Wednesday, June 19, 2002

Follow-ups: The Instapundit caught Debbie Schlussel's NY Post column on the Caribou coffee flap that sums things up very well.
So it's a coffee war: Starbucks, headed by a man who condemns terrorism and decries anti-Semitism, versus its nearest rival, Caribou, owned by a company whose investments are cleared by a cleric who cheers terrorism.
In these parts, you can get coffee here at the store and Thelma's Country Kitchen, so we don't get to play in the coffee wars, but when we play, we play to win. So I have to point out that the First Islamic Bank owns some other US companies:
WaterMark Paddlesports, Inc.
"WaterMark is a holding company for two of the leading kayak manufacturers in the US: Perception, Inc. and Dagger, Inc. Perception, Inc. is the largest manufacturer of kayaks in the US with revenue of approximately $20 million, which represents approximately 10% of the US paddle sports market (kayaks, canoes, paddles and other accessories)."

DVT Corporation
"DVT is the price/performance leader in the machine vision systems industry. Machine vision systems are used to inspect products and control machines such as robots and packaging machinery. DVT develops, manufactures and markets inspection devices for many of the world’s most prominent manufacturers including General Motors, Ford, Nissan, Allied Signal and 3-M; technology companies such as IBM and Motorola; as well as consumer products companies such as SmithKline Beecham, Procter & Gamble, Nabisco, Kraft Foods and H.J. Heinz."

B.R. Lee Industries
"Lee Industries, operating under the “LeeBoy” brand name, is the leading manufacturer of commercial paving equipment in North America."

Transportation Safety Technologies, Inc.
"TST is a manufacturer of specialty electrical components and safety products for the automotive, truck and emergency vehicles industries in the United States. One of TST’s most promising products is the patented SCAN™ obstacle detection system ("ODS")."

Cirrus Industries, Inc.
"Cirrus is the third largest manufacturer of single-engine, piston-powered, general aviation aircraft in the world."

Medifax EDI
"Medifax EDI is a leading provider of information processing services to the health care industry in the United States, processing over 140 million transactions per year for more than 120,000 customers."
And then there's their Real Estate Investments and their Asset Management of "Islamically acceptable assets". What's good for Caribou should be good for all.