No one ran against Nasrallah

I think that's the best line of the entire article.

BG

Parliament Elections 2009 #5

Hehehe,
Where do I even start with this video?
This has got to be some of the best material to come out of Lebanon in this elections season!

Sleiman Frengieh, Maronite candidate in Zgharta, is giving his supporters a piece of his mind. Basically telling them to each go home and that he wants no one creating problems on his own turf.
Classic really. I'm not entirely sure when this was filmed, but I'm guessing sometime after his and 14th March supporters had an altercation. He is clearly furious in the video, he even slaps one of the guys. Hehe, this is after he gave another a good shove. To his defence though, the guy did try to give him what seemed like a hug. No offense intended to anyone, but if you look at the guy in the video, I wouldn't wanna hug him either. If you're looking like a chav and trying to give me a hug after sweltering in 80-90 degree heat pumped up on adrenaline, I'd be running in the other direction.

I'm not gonna translate the video word by word. It speaks for itself really.
But that's mostly the gist of it.
Oh, and the best part is when he tells them there's probably around 30,000 "donkeys" in this village. Hey, at least he knows his constituency well.
Nah, je blague.
LOL

BG

Parliament Elections 2009 #3

Continuing on the theme of elections.

Another classic video from Kalam El Nass and made more so memorable by our lovely and ever so eloquent Lebanese politicians.

Khitab (speech) Market

It starts off with the whole Fares Boueiz and Nimatallah Abi Nasr debacle. Both running for the Maronite seat in Kisrwan. As you might remember, Aoun may or may not have promised Boueiz to be included on his list in Kisrwan, but may or may not have reneged on that promise. This prompted Boueiz to say that he was glad not to have entered the "cage of chicks" in Kisrwan, referring to Aoun's candidates. This in turn prompted a back and forth debacle between Abi Nasr and Boueiz, each accusing the other of being a different kind of bird, chicks and peacocks and so forth.

It's nice to see that people are running on useful platforms.

Then Michel El Murr calls Aoun's people "jlabbit" mostly translating as "little ones" but in a derogatory manner.

Ah, the joys of the Arabic language.

Off to the other Michel, calling his opponents "bsaynet", which technically translates into "cats" but probably meant "pussies".

Then back to the first Micho, with an online, on-air, live Kiss Okhta, no translation needed, nuff said there!

And then Geagea ever so eloquently as well compares his opponents to frogs that are inflating themselves (pompous type of inflating) and that they will soon explode!

BOOM BOOM, we all know how much we all love explosions!

Back to Micho, threatening to cut people's tongues and hands off, if they disagreed with him that is. I mean, non non non, he would not just do it for fun. C'est sauvage comme ca. La2 la2 la2, only when they disagree with him. Oh, and he finishes it all off by saying that he will just step on the small ones and smash them like ants. Only if they disagreed with him as well.
Il est gentil ce type. 3adatan byil3ab mnee7 ma3 el 2akhareen, bass ma t2arbo sawbo.

Nice to see that every candidate in Lebanon has a platform they are running on and that they actually use their time in effectively promoting these programs.

You have to admit though that their use of the Arabic language is impeccable and their theatrical performances are classic. Not to mention similes, oxymorons, paradoxes, and so on and so forth.

BG

What country?

A series of security breaches have happened in Lebanon recently that pose a serious threat to the government's legitimacy as an effective protector of the state and it's people. There was the abduction of an engineer that works for MEA a couple weeks ago or so followed by the murder of another MEA employee, this time a pilot. All sources in Lebanon argue that both incidents are unrelated. However, of note, is the fact that they all happened in and around areas occupied/controlled by armed/security forces of Hezballah. A couple days ago, a yet unidentified armed group, sent a few rockets towards Israel. A few actually landed in Lebanon and never made it across the border. Again, this happened in Hezballah areas and under the jurisdiction/watchful eyes of the UNIFIL force, originally there to prevent this same exact kind of activities.

Equally important but on a different security scale is the hand grenades that have been launched at a few March 14th offices including the LF and Phalanges offices. These might have more of an election relevance rather than a security/resistance/let's pick a fight type attacks.

The most serious affront to state security happened with the attack on the police officer in Beirut's suburb. According to various sources, his and his driver's weapons were confiscated along with their Jeep. If police officers can't even protect their own, how the hell are they going to protects citizens?

you can find a video about the officer attack at the following link (in arabic):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg2RqI-8Ekw

All these are of course dangerous situations that might easily spiral out of control.
The south Lebanon situation can easily become very dangerous given that Netanyahu is back.
The situations occurring in and around Hezballah areas have become way too common, and the government needs to assert itself and kick some serious ass.
As for the LF and Phalange situations, I think they fall into pre-election campaigning, Lebanese style, and are not much of a serious security issue, an unacceptable one nonetheless.

BG