I hate the custody laws in the Arab world

A British mother jailed for adultery in Dubai has lost custody of her two young children, aged four and seven.

Yes, custody laws don't always give men a fair shake in this country, either.
This is one instance where feel As'ad is putting defensiveness before accuracy. Whenever anyone criticizes women's rights in the Arab world, he just gets defensive and talks about women's rights here. No-one is saying things are perfect for women here (well, okay, perhaps some are), but let me tell you, almost any mother would rather live under the custody laws here. Or the inheritance laws. Or the testimonial laws (in court cases). Women are second class citizens in those areas of the law. It's not orientalist to say that.

The Big Takeover

It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. no empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.

Monday: 45 Iraqis Killed, 96 Wounded

At least 25 people were killed and 50 others were wounded in a suicide bomb attack as a Kurdish family was receiving condolences northeast of the Iraqi capital on Monday, local officials said.

China's top banker proposes new world currency

In an essay published Monday, the head of China's central bank proposed a plan to displace the American dollar as the world's standard and replace it with a global reserve currency operated from the International Monetary Fund. The proposal is also supported by Moscow.

US will appoint Afghan 'prime minister' to bypass Hamid Karzai

The US and its European allies are preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the Guardian has learned.

Khamenei dismisses Barack Obama's overtures to Iran

Iran's supreme leader rebuffed President Barack Obama's latest outreach on Saturday, saying Tehran was still waiting to see concrete changes in U.S. policy.

Khamenei has the last word on major Iranian policy decisions, and the way in which the country ultimately responds to any concrete US efforts to engage it will depend largely on his say.

Khamenei said there would be no change in relations between the two countries unless the president brought an end to US hostility towards Iran and brought "real changes" in foreign policy.

Juan Cole on why we went into Iraq

There are two schools of thought. One says that the Cheney oil gang manipulated us into Iraq to get their hands on the oil forever. The other argues that the Feith/Perle neocon crowd did it to take out Israel's powerful enemy.

The problem is. These two groups don't get along. The neocons always hated the oil lobby for its pro-Saudi bias. And the oil boys couldn't stand the Israel lobby for complicating US relations with the Arabs and getting Congress to put sanctions on oil dealings with various anti-Israel potentates.

So how, in the end, did they come together to push one disastrous war?

Who can we thank for this unfortunate friendship?

Cole's answer: Dick Cheney.

Scenes from the worldwide recession

The state of our global economy: foreclosures, evictions, bankruptcies, layoffs, abandoned projects, and the people and industries caught in the middle. It can be difficult to capture financial pressures in photographs, but here a few recent glimpses into some of the places and lives affected by what some are calling the "Great Recession". (35 photos total)

Six Years Later: Iraq War Continues Apace

The American invasion of Iraq began six years ago, and a lot has happened: the nation descended into a civil war, 4,259 American soldiers were killed, over 1.3 million Iraqis are estimated to have died, and victory has been declared countless times.

But while the war has largely fallen off the front pages, it continues on with no real end in sight. Sure, the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) only covers a US deployment through the end of 2011, but the Iraqi government has already made it clear they’re operating on a much longer timeframe.

Arab and Iranian governments' defense of that butcher Bashir disgusts me. Yes, and American defense of Israel, too. But we talk about that everyday.

On the 50th anniversary of his flight from Tibet, the Dalai Lama accused China of having brought "hell on earth" to his homeland.

"Even today, Tibetans in Tibet live in constant fear, and Chinese authorities remain constantly suspicious of them. Their religion, culture, language, identity are near extinction,’’ the Dalai Lama told his followers in India.

Infinite Debt

I highly recommend you buy (it doesn't seem to be available on the web) this month's issue of Harper's and read the article by Thomas Geohegan called:
Infinite Debt: How unlimited interest rates destroyed the economy

Prominent labor lawyer, former congressional candidate
(for Rahm Emanuel’s open seat in Illinois), and author
of the definitive title on labor relations, Which Side Are
You On, Thomas Geoghegan writes on American usury.
He begins his report by noting the extraordinary fact of
how America “dismantled the most ancient of human
laws, the law against usury, which had existed in some
formin everycivilization from the time of the
Babylonian Empireto the end of Jimmy Carter’sterm,
and which had been so taken for granted that no one
ever even mentioned it to us in law school. That’s
when we found out what happens when an advanced
industrial economy tries to function with no cap at all
on interest rates.” Geoghegan makes a convincing case
for the idea that usury is the hidden-in-plain-sight
source of our ruinous financial condition. With the
overturning of interest-rate laws in the 1970s, usurious
rates created the ultimate in perverse incentives: soon
profits in the financial sector so dwarfed those of stur-
dier industries that every capitalist strove to become a
banker, and many of those sturdy companies to become
pseudo-banks. The resulting capital flight established
the lopsided framework for the current catastrophe.


Best explanation of how this happened that I have read so far

Megaphone desktop tool

The Megaphone desktop tool is a Windows "action alert" tool developed by Give Israel Your United Support (GIYUS) and distributed by World Union of Jewish Students, World Jewish Congress, The Jewish Agency for Israel, World Zionist Organization, StandWithUs, Hasbara fellowships, HonestReporting, and other pro-Israel public relations, media watchdog, or activism organizations. The tool delivers real-time alerts about key articles, videos, blogs, and surveys related to Israel or the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially those perceived by GIYUS to be highly critical of Israel, so that users can vote or add comments expressing their support of Israel. The tool was released in July during the 2006 Lebanon War. An RSS newsfeed is available so that non-Windows users may also receive the Megaphone "action alerts."

I just listened to this interview with Benyam Mohammed, ex-Guantanamo prisoner

"Literally dead" in 'dark prison'


chilling

The "put them on a diet" policy

Chickpeas, soap, toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste: things Gazans aren't allowed to have. Because it will make them oust Hamas, you see.

Three recent victims of "justice"

An 20-year old freethinker

An 75-year old woman

A brave journalist

If it were Muslims doing this, would they be called barbarians? Interesting that it's Europe, not the U.S., that's considering it. Anyway, I think it's a good idea. It's the only way these people will change.

This blog needs pro-Palestinian commentators

Go!

And this one, too.

What Freeman said about Israel

I can't find any quote from him criticizing Israel (not even they make bad cookies) but the right wing bloggers are up in arms about this being published in a journal he edited:

...beginning that the war was an excuse to enlarge the U.S. strategic “footprint” (as neocon William Kristol calls it) on top of the lakes of oil in the Gulf region and make life safer for Irael, starting with the easiest problem case, Iraq. If the governments in the area did not come around, no problem; American troops were there in any case and would protect Israel....In a New York Times op-ed (July 18), Benny Morris put the matter to Bush/Cheney crudely: bomb the suspected sites now or Israel will have to use nuclear weapons on Iran later. Call it extortion, if you will. But perhaps a better term is moral hazard: having been “insured” by the United States, Israel does not have to be cautious or even sensible. The Georgians seem to have learned this lesson too, and without having to pay the high premium that a first-class standing army of lobbyists requires.

My computer's fixed. It has been for a few days now, but I have avoided spending too much time on it because I was reading and relaxing much more in the evenings without it. Anyway, sad story: my husband was in the park with our son and heard one kid, about four (or so he says, I don't know how good he is at estimating ages) said to another four year old, talking about a 3 year old nearby, "he's a Palestinian, he's a terrorist". He said the kid saying this looked Korean and that the Palestinian kid didn't hear him (thank god). This is a very mixed neighborhood, but probably the second biggest ethnic group is Arab, so you would think the parents wouldn't have these views (if that is where the kid learned them). Palestinians flee their country because it is being destroyed, and then have to put up with this when they get here...I am just happy the kid didn't hear it and I hope the other kid will unlearn it soon. Well, if he lives here, he will probably make some Arab friends who will quickly disabuse him of his views.