Saudi Arabia’s Injustice System

Alternative Title: Saudi Arabia – Oops I did it again.

Late this past October, Christopher Wilcke had reported in The Guardian Unlimited that any political or social reform that is taking place in Saudi Arabia “has been more cosmetic than real.” Lest anyone believe that this is an unsupported statement, the Higher Judicial Council of Saudi Arabia offers this egregious example of injustice:

A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail . . . The 19 year old woman – whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms – was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for “being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape.”
But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia’s Higher Judicial Concil ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.

A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.”

Further, the woman’s lawyer, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem, appealed the verdict and subsequently lost his license to practice law in Saudi Arabia.
The irony of this situation is that a mere month ago, Saudi King Abdullah announced a complete overhaul of the judicial system that has undergone severe criticism by the Western world:

In a move widely welcomed in Saudi Arabia and abroad, King Abdullah early this month decreed an overhaul of the country’s archaic judicial system and an allocation of $2 bn for building court-houses and training judges. This was immediately hailed by Saudi reformers, businessmen and lawyers as the beginning of a new cycle of reforms repeatedly called for in the kingdom.
Supporters say the changes will reinforce the rule of law, help to avert miscarriages of justice and improve the business environment. They say the reforms do not undermine the centrality of Islamic law to the justice system, but seek to bring order and oversight to a sector in which defendants often lack legal representation and judges have enormous discretion to rule according to their own arbitrary interpretation of uncodified laws.

It seems evident that King Abdullah is doing nothing more than paying casual lip service to the rest of the modern world. Moreover, there is very little difference between Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries that continue to commit serious human rights violations under Muslim culture and leadership.
It is time that we take a hard look at these violations and the serious implications that they have on human rights and society as a whole. It is time that the Western world stand up to Saudi Arabia and force Abdullah to put his money where is mouth is, and effect some serious, real change.

Open For Business

According to this ABC 7 – Denver report:

A loophole in the law has allowed untold numbers of undocumented immigrants to incorporate in Colorado without a green card, Social Security number or even a Colorado driver’s license. While some see it as an immigration issue, others realize the implications reach much further, citing national security.

Like anyone else who sets up a business in Colorado, most illegal immigrants are simply trying to build a better life. The problem is they are indistinguishable from others who may want to do harm.

For smugglers, money launderers or terrorists, it would be easy to set up a business in Colorado full of operatives.

Also check out this related Breitbart news video.

A ‘Tip’ for Hillary: Admit Your Mistakes

John Lott, author of Freedomnomics, and senior research scholar at the University of Maryland analyzes the situation in which the Clinton campaign neglected to leave a tip for a diner waitress, and then lied about it. While many news outlets consider this incident a “triviality,” it actually serves to expose the true moral fabric of Hillary Clinton.

Here is an excerpt from the full Fox News article (also a worthy read):

[I]t is not a silly or trivial issue. The perceived cover-ups surely gave the story much more coverage and made what might have just been a simple oversight look much worse, and the issue is a lot deeper than just Clinton using the waitress as a campaign prop.

What if, for the sake of argument, Hillary Clinton decided not to pay the tip? Why would this be so upsetting? Because tipping has to do with trust.

Take a simple example. If you went to a restaurant with a friend and you received good service, how would you react if your friend stiffed the waitress? If the friend thought that he could get away with stiffing a waitress, would you think that he was more likely to take advantage of others? Possibly even yourself?

Even if the friend tips well, it is not a good sign if he is seen as consciously calculating whether it pays to give the tip. What if he tries to figure out the chances that he will have to come back to the same restaurant and the waitress will recognize him as the cheapskate who cheated her?

. . .

The long and short of all this is that Hillary should have said that she made a mistake. Surely the news story wouldn’t have lingered on for a week. Instead, Hillary’s campaign turned the event into one about honesty.

Anita Esterday said, “why would I lie about not getting a tip?”

Whether the incident simply reveals a disdain for taking responsibility or a lack of caring about others, Hillary Clinton did not handle it well.

 

 

My Wife Is A Bitch

So, what do you do if you can trace all of your life’s misfortunes back to one incident of animal abuse? If you’re Salva Kumar of Sivaganga, India, you consult your guru and marry a dog.

According to this Fox News article,  Kumar has suffered 15 years of bad luck, resulting from his stoning of two dogs during while they were mating. Following that incident, he suffered from severe paralysis and became deaf in one ear.

In an effort to atone for his past mistakes, he consulted a guru who then suggested that he marry a dog to eliminate the “dog curse.” And that’s exactly what Kumar did in a widely-publicized ceremony in this past Sunday.

Sources close to Kumar’s family confirm that Kumar’s new wife, named “Selvi,” is indeed a bitch, suggesting that India has not yet come to terms with same sex marriage. Wedding vows were consummated doggy-style.

More Amnesty For Illegals

By now, everyone has heard about the 13-year-old illegal immigrant who ran for the border amid allegations of a sex scandal with his 25-year-old teacher. Apparently, this boy may now be eligible to come back to the United States as a permanent, legal citizen under The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. 

This little-known Act gave birth to the “U visa,” which could offer permanent resident status to illegal immigrants in exchange for testimony against the alleged sexual violator. Further, this visa could offer temporary residency to parents and siblings of the victim, should they apply for it.

The boy, who remains in Mexico, announced that he would be willing to return to the United States to provide testimony against the teacher, Kelsey Peterson. At present, Peterson remains jailed in El Centro, California, and is expected to return to Nebraska to face several federal charges.

Source: Associated Press – New visa may allow teen in sex scandal to come back to U.S.

Supporters claim that the new visas will encourage illegal immigrants to come forward and report such sexual assault charges. However, this policy seems flawed and open to widescale abuse. Obviously, such a policy could extend an open invitation to any illegal that falsely claimed sexual abuse. This one needs to go back to the drawing board.

Who Is Norman Hsu?

The Wall Street Journal has published an interesting article depicting the life and times of businessman, criminal, and major poltical donor Norman Hsu. Here is an excerpt from this article by Ianthe Jeanne Dugan, John R. Emshwiller, Jonathan Cheng, and Jim Carlton:

Mr. Hsu’s story has received considerable public scrutiny over the past few months, but one question still looms large: How did his classic immigrant pursuit of the American Dream become so twisted?

An in-depth look at Mr. Hsu’s peculiar rise and abrupt fall reveals a man consumed with a desire to gain respect and wealth, even as his scattershot business ventures failed at every turn. In politics, he found everything he seemed to be looking for — glamorous friends, acclaim and a measure of credibility that he used to help attract investors to his dubious business pitches.

His business failures and resulting deceptions required him to construct a facade. To those who met him, he seemed a success, filled with confidence, warmth, generosity and sincerity. But he was dogged by lawsuits and angry creditors, once outwitting an intimidating debt collector nicknamed “Shrimp Boy” by telling police he was being kidnapped. He would tap one circle of friends, then disappear, only to turn up later with new friends and new funding.

Politics was a world where his schmoozing and fund-raising talents were powerful currency. He became a “bundler,” someone who could induce hundreds of acquaintances to donate. Bundling has emerged as a major source of U.S. campaign-finance abuse, and Mr. Hsu was in the thick of it . . .

From early on, Mr. Hsu made it clear to those around him that he wanted to be rich. Close friends aren’t sure where he was born. A distant relative says he grew up in Hong Kong, where he “lived modestly” before moving to the U.S. for college. He got his Social Security card in 1969 and, four years later, received a computer-science degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He told fellow students he was an orphan, and displayed an urn containing his mother’s ashes in his apartment.

Hillary’s “Case Of The Mondays”

This week is off to an award-winning start for Democrat presidential candidatrix Hillary Clinton. First of all, New York Daily News columnist questions “Where did Hillary Clinton’s mojo go?” in this article:

That’s what her campaign has to be asking after a rough two weeks. And more importantly, they have to be wondering how to recapture that fading aura of an unstoppable juggernaut.

Top Clinton strategist Mark Penn doesn’t own up to his candidate suffering a dip, but he admits it’s been tougher of late.

“The opponents went negative, and that created a new dynamic and a different set of headlines,” Penn said.

The new dynamic emerged at the debate in Philadelphia two weeks ago, but didn’t just spring from sharp criticism by her opponents. Clinton stumbled by offering fuzzy answers to some questions and refusing to take a stance on Gov. Spitzer’s license plan for illegal immigrants.

Unfortunately for Hillary, it seems that even the backdrops are against her. Following a Waterloo, Iowa, news conference, flags began to fall around Clinton, causing a rather embarassing moment for the candidate. Watch the video here.

The unflappable juggernaut candidate has not even had a chance to recover from the audience question planting incident at Grinnell College. A number of individuals have come forward, suggesting that a Clinton campaign member had requested that they ask specific questions of the candidate. 

“Do These Shoes Make Me Look Guilty?”

As reported in this Washington Post article:

Despite every effort to make ourselves over into a hipper, more fashionable Washington, one pernicious problem remains: Too many of us still struggle with the idea that a person, even a thief, could have “spent over $1.4 million at Neiman Marcus, the retailer,” in seven years’ time.

Which is what the affidavit alleges that Harriette Walters, who worked for the D.C. government for 25 years (the last few as a manager in the city’s Office of Tax and Revenue), did. Prosecutors said Wednesday that Walters and her colleague Diane Gustus had been, for years, quietly helping themselves to $20 million from the city pile in the form of bogus refund checks. They “got paid,” in urban parlance, and bought themselves some nice things.

A Failure To Lead

It has been one full year since the Democrats have taken control of Congress. Karl Rove, former adviser to George Bush takes aim at Democrats who have failed to accomplish anything. Here is an excerpt from his full Wall Street Journal piece:

This week is the one-year anniversary of Democrats winning Congress. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid probably aren’t in a celebrating mood. The goodwill they enjoyed after their victory is gone. Their bright campaign promises are unfulfilled. Democratic leadership is in disarray. And Congress’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest point in history.

Rosie O’Douchebag NOT on MSNBC

Thank God.

Here’s the entry from her abomination of a blog, www.rosie.com:

msnbc
one hour
live
following keith olbermann

we were close to a deal
almost done
i let it slip in miami
causing panic on the studio end

well
what can u do

2day there is no deal
poof
my career as a pundit is over
b4 it began

just as well
i figure
everything happens for a reason
bashert – as we say

and on we go

 This looks like a text message sent from a kid on crack.

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