Here ye! Hear ye!

You do bad bad stuff in Saudi and you’re a foreigner, you get your ‘ead chopped off. But if you don’t believe that, then, well, y’know, the very contemporary authorities in the other Magic Kingdom have devised quite a novel approach to deter those who contemplate jiggy-jiggying with it and do some “bad stuff” as determined by their impartial and equitable and divine and – well – just Saudi justice system. Like this:

Saudi Arabia has put the bodies of four Sri Lankans beheaded in Riyadh on display in public in an effort to deter a rising crime wave by foreigners.

See how creative that is? I am absolutely convinced that as Saudi – home of Islam’s two holiest sites – have now set a precedent for the rest of the Muslim Umma to follow, especially as this new deterrent is approved, condoned and sanctified by their highest authorities; therefore, I warrant that crucifixion after the Shari’a compliant beheading shall be the new norm. I expect that ardent followers of this generous interpretation of our religion, especially those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other “Key US Strategic Allies” shall perfect this new form of deterrent in order to reduce crime.

Believe me that won’t take too long. Expect new announcements and pictures of this very contemporary form of deterrent to appear on your news sources very soon. And it’s about time too, because:

“There is a pressing need to review many of the negative practices of foreigners in the kingdom,” al-Riyadh quoted Abdel-Rahman al-Luweiheq, who teaches at the Imam bin Saud University, as saying.

“Foreigners in the kingdom are implementing criminal plans made abroad,” he said, referring to mafia-like outfits. [source]

Which is a contention oft repeated by our very own lawmakers. Those illustrious doyens of faith, protectors of our morals and upholders of Islam and protectors of our culture and traditions against the unwashed uncouth heathen hordes who do not know their place within our pure race. Without our preeminent lawmakers and their symbiotic clerics, our divine ascendancy to Heaven must surely be interrupted if not derailed completely. After all, we can never know what is best for us nor can we make our own minds up as to what is right and what is wrong.

So ye foreigners be warned! Thou shalt not sully our purity! Thou shalt not dare think yourselves equal to us, the chosen people of Allah! Thou shall get your just deserts, as determined by our most learned and most just – in a contemporary form, of course, lest the world think of us as heinous barbarians.

But we don’t give a damn about what the world thinks of us anyway. We know better.

[edit: link to today's story: Saudi beheads and crucifies murder convict - #2]

After a long hiatus, MtvSM is back in lights!

What’s MtvSM I hear you ask? It’s that ancient Mahmood’s Den tradition where I authorise you to completely and unequivocally to lay the blame on a person or entity of my choosing. Fear not, they are not defenceless, they can – and have often done and are encouraged to – rebut your blames and claims or succumb to their inevitable premature death if they choose not to.

So my friends, this time, the honour goes to a friend who heretofore goes by a mere moniker and it’s up to them to make themselves known should they wish to. Regardless though, they still shall take the blame while I’m off on my business travels. For a whole week. So until I return, please do help me resurrect this tradition by copiously laying the blame at the feat of:

D K!

I completely blame DK for the Swine Flu and the opportunism of the Islamists who should blame DK for this pandemic, rather than killing defenceless and delicious piglets throughout the Umma.

I sit here now in the lounge waiting for my flight and see the dread painted on each of my fellow traveller’s faces when anyone sniffles, let alone sneezes!

Yes DK, you are to blame for this. You should be completely ashamed of yourself!

Frangipani flowers, originally uploaded by malyousif.

I wish you a very happy Friday my friends.

I received an interesting email from a friend this morning, with pictures, which I thought is worthy of translation and sharing.

There is an active campaign in Bahrain at the moment by consumers to force greedy car dealerships to reduce their prices. It’s apparently fashioned after a Saudi campaign which some say already bore fruit.

The essence of this campaign is to not buy cars, let the stock rust if need be, until dealers take active steps to make car prices in Bahrain comparable to world markets. The email cites some staggering prices that if true, demonstrate the abject greed which should only be rewarded by completely shunning the owning company’s (if not family’s) businesses.

Here’s the translation – I vouch not for these figures, if anyone has any corroboration, please comment:

Let them Rust

There are approximately 9,500 cars in Mina Sulman with no buyers in sight. An agreement has been struck between the importers to move their stock to their warehouses outside of Mina Sulman due to its closure [and taking over by the US Navy's 5th Fleet apparently.]

Friday 15th May 2009: see pictures below of shots taken at the port 3 months ago.

Al-Moayyed’s car companies didn’t sell more than 60 cars since the start of 2009 and anyone can go to witness their stock in Saar without a buyer in sight.

Kanoo transported more than 3,000 cars to their warehouses in Sitra.

The pictures below show the cars in Mina Sulman due to the global economic downturn and no one wants them. I implore everyone in Bahrain to start the “Let Them Rust” campaign as in Saudi until the dealers reduce car prices to parity with the rest of the world.

We came to know that dealers actually raised prices by 5% rather than reduce them. Let them fester in their warehouses, full in the knowledge that the car costs are quite cheap.

Here are examples of actual costs:

Toyota Corolla: Cost BD2,800 including customs and shipping, resale price BD6,500

Camry with costs: Cost BD4,000 but resale price is over BD9,000

Land Cruiser costs BD7,500 with full options is sold for over BD16,000

Mustang costs BD4,000 but sold for BD11,000

Lancer costs less than BD2,000 but sold for over BD5,500

Honda Accord costs approximately BD4,200 but is sold for BD9,000

Lexus ES300 with full options costs BD5,500 but is sold for BD15,000, even though they are sold as 2009 models while they actually are 2008. Be careful, they might even be sold as 2010 models!

Please don’t buy any cars [in Bahrain] unless traders reduce their prices appropriately. Citizens! You live on perpetual loans, be careful!

Decoy parakeet trapping cage with rose-ringed parakeet trapped inside, originally uploaded by malyousif.

My blood is still boiling.

As we were finishing our sumptuous special Friday Breakfast, my wife noticed a cage or trap which appeared to have been set on our perimeter fence! She also noticed that what looked like a trapped parrot inside!

I didn’t waste much time, I immediately unhooked my step ladder, went to the fence and retrieved the cage, complete with a male rose-ringed parakeet, into our garden.

On closer inspection, the contraption was ingenious, albeit barbaric and cruel. It was surrounded with tens of very fine looped fish-wire loops arranged in hang-man nooses which would trap anything that falls into them. I wouldn’t be surprise if those nooses – being so thin – would not completely sever the feet of poor unfortunate birds that land in them. My own fingers were trapped into them several times as I was dealing with the cage.

The cage itself was divided into two compartments, the top one inch contains some monkey nuts which the bird does not have access to – he has to make do with a wilted bit of apple and a couple of nuts, no water – and the bottom is where the decoy bird is, as clearly seen from the picture.

The whole contraption is well thought out. Even the pole that the cage is tied to is well thought out, it is constructed in a modular format in three sections, one fitting on top of the other – lego style, which is how the height of the trap is adjusted.

I cut the side of the cage while Frances tried to calm the bird a bit. I can tell you that it didn’t require too much encouragement to fly out.

Free at last.

Once that was done, I completely destroyed the cage, and waited for a knock on the door.

That didn’t take too long.

Two well turned out and very healthy looking young men in their twenties wanted to speak to me. The first question from one of them was “did you take the trap?”

“Yes,” I said, “and released the bird and destroyed the trap”

“Why? The trap was in the street beside your house!”

I couldn’t believe the cold heartedness of those guys.

“Yes, but you are taking ill-advantage of our goodness. What made you decide to place a trap there?”

“Because we noticed a lot of birds come here”

“Well, didn’t that intimate that we actually love birds, put out food for them to invite them into our garden and make them feel safe enough for them to return over a long period of time? What gives you the right to destroy all of our work? What gives you the right to take advantage of our efforts without any thought or consideration?”

“Yes but we were just trying to make a living!”

“Well son, you can make a more honourable living than stealing other people’s efforts in such a heinous manner. If you object to the way I dealt with your trap – and I shall continue to do so – then feel free to go to the police and complain.”

“No no, we don’t want to do that…”

“Fine, then don’t, but you both look intelligent enough and healthy enough to find a more honourable way to make a living. Not by taking advantage of other people right in their homes like this.”

Something must have clicked in their heads that they won’t win that morning, and they won’t get their contraption back. They apologized and went on their way. Hopefully never to be seen in our neighbourhood again.

The sad thing is I’ll probably find that the law is actually on their side and there is no law in this country to even limit the damage they are doing to the environment and wildlife.

This reminds me of the sad state of affairs that animals are kept in Bahrain, and particularly the despicable treatment animals are treated with in this country and the disgusting public souqs in which one could find any kind of domestic and exotic animal. All in the complete knowledge and acceptance of the authorities.

   

Something should be done about this. Some cultural change must be invested in to get people to at least be a bit more compassionate to animals. I know that parliament is far too busy with other much more important things at the moment to even consider laws of animal protection, and the police – bless their hearts – are far too busy in their own way too…

Friday Breakfast – the spread, originally uploaded by malyousif.

We’re so happy to have our eldest daughter Amna back with us for her university summer break. To celebrate (well, and an excuse to pig out too!) we prepared a full Friday Breakfast spread. What you see in this picture is the traditional heart-attack food, and then some. I’ll highlight the dishes and what their called on Flickr, so please click on the picture to view the notes.

The spread includes the local Bahraini (or Iranian) unleavened bread called Khobiz (center), some vegetable samboosa (or samoosa as some call them), cheese samboosa, aloo (deep fried potato dumplings), curried tomatoes, chopped tomatoes, scrambled eggs, curried tomato with scrambled eggs, labna, gaimer (thick cream, we normally eat this with a little salt mixed in, some like it sweet so they mix it with sugar), chick peas and yogurt.

If there is something left of this, I normally get more samboosas than could be inhaled in a single sitting, they keep well in the fridge for several re-visits through the day.

I hope you enjoy your breakfast whatever it and I hope too that you have an excellent Friday and weekend my friends.

   

In business, the quickest way to lose a prospect is to kill them by PowerPoint. Believe me I have seen that happen. Countless times. But presentations are a fact of life and is one of the best ways to impart your knowledge and experience.

The trick; though, is to engage your audience regardless of how sexy your slides are and however many pictures, animations or videos those slides contain. And, if you want to do this – presenting – successfully, then you’d better learn from avowed experts in the field and emulate not their content, but their style and mold it to your own.

TED is probably one of the best sites you can not only learn how to present from – by emulating the excellent people who have been invited to share their thoughts in their various forums – but much more importantly to get inspired in a very wide range of subjects by as well. Believe me, you will be a better person by opening your eyes, heart and mind to almost all the presentations and presenters contained in TED.

Not unsurprisingly, they have a “ten commandments” which successful presenters will want to stick to for any topic (yes, that also translates to sales):

1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.
2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before.
3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.
4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story.
5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.
6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.

In order for you to watch how these rules are applied, read the list on Garr Raynold’s Prezentation Zen blog and watch his recommendations. I assure you they are worth your while.

Yeah, I have a bit of free time and I’m almost fed up of being limited by Facebook, so, I’ll blog whenever and wherever my fancy is tickled… just – please – don’t expect miracles. Life does go on.

Happy, DK?

Sunflowers, originally uploaded by malyousif.

Happy Friday my friends.