..after having such a huge Iftar like the one I had yesterday , is having the leftovers. I have enough to last us a week. Imagine Thnaksgiving leftovers to the 6th power. That's how much food we have left.

What's even better, no relatives to share it with! 

YAY!

A funny(ie sad, pathetic, bordering on terrifying) new law in Bahrain says Female Bahraini university students must adhere to a certain dress code while on campus. For those who read Arabic, this is how detailed the new law is.For those who don't, this is me paraphrasing:

Clothes must not be transparent as not to show the body, must not stick to the body as to show the detials of its shape, or be so tight as to hint at the shape. Clothes must also not be short. This includes shirts and tops as well as dresses, skirts and pants.Clothes must also not have "wide openings" so as not to show bare skin. This includes skirts with slits, low cut tops and dresses or skirts that reveal the knee of the dress wearer, in any position, standing, sitting, or walking.The new law also prohibits accessories such as anklets, and hair died in "strange" colors. Women wearing full Abayas or loose dresses that cover the body, are not allowed to wear transparent ones which show the clothes underneath, or ones with slits that show clothes underneath which may not adhere to the modesty rules. Women are also not allowed to wear the face veil, accompanied with "excessive eye make up" that makes the eyes stand out attractively. Finally, no pants, shirts or tops with inappropriate writings or drawings on them are allowed.

They must be fucking kidding.

Dandash

Because the brother of the founder of the Muslim Brothers thinks you're allowed to smoke during fasting. And while even I think that kinda goes against the point of fasting, and avoiding cravings etc., I love Gamal El Banna for putting it out there. Other controversial views of his include ideas about hijab not being mandatory in Islam, and other views promoting a more secular view of religion, although he considers himself religious.

Man if I could smoke during fasting I'd fast all year long….

Dandash

Because the best way to find out what the so called egyptian street is thinking about foreign politics is to go date shopping.

You can also find out who the hottest pop stars in the Arab world are. Who needs marketing surveys or political polls when you have dates?

Previoulsy top priced dates included the Nancy Ajram, the Haifa Wahby and the Yasser Arafat. The Bush has always priced among the lowest. Says alot about Egyptians' evaluative criteria.

Dandash

Paradoxically, a perfectly acceptable and more or less peaceful mechanism of civil disobedience is being used to protest against the execution (which, arguably, isn't exactly civil, but at least legal) of a man who has been charged of being affiliated with an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 which left nine people dead, an act which was uncivil, undemocratic and inhumane.

On the one hand, it is the beauty of democracy and participation, so that even when in areas in which they are not necessarily the rules, they have proliferated and inflitrated cultures so that their tools and arguments are being used to defend and attack a multitude of ideas and practices. The people engaging in the strike protesting the hanging of Mohammed Afzal, are not necessarily doing so because they believe he is innocent, or because the death penalty as a concept is unacceptable. In fact, they might endorse the 2001 attack, yet are using arguably liberal and acceptable means to protest it.(let's not get into an argument about how democracy and liberalism are a modern invention and premodern civilisations have been using similar techniques forever. please)

On the other hand, such practices, it can be said, are being twisted and exploited, emptied of their meaning, and used for the wrong reasons, by those who haven't internalised their spirit. Something like Islamic radicals accusing the US of being undemocratic, but then declaring that democracy is an evil imperialist creation anyway.

While this guy is probably guilty, I would argue that executing him now is not a good idea, not because of high handed moral reasons about capital punishment, but because, as has been said, this would seriously inflame the volatile situation in Kashmir. And maybe sometimes the rule of law should be prudently and subtly submitted to the political good. Or something.

I prefer to look at the full half of the glass on this particular occassion.

Dandash

 Worrying to say the least. I mean, seriously, already, an anti press law?

Sure, there is a thin line between freedom of speech and inciting civil violence,the question is which is a safer bet : let them say whatever they want and risk inflaming already volatile situations, or create arbitrary rules about what they can or cannot say and risk creating a monopoly of truth, which of course will allow a black market of rumors to spread just as fast. Which policy creates more mistrust? My guess is the second.

Dandash

Oh. Lord. Save. Us.

 My best friend, sounding terrified on the phone, pointed my attention to this.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, for those who haven't heard about this yet, it is Jesus Camp. I guess the PC term would be "Kids on Fire" camp(which is the actualy name of the camp), although I don't see how that is politically correct.

These kids are sent to this camp to learn to become warriors for Christ. They worship at a cardboard life-size cut-out of George Bush.Yes you read that correctly.The kids are made to rythmically chant  religious phrases and become filled with the Holy Spirit. They are made to believe that Harry Potter is a child of the devil. A quote from one of the happy campers reads " we are being trained to become warriors in a much funner way."

Not only are these kids being trained to become Evangelicals, but are also being pushed to become politically active.yay.They learn to dance to Christian music, and the kids play soccer wearing HWJC bands: How would Jesus Compete?. Except after the soccer matches they are indoctrinated in anti abortion views, and slogans are taped to their mouths.

Jihad anyone?

This is the most screwed up combination of religious radicalism, brainwashing, and modern marketing techniques I've seen in a good while.

Dandash.

 I agree with Saddam's lawyers, the trial IS a farce. Just not because of the reasons they cite (get this, they called the court "a creature of the American-Persian occupation of Iraq-me likes).  It's a farce for many reasons, one of which is that it resembles a kindergarten classroom, where the judge is constantly having to ask people sit down, shut up, or be polite.  

But it's also a farce because it seems like there is something not quite right with democracy when we have to prove that Saddam was a sadistic bastard. We cannot lay a finger on this poor excuse for a human being, until the "evidence" is "sufficient" to convict him. Now that is ridiculous.

Dandash

Today we are having a family Iftar, which means that our house has turned into a war zone. Cooks and maids are running all over, the Fridges are totally stacked with drinks and countless chickens have been sacrifised in order to feed the army that is descending upon my house come 6 pm.

There are 40, I counted, 40 relatives that are coming over today.

And since this is Ramadan, there is no Alcohol allowed to make this evening bearable.

God help me! 

Supposidly the new leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub Al-Masry released an audiotape urging nuclear scientists to join Al Qaeda.

I still can't figure out how he is doing this since he is currently rotting in an egyptian jail cell.

Can you? 

Ohh Man.

The Israelis are backing off from a plan to kill Nasrallah:

Israel
has quietly backed off its plan to assassinate Hezbollah's leader
because of the international condemnation that his killing would
create, the Israeli daily Maariv reported Friday.

[...]

When the war ended, the army recommended that the efforts to kill
Nasrallah be called off because his assassination would lead to
international criticism of Israel and would ignite an even more violent
war, Maariv reported.

However, the government declined to call off the hunt, the newspaper reported.

Nasrallah emerged from hiding on Sept. 22 to address a massive rally
in Lebanon celebrating Hezbollah's fight against Israel. Israel army
officials determined they could assassinate him with an airstrike
during the rally, but dozens of bystanders also would be killed, Maariv
reported.

The government decided an airstrike was not worth the risk, and
accepted the army's recommendation that it should abandon efforts to
kill Nasrallah for the time being, the newspaper reported. However, the
government did not make a formal decision regarding Nasrallah.

You know, I have a feeling that Sharon is sorely missed in Israel these days! 

Yesterday a friend of mine told me a really funny/disturbing story. Apparently she had this friend who works for a UN sponserd orgnaization in Saudi, and who was working on getting the Saudis to grant approval for government-sponserd dirstribution to sexual contraceptives in order to combat STD's in Saudi. The Saudis rejected on the grounds that Saudis don't need STD protection, because if anyone engages in STD causing sexual intercourse, it is the foreigners who live there.

So her friend, in order to prove otherwise, did a study on camels to see how many of them have syphlis (I am not joking). The study results showed that 20% of saudi camels do have syphlis, which can only be transmitted from man-on-camel sex. The Saudis, when confronted with those results, argued that it must be the foreigners who are giving the camels syphlis and not the saudi men. So the kid had to conduct another study to show that the camels reside in areas that are only populated with saudis and that are far from the ones where the foreigners reside. He actually sat down and wrote stuff like: On average, a foriegner will come in contact of 1.2 camels a year, while a saudi will come in contact with 5.6 camels a year.

The Saudis still claim there is no sufficient evidence that the camel syphlis isn't all caused by foriegn men who just like to have sex with camels.

… of not reading ITM more often, which is a shame, due to my extreme fondness for Mohamed and Omar. I just stumbeld on this gem of his regarding the "Pope non-crisis" today. This sentence stuck out:

I saw angry young men burning the flags of America and Israel, and I
still can't figure out the connection they saw between Israel or Jews
and the pope!!

And I never thought of that. The Catholic church hid Nazis and clandestenly (is that even a word?) supported the holocaust, and this Pope is infamously known for being part of the Hiter youth, yet somehow he is a jewish zionist collaborator now.

People in the middle-east really have a serious case of selective memory. 

Muqti, seriously darling, get some dental work. You have really let yourself go.

If it isn't bad enough that the President of Kazakhistan is so irked by the Borat movie that he wants to discuss it with President Bush when he comes to the states, now the State of Khazakhistan is making its own movie. It's called Nomad and it will cost them $40 million dollars, which i am guessing, in Khazakhistani currency, is a shitload of money.

A VAST Central Asian republic has spent $40 million (£21 million) to
create a film warrior — so it can take on a British comedian.

Sacha Baron Cohen has upset Kazakhstan with his character Borat Sagdiyev.

The foul-mouthed fictional TV reporter will now face a fierce Kazakh
warrior on a mission of courage and romance. President Nazarbayev hopes
that Nomad, a film about the struggle of Kazakh tribes to expel Mongol
invaders, will improve his nation’s reputation.

[...]

Nomad opens and closes with words from President
Nazarbayev. It boasts a budget of $40 million, and is the most
expensive film made in the Central Asian republic.

The film will be distributed internationally by Harvey and Bob
Weinstein, the Hollywood moguls who founded Miramax before leaving the
Disney-owned studio last year to form a new company.

Hehehehe. How awesome is this? The freakin President will start and close the 40 million dollars piece of propaganda aimed to improve the image of a country that no one really cares about. And all of that, in order to combat one british comedian who actually made people aware that such a country exists in the first place. You can't make this shit up, I swear!

I love Sacha Baron Cohen. 

This picture is taken at the the 2006 International Mathematical Olympiad in Slovenia, with the 2 winners: Iran and Israel.

How random is it that the Iran guy looks like A mini Ahmeddinjad? Even wears a suit without a tie and everything. 

Source.  

Welcome to the middle-east, where even the secularists are retarded: Fulla, the islamic barbie (with Hijab and everything), just got banned in Tunisia.

No sooner had as the new academic year
begun in Tunisia than security forces raided soft-toy shops across the
country to withdraw Fulla, the doll, which inspired millions of Muslim
girls worldwide, eclipsing the American and world's best-selling
Barbie.

"Security forces have cracked down on shops
and confiscated all goods bearing Fulla's photo," Tunisian
shoppers and merchants told IslamOnline.net Friday, September 22, on
condition of anonymity.

"Authorities claim that the hijab-clad doll
invokes sectarian feud," they added.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhh.. It's a freakin doll you morons.

sigh..

Nevermind! 

And let me kill Israeli Jews in it.