There is a link to a scan of a document submitted to the Virginia government by PETA that backs up the claims made here.

PETA Kills Animals

The role of First Lady (First Spouse?) has no constitutional authority, but plenty of morel authority. Due to the press attention and interest by the public in all countries, the role can shine a spotlight on issues. A bully pulpit to issues that may not be at the top of the political agenda.

KRT Wire | 05/17/2005 | First lady to promote women's rights in Middle East: "Resuming her newfound role as a public diplomat, first lady Laura Bush travels to the Middle East this week to spotlight what many call a major hurdle to regional peace: Lack of rights for women."

courtesy of BoingBoing:

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Pakistan's first women fighter pilots: "To the great surprise of many men, some of the female recruits will soon start flying jet-engine planes."

Gateway Pundit: Syria Democracy Protest

42 year old state of emergency?!?!?!

Gateway Pundit: Syria Democracy Protest: "Hundreds of demonstrators have rallied outside Syria's feared state security court, chanting for freedom and demanding an end to the 42-year-old state of emergency."

"Honour" killings? I hope this is a short term trend that fades away. Although I am a bit suspect of the "since the fall of" statement as I imagine that there weren't great stats on this before hand. But folks in the medical field in Iraq probably have a good sense of the trend.

KurdishMedia News - Daily Kurdish news updates: "Faeq Ameen Bakr, director general of Baghdad’s Institute of Forensic Medicine in Baghdad, often writes “killed to wash away her disgrace” in the many autopsy reports and investigations that cross his desk.

The number of so-called honour killings - where a woman is killed by family members because they believe she has in some way shamed them - is said to have increased in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. "

This is terrible if true. Have you noticed that reporters really only go where they can be safe? It is much easier to attend an anti-US rally most places in the world, but it is really hard to go in and cover a democracy rally in a brutal regime. The resulting 3rd hand news doesn't make the headlines because there are no pictures or on site reporters. I hope that this gets more attention so we can learn what really is happening.

Of course, once we learn what happened, we will need to decide what to do about it.

Gateway Pundit: Ghastly Slaughter Reported in Andijan: "The first reports are coming out of Andijan where government forces massacred hundreds of peaceful protesters on Friday."

As a new IT Manager in my company, I've been thinking a lot about stuff like this lately. This quote, from 7-Eleven's CEO, captures how I would like our IT department to be looked at.

Who's Mining The Store? - EXECUTIVE EXPECTATIONS - CIO Magazine May 15,2005: "Many companies look at the IT department as a service organization, and they satisfy the needs of their internal clients. We look at the technology department as a key stakeholder in our ability to satisfy the customer"

maybe she should come to the Indianapolis 500?

Vroom-Vroom, She Said to the Doubters - New York Times: "With that, she broke around a blue pickup, accelerated past an Oldsmobile and swerved onto an offramp, past a billboard of Ayatollah Khomeini and a 30 kilometer an hour speed-limit sign, doing 80 k.p.h., or just under 50 miles an hour."

The history of PDAs

Cool pictures. Although it ends with my first PDA (actually a 5000 as I went for the larger memory.

Excellent News!

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Kuwaiti women win right to vote: "The Kuwaiti parliament has voted to give women full political rights."

Stuart Brand has an article in MIT's Technology Review about changes coming to the environmental movement. He talks about the "romantic" and "scientific" members of the movement and how having both is a strength. Then he looks at four items: "population growth, urbani­zation, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power" and discusses why he believes that the environmental mvoememtn will change their minds on these topics. A personal comment from him on the over population swap:

Environmental Heresies: "The environmentalist aesthetic is to love villages and despise cities. My mind got changed on the subject a few years ago by an Indian acquaintance who told me that in Indian villages the women obeyed their husbands and family elders, pounded grain, and sang. But, the acquaintance explained, when Indian women immigrated to cities, they got jobs, started businesses, and demanded their children be educated. They became more independent, as they became less fundamentalist in their religious beliefs. "

Female in the Middle East: "When Azadeh Moaveni traveled to Iran as an adult in 1998, a policewoman stopped her and her relatives at the door of a movie theater and ordered the women to wipe off their lipstick. They obeyed but immediately reapplied their lipstick inside."