Categories
Internet Lebanon

Google Knows Everything?!

Found those quotes by Rafik Hariri on google news after the football match our politicians played! I guess google missed a thing or two in 2005!

From this error I guess what google news does when looking for quotes is try to find a full name for some last name that is followed by a quote. For example all the articles contain: “Hariri said: blabla”. Since most of the articles are from foreign news outlets they have a summary on where does Saad Hariri come from containing “Rafik Hariri died in a …” so what google does is that it looks for the full name of a person inside a bunch of articles and assumes he’s the one giving opinions.

Categories
Funny Lebanon Politics World

MTV is back!

MTV is finaly back!

Categories
Internet Lebanon

Google Lebanon is here!

We finaly have a version of google made for Lebanon! www.google.com.lb! Does anyone have any info about it? Do you know what the 4th language is?

Categories
Cars Lebanon Personal

Lebanese roads vs my Fiat

Everyone knows the state the Lebanese roads are in, Potholes are everywhere and with time you get a reflex that enables you to move away from them. I have a good experience escaping from them since I have to drive on the road linking Mont La Salle to USJ Mar Roukoz every week and on this road there are more potholes then asphalt.

Unfortunately sometimes your reflex doesn’t work and you fall in one of the trenches and this is what happened to me last week! I was driving on the Antelias highway and I was going to go up on the bridge when I fell in one of the potholes! The car shook, I figured that was it but I was wrong! we started hearing a “flap flap” sound coming from the right front wheel. I moved to the side of the highway where 2 cars were already parked (victims of the pothole too) and checked the wheel, it was flat on the ground!

There’s a shop that fixes tires on the other side of the highway so i decided to turn around and get the tire fixed. When we arrived to the place there was already a guy getting his tire fixed and it turned out he fell into the same pothole. The Egyptian running the place quickly removed the wheel and checked it, my rim was bended but the tire was still okay! He hit the rim with a hammer to straighten it but told me that wasn’t enough I needed to either get the rim fixed somewhere else since he can’t do that or put a “chambre á air” in the tire. I told him to just replace the tire with the spare one.

All this happened on Saturday night, so on Sunday morning I went searching for an open tire shop and found one in Antelias, he quickly fixed my rim and put the old tire back in place, but while returning home I noticed the car was lightly turning to the left while driving and since I had already scheduled a maintenance check at the dealership for the following week I decided to tell them about it and get it fixed there. It didn’t turn out to be something serious so they just fixed it without charging me for it and now my car is back like new!

That was last week and the hole that damaged 3 other cars on that hour of that night is still wide open! I wonder how many cars this pothole breaks everyday!

Did you ever fall in one of the trenches on our road? What happened to your car?

Categories
Lebanon Weird

Spiderman in Lebanon

You know you’re studying a lot when you learn about a Lebanese event from a Kuwaiti blog! Apparently Alain Robert (the guy who climbs building around the world and gets arrested at the end) was in Lebanon last week to climb the Phoenicia Hotel, But in Lebanon the whole thing was advertised (Gillette was the sponsor) and from the background music and comments I guess it was being broadcasted live on the Radio.

Here’s the video of the event:

Categories
Lebanon Nature

Lebanese Canadian Bank Going Green

The Lebanese Canadian bank recently launched an ad campaign about them “going green” … and that’s basicly it :P

I just visited the site, I was greeted by a banner about the fact that they are going green but I couldn’t find any other info about that. It’s a good thing a Lebanese bank is doing that and I hope other banks and companies will follow but does anyone know how they are planning to do that?

Categories
Lebanon Personal Weird

No Paper Tissue at the Bain Militaire!!!

A week ago, my Girlfriend and I went to the first bain militaire at Kaslik. It was a long time since we went there. The place was nice and relatively calm, but they told me it gets a little crowded on weekends.

After swiming and tanning for a while we decided to get something to eat. We headed to the restaurant and checked the menu. The menu was composed of a variety of fast foods including the Bain Militaire exclusive specialty The BErgers: The HambErger, The CheesebErger for cheese lovers and the ChickenbErger for the chicken lovers…

The service at the restaurant was amazingly fast, our bErgers were delivered in less than 2 minutes. We headed to our table but noticed they didn’t give us any paper tissues. So I went back there to get some, but the guy told me they didn’t have any! I went to the cashier to try and get some, but he didn’t have any tissues too. I told him I will buy some if they sell and apparently they don’t even sell them!

No Paper Tissue at the Bain Militaire!!!

I know our army cannot afford buying enough weapons but I am pretty sure they can get some paper tissues to use at their clubs.

Categories
Lebanon People World

Prison Break – Lebanon

According to Naharnet a real life prison break (there’s a TV show called Prison Break in case you don’t know) is currently taking place in Lebanon. 11 prisoners escaped from the Zahle prison this week end and the police already got 5 back in. I am pretty sure that unlike the show those prisoners did some serious crimes so I am hopping they catch the remaining 6.

Another thing I saw at Naharnet was a WAN advertisement concerning journalist being held in China for speaking the truth, You can send a message demanding the release of all imprisoned journalists ahead of the Olympic Games from the WAN website here.

Categories
Animals Lebanon

Cattle transport to and in Lebanon

The WSPA (World society for the protection of animals) launched a campaign against long distance transport of animals for slaughter and Lebanon is one of the countries accused of making the animals suffer while transporting them.

Here’s what they say about the problem on the WSPA website.

Each week thousands of live cattle undertake a three week journey from the Amazon port of Belem in Brazil to Beirut in Lebanon.

Cattle are crammed into trucks in the burning Amazon heat. For four days they will be unable to move or lay down and will receive no food or water. Those that fall are trapped and injured. At the ship, the use of electric prods for loading further distresses the weakened cattle. Crushed against unfamiliar animals, the cattle can injure each other in their agitation. Heat stroke, trauma and respiratory disease will all be killers on the seventeen day voyage.

On arrival in Lebanon, cattle are often slaughtered in ways that are inhumane and violate religious requirements. After weeks of needless animal suffering, the consumer is misled into believing the meat is ‘Halal’. Humane slaughter, close to home, would not only end the cruelty, it would create jobs in Brazil.

You can check a map of the trip from Brazil to Lebanon with pictures and videos on the original campaign site.

I am for ending cruelty to animals but I don’t really like the solution they offer since it will result in less jobs in Lebanon, instead I think some sort of law that regulates animal transport should be made and applied when transporting animals to and in Lebanon.

Categories
Lebanon

23-02-80 – Remember Maya Bachir Gemayel

28 years ago Maya Bachir Gemayel was killed in an explosion targeting her father.

RIP Maya Bachir Gemayel and the 3 martyrs that died with her, Antoine Wakim, Nehemtallah Ghanem and Elias Lahoud.

maya bachir gemayel