Understanding the Crisis

[Assalaam alaykum,

Please find below an interesting article discussing the connection between fiat money and the current financial mess in the US, which will have reprecussions in the UK.]

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Saturday, September 20, 2008

What caused this? It is a simple question, and yet answers are all over the map, as you might expect. Here’s mine in two words: fiat money. The word fiat means: out of nothing. Money out of nothing is money that is eventually worth nothing. The possibility of precisely that happening emerged on August 15, 1971. Since Nixon severed the last tie of the dollar to gold, the world’s monetary system has not been restrained by anything physical. We’ve depended on the discretion of central bankers. We can’t trust that, and this crisis shows precisely why.

Of course there are subsidiary factors. The lifting of restrictions on Freddie and Fannie. Subsidized lending. The Fed’s artificially low interest rates. The Community Reinvestment Act. Financial “deregulation.” The war. Bush profligacy. Debt. There is much more besides. But fighting each of these forces individually is like battling down flies at the garbage dump. The core issue is that there is nothing to restrain money creation.

The first time that people hear this, they find their minds rather boggled, and they want to know more. My whole experience in this area is that once people start digging around the area of monetary theory, they find that 1) it is not as difficult a subject as it seems, 2) it is endlessly fascinating, and 3) it explains far more than they realized before.

It was F.A. Hayek who bore this burden most directly for those in the English-speaking world. His books on the source of the business cycle and what to do about it appeared in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s. These works were cited by the Nobel Prize Committee in 1974 as his most important contribution to economic thought. His ideas are directly applicable to our current plight.

It has been a real tragedy that these works have been out of print. But this year, the Mises Institute made a hard push to get this book out in time for the current financial calamity. We set other projects aside and worked all hours to bring out the definitive collection. Here it is: Prices and Production and Other Works on Money, the Business Cycle and the Gold Standard, by F.A. Hayek.

The book is priceless in its content and presentation. Specifically, Hayek explains the mechanism by which loose credit generates false signals to investors, leading them to chase fads all over the market, and ending in sector-wide failures. He was writing at a time when the gold standard provided partial restraint on the government and the central bank. No more. So Hayek’s analysis of all of this is more penetrating than ever. The book also contains the complete text of his many battles with Keynes.

At this link, you can buy what we are calling the Crisis Book Kit at a deep discount. Just click the books you want and the discount happens.

At the same time he was writing, his mentor Ludwig von Mises was battling it out in Austria and the German-speaking world. He became the great opponent of not only inflationary finance but also the Continent’s version of the New Deal. The remarkable thing is that these essays were not translated until the 1980s and even then remained obscure. This book is really their first major debut, and it appeared only last year: The Causes of the Economic Crisis. You will see his expository virtuosity at work and also his amazing courage and passion.
It has been a major task of the Austrian school since 1912 to explain to people what money is, how it works, and how its corruption and distortion by the state is the source of both inflation and business cycles. The core book here is Mises’s own 1912 classic called The Theory of Money and Credit, written at the dawn of the central banking age. The prose is still crystal clear, and it continues to be the best textbook on money ever written.

In the American context of the Great Depression, one book captures the whole onset and response. It is Murray Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression. He shows that it wasn’t the 1929 crash that was the problem; it was the response to the crash that created the Depression. Bailouts. Price controls. Wage controls. Government programs. Trade restrictions. Crackdowns on the capital markets. And who did all this? It originated not with FDR but with Herbert Hoover – clear echoes of today. There is no understanding the present crisis without this book.
Finally we need to realize the problem of loose money and its effects are not new and not necessarily 20th century. The whole history of the American economy is littered with banking panics, bailouts, business cycles, and chaos, each with the same root. When the money goes bad, everything goes bad. Rothbard chronicles the long history of his marvelous book: History of Money and Banking in the United States.

The Mises Institute has sponsored research on this topic since it was created in 1982. Our first conference was on the gold standard. We’ve suffered for this choice. The best way to fall out of favor with the regime – or its libertarian and neocon supporters – is to question its central bankers. We’ve done that. But now, the work is done. It is available. The truth is out there. You only need to grab it, comprehend it, and spread it.
Please help. History hangs in the balance.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/understanding-the-crisis.html

[For a rather morbid forecast of what could be happening in the UK soon please read this article that was published today in the Daily Mail.]

Apocalypse Now?: New world order could have devastating implications for Western nations
Last updated at 1:23 AM on 20th September 2008

Almost exactly seven years ago Al Qaeda terrorists targeted their hijacked planes into the Twin Towers at the heart of New York’s financial centre — and the world was transformed.
There were no deaths this week, but the effects of the carnage on the financialmarkets will be far more profound and destabilising than the 9/11 atrocity.
For almost all of us, it will, I predict, be a change for the worse, and for a largeminority the consequences will be extremely distressing.
Here comes the apocalpse: Is the Western world entering a nightmare scenario, as depicted by Edvard Munch?
The Western world — Britain, Europe and the U.S. — has moved from excess toausterity overnight. This week’s financial typhoon will savagely impact livingstandards. In due course, it will topple governments and lead to a permanent transfer ofeconomic and political power from Europe and America to the emergent and, in somecases, such as China, semi-barbarous economies in the East.

I know I will be accused of being unnecessarily apocalyptic and irresponsiblynegative, but I believe that the greatest mistake we can now make is todownplay the seriousness of the situation and bury our heads in the sand.The seismic events which have seen the near-destruction of the investment banking sector and the collapse of insurance giant AIG are on the scale of the Great Crash of 1929. That was such a disaster because it created conditions for the emergence of fascism in continental Europe and then World War II.

Although it is hard to predict the consequences, we should expect ramifications of equal significance — including the re-emergence of violent Far Right parties across the globe.
Some experts were talking this week as if the financial crisis was nearly over. Theycould not be more wrong. The downturn has only just begun — and for most citizensuninvolved with finance the consequences have not been felt at all.

But they will be felt very soon and very brutally. The British economy is in the same position as the Texan coast earlier this month as Hurricane Ike approached — apparently calm, with life going on as normal, but an almighty storm is raging justover the horizon and heading our way with terrifying speed.

We can expect a sharp increase in personal bankruptcies. Yet the numbers will not peak until this time next year at the earliest.Hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs, with many forced to sell their houses. Property prices will slump.There will be extreme human suffering, panic and despair. Many careers will bedestroyed. This is considerably worse than the downturn of the early 1990s.

The orthodoxy from the British Government, the Confederation of British Industry and elsewhere that there will be a mild slowdown ending late next year is nonsense.
This crisis is vicious, dynamic and only just beginning. Even those of us lucky enough not to lose our jobs and our homes will have friends and relatives who do. Let us examine, first, the fate of City bankers from firms such as Lehman Brothers — all summarily dismissed when their firm went under this week. They will receive no severance payment and almost no chance ever again of benefiting from the six-figure salaries and massive bonuses they have taken forgranted over the past few years. That means they cannot service the huge mortgages they have taken out on hugely expensive houses. So this weekend they have become forced sellers — which means that thousands of new For Sale signs will be going up in London and the South-Eastin the coming weeks.

Personal bankruptcy:Traders and investment bankers face an uncertain future
If these unemployed investment bankers had the misfortune to buy anywhere near the top of the market, they now face the prospect of personal bankruptcy.This is because they will find that their houses are worth much less than they paid forthem, and will therefore be unable to repay their loan.With so many vendors on the market obliged to sell at any price, it can be assumed that any London house will fetch 25 per cent less this weekend than it would have done this time last week.Many of the younger bankers — those in their 20s and 30s with young families — now face utter disaster. Of course, there is scant public sympathy for these former ‘masters of the universe’ who enjoyed good times.

But we already know that Thursday’s merger of Lloyds Bank and HBOS (supposing itis completed: contrary to statements by Chancellor Alistair Darling, this is by no means certain) will lead directly to the loss of some 40,000 jobs amongbank workers. There will be bloodletting on every High Street where there is both an HBOS and Lloyds outlet — one branch will undoubtedly be closed.

But that body-blow is just the start. Over the coming months, the financial typhoon will mercilessly spread outwards and wreak devastation on the economy.Banks will foreclose on thousands of small businesses.Massive corporate failures are inevitable.These disasters will then rebound on the financial sector, as company bankruptciesand plunging house prices force fresh balance sheet write-downs and yet more sackings.

Unemployment — already rising fast and up 80,000 over the summer — is set to surge ahead and will increase well above the two million predicted by economists.This will produce a vicious spiral. Every worker out of a job means less tax receipts and higher welfare payments.
In last March’s Budget (a work of fiction when it was published), Alistair Darling forecast borrowing this year of £43 billion. Even at the time, this figure was shockingly large.
It meant that only Egypt, Pakistan and Hungary among significant world economies had more profligate government spending than Britain.

As of this weekend, Government borrowing is out of control.
It will soar nearer £100 billion next year — more than double Darling’s estimate. This will cast doubt about Britain’s ability to finance our debt in the internationalcredit markets.
The International Monetary Fund has already warned Darling about his reckless spending. In the months to come, it will demand cuts in government spending, just as it did in the 1970s when the then Labour Chancellor, Denis Healey, had to beg for an IMF loan.

Warned: Government borrowing is twice Chancellor Alistair Darling's estimate and has bought a rebuke from the IMF, Darling will have to take urgent, painful action to reverse the splurge of recent expenditure — welcomed by financially ignorant Labour MPs — on public services, in particular health and education. And whereas the responsible wing of the Labour Government, as it did in the 1970s, will support this prudence, the Left will call for extra spending to save jobs.
It is likely that the Labour Party will split on this issue — just as it did in the aftermath of the Crash in 1931 and again at the start of the 1980s. In the medium term, the only resolution to this debt crisis is a rise in inflation, as governments are forced to print money to fend off depression.

Savers should thus brace themselves for the return of double-digit price rises not seen since the early 1980s. Driven by poverty, crime will also soar — particularly crimes against property. We should also brace ourselves for a return of political violence to the streets. Certainly the British National Party will use the economic downturn to agitate againstimmigrants, accusing them of having ‘stolen British jobs’.The BNP made some striking gains at last May’s elections, and these will continue in the European elections next June.

This is the troubling prospect we face. But the worldwide consequences are just as significant and we can expect the Euro to fail under the strain of economic collapse.The Euro has never been tested by adversity. The single currency’s architects made one foolish mistake when they set it up ten years ago: they established monetary union ahead of political union.

In long-established democracies such as Britain and the United States, it is natural for one area of the country to help the other in times of difficulty. For instance, there was no strong objection when taxpayers in the South were asked to bail out Northern Rock, even though its operations were concentrated in the North-East.

Fascist threat: Far right parties such as Jean-Marie Le Pen's FN in France could exploit the situation. However, that is not the case in mainland Europe where French taxpayers would refuse to contribute huge sums to bail out, say, the Italian banking sector. That is why the Euro is likely to be destroyed by the coming economic storm — just as Britain’s membership of the European monetary system was smashed on Black Wednesday 1992. The truth is that this week’s seismic events will come as a crashing humiliation to the European political class.
Like in Britain, this crisis will be exploited by the Far Right in countries such as France, Holland and Austria. These countries have powerful neo-fascist parties which will relish recession, in particular singling out for blame ethnic minorities, just as the Nazis did in Germany after the 1929 crash.

The good news is that Britain — despite the efforts of Tony Blair and others — remains outside the Euro. It means we can control our interest rates and allow the pound to depreciate, unlike so many European countries, some of which (such as Ireland) are already being devoured by recession.

Wall Street Crash: The US became more insular after the stock market crashed in 1929
But the biggest worry is what will happen in the U.S. Ever since the end of World War II, America has been the world’s policeman. It has been able to play this role, and see off perceived enemies, such as Soviet Russia and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, because for the past 60 years it has been the greatest global economic power. The most important question facing the world today is whether the U.S. — already crippled by the estimated $2 trillion cost of financing the Iraq occupation — can afford to continue its global role.

The historical precedent is far from encouraging. After the 1929 crash, the U.S. turned in on itself, resorting to protectionism. It re-engaged with the world only after the attack by Japan at Pearl Harbour in December 1941. It is too early to say for sure, but it is possible that America is at a similar turning point in its history. President Bush’s decision to pour taxpayers’ money into so many bankrupt financial institutions has led to an explosion of U.S. national debt which will be hugely exacerbated by yesterday’s move in Washington. As a result, U.S. global creditworthiness is in jeopardy, and it is likely that at some stage over the next decade the dollar will lose its unchallenged status as the world’s reserve currency.

There are signs that this process has already begun. For this weakening of the currency was the fate of sterling in the economic crisis of the 1930s. Indeed, the subsequent decision to take the pound off the Gold Standard in 1931 marked the effective end of the British Empire.

Rising power: China has emerged as a threat to US power, and the recent Beijing Olympics have only added to its stature America’s global dominance — already threatened by the emergence of rival economic powers such as China — may soon be coming to its end. The U.S. will probably retreat inwardly, becoming isolationist, at any rate temporarily — opening the way to a new and even more menacing global order. It is inevitable that America will soon withdraw from Iraq, leaving its bitter enemy, Iran, unchallenged as the dominant regional power.
China will become ever more assertive and will want to humiliate Washington by seizing control of Taiwan, something the White House will be powerless to resist. It will move on to threaten nearby India.

Africa will become the scene of proxy wars between China and the West, just as it was the scene of proxy wars between the United States and Soviet Russia for much of the post-war period.
China, much to U.S. fury, will also start to meddle in Latin America. The world that will emerge from the Great Crash of 2008, therefore, will be dark and unpredictable.

This weekend, all sensible families will go through their finances, anticipate the inevitable problems that lie ahead, and cut back at once on unnecessary spending such as eating out, second cars and foreign holidays. For the past 25 years we have lived through a glorious party.
We have all — governments, companies, banks and, of course, consumers — lived beyond our means and are paying the price.

This weekend the hangover begins. It will be prolonged.
Life will be much closer to the austerity that followed World War II than the frenzied, debt-fuelled boom of the past two decades. Perhaps our lives will be none the worse for all this. Our values will certainly change — many will say not before time.
Material objects should count for much less. Almost overnight we have entered a new world, and we must learn to make the best of it.

[And Allah knows best!]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1058601/Apocalypse-Now--New-world-order-devastating-implications-Western-nations.html

Global Cooling? Unprecedented Ice Storms In Kenya

But suspend your rational thought process for a moment - the WWF assures us that CO2 causes global warming and global cooling

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, September 4, 2008

Evidence that the planet is tip-toeing towards the onset of a new mini ice age continues to present itself following unprecedented ice storms in Kenya as well as Sydney experiencing its coldest August for 60 years. But don’t worry because according to the World Wildlife Fund, global cooling can just as easily be blamed on CO2 emissions as can global warming.

The cold snap arrives on the back of the Sun reaching a milestone not observed in nearly 100 years - the entire month of August passed without a single sunspot being noted.
Lack of solar activity in 2008 has coincided with evidence of a cooling trend across the world.

Earlier this year, China experienced its coldest winter in 100 years while northeast America was hit by record snow levels and Britain suffered its coldest April in decades as late-blooming daffodils were pounded with hail and snow on an almost daily basis. The British summer also left many yearning for global warming, with temperatures in June and July rarely struggling to get over 16 degrees and on one occasion even dropping as low as 9 degrees in the middle of the afternoon.

“Summer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century’s opening decade,” reports the Chicago Tribune. “There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That’s by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.”

According to an Associated Press report, The Farmers Almanac is now also predicting “below-average temperatures for most of the U.S.” The publication boasts of an 85 per cent accuracy rate for its forecasts which are given two years in advance.
According to a report from the World Meteorological Organization last month, the first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years, adding that it may actually be the coolest since 2000.

Meanwhile, Arctic ice has expanded by 30 per cent since this time last year as respected scientists predict a new mini ice age within 10 years.
Continuing the trend, parts of Kenya just experienced unprecedented ice storms after which 4 inch deep hail covered the ground.
“Residents of a village in central Kenya were shocked to see a blanket of hail resembling snow covering their land,” reports the BBC.
“I have not seen such a thing ever since I was born,” said one resident of Nyahururu.
Hail storms in western Kenya are not unknown, but the hail normally melts instantly because of high temperatures on the ground. Not this time around, and Kenyans were keen to take advantage of the rare event by enjoying numerous photo opportunities.
Meanwhile, in Sydney, Australians are talking about “the big chill,” the coldest August in Sydney for more than 60 years.

So what’s to blame for the sudden cold snap affecting many parts of the globe? The rapid decrease in solar activity, an event that has always preceded similar mini-ice age periods throughout history?

Not according to the World Wildlife Fund, who blame human-caused CO2 emissions for the cold snap.

That’s right - in case you weren’t aware of the new climate change catch-all explanation, CO2 now causes global warming as well as global cooling.

All weather events, be it rainfall, storms, hurricanes, typhoons or earthquakes are also caused by CO2 emissions.

But don’t worry because experts have the solution that can save us all from global warming, global cooling, or whatever the weather happens to be doing at any particular time.
At a cost to the taxpayer of around $100 billion dollars a year, as part of a program to “geo-engineer” the world, scientists are proposing to build a fleet of spaceships that will be sent up above the Earth’s atmosphere, spanning half the diameter of the entire planet, to block out the Sun from reaching parts of the globe.

But I thought CO2, and not the Sun, was the main driver of climate change?

Maybe Barney the purple dinosaur is the true culprit behind it all - but whatever the explanation - at least I can be assured that my government and the esteemed experts advising them will do their level best to tax and control every aspect of my behavior in the interests of saving us all from global warming, global cooling, or whatever else the weather decides to do tomorrow.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/global-cooling-unprecedented-ice-storms-in-kenya.html

Notts New Muslims and Moon Sighting

Assalaam alaykum,

Notts New Muslims is no more. From now on it shall be known as New Muslims and be an online resource for anyone who is interested. Brother Ghufran, the site administrator, has been asked to make a few changes to the site and insha'Allah these will take place in due course.

As for moon sighting, please read the two articles that I've posted on the site. One was posted two years ago and the second at the beginning of last Ramadan. I've been informed that for Nottingham Ramadan began Tuesday at Maghrib, so Wednesday is the first fast. Monday was the 29th of Sha'ban and the crescent was not sighted. This is accrording to the local monthly moon sightings that have been taking place since January 2006.

Here in Morocco Sunday was the 29th of Sha'ban and the crescent was not sighted, so Sha'ban was counted as 30 days and Tuesday was the first fast. Alhamduliah, in this country everyone fasts on the same day. Why? Because the Sunnah of physically sighting the moon is upheld. There is no room for the two innovations of following calculation and/or following Saudi Arabia, and with Allah alone is every success!

Ramadan Mubarak!

Shari'ah Law: Brought to you by wordly reconciliation

Assalaam alaykum,

I kindly advise all brothers and sisters to visit www.htspub.com and read the latest article posted by Brother Abu Ja'far Al-Hanbali. The other articles in the 'Our Failure is Our Loss' series are also highly recommended.

It is about time Muslims stopped and looked at the bigger picture of what is going on in this country between the Muslim community and the government. I can add one thing to this discussion:

Muslims need to stop thinking that worldly governments and disbelievers in general will accept us and like us as long as we are not violent and don't preach violence. This is an incredibly naive way of looking at things. The Seerah is there to teach; it's not merely a storybook. The fledgling Muslim community suffered immensely at the hands of the idol-worshipers in Makkah, and this was before any battle had been fought and even before any verse referring to armed combat had been revealed. 'Would you do this to a man because he says: "My Lord is Allah"?' Abu Bakr As-Siddiq asked after seeing the Noble Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, being abused. This question is rhetorical.

There will always be those who will seek to undermine Islam, regardless of the circumstances. Believers need to be wary of this and seek refuge in Allah.

Assalaam alaykum,

Are you feeling cold this summer? What happened to global warming?

Scientist Predicts Ice Age Within 10 Years

University of Mexico expert says lack of solar activity to cause significant cooling that will last over half a century

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet (www.prisonplanet.com)
Tuesday, August 19, 2008

As evidence builds of the earth entering a dramatic cooling trend, another scientist has gone public with his conviction that we are about to enter a new ice age, rendering warnings about global warming fraudulent and irrelevant.

Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera of the Institute of Geophysics at the University of Mexico states that “In about ten years the Earth will enter a “little ice age” which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity,” according to a report in the major Mexican newspaper Milenio Diario.

Herrera slammed the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) stance on global warming as “erroneous” because of their failure to factor in the impact of solar activity.

The models and forecasts of the IPCC “is incorrect because only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity,” said Herrera.

Herrera states that the earth is entering a natural phase of climate transition during which solar activity will diminish considerably, “so that in two years or so, there will be a small ice age that lasts from 60 to 80 years.”

Herrera cited the growth in glaciers observed at the Andes, Perito Moreno, Logan, the highest mountain in Canada, and Franz-Josef Glacier, New Zealand.

A dramatic cooling trend is being observed across the planet even as people like Al Gore continue to claim that the threat of global warming mandates the poor and middle class be hit with CO2 taxes in order to prevent climate change.

Both anecdotal evidence and hard data indicates that the planet is in the beginning stages of a significant downturn in global temperatures.

Following the end of the Sun’s most active period in over 11,000 years, the last 10 years have displayed a clear cooling trend as temperatures post-1998 leveled out and are now plummeting.

China recently experienced its coldest winter in 100 years while northeast America was hit by record snow levels and Britain suffered its coldest April in decades as late-blooming daffodils were pounded with hail and snow on an almost daily basis. The British summer has also left many yearning for global warming, with temperatures in June and July rarely struggling to get over 16 degrees and on one occasion even dropping as low as 9 degrees in the middle of the afternoon.

“Summer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century’s opening decade,” reports the Chicago Tribune. “There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That’s by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.”

The reason? Sunspot activity has dwindled. There have only been a handful of days in the past two months where any sunspot activity has been observed and over 400 spotless days have been recorded in the current solar cycle.

“The sun’s surface has been fairly blank for the last couple of years, and that has some worried that it may be entering another Maunder minimum, the sun’s 50-year abstinence from sunspots, which some scientists have linked to the Little Ice Age of the 17th century,” reports one science blog.

Since the sun, and not carbon dioxide, is the principle driver of climate change, a dearth of sunspot activity would herald a repeat of the Maunder Minimum, the name given to the period roughly from 1645 to 1715, when sunspots became exceedingly rare and contributed to the onset of the Little Ice Age during which Europe and North America were hit by bitterly cold winters and the Thames river in London completely froze.

Long-time man-made global warming advocates NASA assure us that significant sunspot activity will return in 2012, but a recent a paper on recent solar trends by William Livingston and Matthew Penn of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, predicts that sunspots will all but vanish after 2015.

As we reported last week, the Armagh observatory, which has been measuring sun cycles for over 200 years. predicts that global temperatures will drop by two degrees over the next 20 years as solar activity grinds to a halt and the planet drastically cools down, potentially heralding the onset of a new ice age.

“Based on the past Armagh measurements, this suggests that over the next two decades, global temperatures may fall by about 2 degrees C — that is, to a level lower than any we have seen in the last 100 years….”Temperatures have already fallen by about 0.5 degrees C over the past 12 months and, if this is only the start of it, it would be a serious concern,” concludes David Watt.

Shaykh Ramadan Al-Buti explains The Hikam of Imam ibn Ata Iٍllah Al-Askandari Parts 1-5 (Arabic)

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Ibn Jabal Arabic: Level One in Bradford, London and Manchester

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10 things you should eliminate from your diet today

Assalaam alaykum,

Please read the following list from ABC news in the US. Number 5 is particularly interesting:

1) Trans fats
Read your labels! Anything that says "partially hydrogenated" is a trans fat.
Trans fats cause clogged arteries, type 2 diabetes, and other serious health problems. Only cook with organic butter or extra-virgin coconut oil as all other oils will turn into trans fat when used for cooking (including olive oil).

2) Artificial sweeteners
Contribute to diabetes because they prompt you to eat more.
Aspartame and sucralose (Splenda) should be avoided completely due to their toxic effects on the body. Alternatives are raw honey, agave nectar, stevia extract, and xylitol.

3) High fructose corn syrup and processed sugars
Fructose converts to fat more than any other sugar.
This may be one of the reasons Americans continue to get fatter.

4) Soy products
Creates hormonal imbalances in men and women by affecting estrogen levels.
Instead of soy milk for drinks and for infants, use goat's milk. It is the closest to a human mother's milk and is highly anti-allergenic.

5) Pork products
Creates toxic cells. Never meant for consumption.

6) Shellfish
Shellfish are scavengers ingesting countless toxins from the water in an attempt to keep our oceans and lakes clean.

7) Processed wheat and white flour
You used flour and water in elementary school to make glue paper mache hard as concrete. It has a similar affect on the body. Choose sprouted grain bread as an alternative.

8) Soft drinks
Sodas (even diet ones) poison the body. They don't reduce your hunger as solid food does, so your caloric intake is even higher. Regular soft drinks are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and diet drinks use artificial sweeteners. A great alternative to the fizz you crave is to add fresh lime or lemon to sparkling water along with approved sweeteners.

9) Unfiltered tap water
Regular tap water is filled with chemicals and infused with chlorine. Always drink fresh spring water or filtered water and use a water filter for your home (even for bathing and washing clothes).

10) Non-organic dairy and meat products
Animals that are not raised organically are fed chemical and hormone-laced foods and by eating them, those harmful toxins go directly into you.



Source: http://www.abc15.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=c0437975-6777-4664-911c-51ca437286e3

New Books available from Sunni Publications

Top: AL-LA MADHHABIYYA: ABANDONING THE MADHHABS
THE MOST DANGEROUS BID`AH THREATENING THE ISLAMIC SHARI`AH
BY SHAYKH DR. MUHAMMAD SA`ID RAMADAN AL-BUTI

Bottom: OUR MASTER MUHAMMAD
THE MESSENGER OF ALLAH (ASWS)
HIS SUBLIME CHARACTER & EXALTED ATTRIBUTES VOLUME 1
BY IMAM `ABDALLAH SIRAJUDDIN AL-HUSAYNI (RA)
FOREWORD BY SHAYKH MUHAMMAD B. YAHYA AL-NINOWY
TRANSLATED BY KHALID WILLIAMS

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