Stupid of the Day Award 4

Check this guy out celebrating Egypt's win over Algeria in a Soccer match.



Oh, and check out the guy on the right trying to get in on the action.
I believe that these are highly pressurized and evidently highly flammable canisters that normally should not be close to any source of fire.

Both much deserving of our coveted Stupid of the Day Award!

BG

Score one for the ladies! #2

It is indeed a good week for women in the Middle East!
Now, mind you lot's of work still needs to be done but there has been a few stories that are encouraging.

The first one comes out of Syria where Bashar Al Assad has decreed that men convicted of honor killings should get harsher sentences. Get this though, he increased their sentence from a 1 year to a whopping 2 year imprisonment! Still a ludicrous sentence for murder, but better than nothing I guess!
LINK

The second one comes out of Egypt where the government has finally done something about the rampant sexual harassment woman experience on a daily basis. This apparently had been a recurring problem in Egypt where woman just don't feel safe on the streets. A sexual perpetrator had been charged with 45 years in prison. A tough and very much needed sentence.
LINK

Both these stories are welcome developments coming out of the Middle East where women still lag considerably behind men when it comes to their rights and social equalities.

BG

Who murdered Suzanne Tamim?

Apparently, the Egyptian billionaire did it with a knife in the Dubai Luxury apartment. (Anyway ever play Clue?)

Surprisingly, the Egyptian court found billionaire Hisham Talaat Moustafa guilty of paying $2million to Muhsin Sukkari to murder Tamim, and as a result both have been sentenced to death by hanging.

Seems as if both will appeal the decision, so I wonder if they will get off after all.

The case was very high profile because of obviously, the celebrity of the people involved, and it was thought that Moustafa would get off because of the corrupt "justice" system. ($$$) But maybe not? (This judge better watch his back, he may wake up and find a dead horse in his bed....[Godfather, anyone?])

Watch the video, it adds to the whole "soap-opera" aura of this entire story.

Moustafa wanted Tamim dead for dumping him for an Iraqi kick-boxing champion she met in London.

Someone doesn't take rejection well...

~LZ

Excuse me I am a girl

Recently I came across a bunch of articles that caught my attention.
The first article was from BBC and it was about the UAE government targeting "masculine women". The government's entire explanation for this is to "help women avoid what is seen as delinquent behavior", otherwise known to the rest of the civilized world as homosexuality.

This is the link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7940501.stm

The other "gem" I found online was an interview by the NYTimes Magazine with Jehan Sadat, the widow of the late Anwar Sadat. Upon being asked as to the status of gays in Islam or Egypt, she answered the following: "Homosexuality is against Islam. Here in Egypt, there are not many homosexuals, not like the United States. There are some. We’ve had them since the Pharaohs."

My usual attitude in life is: to each his/her own.

But I find it weird that she really believes that there are more homosexuals in the US than Egypt. Now to be fair, she goes on to say that it is "more or less closet gay" that they have in Egypt, but still. A weird answer to a weird question anyway, I really did not see how this question connected with the rest of the interview anyhow.

Here's the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/magazine/15wwln-q4-t.html


Oh, and as an aside: my friend (who is also gay) and I were talking the other night and we decided to start using the word faggot extensively in our daily conversations and interactions with other people. Just use it for everything and to everything, thus rendering it part of the mainstream and by doing so, make it an overused, banal, non-offensive part of the English vocab.

PS: This idea is not based on any scientific background or on any previously successful similar experiment. Oh, and I was drunk when I came up with it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but chances of success are pretty close to zero.

BG