Dear bloggers especially the ones who will vote, we have only one week before the elections and I would like to address the people who are still undecided or disgusted by the current choices on all sides, I would like to tell you a few things on my mind one final time before you go to vote:

1. As a supporter of March 14 principles (NO thank you to Syria, NO obedience to the Iran mullah), I still have to agree with the Aounieh when they talk about SA7 and GHALAT, because in life things can be SA7 or GHALAT. The problem is that the first GHALAT is when March 8 claim to have a monopole on SA7, no one has a monopole on what is right, beware the one who always claim he is right and never admits that ever he was wrong, because he is dangerous.

2. As a supporter of March 14 I don’t need to have everything perfect and right and I will not say I am disgusted with politics if some things are not perfect, what I care about is that the critical choices are right, I want what all other people on the planet believe in, I want only ONE president to rule the country not one president and one Secretary General who shares his power, I want to pay from my own money for ONE army to protect me I don’t want extra militia protection bought with Iranian money, March 8 want you to believe that your army can never protect you so you need their protection (like the Mafia say to the shops in their area). Don’t be fooled so easily, the March 14 group are not always right and can not be perfect to earn your vote, they just have to abide by the March 14 principles of supporting the state institutions like the president, the army, the justice system, so if you hear someone talk about supporting militia weapons in the country then you should vote against him.

3. Please remember what the candidate said few months ago before you believe what he says today, if he tells you never in his life he felt threatened by Hezbollah weapons then go to youtube and hear what he said about them before, if he tells you his program is to end feudalism in Metn then remember that if Murr did not leave him few months ago he would not say this today, so he is lying this is not his program, this is only a convenient slogan today and his intention is not clean.

4. Please remember that never in the history of the world did an election or any political event make all problems go away, never did anyone remove all corruption, never did anyone make you 100% safe, never did anyone who promise you the moon deliver it. Beware of the one who promise you the moon, they are usually lying, ou kif iza ken terikho kello fashal ou hazeyim ou haribeh.

Finally remember that when Gibran Tueiny was killed our side cried and the other side celebrated with shouts Na3iman ya Gibran, when Pierre Gemayel was killed our side cried and the other side attacked the mourners going to the funeral, when Rafic Hariri was killed our side told Syria enough killing us since 1975 but the other side said Thank you Syria. If you are still undecided about which side is working SA7 on the critical national choices and which is side is working GHALAT, then remember one thing, these people became martyrs because they believed in freedom of choice not obedience to the mullah, if you vote for the mullah project you will not hurt the martyrs because they are already dead, but you will hurt yourself because you will give your freedom of choice as a free gift to Khamenei and justice minister Jamil Sayyed.

If you hate Joumblat I understand you, but did you notice how March 8 started praising him from Nasrallah down (Nasrallah praised the PSP in his last speech), before they told us we are criminals like our ally Joumblat, now they don’t mention him. Don’t think if you vote for March 8 you are voting against Joumblat, don’t think if you vote for March 14 you are voting for Joumblat, this election is about much more important things than Joumblat.

Good luck and I hope after the election we will go back to less insults and more funny jokes on the blog like before!

PS: Can you imagine a group in 1918 making a demo in downtown to say Thank You Jamal Basha Al Saffa7 ???

What is happening in this country? I watch the news and feel like I’m in class and should be explaining fallacies!

Watching the news has become a pain… a pain I can’t live without sadly! I always find myself ready to scream…and the causes are a few. So I decided to list them in a post here, plus provide an example.

A Fallacy is any error of reasoning. Now what are some common fallacies? and as you read this list, please try to remember whether you’ve encountered any of these, and I am sure you have in the news or in our dear politicians’ speeches.

Now what are some common fallacies that I have seen?

Ad Hominem – attacking the person instead of refuting the argument

Faulty Cause/effect – arguing that one event caused another without sufficient evidence of a causal relationship.

Hasty conclusion – drawing a firm conclusion without enough evidence confirming it.

Hasty generalization – arguing that what is true of a few members of a group must be true of the whole.

Non Sequitur – where the conclusion does not follow from the evidence provided and reasoning (most fallacies can be described as Non Sequitur in one way or another)

Tu Quoque – (you too fallacy) responding to charges of wrongdoing by claiming the other person has also done something wrong.

The above is just a small list of fallacies. Now, why did I decide to write this before going to the nighclub and dancing my heart out on saturday night?

Because of one story I heard on OTV.

and just because i am using the story on OTV does not mean other channels don’t do the same.

The story goes like this:

Michel Faraoun said that Tarek Mitri’s wife told him of how Aoun bombed Ashrafieh pre 1990. So OTV took this story and made it into a whole discussion of how Annahar had once posted an article on Tarek Mitri in 2008, talking about how he was involved in trying to nationalize the Palestinians. and this article was used as a means to refute what Mitri’s wife said about bombs falling on her house!

In class, I would usually ask my students to name the fallacies in this reasoning. But that’s not my point here. my point is to vent! yes, vent! because our younger generation is being exposed to these reasoning techniques.

I just hope they have the strength to suppess these and move ahead…that’s my only hope.

So what seems to be the problem?

Many people I talk to are either unaware of this issue or don’t think it’s such a problem.

Inno you tell me whether it is a problem to have more than 50% of the population unable to claim their full rights as lebanese citizens? people who hear me talking about this assume i must have a personal stake in this, because of course… as if only those who are married to non-lebanese should care.

Well no, I don’t have a personal stake.
And No, I am not doing this because I’m on Hariri’s payroll and want to naturalize the Palestinians.

I, and those like me, are doing this because it is not fair for women to continuously be treated as second class citizens in a country that they have built and sacrificed for.

So yes, we have one final chance before the current batch of “wonderful” ministers leave the cabinet. one last chance to get them to pass the law in one of their ad hoc sessions. After that, it will be discussed by the new parliament and amended if necessary (especially concerning the Palestinian dimension).

So please, Join us tomorrow from 4 to 7 pm in front of the Grand Serail.

We are the change that we want to achieve!

Anyone know what happened to the lebanese-forces.org?
I usually go there to see the anti Geagea and pro HA, pro Aoun posts,but now the site is out of commission. Basically checking on the brain-dead opponents from time to time.

While I can’t say that I am sad to see it offline since I think it had become a mockery of anything pertaining to the LF, I would be curious to know what happened to it.

I wrote on that Forum from 1997 until it turned into Cedars personal vendetta against the current LF. Sad ending if it really is. Many of us had asked that the site change it’s name from ‘official’ out of respect for the wishes of the current Leader of the LF no matter how much disagreement existed.

LJ