A group of people decide, that due to their religious beliefs, they needed to go and take over a piece of land that hosted people from a completely different religion and culture than theirs. They succeeded in doing so, in the process killing thousands, and forcing many of the indiginous population to flee to the neighbouring countries, which were run by people of their own race and held their own religion, and be replaced by more settlers, who immigrated from all over to make a home in this new land of theirs. The newly created nation, despite numerous attacks on it by its neighbours- who despised the new settlers and their religion and feared that they will try to take over more of their neighbouring lands due to their imperialist nature- over the years, prospered and became a center of knowledge and a place where people from a third religion enjoyed less persecution and more religious freedoms- although not exactly all of them- than in any of the neighbouring countries.

Now, the questions is this: am I talking about Israel or Andalus?

Foriegn ones. The French Le Figaro and the German Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung, because they published articles that the minister of information, Anas Al Fiqqi, has deemed insulting to Islam.

The Egyptian agency said: "The minister of information said
that he would not allow any publication that insults the
Islamic religion or calls for hatred or contempt of any
religion to be distributed inside Egypt."

All hail Islam's defender and keeper of the Faith Anas Al Fiqqi. 

Congratulations Rooobs! 

 A cardealership in Ohio is under fire for declaring a Jihad on its competition and making fun of the Jihadis in their commercials:

A car dealership's tongue-in-cheek radio
advertisement declaring “a jihad on the automotive market,'' will
not be changed, the company said, despite drawing sharp criticism
that the ad's content is offensive.

Several stations rejected the spot from Dennis Mitsubishi, which
boasts that sales representatives wearing “burqas'' head-to-toe
traditional dress for Islamic women will sell vehicles that can
“comfortably seat 12 jihadists in the back.''

[…]

In the ad, Dennis talks about “launching a jihad on the
automotive market'' and giving away toy swords to children.

“Our prices are lower than the evildoers' every day. Just ask
the pope!'' the ad says. “Friday is fatwa Friday, with free rubber
swords for the kiddies.''

LOL 

Hey, that's what Bashar said. I don't really believe him to be serious, but hey, at least he said it!

Cairofreeze 

The Bahraini police banns a seminar on political reform and fires rubber bullets and tear gas at the demontsrtaing participants.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. I just thought it was just Lahoud with his midnight forrays to pick up christian gay guys in lebanon to sleep with him, or Sultran Qaboos with his thing for little male children (not a single one over 12; they are called Ghulamn el sultan or the sultan's boys in arabic), but now it seems Arafat enjoys mouth kissing other men as well. See for yourself!

Happy Ramadan everyone.

Ahmeddinjad, who under his rule gays get hanged for, you know, being gay, hugging and kissing his ally and friend, the known to be really gay President of Lebanon, Emile Lahoud.

One of the great side-effects of retarded arab thinking is praising someone like Chavez, just because he attacks Bush. But unfortunately Chavez worship is a fact, because we, as people, are very easily swayed by words that appeal to our mindset, no matter who says them. Nevermind that this dude is a dictator who wants to rule for the next 25 years , or that he is fucking Venezuela up the same way Nasswer screwed up Egypt or that Venezuela sufferd the biggest braindrain under his rule. You see, he blasts Israel and like calls Bush the Devil in the UN , and that makes him "amazing " and a "brave man ".

Whatever.. 

Just to remind you of what kind of asshole he is, here is his picture with his friends from the little dictators' club non-alligned movemnet summit.

Yes, that's Mugabe, and that's Lukashenko next to him and look how much fun they all seem to be having together. Warms your heart, doesn't it?

A friend of mine sent me a text message that said: "I wish you a blessed Ramadan!"

My response? "Happy Rosh Hashana!"

What???? I am an asshole!

So true! 

(H/T Russel of Arabia ) 

This is what they are doing now in Iraq: using kidnap victims as unwilling suicdebombers.

Insurgents are now using unwitting kidnap victims as suicide bombers —
seizing them, booby-trapping their cars without their knowledge, then
releasing them only to blow up the vehicles by remote control, the
Defense Ministry warned Thursday.

Nice people those insurgents, ehh?

Long live the resistence! 

.. is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard in my life. While I am all for the capital punishment, I have a feeling that in this specifc case it is found lacking. You gonna kill her for trying to kill herself? She wants to die, morons. Where is the punishment there?

I would sentence failed suicdebombers to live, but to lead very very shitty islamic lives. Like Feed her pork and wine everday and force her to watch gay porn 8 houres a day. Or something like that. Any auggestions? I will take whichever you have to offer!   

Bush is trying to be the Uniter between Krazai and Musharaf , which will most likely fail, because Musharaf is an asshole and Karzai is a pussy.

I would send Dick to do it If I was him. Just for levity! 

Yesterday was Mubarak's speech at the NDP conference, which was supposed to show surprises and shed some light on the proposed 2007 constitutional changes we keep hearing rumors about ( the one about removing judicial oversight over elections is terrifying). Given that me and Hossam were supposed to hang out even though he had to transcribe the speech for his work, we decided that we could do both by playing a Mubarak speech drinking game. The rules were simple: You drink whiskey and you take a sip everytime Mubarak says one of the following 3 words: Democracy, Reform or Future.

Holy shit did we get drunk.

Here is the tally (I kept count):

Reform was said 18 times.

Future was said 7 times.

Democracy or democratic was said twice. 2 times. That's it.

There was  one word, however, that kept popping about 40 times, and that word was "constitutional". And even though it was self evident we should've included it to our drinking game, I kind of thank god we didn't: We were drinking whiskey, people!

That aside, I found it interesting that the word constitution had totally replaced the word democracy in the NDP vocabulary. Every other sentence had the word constitutional in it. Oh well, I guess that's the "new direction". We are, after all, a democracy now, No?

There was also a "no talk about the war on terror should be held without examening its causes" speech, which seemed to imply that the key to stop terrorism was the middle-east peace process (cause that's the cause and not the recruitment tool, get it?), which we know is Mubarak's little niche. The Message he sent the americans was clear: You can't win without peace in the ME, and I am the peace guy, so you better take off the heat off of me and mind your own business.  Get that you imperialist pigs?

Last but not least, more as an added bonus really, there was one word that got utterd 3 times during that speech. The N word. Nuclear.

Yep, Mubarak has just announced that Egypt's new energy priority would be seeking Nuclear energy. Cause you see, it's our right to have it, just like Iran.

Nevermind that taking care of the railroad is kicking our ass, we cand handle Uranium enrichment. And shit, if we end up having a chernobel-like accident that kills thousands and left millions sterile, look at the bright side: Population Control!

Welcome to a nuclear middle-east everyone. 

Or so has decreed Al Qaradawi. He said that today should be the day where muslims world over protest in anger the pope's remarks, but remember to keep restraint. So, get angry, but not so much.

I can't wait for the retardedness! 

I was suppsoed to take a first-class train-ride from NYC to DC, but thanks to Amtrak being incompetant pricks the train I was suppsoed to be on brokedown somewhere in Pennsylvania, so they had to subtitute it with a regular train with no first class. I had to travel coach.

Your heart weeps for my plight, I am sure.

But in an amazing twist of fate the cute girl I ended up sitting next to was actually a Hillary Clinton's aide.

(There is a GOD)

So, of course, we have the Hillary as President conversation.

Her point of view was that Hillary is the best candidate, a woman and a strong femenist.

My point of view was that Hillary was nothing without Bill Clinton. That for 14 years before Hillary was a sentor she was known as nothing but Mrs. Bill Clinton and that the 2 main reasons she got elected were that 1) People felt bad for her for being in such a shitty marriage and 2) They really liked her Husband and really wanted him to be in the White House again, even if it was via proxy of Hillary. People don't like Hillary, they like the name Clinton. That's all there is to it. If this was what's left of feminisim, then we might as wel declare it dead.

Needless to say the conversation ended shortly after that.

Oh well… 

For some reason DC always reminds me of Hollywood.

It has that same vibe, you know? It has its own celebrities, its powerhouses, its middle-men and its powerlunches where you talk for houres about nothing. The main difference between the DC celebs and the Hollywood celebs is that the DC ones make less money, but have way more power.

Another thing about DC is that everyone's trying to feed you wherever you go, so you are never really hungry. Breakfasts, Brunches, Lunches, dinners, even regular meetings are caterd. Everyone has an american express with an open expense account that always somehow gets written off as a business expense. It's borderline nutty.

All I know is this: I want one of thsoe credit cards. One of those would be really really nice.

No visit to DC is possible without a meet-up with 2 of the best Jordanian exports to the US: Basboos and Natasha , and this time was no exeption. The plan was meeting Bieso for some quality Shisha time at Adam Moragns and then head out to meet Natasha for dinner. Naturally we talked about Politics and the outrage over the Pope's remarks and all that crap. Bieso told me that after the news of the firebombings of churches in the occupied territories she was officially tired of trying to defend or explain arab or muslim behaviour, or even watching the news for that matter. She informed of a category of people that exist in Kuwait who call themselves "Bedoon", which is arabic for "without". Those are people who don't identify themselves with the islamic ummah or the arab world, but rather just as individuals. She lamented how easy life would be if she could just be a "without". I found myself wistfully agreeing.

Later on we met with Natasha, who too, it seems, had resolved to stop caring about the politics of the devil's asshole known as the middle-east. I suggested that she instead should create a new arab NGO in the US and call it the Aassociation of Disaffected Arabs and Muslims, or ADAM for short, that would champion the cause of arabs and muslims officially just not caring anymore and minding their own business, thus integrating themselves fully with the apathethic american general population. Their motto should be "We don't care", "We mind our own business" or "We watch the E! channel for our news!".

I don't know about you, but I have a feeling it would become the most popular arab/muslim NGO in the US.

Any founding members interested? 

Leilouta is now officially part of my DC family. My DC sister. Her and her hubby have been nothing but nice, hospitable and super-kind to me and therefore will always have a place in my heart. In a town as fake as DC, filled with power brunches and people who talk for houres without saying anything, they are both a breath of fresh air. Love them to bits. Anyway..

Leilouta had decided she was going to have herself a houseparty the night before I left DC, and a group of her friends, alongside Rasha, were invited. The food was great, the drinks were insanely good (you take one glass of her apple martinis and you are drunk) and the company was awesome. I was having a great drunken time until, well, Leilouta set her hair on fire. 

This is how I recounted it: I was walking towards the Kitchen in semi-drunk stupor where Leilouta was bringing out some food, when I noticed that there was something Orange playing on her very long hair. It took me a second to realize that one of the candles she had lit up has somehow caught her hair on fire, and that she was totally oblivious to it. So I did what anyone in my position would do: Screamed a bunch of indesipherable words that amounted to : Leilouta..Hair..FIRE!" and ran towards her. She turns around towards me with a smile that's like  "What???"  while I jump to hold her and put the fire out with my hand while scremaing "you hair is on fire. your hair is on fire".

It was pretty funny.

Afterwards Leilouta informed me that this is the second time this has happened to her. Her husband looked at me and was like : "What? you don't read her blog? You think she makes that shit up? This kind of stuff happens all the time."

Good Lord! 

One of the greates highlights of this trip has been meeting Carmen, and let me inform y'all: SHE IS HOTTTTTT! Smoking hot. The definition of hotness. Hot damn does she look good. Further proof that egyptian girls are hot as long as you give them the freedom to exude their hotness and take care of themselves. My friend Eric, who met her briefly, was like " Egyptian girls look like that? What are you doing here? Let's go to Egypt dude!"

She is also interesting, smart, funny, has great taste in Television shows and was kind enough to take me around shopping in Queens when I was in NYC, which makes her awesome.

Also, did I mention that she is hot?

God Bless you Carmen. You are the best ambassador I've found for our people in a very very long time. 

One of the perks of traveling abroad and coming back to Egypt is your ability to go to the Duty-Free shop and buy yourself up to 4 non-egyptian made Alcohol. I don't know if you know this, but in Egypt the only alcohol that is allowed to be sold to the general populace (outside bars) is egyptian made Alcohol. And while the quality of such alcohol has improved somewhat thanks to the Ahram Beverages Company (Ahmed Zayat, you are my Hero), nothing beats Bacardi and my good friends Jack, Jhonny and Jose. So the Duty-free trip is very importnat to re-stock your own private bar and getting your friends some bottles. This is of the outmost importance these days because Ramadan is upon us, and the supreme majority of the bars are closed or will serve only foriegners. So, if you would like to understand the psychotic islamic laws in Egypt, here is a way to break it down: Egyotian Chrsitians can not drink during Ramadan, but Saudi muslims can. It's a way for us to emphasize our national unity, whether our christian brothers like it or not.

This is why those bottles were of extreme importnace to my christian friends.

So I go to the duty-free shop with one, and we spend a good 20 minutes picking and choosing which 4 bottles we get to buy to please everybody, and after finally picking them, we go to the cashier to purchase them to find out that we can't. The reason? I have bought bottles from the duty-free shop twice this year already, and apparently twice a year is the maximum limit an egyptian is allowed to buy alcohol from the duty-free shop. If I was  a foreigner, the guy informs me, I would be able to buy from there 4 times a year, but since I am an egyptian, well, no dice.

Damn Foreigners! 

Uh-oh, watch out world, we are angry again. Someone- well, the pope- may have said, or implied, wait, yes quoted someone that said that Islam is a violent religion.

In a speech last week, the pontiff cited a Medieval text that
characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil
and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the
faith."

Benedict said Sunday that he was "deeply sorry" that Muslims took
offense, and stressed that the emperor's words did not reflect his own
opinion.

In order to refute such lying claims, and to prove that muslims are peacefull people after all, muslims all over have decided to act violently, by, I dunno, forming groups to attack christian targets, firebombing churches in the westbank , gunning down a nun and her bodyguard in somalia , and killing a christina man in Baghdad.

But look on the bright side: Compared to the danish cartoon crisis, the death toll is so much smaller this time around. Life's little victories, I tell ya. 

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but do you think it's time to change the name of Islam from the "Religion of Peace" to the "Religion of Pissed off People"? 

Just a suggestion.. please don't kill me! 

…have been greatly exxagerated.

I am still alive, I am still free, and I am back to the land of sands.

There has been no updates simply because I had no reliable internet access for the few days I was in New York, and when I arrived back to cairo i found out that my ISP has been having technical problems with their dsl service for the past few days. So, here i am, in an internet cafe, updating you on whats up and informing you that blogging will commence immedietly.

I apologize if I worried any of you.  I dont know who starts those rumors. Trust me, however, if something happens to me, you will KNOW about it and it will be not through rumors in comments sections. This much I promise you.

Love you all,

SM

The End is near. The signs are here. Hell has frozen over:

The militant Shiite group Hezbollah committed war crimes in its deliberate targeting of civilians in the recent conflict with

Israel, according to Amnesty International.

The London-based human rights group said the guerillas fired nearly
4,000 rockets into northern Israel, killing 43 civilians, seriously
injuring 33 others and forcing hundreds of thousands to take refuge or
flee.

About a quarter of all rockets — some packed with thousands of metal
ball bearings — were fired directly into urban areas, it added in a
nine-page document called "Under fire — Hezbollah's attacks on
northern Israel".

It was only because Israeli civilians fled their homes or took shelter
in bunkers that a higher death toll was prevented, it said.

"The scale of Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli cities, towns and
villages, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used and statements
from the leadership confirming their intent to target civilians make it
all too clear that Hezbollah violated the laws of war," said Amnesty's
secretary-general Irene Khan.

"The fact that Israel has also committed serious violations in no way
justifies violations by Hezbollah. Civilians must not be made to pay
the price for unlawful conduct on either side."

There must be a glitch in the matrix or something. I don't know. I am gonna go ask those flying pigs over there! 

Will be in NYC for 2 days. Peeps in the area, Holla at me!

I ♥ Sinfest!

How did I miss that one?

First, the Qur'an condemns the Hypocrites who claim to be believers
while other sentiments reside in their hearts. Then, the death penalty
is proscribed for those who publicly express their internal dissent.
Thus, the Qur'anic ultimatum: remain a "hypocrite," or die.

So true!