Tribunal tribulations

How can the LF leader make these statements and sound in any way credible? At the risk of stating the obvious, consider the following scenario:


- Mr. A is found dead. Three witnesses come forward, all stating that Mr. B did it.

- Mr. B gets arrested and waits in jail for the investigation to continue.

- Later, Mr. B is released with no charge, completely innocent.

Shouldn't it follow that the witnesses who came forward to accuse Mr. B, at the very least, be interrogated? Why did they all tell the same (false) story? Who was behind it? Could the witnesses possibly provide clues as to who the real culprit was, or at least lead investigators in the right direction?

Now back to the situation at hand. My point here is not to defend the four security chiefs or Syria. The security chiefs who were arrested are no angels. There is no shortage of accusations that they are corrupt individuals who helped Syria strangle the country during the occupation. Ideally, they should be investigated for those crimes, as should every official in Lebanon who is suspected of corruption.

Since the security chiefs were arrested on the testimony of multiple witnesses and later released, then the witnesses' testimonies were false, in which case those witnesses merit investigation. This is not rocket science.

So how can anyone then imply that there are no false witnesses?

If the tribunal is not investigating the witnesses (and to all appearances it is not), how can Rafik Hariri's son, Saad, or we, the Lebanese, or the UN view it as a credible body that is performing its duties with due diligence?

Again, everything I've said here is obvious, but it seems that many people either refuse to see it, or in the case of certain politicians, actively deny it.

Am I way off here? Is there something I'm missing?

The gods must be financially inept

Somewhat related to a previous post, I found this today. It seems that our fellow Asians over in India are taking religion to the next level:

AN Indian court has ruled that Hindu gods cannot deal in stocks and shares, after an application for trading accounts to be set up in their names.
Two judges at the Bombay High Court yesterday rejected a petition from a private religious trust to open accounts in the names of five deities, including the revered elephant-headed god, Ganesha.
"Trading in shares on the stock market requires certain skills and expertise and to expect this from deities would not be proper," judges P.B. Majumdar and Rajendra Sawant said, according to Indian newspapers.

Apparently, the judges don't think Ganesha can handle the stresses of the stock market. Who can, right?

Ganesa or Ganesh, also known as Ganapati,
Vinayaka, and Pillaiyar

If it was up to me, they should open up a brokerage firm, or a fund management company in Ganesha's name. Who better to manage your assets than the 'remover of obstacles' who also happens to be immortal?

But the levy was dry

Now that the World Cup is over, what is this dude going to do with his pimped out Chevy Cavalier?

It says "HOLAND" across the top of the trunk.

In retrospect, maybe spray-painting his car fluorescent orange wasn't such a good idea. He's probably kicking himself.

And it's kinda sad that as big a fan of Holland as he is, he can't spell it right. On the other hand, I could be wrong and this masterpiece of modern design could just be an homage to the controversial lost continent of Ho-Land.

If you look closely, you can see that one of his friends left what looks like a Spane flag in the back of the car.

A post with a moral

The other day I was driving on the highway towards Jounieh, and there was quite a bit of traffic. Consequently, there was a fair number of hawkers selling bug zappers, straw hats, cologne, etc. on the side of the road. Just past the tunnel, I saw this guy:

Selling sponges that clean
and shine your dashboard

Well, some guy in a shiny new CLK a few cars ahead of mine decided he wanted one of those sponges and started haggling with the hawker. Traffic was stop-and-go, so the peddler had to jog every few seconds to keep up with the CLK. A few times, traffic was more go than stop, and he had to jog a hundred meters or so to continue negotiating the deal. This went on for some time, and after about one kilometer, the CLK dude decided the sponge was beyond his price range, indicated by the peddler dropping his pursuit of the car.

Now, considering that the price of one of those sponges couldn't have been more than LL 5,000 ($3.33), and the poor peddler had just jogged over a kilometer in the blazing sun trying to make the sale, the guy in the car should have felt bad after the first hundred meters or so and just bought the damn sponge. Instead, he kept the negotiation going and turned the guy down flat.

Moral: Lebanese who drive expensive cars are pricks.

Death wish?

Considering the arrests and censorship that have occurred, this guy has balls!

I am reminded of a blogger whose blog disappeared off the face of the earth a couple years ago, Tantalus of the infamous I Hate Lebanon blog. His posts about the Lebanese establishment were less than glowing, to say the least, and one day the blog vanished, as did his email address.

If nothing happens to this Hanibaal, then my theory that the people in our government who are monitoring this stuff either do not speak English or are not interested in English commentary will have been corroborated. But if that is the case, what happened to Tantalus?

Who's your momma?

This is priceless! It's even better than the Mickey Mouse fatwa. For a list of other bizarre fatwas, click here.

Speaking of breasts, and not to be outdone by the enlightened clerics in Saudi Arabia, the Christian faith has also had its share of weirdos.

Lebanon: the next China

This is an update to my previous post.

In a completely unexpected move, the entire forum at tayyar.org has been taken offline. Remember that trend I was talking about? One can't help but wonder who else will start getting censored/arrested for criticizing our political leaders.

As an exercise, try doing a google search for the following:

hate -insert your favorite Lebanese political figure's name here-

As you'll see, there is no shortage of hate sites out there. Who's gonna be next?