Manal and Alaa's bit bucket - retardedness

Americans back racial profiling of arabs

alaa — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:16:42 +0300

.. and people who look arab. Their reasoning? Islamic terrorism.

Most Americans expect a terrorist attack
on the United States in the next few months and support the
screening of people who look "Middle Eastern" at airports and
train stations, a poll showed on Tuesday.
The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute said 62 percent
of Americans were "very worried" or "somewhat worried" that
terrorists would strike the nation in the next few months while
37 percent were "not too worried" or "not worried at all."
[…]
By a 60 percent to 37 percent margin, respondents said
authorities should single out people who look "Middle Eastern"
for security screening at locations such as airports and train
stations — a finding that drew sharp criticism by civil
liberties groups.

Now, right there, anyone with half a brain would see something wrong with this picture. If you don't get it, let me explain: ISLAM ISN'T EXCLUSIVELY MIDDLE-EASTERN! Being a muslim is not a race. Islam is a religion. Anybody can be muslim, and therefore anyone, from any race, can be a muslim terrorist. Richard Reid, Jose Padila and John Walker Lindh anyone?

This is honestly incredibly stupid, and ineffectual, because the terrorists will just start using exclusively white terrorists. This is similar to having life jackets on planes, and equally as useless in securing your safety. Ehh…

Whatever…

No women praying Kaaba

alaa — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 13:23:42 +0300

The Saudi clerics want to restrict women praying in Mecca by having them not being able to pray in the vicinity of the Kaaba, but rather some place farther away, where they can still see the Kaaba, but not pray next to it, thus ensuring that only men get to pray in the direct vicinity of the Kaaba.

Saudi clerics want to impose restrictions on
women praying at Islam's holiest shrine in Mecca, one of the few places
where male and female worshippers can intermingle.
But women activists in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the religion
where a strict version of Islam is state orthodoxy, say the idea is
discriminatory and have vowed to oppose it.
At present, women can pray in the immediate vicinity of the Kaaba, a
cube-shaped structure inside the mosque which pilgrims walk around
seven times during the haj pilgrimage according to ancient rites
established by Prophet Mohammad.
Plans by the all-male committee overseeing the holy sites would place
women in a distant section of the mosque while men would still be able
to pray in the key space.
"The area is very small and so crowded. So we decided to get women out
of the 'sahn' (Kaaba area) to a better place where they can see the
Kaaba and have more space," said Osama al-Bar, head of the Institute
for Haj Research.

Condescending statement alert in 5…4…3…2…1…Go

"Some women thought it wasn't good, but from our point of view it will
be better for them … We can sit with them and explain to them what
the decision is (about)," he said. The decision is not final and could
be reversed, he added.

Well, it should be freakin reversed. I don't care. This is bullshit. This never happend in all of Islamic History, and now the wahhabi fuckheads wanna chnage that? What? Saudi isn;t gay enough for them as it is? Only men together, women always coverd or in houses, and now not even in the Kaaba? What kind of bullshit is this?

What a surprise

alaa — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 18:01:01 +0300

Bolivia's move to nationalize their oil reserves and make the state control it has been failing miserably, once again proving that such socialist moves never work, as I have said here before. The reasons why the program is failing? Well, where to begin? First, there is that whole thing with Brazil being mad at its assets and investments being nationalized by a neighboring country's government, to the degree that it slashed its future investments in Bolivia from 2 Billion US dollars to a measly 90 million. This of course will lead other Oil investors to follow suit, like European Repsol, which announced that it had enough of the Persecution of Bolivian authorities and will cut investment in Bolivia. More companies will surely follow suit. Morales' response?

Bolivian President Evo Morales said yesterday in a speech
that the country never planned to throw out foreign companies or
expropriate their assets “but they can't act likes bosses or
owners, they need to be partners,'' newspaper El Pais reported
today.

Hard to be partners with people who continue hold a gun to your head, dont ya think?

Anyway, back to this debacle..

Of course you can't have socialism without corruption or mismanagment, and both are present here. The Bolivian Oil minister -a political appointee by Morales- just got censured for his managment of the nationalization plan , which was his idea in the first place, and therefore resigned. And the head of the Bolivian Oil state company-also appointed by Morales- has been mired by allegation of corruption for so long that he finally quit today. Morales, of course, can't figure out what went wrong. Socialism happend dude. Maybe looking at Venezeula's state of oil production, which yáll look up to as a great example of socialism done right, might give you a hint of what is going wrong.

Morales and Palacio should look carefully at
Venezuela's example and take heed, he says. "It's clear this oil-rich
country is moving backward, and eventually it will all end badly."
The state oil company, PDVSA, reports production
of 3.3 million barrels a day. There is no way to independently confirm
this, and most outside analysts, including the International Energy
Agency, say that PDVSA's numbers are inflated and that production is
closer to 2.6 million barrels per day.
But whatever the real output, Venezuela is
raking in more petrodollars than ever because of the high price of oil.
When Chvez came into office in 1999, the country reported production of
3.5 million barrels per day and, with oil selling at about $15 per
barrel, was making just over $18 billion a year.
This month, with oil at about $70 a barrel,
PDVSA Finance Director Eudomario Carruyo told Reuters he expects
revenue to top $85 billion this year. PDVSA officials have reportedly
said that oil production will increase to 4 million barrels per day by
2012.
Furthermore, in part thanks to Chvez plowing
billions of those petrodollars into new housing, free medical care,
adult literacy projects and other social programs, Venezuelans perceive
the industry to be exceedingly robust now.
"Normal people don't care about whether
production is 3.3 million barrels per day or 2.6. For them, the oil is
huge and forever," says Alfredo Keller, an independent pollster in
Caracas.
What's the problem?
The problem, says Ochoa, is that politicizing
the industry has rotted it, and served both to empty PDVSA of its best
professionals, and to scare foreign partners away from new investment.
"It is generally safe to assume a pretty steep
fall in PDVSA production over the last few years," says Jack Sweeney, a
former analyst at Stratfor, a private intelligence agency, and now an
independent consultant in Caracas.
Maria Mercedes Febres was a senior engineer at
PDVSA until 2000, when, she says, she "saw the writing on the wall,"
and quit. "Political appointees were taking over from qualified
long-timers, and I knew it was going downhill," she says. Most of her
friends stayed on, but their frustration with the political cronyism
finally exploded in a strike in 2002.
Chvez refused to negotiate and fired about 18,000 workers, many of them top engineers.
"Most of my ex-colleagues left the country. They
are oil professionals, but here, where the oil industry is in the hands
of the state, they were blacklisted," says Febres. After the firings,
she says, the level of professionalism plummeted. "You need to exploit
your oil efficiently — and for that you depend on technology and
maintenance. We have neither."
Foreign partners pull back
Meanwhile, Venezuela's joint partners —
companies such as Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, and British Petroleum —
are also slowing production here.
[…]
Oil minister and PDVSA director Rafael Ramirez
promised output in those fields would soon rise. In fact, the opposite
has happened. According to industry reports, output has steadily fallen
in foreign-operated fields. The largest drop was at Royal Dutch Shell's
Urdaneta field, where output fell to 43,400 barrels per day in March
from 46,900 barrels per day in October.
[…]
But, while most companies desperate for oil won't pull out, they will
slow their rate of investment. "When the rent goes up, you become wary
of new investment; it's logical," he says.

So, let's recoup shall we? The Nationalization of assets type of Socialism is bad because: 1) It drives away foreign investmen t and 2) It appoints people who are both incompetent and corrupt, but happen to be close to the person in power, in positions of control of such assets, which they always, slowly but surely, run into the ground. It happend in Russia, It happend in Egypt, It happend all over South America and it's happening now in the new Chavista states. Just wait and see, and dont forget to blame the foreign companies'and their conspiracies for everything when it all fails. Ok?

A.J. challanges Bush to a debate

alaa — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 17:16:01 +0300

Now that's a debate I would just LOVE TO WATCH!

They should however follow my political debates rule. It would make it far more interesting! 10 dollars says that A.J. wears Tighty whiteys!

The Ramses Conspiracy

alaa — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 16:38:39 +0300

I was there last night saying Goodbye to Ramses on his last night in his sqaure. I am resizing the pics now, and didn't want to talk about it until I was done, but when I saw this paragraph in this newsstory.

Some Egyptian archeologists, politicians and intellectuals have opposed
the transfer, alleging it was decided under US pressure because Ramses
II — believed to be the pharaoh who oppressed the Jews and forced
Moses to take his people out of Egypt — was perceived as an
anti-Israeli symbol.

Yes, because the US has decided to ignore the fraudluant elections, the limitations on human rights, freedom of speech and political freedom, and chose to presure Mubarak over the moving of a Statue. Yes, cause I can see that.

How can people who say such stupidity be called intellectuals. Doesn't the word imply, I dunno, Intellect?

Pigro

alaa — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:22:41 +0300

Taking the day off from blogging. Too tired from doing nothing. Who knew that being unemployed and lazy all day could be this exhausting?

(cue in sad violin music)

My Life is soo hard!

Egypt is involved in the Somalia war?

alaa — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 10:43:51 +0300

According to the Somalian PM, we, alongside Libya and Iran (Iran? IRAN????) are helping the islamic militants against his government. No wonder we are not getting involved in Lebanon.

One war at a time people. One war at a time!

Iran bans naughty foreign words

alaa — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 10:39:51 +0300

Gotta admire the Iranian government. That's a government that tackeles important issues!

Al Qaeda wants to liberate Spain??

alaa — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:46:02 +0300

WHATTTTTTTTTT??????????

Poor Lisa

alaa — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 14:46:05 +0300

Lisa's blog , which is by israeli standards, as peacenik as they come, is being hailed by this al arabiya article as the prime example of hardline and fanatic israeli position.

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE…

In other news, they are reporting that the lebanese are mad, because Mrs. Lebanon and Mrs Israe l have taken pictures together.

Fantastic journalism!

Yady el Fadaye7

alaa — Sun, 2 Jul 2006 12:56:04 +0300

Egyptian couple, LA, slavery, ughhhhhhhhh:

An Irvine man and his former wife pleaded guilty Thursday to forcing a
12-year-old illegal immigrant from Egypt to work as their domestic
slave.
Under
terms of a plea deal with federal prosecutors, Abdel Nasser Eid Youssef
Ibrahim, 45, and his former wife, Amal Ahmed Ewis-abd Motelib, 43, each
face up to three years in prison.
The girl, whose name was not released, was brought to the United States
in 2000. Every morning she helped the couple's youngest children get
ready for school, washed clothes, cleaned the house and prepared food.
Following up on an anonymous tip, police in 2002 found the girl living
in squalor in a 12-by-8-foot converted area of the family's garage.
Ibrahim
and Motelib, who were married at the time and have five children, had
both slapped the girl at least once and told her that if police saw her
outside their home alone, they would arrest her, prosecutors said.
[…]
The case shed light on a common though illegal practice in Egypt in
which children from poor families are sent to work for the well-to-do.
The servants, known as Khadamah, usually range in age from 9 to 18 and often are forced to sleep in kitchens.
Two
of the girl's older sisters had worked in Ibrahim's home in Egypt
before he moved to Irvine in 2000. Ibrahim caught one of the sisters
stealing, prosecutors said. He threatened to have her charged with
theft unless the girl's impoverished parents sent their 10-year-old
daughter to work as his family maid in the United States. The girl's
parents signed a document offering her for a "10-year sponsorship" with
the family in exchange for about $30 a month, Keenan said.

There is a happy ending to this story though:

The girl, now 16, is living with a foster family in Southern California
and attending a public high school where "she is doing great," said
Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert J. Keenan. She has received a green card
granting her permanent residency.
[…]
Both are charged with keeping a child in involuntary servitude and
harboring an alien. As part of the plea deal, they must pay the girl
about $100,000 in restitution and back wages. Both will be sentenced
Oct. 23.

Nice, no?

Amalgam

alaa — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:43:13 +0300

"No leader should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen;

no leader should fight a battle simply out of pique. But a kingdom that has once

been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought

back to life. Hence the enlightened leader is heedful, and the good leader full

of caution."

Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Israeli forces arrested nearly one-third of the Hamas-led Palestinian
Cabinet and 20 lawmakers early Thursday and pressed their incursion
into Gaza, responding to the abduction of one of its soldiers.

[…]

No deaths or injuries were reported in the Israeli actions. But the
warplanes knocked out Gaza's electric power plant, raising the specter
of a humanitarian crisis. The Hamas-led government warned of "epidemics
and health disasters" because of damaged water pipes to central Gaza
and the lack of power to pump water.

[…]

Adding to the tension, a Palestinian militant group said it killed an 18-year-old Jewish settler kidnapped in the

West Bank.
Israeli security officials said Eliahu Asheri's body was found buried
near Ramallah. They said he was shot in the head, apparently soon after
he was abducted on Sunday.

AP news story

"Can anyone tell me how the palestenians accept to live liek this ? what
kind of a government that has no dignity, controled by Israel, no army,
no police, no life, no future, and they still say it is a country and a
government, SHU HAL MASKHARA, CLOSE THIS STUPID GOVERNMENT AND CARRY ON
THE WEAPONS AND FIGHT, FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT, FINISH THIS
THEATER, LOT OF MONEY, LOT OF DEAD PEOPLE, BIG TRAGEDY, HOW MANY YEARS
YOU WILL STILL BE LIKE THIS, LOOK WHAT HAPPENED IN LEBANON, THEY
DEFEATED ISRAEL, BUT AT THE END MOST OF THE PALESTINEANS AR E KHAWANA,
, KHAWANA, WE ARE SICK OF YOU AND YOUR NEWS, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING,
ALWAYS CRYING FOR MORE HELP FROM OTHER ARAB COUNTRIES, LIKE A BABIES,
YOU ARE PLAYING WITH THE FUTURE OF A WHOLE GENERATION, ITS BETTER FOR
YOU TO DIE THAN LIVING LIKE THIS, WAKE UP WAKE UP. THANKS ALARABIYA FOR
POSTING."

Al-Arabiya comment

Me: Dude, this is bad

Me: The Jews aren't like us

Me: They actually care for the lives of their own.

B: We care for the lives of our own

Me: 7ayqleboh el donia 3alashan el 3ayell dah (They will turn the world upside down to get that soldier back).

B: But no one else does!

Me: Then Habibty, release the kid

Me: The prisoners document gives pretext to the whole recognizing Israel thing

Me: Without actually recognizing it

Me: It's the way out of the boycott

Me: Why bring it all down by kidnapping a kid now?

Me: What purpose will it serve

B: I don't know

B: Well they think they are trying to make some sort of point, I suppose.

Me: I suspect its the Mesh3el wing who did it.

B: Akeed. (Most definitely)

Me: It's no coincidence that they kidnap him as the others sign the agreement.

B: They are always sabab el masayeb (cause of calamities).

Me: the one that Mesh3al so strongly opposed.

Me: It's all fucked

B: yup

Me: that being said

B: ya..

Me: and coming from an egyptian who lives in a country that doesn't value his life or the lives of the 75 million other egyptian who inhabit it

Me: I kind of envy how much theycare about their own

B: ya…

Me: I mean, I get it, they are few in numbers anyway

B: who? Israel?

Me: bas leih a7nah mesh kedah (But why aren't we like that?)

B: 3alashan a7na 7aywanat (Cause we are animals)

Me: That's not good enough!

Me: It's too simplistic ya B

Me: And I refuse to believe it!

B: Then give me a better explanation!

Me and B. on messenger yesterday!

In a clear warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad, Israeli
airplanes flew ovecr his seaside home near the Mediterranean port city
of Latakia in northwestern Syria, military officials confirmed, citing
the "direct link" between his government and Hamas. Israeli television
reports said four planes were involved in the low-altitude flight, and
that Assad was there at the time.

Syria confirmed Israeli warplanes entered its airspace, but said its air defenses forced the Israeli aircraft to flee.

AP story

"Yes, yes, the Syrian air defenses forced the israelis jets-traveling at mach 3, to flee. Sure. Who the fuck are they kidding?"

My Co-worker, S.

"walla, what did hamas expect, they should stop acting like children,
and then cry for the world to help them after they get themselves into
trouble. The people in gaza have enough troubles than to be occupied
again due to the stupid, irresponsible actions of hamas idiots."

Another Al Arabiya comment

"This is incredibly stupid. They will lose whatever land they had because of this. What are they thinking? (Pause) You know what Sharon once said? He said that what Israel needs to do is to stick to its guns for another 30 years. By that time most of the Oil will be gone, and there will be no more money for the arabs to buy weapons with, or wage war on anyone. And that's when they will get the rest of that land. Mark my words. In 30 Years they will have all of Ghaza again, and all the palestinians will be out, and no one will be able to do anything."

The Girl Yesterday

"Those
who excel in war first cultivate their own humanity and justice and
maintain their laws and institutions. By these means they make their
governments invincible."

Sun Tzu, the Art of War

"Imagine, This could've all ended if the Palestinain enterd the Camp David agreement with us. The whole thing would've been different now had they done that. I swear to god Sadat is the only arab leader who ever used his brain. Had he not done this, we would be just like Syria now. They would've kept Sinai occupied, and we would be putting in the media how we are going to crush them and blah blah blah, while we live in the worst kind of opression under that moron Bashar. No wonder the syrian people don't want to let go of lebanon; their lives in Syria sucks. That's the only place they can breathe."

My co worker, H.

"sooner or later the time will come and the land will inshallah be free. alah akbar alah akbar"

Another comment at Al Arabiya

Yeah, sooner or later this will be over, one way or another!

sigh….

Tengo una remera del Che y no sé por qué

alaa — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:17:23 +0300

It's personally funny to me whenever I go to one of my friends' house and see a Che Guevara poster or T-shirt, the same way it's funny whenever I see him as a car sticker, or a tatoo, or on a mug, or whatever else piece of crap they put his face on these days (We even have a Che Guevara coffe shop in Cairo. For real). Mind you, I don't find it funny because the great socialist hero is now a capitalistic brand, altough that's hilarious on its own, but I find it funny because those who worship him do not fuckin know jack shit about him, and yet idolize him nonetheless. Even writing blogposts on him as the revolutionary hero that fought against imperialism. Ok, fine, let me give you an "alternative account" of Che's History of you will, and then find out if he is really the Heroic symbol that you should flaunt so proudly. Here is a small snippet of what this will include :

For anyone who doesn't know–and a startling number of people are ignorant of the facts of his life–you don't really
want your little boy to grow up to be Che Guevara even if you might
once have wanted to sleep with him or with a look-alike wearing a
tee-shirt with his image on it. Che was a mercenary soldier
who favored radical Socialism but wasn't all that picky about the
"cause" as long as it involved violent slaughter. He had no pity on his
victims; he gloried in their suffering. He had no interest in real
freedom; he and his comrades Fidel and Raoul would dictate who would be
free (those who agreed with them), and who would be oppressed (those
who didn't). At the end of his short life, his unsavory deeds were
catching up with his dashing image and he died an ignominious
death–and not that of a martyr, but of a villain. And he was
ultimately, compared to Castro, pretty small fry–although he can claim
something of a legacy in his complicity in the decades-long suffering
of the Cuban people under a Socialist dictatorship.

What? Doesn't sound like the crap you've been fed? Don't want to continue reading? How about you read how he fought:

Guevara’s disposition when he traveled with Castro from Mexico
to Cuba aboard the Granma is captured in a phrase in a letter to his
wife that he penned on January 28, 1957, not long after disembarking,
which was published in her book Ernesto: A Memoir of Che Guevara in
Sierra Maestra: “Here in the Cuban jungle, alive and bloodthirsty.”
This mentality had been reinforced by his conviction that Arbenz had
lost power because he had failed to execute his potential enemies. An
earlier letter to his former girlfriend Tita Infante had observed that
“if there had been some executions, the government would have
maintained the capacity to return the blows.” It is hardly a surprise
that during the armed struggle against Batista, and then after the
triumphant entry into Havana, Guevara murdered or oversaw the
executions in summary trials of scores of people—proven enemies,
suspected enemies, and those who happened to be in the wrong place at
the wrong time.
In January 1957, as his diary from the Sierra
Maestra indicates, Guevara shot Eutimio Guerra because he suspected him
of passing on information: “I ended the problem with a .32 caliber
pistol, in the right side of his brain…. His belongings were now
mine.” Later he shot Aristidio, a peasant who expressed the desire to
leave whenever the rebels moved on. While he wondered whether this
particular victim “was really guilty enough to deserve death,” he had
no qualms about ordering the death of Echevarrيa, a brother of one of
his comrades, because of unspecified crimes: “He had to pay the price.”
At other times he would simulate executions without carrying them out,
as a method of psychological torture.
Luis Guardia and Pedro
Corzo, two researchers in Florida who are working on a documentary
about Guevara, have obtained the testimony of Jaime Costa Vلzquez, a
former commander in the revolutionary army known as “El Catalلn,” who
maintains that many of the executions attributed to Ramiro Valdés, a
future interior minister of Cuba, were Guevara’s direct responsibility,
because Valdés was under his orders in the mountains. “If in doubt,
kill him” were Che’s instructions. On the eve of victory, according to
Costa, Che ordered the execution of a couple dozen people in Santa
Clara, in central Cuba, where his column had gone as part of a final
assault on the island. Some of them were shot in a hotel, as Marcelo
Fernلndes-Zayas, another former revolutionary who later became a
journalist, has written—adding that among those executed, known as
casquitos, were peasants who had joined the army simply to escape
unemployment.

Or how he was like as a Prison warden?

But the “cold-blooded killing machine” did not show the full
extent of his rigor until, immediately after the collapse of the
Batista regime, Castro put him in charge of La Cabaٌa prison. (Castro
had a clinically good eye for picking the right person to guard the
revolution against infection.) San Carlos de La Cabaٌa was a stone
fortress used to defend Havana against English pirates in the
eighteenth century; later it became a military barracks. In a manner
chillingly reminiscent of Lavrenti Beria, Guevara presided during the
first half of 1959 over one of the darkest periods of the revolution.
José Vilasuso, a lawyer and a professor at Universidad Interamericana
de Bayamَn in Puerto Rico, who belonged to the body in charge of the
summary judicial process at La Cabaٌa, told me recently that
Che
was in charge of the Comisiَn Depuradora. The process followed the law
of the Sierra: there was a military court and Che’s guidelines to us
were that we should act with conviction, meaning that they were all
murderers and the revolutionary way to proceed was to be implacable. My
direct superior was Miguel Duque Estrada. My duty was to legalize the
files before they were sent on to the Ministry. Executions took place
from Monday to Friday, in the middle of the night, just after the
sentence was given and automatically confirmed by the appellate body.
On the most gruesome night I remember, seven men were executed.

Or as a Judge?

there were about eight hundred prisoners in a space fit for no
more than three hundred: former Batista military and police personnel,
some journalists, a few businessmen and merchants. The revolutionary
tribunal was made of militiamen. Che Guevara presided over the
appellate court. He never overturned a sentence. I would visit those on
death row at the galera de la muerte. A rumor went around that I
hypnotized prisoners because many remained calm, so Che ordered that I
be present at the executions. After I left in May, they executed many
more, but I personally witnessed fifty-five executions. There was an
American, Herman Marks, apparently a former convict. We called him “the
butcher” because he enjoyed giving the order to shoot. I pleaded many
times with Che on behalf of prisoners. I remember especially the case
of Ariel Lima, a young boy. Che did not budge. Nor did Fidel, whom I
visited. I became so traumatized that at the end of May 1959 I was
ordered to leave the parish of Casa Blanca, where La Cabaٌa was located
and where I had held Mass for three years. I went to Mexico for
treatment. The day I left, Che told me we had both tried to bring one
another to each other’s side and had failed. His last words were: “When
we take our masks off, we will be enemies.”

Or as a ruler?

In 1958, after taking the city of Sancti Spiritus, Guevara
unsuccessfully tried to impose a kind of sharia, regulating relations
between men and women, the use of alcohol, and informal gambling—a
puritanism that did not exactly characterize his own way of life. He
also ordered his men to rob banks, a decision that he justified in a
letter to Enrique Oltuski, a subordinate, in November of that year:
“The struggling masses agree to robbing banks because none of them has
a penny in them.” This idea of revolution as a license to re-allocate
property as he saw fit led the Marxist Puritan to take over the mansion
of an emigrant after the triumph of the revolution.
The urge to
dispossess others of their property and to claim ownership of others’
territory was central to Guevara’s politics of raw power. In his
memoirs, the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser records that Guevara
asked him how many people had left his country because of land reform.
When Nasser replied that no one had left, Che countered in anger that
the way to measure the depth of change is by the number of people “who
feel there is no place for them in the new society.” This predatory
instinct reached a pinnacle in 1965, when he started talking, God-like,
about the “New Man” that he and his revolution would create.

Or as an *snicker* economic (hehehe) leader?

The great revolutionary had a chance to put into practice
his economic vision—his idea of social justice—as head of the National
Bank of Cuba and of the Department of Industry of the National
Institute of Agrarian Reform at the end of 1959, and, starting in early
1961, as minister of industry. The period in which Guevara was in
charge of most of the Cuban economy saw the near-collapse of sugar
production, the failure of industrialization, and the introduction of
rationing—all this in what had been one of Latin America’s four most
economically successful countries since before the Batista dictatorship.
His
stint as head of the National Bank, during which he printed bills
signed “Che,” has been summarized by his deputy, Ernesto Betancourt:
“[He] was ignorant of the most elementary economic principles.”
Guevara’s powers of perception regarding the world economy were
famously expressed in 1961, at a hemispheric conference in Uruguay,
where he predicted a 10 percent rate of growth for Cuba “without the
slightest fear,” and, by 1980, a per capita income greater than that of
“the U.S. today.” In fact, by 1997, the thirtieth anniversary of his
death, Cubans were dieting on a ration of five pounds of rice and one
pound of beans per month; four ounces of meat twice a year; four ounces
of soybean paste per week; and four eggs per month.
Land reform
took land away from the rich, but gave it to the bureaucrats, not to
the peasants. (The decree was written in Che’s house.) In the name of
diversification, the cultivated area was reduced and manpower
distracted toward other activities. The result was that between 1961
and 1963, the harvest was down by half, to a mere 3.8 million metric
tons. Was this sacrifice justified by progress in Cuban
industrialization? Unfortunately, Cuba had no raw materials for heavy
industry, and, as a consequence of the revolutionary redistribution, it
had no hard currency with which to buy them—or even basic goods. By
1961, Guevara was having to give embarrassing explanations to the
workers at the office: “Our technical comrades at the companies have
made a toothpaste … which is as good as the previous one; it cleans
just the same, though after a while it turns to stone.” By 1963, all
hopes of industrializing Cuba were abandoned, and the revolution
accepted its role as a colonial provider of sugar to the Soviet bloc in
exchange for oil to cover its needs and to re-sell to other countries.
For the next three decades, Cuba would survive on a Soviet subsidy of
somewhere between $65 billion and $100 billion.

Or maybe, how about how he died?

He was killed in Bolivia in 1967,
leading a guerrilla movement that had failed to enlist a single
Bolivian peasant. And yet he succeeded in inspiring tens of thousands
of middle class Latin-Americans to exit the universities and organize
guerrilla insurgencies of their own. And these insurgencies likewise
accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of
thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy—a
tragedy on the hugest scale.

Finally I will leave you with his own words:

"Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle
red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils
dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the
deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join
the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!"
"Hatred as an
element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a
human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an
effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This
is what our soldiers must become … - Che Guevara

Your Hero! I hope you are proud!

My Space Rome and Juliet

alaa — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 13:19:43 +0300

She is American, he is palestinian. She resides in Michigan, he resides in Jericho. He is 20, she is 16. She is in highschool, he is a highschool drop out without a future. He met her through My Space, convinced her to leave her country, escape her parents and schooling, come all the way to Jericho, where she was to convert to Islam and share a room with his sister at his family's house for 2 years until she was 18 and can get married. She escaped her house, jumped on a plan to Israel, was intercepted in Amman and sent back to the US by the evil US authorities, which apparently broke the palestinian boy's man's heart to the point that he "couldn't sleep or stop crying for 3 full days"! The AP writers think this story is "romantic". I am wondering if they heard of the words "emotional manipulation" and "Jailbait" and if the whole world has gone retarded!

Anti-Ghana-ism REDUX

alaa — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 13:34:13 +0300

This whole anti-Ghana-ism thing is taking a life of its own. If it's not enough that the Ghana Football association apologized , or that we invented an actual term for our own serious hate realtionship towards Israel that we are projecting now on Ghana, some of our sports writers went with the natural progression of arab thinking and got out a couple of conspiracy theories of why that damn african monkey dared to show the flag of the cursed zionist entity on our TV's.

"The ignorant and stupid Paintsil, who
spent 20 days in Egypt during the last African Nations Cup, plays for
Hapoel," sports commentator Alaa Sadek wrote in the daily Al-Akhbar,
explaining to baffled Egyptian audiences Painstil's link to Israel.
"Egyptians supported the Ghanaian team all the way until the 82nd
minute, and regretted it after the Israeli flag (waving)," screamed a
bold red headline in the independent daily Al-Masry al-Yom Monday.
"As soon as the referee blew his whistle to start the match,
Egyptians were out enthusiastically, almost hysterically supporting
Ghana, until defender John Paintsil took out the Israeli flag," read
the paper's front page article.
The live commentator on the Arab satellite channel broadcasting all
World Cup matches in the region abruptly cut short his trademark
"goooaaaaaaal" when Paintsil brought out the flag.
"What are you doing, man?" the bewildered commentator said.

All normal so far, right? On with the conspiracy theories:

The main question on Egyptian lips after the match was "why?"
Some papers described Paintsil as a "Mossad agent", others said "an
Israeli had paid him to do it" but the most elaborate theory was
offered by the top-selling state-owned daily Al-Ahram.

Ok, wait for it.. wait for it…

"The real reason," sports analyst Hassan
el-Mestekawi wrote, stems from the fact that many Ghanaian players go
through football training camps set up by an Israeli coach who
"discovered the treasure of African talent, and abused the poverty of
the continent's children" with the ultimate goal of selling them off to
European clubs.
"The training program for these children starts every morning with a salute to the Israeli flag," Mestekawi claimed.

Ehhh..

Hhehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Can't comment. Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off. This is just fuckin great! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!

The Sandmonkey’s identity exposed

alaa — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 10:55:26 +0300

I always knew that one day someone will figure out who I truly am. My secret identity so to speak. Some people tried really hard and formulated all kinds of theories, but one man stood above the rest. One man really dug deep and figured it all out, and posted it on Manal's blog. Here is what he said:

On a lighter note, I wanted to share with you and other members of the
Egyptian blogging community a little secret that I recently unearthed.
Do you know the blogger known as the Sand Monkey? Have you, or any one
in the Egyptian freedom advocates community ever met him physically or
know who he is? I doubt it! You know why? He does not exist…
What if I were to tell that I know who the Sand Monkey really is?
I have no intention of divulging his true
identity, mainly because this is not my business, and also because it
will serve no ostensibly good purpose. Regardless of who he is, I like
many of the things that he does. I just enjoyed the thrill of "outing
him" and am too arrogant to keep it to myself! So short of naming him,
here are a few choice facts about this mythical Sand Monkey:
- The SM is 38 years old.
- He does not live in Cairo, let alone Egypt.
- He does not speak a word of Arabic.
- He is a brilliant man trained in a scientific
discipline. He is a phenomenal writer who possesses an unfathomable
imagination and creativity.
- He is a born again Christian (of Coptic decent)
and is a prominent activist in the Prolife, antiabortion movement in
North America.
- He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but the bulk of his family lives in Montreal, Canada.
- He is the co-founder of Freedom's Zone, Jihadi Monitor, ProlifeHost, and Hyscience.
- He also goes under the name of: drum roll ………………………………………………………………!!!!
“ The Big Pharaoh “
When you do communicate with him next, tell him I
said “hi and Gotcha!”. Also tell him not to worry: he may be a monkey,
but I am not a rat

So, as you all can see, this man uncoverd the truth. I am really Big Pharaoh, and I am really a born again christian American from Tulsa who doesn't live in Egypt, and who doesn't speak a word of Arabic, and I had you all fooled!

Or maybe, just maybe, this moron tracked the server I am on and my URL and found out that it was run and oeprated by my IT guy, Tim, who does live in the midwest, is really 38 year old, is the co-founder of prolifehost and Hyscience and also happens to be the same person who takes care of Big Pharaoh's website.

Did I ever mention how much I love idiots? This one really made my day!

Anti-Ghana-ism

alaa — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:55:24 +0300

I have to say I underestimated the effect that having some of the Ghana players runing around the field waving the Israeli flag would have on the egyptian and arab psyche. Hell, I even laugehd a little when I read BP's post about it. I thought to msyelf: Who cares? If anything, the people who have the right to be upset are the Ghanaians (is that a word?), not us. Right?

Well, I stand corrected. Many egyptians were apparently rooting for Ghana since it is the African team, and since we are an arab, african islamic country, our people root for all african, arab, or islamic teams, and having the Israeli flag waved at the end of the game was akin to a slap on the face for many of them. Suddenly everyone is rooting for Ghana to lose. They are even writing articles about it, and coined a phrase for it: Anti-Ghana-ism (english translation here) . Some are even calling for the saudi or Tunisian teams to start waving the palestinian flags after every football game that they win "in retalliation". We are all in Kindergarden apparently!

God bless Football!

Turkey bans Piglet

alaa — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 16:26:43 +0300

Turkey joins the retards club and bans piglet the same way the british did before them , and for the same reason: the protection of muslim sensibilities!

TURKEY'S public television TRT, controlled by the Islamist-rooted government, has barred the popular Walt Disney cartoon Winnie the Pooh from air because it has a piglet as one of its main heroes, the Turkish press reported today.
Several other cartoons featuring pigs also failed to win the green
light from TRT management, according to the left-wing Cumhuriyet daily.
The station initially considered scissoring the scenes showing
Piglet, but abandoned the idea because the small pink-skinned
character, one of Winnie the Pooh's closest friends, appeared too
often, Cumhuriyet and the mass-circulation Sabah newspaper said.
TRT officials were not immediately available for comment.
Pigs are regarded as unclean by Muslims and Islam prohibits the consumption of pork.

Ok, so the british are retarded multiculturalists who think that muslims really get offended by Piglet, so they ban him out of misguided, albeit good, intentions. Fine. What's Turkey's excuse? They are a muslim nation and this is an islamic party government, and last I checked Piglet wasn't Haram. WTF is going on?

Egypt bans Da Vinci code novel

alaa — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:10:46 +0300

In defense of religion, of course:

Egyptian authorities will confiscate copies of the best-selling novel
The Da Vinci Code and ban the film based on the book from showing in
Egypt, the culture minister told parliament on Tuesday.
To applause from members of parliament, minister Farouk Hosni said: "We
ban any book that insults any religion… We will confiscate this book."

A culture minister proudly states that he confiscate a book to cheering applause. Tell me life in Egypt isn't Kafka-esque!

Parliament was debating the book and film at the request of several Coptic Christian members who demanded a ban.
Georgette Sobhi, a Coptic member, held up a copy of the book and the
Arabic translation and said it contained material which was seriously
offensive.
"It's based on Zionist myths, and it contains insults towards Christ,
and it insults the Christian religion and Islam," she said.

Ahh, they said the magic word: ZIONIST. You can ban anything in Egypt with that word. Hey, people who read the book: How many of you saw any Insult to Islam in that novel? Hell, how many saw zionist myths in that novel? What is a zionist myth anyway? And while we are at it, how much you want to bet that Georgette didn't even read that book?

A central part of the fictional plot is that Christ married Mary Magdalene and that their descendants are alive today.
Hussein Ibrahim, the deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood's
parliamentary bloc, said that as the Brotherhood had opposed the Danish
cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, so they would oppose any insult to
Jesus Christ.

So Mosques having weekly friday sermons about how christian and jews are grandchildren of pigs and monkeys, not to mention infidels, and that's ok! No one does anything and not a single Imam is spoken to about inciting hatred against our christian brothers! Churches attacked and church-goers killed by islamists who consider christians infidels that should be killed thanks to those same sermons, that's no biggie! We will blame it on some crazy guy and pretend that nothing happened! But a book comes out about how Jesus was a man- which is what the KORAN SAYS ANYWAY- and we are suddenly the defenders of christians in Egypt and totally sensitive to their demands and what offends them? Are you kidding me?

I have a migraine now!

Some things will never change!

alaa — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:17:43 +0300

Give 'em guns step back watch 'em kill each other!

Changes, Tupac Shakur

Just don’t call it a civil war

alaa — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:00:46 +0300

That would be bad. Just call it a brotherly-disagreement-that-involves-lots-of-bullets-and-violence amongst the palestinain people . But no, not a civil war, cause that would be serving the plans of the american agents. Ok?

Sigh…

Freaky

alaa — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 15:11:14 +0300

This is an actual true story that was reported in the egyptian newspapers:

A Taxi driver was driving in Cairo at night when this old man who had a white beard and was dressed all in white stopped him and asked him to take him to a certain destination. The Taxi driver agreed and started conversing with the old guy, who was both friendly and courteous. Two other men signaled to the taxi to stop and the driver decided to pick them up as well, since the destination was on the way of the old guy's destination. After they boarded the taxi and he started driving again, he leaned on the old guy and said :" I hope you don;t mind me picking them up!", to which the old man said "Not at all, they are on my way anyway!". And that's when the 2 guys sitting in the back asked the driver: "Hey, driver, who are you talking to exactly?"

The driver replied, "to the old man sitting next to me of course!"

The two guys in the back looked all confused and said to the driver: "But the seat next to you is empty! There is no one sitting there!"

The astonished driver looked at the old man sitting next to him, who leaned over and with a strong hollow voice said: "They are right. They can not see me!"

The driver, getting all nervous, asked: "Why can't they see you?"

"Cause I am Azrael, the angel of death, and I am suppsoed to collect your soul in the next 10 minutes!", the man replied calmly. "If I were you, I would find the nearest mosque and go pray to god to forgive me for my sins right now!"

The man, terrified out of his wits to be sitting next to the angel of death and knowing that he is going to die in the next few minutes, stops the car at the nearest mosque he sees, runs out of it, and heads inside where he starts praying profiously for god's firgiveness. After being done with his prayers, he feels all calm and collected and ready to meet his maker, and steps out of the mosque to head back to his car and his impending doom…

..to find that the car, along with the two passengers and the man who said he was Azreal, was no longer standing there!

According to the papers, this is the third guy who fell for the same con in Egypt, leaving his car in the care of three strangers after one of them convinces him that he is the angel of death, and it was used before in both Saudi and in Jordan!

Pretty funny, huh?

No worldcup for you

alaa — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 12:31:34 +0300

The Islamist militia in Somalia banned the viewing of the worldcup, and its now causing riots in Mogadishu. Big Pharaoh has the story!

“I blame Bush for my abortion!”

alaa — Wed, 7 Jun 2006 16:16:14 +0300

Now, there is an argument you don't hear everyday!

On opprutunists

alaa — Tue, 6 Jun 2006 13:16:04 +0300

Rana Farouk is quitting singing and becoming a hijabi so that she can be a great role model to all muslim girls everywhere. Now, if 3 of you can tell me 2 known songs that Rana Farouk has done, hell, if 3 of you can tell nme that you have heard of her before today, I would be impressed!

On a completely seperate note, I just saw the advertisments for a new album by Tarek Fouad (who is one mediocre egyptian pop singer who is always there but no one knows why or can tell a single hit he had in the past 6 years) is called "Our beloved Prophet Mohamed. So please, ye of the strong islamic faith that have boycotted butter and Lego, please go buy his record and make him rich support the Prophet. You know that this has nothing to do with him needing money at all.

Witch-hunt in Saudi

alaa — Tue, 6 Jun 2006 12:03:01 +0300

Hey,now that they are looking for witches, maybe now the Mutawas will lay off the women. Oh, who am I kidding? Witches are usually women anyway. Oh Boy!

Unblock Eve

alaa — Sat, 3 Jun 2006 09:41:59 +0300

The Saudi female blogger Eve just had her blog blocked in Saudi thanks to the valiant efforts of the Saudi male Blogistanis who really hate to see women expressing themselves over the inetrnet, or like, anywhere. The other saudi female bloggers (Aya and Farah to cite an example) are fuming over it, not to mention afraid that their blogs are next. There is, however, something we can do to help: Go fill this unblock request form . Enough people fill it, and she gets her blog back,thus sending a collective FUCK YOU to any Saudi male asshole who thinks he has the right to tell Saudi women what she can say on her own damn blog.

Viva Chavez

alaa — Sun, 28 May 2006 15:21:27 +0300

Chavez is spending $1.5 billion in Bolivia to prop up his own poodle the Bolivian President in front of his people and show that not all investers are running away from Bolivia (just the ones interested in making money). Good for Bolivia, shitty for venezuelans. That's your money guys, and he is wasting it. And guess what? You voted for him. At least Nasser had a coup.

sigh…

And I am talking about the real kind

alaa — Tue, 23 May 2006 13:31:52 +0300

Die Zionist Chickens . DIEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Heroes of our Time?

alaa — Tue, 23 May 2006 11:42:09 +0300

Ahemd T had a list that the New Statesman compiled of heroes of our time . The list includes: Hugo Chavez, Noam Chomsky, Bill Clinton, Fidel Castro,George Galloway and-of course- Jimmy Carter!

I am just mad that Saddam Hussein or Bashar Al Assad didn't make the nlist. They were robbed man. Robbed!