Wednesday, January 24, 2007
It's addictive and time consuming
Friday, January 19, 2007
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam, I have always loved this guy's music when he was still Cat Stevens, but I have never been interested in knowing about his personal life, until I was reading this interview with him (unfortunately in Arabic)
This guy is not just a singer, or songwriter, he is much more than that. He is a philosopher, and a true believer!!
In this interview, he was saying that his flight failed to get a permission to land in US, two years ago because his name was enlisted in the "hate list", and redirected back to UK. This time, he was invited to attend UN's Cultural Understanding event.
The reporter: You have reached the highest point as a star, why have you given up everything?
Yusuf: I did not, I have just taken a step forward to change my life. I was facing death in one situation. I was swimming alone in the ocean in Malibu, when I suddenly lost control over my body, and I have known that I am dying, when I asked God if he will save me, I will do for him. and this was it, at that point, I felt a small wave pushing me forward and I got back all my powers and swam back to the beach.
This was the true point of truth, when I realised that how weak I am to fate. From that point, I started reading about all religions, when this guy gave me a small Qura'an, and I found myself in it.
The reporter: In one sentence, what is Islam for you?
Yusuf: Literal translation is; going in peace with God. Islam for me is peace. despite the vandalism and terror, we should strive for peace.
Yusuf: I am like a bird flying in the sky to bridge up the gaps between cultures. This bird flies every morning in hunger, and comes back when it is full, then this bird trust in God.
This guy is not just a singer, or songwriter, he is much more than that. He is a philosopher, and a true believer!!
In this interview, he was saying that his flight failed to get a permission to land in US, two years ago because his name was enlisted in the "hate list", and redirected back to UK. This time, he was invited to attend UN's Cultural Understanding event.
The reporter: You have reached the highest point as a star, why have you given up everything?
Yusuf: I did not, I have just taken a step forward to change my life. I was facing death in one situation. I was swimming alone in the ocean in Malibu, when I suddenly lost control over my body, and I have known that I am dying, when I asked God if he will save me, I will do for him. and this was it, at that point, I felt a small wave pushing me forward and I got back all my powers and swam back to the beach.
This was the true point of truth, when I realised that how weak I am to fate. From that point, I started reading about all religions, when this guy gave me a small Qura'an, and I found myself in it.
The reporter: In one sentence, what is Islam for you?
Yusuf: Literal translation is; going in peace with God. Islam for me is peace. despite the vandalism and terror, we should strive for peace.
Yusuf: I am like a bird flying in the sky to bridge up the gaps between cultures. This bird flies every morning in hunger, and comes back when it is full, then this bird trust in God.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
This is not an idology, this is a mental illness
This is the problem of the whole world, and this is what we (muslims) should be fighting beside everybody else against.
"We are the muslims, We drink the blood of the enemy, and we can face them anywhere. That is Islam and that is Jihad", Omar Brooks, a British Extremist.
This was said in a debate in Dublin between what-so-called Islamic extremists, and what-so-called moderate Muslims, and that point of the debate was that Islamic violence can never be justified, when this guy wearing Ali baba's customes (but missing a magic carpet) claiming that Islam as a religion asks us (Muslims) to kill the enemy merciless and drink their blood!!
I just want to understand something....I've read Qura'an more than 10 times and have never came across any of that, except that one versus says "al muslim man salem al nas lesanoh we yadoh" meaning that a true Muslim is the person who saves all people (not mentioning what kind of people or from which religion) from any harm including physical and verbal.
so, morons, it's not that you shouldn't attack anybody physically, but not to curse or swear to them, or do whatever a Verbal harm would mean.
"We are the muslims, We drink the blood of the enemy, and we can face them anywhere. That is Islam and that is Jihad", Omar Brooks, a British Extremist.
This was said in a debate in Dublin between what-so-called Islamic extremists, and what-so-called moderate Muslims, and that point of the debate was that Islamic violence can never be justified, when this guy wearing Ali baba's customes (but missing a magic carpet) claiming that Islam as a religion asks us (Muslims) to kill the enemy merciless and drink their blood!!
I just want to understand something....I've read Qura'an more than 10 times and have never came across any of that, except that one versus says "al muslim man salem al nas lesanoh we yadoh" meaning that a true Muslim is the person who saves all people (not mentioning what kind of people or from which religion) from any harm including physical and verbal.
so, morons, it's not that you shouldn't attack anybody physically, but not to curse or swear to them, or do whatever a Verbal harm would mean.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
what is going on in Mideast?!
There are couple of "interesting" news that have been happening lately in Middle East:
Rice met the Egyptian FM who informed her (for the first time since the American occupation of Iraq) that Egypt agrees with the new American plan there as long as it is aiming at stabilising the country.
Rice in a meeting in Israel planning for an initiative to create an "Arabian" union to be lead by Israel!! seems that Condi has not attended history classes at school to know that Israel's (that came to existence in the region in 1948) first language is not Arabic!!
Mubarak decides to decrease the Israeli companies shares in QIZ
An article in Ahram says that Y'adeout Ahronout (Israeli newspaper) mentioned that Egypt has launched today a satellite for spying that can take pictures under different weather conditions, and that the point out of launching it is Egypt's interest of what is going around in Israel and other countries in the region (ooops, they have forgotten that Egypt has no interest in other countries in the region other than Iran).......OK, so it is for spying against Israel and Iran.
In Haaretz, Israel has assigned the first Arab minister in the country, as minister for technology and information!! but the striking thing in that article was the comment by another minister that this action is a slam against zionism!! shit, is anybody allowed to use that word, I thought it is one of the taboos, like as if a Saudi minister will announce that their support to el-Qaeda is not enough to kick Iran's interests' ass in Iraq!!
Rice met the Egyptian FM who informed her (for the first time since the American occupation of Iraq) that Egypt agrees with the new American plan there as long as it is aiming at stabilising the country.
Rice in a meeting in Israel planning for an initiative to create an "Arabian" union to be lead by Israel!! seems that Condi has not attended history classes at school to know that Israel's (that came to existence in the region in 1948) first language is not Arabic!!
Mubarak decides to decrease the Israeli companies shares in QIZ
An article in Ahram says that Y'adeout Ahronout (Israeli newspaper) mentioned that Egypt has launched today a satellite for spying that can take pictures under different weather conditions, and that the point out of launching it is Egypt's interest of what is going around in Israel and other countries in the region (ooops, they have forgotten that Egypt has no interest in other countries in the region other than Iran).......OK, so it is for spying against Israel and Iran.
In Haaretz, Israel has assigned the first Arab minister in the country, as minister for technology and information!! but the striking thing in that article was the comment by another minister that this action is a slam against zionism!! shit, is anybody allowed to use that word, I thought it is one of the taboos, like as if a Saudi minister will announce that their support to el-Qaeda is not enough to kick Iran's interests' ass in Iraq!!
Monday, January 15, 2007
Friday's
Last Friday, I was attending the Friday's sermon at a nearby Moroccan mosque, where the sheikh (priest) holds the speech in formal Arabic, which makes me understand what he talks about, except when he eventually converts to Moroccan.
Actually the subject of the speech was pretty awesome. It was about "Hypocrisy" in Islam, as this is one of the biggest issues that the religion is dealing with, specially when a person pretends to do something good just for people to be saying that this person is good. But worse than that, it's mentioned in Qura'an that if you do anything's good (pray, fast, donation, etc...) with any other intention than to be purely for God, it's considered as a Sin, and it's better if the person don't even do it!!
The sheikh presented the issue in a brilliant way, and made me think about that much, except that at the end of the sermon, he started telling us that there's one lady who donated all her precious stuff from gold rings and jewlleries to the mosque, and he started praying for her, pressing on the things that she donated!! The thing is, it was so gross for me, at the moment thinking about his nice speech, was interrupted by a moment of "Hypocrisy" or whatever people's intentions would be, but anyway, it's very stressed on in Qura'an that "what your right hand gives, your left hand should not know about it", meaning that nobody should ever know that you donated or else it may be considered as a SIN!!
Actually the subject of the speech was pretty awesome. It was about "Hypocrisy" in Islam, as this is one of the biggest issues that the religion is dealing with, specially when a person pretends to do something good just for people to be saying that this person is good. But worse than that, it's mentioned in Qura'an that if you do anything's good (pray, fast, donation, etc...) with any other intention than to be purely for God, it's considered as a Sin, and it's better if the person don't even do it!!
The sheikh presented the issue in a brilliant way, and made me think about that much, except that at the end of the sermon, he started telling us that there's one lady who donated all her precious stuff from gold rings and jewlleries to the mosque, and he started praying for her, pressing on the things that she donated!! The thing is, it was so gross for me, at the moment thinking about his nice speech, was interrupted by a moment of "Hypocrisy" or whatever people's intentions would be, but anyway, it's very stressed on in Qura'an that "what your right hand gives, your left hand should not know about it", meaning that nobody should ever know that you donated or else it may be considered as a SIN!!
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Chinese diplomacy
I love Chinese diplomacy, it is running by the Egyptian concept of "ma'ahom ma'ahom 'alihom 'alihom" (say with them, with them, say against them, against them), which simply act as the world's altruist, we love everybody and we want everybody to be happy.
On Thursday, Iran's nuclear negotiator paid a visit to China to ensure the Chinese support for the Iranian nuclear programme, believing that peaceful use of nuclear energy is a right for every country, while on Wednesday, Olmert (the Israeli PM) paid a visit to China, resulted in him saying that China assured their opposition toward any plans by Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
This is a real smartassery action. Those dudes are the ones who stand out there after a deadly fight rubbing their hands and laughing out loud, while everybody else are licking their wounds, if not already dying.
It seems that somebody are busy studying history and learning out of its lessons, that direct involvement in wars or getting biased to one side against another, simply gains nothing, while actively working on a slow-blood-sucking process from everybody gains everything.
On the other hand, some others are busy ignoring history and repeating their mistakes on a worse level, by developing hatred-ship and bad relations with everybody else. And it is not US, it is only Bush's administration which looks like a minority living in a foreign country, as over the past few days, NEWS were mentioning that Bush wants to send 30,000 troops to Iraq, while congress is opposing. But it seems that the American democracy system is facing a great challenge as Bush has thrown the congress opposition away and decided to send 20,000 troops instead. Well, have to admit that without the congress opposing, may be the guy would have sent the whole 30,000!!
I am listening to Era's "If you shout"......such a nice song, saying:
If you shout loud enough
You'll survive the noise of chaos
If you shout loud enough
You'll be the one
If you shout loud enough
You'll be the one to follow
I believe that Kim Jong-il and Ahmadi Nijad are dancing all day long on this song.
On Thursday, Iran's nuclear negotiator paid a visit to China to ensure the Chinese support for the Iranian nuclear programme, believing that peaceful use of nuclear energy is a right for every country, while on Wednesday, Olmert (the Israeli PM) paid a visit to China, resulted in him saying that China assured their opposition toward any plans by Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
This is a real smartassery action. Those dudes are the ones who stand out there after a deadly fight rubbing their hands and laughing out loud, while everybody else are licking their wounds, if not already dying.
It seems that somebody are busy studying history and learning out of its lessons, that direct involvement in wars or getting biased to one side against another, simply gains nothing, while actively working on a slow-blood-sucking process from everybody gains everything.
On the other hand, some others are busy ignoring history and repeating their mistakes on a worse level, by developing hatred-ship and bad relations with everybody else. And it is not US, it is only Bush's administration which looks like a minority living in a foreign country, as over the past few days, NEWS were mentioning that Bush wants to send 30,000 troops to Iraq, while congress is opposing. But it seems that the American democracy system is facing a great challenge as Bush has thrown the congress opposition away and decided to send 20,000 troops instead. Well, have to admit that without the congress opposing, may be the guy would have sent the whole 30,000!!
I am listening to Era's "If you shout"......such a nice song, saying:
If you shout loud enough
You'll survive the noise of chaos
If you shout loud enough
You'll be the one
If you shout loud enough
You'll be the one to follow
I believe that Kim Jong-il and Ahmadi Nijad are dancing all day long on this song.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Wise word of the day
An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous - Henry Ford
My Skills
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Saddam's Hanging
just wondering if it's done by the charicatirist to have 2 Shiites, 2 Nazi-look-likes and one......hmmm (let your imagination go as far as you want), intendedly, or may be just a coincident.
Be aware of soldiers
was checking this NEWS with a heading "American soldiers are shooting Iraqi civilians bodies after they are DEAD!!" at el-Ahram (Arabic). The article mentions that the soldiers opened fire on the people in a car, just, because there was an explosion near by where they were.
Or this article mentioning that UN is investigating 300 cases of rape by the UN Peace keeping forces. However, sarcastic this might seems, but it sounds like word of "Peace" has been misused here.
Well, this flashs back a conversation with a friend few months ago, about armies, and if any terrorist attack against soldiers should get a status as a Terrorist Attack. My point was simply that armies are made of "people" who are trained to kill and get killed. AND, because it is against human nature to kill another person, even during war time, and it was evidenced by a lot of statistics about ex-soldiers in armies who got engaged in some operations, are actually psychologically unstable people.
Result is: It do not make a big difference between a serial killer in London, an armed drug gangster in Mexico, or even a soldier fighting - under the name of defending his country - in the other part of the world, thousands of miles away from his country!!
Or this article mentioning that UN is investigating 300 cases of rape by the UN Peace keeping forces. However, sarcastic this might seems, but it sounds like word of "Peace" has been misused here.
Well, this flashs back a conversation with a friend few months ago, about armies, and if any terrorist attack against soldiers should get a status as a Terrorist Attack. My point was simply that armies are made of "people" who are trained to kill and get killed. AND, because it is against human nature to kill another person, even during war time, and it was evidenced by a lot of statistics about ex-soldiers in armies who got engaged in some operations, are actually psychologically unstable people.
Result is: It do not make a big difference between a serial killer in London, an armed drug gangster in Mexico, or even a soldier fighting - under the name of defending his country - in the other part of the world, thousands of miles away from his country!!
Friday, January 05, 2007
Global Warming
This is quite sarcastic, but I started believing that people's ability to discuss arguments and claim-backs in a rational way is terribly diminishing.
The sarcastic thing that I was arguing in this discussion that we shouldn't believe everything said in media; movies or NEWS, and considering it as facts, when some people claimed back that it was mentioned in some other movie!!
Awesome, I believe that a day is approaching when we can find somebody sustaining their point of view with some quotation by Mickey Mouse.
P.S.: I have got nothing against Mr. Mickey, I used to be a great fan myself when I was 8 years old.
Hey peeps, come on, aren't we learning anything from history, aren't we learning from incidents that happened during our lives???!! how about Mr. Bush standing there few years ago, asking the whole world to support US in their war against TERROR by salvaging Iraqis, and get rid of Sadam who's hiding mass destruction weapons in his pockets. Hey dudes, what's up? couldn't you find the weapons, probably Sadam is smarter than you and hiding the weapons in his back pocket, or may be your intelligence system isn't intelligent enough to discover the truth.
Or haven't you checked the Protocols of Zion number 2, 9 and 12 that mentions that control of press and spreading over mottos like "let's stop Global Warming" to attract as many people by your side and start leading them.
Well, everybody is free to choose between going into the Lemmings-ising process that you can go through by believing everything shown in NEWS or movies, or think freely, and research a little bit before going behind any motto-holders.
The sarcastic thing that I was arguing in this discussion that we shouldn't believe everything said in media; movies or NEWS, and considering it as facts, when some people claimed back that it was mentioned in some other movie!!
Awesome, I believe that a day is approaching when we can find somebody sustaining their point of view with some quotation by Mickey Mouse.
P.S.: I have got nothing against Mr. Mickey, I used to be a great fan myself when I was 8 years old.
Hey peeps, come on, aren't we learning anything from history, aren't we learning from incidents that happened during our lives???!! how about Mr. Bush standing there few years ago, asking the whole world to support US in their war against TERROR by salvaging Iraqis, and get rid of Sadam who's hiding mass destruction weapons in his pockets. Hey dudes, what's up? couldn't you find the weapons, probably Sadam is smarter than you and hiding the weapons in his back pocket, or may be your intelligence system isn't intelligent enough to discover the truth.
Or haven't you checked the Protocols of Zion number 2, 9 and 12 that mentions that control of press and spreading over mottos like "let's stop Global Warming" to attract as many people by your side and start leading them.
Well, everybody is free to choose between going into the Lemmings-ising process that you can go through by believing everything shown in NEWS or movies, or think freely, and research a little bit before going behind any motto-holders.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Europe 2015
Flight to Dubai
Well, it was the first time for me to use the services of the Turkish airlines, which was not bad at all, except that the transit was at Attaturk, Istanbul's airport, which is very unreflective to the country concerning prices and quality!! This would add to the list of the contradictions that the country has.
As Turkey is one of the top destinations for tourism in the whole world, and despite the nation's illiteracy of English, even in touristic places, and while one should be expecting that everybody in the airport speaks good English, but you get shocked from the fact that the very few people who speaks it, knows very basic of the language that makes asking sophisticated questions like how to get a meal voucher, or asking about an internet access point, sounds like some nuclear physics for them. Anyway, after passing by the passport check point 3 times and going back through a back door (I'm not sure if people are allowed to do that), and going back and forth for couple of times to find that the HotSpot zone is a non-smoking 2x2 square metred lounge surrounded by smoking zone from all around, which do not make any difference at all.
The second problem was that when designing that HotSpot zone, nobody has ever thought that the laptops users might need at some point to charge their computers, so the area do not has any power sockets, and actually finding a power socket in the whole airport was a challenge, because there was one (only one) near one of the gates and far from the HotSpot, which led me to unplug one of those Coke machines and charge my computer. The funny thing that some people (probably wasn't funny for them) tried to get some cokes but (of course) the machine wasn't working till one guy told a service dude and he kept on standing in front of the machine for sometime, before he started pushing all the buttons (as if it can work in such way), and I was sneakingly following the situation from beside the machine, and hoping that the guy don't get any smarter and try to check the electircal cables of the machine, but when he decided to go (probably to get an expert) was exactly the point that I decided to unplug my computer. The hilarious thing that when it was time for my flight (after this incident by 2 hours), I was passing by the coke machine and it was still unplugged!! so I decided to make it up for my wicked behaviour and plug the machine.
As Turkey is one of the top destinations for tourism in the whole world, and despite the nation's illiteracy of English, even in touristic places, and while one should be expecting that everybody in the airport speaks good English, but you get shocked from the fact that the very few people who speaks it, knows very basic of the language that makes asking sophisticated questions like how to get a meal voucher, or asking about an internet access point, sounds like some nuclear physics for them. Anyway, after passing by the passport check point 3 times and going back through a back door (I'm not sure if people are allowed to do that), and going back and forth for couple of times to find that the HotSpot zone is a non-smoking 2x2 square metred lounge surrounded by smoking zone from all around, which do not make any difference at all.
The second problem was that when designing that HotSpot zone, nobody has ever thought that the laptops users might need at some point to charge their computers, so the area do not has any power sockets, and actually finding a power socket in the whole airport was a challenge, because there was one (only one) near one of the gates and far from the HotSpot, which led me to unplug one of those Coke machines and charge my computer. The funny thing that some people (probably wasn't funny for them) tried to get some cokes but (of course) the machine wasn't working till one guy told a service dude and he kept on standing in front of the machine for sometime, before he started pushing all the buttons (as if it can work in such way), and I was sneakingly following the situation from beside the machine, and hoping that the guy don't get any smarter and try to check the electircal cables of the machine, but when he decided to go (probably to get an expert) was exactly the point that I decided to unplug my computer. The hilarious thing that when it was time for my flight (after this incident by 2 hours), I was passing by the coke machine and it was still unplugged!! so I decided to make it up for my wicked behaviour and plug the machine.
Happy new year/love
Well, today went for the daily habit of having lunch with my colleagues when sweat Ingrit found me looking for something on the table and the following conversation went on:
Ingrit: what do you want?
Me: a knife (the word knife in Dutch sounds like girl)
Ingrit: sorry, there are no girls here (laughing) and no knives either
Me: well, I can bring a knife from the kitchen, and by the way, I don't need a girl, because I already have one :)
so, Yes, for the people who have been asking lately, and the others who started spreading some runours around, I have a girl with a Polish flavor :)
Thanks Grunilda for spreading the word in the Arnhem's community, Laura for Rotterdam's, and Tamer and Haitham for Egyptians, and No Mara, she's not French, and No mom&dad she's not Dutch, and No Adham, Beefy and Sherif she's not German.
Ingrit: what do you want?
Me: a knife (the word knife in Dutch sounds like girl)
Ingrit: sorry, there are no girls here (laughing) and no knives either
Me: well, I can bring a knife from the kitchen, and by the way, I don't need a girl, because I already have one :)
so, Yes, for the people who have been asking lately, and the others who started spreading some runours around, I have a girl with a Polish flavor :)
Thanks Grunilda for spreading the word in the Arnhem's community, Laura for Rotterdam's, and Tamer and Haitham for Egyptians, and No Mara, she's not French, and No mom&dad she's not Dutch, and No Adham, Beefy and Sherif she's not German.
