*Title thanks to Michelle Malkin.
Ahmadinejad was in NYC today. Cops were watching every corner near the UN and Columbia, soldiers were patrolling the PATH stations and traffic was redirected all over the city. So, how much does it cost to invite a de facto enemy of the state to NYC? Apparently, quite a lot.
I visited the protests against Ahmadinejad at Ground Zero and the UN. Judith at Kesher Talk kindly posted my photos and descriptions (always the hardest part of the post). Thanks to Charles at LGF for linking to it! (the flickr photos are here)
At Ground Zero, Port Authority police earned their keep by harassing a 9/11 family member who was protesting Ahmadinejad's visit. Pamela at Atlas Shrugged has the video here (and a great shot of a motorcycle ride through NYC)
Port Authority police forcing anti-Ahmadinejad protester Desiree to move
At the Daily Kos, poster Clay Claiborne says that Ahmadinejad's "We don’t have homosexuals in Iran" speech "sounds entirely to reasonable." I don't know what they're smoking over at Kos, but it's stronger than hookah.
While the Kos crowd praised the littlest fascist, the New York capitalists at Nino's Positano (2nd Ave between 47th and 48th) announced that he was not welcome in their restaurant. Too bad for Ahmadinejad, it looked like a popular place.
When I got home, my husband was watching CBS news, which was all about Ahmadinejad's visit. Not all of the coverage was favorable to the little genocidaire.
Although many people criticized Columbia U.'s President Lee Bollinger for inviting Ahmadinejad, Bollinger did truly make use of the priciples of the first amedment. Give the most vile opinions enough rope to hang themselves:
But before he even spoke, the Iranian leader, whose appearance had sparked outrage notably among US politicians and the Jewish community, sat through 10 minutes of broadsides from university president Lee Bollinger.I think that may have been the first time Ahmadinejad faced real criticism from a Westerner."Mr President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad, accusing him of brutal crackdowns on the country's academics and homosexuals.
"Why are you so afraid of Iranian citizens expressing their opinions for change?" he asked, challenging the leader of the Islamic republic to explain his comments downplaying the Holocaust.
"Frankly, in all candor Mr President, I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions," he added.
"When you come to a place like this, this makes you quite simply ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," he said.
When he did get to his feet, wearing a white open-necked shirt and gray suit, Ahmadinejad accused Bollinger of a "wave of insults and allegations" while largely avoiding any direct answers to any of Bollinger's challenges.
I would be willing to totally praise Bollinger's support of the first amendment if Columbia University really did give all controversial speakers the same opportunities they gave Ahmadinejad. But Columbia didn't give the same opportunity to the Minutemen who spoke there, or to Walid Shoebat, whose speech was (due to Columbia's efforts) unpublicised and unattended.
Although I admire Bolliger's efforts to challenge Ahmadinejad, efforts that far surpass those of any member of the newsmedia, who seem to have forgotten how to do research or ask questions, I have to wonder why a Saudi-funded institution like Columbia assembled this media circus in the first place. They weren't trying to hide or surpress Ahmadinejad's voice, as they did Shoebat's. They even challenged him, something that Bush has, for the most part, failed to properly do.
We know that sometimes the Saudis and Iranians work together, and sometimes they don't. I don't know what they're doing in this case, but I have to wonder, what is Ahmadinejad's "Boo!! I'm a whacko genocidal dictator who wants to nuke you!" dog and pony show meant to accomplish?
In any case, the furor over Ahmadinejad's visit has overshadowed one of the biggest stories of the day - Qatar and Dubai have gained control of the London Stock Exchange:
QATAR has upped its share in London's Stock Exchange to nearly 24 per cent, giving the gulf state and neighbour Dubai a controlling stake of nearly 52 per cent.According to LGF (one of the few American news sources to cover this story):
As if this weren’t troubling enough, Persian Gulf states are also staging a takeover of the Nordic Exchange: Bidding war expected as Qatar buys into OMX:Saudi Arab News certainly noticed, but if the American media took any note, it was a short one.Dubai and its neighbour Qatar are both seeking to become the Middle East’s centre of global trading. Both emirates have an independent market regulator.
Shares in OMX closed up by almost 7.69 percent at 269 kronor following speculation that Qatar’s interest in OMX could lead to a bidding war. “Who knows how far the bidding could go, just like Dubai, they’ve (Qatar) got more money than God,” Thomas Johansson, an analyst at Kaupthing Bank, told financial newswire Thomson Financial News.
Remember the fuss the media made about the Japanese takeover of the Western economy? Interesting contrast.
All the empty talk. British do not listen to their own bard.
In London, ads for Emirates and Luxurious Vacationland Dubai are all over the place. There were more women wearing full length black chadors in London than in Jordan or Malaysia. If the bard found himself in modern London, he'd think he was in some Olde Moorish land.
Does this mean that you think a portion of a stock exchange being purchased is equivalent to an economy being taken over?
Well, no. But if the Japanese (or the Chinese) were doing what the Gulf States are doing, I have no doubt that the media would be making a bigger deal about this.
I worry about this recent activity for the same reason I worry about our alliance with these terror-supporting Gulf states. Even if we ignore the fact that they hate us and want to eventually destroy us, there's still the fact that they're extremely unstable. If we continue to rely on them to such an extreme degree, when they go down, they'll take us with them.
It's called the free market, Mary. Stock exchange membership is a commodity that is up for sale. Are you suggesting restricting it? Why? What do you think will happen if two Gulf States have majority control in an exchange?
Financial experts agree that the Gulf states are drunk with all the money and power they've managed to put together. Experts also agree that their markets are headed for a big fall.
I think we should realize that depending on our Gulf allies is like relying on a lead life preserver to keep us afloat.
Otherwise, on a personal, financial basis, I'm not sure what to do. Diversify?
But what does that have to do with them having controlling interest in a stock exchange? If their own domestic markets collapse, it doesn't have any effect on the London market, no matter what their interest.
I think we should realize that depending on our Gulf allies is like relying on a lead life preserver to keep us afloat.
How does Gulf state purchase of controlling interest in a London exchange get interpreted as relying on them?
Ask any State Department employee. They claim that our economic dependence on Saudi Arabia is one of the main reasons for the enduring US-Saudi Alliance, a glorious friendship that will ever and always be thicker than oil. Don't ask me to explain.
But what does that have to do with them having controlling interest in a stock exchange? If their own domestic markets collapse, it doesn't have any effect on the London market, no matter what their interest.
So if the United States had controlling interest in Canada's stock exchange, you'd be ok with it?
De facto? Iran is a de jure enemy of the US. Not only do we not have diplomatic relations with them, I'd contend we've been in a legal state of war with the Islamic Republic ever since they breached the inviolability of our embassy in 1979.
For all I know, it does. It, like many other exchanges, is publicly traded, and it might be in fact have majority control in the hands of US companies. Why would I care? What do you think would happen?
(And note, I'm being facetious.)
Well, we're due to get one as soon as we get electricity in all the provinces . :-)
Iran is an enemy state that sponsors terrorism and is threatening to get nukes, just as Saddam was and just as Khadaffi was. And the media is ramping up the war rhetoric, just as they did with Khadaffi and just as they did with Saddam. The Huffington Post is getting into the act now.
I just have to wonder why these guys keep popping up every few years, and why no one asks why this pattern re-occurs. Do we just like sequels?
I missed this - this makes no sense. All markets are connected, and a crash or a panic always has an effect. When one market gets sick, everyone else gets a fever. You know that..?
But this is true whether or not a particular exchange is owned by Gulf States. You were the one that brought up that point, weren't you?
I said: What do you think will happen if two Gulf States have majority control in an exchange?
You said: Experts also agree that their markets are headed for a big fall.
Then I said: But what does that have to do with them having controlling interest in a stock exchange?
It's a problem if we know the Gulf states are the financial equivalent of a drunk falling off his chair and vomiting in a corner.
Once again, to say nothing of the fact that they sponsor terrorism against us.
You have said that the Gulf States are unstable, but that does not explain what effect that would have on the London Stock Exchange. Controlling interest does not effect the exchange in any significant way. If it did, all companies that bought interest in the exchange would need to be carefully audited to make sure that they were extremely stable.
You have said that they are drunk with power and that their own economies are unstable. Again, this has no effect on the London Stock Exchange that I can fathom. If their economies tank, it has no special effect on the exchange simply due to the share ownership. In the same way, any company owning interest in the exchange that goes under will not adversely effect the day-to-day running of the exchange, at least to my knowledge.
And that's it.
In short, I still don't understand what you think might happen. But never mind, it's not that important.
Then you said something about Saudi Arabia that I don't understand in relation to the London Stock Exchange.
Wahhabi hillbillies will be treated like Gods whenever they set foot in Great Britain. When an oily shiek says jump, his British subjects (and they'll all be his subjects, even Prince Charles) will say "how far?"
When a particularly wealthy Saudi demands that a book about Saudi funding of terrorism must not be published, the British response will be 'sir, yes sir, may i pulp every last copy? May I search the ends of the earth for the very last copy, so you can have the pleasure of knowing that they are all destroyed? I live to serve you my lord.."
Black hijabs will be more prevalent in London than they are in Muslim countries. Britons will become second class citizens in their own country. In their schools, they will learn that colonialism is the greatest evil. Thus, they are the greatest evil. They will hate themselves, and they will be happy to welcome their wahhabi overlords. Pubs will be hard to find in neighborhoods like Brick land.
Oh, wait a minute, that happened years ago. Nevermind.
The economic results of the Gulf buyout of are hard to predict, but I'm more interested in trying to figure out why our governments treat these little inbred hillbillies like gods. They repeatedly attack us and we kiss their asses. It never occurs to us to attack back or even to demand that they stand trial for their crimes.
They're enemies but we're determined to call them allies. We go to war to defend them, they respond by killing our soldiers. Our response to the Saudi-sponsored violence in Iraq is to attack Iran. This will also drain our economy, cause more American deaths and benefit our enemies in the Gulf.
We project the rage that we should be feeling towards the Saudi car-bombers onto Ahmadinejad. When the Saudi royals visit, we should have just as many protests. More even. But we don't.
What on earth are people thinking? This is aberrant behavior, to say the least, yet most people regard it as normal. I'm less interested in the economics involved than I am in what appears to be mass insanity.
I understand why the Gulf gods do what they do, but our motives are still a mystery.
The "I told you so" game requires you to tell me something first. You still haven't told me what you think will happen.
In general, I think that governments worldwide will use the Gulf's apparently growing economic power as another reason to continue kissing their asses. Iran will continue to exploit fears of nukes to gain status in the Muslim world, Russia will continue to appear to support their nuclear ambitions because they know how much we freak out about nukes. They know that attacking Iran will deplete the West's economies, and they know that the mess we create will benefit them. The Chinese know that too.
If we don't wise up, the west will attack Iran, we'll be bogged down in another long insurgency-filled occupation, we'll continue to borrow from the Chinese and the Saudis will be happier, richer and fatter than ever. Al Qaeda will have more money than ever, there will be more terrorist attacks worldwide and the dollar will be the new peso.
I hope I'm wrong..
The Gulf States have wealth. Like many wealthy groups, they invest their wealth in diversified areas. In this case, they have purchased controlling interest in the London Stock Exchange among their many other investments.
What specifically bad thing will happen as a result of this particular controlling interest that would not be a problem if someone else had controlling interest?
This isn't a contest, I'm just curious as to why you think the LSE issue is one of the biggest stories of the day. It seems pretty much a snoozer to me, unless you can explain why you think that. So far, you haven't been able to.
If you can reasonably and correctly explain the West's obsequious behavior towards Gulf hillbillies whose combined GDP couldn't buy Google...
Which obsequious behavior? The sale of controlling interest in the LSE?
Just in general, mentioned above. Doesn't it strike you as odd?
No, it's not just wealth.