Shar el baleya ma yod7ek

Apologies if you can't speak Arabic. I can't think of an equivalent saying in English but roughly translated the title is an Arabic saying that means "The worst type of tragedy is one that makes you laugh".

I couldn't really think of a more suitable quote when I came across 2 news articles today.
I had been looking for news about people who were killed in an accident when their bus rolled over while driving them to Saudi Arabia to do omra because one of the victims is a friend's aunt. I'm not one to read websites written in Arabic in general but when my attempts to locate the news on the bbc website failed I thought I'd give masrawy a try.

I eventually found what I think is the news item I wanted here where it says in one and a half lines that 36 people died.
But I also found this article which describes in great detail and 6 paragraphs how the American embassador in Egypt spent his night at a cafe in Egypt smoking shisha/hookah. Including, but not limited to, the exact cafe he was at, other ones he considered, and the all important facts that he ordered apple shisha, a cup of tea, and rice pudding for dessert while watching a football game.

As one of my friends put it, they forgot to tell us if he wiped his ass afterwards.

We 3agaby

Anniversary we ramadan kareem

A couple days ago (Saturday the 23rd to be exact) marked 1 year since I set foot on US soil. I had thought about synchronizing the post with the day and time but couldn't really be bothered.

Ironically (or maybe just weirdly) enough, I had to go to the airport on the exact same day, only a couple hours later than I'd landed, to pick up a friend who's starting with Microsoft this October. The traffic was nothing like I've seen before that it took me around an hour to get there. The upside was lots of time for reflecting on a very different and maybe significant year of my life.

-Ramadan Kareem
Once again it's upon us. To all my friends I haven't called, Ramadan Kareem! Kol sana wento tayebeen. To some of my friends I haven't called, Khefo 3al la7ma, you know who you are :)

-Useless tip of the day:
I'm pretty sure most people know this already, but to my surprise I recently found out that some don't so here goes.
If a given calendar day falls on day x of the week, the same day falls on the next day of the week the year after, except when it's a leap year. For example, September 23rd was a Friday in 2005. In 2006 it's a Saturday and it's going to be a Sunday in 2007.

-Uplifter of the day:
It happened to everybody, you remember something that happened in the past and think 'God I was stupid/foolish/naive/an idiot'. If you're in the habit of writing some of your thoughts anything written a year or 2 ago will sound to you like it was written by someone else. A slight hint of remorse would usually follow when this happened to me, if only I was smarter/more knowledgable/more eloquent back then.
Think like me no more, all thanks to a quote I stumbled across
'We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish' F. A. Hayek
There! It's the sign you're growing wiser everytime this happens to you.

Tidbits

It's been long since I posted something, and I'm having second thoughts about keeping the blog altogether. But for now I'll try to push through.

So here are a few news items and thoughts that were of note to me:


-California Sues Automakers
It says here that California is suing the 6 largest car makers in the US (including japanese ones with operations in the US) over global warming seeking millions of dollars.
Now regardless of how green I try to be, I just can't see the logic in this (other than it being an election year).
Even if you disregard the ongoing debate about global warming, whether it is actually happening, or what its causes are. Even disregarding all that and looking at the distribution of sources that contribute to producing greenhouse gases, fuel for transportation comes 3rd after industrial processes and power stations. Agricultural processes come a close 4th. Why doesn't California sue all factories and power stations, and after those maybe farmers as well?

-Crime and Punishment
The topic seems to pop in my head quite often for reasons beyond me.
The more I think about it, the more prison seems like a really bad idea. If someone who knows how to pickpocket goes to prison he'll graduate with a doctorate in serial killing. If there is such a thing as bad influence then it really doesn't get any worse than prison.
Only "solution" I could think of is solitary imprisonment and apart from the increased costs I think over any significant period of time it'll turn the prisoners all crazy. So we might as well just kill all criminals while we're at it.
Expulsion sounded like a good idea while it lasted, society gets rid of a bad seed and the bad seed is deprived of something that should be of value, but I can't think of somewhere you could expel criminals to nowadays.
Any ideas?

Memories

They're weird. You'd think it's a good thing to have so many good memories with people you've known. But you look at the photos and remember the silly stuff. They might make you giggle for a bit but it feels bitter sweet and before you know it you're all nostalgic. They really don't make you feel any better. If anything they make you feel worse.

Would we be better off with a selective memory where we would just keep the stuff we need for things like 'burning stuff hurt don't touch it again'.