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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Sufi Dance in Egypt

This event is a must see if you are visiting Cairo.

WTF

"Amnesty International has accused Tajikistan of failing to protect its women, saying nearly half are raped, beaten or abused by their families.

According to Amnesty, women are regularly subjected to humiliation not only from their husbands but also in-laws, causing many to turn to suicide.

The report's authors say the government should introduce laws and support services to tackle

domestic violence.

Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan, is the poorest former Soviet republic." (BBC)

A website for everything

http://www.healthreform.gov/index.html contains state by state breakdown on the current health insurance situation in the USA. It tells about the number of uninsured people, etc.

Monday, November 23, 2009

the ugly truth

"For many women, the correlation between sex and snoring is one of those annoying facts of life: no matter when passionate encounters occur, men always seem to fall asleep immediately afterwards. Dave Zinczenko, the author of Men, Love and Sex: The Complete User Guide For Women, explained the phenomenon to Huffington Post writer Arianna Huffington this way: ?Men go to sleep because women don?t turn into a pizza.?"(scienceline)

Spiegel on Mr.Waffle

The best Belgium invention

"Europe's leaders have chosen two competent but dull technocrats to be the EU's first president and foreign minister. The uninspired choice shows the determination of national leaders to hold on to power -- and the limits of what is currently possible within the bloc.

If the American president has an urgent matter to discuss with the European Union in the future, whom will he call? Naturally someone in Berlin, London or Paris, as usual -- but certainly no one in Brussels. In a rare show of unanimity at last week's EU summit, Europe's big three, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, none of whom are particularly enthusiastic Europeans, made sure that there would be no challenge to their power from Brussels.

On Thursday evening, the blocs leaders chose Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy to be the first permanent president of the European Council and EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton, who is British, to be the EU's first high representative for foreign and security policy. The choice is "an expression of what is currently possibly in the EU," says Martin Schulz, the Socialist leader in the European Parliament, in a resigned tone.

And that still isn't much." (Spiegel)

The choice simply a reflection of Europe's bold decision to go for timidity.

Quotables from Shanghai

"'Now, I should tell you, I should be honest, as President of the United States, there are times where I wish information didn't flow so freely because then I wouldn't have to listen to people criticizing me all the time. I think people naturally are -- when they're in positions of power sometimes thinks, oh, how could that person say that about me, or that's irresponsible, or -- but the truth is that because in the United States information is free, and I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me, I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear. It forces me to examine what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis to see, am I really doing the very best that I could be doing for the people of the United States.'" (PBO)

the art of PR

Nov. 12th, New York Times:
=========================

WASHINGTON ? The Federal Reserve announced new rules on Thursday that would sharply restrict banks and others that issue debit cards from charging overdraft fees without the express permission of the cardholder.

Advertisement on my gmail, Nov. 22nd:
=====================================
Bank of America � - www.BankofAmerica.com - Changing the Way Overdraft Fees Work. See How We're Helping.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Their shit stink too

"For many years, European soccer has looked east toward China, Hong Kong and Singapore hoping that the day would never dawn when its own sports were contaminated by match fixing on anything like the levels of Asia.

Events in Bochum on Friday killed that hope. There, at police headquarters in the heart of the industrial Ruhr Valley, law enforcement officials announced that 15 suspects in Germany and two in Switzerland were under arrest. This, apparently, is the tip of an iceberg. The police claim they have evidence implicating the corrupting of some 200 professional matches across nine central European countries during 2009 alone.

The suspect matches range from minor regional leagues in Germany to top Champions League and Europa League encounters, the two most glamorous club tournaments in the global sport.
" (NY Times)

Belle de Jour revealed. She turns out to be a PhD.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Vogue on Clinton

Vogue profiled Hillary Rodham Clinton. It's an amazing read.

EU Presidency

These are some serious candidates that would have been a better pick for EU first President position instead of Mr. Waffle.

Vaira V??e-Freiberga - Ex President of Latvia - she's a critical figure in bringing Latvia to join NATO and EU.

Martti Ahtisaari - Ex President of Finland, a Nobel Peace Prize Winner and an AIESEC Alumni

Tony Blair - Ex Prime Minister of Britain. Part time douchbag but has a lot of visible international presence.

Mary Robinson - Ex President of Ireland - she was a pretty popular President when she got the job.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Mr. Nobody is the new President of EU

"Leaders of the 27 countries of the European Union on Thursday night chose Herman van Rompuy, the Belgian prime minister, as the European Union?s first president, and Catherine Ashton of Britain, currently the group?s trade commissioner, as its high representative for foreign policy. The vote was unanimous." (NY Times)

My first reaction was WTF. My subsequent reactions were worse. One would think that the first EU President after Lisbon Treaty would be more well known.

Wohoo !

"Afghanistan has been rated by Transparency International as the second-most corrupt nation in the world, with public sector corruption worsening for the second consecutive year.

Only war-torn Somalia rates worse on the Berlin-based organisation's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of 180 nations, which was released on Tuesday." (Al Jazeera)

Indonesia is ranked 111 dirtiest mofo of a country, one position below Egypt. Click here for full report.

The top 3 cleanest are New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore.

An argument for more Socalism in Europe

"From the point of view of western self-esteem, 1989 is a year to die for: a tale of the triumph of individual freedom and the defeat of an ideological competitor, all captured live on television in the ritual destruction of a reviled enemy symbol in the heart of Europe. So the blanket coverage of the anniversary of the fall of the wall, and the parade of platitude-mouthing politicians in Berlin to mark the implosion of European communism it symbolised, was only to be expected.

What has been more striking, though, has been the lack of ideological confidence and enthusiasm that would have been expected only a few years ago. In the rest of what was eastern Europe, there have been barely any high-profile celebrations of the wider collapse of the old regimes. Given the eruption of wars, global insecurity and now economic crisis that have marked the 20 years since the end of the cold war, the larger narrative of peace, capitalist prosperity and the end of history peddled in the wake of 1989 just seems ridiculous." (Guardian)

Tehran Time - AS - HP - NIAC - TZ

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:57:59 GMT

sabim posted a photo:

The Swiss Federal Palace (shot with analogue Canon AE-1)

Put your picture here