The guy threatening and swearing is Mustapha Qawas, the head of the Baath party in Saida and he made all this fuss because his nephew was denied some medicine because he didn’t have money to pay for it. Very manly of him to take it against a woman.

Will the poor pharmacy owner dare press charges against him? I guess not.

Will we hear about this guy getting arrested anytime soon? I don’t think so.

via NowLebanon

Update: The guy was arrested and put in jail. Glad I was wrong for a change. He will be out in a few days but I guess he learned his lesson. Thank you Rana!

We were all happy to see the Estonians freed yesterday, but no one still knows how and who freed them?

More importantly, and according to many sources and articles I read, it appears that the Lebanese Security forces, be it army, ISF, army intelligence and other factions, had no clue about the operation!

I don’t know if any of you guys watch the UNIT, but this story could make a great episode. We should email the guys behind this series ask them to include it. [The UNIT]

Here are few articles, from [Al-Akhbar] & [Naharnet] on the matter.

Jerusalem | Filmed in Imax 3D from JerusalemGiantScreen on Vimeo.

Jerusalem looks really beautiful. Someone should film Lebanon in Imax 3D since it would be interesting to see if bumper to bumper traffic and electric cables look better on the big screen.

via Frankom

[Old Picture of the National team]

Whenever you hear the Lebanese Basketball officials appointing a Lebanese coach head of the National team, it teams they are running out of money. Ghassan Sarkis was assigned the task of head coach of the Lebanese Basketball National Team after the miserable results Tab Baldwin provided.

Some of you recall how I critisized that guy even before he was appointed and how terrible were our results because of his stupid tactics. [Link]

Back to Coach Sarkis, I never liked him and I think he only became famous because of Hekmeh’s achievements which were due to Elie Mechantaf (Estez el Riyadi) rather than his coaching skills. The positive side of the story is that we won’t have to pay him 100,000$ to screw us up like Baldwin did.

You ask me why I am always pessimistic about our national team, It’s mainly due of 3 issues:

- The players are never paid and treated like slaves. They have to show up or else be penalized, yet they are barely provided with transportation and training shoes. The federation and ministry of sports are to be blamed here.

- The coaches are never given time to prepare the team and never signed for 3 to 5 years. We expect miracle workers all the time. Most coaches we got were bad as well so it turned into a nightmare. The federation and ministry of sports are to be blamed here.

- Lebanese Coaches are paid ridiculous amounts compared to non-Lebanese ones, but at least they are paid something unlike the players. However, and here’s the worst part, our dear federation invests all its money every year to naturalize and pay for a Lebanese-American player and expects him to do wonders. As a result, other players not getting a penny feel insulted and disrespected and don’t give a damn about the team as a whole.

I was back from an outing yesterday when I joined my dad in watching Marcel Ghanem’s Kalam el Nass which happened to be on food regulation in Lebanon and health concerns after the poisoning that killed 1 young man and harmed 6 others at a restaurant in Jieh called Utopia. I myself was food poisoned a few times in the past few years with the last time being a week ago. There’s nothing you can do honestly except not going to that place you’ve been to.

The reports shown by LBCI were horrific and pretty much showed us that we should not be eating anywhere outside our homes. How people operate at the slaughter house is just disturbing and tests from few samples taken from supermarkets and shops showed high levels of poisonous substances at the AUB lab.

As far as the Jieh restaurant is concerned, the doctor who treated the young man who died made an interesting phone intervention on how the boy was only admitted 48 hours by his family and did not show signs of food poisoning. I am guessing he was hinting at drug abuse but I am not sure.

All in all, there’s no doubt that we don’t have efficient food regulation policies in Lebanon and from the political bickering that occured between the ministers of health and tourism and some other MP, it doesn’t look like things are getting any better. Nevertheless, I urge LBCI to point out risky restaurants and tell us which ones are the good ones for a change. I don’t understand how they expect people to avoid bad food if they are not shown where’s the good food?

I think the best way to handle food issues in Lebanon is for LBCI and other media channels to have a safe list of restaurants for all to go to and blacklist some others, thereby helping people avoid getting food poisoned. Teaching people how to check for fake or bad products bought at supermarkets could also be helpful.

Last but not least, we need some decent statistics on that matter because according to the ministry of tourism and health, only 96 cases of food poisoning were reported in all of 2010 while the local health expert Marcel had on the show claimed to have over 100 cases per day as per the hospitals’ reports.

This was taken from new paper similar to Al Waseet and Al Hadaf called “Al Wassel”. I didn’t know escort services were even allowed in Lebanon.

Not sure if you guys noticed, but those in charge of this paper apparently like to put dots between every two digits for some reason as if it’s some IP address or location.

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s foreign minister says seven Estonians who were abducted nearly four months ago have been released.

A Lebanese security official said the seven were released in the Bekaa Valley and were on their way to Beirut. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. [Link]

Good news to start our day.
Reports stated they were released near the village of Brital where most stolen cars end up.

It’s about time! Driving in Lebanon was getting boring! With all the crappy roads, no lighting, no cops, no laws, we needed a new challenge. Thankfully we have a government that supplies us with exciting challenges all the time. Camouflaged potholes!

Christian Louboutin was in Beirut for his Beirut store’s 1 year anniversary. Elissa was also there looking hot along with a ton of fans. You can check out more pictures and details on Confashions [Here]

Seriously what’s with the hold up? Is it money? In Kuwait where I am currently living for example we had a power shortage last year. Kuwait was producing around 10,000 megawatts of electricity but we were using around 9,800. So this year they increased the production by by 2,000 so that we have 12,000 megawatts and they will keep increasing it until by 2015 we would be producing 20,000 megawatts.

From what I previously read Lebanon produces 1,500 megawatts of power. Why haven’t we doubled that or tripled that? Can’t we all pitch in like $10 and solve our electricity problem? The war has been over for over 20 years!

It’s obvious now that the Jounieh/Dora highways traffic problem is not going to be solves specially if they’re building bridge onramps right in the middle of the highway so how about the government builds a train track? Imagine how much traffic that would solve. I hate it how the government spends all their time fighting with each other instead of solving our current day to day problems. I’m pissed. For fucks sake we don’t even have 24 hour electricity yet!

Check out this article on Daily Star which talks about a guy called Elias Maalouf who wants to bring trains back to Lebanon. That’s a guy I respect. It’s probably a hopeless case but at least he’s passionate and doing something. [Link]

Update: Just thought I share with you this previous post I wrote on how the minister of tourism “wanted to go through the Miss Lebanon 2011 applicants this year in order to “ensure the competition’s high standards”. [Link]

I don’t know why social media was the main topic of this year’s Miss Lebanon event but I wish whomever organized this event lectured the participants earlier on social media tools and their use.

Here are few funny Q&A I did myself that are not directed towards any specific candidate, but inspired from what I heard from some friends and from articles I read online.

Host: How did you discover Twitter?

Miss Tahble: I was using Google for my final year project and I saw a cute little bird on the side of the page but I did not understand what it was so I asked my friend who is a Doctor in ‘Comuter’ Science and realized it was an online shop that sells birds that fly all the way to their buyer’s destination.

Host: And did your order a bird?

Miss Tahble: I did order one but I don’t know why it did not get here yet. Maybe they don’t deliver to Lebanon. We are terrorists (insert stupid laugh).
—–

Host: Why do you prefer Twitter to Blogs?

Miss Takhchme: Ana je suis french-educated fa mon english is weak. Twitter a7san cause I don’t need to write more than deux phrases moufeedeen wara ba3ed en anglais.

Host: Why don’t you write in French then?

Miss Takhchme: Ohh ma fakkaret fiya. Fakkaret ma byekhoud 2ella anglais.
—–

Host: Which do you prefer better, Twitter or Facebook?

Miss T7iyye: Ana I don’t use wala Twitter wala Facebook. Ana bass ba3mil Tweet la2anno ahyan chi wou mitil SMS wou BBM bass 3al internet.

Host: But Tweeting is for Twitter?

Miss T7iyye: Ah walla? Since when?
—–

Host: What is your take on social media?

Miss Toule: I think we need more media that deal with our social needs and issues. Programs like Ne7na La Sawa Akeed 3al LBC wou ghayroun lezim yikoun fi aktar minnoun.
—–

Host: How do you think Facebook can help us Lebanese?

Miss Tanfra: Facebook is very important to Lebanon and its economy. If I become Miss Lebanon, I will make training sessions for our farmers on Farmville so that they learn how to grow their fields better. Also I will ask the army to assign a special unit to play Empires & Allies so that we have a better army and defeat the Zionists and have a better tourism and party everyday bil Skybar.

There were reports of corruption and bribery in the recent Miss Lebanon Pageant but nothing confirmed yet. I must say it is not very hard to imagine “wasta” being used with some of the jury especially when the ministry of tourism is deeply involved this time.

However and funnily enough, it was the previous Miss Lebanon 2010-2011 Rahaf Abdallah who was apparently caught cheating during a final exam in LAU. [Link]

Anyone can guess which road this is? The reason I decided to make it as a riddle is that this is one of the most highly frequented shortcut roads in the Keserwan area, yet hasn’t been fixed for over 30 years maybe only until recently. I wish Zouk Mosbeh’s municipality kept records of when this road was last fixed, I can almost bet it was never touched since the day it was inaugurated.

Funnily enough, I spotted few banners from the municipality on that road saying no more pollution in Zouk Mosbeh. I fail to see how spreading new tarmac in a 100% industrial area will stop more pollution.

Yara Khoury Mikhael won the 2011-2012 Miss Lebanon title yesterday in a competition held in Beirut Souks. Other winners included 1st runner up Carolina Nassar, 2nd runner up Sonia Lynn Gabriel and 3rd runner up Paloma Mady. [Link]

Not sure if she deserved to win or not, but she is way more beautiful than the previous one we had last year.

Also and no offense to anyone, but is the IQ of the competitors diminishing by the year? I watched a bit when they were answering questions and it was just sad. And why were they talking about twitter like it’s the newly discovered cure to cancer?

Back to our new Miss Lebanon, that’s my favorite quote from her first interview:
“Wou badde se3id el ahel li 3am bida77o kteer ma3nawiyyan la yi2amno mousta2bal la wledoun”. [YouTube]

Ma3nawiyyan it is indeed.

Funny thing is that LBCI asked her if she’s gonna have her own website. How about coming up with a website for Miss Lebanon in the first place? Oh and throw in a Twitter account cause it’s the cool thing to do.

For those interested in reading more about it, check out those cool updates from the Daily Star. [Link]