Women

It’s The PPP Puppet Show

Feminism, Manufacturing consent, War on Terror, Women
Published on

Sadly, No:

[…]

It’s worth remembering that Benazir Bhutto is a corrupt beneficiary of nepotism who ran an already screwed up country into the ground. Not that she or her entourage deserve a hail of shrapnel or anything, but let’s just go easy on the idea that the attack on her was fueled solely by Teh!Evilest!Evar!New!Caliphate!Jihadis!

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But Bhutto’s no heroine of feminism. Please.

Quite – she’s just another one of the international entitled that seem to know neither national boundaries nor boundaries to greed. When she was last in power it was alleged by her political opponents :

“…politicians like Ms. Bhutto have presided over a system in which government programs have been looted, government contracts milked for kickbacks, and every opportunity taken to secure personal comforts. He gave examples that included the $25 million a year spent on maintaining residences in Islamabad for the President and the Prime Minister, the 85 Mercedes-Benz limousines assigned to the Prime Minister’s staff, and $10 million in taxpayers’ money spent every year on overseas medical care for high-ranking politicians and their families. “

The Radcliffe and Oxford-educated Bhutto (known as ‘Pinkie’ to her family; her husband is known as “Mr Ten Per Cent’), who’s spent little time actually in Pakistan except for the brief periods that she or her father were in power, also had herself acclaimed Leader For Life by her party, the PPP. No democrat she.

Her attempted return to Pakistan politics is in actuality a western-backed attempt to install another friendly puppet as a bulwark against Islamism over the head of the previous puppet, the failure Musharraf. She’s a good friend of the United States: when last in power she even addressed a joint session of Congress.

Musharraf is a complete and utter wanker, true, but Pakistan is still an allegedly democratic state and here we are interfering, yet again.

Iraq, Afhanistan, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan…We just can’t stop stirring it up, can we?

I Am Saying She’s A Golddigger

Feminism, Funny, Life under Capitalism, Women
Published on 1 Comment on I Am Saying She’s A Golddigger

I came across this Craigslist-related morality play while idly googling for something else, as is often the way. Apparently this dating ad and the reply has been doing the email rounds on Wall St and I think it’s time it broke into the general population.

Craigslist Meets WallStreet…Classic
What a classic answer…..

THIS APPEARED ON CRAIG’S LIST

What am I doing wrong?

Okay, I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I’m articulate and classy.
I’m not from New York . I’m looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think I’m overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 200 – 250. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won’t get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she’s not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level?

Here are my questions specifically:

– Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars, restaurants, gyms

-What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won’t hurt my feelings

-Is there an age range I should be targeting (I’m 25)?

– Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east side so plain? I’ve seen really ‘plain jane’ boring types who have nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I’ve seen drop dead gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What’s the story there?

– Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows – lawyer, investment banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?

– How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY

Please hold your insults – I’m putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I’m being up front about it. I wouldn’t be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn’t able to match them – in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth.

it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 432279810

THE ANSWER
Dear Pers-431649184:

I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament.
Firstly, I’m not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here’s how I see it.

Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a crappy business deal. Here’s why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here’s the rub, your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity…in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won’t be getting any more beautiful!

So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain, you’re 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!

So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold…hence the rub…marriage. It doesn’t make good business sense to “buy you” (which is what you’re asking) so I’d rather lease. In case you think I’m being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades I need an out. It’s as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage.

Separately, I was taught early in my career about efficient markets. So, I wonder why a girl as “articulate, classy and spectacularly beautiful”
as you has been unable to find your sugar daddy. I find it hard to believe that if you are as gorgeous as you say you are that the $500K hasn’t found you, if not only for a tryout.

By the way, you could always find a way to make your own money and then we wouldn’t need to have this difficult conversation.

With all that said, I must say you’re going about it the right way.
Classic “pump and dump.”
I hope this is helpful, and if you want to enter into some sort of lease, let me know.

In the immortal words of Chandler Bing, could they be any more shallow?

But on the other hand, there is something to be said for treating marriage like a contract, at least everone knows where the stand, or thinks they do. But it only works when both sides have more or less equal bargaining power, which patently isn’t the case here.

Still, there was a time when a girl had to rely on her father to do the bargaining when she was sold into marriage – I suppose it’s a step forward, of a kind, that now she gets to set the terms of the sale herself.

Oh No, Not My Baby

Life under Capitalism, Parenting, War on Iran, War on Iraq, War on Terror, Women
Published on

Could the culture of entitlement and helicopter parenting put an end to war?

From the Guardian’s Jerusalem blogger Seth Freedman:

A bus stop in Ashkelon became the stage for an extraordinary pantomime over the weekend as a stand-off erupted between a group of female soldiers, their parents, and their IDF commanders. Citing the army’s apparent lack of concern for their safety, the rookie soldiers refused to return to their base in Zikim, near Gaza, which was targeted in a recent Kassam attack by Palestinian militants.

The soldiers, who have only been in the army for two weeks, decided that their superiors had not done enough in terms of fortifying the base after the carnage last month. With the backing of their parents they decided to defy orders and stage a mini-demonstration protesting their plight. Appeals by army top brass to return to base and air their grievances through the proper channels were met with outright refusal by the soldiers, forcing their commanders to threaten to jail them all unless they complied with their instructions.

[…]

For the average 18-year-old enlistee into the IDF’s ranks, there is an almost seamless transition from the final year of senior school to the first day spent in the confines of an army barracks. After a childhood spent in the (relatively) warm bosom of parents and teachers in their local community, the shock to the system of life in the army is understandably often met with resistance by the soldiers.

Throw into the mix one plutzing Jewish mother for every fresh-faced young rookie, and it is easy to see how the whole commander-soldier system can break down when parents are so willing to get involved to defend their offspring to the hilt. In a country where almost every parent sends their child off to war to defend their homeland, familial intervention in army affairs is often treated with almost reverential restraint by commanders – but only up to a point, as the Zikim soldiers found out.

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If every mother in countries that’re prosecuting wars of aggression did this there’d be a sudden outbreak of peace – although of course in many countries it would merit an armed response. It is after all, strictly speaking, a mutiny.

But would conscripts shoot their own mothers? Some might, probably more than we mothers would like to think, but imagine the worldwide furore. Matrcide is a universal no no.

Because so well developed is the American sense of entitlement, scenes like this one in Israel, where all able-bodied young are conscripted, might be a foretaste of what could happen if a US draft were instituted.

So let’s call one now. Can you imagine the reaction if these parents’ precious darlings were drafted?

Even their children level the charge at the baby boomers: that members of history’s most indulged generation are setting new records when it comes to indulging their kids. The indictment gathered force during the roaring ’90s. A Time/CNN poll finds that 80% of people think kids today are more spoiled than kids of 10 or 15 years ago, and two-thirds of parents admit that their kids are spoiled. In New York City it’s the Bat Mitzvah where ‘N Sync was the band; in Houston it’s a catered $20,000 pink-themed party for 50 seven-year-old girls who all wore mink coats, like their moms. In Morton Grove, Ill., it’s grade school teachers handing out candy and yo-yos on Fridays to kids who actually managed to obey the rules that week. Go to the mall or a concert or a restaurant and you can find them in the wild, the kids who have never been told no, whose sense of power and entitlement leaves onlookers breathless, the sand-kicking, foot-stomping, arm-twisting, wheedling, whining despots whose parents presumably deserve the company of the monsters they, after all, created.

A whole army of Private Benjamins. I love it when a plan comes together.

With a universal draft of overindulged teens I could indulge my schadenfreude at the little horrors getting their comeuppance in boot camp whilst at the same time relishing the total unpreparedness of the military machine for a confrontation with a shrieking horde of lawyered-up, indulgent boomer parents.

Perhaps raising children to be self-centered and mollycoddled, and then drafting them, has the potential to end war as we know it. Neato.

One More And She Could’ve Made Herself A Tiara

Domestic Violence, Sexuality, Women
Published on

Reuters:

What? Did I say something wrong?

Tue Sep 25, 2007 2:25pm EDT

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysian doctors have reattached a man’s nearly severed penis after his first wife, enraged by his comparison of her sex skills with those of his younger second wife, decided to chop it off with a kitchen knife.

The man, a 43-year-old Indonesian worker in southern Johor state, was lying in bed with his 48-year-old wife talking about his newly wed second wife, who is in her 30s, when the incident happened, the New Straits Times newspaper reported.

Despite his shock and pain, the man managed to pull on his trousers and ride his motorcycle to a nearby hospital, where doctors had to put in 11 stitches to reattach the organ.

The man later complained to police, who arrested the woman and plan to charge her with voluntarily causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon, which carries the penalty of a three-year jail term and a fine, the newspaper reported.