Department of the Interior Employees Exploring the Privates of their Private Sector Counterparts

So, in addition to windfall profits, government subsidies and shady tax write-offs, oil company employees are also into hookers and blow. Nice.

Dictator Jokes

I love dictator jokes - and although I'm not creative or thoughtful enough to weave them into an amazing text on seditious politics I can record them here so we can all get a laugh.

Joke #1

So, Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak (the first two make a posthumous appearance but after all it's a joke) are all in a cab together headed to a conference on the future of Egyptian reform. They come to a fork in the road and the cab driver asks which way to go. Nasser says "left," Sadat says "right," and Mubarak says, "no just stop here."

Joke #2

The Yemeni ambassador travels to the villa of his Italian counterpart for a diplomatic visit. The Yemeni ambassador is impressed with the opulence of the Italian's residence and asks him how he managed to build such a place on a diplomat's salary. The Italian responds, "Look out the window. See that bridge over there? Well, I skimmed a little off the budget for that bridge and built myself this house." The Yemeni ambassador nods in approval. A few months later the Italian ambassador pays a visit to his Yemeni colleague. He's surprised to find him living in a palatial mansion. "How did you afford such a place?" the Italian ambassador asks. "See that bridge over there?" the Yemeni ambassador asks pointing out the window. "I don't see any bridge," the Italian responds. "Of course not" the Yemeni says, "if I had built the bridge I never would have been able to afford this house."

That's all my tired mind can come up with right now - but I'll post them as them come flooding back . . . .

The Roots of 'Foreign Subversion' Conspiracies in the Middle East? - Actual Foreign Subversion

"Foreign Subversion" is probably the first English phrase any Arab politician learns, and is the explanation for everything from peasant resistance to childhood vaccines (they obviously cause sterility) to curbing media freedom (Israel will infiltrate Syrian Facebook groups). Next to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict it's the number two reason Arab regimes give for maintaining archaic restraints on human freedom. "Irrational appeals to conspiracy theories" could just be another footnote in some Orientalist publication on the Arab Mind, but turns out, they're not so irrational after all.

Statistics Don't Lie But Corporate Interests Groups Do

I am SO sick of business interest groups running these ridiculous commercials that criticize the US for supposedly having "the highest corporate tax rates among OECD countries." Everyone knows (including the jerks who are running these advertisements) that loopholes in the US tax laws in fact result in much lower tax rates for corporations in the US than in European countries and Japan. Most corporations don't even pay income taxes (the result of a perverse interpretation of the 14th amendment that allows corporations to be granted rights as 'individuals' under US law). What taxes they do pay comes from the paychecks of their employees (and I think we've all seen in the last few years that the more money executives make the more they can pay their accountants to hide it in offshore accounts). It disgusts me that these groups can run these commercials that are in essence lying to the public (especially to the public that hasn't had the fortune of a higher education in economics). Here's a link that explains in detail why US corporate tax rates are NOT in fact higher than those elsewhere in the developed world.

When it's good to just keep your trap shut

A spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry warned that, "Europe should be very careful in its relationship with Syria." Sounds a lot like the British foreign ministry in the 50s convincing the US government not to negotiate with Mossadegh - and we all know how well that turned out . . . .

Despite the fact that the article is about French-Syrian talks, you can read all about the Israeli government's constructive input here.

NYTimes: Israeli Settlements Grow at Double the Rate of Last Year

When US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice found out that Israelis are constructing illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank at twice the rate they were last year (not only in violation of EVERY peace accord ever negotiated but also in violation of the US plan for peace), she said this 'did not advance the cause of peace' and 'ought to be avoided.' That's like telling Robert Mugabe that 'we'd appreciate it if you didn't send death squads into the street to murder supporters of the political opposition' or saying to Bashir (Sudan) 'it would be nice if you would stop ordering your paramilitary troops to plunder, rape and pillage the black Africans in the South.' How about Condi grows a pair of stones and demands that the settlement construction be stopped or we won't send all those new missiles and sensitive technologies to Israel that we just agreed to (which is probably responsible for sparking the Syrian purchase of new, more advanced missiles from Russia). If our leaders won't even stand on the side of justice when an ally abrogates every peace agreement they ever signed, then it's time for new leaders.

Here's the full article

Big Brother gets in on the Telecom Game

If you've traveled before and bought a SIM card for your international phone (since the US refuses to join the GSM revolution and provide customers with phones that can be used elsewhere) you probably had to give them a photocopy of your passport. Well, now Egyptians have to provide identification to use their phones as well.

"The National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority requested that mobile phone operators block service to anonymous subscribers as a public security measure. Vodafone, Mobinil and Itisalat have reportedly started disabling text-messaging capabilities for anonymous subscribers. The measure has affected several hundred thousand customers who did not register their names and addresses when they bought phone lines."

Critics claim this is to monitor political opposition - so phones used to send mass SMS messages to organize protests/strikes, etc. can be monitored. Regimes are always a little behind politically motivated youth in discovering technologically sophisticated ways to engage in political opposition - looks like they're finally catching up.

Buried in the back pages of the NYTimes - this is why peace is elusive

"Israel announced plans to build 1,300 more houses in East Jerusalem, angering Palestinians who warned that such plans threatened chances for a peace accord by the end of the year. The announcement brought to more than 3,000 the number of houses that Israel has approved for construction since the renewal of the peace talks on land that Palestinians think should be part of a Palestinian state. Palestinian negotiators condemned the latest plan, while Israeli officials said that most of the proposed housing would be on land that Israel has already annexed."

Yes, East Jerusalem is supposed to be Palestinian Jerusalem (the other half of Jerusalem for the Jewish population). This in addition to the leaked White House memo that gave Olmert the go-ahead to build more Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

I visited the Israeli Embassy about one month ago (shortly before I left for Egypt). The meeting was meant to be a briefing of the political situation in Jerusalem for the undergraduate students with whom I was traveling as a teaching assistant. Instead of a briefing we got an introductory class in propaganda (which was either extremely insulting: ie, the Israeli diplomat thought we were all so ignorant of Middle East politics as to believe the BS he was spouting, or extremely flattering: ie, the same diplomat thought some of us had some connections with the foreign policy establishment that would merit him taking the time to try to indoctrinate us). Either way, the theme of the talk was that the conflict with the Palestinians was a tertiary matter and that Ahmadinijad's Iran was a modern day incarnation of Nazi Germany (and yes, he did make this explicit comparison). He basically said that if we don't get off our pacifist-Middle class-social justice-seeking petards and bomb Iran the whole world will soon be in flames. Where do they find these people?

Fixing Egypt's Educational System

One of the legacies of Nasser's social policies was a state-funded educational system that is free to all those who achieve qualifying scores (which makes the dreaded secondary school exams in Egypt the biggest event in many students' lives). Their scores on these exams determine which school they attend (Cairo University being generally considered the best of the public schools) and which faculties they will be placed in (Engineering, Computer Science being the most coveted, Law and Education being closer to the bottom). The upside is that education is free for all (in contrast to the US system where higher education costs are skyrocketing). The downside is that the schools are overcrowded (about a quarter of a million students in each of the major state universities); the faculty are severely underpaid (which either means they can't get good faculty or they have to moonlight with menial jobs to make ends meet). When I recently visited some of Egypt's universities during exam time even the hallways of the universities were filled with desks to accommodate students.

Another result of the overstretched state education system is that students have to supplement their public education with extra fee-based courses (like computer certification programs run by private businesses) in order to set them apart from their colleagues. There is also a recent proliferation of for-profit private universities being established by wealthy entrepreneurs to serve Egypt's upper class. I visited one of these universities recently (Future University: pictured here) and it had state-of-the-art equipment for its medical and engineering schools and very nice lecture halls with stadium seating. Of course these schools are only available for the uber-wealthy - with tuition being around $5,000/year, much more than most Egyptians take home in a year.

Dumbing Down Democracy

I've seen a couple of condemnations of this NYTimes article floating around the blogosphere. The primary criticism is that it seems to suggest that Egyptians harbor some nationalist pride that is hurt when foreign leaders criticize their own government. My estimation is that this is incorrect - it isn't that Bush criticized some beloved figure in Hosni Mubarak - it was that Bush deigned to criticize the Egyptian government for actions the US is also guilty of (human rights abuses in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, supporting Israel's blockade of Gaza, funding corrupt Arab regimes, financing secret prisons in Eastern European countries, etc.) I have spoken with a few government officials and numerous academics: the bottom line is that Bush's remarks are condescending (his speeches are littered with words like "teaching," "tutoring," "nurturing," and "fostering)." If the Bush administration is setting any example at all it is to flout international law and consensus and pursue unilateral foreign policy without regard to international norms. One government official said Bush: “spoke as a professor trying to give lessons.” And this was directly after leaving Israel to celebrate its 60th Birthday (at a time when Egyptian support for Israel's blockade of Gaza is a particularly contentious subject in the domestic political scene).