Let me start with this outrageous quote from US House Representative Michael Pence (Republican from Indiana) that he recently made on CNN:

Let’s be clear, there is not a humanitarian crisis in Gaza … the hospitals are fully stocked, the food markets are fully stocked!

WHAAA???? At first I was so shocked that I thought I must have misheard it. So I watched it again and again; nope that is what he said! Apparently Gaza is in top shape and we didn’t know it! Rep. Pence, I salute you (albeit, it is a one-finger salute).

Pence must have smashed all sorts of spin records. Gaza not in a humanitarian crisis?! Michael Pence, what have you been smoking? In what world do you live? Did you leave planet Earth for Pandora? Actually you know what, if you are so confident that what you say is true, I am willing to personally fund you to travel to Gaza with a camera crew and show us how we got it all wrong. Please Pence, enlighten us.

Here is a video of his CNN interview. Prepare to be dazzled!

Much has been said about Israel’s violent interception of the humanitarian aid flotilla headed to Gaza. Both sides have put forth their claims and counter claims. But the basic facts remain: Israel attacked non-military ships in international waters, Israel used lethal force against unarmed civilians (the activists attacked the Israeli commandos with sticks, rods, and chairs … but what do you expect when you drop commandos on a ship in the middle of night? a dance festival?!), and Israel killed 9 unarmed protesting civilians. After all was said and done, no weapons were found on-board any of the ships.

God! I hate people who display a “big effort” while they are eating or chewing. I hate it when some people chew gum with open mouths or loudly. It is so freaking annoying! I hate it when people breathe heavily or make “internal grunting sounds” that you would associate with hard physical labour or terrible illness yet they have done nothing and are totally fine! And I specially hate it when the person right next to me does that for half an hour straight!

Pfft!

I was browsing online when I accidentally stumbled upon this site: http://www.israellawcenter.org/Missions-general-information.html (link not added purposefully).

Apparently this organization takes tourists on some sort of live military tour where they penetrate illegally occupied territories and sit in on courts of Palestinian captives.

Screenshot of the “tour highlight” !!

What year is this? Are we back in Roman times where Christians where being fed to lions in front of the cheering crowds? Are the destroyed lives and the misfortunes of the occupied people of Palestine a tourist attraction to this organization? Seriously, this is so barbaric!

This is indeed rediculous. Not only that, but i also hate it when services require you to sign up with a username & password even if you just want to try that service for a brief time. Too many user accounts online, ultimately you run out of memorizable unique passwords, and sharing passwords or using a service-dependent naming scheme is not wise. Check out this website for a neat tool btw.

In these days (and specially if the whole “cloud-as-a-service” model is to become successful, oh and it will) we should have a concept of a single global account, or a managable federation of accounts that form a global account, that would allow people to “turn on” services on the web to try them out (or use them), and then “turn them off”.

I know about openID, but having a single account (be it from Google or Microsoft or Yahoo) to log in to many places is too “big-brothery” for my taste. Plus, not all online services allow users to use openID, even though they really should.

It is bollocks! Bollocks I tells ya! *shaking his fist*

… Israeli consul to the US Reda Mansour. Today on CNN, after a report on the civilian casualties in Gaza, and with a split screen next to him showing civilians dead and injured in hospitals and a huge explosions in Gaza due to the Israeli bombardment; he had the audacity to claim that he did not believe there was a lot of death in Gaza. He openly claimed that the Palestinians are exaggerating in their casualties, and that the actual number of casualties was less than half of what was reported!! Keep in mind that the report mentioned 400 casualties (as if 200 casualties is justifiable). When the anchor confronted him that the numbers were coming from Palestinian and U.N. sources, he still refused to acknowledge the amount of death and destruction his country is inflicting and stuck by his claim.

I will post a video of this heartless “person” once i find a copy online.

This news site never fails to surprise me.

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen; the third headline is about a SImpsons episode, and the fourth headline is about a Facebook group against coloured Kuffiyehs !! However, they did not include their usual “sex headline” .. maybe because it is Hajj season.

Come on Al Arabiya, yes not all your news have to be political, but please prioritize and separate things correctly. I can hardly see why would you ever report a Facebook group on your front page!

Honestly, it it seems to me that Al Arabiya always tries to play to a target audience of highly emotional people. So if they want to have them feel happy, they would report a trivial non-news happy issue (like: the last Simpsons episode contained a none terrorist Muslim Arab). If they want to stir up Lebanese/Palestinian flame war, they would report on a regional non-issue (like: A Palestinian Facebook group protesting against coloured Kuffiyehs in Lebanon). If they want to get the audience buzzing for a while, they would report one of their usual sex items (examples are too many to list).

Come on Al Arabiya, you can report what ever you want, but please put everything in its correct place. I bet there is something happening regionally, in the Arab world, or globally that is more interesting than a Facebook group or a Simpsons episode.

Also, by the way Al Arabiya, the “right wing channel” was not airing an episode to “defend Islam”. It was talking about intolerance and prejudging people (American Muslims in this case) of being terrorists. So that episode was tackling issues of stereotyping Americans Arabs and Muslims rather than “defending Islam”. This is just another example of how Al Arabiya plays into an emotional audience.

I never got too hung up on Qwaider’s old rants and exposés about the seemingly odd behavior of the “gentle gender” — that is of course before he got tamed . After all, i am not much of a “zeer” with the ladies, and my encounters thus far have been all orderly and humane :-p.

But that all changed today. I was out with a bunch of friends with some history between them. One of them had a “not so secret” crush on one of the guys who didn’t seem to reciprocate or care. However in that lady’s mind, she was already married to him and he was her property (almost literally). Not only that, but she was also jealous of any other woman talking to him .. ever!

In her mind she had a competitor (a dorra) which was another lady in our group who she met through him. That “dorra” knew the guy from high school and they had much in common. The crazed lady recently learned that her “dorra” had previously gotten engaged and broke her engagement, and today she decided to take a swipe at that!!! So we were there eating and chatting, and all of a sudden she goes: “Wow S., you and her have a lot in common, no wonder she broke up with her fiancé to hang out with you” !!!!

Needless to say that was very awkward and impolite. I mean, how dare she exploit her imaginary “competitor”‘s private life like that! And to do that in public with the rest of us around ! I still can’t believe that. Of course my friend was shocked and didn’t know what to do. He had nothing going on with his old school friend, yet that crazy woman is making some very ugly remarks .. and in public!

I don’t know what to say but, Qwaider: 1 — Crazy Women: 0

*** Update: The Washington Post has an excellent editorial article about this here ***

Chances are that you have heard, read, or watched something about the current American presidential campaign. Of course, the candidates are pandering to the public and promising to work on many of America’s pressing issues. The current economic and health crises are focusing most of the talking points on domestic issues –such as taxes, health plans, economy, energy, reform ..etc– with the occasional mention of foreign policy.

Yet, unsurprisingly, Israel was mentioned in every single presidential debate, in the vice presidential debate, in most of the rally speeches, and in most of the interviews. It is almost a domestic issue.The candidates agree on this one: Israel is America’s closest ally in the Middle East; America will always have unwavering support of Israel; America will ensure Israel’s security ..etc. Sarah Palin repeated three times in one of her interviews that “[the USA] should never second guess Israel” [video here]. Heck, even Joe the Plumber is stumping for Israel expressing his worries if Obama becomes the president. Really ? It made its way to the speech of Joe the Plumber ?!!

But don’t be discouraged my friends. Today the Palestinians got their first mention in this campaign since the AIPAC speeches in the democratic primaries. Nonetheless, it came as a form of an attack from the Good Ol’ Party. Woooo, Obama has ties to the “radical Palestinian” Rashid Khalidi.

I haven’t heard of Khalidi before today. But from what i could gather online about him, he is an American born in New York of Palestinian decent. He studied at Yale and Oxford universities, and he is a professor and the current director of the Middle East Institute at the prestigious Columbia University. He is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Palestine-Israel Journal, and frequently publishes scholarly articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The “controversy” about him in the American medium stems from him sometimes criticizing the actions of Israel and expressing differing views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the difficulties in realizing the two-state solution. Now he is being (apparently falsely) tied to the PLO and then to Obama! This thing came to light because of an LA Times newspaper article saying that there exists a tape of Obama in a dinner which Khalidi attended, but the paper refuses to release that tape because it would violate source confidentiality or whatever. What grabbed my attention is this response quote from McCain:

“I Guarantee you, if there was a tape with me and Sarah Palin and some Neo-Nazi or one of those you think that tape would be made public ?”

So let me get this straight, criticizing some of Israel’s actions or having differing views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than the acceptable American-Israeli view is now equatable with neo-Nazism !!!

Cheer up American-Palestinians and Palestinians around the world, here is your first mention in the American presidential campaign. You have become an attack piece that Palin will probably go touting around. And remember please, don’t you ever dare to criticize any action of Israel or show anything but complete support of Israel’s view of the conflict, or else, you will be a neo-Nazi!

Anyway, to show you how information technology is being used in this campaign, I did some Googling to learn about this Khalidi character, and i saw this ad:

(try this yourself)

To know why this ad is important, check out the trend of people searching for Khalidi and notice the recent spike:

So … yeah … we finally got a mention in this race .. yaay!!

The anticipated Apple iPhone 3G was released this Monday. This new version of the iPhone can operate on 3G networks and includes GPS capabilities. Other than that, nothing is new with the device itself. Steve Jobs keynote speech also revelead the Apple AppStore and a group of apps built on the previously released iPhone SDK. This new iPhone software update will be available to all iPhone devices, and is not only restricted to the new generation iPhone 3Gs.

Although these new introductions seem exciting, fine, and dandy; I can’t help but feel cheated somehow. You see, except for the multitouch screen, the iPhone’s features pale in comparison to other contending phones. Nokia’s N95 and N96 come at the equivalent price of the current iPhones (the non 3G), and they yet include much better software and hardware capabilities. The iPhone 2 MegaPixel camera falls short compared to the Nokia’s 5 MegaPixel camera phones for the same price. Not to mention that the iPhone still can not capture videos, perform zooming, or offer flash photography .. all of which are standard on other contending phones for the same or even lesser price.

Another problem with the old iPhones was the immaturity of its software. The iPhone’s web browser, media player, and photo viewer are fine .. but other than that the phone’s software sucks. The calendar software is a joke, the software frequently crashes, and you can not even resend, edit, or draft SMS messages (all of which my very old mobile phone was mastering). However, i am optimistic that with the release of the SDK we will start seeing better software running on the iPhone. However, it is shocking that Apple thought it would be more fitting to include a scientific calculator in their software update before even fixing the SMS app!! Heck, the phone doesn’t even distinguish between dialed and received calls !!

The iPhone’s recent price drop also digruntles me. Don’t get me wrong, i am glad it is finally getting cheaper. But if you think about it, Apple added 3G and GPS communicators, and didn’t change the phone’s processor power. The material cost certainly did not  get cheaper of the past few months, and still Apple was able to cut the price in half. I guess what i am trying to say is that not only was the original iPhone over priced, it was grossly over priced. As a person who spent a quarter of his college stipend to buy an iPhone, i feel cheated that practically the same phone was offered for half the price just a couple of months later! I understand that electronics get cheaper with time, but this is clearly just too much!

I was rather disappointed with these WWDC revelations. I guess this reminded me with “old Apple” behavior, where they would announce a small set of features that are subpar compared to the current state of alternatives, and brag about them. Come on Apple, please fix the SMS features in your phone, please give us a real camera that can truly stand its ground against Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, and fix the many annoying bugs and stupid limitations of the iPhone. How come i used to be able to upload any music file to my very old phone and turn it into my ringtone and i can not do that with the iPhone. I understand you want to charge people money .. but come on .. $2 for a ringtone ?!! this is too much. I know there are hacks to bypass some these limitations, but i choose to maintain the integrity of my phone, and i should not be punished because of that.

Certainly Apple is great at over-hyping products and creating market buzz. They can really take an ordinary item and market it successfully as the next best thing on earth. I honestly believe that if they choose to market monkey feces, they could make iFeces and that would be the next big hit world wide. I really wish i had this ability .. it would make me a millionaire . However, for now, i am disgruntled and i do feel cheated. And whatever chance there was of me making my next computer a Mac has just vanished. I guess i will stick in my free world.

My friend from Jerusalem is coming to visit me this summer. So, i asked him to bring me a Hatta / Kuffiyeh (حطة / كوفية) with him. Kuffiyas are traditionally worn in almost all of the Middle East. They are warm, comfy, and they look good too. So naturally, when i came to the states to study, i brought one with me to keep me warm during the long winter, and to affirm my identity.

Anyway, my kuffiyeh is pretty worn out. So i asked my friend to bring me one with him. Being from Jerusalem, he is allowed to travel from the Ben Gurion airport in Tel-Aviv, and so he did. If you don’t know, Arabs (even Israeli Arabs) are treated to extra searches in that airport, and every item and every bag is inspected at least twice by hand.

So unfortunately, when they saw the kuffiyeh, they decided it was too dangerous to carry on the plane (even though it is just a piece of cloth) and they took it away. I didn’t know that they would do that, but then again, should i be surprised ?! I don’t think so.

Ahh .. so now it seems i will be stuck with my old kuffiyeh. At least it could stand as a testament to the Israeli war on clothing.

كلنا تعودنا على تفاهات الموقع الإلكتروني لقناة العربية. فبالإضافة إلى توفير الأخبار الخيالية المفتعلة (شك الأسافين) يوفر لك هذا الموقع ضماناً بوجود خبر جنسي (أو متعلق بالجنس) على صفحته الأولى مجاناً ولعيون أحلى الشباب

يعني صار الي بيقراء هذا الموقع زي اللي بتفرج على فلم هندي .. مش عارف شو راح يتطلعلو ….

وإن لم يكن هذا كافياً، فأنت على ضمان بأن يكون الخبر التافه من الأخبار الست الأوائل على الصفحة (إذا لم يكن من الثلاثة الأوائل). وأخبارهم الجنسية تتنوع بتنوع خيال العاملين على الموقع، فأحياناً أنت على موعد مع أخبار العادات الجنسية في العالم العربي، وأحياناً أنت على موعد مع أخبار السحاقيات والشاذين في الدول العربية، وهلم جر

ومؤخراً توسع الموقع ليقدم واجهتين جديدتين، إحداهما باللغة الأردية (باكستان) والأخرى بالفارسية (إيران). وبقت العربية على عهدها. فالخبر الثالث على الواجهة الفارسية يتعلق بالجنس

والخبر السادس على الصفحة الأردية أيضاً جنسي

بالمناسبة .. أليس من الغريب أن كلمة “جنسي” متطابقة باللغات الثلاث

أنا لست ضد تناول القضايا الجنسية في عالمنا العربي، فتجاهل هذا الجانب على أساس العيب ما هو إلا غباء. ولكن كل شيء بحدوده. فلا يكاد يمر يوم بدون خبر جنسي على الصفحة الأولى. وبعدين هل الصفحة الأولى هي المكان الأمثل لمثل هذه الأخبار ؟!! وبعدين يعني إحنا خلصنا من كل مشاكلنا في دولنا عشان تدوشونا بأخباركم اللي ما إلها طعمة ؟ إستحوا على دمكم

As a Palestinian and an Arab, I can declare this bit of non-news to you my friend:
The state of injustice in this world is indeed … depressing.

Traveling thousands of miles to start my graduate education, i was disconnected from the world for about 10 days. With a couple of days driving on the road, and no internet set up at home yet, i had no means to check the news or anything. So, when i was planning to write my next post, i was thinking of talking about my 2-day driving road trip.

However, as soon as i got connected, the stark dark news was hard to escape. The mass punishment of innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza is just inhumane. No words can really describe what is going on. It is truly frightening. What would happen if this was done to people in Europe or the USA ? How would the world react ? What description would be given to the country/people applying such mass punishment ? Why is it not done now ? Why is the world turning its blind eye ?

Words escape me trying to come up with something different that what many great bloggers have said about this. I leave you with this nice article by Sabbah.

Yes, that should be their motto instead of “It’s for you”.

The mbc network has been advertising an interesting episode of the CBS show 60 minutes. Of course, they figured out that the best time to air that show would be 6:00am KSA, which is 5:00am our time. Completely dismayed, i looked up their schedule at their website (mbc.net), and i found out that this program will repeat at 2:00am. Although i had a long day already, i decided to stay up late and catch that show.

It is 2:18am now, and sure enough mbc4 decided to screw with me and air a different program that is not listed on their OFFICIAL WEBSITE SCHEDULE !!! Instead of 60 minutes i am now in the pleasant company of …. guess what …. BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS!!! Instead of watching a semi-intelligent show, i am now looking at rappers wearing sun glasses at night, inside a fully closed hall !!! This is just awful

WTF mbc !! Please fix your scheduling, and display the CORRECT schedule on your website … this is just beyond annoying!!

My Dell laptop is about 14 months old. I have learned to live with its quirks. For example, if you close the screen lid and open it again, there is a small chance that the monitor will not be turned on !! Another one is that when the timezone changes, due to daylight savings, the laptop spends a few days in a state of denial. Then, it fights back by screwing my clock every now and then. Eventually it gives up after a week or so, and submits to the new time.

So now, as i was about to my first “real” post, i noticed that my laptop claims it is 2am even though the sun is already up and shining !!

Oh Dell … why do you hate me ??