2 million girls back to school. Over 3 million voting women. The Taliban can't be too happy about that. Bummer...

VOA News - Expanding Women's Rights: "In the last few years, women in Afghanistan have won significant freedoms. Under the Taleban, Afghan women were forbidden to attend school, work, or participate in society. But since the overthrow of the Taleban by the U.S.-led coalition, more than two-million Afghan girls have gone back to school. And Afghan women are heading back to the classroom as teachers. Afghan women are also participating in political life; a woman ran for president in the October 2004 election. Eight million Afghans voted in that election, and forty percent of them were women."

First Lady's Middle East Tour Stirs Mixed Reviews: "The referendum was marred when pro-government agents violently stormed into crowds of pro-democracy activists. Some Egyptian analysts speculated that Bush's praise of President Mubarak as 'bold' gave the government the green light to crack down on protesters.

Pro-democracy activists who were protesting the new rules were attacked by plain-clothes police in central Cairo. Reporters described repeated instances of plainclothes police groping female activists and journalists. At least two women had their clothes ripped off while police stood by and did nothing."

Behavior rewarded is behavior repeated. Good words for opening up to multiple parties. Will there be harsh words for the crack-down? I think that is mandatory in order to make sure that it is clear what the good words are for. But we can't see what is going on behind the scenes. Not all diplomacy takes place in the media.

From the Voice of America:

VOA News - Rice On The Middle East: "'Cynics and skeptics cannot see a democratic Middle East, so they doubt that it is a realistic goal. They focus only on the despotism that has shaped the region's past and still defines much of the present. But...make no mistake, freedom is on the march in Afghanistan and Iraq and in Lebanon and in Georgia and Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and in the Palestinian territories.'"

Cynics doubt progress can be made. When some progress is made, it isn't enough to them. The goalposts keep moving.

Winds of Change.NET: Good News from Iraq: 23 May 2005

Winds of Change.NET: Good News from Iraq: 23 May 2005

No surprise here. Yet another reason we need to become more energy self-sufficient and not continue to prop up the Saidi regime.

Saudis Earn Low Rank in Women's Rights - Yahoo! News: "Saudi Arabia ranked last in a study of women's rights in Middle Eastern and North African countries and was the only one of 16 nations surveyed that had no constitutional guarantees of equal protection for females, according to a report released Saturday."

Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A good article on writing neutrally. Has lots of good points.

Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Everybody has a point of view. Though 99% of the world may see something exactly the way you do, still your view is just one of many possible views that might be reasonably held. For example, what does it mean to be liberal? Some have said that this political stance means that the government should actively intervene to ensure fairness, while others have stated the opposite, that liberals seek to maximize individual opportunity and minimize government. Can a sensible article on Liberalism acknowledge such beliefs? Yes, and this tutorial will tell you how."

To venture into the Arab world, as I did recently over four weeks in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq, is to travel into Bush Country. BY FOUAD AJAMI: "The insurgents were busy with their bombs and their plots of mayhem: Georgian troops guarded the National Assembly and controlled access to it. But a people were taking to a new political way. A woman garbed in black, a daughter of a distinguished clerical Shia family, made the rounds among her fellow legislators. Religious scruples decreed that she could not shake the hand of a male stranger. But she was proud and wily, a free woman in a newly emancipated polity. She let me know how much she knew about the ways and the literature of the West. American power may have turned on its erstwhile ally, Ahmed Chalabi. But his appearance in the assembly's gallery drew to him parliamentarians of every stripe. He, too, had about him the excitement of this new politics."

Yes, there is a difference between the US Military and the popular impression of it. My ex has been actively discouraging our son from even thinking about a military scholarship/ROTC/etc. It wouldn't be so bad if it was "it is an honorable thing, but it scares me to think about you getting killed", but it isn't.

CNN.com - Soldiers help Iraqi family settle in North Dakota - May 22, 2005: "FARGO, North Dakota (AP) -- The Iraqi woman had been in hiding with her children since her husband was pulled from his truck and shot in front of one of his sons.

This weekend, they began a new life, brought to America with help from soldiers who befriended the slain man and were tormented by the idea that their relationship contributed to his death."

This is a good article about how a political movement can slowly erode the actual philosophy that made it a movement in the first place. I imagine that some are doing the same for the Republican party also with its abandonment of many of the principles that made it strong (small hands-off government, small budgets, etc.). Neither side seems willing to stand up to its kooks and those pulling it away from their basic philosophies.

Leaving the left / I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity: "Nightfall, Jan. 30. Eight-million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I'm separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.

I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together."

Here is a hilarious parody of Star Wars called Store Wars. Very cleverly done. It is worth the couple of minutes to sit through.