In Gaza, police are cracking down on the latest public scourge: women smoking water pipes (or shisha or hookahs). Citizens were handed an announcement that the Hamas government was now banning women from smoking water pipes because it leads to divorces.
Hamas officials insist that women smoking water pipes violates tradition and leads to men divorcing women seen smoking in public. The move is part of the increased enforcement of religious norms under the Hamas government.
Source: AFP.
Have you ever considered about including a little bit more than just your articles?
I mean, what you say is fundamental and all. However think about if you added
some great images or videos to give your posts more,
“pop”! Your content is excellent but with images and video clips, this website could definitely be one of the most beneficial in its niche.
Amazing blog!
This is why marijuana should be legal: Most marijuana smokers smoke the bud, not the leaf, of the plant. The bud contains only 33% as much tar as tobacco. This is why cannabis must be legal: marijuana smokers do not smoke anywhere near as much as tobacco smokers, due to the psychoactive effects of cannabis. This is why marijuana should be legal: Not one case of lung cancer has ever been successfully linked to marijuana use.
Syria Bans Full Islamic Veils At Universities
ALBERT AJI and ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY | 07/19/10 09:36 PM |(Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/19/syria-bans-face-covering_n_651222.html
Excerpt:
DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria has forbidden the country’s students and teachers from wearing the niqab – the full Islamic veil that reveals only a woman’s eyes – taking aim at a garment many see as political.
The ban shows a rare point of agreement between Syria’s secular, authoritarian government and the democracies of Europe: Both view the niqab as a potentially destabilizing threat.
“We have given directives to all universities to ban niqab-wearing women from registering,” a government official in Damascus told The Associated Press on Monday.
The order affects both public and private universities and aims to protect Syria’s secular identity, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue. Hundreds of primary school teachers who were wearing the niqab at government-run schools were transferred last month to administrative jobs, he added.
The ban, issued Sunday by the Education Ministry, does not affect the hijab, or headscarf, which is far more common in Syria than the niqab’s billowing black robes.
Vote Lyndon La Rouche as the lady Jill says.
I found that Planned Parenthood email petition mentioned in Jill’s first post:
http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/hcrnwwff_af?qp_source=hcrnwwff%5fafhp
Load, Light,Inhale, repeat as often as necessary…..
Here’s Glenn Greenwald on the Washington Post article: “”The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.” This all “amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight.” We chirp endlessly about the Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Democrats and Republicans, but this is the Real U.S. Government: functioning in total darkness, beyond elections and parties, so secret, vast and powerful that it evades the control or knowledge of any one person or even any organization.
Anyone who thinks that’s hyperbole should just read some of what Priest and Arkin chronicle. Consider this: “Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications.” To call that an out-of-control, privacy-destroying Surveillance State is to understate the case. Equally understated is the observation that we have become a militarized nation living under an omnipotent, self-perpetuating, bankrupting National Security State.”
Yissil, I said, “right wing religious zealot” and have given evidence for this claim in a different thread, such as Obama has placed people at the top of his war machine who call our wars of empire in the Muslim world, “crusades”. The example sited on abortion policy cannot be called secular, science based, liberal policy.
I urge people to think hard about who they vote for and consider a third party this fall. If you find a Democrat who on close examination actually acts on behalf of the people’s interests, (and there are a few of those) I would vote for that person, but those are the only Democrats I would vote for.
If only it would be that easy to procure such a result from smoking a hookah. I’ll say no more.
I don’t think it’s fair to call Obama a “right-wing zealot.” Well, obviously it isn’t. He isn’t a zealot about anything. One thing Obama has proved is that he will give anything away in a deal, even preemptively.
I would definitely urge people vote to keep as many Republicans as possible out of congress.
Hello Bonnie,
You know, there is a way for the public to fact check the Washington Post story because it will be drawn from publicly available sources. So, we can read the story and then undertake an investigation into the primary sources to see if the reporting is accurate this time.
Unfortunately, the Washington Post is nothing more that a rightwing rag these days with absolutely no credibility regarding the truth and unbiased reporting. Everyone should cancel any subscriptions to WaPo, stop referencing and linking to it, and let die and blow away.
buckeye,
I stand by my references. I’m just not willing to play a game about torture. The Washington Post story doesn’t run until tomorrow. We’ll (at least I), will have to wait until then. Not sure why you couldn’t find the piece I referenced at Raw Story. Here’s the title: “DC’s spy establishment in panic mode over Washington Post expose”. You can take it from there.
Jill
I couldn’t find the WaPo story (lists of agencies and contractors doing Top Secret work) at rawstory but did at Foreign Policy – along with the propaganda/preferred answers. Biggest news is the total numbers/amounts spent in the intelligence field. We all knew that was unconscionably bloated. Now the spies won’t have to work so hard to find them all.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07/16/state_department_warns_employees_about_new_website_highlighting_top_secret_faciliti
I looked at all those websites and told you what I found. Nothing. You’ll either have to give me a direct link to proof, or I’ll have to determine your statements are only assertions and not the proof a truth seeker would accept.
If you don’t have a direct, reputable, link, just say so and I’ll quit bugging you for one. Thanks, Buckeye.
Jill:
Governments seems to tend to always abuse the individual. Even ours which was founded on individual rights has been taken over by people who think they know more than we do and who are willing to take away all of our rights so they can tell us what to do and when to do it. What you recognize is what governments seem to always end up doing to the individual. Government, i.e. politicians, seen to think they know what is best and they want to shove it down our throats for our own good even if we choke on it.
I believe people need government for one reason only and that is to protect against the use of force by others. Everything else should be left to the individuals to sort out. That is a bit simplified but in my mind the least government is the best government. Then you don’t end up with competing interest/pressure groups struggling for their piece of the plunder.
buckeye,
That’s interesting that your so definitive about no torture under Obama. I gave quite a few places to look and you have in no way had the time to research that information. I guess it’s just like when Bush said we didn’t torture. It’s also interesting that you got my joke about trolls!