To Be A Woman In Iran….

…..Is to be treated as rather a lot less than a second class citizen. If you dare to raise your voice about the injustice of that treatment, you can expect to go to prison. You won't get to go on Oprah and describe how you are being held down by the man. You will sit and rot in a prison.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Iranian police shoved and kicked them, loaded them into a curtained minibus and drove them away. Hours later, at the gates of Evin prison, they were blindfolded and forced to wear all-enveloping chadors, and then were interrogated through the night.

All 31 were women — activists accused of receiving foreign funds to stir up dissent in Iran. But their real crime, says Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh, was gathering peacefully outside Tehran's Revolutionary Court in support of five fellow activists on trial for demanding changes in laws that discriminate against women.

During her 15 days in prison, "I tried to convince them that asking for our rights had nothing to do with the enemy," Abbasgholizadeh told The Associated Press by telephone from Tehran. "But they insisted that foreign governments were exploiting our cause."

The March 4 arrests highlight how women's rights, which were making some advances under the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami, are being rolled back by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who succeeded him in August 2005.

Activists say that while world attention has focused on the West's standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, the abuses of women's rights have intensified, using fear of a U.S. attack as a pretext.

Over the past 10 months, security forces have "become more and more aggressive even as women's actions have become more peaceful and tame," said Jila Baniyaghoub, an activist who has also spent time in jail.

Liberals should be the most adamant critics of the regime in Iran - and the regimes in much of the Middle East. The arrest of these women for the "crime" of demanding equal rights should be enraging anyone who believes in equality. But it's easier and safer to bash George Bush, right? I have my differences with this administration, but the idea of spreading liberty - that one is completely, utterly acceptable to me. Because it is the right thing to do. Every, single time.

For Us And For Yourselves

Omar from Iraq the Model writes what should be a wake-up call for the posturing politicians. (No, I am not optimistic that it will be heard, but I hold out hope that the Reid-Pelosi regime is rapidly running up onto the rocks with the media turning on them). This one is a must read. (Including the extended entry where the title for this post came from).

Why Are the Democrats Doing This?

Instead of trying to come up with ideas to help they try to halt the sincere effort to stabilize Iraq and rescue the Middle East from a catastrophe.

I am Iraqi and to me the possible consequences of this vote are terrifying. Just as we began to see signs of progress in my country the Democrats come and say ‘well, it’s not worth it, so it’s time to leave’.
Evidently to them my life and the lives of twenty five million Iraqis are not worth trying for and they shouldn’t expect us to be grateful for this.

For four years everybody made mistakes; the administration made mistakes and admitted them and my people and leaders made mistakes as well and we regret them.
But now we have a fresh start; a new strategy with new ideas and tactics reached after studying previous mistakes and designed to reverse the setbacks we witnessed in the course of this war.

This strategy although its tools are not fully deployed yet is showing promising signs of progress.
General Petraeus said yesterday that things will get tougher before they get easier in Iraq and this is the kind of fact-based realistic assessment of the situation which politicians should listen to when they discuss the war thousands of miles away.

Reid and Pelosi are determined to lead America to defeat. They have no regard - none whatsoever - for the bloodbath that will ensue if we pull out of Iraq. They have no regard for the fact that AMERICA will lose, not the Republicans; our nation. They have not one, single bit of care about the victims they will leave behind in their mindless pursuit of defeat for their own nation. They have all the time in the world for dictators, no time at all for the man they sent to carry out a war in the nation's interest.

For them, there is only political advantage, not the real interests of the people they purport to serve. Nothing whatsoever for the people they are condemning to die for their perceived political advantage. The politicians running madly after the Democratic nomination for president say that Bush diminished the standing of the US in the world. They'd be more accurate if they looked in a mirror.

So, Here’s An Interesting question

If one keeps snakes as pets, the pet will require feeding. This entails, of course, feeding another animal to your pet. This is kind of how it works in the real world. So, this is actually an interesting little question. A Phoenix man is in rather serious trouble for feeding a three-week old mongrel puppy to his pet boa constrictor. The specific charge is felony animal cruelty.

PHOENIX — A man who admitted feeding an oil-slicked puppy to a pet boa constrictor was jailed Thursday and ordered to undergo drug and psychological testing before he's sentenced.

Joseph E. Beadle, 40, pleaded guilty last month to a charge of animal cruelty, a felony.

He was set for sentencing Tuesday but failed to appear and a Maricopa County Superior Court judge issued an arrest warrant for him. Beadle surrendered to authorities Thursday morning and was jailed with bond set at $5,000.

Police reports said Beadle fed the mixed-breed, 3-week-old puppy to the 8-foot-long snake in June as two 15-year-old boys watched. He poured cooking oil on the dog so it would be easier for the snake to swallow, according to the reports.

Ok, let's be clear here. I think the guy is a major jerk. But let's just ask a serious question: how, exactly, is this morally any different than PETA "rescuing" animals only to turn around, kill them and dump the dead, furry corpses in a dumpster? (The two PETA "activists" in North Carolina were acquitted of their animal cruelty charges but convicted of littering for dumping the victim's carcasses.) How? PETA killed over 14,000 "rescued" animals in the past few years. This guy, as reprehensible as his actions were, killed one puppy. He's found guilty of a felony and PETA gets hit with littering.

How, exactly, is this right?

No Cover At All

One of my astute readers pointed this out to me, I had missed it. But it indicates that Nancy Pelosi is in real trouble. Her friendly treatment by the media is rapidly evaporating. And they are exposing her fraudulent new direction and shadow foreign policies for what they are - meaningless words based on a "this is how the world should be" worldview instead of a "this is how the world actually functions when you aren't dreaming" reality check.

THE CONGRESSIONAL leaders who visited Damascus this month to meet Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad gave a practical test to the oft-stated theory that "engaging" his regime is more likely to produce results than the Bush administration's policy of isolating it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was particularly unstinting in her goodwill, declaring that she had come to see Mr. Assad "in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace." In a statement, her delegation reported that it had talked to Mr. Assad about stopping the flow of foreign terrorists to Iraq and about obtaining the release of kidnapped Israeli soldiers. It also said it had "conveyed our strong interest in the cases of [Syrian] democracy activists," such as imprisoned human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni.

Three weeks have passed, so it's fair to ask: Has there been any positive change in Syrian behavior — any return gesture of goodwill, however slight?

Mr. al-Bunni might offer the best answer — if he could. On Tuesday, one of Mr. Assad's judges sentenced him to five years in prison. His "crimes" were to speak out about the torture and persecution of regime opponents, to found the Syrian Human Rights Association and to sign the "Damascus Declaration," a pro-democracy manifesto.

Oh, please do read the whole thing. It is merciless. It all but calls Pelosi and those she purports to speak for completely out of touch with reality. I rather suspect the more centrist Democrats have about had it with Pelosi and Reid and the old excrement is about to hit the air-moving device. Expect rapidly deteriorating media coverage for the left-leading leadership.

Don’t Believe Everything You Read

There has been a lot - far too much - hyperventilation about the "scandal" at the World Bank involving Paul Wolfowitz. The Opinion Journal has been very vocal about trying to get the real story out. Because there is a lot more going on than the media would have you believe. Put in simple terms, the entire uproar appears to be manufactured by staff at the bank in reaction to Wolfowitz's reform efforts. And it isn't just the Opinion Journal that is supporting Wolfowitz. The primary clients of the World Bank are voicing support for him - against the European coup attempt.

One of the most revealing subplots in the European coup attempt against World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is who is coming to the American's defense. The rich European donor countries want him to resign, while the Africans who are the bank's major clients are encouraging him to stay.

You wouldn't know this from the press coverage, which continues to report selective leaks from the bank staff and European sources who started this political putsch. The latest "news" is that the European Parliament has asked Mr. Wolfowitz to resign, thus sustaining that body's reputation for irrelevant but politically correct gestures. If Mr. Wolfowitz leaves, no doubt some of the europols will angle for the job.

The more telling story is the support for the bank president from reform-minded Africans. At a press conference during this month's World Bank-IMF meetings in Washington, four of the more progressive African finance ministers were asked about the Wolfowitz flap. Here's how Antoinette Sayeh, Liberia's finance minister, responded:

"I would say that Wolfowitz's performance over the last several years and his leadership on African issues should certainly feature prominently in the discussions . . . . In the Liberian case and the case of many forgotten post-conflict fragile countries, he has been a visionary. He has been absolutely supportive, responsive, there for us . . . . We think that he has done a lot to bring Africa in general . . . into the limelight and has certainly championed our cause over the last two years of his leadership, and we look forward to it continuing."

There are a lot of Afican countries that want Wolfowitz to stay on - but the Europeans appear to be doing their damnedest to get him. The media is playing along here. But maybe we should listen a bit to the people who will be impacted by the coup, no? Maybe their voices need to be heard and not just those of the "elites".

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

Get ready for the whole enormously over-long primary campaigns to be turned on their ear. It looks very, very likely that Fred Thompson is going to come in. And he has the backing of some of Ronald Reagan's inner circle. The world of politics just got very, very interesting.

Ronald Reagan's closest allies are throwing their weight behind the White House bid by the late president's fellow actor, Fred Thompson.

The film star and former Republican senator from Tennessee will this week use a speech in the heart of Reagan country, in southern California, to woo party bigwigs in what insiders say is the next step in his coming out as a candidate.

A key figure in the Reagan inner circle has now given his seal of approval to Mr Thompson, best known as a star of the television crime drama Law and Order.

As deputy chief of staff, Michael Deaver was a key member of the "troika" of aides who kept the Reagan White House on track. With the chief of staff James Baker and special assistant Ed Meese, he was the master of image and presentation.

Mr Deaver sees the same raw material in Mr Thompson as was perceived in Ronald Reagan, describing him as someone "that could really make a difference". He added: "He is very popular in his party. He could change this whole thing and turn this primary system upside down.

"As Ronald Reagan used to say, after he stole a line from Al Jolson, 'Stay tuned, you ain't seen nothing yet'."

Mr Thompson's political and acting careers have been closely interwoven for more than 20 years. He originally worked as a lawyer and -Republican campaign -manager, and was a key legal counsel in the Watergate scandal in the Seventies

He was then asked to play himself in a 1985 film about a real-life judicial corruption scandal in Tennessee, supposedly because the producers could not find a professional actor who could portray him plausibly. That launched his acting career, which he has maintained alongside stints as a senator and continued Republican campaigning.

This is going to be enormously entertaining. Fred Thompson is a real wild card in the 2008 presidential race. There will be much hyperventilation from the Democrats about Thompson's media exposure, there will be outright fear from a lot of candidates. Yep - should be fun to watch. Let's see if he can touch people the same way Reagan did. My guess? He can. And that is scaring the heck out of a lot of politicians.

Faux Outrage

Ok, was it a fairly tasteless stunt? Sure it was. But the puffed up, hyperventilating outrage in this article is a bit much. Sony threw a party to celebrate the release of it new PlayStation game, God of War 2. The party featured a decapitated goat. (This was frankly stupid on Sony's part).

Electronics giant Sony has sparked a major row over animal cruelty and the ethics of the computer industry by using a freshly slaughtered goat to promote a violent video game.

The corpse of the decapitated animal was the centrepiece of a party to celebrate the launch of the God Of War II game for the company’s PlayStation 2 console.

Guests at the event were even invited to reach inside the goat’s still-warm carcass to eat offal from its stomach.

Sickening images of the party have appeared in the company’s official PlayStation magazine – but after being contacted by The Mail on Sunday, Sony issued an apology for the gruesome stunt and promised to recall the entire print run.

Critics condemned the entertainment giant, which produces scores of Hollywood blockbusters each year, for its "blood lust" and said the grotesque "sacrifice" highlighted increasing concerns over the content of video games and the lengths to which the industry will go to exploit youngsters.

At the event, guests competed to see who could eat the most offal – procured elsewhere and intended to resemble the goat’s intestines – from its stomach.

Now, here's what, pardon the expression, gets my goat about this. The newspaper reproduces a picture from the Sony magazine layout starring the goat. But they have pixellated the goat to avoid offending delicate sensibilities. They have left - completely unpixellated or cropped out - a young woman with a rather obviously painted on costume. And the paint is not opaque (pause for the vast sucking sound as readers jump to the link). Yep - no problem with that, but the goat has to go. The paper also gets all het up about this, but expresses no outrage over the massive ritual slaughter of animals, including goats, by slitting their throats in many countries.

What Sony did was pointless and tasteless. But I'll bet they sell a lot of video games. So maybe it wasn't pointless at all, was it?

How Many MPPs Does It Get?

That's Miles Per Plank. The Daily Mail is running a story about a three wheel car made of wood. The builder, a furniture maker, took more than 2000 hours to complete his masterpiece. And it's pretty darn sharp looking, I might add.

The two-seater was put together using the chassis and 602cc engine from a Citroen 2CV. Mr Wood then built up layers of African mahogany around a basic mould using a boat-building technique known as 'cold moulding'.

The car is a a three-wheel adaption of the classic four-wheeled 1969 Citroen Diane and is able to do between 55 and 70 miles per gallon.

Cool looking car. I don't think it would pass US safety standards, though.

Today’s Ironic News Department

Warning: Your "green" solution may turn your house black - as in burned out ruin. Residents of a highly touted "low carbon" housing development in Britain have been warned that should not, under any circumstances, turn on their rooftop solar photovoltaic panels. Because they may start a fire and burn the entire house to the ground.

Residents of a low-carbon housing development endorsed by the Prince of Wales have been warned not to activate solar tiles on their roofs as they may catch fire.

The housebuilder responsible for the five homes, part of a development of 123 in Upton, Northants, has used the incident to question whether Gordon Brown's intention of building "zero carbon" homes is deliverable by 2016.

The problem on the site, which was master-planned by the architect EADW in conjunction with the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, emerged weeks after Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, announced plans to slash red tape "to make it easier for people to put green technology on their homes".

Lafarge, the roofing manufacturer, warned customers that, as a "precautionary measure", they should not connect up its PV-80 solar photovoltaic roof tiles after a defect was found on a site in Germany last year, according to an investigation by Regenerate magazine.

Photovoltaic tiles generate electricity from sunlight and Lafarge said that it had been informed of a problem within one of BP Solar's junction boxes which had overheated and partially melted.

"In this case, the underlying wood structure near the junction box was scorched. No other damage occurred," it said in a statement.

Just another indication that there are no easy, simple solutions to complex problems. (How much carbon does a house fire emit? Want to bet it is more than the carbon savings over the entire projected design life of the house?)

On Another Rat Front

I guess today must be Raturday. Related to the previous post, we have this item from the Daily Mail. It seems that there is a big stink in Britain over a decision to go to an every other week garbage collection scheme. (If it doesn't stink now, it will soon, but we digress). Anyway to prove how foolish this idea is, a television station aired video of rats gamboling in an overflowing dumpster. The problem, as the Daily Mail reports, is that the television station used stunt rats.

Apparently in London you are only ever a few metres away from a rat, which was definitely true of GMTV presenter Ben Shepherd.

With the fortnightly rubbish collection issue hitting the headlines, the breakfast TV programme featured a rat infested bin outside the studio, but failed to mention that the rodents had been deliberately placed for dramatic effect.

Standing outside the GMTV studio just after 8am, presenter Ben Shepherd, stood in front of an over-flowing rubbish bin crawling with rats as he spoke about the issue, leading viewers to believe the vermin are a naturally occurring sight at the London studio.

There is no word if the stunt rats were from Chicago. Who knew there were stunt rat rentals?

The Tale Of The Giant Rats Of Chicago

No, no, no. Not the politicians. Well, them, too. But we're talking an entire rodent army here. And they are undermining the entire city. Now some might say that Chicago being swallowed by the earth isn't necessarily a bad thing, we here at Blue Crab Boulevard would miss it. It's been a target-rich environment for blog material. Of course city hall says they're winning the war on rats, but the rat man says otherwise:

'Rat Man" George Manning knows all about the little furry terrors spotted swimming in hot tubs and terrorizing posh Lincoln Park.

"Had a lady on Mohawk have a rat come up her toilet," Rat Man says.

So it's no surprise rats were a campaign issue in the race for 43rd Ward alderman.

"All over the ward people say, 'If you do anything, get rid of the rats.' They're the worst they've ever been," says Ald. Vi Daly's unsuccessful challenger, Michele Smith. "A rat the size of a small cat ran across my path while we were canvassing."

"Nope, no surprise to me. We're talking total infestation," says Rat Man, whose rat resume starts when he was 6 years old and a rat bit him.

He started killing rats for beer money as a student at Purdue University, and has been doing ever since. For a while, he left behind sewers to make a foray into politics — failed bids for mayor in '77 and 32nd Ward alderman in '81. He certainly encountered rats then, too.

Get Rat Man talking about Norwegian rats, and his eyes get big: Whole sections of streets and sidewalks could collapse thanks to burrowing rats. Rat man says some might say that makes him sound like a nut. (Ed Note: Norwegian rats? Sven, what have you been up to?)

"But I'm not a nut. I'm an activist."

So rats are gobbling up Chicago? Rat Man says they're digging elaborate rat mansions under busy streets, erroding sewers that are already like Swiss cheese and using them as delicatessens and "superhighways."

Despite Rat Man's prophecies, Chicago's rodent-hunters say they've got rats on the run. Mayor Daley's Dumpster Task Force tickets business owners with rat-friendly conditions like leaking grease bins and overflowing trash in alleys. Then, they go inside restaurant kitchens and grocery stores to look for indoor rats and other pests.

The city has printed up pamphlets saying they have decreased the rat population from 6 million to 500,000. So they must have taken a rat census. But rats are notorious liars when it comes to answering census taker's questions, so that is highly suspect. But what's going to happen when one of the Al Gore sized rat mansions collapses? Hmmmm? If you thought the potholes were bad before, just wait.