It's Easier To Drag Mubarak Through The Streets of Cairo Tied To A Camel, Than An Iranian Cartoonist Passing Through The Eye Of A Needle

Its been an interesting weekend if you have an interest in the Middle Eastern legal system. The big draw, of course, was the trial of Hosni Mubarak, over the responsibility of ordering the killing of demonstrators in Tahrir Square... The prosecutors could not provide any direct evidence that Mubarak gave such orders, so he was found guilty by association, of letting such actions occur on his watch. The case against him was constructed so that it could easily be appealed, and its likely that Mr Mubarak will spend about a month behind bars... In the meantime, people have taken back to the streets in protest, though some have admitted that they're not sure what they are protesting over, other than they wanted to see Mr Mubarak tied to a camel and dragged through the streets of Cairo... It didn't help that lesser officials, who had more to do with issuing those kind of orders, were acquitted, which still makes people mad...

Some pundits worry that the trial results will polarize Egyptian society even more, especially because the two remaining presidential candidates are merely two sides of the same coin; neither candidate represents a change in the system and young people and women will become locked out of the process of forming a new constitution. Most of the ideals that people marched and camped out in the streets for will only be paid lip service, while the same old corrupt system of cronyism and getting things done through bribery will continue on. The more things change the more they stay the same...

Also, there was a trial in Iran of a newspaper's cartoonist that resulted in 25 lashes of said cartoonist. This was the first time that a prosecution for a cartoon of a non-religious figurehead  went through the court system, and illustrates the vagaries of their judicial system. While their is rigorous schooling and training set up to become an ayatollah, there isn't much comparable training to become a judge. Many rulings seem based more on the whims of the judge than any kind of legal ruling. In this case, while there is a 90 year precedent in favor of newspaper cartoons of local politicians, it didn't matter to the judge, who found the cartoon offensive to Islam and a threat to the security of the nation. Even weirder is the fact that the Iranian judge was the one who sued the cartoonist, saying that he was offended by the cartoon, and he also was the one who passed judgement, and issued the 25 lashes. Said an observer of the mess:

"They don't want to understand what you have been doing; they want you to confess to what they think you have been doing, The Islamist judges in Iran have something they call "judges' knowledge." Whatever you say or whatever the law says, the judge can decide based on his own instinct. [Mortazavi] was the interrogator, the judge, and the prosecutor all in one: Judge Dredd..."

The cartoonist and his lawyer are going to appeal the verdict, but it looks like he'd have a better chance if he was an American back-packer accused of spying...


Tomorrow is the recall election in Wisconsin, and it is being over-hyped as to whatever the results will mean. the main problem for the Democrats is they are running against Governor Scott Walker a candidate who lost to him in the last election. It's doubtful that the citizens will rally behind a loser just to throw a bastard out of office...  Paul Krugman makes a good case in his column today, that we already have been practicing the Republican version of the economy for over the past two years, and it hasn't been doing us much good so far: "What should be done about the economy? Republicans claim to have the answer: slash spending and cut taxes. What they hope voters won’t notice is that that’s precisely the policy we’ve been following the past couple of years. Never mind the Democrat in the White House; for all practical purposes, this is already the economic policy of Republican dreams.


So the Republican electoral strategy is, in effect, a gigantic con game: it depends on convincing voters that the bad economy is the result of big-spending policies that President Obama hasn’t followed (in large part because the G.O.P. wouldn’t let him), and that our woes can be cured by pursuing more of the same policies that have already failed."

Colorado politics may be the savior of the future for the Republican Party, if the bigwigs will sit up and take notice. We already have 4 gay people elected to the legislature, and come November that number may double, giving us the highest percentage of gays to elected office, along with California. We also have a high amount of minorities and women in office and running the local parties. It seems that our women are taking charge while our men partake of the medical marijuana... But our top figureheads are still white men, to keep the image of old-school GOP politics... And we still have our share of right wing extremists, like the woman who began the personhood amendments when she was a seventeen year-old home-schooled girl...

The Meek Are Inheriting This Earth...

"Mitt Romney was attacking Obama about our failing education system. He has a point. We are graduating millions of people in this country who are so lacking in basic analytical skills, they are considering voting for Mitt Romney." – Bill Maher

"As George Bush once said, 'Our kids is not learning.'" – Bill Maher
"Between the obesity and the low test scores, you've got to ask yourselves the question ,'How fat and dumb do our kids have to get before our teachers stop having sex with them?"
–Bill Maher

"A new biography came out that says that in high school Obama was a huge pothead … Mitt Romney had to respond to this and said, ‘It is appalling that Obama spent his teenage years goofing around and smoking pot when he should have been pinning down gay kids and cutting their hair." – Bill Maher

I know its said that the meek shall inherit the earth, but that may not be such a good thing. Who knew that a meek dentist would end up killing half the population of his country and not listen to the reasoning of other world leaders? Who  knew that a family of paranoid losers would create a dynasty and run a country nicknamed the hermit kingdom? Who knew that Mit Romney would be chosen to run for the US presidency, or that we would accept a person with the nickname of Mit?

Who knew that Barack Obama would end up being such a sneaky guy? This morning it was revealed that yes, indeed, the US and Israel did create the Stuxnet virus that caused over 1000 of the 5000 centrifuges to fail in Iran, after two years of denying it, that it began during the Bush administration and given the green light to continue by Obama... That Obama campaigned of closing down the prison at Guantanamo but it has yet to happen. Water-boarding was supposed to have stopped by presidential order, but the lawyer in Obama gave himself some wriggle room, and the art of renditioning and interrogation of prisoners has continued unabated. Perhaps the scariest of all, is the fact that there remains a presidential hit-list, with Barack Obama giving his personal OK whether to go after and kill them. Knowing the predatory nature of using mercenaries to do these jobs, they naturally will go overboard and kill people in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Central America without any presidential approval, they will hunt down and kill people at the slightest nod in their direction, because its their job and its so much fun... Whatever moral excuses Obama gives himself, the fact is he is like a teenage boy playing a bloody shoot-em-up computer game, except he is using real drones and killing real people. I wonder what score he gives himself?

I know that Obama wants to portray himself as another John Wayne tough guy figurehead, never having to apologize to countries like Poland and Pakistan, creating negative campaign ads against his opponents. To be fair, his opponents also create negative attack ads, and they are much more obnoxious that the ones so far created against Romney. And crazier, unless you think that Donald Trump in full-blown birther mode, channeling the ghost of Orly Taitz, is normal behavior for someone in the public eye to be doing...

Mit Romney comes across as meeker than Obama, so I wonder what they will have to do to butch him up? I will vote for Romney if he promises to send in the entire Mormon church to Syria as NATO shock troops, let's see how welcoming people are when they show up with the Book of Mormon in one hand, and an automatic rifle in the other... I say this because its only right that we have a Christian cult go and take on an Islamic minority, claymation style... The pundits are trying to predict who Romney will select as his running mate, trying hard not to make the Palin Mistake, but it looks hard to avoid. Do they go with someone who has more charisma than Romney, or less? The main problem is that the more charismatic route may lead to someone who is more right wing crazy and will make detrimental gaffes in public, like our poor Sarah did. So, look for a safer choice, like Pawlenty, or Portman, or even Paul Ryan, who whines at every criticism made about him or his financial and analytical skills...


The Paris Review just celebrated its 200th issue, which agin brought up the allegations that for many years it was funded by the CIA. One of its founders revealed that he was an employee of the CIA back in 1977, and questions have swirled about the literary magazine ever since. I have been publishing this blog for a few years now, and have yet to make over $10 in revenue from Google. I just want to inform my friends at the CIA that I can be reasonably bought, at prices comparable to a Colombian hooker. Instead of criticizing those mercenaries, I could be praising the flight of the drones, all for a modest monthly stipend. Oh, yes, and having my mortgage paid off...

I Got Those Memphis Blues Again...

Oh, Mama, can this really be the end?

Well, the first round of the Egyptian elections went as expected, with 46% of the voters deciding that they were too afraid to take more than baby-steps towards a democratic society. In the next run-off election, the choices will be the representative from the Muslim Brotherhood, and the ex-general, ex-prime minister who was hand picked by Mubarak... So, Egypt is poised to go autocratic either way, religious or secular. This has caused a lot of rioting and demonstrations, setting one political office on fire, and a lot of pissed off younger people who didn't bother to vote... The ex-general, who still likes to be called General, has promised to take a hard-line stance against future protesters and to restore law and order on the streets. This appeals to many citizens who feel that the criminal element has taken over their neighborhoods, now that the police have stopped doing their jobs after they were criticized over how they handled the democratic protesters. Car jackings, kidnapping, and home robberies have escalated this past year, and the outer neighborhoods of Cairo feel more like a war zone than suburban bliss... But, the current protests may be moot, if the country's Supreme Court rules June 11 on the law that was passed barring all former Mubarak officials from running for public office. If upheld, the ex-general will have to give up his candidacy, throwing the proposed elections further into confusion. Really, Cairo seems to be the most exciting place to be right now, with all of the passion and excitement of a public finally taking part in their own future, messy as it will be... The Muslim Brotherhood have become the religious moderates in this race, but since they control the parliament, the danger is that they will fully dictate policy and how the next constitution will be written...

Which is why I often wonder why America is so insistent on trying to convert everyone on earth to democracy. It lends itself to much arguing and flaring of tempers, promoting pettiness of spirit that eventually degrades the political parties. In the US, the Republican Party is in its last days, what you are witnessing in the media are the dying whines of old white men, who simply refuse to pass the baton to the younger generations or give up their political and social beliefs that make them anachronistic and embarrassed to be seen by their children. But we don't have another party waiting in the wings to replace the Repubs, nothing that would excite a majority of voters. Our current election is getting petty and ugly, with the old-school style of fear mongering sprinting ahead in the commercials, and every trick that Karl Rove has encountered will be used before November.

This swing to the far right by the Repubs has produced a lot of entertainment and late night-jokes, but I wonder how anyone could have ever taken seriously such obvious clowns as Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, that Texas governor, and the Black guy, oh shucky ducky... Now, they will all have to rally around Mitt Romney, who is so desperate to win that he will say and do anything; his need is a sickness emanating off of him like a repellant pheromone, keeping all decent people away... While the lunatic fringe is amusing to watch, it becomes sad  and maddening when they succeed in passing legislation. In Florida, 180,000 people who were registered voters have 30 days to prove to the elections office that they are citizens, or they will not be allowed to vote. 500,000 people will not receive unemployment benefits after the end of this year. I can't find anything funny in these things, and yes, I get grumpy and bad tempered thinking about the results of these actions. We'll become a nation of alienated, disenfranchised people, listening to Rush every morning while we drink our crappy Duncan coffee. Crime and domestic violence will rise beyond the levels of our returning vets, and the only jobs that will be blossoming are those in the new prisons that will be built. Maybe I should ask for a prescription for Prozac and Cialis from my doctor next month. Then I can walk around happy with my dick in my hands... Politics? Sorry, I have something more interesting thing to do...

Congratulations to Bob Dylan, who received the Medal of Honor this morning. Funny how some of his old lyrics still have a lot of meaning. This seems to sum up our electorial season so far:

"Now the rainman gave me two cures

Then he said, "Jump right in"

The one was Texas medicine

The other was just railroad gin

And like a fool I mixed them

And it strangled up my mind

And now, people just get uglier

And I have no sense of time

Oh, Mama, can this really be the end

To be stuck inside of Mobile

With the Memphis blues again."

Who Let Anubis Out? Myanmar Drug Trade

"Over the past few months there's been an increasing buzz that Mitt Romney will pick a vice president who's safe, white, and duller than him. Which pretty much narrows it down to a piece of chalk." – Jay Leno

"Just two weeks after a felon in jail got 41 percent of the democratic vote in West Virginia, President Obama got embarrassed again in Arkansas yesterday when an unknown lawyer got 42 percent. See, that proves once and for all that there's only a 1 percent difference between a lawyer and a convicted felon." – Jay Leno

"According to a study released today, the average member of Congress can only speak at a tenth grade level. Which is worse than it sounds, because the average tenth grader speaks at a third grade level." – Jay Leno

"Remember Al Gore, the tubby vice president? He has a new girlfriend – that is unless the Supreme Court takes her away from him." – David Letterman

The most interesting place to be these past few weeks has been Egypt, watching the campaigning and voting for their first democratically elected president. The most inspiring was that everyone has gotten so interested in the campaigns, there were generational debates from coffee-houses to family dinners at night, people were pondering the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate. The five candidates provided enough of a spectrum of beliefs, from three types of conservative and two types of liberal, enough that you might overlook that they were selected by an elections committee, in a version of democracy-lite, it may be less filling...

One of my favorite stories comes from a conservative Islamic candidate, who was very anti-USA. It turned out that he almost didn't make it as a viable candidate, once it came out that his sister and mother lived in the US, in the People's Republic of Santa Monica. His mother had become a citizen of the US, and owned a California driver's license. Guessing why he was the only family member who was so uptight, it was theorized that he wasn't allowed to visit because of his views, or it might have been the care-baskets his mother sent him from Cantor's that pissed him off... The Egyptian legislature changed the law insisting that a candidate for president' parent had to be residents of Egypt, and that controversy went away, except for the occasional chuckle whenever he would go out and lecture...

Conspiracy theories were made up, trying in vain to tarnish each other. One theory even made it to Jay Leno, showing how fast these things carry in this day of the Internet. The proclamation by the Muslim Brotherhood that it was now allowed for a widower to have sex with his dead wife, for sixty days after her passing. Hey, I read about it in the NY Times, so it must be true, right??? One of my favorite hoaxes like this involves the story of the person who opened up a box of Colonel Sander's Kentucky Fried Chicken, only to find a fried rat along with his crispy chicken. This never happened, it was made up by the comedian Paul Krassner, yet every few years it would resurface and be reported in some newspaper needing filler space and wanted a weird story to fill it. The cool part about the Egyptian story, apart from it being rather gross and creepy, is that it might start a whole series of new urban myths that float throughout the Middle East...

Another group of stories and videos, that were widely shown but not reported at all in the US, are the travails of Ahmed Shafik, the former general and prime minister from the Mubarak government. Whenever he made personal appearances in order to give a speech, he was often met with a barrage of shoes thrown at him, and we all know what THAT means... It's as if people have been saving their old shoes for years, waiting for such an occasion... We should know who will have made the run-off vote by the end of this weekend. The next president will determine the tone of the next constitution, the amount of power he has versus the amount given the military, and many other decisions that will affect the region for many years to come. It would be a shame if someone was elected that turned the people's optimism into cynicism, which is the natural phase of emotions after any election. Just don't hurry the process along, like al Maliki did in Iraq... Oh, yeah, don't forget the normal accusations of vote tampering and corruption, those are always many and numerous, and ignored from Cairo to Tehran to Florida and Ohio...

One of the costs of freedom seems to be a rising and thriving illegal drug trade, if we can use Myanmar as an example. Since the military junta has relaxed its rule over the country, the exporting of opium and methamphetamines has skyrocketed. Last year the Thai police confiscated over 2 million pills, and this year it will eventually go over that mark.

There have been several theories as to why production has increased, all pointing fingers in different directions, depending on who you talk to. The Thais point out that now that they are semi-retired, military generals in Myanmar spend their time in the drug trade, beats sitting around and praying, I guess. Myanmar officials say that its the ethnic tribes like the Wa and Karin who have traditionally dealt in the drug trade in order to buy weapons to fight the military, so you should look to their areas for cultivation. On the world market, as the war in Afghanistan winds down, less heroin is being flown out by the CIA and private mercenaries, reopening the market to competition. The Chinese are currently more interested in making money from prescription drugs, both legally made and illegally, though the older, traditional ties from the Triads still hold.

As for the making of speed, most of the ingredients come from Thailand, shipped across the border to Burma, where the danger is involved in cooking the meth, then shipped back across the border into Thailand, for greater distribution. Every major hospital in Thailand has had ingredients stolen from them... Traditionally, its been the Thai military and police who have been in charge of the drug trade out of Thailand, with the tourist police making sure that all of Europe's favorite druggie past-times are available in the areas dominated by tourists. When I traveled in the north of Thailand, marijuana was often given freely, because they wanted to soften me up to buy opium or heroin. When I traveled in the south of Thailand, I could get marijuana from any bar girl or guest hotel, but the opium was usually sold by a Dutch or German tourist. Package tours trekking the highlands often included an evening visiting a local tribe, and letting the young men ingest opium for a few dollars extra. I never did that, as I had tried heroin before, as a younger man, and didn't enjoy the experience. I gained more brownie points when I practiced tai chi as a form of sharing and entertainment with the tribes we visited, and was able to talk to the elders while my fellow trekkers were off vomiting themselves into dreamland... Of course, I'm waiting for the CIA to send in advisors to help the Myanmar government eradicate the criminal trade, because they've done so well in Pakistan, Yemen, and Central America. Won't that be enough to justify their bloated budgets after we bring our troops home?

I Apologize

I apologize for not posting anything this past week. Our local Safeway closed down, and I used the pharmacy there for my monthly medications. The timing was that it closed at the same time that I needed to renew my prescriptions, so I have been without for a week, and suffering the problems of sudden withdrawals. I had lost any desire to write or even concentrate beyond reading the newspaper, spent a lot of time surfing music videos on youtube. Impressed by Jimmy Hall, Jonell Mosser, and Imelda May, as well as finding new videos by Van Morrison and Robert Gordon. Good stuff.

We finally got my prescriptions transferred to the local supermarket pharmacy, and everything should be settled by Friday. Hopefully, my sense of humor has returned, because there have been some funny things happening, if you think that drug smuggling and political intimidation is hilarious...

The Lovesong Of V Putin...

I understand that the reason Vladimir Putin didn't show up at the G-8 conference in Chicago, is because of the protests being staged by his opposition. He might be scared of a coup, if he were paranoid enough... The protests have recently taken on a dramatic tone, rehashing the lyrics from old Broadway shows (my apologies to Showboat):

Ol' man Putin,

Dat ol' man Putin

He mus'know sumpin'

But don't say nuthin',

He jes'keeps rollin'

He keeps on rollin' along.

He don' plant taters/tators,

He don't plant cotton,

An' dem dat plants'em

is soon forgotten,

But ol'man Putin,

He jes keeps rollin'along.

You an'me, we sweat an' strain,

Body all achin' an' racket wid pain,

Protest at dat park!

Send dat email!

Git a little drunk

An' you land in jail...

Iran Practices For Pissing Match In Baghdad, Ron Paul RIP...

"Membership and recruiting of Al Qaeda is drying up. Far be it for me to tell terrorists about strategy but I think membership started to subside when they went to the suicide bomber exploding underpants." – David Letterman

"Let's just say you put on the exploding underpants and you detonate. When they bring in the 72 virgins, then what?" – David Letterman

"The White House admitted that Vice President Biden's endorsement of gay marriage forced him to come out in favor of it. So in a related story millions of Americans are trying to get Biden hooked on pot." – Conan O'Brien

Preliminary talks over Iran's nuclear program seemed to go well in Istanbul, enough to set the agenda for the upcoming pissing match to be held in Baghdad... there are two different Iranian strategies, represented by those close to the President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and those close to the religious Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei. The president's strategy is seen to disrupt proceedings and be in-your-face about things like national pride. The other side, which is currently in charge, takes a more patient posture, designed to keep buying as much time by saying yes to inspections then not letting them happen, along with the public insistence that their program is only for creating energy, not weapons. Crucial to their argument has been the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khamenei that owning nuclear weapons is anti-Islamic and against the teachings of the Koran. The NY Times reported that: "Iran’s public posture fuels a sense that both sides are searching for a way to declare victory and defuse the crisis. For the West, officials have said that success, at least in the short term, would mean a deal that has Iran ship all its medium-enriched uranium out of the country, which would increase the amount of time needed to make bomb-grade material.

“Without violating any international laws or the nonproliferation treaty, we have managed to bypass the red lines the West created for us,” said Hamidreza Taraghi, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is close to the negotiating team."

In Tehran, Mr. Taraghi was promoting a narrative that might pave the way for public, and political, acceptance of a compromise over a program that has broad public support, even among competing political factions. Enrichment is seen as a matter of national sovereignty and pride.


Mr. Taraghi ticked off Iran’s successes. First, he said, Western countries did not want Iran to have a nuclear power plant, but its Bushehr reactor was now connected to the national grid. Second, the West had opposed Iran having heavy-water facilities, he said, but it now has one in Arak.


Third, the West had said no to any enrichment.“But here we are, enriching as much as we need for our nuclear energy program,” Mr. Taraghi said with a smile, referring to the thousands of cascades of centrifuges spinning for years in the half-underground facility in Natanz. Since January, dozens more centrifuges have been online in the Fordo mountain bunker complex, near Qum, built to withstand a heavy attack."

We'll see if these arguments will be enough to get sanctioned lifted. The sanctions are hurting those government officials who have frozen accounts in foreign banks, and are forced to live on their salaries, seriously putting a crimp in the normal flow of graft and corruption. They also prevent the government and larger companies from doing international business that depend on foreign banks to help pay for goods and transportation. Oh, and the sanction on Iran's oil industry is indeed, killing them... European members who support sanctions have said that if the upcoming Baghdad talks are not productive, then more stringent sanctions may be instituted, though its hard to see what's left to punish with. If the US has overestimated its position, then it may have backed itself into a corner that leaves war as a result. Which is ironic, since Israel has just had an injection of moderate politicians added to its government, and may be changing their attitudes towards Iran. More important, really, than all of this nuclear theater, is the jockeying between Shia and Sunni for dominance in the Middle East. The difference between these groups is so silly, that to have an entire region erupt in a religious civil war just boggles the imagination.

To add to the mix, today Iran executed a man they said was a Mossad agent, who confessed to killing one of their nuclear scientists a couple of years ago. Was he really a spy and was he guilty? We'll never really know, because his trial was held privately, and because he was said to have confessed, not subject to appeal. Reminds me a bit of the military trials the US wants to have with prisoners in Guantanamo...

Well, its official, Ron Paul has conceded that Mit Romney has enough delegates to become the presidential nominee, and he is stopping campaigning nationally. Instead, his followers are sneaking into state conventions and trying to take as many delegates as they can, in case their is a brokered convention, ya never know... And, failing that, they are trying to get as many positions of leadership in the state parties as they can.

As the head of Mr Paul's campaign said in an interview: “We laid out a strategy that would have put us in a very good position at a brokered convention. Unfortunately other candidates were not able to maintain their strength and only Ron and Gov. Romney remain. We recognize that Gov. Romney has what is very likely to be an insurmountable delegate lead.”

Ron never had the resources to stage a major campaign, and is serious about his chances only in his dreams. Personally, I like Libertarians a lot. As a group, they are a lot crankier than I am. If you ever get a chance to attend a Libertarian convention, it has better entertainment value than any movie plot you could ever conceive... It has elements of old acid-heads, spouting out-there gibberish, mixed with every form of conservative conspiracy theory ever invented, and a few well thought out ideas that you wish would be made into policy immediately. It's inclusive to Occupy Wallstreet and End the Fed...

And quite a vocal crowd, as demonstrated by the catcalls and booing at Romney supporters in the last couple of Republican conventions. So unruly that it worries the Ron Paul campaign, who issued a call for civility and respect come this summer and the national convention in Tampa. Ha ha ha, like that'll work. Whether you believe in climate change or not, its going to be another long, hot Summer, with the heat and humidity making us old folks bitchy and mean. It'll get real feisty in Tampa, now that the Woodstock generation has spent the last few years whacked out on prescription neuroleptics, and show these tea partiers how its really done right...