No doubt he is now saying, "See what I mean?"

News from Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi woman is seeking a divorce after she found out that her husband had nicknamed her 'Guantanamo' on his mobile phone.

The woman made the discovery while examining the list of contacts in her husband's phone when he left it at home one day, the Al-Watan newspaper reported.

The Riyadh newspaper did not name the woman or her husband, whose comparison between life with his wife and life within the detention centre at the US naval base in Cuba may have proved ill judged.

His wife has since decided to end their 17-year marriage and is seeking a divorce.

But the newspaper suggested she might settle for "substantial" financial compensation from her husband and stay married to him.

I am sure that if he pays her off and stays married to her, he will have to change her cell phone nickname to Evin.

Why losing in Afghanistan is not an option

For those who think that the most important consideration for President Obama in deciding on Afghanistan war policy is its domestic political implications or simple containment, Wazhma Frogh has a reminder of what is really at stake for Afghanistan and the world:

As an Afghan woman who for many years lived a life deprived of the most basic human rights, I find unbearable the thought of what will happen to the women of my country if it once again falls under the control of the insurgents and militants who now threaten it.

In 2001, when the war in Afghanistan began, the liberation of Afghan women was one of the most important justifications for military intervention. Has the world now changed its mind about Afghan women? Is it ready to let them once again be killed and tortured by militants? Does the world no longer believe in the principles it supported in 2001?

Handing over Afghanistan to those who intend to keep the country centuries behind most of the world -- to men who do not view women as human beings -- would not only call into doubt the global commitment to human rights, it would also raise questions about the commitment of Western democracies to such rights and to democratic values. Bearing in mind how fragile the Afghan government is at this moment, it will not take long for the country's women to come under attack again. The consequences will be even more bitter this time because no matter how limited our success, we have at least managed to act in the forefront of public life in Afghanistan. We have had a taste of what it's like to have rights.

Vice President Joe Biden is not only wrong on this, he's reaffirmed his status as a dolt and an inhuman ignorer of basic human rights and dignity.

(Hat tip: Hot Air.)

Poetry Corner

Over at the zombietime zomblog, commenter buzzsawmonkey has outdone himself with this ode to a LunGFish.

Your Last Posting
(Los Angeles)

–apologies to Robert Browning and “My Last Duchess”

That’s your last posting ever on this blog,

And henceforth your account is blocked. You’ll dog

My site no further with your words; your nic

Is banished, and I gave your posts the stick.

You know I’ll call your banning here a “flounce”
Though I’ve been waiting for some time to pounce
On your account, and with prevarications
Distort and demonize your observations.
The Toad Hall where you reveled, if you please’ll
Be given entire to the stoats and weasels,

My countenance beaming on each one that
Comes to me bearing tales of Mole or Rat,

Or Badger, or…sockpuppet. No, ‘t was not

This writing only, placed you on the spot

And caused me to invoke the ban: perhaps

You chanced to differ with my own claptrap
And stick to your position, or dispute
Conventional wisdoms to which repute

I’ve lately granted. Don’t you dare to say

That I or my site might have lost their way
Obsessing on my personal vendettas;

I am neither forgiving nor forgetter,

And will not brook a failure of obesiance

By anyone I feel owes me allegiance.
Yes, I took Rather down, on grounds that he
Could not support what he claimed factually;
But now I set my sights at lower bar
(On personalities, not things that are)
While I squat ‘midst the wreckage I have made
Like mad Kurtz ruling from his bush stockade,
Ringed ’round with skulls. For I no longer deign
To weigh a fact itself; instead, maintain

That source determines truth, and to that end
The nature of veracity I bend,
Citing to midden-heaps of rankness such

That I would not long since have scorned to touch.

A turtle is a lizard in a shell,
And I, lord of my self-created hell

Remain King Yertle of the Turtle Stack

Exalted on my Posting Turtles’ backs–
Yet conscious, as I proclaim my renown

It’s just posting turtles, all the way down,

Which is why I respond with rage and fear

Should anyone mouth what I deem a sneer

Or contradiction. So I flip a switch,
And all posts stop together, with a bitch

Given reign of my elegant designs.

Yet, if I still retained but half a spine

I would despise appearing to be led

As I now seem to, by the lesser head.

Hark! Look you! See how Glenn Beck weeps!

Do you not loathe the company he keeps
Regardless of whatever he might say?
Here is the global warming word today; 

Do not dissent, the banning stick is toward
I care for no voice save that of accord!

Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs: Women love Sharia law

I wonder what Obama's Women's Issues Czar will have to say about this? Daily Telegraph: Barack Obama adviser says Sharia Law is misunderstood.

President Barack Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia Law.

Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was "oversimplified" and the majority of women around the world associate it with "gender justice".

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir's national women's officer, Nazreen Nawaz.

During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular "man-made law" and the West's "lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism".

They called for Sharia Law to be "the source of legislation" and said that women should not be "permitted to hold a position of leadership in government".

Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that "promiscuity" and the "breakdown of traditional values" were what Muslims admired least about the West.

Nice litotes there: "what Muslims admired least about the West." Doesn't she mean, what Muslim extremists despise most, and what motivates them most to destroy the West?

What an unexpected honor!

Protein Wisdom has made its selections for an impromptu caption contest.

screenshot from Drudge



Horizontal stripes. Dude.
***********************
In no particular order, here are my very subjective five favorites:

stuiec “If I’d grown up in Cuba, I’d be thin and good-looking! Thanks for NOTHING, Capitalism!”

maggie katzen “YOU CALL THIS A #$(t%*#@ MENU!?”

BJTexs “Planet of the Plates!!”

JD “Don’t knock deep-fried bacon.”

Blake “Michael Moore making his case that he deserves both latitude and longitude lines.”

Thanks, guys and gals, you make this fun!

I'm humbled. (And I'm totally down with the "no particular order" *wink* thing.)

The Day Chicago Lost

With Apologies to Paper Lace

On a Scandinavian day
In the land of the fairy tale
When the town of Chicago lost
And it was an epic fail

When a hero named Barack
Tried to make that meeting rock
And he called upon his wife
For the struggle of her life

What did Obama cost
To join the bid the day Chicago lost?
Wonder who the blame will hit because
What a stupid shame it really was
Glory be

Chicago's bid got tossed
Michelle was pissed the day Chicago lost
Brother what a waste of time and bucks
Obama got a taste of how he sucks
Yes indeed

And Michelle brought up the kids
In the slums of the old South Side
But the first vote on the bids
Meant Chicago's hopes had died

There was silence in the street
The crowd shuffling its feet
And I asked someone who said
The Obama magic's dead

What did Obama cost
To join the bid the day Chicago lost?
Wonder who the blame will hit because
What a stupid shame it really was
Glory be

Chicago's bid got tossed
Michelle was pissed the day Chicago lost
Brother what a waste of time and bucks
Obama got a taste of how he sucks
Yes indeed

All was still on Air Force One
But the spinning had begun
David Axelrod told lies
The defeat to minimize
And that moron Robert Gibbs
Gave the talking points to libs

What did Obama cost
To join the bid the day Chicago lost?
Wonder who the blame will hit because
What a stupid shame it really was
Glory be

Chicago's bid got tossed
Michelle was pissed the day Chicago lost
Brother what a waste of time and bucks
Obama got a taste of how he sucks
Yes indeed

Chicago's bid got tossed
Michelle was pissed the day Chicago lost
Brother what a waste of time and bucks
Obama got a taste of how he sucks
Yes indeed