Kalb-Baladi

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Molokheya

A guy sits down in a restaurant and asks for molokheya. The waiter says, "The guy next to you got the last bowl."

So he gets a cup of coffee. Then he sees that the guy next to him has finished his meal, but the molokheya bowl is still full. He says, "Are you going to eat that?"

The other guy says, "No. You can have it."

The guy takes it and starts to eat it. When he gets about half way down, he sees a dead mouse in it, and pukes the molokheya back into the bowl.

The other guy says, "That's about as far as I got too."

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Bad Luck

I once knew a very unlucky guy who was diagnosed with alopecia (which is basically loss of hair or baldness). He bought a book entitled "Coping With Hair Loss", took it home, and all the pages fell out.

But the strongest definition of bad luck I have ever read is when a New Yorker wakes up to find that he is the sole survivor of a terrible global war. After spending years desperately searching for another human being, the lonely man gives up and decides to end his life by jumping from the top of the Empire State Building. As he falls , he passes the 25th floor, and hears the phone ring...

Why am I telling you this? Because although I am not superstitious, I am convinced that among all the regions on this planet, the Middle East suffers from more than it's fair share of bad luck.

Is there any other part of this world that has suffered as much shit for thousands of years? The scale of death, destruction, hatred, poverty, wealthy assholes (and all other kinds of assholes) that we have is unmatched throughout history.

Any kind of bullshit you can think of was either invented in the Middle East or passionately adopted.

It would be very unlucky for me if this post is interpreted as an insult to religions or to the president. Therefore I would like to make it very clear that I never meant to imply that Judaism, Christianity, Islam or Mubarak are among the misfortunes of this region.

You see, I would love to meet Kareem Amer one day, but outside prison please.

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Monday, February 26, 2007

LOL

We NEVER admit to not knowing the answer to any question. I used to be like that myself... actually, I'm still like that :)

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Saturday, February 24, 2007

Good morning Taliban

Egypt is turning into a scary place. After the blogger Kareem Amer was sentenced to 4 years in prison for insulting Islam and the Egyptian president it seems that the fundamentalists are emboldened and pushing harder for their agenda.

All copies of Egyptian feminist writer, activist and medical doctor Nawal Al Saadawi's latest book, God Resigns in the Summit Meeting, were removed from circulation and destroyed last week by her publisher.

Saadawi and her daughter, Dr. Mona Helmi, were interrogated by a general prosecutor on January 28 after being accused of renouncing religion.

And there are reports that Saadawi has fled
Egypt because of concerns about her safety.

I am pessimistic :(

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Thursday, February 22, 2007

Jail for insulting Mubarak

According to the judge who convicted the Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer, he should spend four years in jail, and one of these years is for insulting the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but what is the insult? What exactly did Kareem Amer say?

Kareem often criticised Mr Mubarak's regime on his blog, in one post he described the president's regime as a "symbol of dictatorship". It seems that this was seen as an insult because the Egyptian government claims to be democtratic.

But have you noticed that we only had one democratic president for the past 25 years???

Governments should be open minded about blogs. The problem with the Egytian government guys is that there is no use in them being open minded if they dont have brains in the first place.

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Kareem Convicted

The 22 year old Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer has been sentenced to four years in prison.

During a five-minute court session the judge said Kareem was guilty and would serve three years for insulting Islam and inciting sedition, and one year for insulting Mr Mubarak.

Sickening.

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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Fuck Egyptian TV

Last night I was watching a program called El Beit Beitak on Egyptian TV presented by a cunt called Tamer Basyouni and another bitch whose name I dont remember.

They were discussing problems faced by Egyptians abroad with the deputy foreign minister for consular affairs (who is a fat and irritating dick head).

A woman phones into the program and complains about her brother who is jailed in Dubai. The fat fuck interrupts her and says that he knows this case and that her brother is convicted of pessessing narcotics and that the laws in Dubai state that anyone who is caught in possession of narcotics goes to jail for 4 years, even if it is just 1 gram of marijuana. He added that even if traces of narcotics are found in your blood, this would be considered as possession.

The deputy foreign bullshitter says that these are the laws over there and we can't do anything about it... Oh yeah? Fuck off. There are many cases of westerners who got pardoned in Dubai because their governments don't take this kind of shit.

What really irritated me was that the piece of shit who presented the program. He said: "I think the laws in the Emirates are great. I salute them for having such wonderful laws."

Then he starts taunting the sister of the jailed guy and making fun of her. What a slimy son of a bitch.

Tamer Basyouni... FUCK YOU

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Monday, February 19, 2007

I feel very sorry for Kareem

Kareem Amer, the Egyptian blogger imprisoned since November last year for expressing his athiest views on the internet and criticizing Al Azhar and the Egyptian government and society has received another blow. His father is now disowning him.

Kareem's views are shocking and offensive to many Egyptians, but does he deserve all this? Andy Warhol once said that the best answer sometimes is "so what?". The case of Kareem should have been a "so what?" moment for Egyptians, yet he was expelled from university, then imprisoned, then put on trial where he faces a very long jail term, and now his own father has disowned him.

I don't know how he is coping with all this. You would expect love and support from a father for his child in such a situation (not to mention support for his son's right to freedom of expression). In short Kareem's father is an ignoranus (no that's not a misprint. It means he is both ignorant and an asshole).

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Saturday, February 17, 2007

Forced Divorce In Saudi Arabia

As if it's not enough that Saudi Arabia has the worst record on women's rights in the world where women have no voting rights, almost no employment rights and are barred from even driving.

The latest craze in the beautiful country of Saudi Arabia is forced divorce. That's when a married woman's family decide that they don't like their son in law, so they go to a hardline Islamic court to dissolve the marriage so that later they can force the poor woman to marry the "right" man.

The kingdom has been ruled since the 1920s by the House of Saud whose clerical allies, the Wahhabists, have imposed an austere state faith on what had been a religiously diverse mixture of Muslims with Sunni, Shia and Sufi communities.

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Men, Computers & Sex

What do men have in common with computers?

Women feel that there are lots of simillarities between men and computers because they have to turn them on to get their attention, big power surges knock them out for the rest of the day and as soon as a woman commits to one, she realizes that if she'd waited a little longer, she could have obtained a better model.

Why is architecture better than sex?

Because although it can take several years to achieve a full erection, once it's up, it'll probably stay up for a century or more.

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Friday, February 16, 2007

I Want To Ban Muftis

According to the Saudi newspaper Al Watan, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, sheikh Abdelaziz bin Abdallah banned Valentine's Day, i.e.: you go to hell if you celebrate Valentine's Day. I'm not a Valentine's Day freak myself, but this banning mentality really pisses me off. I have had enough of the muftis crap. If you ask me, muftis should be banned.

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Thursday, February 15, 2007

Valentines Day

Valentine's Day is when a lot of married men are reminded what a poor shot Cupid really is.

I don't understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine's Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Fruitcake

Egyptian parliament members discussed on Monday the Israeli excavations near Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

During a heated session held to discuss the Israeli digging, Mohamed el-Katatny of the ruling National Democratic Party said:

That cursed Israel is trying to destroy al-Aqsa mosque. Nothing will work with Israel except for a nuclear bomb that wipes it out of existence.


So Katatny wants to explode a nuclear bomb in Israel and wipe it out of existance, but wouldn't this mean destroying Al Aqsa mosque and killing millions of Palestinians along with the Israelis?

Was this guy high on something or is our parliament turning into a freak show?

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Monday, February 12, 2007

Bird Flu

The health ministry announced that six Egyptians suspected of contracting bird flu have tested negative for the deadly virus.

Good. We don't want fucking bird flu spreading around in Egypt. You see the virus can mutate and become immune to known cures (like Tamiflu).

If this happens we'll all be in deep shit, because anyone can contract it, even the Mubaraks.

But the ministry of health have a worst case scenario plan. If the Mubaraks get the bird flu, they will inject them with Parkinsons in the hope that they would shake it off.

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Saturday, February 10, 2007

Wow!


Check out this interview by Queen Rania.

She said that:

Islam neither requires one to be practising, nor to dress in one way or another, so imposing the veil on a woman is contrary to the principles of Islam.


She is a breath of fresh air in a region full of bullshitters.

Thanks your majesty :)

And she is a hottie too.

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Friday, February 09, 2007

Jerusalem

Israeli police and Palestinian stone throwers in Jerusalem were out enjoying their favorite past time today.

There will never be peace between them. Why?

Because for religious and secular Jews, giving up the Temple Mount is unthinkable.

For Palestinians, having their future capital in East Jerusalem is a fundamental element of any future state. Add to that the deep religious, political and national significance of the Haram al-Sharif to Palestinians and to Muslims around the world, and you get a recipe for eternal war. Life on earth will end before this mess is sorted out.

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Why do I do this to myself?

Why do I keep on reading Egyptian newspapers like Al Ahram and Al Akhbar.

Everytime I pick one of those, or log onto their websites, I can feel myself getting dimmer. I need to stop because if my IQ goes one more point down, I'll have to be watered twice a week.

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Wednesday, February 07, 2007

They call this training?

A new training DVD will be distributed to nearly 200,000 Homeland Security employees in the US. A panel of Arab and Muslim scholars shown in the training video are supposed to enlighten the homeland security guys about the Arab / Muslim culture.

In the video, an Arab man is being questioned by law-enforcement officers and suddenly becomes uncooperative and refuses to make eye contact.

Question: is this suspicious behavior or a clash of cultures?

According to the panel: "It's a misconception that the action is evasive -- Arab culture considers it impolite to stare."

I don't get it, so the guy being questioned wants to be polite to his interrogators?

BULLSHIT. We love staring. Where did they get this panel from?

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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Acronyms

ALITALIA Airplane Lands In Tokyo And Luggage In Australia
ALITALIA Always Late In Takeoff, Always Late In Arrival
BOEING Bits Of Engine In Numerous Gardens
CAAC China's Airlines Always Cancel
DAN AIR Dangerous And Nearly Always Incredibly Rough
DELTA Don't Even Leave The Airport
EL AL Every Landing Always Late
LOT Lots Of Trouble
LUFTHANSA Let Us Fuck The Hostess And Not Say Anything
OLYMPIC Onassis Likes Your Money Paid In Cash
QANTAS Queers And Nymphomaniacs Travelling As Stewards
SABENA Such A Bloody Experience, Never Again !
SAS Sex And Service
TWA Take the Waitress Away
BMW Break My Windows
DODGE Drips Oil Dirt & Grease Everywhere
HONDA Helping Out Nips Dominating America
FIAT Feeble Italian Attempt at Transportation.
SAAB Sweedish Automobiles Always Breakdown.
AIDS Anally Injected Death Sentence
MAC Much Advertised Crap
MACINTOSH Machine Always Crashes If Not The Operating System Hangs
MICROSOFT Most Intelligent Customers Realise Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
IBM Immense Bowel Movement

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Spooky

The Egyptian blogosphere is very quiet. It feels a bit spooky...

Manal & Alaa's blog hasn't been updated for a few days. The same goes for Sand Monkey. Big Pharaoh is on leave and so is Wael Abbas.

According to the theory of probability, the odds of all these bloggers going quiet at the same time is very low.

I could be wrong because according to 85% of statisticians, there is a 38% chance that the theory of probability is wrong.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Shooting Crap

This is very irritating. First Egypt's top Muslim cleric or mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, rules in an official fatwa published by leading state daily Al-Ahram that Islam bars women from becoming head of state.

Then the London-based daily Al-Hayyat reports that the mufti issued another fatwa, according to which women can become heads of states.

I can't believe that seven years into the twenty first century, this is even an issue to issue fatwas on. Am I the only one who finds this extremely boring? If the mufti really issued these contradicting fatwas, then it's a pity he wasn't aboard the doomed United 93 flight on Setember 11. He would surely have humanely bored most of the passengers to death, long before the aircraft crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pensylvania.

In the US, shooting crap means gambling, whereas in Egypt (where gambling is forbidden) it means issuing contradicting and irrelevant fatwas.

Can a woman be head of state? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeez... Can anyone?

Sunday, February 04, 2007

A Messy Middle East

According to this, there is a battle going on in the Middle East now:

On one side there is the United States and its strategic ally Israel, with a certain measure of wider Western and Arab support; on the other, Iran, and its strategic ally, Syria.

These powers are engaged in three proxy wars. The civil war in Iraq, the standoff between Hizballah and the government in Lebanon and the mini civil war between Fatah and Hamas.

There are several interesting points in this article too:

Washington's destruction of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan and its toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq served to destroy Tehran's main strategic competitors which means that the American war on terror after 9/11 has unintetionally led to the rise of Iran.

Sunni governments like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are terrified of a new Shia ascendancy. Add in the widespread unease at Iran's nuclear activities and you have a potential new alignment where the moderate Arab states and Israel all share common interests.

If this happens then the current proxy wars could turn into a direct confrontation between the US, Israel, other western powers, Egypt, Jordan Saudi Arabia on one side and Iran Syria Hizballah and Hamas on the other.

The Saudis Egyptians and the Jordanian are trying to difuse the situation in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, but with weak leaderships in the US, Israel and throughout the Middle East, nobody is holding their breath.

If the new American push to bring the situation in Baghdad under control does not work, Iraq may descend into chaos and fragmentation with wider repercussions on the whole region.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former State Department official thinks that: "We are looking at a messier, a much more complicated, a much more troubled Middle East, where the capacity of the US to shape affairs is much-reduced."

So in the foreseeable future, the US will probably go back to caring less about spreading democracy in the region and more about the stability of it's allies in Cairo Riadh and Amman.

This is Hilarious

This was in Almasri Alyoum today. 667 publishing houses representing 26 countries are partcipating in the Cairo International Bookfair. The bookfair even has a web site!, but this is what you get when you try to enter the website.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Nazif Eats "Lib" In Parliament

I think that the relationship between Egyptians and their rulers is at an all time low. Nothing pleases us as much as the sight of one of them humiliated or tumbling unceremoniously to earth. I would go as far as saying that even their deaths can bring a smile to our cruel and bitter hearts... and they know it.

This view was vindicated today by the latest of the moronic decisions that the government dick heads take on regular basis.

Egyptian news photographers have been excluded from parliament following the snapping of an embarrassing picture of the prime minister Ahmad Nazif eating watermelon seeds (lib) during a parliamentary session.

Eating lib (azazet el lib) in our culture is like twiddling your thumbs when you have nothing better to do, so a prime minister who eats lib in parliament is basically a certified asshole.

The picture of Nazif published on Al Masri Al Youm newspaper made him a laughing stock, AND WE LOVED IT, but instead of somebody telling the prime minister gently to stop acting like an idiot, they ban photographers from parliament.

Understandable. It is easier for them to ban photographers than to stop acting like idiots. Anyway that would be too much to ask from them.