Monday, July 31, 2006

Human Rights Watch Is Kool

Today, Human Rights Watch issued their statement regarding the Quana attack.

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/30/lebano13881.htm

It is pretty Kool.

Imad Hajaj


I did get to shake hands with Imad Hajaj. I was in a Saj place with my friend Alaa, and it turned out that my friend Alaa knew him in person, so I got to shake hands with him.

Friday, July 28, 2006

USA, A Human Rights Abuser



It comes as no surprise that the USA was found guilty of human rights abuse by the United Nations human rights watchdog.

For details check out the article

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14077965/


I guess G.W.Bush is not so different from Saddam,Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad, or Kim Jong-il after all.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Urban Grill

A few weeks ago, I tried Urban Grill, near sisters in Sweifia.

It was pretty good and had good value for the money.

The have a lot of stuff inlcuding burgers and Burritos.


This movie has very good acting and deserves being nominated for the best actor award. But it does not deserve it's other nominations, namely the nomination for best picture.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Arabs and Marketing, an Oxymoron

It is well known that the American public opinion is in support of Israel. For some religious Americans the support of Israel is due to religious reasons related to end of times prophesies and the second coming of Jesus Christ. For others, the support is based on a poor understanding of the Israeli Arab conflict which shows Israel as the sheep that is surrounded by the Arab wolfs who want to devour it. And therefore see most of Israel's actions as a form of self protection and self defence.

What further does not help the matter, is the view that Muslims are suicide bombers. We have Osama Bin Laden and Al-Quada in Iraq to thank for such an Image.

In order for Arabs to "win the marketing war" and increase the American public support, several things need to happen:

•Suicide bombings in Iraq and everywhere have to stop.
•Any talk about exterminating the Jews on the part of Hamas and Iran should be criticized as westerners are very sensitive to the issue of extermination.
•Arab spokes persons should have a huge image make over to make them more appealing to the American public. The first thing to go should be the beard and the moustache. If they can got a hot women to be a spokes persons, that would be even better(and she sure would have no beard)
•Any talk targeted towards the American people by Arabs in English or in Arabic through instant translation should be accent free or even have an American accent. And the tone should be free of emotions as much as possible. Americans are very sensitive to accents and emotional outbursts usually do not get any sympathy.
•The Arab mantra should be very focused on 1-2 issues and not more.(Currently there is no Arab Mantra, and the Arabs seldom talk about any important issues)
•I know that a lot of the Arab bloggers are doing a good Job. But I get really pissed off when someone writes something about Nazis, Zionists, extermination, conspiracy, and Jews in the same sentence. Each one of them is a sensitive issue for Americans and putting them in one sentence further aggravates things. This sort of approach does not appeal to Americans and I know for sure that it back fires.
•Arabs should try to counter misinformation by always trying to point out the larger context. It would seem that after 55+ years of the conflict, people forget how it all started.
•Arabs should abandon talk about this being a religious conflict. So the conflict is and should be view as a conflict between the Palestinians who want their state and Israelis who are refusing to give them their state.
•Many people in America think that the war between the "Muslims and the Jews" has been going on for thousands of years. Arabs should focus on making it known that the conflict is modern and is less than a hundred years old.
•Muslims in general should work harder on their image. The current image is not good at all. And this is justified.

Knowing how Arabs are phobic to good marketing, I know that what I write is mainly for myself. I wish that our people and leaders went to marketing or communication schools in American, so that they would better understand how to approach the American audience.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

This movie kicks butt. The critics as usual do not know what they are talking about. Go and see it.

Can not wait for part three.

I Am Depressed

I have been very unmotivated lately, that is why I have not blogged much.

I am watching Lost(the TV show) on DVD. It is pretty good. I highly recommend it.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Jordan and Web Search Marketing

The other day, I answered a question regarding the Dead Sea and Israel on Yahoo answers. Then I had the idea to see how much people associate the Dead Sea with Jordan and not Israel (I must mention that I am really biased). So I did a Google search on the Dead Sea, and then on Jordan and the Dead Sea and on Israel and the Dead Sea.

The number of websites that mentioned Jordan and the Dead Sea was something like 10 times more than the number of websites that mention Israel and the Dead Sea. But what was really surprising (not really surprising) is that when I Google searched the dead sea alone, the top websites were the ones that mentioned Israel and the dead sea.

So somebody is doing their web search marketing right. And that somebody is not Jordan.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Yahoo Answers, and Yahoo 360º

The other day, I discovered Yahoo answers and Yahoo 360º.

Yahoo answers is great. It was a two birds, one stone situation for me. I liked helping people and also I learned from other people's answers.

I am somewhat addicted and can not wait until they allow me to answer more than 20 Qs

As for Yahoo 360º, it is some ways similar to myspace. It also offers the extra option of using avatars instead of pictures.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

"K" for "C"

While most people are generally happy with the Status quo, I can not help but try and improve things.

I decided to contribute to humanity in a big way and start a trend that will make English a better language.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I will start replacing "C" with a "K" where appropriate, so that the spelling is pretty much like German. For example, "contact" would become Kontact, and "Cool" would become Kool and so on.

In the short run, it will be a pain in the ass for me. But maybe I will get used to it.

On the bright side people who are not native speakers who are trying to learn English will find spelling somewhat easier.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

How The Human Race Can Last For The Next 100 years.

There was a question somewhere on Yahoo about how the human race can last for the next 100 years.

And being who I am, I like always to offer my 2 cents(more like 200 cents,) so here it goes:

I think that humanity should stop this crazy over population of the earth. The earth can barely support the current 6+ billion people who currently live here. So I am not sure how it will support the 20+billion(my own estimate without any sceintific basis) people in a 100 years. I am not even sure if there is a solution because the countries with the highest population growth rates tend to be the poorest with the least levels of education. I am sure it is very fascist, but maybe we need to revisit the one child per family law invented in China. Or maybe with the rising income levels in various countries, more focus on careers, and more women working, people would start having less kids without a need for external intervention(This is called wishfull thinking.)

The other area that needs work is somehow trying to neutralize the impact of religion as it is a major cause of wars. I am not sure if there will ever be a war of the seculars, but I am willing to bet that religion is probably the number one or number two cause of wars. I am not saying that we should get rid of religions, I am only saying that we should neutralize the asspects that are the culprit for war.

Also, I did blog before about the need for a new UN to resolve the current problems. But in order for humanity to survive for the next 100 years, maybe the UN should live up to it's name and try to unite the various nations.

On the issue of environment and food, I think that people in the industrial nations and the industrial nations themselves should start acting more responsibly and not waste so much food and energy. People in America(and maybe Saudi) throw away enough food every year to feed a small nation. With this in mind, people need to start buying as much food as they need and not over order at restaurants or have excesive amount of food at parties.

Also on the energy front, America and China need to act more responsibly. The Americans need a better railway system, more energy efficient cars, and smaller cars that consume less fuel. As for China(And who ever is going to replace it as the cheap stuff manufacturer,) the only way I think they will act more responsibly is if they chose to.

The Launch Of My Own myspace

I did learn from some cool people (Marian, Lenny, and Mike) I met at an Irish pub in Chatsworth about myspace.

It is very neat and great.

It is very popular in the states and somewhat popular in the EU. However, very few people are signing up from the ME.

I encourage everyone to get an account and get some friends.

http://www.myspace.com/

Top 10 Ways To Make Jordan Cool

I lost count; maybe I exceeded 10 ways to make Jordan cool. But as one can see, there is a need for lots of improvements.

Anyway, number X+1, it would be cool if more people showered and used deodorant and smelled clean.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Top 10 Ways To Make Jordan Cool

It would have been really cool if Jordan decided to be a secular country.

Also, it would be really cool if more foreigners lived in Jordan, and more Jordanians were married to foreigners. The latter would be a three birds one stone situation. First, improve the gene pool. Second, make the country more liberal and cosmopolitan. Third, people might learn to smile more often and have better manners and a better sense of humor.

Finally, Jordan would have been more cool if more guys and women wore shorts in the summer. Considering the weather here it is just stupid not to do so.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Top 10 Ways To Make Jordan Cool

One more, if people stopped being greedy, decent cloths and restuarant food is very expensive in Jordan, all because of greed.

Top 10 Ways To Make Jordan Cool

Also another one; if people in Jordan stopped acting like butthole smartasses who want to get stuff for half what it is actually worth. People have to understand that other people need make a decent living.

Top 10 Ways To Make Jordan Cool

I did come up with another one; if people reduced their "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" mentality and went ahead and fixed it anyways.

My Trip To America, Part 2, The #$%@s and The Cheapos

I did arrive at JFK. My connecting flight was 2 1/2 hrs later. It took almost 1 hr to get to the immigration, which says a lot about the fact that JFK and other airport in America need to employ more immigration officers, they probably can pay for it by increasing the visa fees by a few $$$.

Now, when I got to the immigration officer, I was told that I needed to do registration, and that it will probably take and hours, even more, so I should expect to miss my connecting flight.

The registration procedure is rather straight forward and involves filling a form and then going to the registration officer so that he can enter the data into the computer system. The reason why it takes almost one hour is the fact that there were only two officers doing it. One of them told me that they do not want to increase the number.

So anyway, I missed my connecting flight, and went to the RJ desk. Though it was not their mistake that I missed my flight, they booked me on a flight for 24hrs later, and also paid for my hotel. That is very nice of them except for the fact that they did not pay for any of my meals. I mean come on, if you are being nice enough to pay for the hotel, why not pay for at least one meal.

Two Good Books



The good part about travel, at least for me, is that I get time to read. And if I am lucky enough, I get to finish the book that I am reading before going back home. This time, I got to finish two books, Excavation and Blink.

Excavation is a fast paced novel authored by James Rollins. The novel deals with a hidden treasure that can lead to immortality. There is tons of stuff going on from booby traps to betrayal to nano technology to a lost Incan village to people coming back from death. And unlike two of Rollins' other books, the end was good and convincing. It did not leave me thinking:" Shit what happened, where is the end?" So I give this book a good 9/10.




As for Blink, this a book where one can learn tons and tons of stuff. I am widely read and this book had tons of new and fresh and ideas, even for me.

Basically, the book deals with starting social epidemics. It proposes three rules to help with this. The rule of the few, which means that few people start any sort of epidemic. The Stickiness factor which means stuff has to stick to succeed and finally it has to have the right context.

The author can do a lot of tipping point analysis in his future work, for example he can analyze how to stop terrorism using a tipping point approach. This would be somewhat similar to his analysis of why crime dipped in NYC.

Even better, someone else might use the same approach to sway US public opinion in favor of "A"rabs.

Needless to say, the possibilities are limitless.

Labels:

Saturday, July 01, 2006

France Won, Yippi



I went to the Old Irish Pub, with my friend Alaa to watch the world cup match between France and Brazil. Out of the 60+ people who were there, there were only 4 poeple cheering for France, and that included our good selves.

Anyway, France won, I went home happy because Brazil lost.

Labels:

Sushi in America



I did get to eat Sushi in America, in an award winning restaurant in Chatsworth California.

The main difference between sushi in America and Shushi in Jordan is the huge variety available. Unlike in Jordan, where you are limited to 4-5 different types of fish, the choices in the US exceed 20. There are things like fresh and salt water eel, halibut, calamari, octopus, snapper, oyster, mackerel, toro tuna(not any part of the tuna, but the fatty yummy part with the richest taste) and a sushi made with special mushroom.

So, yummy

Of course, I did ask the Japanese chef about which one was better, sushi in Japan, or sushi in America, and his answer was Japan.

Da Vinci's Code, My Review

Since this movie was to going be shown here in Jordan, I took the opportunity of being in the States to go and see it at the movie theater.

The main problem with this movie is that, though it can be exiting and fast passed in certain moments, this movie does deliver a final strong punch; the end is rather "pathetic".

I can not complain about the acting, most of it was good. But the movie fails to deliver what the novel itself delivered; I think that something was lost in the process of transforming the novel into the movie.

Anyway, this is not a memorable movie that one would want to see multiple times, so my final verdict is 7/10.
Blogarama - The Blog Directory iopBlogs.com, The World's Blog Aggregator
electronic health record system
electronic health record system