Today I was supposed to announce the winner of the Sandmonkey “beat this caption” competition on this picture, but the fact that so many good submissions were in made it very hard to pick an absolute winner. It’s also sad to note that one of my absolute favorite comment, this one by zobrex, couldn’t be submitted for the final round because it’s written in egyptian arabic and there is no way I can translate its meaning to make it as funny in english as it is in arabic (Trust me, I tried).

So to spare me the agony of eliminating other great comments from the competition, I am sticking to what I preceive to be the top 5 comments in english and I am submitting them for a vote. I am a believer of democracy here, and I think you should be the ones to decide which one you like best amongst those 5 finalists. Voting will be closed midnight tommorow, so get your vote in as fast as you can.

Here are the finalists:

1) Melanie : What is this I feel? I thought they said covering up would prevent us coming into contact with large erect objects.

2) mousey: i can see your eyelid, you whore!

3) Papa Ray : Oh…its so…big..and..hard…

4) Anonymous: New MTV reality show: “Egypt’s Top Model”

5) Beautiful atrocities: “That bitch copies everything I wear!”

Now go and vote your favorite.

Sandmonkey out!

This sign is real. It’s part of an effort in Iowa to encourage abstinence amongst young girls, as evidenced by the use of the term “bling” in it. Iowa is street yo. Funky Fresh.

All kidding aside, you have to admire the message behind it: It’s asking them to wait till they get married not because of any moral or religious reasons, but because there is bling involved and they shouldn’t be cheated out of it. It’s the old “why buy the milk when you can fuck the cow for free?” piece of wisdom, only given a new hip hop spin to help relate it to Iowa’s increasingly “gangsta” youth. The message is this: Don’t do it before marriage girls, or you are gonna miss out on all the shiny objects the man is supposed to buy you so you can sleep with him. A moral lesson for the ages, don’t you think?

God knows I am not opposed to girls preferring to stay abstinent till marriage because they are religious, or think you should wait for someone special or any of those other legitimate( ok maybe a bit corny sometimes, but who am I to Judge?) reasons they could have . But to promote abstinence for jewlery obtainment purposes? How different is that from saying :”Because you should be getting paid for this, girl!”? How about “Don’t suck that thing, before you get that bling!” for their next slogan? You getting my point here?

Oh well, who am I kidding? Marriage is about money. Nevermind..

So Girls, please remember: Get the jewlery before you get the sex. It’s like getting paid for getting laid.

Our boy, this week, choses to take a somber look at a detriorating middle-east conflict that the US is engaged in a country it occupies.

The situation is bad and possibly deteriorating. In spite of open elections with wide participation, and in spite of the promulgation of a federal-type constitution that controversially privileges Islam, attacks are on the increase and the number of American soldiers already killed in 2005 is almost double the number for last year. Suicide bombers, often recruited from beyond the borders but also generated internally, demonstrate increasing ruthlessness and sophistication. Kidnapping and hostage-taking suggest an overlap between jihadism and organized crime. Warlordism and sectarianism remain toxic. No obvious end is in sight. The situation in Afghanistan, in other words, is giving rise to mounting concern.

And then he wonders: well, why don’t people call for US troop withdrawel there as much as they are doing in Iraq? Well, the easy answer is because Iraq is different and that no one in the middle-east really cares about Afghanistan. But why is Iraq different? Well…

The real difference is this, if one is permitted to mention such a coarse thing as interest: Iraq is enormously more important, geopolitically, than Afghanistan. It sits beside one of the choke-point sea lanes of the global economy, and it occupies a keystone position between the Wahhabist theocracy of Saudi Arabia and the Shiite theocracy of Iran. One may despair of the stupidity of the Bush administration’s “drug war” in Afghanistan (”just hold still while we liberate you and burn your only crop and make sure that all profits go to gangsters”), but it is a bagatelle when compared to the gigantic stakes of Iraqi oil. If anything like a federal and democratic Iraq emerged and was able to recuperate its ravaged and corrupted oil fields, it could undercut the Saudi and Iranian duopoly as well as provide a modern standard of living to a people immiserated by three decades of war and fascism. This would be a prize of historic proportions.

Iran and Saudi can’t want that. So what are they going to do about it?

Well..

However that may be, both wings of the “insurgency” spend a lot of time trying to blow up the infrastructure of the Iraqi oil industry, and they have succeeded in diverting enormous resources away from reconstruction and toward simple protection of the pipelines and refineries.

Kinda gives the whole undergorund “We are doing it for Allah and Islam” Saudi and Iranian support to the “insurgency” an iffy smell, don’t you think?

Hmm…

Read Hitchens once a week kids. He is good for you!

The devil is having it rough, and he openly wonders: Why does everyone hate me?

I can’t help but feel bad for him though; no one deserves to be worshipped by Marilyn Manson, you know?

This is how people should drive and parallel park. Period.

4 peace activists get kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq, and the peace organization blames the kidnapping on the coalition forces.

Al-Jazeera broadcast video Tuesday of four Western peace activists held hostage by a previously unknown group, part of a new wave of kidnappings police fear is aimed at disrupting next month’s elections.

The news station said the four were seized by the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, which claimed they were spies working under the cover of Christian peace activists. The captives_ an American, a Briton and two Canadians — were members of the Chicago-based aid group Christian Peacemaker Teams.

The footage showed Norman Kember, a retired British professor with a shock of white hair, sitting on the floor with three other men. The camera revealed the 74-year-old Kember’s passport, but the other hostages were not identified.

A 74 year old US spy. The agency must be really lacking new recruits.

But Christian Peacemaker Teams confirmed the others were Tom Fox, 54, of Clearbrook, Va.; James Loney, 41, of Toronto; and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, a Canadian electrical engineer. They had been missing since Saturday.

The Christian peacemaker teams is of course angry at the people responsible for the kidnapping of their people, who are not the terrorists who kidnapped them and are threatening to kill them mind you, but the US occupation.

In a statement, Christian Peacemaker Teams said it strongly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq and blamed the kidnapping on coalition forces.

“We are angry because what has happened to our teammates is the result of the actions of the U.S. and U.K. government due to the illegal attack on Iraq and the continuing occupation and oppression of its people,” the group said.

Typical..

Al Zarqawi is probably still regretting that Jordan attack till today; after it turned his whole country against him, the attacks have caused his clan members to disown him not once, but twice. The first time it was 60 people, this time it was more than 370 members of his clan. Ouch..

The members of the Bani Hassan tribe published a full-page letter in Jordanian newspapers pronouncing their loyalty to King Abdullah II. The letter bore the stamps and signatures of more than 370 clan members.

It was the second attempt to persuade Jordanians that the family has renounced all ties to the man who claimed responsibility for the Nov. 9 triple suicide blasts in Amman hotels that killed 60 people. Three weeks ago, 60 members of al-Zarqawi’s al-Khalayleh clan published a similar letter.

“We, the sons of the Bani Hassan tribe in all its branches in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan support and express solidarity with our cousins, the al-Khalayleh clan, and their decision to sever relations with the terrorist Ahmad Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, who calls himself Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” said Tuesday’s letter.

“We condemn all terrorist actions carried out or claimed by this individual — actions which are alien to members of this tribe,” it said.

Gotta feel bad for Zarqawi, just the day before he rebuked the 60 members who sevred ties with him as “enemies of God”. His feelings were that hurt.

The message came a day after the al-Qaida in Iraq group condemned other family members for disavowing relations with al-Zarqawi.

“Either the enemy of God forced you to take this step … or you agreed and did it voluntarily,” the group said in a Web statement. “Enemy of God” was a reference to King Abdullah.

“If the first case, then you have an excuse. In the latter case, then you can only make your excuses before God Almighty,” said the statement, posted Monday on an Islamic Web forum and signed by al-Qaida in Iraq’s spokesman, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t wait to hear your excuses in front of God Almighty Mr. Zarqawi.

The USA is mad at the UAE because of its arrest of 24 gays who were having a mass wedding. The US is not mad because gays were arrested, but because the government wanted to “cure them” using hormone therapy injections, which they say is against international law.

Washington has condemned the United Arab Emirates’ arrest of more than two dozen gays at what police called a mass homosexual wedding and warned that any attempt to treat detainees with male hormones would violate international law.

[...]

In criticizing the arrests, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement Monday: “We call on the government of the United Arab Emirates to immediately stop any ordered hormone and psychological treatment and to comply with the standards of international law.”

But the UAE wants everyone to be assured that it would never force hormones injections on anyone. It will be optional, and in exchange of reduced sentencing.

An Interior Ministry official close to the investigation told The Associated Press on Tuesday that hormones would be given only with the suspects’ consent — either as a sentence-reduction option if found guilty in court or voluntarily before trial.

Hmm.. go to jail in an arab country for homosexuality and enjoy being raped daily, or take Brave new world-ish chemical and psychological treatment that could at worst kill you and at best change who you are as a person completley and turn it into something the UAE government would deem normal? Choices..Choices..

Despite their gains in parliament, the government insists that it will keep the Muslim Brotherhood group banned. Like that makes a difference in the polls, you know?

A lot of people are informing me that they are getting lots of annoying POP-UP ads when they log on my site and it’s pissing them off. Knowing that I visit this like 5 times a day and never encounterd one, I am guessing the pop-ups are targeting those with US IP’s. Either way, I have nothing to do with it, and I don’t know how to make it go away, which pisses me off because A) I hate pop-up ads, B) I am not getting paid for them, C) I don’t like people harassing my readers and D) I HATE, SERIOULSY HATE, POP-UP ADS. Did I say that already? Well, here it is again for emphasis. I fuckin loathe them. The first person who wrote their code should get disemboweld with a spoon. A wooden one at that. Anyway…

So I am asking those tech savvy amongst you to give me advice on what to do. Is My Blog hacked? Does anyone know how to make the pop-ups stop? Are crawlers involved? Is there someone I can bitch at to make this stop? Just point me to the way people, I am very good at bithcing. Or tell me how to solve the problem, because I have no idea how to solve it myself. So , yeah, please help me out here if you know how to make this stop.

Thanks

Let’s say that the 25 Pakistanis who dissappeared are indeed terrorists with the intention of blowing themselves up in suicide missions. A good question would be : What would be a good target for crazy islamists terrorists to blow up in Alexandria? Think about it for a second.

Hmmm……

Oh yeah. Churches. Moharam Beik may be the hub of mayhem once again this year.

This begs another question though: If the terrorists did blow up that church where the infamous play was performed, how would the average egyptian muslim feel about that? Which one do you think it will be: Anger, disgust, or “they had it coming”?

Just wondering.

( The following conversation happend 2 days ago between me and my MB leaning friend H.)

Me: You ever hear of the “Koran-aen”?
H: No, who are they?
Me: They are a group of Muslims who say that they only follow the Koran and what it has to say, and refuse to follow anything else, including the hadiths. They claim that Hadiths authenticity can not be trusted or verified and therefore they don’t follow and reject anything in Islamic lore that deals with or comes from them. For them being a Muslim is about following the Koran and nothing else.
H: Oh, so they are a bunch of Kafarah (Infidels)?
Me: What do you mean Infidels? They follow the Koran and believe in god and the prophet. Why are they infidels?
H: Because the Hadiths are part of the Sunnah. Hell, the Sunnah is entirely built on Hadiths. And the Prophet himself said that the Sunnah is Islam and whomever doesn’t follow it is a Kafir.
Me: It’s reported that he said that in a hadith, right?
H: Yes. What’s your point?
Me: Nevermind. Now, according to what you are saying, anyone who doesn’t follow the Sunnah is an infidel. Is that correct?
H: Yes. That’s correct.
Me: Does that mean that all the Shia in the world are infidels?
H: I didn’t say that.
Me: But they are Shia, which means that they don’t follow and down-right reject a big chunk of the Sunnah. We can chose to do so and not be infidels? We are allowed to pick and chose which part of the Sunnah we like to follow?
H: No. We are not. Whomever rejects the Sunnah or a part of it is an infidel.
Me: So you are saying that the Shia are infidels?
H: I am saying that by rejecting the sunnah or parts of it they are infidels, yes.
Me: Wow. You do realize that you have just called the majority of Iraq and the entire country of Iran Infidels?
H: Oh lord. See, that’s why I don’t like talking to you about stuff like that.
Me: You are not backing down, are you? You still maintain that they are infidels, right?
H: No, I am not backing down. Yes, by being Shia they are infidels.
Me: Nice. Now, do you think the egyptian muslim population would still support them and hail them as the model of the modern Islamic state if they figured out that they are infidels?
H: Well, Yeah!
Me: How so?
H: They want Israel destroyed, don’t they?
Me: Touche man! LOL..Tou-che!

The Ayman Nour Trial circus is coming to an end, with the verdict coming out either today or tommorow, and the proceedings being nothing short of an outright fiasco. The Judge prevented the defense to call in their witnesses, so the defense withdrew on the account of wrongful proceedings. In this case, the Judge is supposed to either negotiate with Nour’s lawyers or appoint a new defense lawyer. The Judge did neither and will announce a verdict either way.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since it is the same Judge that sentenced Saad El Deen Ibrahim for “Tarnishing Egypt’s reputation” by doing research on egyptian election fraud. He seems to be the Government Go-To Judge to bring out verdicts against the government’s enemies and critics. The Sentencing could amount to anywhere from 15 to 25 eyars in prison and the sentence would have to be implemented effective immedietly, since it’s coming from the Appeals court.

Sure, Nour can appeal to the higher appeals court (Mahkamet el nakd), but the court will take a minimum of 3 years and an average of 7 years to view his case. Either way, this ruling strips him from his political rights for life and will ensure he won’t be able to run for anything again. The government is working to make one hell of an example out of him and I am sad to say that their efforts so far have been a success.

The Egyptian newspapers are reporting that 25 Pakistani males have dissappeared without a trace in Alexandria, leaving their cloths, luggage, and passports behind in the hotel they were staying in. The Police , of course, have no leads and the newspapers are remiss not to make the connection that they are here for possible terrorist attacks. After all, one would have very good reasons to suspect that, No?

Arizona State University is a very well known party school in the US, and its coeds are infamous for posing for Playboy and Hustler and other…ehem..gentlemen’s magazines. This wouldn’t happen without consequences anymore if the current Student Government President can help it.

Undergraduate Student Government President Yaser Alamoodi is hoping to pass a rule that would prohibit males and females from posing in magazines he believes are damaging to ASU’s reputation.

“I was concerned to see logos and the name of ASU being associated with such magazines,” he said. “I don’t want the name of ASU to be a joke anymore, and I think the Playboy association is a big reason why the ASU academic reputation is not up to what it should be.”

Under the proposed rule, students who posed would be punished by the rules set forth in the student code of conduct. According to the code, any student who is found to violate the rules is subject to expulsion, suspension, probation, warning or payment of restitution.

The reason why this is contreversial is because A) This is a freedom of speech issue, B) Posing for adult magazines is not illegal, and therefore people shouldn’t be punished for it, and finally C) Yaser is a Saudi national, trying to impose a moralistic rule only he supports on american students. What’s wrong with this picture? Imagine if the situation got reversed (Saudi school, american SG president tries to impose his country’s morals on the school body) and you will get what I mean.

Yaser, leave the ASU slutty girls alone. You want to be in a place that restricts the freedom of students to do something that will shame them and their children for years to come, well, go back to Saudi you dweeb. Trying to make it a rule that girls who expose themselves get expelled… peshhh. What are you? Gay? We should encourage more of them to pose naked you nimrod. Hurray for Boobies..or something!

With one witness dead, the other witness changing his story, things are not looking good for Syria. Actually more along the lines of looking desperate. Gotta give their intelligence people props though. They are good at what they do. But I have to agree with Hani here. Getting the guy to claim that he was tortured and bribed by Saad Harriri to falsely testify against Syria, that was just too pathetic.

Raja also seems to agree:

In all seriousness though, this man appears to have attempted to infiltrate the investigation and failed. His initial contact with Mehlis and Khashan prove that he at least tried. His failed infiltration only increases the credibilty of the Mehlis investigation. By concocting such a public affairs fiasco, it appears that the regime may be trying to make the best out of the investment they sunk into this project.

And some people will believe it. Why will some arabs go out of their way to defend indefensible , corrupt, tyrannical and morally repugnant regimes such as Bashar’s Syria or Saddam’s Iraq? Why? There is no heroism in defending butchers. There is no pan-arabism in making excuses for the people we know to be guilter then sin. The fact that we even contemplate defending them or supporting them because the US or Israel attacks them is indictive of our moral intellectual failure if anything. Why do people allow themselves to particiapte in defending the guilty in the name of arab solidarity? What’s the point? Does anyone get it? Cause I can’t for the life of me.

It’s been two years, we all know that Saddam is guilty as sin and yet the Judge allows this kind of shannanigans to take place. What’s wrong with this dude?

Saddam began with a verse from the Muslim holy book that reminds believers who aspire for heaven that God knows who actually participated in jihad, or holy war.

He then complained that he had to walk up four flights of stairs in shackles and accompanied by “foreign guards” because the elevator was not working.

The chief judge, Rizgar Mohammed Amin, said he would tell the police not to let that happen again.

“You are the chief judge,” Saddam snapped back, speaking like a president to a subordinate. “I don’t want you to tell them. I want you to order them. They are in our country. You have the sovereignty. You are Iraqi and they are foreigners and occupiers. They are invaders. You should order them.”

Saddam also complained that some of his papers had been taken from him.

“How can a defendant defend himself if his pen was taken? Saddam Hussein’s pen and papers were taken. I don’t mean a white paper. There are papers downstairs that include my remarks in which I express my opinion,” he said.

Amin ordered bailiffs to give Saddam pen and paper.

Oh, he should just be beaten everytime he makes a request as far as I am concerned. Saddam’s trial should be as fair as the trials conducted under his rule. This trial is too lenient for his ass, and I am not the only one who thinks so.

The court’s tolerance of vocal complaints from the defendants drew sharp criticism from Shiite politicians who contend the tribunal is trying too hard to accommodate an ousted dictator who should have already been convicted and executed.

“The chief judge should be changed and replaced by someone who is strict and courageous,” said Shiite legislator Ali al-Adeeb, a senior official in Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s party.

[...]

The slow pace of the proceedings has angered many Iraqis — especially majority Shiites — who believe Saddam should have already been punished for his alleged crimes. Shiites and Kurds were heavily oppressed by Saddam’s Sunni Arab-dominated regime.

“Iraqis are beginning to feel frustrated,” said Ridha Jawad Taki, a senior official in the country’s biggest Shiite party. “The court should be more active. Saddam was captured two years ago. … The weakness of this court might affect the verdicts, and this is worrying us.”

[...]

In Baghdad, Shiite businessman Saadoun Abdul-Hassan stayed home Monday to watch the trial on television but expressed disappointment over the pace.

“Saddam does not need witnesses or evidence. The mass graves are the biggest witness and he should be executed in order for the security situation to improve,” he said.

I agree. I only hope he is not being kept alive as some sort of bargaining chip with the Baathists terrorist groups now that they are in talks with the government, you know?

I just discoverd today that my aunt has cancer. She has it in her bones. My father told me. The only people who know about it are my dad, me, my other aunt and my cancer-ridden aunt’s son, my cousin. He is a doctor and he is the one who found out from the tests they conducted when she reported having back pains. My Aunt- his mother- doesn’t know she has anything beyoned back-pain. Her cancer is probably incureable and she will die. He has to pretend every day to be completly normal around her, while he cries himself to sleep every night. The same applies to my other aunt who knows that her sister’s days are numberd and who goes with her to the hospital for the tests she is conducting for her “back-pain”. My aunt is dying and she doesn’t know.

She is not the only one in the dark mind you: another aunt exists who can not be told, because she will probably get a heart-attack or tell my grandmother, who will most deifntely get a heart attack and die from hearing this news. My other cousins don’t know as well, because we figure there is no reason to spread the misery around. Not to mention, the more who know the more likely they will tell her. And they don’t want to tell her because they are afraid the shock may kill her on the spot or at least kill her spirit, and you want her in high spirits if there is a way to beat this thing as we all hope. But it’s a fanatsy, we know this too. We know she is dying by the minute and she doesn’t know. But we do.

Now, here is the question: Should we tell her at all? If you had such a terminal disease, that will kill you in a matter of months and to which has no cure, would you want to know? Would you really? I mean, we are all in the nihilistic sense dying by the minute, but we always assume we have time, because no one really knows when they will die. Except people with terminal illness. They get a time-table. An approximate deadline. You have about 6 months and then you will be gone. You will never see a loved one again. You will never get to see the wedding of that grandchild of yours. Hell, you won’t even get to watch him/her reach 18. Would you want to know that your time is almost up while there is still so much to do and experience? Would that help in any way, to know that every passing day brings you closer to an end that you did not expect for at least another decade? Is that how you want to spend your last months on earth? Just knowing you will die soon and you are just waiting for it, with everyone around you giving you those looks of pity and loss through their tear-filled eyes?? Is that how you want to live your last months on the planet?

I don’t know. I wouldn’t want that. I know she has the right to know, but I am not sure it would be beneficial in any way for her to exercise that right. If anything, I don’t want to be the person who tells her, nor would I want to see how she would look like after she finds out, because I know I won’t be able to help crying while holding her and wishing she didn’t have to die so soon. Just the thought of it brings tears to my eyes. I wouldn’t want to do that to her. I wouldn’t want to depress her like that. I wouldn’t want that to be the way I spend her last days with her.

But the alternative is torture. To know that someone you love is dying by the minute, while they don’t know. To watch them go through their daily lives, making plans and having hopes, while you know- YOU KNOW- that they probably won’t live to see any of those plans come to fruition. To pretend to be normal around them, to joke with them about their back pain, to pretend not to know that within a few months her whole body will be ravaged by a merciless killer of a disease and there is aboslutely nothing you can do to stop it. Aghhhhhhhhh…. I can’t decide which is worse.

It doesn’t matter anyway. She is dying and there is nothing no one can do about it. That’s all there is to it.

Sigh…

Sorry for the depressing post. But I just needed to let it out somewhere. I will probably remove that post tommorow.

Whatever…

For the past weeks I have been one of the egyptian bloggers who panicked and cried foul over the fact that the MB is gaining seats in the parliament, but that was just the reactionary person in me speaking and I know that I have been acting like a drama queen over the whole thing. In reality, however, the fact that the MB is winning those seats is not something to be worried about or fear, but in actuality will be a very good thing in the long run. Surprised that I am saying that? Well, just hear me out then.

First of all, let’s agree on one thing: the democratic process is working, despite all of the thuggery, forgeries and fraud that are being enacted by the NDP. This is what we wanted in the first place: a more democratic Egypt, right? The fact that the results are not the ones we fancy is part of what living in a democracy is all about. We may not like it, but the people chose them, and if we want to live in a democratic society we have to respect that, even if we don’t like it. And hey, talk about an incentive to get up off your ass and vote the next time. So maybe it’s a good thing that the Boogeyman that is the MB had won this way this time, it should scare everybody else to vote them out the next round, No?

Second of all, let’s be objective here about the size of the winnings they made, ok? They ran on 150 seats, and they will likely end up around 100 seats from a parliament of 444. That’s less then 25%. They can’t really do much damage the NDP doesn’t want them to do. And yes, they have more then 65 seats, so they can have a presidential nominee, but that’s not all she wrote. They have to win seats in the shura council and the municipal elections as well, and chances are the NDP will ensure that they don’t get the right percentage there. Not to mention, there is a huge chance that this elections results will not affect the next presidential elections at all. The next parliamentary elections is in 2010 and the next presidential elections is in 2011. In order for them to have a candidate then they have to have at least 65 seats next time and not this time. And who knows, they may not get it next time; a lot of things could change in 5 years. So as far as panicking over the 2011 goes, it’s really premature for us to do so.

And let’s also be clear on something: there is a good reason why the NDP is acting so stupidly this time and couldn’t curtail the MB like it did in the other elections and it’s called In-Fighting. The NDP is currently a mess because the Old Guard is teaching the new guard a lesson in manners. The old guard are all from the military-intelligence-Tanzim Taleeay apparatus, they were all raised in the Gamal Abdel Nasser school of dirty politics. The new guard are civilians, businessmen, cronies and sons of connected people who think that all the NDP needs is a good marketing campaign and a couple of hollow slogans about democracy and reform and the people will just believe it and support them. The old guard was like: “You think that’s all it takes? Fine. Go and run without our help and see what will happen to you. You need to be taught a lesson.” And they were taught a big lesson. Biggest evidence of that is the fall of Hossam Badrwai in front of Hisham Khalil. Hossam who is Jimmy’s best friend, got his ass handed to him by a novice playboy, who was the favorite of all the old guard. It’s no accident he won this. At all.

Plus, add to that equation the ex-NDP independents who are running against the candidates of their own party, the ineptness of the opposition parties of fielding candidates that can win, the other independent candidates who are saturating the ballot and a judiciary that is still pissed off over them getting sidelined during the presidential elections and you will realize what a fine mess this election has been and that the NDP candidates’ losses are something to be expected. The MB didn’t have that problem. They were unified, they had a clear message and name recognition. Why wouldn’t they win?

Third of all, their win will give the egyptian people a chance to try them out and expose them for who they really are. The MB’s line has always been that the people should try them out and see what they stand for, and I support that 100%. I want people to see what kind of issues the MB likes to tackle.

The MB MP’s in the last parliament had a list of achievements that ranged from protesting that Nancy Ajram concerts were on TV while the 2003 war on Baghdad was on, to the censoring of certain books they deemed immoral, to submitting a request for an investigation on how the a sanitary products company embarrassed a school of girls by coming over and talking about periods and menstrual cycles and what kind of sanitary products they should use. That’s the kind of stuff they do in parliament. Sure, it’s funny, and they can claim to be fighting social battles, but the people don’t really give a damn about books or concerts. They have serious problems and they want someone- i.e. the MB- to solve them. And they probably won’t. They are too busy demanding that the internet gets filtered from Porn and that ruby puts her cloths on, to actually propose anything meaningful. They could do it, but chances are they won’t. It’s not what they do.

So the people will try them out for 5 years, and seeing how they are a group of people who don’t tackle or solve any of the real serious problems that we are facing, I am not sure they will have confidence in them to vote for them again. People voted for the MB to be the NDP’s opposition on the stuff that matters. My bet is that in 5 years they will change their minds.

Finally, the MB’s winnings should act as a necessary wake up call to all of the old political parties. It should inform them that they are out of touch and need to reform, restructure themselves and reach out to the people. And that they need to show that they are actual opposition parties, even if they don’t have enough MP’s to actually effectively oppose anything. If they start reaching out to the public, and re-organize and structure themselves for the 2010 elections, and the people start seeing that the MB won’t really do anything, chances are the parties can win big then. Just in time for the 2011 elections. They will have to if they want to survive in the egyptian political arena, and I think the majority of them do.

So yeah, this is why I am not really worried about the MB winning. Let them have their 100 candidates in the Parliament. Let’s try them out. Let’s see what they are all about. Let them annoy the NDP MP’s with their silly laws, requests and investigations. Let them scare the shit of the opposition parties to get up off their asses and do something. Either way we can’t lose. Let them be who they are and let’s just enjoy the show. It’s one I bet will be worth watching.

This is kinda wrong, but also kinda funny!