Would any rational person be surprised at the international media's fixation with the case of Sudanese journalist Lubna Hussein who stood trial in Sudan for wearing trousers? Why wouldn't it be considering all the circumstances of the case, which attracted and deserved the attention that Arab and international press have shown?
Why would anyone be surprised as this case is going on in a country where the president is wanted for war crimes, and in a country that has witnessed wars and crises that have claimed the lives of nearly one and a half million of its people and yet the judicial authority exerted much effort to try a woman for wearing trousers?
Perhaps the Sudanese court should have attempted to save face for its judges by dropping the case instead of remaining in a state of confusion and attempting to hide behind the offer that it presented to Lubna Hussein. It gave her the option of paying US $200 or facing a one-month prison term instead of punishing her with lashes. She chose imprisonment and appeal, and refused to pay any amount whatsoever for her freedom. Lubna seemed completely convinced with what she was defending, and this alone deserves some deliberation.
The attention given to the trial of Lubna Hussein is not exaggerated nor has it been prioritised at the expense of other important causes and the fates of our troubled [Arab] nations, as claimed by some angry people who considered her trial a farce and undeserving of all the noise and attention it received.
Loubna's case is the core of our crisis, as the authorities that issue odd sentences -- that underestimate people's intelligence and dignity -- cannot be trusted with people's fates.
The authority that tried Lubna and thousands of Sudanese women (48 thousand women were detained in Khartoum in 2008 because of the way they were dressed) is unable to protect its people against violations, oppression and killings.
The obsession with women and women's issues, and how women dress, act or talk, makes many authorities too incompetent to issue rulings and pass laws in order to control what they consider evil.
We must express our admiration for Lubna and the 48 others who demonstrated in court during the trial. Lubna's decision to continue with the case that could have been ended by paying US $200 suggests that there is some hope amid such a pessimistic and absurd atmosphere whether in Sudan or the region as a whole. Lubna's decision to continue fighting was exercised by one woman alone in a society that shows no tolerance towards similar cases. How can we turn a blind eye to the scores of women who are being arrested in the space of one year in Khartoum because of the way they are dressed?
Posted by: Fred ||
09/12/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
How can we turn a blind eye to the scores of women who are being arrested in the space of one year in Khartoum because of the way they are dressed?
Easy...if you are a card-carrying member of NOW like that ditz Naomi Wolf. (She found the experience of playing dress-up in Morocco "liberating".) The rest of her overmedicated and overpaid sisters in that group would probably excuse it as "a legitimate expression of an authentic culture not yet poisoned by the Western concept of patriarchy....."
It looks like the Wild West days of the over-the-counter derivatives market may be coming to an end as 15 of the largest derivatives dealer banks told the New York Federal Reserve Tuesday that they plan to put 90% of their trades through clearinghouses by year's end. As we approach the anniversary of the NY Fed's ax on Lehman Brothers and Merril Lynch, the big banks are at long last attempting private regulation (cough) of the derivatives' market. Prior to the ax, the mortage brokers used candy-store practises to over-value credit worthiness of hillbilly borrowers, and then sold derivative packages (Collateralized Debt Obligation) paper at inflated prices, on the premiss that the pigeons could be soaked when credit contracts were renewed. While there is little or no current exchange of CDOs the upshot is a snakeoil pseudo-market for Credit Debt Swaps (CDS). By self-regulation, Big Money (the Fed calls AIG, etc "insurers"), hopes to collude on write-downs of debt. That allows a magical transformation of red-ink into black, as the "free market" is reduced to what can be freely traded after collusion..
The move is likely prompted by looming regulation of the derivatives market and the return of Congress to session. With messy issues such as healthcare and climate change on the menu, putting the much maligned credit default swaps under a regulator may be an issue that the two parties can agree on. Derivatives, and credit default swaps in particular, were faulted in the need to bailout American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG) and now hold the dubious reputation of being a possible threat to the entire financial system.
The commitment to go through clearinghouses carries heft because the four banks that control 90% derivatives markets -- J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Bank of America Corp./Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE:BAC), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) -- have all signed on. Also committing were Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), Barclays plc (NYSE:BCS), UB (NYSE:UBS) and Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS).
Clearinghouses for derivatives will (hopefully) add more stability and transparency to the market since it will be a central counterparty to all trades, ensuring that the failure of any one institution doesn't leave its trading partners holding useless swaps. by George White Translation: Big Money isn't waiting for Congress to abolish the derivative market. While it is true that AIG, etc were negligent in underwriting the CDO circus, it is also true that the better the position of the CDS holders, the stronger will be the American economy. Competition-within-collusion doesn't sound like capitalism, but leave them alone and this will produce public benefits without a 10 year recession as in Japan, where cultural "honor" compelled strict market repayment of dubious real estate debts. But, corporate disclosure must trump concealment for this to work. Honesty: what a concept!
#1
Credit default swaps (CDS) were ILLEGAL up until 2000, when an act of Congress was passed, canceling state laws against them. If you wonder that there might have been some kind of valid reason for the bans, check out this story on 60 minutes.
I see no reason why these CDS bets shouldn't be outlawed as gambling, as they used to be.
Private enterprisers want to write down CDS paper a little bit each year, but at a uniform rate so that they can maximize the process. Within 10 years derivate residue would evaporate.
Congress would be too embarassed to sandbag a private initiative that won't cost tax-payers a cent and will deliver the type of stability, necessary to correct recession elements. Lehman Bros were caught off-guard when Paulsen and Bernake called the major players into the meeting where the Treasury Secretary said he wouldn't bail out CDO vendors. Bernake was then put into the position of using Fed statutory and regulatory powers to force re-capitalization on Lehman and Merrill Lynch. The Fed always had regulatory leverage over the derivative market but, then again, Lehman' CEO, Richard Fuld, was on the NY Fed board until mid 2008.
#1
The most important part of Obama is his Harvard years, and why anything he did, the classes he took, and especially anything he wrote, has been kept secret.
For years it has been known not just that Ivy League graduates are "ethically challenged", but that they are imbued with what could best be called "anti-ethics". This is joined with a sense of elitism, and entitlement, and especially loyalty only to their school peers.
Ivy League graduates are sometimes called "corporate cancer", because they offer no loyalty to their employer, see work as just a stepping stone of personal advancement, and will conspire to make and provide work for schoolmates ahead of others with better qualifications. A bad corporate culture results.
This Ivy League failure is made worse with radical politics, because leftists use a similar modus operandi to accomplish their goals. This is seen in organizations taken over by leftists, who abandon the original goals of the organization in favor of supporting the overall leftist agenda.
#2
'moose, while there's some truth to what you say (I went to school there), I think the biggest part of the problem is the 'mirrored room' effect - these 'elite' see only their small cadre of like thinkers reflected and repeated in all directions such that they BELIEVE they really are everything that matters. The second biggest part of the problem is that 'we, the people' seem to believe it too. We have traded our liberty for a false security rather than stand together against 'our betters.'
#4
I believe Harvard and Yale should be held accountable for a majority of the trauma the US has suffered.
To put this in context... I rejoiced when I saw that Harvard lost big time on the economic crash.
It couldn't have happened to a smugger bunch of jerks.
#1
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." 10th Amendment
Is it really that hard for anyone other than a lawyer [or their mutation - a judge] to understand it? /rhet question
#2
"We the people" get Constitutional principles but the Progressives do not. They believe federal law trumps states rights and international laws and treaties override it all. They want to Mirandize battlefield detainees and give US Constitutional protections to world citizens, want global governance with universal "human rights", and a new currency to undermine American sovereignty. The really scary thing is they have usurped Congress and the Supreme Court with presidential appointees while most are bogged down in the muck of politics or distracted with Solitaire.
#4
The Tenth Amendment was effectively repealed in 1861-1865. The commendable motivation of ending slavery simultaneously ended States Rights. Later the 17th Amendment nailed the box closed.
#6
The Tenth Amendment was effectively repealed in 1861-1865.
More likely by 7 December 1941. After the ACW and even WWI, the country didn't have much problem returning to antebellum relationships because there was no external 'threat' that required a continuous exercise and expansion of central authority. With the power vacuum in the post-WWII environment created by the destruction of the war that those who'd learned the "lesson" of disengagement after WWI as the focus, Washington became an international capital with assumed missions which while addressing international security requirements of those in city eroded the very balance of the Constitution by imbuing in the Executive far more power and with it expanded funding than was ever intended outside short term crisis. The crisis never ended. We had a brief moment with the collapse of the wall, to once again disengage. Instead new 'old' habits took precedent.
#8
Time to return the Senate to being appointed by the State Legislatures as our founders intended as a check on the federal government by the state governments.
The current idea of having the Senate controlled by the largest metro areas in a state is a failed Progressive Era experiment and should be undone.
Harsanyi: No bickering. No thinking. Just do it By David Harsanyi
Those who claim that President Barack Obama's speech on health care this week wasn't a glorious success are fooling themselves. A Washington takeover of health care never sounded so enticing or fun.
Just ignore the specifics. Because when the president says he welcomes substantive new ideas, he means that if you have the nerve to offer any ideas -- like Whole Foods CEO John Mackey did in the Wall Street Journal last month -- his allies will attempt to destroy your business and reputation.
And when the president says he welcomes bipartisanship, what he means is that he hasn't met with a single Republican on the issue since April -- despite numerous requests and two separate House bills chock full of ideas.
Silly question. As we all know, if any organization has demonstrated an uncanny ability to control costs, drive innovation and foster competition, it's been government.
The best part? Like that exotic mortgage taxpayers are paying for you, according to the president, all this wonderment can be yours for absolutely nothing! Better yet, it will not add a single dime to the deficit in the next 10 years. Ignore the Congressional Budget Office's $900 billion estimate (and the Lewin Group's $1 trillion estimate).
You may wonder how President Obama can logically sell a public option while at the same time claim that reform will be paid for by waste found in another "public" option. You may also be wondering how mandates, price controls, regulations and added costs will save us any money and preserve level of care. Don't. Just bask in the radiance of barren rhetoric.
Because when the president tells us that this is "the season for action" and we can no longer waste time debating, he means that legislation won't be initiated until 2013, that this is all about politics and his very own entrenched ideology -- not yours.
#1
And of course we will not pay for a single illegal alien's healthcare. And to prove it, they stripped out the provisions for being able to check one's citizenship. How clever.
#2
Wouldn't make any difference gorb. Ten minutes into the process a friendly Federal Judge would strike down any denial of access by illegals and direct it be provided. The Donks will smile, wring their hands, and say they can't do anything about it. [Ignore Congress' authority to impeach judges]
#4
Either that or hospital ER's will still be required by law to treat everyone (for everything).
Only the Government won't pay for it and they won't have any paying patients to help cover the cost - just public option patients for who the government pays below cost.
#6
Maybe we can have an illegal alien trigger. If illegal aliens are discovered to be receiving free coverage under Obamacare, then the whole govt takeover of health care is null and void.
Posted by: regular joe ||
09/12/2009 15:14 Comments ||
Top||
#7
"If illegal aliens are discovered to be receiving free coverage under Obamacare, then the whole govt takeover of health care is null and void."
Fixed that for ya', rj.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/12/2009 20:43 Comments ||
Top||
A Gulf emir has promised him a horse of solid gold, businessmen have offered a sports car, but colleagues of the famed shoe-thrower of Baghdad are convinced that when he comes out of jail next week he will simply go back to work.
A little-known reporter for a small, privately-owned Iraqi television channel, Muntazer Al-Zaidi leapt to fame on Dec. 14 last year when he hurled his footwear at then US president George W. Bush on his farewell visit to the country he ordered invaded and occupied six years ago. That momentary act of defiance earned Zaidi a year's imprisonment for assaulting a foreign head of state. It also won him admiration across the Arab world with offers of plum jobs, marriage, or even a career in politics flooding in.
But Al-Baghdadia television colleague Mohammed Wadeh is convinced that Zaidi will resist the temptation to exploit his celebrity status to leave his homeland and seek his fortune in Beirut or Cairo. Some of the Arab world's best known satellite television stations have offered him jobs as an anchorman but "he refused them all," Wadeh said. "Al-Baghdadia has supported him and helped him a lot and I don't think he will quit the channel."
One thing that may change however is Zaidi's living conditions. When he was detained last year, his home was a humble two-room flat off a stairwell littered with graffiti and rubbish. But when he leaves prison next week, his boss at Al-Baghdadia has promised to buy him a penthouse apartment to repay him for the publicity he has won for the formerly little-known Cairo-based channel.
His brother Durgham lives in the same rundown block just across the landing from Zaidi's flat. A huge photograph of the more renowned sibling adorns the living room wall. Durgham says the attention lavished on his brother has been amazing. "We have had pledges of money, the emir of Qatar promised a golden horse, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi said he would award him Libya's highest honor, other people said they would buy him a sports car."
Zaidi's defiance of the man whose orders for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted regime plunged Iraq into a spiral of insurgency and sectarian bloodshed has inevitably made him a particular hero for opponents of the US-led occupation. Zaidi is himself drawn from Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority and he is lionized by those within it who have opposed the policy of cooperation with Washington adopted by the mainstream Shiite parties that now lead the Baghdad government. The 30-year-old journalist has become a particular hero for the Shiite radical movment of anti-US cleric Moqtada Sadr which led two uprisings against the US-led occupation in 2004. "Muntazer is a courageous man," said Sadr movement spokesman Salah Al-Obeidi. "His release will be a great victory for everyone opposed to the occupation."
But Zaidi has also become a potent symbol for Saddam loyalists from among Iraq's ousted Sunni Arab elite. "Some former military officers from the Saddam era contacted us to say that if he stood as a candidate in the next parliamentary elections, lots of people would for vote for him," Durgham said. "But Muntazer doesn't want to be a politician, he wants to stay liked. "He has told us, though, that he will give no quarter to anyone who tries to deprive Iraqis of their rights."
Durgham says that his brother's future plans remain fluid but that he is keen to do good with the money he has been promised. Building an orphanage or a help center for the many widows of the dark years of conflict figure high among his plans.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/12/2009 00:00 ||
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#3
I have a feeling this guy is a dead man. He just doesn't know it yet. There are a lot of Iraqis who have become very pro-American, and saw the act of shoe throwing as a humiliating example of mistreating an honored guest.
They won't make an issue of it, but if the chance comes to stick a knife between his ribs discreetly, they will take it.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
