lgstarr: Ramadan

To begin with, many people are wondering: Why is Obama honoring Ramadan? which began on or around August 11, 2010 and will finish on or around September 10, 2010. . .not to mention all the people who are wondering why there is also a mysterious white tarp covering the West Wing!!!

As seen from the Rose Garden, The West Wing of the White House is covered in white tarp Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010.

A tarp covers the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, August 16, 2010, as maintenance work, including power washing, is completed as US President Barack Obama travels the next few weeks.

Has he been gone continuously? Or does he just go back and forth???

Now, here is an interesting--but not happy--story [H/T: Carpe Diem] coming out of Maryland about a farm which caters to some of the literally thousands of Muslim immigrants in the Washington area: Business caters to Muslim immigrants seeking to fulfill ritual animal sacrifices

As Ramadan approached last week, Muslim immigrants preparing for their pre-holiday feast sacrificed goats in halal slaughterhouses -- those that conform to Islamic law -- family farms and their garages. . .

. . .or wherever they are able.

This budding sub-sector of the meat industry caters to Muslims who want to follow their faith's rules -- to be certain that the animal has been slaughtered humanely with a knife to the throat, that the animal is pointed toward Mecca and that it dies as the slaughterer recites a prayer.

Since the 1980s, the number of goats slaughtered for their meat has more than quintupled, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. Many of those goats are killed not in mass slaughterhouses but in quiet ceremonies on farms and in back yards. . .

Or the West Wing?

To avoid the messy nature of on-farm slaughter, many customers take home live animals and slaughter them in residential bathtubs and garages. "We hold the animal on the garage floor and make sure the blood goes into the drain or the bushes," said Waqar Farhat, who grew up slaughtering animals in the hallway of his home in Pakistan.

Some of Farhat's friends slaughter goats in their showers. "But they clean up very well afterwards," he said.

Oh, do they powerwash?

What religion do people think Obama really is? Poll: Growing Number Believe Obama Is Muslim

By the way, these are the last words all the animals hear from their human slaughterers: