Manal and Alaa's bit bucket

I figured it out: Syria is not protected by the Egyptian laws so I can make fun of them on my Egyptian blog! As matter of fact all Egyptian bloggers can start attacking the Syrian Regime while the Syrian bloggers can do us a favor and attack the Egyptian one. This way we will both be safe! while doing each other a favor!

So here is headline in Algomhoria that made me smile:

بعد تحليق طائرات إسرائيل فوق قصر بشار
سوريا : قادرون علي ردع أي هجوم لجيش الاحتلال

?? I do not know how to comment on this? Can you make sense of this headline? I can not. it just made me smile because I tried to figure how did this minister or official looked to the cameras hours after foreign aeroplanes flew over his president bedroom and then he can face the cameras and say "we are ready!!!"

Man...

Al-Gomhouria reported the following regarding the jailing of the editor who "humilated" the president.:


"
قبل النطق بالحكم قال المستشار أسامة صلاح إن المحكمة تنعي ما آلت إليه القيم والأخلاق واندثارها ...........................
قال ها هي تلك الأقلام تعود كسهام نحو صدر من كفل لها حرية الكلمة وهو رئيس الجمهورية.
التفاصيل في حوادث وقضايا "


Thanks to the judge; he gave me new information I did not know before: I always thought that حرية الكلمة was granted by the constitution and not by the president.

Read the full story at CNN:

CNN:
Billionaire Warren Buffett said Monday his decision to leave most of his wealth to charity was "logical." "I'm not an enthusiast for dynastic wealth, especially when the alternative is six billion people much poorer (than we are) having a chance to benefit from the money,

I: Would not it be nice if our rich guys/ladies in Egypt leave most of their fortunate to charity like this American Billionaire.

In the BBC today:

قضت محكمة مصرية بالسجن لمدة عام على رئيس تحرير صحيفة الدستور الاسبوعية بعد إدانته بإلاساءة إلى رئيس الجمهورية.

Ya nhar abid, da elmodow begad wa bahk wa hakiki. Ana kont fakrehim bihosha wa bas.

I think I should go ahead and switch this blog to cooking as I planned earlier to be on the safe side :).

Here is a nice article in BBC

"Researchers in the US once spent months looking into why the French remained so much slimmer than Americans. After intensive study, they came to a remarkable conclusion:

It was because the French ate less!

Main courses, puddings, even drinks all come in smaller sizes. No super-size portions in Paris... yet."

It is remarkable that Prophet Mohamed PBUH some 1400 years ago said: The are no more evil container a human can fill than the stomach. He also instructed us when we eat to keep only 1/3 of our stomach for food, 1/3 for drinks and 1/3 for air!!!!

Ahmed Ragab asked today in Al-Akhbar:

متي تتخلص بلدي من اسم فسادستان وليعود اليها اسمها الطاهر:مصر

The answer is simple:

This will happen when every one knows that he/she can get fired if the job was not done right, no matter who he/she may know higher up in government chain. If the quality of your work is the only thing that is keeping you in your position and not the gifts you gave to your boss then every one will not dare to abuse his job.

This starts at the top of the government chain by firing any one who does not do his/her Job right and more important by providing the mechanism by which people

Congratulations!

Today in Alakhbar:

قرر النائب هشام مصطفي خليل التقدم بطلب الي مجلس الشعب لسحب مشروع قانون الشائعات.

Bravo Hesham!

What did we learn from this episod: Normal people can make a difference! The opposition that we made to this law did work!

To celebrate let us make this day 6/17 an annual day for rumors.... No let us not, it is not Islamicly right to spread rumors.

Congratulations again!

I just watched the movie over ART-Aemerica. This is the second time I saw that movie the first one was many years ago in Egypt! I was very impressed at that time and I am still impressed today.

The songs words, Majda Elromie voice, the script, the photographer, the direction of Youseef Shaheen .... what can I say ... this movie makes Me proud that I am Egyptian and that I am Arab.

The best part the song: "The street belongs to us, only to us .... The other people; those selfish ones, are not part of us"

Amazing movie....and May be even the best arabic movie ever made?! MUST-SEE

I read this comment on one blog

".... In other words, I do not believe that hardcore Islam and hardcore liberalism are capable of reconciliation. And it's a bit difficult to be NOT hardcore in either of them. .... "

The first words I am tempted to say is "How stupid this guy is" but I am not going to say it :) because I learned that I should attack the opinion and not the person.

So ...

This opinion is *wrong*. In fact Islam and liberalism is one coin with two faces!!!

Yes!!!

Look at the fact that we do not have priests in Islam! No one between you and God.

Look at the fact that any one in the mosque can lead the prayer upon the approval of those praying behind him.

Look at the fact that fact that all mosques in the USA choose their leaders by voting.

CNN report today about president Bush fight. Read here. In the report, they are talking about a constitutional amendment that has a "slim" chance of passage.

I wonder what do we Egyptians learn from this "slim chance" story.

Does this story tell us that the majority's religious/social/political/... beliefs should/could/might/... be imposed on the whole society by a "slim" chance of passage on the congress floor.

Is it morally possible for any religious/social/economical majority to impose its rules on the other religious/social/economical minorities?

As it clear by this story, the answer is YES. You can do that, guild-free as long as you gave every one the right to vote.

In the website FilBalad today:

جددت النيابة العامة المصرية يوم الثلاثاء حبس 133 ناشطا لمدة 15 يوما على ذمة التحقيق معهم بتهم التجمهر وترديد هتافات مناهضة للحكومة.

If I am the leader of "Kefaya" and I would like to organize a protest on a certain day against the government, the last thing I would do is to send my members to the specific square where the police force is waiting to arrest my members!!!!!

.... where then I would send them!! You ask???
I would send them to *every* and *all* squares in Cairo instead!

.... I would send two to Ramsis square, Two to Attaba Square, two to El-Giza Square, etc ....

Being in the USA I can not verify how successful was the Turning-off-light plan last Thursday. People were supposed to turn-off the light between 9-10 pm as a protest to the heavy-hand tactics of the Police when dealing with demonstrations.

Hopefully it did work. But any way, we need more of these events to put more pressure on the government to move toward political reform.

It has been embarrassing to watch (in the news) only few thousands (some time hundreds) demonstrating in a city (Cairo) that has 16 million persons. Why is that? Why only a few Egyptians seem to be interested.

Of course the opposition party would blame it on the government and how it limited the freedom of the political parties to operate in the society and especially in the universities.

Technologically I mean of course! As a matter of fact we are more advanced than the USA in some fields. For example we take care of our parents much more!

I have been thinking about this question since I came to the USA on daily basis actually. Every where I look every event I attend I am always thinking about this comparison.

So beside corruption which is the source of all evils in Egypt, one answer is better work ethics. It is strange that the Americans will have better work ethics considering the fact that the prophet told us that Allah likes if any one do a job that the job is perfected! So how come after a direct order like this we do not do a perfect job in every single job we are responsible for? May be we forgot about this Hadith?

But what about the Americans? Why they (in my eyes) do perfect jobs? Answer: Market economy! Every one of my colleagues knows that he can get fired tomorrow so he/she better work really hard.

I had one German colleague; he used to work like a clock.

Call me nationalist but I am really proud that Abdel Based Abdel Samd is Egyptian. You can listen to him reading the Quran as well as other readers at:

http://quran.muslim-web.com/

I just listened to President Mubarak in Egyptian Satellite Channel. He said winds of reform will keep blowing toward the area (good!) and he warned from rushing toward reform(!) and iterated that reform should be gradual.

I think President Mubarak needs to explain more what exactly are the dangers of rushing toward reform. Many Egyptians (me included) do not see any danger from independent Court, Free Elections, Eliminating corruption in the government, and specifically the taming of Egyptian police practices! (Please! enough hitting people with your shoes, see photo below).

What is so bad about rushing toward these goals!

We need the government to share with us any hidden dangers that we as public do no associate with having independent court!

In NewYork Times today: "The government's (Egyptian) intentions in the judges' case seem clear. The Interior Ministry (Habib Al-Adly) announced Tuesday that all demonstrations in support of the judges would be deemed illegal, and it began Wednesday night to move riot-equipped police forces into the area around the High Court."

I guess today (Thursday) is the day when "Kefaya" and others can prove that they are ready to "pay the price" for the political reform they demanded, as they declared in their webpage.

If the Egyptians *really* need any thing from the government, there is no way the government can stand against their wish (75 million Egyptians!!), so the whole political reform issue is really a question of how serious the p