Pat Robertson got a thing for natural disasters, I think they tickle his prickliness. He keeps on talking about them as if they are actually  spiteful and retributive acts of god.

This is the guy that warned Orlando, dover, New Orleasn, NY and the USA at large of “earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor.”

Usually the attacks are squared at anyone or anything with a liberal agenda.

The perplexing thing now is that it extends now to anyone who has fought colonialism. Basically what he is talking about is how the Haitians brought the horrible and destructive earthquake the devastated the poor country on themselves because they made a pack with the devil to achieve independence from the french …. psshh “everyone knows that!” he exclaimed dismissively.

paraphrasing Hitchens:  Pat are so full of shit my friend that if i gave you an enema you’ll be able to walk through a pinhole. But saddly he’s not too off about what he said

Summary: Haiti was forced to pay France for its freedom. When they couldn’t afford the ransom, France (and other countries, including the United States) helpfully offered high-interest loans. By 1900, 80% of Haiti’s annual budget went to paying off its “reparation” debt. They didn’t make the last payment until 1947. Just 10 years later, dictator François Duvalier took over the country and promptly bankrupted it, taking out more high-interest loans to pay for his corrupt lifestyle. The Duvalier family, with the blind-eye financial assistance of Western countries, killed 10s of thousands of Haitians, until the Haitian people overthrew them in 1986. Today, Haiti is still paying off the debt of an oppressive dictator no one would help them get rid of for 30 years.

The rest of the world refuses to forgive this debt.

A Jordanian court has ruled that Internet sites should adhere to the print & publications(Media) laws that governs the work of print media. As a consequence all the penalties that are extended by this law will be applicable to anyone that is posting anything on the internet.

The reasoning for this stems from the argument that the wording of the print & publications law defines print as ” any publication that is used to document meanings, words or ideas in any method”

The case that opened this topic is of one Ahmad Salameh, former chief of Al-Hilal newspaper and journalist

who claimed that he had been slandered by Ammon and Rum news sites. I didn’t read of any proof provided of what harm was caused to Mr.Salameh other than the words that where used by the sites.

Now I’m sure that those words really hurt his feelings. I feel for him, I really do…

Either way the consequence of this ruling is the following, ready boys and girls of the blogging and internet age?

First of all the list of No’s. If you do any of those you’ll subject to a fine that’s between JOD 15,000 – 25,000:

Anything that goes again national responsibility

Anything that goes against Human rights

Anything the goes against islamic and arabic sensibilities

Anything that would harm the King and the royal Family

Anything concerning the Jordanian armed forces or security apparatus unless otherwise authorized

Anything ridiculing any of the religions or sects recognize by the constitution

Anything that harms the national unity and incites on committing crimes

Anything that ridicules, disses or slanders heads of Arabic, Islamic, or friendly states, or disturbs Jordanian relationships with other countries

Anything that promoted deviancy and corrupts morals

Any False information or gossips that harm public interest, Government institutions or those who work in it.

Any information related to the secret session of the national council

Any non-disclosed government documents

Anything that would shake the confidence people have in the national currency

Second: the head of a publication (i.e. everyone on Web 2.0 is a publisher FYI) is the owner of everything published in their publication. That means that internet sites take responsibility for those damn trolls and it’s really easy to frame someone by just trolling their site.

Third: Anonymous publications are banned, every publication should include the REAL name of it’s author and his address. Avatars, anonymous blogging, guest commentators and anyone else who does not include their address is not allowed. Now think with me how smart it will be to post your home address when commenting on the internet ?

The upside to all of this that the law stipulates that the only thing that Jordan can do to foreign publications that break this law is bar their import to Jordan. so the worst, logically, thing that could happen is that they block your site…Way to go if you want to improve Jordanian IT industry. Practically you might have just maimed a whole sector of IT because everyone will be scared to host their websites locally ! Never Mind about any of the social networking sites like watwet who are now being held responsible for everything any of their users say on their service.

Imagine if Yahoo or Google was held responsible for anything their users will say on their networks, how crippling will that be to innovation?

So thank you so much Mr. Ahmad Salameh for bringing this on us.

The really funny part of this is that today there was another news item about media freedoms which talked about how unfair they were and how they didn’t reflect the reality in the kingdom … OOPS

Back in April of last year there was this video showing Sheikh Issa bin Zayed Al Nayhan torturing a grain dealer with bullets, electric prods, nailed wood boards, testicular fires, whipping and even an SUV run over and it was all caught on TAPE ! So a court in UAE finally ruled on the case.

Now its no surprise that he would haven’t been acquitted, but the defense that Issa put forward is the real story here. Apparently he was not in control of himself (I want a medical doctors opinion on that) because he was drugged by two extortionist [...] Continue Reading…

Last night I was driving back and they started playing a song that I haven’t heard in ages on the radio, Rasputin by Boney M!
This song just brings back so many memories, cause like one of the first bands I remember liking as a kid were Boney M and ABBA (you think that would infer something ) and I still am fond of both bands bands to this day. It’s just such a joyful music that i never really paid much attention to the lyrics. This performance in the video is so hilarious and totally awesome !
But yesterday was [...] Continue Reading…

I was reading Anne Applebaum’s op-ed article in WaPo and fell upon this epiphany that she had:
The case of Bayrak and her ilk also suggests the need for another kind of anti-terrorism strategy. Too often, we still consider public diplomacy to be a sort of public relations activity, the “promotion” of American values. Instead, we should think about it as an argument. The Bayraks and Balawis of this world are engaged in constant debates — in Internet chat rooms, in the halls of publishing houses, in mosques. Are they hearing enough counterarguments? Are we helping the people who make [...] Continue Reading…

There might be non-fans for “the Life of Brian” but the relevant part  of this video is @3:50.

There is an idea that has been percolating in my head for a while now but it still didn’t reach fruition of any sort and didn’t have the perseverance to follow it to where it might take me but that part of the video above epitomize it.

The idea of how individualistic are we? how society shapes our individualism and our perception of it and how can this process be manipulated. Sounds like a brain fart eh ?

I’m curious about how much can [...] Continue Reading…

If you would like more details please contact me via the email on my contact page, and for those interested please send me a portfolio of your previous/current work.
BamBam

I won’t claim to be the expert about how women view themselves from within Islam but at least I do interact and discuss the issue with them. Actually my mother’s viewpoint is the one that I get to hear the most and the one that i like the most
I can summarize it in a single phrase that she repeats often. “those sheiks got nothing on their mind but women, their issues and how corrupting women are. If they paid just as much attention to anything else we would be way better off”. This is and off itself is [...] Continue Reading…

You know I’m not a big tree hugger, i understand the situation when it comes to climate change (atleast in layman’s terms) and i understand the need for a change in our habits and the level of consumption. Actually in my opinion probably the biggest stride to make the human race more green is to vilify consumerism … and hopefully stupidity and youth along the way.
BUT the there is one thing i really love about the green revolution. It’s a prospect and nothing substantial, but i hope from the bottom of my heart that it will become a reality [...] Continue Reading…

[one of the posts that were in the incubator for the past 4 months .... i think i might as well post it , didn't review it so pardon the grammatical catastrofuck]
You can never say that yoat time tucked away in a corner for you to look over later on… So this is what I’m doing right now. u became wise, only wiser and it is fairly mind numbing that no matter how far you think you got in retrospect you realize how little you traversed and sometimes when you are hit with a torrent of experiences, emotions, problems, [...] Continue Reading…