Monthly Archives: August 2013

A cleric cut his wife.

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Shared by Tahir Mahmood
MULTAN: 
A cleric cut his wife into pieces on Wednesday for refusing to wear a veil and sending their children to school, police said.
They said the body was recovered from near their house. They said they found his confession on the body and had also recovered the weapon he had used.
The body has been handed over to the family following a post-mortem examination.
A case has been registered against the confession-killer, who the police said had been missing.
Ahmad Aziz, father of the deceased Farzana Bibi, 36, said that she married Muhammad Sharif, 42, a resident of Bakkhal Bhir in Mumtazabad Colony.
They had three children.
Aziz said that Sharif led prayers at the neighbourhood mosque and also gave Quran lessons at their home. He said Sharif was short-tempered and would often beat up Farzana Bibi. He had been telling her to cover her face when she left the house.
Aziz said Farzana Bibi wore an abaya (gown), but did not want to cover her face.
He said they often quarreled over the matter.

Iran would barely retaliate if its nuclear program were attacked

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Iran is unlikely to unleash a war in response to a military strike on its nuclear facilities, Strategic Affairs and Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said, estimating that possible retaliation would include not more than “two or three days of missile fire” against Israel and/or Western targets in the region, causing “very limited damage.”

Speaking to The Times of Israel earlier this week, Steinitz predicted that Iran’s new President Hasan Rouhani will offer minor goodwill steps to signal his willingness to compromise on the nuclear question, which he will follow up with demands to ease the sanctions while the regime continues to inch toward weapons capability. Steinitz urged the international community not to be fooled by Rouhani’s seemingly moderate rhetoric, and called instead for an internationally endorsed deadline that, if crossed, would be followed by the destruction of the country’s military facilities.

In the second part of an extensive interview conducted in his Jerusalem office (read part 1), Steinitz, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he was not sure whether the United States was currently willing to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities. If so ordered, the American army is capable of “relatively easily, or at least quickly and efficiently,” taking out those facilities, the minister said.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/?p=643952

Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

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Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

The federal government has made it easier than ever to borrow money for higher education – saddling a generation with crushing debts and inflating a bubble that could bring down the economy

August 15, 2013 10:45 AM ET
student loans
Illustration by Victor Juhasz

On May 31st, president Barack Obama strolled into the bright sunlight of the Rose Garden, covered from head to toe in the slime and ooze of the Benghazi and IRS scandals. In a Karl Rove-ian masterstroke, he simply pretended they weren’t there and changed the subject.

More Taibbi: The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis

The topic? Student loans. Unless Congress took action soon, he warned, the relatively low 3.4 percent interest rates on key federal student loans would double. Obama knew the Republicans would make a scene over extending the subsidized loan program, and that he could corner them into looking like obstructionist meanies out to snatch the lollipop of higher education from America’s youth. “We cannot price the middle class or folks who are willing to work hard to get into the middle class,” he said sternly, “out of a college education.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ripping-off-young-america-the-college-loan-scandal-20130815

 

Jocky Russel Baze 50,000 rides and counting

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50,000 … and Counting

Trinity Kaenel, the oldest of Baze’s three daughters, came to watch her dad ride in No. 50,000. When she got married, her husband, Kyle Kaenel, was an enormously promising young jockey. She was watching him in a race on TV, their baby in her arms, when he took the spill that busted up his shoulder and back and ended his riding career. For him, it was Race No. 4,345.

Kyle frequently rode against his father-in-law. He said he had never met anyone so competitive: “If Russell wins one, he wants another. If he has two, he wants three and if he has three, he wants four.” Family gatherings tended to include contests. Who can do the most pull-ups and handstands?

That afternoon, things were going Baze’s way. He won the first three races. “It looks like an easy game today,” he said after dismounting in the third. He hummed as he walked, nothing particularly tuneful, just an intonation of joy.

But then he finished fourth in the next race and lost by a head in the fifth. That last horse, Bi Tomorrow, was an ornery cuss. Before the race, he kept champing on the pony rider assigned to escort it to the gate. Baze, attempting to control the horse, ended up with blood on his white pants.

The sixth race was the anticipated No. 50,000. A few reporters gathered in the jockey’s room, hoping perhaps for an unusual gush of sentiment from a habitually restrained man. Baze did not oblige. “My one concession is I’m changing out of my dirty jockey pants,” he said with a toothy smile.

Www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/the-jockey#/?chapt=50k?smid=tw-nytimes