A lot of people have been asking me about this new presidential decree that was just issued to create the two new governorates of 6^th of October and Helwan, many outside of Egypt feeling mighty confused about it. I wish I could say that those in Egypt are less confused about it or get it, but, nope, we are all in the same boat here folks. Sorry.

The story, for those of you who are uninformed, goes as follows: The Capital of Egypt is called Cairo, which in reality is what is referred to as “Greater Cairo”, encompassing the governorates of both Cairo and Giza. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to tell you that greater Cairo is overpopulated, which has forced many of those who could afford it to move to the new suburbs- which we refer here as gated communities, because, like, they are surrounded by gates- which are either in the backdrop of Cairo in the Qatameyah and the Tagamo3 el Khames area, or in the backdrop of Giza in the 6^th of October area. The Qatameyah and the Tagamo3 areas were part of an area that they called “New Cairo” and if you drive on the Wahat road long enough in 6^th of October you would reach an area they call “New Giza”. So for those who own lands or houses there, the areas were viewed as logical extensions of both Cairo and Giza, and as the future of the capital.

That was, until Mubarak woke up from sleep last week and decided to create two new governorates, the governorate of 6^th of October and the governorate of Helwan, the first of which claimed the 6^th of October area as a separate entity from Giza, and the latter encompassing the new Cairo areas and the always-part of-Cairo-fancy neighborhood of Maadi. This decision was suddenly taken and without explanation, and thus throwing the entire country in Confusion.

Now, some of you may not understand why this is a big deal, and for you, dear readers, I shall elaborate. Let’s start with the easier of the two, the 6^th of October governorate. Now, the 6^th of October area has two main problems, the judiciary system (Niabat) and the Wahat area. The Judiciary system problem can be summarized in one sentence: In order to take the load of Cairo’s Niabat, the government moved the majority of their work and offices to the 6^th of October area several years ago. At first people complained, then people adjusted, and now since the 6^th of October is its own governorate, they are only hosting its own Niabat, and thus leaving the Cairo people unsure what to do. Not to mention, with the new governorate comes new car plates and registration and police offices, and all of those who moved to new communities there, now have to face the nightmare of changing and transferring all of their papers to fit this new change. Not exactly a fun time. And then you have the Wahat problem, which is 300 km north of the 6t of October area, but they still kinda belonged to it. With the new change, the government decided that Wahat is no longer a subsidiary to 6^th of October, but now part of the Menia Governorate, which is in freakin Upper Egypt and 700 km away from the Wahat area. So, if any of the Wahat people needed to like issue a passport or pay an outstanding ticket, they have to travel 700 km instead of 300 km like they used to. They naturally were not happy about that, and started protesting until the government decided to amend the decision and make them part of 6^th of October again, calming them down for now.

(And please, since we are on the topic of the governorate of 6^th of October, does anyone else seem to think that naming a governorate after that date, I don’t know, a little tacky? I mean, let’s ignore the fact that we didn’t actually win that freakin war, and pretend we did: how many times and different ways are we going to commemorate that one single “achievement” of ours? I mean, we have the 6^th of October bridge, the 6^th of October University, the 10^th of Ramadan city, the two freakin holidays and let’s not ignore the yearly celebrations: Do we have to also name a fuckin governorate after it? Tab mashy, ok, let’s let it slide, what the fuck do we call the people who reside there? Cairo residents are called cairenes, Alexandria residents are called Alexandrians, now what do we call the 6^th of October people? The 6^th octoberites? That’s like the Americans calling Massachusetts the “4^th of July”, and its people the 4^th of Julians. The running joke now a day is that the 6^th of October residents will not require paper ID’s, they will walk around with calendars.)

And now to the bigger clusterfuck: Helwan. Now Helwan is a culsterfuck mainly because it now encompasses Maadi, which is pissing the Maadi residents to no end. Imagine waking up everyday knowing you live in Cairo (the capital), to wake up one day to find out you live in Helwan (the freakin boonies). And the source of their anger, funnily enough, isn’t that they are no longer a part of Cairo, but because it was named the governorate of Helwan instead of the prettier and more glamorous governorate of Maadi, almost saying “Those damn peasants in the government. We spit on them. What do they know?” In the meantime, they are missing the funnier part of all this: The new American University in Cairo, alongside the German University in Cairo, are now both in Helwan, thus making the “Cairo” part of their name, well, kinda pretentious. But then again, those are the AUC and the GUC, major hubs of pretension, and no way will their thousands of dollars a year paying students accept going to the American University in Helwan. So I am guessing the name is staying. Same goes for the GUC, because even though they don’t meet the high standards (hehehehehehe) of AUC, they teach German there, so fuck off Helwan people. The C is here to stay.

Ignore those trivial issues for a second; we come to the most fun aspect of the Maadi clusterfuck: The supreme constitutional court is in Maadi, on the cornice of all places, thus placing it smack-dab in Helwan. Now, as one Judge pointed out in the newspapers, this is unconstitutional, since according to the constitution, the Supreme Constitutional Court HAS TO BE in Cairo. So, how did Mubarak solve this problem? Simple. He announced that the building of the court, and the area encompassing its fence, are officially part of Cairo, even though they are technically located in Helwan. So, if you step inside the building fence area, you are in Cairo, but if you step your foot from any area that surrounds the building, you are in Helwan. It’s kind of like an embassy of a foreign country, only in a very retarded sort of way. Did that make sense to you at all? Because, like, we are kind of confused over here. We could use the help.

So yeah, this is the fun situation we found ourselves in, and as you can tell, it wasn’t really well planned. Hell, it doesn’t seem to have been planned at all. But then again, we are Egyptians, and planning is for wussies- like the Americans and the rulers of Dubai- anyway. But not us, we are real men, and real men don’t plan or think, they act. And that’s the kind of leader our glorious president is, a guy who takes action, especially without thinking. God Bless you Sir, and the new governorates that you pooped on us one day.

I do have one request though, and it stems from my deep-seated hatred to Maadi and its haughty residents, who refuse to leave their fuckin neighborhood for anybody and insist on the rest of us traveling to their funless side of the tracks: Please please please place a nice big sign at the entrance of Maadi that says “The governorate of Helwan welcomes you!”. It will really add insult to injury, and twist the knife in deeper. That would be just sweet!

They might steal it in Kinshasa! How does one steal a Penis, you might ask? Well, witchcraft of course..

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in
West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and
witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to
obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of
some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio
call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow
passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police,
claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their
genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was
an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

Now, if the sorcerers can make their genitals shrink, why not reverse the spell and provide men with the service to have their genitals grow larger? Fuck that extortion shit, they would be billionares in a matter of weeks. Stupid Sorcerers. They never think big! 

The prison that hosts both the generals accused of facilitating Harriri's assassination and the Fatah Al Islam terrorists is having a riot, with the inmates taking several of the prison personell hostage. However…

Roumieh is Lebanon's main jail. The detainees there include four
former generals held in connection with the 2005 assassination of
former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and members of the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam militant group.

The officials say the rioting is not near the generals or the Fatah Islam members.

Let's hope it stays that way. 

For example:

Dear Ayman al-Zawahiri:

I am a journalist for the U.S. publication Tiger Beat. When I
heard you would be taking Web questions, I was like OMG, I totes have
to write to him!!! Here are three questions we’re asking celebrities
this month:

1. If you could be any character on “Gossip Girl,” who would you be?

2. Who would be a better friend, Lauren on “The Hills” or Ashley Tisdale in “High School Musical”?

3. Who is hotter, Zac Efron or Joe Jonas? (LOL)

—Stacy in Manhattan

Ayman al-Zawahiri writes:

May you and everyone at your magazine burn in Hell.

And  

Dear Ayman al-Zawahiri:

Does Al Qaeda ever endorse political candidates? If so, I recommend
that you give a big thumbs-up to Barack Obama. I guarantee you he hates
America as much as you do (if not more)! It would be great if you
appeared in a bunch of TV ads and called him “the evildoing President
that evildoers have been waiting for.”

—Bill in Chappaqua

Ayman al-Zawahiri writes:

Al Qaeda is only interested in American elections to the extent that
we can plunge them into abject chaos. So this year, as in every other
year, we are supporting Ralph Nader.

 Brilliant!

Well, do you think GMT should be replaced with Mecca Mean Time?

Yeah, didn't think so!

A Tunisian family is suing a 30 year old man for "raping their 20 year old daughter through phone sex". It seems that while they were having phone sex, the girl kinda punctured her hymen. The argument is that the two of them had sexual relations, even through the phone, that led to the girl's loss of hymen. How that is rape, given that the girl did it to herself, I have no idea. But what do I know? But if it works and they convict the guy, await paternity suits for children conceived through cyber sex. 

MY HEAD IS EXPLODING!

One Million Signatures Campaign

Support Women's Demands for a New Law Against Sexual Harassment

ECWR’s
One Million Signatures Campaign for a law protecting women from sexual
harassment is part of our broader Campaign Against Sexual Harassment:
Making our Street Safer for Everyone, which began in 2005 in response
to complaints from Egyptian and foreign women exposed to sexual
harassment in Egypt’s streets. Please join us to protect your mother,
sister, wife, daughter and yourself.

To join you can
1. Email ecwr@link.net with your name, job and email address
2. Follow the link and sign the petition online http://petitions.ensan.net/showpetition.php?petition=32 or
3. Print out the petition, distribute it to all your friends and family, then send it back to ECWR.

Join the facebook group! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8634989990

Ayamn Al Zawahry comes in the defense of the Jewish state , and he is blaming the conspiracy talk on Iran and Hezbollah. Imagine that!

Osama bin Laden's chief deputy on Tuesday denied a theory that Israel carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and blamed Iran and Shiite Hezbollah for spreading the idea to discredit the Sunni al-Qaida's strike against the U.S.

[..]

One of the questioners asked about the theory that has circulated in
the Middle East and elsewhere that Israel was behind the 2001 attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Al-Zawahri accused Hezbollah's Al-Manar television of starting the rumor.

"The purpose of this lie is clear — (to suggest) that there are no
heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no else did in history.
Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it," he said.

"Iran's aim here is also clear — to cover up its involvement with America in invading the homes of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq," he said.

Those damn Iranians! 

For Watchmen fans only!

A Cairo University Student faces off PM Nazif, and gets arrested for only half an hour after doing that. He didn't go to jail, didn;t get analy raped and nor was his entire family rounded up and sent to jail. Life's little victories, indeed!

An entire blog dedicated to it! I should add one!

…we are just plain ole politically ignorant!

How they do it, though, I have noooo idea! 

Prepared to be awed by his fallen art and try not to shake ur booty to the asphalt tango.

The biggest piece of news in AP right now is that Carter managed to get a concession from Hamas regarding co-existence with Israel:

Carter relayed the message in a speech in Jerusalem after meeting last week with top Hamas leaders in Syria.
It capped a nine-day visit to the Mideast aimed at breaking the
deadlock between Israel and Hamas militants who rule the Gaza Strip.

Hamas leaders "said that they would accept a Palestinian state on
the 1967 borders" and they would "accept the right of Israel to live as
a neighbor next door in peace," Carter said.

But you don't get to know what they really agreed on until the middle of the piece..

Carter said Hamas promised it wouldn't undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas'
efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel, as long as the Palestinian
people approved it in a referendum. In such a scenario, he said Hamas
would not oppose a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

However…

Hamas spokesman
Sami Abu Zuhri in Gaza said Hamas' readiness to put a peace deal to a
referendum "does not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of
the referendum."

Yeah. Okay then! Nevermind!

Read this!

It's like a dream! While we are at it, Jon Stewart for Senate. Who is with me?

There is a Kid's book on Plastic Surgery, called "My Beautiful Mommy", that is supposed to help mothers explain to children why she needs a boobjob, or something. I am not kidding:

Acosta told Salzhauer that she wasn't sure how to talk to her son
about the procedures she was considering. That's when he showed her the
manuscript for his children's picture book, "My Beautiful Mommy" (Big
Tent Books), out this Mother's Day. It features a perky mother
explaining to her child why she's having cosmetic surgery (a nose job
and tummy tuck). Naturally, it has a happy ending: mommy winds up "even
more" beautiful than before, and her daughter is thrilled.

The
reassuring tale helped win Acosta over—she scheduled breast
augmentation and a tummy tuck. Since February, when she had the
surgery, she and Junior have read the book a half dozen times, and she
says it helped him feel excited rather than scared. "I didn't want him
to think [the surgery] was because I was hurting. It was to make me
feel good," she says.

Awww…excuse me while I puke..

Salzhauer got the idea for a book after noticing that women were coming
into his office with their kids in tow. He says that mysterious
doctor's visits can be frightening for children. "Parents generally
tend to go into this denial thing. They just try to ignore the kids'
questions completely." But, he adds, children "fill in the blanks in
their imagination" and then feel worse when they see "mommy with
bandages," he says. "With the tummy tucks, [the mothers] can't lift
anything. They're in bed. The kids have questions."

 Yeah..still puking.. Cue in the requisite Child Psychologist..

Child psychiatrist Elizabeth Berger,
author of "Raising Kids With Character," likes the idea of a book for
kids. "If the mother is determined to pursue cosmetic surgery, I think
it's terribly important to discuss it with the child," Berger says. But
she says the book is incomplete. She wishes that the mom had just said
something like, "This is silly, but I really want it anyway," she says.
"That is more honest and more helpful to the child."

Berger
doesn't want to come across as anti-cosmetic surgery, but she notes
that it can be difficult for small kids to understand. "The younger the
child, the more mysterious and potentially hurtful the mother's
absence, or mother being out of commission, or mother looking like
she's been beaten up, will be," she says. Small children are "concrete"
and "sensible" and think "you go to a doctor because you're hurt or
sick," she says. After considering how their children might react, she
says that "some mothers may realize that the total burden of the
child's anxiety might be a side effect of the procedure they hadn't
quite thought through and that might inspire them to postpone it until
the child is older."

Maybe I am old school, but whatever happend to that wonderful notion of "some things are for adults and some things are for kids"? It worked for me, it worked for all of you, I am sure none of you were ever scarred for life from not knowing why Mommy couldn't do physical work after a surgery. But no, let's introduce them to plastic surgery in a nice shiny book (excerpts can be found here ) when they are 7 or 8, this way we can hook them when they are young. YEAH!

LEAVE YOUR GODDAMN KIDS ALONE! 

You think you do, but you don't, and here is why!

I kind of find the idea behind this intriguing and quite possibly very useful!