Second Amendment - Quranic verses?

The debate on gun control (or gun rights for many) highlights the strange, para-religious way in which many in America view their constitution.

In most countries the constitution is seen as a mere piece of legislation, subject to constant evolution and adapting to the needs, morals and values of the present.

Many Americans seem to look at this 18th century document like orthodox Muslims look at the Quran: the direct word of God, authoritative, frozen in time and untouched by modernity.

Laws evolve! Often people talking about the holy 2nd Amendment fail to notice what their are talking about, an AMENDMENT! Any doubts about the meaning of this noun?

US Constitution and the Quran - many seem to have trouble telling them apart

Islamic Seasons

Secular minded people who were naïve enough to have believed in the "Arab Spring" should now buy some thick overcoats and get prepared for "Salafist Winter"...

The works on the new Egyptian constitution clearly show the way: Christians are on the way to second class citizenship and women won't even qualify as that.

Cartoon by Doaa El Adl - "A constitution for all Egyptians" - Christians and Women will miss the top place in the podium...

Egypt's new despot, US educated "brother" Mohamed Morsi is issuing decrees like a pharaoh in a way that is bound to lead to further violence and economic collapse. The prospect of a civil war looms on the horizon. The Muslim Brotherhood cannot even build an Islamic Democracy as the Persian Mullahs managed.

In Libya and Tunisia the Muslim Brotherhood is also consolidating power, and "God Allowing" they expect to take Syria too. If eventually Bashar falls, a second civil war is bound to ensue, as Salafists fight the secular. Bashar should cut his losses: create a strong Alawite state in the West and  let the Sunnis fight it out in the rest of Syria.

Ironically the West keeps supporting these new theocratic regimes. Hamas people must be feeling very frustrated: they were the first branch of the Muslim Brotherhood to reach power and yet they are (rightfully) considered as terrorists, and yet they see their brothers elsewhere regarded as 'democrats'. The Brotherhood's true colours have been lost in Western daltonism.

Muslim brotherhood and Barack Hussein Obama - sheep and wolf - cartoon by A.F. Branco

American bumper stickers

Bumper stickers reveal some interesting insights of America about herself:

I love you America. But I think we should see other people.

Be nice to America, or we'll bring democracy to your country (seen o a car with Marine corps license plates)

Inequality in America (and Britain)

Dr. Alan Krueger, chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, spoke yesterday at the Center for American Progress about how inequality threatens both the middle class and the economy at large.

The chart below, from his Powerpoint presentation, illustrates how America became the Western World champion of Income Inequality and more surprisingly of lack of intergenerational mobility. The children of the poor stay poor. The American Dream is dead. 

Furthermore, it is not a shock to see that the former colonial power, Britain, now the most American part of Europe, comes a close second to the US.

“The Great Gatsby Curve” - Higher income inequality associated with lower intergenerational mobility

Economist Alan Krueger, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and his boss, a certain Hussein Obama

Note on the graph:

Originally from a paper by Miles Corak,  professor of economics with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa’s, it shows a negative relationship between the Gini coefficient and intergenerational earnings elasticity.

The Gini coefficient is a standard way of measuring inequality. It is an index between 0 and 1, based on the Lorenz curve, which is the proportion of the total income earned by each percent of the population. The larger the number, the less equal the society.

Intergenerational earnings elasticity is the relationship between parents’ earnings and those of their children. In a way, it shows if children can escape their parents’ poverty. According to the 1921 song by Van & Schenck, immortalized in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby", they can’t: “The rich get richer and the poor get children.” 

Therefore the title of the graph!

Cover of  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby"
Inequality in America

US: 50% of black men without a high-school diploma spend time in jail

The ever reliable, pro-American and far from any suspicion of being liberal, "The Economist", publishes a tongue-in-cheek ironic article on today's US penal system, "Sing Sing or the lash". However one must draw conclusions that go far beyond crime and punishment, and enter the sphere of a failed society.

The numbers are unpalatable, and seem to be conveniently ignored by political leaders, inteligentsya, the vast middle-class and minority leaders. They shame all of them:

• In the US the incarceration rate is five times the world average;
• One in every 31 Americans is under some form of correctional control;
• One in every 11 blacks is under some form of correctional control;

and most shockingly:

• 50% of black men without a high-school diploma spend time in jail!

Such figures would in any self-conscious country create a large brouhaha, massive doses of self-analysis and endless debate. Not so in the land of the brave and free!

A country that spends many times more money on its military establishment, allegedly trying to fix other countries, than on education at home should stop and re-think its priorities.

Some thing is deeply wrong, if you think that every other lower class black gent you come across on the street is a criminal. 

What did all the integration and civil rights rethoric achieve?

It has clearly failed not only black Americans, but all Americans.

Furthermore nothing seems to have changed with a mulato president, Hussein Obama, who is already dragging the country into a third self-inflicted war in Libya.

Wake up America, Tahrir Square is on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, 

DC 20500, telephone (202) 456-1414!

prisoners in the pillory with one being whipped, USA 1907

World map showing incarceration rate per 100,000 citizens, data from UN Human Development Report 2007/8

Tornadoes and houses fit for three little pigs

Tornados are a common weather phenomenon. However the destruction and death toll caused year after year, decade upon decade, by tornadoes in the US is totally unjustifiable.

The images of devastated cities illustrate the root of the problem: buildings with a reinforced concrete structure are left standing, with minor damage, but timber framed houses are totally smashed. Remember the straw and stick houses in the "three little pigs"? Sounds familiar?

The problem is that most housing is made of these fragile timber structures. This is a fraud that the construction industry has been perpetrating on America for a long time, convincing Americans to pay for wooden huts as if they were proper houses.

Why doesn't tornado coverage in the media ever ask, "why are houses destroyed"?
This destruction is not inevitable, measures can be taken. As most countries regulate construction in seismic zones, a similar approach must be take where there is a relevant tornado risk. This is in the public interest, even if it may not please the construction lobby.

Or can't America build houses that survive a little wind? Not enough civil engineers?

Tornadoes, wooden houses and concrete buildings

God in America

Ricky Gervais writes:
"75 percent of Americans are God-­fearing Christians; 75 percent of prisoners are God-­fearing Christians. 10 percent of Americans are atheists; 0.2 percent of prisoners are atheists."


American atheists have higher morals than non-atheists?

the Economist: America more religious than Iran

Lexington blogs on the Economist:

"More than eight out of ten Americans say they belong to a religion. More Americans than Iranians (four out of ten) say they attend a religious service nearly once a week or more."

Is a nation high on the 'opium of the people' the global enforcer?

image of God