Saudi Crap

First the Saudi king announces that he will allow women to take part in municipal elections and be appointed in the Shura council. Mind you this will all happen in four fucking years, the municipalities are totally powerless and the Shura council is a joke. Then a Saudi woman is sentenced to lashing because she defied the no drive rule. Quietly, the Saudi authorities warn the Wahabis not to speak out against the king's so called reforms, the king gallantly pardons the woman driver and the security dudes unveil imminent threats against westerners.

What do you call this?

SCAF and Mubarak

Very well said by Anthony Shadid in the NYT:

Since Feb. 11, when Mr. Mubarak was forced from office after protests convened in Tahrir Square, Field Marshal Tantawi has served as the head of the ruling military council, which has exercised absolute and largely unaccountable power. It claimed to seize power in the name of the revolution, but after months of ineffectual rule, suspicions over its willingness to fully surrender power and a plan for elections that has satisfied few, the council’s appeal has diminished.

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