Letter to Julia 20131116

In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful.

Hello there, my most beloved beauties.  The most beautiful girls in the world.  How are you feeling today?  I pray you are feeling healthy and confident.  How's business?  My parents gave a box of Ritz crackers the other day.  I didn't really eat all that much Ritz crackers back in the States.  I would buy a box of generic saltines and a block of Cracker Barrel extra sharp cheddar for a better crackers and cheese per dollar value.  But I asked my Mom, "Do you have any cheese?"  She said no.  So yesterday I went searching for some cheese spread.  I can't get Cracker Barrel here, but any cream cheese spread would do.  I went from store to store searching in vain for cheese spread, or even plain cream cheese, and the weather was bloody hot.  I swear, cheese sells like mad here locally.  Especially cream cheese.  And it's damn expensive, too.  I don't know what the locals do with all that cream cheese, all I know is that it sells.  If someone opened a cheese store here, I'm certain they would make a lot of money.  The demand for cheese here seems insatiable, even though most Asians are lactose-intolerant.  What does it take to make cheese anyway?  A lot of milk, slow heat, some lemon juice, and a way to separate curds from whey, and a means to age and dehydrate cheese.  The quality of milk is certainly an issue, so the diet of milk cows is important.  Soybeans.  If they can make soy sauce, then they can feed milk cows with soybeans, and there are plenty of soybeans in Asia.  Gah!  I'm irritated.  I don't want to enter the food business just to get some cheese for my crackers, let alone the dairy industry.  I think I saw some Philadelphia cream cheese at the Chinese store.  I hope it's still there.  I wish someone would sell Cracker Barrel here.  Maybe I should just buy some milk and make my own cheese.  Or eat my crackers without cheese.

Qur'an 20131116

In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful.

148.  Those who give partners will say, "If Allah had wished, we would not have given partners to God, nor would our fathers, nor would we have had any taboos."  So did their ancestors argue falsely, until they tasted of Our wrath.  Say, "Have you any knowledge?  If so, produce it before us.  You follow nothing but conjecture, you do nothing but lie."

149.  Say, "With Allah is the argument that reaches home.  If it had been God's Will, God could indeed have guided you all."

150.  Say, "Bring forward your witnesses to prove that Allah did forbid so and so."  If they bring such witnesses, be not you amongst them, nor follow you the vain desires of such as treat Our Signs as falsehoods, and such as believe not in the Hereafter, for they hold others as equals with their Guardian-Lord.

151.  Say, "Come, I will rehearse what Allah has prohibited you from."  Join not anything as equal with God.  Be good to your parents.  Kill not your children on a plea of want: We provide sustenance for you and them.  Come not nigh to shameful deeds, whether open or secret.  Take not life, which Allah has made sacred, except by way of justice and law.  Thus does God command you, that you may learn wisdom.

The Cattle 6:148-151
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Have you any knowledge?  If so, produce it before us.  You follow nothing but conjecture, you do nothing but lie.

With Allah is the argument that reaches home.  If it had been God's Will, God could indeed have guided you all.

Bring forward your witnesses to prove that Allah did forbid so and so.

Come, I will rehearse what Allah has prohibited you from.