Friday, January 29, 2010

Egypt Deserved to Win 4-0


I was hoping for Algeria to win, but Egypt deserved it
The worst excuse ever is that Algeria had 3 players sent off with a red card.

If you know basic football, you would know that having a player sent off is just another mistake that you deserve to lose a game for, exactly like a wrong pass or missing a penalty.

Egypt played better and did not do the mistakes of having players sent off, so they deserved the victory, 4-0.

Good luck Sunday.
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And for the record here: Algeria will KICK ASS in the World Cup, seriously, they will kick ass.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Fifty Things I Love About South Dakota


I love Jordan but other bloggers have said it all. So here are my top #50 reasons why I love South Dakota.

1- Only 3 months after you move to South Dakota people will refer to you as the Jordanian because you're the only one living there.
2- You will start understanding what it means to be "endangered species"
3- They sell great beef testicles.

4- There's a lot of Mexican food even though there are no Mexicans.

5- The airport has one terminal, and you can arrive there just half-an-hour before your flight.

6- You'll recognize at least 3 people on the 20-seat plane.

7- Just like Jordan, everyone here has a relative in California.

8- When it's minus 20 degrees all streets are open, everyone goes to work and school and nobody complains about anything.

9- You're one of those very few people who has a passport.

10- Work is always within a 10-minute drive.
11- Everything is always within a 10-minute drive.
12- If you're 14 you can get a driver's licence.

13- All chicks are originally Scandinavian heritage. Enough said.
14- The smell of of horse shit in the street brings back memories from your grandfather's farm in Dibbeen.


15- If your car is stuck in the snow, random strangers will stop by and help you out instead of stopping by to rob your car (like they do in Arizona).
16- In the middle of a snow storm people still drive with their 1960s cars.
17- South Dakota is a diverse state. We have some Asians and also a black couple: Richard and Mary. Nice couple.

18- If anyone in the world is stalking you, you can totally hide in south Dakota and they'll never know how to reach you.

19- A traffic jam means there's a high-school baseball game somewhere.

20- If you're taking a leak at the airport bathroom and your luggage behind you falls on the floor, a nice person behind you will lift it up and hold it for you until you're done pissing.

21- No roaches. They're all dead from the cold weather by October.

22- No matter how cold it gets, it makes you feel better knowing there are people who are more screwed than you are. Thank God for giving us North Dakota.

23- In the snow, to keep the car heated, people keep their cars turned on and leave them to go shopping at the mall. (again, cars don't get stolen)

24- Old people are taken care of by their kids and grandkids.

25- A mother may need 10 seconds to remember the date of birth of one of her kids because she has ten of them.

26- All women over the age of 60 have milked at least 1000 cows in their lives.

27- If you drive on the freeway for longer than one hour you will certainly hit an animal and rip his body into 10 pieces.

28 - Kum and Go is the name of a big grocery store chain.

29- When a plane is in the sky everyone looks up.

30- You can tell the animal by smelling its feces.

31- Scotland, Arlington, Buffalo and Corsica are only two-hours away.
32- The car salesman works part-time as a nurse and on weekends as a bar tender.

33- You can insult anyone's mother or wife but never ever say anything bad about country music.

34- People pray in church for God to protect their cattle.

35- The whole state shares one area code: 605.

36- People wear snow boots (Bostar) to weddings.

37- It could be minus 10 degrees outside but sunny all day long

38- Even though everyone hates the French here, the capital's name is Pierre.

39- And I can tell exactly if you're a South Dakotan by the way you pronounce Pierre. ( and I'm not gonna tell you.)
40- Pierre, a very small city, has two time zones. Over there people can save an hour each day just by driving 4 miles to work.

41- Being a Middle Eastern in South Dakota is exotic. You're one-of-a-kind. People have never seen one like you before. Even if they think you're a terrorist they'll love and you protect you because you're so rare and special.

42- I've been living here 6 months and have already heard this a 100 times every time i travel, "You are the first person I meet who is from South Dakota"

43- The only reference people know from South Dakota is the movie Fargo. (and mind you: Fargo is in North Dakota, and the movie was actually shot in Minnesota).

44- You will have days where every woman you see is pregnant.

45- Everyone here has eaten at least one animal that they could not clearly identify what it was; they just shot it and had to cook it before dark.

46- People believe everything the doctor says even if it has nothing to do with medicine. (In case you visit me here, pretend that Gandhi was born in Jordan).

47- The Valentine gift is a brand new snow shovel.

48- The four seasons are only two, they're called winter and July.

49- When someone tells you, "you've got plenty of pop in your sac" that's not a compliment. They're just saying you have a lot Coke in your grocery bag.

50- Half the town is your family. The other half is your in-laws.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Haitiyyat

Help those who don't know you, who won't recognize you, who don't look like you, and who

may not even thank you, for that is the true giving.

Help Haiti.




As for today, at least 100,000 dead, and more dying.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

UnCensored

If you think internet censorship did not exist in Jordan before "this law" was made, you don't know Jordan well.

If you think by cancelling this law nobody will be watching what's circulating on Jordanian blogs and websites anymore, you don't know Jordan well.

And if you think that Jordanians officials abide by laws, you don't know Jordan well enough.

Agree with mala2e6 here.

Cheers to all my readers WITHOUT EXCEPTION

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The Right Stuff

I took a quick look at the 10 am appointment in my travel clinic. An empty chart except for one note by my assistant, "Going to Haiti, needs necessary vaccines and medications, booked his appointment urgently, Ok'ed by you"
The man arrived 30 minutes before his appointment. He filled the travel form. Clearly, my first question was, "Why are you going there ?

"We adopted a kid from Haiti, and after the earthquake we haven't heard anything about her. I will go there to look for her."

"For how long are you staying?"
"Not sure, at least 3 weeks, probably longer. It's OK to give me lots of medications, if I have extra I'll give them to people there"

And so I did. The man was my age, but he looked twice as old despite having no medical problems. It was evident that he had a very rough week. I told him about all the risks of going there. I gave him the printed travel warnings emailed to me from different agencies and he told me he understood all the risks. He wasn't referring to the girl as a poor girl who needed help. He was referring to her as his own daughter who went missing after a tragic earthquake.

People in Jordan are largely against adoption. Not only that, it's also illegal. Most Jordanians who are against adoption are people who never adopted (and obviously will never adopt), who don't have any family member who adopted children, never even met anyone who adopted anyone else and never knew and will never get to know any adopted person.

Yes, adoption is not for everyone. There are a lot of things that can go wrong along the way. Not all couples should be allowed to adopt. In fact, the majority of couples are not capable of adopting, let alone have their own children. But for the right couple, and there's a lot of them, adoption is a great gift both for them and for the poor kids who probably have no future other than engaging in civil wars and succumbing to disease and ignorance. A lot of these kids live in Jordan and other Arab countries, and they are not happy and will never be happy.

If you don't feel it's good for you, try at least to change the foreseen future of these kids and there are a lot of ways to do so, and please, don't stand as an obstacle to people who can adopt and save the life of another child. It's more precious that you can imagine.

كلوروفيل

اليوم عيد الشجرة
كل عام وانتم بخير
وبهذه المناسبة نعيد ونكرر أهدافنا المنشودة

نحو أردن أخضر عام ألفين

Monday, January 11, 2010

Injustice Served

You might have seen the clip of the brother of the UAE's president, Sheikh Issa Bin Zayid torturing a helpless tied Afghani worker for 40 minutes, nonstop.

Bassam and Ghassan Nabulsi, two Palestinians living in the US, smuggled the tape inside the US and ABC news showed it last year.

Here's a short clip of it:



Today, an Emirati court cleared Issa from any abuse charges.

Not only that, they charged they sentenced the Nabulsis for "drugging" the Issa and taping him torturing the man.

I have to add that the Afghani man was also raped after all the beating. He was tied, beaten up and raped.

I consider you a civilized person if you appreciate human rights, treat people as equals, stop the corruption, and give a chance for your people to have a better life. It doesn't come with building towers, artificial islands and bringing under-privileged women from Eastern Europe to work as sex slaves in your fancy brothels. As long as you treat Indians, Bengalis, Pakistanis, and anyone who works under you like a slave, you're still a douche bag.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Awareness for Testicular Cancer


Men of the World: Post the Color of your Kalsoon

Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of people, especially women, are desperate for anything that can cure or decrease the risk of breast cancer, and this is completely understandable. Prevention and early detection is the key. Self-breast exams are free and harmless and any woman can do it, that's why they're highly encouraged although their benefit is minimal at best. Mammograms often miss breast cancer, and recent guidelines suggest that they might be useless for the majority of women 50 years or younger.

Just like most cancers, a lot of factors have been linked to breast cancer are the unhealthy daily habits people do: smoking, eating fatty meals, lack of exercise, too much alcohol....etc. Not an easy thing to adjust.

The other big factor: genes. Can't change that.

I don't think the recent facebook statuses game raised any awareness or increased our knowledge about anything, but in case it did, I hope we'd start another campaign about not sharing too much information on facebook especially when you have 500 friends on facebook half of whom you'd barely say hi to if you see in real life.


And what's up with women being allowed to share whatever they want on facebook while men are called perverts and jerks if they do. Once my friends on facebook completely ripped me off for saying, "Just saw a 60-minute video of Maradona's best goals, I don't think my nipples have ever as hard before".


Equality people, equality.
(for the millions of women and the 2 guys who asked, no that's not me in the picture, sorry to make you sweat for nothing)

Saturday, January 09, 2010

Some Clips About Our Triple Agent

Here's an interview (or attempts of having an interview) with his father and brother in Amman by the CNN correspondent:



Nisreen Shamayleh reporting for al-Jazeera...


Fox News

Terrorism in Saint Louis, Missouri

In a manufacturing company in St Louis, a terrorist armed with three different weapons randomly shot hundreds of bullets at innocent people killing three and injuring five.

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And now we got a confirmation that his name is: Timothy G. Hendron.

So to edit: A man opened fire at people at a manufacturing company in St. Louis killing three people and injuring five.