The warnings come from Al-Arab Al-Yawm columnist Taher Adwan, who wrote yesterday about several Jordanian traditions that can be considered dangerous, especially now after the first two Swine Flu cases were found in Jordan.

The writer theorizes that Jordanians should stop some of their social traditions and activities in order to prevent spreading of Swine flu in Jordan.

The traditions "accused" by the article are:
1- Eating Mansaf by hands. Mansaf is the national dish of Jordan and is eaten exclusively by hand, but according to the writer this is the right time for Jordanians to stop.
2- Cheek kissing and hand shaking. In case of "necessity" hands should be cleaned with anti-germ soap.
3- Use of the same coffee cup. Coffee is probably the most important symbol of hospitality in Jordan, when served, it is put in a single tiny ceramic cup and offered to several guests, especially in important occasions like weddings and funerals. According to Adwan Jordanians should refuse drinking coffee in these situations.

I know that what the article asks for is widely acceptable in terms of hygiene and health, but are Jordanians ready to say good bye to their "bad" habits and accept this? I hope that.

Labels: Jordan, What's on the web

I liked the Google Jordan logo on the occasion of Independence Day! Happy Independence Day to all!

Labels: Jordan, What's on the web

After the Youtube channel, the Queen is now a twitterer! This is what she has just twittered after Pope's arrival:

"Just choppered to airport to receive Pope. Husband piloting, he got acrobatic to quiet butterflies in stomach :) told u he was action man!"

If you want to follow Her Majesty the (micro-blogger) Queen :)
http://twitter.com/QueenRania

Labels: Jordan, What's on the web

From the demonstration in front of Starbucks Coffee in Sweifiyeh.

(Other images here)

Labels: Politics, What's on the web

An Israeli soldier tackles a Palestinian protester dressed as Santa Claus or Father Christmas during at a protest against Israel's separation barrier in the village of Umm Salamunah near the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem. Israeli guards beat five demonstrators during the protest on Friday, organisers said. [Source]

It doesn't matter, no presents for Palestinian kids anyway.

Labels: Politics, What's on the web

I am sure all you have seen that FORMER Minister of Education, Khaled Touqan, was kept off the new government formed by Nader Dahabi.

Touqan, who received a PhD from the MIT, is more likely to hold a position in the new nuclear power committee, established after Jordan's intentions to develop nuclear reactors for pacific use.

Well, we do not need exact statistics to realize that Touqan is one of the most hated public personalities in Jordan. His educational plans were considered 'catastrophic' by the majority of students as well as instructors, in fact, the 'cowboy' minister who loves excitement and likes to try anything new used to change the Tawjihi system at least once a year; the thing that made us feel like laboratory mice .

How did the net react with this exciting news? By sure several Facebook groups will be closed, one of them is the "Against Khaled Touqan" group, first created for "everyone who suffers learning because of Khaled Touqan Decisions in Jordan" as his administrator said.

Another (very) popular groups is: "ANTI Khaled Tokaaaaan", their members still greet each other for the 'historical event', one of them said: No more Abu Tawele! (a nickname given to the excessively high-grown minister), another who really enjoyed Touqan's resignation shouted: "NO F*UCKIN WAY! A dream becomes true! No More Touqan".

Naturally, as groups are being deleted new ones appears, you can now join a brand new group named "WE ARE FREE FROM TOUQAN :D"! whose creator, with little skepticism, stated: FINALLY, HE'S GONE!

Labels: Jordan, What's on the web

The three creations I liked most are:

1. Lego Harpsichord
This Harpsichord was constructed entirely from Lego parts (over 100,000!), including keyboard, jacks, jack rack, jack rail, plectra, soundboard, bridge, hitch pins, tuning pins, wrestplank, nut, case, legs, lid, lid stick, and music stand. It has a range of 61 notes and weighs 150 lb.

2. Lego Volvo XC90
Built by Lego Master Model Builders, this Volvo XC90 is the official car of Legoland California.

3. Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite
Nathan Sawaya used over 10,000 Lego pieces and spent 3 months making this "Han Solo in Carbonite" masterpiece.

You can discover the other seven by visiting this blog.

Labels: Fun, What's on the web

The lives of the young refugees of Clarkston, Georgia, have drastically changed since their first meeting with Luma Mufleh, a Jordanian immigrant from Amman, and now a multi-million Hollywood movie will tell her story to the world.

In Clarkston, soccer is not only a game, it is a political issue. Last summer, Clarkston's Mayor has issued a decree to ban soccer in the city fields, he said he will only allow baseball in his city; the difference between his city and others is the high percentage of refugees that Clarkston hosts, most of them escaped from wars in countries like Kosovo, Liberia, Gambia and Iraq.

As you can imagine, these refugees are not so estimated by original citizens, who think their American lifestyle is in danger after the new coming traditions, even soccer was accused to be something stranger and threatening, this was the time Americans discovered their fear of soccer .

When Luma Mufleh had first known about the refugees' community of Clarkston, she filled all the buildings of their quarters with Arabic, English, French and Vietnamese posters, announcing the creation of a new soccer team, the Fugees . Surprisingly, 23 young kids were present on the first day of training, a relevant number if we take in consideration the economic difficulties of their families; this was a good step to offer some technical training to the children rather than playing barefoot in empty lots.

Coach Luma, as she is called by Fugees boys, remembers when she was playing volleyball in her high school of Amman, she hated her coach because of their toughness, but after fifteen year she reveals she model herself after her school's coach, other sources of inspirations, she said, are Malcolm X, Mahatma Ghandi and Luma's grandmother that taught her to take care of others.

Some rules are imposed by Luma to all Fugees' players: good grades, short hair, no drugs, no alcohol or getting girls pregnant. If you break a rule you will be off the team. She also offers an incentive: a pair of Nikes to anyone with straight A's.

Luma's rules and training built a better life for these young refugees, now the Fugees have a respectable second position in their division, performing better than their European-trained opposing players and elite wealthy clubs. Luma has also opened a cleaning service named Fresh Start after knowing that some of the players' moms were without jobs.

The efforts of Luma Mufleh will be soon revealed to the world by a Hollywood movie, in fact, after a huge bidding war, Universal Studios acquired the right and offered a $3 Millions and a new, modern green field for the Fugees, and it's only a matter of time before we can see Luma's amazing story in the cinemas.

Read More:

- New York Times article that made Fugees story famous, by W. St. John

- Ending up with more than a dream coming true : Jordan Times Article by R. Husseini

- Jordanian coach starts refugee soccer team: In the Jordanian Blog Mental Maihem

- Luma Mufleh's interview on the UNHCR Media site.

IMPORTANT: YOU CAN DONATE TO FUGEES FAMILY THE NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION OF MS. LAMA MUFLEH HERE.

Labels: Jordan, Movies, What's on the web

My mom always reproaches me for staying more than three hours in front of PC and she scold me if I'm not at more than two meters from TV. Well, now she can be happy to read this post...

A recent article says that playing action video games for a few hours will improve the vision by nearly 20%. The study was published by Dr. Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences - University of Rochester, he had tested with a graduate student a large number of college students who had not played any video game in the last year, after that these students were given an optical test (similar to those of any eye clinic) and were divided int two groups: action-game players, those who had played shoot-'em-up action games for an hour a day, and the other group that played less visual complex games.

After this study the students were tested and it was found that those who played the action game had better results. Bavelier said that "Action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information" and he added that this findings could help patients with several types of visual defects. [Source]

Today I've found another site on the net, it contains some interesting eye-miths including the silly sayings that "eating carrots can improve vision" or "reading in the dark will damage your eyes", however it finally proved that sitting too close to the TV is not bad for eyes! The site says that:

Modern TVs do not emit harmful radiation, so eye damage due to radiation is also not an issue. As with sitting too close to the television, you may get a headache from reading in the dark, but it will not weaken your sight.

Regarding computers, a lot of sites talk about the Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS), about.com has two pages dedicated to the syndrome, an article of Cathy Wong describes CVS as a common problem (this syndrome is about 40 times more common than carpal tunnel syndrome, another health condition affecting computer users). The other article shows possible links between computer use and Glaucoma, however it clearly says that there's no strong proof of that.

Labels: Technology, What's on the web

A recent Reuters news story reported from Beijing that hundreds of chickens have been found dead in a small village in east China . The reason was the screaming of a four-year old boy that had been scared by a barking dog. A witness said that the little boy bent over the henhouse window, screaming for a long time, after being frightened from the dog.

A court has officially ruled that the cause of death was the screaming of the boy, since it was "the only unexpected abnormal sound" and that 443 chickens trampled each other to death in fear.

Also, the father of the killer-boy was ordered to pay 1,800 yuan (164 JD) in compensation to the owner of the chickens.

For further reading, I advice you to take a look at a valuable scientific article of Mr. Graham B. Scott (of the Scottish Agricultural College) entitled "Effects of short-term whole body vibration on animals with particular reference to poultry".

Labels: Fun, What's on the web

A little surfing on the net shows us exhilarant spying techniques

It all started with Echelon, the secretive network capable of capturing tons of security, economic, political and personal information from radio waves, satellite communications, phone calls and emails. Echelon is administered by United States, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, only one of these countries has total access on stolen data and has full executive powers, and certainly it is New Zealand :)

Several sites on the web discuss Echelon, especially in matter of legality and privacy; one is the Echelon Watch, whenever Privacy International Organization offers a detailed report on privacy threads.

Along with Echelon we have Carnivore and Magic Lantern, nice names for two logging tools of the FBI, the first is used to archive all the emails you receive or send, and the second is a keystroke logging tool, this means that every information you type on your keyboard is recorded by FBI. howstuffwork.com has a detailed article on how Carnivore worked… we say 'worked' because Carnivore officially has been shut down. (To be more precise, FBI has now a more potent tool for collecting email messages it's called DCS1000 or data collection system).

US Government spies on others, but it has been spied on too… 140 Israelis have been arrested until now in a secretive and sprawling investigation into suspected espionage. informationclearinghouse has an investigation conducted by C.Cameron on Israelis that have gathered intelligence information on 9/11 attacks in advance, it's worth a visit.

Canada is also spying on Americans, the 007 way… A recent AP article started this way: Money talks, but can it also follow your movements?

In a U.S. government warning high on the creepiness scale, the Defense Department cautioned its American contractors over what it described as a new espionage threat: Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden inside. The government said the mysterious coins were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances [Source].

This happened months after British diplomats in Moscow were accused of spying using electronic equipment hidden inside a fake rock in a park. If you want to know how a rock can 'spy' read this BBC article.

Labels: Technology, What's on the web

Do you know the Pope wears Prada? The lion costume in the Wizard of Oz movie was made from real lions? And Tony Blair’s favorite meal to cook is spaghetti bolognaise? Royal Mail stamps are printed in Holland? Cows have regional accent?

What's Barbie's full name? And what does hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs mean?
Well, the BBC answered all these questions in its lately-published list of 100 things we didn't know last year!

Labels: Fun, What's on the web

Is that a hearsay, or uncle Bill really wants to be the president of the United States ?

I don't know if any of these gossips could be true. Anyway, different sites on the net are imagining what will be the consequences of such a decision…

Mr. William Henry Gates III , if you don't know, is the president of Microsoft Corporation and has a large number of supporters and fans worldwide(?). In a recent ZDNet poll, nearly 65% expressed their support for a possible candidature of Bill. More than this, the www.billgatesforpresident.net blog is having more and more visitors around the world, it is looking for people to join the (until now virtual) political campaign, and it will publish online polls with Bill facing other potential candidates for 2008 elections.

How it all began? Probably all started with a post in Dilbert Blog, when Scott Adams predicted an 'atheist business leader' as future candidate for US president, so he named Bill Gates as most appropriate:

Bill Gates will have done so much good for the world through his charitable works that combined with his business success he'll appear more qualified than any other candidate.

However, days ago Adams criticized the billgatesforpresident blog, stating that his ideal president would be a mixture of Mother Teresa, Carl Sagan, Warren Buffet, and Darth Vader, and Bill (according to Adams) has all of their good stuff;

Forget about whatever Bill Gates did in the past that made you curl up with your free copy of Linux and cry. In his first week in office he'd probably link Microsoft Virtual Earth to the government's spy satellites so you can look for Osama yourself. I've always felt that terrorism is a technology problem disguised as a political problem. Bill Gates can fix that.

Labels: Fun, What's on the web

No I do not mean myself … (Metallers are having bad reputation here lately), I'm talking about Japanese anime accused to be satanic, and mainly the set of cards related to these cartoons.
Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards represent skulls, dragons and other mythological creatures are seen by many as a "work of the devil" and are accused to be a kind of worship to demons; read what's written in this web site:

(Satan) uses the occult to ensnare the minds of people, and he works to introduce people to the occult by using supposedly "innocent" games like Yu Gi Oh.

Adding;

(T)he devil (satan), who uses his demonic power to blind the minds of children and adults nationwide to the dangers of Yu-Gi-Oh. Yu-Gi-Oh is an occult oriented game and anything of the occult is dangerous. You say, “That is ridiculous! Yu-Gi-Oh is just kids stuff, a card game, a cartoon!” That is exactly what Satan wants you to believe.

And the whole page is an official accuse to Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic of being demonic. Gregory Reid goes on with this thesis, but in a scientific-historical approach. (You can read his page full of explanation of the card images here).

They let me remember an unordinary 'fatwa' issued years ago here in Jordan and the whole Arab world, that severly prohibited playing with, purchasing and collecting Pokemon cards. Pokemon was banned also from TV...what a pity!

Mui, in his political Italian blog, found the argument ridiculous and absurd. Sarcastically; he said that we must inform President Bush that Pokemons will move our world forward a catastrophic end, so he asked: "Why shall we make the things in this world so complicated, if we know that the main reason is Pokemon?"

PS: Although I wrote this article, and this blog is named after Yugi, I have no intention to talk about Yu-Gi-Oh again here.

Labels: Fun, What's on the web