Snowed in!

Haven't seen snow in 2 years now. And it's snowing here in Cambridge. Heavily!

Driven by my Jordanian instinct, the first question I asked my mates was 'So are lectures canceled tomorrow?'

The answer was 'No'.

It's 1 am now and I have to wake up for my 9 o'clock lectures tomorrow!

It's cases like these that make me wish everyone followed Jordanian policies.

Lebanon Involved

It seems 3 rockets have been fired from Lebanon into Northern Israel this morning. Spurring fears from a wider war in the region.

These are critical moments in time that have the momentum to change everything! Let's just hope that people don't get too emotional and actually learn a thing or two from history and the past.


A picture showing the aftermath of the 2006 war between Hezbollah and the IDF in southern Lebanon, where about 1200 innocent civilians were killed in the conflict.

My Personal Views on the Whole Issue

Disclaimer: For all you bigots out there who do NOT tolerate opinions that they do not agree with, or who reject the fact that people can view situations differently please leave now.

I haven't blogged in a while now. But since keeping this blog fresh and updated is one of my resolutions for the big 09, this will no longer be a problem.

This is my first post regarding the attacks on Gaza. I would like to make it very clear that I am generally against war, for several reasons; Primarily because I believe war is a political game between two sides that ends up with the bloodshed of innocent civilians who at the end of the day have nothing to benefit from the whole thing.

I have several thoughts about the situation, some might be points that you agree with, whilst others might not be compatible with your insight on the whole thing. I decided that there is no reason for me to censor my thoughts and beliefs just to fit the mainstream Arabic view.

For those who are blind supporters of Hamas, you have no right to complain about the attacks and the bloodshed that's going on. Why?
Well firstly because Hamas believes that every Israeli (from their elderly to their children, passing through their men and women) should die. And if Hamas has the military strength of Israel, the death toll of Israeli civilians would easily cross the 1000 milestone. Period. But looking at it from a different perspective, Hamas labels itself as the only true resistance against the Israeli occupation. Fair enough. Hamas wants war against Israel. Fair enough. But when a group of militants decide to wage a war against a beast of a country, then the retaliation of that beast should be expected.

Again, I am not justifying the killing of children. Because I am all for peace as I stated earlier. But not to blame Hamas for those killings as well is just being naive. Because Hamas took leadership in that strip of land, and decided to wage a war. In a war, casualties are expected. IF you believe war is the only answer, then you should expect the death toll. Note the if clause here.

I also read reports of people who complain about the Arabs not rushing in and declaring war on Israel. The Arab states clearly demonstrated that they are against Hamas' tactics when it comes to Israel. The Arab states were clearly against Hamas firing those God forsaken rockets (it hurts me whenever I label those fireworks as rockets) at the face of Israel. They knew it would help no one, they gave their advice to Hamas. But Hamas continued to give Israel an excuse to attack Gaza. Who ends up losing the most? The Palestinians. Hamas has no right to label Arab leaders as traitors and foreign agents because let's face it, there is nothing we can do. Specially when it comes to Jordan. Such a small country with practically no resources of its own.

I also witnessed some of the demonstrations in Amman that aimed to focus our eyes and ears on the humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza, although at the time every TV in Jordan was switched on Al-Jazeera, watching our Palestinian brothers in the Gaza strip caught in between two vicious political enemies. But what shocked me was the fact that many demonstrators were holding pictures of Saddam Hussein, and were actually saluting the guy! How inappropriate and un-PC! Saddam Hussein has killed more Iraqis than Israel has killed Palestinians. And saluting this madman in a demonstration that was aimed to show Arabic solidarity is just a slap in the face to our Iraqi brothers.

And what cracked me up is the Sudanese president condemning the Israeli inhumane attacks on Gaza.

Now onto Israel. Albeit that Hamas is a disgusting party that I would be more than happy to see taken down, Israel has to be prosecuted for its many unnecessary massacres. Levini, Olmert and Barak should be charged as war criminals.

My 2 cents.

'So What?'

President Bush in his most recent interview admitted that Al-Qaeda did NOT exist in Iraq prior to the American invasion. This is a major contradiction to the claims of his government regarding the strong links between Al-Qaeda, Iraq and 9/11. And he did that with an insensitive and rude 'So What?'

I'll tell you what Mr.Bush.

The fact that this means the war was illegitimate (in addition to the lack of WMD in Iraq);
the fact that 1.2 million Iraqis lost their lives for your greed and thirst for oil;
the fact that you and your government lied to your people over and over again;
the fact that Al-Qaeda's existence in Iraq (as a result of the invasion) apres 2003 caused instability in the region, which in turn caused terrorist attacks in neighbouring countries (Amman bombings of 2005);
the fact that this means you're a war criminal who should be added to the list of Hitler, Saddam Hussein and their likes.
You deserve more than a shoe hurled your way.

I Want to BE that MAN!

This Iraqi reporter did what millions of people wish they could've. Throw a shoe (or two) at Bush. Although I am a bit disappointed that he missed, I think he's an absolute LEGEND.

I love him, sexually.

1.05!

Shocking!
One GBP which used to be worth 1.39 JDs in May 08, is now worth 1.05 JDs.
Good news for all Jordanian students studying in the UK.

Exchange Rate Graph

I WITNESSED HISTORY!

YOU CAN BE MY BLACK JOE BIDEN TONIGHT!

I know I have been the worst blogger recently, but with a new year at uni, I didn't have the time. I am sorry for those who follow my blog (if there are any), and I will leave you with this awesome video!

Go Obama.

The Most Ridculous Conspiracy Theory

This is by far the most ridiculous conspiracy theory that anyone has ever come up with.
The video starts with a few captions (shown in in bold below), and then it shows a rainbow seen through the water of a sprinkler, with the most ridiculous commentary in the background. You have to see it to believe it.

A transcript of the video:

Now the phenomena is rainbows near the ground.

20 years ago we never noticed these rainbow effects so predominantly.

"Hot day July 6th, 2o07. It's about 4:30 p.m. I'm just wondering, what the heck is in our water supply? What the heck is in our oxygen supply of metal sized salts that create a rainbow effect in a sprinkler? What is oozing out of our ground that allows this type of effect to happen? Not just around our Sun and our Moon anymore; everywhere we look the visible spectrum is rainbows! This can not be natural. We all know it wasn't something that happened twenty years ago, but now it's happening now. We as a nation have got to ask ourselves what the hell is going on? What is oozing out of our ground? "

We have to raise our voices before they take away our rights, our constitutional rights, our human rights. -and- To not be guinea pigs for our governments in their never ending thirst for energy sources.

By Dboots.

PS. I think the sounds of the sirens in the background gives it the you-should-be-freaking-out-it's-the-end-of-the-world feeling. Making it even more hilarious!

And then people have the nerves to call George Bush stupid.

She makes me feel so smart. I should thank her.

Talk About Insane Social Networking!

As most of you facebook users out there already know, a new design has been launched recently. At first users had the choice between the new and the old facebook, but that's not the case anymore. The new facebook is now being forced upon users. As a result, groups have been popping all over the website in protest to the new layout. One of these groups is called - unsurprisingly - '1,000,000 AGAINST THE NEW FACEBOOK', which has become one of the fastest growing groups on the social network arena. To give you a glimpse of how fast is fast, here are a few screen-shots of the group's homepage (taken by yours truly) within five minutes.

14:45;
















1,392,218 members.

14:47;
















1,392,386 members.

14:50;
















1,392,842 members.

So in about 5 minutes, the number of group members increased by 624. That comes to about 2 members joining the group every second!

By the by, from the time it took me to take those screen-shots and finish this blog entry (about 25 minutes), the number of group members has reached 1,396,349!

That is insane!

Putting Things Into Perspective

I've recently been troubled by a dilemma, too personal to share here, that made me feel like shit. Personal problems are just too overwhelming sometimes and I am sorry to say that at one point this situation got the best of me. I got depressed (a word I am not too keen on using, since I believe it has been abused a lot in the media), but nonetheless, I thought that life can't get any worse. Then I read this article on Al-Ghad news website which put things into perspective.

All I can say is that the world is truly unfair.

*EDIT* For those of you who can't read Arabic, the first story talks about a Jordanian woman who got married to a Syrian man. Her husband walked out on her and her four daughters 5 years ago, leaving her with no financial income what-so-ever. Since a woman can't pass her nationality onto her children in Jordan, the daughters in this case are considered to be 'Syrian' by the government and are hence denied free education.
The woman is struggling to come up with the tuition fees which add up to 40 JDs (equivalent to about $55) a year! Furthermore, she is unable to bring food to the table, leaving her daughters going to bed starved every night.

Finally!

After a whole year with a laptop (that has an Arabic keyboard) I finally discovered how to toggle with the language tool and type in Arabic.

آي آم سو هابي

Excuse my stupidity!

Nostalgia

Sometimes I wish I never grew up, and stayed in a time period when everything was so simple!

Watching this video on youtube gives me those bittersweet memories of my childhood!

Who can forget this super hero! Abu el 7oroof!

Why Atheism?

When people realize that I'm an atheist, I get so many different reactions. Mainly indifference, but you occasionally get the look; the one that says 'You're a bastard' in one way or another. People (and when I say people, I mean self-righteous intolerant extremists) usually have this theory that atheists are sinners who don't have the slightest sense of morality. But we all know that's not true, and history has shown that even people who believe in God can commit the worst crimes.
*cough* 9/11 *cough*.

I mean, I don't judge anyone who believes in God, so why should I be judged for my personal beliefs? But frankly, I don't care what people say as long as their judgments don't affect me personally.

A question I frequently get is: why am I an atheist? What makes me so sure that God doesn't exist? Well, I ask myself those exact questions every now and then. And every time I come up with different reasons. Hence I decided to post them here, every time I come up with one. So this will probably be the start of a series of personal thoughts on God and the Universe.

If you ask a religious believer 'What is God?', their answer would probably describe him as an omnipotent creature who is capable of doing anything and at the same time he knows everything; past, present, future, you name it!
Creationists believe that God had once roamed the nothingness that is now the universe when he decided he would create this world, and on this particular planet throw millions of species yet making one of them superior and more intelligent.
Why? Because God can then judge this specie and give him an internal soul, where the fate of that soul is determined by whether the specie believes in his existence or not. This whole story doesn't make sense, and my brains (that God supposedly gave me) are not convinced by his presence. Is this inability to comprehend his existence an imperfection on his part? Sure. Does he have the right to punish me for this imperfection in his own creation? Probably not.

A cooperation that manufactures motorbikes, should not expect its product to have the ability to take off and fly. It just doesn't make sense. And in par with that analogy, if you create humans who do not have the capability to logically encompass the idea of an omnipotent creature, then you shouldn't punish them for that.

Hence, my atheist views. This is my first basic reason for being an atheist. It's not the only one. But as I said, there will probably be more entries on this topic.

Enjoy the rest of your day/night.

Lies!

Here I am using Internet Explorer 7.0, because for some reason my Firefox is troubleshooting and I can't open it. This like the 100th time it happens! ARGH.

So much for a bug-free web browser.