McCain vs. Obama the Grand Finale of American Idol (OR) The biggest loser

What can you find in common between the following people:

Nolwenn Leroy
david cook
Sam Rouen
Joshua Allen
Lee McQueen
Obama/McCain
Diana Karazon

Answer is: They were the best performers in reality shows, who earned the support and hearts of the majority of couch potatoes and those anti-social, Introvert and unemployed people. Their performance was both eye-catching and irrelevant at the same time.


P.S. Out of my personal insecurities, I have to declare that I actually googled the names above, and deny taking part in any way in the nurturing and encouraging of the destructive promotion of these counterproductive shows.

I can speak German!!

I realized recently that I can speak German!! Seriously it is not as hard as it sounds!? And I’ll prove it to you!

When I started learning English it waz very hard for me at that tym. I waz in the siksth grade. My peerz haz olredi started English lesunz ven zei ver en ze fifsz græd. Zat shud hav mæd lyf hardar for mi. but sens ai vaz a veri smart gai ai vaz kæpabel of lerneng ze languæg ezili.

Az such ai desaided tu start lerning german. Tu mai serpriz et vaz ekstrimli ezi, und nut az defikult az ai vaz mæd tu beliv. Und so, ai enkurej evriuan ho is entrested en lerning ekzotek languæj or sempli a nu mezod ov komunikæschn tu sempli pik ze best teknik zat sot him or her. Io vel bi shokt hao koikli io kan mastar it

Zis saonded veri vird az ai began. Naw it iz komplitli nachoral

The Zenith of Egyptian politics

I have always admired the way Egyptians can turn anything into a joke. Their ability to laugh and ejoy their lives even when the going gets tough. With the majority of the Egyptian population living in poverty, and with the ever worsening political situation in that cradle of civilization, the Egyptian people never lost their ability to draw a smile on their face, or draw one on others' faces. Although, recently a couple of Egyptians I met claimed that this issue was one of the major accomplishment of this government's reign, It managed to make more and more Egyptians frown on a daily basis for no apparent reason, which is something Jordanians are accustomed to and do effortlessly.

Yesterday, I read an article in the newspaper! It was a disgusting, pathetic, sad & embarrasing story, and yet I couldn't afford but to smile while reading it!! Maybe irony is way stronger than simple humor.

Mr. Hesham Tala'at Mustafa, a prominent politician & businessman, just like many of the members of the ruling party, is currently under investigation with connection to the gowing evidence that he was actually the one who issued the order for Suzan Tamim to be killed!! We covered this before, and most of us know about the story. However, the newest twist in the whole saga is that Mr. Mustafa has been convicted recently by a court in Dubai for committing adultry with an Uzbek prostitute!! Hilarious! The other funny twist is that, it took a lawyer and a deep investigation using a lot of resources and documentation to detertmine who the husband of Suzan at the time of her death was! A few guys showed up, claiming sincerely that she was their wife. The actual husband(The mourner??) had to prove with proper documentation that he was actually the husband.

Just a thought here. We all know that in Islam, marriage can be legal if there was an agreement in the presence of two witnesses, and that papers were not introduced until late times to preserve the rights of both spouses. In other words, it wouldn't be hard for someone to get married 700 times without anyone knowing about it. Fortunately for us, Islamic courts noticed the dilemma here and fixed this problem long time ago.

This is the tip of the Iceberg when it comes to our politicians and artists! This story actually got exposed. Many other stories don't. One might say, that this happens all over the world, and I agree. It definitely happens, and Bill Clinton who surprisingly hasn't lost his credibility can tell you all about it. But... The thing is, we were never used to have these stories in this region!

Ah, I know what this is usually called.... PROGRESS!!

The Evolution of Truth (The maturity of Hypocrisy)

I had in my head dozens of ways in which I thought the media could change the public’s perception. I knew that there were countless methods and endless angles by which you can turn right to wrong, and wrong to right.

I’ve seen images where the butcher became the victim, and the oppressed became the oppressor. I was even fooled by those teary moments that made me seriously believe that we are all one. I would always take a moment to say, even if in my head, what if?! What if this piece was shown from a different angle? What if those people had seen what happened on a different channel? What if this country had access to the right book? What if that network crashed and we never heard from those brainwashing machines!

But silly me! I thought it was still about the wrong input. I thought that people could change their minds when it comes to their perceived truth! I thought that they would actually think twice before they judge someone. It turned out that it is a little bit too late.

Why talk about human rights? Why talk about equality? Why talk about fairness? Why talk about democracy? I think the Civilized have been enlightened enough to be criminalized for the double standards we are seeing everywhere.

I think the truth has been permanently defined.

You, will always think what you were programmed to think.

And we will always be close-minded terrorists!

Today's Dose of Wisdom: Age

I used to dread getting older because I thought I would not be able to do all the things I wanted to do, but now that I am older I find that I don't want to do them.
Nancy Astor

"mmm, let's wait and see"

You have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.
James Barrie

"I guess since you let them slip, you will never know"

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Jack Benny

"True"

By the time you're eighty years old you've learned everything. You only have to remember it.
George Burns

"Partially true"

Cultural Understanding: Reality Show!!

Somewhere in France, in the forests of Versailles a few people met. Some from Europe, some from the Middle East. A great group of people who give colors to your life. That night however, was destined to be a weird night. In a game of cultural understanding, the following conversation took place!

Q: How do you see French People?
Rob "Dutch": Arrogant!!
Metron "French": Really??!!

Q: How do you see Russian People?
Nikola "Serbian": Aggressive.
Elina "Russian": Are you F***ing kidding me?! Who told you that? "$%%^^#&*$" "something in Russain" Then, are you still living in the 50's?!?!

She definitely proved him wrong!!

Q: How do you see Turkish People?
Alberto "Spanish": Proud & Nationalist.

Poland was playing Slovakia for the 2010 WCQ!! Poland is losing 1-2. Adam is pissed. A discussion about football is ignited. Somewhere along that conversation, I make my main and defining contribution!!

I: You know what, I admire the Germans! Even when they have a shitty team they reach the final.
Ines "German": "Smiles"
Adam "Polish": They are F***ers!! ..
Ines: !!!!!!
Adam: I mean. you know... Podolski is Polish!

Well done Adam!!

Q: How do you see Jordanian People?
....... Long pause!!!.... Then
Silviu "Romanian": I love your Queen.
I: Silviu, Is that a way of telling me you are a terrorist, but you chose to be polite!?

It turned out to be a Dare or Truth thing... But you know, nothing that a Draft can't erase.

Then Metron invited us for an all-cheese dinner!! And then, I just wanted to kill myself.

Happy Birthday... Smurfs!!

The Smurfs (originally Les Schtroumpfs in French) are a fictional group of small sky blue creatures who live somewhere in the forests of medieval Europe. The Belgian cartoonist Peyo introduced Smurfs to the world in a series of comic strips, making their first appearance in the Belgian magazine "Le Journal de Spirou" on 23 October 1958. English-speakers perhaps know them best through the animated television series from Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Smurfs.

All of us were smurfs at one point of time! I was a pretty interesting one by the way!! And from the original lot, I like Sanfoor Ghadban "Smurf Angry". He was ORIGINAL!

So happy birthday Smurfs!!.

Business: A contemporary point of view!!!

"The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling." Ambrose Bierce

It's more like a prophecy!

Of France and ...

So many things go inside your head when you are in france! When you look at people, and places... But that is another story!

For those of us who are so in love with the french:

"To understand Europe, you have to be a genius - or French.” Madeleine Albright.

quite debatable.

"The thing that's wrong with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur” George W. Bush

Can't ague with that! The man is the smartest Homo Sapien on the face of Earth.

“The reason French roads have trees planted down both sides is that the Germans like to march in the shade"

Now this is what I call sense of humor!!

The Dow Jones Industrial Average

The Dow Jones is a stock market index (when people say Dow Jones they mean the Dow Jones Industrial Average, DJIA, or the Dow Jones 30) consisting of the top 30 stocks of the US markets, usually referred to as the blue chips, these 30 stocks are not static, they can be changed according to some criteria put by the index founders, the financial company Dow Jones & Company founded Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. Some of these criteria are the volume traded over a specific period of time, and how many stocks held by the public.

The Dow Jones components:

3M, Alcoa, American Express, AT&T, Bank of America, Boeing, Caterpillar, Chevron Corporation, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, DuPont, ExxonMobil, General Electric, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, Home Depot, Intel, IMB, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, Kraft Foods, McDonald's, Merck, Microsoft, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, United Technologies Corporation, Verizon Communications, Walmart, Walt Disney.

What is the importance of a stock index?

A stock index is a benchmark for investors to gauge the performance of a country’s equity market and the health of it’s economy, it can also be used to compare the Funds and Fund Managers performance and take a decision who to invest with.

Types of Indices

There are 2 types of indices; broad-based and specialised indices.

Broad-based indices represent the whole stock market performance and hence, the investor sentiment on the health of the economy. Examples of this type are, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, FTSE 100, CAC 40, and S&P 500.

Specialised indices represent the performance of one market sector such as the petrochemical sector or the financial sector. Examples of this type are, Morgan Stanley Biotech Index, and the Dow Jones Chemicals.


*For more about this topic please refer to the following links:
http://www.djindexes.com/mdsidx/index.cfm?event=components&symbol=DJI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market_index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average
http://www.investopedia.com

U.S. stock gain after rate cuts in see-saw action

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock indexes edged higher on Wednesday afternoon after several wild swings into positive and negative territory after the Federal Reserve axed interest rates with other central banks in an effort to stem the panic freezing the credit markets.

"It seems to be a tug of war between the bulls and the bears," said Robert Olman, president, Alpha Search Advisory Partners. "What we're really seeing is a complete lack of conviction from anyone of where the market is going."

The Fed cut its key lending rate by half a percentage point, bringing it down to 1.5%.

The European Central Bank trimmed its key refinancing rate to 3.75% from 4.25%, while the Bank of England cut its rate to 4.5% from 5%. China's central bank slashed its one-year benchmark lending and deposit interest rates, while the Bank of Japan sat out the moves but endorsed the coordinated actions. Rate cuts were also made by the Bank of Canada, the Swiss National Bank and the Swedish Riksbank.

"I was somewhat encouraged by the Fed rate cut, but it adds confidence back more to Main Street than to Wall Street," said Robert Pavlik, chief investment officer at Oaktree Asset Management.

A day ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Dow Jones Industrial Average's record close of 14,164, the market is facing record losses over the past year. The Dow has dropped nearly 35% from the peak, while the market value of the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 has seen more than $7 trillion of its value wiped out

By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch

*For full story please visit http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/us-stocks-edge-higher-see-saw/story.aspx?guid=%7B1AE87086%2D330D%2D4E85%2D9FA7%2D505B331835C4%7D

Arab stock markets is heading south

Arab financial markets is heading south affected by the fall of the US and European markets.

The Saudi market lost almost 1.5% today hitting 6160, the biggest weekly loss since 2006, while the Egyptian CASE30 Index has lost more than 7% after loosing almost 16% yesterday, the Jordanian market has hit 3493, the lowest since December 2007. Dubai index has lost almost 8.5% and Abu Dhabi recorded a loss of 6.43% today. Muscat stock index has lost more than 514 points or 7.21%, while Doha index has recorded a 712-point loss or 8.75%.

Analysts connect this huge plunge to the credit crunch in the international markets, and see the situation getting worst if the if the US crisis persists. However, Arabic governments are still insisting that we were not affected bye the international crisis and that this is going to have a positive effect on our markets, I personally agree with that, only if they have the right agenda to deal with it.

*Photo from http://www.tickerchart.com/

Today's Dose of Wisdom: Success

Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction.
Al Bernstein

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. David Brinkley

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.
Dale Carnegie

Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it.
Sam Ewing

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.
William Feather

Dow Jones Industrials is trading under 10,000

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Stocks tumbled on Monday, sending the Dow industrials below the 10,000 mark for the first time in nearly four years, as last week's $700 billion bailout package and government interventions in Europe over the weekend failed to soothe nervousness in global markets.

European governments didn't reach a common deal on bailouts over the weekend. Instead each country is handling the fallouts on its own, with Germany backing its retail deposits, following similar moves by Ireland and Greece. Holland nationalized the Dutch operations of Fortis, and a new 50 billion euro financing package was reached for Germany's Hypo Real Estate.

Shares in Europe saw their biggest one-day fall on record, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 index sliding 7.6%.

"With global equity markets selling off today, and the developments which followed the weekend European crisis meeting, much nervousness abounds," said Jennifer Lee, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 491 points, or 4.8%, to 9,833, after falling by nearly 600 points to a low of 9,738.

It's the first time the blue-chip index has traded below the 10,000 mark since Oct. 29, 2004.
"Psychologically, it does play a role," said Owen Fitzpatrick, head of U.S. equity at Deutsche Bank, of the Dow's drop below the key level. "But investors are not concentrating on this," he said. "The big worry of the moment remains liquidity and the economy."

Among blue-chip financial shares, Citigroup Inc. fell 9%, Bank of America dropped 5% and J.P. Morgan Chase lost 5.4%.

"We've had the passage of [the $700 billion] bailout but it will takes time for it to start getting traction," Fitzpatrick said.

"Right now, it's about stabilizing the financial system and then see how much collateral damage has been done to the economy," he said. "The clear message is that the global economy is slowing rapidly, and the magnitude of the slowdown is starting to be realized by the market."

The S&P 500 fell 58 points, or 5.3%, to 1,041 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 110 points, or almost 5.6%, to 1,837, led by a 5% decline in shares of eBay, which announced it was slashing 10% of its workforce.

Trading volumes showed 818 million shares exchanging hands on the New York Stock Exchange, and 652 million shares trading on the Nasdaq. Declining issues topped gainers by 30 to 1 on the NYSE and by 8 to 1 on Nasdaq.

President Bush signed a $700 billion bailout package into law Friday just as the latest U.S. employment report showed 159,000 jobs lost in September.

"These really are unforgiving times and it was a case of buy the rumour, sell the fact as the S&P 500 moved from being up more than 3% as the last few necessary 'yes' TARP bill votes were being registered, to a near four-year low at the close," said Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank.

Last week, the Dow lost 7.4%, the S&P 500 fell 9.4%, and the Nasdaq lost 10.8%.

Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans both are due to speak on the U.S. economy on Monday. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is due to speak on Tuesday.