Women's rights

Many westerners decry the supposedly subservient position of women in Islam. Let's look at the 4 largest Muslim countries (not counting India and China), and when they first had a female head of state:

Country	Head of state	Assumed office
Indonesia	Megawati Sukarnoputri	2001
Pakistan	Benazir Bhutto	1988
Bangladesh	Begum Khaleda Zia	1991
Turkey	Tansu Çiller	1993

Some day, it is to be hoped, the United States will follow Muslim countries' lead and elect a woman as President....

More disgusting behavior from the New York Times

New York Times technology columnist David Pogue is busted for trading a write-up for free services.

Just another scandal from the paper that brought us the Wen-Ho Lee witch hunt, the Judith Miller warmongering propaganda spout, the Jayson Blair fabrications and so much more. The Gray Lady prides itself on being the American newspaper of record, but that says more about how low standards have fallen than anything else.

Shun Tom Cruise

I always disliked Tom Cruise because of his insufferably smugness. His recent attempts to muzzle Comedy Central's "South Park" and its richly deserved jabs at Scientology make him all the more disgusting. My movie tastes tend towards the low-brow, but I certainly won't be seeing "Mission Impossible III".

Let them eat brioche...

Quoth Bill Gates, dismissing MIT's proposed $100 computer for the world's poor: "Geez, get a better computer".

Obviously, there is no room for a $150 Windows XP license in a $100 computer, nor even for the probably $30 or so Microsoft charges its favored OEM vendors like Dell, hence Gates' spite. But his response also has shades of Marie-Antoinette, who, when informed the people were rioting as they could not afford bread, supposedly dismissed them by saying "Let them eat brioche, then" (not cake, as it is often mistranslated into English).

From our comfortably satiated 21st century vantage, this reply is often perceived as a sign of cluelessness, whereas at the time, it was understood, probably rightly, as a calculated insult and a sign of callous disdain for the plight of the poor. Naturally, this enraged the people and it is fair to say she was hated far more than her affable husband, King Lousi XVI. The quote is apocryphal, by the way, and may well have been planted by her enemies, but suspicious as the French were of "L'Autrichienne", they may well have believed the worst coming from her.

If Mr. Gates does not want his head figuratively handed to him on a silver platter (unlike Marie-Antoinette, in whose case it was all too literal), he had better watch what he says in public.