Tell me why I don't like Mondays

Good morning.

Where to begin? OK...let's start in the Middle East. The Saudis are kinky. I'm sorry, but that's the only way to describe the CNN story about the the woman who was sentenced to 40 lashes for 'mingling.' Yes, you read it correctly, she is going to be whipped for 'mingling.' But it gets better. Apparently the Religious Police entered a house and found a woman with two unrelated men. One of the men "told the policeman that he had the right to be there, because Sawadi had breast-fed him as a baby and was therefore considered to be a son to her." The religious police didn't buy this logic and thus the sentence. I wonder if there is leather involved?

Next up...China.

According to the BBC, the National People's Congress has heard Parliament Chief Wu Bangguo declare that China will never have a western style democracy. No way. Uh unh. Nyet. Nix. Nein. They are being particularly hard line these days because a couple of anniversaries are looming: the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square and the 50th anniversary of the riots in Tibet that forced the Dalai Lama into exile. Just a reminder that the Chinese, as the Clash so eloquently once said, are still and will always be "working on the clampdown."

Over in Europe...

The New York Times had an op-ed piece on Saturday about the sub prime issue in Eastern Europe. It's not a pretty read. But essentially, those Eastern European nations that I wrote about a last week are deeply in the hole, and looking for a bailout from their western European cousins. This is the one paragraph that stood out:

The debt crisis in Eastern Europe is much more than an economic problem. The wrenching decline in the standard of living caused by this crisis is provoking social unrest. American subprime borrowers who have had their houses foreclosed on are not — at least not yet — rioting in the streets. Workers in Eastern Europe are. The roots of democracy in the region are not deep and the specter of right-wing nationalism remains a threat. (emphasis in bold is mine)

Oh yeah. And it's just Monday. I wonder if that job as towel boy at the Marriott in Hawaii is still available.