The Ten Best and Worst Countries To Be A Woman

The United States is not one of the ten best. But at least it’s not one of the ten worst.

The Ten Best: Iceland, Norway, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Netherlands, and France.

The Ten Worst: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Nepal, Sudan, Guatemala, Mali, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia.

The article is in the Toronto Star, written by Olivia Ward. Here is a description of conditions for women in number 1 and number 3: Afghanistan and Iraq:

Afghanistan: The average Afghan girl will live to only 45 – one year less than an Afghan male. After three decades of war and religion-based repression, an overwhelming number of women are illiterate. More than half of all brides are under 16, and one woman dies in childbirth every half hour. Domestic violence is so common that 87 per cent of women admit to experiencing it. But more than one million widows are on the streets, often forced into prostitution. Afghanistan is the only country in which the female suicide rate is higher than that of males.
[…]
Iraq: The U.S.-led invasion to “liberate” Iraq from Saddam Hussein has imprisoned women in an inferno of sectarian violence that targets women and girls. The literacy rate, once the highest in the Arab world, is now among the lowest as families fear risking kidnapping and rape by sending girls to school. Women who once went out to work stay home. Meanwhile, more than 1 million women have been displaced from their homes, and millions more are unable to earn enough to eat.

It’s good to know that the United States has done so much good for the women of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Good News From Illinois

In the Illinois 14th CD there was a special election on Saturday, 8 March, to fill the seat that was vacated when Dennis Hastert resigned. Public Affairs has more details here.

The very good news is that a seat that a Republican, Hastert, filled for twenty-one years has gone to a Dem 53% to 47%. Here is channel 5’s election results. Bill Foster is an Obama-type Dem who is outspoken in his opposition to the Iraq fiasco, according to BooMan (scroll down).

Public Affairs had a more in-depth story (emphasis – Public Affairs)

The Foster win was a big time win for the Chicago Tribune and to a lesser extent for Barack Obama, and perhaps for the proposition that bitter primaries can hurt political parties and their candidates badly. Obama performed in another of one of his famous non-substantive ads, endorsing Foster in the last few days, not unlike what he did to carry the inexperienced 29 year old whiz kid, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, over the finish line in the State Treasurer’s primary and then general election race in 2006. In the last few days of this campaign, Obama’s ad urged voters to support Foster because he had started a business, was a scientist and supported change (How’s that for Chicago Tribune transparency and responsibility, see below). But, it doesn’t seem as if the Obama ad, while significant, was the transformative factor in the election.

A long time Republican strategist who closely watched the 14th CD race said, “I think the Senator Chris Lauzen non-endorsement had more of an impact than Team Oberweis thought it would.” Senator Lauzen [R-Aurora] lost to Jim Oberweis [56% to 44%] in an extremely bitter primary and reportedly sought a public apology from Oberweis for some of his primary campaign actions and statements—an apology Lauzen never received. Knowledgeable sources close to the race think that, whether Lauzen changes his mind or whether his supporters have their wounds heal, the eight months until the next Foster-Oberweis face-off will be very helpful to the “coming together process,” for Republicans and to the chances that Oberweis can take back the seat.

Of course, if Obama is on the Democratic Presidential ticket in the fall, that could swamp the impact of whatever Senator Lauzen and his supporters choose to do.

But, for yesterday‘s election, it very well could have been the historically Republican and staunchly conservative of yesteryear Chicago Tribune that ironically carried the day for Democrat Bill Foster. The Chicago Tribune endorsed Foster on Tuesday of this week and bashed Oberweis, for good measure, on Thursday, asserting that “Oberweis has shown in four campaigns that he plays fast and loose with the Truth.” When the Chicago Tribune endorses a Democrat in the seat that was held, for twenty-one years, by the longest serving Republican House Speaker– J. Dennis Hastert, and Speaker Hastert endorses the Republican candidate for that seat, both in the Primary and the General Election, readers, if not spilling their coffee, at least take note.

In its endorsement, The Tribune stated, “This page is closer to Oberweis than Foster on several economic and foreign policy issues.” But that was not just an understatement; it was an intellectually dishonest statement. Perhaps, it is best characterized as the Tribune playing fast and loose with the truth. Maybe someday they will tell us what they were really thinking.

This is obviously good news. But in and of itself it does not mean much. Nationally, Dems need to pick this apart and apply the lessons learned to other “traditionally Republican” districts in time to make some serious gains in November.

Loan Papers Lost? – No! – Yes?

From MoneyNews.com comes this incredible, barely believable story.

Many bankers have lost the notes on the subprime loans they made during the earlier go-go years of this decade. The estimated total of these “orphaned” loans is now an astounding $2.1 trillion.

Now the work of re-establishing the chain of ownership could slow the housing correction dramatically. Some borrowers have simply stopped paying on these loans, in hopes they can game the system.

Banking experts tell MoneyNews that lenders have gotten wise to this tactic and are now litigating against the deadbeat debtors and asking judges to enforce the original home loan agreements — even paying for photos of homes to establish what property is where.

How did this happen? The paperwork for the original loans got lost when bankers’ packaged the loans and traded them as derivatives on the secondary market. The debt moved forward, but the evidence stayed behind in filing cabinets, in computer files or just collecting dust on a desk.

“The prevalence of this problem is because due diligence by investment bankers in the trading of debt in the secondary market was non-existent,” Michael Sichenzia, COO of debt collection firm, Dynamic Consulting Enterprises in Deerfield Beach, Fla.

“There was a rush to get these deals done, book a fee, and move on. Everyone in the process took their eyes of the ball. They sold and traded file numbers without documentation of who owns what,” he says.

I long stopped believing that bankers were so smart. (My Mom was a bank teller for twenty years). But this goes to carelessness fueled by greed.

No, in the end, I am not surprised.

Thought of the Day

This election is worse than being stuck in the seventh grade for the rest of your life.

Digby