The Logical Blog

Can we move the country out for this crappy neighbourhood please?! Somewhere close to Switzerland would be ideal!

2006-07-16T11:39:00.000+03:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ID/13855530

The World Cup is over so LET THE SHIT HIT THE FAN!

2006-07-16T10:58:00.000+03:00

Were we all in such a coma during the World Cup Month that we didn't notice that a war was about to begin?
Or was it that all the usual idiots were waiting for the world to have time to pay them some attention before killing each other?

A new bloody chapter has begun, and who knows how it will end.

I really feel sorry for the Lebanese. I don't understand why they need this conflict now. They have their land. Their country was becoming a haven of tourism and prosperity again. If there's anything left that Israel controls, it's microscopic compared to the whole of Lebanon.

Of course it does not justify at all Israel bloodthirsty murderous response, but no country should allow a separate militia to exist on their soil and to instigate a war unnecessarily with a country, which is definitely more powerful militarily and for what? That's what I don't get!

It's easier to start a war than to end it, so lets see where the combined idiots of the Middle East will take us now.

On a more personal note, one of my relatives is now stuck in Lebanon. We have no idea how she will get out... The family are telling her to stay put in some safe place until the fighting stops. My problem is, who said the fighting will stop anytime soon.

Good Article on Newsweek International regarding Egypt's future.

2006-06-30T12:45:00.000+03:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13530553/site/newsweek/

It isn't only the high level government officials. The country is also full of idiots and assholes.

2006-06-30T11:49:00.000+03:00

I haven't been doing or thinking about anything recently other than work and the World Cup. But today I'm in Cyprus, sitting around in a meeting room waiting for something to happen, so I started catching up on reading the Manal & Alaa site.
Found this gem in one of the comments to a post, copied from masrawy.com supposedly !!

القاهرة - واجهت طالبة في الفرقة الأولى في مدرسة ثانوية بالدقهلية تهمة الانضمام لتنظيم سري، بعد ان القت بمسئولية المشكلات الاقتصادية التي تعاني منها مصر على الولايات المتحدة في اجابة احد اسئلة امتحان اللغة العربية.

وأعلنت مديرية التربية والتعليم رسوب الطالبة وعدم السماح لها بدخول امتحانات الدور الثاني حسبما نقلت العربية نت

وبحسب ما ذكرته صحيفة الوفد ، فقد بدأت وقائع القصة عندما توجهت الطالبة آلاء فرج مجاهد لمدرسة شربين الثانوية بنات الحديثة والتي تقع في محافظة الدقهلية يوم امتحان اللغة العربية ، حيث وجدت سؤالا يقول اكتب موضوعا إنشائيا عن " أهمية استصلاح الصحراء بالنسبة للاقتصاد المصري" .

وتصدت الطالبة لاسباب المشكلة " واتهمت الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية بأنها السبب في المشاكل الاقتصادية التي تمر بها مصر والعديد من الدول العربية وذلك لانها تدعم الأنظمة الفاسدة ولا يهمها مصلحة الشعوب، بل كل ما يشغلها هو الحفاظ علي مصالحها والبحث عمن يضمن لها النفوذ والكلمة العليا في مختلف العواصم العربية وعلي رأسها مصر". بحسب الصحيفة

وتصاعدت الأحداث بعد ذلك ، حينما قام مصحح اللغة العربية بكنترول المدرسة بقراءة إجابة الطالبة علي السؤال، حيث هرول نحو رئيس الكنترول ومعه ورقة الإجابة وبعد لحظات توجه الأخير نحو مديرية التربية والتعليم بمحافظة الدقهلية حيث طلب لقاء وكيل الوزارة واطلعه علي إجابة الطالبة فلم يجد الأخير أمامه سوي الاتصال بجهة ما

وبعد لحظات تم استدعاء الطالبة من منزلها ، وفي وجود وكيل الوزارة ورئيس الكنترول وعدد من كبار الشخصيات في المحافظة تم توجيه عدة أسئلة للطالبة التي اجهشت في البكاء

وكما تقول صحيفة الراية القطرية التي ذكرت القصة أيضا فإن وكيل الوزارة رفض السماح لأبيها بأن ينفرد بها مشددا علي ضرورة أن تجيب علي الأسئلة بالكامل.

وتقول الطالبة لصحيفة الوفد: " جلست في حجرة صغيرة بمفردي، ثم جاء ثلاثة محققين، تناوبوا الأسئلة علي. وكانت كلها من نوعية "هل تنتمين إلي تنظيم سري ما؟ ومن الذي دفعك للهجوم علي أمريكا؟ وما هو رأيك في النظام المصري؟ وأنا ـ والكلام لـ "آلاء" ـ لا أفهم نصف الكلام الذي يقال لي، والنصف الاخر لا علاقة لي به".

وبعد التحقيق، أصدرت مديرية التربية والتعليم القرارات بإعلان رسوب الطالبة وعدم السماح لها بدخول امتحانات الدور الثاني. وكذلك عدم السماح لها بالدراسة خلال العام القادم ، بحسب ما ذكرته الصحيفة.

وكما تقول الصحيفة ، فبمجرد انتشار الخبر في مدينة شربين سادت حالة من الغضب في أوساط المواطنين الذين تجمعوا حول المدرسة الثانوية وطالبوا بإعلان نجاح آلاء، غير ان المسؤولين بالمدرسة أكدوا ان قرار رسوبها تم اتخاذه بمعرفة جهات عليا، فتوجهوا نحو المديرية ولكنهم لم يتلقوا اجابا

فما كان منهم إلا أن توجهوا نحو أعضاء مجلس الشعب في المدينة وقد اتجه هؤلاء بصحبة والد الفتاة والذي يعمل موظفاً في محلج للأقطان إلى مديرية التربية والتعليم في محاولة لإلغاء القرارات السابقة، غير ان وكيل الوزارة رفض العدول عن قراره مؤكدا انه لا خيار أمامه سوى ما تقدم من قرارات.

ويقول مدرس بمدرسة شربين رفض ذكر اسمه إن من " تسبب في هذه الأزمة المفتعلة هو أ. ح .ا مدرس التصحيح الذي أخذ ورقة الطالبة وذهب بها إلي رئيس الكنترول الذي تلقفها، لأنه بينه وبين والدة الطالبة خناقة لكونها وكيلاً ادارياً بالمدرسة، وأخذ الورقة وذهب بها إلي مدير المدرسة وقال وهلل وأعلن أنه (ضبط) طالبة تقول رأيها وأوعز لمدير المدرسة أن الطالبة تتحدث وتكتب في السياسية، وتهين النظام المصري. وهو بذلك حاول الانتقام من والدتها، وورط المدرسة والادارة

Won't translate or summarize. Too depressing.
The idiots and assholes comment refers to those low low level teachers and school administrators who felt the need to report this to the Amn el Dawla.

At Last Egypt is Number One in Something!!!

2006-05-31T11:01:00.000+03:00

We constantly ask ourselves, will we ever be the best in the world in anything?! Do we have the fastest car thief, or strongest Police Thug, or anything like that?

The answer is YES!!! We are the best in something!!! And actually it's related to technology and the web!!! 21st century here we come!

Google trends http://www.google.com/trends allows you to enter a search term, and it analyses google logs, to tell you which area of the world searches for this term most. For example Boston, MA searches for the term "cars" more than any other city in the world.

So lets go for the interesting stuff. Which city in the world searches for the term "sex" more than any other?!

If you guessed "Cairo" then you have just won the golden shama3a :)
Cairo is the winner by quite a margin!

Unfortunately, Egypt as a whole is only the second after Pakistan. Our other cities need to get their porn searching skills up to match the capital. We should not neglect our only area of preeminence among nations!

If you don't believe it, try it for yourself
And here are the actual graphs for your viewing pleasure!

How far are you willing to go? What are you willing to risk?

2006-05-13T22:51:00.000+03:00

I used to live outside Egypt for years as my friends know. Reading the news from outside, I would feel that the country is ready for revolution, that at least young people were active and ready to do something.

The reality is that yes, people really hate this government, and this system. Regardless of their economic class. This system has succeeded in the impossible of pissing nearly everybody off.

The regime is still successful in one thing though, which is scaring most of the population from doing anything. Politics probably is still considered by many people, especially older generations as dangerous and risky, and for good reason.

I mean, it not as bad as Nasser's days. They learnt to let people talk to each other and blow off steam without worrying about it. The red line is clear and drawn. Talk to your family, talk to your friends, but if you cross the line and think of organizing anything, or taking part in demonstrations or anything significant like that, that's when they'll get you.

So where does that leave people like us? Discussing politics in a Kahwa recently, a friend asked, what would it take for you to join a demonstration in the street. My reply was, it would need to be something like the Ukraine Orange revolution, when masses of people are in the street. But the recent demonstrations related to the Judges, no, sorry, it's not something I'm proud of, but it's too small, too easily squashed to be joined. We know what they can do to a person they arrest. Are you willing to risk that? And for what? People got beaten up and arrested and are rotting in jail now. Other than bloggers, and people talking to each other, I don't see a massive feeling in the population rising to protect these people. Who else is going to help them? The US ? haaa, give me a break.
It's not enough for a few martyrs to walk in a demonstration in this country and expect to change anything. Unless there's some strategy to have the population behind it, protecting it in some way, it's probably not effective and suicidical.

Their days are numbered.

2006-05-11T23:07:00.000+03:00

Man, check this pic. doesn't it say it all. You have this demonstrator flat on the street with policemen stamping him with their feet.
I came across it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4760487.stm

This regime is hopeless. They have no idea how much the world and the country has changed. The amount of anger and contempt towards the government felt by all is unbelievable. Egyptians are still a peaceful people though. One of our well known sayings is " Have patience with your evil neighbour, he may go to hell, or some disaster may take him." Funny but very passive, like Egyptians themselves. So most of us are just waiting and waiting until something changes. Partially it is the Pharaoh complex too, we're too used to Mubarak. I totally believe though, that when he finally dies ( he is human, isn't he, isn't he!), that is when the big change will come. The problem though, is the big change may be for the worse. 50 years of stupidity do have a cost after all.

Kefaya site banned?!

2006-05-11T23:01:00.000+03:00

The following is the message I'm getting when I try to access the Kefaya site http://harakamasria.org/

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
I wonder if this site is still accessible from outside Egypt. Can someone let me know?

This made me sick :(

2006-05-10T15:04:00.000+03:00

Don't read unless you have a strong stomach.
Seriously, don't say I didn't warn you!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2168496,00.html

The Shitty Era Theory

2006-05-10T11:15:00.000+03:00

FalafelDiaries has a good post here http://thefalafeldiaries.blogspot.com/2006/05/news_09.html in which he wonders why the news is so depressing these days...

I've been wondering for a while whether we're living in some special period, and why this seems so strange to us.

I think the Shitty Era Theory® might explain this.

Human History is a series of Shitty Eras. There has never been a period of Peace, Happiness and Equality. It's actually a myth that this is possible. An individual may not realize how shitty the era he lives in is, but that is just due to the fact that geographically he happened to be in an area which is not under one of the big piles of Shit.

So we have the Colonial Shitty Era, WWI Shitty Era.
Then the interwar period, which may be a Shitty Era or an InterShitty Lull.
Then WWII, one of the Shittiest Shitty Eras ever. A small InterShitty Lull of 3- 5 years and the beginning of the Cold War Shitty Era.

The Cold War Shitty Era is interesting, as relative to the previous Shitty Eras such as WWI and WWII, it was a less bloody Shitty Era. This may lead us to believe that this Era was less Shitty. but this would be a mistake in my opinion, in that there was always the massive risk that a Nuclear war would start, turning the whole Planet into one big barren piece of Shit.

So this is where people in our age group, 20 - 30, come in. We were born close to the end of the Cold War Shitty Era. By the time, we were old enough to be aware of anything, it was 1989 - 1990 and the Shitty Era was over.
In Egypt specifically, we were also born after the Peace Treaty with Israel, so we never saw any of that shit either.
So we spent most of our aware life, during an InterShitty Lull, during which topics such as Monica's blue dress was the most interesting thing going on. And so it was natural for people in our age group to assume that, that is the way life is going to be. Of course that was total bullshit. The world was just taking it's breath after the last scary Shitty Era, and getting ready for the next one.

We're now about 5 years into the new Shitty Era, and we're still not used to it. But we better get used to this shit. The last Shitty Era lasted 50 years. This one won't end any time soon. And even if it does, the best you can hope for is a few years of Intershitty lull again, before the next Shitty Era begins.

so the moral of the story is, the only thing you can do is, try to avoid finding yourself beneath one of the big piles of Shit.

Back to the Stone Age

2006-05-09T12:01:00.000+03:00

I am happy to announce that we are marching confidently back to the Stone Age...

http://www.ahram-eg.com/arab/ahram/2006/5/9/WRIT3.HTML

According to this article, our great Mofty has announced in another Fatwa that we really really need that all statues are haram.

So, another one of the crazy people, we have so many of them these days don't we, went to a museum with a knife, threatened the guard, and smashed four of the statues.

Whats worse is that the Fine Arts College is now falling apart! Students attend religious seminars every day and nearly no Cultural seminars, in the Fine Arts College!!!

Teaching assistants are quiting because art is sinful. Students are AVOIDING LOOKING AT ART!!!!!! IN THE FUCKING FINE ARTS COLLEGE!!!!!

The Dean quit out of disgust.

For God's sake, how stupid can people be!!!! Do they think that people are still praying to these statues!!! They can't tell the difference between Statues of Baal or Ra or something created in the stone age, and statues by artists 2000 years later!!!!

Anyway, for all of you idolators out there. Look out, they're coming for you.

Blogging again... Why We Fight

2006-05-08T22:29:00.000+03:00

Well, I'm back. Lets see if I can make this a habit.

I watched a really good movie recently called "Why We Fight"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436971/
http://www.mininova.org/tor/68961

It's mainly about the US military industrial complex, how this was predicted in the 50s by the US president then, Eisenhower.
It's point of view is that the iraq war didn't just pop out of the blue, it's a trend thats always been there. To tell you the truth, a few years ago, I would have considered this just propaganda and crap. I really believed the democracy and freedom bullshit. The war and Bush's 6 years of greatness have been a real eye opener though.

Anyway, if anyone is reading this, try watching the movie and make up your own mind.

I know a lot of people are bored of this topic by now. The problem is that it's not a tv show, that you can just flip the channel on. It's just part of a big worldwide mess thats just getting worse and worse. We're going to be affected by this whether we ignore it or not.

Shatayem 3arabeya

2005-10-09T12:11:00.000+02:00

Shatayem 3arabeya
Well this is my first post to my first blog!
I won’t have a big intro … Not sure if I will really continue with this blog.
But anyway here it goes:

This is kind of a serious article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4313272.stm
Bas el gomla dee gamda gedan!
“The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, was recently in Washington warning darkly that violence and sectarianism in Iraq could lead to its disintegration
He then delivered the same stark message to a meeting of Arab ministers - and was roundly rebuffed by Iraq's interior minister, Bayan Jabr.
Mr Jabr, a Shia with close connections to Iran, denounced the Saudi kingdom's treatment of its women and its Shia minority.
And for good measure he called the Saudi prince a "bedouin on a camel". “

Testing Blogger for Word

2005-10-09T11:08:00.000+02:00

Testing Blogger for Word
Testing Blogger
E7na gamdeen awey