Archive for October 2011
Hot post this week (Oct. 28)
Posted October 28, 2011
on:- Hot post this week (Oct. 28)
- US Administration tacit green light: Power in the Middle-East shared by military and Moslem Brotherhood movements
- State Syria daily “Teshrine” (October): Who is the Syrian journalist Samira el Massalmeh?
- Why do drug dealers still live with their mothers? Who is Sudhir Venkatesh?
- How to convert “Conventional Wisdoms” into success Freakonomics discoveries?
- Happiness is a symptom: What are the causes for your sadness?
- Who are those “Christians of the Orient”? Who is playing Custer’s fiddle?
- World Peace Award: Who is this Iraqi woman Hanaa Adour?
- What is your position on legalized abortion? Accounting for two-third in reduced crime rate?
- Left parties, progressive parties…: What’s that to do with Syria?
- What is your job? Housewife or…?
US Administration tacit green light: Power in the Middle-East shared by military and Moslem Brotherhood movements
Posted October 27, 2011
on:US Administration tacit green light: Power in the Middle-East shared by military and Moslem Brotherhood movements
Why the US Administration and policy-makers reached a comprehensive strategy to allowing the Moslem Brotherhood (MB) political parties and movements to share power with the military in the Middle-East States? Tunisia is the forerunner with the MB obtaining 45% of the votes. Egypt and Libya are to follow suit.
This policy is not new: More than a decade ago, the US decided that the Turkish Moslem Brotherhood (MB) Party, lead by Erdogan PM, and representing the Moslem Sunni sect, is the preferred alternative to exclusive military rule. The Turkish MB government has stuck steadfastly with the long-term US strategy in the region. A successful case that the US believe could be executed and practiced in the other Arab/Islamic States…
The tacit rational of the US Administrations are:
First, sharing of power of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood with the military would facilitate a social deal with the Christian Cop minority (10% of the population), by making the MB movement directly responsible for any religious persecution;
Second, this sharing of power would rob the military government an essential tool of using Islamic factions in order to pressure minority sects in supporting government corruption policies…
Third, this sharing of power would facilitate confronting “terrorist” factions, which have taken an Islamic face and undertone…
Fourth, this cooperation in vastly Sunni majority States will oppose the growing Chiaa power in the region, spearheaded by Iran. The US Administration has adopted the slogan that Iran is the Evil power that is frustrating its global strategy in the Greater Middle-East region. Iran decided to become self sufficient in military hardware production…
Fifth, the US wish this new alternative political system would behave differently, even though continuing with the same ideology of exclusion, discrimination, and considering the Chariaa (religious laws) as the source of civic legislation..
What the US and European States want in return for this sharing of power?
First, keeping oil flowing at reduced market price value. This practice has never ceased to be the case. The regimes were asked to forget how to make good use of produced oil, except for export necessities…
Second, keep market open for imported goods. It has always been the case: the regimes were not meant to figure out a way of manufacturing any goods worth exporting…
Third, Keep exporting the agricultural product and raw materials…at the expense of the famished population…
Fourth, fully controlling any “terrorist” activities outside State borders. The regimes have been fulling cooperating with the CIA and other European secret service agencies, in all kinds of matters, including how to control internal protesters and opposition forces…
Fifth, keep purchasing arms from them, at the exclusion of Russia…This was the case of Qadhafi who got insane and decided last year to buy arms exclusively from Russia
Why the US Administration and European States have reached this understanding? Fundamentally, they have given up on this region for any kind of liberal democratic institutions and political structure. Consequently, let the people govern themselves the way they did for centuries, as long as they stay away within the US and European borders and don’t export their problems to the western States…
Do anyone believe that, once a religious Islamic political party, within a majority of the population of its sect (Sunni or Chiaa), will ever lose a “democratic” election? The Turkish MB are increasing their margin at every election, and the case of Chiaa Iran is blatant. What kind of democracy are we talking about in these cases?
I think that I am expressing the implicit opinion of the secular forces, and all the minority religious sects, whether Christian, Moslem, or otherwise. The western society and political elite have given up on the people of the Arab/Islamic countries, particularly in the Near-East region. The next target is Syria, but this is another story.
All the States neighboring Syria know that a civil war in Syria will seriously affect the stability of their regimes (dictatorial, absolute monarchy, or otherwise…) The neighboring States to Syria, including Turkey and Israel, know that the assurances of the US, European Union, the pseudo States in the Arabic/Iranian Gulf, and Saudi Arabia are crap: They have no leverage in taming any mass upheavals, and worse, the spreading of civil wars within their own countries: Arms are abundant, and the borders are long…
Note 1: You may read the precursor of the practical understanding between US and Turkish Moslem Brotherhood https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/a-turkish-cultural-movement-fathallah-gulan/
Note 2: This post was partially inspired by the editorial of Sarkis Naoum in the Lebanese daily Al Nahar.
State Syria daily “Teshrine” (October): Who is the Syrian journalist Samira el Massalmeh?
Posted October 27, 2011
on:State Syria daily “Teshrine” (October): Who is the Syrian journalist Samira el Massalmeh?
Six months ago, basically since the start of the uprising in Syria against the regime of Bashar el Assad, Samira el Massalmeh was the chief editor of State Syria daily “Teshrine” for two and a half years.
Samira is the first woman to head a State daily. She said: “Many who are currently considered in the opposition movement, like Samir el Aitah, were welcomed to express their opinions in the State daily. I suffered many pressures to desist permitting freedom of expression, given that most other “private”dailies refrained from these practices”.
(I wonder if there are actually private dailies in Syria, and would like Samira to respond to my question).
Samira resumed: “Not a single Syrian daily dared confront the Prime Minister for his abuse of power and firing many employees without judicial due recourse. I did it. And President Assad encouraged me to display corruption stories in front page. I also published accounts of the various threats that I received from government officials. I had not obtained any official notification to desisting in my investigations, but the frequent threats were there at every occasion. When I created a new section “Culture”, which was meant to open up to different cultural tendencies, officials did their best to close it.”
(Samira does discriminate among private dailies, government, and State dailies. I guess in developed State, there are implicitly dailies representing government opinion, but it is not made official. The majority of “private” dailies in developed States represent the State, and are the “disseminator” of the State orientations, guidelines, and supporters of the main funders (the government institutions), though these dailies never acknowledge their biases. The same goes with opposition dailies. Very few “private” dailies consistently confront the power-to-be attitude and ideology).
Samira said: “I was the first to reasearch and express opinions on reforms of the political and social structure. At the start of this uprising, the code names of “reform” and “change” became true threat to the regime. The Syrian Parliament, which has no say in firing journalists, actually voted for firing me as chief editor. The struggle for reforms in ten years old: people wanted to transform Syria into a multiparty representation, democratic institutions…by reviewing the election laws and the legality of creating political parties… The vested interest of the elite class who enjoyed so much advantages during the last 30 years (Baath Party officials, Alawit minority, military officers…) feared changes and reforms”.
Samira said: “I once was threatened to be incarcerated (before I was offered the job of editor in chief) when I published accounts of fictitious companies obtaining investment rights and privileges with no institutions of review, control and inspection procedures and processes.
In the last six months, I have been saddened: My only outlet for writing is through Facebook, and I cannot withstand all that bloodshed. We have been very late in comprehending Syria, and the various scenarios on putting an end to this upheaval will cost us heavily in human potential and economic growth and stability…
I feel like a prisoner, and my opinion is also incarcerated. I publish my stories of the period I was editor in chief of the daily Teshrine…”
Note: Article inspired from the interview of Omar el Cheihk with Samira el Massalmeh in the Lebanese daily Al Nahar, on Oct.27, 2011
How to convert “Conventional Wisdoms” into success Freakonomics discoveries?
Posted October 26, 2011
on:How to convert “Conventional Wisdoms” into success Freakonomics discoveries?
Conventional wisdoms are the process of flowing with what is convenient, comfortable, and comforting: They are not necessarily true in reality of life. The smart imaginative mind has a feel of which wisdom is not true, then ask the right question, and intend to uncover the mystery in the problematic story.
Suppose the CIA calls you: It has plenty of data and it wants you to seep through the reams upon reams of data to figure out an algorithm for detecting money launderers and “terrorists”…to drone them out.
Suppose a former cyclist champion is suspicious that the current Tour de France is rife with doping, and he asks you to prove his suspicions…
Suppose a bagel salesman has gathered a lifelong data on his sales of bagel, and he wants you to have fun discovering a story behind the data…
Who could you be? What is your job? Are you a renowned scientist, a famous statistical analyst, a weird microeconomics professor, a highly educated crime investigator…?
Do you believe that the problems of this modern world are not impenetrable, and can be resolved, if the right questions are asked, and people are dedicated in uncovering the real story? For example, you ask a question that interest you, and you discover the story behind the problem, such as:
1) Why most drug dealers still live with their mothers?
2) Which is more dangerous: Having a gun at home or a private swimming pool?
3) Why crime rate plunged dramatically in the last two decades and is still witnessing a steady decline, though population increased and the economy has its feet flailing up?
4) Why your real estate agent sells his own home at a higher price and stay longer on the market?
5) Does your stock broker has your best interest in mind?
6) Why black parents give their children names that they know may hurt their career prospects…?
7) Do school teacher cheat to meet high-stakes testing standards?
8) Why police departments distort crime data and eliminate cases from the records…?
Are you curious in divulging the real stories behind cheating, corruption, and criminal behaviors and activities?
Would you like to try answering the following questions:
1) Why obstetrician in area witnessing declining birth rates perform many more cesarean-section deliveries than in growing areas?
2) Why incumbent politicians are more likely to win a re-election? Suppose you were given plenty of data since 1976, and you can compare the performance of pairs of candidates who challenged one another in successive congressional races, for example, you have 1,000 such pair-kinds… Do you think that you have a better handle for measuring the influence of money in these races and quantify the amount of money necessary to win an election?
The critical factors to uncover in any problem are:
1) What are the incentives to behaving differently?
2) What may be the effects of distant causes, and not just focusing on recent factors? For example, Norma McCorvey (Jane Row) lawsuit for obtaining an abortion had greater impact on crime rate decline than all the combined factors that crime experts put forward as explanation…
3) To what extent do large data-bases serve the agenda of institutions and experts?
4) How can you device a measuring yardstick to approaching complicated and seemingly intractable problems?
5) Do you know what to measure and how to measure? For example, the proper dependent variables that are most relevant to the problem?
Ask weird questions that people care about, and surprise people with your alternative answers.
The main advantage of developed nations is that they keep records and gather data on a continuous basis in all kinds of behaviors and activities. Scholars can dig and seep through tons of available data to tell the correct story. You torture and beat the crap out of any data until data is forced to divulge an answer. A side advantage: You may land a Novel Prize, looming around the bend.
Note: Article inspired by “FreakOnomics” of Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner