Silflay Hraka

6/23/2003


Silflay Hraka Has Moved!

To this location. I explain why here.

Adjust your bookmarks and blogrolls, and come on by.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

6/16/2003


Message Of The Day 6/16/2003

Today, via their handy web form for cowards and informers, I sent the Saudi Religious Police the following message:

From: Naif bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud

City: Riyadh

Email: disapprove@hesbah.com

Sin: Immoral Observations

Greetings to you, revered imams. May the loins of your Filipino slaves glisten hairlessly through the night like the polished knobs in the mansion of Allah, or the gill slits of the Bluefin tuna, Venus of the Ocean. My name is Naif bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud and I need assistance with my immoral observations. Thank you for providing this service, as heretofore I have been somewhat less than proficient in my practice of them. My romantic abnormality, one shared by all of my house yet hidden from the public, has forced me to share these thoughts only with the objects of my fancy, and they have spurned my questions most rudely. Having no wish to offend the prophet, peace be upon him, I despaired of my sanity until the Djinn known as Google led me to your site.

Tell me, how does one determine the sex of a fish? All I see drive my loins into a frenzy of lust, yet I have no wish to spend my seed in the anal ducts of a female, as that would be displeasing to Allah and disgusting to myself.

I have been to my uncle, King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, who first taught me of the joys of making my own caviar after learning of this joy from renowned actor Troy McClure, but he has been of little help, as he has become addicted to the joys of the cadiru, and I as yet prefer the honor of insertion to the duties of reception, at least I think that I do. All of my attempts at creating the special love that exists between a man and his mackerel have foundered on the rocks of identification, for I cannot ascertain the difference between the male and the females of the species, Allah not having seen fit to cover the disgusting nakedness of the female mackerel with a piscine burkha.

Please aid me in this soonest, as the fishmonger in Riyadh has closed his shop to me, and I need a date for my families private showing of Finding Nemo.

Yours respectfully,

Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud

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If you'd like to send a message of your own, a handy list of names to use can be found here, and directions for the form are here. Remember to leave us a copy!


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

6/15/2003


Father's Day

My father's day started at quarter of five in the am, three hours after I went to bed, when an exhausted Sainted wife handed me Scotty M, announce that both the milk wells had run dry and stumbled off to sleep in the quest room.

I'm not sure why. It's not as if the bottle of breast milk stored in the refrigerator a story below was going to magically waft its way up the stairs, growing warmer with every foot of elevation gained until it appeared at hand, or ideally at mouth, ready for insertion in to the gaping, howling maw.

Were it possible it would have had no trouble finding us. Helen Keller could have echolocated our position from a mile away, so piercing were his cries. I staggered my way down the stairs to the kitchen, took the bottle out of the fridge, somehow found a nipple for it in the dark, put water in a pan and walked Scotty back and forth while the milk warmed. An age later, it was finally ready, so I betook myself to the Lazy Boy in the den along with the bottle, the baby, the boppy pillow, the pacifier, the extra pacifier, Ngnat's Barbie afghan and the TV remote, and arranged us all therein, having first taped the Spiderman's Wedding cover of an old Marvel Age comic book over the window beside the door where the streetlight shines in at night with the force of ten thousand suns unless it is blocked.

And, once everything was arranged, with baby in left arm on top of boppy pillow, beside TV remote, under the Barbie afghan, pacifiers on afghan and bottle in right hand I looked down to find him sound asleep.

So we dozed until six, when he awoke and received a much colder breast milk breakfast than I'm sure he was expecting. The milk coma after feeding was the same despite the frigidity of the lactose, and so I crept up the stairs to put him back down.

Which was no sooner done that Ngnat awoke, almost 2 hours earlier than is her wont. So down the stairs I went again, with a burden not only much heavier than the first, but one much more limpet like in the quality of its attachment to me.

New child, new nest. Out with the bottle, pacifiers and boppy, in with the apple juice, fruit snacks and sofa pillows. I slept through a Dora and an I Spy and a Childe Harold to the Purple Crayon Came, or something like that. I'm a little bleary on the details.

Eventually it was time for breakfast, which I made, as the lazy slug-a-bed I married was still asleep at the ridiculously late hour of eight in the morning. Nothing to cook with, so first I unloaded the dishwasher, the Dishwasher Fairy having been more or less absent since Scotty M's arrival. The noise keeps her away, I suspect.

It being Father's day, I made Pecan Pisang Goreng, seeing as how that was what I wanted and no one was going to make it for me. It's an Indonesian recipe for banana fritters that I added pecans to, as they had just been laying around taking up space since Christmas, and everything is better with pecans. Southern tradition states this, and I have yet to see it disproved. Possibly sushi might not be improved by the addition of pecans, but I am unconvinced of this.

Father's Day Pecan Pisang Goreng

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk. I didn't have buttermilk, so I used half and half. I do this a lot.
2 coarsely mashed bananas
a handful of chopped pecans.

Mix everything up and drop serving spoonfuls into a quarter inch of hot vegetable or canola oil. Try not to get hot oil to splash up in your eyes. It's not blinding, but it saves worrying about whether it's blinding or not. Flip after two minutes, remove from the oil two minutes after that. Dust them with powdered sugar, top them with berries, eat them plain or treat them like pancakes. It's all good.

I eat mine plain. Ngnat eats hers with peanut butter, but only after she is assured that, yes, this is what Dora eats for breakfast every single day. The Sainted Wife partakes of hers with large dollops of resignation, much as she does most of the odd things I cook, in order to provide a good example to her daughter, or to at least avoid being a bad one.

Since it was Father's day, I left her the cleaning up and slept till noon.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

6/14/2003


An Ass Kicking Everyone Can Get Behind

Indymedia has picked up on the Culture Jam.

The more the merrier, folks. When it comes to combating the despicable oppression of the Saudi Religious Police, there are no Republicans or Democrats, no Greens or Libertarians.

There is no Europe, no America, no East or West.

There is only the congregation of the free, and our voices must rise up for those who are not allowed to have one, for those who would join us but cannot.

So sing, damn you, SING!


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


Notes From Mr. Rasczak's Lecture

What Do You Call A Missile Attack That Kills A Senior Hamas Leader, His Pregnant Wife, And His Three Year Old Daughter?

A Good Start.


The Feces Flinging Monkey on why the death of innocents is not the ultimate horror.

Essentially I agree, but the problem is that if the death of innocents is only preferable to the alternative if the time period in which they occur is a short one, and the way the West presently wages war seems to preclude that. What's the point of a war if the enemy doesn't realize it has lost?

''The United States sent the Iraqi army home without compensation. They set up checkpoints and prevented farmers from going to work,'' said Taleb, a farmer, as he watched a truck full of U.S. soldiers pass in front of his home. (emphasis added)

This must be the first war in history where the forces on the losing side demand to be paid by the winning side. Even given the media penchant for seeking out the Iraqi disaster angles in a story, it doesn't really feel like the Iraqi army has been "pacified," does it?

What's the best way to take off a bandage? Quickly. The pain is intense but soon over. Now imagine a doctor who, instead of removing the bandage immediately, talks about it incessantly while removing it very, very slowly, so that each hair is slowly ripped out of the pore. He doesn't want to rip it off, because he's afraid of how the patient will react, even though in his heart of hearts he knows it would be best.

To the patient, it's nothing but torture, and the longer it takes the more he hates the doctor.

As you are no doubt one of the keenly perceptive and highly literate regulars that frequent the Hraka, you've already realized the metaphor:

Israel is the doctor, and the Palestinians are the patient. Pinprick assassinations is how Israel has chosen to deal with the Hamas bandage up till now. Even though Israel claims that the entirety of Hamas is now a target, I'm not going to believe Israel is serious until the political leadership of Hamas is gone, until Sheik Ahmed Yassin and all around him are dead.

If one is engaged in the active pursuit of evil, then the death of innocents, horrible though they are, serves some purpose. But the pursuit must be continued until all of the targets of it are accounted for. Stopping halfway, as Sharon now appears to be intent on doing, not only ensures that your enemy will return, it ensure that more innocents will die in the future, innocents that would not have died otherwise, innocents on both sides.

Hamas will be responsible for these deaths, for that group cannot win this war, yet will not lay down its arms, so the death of innocents will continue.

Israel will be responsible for these deaths, for that country can win this war, yet will have chosen not to, so the death of innocents will continue.

Ripping off a bandage is a violent act, but it is an act with an end, unlike the "cycle of violence" meme that permeates the media, a cycle that continues because Israel is unwilling to use the force necessary to end it.

Violence applied properly can solve problems. Hamas can be wiped out, or reduced to ineffectiveness. History is full of examples of just such an occurrence. There are no more Carthaginians, Nazism is nothing but a sad joke, and there is no Confederacy, thanks to violence.

Either Hamas dies now, or more toddlers and pregnant women die in the years to come.

I know which outcome I prefer.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

6/13/2003


Message Of The Day 6/13/2003

Today, via their handy web form for cowards and informers, I sent the Saudi Religious Police the following message:

From: Mohammed Ali Ali Ocksen Phrie

City: Jeddah

Email: disapprove@hesbah.com

Sin: Flirting

To whom it may concern.

Peace be upon you, and upon the loins of your Filipino servants, may they spring forth anew each morning! My name is Mohammed Ali Ali Ocksen Phrie, and I am writing to complain about Dr Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh, who habitually passes gas of the most noisy and foul type in front of myself at daily prayers. Every day, five times a day it's

God is great. Braaaaap!
I bear witness that there none worthy of worship except God. Braaaaap
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God. Braaaaap
Come to prayer. Braaaaap
Come to felicity. Braaaaap
Prayer is better than sleep. Braaaaap
Our prayers are now ready. Our prayers are now ready. Braaaaap
God is great. Braaaaap
There is none worthy of worship except God. Braaaaap


There are times when I cannot hear the blessed imam for the noise and cannot see him for the tears in my eyes. The expectorations of the minister's rectum torment me horribly, and is it not written that noisy gas is an affront to the prophet, pee be upon him?

I could stand the pain were it not for the distinctive odor of the sperm of a goat, both fresh and digested, that emanate from the minister at all times. Please remonstrate with him, else I will be forced to become a Baptist to assuage my lust.

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If you'd like to send a message of your own, a handy list of names to use can be found here, and directions for the form are here. Remember to leave us a copy!

Thanks to the folks at Fartgreetings.com for the use of their wavs.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


UNC's Official Fright Song

I'm a Tarheel born,
I'm a Tarheel bred,
Now I've got SARS
By a Tarheel spread!


The SARS outbreak on the UNC campus grows more worrisome. Instead of one case with an unknown and mysterious transmission vector, there are now three, as two co-workers of the initial case are now showing symptoms of the disease.

Neither has been categorized as a suspected SARS patient with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since they are not believed to have had the kind of exposure necessary to contract the disease. Health officials are awaiting laboratory test results, which they expect by Monday, to determine whether the men can be diagnosed with SARS.

This is exactly the same sequence of events taken with regards to the UNC campuses zero case. SARS was not initially considered as a diagnosis in his case, since although he had been to Toronto, he had not come into direct contact with anyone showing symptoms of the disease, nor had he visited a location where a SARS case had been reported previously.

The issue of when and where exposure occurs is important. In their investigations of more than 8,445 cases worldwide, scientists have surmised that the virus only spreads when the carrier is in the throes of illness, suffering a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, a cough or other respiratory trouble, and body aches.

Based on those criteria, public health officials remain skeptical that the Orange County man was contagious during his week back at work. The man told health investigators that once he became sick on that Saturday, he stayed home and left his house the next week only to visit his doctor, said Dr. Jeffrey Engel, state epidemiologist.


In other words, "We know next to nothing about the disease, not that this prevents us from assuming exactly the opposite when it comes to how the germ spreads."

First public health officials were skeptical that the patient had SARS, now they are skeptical that he spread the virus, despite the fact that how he came to be infected with the disease in the first place is a complete mystery, and despite the fact that two of his co-workers are showing initial signs of the disease. Chapel Hill has always been thought of as just a hop, skip and a jump from outright Communism by the rest of the state; now its public health authorities have adopted China's initial attitude towards SARS wholesale.

If SARS is spreading in Chapel Hill, it won't be confined to the Giles Horney Building. Public transportation in Chapel Hill is free, and used by large numbers of UNC workers who ride in to work on buses from satellite parking lots on the edge of town. One SARS sneeze or post nasal drip on any of five different bus routes that run near the building, and the virus will be spread all over town. If the two cases under observation turn out to be SARS, then it will be proof positive that a person who exhibits no sign of the disease can still spread it.

So it's wash hands, Car'lina-lina
Stay home, Car'lina-lina
Wear masks, Car'lina-lina
Go to hell......... cough, < choke>........gasp.


The UNC SARS update page can be seen here.

Update: Sighs of relief all round. Both SARS tests came out negative, though one UNC worker has died.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

6/12/2003


Tomorrow's Memes Today!

I too, stand with Israel.

----------------

Turns out Jayson Blair ghost wrote Hillary's new book. That's why he didn't have time to go to the places he was reporting on, obviously.

HILLARY: Jayson, I know I hired you because you’re completely full of it and have no respect for the truth, but you need to tone it down.
JAYSON: In what way?
HILLARY: Page 329? Me and Rick Lazio, debating?
JAYSON: What part bothers you?
HILLARY: The light saber duel.


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When Bloggers go bad: Poisoning The Well

We've had our own adventures with the person in question. My guess is that her blogs are performance art written by a conservative, or that she's a traffic troll whose strategy is reaping its inevitable reward. Either way, it's nice to know our's wasn't the only blog she left a ring around.

Heck, put it together with Rockem Sockem Moxies and you have a nice overview of the two main storm systems in the current blogosphere. (link via michelle)

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We know couples like this. Dear Stupid Parent. No, it's none of you. It's someone else entirely.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


Who is Greg Packer?

I liked this too much. Mickey Kaus pointed me towards this Ann Coulter article on a NYT story about the queue outside the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble in New York Sunday night, where people were waiting to buy Hilary Clinton's new book.

That convoluted enough for you? Here's what Coulter discovered about one of the line attendees featured in the article, Greg Packer.

Another average individual eager to get Hillary's book was Greg Packer, who was the centerpiece of the New York Times' "man on the street" interview about Hillary-mania. After being first in line for an autographed book at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble, Packer gushed to the Times: "I'm a big fan of Hillary and Bill's. I want to change her mind about running for president. I want to be part of her campaign."

It was easy for the Times to spell Packer's name right because he is apparently the entire media's designated "man on the street" for all articles ever written. He has appeared in news stories more than 100 times as a random member of the public. Packer was quoted on his reaction to military strikes against Iraq; he was quoted at the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Veterans' Day Parade. He was quoted at not one – but two – New Year's Eve celebrations at Times Square. He was quoted at the opening of a new "Star Wars" movie, at the opening of an H&M clothing store on Fifth Avenue and at the opening of the viewing stand at Ground Zero. He has been quoted at Yankees games, Mets games, Jets games – even getting tickets for the Brooklyn Cyclones. He was quoted at a Clinton fund-raiser at Alec Baldwin's house in the Hamptons and the pope's visit to Giants stadium.


Coulter spins this as another blow to the rep of the NYT, but Greg Packer is actually a publicity seeker with well-honed skills.

By 8 o'clock on the coldest morning of the year, Greg Packer was already in his second hour waiting in line to go on a double-decker bus tour of Manhattan with Brandy, the R&B singer.

Spending a day waiting in line to meet celebrities is not unusual for the 38-year-old Huntington, N.Y., native, but his position so far back in the queue was. Packer has made obsessions out of being first in line and of being in the company of celebrities.

But on this day, he was 15th in line. That was good enough, for his goal was just to be among the first 50 who would make it on the Brandy bus.

If there's a global or celebrity-laden event in or near New York, odds are Packer is there, or is trying to be there. He was first in the line to see ground zero when the viewing platform opened at the World Trade Center site Dec. 30. He was the first in line in 1997 to sign the condolence book at the British consulate when Princess Diana died. He slept outside in the snow in Washington last January to be the first in line to greet President George W. Bush after his inauguration.


Here's another picture of him, waiting for the Times Square ball to drop in 2002. This is a man who enjoys the spotlight and seeks it out, not another giant screw-up by the Times. I suspect he can ID reporters from a half mile away.

Update: Kausfiles noticed! I am as giddy as a girl. 2 down, 2 to go.

Mickey wonders why the NYT hasn't caught on to Greg Packer yet.

But that begs the question of why the NYT would write about this semi-professional line-stander and quote machine as if he were a typical man on the street. You'd think he'd be notorious by now and "No More Greg Packer" signs would be posted next to the Metro desk.... Michael Cooper of the NYT did bust Packer when quoting him on New Year's Eve, 2001, but this week the NYT''s James Barron accepted him as an ordinary "fan of Hillary and Bill's" who wants Hillary "to change her mind about running for president."

I would think it's due to some inherent (though perfectly understandable) journalistic snobbery. Think about the stories Greg appears in. I don’t think there's a journalist in the world that looks forward to being sent out to interview the line freaks for a lightweight entertainment feature. It's beneath them.

They go in, they get a quote or two from people who come up to them and say "Hey, are you a reporter?" come back to the office and file a piece that reminds them exactly how far they are from their J-school dreams of being the next Woodward or Bernstein, then try to forget it.

Same thing with the editors. Even a crusty, knowledgeable old newsroom vet isn't going to give a crap about who gets interviewed for a "people queue up to meet Brandy" story.

On top of that, a lot of the reporters on the freak beat are probably low on the status ladder. As they move their way up, they escape from the "go interview the geeks" stories, and the new wet behind the ears guy or gal is the next guy to meet Mr. Packer. He seems them coming, gets his name in the paper, and gets nice little clipping for the scrapbook back home.

Too bad the jig's probably up.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


The Scabrous Search

A Silflay Hraka Exclusive, for some odd reason.

By Joe McCain

So now the political hounds are after the 'Great Mass Weapons Scam', eh? Going to hold hearings. Going to find out if the poor old American people have been tricked, fooled, misled.

What is the matter with them?

Here's what SHOULD matter to them: A man has been removed from power who murdered millions and made many more millions terrified.

A man has been removed that had, and used, weapons of mass murder on many occasions, on the Kurds, on the Iranians, on the Shiites -- in short, on the weak.

What happened to those weapons is not clear. We know he had them. We know, because we saw the piles of bodies over the years. And we should be very worried about what happened to them, where they are now, not whether we have been tricked by the President of the United States.

A man has been removed whose friends and kin raped women, tortured athletes, grabbed property and possessions at whim, destroyed whatever and whomever they wished.

Have these political defects not seen the photos of the mass graves, seen the trophy photos of torture, not heard the stories from the victims, not heard even our own troops and rescued Prisoners-of-War?!

At least this one man and his pals will never murder and terrify and torture and maim and waste and destroy again.

And perhaps the other strange and dangerous thugs of the word, especially this terribly dangerous Kim Jung-Il will hesitate before starting up their killing machines.

This is a terribly malevolent world, where battalions of misled fanatics are simply and violently anti-Western, Anti-Christian, Anti-Jewish. And they will kill, just as the Kamikaze-driven troops of the Japanese Empire and the Nazi-infected Wehrmacht killed -- until enough of them died, and the killing finally stopped.

It is a horrible, cancerous world in which only radical surgery applies.

As long as we stay subtle and rational and philosophical, millions more will die. Jews, Americans, Westerners, reasonable Arabs, peaceful Muslims. They will die just as others kept dying while Neville Chamberlain temporized, and Americans cried "America, First!". If the Japanese hadn't made the incredible decision to raid Pear Harbor, when would we have joined that war? And does anybody remember, it was German who declared war on the United States? Else, when we have gone to Europe to help beat down these monsters of holocaust and pillage?

Have we gone that insane, again? Despite so many terrible, bloody lessons from history? Recent history? Ancient History? ANY history!!!

This is not new. The Crusades against the Moors? The American White Man against his former slaves? Virtually any country against the Jew for 1500 years?

It is a bad time. But for the sake of history, there is one land strong enough to deal with it. And deal with we must!

No amount of petulance against George Bush, and complaints about misinformation, and elite sniffing distaste is going to change the fact that there is a band of unthinking radicals that murder only to murder -- and the more horrific the murder is, the more devastating it is, the more innocent the victims are, the better. It brings them closer to Allah. Well, just as we had to help millions of Japanese Imperial Troops get to their gods faster, so must we enhance the celestial trip of these assassins of humanity.

That's what matters.....REALITY matters!

Please, no matter what you think of George Bush -- and we McCain Republicans have much vinegar to remember from South Carolina -- don't go down this trashy, sleazy road!!

If you do, you will wreck a very problematic victory with which we must be patient -- we were in Germany and Japan four and five years, remember -- but more, you will absolutely cripple any chance of dealing with so many other mastes of death and murder and mayhem.

No, you will absolutely take away the fear our terribly brave men and women have put into them, and perhaps unleash them!


Editor's Note: Joe McCain is the brother of Arizona Senator John McCain, and resides in Washington. I got the essay above from an e-mail he sent to the parents of his godson yesterday, whom the Sainted Wife and I have been friends with for years. An earlier essay of his can be seen here. Why we happen to be the only place on the web these are found is a complete mystery to me.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


MemeWatch

Birth Blogging claims another couple. Congrats to the proud parents at the Picture Shoebox.

Together with ZonaGeek, that makes three births blogged that I know of.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


Message of the Day, 6/12/2003

Today, via their handy web form for cowards and informers, someone sent the Saudi Religious Police 588,604 lowercase "n"s, getting this handy error in return;

Request object error 'ASP 0107 : 80004005'
Stack Overflow
/disapproveSubmit.asp, line 22
The data being processed is over the allowed limit.


As for me, I sent this message today.

Some badly coded webforms can crash a server if they choke on a long enough string. The website is still there, so presumably the form is coded to cut off submissions after a certain number of characters. If you would like to ask someone to make sure, try the technical contact fot the site, Hatem El Shafie.

Domain name: HESBAH.COM
Registrant:
MidEast Net
37 Kasr El Nil Street
App #55
Downtown
Cairo, Cairo 11111
EG
Administrative Contact:
El Shafie, Hatem reg2@mideastnet.com
37 Kasr El Nil Street
App #55
Downtown
Cairo, Cairo 11111
EG
202 3924354 Fax: 202 3957177
Technical Contact:
El Shafie, Hatem reg@mideastnet.com
37 Kasr El Nil Street
Suite #55
Downtown
Cairo, Cairo 11111
EG
202 3924354 Fax: 202 3957177

Presumably there are a few other questions he could be asked about why he decided to host this particular site.

I've spent some time going over the source code for the website, looking for an email address, but no luck yet. I've sent a test email to disapprove@hesbah.com, if that doesn't bounce, we can enlist the power of Spam in the fight against the Mutaween.

If you'd like to send a message of your own, a handy list of names to use can be found here, and directions for the form are here. Remember to leave us a copy!

Update: disapprove@hesbah.com has not bounced after 4 hours, so I'm going to rule it a valid email. Now go forth and sign it up for....everything.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


Matter, Anti Mattter, and Blogmatcher

According to Blogmatcher, friend of Hraka On the Third Hand, is the most like-minded blog to us out of the 1558 listed.

Compendium Hermetica, which to all appearances is a perfectly decent blog by a lucid and well-read author, is the least like minded.

Zod: Decent, lucid and well read. No wonder Blogmatcher awarded him the coveted Anti-Hraka position. You should never touch, lest the world be shattered by the resultant cataclysmic explosion.

I read all the damn time.

Zod: Comic books and Science Fiction. You're a regular Robert Burton, you are.

Quiet, damned voice.

Left of us on the war, or at least left of one and perhaps two-thirds of the Hraka staff, but so is Skippy, and he's in the top 10 of the like minded. I'm going to guess that the calculation is performed via some sort of six degrees analysis of links in common.

Update: And I would be right.

Link via Silent Running


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

6/11/2003


Widening The Scope

This caught my ear the other day while listening to NPR on the commute to work the other day. Families in northern Uganda are sending their children away at night to sleep alone on the city streets of Kitgum and Gulu. It's the only way they can ensure that they aren't kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army, who force the boys to fight for them and turn the girls into sex slaves.

According to Reuters, more than 9000 people are traveling from their homes each night to sleep wherever they find a spot to lay down in the cities. Children as young as 4 make the trip each night, traveling on foot up to 5 miles each way in order to sleep in safety.

The Lord's Resistance Army is supported an encouraged by the Islamist government in Sudan, a country listed by the State department as a supporter of international terrorism, and a country that rivals Saudi Arabia in its all talk/no action approach to the war on terrorism.

Uganda on the other hand is cited as a model for African development in democracy and the fight against HIV/AIDS. The president of that country met today with George Bush, who praised him for his support in the war on terrorism, yet apparently did not offer any U.S. aid or support for Uganda in its struggle with an Islamist supported movement.

Yet why not? The American experience in Afghanistan proved that a combination of a small number of special forces and air support in conjunction with native ground forces is a lethal combination. The Lord's Resistance Army is demonstrably as vicious as the Taliban, supported by a regime with strong ties to Islamic terrorism, and would likely put up even less of a struggle than did the Taliban once they were faced with a US supported force. Since there is already a functioning civil government in Uganda, we would not even face the vacuum of authority problems that have cropped up in areas of Afghanistan and Iraq, while simultaneously demonstrating that the American war on terrorism is not limited to those of Arab descent, or even to Islam. The LRA, though supported by Islamists, is an ostensibly Christian movement.

If relieving the suffering of the Iraqi people is in hindsight a valid reason for the American invasion of that country, and I believe that it is (And did before the war. WMDs were always a side issue for me.) then those reasons are just as valid for the people of northern Uganda. No, we can't solve all of the world's problems at once, but it's not like clearing terrorists out of Uganda would take even as much effort as we put into Afghanistan, and it would demonstrate that America cares as much about stability in Africa as it does anywhere else.

Terrorists thrive in failed states, and Africa is full of states on the edge of failure. It will be simpler and cheaper now to support the African civilian and democratic nations than it will be to make war on them ten or twenty years in the future. Chasing the Islamists out of the Middle East, only to find them popping up in sub-Saharan Africa will come as rude shock, one we can prevent from occurring in the future with only a little effort in the present.

A little effort, yet one that to all appearances is not being made.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


Living In The Hot Zone

Remember the North Carolina SARS case of a week or so ago? It's troubling the health authorities, in that there is no on is able to determine how patient was infected in the first place.

Canadian health officials said Tuesday that they are unsure how or where the man contracted the disease, because his case defies the accepted understanding of the disease and its method of spreading.

"I can't pick one logical explanation here. All are unlikely, and we're dealing with various degrees of unlikely," said Dr. Allison McGeer, director of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.


Since the virus almost certainly was passed to the patient while he was visiting a relative in a rehabilitation clinic, he probably picked it up from a surface contact, something like a elevator button or a doorknob. What's troubling for the Toronto authorities is that if this is true, then there is at least one person transmitting the virus who is unknown to the Toronto public health system.

Meanwhile the UNC campus is on pins and needles waiting for another case to occur. Odds are it won't, but if it does a lot of the tech staff will start working from home.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


Bishop Ussher Reaches a Higher Spin Rate

New fossils from Ethiopia push the known date for the first appearance of Homo Sapiens back to 158,000 BCE.

The skulls include evidence of ritual cutting and polishing, evidence for the argument that human culture has always been characterized by a surprising level of complexity. There's also grounds for argument that we were already masters of our domain at that time

The skulls, from two men and a child, are also very large by human standards suggesting the adults cut an imposing figure.

Large skull and imposing figures are a direct function of food supply. Lots of food, especially in the childhood developmental years, is critical in the determination of final adult size. If we were growing them large 160,000 years ago, there weren't a lot of things standing in the way of our control of the immediate environment.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


Message of the Day

Here's the message I sent to the Saudi Religious Police today, using the convenient web form they provide for the purpose of turning in heretics, free speech adherents and little girls with Barbie dolls. Feel free to adapt it as you wish, or submit your own.

Directions for submission of the web site form can be found here, and a handy list of names to use can be found below the message.

Sin reported by: Dr Fahd bin Abdulrahman bin Sulaiman Balghunaim

Location: Mecca

Balghunaim@saudi.gov.sa

Type of Sin: Other

To whom it may concern.

Whilst examining the loins of my Filipino servants for evidence of apostasy, I happened to glance out of the second story window of my compound and espy Sheikh Saleh bin Abdul Aziz bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh in the street below, mightily struggling to pull a glossy red women's corset, one of the real quality ones, with a lace-up front, adjustable straps and optional garter attachments, from the hindquarters of a large pig.

The blessed imam was hampered in his attempt in that he was attempting to do so one-handed, his left hand being in possession of a half empty bottle of Grey Goose Vodka, which he alternately drank from or poured from above onto the swine's genitalia. The revered imam was also in a state of dishabille, his robe having fallen down around his ankles. This enabled me to observe his tumescent state once I had set my telescope to its largest magnification.

Please remonstrate with the imam for me, as the stock animals are nervous for days after his one of his visits.

Peace be upon you,

Dr Fahd bin Abdulrahman bin Sulaiman Balghunaim - Minister of Agriculture

The handy list of names. Use them unstintingly!

Dr Fahd bin Abdulrahman bin Sulaiman Balghunaim - Minister of Agriculture
King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz - The Prime Minister, The King
Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud - The First Deputy Prime Minister, Crown Prince and Commander of the National Guard
Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz - Second Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense and Aviation and Inspector General
Dr Fahd bin Abdulrahman bin Sulaiman Balghunaim - Minister of Agriculture
Dr Muhammad bin Ali Al-Fayez - Minister of Civil Service
Dr Hashim bin Abdullah bin Hashim Al-Yamani - Minister of Commerce and Industry
Engineer Muhammad Jameel bin Ahmed Mulla - Minister of Communications and Information Technology
Dr Fouad bin Abdul Salaam bin Muhammad Al Farsy - Minister of Culture and Information
Dr Khalid bin Muhammad Al-Qusaibi - Ministry of Economy and Planning
Dr Muhammad bin Ahmed Al-Rasheed - Minister of Education
Dr Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al-Assaf- Minister of Finance
Prince Saud Al Faisal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud - Minister of Foreign Affairs
Dr Iyad bin Ameen Madani - Minister of Hajj
Dr Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Mane' - Minister of Health
Dr Khalid bin Muhammad Al-Anqari - Minister of Higher Education
Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud - Minister of Interior
Sheikh Saleh bin Abdul Aziz bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh- Minister for Islamic Affairs, Endowment, Dawa and Guidance
Dr Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh- Minister of Justice
Dr Ali bin Ibrahim Al-Namlah- Minister of Labor and Social Affairs
Prince Mite'b bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud - Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs
Engineer Ali bin Ibrahim Al-Naimi - Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources
Dr Jubarah bin Eid Al-Suraiseri- Minister of Transport
Dr Ghazi bin Abdulrahman Al Gosaibi - Minister of Water and Electricity
Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd bin Abdulaziz - Minister of State, Cabinet Member, and Chief of the Court of Cabinet's Presidency
Dr. Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al-Khuwaiter - Minister of State
Dr. Mutlab bin Abdullah Al-Nafeesah - Minister of State and Cabinet's Member
Dr. Musa'ed bin Mohammed Al-E'ban - Minister of State and Cabinet's Member
Abdullah bin Ahmed bin Yosef Zainal - Minister of State and Cabinet's Member

Make sure to send us an email of the messages, or leave a copy in the comments below. The really good ones will appear as Messages Of The Day at some future time. If I'm feeling lazy, so will the not so good ones.

And remember, every fake message sent to these.....evil bastards is one that might cause them to overlook a real one, and make a innocent Saudi a little more free.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


38 Special

The 38th edition of the Carnival of the Vanities is at Overtaken by Events this week, who has excellent taste in comedy.

The Carnival offspring Bharateeya Blog Mela is also new today, at Sampada's Thought Spot.

Upcoming Carnival stops include;

June 18th Real Women Online
June 25th Single Southern Guy
July 2nd Amish Tech Support
July 9th Winds Of Change -- The 42nd spot, coveted by hitchhikers across the galaxy.
July 16th Caerdroia
July 23rd DaGoddess
July 30th Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
August 6th Across The Atlantic
August 13th Outside The Beltway
August 20th Right We Are
August 27th Creative Slips
September 3rd The Brazos De Dios Cantina
September 10th Solport
September 17th Silflay Hraka - The One Year Anniversary
September 24th Pathetic Earthlings
October 1st Sasha & Andrew's Roundtable
October 8th Dancing With Dogs
October 15th Priorities & Frivolities
October 22nd Eric Berlin

If you'd like to host the Carnival, drop us a line. Information on how to join the Carnival can be found here.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


Super Sounds Of The Seventies, Volume II

Al of Somewhere in the Digital Forest rose to the challenge and listed a number of Queen songs that could serve as themes for various politicos and world leaders.

"Liar" - (name any politician here)
"We are the Champions" - Dubya
"Fat Bottomed Girls" - Bill Clinton
"Don't Stop Me Now" - John Ashcroft
"Jealousy" - Rush Limbaugh
"Under Pressure" - Saddam Hussein
"I'm Going Slightly Mad" - Ronald Reagan
"Scandal" - Nixon
"Friends Will Be Friends" - Tony Blair
"Stone Cold Crazy" - Sharon
"The Invisible Man" - Putin
"You Don't Fool Me" - Yassir Arafat

Next up, The Clash. I'll take out the obvious target by reserving Train in Vain for Al Gore, because it's easy and I like to make things more difficult.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.


Chewing the Fat (Tax)

British doctors are apparently pushing a "Fat Tax" in an effort to curb that country's obesity problem. To me this falls into the category of "Ridiculous." People should have the right to be fat, and eat whatever the hell they want to. If I wanted to be obese, that should be my decision, and I should not be penalized (nor should the fast food joints of the world) for wanting a big ass burger and a side of fries. Even though I don't smoke, I feel the same way about over-taxing cigarettes and the like. Maybe those opposed to this tax could stage an "Eat In", or something to protest this movement. Being overweight is a health problem, but if people are okay with who they are and the size they are, then leave them alone and tax something else.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

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