Some good Thanksgiving advice: "When you gather ’round the turkey, try not to be one"

Here's an interesting idea:

Have a happy, politics-free Thanksgiving

[...] Nobody needs tryptophan when you’ve got Pundy McPundit (amateur, professional or otherwise) at the table to bore your company to death with his or her insights on “climate-proofing” your holiday feast; bombard you with details about Bernie Sanders’ latest Web ad; regurgitate John Kasich’s latest attacks on critics of his massive Medicaid expansion; or champion Jeb Bush’s latest re-re-re-reboot (two exclamation points, new talking points, a fix-it toolbox, blah, blah blah).

Zzzzzzzz.

I feel sorry for rabid partisans on either side of the aisle who refuse to talk to family members, co-workers or friends who support a candidate they don’t like. Life’s too short — and 99 percent of all politicians are crapweasels, anyway.

[...]

It shouldn’t be a struggle to avoid yelling about Bush, Clinton or Trump as you pass the sweet-potato casserole. Don’t get mad. Get perspective. Here, let me help:

If your children are alive, free and healthy, count your blessings and say a prayer for all those parents spending the holiday week in hospitals, hospices, clinics, jails or funeral homes.

If you can’t think of something nice to say to the person sitting next of you, trade memories of the dearest, departed loved ones you share a connection with who are no longer sitting at the table at all.

Pick up an instrument and play music together or sing some old hymns of Thanksgiving (“We Gather Together” was always my favorite).

Take a walk, breathe fresh air, go out on the deck and make fire pit s’mores (or use the gas grill).

Show the young ones at your gathering how to make rubberband stars, advanced paper airplanes, origami hearts or crochet snowflakes.

Get silly. Play “Charades” or “Spoons” or “Balderdash.” Laugh at yourself and laugh with your relatives.

Don’t take family time for granted. Ever. You never know when your time will be up. It would be ridiculous if the very last, parting words you traded with an elderly uncle or sibling or cousin you rarely get to see were “You’re an idiot for voting for (fill in the blank)!” instead of “I love you.”

Look up at the stars. Remember how small and insignificant you are in the universe.

Finally: When you gather ’round the turkey, try not to be one.

Amen. Read the whole thing for embedded links and more.

Happy Thanksgiving!

     

Sense about Syria, from Jimmy Carter?

Could it be? Take a look:

Jimmy Carter: A Five-Nation Plan to End the Syrian Crisis

[...] In May 2015, a group of global leaders known as the Elders visited Moscow, where we had detailed discussions with the American ambassador, former President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, former Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov and representatives of international think tanks, including the Moscow branch of the Carnegie Center.

They pointed out the longstanding partnership between Russia and the Assad regime and the great threat of the Islamic State to Russia, where an estimated 14 percent of its population are Sunni Muslims. Later, I questioned President Putin about his support for Mr. Assad, and about his two sessions that year with representatives of factions from Syria. He replied that little progress had been made, and he thought that the only real chance of ending the conflict was for the United States and Russia to be joined by Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in preparing a comprehensive peace proposal. He believed that all factions in Syria, except the Islamic State, would accept almost any plan endorsed strongly by these five, with Iran and Russia supporting Mr. Assad and the other three backing the opposition. With his approval, I relayed this suggestion to Washington.

For the past three years, the Carter Center has been working with Syrians across political divides, armed opposition group leaders and diplomats from the United Nations and Europe to find a political path for ending the conflict. This effort has been based on data-driven research about the Syrian catastrophe that the center has conducted, which reveals the location of different factions and clearly shows that neither side in Syria can prevail militarily.

The recent decision by Russia to support the Assad regime with airstrikes and other military forces has intensified the fighting, raised the level of armaments and may increase the flow of refugees to neighboring countries and Europe. At the same time, it has helped to clarify the choice between a political process in which the Assad regime assumes a role and more war in which the Islamic State becomes an even greater threat to world peace. With these clear alternatives, the five nations mentioned above could formulate a unanimous proposal. Unfortunately, differences among them persist.

[...]

The involvement of Russia and Iran is essential. Mr. Assad’s only concession in four years of war was giving up chemical weapons, and he did so only under pressure from Russia and Iran. Similarly, he will not end the war by accepting concessions imposed by the West, but is likely to do so if urged by his allies.

Mr. Assad’s governing authority could then be ended in an orderly process, an acceptable government established in Syria, and a concerted effort could then be made to stamp out the threat of the Islamic State. [...]

I'm not a Jimmy Carter fan. But if you read the whole thing, for the full context, it actually makes sense. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Carter may be right about this. It should be seriously considered.

*

     

Who's got the better plan for Syria?

One could argue, Russia has the more realistic one:

Who Is a Better Strategist: Obama or Putin?

[...] And yet, it is hard to escape the impression that Putin has been playing his weak hand better than Obama has played his strong one. These perceptions arise in part because Obama inherited several foreign-policy debacles, and it’s hard to abandon a bunch of failed projects without being accused of retreating. Obama’s main mistake was not going far enough to liquidate the unsound positions bequeathed by his predecessor: He should have gotten out of Afghanistan faster and never done regime change in Libya at all. By contrast, Putin looks successful at first glance because Russia is playing a more active role than it did back when it was largely prostrate. Given where Russia was in 1995 or even 2000, there was nowhere to go but up.

But Putin has also done one thing right: He has pursued simple objectives that were fairly easy to achieve and that played to Russia’s modest strengths. In Ukraine, he had one overriding goal: to prevent that country from moving closer to the EU, eventually becoming a full member, and then joining NATO. He wasn’t interested in trying to reincorporate all of Ukraine or turn it into a clone of Russia, and the “frozen conflict” that now exists there is sufficient to achieve his core goal. This essentially negative objective was not that hard to accomplish because Ukraine was corrupt, internally divided, and right next door to Russia. These features made it easy for Putin to use a modest degree of force and hard for anyone else to respond without starting a cycle of escalation they could not win.

Putin’s goals in Syria are equally simple, realistic, and aligned with Russia’s limited means. He wants to preserve the Assad regime as a meaningful political entity so that it remains an avenue of Russian influence and a part of any future political settlement. He’s not trying to conquer Syria, restore the Alawites to full control over the entire country, defeat the Islamic State, or eliminate all Iranian influence. And he’s certainly not pursuing some sort of quixotic dream of building democracy there. A limited deployment of Russian airpower and a handful of “volunteers” may suffice to keep Assad from being defeated, especially if the United States and others eventually adopt a more realistic approach to the conflict as well.

By contrast, U.S. goals toward both of these conflicts have been a combination of wishful thinking and strategic contradictions. In Ukraine, a familiar alliance of neocon fantasists (e.g., Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland) and liberal internationalists convinced themselves that the EU Accession Agreement was a purely benign act whose virtues and alleged neutrality no one could possibly misconstrue. As a result, they were completely blindsided when Moscow kept using the realpolitik playbook and saw the whole matter very differently. (There was an element of hypocrisy and blindness here, too; Russia was simply acting the same way the United States has long acted when dealing with the Western Hemisphere, but somehow U.S. officials managed to ignore the clear warnings that Moscow had given.) Moreover, the core Western objective — creating a well-functioning democratic Ukrainian state — was a laudable but hugely demanding task from the very beginning, whereas Putin’s far more limited goal — keeping Ukraine out of NATO — was comparatively easy.

Needless to say, U.S. policy in Syria has been even more muddled. Since the uprising first began, Washington has been vainly trying to achieve a series of difficult and incompatible goals. It says, “Assad must go,” but it doesn’t want any jihadi groups (i.e., the only people who are really fighting Assad) to replace him. It wants to “degrade and destroy ISIS,” but it also wants to make sure anti-Islamic State groups like al-Nusra Front don’t succeed. It is relying on Kurdish fighters to help deal with the Islamic State, but it wants Turkey to help, too, and Turkey opposes any steps that might stoke the fires of Kurdish nationalism. So the United States has been searching in vain for “politically correct” Syrian rebels — those ever-elusive “moderates” — and it has yet to find more than a handful. And apart from wanting Assad gone, the long-term U.S. vision for Syria’s future was never clear. Given all this muddled direction, is it any wonder Putin’s actions look bold and decisive while Obama’s seem confused?

This difference is partly structural: Because Russia is much weaker than the United States (and destined to grow even weaker over time), it has to play its remaining cards carefully and pursue only vital objectives that are achievable at modest cost. The United States has vastly more resources to throw at global problems, and its favorable geopolitical position allows it to avoid most of the repercussions of its mistakes. Add to that the tendency of both neoconservatives and liberal internationalists to believe that spreading the gospel of “freedom” around the world is necessary, easy to do, and won’t generate unintended consequences or serious resistance, and you have a recipe for an overly ambitious yet under-resourced set of policy initiatives. Needless to say, this is the perfect recipe for recurring failure. [...]

Having a strong hand is not perhaps as important as playing well the hand you have.
*

     

Catstantinople? “Being a cat in Istanbul is like being a cow in India,”

Why Istanbul Should Be Called Catstantinople
Turkish city can’t quit delighting in felines; ‘like being a cow in India’

ISTANBUL—In this ancient city once ruled by sultans and emperors, the real king is the humble alley cat.

In historic neighborhoods along Istanbul’s Bosporus and Golden Horn waterways, an army of furry-tailed street cats are fed, sheltered and cooed at by an adoring public. Hundreds of fleece-lined houses have been erected at street corners by cat-mad residents. Most are flanked by makeshift feeding stations fashioned from yogurt pots or plastic bottles and overflowing with tasty scraps.

In some districts, ground-floor windowsills are lined with pillows and blankets, offering a cozy place for the discerning kitty to recline. In restaurants and cafes, cats are often part of the furniture, curling up next to dining tables or patiently waiting for leftovers from patrons.

Visitors to the city can dine at one of several cat-theme cafes or stay a night at the Stray Cat Hostel. During a 2009 visit here, President Barack Obama paused to pet Gli, one of dozens of cats living in Hagia Sophia, a museum that was once a Byzantine church and Ottoman mosque.

“Being a cat in Istanbul is like being a cow in India,” said Sibel Resimci, a musician and confessed cat junkie who says her husband often walks nearly 2 miles to work rather than disturb street cats sleeping on his moped. “For generations, they’ve had a special place in the city’s soul.”

Now, Istanbul’s feline fetish is adapting to the digital age.

Social media sites offering daily pictures of the city’s cutest street cats boast tens of thousands of followers. Web developers have created apps to help adopt and locate users’ favorite kitties. Local filmmakers have released a trailer for their coming feature film “Nine Lives” on video sharing platform Vimeo. Wildly popular YouTube tutorials show Istanbul residents how to build shelters and feeding stations so cats can nap and nibble in maximum comfort. The #catsofistanbul hashtag on photo-sharing website Instagram has more than 50,000 posts of cats nonchalantly—and almost always adorably—doing their thing.

[...]

Cats have a special place in Islam: Muslim lore tells of a cat thwarting a poisonous snake that had approached the Prophet Muhammad. One teaching tells that he found a cat sleeping on his shawl and opted to cut the fabric rather than disturb the animal. A popular saying goes: “If you’ve killed a cat, you need to build a mosque to be forgiven by God.”

The feline fetish is also functional: In the 19th century, cats were bred in large numbers for pest control to kill a rat population thriving in the city’s expanding sewage system. Before that, they helped Istanbul avoid the worst of a bubonic plague epidemic spread by rats.

Cats are even hard-wired into the city’s iconography and political culture.

In the bowels of Istanbul metro stations, pictures of waterside cityscapes feature cats posing alongside fisherman, in some cases munching the daily catch. Cat cartoons are used to satirize politicians: a digitized picture of a mustachioed sour puss named Recep Tayyip Erdocat was shared thousands of times last year, in a not-too subtle effort to lampoon Turkey’s pugilistic President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. [...]

Who knew? See the whole article for pics, videos, links and more.

     

An Embryonic New Turkey?

Not the bird, but the country. They recently had an election. Before the election, there was this:

Why Turkey's election doesn't matter

[...] The focus is not the usual one on "Who will form the next government?" Analysts agree that the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP), in power since 2002, will win again. But will it have to sign up a junior partner? Will it win sufficient seats to change the constitution and fulfill President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's plan to turn his position from a largely symbolic one into a fully executive position?

Erdoğan wants powers so wide reaching that he actually compares them to those wielded by absolute Saudi monarchs. Ironically, those powers would be extracted from the prime minister, which position Erdoğan filled for eleven years until last August, when he voluntarily ceded the position to a hand-picked successor, a mild-mannered academic, and moved over to the grander but far less powerful presidency.

Expressed numerically, the question fascinating Turks is whether the AKP will win a one-seat majority (276 seats out of 550) to rule alone, the 3/5s majority (330 seats) enabling it to change the constitution pending a public referendum, or the 2/3s majority (367 seats) required to change it unilaterally.

The main drama concerns a new party, the leftist, Kurdish-oriented Peoples' Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, or HDP): Will it manage to reach the world's highest threshold of 10 percent of the total vote and enter parliament, in this, its first national campaign? If yes, it will could deprive the AKP of its majority 276 seats; if no, the AKP will likely reach that number and maybe even the magic 330.

But where others find high drama, I see near-tedium, and for two reasons. First, the AKP has used ballot-box shenanigans and other dirty tricks in the past; many indications point to its preparing to do so again, especially in Kurdish-majority districts.

Second, since the moment Erdoğan's presidency began nine months ago, he has behaved as though his wished-for constitutional changes had already been effected; he has chaired cabinet meetings, chose AKP candidates, leaned on the judiciary, and deployed a bevy of "czars" to compete with the prime minister's staff. He is lord of all he surveys.

He also blatantly defies the ban on political activities by the president, illegally stumping the country, worshipful governmental media at his disposal, Koran often in hand, urging citizens to vote AKP and thereby enhance his powers as cumhurbaşkan.

As he transforms a flawed democracy and NATO ally into a rogue state, ostrich-like Western governments sentimentally pretend it's still the 1990s, with Ankara a reliable ally, and abet his growing despotism.

Therefore, I conclude, how many seats the AKP wins hardly matters. Erdoğan will barrel, bulldoze, and steamroll his way ahead, ignoring traditional and legal niceties with or without changes to the constitution. Sure, having fully legitimate powers would add a pretty bauble to his résumé, but he's already tyrant and Turkey's course is set.

Being a brilliant domestic operator and also an egomaniac in a tinderbox of a region suggests where Erdoğan's future troubles lie – abroad. Under his leadership, Ankara suffers poor to terrible relations at present with nearly the entire neighborhood, including Moscow, Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Athens, the Republic of Cyprus, and even with the new leader of Turkish Cyprus. [...]

Sounds pretty grim. But is it really that bleak? The election has happened now, and the results are in:

Turkey election: Erdoğan accepts no party has mandate to govern alone

The election result brought forth an embryonic new Turkey, but not the one the president wanted.

It produced what is tantamount to a cultural revolution in Turkish political life. Women will pour into the 550-seat parliament in Ankara in unprecedented numbers, 98 up from 79. Openly gay candidates won seats for the HDP. Most of all, the long-repressed Kurdish minority (one in 5 citizens) will be properly represented in the parliament for the first time with 80 seats.

“This is the first time that feminists in Turkey actively supported a political party,” said feminist activist Mehtap Dogan. “Up until now we have always done politics on our own, away from parliament. But this time we ran a campaign supporting the HDP because we believed in their sincerity when it comes to defending the rights of women, LGBTs and ethnic minorities.”

The HDP is the first party to introduce a quota of 50% female politicians, and all party offices and HDP-run municipalities are chaired by both a man and a woman.

The party’s successful attempt to break out of ethnic identity politics and broaden its appeal well beyond the Kurdish issue owes much to leader Selahattin Demirtas’ magnetism and his message of outreach.

But the mass protest movement born in a central Istanbul park two years ago and which mushroomed into national protests which Erdogan crushed mercilessly also fed in to the HDP’s support.

“During the Gezi [park] protests, many got an idea of what Kurds had to go through for years: the violence, the repression, the unjust arrests. It opened our eyes to the Kurdish suffering,” said Dogan. “At the same time, we saw how the pro-government press tried to turn our legitimate, peaceful protests into acts of terrorism.”

Just as Erdogan branded the protesters two years ago “riff-raff”, “terrorists” and “foreign agents”, in the election campaign he stoked division and malice by repeatedly smearing his HDP opponents as “terrorists, marginals, gays and atheists.”

He asked religiously conservative voters not to cast their ballots for “such people who have nothing to do with Islam.”

The tactic backfired as many religiously conservative Kurds shifted their votes from the AKP to a party that promised to represent everyone’s interests. [...]

Erdoğan may well try to push ahead anyway, but it won't be easy for him, he will have opposition. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
     

Bird-flu in the USA

U.S. Bird Flu Outbreak Hits Millions of Iowa Egg-Laying Hens

Many of the 3.8 million egg-laying hens in an Iowa flock probably have bird flu as the biggest single outbreak of the virus reported in the U.S. added to concerns that turkey and egg supplies will be hampered by the disease.

“Despite best efforts, we now confirm many of our birds are testing positive” for avian influenza, closely held Sonstegard Foods Co. said in a statement dated April 20. The company said its Sunrise Farms unit close to Harris, Iowa, in Osceola County has 3.8 million hens.

The U.S. in February 1 had 362.1 million egg-laying hens, and Iowa with about 59.6 million is the state with the most, the latest government data on March 23 showed. Commercial turkey flocks with more than 2 million birds in eight states have been reported with the virus by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
“A lot of poultry meat and eggs won’t make it to market,” John Glisson, a vice president of research at the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association, said during a panel discussion Tuesday at a National Chicken Council conference in Cambridge, Maryland. The U.S. and Canada are “implementing plans that have been set up for years” to fight disease, he said.

Hormel Foods Corp., the owner of Jennie-O turkeys, said Monday that annual profit may be eroded because the virus is hampering production. The company’s shares headed for the biggest decline in six weeks.

[...]

Before Monday, avian flu was found primarily in commercial turkey flocks, particularly in Minnesota, the largest U.S. producer.
The virus was first confirmed in a commercial turkey flock in the central U.S. last month after an outbreak began in wild birds and backyard flocks in the western U.S. in late 2014.

The disease has been found in some states that fall along a Mississippi River migratory route for waterfowl. China has halted all U.S. poultry imports since January, and other nations have imposed bans. Birds in flocks detected with the virus don’t enter the food system, according to the USDA.

“It’s not a food safety issue, it’s not a human-health concern, but we certainly are worried for this particular flock owner” in Iowa, Randy Olson, the executive director of the state’s egg council and poultry association, said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “We’re worried about the spread of this disease, and we’re encouraging all flock owners whether they have hundreds of birds or just a few in their backyards to practice very strict biosecurity." [...]

Here is some info about backyard chicken biosecurity:

Avian influenza basics for urban and backyard poultry owners

[...] Biosecurity steps to protect your flock

In order to help flock owners to keep their birds healthy by preventing disease, biosecurity is a must! Introductions of HPAI come from waterfowl (ducks and geese) and gulls that come to Minnesota. Once poultry are infected, they can spread the disease to new flocks. Now is a great time to review your biosecurity. The USDA provides the following tips on preventing AI in your poultry:

Keep your distance (separating your poultry from disease introduction). Some examples are:

Restrict access from wildlife and wild birds to your birds by use of enclosed shelter and fencing of the outdoor areas. Use of smaller mesh hardware cloth which allows exclusion of wild birds while still allowing outdoor exposure.
Caretakers should not have contact with other poultry or birds prior to contact with their own birds. Restrict access to your poultry if your visitors have birds of their own.
Keep different species of poultry and age groups separated due to differences in susceptibility.
Look at your own setting, what can you do to prevent your birds from contact with other birds that could introduce HPAI?

Keep it clean (cleaning and disinfecting). Some examples are:

Keep feeders and waterers clean and out of reach of wild birds. Clean up feed spills.
Change feeding practices if wild birds continue to be present.
Use dedicated or clean clothing and foot wear when working with poultry
Clean and then disinfect equipment that comes in contact with your birds such as shovels and rakes.
Conduct frequent cleaning and disinfecting of housing areas and equipment to limit contact of birds with their waste.
Evaluate your practices. Is it clean or is there room for improvement?

Don't haul disease home. Some examples are:

Introduction of new birds or returning birds to the flock after exhibition. Keep them separated for at least 30 days.
Returning dirty crates or other equipment back to the property without cleaning and disinfecting. This includes the tires on the vehicles and trailers.
Take a look and be critical. Is that site where you have set up a quarantine really separated well enough to keep your flock safe? Where do you clean crates? Can the runoff get to your birds?

Don't borrow disease from your neighbors

Don't share equipment or reuse materials like egg cartons from neighbors and bird owners, you could be borrowing disease.
Do you have what you need to separate yourself from your friends and neighbors? Now is the time to get the equipment and supplies you need to make that possible. [...]

Basically, no free range chickens. And what is a back-yard chicken, if not free-range?


More Bird-Flu headlines HERE.
     

Turkeys, Presidents and Pardons

President Obama Should Save His Pardon and Eat the Turkeys

The White House wants you, America, to decide which of two turkeys President Barack Obama crowns the “National Thanksgiving Turkey.” Both turkeys — named Caramel and Popcorn — are getting presidential pardons Wednesday morning, so online voters aren’t picking which bird dies and which bird lives. The reality is actually worse: Both Caramel and Popcorn will soon die regardless of the public’s vote. [...]

The article goes on to explain that, because the turkeys are bred to be eaten, they are overweight, and don't have long lives. Most pardoned turkeys are dead by the next thanksgiving, and in the interim suffer multiple health problems.

So who started the turkey pardoning thing anyway? Well, it was dabbled with by several presidents, but one made it an official tradition. Guess who?

The Definitive History of the Presidential Turkey Pardon

Happy Thanksgiving!
     

Save the S.S. United States from the scrap-heap

I was gonna do a post about this great old ship a few years back, when they were planning to refurbish and relaunch her. But it seems that bringing her up to modern code proved to be too cost prohibitive; those plans all fell through. Now she is in a fight for her life:



Historic Ship Short on Funds and Time

The SS United States is sending out what may be its final distress call.

The 990-foot-long ship could be sold for scrap within two months unless the grass-roots preservation group that's working to secure a home and purpose for it can raise $500,000 immediately, the group told The Associated Press. Talks are under way with developers and investors about the ship's long-term future, but without the emergency funding, its caretakers fear they will run out of money before a deal is inked.

The historic ocean liner carried princes and presidents across the Atlantic in the 1950s and 1960s but has spent decades awaiting a savior at its berth on the Philadelphia waterfront.

"We've made progress on the fundraising side and the redevelopment side," said Susan Gibbs, executive director of the SS United States Conservancy and granddaughter of the ship's Philadelphia-born designer, William Francis Gibbs. "Our immediate goal is to buy some time."

The group has raised $1 million through fundraisers and a website, where contributors can sponsor a piece of the ship for $1 per square foot, but has received no public funding. What is desperately and immediately needed, they said, are donors with deep pockets and high profiles.

"Are we giving up on successfully redeveloping the ship as a self-sustaining entity? Absolutely not," said Dan McSweeney, head of the redevelopment efforts. "We continue to have active discussions with potential partners, we have ideas of potential sites for the ship, but we need more time to get it off the ground ... and we're running out of runway."

It costs $80,000 a month just for mooring, basic maintenance, insurance and security, he said.

The conservancy is exploring potential partnerships with four entities in Philadelphia and New York City to refashion the vessel as a stationary entertainment complex with 500,000 square feet of space for a hotel, theater, restaurants and shopping. The sluggish economy and other factors have slowed negotiations, McSweeney said.

As talks continue, he said, the hope is to convince corporate sponsors, influential politicians and prominent business leaders — are you listening, Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg? — to lend their political and financial capital to the effort.

"Any way you look at it, there is no downside to this project," McSweeney said. "It's an economic and community development project that's going to create jobs."

The SS United States carried more than 1 million passengers at record-breaking trans-Atlantic speeds over the course of 400 round trips from 1952 to 1969, among them President John F. Kennedy, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Salvador Dali and Elizabeth Taylor. A joint venture between the Navy and ship designer Gibbs & Cox, the luxury liner was made with hidden military might: It could have been converted in a single day to transport 14,000 troops for 10,000 miles before refueling.

After being decommissioned it changed hands multiple times, from the Navy and on through a series of restoration-minded investors.

It was towed from Virginia to Turkey to Ukraine, finally arriving in Philadelphia as a gutted hulk in 1996. Another succession of developers and a cruise lines failed to return the ship to service as retrofitting costs proved too great. [...]

I remember reading about this ship when I was a kid, I was a real fan. Our local library had and encyclopedia, that had a three panel color fold-out of a cutaway diagram showing all the inside parts and levels of the ship. I had a model kit of the ship that I built and painted. It was the greatest ocean liner ever.

How ironic that it can't be brought up to "modern" standards. It was not unsinkable, but it was hard to sink. It had five chambers. Even if all 5 chambers were to flood, up to the waterline, it would still not sink. Compare that to modern cruise ships, that have only two chambers. And their "modern" propensity to break down at sea and become floating toilets.

The hope now is to turn the ship into a permanently docked museum/hotel/office space/restaurant/conventions center complex. It seems like a worthy venture. We once visited the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. It had been converted thus, and it was a very enjoyable visit. I would love to see that happen for the S.S. United States, since it can't be allowed to compete with our modern floating toilet bowls.

Here is a video about the ship. It's part of a series, I think I shall try to post one a week, for the next several weeks.




SS United States: Made in America (Chapter 1)


Also see:

Granddaughter of SS United States' designer turns to documentary, social-media campaign to save ship

www.savetheunitedstates.org

   

What's going on in Turkey?

Turkey clips military's wings in landmark verdict
 

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The jailing of hundreds of Turkish army officers including top generals accused of plotting to topple Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan underscored how far he has come in gaining control of the country's once all-powerful military.

But Erdogan, 10 years in power, must grapple with suspicions among critics and even some sympathizers that he is using this and other coup investigations to silence opposition as he sets about taming a militant secularist establishment. Far from flinching, he may seek more power in a revamped presidency.

The verdict against 325 officers at the end of the 21-month trial on Friday would have been unthinkable a decade ago, when generals regularly intervened in policy-making as self-appointed guardians of Turkish secularism.

Judges in the case, dubbed Sledgehammer, handed down prison sentences ranging from six to 20 years against the officers for plotting to wreck Erdogan's rule almost 10 years ago, soon after his Islamist-rooted party swept to power with the biggest share of the vote in decades.

Hilmi Ozkok, who was head of the armed forces at the time, rejected accusations the court's decision was driven by revenge.

"The ruling will serve as a deterrent and has a lesson for everyone ... in understanding how much Turkey and the rest of the world has changed," Ozkok told Milliyet newspaper on Sunday.

[...]

 

Under Erdogan, a devout Muslim, curbs on religion have been relaxed. Women are allowed to more freely wear the Islamic headscarf, alcohol is heavily taxed, and students at religious high schools are able to more easily attend university.

Journalists complain of pressure to write favorable stories about the government, and a number of writers are among those arrested under another plot investigation, "Ergenekon".

"This (Sledgehammer) case is an important step towards ending the army's political role but it's not enough to stop it completely," said Sahin Alpay, professor of political science at Bahcesehir University and a columnist for Zaman, seen as close to the government.

"Now we need a new constitution and laws that place the army under civilian supervision and reform military schools to reflect the values of a liberal democracy," he said.

A new constitution is now under consideration to replace a restrictive code inherited from the military after a 1980 coup. Turkey may well emerge from the debate with a presidential republic and a powerful president in Erdogan.

Alpay acknowledged there were questions about the case with so many defendants on trial at once, the judges' refusal to allow in some defense evidence and the lengthy sentences.

A key issue at appeal is likely to be the defense's inability to submit legal expert testimony that computer documents submitted as evidence appeared fake.

Defense lawyers said they would appeal the verdict this week to Turkey's upper court and, if necessary, eventually apply to the European Court of Human Rights. [...]

I've posted before about the complexity of Turkish politics. Both the secular and the religious sides have legitimate complaints and concerns. It's not easy to sort it all out, and even more difficult to guess where it's all going to lead to.
   

Titanic Facts, Figures, and ... Debunked Myths

On my earlier post about Titanic Cabin Classes, I mistakenly suggested that after the third class accommodations, there was Steerage class. On further research, I discovered that 3rd class WAS Steerage, but upgraded from what Steerage class was on most ships of that time.

I also discovered a lot of other things, and thought I would share the links here.

Titanic Facts
The Life & Loss of the RMS Titanic in Numbers

[...]

3,547 - the maximum number of people the Titanic could carry.

2,223 - the number of people aboard (passengers and crew).

13 - the number of honeymooning couples on the voyage.

Read more facts about the Titanic passengers -->

14,000 - the gallons of drinking water used every 24 hours.

40,000 - the number of fresh eggs in the ship's provisions.

1,000 - the number of bottles of wine taken aboard.

Read more facts about the food on the Titanic -->

64 - the number of lifeboats the Titanic was equipped to carry.

20 - the number of lifeboats she actually carried.

28 - the number of people on board the first lifeboat out of a capacity of 65 people.

Read more facts about the Titanic lifeboats -->

6 - the number of warnings of icebergs the Titanic received before the collision.

160 - the minutes it took the Titanic to sink after hitting the iceberg (2 hours and 40 minutes).

-2 - the temperature of the sea water in centigrade.

Read more facts about the Titanic sinking -->

31.6 - the total percentage of passengers and crew who survived.

53.4 - the percentage who could have survived, given the number of spaces available on the Titanic lifeboats.

2 - the number of dogs who survived (lapdogs taken aboard lifeboats by their owners).
[...]

That's just a sampling of data, from the front page. There are multiple links that will take you further into much more data. But if you want more than technical facts and figures, how about myth debunking:

Titanic Trivia: The Facts and the Myths

[...]

Common Myths and Facts

Myth: The Titanic was touted by the White Star Line as being unsinkable.

Though many experts at the time did proclaim the Titanic "practically unsinkable" because of the addition of the watertight doors, she was not described as unsinkable by anyone responsible for her creation until after the fact. When informed of the Titanic's predicament, White Star Line Vice President P.A.S. Franklin was quoted as saying, "We place absolute confidence in the Titanic. We believe the boat is unsinkable."

Alhough, one promotional brochure put out by the White Star Line did say, "...as far as it is possible to do, these two wonderful vessels are designed to be unsinkable."

Myth: The Titanic was trying to set a speed record, causing them to ignore the important warnings.

This was not true for many reasons, the first being that they had chosen a longer, more southern route. It was slower but they hoped to avoid ice. We also have to remember that travel and communication was not as it is today. An early arrival would have required that travel arrangements be made days or weeks in advance for the arriving passengers. If they arrived a day early, most of them would have been left standing at the docks for another day. In addition to this fact, the last boiler had never been lit. Even if it had been lit, breaking the record would have required a full 26 knots, but the Titanic's top speed was 21 knots. Even attempting to break the record would have risked severe engine damage.

Quote from an interview before launch: "'Will she ever dock on Tuesday?'
'No,' Smith said emphatically, 'and there will be no attempt to bring her in on Tuesday. She was built for a Wednesday ship and her run this first voyage has demonstrated that she will fulfill the expectations of the builders.' Mr. Ismay said that on her return trip she would steam at 21 knots the first day then gradually work her speed to see what her engines could do."

However, the captain was concerned with being on time, which most likely led to his failure to slow down in ice-laden waters.

Myth: Third class passengers were locked below deck to keep them from getting off the ship.

While 201 first class passengers survived and 173 second class passengers survived, far more third class passengers perished. However, there was actually no attempt to keep third class passengers from getting into the lifeboats, or to divide potential survivors by class in any way. The trouble for third class was from several factors. First of all, many of them did not speak English and did not understand the orders to go to the boat deck. They had to be led to the boats, and even then many refused to board. Most of the surviving third class passengers actually had English surnames, indicating that they understood the danger and weren't as suspicious about getting into the lifeboats. Third class passengers also had much further to go to get to the boat deck, leaving them last on deck, with many still arriving after the lifeboats had already launched.

Myth: The Titanic did not have enough lifeboats because the of the owners' pride and vanity.

Actually, the number of lifeboats on the Titanic met the legal requirements at the time. The trouble lay in outdated laws that did not account for a ship the sheer size of the Titanic. However, there were more passengers than the lifeboats could accommodate, and many were launched at less than full capacity. They had the capacity to save 1,178, but in the end the Carpathian rescued only 705 survivors.

Myth: J. Bruce Ismay was a coward who saved himself, while allowing so many others to die.

Chief Executive of the White Star Line, J. Bruce Ismay was accused by many of being a selfish man who took a seat on one of the remaining lifeboats, leaving women and children to die. He was vilified by the American press for his decisions, but the press doesn't always get things right.

Ismay was described as an extremely shy man by people who knew him, a trait that was often mistaken for arrogance. During the inquiry into the Titanic disaster, a number of women came forward saying that it was Mr. Ismay himself who convinced them to board the lifeboats. Only after all of the surrounding women and children were boarded did he take his seat. [...]

And there is more, such as what was the cost of tickets in today's dollars, some premonitions people had who chose not to go, what was found on the wreck on the ocean floor, etc.

And speaking of premonitions, here is some weird stuff:

Titanic Weird Stuff

Astonishingly, the tragedy of Titanic was anticipated in stories written before the ship set sail. The most striking is “The Sinking of a Modern Liner” written in 1886 by W.T. Stead, the famous English journalist and spiritualist. By a macabre coincidence, Stead went down with Titanic. In his story, a liner leaves Liverpool, picks up passengers and mailbags in Queenstown and on its journey to New York is in a collision. There are too few lifeboats, panic ensues and the Captain brandishes a revolver to keep steerage passengers from storming the lifeboat deck. [...]

There were also other premonitions. If you follow they link, they offer a video too.


One other odd thing I found, was a growing interest in the food on the Titanic:



Study of food eaten aboard Titanic a window into passengers' lives, class system

LONDON, Ont. - In the total scope of what happened to the Titanic, it is curious that so many people seem fascinated by what its passengers ate. A century after the disaster, numerous websites are devoted exclusively to the subject and elaborate Titanic dinners are staged to recreate the final meal on the doomed ship.

About 2 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the “unsinkable” White Star Line ocean liner went down in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg, killing 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers and crew. Yet just three years later, on May 1, 1915, RMS Lusitania, another luxury British passenger ship, was torpedoed by a German U-boat just off the coast of Ireland with a loss of 1,200 lives and nobody writes about what those people had for dinner.

[...]

For "Last Dinner," Archbold studied the passengers themselves, particularly the illustrious first class, set the scene and recreated events of the final evening based on archived accounts. McCauley, a Stratford Chef School-trained French chef who was working at Canadian Living magazine, was called upon to research the food.

Three menus that survived the sinking were her starting point. One was the first-class dinner menu from the night of April 14 — the final meal. The second was a second-class dinner menu from the same night. The last was a badly water-damaged third-class breakfast menu from April 12 recovered from the jacket of a deceased passenger.

"Because we've got first-, second- and third-class food, we know a little bit about what the people were like," McCauley says. Head chef Charles Proctor, who went down with the ship, "really tried to make the food match the people.

"In second class, there were many people who raved about how fancy it was. It was like birthday celebration-type dining for them every night."

The second-class menu for the three-course meal served April 14 indicates the passengers had a choice of four main dishes: baked haddock with sharp sauce, curried chicken and rice, lamb with mint sauce or roast turkey with savoury cranberry sauce.

In third class, according to a White Star Line sample bill of fare reproduced in the book, dinner was served at noon and featured items such as roast pork, beefsteak and kidney pie, fricassee rabbit and corned beef and cabbage.

With the third-class menu, Proctor "did a great job of epitomizing what a British person's diet would be at that time," McCauley says. "In the end they had (third-class) passengers from a lot of different countries who were probably a little confused by it, but his heart was in the right place."

But with first class, she says, "he hit the nail right on the head" with a staggering 11-course gourmet banquet. Nine of those courses were accompanied by appropriate wines.

[...]

She says what impressed her most was "the productivity of that kitchen. They did 6,000 meals a day on the Titanic with only 80 chefs. It was a 24/7 job. Everything was made from scratch and this was highly stylized food. It took incredible skill." [...]

If you read the whole article, you'll see, among other things, that it mentions that the book is being used by some people to create "Titanic Dinner Parties", recreating the last meals, in detail.

Gosh. Whatever floats yer boat, I guess.
     

Is lsrael really ready to strike Iran? Why now?

Just a bluff? Fears grow of Israeli attack on Iran

[...] Is Israel bluffing? Israeli leaders have been claiming Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons since the early 1990s, and defense officials have issued a series of ever-changing estimates on how close Iran is to the bomb. But the saber-rattling has become much more direct and vocal.

[...]

Israel views Iran as a mortal threat, citing Iranian calls for Israel's destruction, Iran's support for anti-Israel militant groups and Iranian missile technology capable of hitting Israel.

On Friday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called Israel a "cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut," and boasted of supporting any group that will challenge the Jewish state.

When faced with such threats, Israeli has a history of lashing out in the face of world opposition. That legacy that includes the game-changing 1967 Middle East war, which left Israel in control of vast Arab lands, a brazen 1981 airstrike that destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor, and a stealthy 2007 airstrike in Syria that is believed to have destroyed a nuclear reactor in the early stages of construction.

Armed with a fleet of ultramodern U.S.-made fighter planes and unmanned drones, and reportedly possessing intermediate-range Jericho missiles, Israel has the capability to take action against Iran too, though it would carry grave risks.

It would require flying over Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria or Turkey. It is uncertain whether any of these Muslim countries would knowingly allow Israel to use their airspace.

With targets some 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away, Israeli planes would likely have the complicated task of refueling in flight. Iran's antiquated air force, however, is unlikely to provide much of a challenge.

Many in the region cannot believe Israel would take such a step without a green light from the United States, its most important ally. That sense is deepened by the heightened stakes of a U.S. election year and the feeling that if Israel acts alone, the West would not escape unscathed.

The U.S. has been trying to push both sides, leading the charge for international sanctions while also pressing Israel to give the sanctions more time. In recent weeks, both the U.S. and European Union have imposed harsher sanctions on Iran's oil sector, the lifeblood of its economy, and its central bank. Israeli officials say they want the sanctions to be imposed faster and for more countries to join them.

Last week, The Associated Press reported that officials in Israel — all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss Iran — were concerned that the measures, while welcome, were constraining Israel in its ability to act because the world expected the effort to be given a chance.

Even a limited Israeli operation could well unleash regionwide fighting. Iran could launch its Shihab 3 missiles at Israel, and have its local proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, unleash rockets. Israel's military intelligence chief, Aviv Kochavi, warned last week that Israel's enemies possess some 200,000 rockets.

While sustained rocket and missile fire would certainly make life uncomfortable in Israel, Barak himself has said he believes casualties would be low — suggesting it would be in the hundreds.

Iran might also try to attack Western targets in the region, including the thousands of U.S. forces based in the Gulf with the 5th Fleet.

An Israeli attack might have other unintended consequences. A European diplomat based in Pakistan, permitted to speak only under condition of anonymity, said that if Israel attacks, Islamabad will have no choice but to support any Iranian retaliation. That raises the specter of putting a nuclear-armed Pakistan at odds with Israel, widely believed to have its own significant nuclear arsenal.

To some, the greatest risk is to the moribund world economy.

Analysts believe an Israeli attack would cause oil prices to spike, since global markets so far have largely dismissed the Israeli threats and not "price in" the threat. According to one poll conducted by the Rapidan Group, an energy consulting firm in Bethesda, Maryland, prices would surge by $23 a barrel. The price of oil settled Friday at $97.84 a barrel.

"Traders don't believe there's anything but bluster going on," said Robert McNally, president of Rapidan and an energy adviser to former President George W. Bush. "A potential Israeli attack on Iran is different than almost every scenario that we've seen before."

McNally said Iran could rattle oil markets by targeting oil fields in southern Iraq or export facilities in Saudi Arabia or Qatar — and withhold sales of its own oil and natural gas from countries not boycotting.

Iran also could attempt to carry out its biggest threat: to shut the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world's oil passes. That could send oil prices soaring beyond $200 a barrel. But analysts note Iran's navy is overmatched.

If a surge in oil prices proved lasting, financial markets would probably plummet on concerns that global economic growth would slow and on the fear that any conflict could worsen and spread.

For the U.S. economy, higher gasoline prices would likely result in lower consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of U.S. economic activity. That could have devastating consequences for an incumbent president seeking re-election.

Nick Witney, former head of the EU's European Defense Agency, said "the political and economic consequences of an Israeli attack would be catastrophic for Europe" since the likely spike in the price of oil alone "could push the entire EU, including Germany, into recession."

He said this could lead to "messy defaults" by countries like Greece and Italy, and possibly cause a collapse of the already-wobbly euro. Witney, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, added that "the Iranians would probably retaliate against European interests in the region, and conceivably more directly with terrorism aimed at Western countries and societies."

Oil disruptions or higher oil prices will also dent growth in Asia. China, India, South Korea and Japan all buy substantial amounts of Iranian crude and could face temporary shortages.

China's fast-growing economy, which gets 11 percent of its oil from Iran, has urged all sides to avoid disrupting supplies. Any impact on China's economy, the world's second-largest, could send out global shockwaves if it dented Chinese demand for industrial components and raw materials.

Why is the issue coming to a head with such unfortunate timing, with the U.S. election looming and the global economy hanging by a razor's edge?

The urgency is fueled by a belief in Israel that Iran is moving centrifuges and key installations deep underground by the summer — combined with doubts about whether either Israel or the United States have the bunker-busting capacity to act effectively thereafter. [...]

But the global repercussions of trying to stop it, are enormous. Could the be a case of the cure being worse than the disease?
     

Syria: Alawites, Sunnis, the Russia factor...

What a mess:

Where is Syria crisis heading?

[...] Individual states in the Arab League have called for al-Assad to step down, but the organization as a whole has failed to table a similar resolution -- and Phillips says that is unlikely to change anytime soon.

"While it seems likely there is going to be some internal negotiation (on a resolution) taking place, it certainly seems very unlikely Lebanon or Iraq -- states who are allied effectively to Iran and Syria -- will ever join calls for Assad to stand down," said Phillips.

Will the international community intervene like it did in Libya?

Nothing will happen in terms of military intervention in Syria unless Russia changes its current stance, according to Phillips.

"Russia have said quite clearly that they're not going to support anything that would risk al-Assad being forced from power," Phillips told CNN.

"If Russia gave the same kind of green light for Syria that it did for Libya, there's every possibility that you'd see military intervention, probably coming out of Turkey," Phillips said. "But Turkey have said they're highly reluctant to intervene unless they have NATO or U.N. backing."

Is the opposition united against the al-Assad regime?

The longer the fighting goes on in Syria, activists and Western diplomats say, the more radicalized the revolution is becoming.

Fringe elements of Muslim extremist groups are moving in and sectarian rifts are widening as feelings of despair descend on some flashpoint Syrian cities.

While the besieged city of Homs has traditionally been a place of religious tolerance, "there is a real sense now that that is changing and being manipulated by people on both sides" of the conflict, according to Phillips.

President al-Assad belongs to the Alawite Muslim sect while Sunni Muslims form the majority in Syria.

"The older Sunni merchant class that feel the city is theirs rightfully are now turning on the Alawites, who they see as these recent migrants that don't actually belong in the city," said Phillips.

Many Christians have fled to Damascus as communities begin to divide on sectarian lines. Salafists -- Islamic radicals, many of whom have brought terror tactics honed in neighboring Iraq -- are moving into Homs.

Hard-liners inside and outside the country are already jockeying for post-al-Assad power, while the Alawite community fears the prospect of persecution if the government falls.

"The regime is trying to persuade the Alawites that if they abandon the government, they will be wiped out in the dog-eat-dog aftermath," Phillips said.

No easy answers for this dilemma.


At U.N., Pressure Is on Russia for Refusal to Condemn Syria

[...] Fundamentally, the argument over Syria reflects a deeper divide between those who would use the Security Council to confront nations over how their governments treat civilians, versus those who consider that it has no role whatsoever in settling domestic disputes. Syria is the latest example in an argument that stretches back through all recent conflicts.

Russia, backed discreetly by China and India, rejects the idea that the world organization can interfere in the domestic politics of any country to force a leadership change. They all feel that they were duped into supporting a no-fly zone over Libya, which was promoted as a means to protect civilians last March. Instead, they said, NATO used it as a license to help overthrow the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

The Russian envoy, Vitaly I. Churkin, adopted a “where will it all end” argument, telling reporters that the Security Council cannot prescribe ready recipes for the outcome of a domestic political process.

“Once you start, it is difficult to stop,” he said, adding that pretty soon the Council would start pronouncing “what king needs to resign, or what prime minister needs to step down.”

To a certain extent, the Arab League and the much of the world were ready to dump the eccentric Colonel Qaddafi because he had made many enemies. Mr. Assad, despite hostile relations with some neighbors and the West, continues to have a strong ally in Russia, yet analysts described Moscow as preoccupied with leadership change.

“That the Morocco resolution ‘calls for’ Assad to step aside is their worst example and fear,” said George Lopez, a professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and a sometime adviser to the United Nations. “If today it is Assad, tomorrow Putin? They worry.” [...]

     

German Chancellor Merkel Makes Waves

Angela Merkel declares death of German multiculturalism
Chancellor's remarks, which claimed multiculturalism had 'failed utterly', interpreted as a shift rightwards from previous views

[...] Merkel's verdict marks a shift in her previously liberal line on immigration which had always put her at odds with the more conservative wing of the party.

While she stressed in the same speech that immigrants were welcome in Germany and that Islam was a part of the nation's modern-day culture, her remarks positioned her closer to Horst Seehofer, the Bavarian state premier of the Christian Social Union, who last week called for an end to immigration from Turkey and Arab countries.

They also align her with Thilo Sarrazin, the former Bundesbank member whose book on how the failure of many of Germany's 16 million immigrants to integrate was contributing to Germany's decline led to his dismissal.

Sharing the same podium as Merkel in Potsdam, Seehofer also said "multi-culturalism is dead" and that both the rightwing parties were committed to a "dominant German culture". If Germany did not revise its immigration policies, he said, it was in danger of becoming "the world's welfare office".

Seehofer insisted his statement was "an attempt to stop rightwing lunatics" but Jürgen Trittin, for the Greens, called the comments "shabby" and in danger of "lending social acceptability to views similar to those of rightwing extremists". There is a labour shortage in Germany. The chamber of industry and commerce has said that Germany is short of 400,000 skilled workers and that the gap is costing €25bn a year, equivalent to 1% of growth annually.

While industrialists have called on the government to remove obstacles stopping more skilled workers entering Germany, citing lengthy bureaucratic procedures as well as unrealistic thresholds, others say that long-term unemployed German workers should be given more of a chance first. Merkel insisted in her speech that immigrant workers should not be considered "until we have done all we can to help our own people to become qualified and give them a chance".

The issue has caused tension within Merkel's year-old coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats.

Labour minister Ursula von der Leyen, a member of Merkel's party, has said it was an illusion to believe people were queueing up to enter Germany.

"For several years more people have been leaving our country than entering it," she said in an interview. "Wherever it is possible, we must lower the entry hurdles for those who bring the country forward."

Merkel faces pressure to take a tougher line on immigration, particularly on so-called "integrationsverweigerer" or those immigrants who show a lack of willingness to adapt to the majority culture, by, for example, refusing to attend German language classes. [...]

There were hints that this was coming, when Merkel visited Turkey in March, when she stressed that immigrants needed to at least learn the language an integrate, if not assimilate. And there have been ongoing problems with honor killings of women who have tried to integrate or assimilate to German culture.

The article goes on to say that a study showed that 30% of Germans who were questioned believe that Germany is being over-run by foreigners. There are lots of reasons why Merkel is changing her tune somewhat. But whatever the reasons, I'm sure the Leftist multi-culturalists are going to bring out their long knives for Merkel now.
     

Saudi women rebelling: change is coming

Saudi woman beats up virtue cop

It was a scene Saudi women’s rights activists have dreamt of for years.

When a Saudi religious policeman sauntered about an amusement park in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Mubarraz looking for unmarried couples illegally socializing, he probably wasn’t expecting much opposition.

But when he approached a young, 20-something couple meandering through the park together, he received an unprecedented whooping.

A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi religious police known locally as the Hai’a, asked the couple to confirm their identities and relationship to one another, as it is a crime in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to mix.

For unknown reasons, the young man collapsed upon being questioned by the cop.

According to the Saudi daily Okaz, the woman then allegedly laid into the religious policeman, punching him repeatedly, and leaving him to be taken to the hospital with bruises across his body and face.

“To see resistance from a woman means a lot,” Wajiha Al-Huwaidar, a Saudi women’s rights activist, told The Media Line news agency. “People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years. This is just the beginning and there will be more resistance.”

“The media and the Internet have given people a lot of power and the freedom to express their anger,” she said. “The Hai’a are like a militia, but now whenever they do something it’s all over the Internet. This gives them a horrible reputation and gives people power to react.”

[...]

The decision last year by Saudi King Abdullah to open the kingdom’s first co-educational institution, with no religious police on campus, led to a national crises for Saudi Arabia’s conservative religious authorities, with the new university becoming a cultural proxy war for whether or not women and men should be allowed to mix publicly.

A senior Saudi cleric publicly criticized the gender mixing at the university and was summarily fired by the king.

[...]

"There is some sort of change taking place," Nadya Khalife, the Middle East women’s rights researcher for Human Rights Watch, told The Media Line. "There is clearly a shifting mentality regarding to the male guardianship law and similar issues. More women are speaking out, there are changes within the government, there is a mixed university, the king was photographed with women, they want to allow women to work in the courts and there are changes within the justice ministry. So you can witness some kind of change unfolding but it’s not quite clear what’s happening and it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight."

Read the whole thing for more about the changes that have been happening there. Other Muslim countries are much less harsh and more modern in their interpretation of Islamic law. Modern examples abound. Change may not come to Saudi Arabia overnight, but come it must. And it will. The sooner the better.

Also see:

Will Turkey bring Islam into the 21st century?
     

Today is Draw Mohammed Day

More details here:

Dhimmitude and Draw Mohammed Day


Also see:

The Lying Danish Imams
Should be Put to DEATH... according to Islam!

The American Main Stream Media
and the Danish Cartoons

Do we need a "Star Wars" strategy for Islam?

"It's in the Koran", the explanation of The Song by that title.

Will Turkey bring Islam into the 21st century?

Mohammed Image Archive: Depictions of Mohammed Throughout History
     

Germany Exercises it's Political Muscles

Germany Awakes. Rules of the Game Are Changing in Europe

[...] Germany is refusing to bail out Greece. Earlier this week, Chancellor Merkel told the Bundestag that Greece should be expelled from the eurozone if its financial problems risk dragging the euro down. France and the European Commission in Brussels reacted furiously to this suggestion. Barroso dismissed Merkel’s words as “absurd.” Paris and Brussels insist that the EU come to the financial rescue of Athens. Since most of the money for a rescue operation will have to come from Germany, however, such a decision cannot be taken without Berlin’s approval.

Bullying Berlin does not seem to be a clever move. Merkel’s Bundestag declaration followed shortly after Greek Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos had accused the Germans of exploiting the Greek debt crisis for their own financial and economic benefit. “By speculating on Greek bonds at the expense of your friend and partner, by allowing [German] credit institutions to participate in this deplorable game, some people are making money,” the Greek Socialist said. “A cheap euro makes the south of Europe suffer, while German exports benefit.”

Last month, Pangalos had angered the Germans by demanding that Berlin pay reparations for Nazi crimes. “The Nazis took away the Greek gold that was in the Bank of Greece and they never gave it back,” he said. The German Foreign Ministry responded that in 1960 Germany paid Athens 115m German marks in compensation for the Nazi occupation and that “parallel to this, since 1960 Germany has paid around 33bn marks in aid to Greece both bilaterally and in the context of the EU.”

The Germans no longer accept being required to be the EU’s paymasters to atone for their Nazi past. There is also an increase in euroscepticism in German public opinion. While Germany introduced austerity measures and trimmed down its welfare system, countries such as Greece refused to do so, relying on the fact that the EU (read: Germany) would bail them out when they got in trouble in order to save the euro.

In Europe, the political rules of the game are changing. An editorial in Wednesday’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Germany’s most influential newspaper, drew attention to the fact that “The biggest member state, which has for so long silently been the guarantee of the EU, has now openly expressed that it is no longer prepared to pay any price for European unification. The present Euro crisis is more than a monetary matter. … The image of [Germany as] the paymaster of Europe, the caricature of the Brussels bureaucracy, and the growing displeasure with the loss of [German] Sovereignty has shaped a eurosceptic fundamental sentiment, into which the Greek debacle has landed like a bomb. No German government today can afford to put the European interest before the German interest, especially not in core issues as monetary policy. And even if it tried, it can reckon on being opposed in the German Constitutional Court.” [...]

Meanwhile, Angela Merkel is making a state visit to Turkey:

Merkel tells Turkey EU talks 'open-ended'

ANKARA — German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Turkey Monday that its membership talks with the European Union did not guarantee accession and urged it to grant trade privileges to EU-member Cyprus.

"The rules of the game have changed" since Turkey first applied to become a member of the bloc five decades ago, Merkel said through an interpreter after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"The (accession) negotiations are an open-ended process. We should now pursue this open-ended process," she added, suggesting that Turkey's integration with the bloc does not have to be full membership.

Along with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Merkel remains one of the staunchest opponents of Turkey's bid to join the European Union, arguing that a vast, relatively poor country with a mainly Muslim 71-million population has no place in Europe.

She has instead proposed a "privileged partnership" between Turkey and the bloc, an alternative Ankara flatly rejects.

Merkel however stressed the immediate task for Ankara was to open its ports to vessels from Cyprus -- an EU member Ankara does not recognize -- under a customs union accord with the Union.

"The most important issue is the implementation of the protocol... We have to deal with the Cyprus issue. That would be to the benefit of us all," she said.

Turkey's refusal to grant trade privileges to Cyprus has led Brussels to freeze talks in eight of the 35 chapters that candidates must successfully negotiate prior to membership.

Since starting the talks in 2005, Turkey has so far succeeded in opening only 12 chapters.

Merkel also pushed Turkey on Iran, urging it to back Western allies in imposing a possible fresh set of sanctions over Tehran's suspect nuclear activities. [...]

She's pushing for quite a few things. Turkey is still voting against sanctions on Iran. Merkel has made an interesting concession, regarding Turkish schools in Germany. As for Cypress and the rest... it will be interesting to see if she gets anywhere.
     

European Union tries to pick a King President

Or mabye "King" is a better word? Many people feel left out of the process:

Leaders in last-minute attempt to decide top European Council roles
Opposing groups try to find consensus on who should take presidential and foreign minister roles ahead of Brussels summit

The leaders of Europe's main political tribes conferred in Brussels this afternoon in an attempt to hammer out a last-minute consensus on who should be the top two people running the EU's new Lisbon regime, ahead of a crucial Brussels summit.

While Christian democratic government leaders, including the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, gathered in Brussels, Gordon Brown found himself isolated at a session of the seven centre-left leaders ahead of this evening's summit.

The centre-left leaders, grouped in the Party of European Socialists (PES), hope to secure the new post of European foreign minister, with Italian Massimo D'Alema and Spain's Miguel Angel Moratinos as their frontrunners.

[...]

Last night Merkel provoked anger in other European capitals with the announcement that Germany and France are to strike a deal on who they want for the post of president.

Merkel stated for the first time that she and Sarkozy intended to agree on a common candidate, believed to be the Belgian prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy.

[...]

The Belgian shares the strong opposition of both Sarkozy and Merkel to Turkey joining the EU. In a debate in the Belgian parliament five years ago, Van Rompuy made plain that he viewed the EU as a Christian club with no room for a large Muslim country such as Turkey.

"Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe," Van Rompuy said, years before he became Belgian prime minister. "The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are also fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey."

The EU is divided over Turkey, with France, Germany, and Austria leading hostility to membership, while Britain, Sweden and east European countries are strong supporters of Turkey in Europe.

Van Rompuy's antipathy to Turkey earned him support yesterday for the EU job from the Vlaams Belang, or Flemish Interest, party on the extreme anti-immigrant right wing in Flanders.

But news of a Franco-German alliance triggered anger in some European capitals.

"We're not having a replay of the bad old days when the big guys fixed all the deals," said a Polish official.

Poland campaigned for greater glasnost, to open up the contest for the key jobs. But they have now conceded defeat, although they claim to have the support of 10 of the 27 EU countries. "We had a go," said the Polish official. "We wanted a degree of transparency to address the sceptics. And lots of countries feel that these appointments are just being made over their heads. There's always been a suspicion about the way these deals are done in the EU. This is a genuine example. It puts everyone to shame." [...]

The Lisbon "treaty" is basically the EU constitution that was rejected by European voters. The voters don't elect the EU president, either. Sounds like the "Old" way of doing things, no?

Anyway, it seems lots of people are angry, as the drama continues.


Also see:

Without Opposition: the European Union

Will the EU force Britain to accept the Euro?


     

Soviet Walls, Islamic Walls... May They All Fall

From Berlin to Baghdad
Will the peoples of Islam tear down their walls as the people of Central and Eastern Europe tore down theirs?

[...] A meandering road led from 11/9 to 9/11. The burning grounds of Islam are altogether different than the Communist challenge. There is no Moscow that serves as the seat of Jihadist power. This is a new kind of war and new kind of enemy, a twilight war without front lines.

But we shouldn't be surprised with some of history's repetitions. There are again the appeasers who see these furies of Islam as America's comeuppance, there are those who think we have overreached and that we are riding into storms of our own making. And in the foreign world there are chameleons who feign desire for our friendship while subverting our causes.

Once again, there arises the question in our midst of whether political freedom, broadly conceived, can and ought to be taken to distant lands. In the George W. Bush years, American power and diplomacy gave voice to a belief in freedom's possibilities. A different sentiment animates American practice today.

For the peoples of Islam, the question can be squarely put: Will they tear down their walls in the manner in which the people of Central and Eastern Europe tore down theirs? The people of Islam are thus sorely tested. They will have to show their own fidelity to liberty. [...]

But will they? CAN they? And how can we help?


Related Link:

Will Turkey bring Islam into the 21st century?
     

Groovy Interior Decorating of the 70's

In 2007 I did a post about Amusing Interior Designs of the 60's and 70's, based on a page of photos from old interior decorating magazines published on a Flickr site created by "Miss Retro Modern". Her commentary, and the comments left by her visitors, were as amusing as the photos were.

Well, Miss Retro has updated her site with some more "groovy" pics of interior design, mostly from the '70's. Below are some samples of 10 of my favorites. Some comments from the site are included below each photo.

From Miss Retro Modern's Your Swingin' Pad:

Exotic Enclave for a Colour-Keen Teen


Where can we buy that wallpaper?!
[I'm sure there's plenty of it that never sold.]

If only I could get my eyes uncrossed...

Vertigo-inducing wallpaper. Fun.

"Restraint" was not a word that was often uttered in the 70's.
Nor was the word "understated."


Bunk Beds Make Sharing Fun


"Mommy! Where are our beds? We can't see them!"

I would totally trip over those chairs. Daily.

Wow, another incredible floor. I think I would trip over the floor.

i didn't even notice the beds! bunk beds? what bunk beds! this one kinda hurts the eyes...but i do like the wall behind the beds, looks like a bunch of granny squares or hankies...which would make it easy for the snot nosed kid who lived in this room

man, what did these kids do that would deserve this kind of treatment???

oh. the seizure room. how nice.


Fun Things To Do With Fabric


Dear Lord! Who could get rest in that room?

I really can't get into that 'my bedspread matches my wallpaper' thing!

prints in moderation people!

Throw a few stains on the carpet and I swear that's the last cheap motel I stayed in.

looks like mom forgot to take her meds again


Mushroom Hell: It IS Possible


I never imagined there would be a time when I called a halt on the mushrooms in a decorating scheme ... but that time has come.

I'm disappointed, the carpet doesn't match the drapes (and tablecloth).
Wow, that's overkill, even for me.

Jeez, that is the room that half an hour after it is finished you realise you cannot live with!

Attack of the Magical Shrooms.

What's for dinner?
Why, cream of mushroom soup, of course.

With stuffed mushrooms!!


A Private Bower for Baby


For those times when you need to put baby in the crazy corner.

You know that your crazy corner is too crazy when you can't even SEE your mobile.

there is a mobile in there?

I think it's a great way to induce Charlotte Perkins Gilman Syndrome for the little lass.

This certainly explains those of us that grew up in the 70s...



Turn Your Bedroom into an Exotic Tent!


My, isn’t that restful!

turn it into an "exotic tent" and then go on an acid trip!

oooh, where is my migraine medication?!?

I will never understand all of these decorating guides that foist busily patterned bedrooms on everybody. Who could sleep in here?

I could definitely jump out of bed in the morning in this room...to get away from it!

Ohh, this reminds me of the hotel I stayed in while in Turkey!

Is it fireproof?
If ignited, it could make the Hindenburg look like burp in a gas barbecue.



For the Tuned-In Teen


Not sure what that white thing in his mouth might be, but it looks t'me like those young'ns are about to tune OUT!
Good thing they've got all that popcorn.

Popcorn and a mattress on the floor. The makings of a great weekend.

ouch,my eyes are burning!

I like that the popcorn is in a giant brandy snifter and the "children" look like they're in their 30's.

Those wiggly things on the wall are unnerving. They're like giant anemone fingers, ready to sting unwary sitters-by...



The Raggedy Ann and Andy Room


Anyone else would need to be in a straight-jacket to stay here for very long.

That bed is just so ... grim. It looks hard and uncomfortable -- as if it's a place for punishment where you sit and your butt grows numb as you contemplate the creepiness of Raggedy Andy's hat.

are the yellow slats where they tie your wrists and ankles with the sheepskin retraints? and why is it only on one side? what if little timmy falls off that side of the bed? maybe that's the torture! bwahahaha! he fell of the left side last night!

A decorating suggestion for those who truly despise their children.

I tend to agree with Sharon's analysis. One does rather expect a camera-pan over to a corner, where Rod Serling, his hands folded in front of him, is standing , making some - sort of metaphorical commentary. My first-impression on seeing this, actually was, "not only would this work as children's room, it would be even better for an insane asylum!"


A Room for a Young Liberationist


OK, now this is just creepy

Creepy ... and yet I kinda love that yellow shag carpet.

The letters F, N, and U are not on the wall....No fun?

The fun is on the carpet!!
What a relief to have found the fun.


A Room Any Lady Bunny Would Love


The rabbit deserves better.

How bout that table.
Ikea should sell them.
As for the kid, that could only be a result of heavy sedation.

I find the child frightening. But I do love that carpet!

yipes! "now i lay me down to sleep...i pray the Lord my soul to keep:...and hope that the scary chair babies don't try to steal me in teh night!

It seems like everyone was taking drugs in the 60's... and by the 70's, this was the result of their burned-out brain cells.

One could argue that decorators were more bold and adventurous back then, more willing to experiment. To be truthful, I actually DO like some of the bright colors and even some of the groovy patterns. But the way they are combined in some of these photos... what were they thinking? WERE they thinking?

Most of these are supposed to be children's bedrooms. You really have to wonder how this affected the kids who grew up in them.

Follow the link for more groovy decorating photos with catty commentary.