23 Sunday Sep 2012
Posted in Caricature of the day, LB Social, Lebanon, MB Social, MicroBlogs
Tags
Jabal Mohsen, Lebanese government, Lebanese people, Lebanese Politics, lebanon, Politics of Lebanon, Satire, YouTube
1 – This is how Lebanese government resolves all the country’s problems.
11 Wednesday Jul 2012
Posted in Lebanon, MB Culture, MB Social, MicroBlogs
Just a quick post when I couldn’t help but to stop, laugh out loud and take this photo of that woman, who thought to exploit the broken water pipe to wash her car! Continue reading »
15 Friday Jun 2012
Posted in MB Social, MicroBlogs, USA, World
07 Thursday Jun 2012
Posted in LB Politics, LB Social, Lebanon, MB Social, MicroBlogs
Tags
Angry Lebanese, Beirut, Hezbollah, Ikhtak Malla Balad, Lebanese government, Lebanese people, lebanon, Satire, YouTube
I want to introduce to you Mr. Sodico, an angry bird – sorry Lebanese – speaking about his country and the resistance in it in the below video. The video is in the Lebanese slang, so apologies for non-Arabic readers.
16 Wednesday May 2012
Posted in MB Social, Media Monitoring, MicroBlogs, The rest of the world, TV, USA, World
Tags
BBC World Service, European Union, Foreign Policy, GlobeScan, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Program on International Policy Attitudes, Tv
Can you compile a list of the top four and bottom four countries which had respectively positive and negative influence over the world?
Of course, I have my own list in mind, but funnily enough I have a similar one here compiled from a recent 22-county poll conducted by GlobeScan (an international opinion research consultancy) and the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland – Program on International Policy Attitudes.
25 Wednesday Jan 2012
Posted in LB Social, Lebanon, MB Social, MicroBlogs
In reference to the recent collapsed building in Achrafiyeh in Beirut, and frenzy over Jal al-Dib bridge in northern suburb of Beirut, Stephen Dockery wrote a good story in The Daily Star about Lebanon’s collapsing structures. Stephen quoted me in his article.
I told Stephen:
I wouldn’t say Jal al-Dib is bad in its structure or design, it just wasn’t followed with maintenance.
We desperately need routine maintenance regimes in place for public assets, rather than reactionary plans. Moreover, construction projects, which could have adverse impact on the nearby structures, should go through rigorous approval procedures, not only for their permanent designs but for their temporary designs that serve them for the duration of the construction period.
The aim of any law should be protecting public and private assets, and maintaining the public health and safety – which are really low on the Lebanese agenda.
Please click here to read the full story in The Daily Star.
02 Friday Dec 2011
Posted in Arab Spring, MB Social, Syria
Tags
You wonder what kind reforms are possible by a Syrian regime, or what kind of ‘terrorism’ they are fighting, when they see the iPhone as a dangerous device!
Below is a copy of a memo issued by the General Directorate of Customs of the Syrian Ministry of Finance; “iPhone is outlawed due to its banned features as per the watchdog regulations”.
With the ongoing popular uprising in Syria, it’s enough for any tourist or guest visiting now Syria to possess a smartphone to be potentially a spy suspect! But not if they have Samsung, HTC or other brands! That’s in addition to the usual confiscation of all the activists ‘facebooks’ they can get their hands on…
Good Steve Jobs didn’t manage to see this during his lifetime; his iconic device being banned in his ‘home country’.
28 Wednesday Sep 2011
Posted in Arab World, MB Social, MicroBlogs, Other Arab issues, The rest of the world, World
I love these charts, especially when they tell you something you already know! or when they put something in a graphical systematic mathematical geeky way for something you vaguely know…
The relation in this chart is straightforward: when democracy is down, gender inequality is up. No wonder Middle East is at the bottom…oh, sorry, at the top on this chart.
24 Saturday Sep 2011
Posted in MB Politics, MB Social, MicroBlogs, Politics, USA, World
Tags
“A Crime File”
Date of sentence: 23rd Sept 2011
Verdict: guilty
Culprits: 10 Muslim students (Irvine 11).
Jury: Orange County jury, California
Crime: Practising the American First Amendment of the Bill of Rights
Method of crime: protest in a form of heckling
Location of crime: University of California, UCI
Date of crime: 8th February 2010
Subject of protest: Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren
Aim of protest: highlight the Israeli occupation to Palestine & its crimes
Evidence: below video…
Academic performance of UCI: note towards the end of protest @5:20, how apparently an orthodox bearded ‘teacher’, happened to have a Jewish cap on, was telling them ‘you are failing your exams’.
Question1: what would the verdict be if the students were of a different religion?
Question2: what would the verdict be if the Ambassador was not an Israeli person?
Question3: has the ‘teacher’ been disciplined?
“propagating murder is not an expression of free speech”
27 Wednesday Jul 2011
Posted in MB Social, MicroBlogs
Just the perfect example to prove how tourism is vital to Lebanon.
According to the below graph compiled by The Economist (based on the United Nations World Tourism Organisation – UNWTO) tourists visiting Lebanon are second in the world in their spending after Australia; these are 2010 figures, with the spending figure calculated per tourist, with the figure standing at $3,000+ for Lebanon. The challenge is to keep increasing the number of tourists now!
If the cost of living is taken into consideration, I think Lebanon will take the top spot (or India). These two countries are presumably cheaper than the rest in the same chart. The two mentioned African countries are likely to be near the top too.
I am not sure if our tourists are big spenders, or we are good in sucking money out of people, or a bit of both. But it’s not bad, considering this is more than what I spend on my holiday!
16 Saturday Jul 2011
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, MB Social, MicroBlogs
Tags
Libyan Leader Muammar Al-Gaddafi featured in a piece of street art in Libya. Photo by Rory Mulholland.
04 Monday Jul 2011
Posted in MB Social, Media Monitoring, MicroBlogs, The rest of the world, TV, World
This is Ed Miliband, the opposition leader in the UK House of Commons (Parliament), in an interview with the BBC.
Listen carefully to him repeating almost the same answer to every question. Is he a robot or an idiot – at least less idiot than the BBC presenter?
I just hope he doesn’t have to copy-paste Gordon Brown’s policy, else he should let his brother David have a go…
29 Wednesday Jun 2011
Posted in MB Social, MicroBlogs
According this below chart from The Economist, the bulk of history is being created almost…now i.e. in the 20th and 21st centuries. Obviously, for the sake of this graph, we are talking about the last 2,000 years of history.
28 Tuesday Jun 2011
Posted in MB Social, MicroBlogs
Tags
This is NOT Denzel Washington or someone from Hollywood, it’s Barack Obama…the cool?
24 Friday Jun 2011
Posted in MB Social, Media Monitoring, MicroBlogs, TV
As part of their fight against counterfeit products, the Brand Protection Group (BPG) commissioned – the international creative advertising agency – LeoBurnett (Beirut) to start a campaign to raise the public awareness about this matter.
BPG is an association launched in 2003 by 21 big corporations to fight counterfeit in Lebanon. They established a hotline 1739 to report counterfeit products. They aim to protect consumers from the hazards of counterfeit products, and obviously protect their profit margins on the way!
LeoBurnett started a public awareness campaign in March 2011 which included some nice adverts, and some ‘public stunts’; one of the them featuring Marcel Ghanem, the LBC (Lebanese Broadcasting corporation) host.
The video below is a summary of their campaign; it’s a 5-minutes video, but I found it fun to watch…enjoy!
Continue reading »
23 Thursday Jun 2011
Posted in MB Social, MicroBlogs
I found this photo, so much representing the difference between the East and the West; in terms of the status of freedoms in general, and the living conditions of women in specific.
let the photo does the talk…
Continue reading »
20 Monday Jun 2011
Posted in MB Social, Media Monitoring, MicroBlogs, Syria, TV
Tags
Addounia TV, arab spring, Propaganda, Rami Makhlouf, syria, Tv, YouTube
If you read this blog, you are less likely you watch the Syrian state media or the ones affiliated with it (unless the ‘Moukhabarat’ started following me).
So I thought of posting this below video, your opportunity to listen to some of the rhetoric being said on these ‘media outlets’.
The man speaking in this video is a Syrian ‘researcher’ called Ali Al-Shu’eibi. Continue reading »
18 Saturday Jun 2011
Posted in MB Social, MicroBlogs, The rest of the world, World
…during the ‘hockey riots’ in Vancouver in Canada this week!
We could have done with that yesterday… in North Lebanon! couldn’t we?
Continue reading »
15 Wednesday Jun 2011
Posted in MB Social, MicroBlogs, The rest of the world, World
Follow @TheZako
There is always one!
The treasure hunter Bill Warren declared his intention to go on the hunt for the body of Osama Bin Laden, which is supposedly at the Arabian Sea bottom.
10 Friday Jun 2011
Posted in MB Social, MicroBlogs
As you know, the Lebanese complain about everything, without necessarily doing much about it.
They complain about the bad driving and they drive wrong. They complain about politicians and then they elect them again. They complain on how a night club is expensive, and they keep going there. They complain that they can’t find work, but they don’t want to wake up early in the morning…plus the usual problems in water, electricity, traffic, telephones etc
Anyway, I am NOT suggesting that I want to sort all that out, but it seems there is a place where you can express your anger, probably about something went wrong. So someone has done something about it!
It’s an informal micro-blogging (by you) website, that allows its members to post whatever they want under the theme of ‘Nba3sna’ !
‘Non-Lebanese’ speakers: please note a lot of what’s written are Lebanese slang, like the title itself.
Check it out, and write on how you got ‘nba3asit’ to write something there, when you read something here! 
PS: Non-Arabic speakers: Nba3asna means when something is fucked-up!
03 Friday Jun 2011
Posted in MB Social, MicroBlogs
In a recent post on this blog, I mentioned a ‘secret’ friend who seems coming back in this post again. He provided me with a valuable piece of information, that I am going to share with you. By the way, I am going to call any ‘secret’ friend: ‘The Stig’ of this blog!
Yes, The Stig has passed me the whereabouts of Ron Arad. Continue reading »
30 Monday May 2011
Posted in LB Social, Lebanon, MB Social, MicroBlogs
What do you do if you were forced to wait for 7 hours in a grounded plane, without being given any warning? well, this is what happened last Friday on a scheduled flight from London Heathrow Airport to Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport:
Continue reading »
29 Sunday May 2011
Posted in LB Social, Lebanon, MB Social, MicroBlogs
Tags
We always said money can’t buy happiness. It’s true on a personal and emotional level, but The Economist has drafted a chart which relates the ‘Better life index’ to the GDP per capita a country could have.
Continue reading »
26 Thursday May 2011
Posted in MB Social, MicroBlogs, USA, World
Tags
I don’t think Obama is giving me a chance NOT to blog on him this week. After his speeches on Arab Spring, then before the AIPAC, then his visit to Ireland & UK…the world has found something worth, laughing about…again! Continue reading »
24 Tuesday May 2011
Posted in MB Social, MicroBlogs
Tags
Have you ever pictured the most advanced presidential car getting stuck for a silly reason? check this out:
Continue reading »
