Mahmood's Den

With our parliamentarians falling over each other to turn Bahrain into a theocratic state as they prepare for extended summer holidays, we will be left with a lot of heartache to contend with, while they enjoy 5 whole fully paid months of R&R.

Make no mistake my friends, the issues is NOT about banning alcohol. You would be sorely mistaken if you think it is simply about that issue, it is much bigger than that, it is the concerted effort by them to turn this country into Bahrainistan. One which is blindly and brutally kept in the dark ages while we continue to see countries we so far scoffed surpass us in every single facet of modern existence. The economy which has been nurtured over only the past few years with the billions of dollars of inward investment will dissipate virtually over-night, again, not because of the presence or lack of alcohol, but due to the realisation that this is the first step into the complete dissipation of what is left of personal freedoms by demagogues hell-bent onto robbing us of what God Himself has bestowed upon us.

Will YOU be willing to give up your personal freedoms to them? If you do nothing about this latest studied salvo, then you will have no one to blame but yourself when they take away the next freedom, one which you had taken for granted.

People to them are simple animals who should do as they are told, without reason and without thought. Are you one of those who will submit to their demands? Do you not want to remind them that they are there because of your vote?

Then don’t wait around. Do something to let them know that you object and that your personal freedoms and those of others are sacrosanct and are not available for them to trifle with. Tell them that you understand that if a freedom is taken away from your neighbour today, another might well be taken away from you tomorrow. These are your constitutional rights, not theirs to take away.

Your personal freedoms are guaranteed by the constitution. You give up those rights, then you will have no right to demand that they respect the constitution. Something they ALL swore to defend and protect.

It’s NOT about alcohol. Do something. NOW!

Maybe it was just as well that I was pessimistic about parliament ever being effective last night. Today’s news is proof, yet again, that I was right.

MPs demand total ban on alcohol in Bahrain

MPs yesterday unanimously demanded a total ban on alcohol in Bahrain. They voted in favour of a parliament-proposed law banning the import, possession, sale or production of alcohol. But to become law, the proposal would have to be accepted by the government and the Shura Council.

MPs said the current law, initiated in 1956, allowing the import, possession, sale and production of alcohol under government supervision was unconstitutional and should be scrapped.

There is really no reason to panic. Trouncing on personal freedoms is nothing new for this parliament, the one whose job is ironically to do the impossible to protect them. Nor should we expect them even to read the crystal-clear constitution which specifically says:

The religion of the State is Islam. The Islamic Shari’a is a principal source for legislation. The official language is Arabic.

Which means that the Islamic Shari’a is not the exclusive source of legislation – thank God. Because had it been, then those bozos would have knocked us back to the stone ages already, and would have had no qualms about doing so. Their motivation of course is to earn those promised brownie points to tool those promised waiting nymphs in heaven, even at the expense of making hell seem like a better place than the life they want to design for us on Earth.

I’m not sure if I should be thankful for the Shura Council being there which a lot of people regard as the safety valve which would stop such idiotic schemes; I actually wish that it wasn’t there so that these morons would carry on with their schemes so much that people will have to actually rise up against them and kick their hairy butts out of office.

But as we do have the Shura Council whether we like it or not, and I am a bit busy this morning, let me end this quick piece by inviting those 40 morons to kiss my hairy padouka for all I care about them trying to rob what little personal freedoms we do have.

But in the case that they do – for some completely inexplicable reason – get their way and the government does ban alcohol, I will start distilling some good hooch myself and will make it available free to whomever wants, just to spite both!

Or at least that’s what our dear parliamentarians and their Islamist sympathisers think. So what’s so special about this lady then, that would make her so damnably dangerous that they’re all frothing at the mouth to bar her from performing in Bahrain?

Well my friends, I hope this vlog will demonstrate that there is really nothing unusual about her, other than being a beautiful lady who can’t sing! But those qualities could hardly be held against her, she is not the first and most certainly not the last person to use what Allah has given her to her advantage.

So sit back, relax, and watch what you will be missing if she decides not to bother with a little sand-pit called Bahrain because of a few neophytes’ deafening braying.

This is yesterday’s episode, sorry, had meetings outside and didn’t get back to the office to collect the laptop before going home. So I did this on Arif’s digital snapper, and the quality ain’t bad. I might actually go and buy a similar little shooter to shoot the M.Reports through. Let me know which you prefer.

Two things; apart from scratching my nose while talking, which is a habit that has been brought to my attention – thanks my friend! – I also seem to use a lot of “apart from that” too! I’m exposing all of my bad habits to you and hope for forgiveness, ’cause I ain’t gonna change!

Today (yesterday) I talk about the pending visit of Hayfa Wahbi who stirred most of our parliamentary members to erectly stand and vigorously complain about her pending visit to these isles of golden smiles and want her banned. Just like they did a few years ago with the delectable Nancy Ajram, this time they are unanimous in their condemnation of the harlot (their words) visiting to corrupt our youth.

I say just give the buggers a box of tissues each and squat them in front of a giant screen showing the gyrating artiste go through her moves. In all probability they will be busy with themselves and leave us alone to choose – for ourselves – what we do and don’t want to do, see and hear.

For those others who actually enjoy live music and dance and want to simply while away the evening with their friends and loved ones, have fun at the concert which I hope that the government for once, just once, will throw the religious zealotry of its parliamentarians to the wind and give the people something to be happy about.

I was feeling quite despondent in this episode, I get that way sometimes, but I tell you what, I actually found the perfect cure which is guaranteed to lift you out of that mood should you experience it. All you have to do is…. watch the episode!

Finally, after 137 days, Fouad Al-Farhan has been released from prison in Jeddah, KSA still without the charges against him being declared. I’m happy. Happy too to be contacted by my teacher, Mr. Gary Brown, and I share with you my views on advertising billboards in Bahrain as well as shopping for simple pieces of furniture.

Saudi Jeans reports that Fouad Al-Farhan has been released from custody after a 137 days incarceration, held without any charges.

We don’t know the details of his release and what he had to give up or sign for the authorities to finally let him go, I suspect we will hear his stories quite soon – I hope.

In any case, I am very happy indeed for his release.

Welcome home Fouad!

It’s the end of the first day of the weekend, been gardening and now I’m pretty tired, so what better way to unwind other than to go into a complete….

Sinecio Confusus (Mexican Flame Vine), originally uploaded by malyousif.

I’ve had moderate success with this plant. It grows okay for a season or two and then gets either attacked by the mealy bug and dies, or just dies by itself.

Nevertheless, while it is alive and blooming, i am sure you will agree with me that this is a rather nice looking plant.

This time rather than planting it in the ground, I put it in a pot and placed it by the pool. Seems to like its location so far.

I bought this from Anne Al-Jalahma at the recent Farmer’s Market. She’s got a wonderful specimen in her nursery that is climbing a corner up a scaffold and it looks really gorgeous. I hope this one will grow to look like that one too.

Have a wonderful Friday my friends!

Bad habits, inffective parliament – again – and the start of a review of the happenings in the Den and Matrix Horsey makes an appearnce too!

When I first started blogging, way back in 2001 when blogging was the new new thing, this site used to be called Kick the Dog! What reminded me of that time is my updating some preferences in blip.tv which offers the opportunity to automagically cross post your videos to various services, one of which is the Internet Archive. Just for fun, I plugged in the Den and clicked on the 2001 link just to visit those days… and “Kick the Dog” came up.

I remember a very humourous story behind choosing such a name; apart from it appealing to my weird sense of humour, it reflected a particular dog obedience class in which one of my fellow students was so exasperated with his dog as it was just not doing what it was told that he implored the instructor to tell him what he can do with his dog. I immediately shouted back to him and instructed him to “kick it” and he did! Everybody was absolutely shocked at first, and then the situation descended in complete and uncontrollable laughter. Everyone was just rolling on the ground, some physically, laughing at what the guy did. I was one of those on the ground. I did pity the guy though, he felt so embarrassed, especially that the instructor herself just couldn’t look in his direction without bursting out laughing.

To this day, when I remember that episode I laugh so hard that I inevitably carry on wiping my tears for many hours at the recollection. It is weird the kind of memories one carries within them. This one wasn’t cruel, it was completely unexpected and eventually through subsequent classes, he too started laughing at his own self.

That’s how the name “Kick the Dog” came up, which was preceeded between 1986 – 1995 (I think) by “Stray Cats BBS”. I’m sure some of you remember that one too!

Google this and you will find that the common denominator is that no matter how big a family gets, if they just depend on their own gene-pool, they are bound to fail. In the larger scheme of things, families – even good ones – can and do produce morons.

They fail, because they disregard everyone’s advice and put those morons in places of authority – just because they are family members.

The second reason you will find in your search, is that because they stuff their kith and kin in their boards so much that they dilute their board’s effectively, resulting in weak infrastructure that directly affects decision making.

Those who survive, on the other hand, are inevitably led by those who have the required cojones to stand up to familial and peer pressures and follow their longer term vision resolutely, without succumbing to mediocre decisions made for momentary or egotistical gains.

You will find that those people have no fear in sharing their authority and trusting even “outsiders” to run their show based on ability, rather than proximity of blood-lines.

Sex is never too far from Islamists’ minds, it seems, especially if they are law makers. This might be because they view their legislative role as nothing more than protecting people from themselves – according to their views anyway – and ensuring that society toes the straight and narrow – again, according to their definitions – in order to prevent them from going to hell and eternal damnation.

It could also be for selfish reasons, where they view that with executing that “over-sight” role in parliament and life, they would receive untold brownie points from Allah in Heaven and by that ensure that they can have as much sex as they want then. Deferred payment, if you like.

I’m not sure if anyone calculated how much time they spent in parliament discussing what they find objectionable: sex in general, homosexuality, lesbianism, butch girls, you name it, but the amount of time they dedicate to penalising sexual criminals and child rapists is close to zero. The time they spend in ensuring that personal freedoms are sacrosanct, is probably nil, and the time they consumed even discussing changing their own bylaws in order for them to be more effective is zero.

However, when it comes to a sitting member of parliament maligning not one, but TWO countries with which we have diplomatic ties as “homosexual deviants” – they give him the mic and increase the volume!

Oooh, a minister DISRESPECTED parliament today. They went ape and I have footage to show it! Other than that, Batelco (aka Fashelco) decided to “look nice” but the process resulted in it receiving some deserved ridicule.

That’s how much a life if worth, according to lawyers to Mr. Abdulla Al-Kobaisi, the owner of a dhow in which 58 people were killed due to his gross and criminal incompetence, its so called captain and the government agencies which actually registered and allowed it to sail as a tourism vessel.

The owner has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in jail. That sentence got halved, and – maybe due to his “status” – the poor thing is incarcerated at an undisclosed hospital in Bahrain with “serious health complications” – those complications do not, it seems, preclude him from running his businesses and ruining the lives of the survivors and the families of those who perished in his disastrous tub of a boat.

Now, the GDN tells us that he has already compensated 12 of the 27 affected families, the rest, for some reason, he is only offering BD500 per life lost as final compensation.

Take it or leave it.

Can you blame those affected by his incompetence for feeling disgusted? I would hazard a guess that on top of their grief, their loss, they also feel raped and turned over by a system that allows criminals to while away their time molly coddled in spas simply because they can afford to bend the system to their liking, and a system that has absolutely no regard for the sanctity of human life.

Disgusting.