"I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about his mental health," Kucinich, a quirky, long-shot candidate in the race for his party's presidential nomination in the November, 2008 election. "There's something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact."
"Everyone knows factories in Shahpur Jat use child labor — it's an open secret," says Puja Sahu, owner of a fashionable boutique in the area where the Observer reporter allegedly found the sweatshop. Shahpur Jat lies in the southern part of Delhi and houses grimy, dimly lit sweatshops behind plush, high-end boutiques. On Monday, there were no children working in the unit that had reportedly been making clothes for Gap, but several children were seen embroidering clothes in a number of other factories. Sahu says trained embroiderers and tailors are paid between $110 and $150 a month, whereas "children can be employed for less than half of this, sometimes for no money at all if their parents have sold them off."
The Indian government tried to downplay the issue and none of the ministries in whose domain it has arisen has commented. It was left to Commerce Minister Kamal Nath to react to the report. According to the Times of India, Nath said the allegations would be probed, while warning developed countries against using allegations of child labor as a pretext for taking protectionist tariff measures. Children's rights activists, however, see the latest allegations as typical of the problems associated with India's economic rise, where growth is prioritized over social equity. Pradeep Narayan of the non-profit Child Rights and You says, "Policies on liberalization, privatization, trade, export-import, et cetera get implemented very fast and very effectively. But the policies on the social sector, like health or child labor, never do."
You knew it had to happen.
The moment firefighters began to get an edge on the fires, pundits, bloggers and other gasbags couldn't wait to proclaim San Diego's superiority over New Orleans in government response to disaster.
A writer on the conservative Red State website said the difference, of course, was firm Republican leadership in San Diego.
"New Orleans, on the other hand," said the writer, "was a city on the federal dole dominated by Democrats, racial politics, and the legacy of Huey Long's populist-socialist dreams."
Everybody got that?
Republicans are better at evacuations than Democrats. This seems to be particularly true when the Republicans in question can flee down the highway in Yukons while Democrats wait for buses trapped under water.
. . .
"It's phenomenally better," Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said of the difference in federal response, "because we have been planning and preparing and training together for the last 2 1/2 years."
There you go.
You'd think San Diego's staunch defenders would be thanking New Orleans for making these improvements possible, rather than all but calling the recovering bayou city a jungle filled with savages who got what they deserved.
But we have different classes of people.
9) Muslim Student Association
Call me crazy, but as a Jew, I am very nervous about organizations that would like to see death to Israel. It’s just a personal preference of mine that Israel be left to… I don’t know… survive? That is why the Muslim Student Association (MSA) made the list.
. . .
MSA is a group that supports radical Islam that calls for the death of Jews, the wiping out of the United States, raises money for Hamas, and has many other ties to terrorist organizations.
. . .
2) Universities and Colleges
Anyone familiar with my column at Family Security Matters knows my thoughts on the Left’s stranglehold on American colleges and universities. Unfortunately, many professors use the various organizations on this list as a part of their curriculum, often selectively ignoring facts that don’t support their far-Left agenda.
Full Story: Family Security Matters
(Hijab tip: Rose Mishaan)
The Kleptocrat in an Hermes Headscarf
Counter Punch
October 22, 2007
By JEMIMA KHAN
She's back. Hurrah! She's a woman. She's brave. She's a moderate. She speaks good English. She's Oxford-educated, no less. And she's not bad looking either.
I admit I'm biased. I don't like Benazir Bhutto. She called me names during her election campaign in 1996 and it left a bitter taste. Petty personal grievances aside, I still find jubilant reports of her return to Pakistan depressing. Let's be clear about this before she's turned into a martyr.
This is no Aung San Suu Kyi, despite her repeated insistence that she's "fighting for democracy", or even more incredibly, "fighting for Pakistan's poor".
This is the woman who was twice dismissed on corruption charges. She went into self-imposed exile while investigations continued into millions she had allegedly stashed away into Swiss bank accounts ($1.5 billion by the reckoning of Musharraf's own "National Accountability Bureau").
She has only been able to return because Musharraf, that megalomaniac, knows that his future depends on the grassroots diehard supporters inherited from her father's party, the PPP.
As a result, Musharraf, who in his first months in power declared it his express intention to wipe out corruption, has dropped all charges against her and granted her immunity from prosecution. Forever.
Notably, he did not do the same for his other political rival, Nawaz Sharif, who was recently deported after attempting his own spectacular return to Pakistan.
But the difference is that Benazir is a pro at playing to the West. And that's what counts. She talks about women and extremism and the West applauds. And then conspires.
The Americans and the British are acutely aware that their strategy in the region is failing and that Musharraf's hold on power is ever more tenuous. They have pressed hard for Benazir and the General to cut a deal that would allow them to share power for the next five years in a "liberal forces government".
It's all totally bogus. Benazir may speak the language of liberalism and look good on Larry King's sofa, but both her terms in office were marked by incompetence, extra-judicial killings and brazen looting of the treasury, with the help of her husband--famously known in Pakistan as Mr 10 Per Cent.
In a country that tops the international corruption league, she was its most self-enriching leader.
Benazir has always cynically used her gender to manipulate: I loved her answer to David Frost when he asked her how many millions she had in her Swiss bank accounts. "David, I think that's a very sexist question."
A non sequitur (does loot have a gender?) but one that brought the uncomfortable line of questioning to a swift end.
Of all Pakistan's elected leaders she conspicuously did the least to help the cause of women. She never, for example, repealed the Hudood Ordinances, Pakistan's controversial laws that made no distinction between rape and adultery.
She preferred instead to kowtow to the mullahs in order to cling to power, forming an expedient alliance with Pakistan's Religious Coalition Party and leaving Pakistan's women as powerless as she found them.
The problem is that the West never seems to learn; playing favourites in a complicated nation's politics always backfires. Imposing Benazir on Pakistan is the opposite of democratic and doubtless will cause more chaos in an already unstable country.
Make no mistake, Benazir may look the part, but she's as ruthless and conniving as they come--a kleptocrat in a Hermes headscarf.
Jemima Khan is an ambassador to Unicef.
(Hijab tip: Huda Shaka)
This fun-filled week will feature an array of speakers, films, enlightening literature and the opportunity to participate in a sit-in. Student organizers can choose from a delightful list of speakers, including:
Mark Steyn, a man who calls himself a "culturalist" rather than a "racist" for finding Western culture preferable to Arab culture and who supports immigration with the condition of assimilation
Phyllis Chesler, a professor of women's studies who wrote of the new anti-Semitism, which essentially encompasses anyone opposed to Israel's policies
And, if you're really lucky, like students at the University of Southern California, Ann Coulter, who once referred to Muslims as "ragheads" and is now apparently crusading for Muslim women's rights.
. . . from the perspective of an American Muslim muhajiba:
Born in Kenya of Indian heritage, I came to the United States at age 6, settling with my family in upstate New York. Growing up Muslim in suburban America, I missed out on the typical “Dawson’s Creek” method of courtship: the flirting, the fighting, the making up and making out.
. . .
So my friends and I had high expectations when it came to marriage, which was supposed to quickly follow graduation from college. That’s when our parents, many of whom had entered into arranged marriages, told us it was time to find the one man we would be waking up with for the rest of our lives, God willing. They just didn’t tell us how.
. . .
Yet now, at 29, despite all of my “meetings,” I remain unmarried. And in the last five years I’ve exhausted the patience of my matchmaking aunties and friends who have offered up their husbands’ childhood playmates.
I began to panic when I realized people were no longer even asking me how my husband hunt was going. I was too old to be hanging out at the mosque weekend school, where scarf-wearing teenage girls in tight jeans check out the boys from a distance (while pretending not to look). Yet I was not at the point where I’d consider importing a spouse from the subcontinent.
Please note: Columbus was a murderer. One of the main components of his "discovery" included raping and murdering the natives, not to mention pillaging their villages. I'm sorry, did you miss that? People died so you could get the day off from work today.
This is very much like Thanksgiving, aka Rape and Pillage day.
Maybe this is what is wrong with Amerikkka (us). We were "discovered" and founded by murderers, we are led by murderers and yet all we can think of is how it means we get the day off work.
And Islam is the problem? Give me a break.
Read a book folks, read a book.
The last ten nights of Ramadan are upon us. And soon after this you the journey for Hajj will begin for Muslims around the world.
If you make the same dua, each day, for the last ten nights of Ramadan, it's guaranteed that you would have made that dua during Laylatul-Qadr. (A night worth 1000 months of reward in the sight of Allah).
********************************
So, prepare your dua from now!
********************************
Step 1: Ask yourself, "If Allah said to me, I'll give you anything you wish, just ask!" What would you ask for? Make a list. (Try to fill two pages worth of dua, from the goodness of this life and the next.
Step 2: Pick about six of those things
Step 3: Make dua for those siz things consistently every night for the last ten nights of Ramadan.
Of course, make as much dua as you want, but make sure these six things are consistent.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of CCR’s case charging Caterpillar, Inc. with aiding and abetting war crimes and other serious human rights violations on the grounds that the company provided bulldozers to Israel knowing they would be used unlawfully to demolish homes and endanger civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
[The] decision from a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals found that it did not have jurisdiction to decide the case because Caterpillar’s bulldozers were ultimately paid for with money from the United States. Because of the U.S. government’s decision to grant military assistance to Israel, any decision regarding whether Caterpillar aided and abetted war crimes would impermissibly intrude upon the executive branch’s foreign policy decisions. In today’s decision, the Court did not rule on the question of whether Caterpillar aided and abetted Israeli war crimes.
“We are extremely disappointed with the Court’s refusal to decide whether Caterpillar violated the law, essentially because it did not want to question the U.S. decision to pay for the bulldozers,” said CCR Senior Attorney Maria LaHood. “The Court has a constitutional duty to uphold the law, and the law prohibits aiding and abetting war crimes - regardless of who’s footing the bill.”
DETROIT — The United Auto Workers has launched a national strike against General Motors Corp., GM spokesman Dan Flores said Monday. It's the first nationwide strike during auto contract negotiations since 1976.
Workers walked off the job and began picketing Monday outside GM plants after UAW's late morning strike deadline passed.
(I <3 this quote. It's been circulating via email for sometime now - I thought I'd share in case some of you out there had not yet seen it. Disclaimer: I haven't verified it's authenticity.)
From Ronald Reagan's recently published diaries.
Entry: May 17, 1986;
"A moment I've been dreading. George brought his
ne're-do-well son around this morning and asked me to
find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives
in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the
time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already
almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll
call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if
they'll hire him as a contributing editor or
something. That looks like easy work."
GUPS @ San Francisco State University
PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY
Sept 5, 2007
Dear community members:
We are thrilled to announce that we have finally won approval for the SFSU Palestine Mural despite ferocious opposition.
This permanent piece of art honoring the late professor Edward Said is the first of its kind on any American university campus wall; it has been attained after a long, unrelenting, and sustained struggle spearheaded by the Palestinian students of SFSU GUPS and allies and supported by the Bay Area Arab American community and friends.
You don't want to miss the exciting celebration to inaugurate the mural that will be held at the Cesar Chavez Student Center in San Francisco State University on November 2, 2007. The event will feature cultural presentations, inspirational speakers, music, food, and more throughout the day and a moving night program. We are planning to invite members of the Said family to join us in these activities.
This is history in the making. This mural is more than just a piece of art; it signifies the unbreakable bond between Palestine and the Palestinians everywhere including US campuses. It recognizes the ground-breaking and prolific academic and intellectual work to which Professor Said dedicated his life and his relentless defense of peace and justice. The mural is an important culmination of the Palestinian students' historic struggle for Palestinian human and national rights. The mural shall serve as a daily reminder of the Palestinian struggle, establishes a permanent presence of the Palestinian issue, and links it to the three other murals that celebrate peoples' struggles for social justice, self-determination, and freedom.
Therefore, we in GUPS, and the Cesar Chavez Student Center, have the honor to invite you all to join in celebrating this historic event.
If you need more information or like to know what you can do to support this celebration please contact GUPS by email at GUPS@sfsu.edu or by visiting our website.
GUPS Office:
1650 Holloway Ave.
CCSC M100-B
San Francisco, CA 94132
We hope to see you all there.
General Union of Palestine Students
San Francisco State University Chapter
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