He serves, she sacrifices

Christmas in Saudi Arabia? Air Force Maj. Steven Givler writes to Carol at No Sheeples Here:

If anyone deserves thanks (and a pension) it is my wife, who has served our country just as much as I. As she sometimes reminds me, I get to run around, see interesting places and practice my Arabic. She gets to stay home, fix bicycle tires, cook meals, and keep our house from falling down. I don’t know how she does it. . . .

You should read the whole thing.

Religion: Some mosques in Mecca are wrongly aligned

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."

Source-BBC News