schizos

Nice piece in CNN about Egypt's ailing democracy movement.

The reason why I'm blogging about it is that there's an interesting quote from Hisham Bastawisi, the judge who accused some of his colleagues who were overseeing the November 2005 parliamentary elections of aiding and abetting government-inspired electoral fraud.

Bastawisi said:

It's like schizophrenia. The government talks about democracy but acts like a dictatorship. They talk about an independent judiciary then try to control it. They talk about combating corruption while corruption increases.

If I understood correctly, Bastawisi was implying that the president is a schizo.

But there are two advantages to having multiple personality:

1- His therapist might give him a group discount.
2- Masturbation becomes an orgy.

Cockroaches

Cockroaches are one of the oldest species still in existence. They are 350 million years old and are most noted for their adaptability to changing conditions of life.

Although humans put so much effort into destroying them, they keep on coming back. They can survive far more radiation than humans. This is in part because their entire body including the stomach itself is covered in dead cuticle which absorbs a lot of the more common radiation type. They also contain less water than mammals and so aren’t so prone to absorb certain wavelengths such as microwave radiation.

It is thought that only cockroaches would survive nuclear warfare, and would then start to evolve.

They'll evolve into National Democratic Party officials.

I am not anti-insectic (in fact, some of my best friends are creepy crawlies).

I swear, the guy's a fruitcake

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit defended the hasty timeline for the vote on the constitional ammendments, which opposition groups say gives little time for rebuttal. He said the timing is largely a matter of convenience for Egyptians who want to take spring vacations.

Can you believe this? convenience? spring vacations? What planet does this guy live on?

Freak Show

- I watched three news bulletins on Egyptian TV today and guess what the news was all about? Yes, the fucking constitutional changes. Everytime the "challenges of the future" were mentioned, the screen would show a close up shot of the President's son Gamal, hint hint hint.

- Al Azhar's Sheikh Tantawi said that not voting in Monday's referendum is a sin, yet after the Friday prayers in Al Azhar, dozens demonstrated and called for boycotting the referendum. I guess they're all going to hell.

- The constitutional changes aim at sidelining the Muslim Brothers to pave the way for Gamal to succeed his father and will give the authorities wide powers of arrest, surveillance and trial in special courts. Condi Rice has spoken against the ammendments. She said the United States had hoped that Egypt would be in the lead "as the Middle East moves towards greater openness and greater pluralism and greater democratisation". "It's disappointing that this has not happened," she added. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit hit back at Rice with an extremely idiotic statement, he said: "Only the Egyptian people have the right to say their views on that referendum. ... If you are not (Egyptian), then thank you very much. It's our own development, our own country." This is revolutionary, no one should comment on anything going on in another country. I thought that's what foreign ministers do normally. What an idiot.

What constitution?

The fuss about the constitutional ammendments in Egypt is nothing but a load of proctorrhea (a morbid anal discharge if you are wondering).

Mubarak thinks it's good for democracy:

President Hosni Mubarak has billed the changes as part of a reform package aimed at increasing democracy in the country he has ruled unchallenged for a quarter-century.

The Muslim Brothers, on the other hand, think it's bad for democracy:

But the Muslim Brotherhood has said the 34 amendments would limit freedoms, keep it from becoming a legitimate political party and perpetuate Mubarak's grip on power.

The US state department, thinks it's neither good nor bad:

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday that Washington has some concerns about some of the amendments that have been proposed. But despite its concerns, Washington did not want to prejudge the changes, because it viewed the decision on the amendments as an internal Egyptian matter, he added.

All of them are wrong I think, because they all assume that there is a degree of democracy in Egypt.

The fact that a quarter of the Egyptian parliament is Muslim Brothers is not a sign of democracy. They were deliberately allowed to enter the parliament to prove to Washington that democracy in Egypt is not such a good idea, and guess what? It worked.

The United States has reduced public pressure on Mubarak to adopt democracy in Egypt, apparently focusing more on getting Cairo's support in resolving various Mideast crises (as if Mideast crises are ever going to be resolved).

Renaming the "emergency laws" as "terror laws" is not a big deal. Everybody knows that the emergency laws that were imposed in 1981 were not going to be dropped.

So what's all the fuss about? What's new?

50 Years of Stress Relief

Bubble wrap is celebrating it's 50th birthday today!

Forget about protecting fragile objects. It is one of the most effective stress relief activities in the history of mankind. I can never stop myself from popping it and it makes me feel so much better. The good thing now is that if you can't find any, you can pop bubbles online :) I love it.

Conservapedia

Conservapedia.com is the conservative answer to Wikipedia.

It was founded by Andrew Schlafly, son of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. The site describes itself as "a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American."

This is a very interesting comparison between the two pedias.

According to Conservapedia, you can forget what you learned at school, because dinosaurs and humans lived together, atheism has led to a large rise in bestiality and our flat Earth stays still while the Sun revolves around it.

Mubarak tells you to stop complaining

The Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview today that:

Complaints about rising prices are all over the world. We are not standing idly by and we have clear programs for development, modernization and increasing investments and creating new job ooportunities. Unemployment is not rising and wages are gradually increasing.

Ho can this be true if unemployment rates went up from 8.1 per cent in 1999, to 10.3 per cent in 2004, to 11.2 per cent in 2005 and reached 11.9 per cent in 2006 and investment rate in Egypt is one of the lowest rates in the world?

I guess he knows better, so we should just shut up and stop complaining about unemployment and inflation.

Al-Azhar

Al-Azhar university has been getting alot of bad press lately after they managed to jail the blogger Kareem Amer. So the university decided to improve it's image by introducing American style fast food restaurants to it's campuses.

They thought American fast food is cool and would give the impression that Al-Azhar is not anti-western or a bastion of fundamentalism (like Kareem Amer thought).

But it seems that somebody fucked up with the menu.

Top of the menu is the "Saudi Arabian 9/11 Special Meal"

What's that?

"Two Flaming Tower Burgers With A Big Apple Crumble".

The best thing about being Egyptian

The best thing about being Egyptian is that you never have to worry about threats to democracy and freedom of expression. You never fear the day when you are told that air pollution has reached dangerous levels and you never dread the day when the economy might take a wrong turn.

I love being an Egyptian.

Justice For Kareem

As both regular readers of this blog know, the jailing of the young Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer is really pissing me off.

On Monday, the appeals court upheld the four-year prison sentence given to Kareem for criticizing Al-Azhar and Egypt's president.

This is just so unfair and it exposes the level of retardedness and bullshit that's around.

The Naked and Drunk Israeli Diplomat & Martin Luther King

Did you read the news about the Israeli diplomat who was found naked, bound and drunk? I don't know why, but when I read this, immediately I thought of a slightly different version of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech:

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in Middle Eastern diplomats' assholes.

I have a dream that one day the Middle East will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Jerusalem the sons of Israeli and Arab dipomats and the sons of Jewish and Muslim religious fanatics will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood and play with dildos and handcuffs.

I have a dream that one day even Saudi Arabia, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into one big red light district.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a the holy land where they will not be judged by their religion or ethnicity but by the sizes of their penises and their boobs.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in the West Bank, with it's vicious Arab and Israeli racists, with its Jihadis and settlers having their lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in the West Bank, young Arabs will be able to have wonderful orgis with young Jews (provided they use condoms).

I have a dream today.

Abul Gheit in Denial

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Gheit denounced the annual human rights report issued by the U.S. State Department and which criticized the Egyptian government's human rights record.

Why didn't Abul Gheit like the State department's report? Well, according to him:

- The allegations in the report are "inappropriate".
- Those who wrote the report have no idea of the real facts.
- The report overlooked the numerous recent positive developments Egypt has achieved.
- The United Nations has not given any country the right to supervise human rights conditions in the world.

What did the report say?

The government's respect for human rights remained poor, and serious abuses continued in many areas. These included:
- Limitations on the right of citizens to change their government.
- A state of emergency, in place almost continuously since 1967.
- Torture and abuse of prisoners and detainees.
- Poor conditions in prisons and detention centers.
- Impunity.
- Arbitrary arrest and detention, including prolonged pretrial detention
- Executive branch limits on an independent judiciary.
- Denial of fair public trial and lack of due process.
- Political prisoners and detainees.
- Restrictions on civil liberties--freedoms of speech and press, including internet freedom, assembly and association.
- Some restrictions on religious freedom.
- Corruption and lack of transparency.
- Some restrictions on NGOs.
- Discrimination and violence against women, including female genital mutilation.

Signs of Shitty Times

It's no secret that the Egyptian economy is not doing great. Inflation and umemployment are up, and growth and investment are going down, but the government is telling us that everything will be OK.

Researchers at the semi official Al Ahram centre for strategic studies have been critical about the state of affairs in Egypt, citing many inaccuracies and misleading figures purported by the government about alleged economic achievements.

Today Mubarak is bragging about his governments efforts to boost investment and fight umemployment, but the reality is that Egypt dropped to 165th place out of 171 countries rated by the World Bank for easiness of investment.

According to the Al Ahram report: "A university graduate working as a civil servant is paid LE170 in total every month, which means less than one dollar per day. This salary causes the employee to suffer real poverty or resort to corruption to make more money."

Young umemployed people who are desperate to break out of poverty are resorting to very unusual ways.

A few days ago, police in Alexandria arrested a young man who wanted to meet the Israeli consul to ask him for a job in Israel.

The police issued a statement saying that the guy is crazy. This may or may not be true, but the during the interrogations, he mentioned that he has been umemployed for the past four years.

Five days later, police in Cairo arrested another young man infront of the Israeli embassy who wanted to meet the ambassador to get a job in Israel.

Apparently, this is not a new phenomenon, it's been going on for years.

This is happening even at a time when the controversy over the Israeli TV documentary 'The Spirit of Shaked,' is inflaming passions and bringing back memories of war and killing between Egypt and israel.

The difficult thing is to make sense out of this. Egyptians who want to work in Israel are not members of a hippie peace movement. They are angry because their own country alienated them and forgot about them. Their response is: OK fuck it. They don't care about us, so we dont belong to this country and these people anymore and we'll deffect to their enemies.

It must be worrying for the Egyptian government when things go bad to the extent that drives people to take desperate measures.

Fear

After the crack down on the Muslim Brothers by the Egyptian government, a guy I know told me that he stopped logging on to the Muslim Brothers website, because he is afraid of the internet police.

And after the jailing of Kareem Amer, another guy I know told me that he was thinking of starting a blog, but is now too scared to do so.

Depressing isn't it?

Cheeky

A good husband

Good husbands are like wonder bras. They are uplifting and supportive to their wives and they make them look bigger and better.

What’s your mother’s name?

The title of this post is a question that a “religious” psychic on an Arabic TV channel asked a viewer who phoned in to get his horoscope checked.

Arabic TV channels, these days, are full of programs about jinnis, magic and dream interpretations. The “experts” and “sheikhs” who appear on such programs pretend to have some sort of sixth sense, but they appear to lack the other five and so appropriatley, certified morons are hand picked to present the shows.

Instead of just talking crap, I wish these psychics could tell us something really useful, like which stocks are going up next year or where the interest rates are going.

These are programs about the paranormal which are aimed primarily at audiences who are sub-normal, yet they are popular it seems. I wonder why?

I’m thinking of applying to work as psychic on Arabic TV channels. I would get a call from a viewer and I would start by asking him or her about their mother’s name, then I’d say: Your star sign is Taurus and it’s written in the stars that tonight Taurus will be on the cusp of Uranus.

Holy Shit

Al-Azhar is a loose cannon. After successfully jailing Kareem Amer, they are now going after the novelist Nawal El Saadawi.

Al Azhar is threatening legal action against Saadawi, accusing her of insulting religions. Saadawi is 75 years old and has published more than 40 books that have been translated into dozens of languages, yet these cunts want to jail her, so she rightly decided to leave Egypt. I don't blame her.

Saadawi said that she was fed up with the complacency and cowardice of Egyptian intellectuals and their unwillingness to stand up to intimidation. She is right. Egyptian so called "intellectuals" are pussies and just as bad as the Azhar assholes who want to jail Saadawi.

Now this is the really weird part. Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi (the Sheikh of Al Azhar) will be visiting Pope Benedict in the Vatican this month.

Islamists have condemned Tantawi's planned visit because the Pope was accused last year of insulting Islam. Tantawi's critics say that if he meets the Pope then he condones the Pope's insults to Islam. Who knows, maybe they will take legal action against Tantawi.

There is a bit of a contradiction here. How can Tantawi call for Saadawi to be jailed for insulting Islam and then go visit the Pope, who is also accused by Islamists of insulting Islam? A bit of double standards? maybe, but personally, I am not surprized that Tantawi and the Pope want to meet, after all these two guys have alot in common, they are both fascists.

I have a very good solution for all this shit. I think that The Pope, Tantawi and all the other Azhar guys who want to sue Saadawi, should participate in the Beijing Olympics next year.

They should take part in the javelin throw competitions, as targets.

New York Times: The poor in Egypt are left to their fate

Interesting article about Egypt in the New York Times.

To sum it up:

- To Egyptians, the government is not there to better their lives; advancement is based on connections and bribes; the central authority is at best a benign force to be avoided.

- Egyptians feel that there is no such thing as a government. The government is one thing, and the people are something else.

- While the Egyptian government is the country’s largest employer, it is by all accounts an utterly unreliable source of help for the average citizen.

- There is no widespread expectation that the authorities will give the common man a voice, and so there is rarely any outrage when they do not. The feeling of separation is one reason that the leadership has been able to clamp down on opposition political activities without incurring widespread public wrath. The most that Egyptians could hope for from the government was that it stay out of their lives.

- People see the government as something quite foreign or removed from their lives. Poor Egyptians do not see the government as particularly interested in their lives, and they also see politics as quite elite and risky and something to stay away from.

There is alot of truth in this I think.