Eric Cartman's Cartoon Wars

as I'm sure you've noticed, I've finally installed Haloscan. I've been meaning to do so since forever but there was some problems with the automated install, so yesterday I finally had time on my hands to do it manually.

Yay.

Now let us ponder for a bit the all-too-familiar problem of the limits of freedom of speech, as it I have run into this problem myself recently on this blog.

You realize, of course, that freedom of speech is a difficult principle to uphold idealistically, the foremost implementation of said principle is, in the words of the great Trey Parker: "Either it's all in, or nothing's in." because, once you've given a particular group of people a preferential treatment, you would have eventually to submit to the wishes of every other group. Now, while I have banned some people from commenting here due to their repeatedly racist attitude (which they are oblivious to, most horrendously) towards a certain group of people to which I belong, I am obliged hereby to delete any other racist comment offensive to any group of people in the criteria. Eventually, the constraints would be too much so that commenting would become an inherently futile feature.

Which is what everybody seems to be doing, I have noticed that most of the big-gun bloggers end up eliminating their comments forum altogether as an unsatisfactory solution to that problem. Raed Jarrar did it, Riverbend, and most recently Angry Arab. This solution is flawed, but I find no other one that completely eliminates the problem as this one.

The world is bound with flawed realizations of freedom-of-speech, ِِِAnti-Semitism, for all intents and purposes, favors a certain group over others, so what's wrong if I uphold this flawed Anti-Semitism model (arabs are semites too) to my own use? But of course, that is no ideal solution, it is justification for my own flaw.

Another solution would be to remove the ban, but I cannot bring myself to it. On a personal note, I cannot stand them, I totally abhor their views, their ongoing campaign to blame everything on the inferiority of Iraqis, their racist, sly mockery of Arab-Muslim culture, among other things. and here is the problem, because I am certainly not going to feel offended by people who are anti-Christian or anti-Jewish ,or anti-anything else for that matter, but this ban prompts me to act just the same towards them. I don't feel like continuously arguing them, because, as I said earlier, it is futile on the long run.

What do you think?
I hope u get the reference of the title's post.

Sarafiya Bridge Re-Opened.

I can't believe it, it was as if from a parallel universe ; something actually was accomplished in Iraq - they have actually managed to reopen the Sarafiya Bridge. I am praying at the rate of 1000 prayers/hour that it doesn't prove me wrong and collapse because of cheap materials while some sleazy contractor is laughing his ass-cheeks somewhere far away from Iraq, I remember I was frothing mad when the bridge I passed countless times was destroyed a year ago by a terrorist attack. Shgad 3eb.

I remember how happy I was when our Iraqi team won [by the way, it has sucked balls recently in the World Cup qualification stage] but afterwards I found out that nothing really changed, we all love Iraq, and we want it to be something, unfortunately that something is still imaginary, and there isn't much to be optimistic about its realization in the long-run, but let us enjoy, for once, this moment in a silly larger-than-life fashion and say that the Iraqis are not just a random collection of sects but have gelled into becoming fully aware of their destiny as one nation and have had enough bloodshed. I liked Maliki yesterday, I never really criticized him, but I've always feared that he is marginal in reality. Let us hope, however silly and unrealistic our hope might be, that he proves us wrong. Thank you Abu Israa. Lak wuda3til abbas inta a7san zmal beehum.

This is good news indeed, I'm going to celebrate, I'll turn on Iraqi Jewish singer Salima Murad's Ala Shawati Dijala Murr (a song about Dijla (Tigris), which runs under al-Sarafiya), I can't adhrub talqaat here so I'll just adhrub jilikh, before I go to sleep. Good night. let's hope it's the last time Sarafiya will be reopened.

R.I.P. BlogIraq

In general, back-and-forth intra-blog discussions don't end up with a positive outcome, they are filled with long arguments that are hard to follow, and both sides will stubbornly stick to their side no matter what, however, for the benefit of the general population I would respond to Iraqi Bloggers Central's recent post, which was in itself a response to my earlier mockery of their supposedly all-encompassing knowledge of Muslim culture.

Mister Ghost, in a swashbuckling-ly glorious representation of American values of freedom and glory against the deep darkness of Islamic bigotry, starts with a big slice of bigotry hismelf: "I would like to defend myself against a couple of points by the deep-thinking but Iraqi-flawed Abbas." As if being "Iraqi" in itself is a disadvantage to the logical circuits of one's mental processes.

He still doesn't get my point, my post wasn't really an objection towards Quran-burning or whatever Rotten Gods is doing, even though regular Muslims might find it appalling, just as regular Christians would find Bible burning the same, I was only mocking his smug all-knowing attitude towards Arab-Muslim culture, which he clearly finds of no particular use to mankind.

Then, he condescendingly outlines White Man's superiority over mainstream sandniggers Iraqis, including:

a) That all Iraqis were cowardly cogs inside the Baathist Caliphate. Mister Ghost, who has lived all his easy, comfortable life somewhere so removed from pain and suffering, has no real understanding of those concepts at all, he has no ability to understand that human beings might act differently in other environments, I wonder what Mister Ghost would have done if he was born and raised in as a German in Hitler-era Germany, or a Russian in Stalin's Russia, or an Iraqi in Baathist Iraq, the latter was nothing like present-day Iran, or Jordan, or Egypt (where people are actually trying to act up, btw), a country where you, your father, your entire family would be executed for the simplest joke. I don't think Mister Ghost would have acted anyway different, he would still rather live and make ends meet.

b) "Would anyone disagree that Iraqis have deeply-ingrained prejudices? LOL" That statement alone made me wonder about how old Mister Ghost actually is. How different are Iraqis from Germans, Americans, Russians, South Africans, Chinese, Tibetans in terms of having prejudices? He pontificates further:


c) Iraqis are expelling Christians. Funny, what does "Iraqis" here mean? it's as if not a single Muslim is being killed or deported in Iraq. What is the difference between Muslim expulsion death and Christian expulsion? Apparently, in the eyes of Mister Ghost, only Christian expulsion is worthy of attention.

d) That we are calling Christians "collaborators" and are expelling just like we did to the "Jews", here, Mister Ghost falls in several problems: first, I have never heard one Iraqi calling a Christian a "collaborator", actually, before I came to Amman, my pretty religious family's neighbor was an Iraqi Priest with his family, my mother (who wears a jubba) sent them a cake on Christmas and my brother and sister frequently played with their children, they got along with them much better than our current Iraqi Muslim neighbors, how is that for being flawed with terrible prejudices?
Also, he conveniently ignores the fact that Iraqi Jews were pretty much living quite the same as everyone else in Iraq until the state of Israel was born, i.e. the expulsion had a logical reason - not to mention that Jews were treated better in the Muslim Caliphate than they were in Medieval Europe, also, many Iraqi Jews actually wish to go back to Baghdad, which they miss as their true home, I would cite the Jewish author Samir Naqqash as an example. I also advise you to read some of British-Iraqi Jewish author Elie Kedourie's work.


I have called Layla Anwar a bigot previously, I apologize terribly, if she is a bigot, then at least she is direct and honest about it, and like I said about the whole Wafa Sultan thing : bigots balance each other out.
Personally, I don't tolerate bigots, so, and while I have previously issued a fatwa against their blog, it was slightly in jest, as of today, I ban all members (although Rhuslancia wasn't really bad, but I'm sorry) from commenting at my flawed, prejudiced, cowardly blog.

Boredom

The best period about anything is the beginning.

This is one of the few things I am absolutely sure about. I still remember the barely stifled joy I had while my father was installing our new Satellite receiver a few months after the end of the war. It was an incredible feast of all sorts of pandemonium after spending years watching Saddam's plain-vanilla TV. For days I sat mesmerized by the new powers of the blessed Remote Controller, flicking channel after channel and watching full-episodes of programs I have previously only heard about or saw snippets of as our ministry of misinformation felt like showing us, and of course I enjoyed secretly switching to the European Hotbird at night to have a guilty glimpse at some naked epidermis of the elusive female species.

In a few weeks I was bored, of the 399 choices I had I only ended up watching sitcoms such as Friends, and soon it hit me that I missed Saddam's TV in an inexplicable fashion, at first I didn't know why, but soon I came to realize that I felt this way because the dream-fantasy had been shattered : when you're imprisoned, sick, poor, whatever, you would have your revenge reveling about the wonders of the world you don't have : freedom, the heaven in the afterlife, wealth, that there's something out there that's better than this crap - in my case some magical land where the television has 399 channels and everybody is happy, but now that I have that magical land in my living room it turns out that there's nothing really special about it, if anything, it throws you in the middle of an awful chaos of channels that is going to take you forever to sort out.

the same disappointment applies to any number of things, meeting someone new, discovering God, masturbation, drugs, sex, pool, music and the all-encompassing life itself: for many people, childhood is the period they feel most nostalgic for. You spend a lot of time absorbing this wondrous world everyday, oblivious to the more horrible things in life such as responsibility,character, and developing deep feelings. I think discovering God has a slightly higher boredom curve because the actual reward is only granted when you pass away, keeping you forever tantalized, but I'm sure that the afterlife is going to be one hell of a boring dud (just imagine Teletubbies having sex and drinking wine forever and you'll see what I mean. Is that what we all really want?)

Everything is best when you're just getting started, when the excitement of adventure still hasn't turned into the routine of habit. When you listen to CDs not because you have to cuz you're a prestigious Metalhead who's forever looking for the next best riff out of duty, but because it excites you and kicks you in the ass. Have you thought about why all the great musicians, bar none, eventually settle into decline after hitting their peak? Their desire fades, replaced by a new desire, the inertia of habit and money, but mostly it's the boredom that engulfs both the artist and his fanbase. Human beings are too easily bored, and as a rule human creativity is limited in reinventing itself. The greatest thing Cobain did was kill himself before expiring into mediocrity, I'm sure he did it willingly.

I don't think anyone can be perpetually in love with anything, in the end it all resolves into boredom, or normalcy if you want to call it that, and you either reminisce about your past selectively or, if you have the guts, begin planning new conquests.

I read that Sweden has some of the highest suicide rates in the world, I found that to be hilariously funny. Here we are, the miserable Iraqis, bribing, enduring great difficulties, begging, being hauled as six-packs or twelve-packs in carton boxes with little holes to breath from, all just to get into your never-land of milk and honey, O Swedes, and you dumbfucks have the nerve to deny yourself that heaven voluntarily, have you no respect for our feelings?!? this got me thinking: what is it all about? what are we trying hard so for? look at them, they have the 2nd highest development index in the world and they kill themselves, why are we toiling ourselves then, for what, to provide food for our family and then die of terminal normalcy?

Have you asked yourself, why are human beings so into killing and raping each other? Why can't we all just Heal The Worllllllld, Make it a better plaaaaace, for you and for me and the entire human race? Let me tell you, because it's boring and stupid that way. Life is too boring without rape, murder, crime, death, loud music, war. One can never have an action movie without the villain, satan, jews, muslims, shia, the enemy is important for ourselves to not collapse into total boredom. Human beings are greedy and unjust by nature, always searching for more, because they are never content with what they have ; a forever crusade to famish the hungry well that will never be extinguished.

for what drives mighty conquerors such as Alexander the Great, or Khalid bin al-Walid to conquer all these lands if anything but their hollow souls?

To Be Continued...if I'm not too bored.

More al-Arabiya Watch

Bizarrely, Only a week after Mohammed "Artist of the Arabs -except that he thinks of himself as Saudi first" Abduh, who in between 90 minutes of incoherent mumbling gave Prophet Mohammed a Saudi passport on the Saudi MBC channel, he appeared on sister news channel al-Arabiya in the program Idha'aat
Idhaa'at is an excellent Gulf-centric reformist-bent program that interviews personalities often considered "controversial" ranging from intellectuals, writers, politicians, and poets. So what does Abduh, a socially and politically irrelevant singer who messed up answering a question doing here? and if that's not a dead giveaway, the first question anchor Turki ad-Dakhil asked him was to apologetically explain the incident, and he explained it like a robot...without stuttering.

On al-Arabiya.net : Aside from the ongoing anti-Hezbollah campaign, al-Arabiya runs an article on Gambia's president, who threatened to behead all homosexuals in Gambia. I can only describe the comments section as "happy lynching (of homosexuals, that is)."

Universities in Iraq

You think the Sadrists are the only crazies in town? Dean of Badrist-controlled Baghdad University issues the following: "Female students are not to be allowed to wear provocative clothing in respect of the sanctity of the college campus." I don't really understand what he means by "provocative clothing," I've been searching for it all my college life, but most of the girls wear hijab and the rate has been increasing because of peer pressure and/or the security situation, the others who don't wear hjiab are modest by comparison to what girls wear, say, here, I guess "provocative clothing" can be made to fit any number of combinations, with the inevitable result of Jubbafication.
Aside from setting fashion trends, the Badrists in Baghdad University have also previously killed Isam al-Rawi, a moderate Sunni doctor there.

other universities in Iraq: al-Mustansiriya University is Sadrist controlled, (it opposes the Mustansiriyya public square which has been defiled by, ironically, an ugly Hakim tribute.) at one point they didn't allow mobile phones and enforced strict dress codes.

Technologia University and Nahrain University seem to be a little freer. I was once joking around with a cousin of mine, who attended al-Nahrain Medical University (in Kadhimiya), it's an old joke I caught from hanging out with the southern guys at the hostel. You rename your name in his mobile phone's contact list to any given holy character, sometimes Allah, Imam Ali, Saddam or Sa'adi Il Hilli and call him to watch the look on his face. So I changed my name to Imam Ali but unfortunately I forgot to call him, so my name was left as Imam Ali until the Sadrist guards at the university took one long, furious look at it (in some universities you have to relinquish your phone at the entrance, not ours thankfully,) amazingly, they didn't kill the poor bastard, the guy told them it was a prank by a Nasibi cousin, much to the fury of my aunt's Shi'i husband.

in other news, The Olympic Committee of Iraq has been disbanded.

Practical Uses of Quran

As you know, some confused soldier has made Bush apologize for Dolkat Ra'ees Wuzaaraa al-Maliki because he turned a Quran into target practice.
How about some more practical uses of Quran in daily life?
This guy protests Iranian theocracy by Qur'an burning, okay, but then comes the "Iraqi" Bloggers Central - who think that Layla Anwar (a blogosphere synonym for Rabid) is the perfect definition of what an Iraqi should be) and they enlighten us with their supreme understanding of Arab/Muslim culture : "to light a Quran on fire is a horrendous act of blasphemy for Muslims."

Could somebody please tell the poor sods (and our brave protester) that Qur'an burning is the recommended Islamic method to dispose of a Qur'an?

al-Arabiya

After reading Angry Arab, I came to realize the bias of Saudi al-Arabiya, who I thought was fairly objective before. it's certainly more coy than the fire-and-brimstone traditional Arab-Muslim views of al-Jazeera, but just look at the front page: championing the weak Hariri with headlines such as "Progress being made in Doha in spite of setbacks," while waging a complete war against Hezbollah with the featured opinions: "This is why the Hezbollah coup failed," a simpler and more obvious inclination of their bias is the article about Saudi singer Mohammed Abduh's recent interview on the "Godfather" talk show, (for some reason, Abduh is called the "Artist of the Arabs" although I don't think he's really heard outside the Gulf much), in that interview, Mr. Abduh lambasted Iraqi Kadhum al-Sahir, another frequently cited "Artist of the Arabs" but possibly the most successful pan-Arab artist in recent decades. while al-Arabiya mentions this in its headline as the major controversy of the show, they pass in silence the real controversy which is all over other forums, in which the Saudi singer called the Prophet Muhammed a "Saudi." live on air.

BlogIraqi

Fuck.

I am feeling so much anger boiling, I tried to cry but I couldn't.

New Blog

A newly-discovered blog by Baghdad Kassakhon [Storyteller], who is a journalist in Baghdad, has a post about the suffering of the Iraqi staff of the Associated Press.

Crisis Group, Muqtada's Greatest Hits DVD

International Crisis Group publishes two new articles about Iraq: The New Sunni Landscape, which explores the al-Qaeda's fall from grace in the Sunni community and the emergence of Sahwa, and the Need for a New Political Strategy. I've only read the first one so far and it's as informative and detailed as the previous Crisis Group reports, describing how did al-Qaeda fail and the motives of the Sahwa Tribal militas and their interaction with the US, the government and rival Sunni parties.
****
al-Rafedain.net, a Shi'i website with a strong anti-Sadrist bent has been uploading vidoes defaming Muqtada and the Mahdi Army for a long time, their latest is "Shathaat Muqtad'iyya" (Muqtaadi Fumbles), which collects the funny, crude and embarassing things Muqtada has said and done in a three-part YouTube series. Particularly interesting is Muqtada meeting his henchmen in the 2nd video, the similarity to you-know-who is uncanny, minus the crying Ya Booooya guy.