The Gaza Zoo reeks of death.

Zookeeper Emad Jamil Qasim looks at the remains of a pregnant camel at the Gaza zoo. A missile fired by Israelitroops shot through the back of the camel. In every corner of the zoo and in every cage lie dead animals.

OR maybe the IOF saw that the animals were dying due to the fact that they have no food and water as a result of the three weeks war on Gaza, so IOF shot them with MERCY BULLETS?

I wonder if this fact will move some ACTIVISTS in Europe and USA? Maybe the animals are more valuable to them than the 460 Palestinian children slaughtered by the Jewish state?

Or maybe Israel will be brought to war criminal court because they killed these 'innocent' animals?

Or maybe the US government will block all the aid and arms supply to the Jewish state for their cruelty with the animals?

Just maybe!

Note: Sorry I don't have an "Animal Rights" category to file this post under so I selected the closest, which is "Human Rights".

This is just getting out of hand. Ridiculous...

A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.

Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.

The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies.

The niqab is more common in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but women in much of the Muslim Middle East wear a headscarf which covers only their hair.

Sheikh Habadan, an ultra-conservative cleric who is said to have wide influence among religious Saudis, was answering questions on the Muslim satellite channel al-Majd. [Source: BBC]

This is how Saudi ladies will look like from now on :-(

Why don't they enforce full-face cover and kill the issue? What do you call this? Religion and Islam? No Way!

Oh... by the way... anyone knows which eye should be covered? Left of right? (I assumed left because they keep on telling us to do things with our RIGHT thing... Ah... now I'm getting the rule. "Do the Right things with the RIGHT things only." This is where the Human "Rights" came from and here we see it in action.

Long live "One-Eye Veil."

If you think you have seen it all, think again and watch this.

The following article was published on Khaleej Times, 10th Sept.

Dubai - Stretching its six intertwining building components into a tower 2.4 kilometres high, Dubai City Tower is expected to be the latest architectural vision to capture the attention of citizens.

The ‘Vertical City', as it is described, is an architect's proposal that began circulating in emails and at a skycraper forum last week, but its origins are yet to be determined.

The professional project pitch details 400 habitable stories, topped by a 400m energy-producing spire, making it 2.4km high.

By comparison, Emaar's Burj Dubai is largely predicted to be around 800m high and 160 floors.

A "mile-high tower" in Jeddah has been planned by Kingdom Holdings, while Nakheel is building Al Burj, which, according to project sources, will have a final height of 1.28km, although the developer is keeping the details under wraps.

Blueprint of the project (click thumbnail to enlarge):

But neither an architect nor a developer detailed on the plans for the Dubai City Tower. Major developers Emaar, Nakheel, Dubai Properties and Damac categorically denied to Khaleej Times any involvement or awareness of the project.

However, the proposal of such an engineering feat is indicative of the environment of possibilities Dubai has created for tall towers, according to Steven Oehme, Regional Director of Value Management and Sustainability at Hyder Consulting Middle East.

"It is certainly possible," Oehme said. "You can't just use today's technology, but it can be planned and the possibilities are there. Fifteen years ago, there was nothing even half the height of the Burj Dubai."

The time frame from drawing board to construction and completion for such developments, in this case termed a super-tall skyscraper, often banks on future technologies.

A "Mega-city Pyramid" proposed for Tokyo Bay in Japan needs a structure of incredibly strong, light materials still being developed.

While Burj Dubai is expected to be completed in September 2009, five years after the construction started, the one-kilometre-high tower Mubarak Al Kabir in Kuwait is estimated to take 25 years to complete since its announcement was made last year.

Oehme said the flurry of architect proposals, and buildings under construction, could speed up technology and encourage more investment in tall towers.

"People didn't really see the significance of building that tall," he said.

"There wasn't an environment that supported a building that tall. The Petronas Towers in Malaysia changed all that."

They held the mantle for nearly a decade."

Now, in the Gulf region, Burj Dubai is a year from completion. Khaleej Times has learnt Al Burj plans are being finalised and recently Timelinks announced plans for the Ziggurat, a 1.2-kilometre-high pyramid city to house one million people.

Oehme said the feasibility of a project like Dubai City Tower was highly technical and wondered how many of the proposals would materialise.

"It's not just a matter of scaling things up. Every factor has to be considered.  In ten years there could be two or three tall towers in the region or there could be 20 or 30. But now, our understanding of tall towers is enormous," Oehme said.

Via: Khaleej Times

While it allows the security screeners -- looking at the images in a separate room -- to clearly see the passenger's sexual organs as well as other details of their bodies, the passenger's face is blurred, TSA said in a statement on its website... Read more!

A disturbing report at AlertNet describes "living in Cairo to be same as smoking a pack a day."

I was not surprised because I've seen pollution with my eyes and smiled the bad smoke from my hotel room's balcony every time I visited Egypt.

Living in Cairo Is the Same as Smoking a Pack a Day
By Leslie-Ann Boctor

The average resident of Cairo ingests more than 20 times the acceptable level of air pollution a day, the same as a pack of cigarettes.

Air pollution is so bad in Cairo that living in the sprawling city of 18 million residents is said to be akin to smoking 20 cigarettes a day. According to the World Health Organisation, the average Cairene ingests more than 20 times the acceptable level of air pollution a day.

A 2002 World Bank report estimates that pollution causes 2.42 billion dollars worth of environmental damage each year, about five percent of Egypt's annual gross domestic product.

Industry is to blame, in part, the worst offenders being factories that burn mazot for power. Mazot is the heavy oil left over after more valuable fuel products have been extracted from crude oil; when burnt, it emits substantial amounts of the greenhouse gases said to cause global warming.

Read more here!

This must be the one of the worst jokes I've heard, ever... [Hat tip: Akram Awad]

NY's 1st Arabic School Occupied by a Zionist Principal!

ISLAM PROF IS 'ZION'-HEARTED
By CHUCK BENNETT and JOHN MAZOR

New York Post - August 15, 2007

The new principal of the city's controversial Arabic-themed school is an ardent Zionist who considered moving to Israel, according to her former Jerusalem roommate.

The latest revelation puts a strange twist on the saga of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, the new city school that's been in the cross hairs of critics since its inception.

Interim Principal Danielle Salzberg, 35, hosted an orientation seminar at the Brooklyn school yesterday for parents and students.

It was her first full day on the job since the school's original principal, Debbie Almontaser, a Muslim and Arabic-speaker, quit last week. She had been caught up in a furor over her comments to The Post downplaying the "Intifada NYC" T-shirts her organization was linked to.

Salzberg's former roommate Aliza Hemed described the new principal's two passions in life as Israel and educating youngsters. And, in the end, Salzberg chose teaching New York City's youth over life in the Holy Land.

"If anything, she was a Zionist. She had every intention to make aliyah [Hebrew for immigration to Israel] and move there, but she came back and fell in love with her [students] and the job," said Hemed.

"Most American Orthodox [Jews] have a love of Israel - I'm sure it's still in her."

Salzberg first met Hemed as an undergrad at New York University. They were both observant Orthodox Jews and Salzberg held leadership positions with the school's Hillel, a Jewish group.

Upon graduation in 1993, the two spent a year studying Hebrew and Middle East politics at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Salzberg stayed away from political rallies and other activities, Hemed said.

Then in 1994, they moved back to Manhattan where they shared an apartment on the East Side for several years. Salzberg began work as a teaching assistant in city schools while pursuing her master's degree in education from Columbia University's Teachers College.

"Her kids were her life. Every little progress they made she was so proud of them," Hemed said.

Salzberg, who had helped Almontaser develop the school's curriculum, did not return requests for comment.

The school's first sixth-grade class of 44 students is scheduled to begin Sept. 4. Eventually, the school will expand to the 12th grade.

While Salzberg is still technically an interim principal, a Department of Education spokeswoman said the agency wants to install her permanently.

"I'm sorry the last woman didn't work out, but I think we're better off going on and attacking the problem again and we've got the right person this time," Mayor Bloomberg said.

Still, Arab community activists said Monday evening during a meeting at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge that they will start a letter-writing campaign to try and get Almontaser reinstated.

Action Alert:

1 - Write to Joel Klein, the NYC Department of Education Chancellor, expressing your disgust at his department's decision

Use this link http://schools.nyc.gov/webforms/chancellormessage.aspx

(FYI, Klein is the same person who banned the director of Columbia University's Middle East Institute, Professor Rashid Khalidi, from participating in a NYC school teachers' training on the Middle East because of his criticism of Israel, and the one who approved a curriculum that grants graduate credit to NYC teachers who take a 30-hour course of study on Israel, written by the Israeli Consulate.

2- Call the NYC Department of Education and speak to the Chancellor about it

Tel No. (718) 935-2000

3- Most importantly, EMAIL & CALL DEBBIE ALMONTASER AND SHOW HER YOUR SUPPORT

Debbie contacts are:

Email: njdsa719@aol.com
Phone: (001) 718-643-8000

Ask this Iranian TV channel...

Typo... yeah... wrong spell checking... poor editor!

The irony about this is contextual. Think of it... condemn(ing) Israel by condom(ing) it!!!

[Photo credit: ET & Thomas Erdbrink]

As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis�s laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens. In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples�water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis�s home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001�contain microbes from outer space.

Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600?F. (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250?F.) So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India. If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth. [Full story here]

A followup to "Should we?"

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful country, rich and bright people lived there, happy and relatively safe, except from few small battles with a neighboring country, over decades. Through this country ran a long, wide river, which was believed that if someone drinks from, he gets mad.

Years passed, but the sky didn't rain. Wells drown, and no water was left for people to drink but from the river. Slowly, and one after another, everyone except the King and his Prime Minister drank from the river. Everyone became mad. Well, they all lived happily; although the King and his PM saw that all the people went mad. "So what to do?" the PM asked the King. "You see, everyone has gone mad and they are about to throw us out because they think that WE are mad. They think that you and I are crazy guys and should leave the chair for a new king and PM. They want to select one of them, the crazy people," the PM Said.

"You know what, I'll save my ass and drink from the water of this river and become mad like them," the king said. "Go bring us some water from the river of madness and let us become like them. This way we will remain in power, and we'll not die of thirst... Better all live as mad rather than rule a mad people who would be hunting you all the time."

Thereafter, the King, the Prime Minister and all the people of the country lived a mad happy life.

Period!

Sorry, forgot to tell you something. The neighboring country didn't like the "mad country". Not before they became mad, not after they did. They always hated them and saw them "mad". And visa versa. The now "mad country" (as they believe they are normal/mad, whatever), hates their neighboring country because they think they are mad. Before they drank that water, and even after.

So, what do you get out of all this?

1. Unless you are mad, you are mad

2. Every mad maybe not mad. At least the mad don't think he is a mad after s/he becomes mad

3. Being mad or not mad, people will always find a mean to fight each other. Maybe because they are mad

4. The now "mad country" maybe not mad, but they were mad. Same goes to the "not mad country". They maybe mad but don't know they are mad

5. So, who is mad and what madness you come out of all this?

Are you mad? Or you think you are not, but your neighbor is mad? What if you are mad but s/he is not? Will that make a difference? And the madness goes on and on.

You see guys/gals. That's why I said before (and some didn't like it), we are all right, and we are all wrong. So, why the hell do I have to believe that I was not mad and now I'm becoming mad? Can't it be the other way round? Can�t you be the other way round? Can't we all be the other way round?

Period!

Oh, one last thing. Forgot to tell you something in that story again.

One day, a wise man was traveling across the area between these two countries. Once he started to cross between them, he met people from both side and listened to their story. He was shocked. He was Amazed. But you know why? Because he came to the conclusion that both countries are mad, but with a different version of the madness. So, he started negotiating with both sides, and finally he convinced them to travel with him to a new land, his land, which was another mad country. A third version, but once they drank from the river of that country, they all became madly in love with each other, since then and until now!

And the story can go on endlessly.

Note: Apology for the author of the "River of Madness" story. I really don't remember what his name was, nor do I remember when I read the story. However, the original story is only the second paragraph of this post only. The rest is my own madness inspired from his madness to suite today's madness.

Ancient Egyptians used helicopters and airplanes for battles?

There is a scientific theory that says that Egyptians descended from Martians who had once visited this planet.

In 1848, one of numerous archeological expeditions working in Egypt discovered strange hieroglyphs at the height of about ten meters right above the entrance to the Seti Temple in Abydos. The walls were covered with the strange signs that greatly puzzled researchers. The only thing the researchers realized at once was that they had discovered some images of strange mechanisms that nobody ever saw before.

It is still unknown what exactly an artist living about 3,gu000 years ago engraved on the walls. The archeological expedition carefully copied the mysterious signs on the temple walls, and the hieroglyphs gave rise to endless disputes and heated debates among Egyptologists. As a result, majority of Egyptologists arrived at a conclusion that there were just four strange objects drawn in different variations. Unfortunately, researchers of the 19th century failed to understand what ancient Egyptians actually drew on the temple walls. Like any sensation the mysterious Abydos hieroglyphs were absolutely forgotten some time later.

Well-known Egyptologist Alan Alford left to the Nile banks to study the Abydos mystery. The researcher studied the mysterious hieroglyphs and made sure that what seemed absolutely incredible was in fact quite real. Alford told journalists that ancient Egyptians had depicted a real helicopter model as if they made the engravings from life.

So, researchers got two almost identical sets of drawings from Karnak and Abydos which seemed be not accidental at all. Skeptics recollected that "Bee" was one of the names of Pharaoh Seti I and stated that the mysterious drawings were in fact attempts of an ancient artist to draw a bee. They would not believe that Egyptians might know about helicopters.

At the same time, world-famous ufologist Richard Hogland declared that the mysterious drawings just proved his theory saying Egyptians descended from Martians who had once visited this planet. The researcher explains that Martians chose Ancient Egypt for landing because of its landscape wonderfully resembling the Martian one.

But the ufologist failed to explain the origin of a submarine which was also engraved nearby the battle helicopter on the walls of the temple in Abydos. And the drawing was incredibly detailed. And researchers had to confess they were still too far from solving the mystery of the hieroglyphs and the frescos. It is perfectly clear that there are no seas on Mars, and the drawings of a submarine thus could not be made by "descendants of Martians" as Hogland called Egyptians as they had no notion what a submarine may be.

In the past years of the 20th century, many of Mars researchers actively supported Hogland's theory. They believed that failures of automated interplanetary space stations to land on Mars were closely connected with the mysterious hieroglyphs discovered on the walls of ancient temples. The researchers stated that millions of years ago a unique anti-missile shield was created around Mars for safe protection from curious and aggressive unwanted guests. When ufologists are told that some automated vehicles actually landed Mars and even took photos revealing there is no civilization on the planet, they say that terrestrials will be able to see only what Martians want and let us know about them.

Famous Egyptologist Bruce Rowles gives another interesting hypothesis about the origin of the strange hieroglyphs. He says there were no interplanetary expeditions from other star systems to this planet in the old times. He supposes that Egyptian pagan priests knew many of nature secrets. It is a proven fact that 3,000 years ago Egyptians made the first batteries and generated electricity. Bruce Rowles also supposes that pagan priests in Ancient Egypt could look to the future where they quite probably saw battle helicopters, aircrafts and submarines. But Rowles' hypothesis is as unstable as the theory of Hogland.

Today, the disputes about the mysterious hieroglyphs are still heated. Some researchers believe that Egyptians knew aeronautics secrets and could fly but later the secrets were lost. But others insist that enthusiasts are too imaginative if they see modern helicopters, aircrafts and submarines in Egyptian engravings and bas-reliefs. Let us forget the heated disputes and see what history says on the issue.

Popular scientific literature says that Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen died 3,300 years ago as a result of an air crash. Historian William Deutch made the sensational statement and also said that ancient Egyptians could go up to the clouds with balloons inflated with hot air and with primitive gliders. Such flights were available for the royal family and nobility only. Deutch says that many of the royal family in Ancient Egypt including Tutankhamun himself died with their legs broken and numerous wounds as if they tragically died as a result of an aircraft crash. The researcher is sure that strange objects depicted in discovered ancient engravings and drawings were in fact the first flying devices. Deutch even made many models of such aircrafts and found out that many of them could soar in the air. William Deutch says that aeronautics first appeared in Egypt and then spread to the territories currently known as Tibet, India, Mexico, Turkey, China and Guatemala, in other words those territories where air flows could hold aircrafts in the skies.

An elegant 4-centimeter item which was obviously used as an amulet or a pendant made not later than the first millennium B.C. is known as "the Columbia gold airplane". As of today, researchers have found 33 items of the type on the territories of Columbia, Peru, Costa Rica and Venezuela. All of them are different on the outside but have the same principle of airplane construction with the horizontal and vertical keel empennage. Ancient artists often made them look like creatures covered with scales and with glowing eyes. But biologists of the world admit that the gold items cannot be identified with any known creature of fossil or contemporary fauna on the planet.

Contemporary aerotechnics experts believe that "the gold airplane" might be a model of an aerospace aircraft with an opening cockpit; a model of a freight aircraft for landing water for one-time use only and even a model of a sub-aquaplane. But in fact, experts could discern an airplane in the gold model long ago.

In 1956, "the gold airplane" was among exhibits of the Pre-Columbian Gold exhibition in Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The deltoid wing and the vertical plane of the tail unit atypical of birds drew attention of American aircraft designers. The directors of the exhibition allowed testing the ancient "aircraft" in a wind tunnel. It turned out that the gold model could soar at supersonic speed, the issue which was widely studied in that epoch. The ancient model helped aircraft designers of Lockheed create a supersonic plane, the world's best for that period. [via: Pravda]

David Copperfield says he plans to impregnate a girl on stage - without even touching her.

A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe. Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".

The Chinese never failed to surprise me. But this is disgusting! On the other hand, how many are executed a year to make this industry run? The reports continues :

Although the exact number of people facing the death penalty in China is an official secret, Amnesty International believes around 3,400 were executed last year, with a further 6,000 on death row.

I'm sure it will never be public. Now it is a business, so the more the better!

I thought I was dreaming when I read this:
A gross creature which gobbles up a fish's tongue and then replaces it with its own body has been found in Britain for the first time. The bug was discovered inside the mouth of a red snapper bought from a London fishmonger. The 3.5cm creature had grabbed onto the fish's tongue and slowly ate away at it until only a stub was left. It then latched onto the stub and became the fish's "replacement tongue".

Yakh... yakh... yaaaaaaakh... watch your tongue!

GM will launch an actual self-driving system in its 2008 Opel Vectra.

Should Scientists Mix God and Science?

At a recent scientific conference at City College of New York, a student in the audience rose to ask the panelists an unexpected question: "Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?"
The answer was quick and sharp. "No!" declared Herbert A. Hauptman, a Nobel laureates who shared the chemistry prize in 1985 for his work on the structure of crystals.