Myrtus

Beirut erotic art

Middle East Online

Two women painters show images of fetishism, homosexuality, masturbation in Beirut art show.

Damn Tyrants!

It's a sad day when the Egyptian Sandmonkey says he's done....but I can totally understand why. 

Let's pray for his safety.

There are many reasons, each would take a post to list, and I just do not have the energy to list them. As anyone who has been reading this blog for the past  month, I think it is apparent that things are not the same with me. There are reasons for that:

One of the chief reasons is the fact that there has been too much heat around me lately. I no longer believe that my anonymity is kept, especially with State Secuirty agents lurking around my street and asking questions about me since that day.

Adopt a Clitoris

 

Finally we can all take matters into our own hands and add a little more pleasure to the world.

Why sponsor or adopt a clitoris?

The goal of Clitoraid’s “Adopt a Clitoris” program is to create real, long lasting changes for women who have been forced to experience clitoral excision or genital mutilation against their will. To rebuild the female clitoris, a local anesthetic is applied so no pain is experienced when the surgeon uncovers the root of the original clitoris left after the excision. This root and tissues will become the new clitoris. The procedure takes 6 weeks for a woman to completely heal, with sexual pleasure and genetic normality being the end result.

Please watch this video and make a donation if you can.

sheeesh!

If you think this boy toy is messed up, wait till you see how messed up the comments from the blogger who posted about it....Toys, toys, toys

My new blog roll

I cleaned it up a bit....I thought I'd try something different.

Note: The first letter of the category under which your blog is placed corresponds with the first letter of the name of your blog, so it doesn't mean that it reflects the content of your blog per se.  It's just the first words that came to me when I thought of each letter of the alphabet.

Xoussef, sorry I couldn't think of anything better for your category.  If you don't like it, I'm open to suggestions.

Rantings of a Rabid Liberal

middleXeast has the scoop here: Paul Krugman's fatwa: "Confronting Bush on Iraq has become a patriotic duty"

UAE - Arab Genius Revived?

I've heard on several occasions how the UAE is actively seeking Fortune 500 companies for investment, including the company that I work for, so I have no reason to disregard this article even if it sounds a bit over the top.

Economic reform and Arab politics

Xenophobia, gender apartheid, despotic decision making and tribal violence are as unthinkable in the UAE as it is, sadly, common in the darker alleys of the Arab and Islamic world. The UAE proves that the rationalist model of coexistence, so quintessentially Arabian in the medieval era, can be recreated in the age of Google, hip hop and the Boeing 777 superjumbo jet. After all, it is not coincidence that the Ruler of Dubai, the Arab world’s most successful CEO of the classic post–modern Gulf corporate emirate, identified Cordoba as his vision for his city’s future.

Cordoba, of course, was medieval city in Ummayad Spain, the crown jewel of Andalus, where Muslims, Christians and Jews not only coexisted, but created a brilliant, rationalist culture, the proverbial "ornament of the world" at a time when Europe was convulsed in the fanaticism of the Dark Ages. Ironically, the UAE model proved a more attractive economic export template across the Arab world than the American prototype whose marketing the Bush White House so dismally bungled.

Eliminating Menstruation

Tigehawk's sister does a great job arguing her case in favor of a new pill that eliminates menstruation altogether.  She says:

Apparently some women are actually outraged that there is finally a birth control pill that does not force us to have a period, supposedly because it is somehow "unnatural" not to have one every 28 days of our non-pregnant lives. And yet it is only due to a bizarre historical artifact that for the nearly 50 years that the Pill has been available, those of us using it have been forced to have our period thirteen times a year, even if we didn't want to.

TigerHawk says:

I will admit, I have once or twice wondered why women who take birth control pills still bleed once a month. Being a man I have wondered this only once or twice, but my sister the opinionated biologist has thought about it a lot. And, since the reasons are paternalistic and religious rather than scientific or medical, she is decidedly pissed off about them.

I personally think whether you experience your monthly bleeding as a useless painful burden or as a normal way of nature taking its course has a lot to do with your personal lifestyle and attitude towards things in life.  Based on my own experience I believe that light or heavy bleeding and the severity of discomfort depends on the level of stress you're experiencing in your life at any given time and whether you deal with problems as challenges you have tackle with determination rather than burdens you have to carry.  Women are sensitive creatures, but I think we can handle pain a heck of a lot better than men do and yes, some of us are more emotional than others, but as far as being for or against this new pill, I think it all depends on each's own individual inborn attributes, whether they be psychological or biological.

Of course none of us women enjoy the pain and discomfort that comes with menstruation and I can totally understand why some women would opt for eliminating this painful process altogether with a manmade pill, but I personally prefer to keep mine just the way it is, thank you.  Believe it or not there are certain advantages to the short period of time prior to the monthly bleeding (better known as PMS) that I personally do experience as being positive.  Sometimes I do need PMS to take care of bizz.

Besides the fact that I get this enormous urge to start cleaning the house and organizing everything, my body tends to get more shapely and extra sensitive (in certain areas ahum), often making me feel more desirable and frisky.  And of course it is also the time that I get a chance to set the record straight with people who have a tendency to take advantage of me....if you know what I mean. :P

Hirsi Ali The Muslim Extemist

I would like to thank Pieter for giving me this opportunity to voice my opinion about Hirsi Ali once again.  Dank je wel Pieter! (:

So I'm sitting here thinking what could I possibly say about Miss Ali that hasn't already been said before?

I thought first things first...

What's the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Hirsi Ali?

Without hesitation the word "extremist" comes to mind.

Once a Muslim, always a muslim...oh no!

If you take a look at Hirsi Ali's bio you'll see that within a relatively short period of time, she went from leading a life as an extremely devout Muslim, where Allah and his prophet Mohammed are the center of the universe, to an absolute atheist solely living for the here and now, while battling the forces of darkness that shaped her into being the person that she is today.

I say good for her if that makes her happy, but if she wants to be at the forefront of creating a happier world for all, she'll need to do a lot more than just criticize, dish out insults and sign book deals to keep feeding that extremism that's fueling the fires which force her into hiding 24/7.

          

The way I see it, her hostile one-way approach to discredit the entire religion of Islam, icluding over a billion of its followers mirrors that of most political extremists around the world, especially that of Muslim extremists who are bent on discrediting the rest of the world that doesn't follow their views.  The end result of their discriminatory politics is all the same: polarization, anger and destruction.

She can claim she's an atheist all she wants, it neither makes her objective nor have a monopoly on the truth.  She can't deny the fact that she's a product of Islam.  I don't care what she says, the radical form of Islam she was born into and raised with is ingrained in her, it obviously has shaped her thinking and is the main driving force behind her quest to seek revenge against a society that wronged her.

Her harsh criticism towards Islam, demanding change in areas that have had a direct negative impact on her own personal life, wouldn't be half as bad if she didn't focus only on the negative most of the time.  You can't just demand change and dish out insults for shock effect to get people's attention without offering comprehensive viable solutions that would be beneficial to all in return.

 

And I still don't understand how she ended up getting employed by one of the world's most influential think-tanks...and a rightwing one to boot.  I mean if you think about it, it's pretty unusual for rightwingers to form an alliance with minorities let alone atheists...but what do I know, maybe atheist minorities are the wave of the future.  Would be nice if they could start thinking of a good campaign to regulate religion and ban it from governments around the world altogether.

Anway, like I said before in a previous post, if anything, I think she's incredibly crafty at riding the wave of popular opinion jumping from one extreme to another in the face of adversity in whichever society she happens to find herself at any given time.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Ian Buruma's Enlightened View

Baghdad Tech Students Reach Out To Virginia Tech

The Buffalo News: National

"We want to let the whole world know that we do not support terrorism anywhere," said Yassir Nazar, head of the student union at Baghdad Technology University, who organized the hanging of the banner near the campus gate.

It reads, "We, the students of Technology University, denounce the attack at Virginia Tech. We extend our condolences to the families of the victims who faced a situation as bad as Iraq's universities do. The sanctity of campuses must be protected around the world."