Hassounna and Saad Meet for dinner

Here we are then, pictures of a smiling Hassouna and a grinning Saad all over the news.

We're supposed to be happy about this. Everything is going to be all right now.

I just can't get myself to be so enthusiastic. Are we supposed to forget that Nasrallah ordered an attack on his country's capital a few months back using the alleged weapons of resistance to kill Lebanese men, women and children. Are we supposed to ignore the fact that he can do it again whenever he wants because he has the weapons to force any decision he likes on us when we disagree with him?

Or should we just be happy because if they're smiling it means they're not close to another civil war?

Those who are gone are gone
Those who are dead are dead
Everybody Smile for the Cameras.


P.S. : Someone close to Hassouna needs to tell him to lay off the Makhlouta, methinks we are reaching bear-like proportions here.

Americans Attack on Syrian Soil

So the Americans decided to expand their operations from Iraq into Syria, which begs the question WTF? But instead of trying to figure the Americans out, lets try and guess what the Syrian response to the attack is going to be.

Now usually the Syrians just make a big hoopla and protest loudly, promise retaliation to anyone who will listen, until the story becomes old and people forget it even happened (just look at the bombing of the nuclear installation fiasco, the buzzing the presidential palace fiasco and, oh yeah, the whole Golan heights are taken but they're not doing anything about it fiasco).

Anyways, I write because the Syrians can't really retaliate directly against the Americans (or the Israelis), so that leaves just one place they can vent their frustrations: Lebanon.

Lucky us.

Obama, McCain & Bradley

And now I'm reading everywhere about the "Bradley Effect" which apparently describes closet racists who are too afraid to come out and admit their true nature in public.
The "Bradley Effect" would push the polls in the opposite direction of what I will now call "The Lebanessa Effect" as described in the post below.
So it's BE vs LE.
May the best Effect win.

Obama, McCain and the "Undecided Voters"

Well the US elections are up soon, and though the rest of us aren't American we are all very interested in who the next Pres. is going to be, mainly because Americans interfere so much in everybody else's business.

Anyway, this isn't about the actual candidates, but about those who(m?) the press call the "Undecided Voters". Before I go on, I must warn you dear reader, that this is a completely unscientific discourse based solely on what I think.

Now if I was the Republicans, I'd be more worried about these "Undecided Voters" than usual. Why? Because Obama is black.

To be an "Undecided Voter" usually means:
-you are not voting along party lines and you will actually decide based on each candidate's merits...
-you don't care one way or the other, you didn't even know that there was an election going on this year....

This would mean that usually, there is a 50:50 chance that the voters can go one way or the other.

This time though, things are different: the undecided voter has another characteristic
....deciding based on ideas
....didn't know there was an election on this year
and
....not racist.

Why? Because the racist voter ( and unfortunately in America, there are many) must by virtue of their racism already have sided with McCain . This I must stress is no reflection on McCain and his ideas on the matter, the poor guy is probably very un-racist himself.

Hence the conclusion we reach is that undecided voters in this election are already skewed towards the democrats (or Obama to be more precise), because the undecided pool this year does not include any racist bastards.

Ali Baba is off to Persia

According to Nahar, Aoun is apparently off to Iran to meet el-presidente. All he needs now is a beard and a lisp and he'll be fully incorporated into the Hizb.

Syrians are getting ready for something

So the Syrians are deploying all over the place, I wonder what for? They're telling us it's only to stop terrorists and smugglers sneaking over the border on their donkeys and such.
But don't worry, the Americans said they'll help us, just like they did in South Ossetia .....

No Comment

From a BBC article on why Andorrans have the longest lifespan of any people on earth:

"Minister and government spokesman, Juli Minoves, is quietly proud of his compatriots' longevity but not particularly surprised by it.
He thinks attitude is just as important as altitude here.
He points out the almost non-existent crime levels in Andorra, that there is a single prison with about 50 inmates.
And he puts a general feeling of well-being and security partly down to seven centuries of war-free history."

Another Bomb

Another Bomb in Tripoli
5 dead
5 families devastated
all we can say is RIP
all we can do is watch and weep for this country and its people

Schizophrenic Country Part II

As you all may have noticed, the big bozo's have decided to get together and talk it out. In the meantime, they will pretend that the country isn't going to the dogs around their heads, and that incidents involving the citizenry using their "personal/ moqawama/ defense/ hunting/ whatever excuse you want" weapons aren't now a daily occurrence in this lawless land.

Where the fuck is the army and internal security?

How's about a law that says ANYONE caught with a weapon in public for WHATEVER reason will be arrested and put in jail .Or if they like weapons and fighting so much, why don't we just draft anyone and his weapon into the army for couple of years, hey, the army needs weapons anyways!

Well, OK, enough joking around. Nobody in this godforsaken land is going to give up any weapons as long as Hizballah has theirs, and Hizballah is never going to give up their weapons advantage of might= right, because how else can they force those who don't agree with them to do what they want? As for protecting us from the Isrealis, this begs the previously theoretical but now very valid question of "who's going to protect us from Hizballah?"

So the conclusion is folks: more crappy times ahead,and no solution on the horizon.

Murder Mystery

Let's see if I got this straight: the bomb that killed Aridi is the same type that was used to kill Hawi, Kassir and maim Chidiac.
So the first M8 member targeted may have been killed by the same people previously dispatching anti-syrian voices probably all the way back to Harriri.
Now which person do we know who is a staunch pro-syrian lackey but is currently on the outs with his previous buddy Arslan?
I don't think we need to call in Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.

Ramadan is here

Kil Sineh w-into Bkheir!

Killer handed over

Having originally claimed that someone sneaked in from Israel into Iqlim- al- Tuffah, shot at the army helicpoter and killed the pilot, Hizballah now hand over the real rather than the fabricated killer.
We assume he will be walking free again within the week.

The rope is unravelling

It's falling apart, a little bit unravels here, a little there, till there is nothing holding this country together anymore. The problem is when one faction is above the law, then all the other factions try to achieve the same status.

You hear the news, none of it pushes the country over the edge, yet, but the incidents are increasing, the lawlessness getting more and more obvious, the fighting in Tripoli, the fighting in Baalbeck, Ras el nabe3,Kaskas, and now the killing of an army captain in a helicopter over Hizballah territory.

Again I won't play the who did it guessing game.
Who did it in this country depends on who you support politically, so I know who I think did it and you know who you think did it. The end is still the same, a soldier was murdered flying over airspace in his own country.

I really need to remove the little spiel in my sidebar, I don't think I'm very hopeful anymore. I think we are going to suffer a great deal inflicted internally and from the outside before any real order is restored, if it is ever restored.

But hey, at least they let us have this summer.....

...and its frozen

The Salafis have frozen their memorandum with the Hizbos. Well that didn't last long...

So again lets pray: please please please, send us our own Ataturk.

Hizballah and Salafists sign memorandum of understanding

....or backwards fundamentalist maniacs of Lebanon unite!

Let the rest of us all put our hands together and ask God Almighty to send us our own Ataturk to turn Lebanon into a secular country as soon as possible please please please.

On Borders and Embassies

So the Syrians have given up trying to assimilate us into the Collective and have decided to grace us with an embassy. The border is also going to be demarcated in all places except the one that really counts, so that the Hizbos and the Israelis can continue their war games unimpeded by a line on a map.
Before you despair my fellow Lebanese let me give you some words of wisdom: we are negotiating from a point of weakness and though the results may not be complete,it's a beginning. Lets grab what we can get for now and later, bit by bit, maneuver for more.

Another Bomb

I'm not going to sit here and guess at who did this, judging by the previous results of investigations into the bombing and killings, we'll probably never know anyway.
Whoever did this the result is the same: dead people, devastated families. RIP.

OLYMPICS VS PARLIMENT

For those of you who haven't tuned out of the farce yet, I urge you to switch from watching the useless parliamentarians and their debates, and start watching the magnificent Olympics.
This is what the rest of the world is doing while our politicians babble on, you'll enjoy the Olympics much more, I promise.

Diagnosis: Schizophrenia

Yes folks, I have now fully diagnosed the Lebanese condition. I've reached the conclusion that we are all suffering from an acute attack of schizophrenia.

Here we are all sitting at home watching the prisoner release on TV, should we be happy that samir kuntar is finally out of Isreali Jails after thirty years, and that his 70 year old mother got to see him, or should we be a little more subdued at the fact that he may have actually killed a four year old child and is therefore a criminal rather than a war hero? Should we believe what the Israelis said about him or is this just more Israeli propaganda? Should we celebrate his return or mourn the 1500 people who died to get him here?

What do we think about the fact that Saad was kissing the released hizballah members when other hizballah members were attacking Beirut and shelling the mountains just a few weeks ago, and in all probability if these four were not in Isreali jails they would have taken part in the attack? Should we be happy that one of the realeased prisoners got to see his son for the first time or should I start worrying about how he's going to raise this son to be Loyal to Al wali al Faqih first, Lebanon second?

Should we be happy that Hizballah held the upper hand and didn't tell the Isrealis if the soldiers were dead or alive, or should we think it would have been a little more humane of them to tell the families that they were dead? Should we even be caring what these Isreali families which have repeatedly sent its soldiers to kill our children feel, or are we becoming too insensetive if we don't?

And after all the hugs and kisses and (white suits) should we be happy that we are (at least temporarily) at a calm point or should we already be worrying about the next war?

I think I'm going to stop now before my brain splits in two.

Non political good news for a change

From Naharnet
"First Solar Car in Arab Region Made by Lebanese TeamA team of fourth-year engineering students and their professor have successfully built the first solar-powered vehicle in the Arab region, the American University of Beirut announced Wednesday.The team named their car Apollo's Chariot, in reference to the Greek god of the sun, the AUB press release said.It said the steel-and-fiberglass, one-seater vehicle measures 5.5 meters in length and 2 meters in width. It weighs about 700 kilograms, or almost double the weight of an average sedan. Led by Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Daniel Asmar, the team of Elie Maalouf, Amin Kanafani, Ahmed Hammoud, and Rawad el-Jurdi, took almost nine months of dedicated work to build the "Chariot," AUB said.It said that with its aerodynamic design, the futuristic-looking vehicle glides over the road quietly. "It looks like a rocket, but moves like a swan," said Kanafani. "We actually built a car that runs on a new kind of energy. It's almost like magic!"Professor Asmar admits, however, that solar-powered vehicles are still years from becoming commercially available. Right now, building one that can be safely driven on the streets would cost more than a million dollars. Nevertheless, they are important for research purposes.Apollo's Chariot cost about $25,000, the press release said. It said that through 36 small and eight large photovoltaic cells, the car converts solar energy into 1000 watts of power. The components of the car include the cells and batteries, which capture and store the solar energy, and a DC (direct current) motor which converts energy from the batteries into a uniform source of energy. A maximum power point tracker device also maximizes the amount of power delivered from the cells."

This, they achieved despite a year full of conflict and crap.

I wonder at the heights we would achieve as a nation if only we had a little peace, and with it the peace of mind that would allow us to create and advance.