Saudi Court Sentences Rape Victim to 200 Lashes

Yes, you read that correctly, a Saudi court has sentenced the victim of a gang rape to six months in jail and to 200 lashes:

The judge more than doubled the sentence against al-Lahim’s 19-year-old client because she spoke to the media about the case, a court source told Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.

The woman — who was initially sentenced in October 2006 to 90 lashes — had her sentenced increased to 200 lashes and was ordered to serve six months in prison under Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic law.

And if that weren’t enough, the victim’s lawyer had his license revoked for doing his job and representing his client to his fullest ability:

The attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, had his license revoked last week by a judge for speaking to the Saudi-controlled media about the case, al-Lahim told CNN.

It seems that Bush & Co. should’ve given democracy and human rights to Saudi Arabia, a staunch Bush ally in the region, rather than wasting such a precious gift on the ingrates of Iraq.

War Time America

BagNewsNotes.com, once again, delivers insightful commentary by taking a closer look at an image that captures our times, this is War Time America:

Hitchens’ “British Teeth”

Christopher Hitchens’ “On the Limits of Self-Improvement,” published in Vanity Fair, is accompanied by a series of great photographs — see the series here and here.

I am a proud child of the National Health Service in England and remember feeling rather hurt when, while reading Gore Vidal’s novel The Judgment of Paris many years ago, I came upon a character who was described as having “British teeth.” As Dr. Lituchy readied me with a series of numbing injections, his partner came by to have a look. He wanted to see with his own eyes, he said, that my teeth really were as “British” as they looked in the “before” photograph. I duly beamed for him, and he reeled back briefly.