Manal and Alaa's bit bucket

Here is a piece of news that should make you go: WTF?Female students at a new Islamic school will be made to wear headscarves regardless of their religion, it was revealed yesterday.The Madani High School in Leicester will be required by law toaccept 10 per cent of its 600 pupils from a non-Muslim background.But [...]

Today I went with Dandash to the AUC to attend this meeting which she told me would be interesting. One of the topics thatgot borught up was the new french law criminalizing people to deny the armenian genocide. In the middle of the discussion, this girl goes up and says:" I think this law [...]

I don't like people!Generally I am not really a big fan of them. People are annoying, demanding and problematic, especially those specific people that you deem closest to you.  Tht is the rule: the closer the person, the generally bigger the pain in the ass they are.I am one of those people who can survive [...]

Dear Egyptian readers, A couple of days ago I wrote a couple of angry posts at the USA for what I considerd to be nothing short of a betrayel of the democracy seeking forces in the country. Having the White House strongly advocate against any symbolic cuts of Egypt's aid and then having the House shoot [...]

Down 15% in 3 days. That's the egyptian stock market for ya. As if the decline in the CASE over the past 4 months has not been enough, the egyptian stock market decided to up the ante in the past 3 days and really decline. Sunday it went down 2.4%, Monday it went down 6%, [...]

Ok, now this just pisses me off :Three years after a U.S.-led invasion toppledSaddam Hussein, only one major U.S. building project in Iraq is onschedule and within budget: the massive new American embassy compound.The $592 million facility is being built insidethe heavily fortified Green Zone by 900 non-Iraqi foreign workers whoare housed nearby and under [...]

There are not enough good things that I can say about the graphic novel V for Vendetta and its Genius author Alan Moore. In my opinion, once the literary world gets off its hoity toity ass and recognize the graphic novel as a respectable medium for fiction, Alan Moore will be the first one to [...]

Alcohol is your friend!

And this story is the perfect example:A BANGLADESHI woman who shook a baby boy so violently that he sufferedbrain damage walked free from court yesterday because a judge concededthat she did not know how to behave in the West.Rahella Khanom, 24, caused the five-month-old boy in her care to sufferfractures to his breast bone [...]

The story is always the same. An arab country starts having a blogsphere, and it gets populated by mostly secular or moderate voices from the left, right and center at first (To see an example of how we used to be like, check the excellent Jordanian blogsphere . It's how ours used to be like, [...]

Ok, concerning this, I will be trying really hard to keep my mouth shut until she leaves Iraq and heads back to the US. I am willing to say that she said what she said because she had a gun to her head, and had to say whatever was necessary to get out. I will [...]

Rape is not up for debate!

The Islamic Republic of Iran disgusts me. Having the Basij beating women protesters on Women’s Day. (Pictures here!)Between Iran, Saudi, and Taliban’s Afghanistan, how someone could possibly support a Sharia-based islamist-run government is just beyond me.And please don’t give me the “Well, it hasn’t been implemented correctly yet” crap. That’s the socialists/ marxists excuse. Sorry. [...]

This has been irking me for quite sometime, and I couldn’t go to bed this evening before venting about it. The lack of self criticism in Egyptian (and Arab) society is annoying. As I struggle to find any hope for today’s Egyptian entertainment, specifically cinema and television, constructive criticism is an essential ingredient that seems [...]

Writer's block. I've been sitting here staring at the screen, trying to express the thoughts in my head. But they seem stuck, afraid to leave the confines of my mind. I have so much I want to say about people, our interactions with fellow human beings, and how we all need to communicate. Even with [...]

Some idiot intentionally drove a car into students at the University of North Carolina last week. So? Well his name happens to be Muhammed. So? We can't just assume it was Islam related just because his name is Islamic. Of course not. Except the idiot confirmed his stupidity today in court by saying that he [...]

Every morning I listen to morning newscasts, read various papers and browse bookmarked websites for the latest in the policial arena. This routine has turned into an unconsious ritual where the flow of information is filtered for relevant terms and topics. And it’s usually something I both look forward to and have gotten used to [...]