The Chinese gentleman smiled as he replied, “If, as you say, my ancestors are all in hell at this moment, it would be unfilial of me not to be willing to suffer with them.”
I can’t stand Valentine’s Day. It’s a fake holiday created with the sole purpose of selling a bunch of crap that ends up in the waste stream and getting people to spend money on things they don’t need. Like dinner and a movie.
Anyway, as much as I think Valentine’s Day is a racket designed to separate fools from their hard-earned, I am not calling for banning the holiday. I’m not calling for the elimination of the color red from the marketplace. I’m not patrolling the streets with legions of jack-booted thugs enforcing strict separation of unmarried males and females.
But Saudi Arabia is. Our ally in the desert, our buds from OPEC, are trying to obliterate the whole notion of Valentine’s Day from their oil wealthy yet backward country.
“As Muslims we shouldn’t celebrate a non-Muslim celebration, especially this one that encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women, ” Sheikh Khaled Al-Dossari, a scholar in Islamic studies, told the Saudi Gazette, an English-language newspaper.
Every year, officials with the conservative Muslim kingdom’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice clamp down on shops a few days before February 14, instructing them to remove red roses, red wrapping paper, gift boxes and teddy bears. On the eve of the holiday, they raid stores and seize symbols of love.
This is, of course, the country that, two years ago sentenced a woman who had been raped by seven men to 200 lashes and six months in prison. She was raped by the men because she was seen in public in the company of a man who was not her husband or relative. She was pardoned, but still ….
But as in most places where there are strict rules about behavior, human beings find a way to work around them. In Saudi Arabia, a thriving black market in roses has grown, and florists deliver bouquets in the middle of the night “to avoid suspicion.”
Think about that when you buy your significant other a box of chocolates in broad daylight.
Think you’re a pretty savvy predictor of what’s going to happen next in the big news stories in business, politics, entertainment or science? Want to bet on it?
Check out hubdub (not hubbub!). Once you register, you get a thousand hubdub dollars to bet on any of a wide range of topics tagged to a news item and set in the form of a question. Pick an answer, place your bet and sit back watch the money just roll in. Or not.
Some people in hubdub land have A) some real predictive skill and B) a lot of time on their hands. Enough at least to have accrued more than H$60,000.
Hubdub was created by four guys in a garage in Edinburgh, Scotland, and staffed by a bunch of newshounds around the globe.
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The Transportation Security Administration has come under a lot of criticism since it was formed following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And now it’s in for some more. The TSA has started a weblog, and in today’s post, promptly misspelled “blogoshpere” in the headline. Much as I detest that term, seeing it misspelled in a head on a blog does not bode well for the site’s content or the competence of its posters.
The blog is called “Evolution of Security,” and has a catchy tagline: “Terrorists Evolve. Threats Evolve. Security Must Stay Ahead. You Play A Part.” Short. Choppy. Sentences. Sounds like “Dragnet” dialog.
The hot topics are entertaining, too:
It’s easy — maybe too easy — to make fun of the TSA for its bumbling attempt to create a blog. But the impetus behind it — giving airline passengers a chance to sound off and make suggestions — should be lauded, I suppose. Of course, the comments are moderated, but it appears the TSA is being pretty fair in allowing constructive negative criticisms.
It is interesting to note that a majority of commenters, knowing that they are posting to a gubmint site, choose to post as “anonymous,” thinking their identity is protected. Nice try. And good luck at the airport!
Remember George Bush’s penchant for signing statements — you know, those little “I signed the bill but now I’m saying it don’t apply to me” post facto add-ons to pieces of legislation. Well, he’s up to his old tricks again, this time seeking to eliminate part of the Freedom of Information Act legislation through an act of legerdemain.
But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-VT., caught him:
In a paragraph improbably located in a portion of President Bush’s fiscal 2009 budget dealing with the Commerce Department, the White House calls for shifting from the National Archives to the Justice Department funds for an FOIA oversight office created under the recently enacted law.
The Office of Government Information Services would house an ombudsman charged with reviewing agency policies, speeding up responses and mediating disputes involving FOIA.
Creation of the ombudsman is one of a series of steps required under the FOIA bill, signed Dec. 31 by President Bush.
But the plan to move the office has caused Leahy and groups advocating government transparency to charge the White House publicly agreed to the measure, but then privately moved to scuttle it in a step comparable to the president’s use of signing statements suggesting he may not be bound by portions of laws he approves.
The Justice Department has long been criticized for its handling of FOIA requests. Basically, the DoJ is quick to deny and slow to fulfill such requests. Add to that the atmosphere of secrecy the administration has created, going so far as to not share the list of visitors Bush has entertained in the Oval Office. And don’t get me started about the millions of “missing” e-mails.
You do have to give the Bushies credit for coming up with a pretty clever, if sinister, tactic to get the Congress to repeal its own law by inserting a little phrase into the omnibus spending bill. And we know how closely those elected officials read important documents, right?
The language in Bush’s budget says the Justice Department will carry out “the responsibilities of the office” created in the bill. The language also says a portion of the FOIA bill dealing with the new office “is hereby repealed.”
Leahy called issuance of the language itself an effort to repeal part of FOIA law. But a Judiciary Committee aide said the provision would only take effect if Congress passed the budget with the section included.
Thank goodness Pat Leahy actually reads that stuff. Even so, the government’s transparency under George Bush is still, as we say in the South, clear as mud.
For a funny suggestion to the commander in thief, check this out.
To hear Trump talk, he’s the only one
Who’s ever stood trial for crimes he’s done.
But instead of courtroom drama,
We get Trump in his pajamas,
That’s how he earned his new nickname: Don Snoreleone.
