Media Tour:
"The wealthy begin to feel the pain in down economy..." Drudge Report 8/4/08
So instead of coke the celebs go back to.....ecstasy?
Besides, help is on the way: John McCain has promised to reduce their taxes some more.

I thought Paris Hilton's energy policy was better than the other two candidates for president- at least the version in her free video, no, the recent video. Her special effects were better than McCain's, especially when he looked like a mummy, and she sounded more credible, perhaps because she is not seeking elective office yet. She was, however, short on details.

"Many Iranians confront poverty while the Mullahs confront America." Middle East Online, 8/4/08

"President George W Bush has led America during two terms marked with setbacks and catastrophes. He has waged two failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has pushed the economy into a depression (probably means 'recession' here). He has burdened the federal budget with a deficit of $450 billion, after he had inherited a huge surplus from his predecessor. It is not far-fetched for Mr. Bush to respond again to recent Israeli provocations and urgings and resort to the military option against Iran in a desperate attempt to salvage a political and military legacy that has so far been full of failures and defeats." Alquds Alarabi, London.

"It was no coincidence for U.S Secratary of State Condi Rice to order all foreign minister of the moderate Arab states to meet with her at Abu Dhabi while she was en route to Asia. She made sure to bring along Mr. Burns who met the Iranians in Geneve." Alquds Alarabi, London.

"Iran is playing with fire by being uncooperative with the West. She will be attacked just as Iraq was." Libyan leader Colonel Qadhafi, on a visit to Tunisia.

"It warms my heart to see Mr. Bin Ali running for a sixth term as president of Tunisia." Colonel Qadhafi who, like all other Arab leaders has never heard of term limits or losing an election. BTW: what is an election?

Wages of Sinning by Telephone in Arabia:
A Saudi appeals court (I did not know they had those) has upheld a sentence of flogging and prison for a Saudi academic and one of his female students. He was sentenced to a flogging of 600 lashes and 8 months prison, she was sentenced to 350 lashes and 4 months in prison. They will both need to spend the months in a hospital ICU, if they survive the lashes.
He is accused of establishing an illicit relationship with her over the telephone (seriously) and encouraging her to break up her marriage. Talking over telephone with an un-related woman is considered a form of sinning in parts of the moderate New Middle East. She is accused of breaking up her marriage. All this was allegedly done through telephone conversations about her research paper.

The husband had sued after he had agreed to the divorce (for a price of Saudi Riyal -Real en Espanol- 70,000 paid by the wife to the husband for her freedom). The good husband took the money, granted the divorce, but sued one week later, after the money was safely in the bank.

The professor has declared that he refuses the sentences although it is not clear how he can stop them, unless he has access to the royal palace.

Wages of getting stoned in Arabia:
On the subject of the law and judicial justice: police in Dubai reported yesterday that they have busted a Saudi judge and his wife for possession and use of Hashish in a hotel room. Initially Saudi authorities were quick to deny that the man was a Saudi judge, the ministry of justice denied that he was on their list of judges. But now alarabiya (Saudi) reports that an attorney for the Saudi consulate in Dubai will defend his honor the judge, who turns out to be a judge after all.

The media were quick to report that the arrested wife is in fact the judge's second wife and that she is 'Moroccan'- hinting that a native Saudi woman would never be caught dead smoking Hashish, and even if she smoked she would never inhale, and even if she inhaled she wouldn't like it. In either case, she would never consent for a stoned husband.
And to prove it: they report that the man's first wife, a conventional and definitely 'square' Saudi of course, was with them at the same hotel, but staying at a different room.They had, all three of them, arrived from Cairo. I guess the judge made the rounds in the hotel, unless he was into groups.
No word yet if the first wife was the one who ratted on the blissful couple. The man's othere wives, if he has others, were not with them in Dubai.

Alarabiya volunteers to share with us that the judge was a good straight man, you might say an average decent Saudi, before he married the Moroccan wife. He was just an average Saudi judge who sentenced people to such things as flogging and sentenced poor people to public beheadings for committing such crimes as murder, resorting to witchcraft, committing adultery, or smoking Hashish.
I wonder what the punishment in Dubai is for smoking Hashish with one's second Moroccan wife in a hotel suite while the first wife is in another room at the same hotel?

And so it goes in the moderate tribal New Middle East with the famous birth pangs that Condi Rice mentioned in the summer of 2006 while the Southern suburb of Beirut was burning.
Cheers
Mohammed