Siniora Government honors Founders of Civil War militias

Living Martyr Marwan Hmadeh announced today the issuing of new postage stamps honoring the martyrs of Lebanon. What's a better way to honor our fallen heroes than licking their behinds? Not to mention the fun that can be had by matching the destination country with the stamp of the personality it had assassinated (or just vanished in Libya's case.) The government played it the Lebanese way by trying to include martyrs from all sects in the collection, but some groups will argue that they were underrepresented and that Danny Chamoun, Abbass El Mousawi, and Elie Hobeika are just as worthy of a stamp.

Martyrs apparently are a big thing and they deserve to be honored. After all we have over a hundred thousand of them since 1975. Martyrs rank second among our national treasures only trailing Emigrees who number well over a million over the same period of time.

Now if I remember correctly, a good chunk of the one hundred thousand were martyred by what was then known as Militias. Thankfully those are now extinct. While the Kataeb and the PLO were the stars of the 70's, most historians would rank Amal, LF, and PSP militias as the top 3 Lebanese killers of the 80's. Images of the Founders of these 3 militias will now grace your outgoing letters to the emigrants who have sworn off Lebanon because of them.

At Least this is one thing I personally wouldn't have to deal with since I have sworn off Liban Post. They happen to have very pleasant and competent employees which is something I abhor.

Waiting for Saado

I stopped playing video games and joined a gym when the games became more physically demanding than 2 hours on a treadmill. But I am excited these days with the emergence of a sequel to an old time favorite. "Where in the world is Saad El Hariri?" will take you to more exotic locations than the original version with thicker plots and a lot more nonsense.



No, he is not tanning in the Seychelles, nor is he supervising his Aqaba project, nor is he bailing out Mr. Nahhas in Cannes. Saad currently has the honor of being the Saudi king's envoy for resolving the Pakistani crisis between Sharif in London and Musharraf in Islamabad. Meanwhile; here everyone awaits Saad's final word on Berri's initiative, whatever that it is; but we know well that nothing is going to come out from either the initiative or the final word, or Berri or Saad for the matter. No matter what we still gladly play along to get to the next level where it usually gets more challenging and harder to survive.

More Unity and Meeting Points..

The Lebanese are renowned world travelers. You'll find people from Arbet Qozhayya in Barquicimeto, people from Baaloul in Foz Iguazu, and people from Deir Quntar in East LA. But you'll never find the Baalouli in Arbet Qozhayya, or the Deir Quntari in Diddeh, etc... All these ecotourism and piece of paradise packages are just for tourists. That explains why One US presidential candidate visited the the ravaged South, while in the midst of the Lebanese presidential campaigns, none of the candidates has crossed the Ramlet El Baida - Ouzai Line. Why campaign in Marjeyoun, Rashayya, and Akkar, when you can go to Strasbourg and Rome instead?

Speaking of Tourism, a couple of nights ago both New TV and Future's Zaven addressed the issue of prostitution. Some official in the Ministry of tourism was defending the practice by saying that you can't expect to have a tourism industry with a few rocks in Baalbeck and Jbeil, but that's not my issue. I just wanted to share with you my experience on the matter since both reports were shallow and amateurish. On one hand, you had Firas Hatoum asking questions as if he had never heard of sex? "You mean people pay you for sex!?" Oh, the blasphemy. On the other hand, you had Zaven. What I know is that Ras Beirut has more whorehouses, or whatever the politically correct term for whorehouse is, than Amsterdam's red light district. There's Moonlight Cabaret and hotel half a block down from Mourtada Islamic Clothes, so let's not act as if this is a big taboo. Every night a 21:30, one of those buses that sound and drive like Boeing 737s parks in the alley up from Lina's in Hamra and loads tens of colorfully dressed professionals. Quite the show, and you won't find this free attraction listed in "Lebanon for less than $10 a day". If luxury is more your style and you happen to be a single Khaliji guy staying alone at one of our oceanfront hotels, you will most definitely receive an "accidental" call in your room late at night offering you our colleges' finest crop. But prostitution is illegal in Lebanon. So are bikinis by the way.

Speaking of Sex, Shaker El Absi's DNA match with his supposed daughter came out negative. This actually means that Mrs. El Absi now unseats Ahmad Fatfat for the title of most relieved person after the death of El Absi.

Speaking of "some explaining to do", the electric company released a statement yesterday claiming that the latest power outages were due to the effects of high humidity on the grid. Now, I'm not an expert on the subject, so I asked my buddy Andy who is a senior engineer at Florida Power and Light about the validity of the claim. Here's his answer on this one: "Higher humidity than what we have in Miami is probably only possible in the Serengeti and we don't lose power because of that, so that's my answer on that one." Now trying to preempt the next excuse, both my friend and I concurred that bird poop could knock out power for a prolonged period of time.

Speaking of Bird poop, Lebanon's critical Olympic qualifying match against Iraq tomorrow night will be held in an empty stadium. Why? You guessed it, because admitting crowds into the stands endangers national unity.

Presidents, Victories, and Paternity tests….

So many events with little time to comment but I’ll try to briefly cover all major events…

Haifa has a new video out.

Next we move on to the Presidential elections. A common trait among the major candidates that does not endanger national unity is their hair insecurity. Aoun’s comb over is still going strong even with only 3 hairs left to cover the whole territory on top. Having a full head of hair does not make Boutros Harb anymore secure about his looks than the balding General. Despite a history of political grayness, his stance on his hair is unwavering. Harb will live and dye Black. More on the subject later…

Rabih Mroueh’s “How Nancy wished everything was just an April’s fools joke” was shown in Beirut in its entirety and endangering national unity after all. MBC television cameras were there to capture the public reaction to this victory over censorship. Yes the same MBC that censors Raymond kissing Deborah. Back to “Nancy”; it’s a shame that it got all this press for the wrong reasons because this superbly written act is the best thing to hit the Beirut stage since the Lebanonization of Eric Emmanuel Schmitt’s Enigma Variations.

Finally, the military operations stage of the Naher El Bared ordeal is finally over. The politicians are all calling for uncovering the truth behind Fatah El Islam as they all think it will provide them with ammo against their foes. Of course, nothing will come out of these calls as we are in Lebanon where investigations are avoided because they endanger national unity. The only way we can find out who really was behind the funding and nurturing of Fatah El Islam is to resort to Maury Povich. Here I’m picturing Saad, 34, high-fiving the audience and being held back from Wiam, 40 some: “Told you @#$%^ I ain’t their @#$%^ sugar daddy, HO, HO, you @#%%# @$%#^ HO!!”