An enjoyable Saudi blog that is probably not long for this world
Every self-respecting country ought to have a Royal Family. The Brits have got one. The Danes do, and had a lovely wedding yesterday. Even India has the Gandhis. And we have the House of Saud. So where did they come from? Let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time, on a hill known as Watership Down, there lived a family of rabbits. They had a family name, letâs call them the Hashemites. They ate grass and skipped around, did nobody any harm, really.
However, nearby lived another family of rabbits. They were seriously wierd. All their female rabbits had to stay inside the burrow. Whenever there was an eclipse, they would hold special rituals. They took everything absolutely literally. They were led by the meanest, baddest rabbit ever. Letâs call him AbdulAziz. He decided to move in on the rabbits on Watership Down, and take the place over. This he did, relatively easily. The poor old Hashemites moved off, to some very poor and scrubby land up north. AbdulAziz was now King of some very prosperous real estate.
He decided it was time to start a family. As I said, these rabbits were seriously wierd. They had a rule that you could have 4 wives at a time. Tough shit on the 75% of male rabbits who ended up celibate, they could always go off and be terrorists. So King AbdulAziz started to procreate, as rabbits do. When he got bored with one wife, he divorced her, and married another one. In fact he married several, having children all along the way. And of course these children interbred, thru several generations. This tale illustrates why we now have several thousand Princes and Princesses. They all get a pension. However there remains the problem of how to find them gainful employment. The story from this point on could lead "the religious policeman" to an appointment with the headsmanâs axe. Itâs worth a look. Also some good cartoons.
Posted by: RWV ||
05/15/2004 10:39:24 AM ||
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...This guy is not only funnier than hell, I hope he's keeping a low profile.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/15/2004 13:03 Comments ||
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Quite simply, the Saudi legal system is completely In Camera. That means that there are no cameras! There are also no reporters. The process is totally secret. I was flippant before when I said that cases were decided by cockroach races and reading entrails. In fact no animals are harmed in the process. The case is decided on the basis of scissors - paper - stone (best of five). However I digress.
He is a laugh riot.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/15/2004 16:36 Comments ||
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Via Bros Judd, decisions, decisions on where to put this.
Saudi Arabia has abandoned its policy of diversifying foreign reserves into euros, deeming the eurozone unfit to manage a major world reserve currency. Canât run w/the big dogs until you can piss like them.
Muhammad Al-Jasser, the deputy chief of Saudi Arabiaâs monetary agency, said the dollar remained the safest bet for central banks in the Middle East, despite Americaâs trade and budget deficits. "The euro has not yet gained a competitive status against the dollar as a major reserve currency. People are not going to switch to euros until European financial markets become more competitive, deeper, more liquid and diversified," he said. fat chance, mutated monarchy for 1000 years, refuse to break habits.
FRENCH showbusiness workers protesting plans to cut their benefits occupied a cinema at the Cannes Film Festival today, leading to clashes with police that left at least six people injured. Police forcibly ousted about 100 protesters who had stormed the Star cinema in downtown Cannes to disrupt the movies and force out filmgoers. Windows at the theatreâs entrance were shattered, and riot police wearing helmets and wielding plastic shields used batons to disperse the crowd, witnesses said. Police said five people were taken into custody. Three officers and three protesters were injured, and one protester was taken to a nearby hospital to be treated for a head injury. The protesters had broken off from a broader protest by showbusiness workers. French anti-globalisation activist Jose Bove and US filmmaker Michael Moore, whose documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 is showing at Cannes, joined about 500 others for the peaceful march. Moore, probably thought they were lining up for a feed
The scuffles affected screenings in a sideline event at Cannes for distributors, directors, producers and others in the industry. They had no effect on the main conference centre where most movies are shown. Actors, stage hands and others in the performing arts have been locked in a standoff with the French Government over planned reforms to a unique unemployment fund for artists that accounts for downtime between performances. Medef, the powerful French business federation that helps operate the system, has pushed to reduce the benefits. The Government has moved to ease the reforms, but many protesters say not enough has been done.
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Allow me to engage in hate speech. Mandated full benefits for the movie house popcorn vendor is a bad idea. A healthy society should have some entry level jobs so that there is a place for teenage kids to enter into the employment arena. Mandating full benefits and a "living" wage of $20K or more a year locks out kids. Nobody is going to take a chance and hire a kid with purple hair and a pin through his eyebrow for $20k with the sincere hope that he will be a reliable employee for $20k and benefits.
I, personally, wouldn't hire any employee with that type of pending investment without a resume demonstrating that somebody else took a chance on him/her. It's just survival for an employer that you don't blindly roll the dice and start chunking out a change to a goof that may or may not start dropping the F-bomb on every third customer because its extremely hard to fire a $20K employee with benefits.
The results of a mandated "living" wage pay scale is social disaster. The Mandate removes the impetus for people to strive for more challenging jobs. The mandate throws a roadblock in front of those who want to enter the workforce to start their resume and earn some quick cash. In the end the mandate rewards the first company that can bring the automatic popcorn vendor to market quickest.
If you want to tax me for an extra stipend for a working single mom's benefits, I prefer that.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/15/2004 16:29 Comments ||
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The Lebanese Islamist terror resistance group Hizb Allah is mimicking the trailer from Mel Gibsonâs controversial crucifixion epic, The Passion of the Christ, to highlight the well-being suffering of Iraqis under US occupation. An official at Hizb Allahâs television station, al-Manar, said on Saturday that its version of the movie trailer, titled, The Passion of the Iraqis, borrowed on a "universal theme" to get its message out. The 40-second clip shows Iraqi prisonersâ torture at the hands of occupation troops as parallel to the torture of Jesus Christ at the hands of the Romans and the Jews. "The suffering of Jesus Christ is a universal theme. It is something everyone, including us as Muslims, believes in," said Ibrahim Musawi, who heads al-Manarâs political programs. This fallacy is promptly squashed by the article itself in the next sentence ...
Muslims revere Jesus Christ as a prophet, but not as the messiah. They believe someone else was crucified in his place. And behold, the truth! The rest is at the link.
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
05/15/2004 8:51:16 PM ||
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The Iraqi people are Jesus? How do the suprise invasions of Iran and Kuwait fit into this metaphore? How do blowing up Kuwait's oil wells fit? How do awards of money to terrorists' families fit? How do 35 years of glorification of a dictator fit?
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/16/2004 0:44 Comments ||
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Iranâs supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told the head of the justice department to re-examine âas quickly as possibleâ the file on dissident intellectual Hashem Aghajari, condemned to death for blasphemy, the student news agency ISNA said yesterday. Giving no source for its report, the news agency spoke of the âsupreme leaderâs serious unhappiness about the delay seen in the case.â Aghajari, a history professor at Tehran University and a disabled war veteran, was convicted of blasphemy by a judge in Hamadan for saying that Muslims were not âmonkeysâ and âshould not blindly followâ religious leaders.
Can't go saying things like that. It'd lead to unthinkable things, like individual liberty...
The November 2002 verdict sparked protests in Iran and abroad, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanded it be reviewed. In January 2003, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial but the same judge in Hamadan confirmed his previous sentence. Iranâs top judicial authorities are thought to be anxious to avoid a repetition of the protests that followed the original death sentence, prompting a call to order from Khamenei. Aghajari is unlikely to be executed although a provincial court has upheld the sentence, his lawyer said yesterday. âThe death sentence will definitely be quashed by the Supreme Court, if legal principles are taken into account,â Aghajariâs lawyer Saleh Nikbakht told Reuters.
... which is problematic in a country ruled by divine right.
Iranian newspapers reported Zekrollah Ahmadi, judiciary chief in the western province of Hamadan where the sentence was reviewed, as saying Aghajariâs case had been sent to the Supreme Court although no appeal had been lodged. ISNA reported that Khamenei, who has the last word on all state matters, was angered by the decision to re-issue the death penalty and called on the judiciary to review the verdict.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2004 19:46 ||
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Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said in Ankara on 12 May that the sudden closure of Tehranâs new airport, which the Turkish-led consortium Tepe-Akfen-Vie was contracted to run, could harm business ties with Iran .... The national carrier Iran Air was recently tasked with operating the airport, which remains closed. Tan called the airport deal "one of the most important business projects undertaken by Turkish companies in Iran," and warned that the impasse might harm bilateral "economic ties" .... Meanwhile, Ahmad Tavakkoli, a conservative member-elect to Iranâs next parliament, said on 13 May that "the least we expect of [President Mohammad] Khatami is that he dismiss Ahmad Khorram," the transport minister tasked with the airport project, ISNA reported the same day. He said no minister should remain in office "for even an hour" when faced with "such an embarrassing disaster."
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/15/2004 12:00:00 AM ||
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An Iranian Big Dig.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/15/2004 4:04 Comments ||
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It's interesting to watch the various types of spin being deployed on this fiasco. The early story (commented on in RB last week) was that the original engineering firm overseeing the effort "quit" at the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988 and the effort was "awarded" to an Islamic charity. The net result was a flurry of changed specifications, runways built from asphalt instead of concrete, faulty wiring, faulty flight control systems, etc. leading to an inability to get the airport certified for international service, cost overruns, missing money, political corruption, etc. The last story was that the mullahs' enforcers shut it down because they were "shocked" to discover that the Turkish company had "Zionist partners."
Basically just another story of Islamic greed, graft, and incompetence being blamed on the Jews. This civilization peaked with the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
At least nine people including two women were killed and 11 were injured in an armed clash between two Magsi tribes in village Mubarak Ali Umrani along the Sindh-Balochistan border. Both tribes used sophisticated weapons during the fight. The injured were admitted to hospital. Among the dead are Abdul Ghafoor, Gul Mohammad, Hadi Bux, Shehzado, Gul Jhar, Mohammad Amin, and Salman. The clash was the result of an old enmity.
They don't have two nickles to rub together to buy groceries or educate their kids, but they've got sophisticated weaponry...
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2004 19:59 ||
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I think I'd rather have my kid looking at dirty pictures than exploding in a mosque full of Shias. Of course, I'd rather he did neither, but if it came down to a choice...
Here in the West, we can look at dirty pictures all we want. We don't think women are pieces of flesh. Honor killings are unheard of, and thumping the old lady is severely frowned upon. Maybe you should be looking elsewhere for the cause to the effect you're citing...
The Internet, he claimed, had become a huge distraction for the young generation, making them lose interest in their studies. âOn a larger level, pornography results in indecent behaviour, sometimes pushing people towards homosexuality.â
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2004 19:56 ||
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Newly elected Congress MPs yesterday chose Sonia Gandhi as head of their parliamentary caucus, effectively naming her as their choice for prime minister. âVery shortly, a Congress-led coalition will be in place at the center, providing a stable and secular government,â Sonia said after her election as the leader of Congress Parliamentary Party. She promised Indians a better life with more jobs, accelerated economic growth and social harmony. Giving the first glimpses of the kind of government she would put in place, Sonia immediately identified job creation as one of her top priorities.
Yup. Gotta manage the old economy...
âWe have an enormous task ahead of us. The road is wrought with difficulties, the challenges are vast. Let us not be complacent,â she said. Sonia also promised to ârespectâ her allies and partners, and work closely with them. âWe will soon finalize a joint plan of action with them. This plan will outline our priorities, policies and programs as one cohesive unit,â she said. She said the election result showed that the people had âdecisively rejected the destructive and self-serving policies of the BJP government.â Later Sonia met senior CPI-M leader Jyoti Basu and invited the Marxists to join the government. âThe idea is to have a coalition government,â she told reporters.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2004 19:44 ||
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I think we've heard this before...
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe plans to retire when his term ends in 2008 and has begun searching for a successor, a Kenyan newspaper reported Saturday. Mugabe has ruled the southern African nation since its independence from Britain in 1980.
When his term ends in 2008 he's gonna be 148 years old...
"I want to retire from politics. I have had enough," Mugabe was quoted as saying by Kenya's East African Standard newspaper. "I have not even completed this term, I have four more years and I am not so young." The 80-year-old Mugabe said he "would like to concentrate on writing after this term in office is over." Zimbabwe has been wracked by political violence and economic turmoil in recent years as Mugabe's government has seized thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks. Seeking to crack down on dissent, the government has arrested opposition leaders, trade unionists and independent journalists. However, Mugabe said problems in finding a successor have led to a power struggle in the top leadership of his ruling ZANU-PF party. "They are fighting and some are even going to consult with witch doctors," Mugabe said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2004 19:33 ||
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Police fired tear gas and arrested dozens, including the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, during an anti-government protest Saturday in Nigeria's commercial capital. Soyinka, an outspoken opponent of previous military regimes, is also a vocal critic of President Olusegun Obasanjo's civilian government, describing Nigeria as an anarchic state in which normal government functions have been upended. The writer was among 500 demonstrators at a protest in central Lagos organized by human rights and other civic groups calling for the government's resignation. Some of the demonstrators waved signs reading "Obasanjo is a civilian dictator." Police fired tear gas to break up the demonstration after 15 minutes, arresting dozens including Soyinka and bundling them into police vans. "We were very deliberately tear-gassed," Soyinka told The Associated Press by telephone after his release from police custody. He described the police action as a "mindless and unproductive attack."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2004 19:30 ||
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At least three teachers have been placed on paid leave following complaints they showed students the videotaped beheading of American Nicholas Berg in Iraq. Villa Park High School English teacher Stephen Arcudi allowed students to use his classroom computer to see video footage of Berg being executed, school officials said. "Because of our concern over his judgment and the way he handled the situation, we have put him on leave while we continue to investigate," said Orange Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Cheryl Cohen.
Can't have this teacher polluting the minds of the kiddies with the truth, after alll.
Two other teachers were put on leave by the Grossmont Union High School District near San Diego. Cohen said both a parent and a student complained. Arcudi, 46, said he discouraged a student from trying to find the Berg video on the Web. But his students said Arcudi gave out the Web address where the video could be found. "He said: 'This is the enemy we're up against and these are the things you don't get to see,'" said Naim Dujak, 17. "He did not force anyone to watch it."
Ahnold had better hurry up with school reform in California.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/15/2004 2:56:48 PM ||
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both schools (Grossmont and El Capitan) are in my son's HS District, in conservative east SD County. Grossmont District will slap their hands, but they won't dare do more....
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/15/2004 15:07 Comments ||
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I agree with his statements and I'm glad that he isn't teaching elementary school.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/15/2004 15:48 Comments ||
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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.
