za3tar

أنا مع قرفان، شلة المدونين العرب الأشاوس شكلهم زهقانين شوي . صراحتاً أنا حسي النكتي ماكل هوى مؤخراً، فما بعرف إزا كني الشخص المناسب لأُسأل عن نكته هلئ، ولكن جواباً للـ “تاج” تبعت قرفان، خذولكم هالنكتتين اللي سمعتهم لما كنت في الأردن الصيف الماضي:

- واحد مسطول دقوا على بابه دائرة الإحصاء وسألوه: (إنتَ من أهل البيت ؟) .. فرَد عليهم وقال: (لأ، أنا من كفار قريش).

- طفيلي بيقول لجماعته: صلوا وصوموا وزكوا، مش أروح عالجنة وألاقيها كلها كركية!

(ههههه .. طبعاً هلئ قرفان لما شاف بياختي حرم يسألني عن نكت من اليوم وطالع )

The recent influx of American journalists to the middle east covering Barack Obama’s tour has shown me their gross unfamiliarity of the basics of this world arena and its geography. Yesterday i posted about their confusion between Iraq & Jordan, two very distinct countries; one which they are occupying with more than 100k troops and is drenched in sectarian violence, and the other is a quite sovereign nation. You’d imagine they would know more about Iraq since they have so many people there .

Anyway, today Obama is visiting Israel & the West Bank. Ramallah is in the West Bank, and this area is usually referred to in news reports using any of the following terms: Palestine, West Bank, Palestinian Territories, or Occupied Territories. At least the term “West Bank” is very politically neutral. Not like this:

For God’s sake, you just said that you are sitting infront of the Palestinian President’s building

MSNBC, one of America’s three major news networks, apparently can’t tell the difference between Amman and Baghdad. Here is the news anchor with Amman’s signature monument, the King Abdullah Mosque, right behind her in the background, yet they are convinced she is in Baghdad .. come on

You get to read a lot of stupid comments on the Internet these days. On forums, YouTube, blogs ..etc, many idiots are getting to voice their “thoughts” and “ideas”. Of course there are also many clever and insightful comments as well, but stupid comments do tend to stand out.

For example, read this comment i just found on Aljazeera English’s Youtube channel:

You heard him ladies and gentlemen; Everybody, let’s get busy … we need to increase our “production” by more than 1,000% a day over the next 10 years!! So, drop whatever you’re doing, go home, and get down to business … from 43,000 to 500,000 A DAY !! LOL.. it is all part of his grand scheme.

The following short segment from “Nova Science Now”, which is an amazing program btw, highlights a company that is exploring the idea of extending a thin sheet-like line from earth to outer space to use it as a basis for an elevator to cheaply transport people into space!! I honestly don’t see this happening, but it is entertaining to see great bright minds playing around with the idea.

This definitely is a wacky idea in my opinion. I mean come on, can you imagine planet earth orbiting in space with a big pipe extending out of it ? Even if such a thing could be built, how on earth will you maintain it and protect it from meteors and other space hazards ? How will you even make it stable ?! … i personally don’t think it will even be economically feasible to build and maintain such a link.

In totally unrelated news, and in contrast to that wacky idea, i think the following events can actually take place .. (but i hope they don’t ):

• Qwaider making a blog post *during* his wedding party: … yeah, who amongst us doesn’t believe this is possible…. i’d actually be surprised if he didn’t … heck, i’ll be surprised if he didn’t blog during his honeymoon :-).
• Two days after their marriage, Qwaider seriously tries to convince Maioush that she should migrate her blog to be hosted on Memories Documented (his blog) instead of WordPress: … he explains how his own private hosting can provide her with secure backups and strict anti-spam mechanisms (not to mention his perceived superiority of his blogging engine to everything that is readily available out there) … i say resist the temptations Maioush.
• KJ’s imaginary friend, Moogle, gets jealous of Qwaider’s marriage and decides to have his own imaginary friend: … (yes .. with KJ it is very well possible that an imaginary friend could get an imaginary friend). Unfortunately, Moogle’s imaginary friend runs off to get married as well … this will leave KJ perplexed for a few weeks… oh boy … god help us if that happens.

Qwaider .. sorry buddy, somebody had to pick on you because you’re getting married … and congratulations to you and Maioush again.