Saturday, 7 November 2009

Obama, Israeli settlements, and Iran

The Obama administration is coming across as "business as usual" amongst Egyptians. Its recent reversal on insisting on a complete halt to Israeli settlement activities is a clear setback. No one here thinks Obama is a hero for letting this happen; quite the opposite: back to the usual US inability to stand up to Israel. Wasn't it just a few months ago that all the Obama administration's top guns lined up to tell Israel and its supporters that settlement activity _must_ stop? Now they say: "Oh, settlement activity is part of the negotiation." R-i-g-h-t.

It seems the Obama administration has recalibrated and decided that getting Iran off the table for a while should be its top priority. And if shutting up Israel and getting it to go along with the deal being negotiated with Iran (Russia will enrich uranium for Iran, in Russia), if the price for getting Israel's acquiescence on that, is letting Israel off the hook on settlement activity, so be it.

It's a highly damaging policy for Obama's image in the Arab world. But it may just get him some traction on Iran. Let's see.

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Tuesday, 27 October 2009

This Blog in a Nutshell

Okay, I have a small request from you. Can you try and describe this blog in a sentence? If you could please invest five-ten mins I'd be grateful.

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Monday, 21 September 2009

Yehemmak fi eih - Amr Diab - summer 2009 album


Eid Mubarak, everyone.




What do you care?


What do you care?
If I live or die, it's not your business.
And what are you gonna tell me?
When people change, it's evident.

Who is this across from me? It's someone I don't know.
I don't fear for that person anymore: if I leave them, or hurt them.
Many lovers have met; and they did not carry on.
Let everyone do what they please.

What do you want to hear?
Some words to satisfy your conscience?
What will you gain out of them?
Go and live your life.
The wounds of my heart, I forgive.

Who is this across from me? It's someone I don't know.
I don't fear for that person anymore: if I leave them, or hurt them.
Many lovers have met; and they did not carry on.

(chorus)
Let everyone do what they please.

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Wednesday, 26 August 2009

My outlook on God, faith and religion: part two

We still don't understand a lot about the universe even after many thousands of years of human civilisation. We don't know what the soul is, what consciousness is, what happens when we die, and so much more. We can put a man on the moon, and have computers that do amazing things, but we are far, far from learning everything.

In a previous post, I wrote about God and about how it seems to me that His existence is a "no-brainer". I suggested that people who do not want to acknowledge His existence are not just ignoring reasonable signs but also emotional resonances. We are, after all, creatures of the heart, as well as of the mind.

Why am I here?

"Well then, Ahmed, if there is God, then can He tell us why we are here? And where are we heading?"

The nature of mankind's relationship with God is that we believe in him without being able to communicate with him. This is the abiding mystery of our existence. This is why we call it "faith", rather than knowledge. We can't lift our eyes to the sky and have a one-to-one.

It seems all our communications with him have been anticipated ahead of time, compressed, and packaged in various forms - for us to discover. When people communicate, they take turns, laid out in time. When we communicate with God, perhaps we should expect that his replies have already been given? Which, in a funny sort of way, makes sense: He is above such human limitations as time and space.

He is here and there, he is in the now and in the future and in the past. He is in the beginning and in the end. He is at the fringes, and in the middle, at the smallest scales and the biggest ones. He is in every atom, in every form of thing we know. It seems likely that he is in our soul; and he is in the perceptions we have about the world.

This "mysterious" nature of our relationship with the Almighty Supreme Creator and Being seems to explain why some human communities developed "gods" of stone, or of man. This way, communication with God is somewhat "humanised." It also explains why many religions center around a man who "received revelation" from God: a Prophet, or Messenger, like Noah, Moses, Mohammad. Some religions award their Prophet a special status of conveyer of divine revelation and being "God-like" or "of God", like Jesus or Buddha.

Still, "Why are we here, and to where are we heading?"

There is no agreed-on, universal answer to that question. Each religion has an answer (or more). Scientists have many ideas; but nothing agreed-on. Atheists and agnostics have given up on answering the question: everything is random, we'll just end up as recyclable earth, and that's it.

There is a fundamental mystery in our relationship with God and we will not be able to fathom it. His existence can be easily doubted; and what is remarkable is even if you accept his existence, you cannot communicate with him. Because He never answers back in man-made languages. He seems to be of, and in, the universe since He created it. Yet he won't "tell" us why He did so, not in a personal one-to-one. The only way to do this "human communication" thing seems to be to accept Him and to submit to His presence in every tiny thing on earth. To be open to various messages. To have conviction that He exists and that all the answers are here already.


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Friday, 21 August 2009

My Top 10 Prank Calls on YouTube

Fonejacker set a high standard for prank calls. Hard to believe one guy, Kayvan Novak, is behind them all.

I am tempted to list many fonejacker clips. But I won't. I've filtered 'em for ya.

Here are my top ten prank calls - as collected and assessed today. Check in with me in a year's time, I might have a different list.

Careful a lot of them are inappropriate for a non-adult audience: swearing, etc.

Here's the youtube playlist - use this to autoplay them all on the youtube website, if you wish.



Sol Rosenberg, Jerky Boys - Hurt at Work

Another classic Jerky Boys production.



The Greatest Prank Call Ever

An absolute classic.



Fonejacker - internet service providings - Fix your script.

Indian telesales guy vs Someone who took him seriously



Fonejacker - Cinema (EP2)

You know how many phone-lines are automated? This old gent thinks everything is.



Fonejacker - Rent

The opposite of the above.



Terry Tibbs buys a campervan

Terry Tibbs is a fictional Fonejacker character supposed to represent smart-arse cockney types. Talk to me!



Fonejacker - Terry Tibbs - Double The Price

More of Mr Terry Tibbs.



Jerky boys: Frank Rizzo

Some of my absolute favourite prank callers: old-timers the Jerky Boys from New York City.



vietnamese prank phone call mcdonalds--pubic hair in big mac

This is an under-appreciated jewel from Down Under.



Stewart Lee Complains About Pornography

This is a low-key call, and Stewart Lee handles it with such civility. Which is so ironic given the subject matter.



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