Cairo's Al Ahram newspaper prints an opinion piece longing for someone to rule Egypt and telling the gentle reader why Erdogan's neo-Ottoman Turkey is the idea candidate for the job. Some interesting ideas to ponder.
#1
I know pride gets in the way but I think the Egyptians did better under English administration than under the Ottomans. Of course the English probably don't want them back anyway.
If the yield on shorter term instrument could be raised, the citizens who live on the interest of CDs could, on the margin, get more and spend more. If the yield on long term instruments could be lowered, it would, again, on the margin, make homes more affordable.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
09/21/2011 9:40 Comments ||
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#4
I meant 0.9% on the 1 year
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
09/21/2011 9:40 Comments ||
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#5
I think airandee's (sorry if spelling off) idea of printing off a buttload of stamps and borrowing against their value and assumed sale is a better idea.
Dr Hanson weighs in
The media finally conceded the Obama administration to be inexperienced and inept, reminiscent of the Carter administration -- but, they maintained, not possibly involved in any corruption. Then suddenly scandals erupted on nearly every conceivable front: the crony-capitalist half-billion-dollar loan guarantee to a now bankrupt Solyndra; the Fast and Furious gun deal, in which, in lunatic fashion, the U.S. government sold deadly automatic weapons to Mexican drug-cartel killers; the administration's pressure on a four-star general to fudge his testimony as a favor to a big campaign donor whose suspect company, LightSquared, was doing business with the Pentagon; and the politically inspired dropping of investigations by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
The administration got itself into these messes because it customarily counts on a medieval notion of compartmentalized exemption. In the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama's loud and welcomed hope-and-change promises to end insider influence, lobbying, and earmarks were essential to his well-crafted image of the outsider reformer. Once that liberal narrative was embraced by the media, few seemed to care whether the other, cynical Obama was the first candidate in the history of public financing of presidential campaigns to renounce the program -- in order to maximize his campaign stash, much of it pouring in from firms like Goldman Sachs and BP.
The country shrugged at such contradictions: Surely such a saintly progressive had saintly reasons; or, if he didn't, exemption must be given for a messianic figure to use questionable means to achieve his noble ends. Yet, according to PolitiFact, the fact-checking arm of the St. Petersburg Times, of the 17 grand promises candidate Obama made on ethics reform, he has so far kept only five.
That principle of liberal exemption from accountability explains much of both the fundamental and the trivial about the Obama administration. As a candidate, Obama railed against "Karl Rove politics." Few seemed to notice that he had established a website ("Fight the Smears") asking supporters to collect information on opponents, in a Nixonian effort at preemptive action to discourage opposition. The notorious and now-defunct JournoList followed. Currently we see that creepy tactic resurfacing a third time with the new AttackWatch.com website, which lists pictures and names, in the glaring red-and-black style of an intelligence dossier, of those who have criticized Obama -- juxtaposed with supposed rebuttals and a puerile request for readers to snoop about and send in more names of those who dare to oppose the president.
"Civility" has followed the same tired script. Channeling the outrage over the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Obama in sonorous accents called for a new civility and a softer tone of public discourse -- even though the man who shot Congresswoman Giffords was clearly sick and incited by neither left nor right political rhetoric. That the president, both in campaigns and in governance, had begged Latinos to "punish our enemies" and had called on supporters to "get in their faces" was irrelevant. The Congressional Black Caucus and the union bosses apparently understood that disconnect, as progressives called Tea Party types "son of bitches" who could go "straight to Hell" -- the modern equivalents of the lynch mobs of the old segregated South. In the postmodernism of Obama, self-proclaimed underdogs and victims are not bound by protocols intended for their oppressors: Some illiberal targets clearly have to be demonized to thwart their demonic plans.
We all know that Obama supports the DREAM Act and ridiculed the calls to build a border fence as a conservative effort to install "moats and alligators." Why, then, would such an enlightened administration that wished brotherly porous borders have its agents sell guns to Mexican killers? No doubt a rogue subordinate, or a well-intentioned effort to do some sort of good, would soon surface in righteous explanation that would preclude partisan gotcha audits.
The Solyndra mess, in Sophoclean tragic fashion, revealed these same requisite exemptions and penances. In 2010, a buoyant Obama visited the doomed plant to boast of government-generated green and homegrown jobs. By inference, Solyndra was just the sort of noble federally sponsored factory that the greedy private oil companies, non-union profit-hungry employers, and dastardly outsourcing CEOs just won't build. The far wiser China and Germany subsidize green energy, so we must too. Case closed.
Once that huge moral superstructure went up, then no naysayers dared to look into the nitty-gritty mechanics down below, where some insider financiers and con artists were squeezing out of the taxpayers a $500 million loan without much intention of ever paying it back. The earthly laws of profit and loss, market demand and rationale, and the human tendency to connive to find profit were all to be superseded by Barack Obama's ethereal appeals to help the unemployed and cool the planet.
In this world of liberal exemption, a suspect Dick Cheney conspires with an evil Halliburton; but liberal financiers who donated to Barack Obama to ensure progressive change can't really want unwarranted insider profits from a Solyndra or a LightSquared. We are supposed to be outraged by recent lurid revelations that yokels like non-presidential candidate Sarah Palin supposedly long ago in her youth once tried coke; when Barack Obama confessed in print that he did so rather routinely, we automatically appreciated the angst of a sensitive soul coming of age in the course of his long odyssey to a progressive presidency. Sins are to be magnified or lessened depending on the larger perceived moral intentions of the sinner.
Liberal pundits are outraged that candidate Rick Perry was supposedly a dismal student from the evidence of his leaked undergraduate transcript. Yet they were weirdly reluctant to ask candidate Barack Obama what exactly were his grades at Columbia and Occidental -- still unknown to the public. Grades from decades ago are absolutely necessary to deconstruct questionable Texas cowboys, but need not be produced to confirm the assumed straight A's that earned Obama a scholarship to Harvard Law.
At some point, Barack Obama and those around him grasped that utopian rhetoric and progressive intentions made discordant facts irrelevant. They appreciated that they could do pretty much what they wished and could outsource the rationalization to enthralled intellectuals, academics, and activists, without worry of much media scrutiny. That they thereby helped to destroy the reputations of the bamboozled media was of no concern.
But in tragic fashion, such hubris ensured the present nemesis of Obama -- and the loss of credibility among his media apologists. In short, it would have been odd if scandals like Solyndra had not followed from such liberal exemption -- and odder still should no more surface.
#3
Quite a few people have decided to not just sit back and watch. Some mediasaurs went knowingly or tried to surf the wave and are in nearly every sense kaput, supported by lazy clinic secretaries who find it easier to throw away a odd waste of tree than cancel their subscriptions. Their credibility is gone, 200 years of valued press thrown away, the only way to regain it is to throw the president under the bus and try to convince that they were snookered. In contrast, new media has florished for everyone, from a secondary or curiosity source to main information hub, the tv news just another obnoxious sound while awaiting a flight.
Another one of those tells I have noticed over the last couple years is at the airports and such the main news channel used to start with c, now starts with f. The gambit failed, people actively avoiding them as real news.
#4
The first known government of it's kind in all of history an IDIOTOCRACY at all levels. It does not matter how much money the fake brainless ones have! Good luck people, cease fire like tinker bell said in the you tube video from Afghanistan! Ha Ha!
As he prepares to singularly veto Palestine's statehood bid, he must be thinking to himself: 'This isn't right'.
...In response, though he cannot admit it, Obama has washed his hands of the Palestinian issue. He knows he can do nothing more. And yet, the issue will not go away.
Now, once again, he is being forced to publicly support an Israeli policy position fundamentally opposed to his own.
How odd -- everybody thinks that, and yet President Obama is being loudly touted as the best friend Israel ever had.
Not the best friend Israel ever had, the best friend the Jews ever had. The progressives always try to split the two, particularly here in America...
He knows fully well that Netanyahu has no intention of permitting formation of a viable Palestinian state, and that the Palestinians have little choice but to pursue their current course at the UN.
Robert Grenier is a retired, 27-year veteran of the CIA's Clandestine Service. He was Director of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center from 2004 to 2006.
How many in the CIA think like this bold gentleman? (He also has a fascinating perspective on President Clinton, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and Pakistan's nuke program that's well worth the moment it will take you to scan the rest of the piece to find.). We won't bother to ask that question of the State Department, where such as he write not opinion pieces for foreign news outlets but books, which mostly remain unpublished but cherished, proof of their deep knowledge and superior understanding. One can only hope that after he cleans out the CIA, General Petraeus is promoted to Secretary of State to clean out their Augean stables.
#2
I'd be willing to wager he's putting together his "Presidential Pardon's" list at this very moment. A nice little parting gesture I'm sure he and Michelle will gloat over for years to come.
#6
Interesting read. But that is how it is supposed to work: the president represents the opinion of the people. And this is also a false comparison. Pakistani F-16'd vs. the existence of Israel? FEH.
#7
Just a comment, Iwas looking over the funnies (As I do daily) and whadda you know. an advertisement from Obama, it really takes stupidity to advertise there.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/21/2011 10:13 Comments ||
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#8
If Barack does not Veto, he should make it clear that if the Pals go for their own state all funding from the USA ends. Perhaps to Egypt as well if it looks like Egypt might be able to influence the Pals.
He should also put together an arms sale for Israel. Defensive stuff. The sale contingent on the UN vote or no-vote. Perhaps include a defense agreement suggesting the US will do whatever it takes to ensure the existance of Israel. Again, assuming the Pals become a state.
Then when the vote comes up, the US should not veto (a veto is gonna hurt us internationally), but instead follow what we said regarding supporting Israel.
#9
Grenier sounds like a typical pro-arab/palestinan anti-jew shill.
Justifications for the patently unjustifiable
Note this visceral emotion about the idea of trying to sanction the Pakis. He might just as well have said that he loved the idea of them having nukes; or that the US had no recourse but to give into them.
He understands the Israeli-Palestinian issue backwards and forwards.
WTF?? Obama doesn't understand ANYTHING backwards and forwards other than his own wet-dreams.
Everything about this article is Jews bad; Paleos (and Pakis) good.
#11
Had that same odd thought the other day GC8754, we'd get a surprise speech. Seems at the moment he gave the standard catch phrase plaid, variation 4.
Taqqiya can be a sweet and lovely thing...until the poison reveals itself
Why was Recep Tayyip Erdogan transferred from the category of the faithful to that of the apostates the moment he spoke about secularist principles adopted by his party in Turkey? And why didn't the liberals make the Turkish prime minister's statements a chance to end the state of polarization that the Egyptian political scene has been witnessing since the referendum on the constitutional amendments was held last March?
The Moslem Brüderbund accused him of interfering in Egypt's internal affairs, even though he did not interfere in anything; he merely explained the relationship between religion and state in an attempt to give Egypt's intelligentsia a way out of the crisis that could very well kill the dreams of democracy and freedom and ruin the economy.
This crisis is in fact responsible for the economic losses in the stock market, tourism, and foreign investment, because it maintains a state of uncertainty and tension.
As the two parties kept fighting, Tahrir Square continued to be the scene of successive protests and sit-ins, and in response the state almost stopped planning for the future and working on ending the transitional phase in a rapid manner.
Erdogan shared his party's experience with an extreme secularism that prohibited calls for prayers and violently repressed any aspects of Mohammedan religiosity.
It was an experience, he said, that after a lot of hard work culminated in a definition of secularism that grants society its religious rights and dictates that people from all religions or with no religion be treated equally.
I find nothing in Erdogan's definition that contradicts Islam or renders the prime minister an apostate. He is a very religious man who doesn't miss any of his prayers, and when I met him in the 1990s, when he was mayor of Istanbul, I saw a small prayer rug in his office.
It was the late Islamic scholar Salih Ozcan who took me to meet a man in whom he saw a bright future and a powerful comeback of Islam in Turkey.
At the time, Erdogan belonged to the Welfare Party under the leadership of his mentor, Necmettin Erbakan, but he ran Istanbul with a different vision that dealt with reality with a tolerance that made no discrimination between hookers and veiled women.
He never said that the first will burn in hell and therefore have to be eliminated, nor did he say that the second are the only believers. Instead, he offered honest jobs for hookers, like the cleaning of streets, and they gradually left their original occupations and responded to his initiative. This way, Istanbul got rid of the white slavery that had tarnished its civilization.
He didn't need to impose harsh punishments on behavior seen as un-Islamic, nor did he form a morality police force that clamped down on vice. He did not waste his time hunting down alcohol shops and covering the unveiled, nor did he emulate Erbakan in provoking the secularists and instilling fear in them.
He had learned well from all the mistakes made by Islamists throughout Turkey's secular history.
In a few words, he offered us what he learned and what enabled him to do away with the contradiction between his Islamic-oriented party, an offshoot of the Welfare Party that was banned in 1998, and the secular and nationalist parties in the country.
Unfortunately, Islamists did not accept the words and lessons Erdogan offered, but instead hurried to attack the man whom they earlier received in Cairo as the new Mohammedan Caliph.
Had they examined the situation, they would have found out that he wanted to save democracy and see freedom and rotation of power become the main trait of the Arab Spring. He offered a solution to the current squabbles -- before they end up in a situation much more dangerous than tyranny and dictatorship.
Isn't what Erdogan said a modern interpretation of the Koranic rule that forms a constitution stating the relationship between state and religion: "You have your religion; I have mine."
He explained the concept of a civil -- let's not say "secular," since it is an ill-reputed word in Egypt and the Arab world -- state that offers both Islamists and liberals the perfect rescue plan. Will they ever make use of it?
(Farrag Ismail is managing editor of AlArabiya.net.)
#1
"Why was Recep Tayyip Erdogan transferred from the category of the faithful to that of the apostates the moment he spoke about secularist principles adopted by his party in Turkey?"
uh..because he spoke about secularist principles adopted by his party
I love it when the answer to the question is contained in the question itself.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
09/21/2011 15:10 Comments ||
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#2
I always wondered how Islamists would deal with running a country/economy.Praying 5 times a day disrupts the work ethic needed in a sucessful economy.
Posted by: Paul D ||
09/21/2011 16:05 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.
