Arab Summit in Tunisia

So finally, after a lot of time-wasting and useless rambling, it’s decided that the recently postponed Arab summit will still be held in Tunisia.

Tunisia will host the Arab summit in May, following a preparatory meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo.

When Tunis postponed the summit, the Egyptian government jumped up and offered to host a summit in its place.

Tunisia said it was postponing the summit because some Arab governments were unwilling to make a strong commitment to democracy, human rights and opposing “extremism”. Many delegates have disputed the Tunisian explanation for its decision.

The summit is expected to concentrate on Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and reform in the Arab world.

Better ways to attack Bush

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We passed by Carrefour today to get something fast for dinner, and as usual we had to follow our feet and check out the magazines and newspapers.

What caught my eye was the cover of The Economist which reads: “Better ways to attack Bush”.

It’s a rather interesting cover offering points that can be used against Bush in the election race and debates.

I actually agree that almost all these points are weaknesses that could break him in the elections.
All but the gay rights point. I think that maybe his strong position when it comes to this issue is more favorable among most Americans, or at least I’d like to think so.

The 11 ways listed on the cover are:

  • Never hears a spending plan he doesn’t like
  • Backs unequal rights for homosexuals
  • Strong, but not humble
  • Hot air on WMD
  • No cojones on Palestine and Israel
  • All hat and no plans for post-war Iraq
  • The miscommunicator
  • Too close to vested interests
  • Budget belt far too loose
  • Weak-kneed on trade: farms, steel, sugar, cotton…
  • Tramples on civil liberties

Ken Livingstone Quotes

Some interesting quotes by Ken Livingstone, mayor of London:

On Ariel Sharon:
“I’d like to see him locked up in the next cell to the former Serb President Slobodan Milosevic.”

On the Saudi Royal Family:
“I just long for the day I wake up and find that the Saudi Royal family are swinging from the lamp-posts and they’ve got a proper government that represents the people of Saudi Arabia.”

On Bush:
“I’m not even sure he was aware there were any Palestinians before he was elected, any more than he knew the name of the President of Pakistan.”

On the Middle East:
“[There will be no peace until] the West shows it is taking on board the injustice of what’s happening to Palestinians, and looks at the financial network of corruption between some of the oil sheikhdoms , the oil companies and the White House.”

[via Jalan-Jalan]

Body Madness

Body piercing and tattoos make way — the latest fashion trend to hit the Netherlands is eyeball jewellery.

Dutch eye surgeons have implanted tiny pieces of jewellery called “JewelEye” in the mucous membrane of the eyes of six women and one man in cosmetic surgery pioneered by an ophthalmic surgery research and development institute in Rotterdam.

The procedure involves inserting a 3.5 mm (0.13 inch) wide piece of specially developed jewellery — the range includes a glittering half-moon or heart — into the eye’s mucous membrane under local anaesthetic at a cost of 500 to 1,000 euros (270 to 540 pounds).

This is simply mad. First it was tatoos and they had them everywhere, then it was piercing and they didn’t leave one tiny part of the human body without putting a hole into it, then came tongue splitting which happily didn’t spread that much and now it’s eye jewellery.
What’s next in this mad series of body mutilation?
Maybe cutting off pieces of our bodies will become hip soon!

[More: Yahoo! News]

Damn! I’m MAD!!!

Man, am I mad right now!

This truly sucks big time!

I wake up this morning, already feeling like shit because I didn’t get enough sleep, and what do I find?
I find that during the night, my car was opened and stolen from!
My original music cds, my jacket, my wife’s jacket and the extra tire, all stolen by some bastard(s)!

I hate this!
People keep telling me that thankfully it wasn’t such a big thing that was stolen and that other people had it worse, but I don’t care what happened with other people right now, all I care about and know is that my shit was stolen.
Stuff that I worked hard to get and that some bastard off the street stole from me so easily!

Plus, out of nowhere now I’m faced with expenses to buy a new extra tire, wire the car with a security alarm and more.

Anyone else dare to tell me that it’s ok and I’ll screw his head off his body!

Where the hell were the damn security people who are supposed to be guarding the place?!
That just beats me!
Probably in their little room jacking off to some gay porn while thieves go around stealing people’s cars and houses.

Oh God, am I mad right now!

What you get when you marry a programmer

Husband : (Returning late from work) “Good Evening dear….I’m now logged in.”
Wife: Have you brought the groceries?
Husband: Bad command or filename.
Wife: But I told you in the morning
Husband: Syntax Error. Abort?
Wife: What about my new TV?
Husband: Variable not found . . .
Wife: At least, give me your Credit Card, I want to do some shopping.
Husband: Sharing Violation. Access denied (I believe in Biodata)
Wife: Do you love me or do you only love computers or are you just being funny?
Husband: Too many parameters . . .
Wife: It was a great mistake that I married an idiot like you.
Husband: Data type mismatch.
Wife: You are useless.
Husband: It’s by Default.
Wife: What about your Salary?
Husband: File in use . . . Try later. (I believe in Biodata)
Wife: What is my value in the family.
Husband: Unknown Virus.

[Thanks to my friend Yassine for sending this to me.]

Master of English

I just took this quiz called: “How grammatically sound are you?”.

And well, here are the results:

You are a MASTER of the English language!

While your English is not exactly perfect, you are still more grammatically correct than just about every American. Still, there is always room for improvement…

Now, I never expected that.
I mean, ok, I know my English is quite good; It practically was my mother tongue. But I know that I have some weakness in grammar sometimes.
And God do I hate punctuation!
I always feel I’m putting my punctuation marks in the wrong places and I probably am.

Anyway, now that I read the result again and see that I’m being compared to Americans, I think I’m starting to agree ๐Ÿ˜›

Marriage & Genetics

Something that has crossed my mind often ever since I got married is how much the laws of genetics can apply to marriage.

Being a science wiz at school, I was very interested in genetics, in fact I even wanted to study genetics in university, but didn’t. I ended up doing computer science instead, now that’s close.

Anyway back to marriage.
What I’ve observed from my personal experience and those of others around me is the following.

Before marriage each person has their own unique character, their own set of goods and bads about them, their own way of living.
After marriage, things start changing, and both sides start passing certain features to their partner while picking some other ones from them.
And here the laws of genetics kick in, the strongest features from either of the partners are the ones that come through and rule the couple.

Not only that, but from taking a snapshot of the couple after a given time, you might also be able to determine what their children will be like; after all the same laws will probably apply to them too.

For example, my wife was always a very active person, always running around doing something and keeping busy. As for me, well I’d like to think I’m active enough, but the truth is that I’m one of the laziest people on earth.
Result ? Well you can say we’re one of the laziest couples I know of ๐Ÿ˜›
And I don’t expect my children to be any better ๐Ÿ˜›

Of course, this doesn’t hold for all couples nor for all features.
But I guess what does follow these laws determines how much chemistry there is inside the couple.
After all, any couple needs certain points of difference to have a healthy fight about every now and then ๐Ÿ˜‰