Saturday, May 19, 2007

Weekly News Roundup - Pyramids and Censorship

PYRAMIDS

Pyramids of Giza in peril. Apparently Discovery Channel's favorite Egyptologist, Dr. Zahi Hawass, does not like camel shit. I'm surprised anyone noticed it with all the garbage blowing around. He does have an excellent point, although it would probably put some of these fellows out of business, or at the least, make a huge dent in their profits. Unfortunately, camel shit isn't the only thing damaging the pyramids. At least it's biodegradable, whereas plastic bags full of garbage, are not.


Saqqara










Giza
















CENSORSHIP

In Azerbaijan, two journalists jailed for defaming president’s uncle.

"With seven journalists now in prison, Azerbaijan is the leading jailer of journalists in the region."


Egypt arrests opposition leaders: regarding the arrest of three Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Alexandria, in anticipation of upcoming elections.

From The Grapeshisha Blog an article and link about the U.A.E. and other countries internet filtering for content.



Two weeks ago Sir John Browne stepped down as C.E.O. of BP, after an expose was printed about his relationship with a "call-boy" (as opposed to "call-girl".) Hubris, lies and the gay affair that brought down BP boss. Sir John was able to stop the piece from being printed earlier this year, but after having lied to the court, it was determined he didn't deserve the right to a legal censor of the damning confession by his ex-lover.

Now an article has appeared and suddenly disappeared about BP's bargaining practices in Azerbaijan, during the early days of its liberation from the U.S.S.R.
"We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around in here instead of fighting over scraps of meat out in the streets. Corruption is why we win." - From Syriana.

D-Notice and Prison Planet.com duplicate articles on a piece taken off the Daily Mail news website titled, Hookers, spies, cases full of dollars...how BP spent £45m to win 'Wild East' oil rights. Thanks to Carpetblogger and copydude for the original posts and links.

Working on cleaning up their images, American presidential candidates have literally been deleting pieces of their pasts.
For ’08 Résumés, Don’t Ask Them to Fill in Blanks
By MARK LEIBOVICH
Published: May 17, 2007
The current crop of presidential candidates has taken to eliminating whole chapters of their histories.

3 comments:

  1. The camel and horse shit were among the many objectionable aspects of a visit to the pyramids for me. A contrast with Petra where all the horse and donkey and camel wallahs were tightly controlled and not trying to jump in front of every picture you take.

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  2. Yeah, but when we went to Saqqara, one of the open tombs had a corner filled with garbage bags. I plan to get a photo during my next visit, because it is pretty bad. The camel and horse guys should be more controlled and are pests, but maybe they'd make more money charging to have their photos taken, rather than annoying everyone to no end.

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  3. Thankyou for visiting. dropping in to say hello.
    HELLO! :D

    ReplyDelete