Dinah Lord

Bwa-ha-ha. 200 Mosques in Mecca point the wrong way for prayers.

So much for that old facing the Kaaba, bowing down, and throwing your ass up in the air rule.  According to Saudi government officials,  'it doesn't effect the prayers.'

<- A Mecca arrow at Camp Gitmo.

From the BBC

Some 200 mosques in Islam's holiest city, Mecca, point the wrong way for prayers, reports from Saudi Arabia say.

All mosques have a niche showing the direction of the most sacred Islamic site, the Kaaba, an ancient cube-like building in Mecca's Grand Mosque.  But people looking down from recently built high-rises in Mecca found the niches in many older mosques were not pointing directly towards the Kaaba.

Some worshippers are said to be anxious about the validity of their prayers.

There have been suggestions that laser beams could be used to make an exact measurement.

Tawfik al-Sudairy, Islamic affairs ministry deputy secretary, downplayed the problem in remarks quoted by the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat.

"There are no major errors but corrections have been made for some old mosques, thanks to modern techniques," he said.

"In any case, it does not affect the prayers."

Islamic Scientist: Cure for AIDS found in the Hadith.

Praise be to Allah and gay Muslims everywhere!  You can't make this stuff up, I swear.

Hamas TV Scientist Dr. Ahmad Al-Muzain: Bayer Derived Its Treatment for AIDS From Prophet Muhammad's Hadith About the Wings of Flies.

Ahmad Al-Muzain: "The Prophet Muhammad said: 'If a fly falls into your drink, you should dip it in the drink, and then dispose of the fly, because one of its wings bears a disease, and the other wing bears the cure.' This hadith was included in the Al-Bukhari collection. This hadith makes it absolutely clear that the Prophet Muhammad confirmed a clear scientific fact: If a fly falls into a vessel - before a person drinks from this vessel, he should dip the fly in his drink, before disposing of it. Then he should drink the beverage, because it won't do him any harm. Why? Because one of the fly's wings bears the disease, and the other one bears the cure. [...]

"In Germany, the Church paid a very large sum of money to two scientists to disprove this hadith. Since this hadith appears in the Al-Bukhari collection, we cannot claim that it is unreliable or anything, and so they thought that if they could prove that this hadith contradicts science, they would be dealing a devastating blow to Islam." [...]

The prophet Muhammad said, 'If a fly falls into your drink, you should dip it in the drink, and then dispose of the fly – because one of its wings bears a disease, and the other bears the cure.'" Al-Muzain is quoted saying.Then he said Bayer "learned about this study, it derived great benefit from it. It established biological breeding farms, where they raised flies and extracted antibiotics from their wings – the strongest antibiotics in the whole world." "This antibiotic was made into a course of five pills, which is given to the patients, and it is used – believe it or not, my brothers – to treat AIDS patients. … How did they discover it? From this hadith," he said.

source - MEMRI (Bonus Video at the link - check out the fetus pic behind the dude's head.  What's that about?)

No wonder I've been feeling like my vibes were off lately.

"Mysterious glowing aurora around Saturn confounds Scientists.

A stunning light display over Saturn has stumped scientists who say it behaves unlike any other planetary aurora known in our solar system.

The blueish-green glow was found over the ringed planet's north polar region just like Earth's northern lights.

It was discovered by the infrared instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft."

source - The Daily Telegraph