Looking into the future

"Price of Sex" by Chakarova: A slam on the face of humanity in the 21st century

2012-01-09T07:52:00.000-08:00

First, I have noticed the title on my twitter time line as the movie will be screened by the Us Embassy in Ottawa. First of all, I want to disregard this line because I thought it is just some scam.

After giving it a second thought, I was wondering why the US embassy will be screening such a movie?
Then I have decided to see its trailer and read about this documentary.

In simple words, it is a shame on humanity that human trafficking is six times larger than the slavery trafficking across the Atlantic in the dark ages.

Following their stories from their virgin home to their prostitution residency was awful. People are so dump and have very tough hearts. Why? All for the money. This is the dirtiest money that can be ever collected. The woman is always the weaker link. They wanted her to abuse her further. This industry is huge and much larger than everything you can think of.

The Price of Sex is a rare glimpse into the lives of sex-trade workers and human-trafficking from Europe to the Middle-East. The film unmasks the dangers and corruption involved in the sex-trade industry, as well as the fear, shame and anguish felt by millions women who are forced to sell their bodies for sex.

What is your experience with Magento Open Source e-commerce?

2012-01-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

Someone posted this question on Linkedin
Is it suitable for large corporation to build multiple websites? And what are the pro's and the con's? Think of cost, application services, development, etc.

Here is my answer for that:
There are several versions of Magento. Magento Community, Magento Enterprise and Magento Go.

Cost wise, the community edition is the best but you lack the support. For a corporation, the Enterprise edition is the best with $1,000/month for a good support.

What differentiates Magento is its interoperability with various back office systems (natively or via other bridging tools). In addition, Magento is getting the defacto for corporate e-commerce as it scales up well (with extra cost for scalable license) and it is search engine friendly.

Other pros are related to development cost and graphical layout. It is one of the best within the upper end e-commerce packages.

Some of the Con's is the limited access to licensed developers (which is being solved right now by the new certificate system). The classes are free for a while during the beta stage.

Another risk arise from the fact that Magento depends on other tools for the connection with back-office inventory (SAP for example). There are various tools to connect but most of them are being developed out of the Magento Eco-System hence their maintenance is an issue.

Finance Islamique: Special Purpose Vehicule (SPV) for a car rental agency

2011-12-04T07:53:00.001-08:00

ACME, une agence de louer des voitures, a deux choix pour le levé de fond islamique. D’un cote tous lesinvestisseurs peuvent être des actionnaires. S’il y a des petits investisseurs,ils peuvent acheter des sukuk de murabaha sans être des copropriétaires — avecd'autres actionnaires — de la totalité de cette SPV.

En tous cas, cette opération a besoin de deux entités corporativespour être en conforme parce que les ressources doit échanger les mains. En Islam, letransfert de fonds seulement est considéré comme un prêt. Les deux corporationssont :

Véhicule à usage spécial (or SPV) : ACMEFinance
La société : ACME

Dans cette proposition, on peut trouver les détails des ces deuxopérations. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-fzoKQ2dab037dEqUUwRuN9hU5ERP6kODXln_q-CdAU/edit)

Soap Business plan Example

2011-11-26T21:47:00.001-08:00

Genesis Soaps Inc., located in Montreal, Quebec, is a start-up wholesaling business specialized in importing natural soaps and repackaging them for sale in specialist helath shops and specialized drugstores chains across Quebec. The business would be established to offer hand-made natural soaps to a growing clientele looking for chemical free personal care products for either daily usage or skin treatment. The firm would specialize in the following products:

Extra virgin olive oil soaps (solid, liquid, several fragrances)
Glycerin soaps (solid, liquid)
Black seed soaps (solid, liquid)
Black seed oil and cream

Genesis Soaps Inc. has its warehouse and office in West Montreal and plans to rent another warehouse in the same area.

This business plan is for demo purpose only. It does not really reflect the reality of this business. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yFJNunQm1kQi7im-CPSrqL9ZEY9l58NhOpBONnu7eLw/edit

For more information, contact me.

My story with http://www.proveyourworth.net/

2011-11-26T21:35:00.001-08:00

There was a little nice test on that site back in 2006. I did not need the job back then but I wanted to prove my net worth for the sake of coding.

I spent few hours on this test but the result was really good. The guy emailed me back for an interview and mentioned in the email that this was one of the neatest code that they have got out of few thousands.

I did not continue to the interview as I did not need the job back then and I was moving from programming into Finance.

It is another nice memory and I would like to share my code with those old PHP nerds who would like to read some // 2cents.

//***********************************************************
//***********************************************************
// Script name: prove_your_worth_code.php *
// Version: 1.0 *
// Coder: Bilal Abdul Kader *
// Date: October 29th, 2006 *
// *
// This script automate the submission of a mixed form *
// (strings + files) to the ProveYourWorth website. *
// *
// It emulates the browser using CURL library for PHP, the *
// same task can be done using fsockopen and Snoopy. *
// *
// The first task is to open the form in order to get the *
// PHPSESSID and any other cookies. Then the code emulates *
// the form submission and send it to the server again. *
// *
// I kept the code to a minimum as it is a PROOF OF CONCEPT *
// only. *
//***********************************************************
//***********************************************************
//
// Get the cookie of the site first
// The script should fetch the index page
// in order to get the cookie(s)
// Apparently the site sets the PHPSESSID cookie only
//
//
// Define the curl handler
//
$my_curl_handler = curl_init();
//
// The web site to fetch
//
$url = "http://www.proveyourworth.net/index.php?p=begin&mistake=little";
//
// Add the URL operator
//
curl_setopt($my_curl_handler, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
//
// Handle the cookies of the site in order to send it later on
// the tmp folder is used on Nix machines or temp on Windows
// Add an agent header line
// Add a referer header line
//
curl_setopt($my_curl_handler, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "c:\\temp\\cookie.txt");
curl_setopt($my_curl_handler, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "c:\\temp\\cookie.txt");
curl_setopt($my_curl_handler, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-AU; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061010 Firefox/2.0");

//
// Follow any location HTTP command if any
// It seems that redirection is not used on this page
// However, this is kept for portability
//
curl_setopt($my_curl_handler, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
//
// Return the trasnfer as part of the return value in curl_exec()
//
curl_setopt($my_curl_handler, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
//
// Execute the command and get the html page that has the forum
//
$htmlPage=curl_exec ($my_curl_handler);
//
// Parse the page in order to get the new hash key
//
preg_match("/\bhash\b\" value=\"(.*)\"/i",$htmlPage, $matches);
$myHashKey = $matches[1];
// echo "Hash Key is: $myHashKey
";
//
// Other action can be added here to check if the curl has
// got the correct page. This can be done using the
// $headers variable (For example $headers['url'])
//
//*******************************************************
//
// Now start the actual work to automate the form
// submission and to send the fields and the files
// fsock or Snoopy is not that hard to implement
// However, I prefered to use curl this time
// The other two implementations are as hard.
//
//*******************************************************
//
// Change the URL that the form should be submitted to
//
$url="http://www.proveyourworth.net/?p=auto_submit";
curl_setopt($my_curl_handler, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
//
// Now change the CURL operating model to POST (not GET)
// Regular HTTP POST (application/x-www-form-urlencoded)
// Add the new URL to send the form to
//
curl_setopt($my_curl_handler, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
//
// In case the form action need a valid referer to work
//
curl_setopt($my_curl_handler, CURLOPT_REFERER, "http://www.proveyourworth.net/index.php?p=begin&mistake=little");
//
// Build the data for the form
// I am using hard coded data in here for simplicity
// However, dynamic data can be easily incorporated
//
// Select the files to attach
//
$cvFile = "cv";
$sourceFile="prove_your_worth_code.php";
$myFormData = array(
"form_id"=>"job",
"name"=>"Bilal Abdul Kader",
"email"=>"bilal@brightvision.net",
"about"=>"Simple, I have a love affair with PHP and Programming in general. The puzzle was nice and tricky. I have emulated other more complex forms in real time.",
"incoming_file"=>"@$cvFile.doc",
"incoming_source"=>"@$sourceFile.txt",
"hash"=>"$myHashKey",
"Submit"=>"Submit"
);
//
// Build the form data now
//
curl_setopt ($my_curl_handler, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $myFormData);
//
// Send the POST request and store the resuts in myResults
//
$myResult=curl_exec($my_curl_handler);
//
// In case of error during the submission
// Show the error.
//
echo curl_error($my_curl_handler);
//
// Otherwise, show the return of the form
//
echo $myResult;
//
//
//
?>

Crazy parking tickets in Montreal

2011-11-26T21:05:00.001-08:00

You think that the parking service in Montreal got better with automation?
I am not sure but I know for sure that the parko-meter guy wants to finish his book of tickets no matter how.

Last June, I was parking in downtown Montreal and I have paid my parko-meter fees at 12.54 pm. However, the smart guy gave me a parking ticket three minutes after 12.57 pm?

What is the value of the machine he is using then?
Why did they invest all of this money into the parko-meters then?

I have complained about that but no-one answered so far.

Why I stared Concordia Classifieds (http://www.con-ads.com)?

2011-11-26T21:02:00.001-08:00

I joined Concordia University in January 2004. I could not book an apartment before leaving Lebanon because Concordia did not have a well developed medium for online classifieds. Thousands of International students suffered from this fact. The idea of http://www.con-ads.com emerged from the need of Concordia students for a classifieds ads system similar to other universities in Montreal, namely McGill and UQAM. The majority of university students need to rent an apartment, buy or sell used gadgets, look for a part-time job, offer his/her tutoring services or have a peer’s advice.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G6sUIq_xLwuGQlqimLyx61SeodkcO3E43IZi8rzp1xQ/edit

Why Muslims should give to Muslims and Non-Muslims?

2011-11-26T20:55:00.001-08:00

Thus Islam teaches total trust in believers, whose faith assures them that giving generously will not decrease their Rizq (provisions and properties) in any way, but rather increase them. Giving not only satisfies the needs of the poor and disadvantaged but also benefits the giver, whose righteous generosity returns invaluable riches of peace and satisfaction; his/her heart is protected from the earth-quakes of rancor and jealousy, and he/she is saved from the adverse consequences of selfishness and narrow-mindedness. It’s a simple but profound spiritual equation: By giving we are helping ourselves.
Islam considers greedy and avaricious mentality at this level as very cheap and mean, for it is a faith that seeks to nourish charity and generosity all the time. Almighty Allah says in the Qur’an: “So be aware of Him as much as you can; listen and obey; and spend charity for the benefit of your own soul. And whoever is saved from his own greediness, then they are successful ones.” {At Tagabun 16}
It was also reported that the Messenger of Allah said: “Protect yourself against the fire [of judgment against you], even if it be only by (giving) a piece of date; and if one cannot even fulfill this, then by saying a good word.” {Muslim}

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u532G0-kOPy4Gn7YJY1O6UnuqfG4qegOIPv1R4l1upg/edit

Home Ownership with Options in Islamic Finance

2011-11-21T06:54:00.001-08:00

11/21/2011 12:07:17 PM

Salman Ahmed Shaikh

Current Home Financing Structure in Islamic Finance

In home financing using declining equity ownership structure, the customer approaches the bank for joint purchase of an asset/property. The seller of the property is paid by the bank and the bank and the customer enter into a Joint Property Purchase Agreement.

In this arrangement, the ownership stake of the tenant increases and that of the bank decreases or diminishes with the passage of time. The rent decreases as the ownership stake of tenant increases.

The share of the bank in asset/property is divided into units. These units are purchased by the customer periodically until he/she has purchased all units and become the sole owner of the asset/property. Rent is not charged immediately and is charged at the end of the month for the use of asset/property. Rent for at least one period is fixed. Unit price fixed for a period is not changed during that period. The rent is calculated based on 1 year LIBOR. The floor rate (minimum rate) and the ceiling rate (maximum rate) are stated based on which the rentals rate can vary. In agreement, it is stated that if payment is made on time, the transfer of ownership will take place accordingly.

The risk of damage to the property is borne by the bank and the customer, according to the stake in the property at the time of loss due to accident. Just like in conventional mortgage, a penalty is charged if a customer withdraws from the contract that is paid to charity. The logical argument presented for such a penalty is that the contract involves a promise/undertaking to pay rent and purchase units of the asset/property and if a customer withdraws from the promise/undertaking, he/she can be asked to pay a penalty for maintaining financial discipline. The penalty can’t be taken as income by the bank because change in price after the execution of sale can’t be made as per Islamic scholars. That is why; the penalty collected from customers is paid to charity.

Critical Analysis of Current Islamic Home Financing

In home financing using equity ownership concept in Islamic finance, two contracts i.e. tenancy and sale are included as two separate components of a contract. Both these contracts are separated by way of a unilateral undertaking in place of the actual simultaneous sale/purchase of units of the asset/property. Upon close inquiry, one can notice that unilateral undertaking or promise makes the contract conditional. This argument is further substantiated by the fact that if the client refuses to undertake or promise to buy the asset (in units), the bank will not make contract with him/her. Furthermore, the promise gives the legal cover to the bank and is acceptable in a court of law.

Following table compares the conventional mortgage and ‘Diminishing Musharakah'.

OIC Fiqh Academy rendered ‘Organized Tawarruq’ impermissible, but the ‘unilateral undertaking’ in almost all prevalent Islamic finance contracts - including Murabaha, Ijarah, Diminishing Musharakah, Salam, Istisna, Musawamah etc - is an ‘organized’ way of avoiding price and market risk (the only relevant risks and the only dividing line between trade and lending for interest). Hence, with the same logic, OIC Fiqh Academy should have rendered ‘unilateral undertaking’ an ‘organized’ tool for avoiding price and market risk and the Fiqh ruling of ‘no return without taking risk’.

Options in Islamic finance are not allowed due to the ruling that transactions should be Gharar free i.e. free from ambiguity and uncertainty. In the opinion of this author, the concept of “Gharar” (uncertainty) should not be used as a shield to avoid price/market risk. 1400 years ago, the economy was agricultural and the agricultural yield was not predictable and homogenous. In Options contract, the obligation rests on one party and the other has an option. Therefore, it does not have any element of Gharar (uncertainty). Call premium is also charged to create financial discipline. If there is no call premium, then one will buy an unlimited number of options contract to hedge for each date for a same or similar price.

Hence, options could be used in fixed asset/property financing to separate sale and tenancy contracts.
In the practiced Islamic banking, taking an undertaking from the financee is just like buying a put option from the financee who is acting as a put option writer. If this is reversed, the financee would buy the call option and the bank will sell the call option i.e. acts as a call option writer.

The alternative is as follows:

a) The bank buys the asset/property paying the asset owner the full amount of the asset. The Bank is now the owner of the asset.

b) It gives the asset/property on rent to the financee and the bank also enters into an option contract as the call option writer. In a European option contract (exercisable only at expiration date), the financee buys that call option which gives him/her the right to buy the asset at call expiration. He/She has the right but not the obligation to buy. The option writer however, is obliged to sell the asset if the call buyer (financee) decides to exercise the contract. For short term options contracts, American style call options contracts (exercisable on or before expiration date) could also be used.

c) If the call buyer does not exercise, the option contract expires and the bank is in a position to give the asset/property on rent again.

d) If the call buyer exercises the contract, the bank gets the asset price plus the rental income for the period before the expiration of the contract.

The rent could be benchmarked using House Rent Index. The issue arises whether a fixed premium could be added or not. Due to the fixed premium, even if the property for any reason reaches a value equal or close to zero, there is some rent charged greater than or at least equal to the fixed premium. However, since the contract itself does not have any connection with interest or interest rate benchmark and the rent is charged as long as the asset is in usable condition, it does not contradict with any of the Islamic principles.

This is not a new proposed avenue for investment to the investors. Hence, it is neutral to the issue that whether it should have a secondary market or not. We have lived without securitization of mortgages and in a much better way than in Great Recession.

Second, the proposal meets following specific objectives:

a) To allow people to break free from conventional mortgage if they feel they are not able to keep paying installments. It is done by making them Call option buyers i.e. take a long position.

b) To achieve separation of tenancy and sale contract. It is a requirement in Islamic jurisprudence. This is achieved in Islamic finance currently through a unilateral undertaking which is legally enforceable. Hence, current mechanism to separate tenancy and sale are not ideal and are just legal solutions to the problem.

c) To propose a mechanism that still allows the bank to have reasonable returns even when future prices are low and when they are high. Future prices will influence the client’s decision to exercise or not exercise the call option contract.

d) To propose a mechanism that still allows the client to have a place for living and an option to purchase the house at a fixed price rather than paying fixed installments until maturity.

e) To propose a mechanism for setting rentals which reflects true market rent than linking it with an interest based benchmark. Hence, an alternative to LIBOR as a benchmark/pricing rule has also been provided by linking the rentals with House Rent Index.

Why Benetton wants to spread such feelings: UNHATE was Hated

2011-11-16T13:28:00.001-08:00

Benetton had to remove its ads after ample critics from the Vatican. What about Al-Azhar?

Inside Search: Ten recent algorithm changes

2011-11-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

Inside Search: Ten recent algorithm changes: Some interesting disclosure from Google about the modifications of their search and ranking algorithm. This move might be competitive or under the government pressure. Either way, it will be a great addition to the knowledge about the web search business.

Building a house out of bottles: the best reusing strategy I have seen

2011-11-09T07:41:00.000-08:00

Ever dreamed to get rid of all these trillions of bottles around us in the upper hemisphere?
This is a new strategy from Nigeria this time.

The idea undoubtedly seemed strange at first: take the plastic water bottles that litter Nigeria's roads, canals and gutters and allow people to live inside them.

Not literally, but almost.

What a group of activists did was come up with a plan to build a house using those bottles, providing what they say is an environmentally smart strategy of chipping away at a housing shortage in Africa's most populous nation.

With the prototype near the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna now well underway, the group wants to extend its efforts and build more, aiming to unleash what they say is some long bottled-up potential.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/plastic-bottles-solve-nigerias-housing-problem-042708558.html

Sharia Compliant Investment: Pass or No Pass

2011-10-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

Si quelqu’un a un investissement dans un secteur qui etait classifie comme Sharia compliant, il y a deux méthodes pour s'assurer que cet investissement est VRAIMENT sharia compliant:

La compagnie d'investissement a un Conseil de Sharia pour la compagnie elle même et qui a le pouvoir d'examiner tous les investissement directement (ce n'est pas établie dans 95% des petites compagnies. C'est seulement les grandes banques qui ont ce conseil
La compagnie d'investissement offrent aux tous les clients un rapport trimestre qui detailes les comptes de chaque investisseur. Ce rapport doit inclure:

La liste des compagnies ou la capitale de l'investisseur était investi durant les dernier 3 mois (tous les compagnies peuvent générer ce rapport par un clic de la sourie
Le pourcentage de la capitale investie dans chaque compagnie
Le profit réalisé pour chaque compagnie et le profit partiel pour l'investisseur de cette companie
Un rapport preuve pour la compagnie qui démontre que la compagnie était sharia compliant durant la période de l'investissement. Le rapport doit exactement démontrer que la compagnies passes tous les testes (example: https://ir-iphone.s3.amazonaws.com/056801.pdf)

Je sais que l'explication est un peu obscure pour la plupart entre nous. Alors j'ajoute un exemple.

Example Ahmad aime faire un investissement de $10,000 CAD dans une compagnie d'investissement (sharia compliant) CIE. Avec d'accepter les messages marketing de CIE, Ahmad doit faire le suivant:

Assurer que CIE présente un preuve de son compliance. Présenter les conditions de Dow Jones Islamic Index n'est pas suffisant. CIE peut présenter un document qui était fait par un sharia scholar pour la compagnie elle même (dans les dernières 3 années) ou CIE doit faire une référence a une groupe des scholars qui ont la crédibilité et qu'ils démontrent en groupe que CIE est acceptable.
Ahmad doit demander a CIE de présenter tous les conditions de l'investissement:

Combien est le taux de service annuelle (pour la majorité des compagnies c'est entre 1% et 1.5%)
Combien est le taux de service pour le conseiller financier (s'il y a lieu)
Combien de temps dans un trimestre l'investissement sera examine pour s'assurer qu'il est toujours sharia compliant. L'investissement peut etre sharia compliant aujourd'hui mais pas demain. Cet exercice sera fait une fois par mois au moins
Quelle est la pénalité pour finir affaire avec CIE. Pour un investissement halal, ça doit être ZERO (avec des certain conditions). S'il y a un autre taux déclare clairement, et le client accepte, c'est acceptable mais ce montant ne doit pas dépasser le taux de service trimestrielle (parce que tous les investissement sont trimestrielle et chaque client peut finir affaire avec les fonds et le compagnie dans 3 moins au plus). Alors un taux déclaré de 0.3 - 0.5% comme pénalité est accepte. Si c'est plus que 0.5%, c'est pas acceptable.
Quelle est la fréquence des rapport (trimestrielle au mois) et quelle est la dégrée de transparence dans ces rapports. Les rapport pour les investissement islamique sont reglee par l'AAOIFI standards (un autre exemple: https://ir-iphone.s3.amazonaws.com/CEC901.pdf)

Ahmad a le droit de savoir la distribution de sa capitale et dans quel compagnies ou fonds. L’investissent doit changer avec le temps, mais Ahmad a toujours le droit a chaque point de savoir la nouvelle distribution s'il ya lieu (d'habitude, le changement est fait une ou deux fois max par trimestre).
Si la capitale est met dans une fond (fund) et cette fund est gere sans aucun sharia-compliance, alors l'investissement est très douteux d'un point de vue islamique. La fonds elle même doit générer les rapport qui preuve sa validité. Il n'y a aucune fund qui fait ca a Canada (je pense). Dans 'EU, il y a plusieurs (IMANX ou AMANX). Example: http://www.google.ca/finance?client=ob&q=MUTF:IMANX
Quand Ahmad recoit le rapport trimestre de son conseiller financier, Ahmad peut ré-calculer son profit lui même

Companie	Compliance	Pourcentage	Montant	Profit	Profit partiel
A	PASS	25.00%	$2,500.00	-1.50%	-0.375%
B	PASS	35.00%	$3,500.00	6%	2.100%
C	PASS	25.00%	$2,500.00	5%	1.250%
D	PASS	10.00%	$1,000.00	-5%	-0.500%
E	PASS	5.00%	$500.00	8%	0.375%
Total		100.00%	$10,000.00		2.850%

Alors comme tu vois dans le tableau, chaque comapnie doit etre PASS (en rouge). Le profit est simplement calcule. Alors pour un trimestre comme ca, Ahmad doit avoir le profit de 2.85% mois le taux de service par trimestre (0.5% par exemple). Alors son profit net pour le trimestre est 2.35% ou $235 pour le trimestre

Si le rapport trimestre n'inclus pas ces information, l'investissement est douteux et on a le droit (selon les lois canadiennes et Américaines) de demander plus d'information. Si les conditions ne sont pas toujours établis, on a le droit d'aller a l'ombudsman des banques et service financiers pour récupérer nos argents).

Si l'investissement est dans les fonds (70% des cas pour les petit investisseurs, Ahmad doit reçoit le même tableau en haut) mais pour les fonds. Après ça, c'est le travail de conseiller financier de démontrer que la fonds est compliant (faire une preuve concret sur le site Morning Star pour démontrer l'allocation des fonds comme sur cette page: http://portfolios.morningstar.com/fund/summary?t=IMANX&region=USA&culture=en-us). AVIS: La plupart des fonds qui sont classifiée Sharia compliant ne passent toujours.

Par exemple. ce fonds (http://quote.morningstar.ca/QuickTakes/fund/PortfolioOverview.aspx?t=F0CAN05PAW&region=CAN&culture=en-CA) ne passent pas deux testes: Il y a 22.2% de cash (ou ce cash est investi???) et 12.5% de fixed income (Riba) dans le portfolio. 65.3% dans catégorie (Autres). Alors c'est très douteux. C'est le travail d'Ahmad et son conseiller de voir tous les détails avant d’être satisfait avec le profit.

Investissement Halal ou non?

2011-10-16T08:11:00.000-07:00

Je n'aime pas participer dans les longues discussions sur la validité des investissent d'un point de vue islamique. Mais de temps en temps, on peut voir des débats qui commencent positivement et virent après (c'etait sur un mailing list pour des musulmans a Montréal).

Pour le sujet d'investissement islamique, il y a certains conditions nécessaires pour pouvoir coincer un terme halal ou haram. Ces conditions sont surtout islamiques avec des autres conditions relies au marche (3orf).

Alors pour Investors Group ou autres, pour etre sur que c'est halal, c'est la responsabilité du fournisseur de donner les preuves. Par exemple, on dit que Tim Hortons a fait 8% du profit dans 2010. N’importe quel person doit être capable de calculer ce profit et s'assurer que Tim Hortons a fait ce profit. Si, Tim Hortons essaye de cacher le vraie profit, chaque investisseur peut calculer ce profit lui même. C'est la beauté de la transparence financière au Amérique du Nord.

Pour les fonds, l'histoire est un peu plus compliqué. Chaque fond mutuel a son rapport financier regulier qui donne tous les détails opérationnels et financières du fond. Par exemple, ce fond Investor Group Real Estate (http://quote.morningstar.ca/quicktakes/fund/f_ca.aspx?t=F0CAN05PAW&region=can&culture=en-CA). Ce page vous donne tous les information qu'un investisseur a besoin pour comprendre ou son argent est investi.

Pour les musulman qui font affaires avec IG, ce fond peut représenter une bonne tranche de leur portfolio avec des autres (pharma, infrastructure globale, énergie ...). Chaque investisseur a le droit de savoir ou est son argent (dans quel fonds et le proportions). Au fin de l'année ou au fin du trimestre, vous avez le droit de recevoir un bilan avec tous ces information, et le profit réalise.

Alors, pour chaque investisseur, c'est votre responsabilité de chercher le halal ou le haram ou c'est la responsabilité de votre consultant financier. S'il y a des problèmes, c'est la responsabilité de l'investisseur seulement parce que de temps en temps on voit des consultant qui font des cache cache.

Très simplement, pour chacun qui demande la preuve, veuillez demander la structure de votre investissement (fonds, pourcentage, et profit total). Vous aves l'option de comparer ces résultats avec les résultats publique des fonds. S'il y a des différences, c'est le travail de votre consultant d'expliquer parce que ces gens vous chargent 2% de votre capital chaque année. Si vous avez les réponses et vous êtes satisfaite, Hamdulilah et bonne chance. Si vous n'avez pas satisfaite, vous avez les régulations Canadiennes pour corriger la situation.

Les meilleurs question qu'on doit demander au consultant:

Quelles sont les fonds ou ma capital est investi (dans le cas de IG, c'est toujours un fond mutuel IG)
Comment est le profit calculer. C'est le devoir du consultant de lier le profit total au profit partiel de chaque fond.
Ou arrive le profit de chaque fond (c'est publique sur Morning star).
Qui est en charge de vérifier si l'investissement est toujours accepter islamique-ment et a quel fréquence?
Quelles sont les mesures et les garanties que tout le profit de votre capital est paye pour toi (moins les 2%). Quelles sont les mesure de transparence?

Pardon pour un courriel aussi long et j’espère q'Allah nous donne le courage et la patience et la tolérance.

Can not build it, Acquire it: Microsoft back to the fore front !

2011-10-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is the behemoth and the ideal example of an IT pioneer. They weer not able to build a voice plateform around their MSN-Live Messenger, so they acquired Skype. They tried to compete using Bing but were not able to achieve what they want, so they have been trying to acquire Yahoo.

It is interesting to see the competence dynamics within the biggest information systems players.

Microsoft has been accumulating cash for the past two decades out of its Windows and Office divisions. This money is being spent now to diversify as organic diversification did not work.
Google has been accumulating cash from its Ad-words program and now using that cash to expand in all possible random directions.
Apple stands far from this electronic hysteria by pulling all its cash and depends heavily on its organic innovation and growth.
Oracle tried the first first of all and then to acquire potential competitors and destroy the acquired target culture (the mySQL case)
IBM is partially quitting the soft competition and concentrating on almost everything around without pushing itself to the headlines as much
Red Hat has mades its first billion dollars in sales. What is next? Fight Ubuntu or CentOs?

It will be a quick and nice game to watch. However, the winners of the 2000 teens might not make it to the 2000 twenties most probably.

New E-commerce Edge: SAP B1 Integration with Magento

2011-10-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

Open source technologies have been disrupting software eco-systems for more than a decade. Linux came to challenge the monopoly of PC operating sytem first. Then, it became the de-facto standard of shared web hosting.

Now Open Source is challenging one of the most established income generating businesses online. Open Source is becoming the front end of choice for prestigious B2B e-commerce. SAP B1 has proven its excellence as an affordable ERP package for medium enterprises. It was also available on the web via an SAP SDK package that dominated that market for few years. However, this package is outdated and not able to keep up with the trendy whistles of Web 2.0.

Now, Magento is disrupting this eco-system and dominating this huge market though it is still in its early years. Magento has emerged suddenly in this market and jumped to high steps on its technology development ladder. Developers thought first that it will be another alternative for low end shopping cart (like the dying OsCommerce). However, Magento developers had a different vision. They wanted to lead and they were able to achieve that. They were acquired by eBay few months ago and now disrupting the whole commerce 2.0 market with their X.commerce platforme.

How to connect Magento with SAP B1?

There are various alternatives such as

SOB-e-Connect
MAG-B1

However, each one of them is lacking some features that are extremely important for B2B suppliers. B2B market does not only need a shopping cart. They need:

a mirrored dynamic system that is able to categorize the clients,
recognize their priviledges,
guess their price levels
and finally treat them WELL.

SAP B1 is a leader in its field. Magento on the other hand is another leader. However, the integration of both packages still need further work. I will be discussing some of these needs in future posts.

Occupy Wall Street: Will Obama listen to his own words again?

2011-10-13T18:12:00.001-07:00

Obama and Clinton have to re-read their own speeches. According to their standards, they are no less brutral than Ghaddafi or Assad.

Occupy Wall Street: A New American Dream ?

2011-10-06T07:19:00.000-07:00

I have been actively following all the arab revolutions for the past 9 months. The revolutionary wind blowing across the middle East was so strong that it was able to destroy the pyramids of Moubarak and the Palace of Ben Ali and the tent of Ghaddafi.

Wind is still blowing out in Syria and Yemen. It will not be too long before we see Assad of Syria fleeing out to Iran and seeing Saleh of Yaman carried away to Saudi Arabia.

However, the new wave in North America might be much much stronger and might change everything across the world. Occying Wall Street is not like demonstrating on the street of Homs city in Syria. On the other hand, this means, the revolution is touching the global financial hard core. This means that the $$$ position is being challenged.

This means that we are at the verge of a new third world war or we are lucky the see a new world emerging. This time, it is not the globalization of the internet. It is the globalization of poverty power. The poor are raising their heads to see the horrible future facing their children. The poor are looking around them to see behemoth 1% riches eating 95% of the world economy while the the remaming 99% of the 7billions soul on earth having less than 5% of the globe resources.

New Canadian money coming soon. What is the trick?

2011-10-03T22:10:00.001-07:00

The look and feel of Canadian Money is changing. Starting mid-November 2011, the Bank of Canada will introduce polymer-based bank notes into circulation beginning with the $100 bill. The new $50 bill will be introduced in March 2012 and the remaining denominations will be issued by the end of 2013.

Polymer bank notes are printed on a smooth, durable film. There are over 30 countries that currently print some or all of their denominations on polymer, including Australia, Mexico, and Romania.

Canada's new polymer bank notes are:

Secure: Their leading-edge security features are easy to verify and hard to counterfeit.
Durable: They are expected to last at least 2.5 times longer in circulation before wearing out and needing to be replaced. As a result, fewer notes will be printed in future years.
Innovative: The notes will be the most advanced ever issued in Canada and among the most secure in the world.
Better for the environment: Polymer notes will have a lower impact on the environment than notes in a cotton-paper-based series and will be recycled.

For more information about the new polymer bank notes, please visit the Bank of Canada's website at :

www.bankofcanada.ca/banknotes

A child reciting so his mother can stay at his house in the Paradise

2011-09-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

A mother told her child : "Recite Surat Al-'Ikhlāş (The Sincerity) ten times and God will build a house in Paradise for you".

The child began reading .... and he saw his mother reading also read ....

He told her: Mama! Please do not read. You are live with me in my paradise house !!!!

--------------

Une mère dit à son enfant: «Récitez la sourate Al-'Ikhlāş (La sincérité) dix fois et Dieu va construire une maison au Paradis pour vous".

L'enfant a commencé à lire .... et il vit sa lecture la mère aussi lire ....

Il lui a dit: Maman! S'il vous plaît ne pas lire. Vous êtes vivre avec moi dans ma maison un paradis!!

--------------

Una madre le dijo a su hijo: "Recitar Surat Al-'Ikhlāş (La sinceridad) diez veces, y Dios va a construir una casa en el Paraíso para usted".

El niño comenzó a leer .... y vio a su madre también la lectura de leer ....

Él le dijo: ¡Mamá! Por favor, no lea. Usted es vivir conmigo en mi casa el paraíso!!

2011-09-07T21:18:00.001-07:00

CJAD (800AM) is having Salam Elmenyawi on Tuesday's at 8:30pm on the Barry Morgan Show. This is an important step. For too long, voices that mis-represent Muslims have been given air-time on stations like CJAD.

Revisiting the Islamicity of "Islamic" banking

2011-09-04T08:07:00.000-07:00

The questions you have posed are very important. It is a good change from the numerous incoherent e-mails received on the IBF Net.

Your questions are rephrased below:

One:"Is today's Islamic banking system structurally different from Conventional banking?"

Two:"Can it or Does it behave differently from Conventional banking system?"

Three:"In my observation today's Islamic banking system is just a subset of conventional super system and it cannot be any different from conventional system in the long run, i.e. it has to converge."

To answer Question One:

I don't think we have conceptualized the architecture of the Islamic banking system. Our eminent practitioners have rushed into it (without a thorough plan of action) to make money - they have managed to convince our esteemed Ulema to give them fatwas to circumvent the Shariah on issues (involving borderline ribawi contracts) - please see a further explanation below.

To answer Questions Two and Three:

Let us consider the case of the classic Murabahah contract.

Why is it allowed in the Shari'ah?

Allah SWT says in His glorious book (ie., the Quran) that He SWT has forbidden riba but allowed trade (2:275).

It has taken me a long time to realize that Allah SWT in His wisdom allowed Murbahah as it enhances the demand for a product in the real sector of the economy. There is a paper by an economist, which states that credit sales typically help in the absence of financial markets. The pricing of it is contingent on the price elasticity of demand for the product. We all know that in the time of the Prophet SAW the economy was bare subsistence and there was no financial markets (ribawi or ghair ribawi).

Now let us take the same issue further to a banking Murabahah, which involves a sale of goods in the financial sector of the economy (instead of a real sector) [some of my colleagues would call it a fictitious sale constituting a "Shari'ah arbitrage"].

If you work in the financial sector, which is highly integrated in the current economy you are compelled to price the banking Murabahah using a ribawi index - there is no choice. This is where I differ from the Shari'ah scholars who espouse using a ribawi index - the rationale behind employing this index is because arbitrage will force the two returns to converge.

The end result is very important - the current so called "Islamic" banking system is not all Islamic (see Feisel Khan's 2010 critical paper in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization distributed in this net earlier).

The end result illustrates that we have really not understood the issue of riba (especially riba an nasi'ah). If we had understood it, we would never adopt the banking Murabahah [and for that matter the Tawaruq].

To answer Question Three:

If the Islamic bank operates in the real sector of the economy then we need not use a ribawi index. This is the focus of my current work. You can ask me for a paper (Insha-Allah in about three months time and if i am still alive and not incapacitated in any way (especially from the ridiculing incoherent colleagues) - I will provide it to you.

Sincerely

Muhammed-Shahid

-------------------------------------------
Professor Dr. Muhammed-Shahid Ebrahim
Chair in Islamic Banking and Finance
Bangor Business School
Bangor University
Hen Goleg
College Road
Bangor (North Wales)
Gwynedd LL57 2DG
United Kingdom

http://www.bangor.ac.uk/business/staff/muhammed-shahid_ebrahim.php.en

Don't Be Sad

2011-08-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

We might face sad days and happy days. However, happiness impact is more transient than sadness. I suggest this book for all of those who are suffering and those whose sadness has a longer impact on their internal peace of mind.
A great book: Don't Be Sad

What is Life about?

2011-08-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

I found this in the signature of someone and I liked it.
What do you think?

Imagining, Dreaming, Envisioning, Discovering, Educating, Empowering, Inspiring, Achieving, Succeeding, Renewing, Protecting, Celebrating..In other words, making a difference...that's what life's about.

Les dix dernières nuits de Ramadan

2011-08-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

Nous nous dirigeons vers une superbe saison divine. Ces dix dernières nuits peut-être un début différente pour nous ou peut-être inaperçu.

Mes chères sœurs et frères respectés, s'il vous plaît assurez-vous que ce ramadan est votre nouveau demi-tour à Allah. Essuyez la poussière qui se sont accumulés sur votre Coran et effacer les points noirs qui se sont accumulées sur vos cœurs.

Cherchant la nuit du statut élevé (la nuit de la puissance) a besoin de concentration, l'intention, des efforts, et de penser bien de notre Dieu.

The last ten nights of Ramadan

2011-08-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

We are heading into a great season from God. These last ten nights might be a different start for us or might go un-noticed.

My dear respected sisters and brothers, please make sure that this Ramadan is your new u-turn to Allah. Wipe out the dust that have accumulated on your Quran and erase the black dots that accumulated on your hearts.

Seeking the night of elevated status (the night of power) needs focus, intention, efforts, and expect the best from God.

The importance of Youth in Islam

2011-05-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

The current world is full of crisis and one can not but comtemplate the current situation and search for potential solutions. Looking at world around us, we notice how young people are changing their lives and changing the life of others. Revolutions in the Middle East started with ambitious young men and women who decided to stand up for freedom and dignity. Many youth in the west come up with innovative solutions that are changing the whole civilization. You can look at the google guys and the facebook guy and in addition to others.

What motivated me to speak about the issue of youth today is not only this but also the authentic hadeeth of our prophet (SA) In a Hadith, the Messenger of Allah لا تزول قدم عبد يوم القيامة حتى يسأل عن أربع ..... ـــ ذكر منها ــــ وعن شبابه فيما أبلاه ..) Out of these four questions, one question asked will be regarding how one spent his time as a youth.

In another Hadith, the Messenger of Allah

عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه عن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم قال : " سبعة يظلهم الله في ظله يوم لا ظل إلا ظله ، إمام عادل وشاب نشأ في عبادة الله ، ورجل قلبه معلق بالمساجد ، ورجلان تحابا في الله اجتمعا عليه وتفرقا عليه ، ورجل دعته امرأة ذات منصب وجمال فقال إني أخاف الله . ورجل تصدق بصدقة فأخفاها حتى لا تعلم شماله ما تنفق يمينه ، ورجل ذكر الله خالياً ففاضت عيناه " متفق عليه

It is stated in Bukhari that on the Day of Judgement there will be no shade except for Allah's shade. And from amongst these groups, one group will be those youth who spent their youth in the worship of Allah.

The prophet (SA) allcoates so much importance to this period because the period of youth is a time when a person goes through many changes and experiences; he undergoes and partake many new things which he has never experienced before. The youth begins to feel as though he has control over the whole world, and that he can do whatever he wishes. His desires are increasing day by day becoming attached to the opposite sex, he enjoys lustfully gazing and flirting with them..

This age period is a golden opportunity for the muslim and muslimah and a lot of us do not recognize its importance until it is gone. Unfortunately, lost days do not come back again.
The prophet (SA) was always looking forward for the energetic youth who are the pioneers of change and constructive move.
The prophet (SA) was always talking about the youth who are the source of energy and the leaders of civilization and the builders of the state.
The prophet (SA) was raising brave young men who deffend the religion, sacrifice for Islam and spend their richest hours in the path of Allah.

For all of these reasons, Islam needed capable men who are on the path of Ibrahim (SA). Ibrahim was a nation by himself (إن إبراهيم كان أمة). As a teenager he stand up against all his tribe and told them that they are worshipping idols that can not speak or eat.

{51} وَلَقَدْ آتَيْنَا إِبْرَاهِيمَ رُشْدَهُ مِنْ قَبْلُ وَكُنَّا بِهِ عَالِمِينَ {52} إِذْ قَالَ لِأَبِيهِ وَقَوْمِهِ مَا هَذِهِ التَّمَاثِيلُ الَّتِي أَنْتُمْ لَهَا عَاكِفُونَ {53} قَالُوا وَجَدْنَا آبَاءَنَا لَهَا عَابِدِينَ {54} قَالَ لَقَدْ كُنْتُمْ أَنْتُمْ وَآبَاؤُكُمْ فِي ضَلَالٍ مُبِينٍ {55} قَالُوا أَجِئْتَنَا بِالْحَقِّ أَمْ أَنْتَ مِنَ اللَّاعِبِينَ {56} قَالَ بَل رَبُّكُمْ رَبُّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ الَّذِي فَطَرَهُنَّ وَأَنَا عَلَى ذَلِكُمْ مِنَ الشَّاهِدِينَ {57} وَتَاللَّهِ لَأَكِيدَنَّ أَصْنَامَكُمْ بَعْدَ أَنْ تُوَلُّوا مُدْبِرِينَ {58} فَجَعَلَهُمْ جُذَاذًا إِلَّا كَبِيرًا لَهُمْ لَعَلَّهُمْ إِلَيْهِ يَرْجِعُونَ {59} قَالُوا مَنْ فَعَلَ هَذَا بِآلِهَتِنَا إِنَّهُ لَمِنَ الظَّالِمِينَ {60} قَالُوا سَمِعْنَا فَتًى يَذْكُرُهُمْ يُقَالُ لَهُ إِبْرَاهِيمُ

{61} قَالُوا فَأْتُوا بِهِ عَلَى أَعْيُنِ النَّاسِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَشْهَدُونَ {62} قَالُوا أَأَنْتَ فَعَلْتَ هَذَا بِآلِهَتِنَا يَا إِبْرَاهِيمُ {63} قَالَ بَلْ فَعَلَهُ كَبِيرُهُمْ هَذَا فَاسْأَلُوهُمْ إِنْ كَانُوا يَنْطِقُونَ {64} فَرَجَعُوا إِلَى أَنْفُسِهِمْ فَقَالُوا إِنَّكُمْ أَنْتُمُ الظَّالِمُونَ

{65} ثُمَّ نُكِسُوا عَلَى رُءُوسِهِمْ لَقَدْ عَلِمْتَ مَا هَؤُلَاءِ يَنْطِقُونَ {66} قَالَ أَفَتَعْبُدُونَ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ مَا لَا يَنْفَعُكُمْ شَيْئًا وَلَا يَضُرُّكُمْ {67} أُفٍّ لَكُمْ وَلِمَا تَعْبُدُونَ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ أَفَلَا تَعْقِلُونَ {68} قَالُوا حَرِّقُوهُ وَانْصُرُوا آلِهَتَكُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ فَاعِلِينَ {69} قُلْنَا يَا نَارُ كُونِي بَرْدًا وَسَلَامًا عَلَى إِبْرَاهِيمَ

We bestowed aforetime on Ibrahim his rectitude of conduct, and well were We acquainted with him. Behold! he said to his father and his people, "What are these images, to which ye are (so assiduously) devoted?" They said, "We found our fathers worshipping them." He said, "Indeed ye have been in manifest error - ye and your fathers." They said, "Have you brought us the Truth, or are you one of those who jest?" "And by Allah, I have a plan for your idols - after ye go away and turn your backs".. So he broke them to pieces (all) but the biggest of them, that they might turn (and address themselves) to it. They said, "Who has done this to our gods? He must indeed be some man of impiety!" They said, "We heard a youth talk of them: he is called Ibrahim." They said, "Then bring him before the eyes of the people, that they may bear witness." They said, "Art thou the one that did this with our gods, O Ibrahim?" So they turned to themselves and said, "Surely ye are the ones in the wrong!" Then were they confounded with shame: (they said) "Thou knowest full well that these (idols) do not speak!" (Ibrahim) said, "Do ye then worship, besides Allah, things that can neither be of any good to you nor do you harm? "Fie upon you, and upon the things that ye worship besides Allah! Have ye no sense?"... They said, "Burn him and protect your gods, if ye do (anything at all)!" We said, "O Fire! be thou cool. and (a means of) safety for Ibrahim!"

This is how Allah tried Ibrahim and he succeed and changed the history of humanity. This simple young man was the father of all the messengers. He has a strong vision and a keen inclination to look for guidance.

We need such youth who have extremely high ambition and who refuse anything but the fore front. Leaders are born to change and trained to be consistent.

Our ummah needs youth whose hearts are attached to Allah, who follow our beloved prophet footsteps and who seek the best of knowledge they can in order to acquire all potential strengths that our ummah needs.

However, the major question is how to acquire this power? There are several steps in fact to build the real islamic personality. I will mention few of the first substantial steps:

First of all. My dear brothers and sisters. We have to go back to Allah and repent from all our previous mistake and sins. There is no sinless human. However, Allah loves those who repent after every sin they commit. There is no way for success without repentance.
This is the time now. Go back to Allah and prepare yourself for the achivements. عسَى رَبُّكُمْ أَن يُكَفِّرَ عَنكُمْ سَيِّئَاتِكُمْ وَيُدْخِلَكُمْ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي مِن تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ.... الآية " .

Second, we have to follow the steps of our beloved prophet (SA). Where is his love in our hearts? Are we able to identify his love out of all the lust we have in our hearts? Should not we love him the most? Isn’t he the one who has lead us to all goods and warned us against all evils? Isn’t he the granted blessings for us and the eternal guidance?
We should admit that we are forgetting a lot of his traditions and we are not learning all what he wanted us to learn.

يا مدعي حب طه لا تخالفه ...... الخُلفُ يحرم في دين المحبينا

أراك تأخذ شيئاً من شريعته ...... وتترك البعض تدويناً وتهوينا

خذها جميعاً تجد خيراً تفز به ..... أو فاطّرحها وخذ رجس الشياطينا

In order to learn, we have to read. We are the ummah of Iqra. This religion stared with a command to read by the illeterate prohphet (SA). This knowledge is the best source of power in this ear of knowledge based power and knowledge based economy.

Third, we have to read the biographies of the great men of Islam to learn from their experiences and how they used their youth and limited years to reach those high degrees. They have spent their lives in the path of Allah who has granted them their hours and days. They have taken care of their times to read the Quran, learh the hadeeth, attend the knowledge circles and follow the pious men.
I can name thousands of bright engraved names even millions. However, we need the legacy and not the numbers. Ali bin Abi Taleb (RA) was the youngest to convert to Islam yet he became one of the most prominent leaders of this nation. Mo3az bin Jabal is the most knowledgeable of this nation in halal and haram. He will lead all the scholars on the day of judgement and he was the first ambassador of Isalm. Yet he died at 32 years old only? Al-Imam Al-Safi3i was able to memorize the whole Quran at his seventh year only. He started making the fatwa at his late teen years. Where are we from those great ancestors? Those are the ones who have built the pride of this Umman.

Fourth, we have to remmeber the bounties of Allah. He is the one who has granted us the time, the health and the energy. He has granted us the mind and the intellect. He is the one who has given us from his unlimited resources. At this period of our age we can do a lot. Our memory is at the peak and our patience is very high. Now iti s the time of making the nawafil and the extra worshipping. Now is the time of getting up at night to ask Allah forgiveness and show our gratitude for our Lord. Now it is the time of training our souls to give without worrying about the future. In the years to come, we might not be able to fast other than Ramadan. We might be able to stand up to pray or to make soujoud. In the years to come, we might have the patience to read a book or learn something new. This is the time to excel in worshipping and hastening in the path of goods.
If you do not do it now, then when?

Fifth, be aware of the devil games and how he uses our lusts to drive us away of the paradise path. At this period, our lusts are at the max and we have to pay extra efforts to lower our gaze and protect our soul from committing the sins. A young man can be a role model for others by abstaining from all wicked deeds. A young woman can be a great guidance for all others to follow by respecting the order of Allah so she can be the best within her environment.

Last but not least, Use your spare time or previous time to help your brothers and sisters all across the world. Give them your time, your money, your dou3a2 and your commitment. A sincere simple prayer at the last third of the night is much stronger than anything we can give. Our brothers are suffering in several areas around the world. Now we have added Syria and Libya to the classical list of unfortunate countries. They are suffering the oppression and the injustices and they need the freedom that we enjoy. Please try your best to help them and feel with them. At least, let us make a sincere intention to help them when we can.

My dear brothers and sisters. Please realize your value and recognize the importance of your contribution for the future of the Ummah. You should know that your parents and your nation are waiting for you. Do not let them down.

May Allah guide and protect us all on the day of judgement when nothing can help except a sound heart.

Guidelines for an Effective Basis of Unity

2011-05-27T02:41:00.000-07:00

This document is intended as a support for a critical conversation about the effective qualities and uses of a Basis of Unity. These points could be used as a handout or reproduced on flip charts of slides.

Qualities of an Effective Basis of Unity
•    Practical / strategic
•    Express key aspects of group / work
•    Short, clean, accessible language
•    Compliment vision / mission
•    Dynamic – updated every 1-2 years
•    Understood and supported by all engaged members

Qualities of a Less-Effective Basis of Unity•    Conceptual / moralistic
•    Express compromise of personal identities / politics
•    Long, wordy, academic
•    Stand alone
•    Static or Too dynamic

Effective Uses of a Basis of Unity•    Guide development and evolution
•    Guide complex / controversial decisions
•    Build alliances , coalitions, partnerships, etc….
•    Assist in the resolution of some conflicts

Less Effective Uses of a Basis of Unity•    Main content for outreach, merchandise, etc…
•    Used commonly for fundraising
•    Used as a strategic plan
•    Used to open every meeting
•    Used to resolve all conflicts (for example a conflict about whether the window in the office should be open or closed should not be resolved by using the basis of unity!)

http://coco-net.org/en/node/3928

A Collection of Tools / Approaches to Preventing and Resolving Conflicts in Community Groups

2011-05-27T02:39:00.000-07:00

Vision, Mission, Principles, or Basis of Unity: Clearly defining the purpose and common ground for your work is a huge step towards preventing and resolving conflict. This can help to increase clarity and understanding and can also serve as an important reference point and grounding point to put a conflict in perspective.

Procedural Documents: Bylaws, Policies, and Procedures can help to minimize procedural injustices –contributing to conflict prevention - and can help break-down conflict into manageable parts when it arises.

Safer Space Guidelines: Clearly defining a list of the qualities and behaviours that will keep your space safe as well as a list of qualities and behaviours that are considered unsafe is a critical tool for conflict prevention.

Self Check: Developing and encouraging a culture and practice of critical self-reflection one of the most fundamental tools for preventing conflict. Literally pausing for a few seconds and checking yourself before reacting to something can prevent a majority of conflicts from ever occurring.

Daily Direct: This refers to the importance of constantly encouraging a culture of direct communication in your work. If you hear somebody triangulating –talking to one person about their issues with another person – try talking to them to see if they have any options for taking those issues directly to the source and cutting across the triangle.

Buddy Check: If your buddy pulls you aside and explains a conflict situation that they are upset about, then you need to think carefully and critically about your role. Focus on listening to and acknowledging their experience, while at the same time critically engaging with them about the process of how the conflict is unfolding and options for how it could be resolved.

Iceberg Check: In group meeting and work situations we frequently have the sense that the tip of a much larger emotional issue has entered into the group space and is not being recognized. Developing the practice of recognizing these iceberg issues and proactively dealing with them either in the group or one on one is an effective way of bringing a latent conflict to the surface or keeping conflict from escalating.

Calling People In: This is an approach in contrast to the practice of ‘calling people out’ in which oppressive or inappropriate behaviour is called out in a group setting and often in an accusatory manner. ‘Calling people in’ involves holding that critical awareness until a moment when you can invite the person with the behaviour into a careful conversation in a one-on-one setting.

Conflict Point People: Try identifying people in your work that are respected and trusted by your group as ‘conflict point people. ‘ People in this role invite others to approach them about conflict at any time and make a commitment to support the person and resolve the conflict.

Non-Escalation Agreement / Guidelines: This involves proactively developing a set of guidelines or points of agreement that can help to diffuse or de-escalate a conflict. This agreement can help to contain a conflict in a way that minimizes the potential of trauma for the individuals and groups involved.

http://coco-net.org/en/node/3930

3 hours of censorship in Canada (No Free Speech until 10 pm EST)

2011-05-02T16:21:00.001-07:00

Can you immagine this in Canada? Weird right?

Until a few minutes ago, this site was home to a conversation about the role of social media in Canadian elections. It was set up to aggregate the tweets (messages posted to Twitter) that include the hashtag #tweettheresults. That's how people across Canada and around the world have been tagging their reflections on Section 329 of Canada's Elections Act, which severely restricts the transmission of voting results until all polling stations have closed. We hoped that this site would provoke a conversation about Section 329, and raise the profile of the issue across Canada. We think it's done that, both on the social web and in the mainstream media.
But that conversation became illegal at 7 pm EST this evening. Rather than face a potential fine or protracted legal battle, we have taken this site offline for 3 hours. When free speech returns to Canada at 10 pm EST, the site will be back online and you will be able to read all the tweets that have accumulated in the interim.
If you tweet about this situation, please use the hashtag #tweettheresults so it will appear here.
To follow the conversation while this Canadian site is offline, you can still view all the latest tweets by searching for #tweettheresults on Twitter.
We never imagined a day when Canadians would have to use a foreign website to participate in a conversation about our own country. We never imagined that we, Canadian citizens, would potentially face legal penalties for our role in supporting an online conversation. We hope that all Canadians who have exercised their voice at the polls today will reclaim those voices online by asking the next government to bring our Elections Act into the 21st century.

NDP taking over West-Mount / Ville Marie

2011-05-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

It seems all BQ in Ville Marie (5200 in 2006 and 2800) are shifting their votes to NDP. In addition, Liberals have lost at least 30% in this riding for the NDP. Conservatives have lost also about 3500 votes for the NDP.
Interesting news indeed to see Joanne Corbeil moving from West Island to Ville-Marie.

A real human disaster in Daraa right now

2011-05-01T19:03:00.001-07:00

I have been visiting Daraa (my home town) recently as I used to do before.
I was in one of the demonstrations that tens of people were killed by the security agencies and their snipers. I saw criminals in official military uniforms not real pol...icemen as it should be.
I went there yesterday taking with me: bread, water, and candles. Unfortunately, I passed through 5 roadblocks, soldiers on the 6th took half of the bread and water and all candles. Even though, I didn't reach Daraa as I planned before, because some locals advised me not to do so since it was very dangerous and there has been a lot of random shootings. 20km was the nearest point to the city that anyone ever can reach.
So, I had to throw away most of the bread and water I started with.

The whole city was isolated from the outside world because authorities have already cut all electircity, cell phones, land phone lines, and internet since Sunday 24-April.
Not only that, but authorities also stopped all the supplies of food, wheat, medicine, and water; not only in Daraa city but in all the province, even villages and towns just outside Damascus on the Damascus-Daraa highway.
They also went to the point of shooting at the water containers on the tops of buildings (where people save their needs of water). Can you imagine a family of 4 or 5 people including children and infants without drinking water for several days?

I was told by some locals that security agencies forcefully opened and stole the stores and pharmacies in Daraa.
but, I had no confirmation from a different source about those specific operations. because no one can communicate with the city at all.

There is a real human disaster in Daraa right now, and I have only pointed out some major facts. The situation on the ground is tragic. Lives are being lost by the minute and the situation is very urgent and much worse than what the international media is telling.

Daraa's people need an urgent action by the international community; Any help from you to deliver the word and the facts there is greatly appreciated.

M.A

Dr. B. (Montreal)

Racism rocks PSAC Montreal office

2011-03-03T17:12:00.000-08:00

MONTREAL - The anonymous letter shattered what had started as a normal Monday morning at the office for "Joel," a union organizer at the Montreal office of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
"SPEAK NEGER BLACK," it started.
The rest of the letter was in French.
"It's well-paid we have all the jobs that pay. Where and when we want. INCOMPETENCE INCLUDED," it read.
Copies of the racist screed - obtained by The Gazette - were placed in the mail slots of the office's only two black employees on Feb. 21.
The hate mail has brought to light troubling allegations of racism in the public-sector union's Quebec division.
Both employees say they believe the letters are linked to a controversial incident that created deep divisions between PSAC's employees in Quebec and those in the rest of Canada.
On Dec. 16, 2009, PSAC staffers from Quebec read a poem and showed a film titled Speak White to colleagues at a national conference in Ottawa. The 1980, six-minute film by nationalist filmmakers Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin - based on the 1968 poem of the same name - includes shocking images of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi genocide. It denounces exploitation of Quebec's French-speaking working class, which it compares to the plight of U.S. blacks and other oppressed minorities.
However, the Quebec staffers did not explain what the film meant or provide a translation, so many visible-minority employees found the images racist and disturbing.
In January 2010, the Canadian Union of Labour Employees (CULE), which represents workers at PSAC, filed a grievance on behalf of employees who found the film out of line with PSAC's obligation to provide a respectful and racismfree work environment.
CULE lost the grievance and has requested arbitration.
Joel (not his real name), then a union organizer in Ottawa, was one of three employees on whose behalf the union filed the grievance.
In December, he transferred to PSAC's Montreal office for family reasons.
He said he had to wait several weeks for a computer and a desk, and was not given an assignment until January.
When the hate letter arrived, Joel said he was struck by the similarity between its wording and the Speak White incident.
"It has to be coming from someone who has a certain knowledge of the situation," he said.
The letter, stamped "Personal," was in a white business envelope with his name and PSAC's Montreal address affixed by tape. The stamp was franked by Canada Post but on close inspection, the transparent tape was on top of the franking marks.
"Luc," a second black employee, also received an envelope containing the same letter as Joel along with a second letter.
Both men, who are francophones, requested that their names not be used for fear of consequences for their future careers.
Luc's envelope was stamped but the stamp was not franked.
The second letter reads: "Speak Black it's Better."
It continues, in French: "You work when you like, you have the big JOB. The big Cash, no one asks you for anything. Always on the weekend."
Police did not check the letters or envelopes for fingerprints, the men said.
Joel said he called police after opening the letter and was told to take it to a police station. The duty officer at the station near PSAC's St. Laurent office told him police would not investigate because the letter contained no threat of violence.
Both men have been on medical leave since receiving the letters.
Two days after the letters arrived, regional coordinator Bertrand Lavoie announced a staff meeting to discuss ways to improve the work atmosphere.
In an email reply to Lavoie obtained by The Gazette, regional union organizer Mathieu Dumont refused to attend the meeting. Dumont wrote that despite his disgust for the letters, "all my sympathy stops (here). I refuse to be (...) taken hostage by rumour, calumny, popular opinion or the peanut gallery that obeys the dictates of the moment."
Dumont said Quebec should not be blamed for a situation that goes beyond its jurisdiction. He added: "I will not participate and I encourage my colleagues to do the same."
However, PSAC president John Gordon said the organization is "very disturbed" by the hate mail.
"We're viewing this as a very, very serious issue and we want to get to the bottom of it," he said.
Gordon added that PSAC is investigating the Speak White incident but refused to comment on that investigation.
Luc has worked in PSAC's Montreal office for four years. On Jan. 17, he returned to work after a sixmonth medical leave that he said was related to workplace harassment. He had been working three days a week and was about start a four-day work week when the letter arrived.
Luc said that when an opportunity came up to volunteer for a certain assignment, other employees were given a chance to apply but he was kept out of the loop.
When the Quebec staff planned the Speak White presentation, they did not reveal the plans to him or to the only other black employee, who has since resigned.
Luc said no one in the office said anything when a union member who frequently visited the office remarked that he got his job because he is black.
When staff dine out together, black employees are often not included in the conversation, he said.
"You come to realize that you're not part of the gang and you never will be," Luc said.
Other employees frequently badmouth anglophones and other minorities at work, Luc said. They say: "Those têtes carrées. Why should we have to follow their directives?"
Luc said that colleagues often criticize employment equity programs for favouring minorities. "They say, 'Why give jobs to blacks?' "
Luc said one staff member called Arab union members "dogs" and said of the executive of a union: "I'm going to kick out those damn Arabs!"
Both men said they have received sympathetic messages from colleagues across Canada since the hate mail arrived but - aside from a supportive note from regional coordinator Lavoie - not a word of support from their Montreal coworkers.
Jérôme Turcq, PSAC's executive vice-president for the Quebec region, said this is the first time to his knowledge a staff member in the Montreal office has been the victim of racism.
"I don't think they come from my employees," he said of the letters.
PSAC represents about 35,000 workers in Quebec employed by the federal government and universities.
mascot@montrealgazette.com

Asmaaa Mahfouz, a woman behind Egypt’s pro-democracy revolution (The Canadian Charger)

2011-02-05T18:56:00.001-08:00

So much has been written about women's rights in Muslim countries, even citing this issue as a justification for the western military invasion, but the western feminist movement remains largely silent about the current pro-democracy uprising in Egypt.

As a result of miniscule coverage in the western press, perhaps many don't know that Asmaaa Mahfouz – a 26-year-old Egyptian woman – was and is a leading figure in Egypt's three-year old democracy movement.
A founding member of the April 6 Youth Movement – an Egyptian Facebook group started in the spring of 2008 to support workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra - an industrial town north of Cairo - who were planning to strike on April 6 of that year, Ms. Mahfouz graduated from the business management school of the American University of Cairo in 2008.
Upon graduation, Mahfouz emerged as an activist on social media pages throughout Egypt. In 2008, Ms. Mahfouz and other activists connected with the April 6 Movement used the internet to mobilize support for a general strike. As a result, Mahfouz and her family were subjected to harassment by Egyptian security forces.
Subsequently her job as an accountant at Al Shaimaa export and import firm was suspended, due to her political activity in the current protests.
She is considered one of the most important symbols of the January 2011pro-democreacy uprising in Egypt – to the degree that the new Egyptian government that formed after the uprising requested to meet with her, but she declined.
Using Facebook, Twitter and a famous YouTube video and her January 18^th video tape, Ms. Mahfouz rallied thousands of people to participate in the current protests.
On January 31, Asmaa Mahfouz, told Egypt’s Al-Mihwar TV about her decision to use Facebook to take action in Egypt before the Internet was jammed by the Egyptian government.
Her YouTube video is a rallying cry for justice that rivals any the world has ever seen.
She begins by saying that four Egyptians set themselves on fire to protest humiliation, hunger and poverty and degradation, hoping to ignite a revolution like Tunisia, adding, “Maybe we can have freedom, justice, honour and human dignity.”
After posting the video she said she went down to Tahrir square and stood alone holding a banner - even writing her phone number on it - asking people to come and join her, but only three guys came; and all were soon arrested by the security police.
On the video she says: “These self-immolators were not afraid of death, but we're afraid of security forces. Can you imagine that? Are you also like that?
I will not set myself on fire. If the security forces want to set me on fire, let them come and do it. If you think yourself a man, come with me on January 25.
Whoever says that women shouldn't go to protests because they could get beaten, let him have some honour and dignity and come with me on January 25.”
She says anyone who says it's not worth it because there will be only a handful of people, is the reason for the problem.
“I want to tell him that you are the reason behind this and you are a traitor just like the president or any security cop who beats us in the streets. Your presence among us will make a difference. Talk to your neighbours, your colleagues, friends and family. Tell them to come. Sitting home and just following it on the news or on Facebook leads to our humiliation. If you have honour or dignity as a man, come. Come and protect me and other girls in the protest. If you stay at home then you deserve all that's being done to you. And you will be guilty before your nation and your people and you'll be responsible for what happens to us on the streets while you sit at home.”
While many people around the world wonder why the Egyptian people have lost their fear of the authorities after 30-years of iron-fisted rule, individual Egyptians like Ms. Mahfouz are inspiring them. In her video, she implores people not to be afraid of the government.
“Fear none but God. God says, 'He will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.' Do you think you can be safe anymore? None of us are. I'm going down on January 25 and I will say 'No' to corruption. ‘No’ to this regime.”
In a February 1, New York Times article Ms. Mahfouz said that when she posted this video she worried about the reaction that it might generate in a society that expected women to behave in a more subdued and reserved manner.
“I felt that doing this video may be too big a step for me, but then I thought: For how much longer will I continue to be afraid and hesitant? I had to do something,”
To her surprise, dozens of other people picked up on the spirit of her message and started to post their own pictures, holding similar signs to their chests that declared their intent to take to take to the streets on January 25, in what turned out to be the beginning of a revolution almost no one else thought possible.
“As long as you say there is no hope, there will be no hope,” Ms. Mahfouz said. “But if you go down and take a stance, there will be hope.”

Waves of Freedom in Egypt

2011-02-04T13:12:00.000-08:00

One can not express his or her hapiness for the latest development in Egypt. After the quick success in Tunisia, Egyptians were the first to catch the magical spirit of independence and rushed down to Tahrir square. In that huge area in the middle of Cairo at the busy shore of Nile, youth from all Egyptian backgrounds and political parties gathered to tell everybody that "Done with Moubarak and Co. A new Era emerges for Egypt".

All the respect for those living martyrs. They are writing new lines in the history of Egypt and the area. They are teaching all oppressed nations that "Freedom" is there. It just needs some energetic and enthusiastic youth to call it.

Can Islamic Finance add value to the global recovery in 2011?

2011-01-05T16:26:00.000-08:00

This question was posted on the "Islamic Banker" Group on Linked In. Below is my modest comment on that question. I can not claim that I can answer it of course because the Islamic banking sector is one of the poorest in terms of empirical data and statistical resources.

My Comment

I am not sure if the Islamic banks can add to the global recovery because they were in a neutral shell during the crash. Islamic banks do not contribute much to the global growth as well (so far).

If Islamic banks want to add value to the global recovery, they have to fund production at a decent scale. So far, banks were not involved in the production funding mechanism neither in their home countries nor in the west.

Another major area where Islamic banks can create a real value is by enabling the under-utilized Muslim resources in the west. A lot of the Muslim communities in the west are not fully efficient because of the non-friendly environment that is welcoming them to live in and do the low level jobs whatever degrees they have. If Islamic banks want to do well in the recovery of the big west, a good starting point for them is to invest in real projects that benefit the Muslims minorities and consequently the whole economy.

What kind of projects can they get involved in?
The best two sectors to start with is the SME financing and housing. These two sectors are very stable in North America and Western Europe and they have a decent return that can be mutually beneficial to the host countries and the banks as well.

Why would Islamic banks invest in the Muslim minorities activities in the West?
First of all, they will be franc to their original mission statement (creating well fare for the Muslim societies).
Second, Islamic banks have a minor stake in the global economy and they can fund a minor portion of the recovery. If this funding portion is allocated for the under-utilized human resources in the west, the resulting synergies are many folds more important than the yield of investing Islamic banks capital in the conventional investment venues that they pursue.

Honestly !!! honestly.com is the next big thing

2011-01-02T22:24:00.000-08:00

I just got hinted on that website through linkedin.com. This site is looking to harness the web power to profile professionals. The web used to be the place to fame or shame something. However, honestly.com is coming to filter that out and bring in a quasi objective review of people.

Their job requirements are very interesting and reminded me of a Montreal based prove your net-worth project a while ago.

They are building a neat algorithm (shown in the attached image is an advanced algorithm).which forms the the core of the application. Look at the jobs page, at the end and see those questions. This is very impressive and will be another fascinating place to work at.

A thesis research worse than Wikileaks

2010-12-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

Omar Choudary finished his master with an excellent research work. However, this work might be threatening the whole banking industry in Europe and in Canada !!!

"Representatives of the UK banking industry have sent a take-down notice (PDF link) to Cambridge University, demanding that they censor a student's webpage as well as his masters thesis (PDF) . The banks' objection is that the information contained in the report might be used to exploit a vulnerability in the Chip and PIN system, used throughout Europe and Canada for credit and debit card payments. The system was revealed to be fundamentally flawed earlier this year, as it allowed criminals to use a stolen card with any PIN. Cambridge University has resisted the demands and has sent a response to the bankers explaining why they will keep the page online."

This is what we can amazing mind.

Firefox 4 new status bar

2010-12-23T09:13:00.001-08:00

Another amazing aspect of Firefox. It shows the link URL in the right half of the address bar and not in the status bar. This will save some space for browsing.

Firefox 4 is simply amazing

2010-12-22T23:23:00.000-08:00

Firefox is not just one of the free browsers. It is the best with this advanced beta of the new version. The speed is not comparable and the quality of the graphics rendered is really outstanding.

One drawback I have seen is the loss of clarity at the tab title area.

Time value of money in Islamic banking: By Najmul Hassan

2010-12-14T16:23:00.000-08:00

Unlike conventional banking based on interest-bearing loans, funds invested in an Islamic bank are used essentially for trade. There is no room for ambiguity in Islam “every loan that draws a gain is riba.”

Many people question whether Islamic finance differs meaningfully from conventional finance. Outwardly in form, many structures do bear a similarity in various respects. The present day operating environment is a conventional one, from market structuring and dynamics, to rate benchmarks and circulation of money, to regulatory controls as well. However, the way these two types of finances function with respect to core defining parameters is very different. Many things look the same but are in essence differ in fundamental perspectives.

We begin with basic principles. One is interest-based money lending while the other operates like a trading house. What allows this difference? Two core principles lie at the centre, elimination of Riba and Gharar. Any Islamic transaction needs to assess these two things first.

Keeping in mind the definition given in Hadith, one can discuss time value of money and the workings of present day Islamic banks. For this, we would have to look at the differences in ways in which modern capitalist theory views ‘money’ and ‘commodity’ from the principles defined by Islam.

According to capitalist theory, there is no difference between money and commodity in so far as commercial transactions are concerned. Accordingly, both are treated at par and can be sold at whatever price parties agree upon. For them selling Rs100 for Rs110 or renting Rs100 for a monthly rental of Rs10 is the same as selling a bag of rice costing Rs100 for Rs110 or renting a fixed asset costing Rs100 for a monthly rental of Rs10.

Islamic principles differ from this concept as money and commodity have different characteristics, for instance:

money has no intrinsic value but is only a measure of value or a medium of exchange, it is not capable of fulfilling human needs by itself unless converted into a commodity, while on the other hand a commodity can fulfil human needs directly, 

the commodities can be of different quality while money has no differential quality in the sense that a new note of Rs1,000 is exactly equal in value and quality to an old note of Rs1,000,

commodities are transacted or sold by pinpointing the commodity in question or at least by giving certain specifications.


Money however cannot be pinpointed in a transaction of exchange. Even if it is, it would be of no use since the different denominations of money summing into equal amount are exactly the same.

Keeping in view these differences, one would agree that exchanging Rs1000 with Rs1100 in a spot transaction would make no sense since the money in itself has no intrinsic utility or a specified quality and thus the excess of amount on either side is without consideration and hence not allowed under Shariah.

The same would hold true if we were to exchange these Rs1000 with Rs1100 to be delivered after a period of one month, since the excess of Rs100 would be without any consideration of either any utility or quality but only against time.

The same is not true when commodities are involved. Since a commodity is known to posses an intrinsic value and quality, the owner of such a commodity is allowed to sell it at whatever price the buyer and himself mutually agree provided the seller does not commit a fraud but is subjected to the forces of demand and supply. This would hold true even if the price that is mutually agreed upon is higher than the prevailing market price.

In conclusion, any excess amount charged against deferred payment is Riba only where money is exchanged for money, since the excess charged is against nothing but time.

The proof lies in the fact that if the debtor fails to repay at the stipulated time, extra money is charged from him. In contrast, where a commodity is being exchanged for money, the seller may take into consideration different factors (like demand and supply situation, quality, utility, special features etc) including the time of deferred payment.

It is true the seller may take the factor of time in increasing the price of his commodity in credit sale but the increased price is being fixed for the commodity and not exclusively for time nor the time is the exclusive consideration in fixing the price; therefore once the price is fixed it relates to the commodity and not to the time.

For the same reason if the purchaser fails to pay at the agreed time, the price will remain the same and the seller under no circumstances would be allowed to charge more than what he actually owes.

Keeping in mind the above discussion, the use of KIBOR [or LIBOR] as a benchmark by Islamic banks in calculating the selling price of their commodities in Murabaha sale transactions is not only justified but necessary to remain competitive given the current banking industry dynamics in which Islamic banks have a pretty low share in the banking industry.

It must be understood that the use of KIBOR as a benchmark to determine the profit is only for indicative purposes and this does not make the transaction impermissible if all the conditions of a valid sale are fulfilled.

It is quite frequently observed that every trader whether large multinational trading corporations or a roadside store decide on their profit margin rates based on various factors of which a major variable is the competitive environment in which the trader operates his business.

If a rice trader or a cloth merchant uses KIBOR as the basis of adding profit margins to the cost of their commodities and arriving at the price, this would not tantamount to interest or Riba and would not make transaction impermissible.

Similar is the case with Islamic banks when they arrive at the selling price of their commodities using the KIBOR. In contrast conventional banks price their loans based on the KIBOR, which does result in Riba since it is an exchange between money and money and not a sale transaction in which commodities are exchanged with money.

It is being questioned in some circles whether Islamic banks could price their commodities by applying some other benchmark rate. The rationale behind using KIBOR is the banking environment dominated by conventional banks, which discourages the development of an Islamic benchmark rate. However, as more and more Islamic banks come into the operation, an inter-bank market between Islamic banks will be created and a new benchmark for the Islamic banking industry can be developed.

The writer is general manager, corporate and business development, Meezan Bank

www.israel-vs-palestine.com SCAM DO NOT DONATE

2010-12-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

This poll is a mere scam. Please do not donate to it and forget about voting as well. They are just playing on the people feelings to get more vote (in fact more hits for their ads).

Some people are donating as well as if this money will free the violated land. DO NOT DONATE because this is all a game to get people's money and to attract their hits.

Google has nothing to do with it as well. Look at their domain name registry and you will understand why it is all scam.

Phono: A website phone.

2010-11-30T13:17:00.000-08:00

Sales people are always looking for people and they are willing to make cold calls most of the time to reach out to clients.

What about clients making cold calls to the service providers? Phono.com is a new service that allows you to have a phone handset on your website that is always open for your clients to dial in.

It is written in javascript using jQuery and uses Flash to capture audio from the MIC. It is a new revolution in the audio aspect of the web and might change the way business is done.

http://www.phono.com

Yahoo Pipes

2010-11-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

It is a great innovation from Yahoo folks. I has been around for long time but I have seen it only now. It is amazing and visual.
If one would like to enjoy weird programming, s/he should try this piping tool.

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/

2010-11-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

Down the tunnel

light is waiting for you

The more we struggle

The brighter will be your view.

MS patients suffering waiting and surviving. The government is just watching PHARMA sitting on the hands of those struggling.

It is time now for all Canadians to step up for justice and support the patient patients.

We need CCSVI.

We need the light of life.

We need what brings the smile back.

For more info check: http://www.ccsvi.org

Acne medicine clears up MS symptoms

2010-11-02T06:42:00.000-07:00

A well-known acne medication used to treat teens' pimply faces could help delay the onset of multiple sclerosis, a University of Calgary team has discovered.

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?k=28309&id=c1802193-581c-44dd-a197-0cfbc1af5c9d

If the treatment can be that simple, it is surely not related to neurons. In fact, there are a lot of theories claiming that the demyelination is a result for a problem in the other areas of the body and not just because some T-cells went nuts and want to destroy the body.

I hope Neuros would read that and react to it reasonably because patients are paying too much money (and the government as well) to pay for injection bad materials into the human body.

Go CCSVI ... Go Liberation

Web marketing stories: Interest based mortgages and Islamic Finance

2010-11-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

Suddenly out of nowhere, someone emailed me willing to post an article on my slowly dying blog. I accepted the initiative and thanked her for her nice offer.

I noticed a link in the middle of the article pointing to a mortgage publicity website. I did not remove it and thought that adding the website address without the hyper-link would satisfy both parties. However, it seems the whole article was nothing but a hook for that web-link.

I would not mind that on any blog, however, it is kinda unethical to promote cigarettes on stop-smoking blogs. I do not know about her strategy for her web marketing program. However, I am sure that this campaign can not generate sustainable results.

Toshiba Libretto W100: Ultra mobile Ultra Geeky

2010-06-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

This is one of the niciest gadgets I have seen during the past few years.

I think it will create a good hit. It might be too late to invest in Toshiba stock now as the strong form efficient market should have expected the increasing sales and the boosted price. There is stilll room for price improvement because Toshiba's innovations hit the market gradually. Hence, if you are a risk averse investor who accepts a low return, wait until mid July to ride the wave. If you are looking for low two-digits return, rush with the late early birds.

Dr. Zamboni's CCSVI Doppler Demonstration

2010-06-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

Best video demonstration to show what is really happening in the veins of MS patients.

Requesting help from Canadian Vascular Surgeons and Interventional Radio...

2010-06-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

Emergency Treatment of Barb Farrell, patient dying in Barrie of CCSVI related MS

2010-06-12T22:41:00.001-07:00

This was a letter sent to the health minister regarding the case of a lady struggling with her MS.

Dear Honorable Matthews,

Today I was horribly touched to read this story http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2619856 about Bard Farell. She is was so unfortunate that the medical system is punishing her in Canada, the land of justice and human rights, for something she has nothing to do with.

First of all, I feel so sorry for her because she is one of the 75000 MS patients in Canada who are suffering because of the “Diagnose and Adios” status quo. Second, she is fighting for her life right now. At this time she lies in a bed with no hope of being treated because Multiple Sclerosis , the unknown immune disease, has no acceptable treatment yet except the pills that have not helped any patient for the past few decades.

In the hospital, the most they were able to do for her is to feed her with a tube and wait for her destiny. She was planned for the chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI) liberation. However, her procedure was cancelled because this treatment is still a controversy. More than 1000 patients were able to benefit of this liberation so far that does nothing but clean some blocked veins in the neck of the patient.

I took the initiative to write to you and I have never met her or spoke to her. I am in Montreal at the other end of the country but I have a wife suffering as well and I know how hard is for the man to see his life partner suffering and counting down her remaining days. I pray that no other human being suffer from this unknown sickness. I lost a friend because of MS in Lebanon and now I am struggling with my wife and my two babies in Canada as well.

You can not imagine the situation of the MSer and people around them. The liberation procedure will offer her some hope of recovery is an angioplasty of the veins in the neck and spine, and is performed by interventional radiologists as an exceedingly safe procedure. Dr. MacDonald presented to a parliamentary sub-committee recently along with 2 of his patients who were treated for CCSVI before he was ordered to stop; those patients are getting better. You can see the videos. It might be placebo. However, this “placebo” (if ever) has been working very well for more than 1000 patients.

Today, by a simple decision, you can help save this woman’s life.

Tomorrow, by a simple decision, you can start a process to save the lives of 75000 patients across Canada.

Liberating blocked veins by a balloon does not add risk to the lives of MS patients. If they have blocked veins, they have all the rights in the world to be treated.

The medical systems are very complicated and very slow. We just ask for justice and for equal rights.

May you please read the article above and let your mind judge her situation. We, the people suffering from MS, are not asking for much. We are just asking you, the honorable, to exercise your good, compassionate judgment and give this woman and her suffering family a chance to smile again. Yes just a smile. For people with MS in the family, a smile can be very very expensive.

May you please accept our sincere regards and grant Bard your approval for something that will alleviate her pain and boost her hopes for a better future.

Best regards

WaW Namou- Libya: A paradise in the desert

2010-03-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

MS and non-pathogenic bacterium causes

2010-03-25T12:48:00.000-07:00

A non-pathogenic bacterium is capable of triggering an autoimmune disease similar to multiple sclerosis in the mouse, the model animal which helps to explain how human diseases work. This is what a group of researchers from the Catholic University of Rome, led by Francesco Ria (Institute of General Pathology) and Giovanni Delogu (Institute of Microbiology), have explained for the first time in a recently published article on the Journal of Immunology.

Multiple sclerosis is caused by an inflammatory reaction provoked by the immune system, leading to disruption of the coating of the nerve fibres in the Central Nervous System.

"We do not know what causes multiple sclerosis", explains Francesco Ria, immunologist of the Catholic University. "We know that there exists a genetic factor and an environmental factor, but we do not yet possess a satisfactory theory which can explain how exactly this environmental factor works".

Currently, there are two competing theories in the field: according to a first hypothesis, a virus hides within the brain and what causes the disease is the immunologic antiviral reaction. On the other hand, the second hypothesis states that a viral or bacterial pathogen similar to specific molecules of the Central Nervous System causes an inflammation which provokes a reaction of the immune system. This reaction ends up destroying the brain cells. The latter is called the autoimmune hypothesis. you can read the full report at http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/180584.php

Cross burning must stop: end racial hatred today (By SENATOR DONALD OLIVER)

2010-03-15T22:43:00.001-07:00

OTTAWA—Building a cross that will burn is not an act undertaken in the heat of the moment. Rather, it takes deliberate forethought, time and effort. You must soak the wood in kerosene or coal oil for hours, if not days. You have to nail the boards together and then carve a point at one end to drive the cross into the ground. To build a cross that will burn, you must think about it, plan it, and work at it.

That is why setting that cross alight in the middle of the night to frighten a family is such a powerful act of racial hatred. The symbolism is equally odious. It harkens back to the dark days of the Ku Klux Klan in the deep American south, whose members lit crosses on the lawns of the homes and gathering places of Jews,Catholics and blacks decades ago.

It is hard to imagine how such a deliberate act of racial hatred could happen today—especially in Canada. However, it did occur mere days ago in Hants County, Nova Scotia, as a family of seven awoke to find a large flaming cross in their yard. A noose dangled from it and they could hear shouts of “Die, nigger die.” As The Globe and Mail reports, this act “shocked whites but reconfirmed for many blacks their nickname of the province as the ‘Mississippi of the North.’ ”

As a native Nova Scotian and a black man, this reprehensible act sickens me deeply, especially since it took place during one of the most memorable Black History Months in recent years. This past February, Canada finally recognized the contributions of two heroic black Nova Scotians to our country and witnessed a long-awaited and important apology to blacks in Halifax.

On Feb. 24, the same day that police arrested the two young men allegedly responsible for the cross burning in Hants County, the City of Halifax apologized for the destruction of the community of Africville. In the 1960s, the city evicted nearly 100 families of this vibrant 150-yearold black community from their homes and then levelled their church and properties to make way for a bridge to Dartmouth.

As Mayor Peter Kelly acknowledged, “The repercussions of what happened in Africville linger to this day. They haunt us in the form of lost opportunities for young people who were never nurtured in the rich traditions, culture and heritage of Africville.” As part of the negotiated settlement, the city will transfer two acres of municipal land to build a replica of the Africville church and an interpretive centre. Halifax will also devote more than $3-million to the construction and endowment of the Church and centre. This is in addition to several hundred thousand dollars from the provincial and federal governments.

Earlier in February, the Canadian military also posthumously awarded Private Jeremiah “Jerry” Jones with the Canadian Forces Medallion for Distinguished Service. After nearly a century after the fact, this Medallion recognizes the heroism of Private Jones at Vimy Ridge, when he “crossed the bloody battlefield and took an enemy machine gun nest.” Even though his commanding officer at the time recommended him for a Distinguished Conduct Medal, Jerry Jones never received one— because he was black. Yet he continued to serve his country with distinction, and finally returned home after he was wounded at Passchendaele.

In addition, the Canadian Navy and the Black Cultural Society of Nova Scotia joined Canada Post at the Black Cultural Centre in Cherry Brook this past Black History Month, to celebrate the launch of a stamp recognizing William Hall.

William Hall, who was born in Nova Scotia in 1827, served with the Royal Navy, where he was seconded to the Naval Brigade during the Indian Mutiny. William Hall became the first Canadian, and the first person of African ancestry, to receive the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration in the British Empire.

This recognition of an outstanding Black Canadian was long overdue. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that everyone in this country is equal before the law. It prohibits discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour or religion.

The Canadian Human Rights Act stipulates that every individual should have an equal opportunity to make the life he or she is able and wishes to have, again without fear of discrimination. The Canadian Citizenship Act says all Canadians are entitled to the same rights, powers and privileges.

Despite all this, and despite the many important contributions of blacks and other visible minorities to this country, we still face discrimination and race hatred. Most of the time, this racism is subtle, systemic and insidious. Yet occasionally, like the cross burning in Hants County, it is overt, deliberate and all that more disturbing.

For example, in recent years we have learned of Asian-Canadian anglers assaulted while fishing on Lake Simcoe, 80 kilometres north of Toronto. They were pushed into the lake, their gear destroyed and windshields smashed. In Quebec, we heard about a young girl prevented from playing soccer because she wears a hijab. And even today, anti-Semitic events continue to occur in Canada, from rocks thrown through synagogue windows to toppled gravestones.

The reality is that racism has been a part of Canada’s past and it is a part of our present. And it remains a problem—one that is largely invisible, hugely underestimated and wholly pervasive. Many Canadians deny that fact. They are wrong.

Martin Jacques, a white journalist, believes that most whites “are peculiarly and uniquely insensitive to race and racism.

... Even when well-meaning, they remain strangely ignorant.” As he also believes, “Wishing (racism) wasn’t true, denying it is true, will never change the reality. We can only understand—and tackle racism—if we are honest about it. And when it comes to race—more than any other issue—honesty is in desperately short supply.”

So, let’s be honest and challenge the lie that racism is not an issue anymore in Canada. Let’s face the fact that deliberate acts of racial hatred are more than simply symbolic. They are symptomatic of a disease that continues to infect Canada. Let’s take all necessary steps to end racism now—from promoting wider education and greater public awareness, to enacting stronger laws with tougher punishment for racist acts. After all, isn’t it high time that we did?

news@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

By SENATOR DONALD OLIVER

The letter left by the IRS attacker. As copied from his site on the 18th of Feb, 2010

2010-02-18T11:26:00.000-08:00

If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.

While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.

And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!

How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.

How did I get here?

My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.

On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.

The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.

In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.

Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer... and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).

SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.

(a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.

Note:

· "another person" is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.

· "taxpayer" is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.

· "individual", "employee", or "worker" is you.

Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”. Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.

Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.

Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.

By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.

To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.

So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.

When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.

This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.

I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.

As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Joe Stack (1956-2010)

02/18/2010

http://embeddedart.com/

Excel VLOOKUP() returns wrong results

2010-02-10T19:51:00.000-08:00

I was trying VLOOKUP with a huge array of numerical data and it was returning the wrong results. I did some search on the internet but the results were not really helpful.
I turned to the Excel 2007 help and I found the solution as the following:

range_lookup Optional. A logical value that specifies whether you want VLOOKUP to find an exact match or an approximate match:
If range_lookup is either TRUE or is omitted, an exact or approximate match is returned. If an exact match is not found, the next largest value that is less than lookup_value is returned. Important If range_lookup is either TRUE or is omitted, the values in the first column of table_array must be placed in ascending sort order; otherwise, VLOOKUP might not return the correct value.
For more information, see Sort data.
If range_lookup is FALSE, the values in the first column of table_array do not need to be sorted.
If the range_lookup argument is FALSE, VLOOKUP will find only an exact match. If there are two or more values in the first column of table_array that match the lookup_value, the first value found is used. If an exact match is not found, the error value #N/A is returned.

So omitting the range_lookup value would be interpreted as true which leads approximate matching. It seems excel prefers to use approximate matching instead of exact matching when the range_lookup is not specified. This is werid and against the common sense :)

General notes for linking databases

2010-01-26T13:49:00.000-08:00

I was thinking of writing about this linkage issues between financial databases. However, I found out that Jie Cao was faster than me. So I quoted him instead of rewriting what he has documented already (http://ihome.cuhk.edu.hk/~b121456/tools.html).

NCUSIP is the historical CUSIP and changes over time. CUSIP is the current CUSIP and does not change over time. A historical NCUSIP during a specific period will correspond to only one current CUSIP. [www.cusip.com]
The NCUSIP in Thomson, I/B/E/S, ISSM, TAQ and Option-Metrics is labeled as 'CUSIP'.
In Compustat, CNUM + first 2 digit of CIC is the CUSIP.
The major matching variable across databases are NCUSIP and then Ticker.
The CUSIP-NCUSIP transition file builds a link between NCUSIP and CUSIP as well as PERMNO at a specified time interval. [Download the transition file here]
For ISSM database, all NYSE and AMEX stocks from 1983 to 1992, and NASDAQ stocks after 1990 can be matched by NCUSIP. NASDAQ stocks before 1990 could be matched by SMBL, which at a given month & exchange corresponds to the Ticker in CRSP.
For TAQ databse, stocks can be matched by the first 8 digits of TAQ's 12-digit NCUSIP.
Mutual Fund Links (MFLINKS) connects CRSP mutual fund information to Thomson (S12) mutual fund holding data.
Matching by company or fund name is difficult as the last resort. The SAS function 'SPEDIS" can determine the likelihood of two words matching.
Extra efforts are needed for a precise matching. See this sample SAS Code to generate a link between I/B/E/S and CRSP using multiple identifiers. (Internet connection and access to both I/B/E/S and CRSP data at WRDS are required)

CUSIP and CFMRC Dataset

2010-01-06T13:42:00.000-08:00

If you would work with Canadian stocks info data, you would notice that CFMRC (the leading database for Canadian securities and the equivalent of CRPS (for US stocks) does not always list the CUSIP identifier with the data.

CUSIP is highly important to link the CFMRC data with other databases as tickers are not always reliable. In CFMRC (the Windows client), CUSIP is not produced in all formats. One has to select the extended format to get CUSIP in the output.

Investing in Gold with non-USD

2009-11-26T08:40:00.000-08:00

Greetings,
The move of the USD and the gold prices are very interesting these days and can be easily exploited by non-USD holders.

When the USD devaluate, the gold prices would hike and the non-USD currency as well (CAD for example). Hence the net profit would be a bit less (in CAD) because there is a gain in the gold price but a loss because of the currency exchange.

However, this might protect the downside when the USD gains in value. In this case, the price of gold (very short term) would decrease. However, the conversion into CAD would give an extra profit (due to currency gains).

This is not a perfect relation (although it is linear and might hold under various conditions). However, it might encourage people to invest if they want to avoid the steep downturns.

Amazon PayPhrase Integration for a Shopping Cart: Too complicated

2009-11-25T08:33:00.000-08:00

I have been reading about the PayPhrase for a while and trying to figure out a way to integrate it into one of my clients' shopping cart. The system looks promising but it is not as simple as it is especially for merchants to understand.

At one end, it really simplifies lives for frequent book buyers (they are not few on the net). All you have to do is to create your payphrase and your pin on Amazon site and then you can use it on any third party site. It is an interesting way for Amazon to capitalize on its One-Click-Buy system for other websites.

It might be more secure as well so people do not have to leave their private information on any third party site. In addition, one can limit the allowed balance that can be used with this method for a given period. This is great to let teenagers knew that there is a limit for shopping online.

The downsides are not few! First of all, the configuration is really tough. It requires developers of shopping carts to comply with Amazon. Developers are really bad to simplify things and it seems the PayPhrase developers could not go our of their engineering environment when they have designed this flow chart.

Although it is not very hard. However, it can be simplified. I was showing the system to a developer to handle this task and he thought that it would take him for ever to build such a plugin to integrate one popular e-commerce system (Magento) with Amazon PayPhrase. It is not in fact, but the way it is being described in this schema discourage people.

In addition, the XML orders report is not well structured and can be smoothed further. The same can be said about the return information to the merchant site which is the most important: They are not enough. Much more parameters should be added and defined in order to allow people to explain better to the client what happened.

Security is another major concern as much of the information is being sent using front end tools (JS and AJAX). I did not have much time to look into this but Front End tools have higher odds of being affected by spyware.

Canadian Gold in the eyes of the Southern Neighbours !!!

2009-11-10T09:45:00.000-08:00

It is very interesting to see how Americans look at Canadian goods including the most precious goods ever (Golden bullion).

When reading the following story, you should take into consideration that both countries share the same economic values although the social values are widely different.

“Mark Dice, a California native, tried to sell a one ounce Canadian gold bullion coin for $50 but no one knew how much it was worth, nor were they interested. Unfortunately for them, one ounce of gold is $1,100 USD. According to Daily Paul, Mark Dice, founder of The Resistance and proponent of the 9/11 Truth Movement, stood in a California neighborhood near the beach trying to sell a one ounce Canadian gold coin but nobody in the area had the vaguest idea of how much it was worth nor were they interested. Some were not interested just because it was Canadian. Dice talked to one couple and the gentleman said it is actually worth $200. Majority of people who Dice asked said they did not have any money on them nor would they pay anything for the gold coin, not even $5 or a Starbucks cup of coffee. In the past, Dice has produced similar videos where he asked students at Berkeley what year the September 11, 2001 attacks occurred and surprisingly no one knew the answer.” –from Digital Journal.com

Best business Use for Google Wave

2009-11-08T05:53:00.001-08:00

This entry would be a simple copy-paste for a thred that I have started on Google Wave with some business friends to read their impression about Google Wave.

Greetings,

As you can see, Wave is far from being a replacement for regular email and even Group Ware.

I think it would be very nice to help prepare for a visual presentation, to prepare a project that involves meetings and a lot of take and give.

It is very nice also to collaborate in a Sudoko game. I have tried that ;) I have not tried the video chat but I guess it is not synchronous. Maybe each one would upload his own video clip and pass it on. Or it would be like a web video chat applet that facilitates the start of a video conference.

Document versioning is another great feature as well for shared reporting. It helps keep track of what is going on with the wave.

Can you please suggest other usages that are important for you in your work?

I wanted to say that I have selected some of the contacts I have in my list but I could not remove after that any of them. Do you face the same situation or there is a hidden way to remove a contact from a wave after adding it?

I was asking about the business needed features in order to write about this aspect.

How can you add someone with just an email account (not a wave account yet)? I read that there would be inter-operable servers but until that time, I think Google Wave is the only venue.

When Google would launch this service publicly, do you think people are willing to adopt it like emails? Other competitors would not follow google on this for sure and we might end up with some communications tools for Microsoft for example that can not communicate with the Wave. Do you expect this?

Feel free to contribute to this message and feel free to discard it as well.

A drunk President: Medvedev

2009-11-07T15:02:00.000-08:00

Yelstine went out of the white house in his underwear looking for a taxi after drinking 4 gallons or more.
Sarkouzi had one of his worst political press meeting after getting several bottles

Now this is the turn of Medvedev. Look at him and guess what kind of people are ruling our world.

The Novice: How I became a Buddhist Monk, Why I quit and What I learned

2009-11-03T12:50:00.000-08:00

I am always interested to read about religions and compare one to another for the sake of enlightenment and moral enrichment.

I have seen people in the West going into Buddhism, Islam, Atheism, Catholicism... and people leaving their original religions as well and looking into the no-religion, no-belief, or the radical move into something totally contradicting with their own past.

This book talk about the rich experience of Stephen's, the frustrated Catholic in dreary England, from his own teenager self into the eventual happiness in India as a Monk. This "relentless truth seeker" has looked deep into Buddhism, meditation, enlightenment, and Monk's philosophy. However, at the end, all of these could not satisfy his need for the truth and decided to go back.

Back into what? This is not clear from his book but I bet that he would be continuing looking for the real truth somewhere else in order to avoid being raked through the embers of his past as a Catholic first and his past as a Monk when he devoted his entire [mature] self for the study and practice of this new religion and culture that looks appealing from the first sight.

However, after some analysis, Shettini found out that although he was teaching, learning, and worshiping, he could not go out of his frustration and sadness. It was all prescriptive for him.

Finally, he left us with a lot of lessons in his text and I bet that any reader would be impressed with his focus and direction to the conclusion he made.

New CIBC Unlimited Business Operating Account

2009-10-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

The adverstisement for this account made it very interesting. However, once you decide to contact the bank, there is another story.

The main call center which number is announced on the ad will respond to you quickly. However, once you ask them about this account, they will say. Ohhh what? then Ohh no you have to contact the business division of the branch directly.
Ask them for the number??? then she will be: Oh I lost it. Wait. Then you have to wait for two other minutes until she can fetch up the number for the biggest branch in Montreal. Of course she is in a hurry so she would not even ask if you need anything else and close the phone.

Call the branch, they would not give you any information on the phone as if you are asking them about the bank secrets. So unless you want to book an appointment and go wait for someone to meet you at the branch, you can not get any single bit of information.

It might be time for some Canadian banks to open up and learn how to do business for the century.

Free/Open content aspects of Wikipedia

2009-09-26T07:43:00.000-07:00

Free/Open content aspects of Wikipedia

·         Schroer and Hertel (2009) examine the voluntarily engagement and motivation in an open web-based encyclopedia such as the German Wikipedia. A survey of 106 wikipedians reveals that the main motivations are perceived benefits and perceived task characteristics such as autonomy, skill variety and self-reported engagement.

·         Wagner (2007) looks into the feasibility of open collaborative contributions to Wikipedia. They found out that Wikipedians have collaborative and individual motives but the altruistic motives are stronger. The authors relate the success of Wikipedia to the superior “wiki way” of collaboration.

·         Nov (2007) looks at Wikipedia as an outstanding example of collective openly generated content for knowledge sharing. The ideology itself is the main motivator while other social or career motivations are not significant in this research.
Wiki research involving Wikipedia

·         Korfiatis et al (2006) evaluate collaborative contributions to wikis using social network metrics applied to Wikipedia and found out that the reliability challenge increases with the size of Wikipedia and as more controversial topics is added.

·         Black (2008) explores the usage of content-malleable systems such as Wikipedia for academic purposes. It finds out that the peer review model for academic knowledge dissemination should be updated to keep up with the flow of academic knowledge controlled by old models that should be radically reconstructed.

·         Denning et al (2005) questions the reliability of collaborative knowledge creation that lacks formal review process using Wikipedia as the sample data set. The authors do not conclude with an affirmative answer as whether inaccuracies are purposeful and controlled.
Wikipedia as a data source

·         Luyt et al (2008) investigate the ongoing criticism on using Wikipedia as a key information source but could not establish enough statistical support that surviving portions of the articles enhance its quality.

·         Delsaut (2005) attempt to respond to the questions whether the Wikipedia information can be of interest for information professionals and demonstrate the various advantages of Wikipedia as an open encyclopedia. [FRENCH]

·         Caraco (2004) asserts that Wikipedia might be quickly of interest for French librarians although its credibility is not established. [FRENCH]

·         Fry (2006) studies the trustworthiness of Wikipedia as a source of information and concludes that Britannica ahs a lower error rate and, furthermore, that Wikipedia is not reliable enough.
Trends in Wikipedia contribution: quantitative or qualitative

·         McFedries (2006) examine the wiki collaboration as a subset of “crowdsourcing” where the size matters. Wikipedia presents the biggest crowd for such a model and the author concludes that it is effective because it has more contributors and more effective “social filtering that weeds out the chaff and promotes the wheat”.

·         Zlatic et al (2006) analyses the complex networks of Wikipedias in several languages and compare them to other previously studied networks. The authors show that several behaviors are exhibit through the various networks such as: clustering, reciprocity, growth, distributions, assortativitiy, and triad significance profiles which prove the existence of a growth process.

·         Miller (2005) reviews briefly the collaborative radical behavior of Wikipedians and their unformulated authoring temperament.
Trends in usage of Wikipedia

·         Leong and Hassan (2008) demonstrate how to use Wikipedia as a semantic tool to construct a directional inferential similarity metrics for words and texts. The article proves that a Wikipedia based metric brings in significant enhancement and reduces the error rates found with other metrics.

·         Hepp et al (2007) shows how the Wikipedia articles URIs identify reliably web knowledge resources and uses these URIs to estimates rank various concepts.

·         Shi et al (2008) propose an innovative automatic algorithm to extract keywords or key-phrases from Wikipedia based on lexical methods in order to graph the semantic relation between documents and associated candidate key phrases. Encouraging results are found and the regression model yields better quality for candidate matching.
Literature reviews

·         Okoli (2009) reviews previous studies on Wikipedia from different point of views including: how and why Wikipedia works, assessments of the reliability of content, using it as a data source for other scholarly studies, and how Wikipedia is used in various disciplines.
Web 2.0

·         Yap (2008) uses innovations evidences from Wikipedia and other online social networks to invstigate the concept of Web 2.0 from business point of view and to see whether Web 2.0 pardigm would change the market mechanisms. The authors conclude that Web 2.0 mindset would lead to a new business 2.0 paradigm where merchants cooperate together to deliver higher quality products.

·         Castelluccio (2008) asserts that the collaboration medium on wikis (especially Wikipedia) would create a new Internet.

·         Short (2008) examines the risks that Web 2.0 bring to the corporate world because of increased uncontrollable interactivity on Wikipedia and other social networks where authenticity and transparency are doubtful.

Giving: Helping the oneself

2009-09-11T07:47:00.000-07:00

Islam teaches total trust. The faith assures the believers that giving generously will not decrease their Rizq (provisions and properties) in any way, but rather increase them. Giving not only satisfies the needs of the poor and disadvantaged but also benefits the giver, whose righteous generosity returns invaluable riches of peace and satisfaction; his/her heart is protected from the earth-quakes of rancor and jealousy, and he/she is saved from the adverse consequences of selfishness and narrow-mindedness. It’s a simple but profound spiritual equation: By giving we are helping ourselves.

Islam considers greedy and avaricious mentality at this level as very cheap and mean, for it is a faith that seeks to nourish charity and generosity all the time. Almighty Allah says in the Qur’an: “So be aware of Him as much as you can; listen and obey; and spend charity for the benefit of your own soul. And whoever is saved from his own greediness, then they are successful ones.” {At Tagabun 16}

It was also reported that the Messenger of Allah said: “Protect yourself against the fire [of judgment against you], even if it be only by (giving) a piece of date; and if one cannot even fulfill this, then by saying a good word.” {Muslim}

This month of Ramadan is a great and enriching opportunity to spend for the sake of Allah. We have many chances and choices from among the projects in our community:

The needy and poor at home
Sisters and brothers and sisters in poor Muslim communities all over the world.
Give your Zakat cheerfully to purify both your property and your soul.
Give Sadaqat ul Fitr to help rid yourself of bad attitudes, vain thoughts and useless speech in the month of Ramadan.
Finally, give Sadaqat ul Jariyah (permanent charity) to support community projects – all this nourishes and maintains our Muslim identity in the best possible way.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a7czPxiw-z1BtU2JdEBevKtk-Q2xMieSQWeDWmVhWF0/edit

The arabic blogoshpere

2009-07-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

Harvard Cyber Law department has published a very serious and interesting study (Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent) about the traits observed in the Arabic blogosphere. It has very interesting remarks that are common but this is the first time they are documented.

It is very interesting to see that the National interest is stronger than the Islamic feeling for the young bloggers. Although the political Islam is present in the affiliation of bloggers whether for or against.

It is not weird that Egyptians have the largest network on the sphere but what it is very interesting and deserve further research is that half of bloggers are females. This might be due to the fact that a lot of females are at home or because females need a higher level of cyber freedom to compensate for the real life limited freedom they have. I tend to agree with the former reason and disagree with the later.

Another interesting study and maybe more significant is to study the behavior of Arabic forum contributers because forums are still more important in the Arabic world and more descriptive. There are some Arabic forums that are way more important that the most important blog on this blogosphere. It is harder to code forums because of the many contributors and the naming tricks in Arabic though.

I have been running a forum for the past 9 years and contributing to several others and I notice that people still opt to write in forums to get more serious readers and start a longer term dialog.

Sisterhood and brotherhood in the age of globalization

2009-07-06T03:39:00.000-07:00

A priceless image on which no comment can be added

Jana told me (June 20th, 2009)

2009-06-21T03:16:00.000-07:00

She came back from Lebanon full of energy and enthusiasm. She is still missing her grand parents and looking for my mother around the house from time to time.

Today she started yelling: "Ya Bila..." around the house. We are happy to see her recognizing some words and some language structures as well. Her mother is not happy though to see our daughters calling us with our names instead of "Mama" and "Papa".

Jana called me more than 100 times "Ya Bila..." and I was always answering her "Na3am" (yes in Arabic). This issue reminded me of this clip:

What is this?

I am not sure whether she would, when she gets older, that I call her by her name more than 100 times in one hour !!!

Dealing with Zotero collections

2009-05-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

Zotero offers some nice API functions for collection management.

Zotero.Collections() return an array to all the collections in the current library. I am not sure how this will handle shared collections but it is worth investigation.
Zotero.Collection is an object that will handle everything related to a Zotero collection.

To add a new collection, one can:

Add the row directly to the DB. A dirty solution that used to work for version 1.* until 1.5 beta. However, it stopped working with version 2.* (the beta version at least) because the key field in collections table can not be empty anymore.
Use Zotero.Collections.Add(__collection_name__) and reference the new object

// Create a Zotero collection object

newCollection = new Zotero.Collection();

To add items to a collection, the direct DB query is still working but I would not advise you to use it as it will break the stability of the DB sometimes. So the better approch is to use Collection.addItem() or Collection.addItems() methods.

newCollection.addItem(duplicateItemID);

Javascript Date Format

2009-05-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

Just a small note, Javascript has two functions for the Date.Year. I needed to use the Full year function but unintentionally I have used getYear() function.

The correct method is getFullYear()

Zotero Database Abstraction

2009-05-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

It should be noted that the database abstraction layer for Zotero is still not complete. The authors noted that
// Until the native dataset methods work (or at least exist),
// we build a multi-dimensional associative array manually

It took me a while to understand how I can get query results from Zotero.DB. It was mentioned in one of the functions comments but was not clarified in a document file. The query returns varies depending on the query type as per the following comments on the Zotero.DB.query() function

* Run an SQL query
*
* Optional _params_ is an array of bind parameters in the form
*        [1,"hello",3] or [{'int':2},{'string':'foobar'}]
*
*     Returns:
*     - Associative array (similar to mysql_fetch_assoc) for SELECT's
*    - lastInsertId for INSERT's
*    - TRUE for other successful queries
*    - FALSE on error

You should notice in the first comment that the SELECT Query would return an associative array that is built by Zotero coders and not a native multidimentional javascript array.

The easiest way to parse such an array is to use a For Each loop or a while loop.
            for (duplicateItems in potentialDuplicateItems)
                {
                //
                // Get each row now
                //
                var oneRow = potentialDuplicateItems[duplicateItems];
                idsArray[duplicateItems] = oneRow['ID'];
                }
Make sure you use the correct index to read from each row or you might get a lot of undefined errors. Errors are not bad but when you are developing for a firefox extention and you have to restart your browser for each test or correction, it might become a hassle.

Zotero Extension Development

2009-05-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

I beleive that Zotero is the future of Reference Management. This tool is free, nice, simple, and powerful.
I am developing some simple extenstions for it and I wanted to share this experience with other readers who might be interested in that.

The documentation on extension development for Zotero is still not adequare and I would love to help anyone who is looking for help.

What if we treat the Quran like our cell phones?

2009-03-10T15:55:00.001-07:00

Cell phone vs Quran

Ever wonder what would happen if we treated our Quran like we treat our cell phone?

What if we carried  it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we flipped  through it several time a day?
What if we turned  back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we used it  to receive messages from the text?
What if we treated  it like we couldn't live without it?
What if we gave it  to kids as gifts?
What if we used it  when we traveled?
What if we used it  in case of emergency?
his is something  to make you go....hmm...where is my Quran?
Oh, and one more  thing.

Unlike our cell  phone, we don't have to worry about our Quran being disconnected
Makes you stop and think 'where are my priorities? And  no dropped calls!

Researh tools

2008-12-31T12:35:00.000-08:00

I have noted earlier that going into academia is a long quest and require high levels of dedicaiton, perseverance and commitment. This is not enough, one needs a toolbox to proceed with.

I would put here a lot of the items that are extremly important for any research discsipline. I will follow with another list of tools that are needed for financial reaserch.

For any kind of research one needs:

Strong exposure to research methodology, ethics, and norms
Solid comprehension of statistics and statistical measures, tests and appropriate interpretation
Clear style for reviewing the literature
Access to academic scholary databases and libraries
Critical understanding and assessement of literature
Ability to narrow down on a resaerch topic that is not too wide and not too narrow.
Ability to classify and organize readings on the go

The approaches I suggest to fulfil the above:

Following a strong reaseach methodology course with an experiences professor. Unfortunately, I have seen so many methodology courses that fit anywhere but in a methodological paradigm. Students coming from different backgrounds into the Phd program, needs refined methodological courses that help them find their way into the academic research areana and fix their feets. I had to read a lot on my own to cover this gap in my studies. Yet, I can not claim that I mastered the methodology I should follow.
Invest enough time to grasp all the required stastical concepts and know the ins and outs of the statistal package mostly used for that discsipline. It would save you tens of hours in modeling and debugging if you really know the tool you are using extremly well.
Work with an experienced researcher on the literature review part in order to improve your skills and learn the tricks that others are following. This would be a great step to get you on track with something that is easier to collect, classify, digest and then reproduce from your resaerch point of view. There are a lot of tools that would help succeed in doing a great literature review. One of my supervisor advised me to get this book: "Fink, A. (1998). Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From Paper to the Internet. Sage Publications, Inc.". It is available on amazon but I have borrowed it from Concordia University library. There is another resource to hint on how to conduct your own review at this page:
```
The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It
```
The last point I woudl like to mention in this area is the access to a rich collection of books and electronic resources. Your unversity library should have a lot of what you are looking for. Do not let books sitting on cold dark shelves. Go on and use those books. We are paying a lot for these collections and more than 80% of it goes by unnoticed for many years. In the golden age of libraries, we used to find books with torn pages. Now, I get a lot of books untouched. Really brand new. I would like to note that Concordia Library has one of the richest collections I have even seen in a Library especially for some disciplines that students rearely goes into. We are very lucky in Montreal, if the book is not available in Concordia, McGill is there, HEC or even UQAM. A wealth of knowlege waiting for someone to dig and mine into its pages.

In addition to that, one needs real tools to get the job done. I will not talk about these tools in details now. I would just list them:

Fink's book
Statistical Packages (Matlab in my case)
Firefox and Zotero (For bibliographical referncing). I prefer Zotero over RefWorks or EndNotes.
mediaWiki (Really? Are you sure? Yes absolutely)

A fresh start

2008-12-22T10:48:00.000-08:00

It is not easy to claim that Phd can be made easy. It is a long term quest that needs at least 5-6 years investment.

I spent three years so far in my Phd program at John Molson School of Business and I am looking foward toward finishing in two years maximum in order to catch with the market that might collapse or might run up again. Either way, staying for a long term in here is not the best option for any student because of the high opportunity cost associated with longer term studies.

Anyway, I might go back to ponder upon the social aspects of Phd studies later on. However, for the time begin, I would like to dedicate this blog for my research experience. I do not have a long experience so far as I just strated serious research work last term only. However, I would like to present my observations in here in case someone is looking at organizing his own work in a better way.

I do not claim that I am talking about my own knowledge. Rather, I will be talking about what I am learning from my supervisors:

Dr Kryzanowski is my supervisor for my dissertation in Finance, while I am working with Dr. Okoli on a side research about Wikipedia because I have a keen interest in the wiki model from an MIS point of view.

On this blog, I would note my research observations from time to time and add everything I am learning as time allows in order to keep a reference for someone who came fresh to the Phd program as I did three years ago.

Skilled labour rules may be loosened

2008-12-15T06:58:00.000-08:00

By DAVID AKIN
December 15, 2008

The federal government is changing a key immigration rule it says will help Canadian companies more easily find skilled foreign labour.
Ottawa is announcing today that such skilled professionals as engineers, accountants or professors from the U.S. or Mexico will be able to get three-year long work permits instead of one-year permits.
"We are trying to get all the skilled people we can to Canada quickly," Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said in a telephone interview from Vancouver. "The last thing we want is to strangle a Canadian company that's ready to grow because of a shortage of labour."
Canada grants about 5,150 such permits every year. Most, about 5,000, are for Americans coming to work in Canada and the rest are for Mexicans coming to work here.
"I talk to employers all the time who do not get even one job application when they put a help wanted ad in the newspaper," Kenney said. "Even though we are going into a period of economic difficulty, we continue to have a number of skilled labour shortages in certain areas of the economy."
Kenney said granting work permits in three-year increments will help Canadian companies because employers will be able to count on a skilled import to complete a project. The government says this makes Canadian companies more competitive and can help lower costs.
"This is about less paperwork, less red tape and less waiting time," Kenney said.
The Canadian rule change follows a similar one made in October by U.S. authorities that allow Canadian engineers, computer scientists and other professionals to obtain three-year work permits in the U.S. Mexico is also considering such a change.

What is God for you??

2008-12-12T15:15:00.000-08:00

Isn't He the one Whom you'll be able to talk to anytime and without taking any previous appointment?

Isn't He the One Whom you'll be asking for anything, anytime, freely and unconditionally?

Isn't He the One Who will always be there whether you are aware of Him or not?

Isn't He the One Who will ever be with you irrespective of whoever has left you?

Isn't He after all the One who deserves all your attention, love, and obedience... isn't He the One and Only One who deserves to be worshiped?

Source: What does God mean to you?

SONY Innovative poster

2008-12-09T15:57:00.000-08:00

It is not Sony innovation only, its partners are competing as well to deliver the best message about new products.

php_flag settings when PHP runs as CGI (.htaccess / register_globals / php.ini)

2008-12-02T00:20:00.000-08:00

A lot of people got puzzled because .htaccess does not work when PHP is running as CGI under Apache. Searching on the internet for a potential solution does not give an easy way to solve the problem.

The easiest is to create a php.ini file inside the folder where you want to set the flags in and voila.

For example, to set register_globals off, create a php.ini with the following

register_globals = Off

Upload this file to that folder and try now phpinfo() to see the local settings for register_globals. Yes it is off.
This setting in important to get rid of the warning you got from Joomla or Moodle.

PHP is really an amazing language.

Gmail Down again

2008-11-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

I totally understand that this is a free beta service used as is and there is no guarantee for the super reliability of the service.

However, what is calling for wonder is whether this is due to kind of internal maintenance or an external DDoS attack.

Lehman Brothers Shipped Off $400B to Israel Just Before Bankruptcy Nice !

2008-11-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

Lehman Brothers Shipped Off $400B Just Before Bankruptcy Nice !

By Linda Sandler
September 27, 2008

Bloomberg -- Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s brokerage unit, in the months before its parent filed for bankruptcy protection, lost more than $400 billion in assets, according to the trustee overseeing customer accounts.

Lehman's holding company filed for bankruptcy Sept. 15 claiming $639 billion in assets, using four-month-old data. The wholly owned brokerage unit shrank to less than $100 billion in assets from $500 billion ``a few months ago,'' according to a Sept. 19 court statement by James Giddens, the trustee overseeing the settling of Lehman brokerage customer accounts by the Securities Investor Protection Corp.

The loss in value was caused by ``changes in the market,'' according to Giddens, a partner at law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed, who spoke at a bankruptcy court hearing in Manhattan. The runoff may indicate Lehman's customers, including many hedge funds, canceled and closed out trades as they began to doubt the firm's ability to navigate the credit crunch, bankruptcy analysts and lawyers said.

"There was the proverbial run on the bank'' at Lehman, said Martin Bienenstock of the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, who is advising clients including Walt Disney Co. on recovering their money from Lehman. There was a similar capital flight from Bear Stearns earlier this year, he said.

Most of Lehman's pre-bankruptcy assets were securities, according to its balance sheets. Lehman said on Sept. 10 that the consolidated gross assets of the firm stood at $600 billion and net assets at $311 billion. The difference between net and gross is the so-called matched book, which is overnight lending or securities pledged for overnight borrowing.

Obama.... Congratulations

2008-11-04T22:04:00.000-08:00

Finally a non-white came to prove to the Whites in their empire that a human being should not be judged by his color. Rather, a human being can lead with his words, charisma, mentality, appeal and aims.

An African is going to lead America for the coming 4 years. He would not be the Barack Hussein Obama that people thought of. He declared that he is not a muslim anymore and was ready to kick his aunt out of the opportunities land for the sake of the chair. Do not overhope. Do not over attend.

Obama will be better than the new-cons but would not change a lot of foreign policies as we can see from his talk with Israelis. I think he would try his best to prove that he is not biased and maybe Blacks (Sorry for the term) would suffer further during his term because he can not align with them.

Let us wait and see.

However, I would like to congratulate this young president for his dedication and persistance to climb the whole ladded in less than 30 years. Amazing huh.

1and1 down

2008-10-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

For the first time in almost 4 years, I notice that my server on 1and1 is down and I am not able to login to the admin panel.

This might have happened in the past as well but what is weird today is the slow response time and the 500 errors even on their own control panels.

Market Efficiency Literature Review

2008-09-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

Market efficiency is one of the corner stone of modern Financial economics. This theory started with the largely unknown work of Louis Bachelier (A french mathematician). However, little attention has been allocated for this proposition until a US Economist, Samuleson, proposed it again in his dissertation in 1964. Though it has raised several controversies since its adoption. In 1965 Eugene Fama published his dissertation arguing for the random walk hypothesis. In Fama (1970) survey documents several studies that could not reject the significant power of this theory. Jensen (1978) also believes that "There is no other theory with as much economical background as the Efficient Market hypothesis". Some studies depicts the market as an intelligent agent with an invisible hand (similar to the concept of Adam Smith) that is able to correct the speculative movements in price processes as described in Poterba and Summers (1988).

This theory is based on the operational and allocational efficiency of capital markets that have the following properties:

Agents are rational and seek the optimization of their expected utility
All agents are price takers
Assets are divisible and marketable.
Market is frictionless without transaction costs and taxes
Information is costless and arrives to all agents at the same rate and time

As a result all shares on the market trade at their fair value. This price incorporates all known information and history price effects. No-arbitrage is realizable using public information.

Fama (70, 76) contributed a great deal to this literature by establishing an extremely important classification for this market efficiency:

Weak-Form Efficiency: No abnormal return can be realized based on previous price information and future price movement are totally random.
Semi-Strong-Form Efficiency: No investor can earn excess return by trading on the publicly available information because the market adjust rapidly to the information and in an unbiased fashion.
Strong Form Efficiency: Share price reflects all available information and no investor can earn excess return.

Although the strong form efficiency imposes that no investor can beat the market even though a company might bring in an astonishing innovation. For example, if right now a company develops an AIDS treatment and know that it is 100% valid, an investor would not be able to realize an excess return knowing this information because the market should have already adjusted to it. However, the history has proven that some investors have consistently beaten the market such as Warren Buffer, George Sorros and Peter Lunch. In addition, Fama and French (87) argue that prices are negatively serially correlated and this could yield a possible 25-40% of predictability for price variations.

The literature argues for and against the theory from different point of views. Several classical papers document the presence of anomalies in the market pricing of shares. Other papers discuss the validity and the presence of information in the market movements.

Anomalies in return have been reported during the past fifteen years. Although, they should be called regularities as suggested by Berk (1995). These anomalies were documented in the following papers:

* Puterba and Summers (1988)

* Lakonishock and Smidt (1988)

* Lo and MacKinglay (1988)

* Karafiath (1988, 1994)

* Berk (1995)

* Barker and Lyon (1997)

* Fama and French (1996)

Benz (1981) This paper was one of the first that documents empirical irregularities with the market pricing. It describes two important aspects of the prices:

The logarithm of a stock price is an inverse predictor of its return
When risk is controlled for by using an asset pricing model (CAPM for example) the marketvalue has explanatory power over the part of return that is nto explained by the model.

Puterba and Summers (1988) investigates the presence of a transitory price component in the price process. They notice that the presence of a negative serial correlation in the price process means that some previous erroneous market moves had been corrected or the negative serial correlation arises from variation in the risk factors over time. They aim in this paper at examining the hypothetical transient price component or the validity of mean reverting movement. In addition, they wanted to test whether the mean reverting movement are due to shifts in required return or resulting from changes in the interest rate.

They could not reject the random walk hypothesis using VR tests but they find significant transitory price component that is responsible for a major part of price variance over time. The standard deviation of US price variance is 15-25% and this accounts for more than 50% of monthly return variance. They found out also positive serial correlation for prices on the short run but negative serial correlation over the long run. They suggest that noise trading provides a plausible explanation for transitory price components.

Lakonishock and Smidt (1988) uses 90 years of daily return on DJIA to test for the existence of persistent seasonality patterns in the returns from 1898 until 1986. They find evidence of persistence anomalies of returns around the turn of the week, around the turn of the month, around the turn of the year and around holidays. The rate of return on Mondays was negative and the price increase around the turn of the month exceeds the total monthly price increase. The price increase from last trading day before Xmas to the end of the year is over 1.5%. However, there was no special pattern for end of the month if the month is not at the end of the year or end of quarter. Possibly these patterns are due to the inventory adjustment of different traders at the end of fiscal periods, timing of reporting by firms, seasonal patterns in cash flow to individual and institutional investors, tax-induced tradings, hedge funds last minute trading, and window dressing induced by periodic evaluation of portfolio managers.

Lo and Mackinglay (1988) tests the RW hypothesis for weekly stock return by comparing the variance estimators derived from data sampled at different frequencies. They find out that RW model is generally not consistent with the stochastic behavior of weekly return especially for smaller cap stocks. Unlike FF (87) and Poterba and Summer (88), they find out that portfolio returns exhibits positive serial correlation but the individual stocks show negative correlation. The rejection can not be completely explained by infrequent trading or time varying volatilities although they are largely due to the behavior of small stocks. In addition, they concluded that the price stationary mean reverting model discussed in Poterba and Summers (87) and FF (87) can not account for all the variations observed in the empirical survey of weekly returns.However, they assert that the rejection of the RW does not mean that market price are in-efficient but it should impose limits on the acceptable pricing models.

Karafiath (88 and 94) approached the issue from a different point of view and contributed some methodological innovations to the testing methods. In Karafiath 88 paper, he introduced the concept of using dummy variables in the even study procedure because it offers a convenient procedure to obtain cumulative prediction errors and related test statistics all in one step. In his 94 paper, Karafiath uses Monte Carlo simulations to investigate whether FGLS (Feasible Generalized Least Square), (Weighted Least Square) WLS, or (Consistent Estimator Least Square) CLS accounts better for heteroskedasticity and crosssesional correlation in return than (Ordinarily Least Square) OLS. The paper concludes that FGLS is well specified if the number of the time series observation is much larger than the number of securities but this model does not have greater power than the WLS (which is the FGLS with off-diagonal elements of the covariance matrix set to zero). The OLS is well specified in the MC simulation as well and the CLS have similar power to OLS. In summary, WLS, CLS, OLS are well specified under the simulation and WLS has better power than OLS or CLS. This extra power decreases as the number of securities increases.

Berk (1995) examines size related anomalies and suggests that the observation violating the RW hypothesis should be treated as regularities in an economy in which all asset returns satisfy any of the adopted asset pricing models (APM). In addition, the paper asserts that size of the firm can account for some of the return risk of a firm and is usually recognized as the most prominent contradiction to the AP paradigm. Schwert (83) notes that observed relation between the anomaly variables and return implies that these variables proxy for risk. Little success in explaining these regularities and their interaction with risk and return. The author assumes, for the sake of argument, that all companies have the same size (same expected value) and the end of period cash flow is the same. However, the risk of every firms CF is different and this means that the market value of each firm is different. Riskier firms have lower market value and should yield higher expected return on holding their assets. Consequently if the market value is used as a measure of risk, it will predict a component of return. As a conclusion, the author thinks that it is misleading to refer to the size relation with return as an anomaly. On the other hand, the author thinks that it would be an anomaly if a negative relation is not found between size and expected return and this is why size should be used in cross sectional regression to detect mis-specifications of the model.

Fama and French (1996) Based on previous conclusions in the literature, FF (93) developed an innovative model for risk-return relations using three factors that incoporate risks, size and growth (E(Ri) = b[E(Rm) - rf] + s* E[SMB] + h*E[HML]). This model could not prove its viability had not the size represent a major factor in risk and return prediction. FF (96) asserts that this model would not be able to predict return on all securities especially when there is a momemtum effects. However, the authors conclude that size, E/P, growth, CF/P, B/M, long term past return, and short term past return play all an important role in predicting future movement of prices. Hence, they are not anomalies and should be considered as essential factors even CAPM does not incorporate them. With this model, most of the anomalies disappear from the return process.

Barber and Lyon (1997) analyse the power and specification of test statistics in event studies designed to detect long term abnormal returns. They find out that test statistics based on abnormal returns calculated using a reference portfolio are mis-specified because of three main reasons:

New listing bias: New companies are in and out of the index on a monthly basis and this might happen after the event
Re-balancing bias: The compounded return of the reference portfolio is rebalanced every month but for individual companies in the tested sample are not
Skewness bias: Long term abnormal return are right skewed.

The cumulative abnormal return is mostly affected by the new listing bias, and, therefore, the long run cumulative abnormal return is positively biased in general. On the other hand, the long run buy and hold abnormal return is affected by the re-balancing bias and the skewness bias which is a negative bias.

In order to correct for these misspecifications, the authors suggest matching the sample firms to control firms of similar size and book-market ratios and this method will get rid of all three type of biases.

Download Google Chrome

2008-09-02T12:57:00.001-07:00

http://www.google.com/chrome/

Happy browsing.

Google Chrome: A new browser war

2008-09-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

Official Google Blog: A fresh take on the browser

Finally google is stepping ahead with its browser war. They want to get directly into this market instead of supporting other IE's opponent.

Chrome will come with most of what in Firefox and Opera and would present a brand new JS engine. Lately, Firefox guys were talking about a new JS machine for Gecko as well. I am not sure how similar these two are.

Even of Google Chrome does not take up, it might be a good start for Google to get into this market and buy Firefox later on or empower this browser business unit to take over Firefox and re-brand it.

What will be Microsoft response to this? Faster RC for IE 8.0 that has several bugs with its engine especially the rendering of CSS. Is this push would force Microsoft to throw in another IE 6.0 into the market and make people's life harder as it was the case with Vista?

Let us see

However, there is one risky part in Chrome. It will create a separate process for every tab and every plugin. Immagine a heavy-browsing addict like me who opens 30+ tabs for everyreading?
This means at least 60 processes in one session. Can Vista handle that.

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