrow money, such as a marketmaker or hedge fund. Traders usually use the widest possible strike prices, so that they can trade the fewest contracts and minimize trading commission costs. A head of equity derivatives sales at a London-based bank said: “There has been a lot of noise on these deep out-of-the-money positions, but most of them tend to be related to funding strategies, in which one leg is to buy a well out-of-the-money put option. You tend to do them well out of the money to make sure the market doesn’t move to that level. If you look at the current environment, it makes sense to use a stable funding vehicle, although it may cost you a little more.” These trades have become more popular through this liquidity squeeze, because they allow banks to lend money at a higher rate to hedge funds or marketmakers than they can earn in the inter-bank market. Many banks have ceased lending money to each other in this environment. On the other side of the trade, the hedge funds can borrow more cheaply than usually. Box spreads explain about half of the open interest in S&P 500 put options with a strike price of 700. According to the Chicago Board Options Exchange, there are about 65,000 of September 1,700 put options open, which matches against 76,000 September 1,700 calls. On the other side of the trade, there are 65,000 September 700 calls open, but 120,000 September 700 puts. This suggests there are at least 55,000 put options outside the box spread trades. A more popular trade among asset managers in Europe over the summer was the put spread collar, which is designed to provide some protection from falling markets at a low cost. A put option is a type of insurance, for which a premium must be paid. But as uncertainty in financial markets grew over the summer, the cost of that protection has risen. Mike Ward, head of equity derivatives flow sales at Merrill Lynch in London, said: “One of the best strategies recently has been put spread collars, where you buy an at-the-money put option, sell an out-of-the-money put and sell a call with a strike at or near the market’s high for the year.” Asset managers and hedge funds are also becoming more active traders of volatility itself, as uncertainty rises in the global economy. From mid-2004 until July this year, equity markets were in a low-volatility regime, which Nicolas Mougeot, head of options strategy for Europe at Deutsche Bank, believes has changed. He points to an increase in long-term volatility since the beginning of the summer, which did not happen in previous corrections in February this year and May last year. Mougeot said: “We just moved from a low-volatility to a medium-volatility regime. Third-quarter earnings will be critical to see if the liquidity crisis translates into an economic crisis and affects corporate earnings. Today’s situation has similarities to 1997 and 1998, when we had the Asian crisis and the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management. But there was more leverage at a corporate level then, which is not the case today. European companies are still cash rich, but if we see a change in corporate earnings, that could move the market to a higher-volatility regime.” Stock market volatility on the S&P 500 has historically been inversely related to the index’s returns. A long position in volatility leads to modest positive returns on average, but strong gains in periods of market stress. The increasingly liquid markets for instruments, including variance swaps – a derivative contract that provides a pure exposure to the variability of an underlying market or stock, without directional risk – means it is getting easier for fund managers to trade volatility. Mougeot said: “With the new Ucits III directive, we should see more interest for pure volatility products. Many asset managers are interested in volatility products, but they’re not ready to do over-the-counter trades yet. Sometimes it can be more of a question about how they manage risk internally.” New volatility products, such as options on variance, have grown in popularity this year because traders like to cap potential losses, which is possible with an option trade because the maximum loss on a put is the insurance premium. Max Darnell, chief investment officer of Pasadena-based First Quadrant, is one asset manager to trade volatility but others, including Deutsche Asset Management in New York, have hired specialists to develop trading strategies. Darnell said: “We trade in that space and it’s been very profitable, but we do it in a hedged way. “We have a defined range of market activity to play in and that lets us take advantage of a spike in volatility. We’re nicely up year to date in trading volatility, whereas a large number of players are suffering.” from: http://www.financialnews-us.com/?page=ushome&contentid=2448724807

Mexican Intelligence: Hugo Chavez equips and funds the Pemex pipeline bombers

http://www.correoperu.com.pe/paginas_nota.php?nota_id=55255&seccion_nota=9

good translation here:

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/09/13/mexican-intelligence-hugo-chavez-equips-and-funds-the-pemex-pipeline-bombers/?print=1

Cesium 137 and Americium missing in Minnesota:

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1421408.html

A new twist on the “suicide bomber”: the “suicide shooter”...

After shaving off at least his entire beard, if not more body hair, Labeet dons a bullet-proof vest, and deliberately provokes a traffic engagement to gather the police officers so he can kill them collectively with his AK-47. Perhaps he was hoping for more than four officers to show up, and perhaps he expected his martyrdom mission to end there, and not 12 hours later, but it did end because he continued to shoot and engage until his martyrdom was complete.

This is just the beginning of a new wave of jihad on US soil that will try to paralyze our country with fear and drain the resources of our society. We will quickly be seeing more of this in multiple locations.

Thank you Cindy. How in the world did Laura pull this off?!

(CNN) — A new video purportedly featuring an introduction from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was released Tuesday — the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Although CNN could not independently confirm the authenticity of the video, it did feature the logo of As-Sahab Media, the company that traditionally handles al Qaeda communications to the public.

The 47-minute videotape was obtained by terrorism expert Laura Mansfield before it was to appear on several Islamist Web sites known for carrying statements from al Qaeda and other radical groups.

In the 14-minute introduction to the video, a voice identified as bin Laden praises 9/11 hijacker Waleed al-Shehri, from Saudi Arabia, who sat in seat 2B on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. The voice speaking in Arabic is heard over a still picture of bin Laden and contains English subtitles.

The balance of the recording is a video will read by al-Shehri, with 9/11 symbols in the background. He is the seventh of the 19 hijackers to appear in such a will since the terrorist attacks.

The voice and picture in the video sound and appear similar to a bin Laden video released late last week.
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There is no indication that any part of the video was recorded recently. The only element tying it to somewhat-current events is in the introduction and the mention of the death of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed during a U.S. raid in June 2006.

For several weeks, radical Islamist Web sites have been announcing that there would be “good news soon from Sheikh Osama bin Laden.”

I’m just hoping they don’t tell us that the beard is a fake, and he has a clean shave beneath it.

Here’s my take:
The “gist” of his message is that even though he and the world have come to know that the vast majority of Americans want this war stopped, carrying signs of protest and bringing in Democrats won’t bring an end to this war. In fact, those efforts “will lead to the prolonging of the war.” In order for this war to end, they will have to escalate killing us. He wants us to know that the deaths that will happen are not because we are Christians or Jews, because he makes the case that they don’t just go around incinerating people that are different from them, in fact, he wants us to know that Muslims have a strong history of co-existence, and there are no plans to incinerate the Jews in places like Morocco, or Christians in places like Egypt. He argues that “All of mankind is in danger” and “it is time for humankind” to be freed from the lies and slavery of The White House—“the real tyrannical terrorists.” Although we have been inept in ending the war, the war will end because they will now take on the task of finishing it. The “gift” that has been hinted at for days is the invitation to embrace Islam now. For those that will die, they will be packed with the “gain” of Islam. For the remaining, embracing Islam and abandoning democracy and capitalism will ensure life and peace. He lessens the difficulty of this task by explaining to us that most of us aren’t even believers anyway, and for those of us who are “just and intelligent” will surely see that the books come from “one lantern.”
Anyway, the message strikes me as though he has gone through the process of accepting the decisions and actions that are going to take place, and has even developed a modicum of compassion for us to offer us this “gift.” I would say that this is not a “GO” signal, but a “WENT” signal. He’s at peace with his decisions/actions, and has been caving and sitting around enough poppies that he even wants to share that feeling with us.
From what he says, it’s reasonable to assume that he will target D.C. (democracy) and NYC (capitalism), and this will be very soon, because “the morrow is nigh” and justice and revenge is overdue.

Only Al-Qaida has this kind of power to shut down the websites. The US just can’t match this kind of capability, right? I mean, uh, how ludicrous to think the US would/could even do that!

RE:
“Another possibility is that the U.S. government shut down the sites, but that was unlikely, he said.

“I don’t think they would have the legal or technical capability to do so, to collectively shut all these sites at the same time. Also, I don’t think the U.S. government is necessarily interested in shutting these sites down, unless there is something so provocative and dangerous in what bin Laden is saying.”

“It’s pretty remote that the content of his speech is so incendiary that they would shut down all the sites. The idea that they (U.S. government) could totally prevent this from coming out on the Internet is ludicrous,” he said. . .

Adding to the freaky news, now a parade in NYC this Sunday:

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11985

Are the tones at the beginning of the audio phone key tones? It sounds like a number is being dialed.
After the phone tones, explosions. Perhaps this is hinting remote detonation by cell phone?

Good highlights.
Looks like he’s fulfilling the requirements of his fatwa by making multiple warnings.
Is the “gift” a final warning or opportunity to evacuate and/or avoid harm within a certain time frame?
Gold jumped $14 today, and combined with the huge put options out there, it’s ALARMING.

— Audio and video messages from Osama bin Laden since Sept. 11, 2001:

_ Sept. 6, 2007: Terror monitoring groups obtain an image of Osama bin Laden from an upcoming video to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

_ June 29, 2006: Bin Laden issues a taped message on an Islamic militant Web site paying tribute to slain al-Qaida in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The 19-minute audio message was packaged with an old still photo of bin Laden as well as images of al-Zarqawi taken from a previous video.

_ May 23, 2006: Bin Laden purportedly says in an Internet audio tape that Zacarias Moussaoui had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks.

_ April 23, 2006: In an audiotape on Arab TV, bin Laden says the West is at war with Islam and calls on his followers to go to Sudan to fight a proposed U.N. force.

_ Jan. 19, 2006: Bin Laden warns that his fighters are preparing new attacks in the United States but offers the American people a “long-term truce” without specifying the conditions, in an audiotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel.

_Dec. 28, 2004: In an hourlong audiotape, he endorses al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq and calls for a boycott of Iraqi elections.

_ Dec. 16, 2004: An audiotape posted on an Islamic Web site shows a man identified as bin Laden praising militants who attacked a U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia earlier that month and calling on militants to stop the flow of oil to the West.

_ Oct. 29, 2004: Al-Jazeera airs a video of bin Laden saying the United States can avoid another Sept. 11 attack if it stops threatening the security of Muslims.

_ May 6, 2004: In an online audiotape released on Islamic forums, bin Laden offers rewards of gold for the killing of U.S. and U.N. officials in Iraq.

_ April 15, 2004: A man identifying himself as bin Laden offers a “truce” to European countries that do not attack Muslims, in an audiotape broadcast on Arab TV stations.

_ Jan. 4, 2004: A speaker thought to be bin Laden says on an audiotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera that the U.S.-led war in Iraq is the beginning of the “occupation” of Persian Gulf states for their oil. He calls on Muslims to keep fighting a holy war in the Middle East.

_ Sept. 10, 2003: In the first video image of bin Laden in nearly two years, he is shown walking through rocky terrain with top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri. In an accompanying audiotape, a voice purporting to be bin Laden’s praises the “great damage to the enemy” on Sept. 11 and mentions five hijackers by name.

_ April 7, 2003: In an audiotape obtained by The Associated Press in Pakistan, bin Laden exhorts Muslims to rise up against Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other governments it claims are “agents of America,” and calls for suicide attacks against U.S. and British interests. The CIA determines the 27-minute tape is likely authentic.

_ Feb. 13, 2003: An audiotape purported to be of bin Laden reads a poetic last will and testament in a recording first obtained by the British-based Islamic Al-Ansaar news agency. Bin Laden says he wants to die a martyr in a new attack against the U.S.

_ Feb. 11, 2003: Bin Laden tells his followers to help Saddam Hussein fight Americans in an audiotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera. U.S. officials say they believe the tape to be authentic.

_ Nov. 12, 2002: Al-Jazeera broadcasts a brief audiotape in which a voice attributed to bin Laden threatens new terrorism against the U.S. and its allies, and calls the Bush administration “the biggest serial killers in this age.” U.S. experts say the tape can’t be authenticated because of its poor quality.

_ Dec. 13, 2001: U.S. Defense Department releases videotape of bin Laden in Afghanistan on Nov. 9, 2001, saying the destruction of the Sept. 11 attacks exceeded even his “optimistic” calculations.

from: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/5114395.html

MASSIVE WALL STREET PUT OPTIONS SIGNAL UPCOMING TERROR ATTACK

Post by Admin

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

$4.5 billion options bet on catastrophe within four weeks

ANYBODY HAVE A CLUE, AS TO WHAT, THESE “INVESTORS” ARE EXPECTING?

The two sales are being referred to by market traders as “bin Laden trades” because only an event on the scale of 9-11 could make these short-sell options valuable.

There are 65,000 contracts @ $750.00 for the SPX 700 calls for open interest. That controls 6.5 million shares at $750 = $4.5 Billion. Not a single trade. But quite a bit of $$ on a contract that is 700 points away from current value. No one would buy that deep “in the money” calls. No reason to. So if they were sold looks like someone betting on massive dislocation. Lots of very strange option activity that I haven’t seen before.

The entity or individual offering these sales can only make money if the market drops 30%-50% within the next four weeks. If the market does not drop, the entity or individual involved stands to lose over $1 billion just for engaging in these contracts! Clearly, someone knows something big is going to happen BEFORE the options expire on Sept. 21.
THEORIES:

The following theories are being discussed widely within the stock and options markets today regarding the enormous and very unusual activity reported above and two stories below. Those theories are:

1) A massive terrorist attack is going to take place before Sept. 21 to tank the markets, OR;

2) China, reeling over losing $10 Billion in bad loans to the sub-prime mortgage collapse presently taking place, is going to dump US currency and tank all of Capitalism with a Communist financial revolution. Either scenario is bad and the clock is ticking. The drop-dead date of these contracts is September 21. Whatever is going to happen MUST take place between now and then or the folks involved in these contracts will lose over $1 billion for having engaged in this activity.

“$1.78 Billion Bet that Stock Markets will crash by third week in September Anonymous Stock Trader Sells 10K Contracts on EVERY S&P/Y “Strike” Shorts Stocks “in the money” effectively selling all his SPY holdings for cash up front without pressuring the market downward.

This is an enormous and dangerous stock option activity. If it goes right, the guy makes about $2 Billion. If he’s wrong, his out of pocket costs for buying these options will exceed $700 Million!!! The entity who sold these contracts can only make money if the stock market totally crashes by the third week in September.

Bear in mind that the last time anyone conducted such large and unusual stock option trades (like this one) was in the weeks before the attacks of September 11. Back then, they bought huge numbers of PUTS on airline stocks in the same airlines whose planes were involved in the September 11 attacks.

Despite knowing who made these trades, the Securities and Exchange Commission NEVER revealed who made the unusual trades and no one was ever publicly identified as being responsible for the trades which made upwards of $50 million when the attacks happened.

The fact that this latest activity by a single entity gambles on a complete collapse of the entire market by the third week in September, seems to indicate someone knows something really huge is in the works and they intend to profit almost $2 Billion within the next four weeks from whatever happens! This is really worrisome.”