Mystery of Financial Crisis Solved: Culprits Found in Inland Empire and Detroit! Genetic Mapping and One Eyed Women of Arabia
Watched the O'Reilly Factor today on Fox for about 5 minutes, out of curiosity. I do that once in a while almost as a punishment- sort of like gorging on greasy fried chicken once in a long while and atoning for it with days of trying to burn it off with exercise. He and Laura Ingraham (what the Right calls a true-blue neocon-babe, but only affectionately not lasciviously) were commiserating about the financial crisis.
I learned something important from their discussion: that the crisis was actually caused by the 'government' pressing banks to finance mortgages for people who should not have mortgages! The Wall Street corporations who bought and speculated in debt instruments, and the avaricious CEOs and their greedy incompetent colleagues had nothing to do with it! The wild-eyed deregulators had nothing to do with it either. Nor eight years of Republican administration and 14 years of GOP control of the Congress over the past 16 years. They also managed to blame Bill Clinton along the way.
At least now I know that some minorities have the power to shake the financial foundations of the United States. Imagine, a few thousand black families, a few hundred Latino families in the barrios of the Inland Empire, and maybe five or ten families in Dearborn (MI) were able to shake the country and the world.
Imagine if only Lou Dobbs was there in the mix with those two: we could have added illegal house cleaners and fruit pickers. Or maybe the illegal Irish immigrants that John McCain discovered somewhere in Ohio or PA two days ago and got misty eyed about, election-time misty eyed.
John McCain 'rushed' to Washington from New York yesterday to solve the financial crisis. It took him about 24 hours and several TV appearances to get there by airplane. I could get there faster biking, well maybe many years ago.
Alarabiya (9/26) reports that Shaikh Mohammed al-Habdan of Saudi Arabia, apparently prominent enough to be in the headlines over there, has warned women against going out shopping alone without a close male relative like a husband, brother or father. He said that would lead to sins and other evil things (did not elaborate about these other things, but he must have a dirty mind if he can conjure up things more evil and presumably less fun than sinning). The Shaikh also recommended that women eschew the infamous burqa'a (de rigueur in Saudi Arabia) and opt for a one-eyed niqab, explaining that a woman needs only one eye to see her way and pick out what she needs to purchase. The more eyes shown, with all the make-up and kohl, the more temptation it arouses.
Some prominent Saudi women have taken issue with the Shaikh and his opinions of women and sinning, one of them retorting that God created the face so that people can 'face' each other with it. I think that makes sense.
On the positive side: Reuters reports from Riyadh that Saudi scientists have set up the first Arab genetic map as part of a project to put the Arab world on the world genetic map and thus help improve the quality of health care. It is called the Arab Human Genome Project. The project will cost SR 500 million (about US$ 133 million).
The report notes that parts of the study could create controversy when various tribal genes are mapped. Tribal affiliations are often more important than 'national' ones in many parts of the moderate New Middle East. Who knows, maybe it will turn out that one or two prominent Saudi tribes had originally crossed the Red Sea long ago with someone named Moses. These were the tribes that gave up instant gratification by turning right once out of Sinai and opting out of milk and honey. Now they've got all the oil everybody else wants!
Cheers
mhg
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