I (Don't) Think

Higher and Practical Values for a Better Algeria #DzBlogDay

2012-01-14T03:52:00.000-08:00

A cup of tea in the hand, with an exhausted mind and a deprived from free time soul, I am giving myself the privilege to hand out the deep wisdom that would lead the wandering youth in their quest for a brighter Algeria.

No really, it is easy -as most of you have pointed out in the comments since the beginning of time- to criticize the Algerian 'exceptional' situation, but on the opposite, very hard to suggest or think of practical solutions that would bring a change, even slightly, to that very 'exceptional' situation.

Acknowledging this, I would however list some important points that I think are of great importance to Men in general. I believe that if it is not a dictatorship that could bring justice and prosperity to the people, then only personal values and high ethics could. To my mind, here are these values:

Educate yourself and your children. It is unnecessary to go through the arguments of why knowledge determines the power and the dominance of a nation and its citizens, now more than any time, knowledge determines and shapes countries. Science, art and the humanities are all of great importance for a prosperous civilization, unfortunately young students are given the message even before university that only medicine, pharmaceutical and engineering studies are worth to pursue in Algeria. The acceptance conditions show that political studies, psychology, philosophy, literature, history and much others are of inferior status compared to engineering. However, don't be mistaken, these are all intrinsic for a prosperous civilization.

So learn these, help the youth understand the importance of the humanities and all the fields of knowledge. The world had never been more open and accessible for knowledge, stay thirsty to learn new things from how to play a musical instrument for example to basic quantum physics, they are all one click away.

Have an opinion, don't just get dragged with the herds, lucky for you, there is no solid ground for opinion better than knowledge. Be prepared to change opinion when faced with evidence and most importantly be impartial.

Open up to the world, read international newspapers, know that 'others' are simple people who seek a happy life as you do (an allusion to religion and stuff here, philosophize as you want or discuss in the comments).

Travel, you will surely open up after this, you will meet new travellers as yourself, those with the same quests as yours.

Respect yourself. No one should ever feel inferior nor superior to anyone. It is not your position that defines those who should hesitate when they talk to you, it is not where you are coming from or where they are. Everyone deserves respect as you estimate you do, and all this starts by self respect. Treat everyone with respect for their humanity regardless of their outfit, tone or religion.

Break with traditions, some of them have been a burden in many ways (marriage impossibilities allusion?). They have put social constraints that would only push back those willing to advance, but guess what! they are not absolute laws, most of them are flawed and it is time to put them behind.

Hold tight to traditions, Algerians are struggling to (re)shape an(y) identity, something that is well seen on the extra-liberal were-someday-teenagers who have lately embraced the 70s sexual liberation, or the old wooden roots of the government who know to speak nothing but French. I believe that there exists pure traditions which are seen in our elders, and which can shape at least a minimum of an identity and personal relief (still bring meals over to your neighbour?)

Have a goal, this seems a generic advice, but it can save you from a sharp depression or an infinite stagnation. Not having a life long goal is perfectly ok I think, but a temporary goal is mandatory on different levels. We change with time and it is natural that our priorities, and hence goals, change too, but as far as there are goals, you are always looking forward to achieve something and are active. Trying to figure out your (temporary) goal is tedious, but this "trying out" should incite you go on a self discovery that would shape naturally the higher values inside you, so it's all win-win.

That's it for what I believe would be small steps for a great change. I deeply hope that SecDZ, the creator of the DzBlogDay idea would stumble upon this post and realize that his idea is inciting great exchange.

2011 in (Few) Pictures

2011-12-29T18:22:00.000-08:00

Since everyone is having warm feelings about a year unfolding, whether ranking the best/worst/most awesome/stupidest things that happened during the year, or as customs imply, posting few pictures they took during this year, I decided to do the same here and post few pics of mine about 2011.

Alhambra - Granada - Spain

Granada - Spain

Alhambra - Granada - Spain

Albayzín mosque - Granada - Spain

Campus Party - Granada - Spain

Spain

Paris - France

Normandie - France

Creteil - France

Thoiry parc - France

Guelma - Algeria

Algiers - Algeria

Annaba - Algeria

Clouds

Eiffel Tower - Paris - France

"Velibienne" Paris - France

2010 in pics here

Confessions of an Ex-Simplist

2011-11-18T16:37:00.001-08:00

I wanted to write about how having a simplistic view towards things could lead to better satisfying understanding than getting exhausted by thinking deeply about them, then I stumbled upon a post I wrote few months ago explaining, not explicitly, this view. I would invite you to check it here.

However I made a small graph explaining how we think about our knowledge and the process we take to get to where we are now. This is my experience, so if you think your path of acquiring knowledge was different, or Human's process of acquiring knowledge is different, please let me know.

Algerians Demon and Threat to Stable Future: Al Jazeera

2011-10-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

One august night, I received some messages inviting me to join the Algerian honour and sovereignty 'defenders' against the demon called Al Jazeera.

They wanted to flood Al Jazeera's website, they run campaigns on Facebook (or was it the DRS' manipulators?). They pictured Al Jazeera as a biased tool spreading misinformation, but instead of providing their authentic version of information, they spent their time spamming Al Jazeera's website and Facebook page with the Algerian anthem and other ridiculous slogans. A sign of the inability of expressing oneself you say!

To my surprise, I've had a very intense discussion with an Al Jazeera opposition ~~fighter~~ (just to use their lexicon) and he seemed to be overwhelmed by subjective tribal (nationalist blind?) ideas about the one sided part that Al Jazeera has taken while covering the 'war' in Libya, Egypt and Syria. According to this guy (and most of all those opposed to AJ), AL Jazeera used some very sensitive misleading vocabulary while covering the war in Libya and Syria. Calling the rebels 'martyrs' and 'freedom defenders' was unprofessional, describing the events as 'the battle of Libya' was clearly an instigation towards supporting NATO and the 'foreign occupation'.

The exact words used by those 'facebook kids' were that Al Jazeera had an agenda. I wonder if these 'facebook kids' don't have an agenda too? and who don't have an agenda after all?

Seeing Al Jazeera as a threat to Algeria and it's future, the guy (from the paragraph before) got agitated swearing that if someone working for Al Jazeera was around, he "would hit him as much as he could".

I asked for what's that which he sees that makes Al Jazeera looks like the demon for him. For if it was so, some other media outlets would be satisfying him and his dogma of the next Algerian defenders. Is it Al Yateema* ? or maybe Fox News, or better CNN? that would outstand Al Jazeera in its coverage for of Arab rising.

After all he asked: why did Al Jazeera show nothing about what was happening in Bahrain. His theory was that Qatar's relations to Bahrain are more tight and hold stronger than journalism obligations. I was confused, because the only coverage on Bahrain I've seen was on Al Jazeera along with some orphan articles on the NYTimes and the Guardian. I surely didn't see anything about that matter on their Al Yateema.

The following video was the main reason I wrote about this subject. It is a documentary about what happened in Bahrain from the begging till late July. Very moving, it proves that democracy lay where oil is. It proves too that Al Jazeera, while having their own ideology, does still show very high signs of professionalism at reporting events than would any Algerian media outlet ever show. Or dare I compare!!

* Al Yateema : The Algerian archaic TV channel

The Invention of the Jewish People. [Review]

2011-09-17T04:33:00.000-07:00

Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People is one of the most intriguing, original, deeply researched and provoking books ever. On the top sellers list for 19 weeks, the book has a very detailed academic approach at presenting the history of the "Jewish people", the anecdotes and the myths associated with it.

Shlomo Sand is a Jewish history professor at the Tel-Aviv university, his work in this book that undermines the myths of Zionism and delegitimizes its settlement enterprise was described as "a cultural bomb" that is an indispensable challenge and a very complex intellectual exercise that a more secure society [than Israel] would include the book in the core curriculum of its school system.

The "chosen people" that was "exiled" from it's homeland and that has been "wandering" away from its God-given land for two thousand years is put under a very scrutinized analysis dismantling all the myths and the lies that have been the work of the Jewish historians during the 19th century (like Heinrich Graetz and Dubnow) where Biblical myths has become the foundation of an invented Jewish history conducting later to the creation of the state of Israel where every schoolchild today is taught these fallacies.

After a (very) technical introduction to notions like "people and ethnic groups", nations and the nationalist movements, Shlomo S details the beginning of the myth-history under the hands of the Jewish historians during the 19th century; The exile subject is discussed in the following chapter where Sand shows with a very empirical and scholarly method how the Jews have never left Palestine at the first place, nor did they were forced to leave. The big number of Judaism followers all over the Mediterranean shore cannot be explained by a very fast reproduction of Jewish descendants (unless God gave the "chosen people" the bless of selective biological fertility) and that the spiritual assistance could not fill the bellies of their offspring. Proselytism and conversion according to Sand is the only way the Jews spread across the Mediterranean.

Sands shows with a progressive building of his arguments that there was never been an exile, and hence there is no such thing as "the right of return" since the "chosen people" has never left in the first place.

On the following chapter, discussing the three big 'kingdoms' in the Jewish history which have all converted to Judaism and have no blood relation to natives of Judea. North Africa's Kahina, the Himyarite kingdom in Yemen or the Khazar Empire are all the homeland of the Jews today, Shlomo shows. He draws the conclusion that the Jews of Europe today are the descendants of the converted Khazar Empire whom are historically known (and proven) to have no blood relation to Judea natives.

The question of the Khazar Empire is one of a very sensitive questions that Israel's academic environment is trying to hide; books about it were never translated to Hebrew and some of them even if they succeeded to get into Israel are not known at all outside the circle of the "scholars" in universities, some books about the Khazar Empire (The real ancestors of Europe's Jews) were never distributed in libraries. On a private interview, the the anonymous editor of The Thirteenth Tribe told Shlomo Sand that he hesitated to publish the book because "Israel was not mature yet" to accept such truthful historical work.

On the last chapter, the author constructs a very remarkable critique to the ridiculous biological research by Zionist scientists with the support of the ideological orientation of the Israeli government trying to find the Jewish gene and the pure DNA of the "chosen people". He extends his critiques to the fallacies advanced by the pro-Zionist blind nationalists who are claiming that Israel is a democracy, and gives very insightful objections as to why a country that forbids the marriage of a Jewish citizen with a non Jewish is far from anything democratic.

On the whole, the 600 pages book* is a pleasure to read, a compulsory reading for anyone trying to understand the Middle East and Israel's contemporary identity (crisis). The book is a detailed academic study and the lexicon it is using is not the one I used to read in books while lying in bed; most of the times at the beginning of the book I've find myself referring to Wikipedia and other resources to understand some issues (all about Judaism and the Jewish culture / history), but it is still one of the best books I've ever read and whichI recommend to everyone.

The Wikipedia entry about the book has very interesting details about the book and the critics to Shlomo Sand after this book.

* Fr edition

On my Father and The Algerian Excuse

2011-07-06T15:45:00.000-07:00

My father doesn’t believe the Earth is round, despite debates we have been having with him for the last 20 years (maybe more).

This post was scheduled to get encrypted after 10 days, if you want to read the original text, the key is: algeria.

Hp zlzvks enek 49 geacy sw qndpvielennk eim noe krfcgh quv Rtgecoe kw benuqv bhe axsjxerzaw twunexc kpe iyyslkiayz cfcth lxi ywpiym jfz. I dplmeqtewe grv’t uyjiiatayj xyqs bfz M tin amysij thp ohvi coyymumriym qp natskv’j distur, nqsdzs wlzelj isdms wtzl roe, ayj lv aurprc yive ckec aoltj vvisoyy xf oivp yytp an zvmeqon.

Oavzvg hty xnmnttkw, yqs flzlvz goe qmcted (yux sg thp Lvvvch, max sg hid lictow Lrkvziayy hlzinr zlv marwe cvirs zl xym reguplbioy, hyk bhae’y eewthpx pfvg seuvp) ao hp neu bo tlqi tire zl lza sii ymstinry, ecwng hoxy pis zcr wimiwe wywrtwe ewber. Sow szotskv yid tsk wrue flzi rntec lin geacy sw bhe Tthvxenokrtm -soxk wfzt oq ggtwune yikbliym M smlipbi- sct tskc (Withpx, lza simrmeos ayj gfcsiyy) rvder hgrkmd tskmi wffdvvzvg tz qrfe whz jmu ill enmj lesaoxv bhe qggk bhae zlvg knzc xymm pckxkg wewr, wfue szxx fn mattxrqniym xym stlzyj yuo tz wvmms (quv kpe gzuh fz foc zlv jad!).

Sk kfb jatriu aevpxec bimpy fp bhe Qxiekh tzu, flb he ty rfb a Mzahaihio, ni uwesy’z immn ltqi kw be ngpcmd ad urv, nor soq, r tot zl xywse hns till enidaelgkw jw arp pyjb opauvkcnidzw npo ack kvbtiym trqd fzx wfuetsorx bhej jmuv’t rpgpcg eact (sw koucyi ym redvitbs gckekty tsk elbheyzmt wned). -O grv asdkvk bhae g pfb of hnek Q hagk fvmn hpgvzvg fcuq yqm ayj xywse hns cqveo jyiqng enijm yelxw (lvclpy, xymir qxmvvds ,lth fbhec kpumr pputcm) rackpp ilirt azbh tsk lzatoce av pavp rirzneo gx jkhozr, me bhedk wkwripy, xym Frptgy irmj gvv vot lrargs tsuwv aavlmi dwnsekvj vor lxi kpe mpxgznul ltkvts.-

Aqzii bhid hetsgrzaru, Q cay orkmrnlrmqm hid ohvi abzax yww 49 ypgvj ire yux vvourn, lv tivpj me in ecg aymre ekgyvolzmc za noe g rvkesdoxp, eheck xyqngd zlrb arp hipwnd mgwzk datrc cqfe ykiua arp hc umfafrx rcxiwoeig, bue ox jmemd ys jbraymi npen T nirz thp yedm arraqvvts ljzrvceo hc pwunr vifxle hns vubrlii kpe npc xvkhnzrsxqcaw lejb chltkzvg wzxpu aeaxrijaly. Ty mk bhe dgqv eisouq kpat T iee’b unokvjbano? uv zb is ztpp ibofz xyzowttk jwme dgru qn tsk ipms tz isdm up hoxy in eiiyjm to vkig bhe dzekcs qfu?.

Ewber lrp, Withpx grv’t rpgh, sct hp yytkeeokh kw elpbekm alw nmj khiwjvvv to mkgfue dzixfzs, eymmemerd, zirkhecy eel laheiia. He xawk pavp ysdm widjsd (lesaoxv vot mkpzmviym xym wocrh za rofth rvd awr xym imarmtitiztw fv thp isjuolzmmtil ocjii iftpx wlkh bprmvn :-D) tsgx vvtatrw fxinturj ehinn eim in sow tise ygxlzalwe etkepegfcm, bue nsn komp zlrb soxk sw bhe juyeoer rkrvzattur rze seopc poloorx aucs ohvis!

On its 49th independence day, Algeria ranked last in The Global Innovation Index, after Yemen,Zimbabwe,Tanzania, Mali

2011-07-05T04:17:00.000-07:00

Because it is still the 5th of July, and Algeria (or Algerians and the Mafia ruling them) is celebrating that well respected day, I want to share a last piece of information which hopefully will stay marked in our heads for some time.

I've talked dozens of times about the issue of rankings and Algeria, from the terrible universities' rankings, to being among the least liveable countries in the world. Algeria has always that aspect of being the last or among the 5 last ones on the list. Something that a lot of Algerians (my friends ususally) can't internalize and deny by saying that these ranking have specific points to consider that may lack in the Algerian situation, points that seem to lack in every ranking taken so far, which makes us think: do Algeria have anything to compete with other countries when it comes to global ranking and indexes?

I mean sure it has, the astonishing voting numbers, and the success rate in universities and baccalaureate, really, it sounds like an international conspiracy againt Algeria right!

Jokes aside, the INSEAD business school, with some other respected institutions published today their innovation index for 2011, unsurprisingly, Algeria got an above hundred number as usual, it was ranked the LAST, right after Mali, Zimbabwe, Yemen, Kenya, Ethiopia and every other country in the list.

Do Algerians and especially their government celebrate this day with joy? it has been 50 years and they are still moaning about the mostly-faked-revolution history and the heroes that passed away (respect to real heroes is always a must), While they seem to ignore literally that they have become the worst country with every aspect, scientific, politic, economic and more. Do they think the Algerian youth has any real identity or love for that history? Youth need to be provided with a good present and shown a hope for a brighter future before being dragged to a past to swallow some pride from!

Oh, I might be wrong when I said Algeria always get the big numbers, it literally appear among the first ones in the list of the most corrupted 'democracies' in the world, just saying.

Link to the INSEAD ranking list.

49 Years of Independence.. and Sovereignty

2011-07-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

This is a short update I want to make to express my happiness and pride at the 49th independence day of Algeria.

It has been 49 years and right this moment, the village where I grew up is still suffering from water shortage each summer, today, it has been almost a week without water, something that is very familiar there under the intolerable heat of summer (40° and more).

I remember from the early days of my maternal school, the water pipes that are broken and which are the reason for the cut of water. They used to fix them for a week till the water comes up from another spot just few meters away. It has been more than 15 years now, and we are still thirsty during the summer.

So yeah, it has been 49 years of sovereignty, you might be living somewhere in the fancy 'civilized' areas of Algeria, where sovereignty had its impacts, and where people from rural areas like myself don't have the right to speak their minds up. But...

I am thirsty, and yet, Algeria is celebrating yet another new independence day.

Uncertainty

2011-07-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

Ernest Hemingway committed a suicide this day (The 2nd of July) 50 years ago, on his last year he became so anxious about the F.B.I. following him, wiretapping his phone, hijacking his mails and bagging his room at the hospital. He became so worried and couldn’t get any work done, he refuted the idea of retirement and became almost unsupportable* by his closest friends. No one believed him of course so he was put in a psychiatric hospital where he was treated by electric shocks.

One of the closest friends to Hemingway wrote a great peace in his memorial today on the NYTimes, revealing that he was actually monitored by the F.B.I; here is an excerpt from the amazing article that I strongly suggest that you to take a look into:

Decades later, in response to a Freedom of Information petition, the F.B.I. released its Hemingway file. It revealed that beginning in the 1940s J. Edgar Hoover had placed Ernest under surveillance because he was suspicious of Ernest’s activities in Cuba. Over the following years, agents filed reports on him and tapped his phones. The surveillance continued all through his confinement at St. Mary’s Hospital. It is likely that the phone outside his room was tapped after all.

Looking to this kind of real life stories makes us wonder about certainty, belief and judgment in general, in Hemingway’s case, even his wife and friends thought all his perceptions were imaginary. The issue is larger than only failing to perceive what other perceive, but extends to the fact that we can’t measure out feelings according to other external factors, like pain for example, bothersome, joy, excitement etc..

Getting to know how much your headache pain is compared to what others experience is impossible, and if you are a little skeptic, you can easily think that you might be exaggerating about your headache compared to others’. You might easily think that your knowledge is worth nothing since you can’t measure it compared to others’, you can be brilliant with something, but so dumb when it comes to other things. The huge amount of information makes most of us experience the impostor syndrome which makes some suggest that it is a natural thing, and that no one knows really what he is doing.

Uncertainty doesn’t stop here, faith in general (esp in religions) rarely meets with the minimum rational arguments, the idea of the non-existence of matter (the visible world) that idealism is based on are all other cases of uncertainty that thrills man everyday.

So how are we surviving with all this relative knowledge? and do our judgments meet any aspect of certainty? Or is the only vision of the world the vision, perceptions and the very personal judgments in our heads? Is a complete acquaintance of something A required in order to be able to compare something B to it? If so, can’t there be justice if we can’t know every detail about the instance we are judging (illusion to God the all knowing that belief in was at first not based on logic?).

Is there such thing as truth after all?

* That he should be treated in a psychiatric hospital

بكالوريا الجزائر 2011، تاريخ متواصل

2011-06-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

كادت بكالوريا 2011 في الجزائر أن تمر بسلام لولا بعض التسريبات التي تصفها وزارة التربية و التعليم بالإشاعات المغرضة التي ينشرها أصحاب احتجاجات "السبت"، حيث تتداول معلومات كثيرة عن تسريب أسئلة بعض المواد.

لم أرد أن أتكلم عن الموضوع من قبل، من جهة لأنه ليس من الغريب حدوث هكذا فضائح في البلاد ومن ناحية أخرى، أن العديد من الأشخاص يعتبرون انتقاد البلد أو التكلم على نقائصه لا يجب أن يكون ممن لا يسكنونه، لكنني أريد أن أقارن بين تعامل الجهات الرسمية الجزائرية مع ما تسميها إشاعات و نظيرتها الفرنسية بعد فضائح التسريب لامتحان الرياضيات الخاص بالبكالوريا الفرنسية أول أمس².

فيما يخص التسريبات الفرنسية، تم نشر أسئلة المسألة الأولى من اختبار الرياضيات على الانترنيت ليلة الاثنين، أي قبل الامتحان ببضع ساعات، بعد اكتشاف الخبر بعد الامتحان أشارت وزارة التربية الفرنسية أنها ستصدر قرارها بعد التحقيقات اللازمة في غضون 24 ساعة، وهو بالفعل ما حدث عبر توجه وزير التعليم الفرنسي من خلال منتدى صحفي بقرار إلغاء احتساب نقاط المسألة الأولى والأخذ بعين الاعتبار المسائل الثلاث الأخرى، مما أثار حفيظة العديد من الجمعيات التعليمية ومنها جمعية أساتذة الرياضيات في التعليم العام التي تدعو إلى إلغاء الامتحان.

في المقابل كان تسريب الأسئلة في الجزائر واضحا وضوح الشمس للجميع، عن طريق تسريب موضوع اللغة العربية كاملا ومن ثم أسئلة من موضوع الشريعة الإسلامية والتي يقال أنها كانت متعمدة لتكون (بعضها) خاطئة من أجل إثبات أن التسريب المتعلق بمادة اللغة العربية ما هو إلا إشاعات.
في خبر أبرزته جريدة الشروق (على مصداقيتها البارزة كما يعلم الكل -~~تهكم~~-) 14 جوان 2011 جاء فيه :

“... إلا أن "الشروق" وإبراء للذمة، تؤكد أنها عاينت وتأكدت خطوة بخطوة من عملية تسريب وثيقة أسئلة العلوم الإسلامية الموجهة إلى جميع الشعب وتأكدت من حدوثها ليلة الامتحان. “

بعد ذلك بيوم تنقل نفس الجريدة على لسان وزير التربية (الذي يعرف الجميع اسمه لذلك لا داعي لذكره) :

"الأطراف المروّجة لإشاعات تسريب أسئلة البكالوريا أهدافها سياسية تتعدى التشويش على الممتحنين إلى محاولة الإضرار بالدولة الجزائرية بعد أن فشلت هذه الأطراف في تحقيق أهدافها في مسيرات السبت".

ثم يتمادى الوزير قائلا :

"..و دعا المسؤول الأول على تنظيم امتحانات شهادة البكالوريا المروجين لإشاعات تسريب الأسئلة لإحضار ورقة أسئلة واحدة مطبوعة قبل انطلاق الامتحان ليُثبتوا صدق إشاعتهم،"

حيث يثبت بجدارة أن بلاده لا تزال تعمل على وتيرة عصور الورق المطبوع (تتذكرون الكمية الهائلة من الوثائق التي يجب جمعها في الملفات الإدارية؟) ، ثم انه يضع شرطا تعجيزيا كون الأسئلة كانت قد اطلع الجميع عليها بعد مرور الامتحان.

هكذا تم دفن القضية ببساطة، على غرار قضية قتل تونسي و كواليسها و قضية فضائح سوناطراك وقضايا جرائم الحكومة والجيش خلال العشرية السوداء الخ الخ الخ...

بعد ذلك، ولإضفاء المزيد من المصداقية على الامتحان ،الذي ستكون نتائجه ممتازة على شاكلة كل سنة، دعا الديوان الوطني للامتحانات و المسابقات إلى إحالة مروجي إشاعات التسريب على العدالة ومعاقبتهم العقاب الشديد ليرتدع كل من تسول له نفسه التشكيك في ما تقوم به مؤسسات الحكومة من عمل سواء كان فسادا أو أخطاء لا تغتفر كتسريب أسئلة البكالويا، فيبدو أنه يكفي أن يتكلم أحد من نصب أنفسهم مسئولين وينفي ما يمكن أن يثير شكوك الشعب، كتزوير الانتخابات أو تسريب الأسئلة، أو حتى تخفيض 10 دنانير من ثمن السكر لتعود الجزائر إلى حياتها اليومية المعتادة وكأن شيئا لم يكن.

في الأخير خلاصة الحديث هو أن حكومتنا لا تزال تعامل شعبها على أنهم رضع، يكفي كم أفواههم (عقولهم في حال الكبار) بشيء من الحلوى ليعودوا إلى نعاسهم، متواطئة مع صحافة المصداقية والاحترافية آخر قيمها.

² اقارن مع نظيرتها الفرنسية فقط لحدوث نفس التسريبات في نفس الامتحان، وليس للمقارنة المطلقة

According to My Biased Opinion [on Algeria]

2011-06-18T15:48:00.001-07:00

I grew up in a society where ‘Allah ghaleb *’ can be the answer to any situation, in fact, people are used to platitude till it’s become some sort of auto-humiliation, from the endless ping-pong go-to-the-next-office bureaucracy to nepotism. A country where retrieving money from a bank account can look like a mission-impossible that requires all the day with all the platitude you can provide for the bank workers. In a country where, in 2011, the statement: “the computer is not working” is still used as an excuse in banks to not provide customers their money. Yes, the computer is not working!

What seems to be the issue is that people have developed that property of under estimating their rights, I mean you go out of your house in the morning to get some work done, but the first thing you are expecting is that it can very possibly not be done during that day, during the whole day. You can pretty simply get answers like: we don’t have that specific paper, and if you ask when will they have that, the answer is likely to be: we don’t know and at best: some time in the week.

The time passes and we get that rhythm of ‘things can happen some time in the future’, but we don’t know when, thence, our lives lose almost every aspect of punctuality and we become slaves of what can we do or ‘Allah ghaleb’.

When I was a little younger, I was someone who have nearly no patience, and all the oppression of that rhythm of life made me construct my own theories about the ‘system’ and how it works. Every member, or part of a governmental constitution, from the president to the smaller mayor and their entourage is considered to be part of the problem, a thief, which made all the population, including me, such a person.

With this it has become clear that a group of nice people doesn’t have to be nice, and it is for the leaders of the group to take blame of the group’s faults, hence, for me, Algeria was the catastrophic result of a government whose only goal is to get its members richer and by all means its people more ignorant. This is not hard to spot by only looking at the educational system and how universities are run, of course not to forget the superficiality of students and the lack of future visions to them (except except..) and so forth.

My theories were (are) based basically on empirical knowledge**, experiences I’ve lived myself to have such hatred for the ‘leaders’ of that country, and to be honest, we don’t need to learn the history of Algeria to understand what’s going on, but I confess that this process of learning can make a step towards a more rational look at the situation.

Currently I must say that I hate every and each single person who is part of that system (gov + mafia + gov-mafia + we-want-good-for-people liars + …). I know nothing about (the history of) Algerian politics or politicians except that I hate them a pure very well defined hate, the only thing I might be sure of, even more than my own existence. I must confess that they’ve succeeded in making us a herd that still remembers the goal of Madjer*** during the eighties, a herd that seems to have no visible (linguistic) identity, a herd where self-oppression (a citizen treating another one without respect for his humanity, among other things) is natural.

But again, that’s empirical, and my ignorance cannot be taken as a mean of judgment anyways, some political parties in Algeria must be good, some people must be good (I’m aware of it) but the construction of us all, is certainly not.

* we can’t do anything, it's in the hands of a supernatural power.
** empirical knowledge : things I learned and acquired from my experiments
*** some football player from before current era

From a Fable to Bigotry, Only a Sharp Line

2011-05-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

Today, a friend of mine told me a fable about a Shiite Shah who planned to host a debate between the greatest Shiite scholars and their Sunnite counterparts, so according to the story, no one of the Sunnite scholars showed up except one, he went to the Shah’s palace barefooted holding his shoes. Once in the palace, between some dozens of Shiite scholars in the presence of the Shah, he got asked why did he came barefooted and that it represents some kind of insult in front of the Shah, he also got comments like: no one would go meet the prophet (pbuh) barefooted! So the Sunnite scholar’s answer was that the same applies to them, no Shiite doctrine was present neither in the prophet’s era and yet you are here. [And he walked away with pride I expect!]

Unfortunately for me, the story was not that entertaining, and I had a thought about how our development years as children is poisoned with such fables. Although I have no feeling of belonging to either group, it felt like there are a lot of errors into this kind of ‘propaganda’ spreading, and specifically the so called religious stories like these ones.

I explained to that friend that what I’ve understood from the story is that [as they imply, we] Sunnites, regardless of any considerations, are better than [them] Shiites, that their Shah, his palace and the dozens of scholars, can’t weight as much as 2 minutes of a Sunnite’s barefooted scholar. It also entails a very dangerous notion of judging others outside our ‘saint’ circle, which causes our judgments to end up being pure bigotry of course.

What is more astonishing, is that children –in the Arab and maybe Muslim countries- are raised this way, the way of telling fables that are usually fictitious, or at best with some fictitious parts along them. These stories, I think, make the person accepts and glorifies any own-group related stories while refuting every other story or fact about another group not having the same ideologies, without the minimum scrutiny, growing all the way like this.

If you are around Facebook or other social networks, you can see that mostly, wherever there is something about the west, Shia, or any other group that doesn’t belong to the commentators’ group, you will see all over the place comments like : “this nation is protected by God’s will and it will prevail despite the disbelievers” and “may God curse them” and such inexplicable medieval trash, which is, to my mind, a direct result of such fable-telling way of raising and educating children.

I believe that in order to have a population where individuals can have an opinion, or at least chose to support one side or another based on their rational choice not medieval bigotry, this kind of spreading ideas by using fables will only help construct an ignorant society. These methods must be replaced completely with rational spreading of knowledge, teaching children that “this is the information and once you grow up, you can make sure yourself and decide if it is the correct one or not”, teaching them to criticize the idea before accepting it, to not look at the superficiality of the matter, even if it pleases us at first glance, but to be objective and to know how to discern false simplicity from obvious matters.

Teaching Children Bad Concepts to Achieve Excellence

2011-05-14T16:15:00.000-07:00

Teaching children good behavior and ethics is an unquestionable maxim, fathers and mothers have been intuitively considering this as a rite. Anyone thinking otherwise must have some serious disorders in his sense of judgment, and thus, it seems that this is a universal rule, that all humans from different races, with different ideas and beliefs would agree about.

On the other hand, we see that growing up will cancel a lot of the good high values we were taught when we were kids. We discover that we can’t live together as humans, that we are predators and blood thirsty monsters (please think large scale, the wars and massacres that we have been witnessing for ages etc…), that in business, interest is the rule number one, and being an impostor that others can’t catch is achieving excellence, that hypocrisy is, what we call politics and diplomacy, are built upon and so on. Then why do we grow up learning things that are absolute in this world’s model?

“What’s the most resilient parasite? An Idea. A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules.” [1]. There is no fertile ground to plant an idea better than a child’s mind. Plato takes this even further [2] and exploits it for the formation of the city’s soldiers, Descartes believes [3] that clearing the mind from wrong ideas and perceptions accumulated since infancy is not a simple task at all.

Then why don’t we plot strong ideas that work with today’s world’s model into children minds? or at least into the children whom we believe that they will be the leaders in the future? Isn’t it better to have an excellent hypocrite who masters the art of politics prepared since his childhood, rather than growing up wasting valuable time rediscovering, at some point of his life, that his maxims about ethics don’t hold anymore?

You might agree that a man who excels in being a hypocrite since the first days he starts to conceive intelligible ideas is better than the one who grows up as a honest child then understands the reality of things (i.e the necessity that his position or future work requires him to be hypocrite) then goes through changes till he acquires what hypocrisy requires.

Sure enough, only those children we estimate to be the future politicians, business men etc, are the ones who need such special treatment, the rest would go through pretty much the same natural steps, every natural person is going through in his life discovering what’s bad and what is not.

You can say for example, why don’t we plot the most pure values in children minds in order to change the world’s model to a more sincere peaceful one, and hence future generations won’t have to go through the fact of rediscovering absolute ethics. For this, I believe that this is what humanity has been trying to do forever now, and yet, we live always governed by the laws of the jungle, rather, it might be a great deal to get accustomed to such model by forming men who excel in what they do, more than anyone else who is not raised the way they were.

[1] Inception -the movie-.
[2] Plato, The Republic, Book III
[3] Descartes, Discourse on the Method, Part 2

But What Of The Simple Man?

2011-04-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

Thomas Young was one of the most brilliant men in human history, he was a polymath who had a prominent fingerprint in different fields of science. At the age of 14, he learned Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, German, Chaldean, Syriac, Samaritan, Persian, Turkish and Amharic. Young excelled in medicine, physics, linguistics and a lot of other domains. He is best known for his great work in deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphs.

But was this in favor of Young? His mind was easily captivated by different domains in a way he started to work on new ideas before finishing the ones he was still working on already. For a great man as Young, and all the other brilliant minds humanity has known already, this was not probably a challenge, their mind's capacities were clearly beyond what we call "normal", but more importantly, sciences were not that divided and different.

Another factor, it seems to me, is that life in the past was more peaceful than it is today. People's minds were simply clear, their minds were not bombarded with all the useless information we get today from Television, news papers, cellphones and the very quick movement of the world around us.

Today, having a phd in computer science for example, means you know at best 1% of computer science itself, and know nothing outside the circle of your studies. Whereas in the past, knowing math gives you the privilege to know physics, logic, philosophy and maybe become a poet. Nature was in favor of this, the whole time people spent was with nature and the best activity was simply meditation.

It seems that having knowledge today is a lost cause.Why would anyone bother to know if he knows he can't reach 1% of knowledge in his specific field? With that being said, it seems that for a genius, if they still exist, leaving a fingerprint in the history of humanity has become an illusion and a simple anecdote to tell children in order to give them some false hope to dream about.

But what for the simple man, as myself? What for the one who doesn't have what it takes of intelligence, nor does he have enough peace to stop thinking? I have been forever trying to keep myself away from learning new things, basically because I know I won't achieve a result unless I devote 5 years to get the basics of it, and because I am supposed to be already working on something else that I didn't finish yet!

For a year now, I've lost that passion in computer science that was inflaming inside me so far, I even (almost) stopped going to classes because of this, because of the question : "what for?".

I want to read philosophy, but once I feel that I have started to be acquainted with the premises of a subject, I find myself trying to understand something else, in another whole domain. I find myself running after something else, I have a terrible need to learn math, to know more physics, to learn languages, political sciences, financial systems and so on.

What for the simple man who can't handle all this stream of information, what for a man who can't even swim within a single stream of information?

It happens to me that I spend days to weeks without having any will to talk to people! with my mind thinking, but without an idea about what. Usually I suppose it is thinking about if it is going to achieve any kind of knowledge before it disappears from life, before I die, before history erase my existence from its records.

This ideas frightens me, partly because I might be, in this very specific moment, wasting time writing a feeling rather than acquiring real knowledge, and partly because as with every other future event, it can't be determined even if I spend all the rest of my time thinking about it.

I've written before why stupidity is a very accustomed way to achieve happiness, and I really believe it is, but again, had my mind being stupid, wasn't there any other way to achieve 'satisfaction' by not being naive.

At least, something is sure, history had its records closed for brilliant minds, if anyone is to seek for knowledge, they better follow that line which will give at best the 1% in a specific domain, then look back to their lives and ask: what if I've taken the other way? what if I enjoyed my 40 years of work, with family, friends, with less ideas, wouldn't it be better?

Remember, Remember

2011-04-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot... But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes and I know, in 1605, he attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. But who was he really? What was he like? We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world. I've witnessed first hand the power of ideas, I've seen people kill in the name of them, and die defending them... but you cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it... ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love... And it is not an idea that I miss, it is a man... A man that made me remember the Fifth of November. A man that I will never forget.

(Evey -Natalie Protman- from V for Vendetta)

TEDxAlger, Reflections

2011-04-10T04:32:00.000-07:00

“Offline”, was the only message shown on the supposed-to-be the live streaming page of the TEDx event that was held yesterday in Algiers. An event that has its prestige around the globe, and which was announced to be a success even before it started [refer to twitter for evidence!].

Read the full article here http://www.martani.net/2011/04/tedxalger-reflections.html

Win a Free Domain Name (Registered For 3 Years)

2011-04-04T15:12:00.000-07:00

By decrypting the message and following the rules you reveal, or just have fun!

Hint : People used to love playing Angry Birds in ancient Rome.

Once Upon A Time, There Was a Civilisation That Provided Ideal Cradle For Scholars

2011-03-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography which is an amazing book by Simon Singh that tells the story of cryptography from the simplest codes in the ancient history to the more complicated ones used in our communications today.

During that epic history of cryptography, there was a point in time that marked the beginning of a new era, a new science. Cryptanalysis got invented by a brilliant Arab scholar and philosopher called El-Kindi. By founding cryptanalysis, El-Kindi's method was able to break almost every code ever created before his era (over 1500 years of cryptography was finally vulnerable to his method). I talked about this a year before, but what I said is without value compared to Simon Singh's amazing style.

Simon Singh takes you in a journey from the beginning of the foundation of the greatest civilization at that time, the Islamic civilization, till the foundation of cryptanalysis, just in 4 pages of his book. A story that gives nothing but pride, and shows a very critical and important science -(cryptanalysis) that was the key of the creation and failure of empires and civilizations-, yet most of us have no idea what it is, or that it was a fruit of that great civilization that excelled in every aspect of science, art, literature etc.

I invite you to read the following 4 pages with passion and focus, enjoy a journey of hundred of years described with high accuracy in just few lines.

Simon Singh - The Code Book - The Arab Cryptanalysts

The Arab Cryptanalysts

At the age of about forty, Muhammad began regularly visiting an isolated cave on Mount Hira just outside Mecca. This was a retreat, a place for prayer, meditation and contemplation. It was a during a period of deep reflection, around AD 610, that he was visited by the archangel Gabriel, who proclaimed that Muhammad was to be the messenger of God. This was the first of a series of revelations which continued until Muhammad died some twenty years later. The revelations were recorded by various scribes during the Prophet's life, but only as fragments, and it was left to Abu Bakr, the first caliph of Islam, to gather them together into a single text. The work was continued by Umar, the second caliph, and his daughter Hafsa, and was eventually completed by Uthman, the third caliph. Each revelation became one of the 114 chapters of the Koran.

The ruling caliph was responsible for carrying on the work of the Prophet, upholding his teachings and spreading his word. Between the appointment of Abu Bakr in 632 to the death of the fourth caliph, Ali, in 661, Islam spread until half the known world was under Muslim world. Then in 750, after a century of consolidation, the start of the Abbasid caliphate (or dynasty) heralded the golden age of Islamic civilisation. The arts and sciences flourished in equal measure. Islamic craftsmen bequeathed us magnificent paintings, ornate carvings, and the most elaborate textiles in history, while the legacy of Islamic scientists is evident from the number of Arabic words that pepper the lexicon of modern science such as algebra, alkaline and zenith.

The richness of Islamic culture was to a large part the result of a wealthy and peaceful society. The Abbasid caliphs were less interested than their predecessors in conquest, and instead concentrated on establishing an organised and affluent society. Lower taxes encouraged businesses to grow and gave rise to greater commerce and industry, while strict laws reduced corruption and protected citizens. All this relied on an effective system of administration, and in turn the administrators relied on secure communication achieved through the use of encryption. As well as encrypting sensitive affairs of state, it is documented that officials protected tax records, demonstrating a widespread and routine use of cryptography. Further evidence comes from many administrative manuals, such as the tenth-century Adab al-Kuttab (`The Secretaries' Manual'), which include sections devoted to cryptography.

The administrators usually employed a cipher alphabet which was simply a rearrangement of the plain alphabet, as described earlier, but they also used cipher alphabets that contained other types of symbols. For example, a in the plain alphabet might be replaced by # in the cipher alphabet, b might be replaced by +, and so on. The monoalphabetic substitution cipher is the general name given to any substitution cipher in which the cipher alphabet consists of either letters or symbols, or a mix of both. All substitution ciphers that we have met so far come within this general category.

Had the Arabs merely been familiar with the use of the monoalphabetic substitution cipher, they would not warrant a significant mention in any history of cryptographers. However, in addition to employing ciphers, the Arab scholars were also capable of destroying ciphers. They in fact invented cryptanalysis, the science of unscrambling a message without knowledge of the key. While the cryptographer develops new methods of secret writing, it is the cryptanalyst who struggles to find weaknesses in these methods in order to break into secret messages. Arabian cryptanalysts succeeded in finding a method for breaking the monoalphabetic substitution cipher, a cipher that had remained invulnerable for several centuries.

Cryptanalysis could not be invented until a civilisation had reached a sufficiently sophisticated level of scholarship in several disciplines, including mathematics, statistics and linguistics. The Muslim civilisation provided an ideal cradle for cryptanalysis, because Islam demands justice in all spheres of human activity, and achieving this requires knowledge, or ilm. Every Muslim is obliged to pursue knowledge in all its forms, and the economic success of the Abbasid caliphate meant that scholars had the time, money and materials required to fulfil their duty. They endeavoured to acquire the knowledge of previous civilisations by obtaining Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, Chinese, Farsi, Syriac, Armenian, Hebrew and Roman texts and translating them into Arabic. In 815, the Caliph al-M`mun established in Baghdad the Bain al-Hikmah (`House of Wisdom'), a library and centre for translation.

At the same time as acquiring knowledge, the Islamic civilisation was able to disperse it, because it had procured the art of paper-making from the Chinese. The manufacture of paper gave rise to the profession of warraqin, or `those who handle paper', human photocopying machines who copied manuscripts and supplied the burgeoning publishing industry. At its peak, tens of thousands of books were published every year, and in just one suburb of Baghdad there were over a hundred bookshops. As well as such classics as Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, these bookshops also sold textbooks on every imaginable subject, and helped to support the most literate and learned society in the world.

In addition to a greater understanding of secular subjects, the invention of cryptanalysis also depended on the growth of religious scholarship. Major theological schools were established in Basra, Kufa and Baghdad, where theologians scrutinised the revelations of Muhammad as contained in the Koran. The theologians were interested in establishing the chronology of the revelations, which they did by counting the frequencies of words contained in each revelation. The theory was that certain words had evolved relatively recently, and hence if a revelation contained a high number of these newer words, this would indicate that it came later in the chronology. Theologians also studied the Hadith, which consists of the Prophet's daily utterances. They tried to demonstrate that each statement was indeed attributable to Muhammad. This was done by studying the etymology of words and the structure of sentences, to test whether particular texts were consistent with the linguistic patterns of the Prophet.

Significantly, the religious scholars did not stop their scrutiny at the level of words. They also analysed individual letters, and in particular they discovered that some letters are more common than others. The letters a and l are the most common in Arabic, partly because of the definite article al- whereas the letter j appears only a tenth as frequently. This apparently innocuous observation would lead to the first great breakthrough in cryptanalysis.

Although it is not known who first realised that the variation in the frequencies of letters could be exploited in order to break ciphers, the earliest known description of the technique is by the ninth-century scientist Abu Yusuf Ya`qub ibn Is-haq ibn as-Sabbah ibn `omran ibn Ismail al-Kindi. Known as `the philosopher of the Arabs', al-Kindi was the author of 290 books on medicine, astronomy, mathematics, linquistics and music. His greatest treatise, which was rediscovered only in 1987 in the Sulaimaniyyah Ottoman Archive in Istanbul, is entitled A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages; the first page is shown in Figure 6. Although it contains detailed discussions on statistics, Arabic phonetics and Arabic syntax, al-Kindi's revolutionary system of cryptanalysis is encapsulated in two short paragraphs:

One way to solve an encrypted message, if we know its language, is to find a different plaintext of the same language long enough to fill one sheet or so, and then we count the occurrences of each letter. We call the most frequently occurring letter the `first', the next most occurring letter the `second', the following most occurring letter the `third', and so on, until we account for all the dfferent letters in the plaintext sample.

Then we look at the ciphertext we want to solve and we also classify its symbols. We find the most occurring symbol and change it to the form of the `first' letter of the plainterxt sample, the next most common symbol is changed to the form of the `second' letter, and the following most common symbol is changed to the form of the `third' letter, and so on, until we account for all the symbols of the cryptogram we want to solve.
... [link]

With a big book, comes big knowledge... and a solid cover

2011-03-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

I’ve got used to visit a library at least once a week. I don’t know why, but every time, I was always kicking myself to not buy another book that I like, since I already have 3 or 4 books to finish before I buy (waste money on) anther book I can’t read right away.

Some of my favorite libraries in Paris is called Gibert-Joseph, with 6 floors of books, about everything, from Art to literatures to languages, math, philosophy and everything. Of course my favorite spot is the philosophy corner, but I am willing to talk basically about how people here seem to always be passionate about reading.

Libraries here are always crowded, with readers of all ages, young students or old grandmas, you find them all in there. Generally, you must wait in line to pay for your books, and on Saturdays, it is just impossible to get by, so if you have a tight schedule, Saturdays are to avoid.

Of course, there is no need to mention the quality of the books (the paper), most of them fit in the pocket, or at worst, can be read in a bus or the train (compare to those Arabic books of 40cm or 30cm width, that doesn’t even fit into a bag).

While I can’t come up with an enough good description of the passion of people here about reading, and the availability of materials to read, I wanted to talk about this subject basically to mention the state of libraries in Algeria and how for over 10 years, I had never had the will to go to the library and discover new books (if any).

While I didn’t visit every library in Algeria, I at least visited some, not the best for sure, but what I’ve seen can be a premise of an overall judgment compared to libraries and the passion of reading in Paris for example.

It is useless to discuss the passion of reading in Algeria or any Arab country knowing that an Arab reads no more than 4 pages a year (Kabyle you say?). But rather I would like to discuss the status of the material the books are built from, the shape of the books -which I think is vital for the reader to have a relationship with its book-, and the content of these so called libraries.

First of all, most of the books are about the size of 25cmx17,7cm, something I may call “huge” compared to their content. It is so clear that such a book is almost impossible to be read in a bus or such. With these huge dimensions comes a solid (literally) book cover, that makes it impossible to bend a book a little in one hand, and use the other hand to hold your cellphone, search something in your bag or any such activity. It is designed so that it is impossible to be read while you are not sitting somewhere where you have a space of 50cmx20cm for just the book itself.

Second, libraries, if this is what they are called, are some place to buy newspapers, phone recharge cards, cigarettes etc. Basically, you go to the library to buy “a” book, it is rare that you have the choice of some book you are looking for. You find collections of “useless” stuff, bad written, misspelled books. Later this summer I bought a book called تهافت الفلاسفة or the incoherence of philosophers, I was too happy at first because basically it is a rare book, but I was too disappointed to find out that each 3 pages or such must have one or more misspelling errors, something that means not only we do not read, but even those who pretend to produce reading materials, are just some barons behind paper business.

Needless to talk about the quality of paper most books are made from, the fact that the paper are usually not aligned, and that the ink in the back side of the paper appears in the front side etc, etc.

And finally, the fact that when I was with friends in Algeria, they were telling me that it is strange to hold a book in a bus or a taxi, because people will whether think that you are some kind of a freak, or an arrogant proud who thinks himself better than the world.

I believe the physical shape of books has a very big impact on reading habits in our 'beloved' countries, or maybe it is the reading habits that makes the shape to be bigger, since a big size book must hold more information than a small one right? something that should've made Arab books, and the Arab readers with them, from the top readers int the world.

Notes on The Republic (Plato): #III - The Immutability of God

2011-03-10T16:22:00.000-08:00

In this section, Plato discusses in a non religious way a lot of subjects about God(s). The issue in the sections 381 A – 381 D is about poetry, and the kind of verses they (poets) tell about the Gods. For him, children and especially future guardians must undergo a very moderate education, that must not contain any vulnerabilities.

Among the issues he discusses (with the words of Socrates), the different stories poets used to tell about God, and how and why he sees most of them as fallacious. He proves in just few words the notion of “immutability of God”. (the dialog is between Socrates and Adeimantus the brother of Plato)

- (Socrates) Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without?
- (Adeimantus) True.
- But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect?
- Of course they are.
- Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes?
- He cannot.
- But may he not change and transform himself?
- Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all.
- And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly?
- If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty.
- Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse?
- Impossible.
- Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every god remains absolutely and for ever in his own form.
- That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment.
- Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that
The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms;
…Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of these myths --telling how certain gods, as they say, 'Go about by night in the likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms'; but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods.

When Socrates asked if God were to change, what form will He takes, a change to the better or a change to the worse, I directly said He would change to the better, but Adeimantus’ answer was different;

If God were to change, he will change to the worse, since he is already in a perfect form and hence cannot change to something better, but, if He changes to the worse, that means he will no longer be perfect (which contradicts the supposition that God is perfect), and hence God cannot change.

Previous notes on The Republic (Plato):
Part #II - The Origins of Justice According to Glaucon
Part #I - God and Good

The revolution of "savages" in a country of "animals" and Debbie Schlussel's argument : "You are not a rapist unless you are a Muslim"

2011-02-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

The fuss this week was all about the CBS reporter Lara Logan who was (sexually) assaulted and beaten in Tahrir square, when she was rescued by a group of women and Egyptian soldiers.

Some of course wouldn't miss the opportunity to go wild with their racist comments and how is it that the Islamic teaching is the source of such crimes, Notably, Debbie Schlussel's article about the subject.

She describes what happened as the fault of Islam of course, she starts with why Islam is the source of violence “I did say that it warms my heart when reporters who openly deny that Islam is violent” and then she describes the Egyptian revolution as the “revolution by animals” accusing partly Egyptians and Muslims implicitly.

Then she freely gives herself the right to describe the Egyptians as Bahai'im which is the Arabic translation of Animals, then she gets back to Islam and says : “Wouldn’t wanna impugn the “peacefulness” of “Religion of Peace” animals, would we?”

And finally she shows her support for Mubarak's dictatorship claiming that his methods were the only way to “rule his country of savages” : “This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled.”

Debbie Schlussel's background is no mystery, I am not, unlike her, going to accuse the Jews of bigotry or racism, I will just list some facts about her racist deceptive claims;

First, saying that the Egyptian revolution was an Islamic revolution is fallacious, Christians held a mass of unity with Muslims in Tahrir square and all Egypt, so claiming that the rapists were Muslims cannot be true, since there is no evidence that they were not Christians.

Of course I am not backing up the rapists, whether they are Muslims or Christians, I know no part in the Islamic teachings (or the Christian ones) that urges such an inhuman act, in the contrary, this is considered a severe sin in Islam.

Second, being shocked at such an act, making Islam the victim of her loathsome claims, shows how desperate she is to go anywhere convincing anyone but a racist as herself. I can come up with an infinite list of rape cases that shows that not only “Muslims, as she claim” are rapists, but even some of those white skin “humans” as herself are doing it.

To start with, just a week ago, Israeli news papers published news about a tourist who was forced to work as a prostitute in Tel Aviv, of course she was not only raped, but they wanted more from her, money, how “civilized” this is right? Ynetnews article here and Haaretz article here:

The suspects apparently told the naïve woman she must not leave her hotel as there were rapists and murderers out on the street. The day after she arrived they showed up at her hotel room with a man who tried to rape her.

Following Debbie's diabolical reasoning, I would say that Israelis are rapists, even go further and say that Jews are rapists, and why not call them animals and savages to make the scene clearer for ignorant readers, but once again, I am not like you dear lady.

To note few others, for those like Debbie who must have blind minds and racist native souls, Moshe Katsav who was the 8^th president of Israel, a leading Likud member of the Israeli Knesset, and a minister in its government, was convicted of 2 rape cases on the 30^th of December 2010 (just days ago, did Debbie opened her mouth and acused Israel or Judaism? I don't think so)

Another Israeli polygamist was suspected of enslavement and rape, it is reported that he has 89 children and 32 women who call themselves his wives, but again? Is it Judaism to blame here dear Debbie?

And to finish with this, about 10 days ago, a 12-years-old girl was rapped in a Jerusalem café. I know, nothing serious, since the rapist is not a “dirty Muslim” right?

Shockingly enough, what all these rapists that I listed above share is that they are Jews! Is it really rational to jump into conclusion and say that it is Judaism the problem?

In case you are a bigot racist like Debbie Schlussel, the answer is: NO!

Unfortunately, the reports (and the videos) from the Egyptian revolution were filled with photos of women protesters everywhere, otherwise, Debbie would find a delicious subject to start unleashing her thoughts about how Islam treats women, as her favorite word, “animals”.

Peace.

Notes on The Republic (Plato): #II - The Origins of Justice According to Glaucon

2011-02-12T10:04:00.000-08:00

Glaucon is Plato's older brother, son of Ariston. He is a main character in the Republic dialogs.

In the second book, Gloucon explains his vision of the origins of justice (div 359a), which I find fabulously accurate.

They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice;--it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice.

So, do men do justice for the sake of justice?

Notes on The Republic (Plato): #I - God and Good

2011-01-30T09:44:00.000-08:00

I have to confess, before I start reading the Republic, I somehow underestimated the book and any ancient writings. I said, these were written around 2400 years ago, apart of the ideas (which I’ve never underestimated), the writing style cannot possibly be as good as (or as simple as what we can understand) what we can read these days, or at least, it has to be a very complicated language where you have to spend an extra 15 minutes on each phrase trying to decipher its meaning *.

I was so wrong, The Republic’s style is unbelievably clear, the dialogs are structured as if you were with the characters. I have no experience with ancient writings, but I believe humanity haven’t changed that much during the 2400 years when it comes to “thinking” and "explaining thoughts to others".

In this blog series, I won’t of course comment The Republic itself (as if I dare!), but instead, I’ll mention some of the excerpts from the book, that seems to me to have similarities with other schools (of thought), that appears too weird/obvious to me, or generally, that seems to be so visible and special in the text.

To start with, I’ll talk about the sub-division 379c from book II, which is about God(s) and the attribution of good and harm(ful things):

Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him.

Upon reading this, I remembered the same belief in Islam about how everything good is from God and what comes to a man of evil is from himself ²:

(Surat An-Nisā' (The Women) - سورة النساء Verse 79)

Sahih International
What comes to you of good is from Allah , but what comes to you of evil, [O man], is from yourself. And We have sent you, [O Muhammad], to the people as a messenger, and sufficient is Allah as Witness. [END]

* The old Arabic for example need unlimited effort to understand the real meaning of the text

² I might have misinterpreted the meaning of the verse, I just mention what appears to me to be the meaning.

[Dz Blog Day] The Educational System in Algeria : Facts

2011-01-15T02:00:00.000-08:00

The big picture :

Before I start writing this article, I wanted to check some various online resources to, eventually, refresh my memory about the educational system in Algeria, and to not calumniate anyone(thing). So I naturally wanted to check the websites of the ministry of education and the ministry of higher education, but… both the websites ARE down, which is, for me, a precise description for the educational system in Algeria: “down”.

It all begun at the age of 6:

Losing every hope to get any information from the aforementioned websites, I decided to go my way and search on the “internets” for any information that may reflect something good in the system, and here we go: Education in Algeria is free and officially compulsory for Algerians [from 6] up to age 17. when I was a pupil we had 6 years of primary school, 3 years of middle school, and 3 years of high school. Now it’s 5 years primary school, 4 years middle school and 3 years high school.

After these 12 years old, an Algerian gets a baccalaureate, the only diploma giving access to university. [ref]

Globally open:

Besides the fact that the Algerian educational system (before and during university) is an exact copy of some foreign country ~~France in case you are wondering~~, his excellency, the minister of education Aboubakr Benbouzid, who by the way has been in this position for 18 years now (since 1994) ~~like all radical Arab leaders!~~, has been experimenting on the young children, for more than a decade now ,all sorts of rhe so called reforms. He, of course, has proven over the last 3 or 4 years that his reforms were nothing but a brilliant success, the “excellence” honor degree in the baccalaureate was never achieved since 1994, but only in 2008 with one candidate getting this degree, while in 2010, Benbouzid’s reforms resulted in 49 “excellence” degree. Those with a “very good” degree never exceeded 10 or 20 person, but from 2007 (begging's of the reforms) we notice some 1000 “very good” degrees and 5227 in 2010! [ref]

While these numbers might reflect something good in the educational system, you have to remember first that you are in a 3rd world country, and specifically in Algeria, where the impossible happens everyday.

In this successful year for his excellency Benbouzid, teachers have been on strike for months, students haven’t been taught even the half of the program, and things went completely out when Benbouzid called for taking any teacher who continues on strike to jail! Few weeks after, shockingly, we had imaginary numbers, that no one could believe.

As an example of the reforms his excellency have been working on for the last 18 years, he implied that all the pupils share the same color for their clothes, blue for boys, pink for girls, 2 weeks after the start of the new year, the whole country was on alert due to shortage of tissue to make more gowns, pupils have been “literally” banned from reaching their classes due to shortages of tissue in the market!!

A reform that made children protesters between 4 years old to 12 years old go block the street protesting about the humiliating state of their classes according to this news paper article [Dated 01/04/2011 – 9 days ago – In a street of the country capital Algiers]

In 2005, the ministry of education, created what they called an "excellence baccalaureate", a class for the excellent students in their 3rd high school year. Special schools were made to gather only these young genius pupils to get, as it may sound, "a special" education that doesn't follow the norms or other normal students! In the summer after the students of these excellency schools got their baccalaureate called "baccalaureate d'excellence" they were shocked to know that they are not acknowledged as eligible for admission in universities since they do not have a "baccalaureate" as the law mentions its name!

No, I was not wrong:

Just few days ago, the ministry of education admitted the catastrophic failure it encounters today after 8 years of “wrong” reforms on children from age of 6 to 12 who have been used as“laboratory rats” for his excellency reforms.

Children were fed up with dozens of classes and information in very short periods of time, which made it impossible for them to accommodate the programs, something that accumulated for their first 5 years in the maternal school, so they are now given retraction classes in the middle school till they meet some minimum level.

Back to his excellency, he proposes a lighter version of his program based on reading, writhing and math, sounds familiar right? ~~The French educational system you say?~~

Twenty-somethings and the new world:

After graduating from high school, and getting his Excellency's (Benbouzid) blessings, students finally can get their pass to the university, the wonderland, or at least for some of them.

Upon the first weeks, some of the students discovers the shocking facts about their wonderland, while others discover that they underestimated the wonder or their wonderland. The reason for this for the first group is that their “I’ll become the next Einstein” dream get killed immediately after they see the type of places they are in, the type of mentalities their teachers are [I tried it myself believe me] and how “things” work in general. No need to go for the second group.

Corruption in universities, LMD, Oh My!

Universities in Algeria have been using for a long time ~~a French cloned system of course~~ a scoring system called by students “the old system”, this system is used till now in most of the universities and Ecoles around the country, I the ESI for example, students follow 8 classes during 3 quarters of a year, basically starting in November (the official start is September!) 2 months after the official start, and finishing during the mid may with some month of holidays between each 2 quarters.

While having only 8 classes in a year is not that big deal, Universities adopted the European LMD system, a reform that was not only a failure, but most of the country’s institution doesn’t acknowledge this type of diploma, a shock most of the students still endure.

Did I mention the Algerian student scholarship (in Algeria) is about 13€ a month!!

The corruption has become too “normal” a-l’Algérienne, so no one mentions it anymore (worst, no one care to notice it anyways). I, myself, know people who have succeed their years with final marks around 6/20 (= 30 from 100).

What’s a university?

Obviously a university is not few buildings where students spend time, it is not neither a place where students pretend to be learning and teachers pretend to be teaching! Although in Algeria it surely is.

Universities should be the mainstay of the country and its industry, ideally it is the place where future engineers are formed, where future doctors, and especially future researchers are made! But do we have any research in the country?

The numbers never lie:

Back to real issues, as for July 2010 statistics, the first Algerian university is ranked 3207 in the world, 27 in Africa and 28 in the Arab world.

The second Algerian university is ranked 3853 and the third is ranked 4658, while all the rest gets ranks greater than 5000.

As an example L'Ecole nationale Supérieure d'Informatique (where I studied someday) which is considered the first computer science school in the country, and that accepts only excellent students, is ranked 8590, a number more than humiliating for such title!

Where do students go?

Having no official numbers to provide you, a friend of mine from the Ecole nationale Supérieure d'Informatique has told me that, from his class, only a dozen stayed in Algeria, and all the others (I confirm the numbers if needed), flew to foreign countries ~~foreign <=> France!~~ With this rather scaring number (more than 90% of his class) it is Incomprehensible how Algeria thinks about its future, and the future of these students. Do the governors want them to leave so that they can rule an ignorant people peacefully? or do they simpley ignore the brain drain problem? or maybe they ignore that there are students at all in their countries. I mean they give them 13€ a month, what the students want from the gov more than this?

Algeria of Humiliation, Theft and Corruption (aka Pride and Dignity)

2011-01-12T17:32:00.000-08:00

المقال بالعربي هنا

We (the Algerian citizens), are used to all sorts of humiliations with the bureaucracy systems in the country till the strange, impossible and scandalous things have become just what we call “normal”.

After the brilliant government’s (a very wealthy gov FYI) move towards dealing with the riots that took place the last week in most of the Algerian towns, and by which the government decided to nullify the taxes on the sugar and cooking oil traders, as well as the producers of these materials in Algeria (5% for the first, 17% for the latter). By doing this, the government proves that it has effectively found a solution for the issue, those with billions already, are actually the ones the country is to help and push their billions for more growth, let them enjoy their doubled wealth for the next 8 months.

The government, of course, haven’t forgotten the young men without jobs who were in the riots last week, it has decided that they will benefit from a monthly 2500 Algeria dianars gift, which is equal to –hold your breath... not yet...- 26 euros!, 26 freaking euros A MONTH. As a note, students in the universities, “enjoy” their 900 dinars a month, almost 9 euros A MONTH (I think this year it has become about 14€, WHAT A BIG DEAL!)

All this happens in the 6th gas producer in the world, and the 14th oil producer (in the world too), in a country theft is done only by units of “billions”, in a country where banks and airplane companies are founded on illusionary data (imaginary people sometimes), in a country, real ruling power is controlled by ghosts no one knows even how do they look like, in a country, where a subway project takes more than 40 years (and nothing till now), in a country where you can’t achieve your goals without intermediation and bribery… (the list never ends)

But if the country’s money is meant to be littered between the hands of these gang, how did they actually came up with the 26€ amount? 26€ for 30 days in case you didn’t notice,and less than 13€ for university students. On a side note, an unemployed youth in France gets in ONE DAY more than what the Algerian government estimated to be an Algerian needs for A MONTH.

Is this some kind of direct message to a “people” that doesn’t know anymore how to celebrate, to protest, or even what it is protesting for! Is the [Algerian] government telling this people that their value doesn’t exceed these few dinars (FYI, in Algeria, you can’t even buy “respectable” pants with these 20 something euros). Have the government foretold that the cost of the drugs and cigarettes taken by the majority of these youth doesn’t exceed those 26 euros, and hence have found a way to keep them ~~high~~ happy during the lost years of their youth. What do the unemployed young men actually think about this humiliating act? or do they have no opinion since they have never been consulted in anything, hence they don’t know the meaning of opinion!

The sons of those [gangs ruling the country] do not probably know how to count to one hundred, or even to one thousand, they ~~actually~~ have never held less than few millions in their pockets that they surely spare in their ~~respectable~~ soirées. As for their elders [the gangs themselves], they surely have lost every minimal piece of memory of how does the 200 and 1000 dinars looks like, all their transactions are by checks, of course. For the desperate hungry young men in the coffées, 26 euros is more than enough <sarcasm/>. I suspect that these [gangs] have a minimum of respect or some feelings of humanity according to the value they improvised, it is really shameful when you hear on foreign televisions that the Algerian young men will get 26 euros a month ~~as a reward for their citizenship~~.

So tell me again, is this what they call Algeria of Pride and Dignity or it is better to be called Algeria of Humiliation, Theft and Corruption?

جزائر الإهانة، السرقة و الفساد (aka العزة و الكرامة)

2011-01-12T16:18:00.000-08:00

تعودنا (كشعب جزائري) على كل أنواع الاهانات في ظل أنظمة الحياة البيروقراطية إلى درجة أن أصبح المحال و الغريب و الفاضح ممكنا من دون ان يستغرب أحد.

بعد الخرجة الأخيرة للحكومة في الرد على أعمال الشغب التي شهدها الشارع الجزائري في الأسبوع الماضي و التي عزمت من خلالها الحكومة إلغاء الرسوم التي فرضت على مستوردي السكر و الضرائب المفروضة على منتجي الزيت، وبذلك تكون قد أوجدت حلا فعليا للمشكلة، فبالفعل، أصحاب الملايير من المستوردين و أصحاب الشركات هم الفقراء لمساعدات الحكومة، فلينعموا بأرباح مضاعفة لـ 8 شهور القادمة.

طبعا الحكومة لم تنس من خرج متظاهرا من شباب عاطل عن العمل، فقد أقرت لهم منحة شهرية بقيمة 2500 دينار جزائري، أي ما قيمته 26 أورو. أجل 26 أورو في الشهر الواحد/ مبلغ باهض لم يشهد له التاريخ مثيلا لحد الآن. للإشارة منذ عام فقط كانت منحة الطلبة تقدر بـ 900 دينار في الشهر، أي ما يقارب 9 أورو في الشهر الواحد (الآن 15 أورو على ما أعتقد).

يحدث هذا في بلد هو السادس عالميا في إنتاج الغاز الطبيعي، و 14 عالميا في تصدير البترول ومشتقاته، في بلد لا يسرق فيه إلا بعشرات الملايير، في بلد تقام فيه بنوك و شركات طيران على أوراق فارغة ليس لها أي أساس من الصحة، في بلد يحكم فيه الأشباح، أناس لا تعرف حتى صورهم، في بلد تصرف البلايين على مشاريع تجهض على الأوراق (ميترو لم يكتمل منذ قرابة من 40 سنة)، في بلد لا يمكنك أن تنجز فيه أشغالك من غير وسيط سواء كان شخصا من الأحباب أو حزمة أوراق مالية "من الأحباب أيضا".

لكن إذا كانت تتناثر أموال البلد بين أيدي هؤلاء كالرماد في العاصفة، كيف أمكنهم أن يقرروا أن احتياجات شاب عاطل عن العمل في الشهر، 30 يوم في حال لم تلاحظ، لا تتعدى الـ 26 أورو؟ و 9 أورو في المقابل للطلبة الجامعات؟؟؟ على فكرة، العاطل عن العمل في فرنسا مثلا له منحة في اليوم الواحد أكثر مما قدرته الحكومة الجزائرية للعاطل عن العمل الجزائري خلال شهر كامل.

هل هذه رسالة مباشرة لمجتمع لم يعد يعرف كيف يفرح أو يتظاهر أو حتى يعرف ما يتظاهر لأجله؟ هل تقول الحكومة لهؤلاء: قيمتكم لا تتعدى البضع دولارات (التي لا تكفي لشراء حتي بنطلون محترم بالمناسبة)؟ هل قدرت أن قيمة الممنوعات و السجائر التي يتعاطاها هؤلاء لا تتعدى تلك الدولارات وبالتالي تكون قد أوجدت حلا لهؤلاء؟ بل ما رأي المعنيين بهذه المنحة من الأساس؟ ام لا رأي لهم أصلا كونهم لم يستشاروا في أمر مسبقا، فقاموسهم يخلوا من هذا المصطلح.

أولاد هؤلاء لا يعرفون ربما العد للمائة أو حتى للألف لأنهم لم يسبق لهم أن أمسكوا بأيديهم أقل من عشرات الملايين يصرفونها في سهراتهم (المحترمة طبعا)، أما آباءهم فهم لم يبق بهم ذاكرة ليعرفوا كيف تبدو ورقة المئة و الألف دينار، فمعاملاتهم بالصكوك البنكية وكفى. أما البائسون من حطام شعب جائع من الشباب، فـ 26 أورو تكفيهم لشهر أو "يزيدون". لا أدري إن كان لهؤلاء شرف أو فقط القليل من الانسانية ليفكروا في القيمة التي وضعوها لمنحتهم. حتى أنا الغير معني بالأمر أصبت بالحرج لما سمعت الخبر على الأخبار في تلفزيونات دول خارجية، فضيحة والله.

على كل، أهنئ من آتت ثورتهم كل هذه الثروة (الـ 26 أورو)، فهذا من كرم حكومة لطالما كانت في خدمة شعبها و شبابها خاصة.

Algeria, Tout Va Bien

2011-01-08T12:36:00.000-08:00

A lot has been said already about the riots (protests) in Algeria, and it seems that the govt is working very hard (as usual) to find a way out and make things back to calm again (like they always were, close to a coma situation in medical terms).

While most of the people we are hearing on social networks support pacific protests, they deny completely the inhuman acts of the “thieves”, “burglar” and more as described by some “serious” bloggers all over.
Some political analysts (it seems, sure we have those in Algeria, what are you thinking?) have spoken out and said that this is organized by the D^R|S, and that they –the D^R|S- planted rioters inside the angry youths. According to this analysis, they suggest that the rioters should go home and accept hunger under a corrupt regime than being slaves for the monsters at the D^R|S. It seems that their only solution is for the Algerians to live between the corruption of the govt or the savagery of the D^R|S.

At this very moment, the Algerian interior minister is on television (of God, El Yatima has heard of the riots?? Damn!!). He is somehow proud of how the govt is dealing with the riots, he assures that no real bullet shooting was allowed! He obviously assures that these “protesters” in the streets are breaking the law, “hors la loi” as he prefer to French-ly say it. To be honest, I was a little surprised that he didn’t mention the use of expired teargas, no seriously, here's a pic some protesters posted on facebook.

He declared also that as for now, they are holding up to 1100 person to investigate with. In a funny note, he suggests for those who fear for their cars: to watch out for them, a solution no other diplomat on the planet has the intelligence to come up with (of course).

Anyways, on the same line, Echourouk newspaper has just published the decision of the govt about the situation. “The govt has canceled taxes applied on the importers (is that the technical term?) on sugar and cooking oil”! Excuse me?? It’s the people who are starving here, not the importers! these are known to be the most corrupted in the country’s economy (the less than 2% that is not oil). So saying the govt with cancel taxes in favor of these is just saying, it will support corruption again and again.

I, for some time now, have discovered that the Algerian people is absolutely nothing (and hence have no value), between the two huge savage entities that govern it (some of them are not even know visually, no one saw their faces yet, freaking ghosts ruling the country!).

For more on the subject, check out Aljazeera’s article General Toufik: 'God of Algeria' and of course the Wikileaks’ cables in case you bother know from an official (?) source if corruption exists in Algerian or not (as usual, Allah ghaleb).

تونس 2010، جزائر 2014

2010-12-30T16:15:00.000-08:00

على بوادر انفجار شعبي كبير في المدن التونسية المختلفة احتجاجا على الجوع و مشتقاته المفروض من الحكومة الرشيدة "فرضا" يتراءى بعضا من الأفكار العامية و التي لا "يفترض" لها ان تكون ذات أي وزن في نظر حكوماتنا كونها قادمة من نكرات تعوّد رؤسائنا الدّوس على أعناقها لعقود وعقود.

وعلى ذكر العقود، بحث قصير في السيرة الذاتية للرئيس التونسي زين العابدين، أو فخامته زين العابدين كما يحب أن ينادى، تبين مسيرته الحافلة بالأحداث والحوادث الهادفة دوما "للتغيير". فسعادته استلم الحكم عن طريق انقلاب عام 1987 (وهي طبعا طريقة جد شرعية في قواميس حكامنا)، بحلول سنة 1997 غيّر سعادته الدستور التونسي والذي لا يسمح بالترشح إلا مرتين تدوم كل منها 5 سنوات ليترشح مرة ثالثة ويفوز بنسبة 99%، طبعا !

سنة 2002، أوحى سعادته لرسل الشّعب في البرلمان التونسي بتغيير الدستور مرة جديدة، كون اتخاذ رئيس جديد للبلاد يعد كفرا لا يغتفر، فكان ما أراد ومدد فترة رئاسته (ألوهيته؟) لسنة 2014. في ملاحظة سريعة، عمر سعادته أكثر من 74 سنة، لكن طلّة سعادته لا تبدي إلا عن شاب لم يتجاوز الخمسين من عمره، فهل تُصرف ضرائب التونسيين على عمليات تجميل سيدنا؟

موازاة مع سيرة سعادته الحافلة، نجد رئيسنا العزيز (الرئيس الجزائري) جاء بنفس الكتاب الذي جاء به زين العابدين، فهو أيضا غير الدستور متبعا شقيقه التونسي، كما أن بعض الاشاعات الحديثة بدأت تنتشر عن نية ترشيح (~~ليس ترشح~~) جلالته لعهدة رابعة و تغيير جديد للدستور الذي أصبح هشا هشاشة أوراق المراحيض في أيدي حكامنا، يستعملونه متى شاءوا، كيفما شاءوا، ضاربين بعرض الحائط رأي الشعب (إن وجد). فالشعب له مشاكل أسمى من الدستور والاختلاسات الكبرى، فشح أكياس الحليب، وأوراق الـ 200 دينار المهترئة في البنوك مشكلة أعقد من أن يخرج منها بلد بملايير المداخيل.

وكما يقول المثل: " Those who don't learn from history are doomed repeat it" أو: "من لا يتعلم من التاريخ، فمحكوم عليه تكراره". أتمنى أن يدرس الشعب الجزائري تاريخ بن علي فقط، وأن لا ينتظر خمس "عهدات" رئاسية ليستفيق كما يستفيق شباب تونس اليوم.

My 2010 in Pics

2010-12-25T13:54:00.000-08:00

5 more days, and we say goodbye to 2010 (the year, not the number), It is actually amazing how time runs so fast, I still remember pretty well the night we were waiting for the year 2000, and now, it is already 2011...

My wish for the next year is that no child dies from hunger, wars or epidemics. I hope that humanity will know for once the meaning of tolerance, and for everybody to accept the differences of others.

I also wish that I will have the power and time (,and money) to read every philosophy book my hands can get on, I wish to find some answers to my inconsistent universe of questions.

And now, here are some of the pics I took in 2010 (most of them with my mobile).

Compiègne France

Paris

Jardin du Luxembourg Paris

Europa Park - Germany

Algeria

Christians in Palestine Celebrating Christmas

2010-12-20T16:54:00.000-08:00

With the season of holidays, we remember our christian friends from Palestine who are celebrating the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem Palestine.

So far, efforts to make the world forget that Christians were 35% of the population of Palestine by the year 1947 (now they are merely 4%) seems to be successful, hence, today we all, must remember them, and help those who forgot remember them too.

As of anything that reveals truth in Palestine, the following video was mass-flagged on Youtube, and they succeeded to get it restricted to "adults only", a video that shows simply that Palestine is the land of Christians too and how they are suffering as any other Arab in there.

Here is the message from the Never Before Campaign :

Activists and bloggers,
Once again the zionists felt threatened by a youtube video that reminds the world of the linkage between Christmas and Palestine, on many different levels.
It seems they made a organized effort to remove this video from youtube by flagging it and voting it down.
So far, they only managed to get it restricted to “adults only” on the grounds that includes “inappropriate material”. That means that only people with a youtube account can see it, thus severely restricting viewership. The same happened last Christmas when our video Christmas video was indeed removed.
Anyway, we need all the help we can get to spread this video, especially since people can see the video if it is embedded on a website or blog. For those with a youtube or gmail account (you login to youtube using any gmail account), you can also help by voting (pressing the “like” or “thumbs up” button) and putting a comment.
Here is the youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0wpyhHFOTg
we also posted the video on wordpress for people without a youtube account:
http://neverbeforecamp.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/palestine-yet-people-celebrate-christmas-2010/
In Solidarity,
The Never Before Campaign Team

It's ok to be (Im)perfect

2010-12-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

Things happen, fast sometimes, they may seems the only issue the world recognizes at some point of time, but few days, months, after, no one remembers them.

1. Sometimes, you try your best, you want to be at your top, to be perfect, to make the whole world satisfied of 'what' you are, but you surely (will) fail sooner or later.

While still in the perfection period, your consciousness is the guard of your deeds, the good and the bad ones, but when 'all' your deeds become a ground for your consciousness to play on and torture you, one must give up, and consider other options.

In that period, a person's only dream is to change the world, become the next Isaac Newton, the next Dostoyevsky, Mozart, or maybe someone better.

2. At this stage, that poor person starts to consider other choices, maybe just living peacefully as every(thing)one else is, stupidity seems a good choice to bring happiness (maybe?), Naivety is a great choice too, the moral of all this, is to live, DOT.

The world is mysterious more than anyone can think, life is unfair and cruel more than anything else (is there anything 'else'?), children die everyday because of hunger and... wars! humans have never been more savage, no one loves another one for the sake of love. From world leaders who excel in lies, to simple humans who excel in loving for the sake of 'sex'! everyone is looking for something to satisfy something inside him, a thing that reminds us that we can never go beyond the fact that we are originally ... 'animals' (ask Darwin for this one).

During that, the person finds that the best way to stay in peace is to avoid others, to avoid life, but she discovers soon that this cannot be done, since society has imposed a lot of its rules on humans, even before they are born, that they can't escape anymore. Everything turns to be a simple game of; are you among the wolfs, or among the a sheep!

By now, the person is pretty convinced that being imperfect is totally ok (cool as some prefer to say).

Back to that conscious, it turns out that by the end of this period, the person starts to show signs of control over his little angel-ethical-part, with a little more work, that angel will accept anything, since everything is relative right? who is anyone else to judge that 'this' is 'good' for her or not?

3. Still remember that wolfs and sheep's story? well, someone who reaches this stage is obviously someone who chose to be a 'wolf in a sheep's clothing', someone who lacks completely for any pure instinctive consciousness, someone who unlike others, is not ignorant, but very aware of his path, someone who knows one shape of good... his good.

A man* who reaches this stage is the 'perfect' man, is what nature has created humans for: satisfy his 'imperfect' instinct, the funny thing in that; a perfect man will ultimately recognize that the only law in life is The Law of the Jungle.

The question is: can a 'human' achieve perfection, full acquaintance of the law of the jungle without passing the steps above?²

* woman too if you are not in ease with any orthodox language
² I hope so

الوصاية على العقل الجزائري

2010-10-29T20:24:00.000-07:00

نشرت جريدة الخبر الجزائرية مقالا بعنوان "الجمارك تجهض محاولة نشر سموم 17600 كتاب ممنوع"، وقد تم منع هذه "السموم" على حد تعبير الجريدة من الصالون الدولي للكتاب المقام حاليا في الجزائر العاصمة.

العنوان يستعمل كلمة "تجهض" ليبين أن هناك جهات موجهة خصيصا إلى نشر ما تسميه "بالسموم" في فكر الفرد الجزائري، ثم تذهب إلى استعمال عبارة "حيث تعمل خلية نحل من جمركيين على منع تسميم عقول الجزائريين" مشيرة إلى أنه هنالك من العمال المتفانين في عملهم و المتقنين له المهتمين بأبناء وطنهم كالنحل في الخلية الواحدة. ثم تعقب بـ: " ووقفنا على حقيقة مؤلمة تكشف حجم التآمر على الجزائر والدين والأخلاق ووحدة التراب وتدنيس الماضي" لتأكد المؤامرات الخارجية على كل ما هو جزائري مبارك.
ثم تنقل على لسان أحد الجمركيين ''لما يتعلق الأمر بما يمس بالدين والوطن، لا أتردد في اتخاذ موقف.. ولا أنتظر التعليمات بل أجري عملية الوضع رهن الإيداع إلى حين حصول صاحب الكتب على تأشيرة الشؤون الداخلية أو شرطة الحدود، لأن ما يتعلق بالعقيدة وأمن واستقرار الجزائر يحكمه الضمير والإيمان والوطنية، لأن مسؤولية ذلك ثقيلة'' و هو ما يثير التساؤل، هل الجمركيون من الأساس مؤهلون لمعرفم مايليق بعقل الجزائري المسكين، وما لا يجب أن يصل أفكاره البريئة فيدنسها، أما السؤال الأهم هو: هل تتم مراجعة الكتب المحجوزة فعلا من قبل أشخاص مؤهلين وأكفاء، أم أنها تنسى كما تنسى الملايير التي تسرق كل يوم من أموال الجزائريين؟

مجددا، تعود الجريدة إلى مدح إنجازات هؤلاء قائلة : " إلى غاية كتابة هذه السطور، 17600 كتاب ممنوعة، لولا التفطن لها لوصلت إلى القارئ الجزائري، وفعلت فعلتها في تلويث الأفكار والتشكيك في العقيدة وتشويه الأخلاق وثوابت الوطن، لما تحمله من سموم فكرية وثقافية." حيث أنها تفترض أن أفكار الجزائري ليست ملوثة من الأساس، لتزيدها تلويثا هذه الكتب، ثم تفترض أن مثل هذه الكتب قد تؤدي إلى التشكيك في العقيدة، والشؤال هنا: هل أصبح هؤلاء وصايا على العقل الجزائري المسكين؟ حيث أن بعض الكتابات ولو اعتبرت مضللة قد تؤدي به إلى التشكيك في عقيدته؟ ومن هنا فهي تفترض أن العقل الجزائري ليس ناضجا بل هو كما يقول المثل العامي "الريح اللي يجي يديه" أما قصة تشويه ثوابت الوطن فلن أعلق عليها مطلقا لوضوح مغزاها.

"معظمها تنشر مذاهب غير المذهب المالكي، وتروّج للفكر الوهابي والشيعي، وأخرى تدنس القرآن وتحمل الأفكار الإلحادي" بهذه العبارات تلمح الجريدة مجددا على أنه يمنع بل ويحرم الإطلاع على أي مذهب أو فرقة ليست ما يفترضه هؤلاء منهج الله الصحيح على الأرض، كما يمنع أن يقرأ الجزائري عن الالحاد و عن الديانات الاخرى ولا عن التاريخ الذي لا يتماشى و الرواية الجزائرية...

لذا، لا يزال للجزائري، المعاق فكريا على حسب ما يشيرون إليه، لا يزال له والحمد لله من يحافظ عليه من كل انحراف فكري أو اطلاع قد يكون يوما أساسا لحمله أفكارا لا تتمتشى وسياسة السبات المخيمة على الشعب "البريئ”

[Abstract Ideas #2] Mysticism it is...

2010-10-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

The other day I was having a very warm discussion about logic, religion, mysticism and philosophy in general with Riyadh, the main subject was causality and if believing in causality implies believing in determinism. I was in the position of the neutral thinker, starting from logic and following my way down to extract results, while he was, somehow, standing for the man who wants to explain (the/his) religious understanding logically.

The result (there was none actually) was not as important as the way the debate evolved through time. Generally speaking, proving the correctness or fallacy of an idea cannot be reached if we suppose its truth/fallacy from the beginning.

In other words, as in Riyadh's* position, he supposes the consistence of religion (Isalm)² and try, logically, to reach that consistence by using premises extracted from the supposition that religion is consistent in the first place. This mystic way of proving ideas is circular, and thus, is not suited as a logical proof.

As an example of that, let's assume that cats do fly, with a little analysis, say, we conclude that the fact of being cute, named a "cat", is the secret or cats being able to fly. Then we propose, while a cat is cute, and its name is "cat", then, it can fly according to our previous finding. I believe this is so clear to discuss any further.

Now, that's not really mysticism in fact -though supposing the consistency of religion in the first place without proof is mysticism obviously-, let's design by mysticism every act of accepting/denying an idea without a logical proof, and not exactly the religious mysticism. The question is: should any logical proof based on a mystic belief be suspected?

As an example, reality, I believe, must be one, and obviously, Idealists and Materialists cannot both be right at the same time. Belonging to one doctrine or another, means believing that the other doctrine's theories (or some) are not correct, and hence they can't be evolved from logical proofs at the first place, since we supposed there is only one reality (=truth, logic).

Hence, the act of belonging to one doctrine or another is, by itself, a mystic act, since if it was a logical decision (act), there won't be many doctrines at the first place. So the question now is: while we cannot exclude mysticism from (the beginnings) of logical proofs, can we actually consider our proofs as logical in the first place?

...to be continued

* Riyadh is not a mystic guy at all, he is just working on an amazing idea, that needs a lot of time to grow up (I gave him 2 years to finish then we debate about it again :) )

² I don't deny the consistence of Islam or any other religion, I'm just entertaining ideas inside my mind.

Algerians, A Starved Society p1

2010-10-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

Recently I had a quick discussion with Schneller Zyber about Algeria -as always- and the situation of people, and especially students, there. He gave a great analysis about how far we are from Europeans or even middle eastern Arabs.
According to him, there's a "trilogy" dominating youth minds which is : work - wife - car*. He even had developed this idea too far by stating the exact order of these three "magical" dreams of an Algerian, but sadly I forgot these details.

While I fully agree with him about this "trilogy", I would like to entertain it even more and try to expand its causes and results.

The first component of the magical portion is work. For me, work in the eyes of an Algerian means getting paid without being productive, or simply put, a work where you don't work!

The second is : wife, this one is somehow misleading, because it implies a house, the marriage outgoings, and everything related to spending as twice as one was when he was single.

The third and last is : the car, That one, some might consider as a luxury gadget, is as important as the first two ones, and I can't not agree regarding the situation of public transportation (is there such a thing in Algeria?) and its accuracy.

For me, I like to call this "trilogy" : inanition, or hunger. No one seems to be happy about his situation, and no one misses an opportunity to make himself "the law" once occupied a position higher to others.

The "Dark Hand" or the DH has succeeded in making the society a place where the people's only wish is to eat, the poor's dream is to eat real food. The middle-class dream -if that thing still exists- is to buy a car, to rent a house or to take a trip to Tunisia for holidays. While the rich class is starving for more and more money in a country where theft is absolutely an ethical act.

The DH made the Top Idea of an Algerian to be "you are never full, if you don't eat (steal, be the law, whatever this mean), you are going to starve", and believe me, the top idea is really a dangerous concept.

Once a person get trapped into the Top Idea twist, she can never be out without an external factor. It was to be normal if people acknowledge the society's problems and pretend there's no solution to them, but the catastrophe is that they are made to not see these problems at all. That's what the DH has done to the society, making it feel starving, and making it blind.

Now the question is, how will this society come out of its trap, how will it see itself from outside the box, with a neutral eye, and not with an eye drowned in the idea that if it doesn't eat now, it will starve tomorrow?

For me, I believe: it cannot, it has to wait for God's mercy that this DH will somehow see the people with compassionate eye and make it wakeup again.

* While I tried to join Zyber to make sure if it is Work-Wife-Car or Work-Wife-House I will just go ahead and suppose it is the first, since the two leads to "starvation" after all

Dz Blog Day

2010-10-12T12:19:00.001-07:00

Note : please feel free to share this post on your blogs and on social networks

Posts by secdz.

What is Dz Blog Day :

(A day when Algerian bloggers will be)Talking about the same topic, about the issues affecting Algerians, each from his point of view and according to his own values and perceptions.

Who can contribute :

Any Algerian blogger, eventually people on facebook and social networks can share their stories from within these services too, wikis etc are welcome too.

When will it take place :

This is to be discussed, mainly the Dz Blog Day can be held every 1, 2, 3 or 6 months, or even every year.

Personally (secdz’s text), I propose 3 months as a start, after, we can adjust this period according to the results.

How :

There will be a list of topics to maintain, every participant can propose its proper subject, then we’ll proceed by voting to choose the final subject.

Why :

“C'est la question la plus importante .... le meilleur est toujours pour la fin :)”

Imagine dozens, or even hundreds of posts and articles about the same subject at the same time, all the Algerian “blogsphere” talking with one voice.

How to treat the subject, its causes and solutions, might be questionable, but the aim is to bring the subject to the media (press, internet etc…), all the buzz will be about the subject, and no one (Algeria?) can ignore it that day.

Example of topics :

I don’t have an exclusive list of subjects, but here are some hints :

IT in Algeria and the strategy of the state about it.
Nationalism and “Footballistique”
The Algerian press
Women rights and conditions
Education in Algeria

Or the prices of tomato (why not!)

Feedback is welcome by comments or via email, and if you find it “débile”, say it :)

Original Arabic post by secdz :

كنت قد اقترحت منذ أيام على المدونين الجزائريين فكرة تخصيص يوم للتكلم جميعا حول موضوع واحد

أظن أن الفكرة تحتاج إلى مزيد من الشرح ... لذا هاكم التفاصيل

ماذا ؟

التكلم و الخوض في الموضوع نفسه، يعني كل الجزائريين، كل حسب قيمه و تصوراته

من ؟

كل مدون (أو فايس-بوكر ) جزائري يريد المشاركة

متى ؟

بصفة دورية، قد تكون كل شهر، 2، 3 ، 6 أشهر أو كل سنة. يجب الاتفاق على ذلك

شخصيا أقترح كل 3 أشهر كبداية، مع الوقت نقلص أو نزيد المدة

كيف ؟

ستكون هناك قائمة للموضوعات، مقترحة من كل من يود المشاركة

عن طريق التصويت يتم اختيار الموضوع الحائز على أكبر عدد من الأصوات

لماذا ؟

هذا هو السؤال الأكثر أهمية ... ألا يقال ختامها مسك :) ؟

تخيلوا عشرات، و ربما مئات، المقالات تناقش و تتتناول الموضوع نفسه ... في اليوم نفسه ... كل الساحة التدوينية الجزائرية بصوت واحد

قد لا نتفق على كيفية معالجة الموضوع المختار، على الأسباب و الحلول، لكن ذلك لن يمنع من ايصال الصدى إلى كل وسائل الإعلام، ستكون كل الأضواء مسلطة عليه و لا أحد يستطيع تجاهله ذلك اليوم

أمثلة ؟

ليس لدي في الحقيقة مواضيع معينة، لكن يمكن أن تكون

حال التكنولوجيات الجديدة و استراتيجية الدولة في هذا المجال

"الوطنية الكروية"

الصحافة الجزائرية

وضعية المرأة

التربية و التعليم

(:و حتى سعر الطماطم

أنتظر آراءكم و ملاحظاتكم في التعليقات أو على البريد، و إن كان هناك من يجد هذه الفكرة سفيهة، فليقل ذلك ... بعد أن يتأكد

(:Tor أنه يستعمل

حرق أوراق المصحف الشريف

2010-09-08T10:15:00.001-07:00

تداولت العديد من مواقع الأخبار نبأ حرق المصحف الشريف وأصبح الموضوع حديث العام والخاص من المسلمين، حتى أنه احتل مكانا بين Trending Topis في موقع تويتر.

في حين أني أتفهم سخط المسلمين وغضبهم إلا أنني أرى الموضوع من زاوية أخرى، وقد عبرت في موقع تويتر عن موقفي بـ:

I don't understand why Muslims are angry about burning the Quran? #Quran is in the heart of every Muslim, not on the paper

أولا، المصحف الشريف وبالرغم من عزته وعظمته لكل مسلم، إلا أنه في طبيعته المادية مجرد أوراق لا تزيد ولا تنقص بالنسبة لأي شخص لا يدين بالإسلام. أما القرآن الحقيقي فهو القيم والروحانيات التي تحملها الكلمات على هذه الصفحات. لذلك فإن احراق المصحف هو احراق للأوراق، أما القرآن فهو باق محفوظ من عند الله في قلب كل مسلم ولو أحرقت مصاحف العالم أجمع.

من هذا المنطلق، وهو وجهة نظر شخصية، أرى أنه كلما صار الحديث عن قضية تخص الإسلام، كان المسلمون هم أول من ساهم في انتشارها وكثرة الاهتمام بها، على غرار صفحات الفيسبوك الخ. لذلك فالأولى في التعامل مع هكذا قضايا هو الأخذ برأي الإمام الشافعي حين قال:

أعرض عن الجاهل السفيـه

فكل مـا قـال فهـو فيـه

ما ضر بـحر الفرات يومـاً

إن خاض بعض الكلاب فيه

ثانيا، يُحمل الاسلام على أنه دين تعصب، ويرجع غير المسلمون ذلك للدين بذاته، وليس لممارسات البعض أو توجهاتهم الفكرية. فإذا ثبت وتم الحرق الجماعي للمصحف الشريف (ليس القرآن)، فإنه ستسقط هذه الصفة عن الإسلام كون المسيحية أيضا يجب أن تكون دينا متعصبا أيضا من مبدأ أنه إذا قام البعض بعمل خارج عن الطبيعي، فالتهمة تلقى على الديانة التي ينتمون إليها. ومن هنا النفع للإسلام.

فليحرقوا الأوراق ما شاءوا، فالقرآن في القلب وليس في الورق.

Ramadan 2010 In Pictures

2010-08-30T15:43:00.001-07:00

There are no words to describe the holiness of Ramadan, the mercy and the forgiveness in men’s souls during this month.

I saw these amazing pictures of Ramadan from all over the world and wanted to share them with you all, Ramadan Kareem everyone.

More picture here : http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/ramadan_2010.html

Credits : images from boston.com

[AI #1] The Need of a Creator in the Universe

2010-08-26T19:37:00.001-07:00

In philosophy, a debate on the nature of the world has been up long long ago, the big question was always the reality of matter, what is physical and what is mental.

For Idealists, the ultimate nature of reality is based on the mind or idea, whereas Materialists hold that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. The arguments of the two doctrines are so solid and it is very interesting to dive deeper into the understanding of these two schools.

One thing is sure, we can never (at least for now) know the real nature of anything said to be physical, while Bertrand Russell gives a somehow “philosophy fiction” super complicated theories defending Materialism in his Mysticism and Logic chapter 7 : The Ultimate Constituents Of Matter and chapter 8 The relation of Sense-data to Physics. We find other strange ideas defending Idealism too like : the community of souls held by Leibniz or the idea in the mind of God held by Berkeley [1]. And once more, Sir Russell says “so far, we have the most complete liberty of conjecture (about which one to believe).”

No one can deny the existence of mind or ideas, as a definition, what is said to be mental is a particular that is aware of something [2]. Also, the world of universals such as adjectives like white, hard, or relations like between etc.. are exactly as real as anything else (you should be aware of what you call real though), and all these are by no means physical objects.

If after that, we are to accept that these constituents cannot just be into life beings (humans, animals..) by themselves, or in other words, cannot be developed by a non self-aware physical object (a cell for example), there must be a beginning or an element that initiated this “awareness” into life beings, thus, a creator that initiated all the ideas (minds), universals into the physical beings (if this word applies to what we call material).

Even if we admit, human beings were developed from a more primitive shapes (animals as the theory of evolution suggests), these primitive beings themselves must had all these mental constituents that they developed with time, and hence, a creator of this mental world must have existed before all the physical living creatures too.

This point, correct if we accept the law of causality, was reformulated clearly by Bertrand Russell as follows :

It is still often thought, for example, that mind could not have grown up in a universe which previously contained nothing mental, and one ground for this belief is that matter is too dissimilar from mind to have been able to cause it.

With that said, I believe that in an ideal world, every one would believe in a creator, whether called God or anything else, or at worst would be agnostic, since denying the fact of the existence of a Creator (at least of the mental world) is against the logic of our self existence, since there would be no ideas with physical objects, which is a contradiction because you are reading these words and hence thinking.

[1] Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy : IDEALISM

[2] LINK

Free Speech? Are You Serious?

2010-08-19T18:53:00.000-07:00

So here's the new blog, it was made to replace an old one, because writing with my real name is just the worst idea ever.
Considering my future (yeah that’s right, your f*** future!), I believe writing anonymously is the best idea these days, although I believe anonymity is dead, I hope that Lord-Google won’t pick up my real name from here and show it happily in its search results, doing what it excels in doing always: serving humanity.
All the comments on the old posts are closed, well, let it be a new start, and hopefully, if you know who is the writer here (you do, don’t you :) ), don’t mention my real name in the comments, I’m called IKSEER now, please bear that in mind.
Well, to get yourself accustomed a little with this blog’s policy, here is a selection of the top posts you might want to take a look to:
English:

Remember, never mention my name!

Now I Can Safely Become a President [OLD]

2010-08-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

As you might have noticed, I’ve announced a week ago that I am closing down this blog(moving it somewhere else where my name cannot be spelled correctly if you see what I mean), and some of my faithful readers (friends mostly) left very sensational comments in the comments section or the poll associated with the blog post.
So back to our presidency issue, I got 96% of the users voting *NO* to closing the blog, and only 4% voting *YES*, that’s great news, I got to admit, they are few (around 30), but this is really a good news for me, I can safely apply for presidency since I believe that 96% is enough for such a post, though, I still aim for perfect score like the *real* Arab presidents with more than 99%.
Back to serious issues, here are some of the touching comments I’ve got! thanx everyone :

“لاني احبها”

“Besides, it’s sarcastic and sometimes cynic, the thing a honest Algerian should be, nowadays “…” Because it’s not one blog less, it’s one good thing less. “

“Dz english Quality writing”

“يدا أخرى تكتب للحقيقة و تعيش لأجلها”

What’s making the blog still here is that I am working very hard on migrating the comments from this blog to the new one (xslt, xml, c and other stuff if you know what I mean :p). And somehow, it seems, I can’t “shut up” anymore, or as kdj said in a comment “ لا اظنك استغنيت عن نظرياتك”. I’ll be updating (in the new blog 99% and maybe this one 1% if I change my mind) soon, keep up, and have a great Ramadan.

[Abstract Ideas: #0] An Introductory “Why” [OLD]

2010-08-08T17:37:00.002-07:00

It turns out that meditation is not sufficient to gain a “proper” knowledge, as one can be lead to a path that is just a circular loop without an end, or something former people has already dealt with and he is wasting time reinventing the wheel.

Thus, sharing the thinking of a learner with others might be of great value by offering him more materials to empower his ideas, making him aware when he follows erroneous paths (avoiding paradoxes for example), and of course having others benefit from his knowledge-path –I might call it- the same way he does from them.

Therefore, “the why” of this series of abstract ideas, I am to share some of the ideas –you may call it thoughts though- which are struggling in my head, of which I don’t find an answer or worst, I cannot formulate a clear question about. The word “abstract” is critical in this, I wish it to be only questions about thoughts, about values, and as far as I can, never about concrete cases or particular or personal subjects.

I, also, will do my best translating each posts to Arabic from English, -though not a word by word translation-, so that everyone will benefit, myself in the first place. Just left to note that what will be dealt with in these series have no solid premises in science or philosophy, it is just a row data, compound of something I wish to call thoughts, seeking for some guidance to make these thoughts real Ideas.

"أفكار في المجردات #0] مقدمة في "الأسباب]

قد يكون التأمل الذاتي وحده ليس كافيا لبلوغ المعرفة "الحقيقية"، ذلك لأنه يمكن للمرء أن يتبع طرقا في أفكاره قد تقوده إلى دوامات لا يمكن الخروج منها، أو السير على نفس الطريق التي سارها آخرون من قبله فيُضيع وقتا طويلا للوصول إلى نتيجة كان من الممكن الوصول إليها في أقصر الأوقات.

من هذا المبدأ، مشاركة طالب المعرفة أفكاره مع الآخرين قد تكون ذات فوائد جمّة، حيث تتاح له معارف أكثر من قِبل من هم أعلم منه لتعزيز معلوماته، أو تنبيهه لأي أخطاء أثناء حياده عن مسار الفكرة (تجنب الوقوع في المتناقضات مثلا)، كما يُمكّن الآخرين من الاستفادة بالمثل من هذا المنهج المعرفي، إن أمكن تسميته هكذا.

لذلك، "هدف" هذه السلسلة من "الأفكار في المجردات"، هو مشاركة البعض من الأفكار –الأحرى أن تُفهم على أنها نتيجة فعل التفكير و ليست فكرة بحد ذاتها، كون ما أفكر فيه هو مبهم غالبا لا يرقى أن يكون فكرة واضحة-، والتي لا أجد لها إجابات، أو أسوأ، لا أستطيع طرح أسئلة محددة حولها. و لأنّها أفكار في المجردات، فلابد أن تكون فقط حول التفكُّر و التساؤلات، حول القيم المجردة، كما سأبذل كل الجهد لأن لا تكون هذه الأسئلة حول حالات محددة، أو مواضيع ذاتية.

ستكون هذه المواضيع باللغتين العربية و الانجليزية عَلّ الجميعَ يستفيد منها، أنا بالدرجة الأولى. كما أودّ أن أنوّه أن ما سيرِد في هذه السلسلة هو مجرد معلومات بصورة جافة ليس لها أي أُسس علمية أو فلسفية، أبحث لها عن بعض التوجيه علّها تصبح أفكار حقيقية.

جامعات الجزائر، تقدم وإبداع [OLD]

2010-07-21T17:52:00.002-07:00

جاء تصنيف الجامعات العالمي لهذا العام فاضحا كعادته في ما يخص الجامعات الجزائرية لكن لم يعد أحد يكترث أو حتى يعي تبعات هذه الأرقام.

في العام الماضي كنت قد كتبت عن نفس الترتيب، حيث يُلحظ التقدم المتواضع ببضع درجات لكل من جامعات: تلمسان الأولى على مستوى الجزائر (المرتبة 4143 العام الماضي، 3207 هذا العام)، باتنة (المرتبة 5548 العام الماضي، 4658 هذا العام). كما يلحظ تراجع الجامعة الأولى للعام الماضي جلالي ليابس التي كانت بالمرتبة 4116 لتحتل المرتبة 5611 هذا العام وتقدم جامعة منتوري بقسنطينة واحتلالها المرتبة الثانية جزائريا و 3853 عالميا.

أما المدرسة العليا للإعلام الآلي و التي تعد من أهم الوجهات التي يحج إليها الممتازون ممن تحصلوا مؤخرا على البكالوريا فهي تحتل المرتبة الـ (إذا كنت مصابا بداء كالسكري أو ضغط الدم فلا تكمل قراءة الأرقام)، احتلت المرتبة 8590 بعد أن كانت 8960 في العام الماضي، يمكن الاطلاع على ترتيب الجامعات الجزائرية هنا.

مع أنني لا أستغرب أن هذه الأرقام لن تحرك في أي جزائري أي شيء (ممكن بعض النباح ببضع كلمات كما أفعل ثم يُنسى كل شيء ويُكمل الجميع "زاهيين كالعادة") إلا أنني أود أن أناقش بعض دلائل هذه الأرقام، فيبدو أنه قد يخفى على البعض لمَ تحتل جامعاتنا مراتب عالية كهذه.

بعد جهد مضني في التفكير والتحليل، وجدت أن مُسيّري الجامعات و الشعب و كل القطعان -بكل أنواعها و ألسنتها- يستعملون نوعا جديدا من علوم الحساب، فهم يظنون أنه كلما كان الرقم كبيرا كانت الفائدة أكبر، وهذا ما نرى في الانتخابات مثلا، فكلما كانت الأصوات ~~المزورة~~ أكثر كانت النتيجة أفضل، كذلك كلما كان المال –~~المسروق من جيوب المواطنين~~- في بنوك سويسرا أكثر كانت الفائدة أوسع و أعم، ومن ذلك فلابد أن يكون رؤساؤنا يعتقدون أنه كلما احتلت الجامعات مرتبة ذات رقم كبير كلما علا شأنها وزاد قدرها.

أما وإن ثبتت صحة نظريتي، فأنا أقترح أن تُدرّس هذه المادة الحسابية الجديدة في الجامعات الجزائرية، وأن تكون من التخصصات التي من شروط القبول فيها أن يكون لك تجربة واسعة في النصب والاحتيال المالي، كذلك فقدان الضمير يجب أن يكون من أولى المهارات لكل طالب يرغب الالتحاق بهذا التخصص.

أما في النهاية فأهنئ الجزائر على إنجازاتها المباركة، كما أهنئ الطلّاب الجدد (والذين لا تدل كثرتهم إلا على صحة نظريتي) على الجامعات العريقة التي سيدرسون (مِن دَرَسَ القمح و الشعير) فيها كل ما زخرت به الحضارة الإنسانية من العلوم وأترككم مع صورة معبّرة لأحد أكثر مراكز البحوث تطورا في البلاد.

لماذا أريد أن أكون حاكما [OLD]

2010-07-15T16:49:00.002-07:00

تنويه: هذا المقال هو تهكم يهدف إلى النيل سلبا من الفكرة التي أناقشها في النص التالي.
لا أزال أتذكر جيّدا نصائح والدتي، ومن بينها يوم أخبرتها مازحا أن هدفي هو أن أصبح رئيس "الجمهورية" في بلادنا، فانتفضت رادعة إيّاي، واستحلَفتني ألّا أُفكر في هذا مجددا على علمِها بكوني أمزح، لكنْ يبدوا أنها رَأَتْ في الموضوع ما ليس فيه مزاح.

علَى طِيبَة أمّي وصِدق إحساسها الذي لا يخطئ، فأنا أراها لم تُصب في هذه المسألة، فكيف تفسّر والدتي الهُتاف الواسع و التصفيق الحار لرئيسنا في كل نشرات الأخبار على التلفزيون الرسمي، ثم كل ما نسمع على نفس الأخبار من إنجازات عظيمة و أعمال يُشهد لها و التي إن دلت على شيء فهي تدلّ على شرف هذا المنصب وعِظَمِ صاحبه. فكيف خفي كل هذا على أمي؟

كما لا أزال أتذكر يوم زار رئيسنا -رعاه الله- بلدتنا الصغيرة، ودشّن –كما يقولون- أحد دوائرها المُشيّدة كقصور الممالك قديما، فجلالته يستحق كل الخير، ولو كنت وزير العمران في حكومته الموقّرة لشَيّدتُ أهراما لدفن و تحنيط جسده الطاهر ليبقى لكل من يأتي بعدنا خالدا لآلاف السنين حتى يعرف المتأخِرون من الناس مرتبتهُ و عزّته عند شعبه المثالي الذي أُمنّي نفسي أن أكون منه يوما ما.

ولكن، أخشى عرض فكرة الأهرامات على والدتي مجددا، فأنا متأكد أنها ستجد عذرا ما لتجبرني على الابتعاد عن هذه الفكرة، فستقول مثلا، علّ هذه الأهرامات تبعث الشّك في مَن يأتي بأعوام بعدنا، وتصبح قصّة سيّدِنا الرئيس أسطورةً حتى يخيل لبعضهم أنه كان نبيا أو يتخذه ضعاف القلوب إلها يُعبد غير الله، لهذا، فأمي لن توافق مطلقا على فكرة الأهرامات و طاعتي واجبة لها.

على كل، حينما زار سيدنا قريتنا الصغيرة، أخذ العمال هنالك –لفرحتهم الغامرة- يزيّنون الشوارع، وينشرون الوُرود في كل مكان، بل ويدهنون كل المنازل بطلاء جديد لكن فقط من الجهة المقابلة لجلالته –قصة حقيقية-، فعيناه الرقيقتان لا تطيقان رؤية الشقوق –و الأوساخ- على الجدران. ولهذا فكل شيء كان مرتبا لراحته و سعادته، وإن دلّ هذا على شيء فإنما يدل على حبنا الغامر له وسهرنا –كشعب وفيّ وفاء الكلب لسيده- على اسعاده وجعل كل أيامه نجاحات وفرح بالإنجازات العظيمة التي تؤتي ثمارها يوما بعد يوم.

وقد تزامن مع نفس الزيارة لمعاليه، حضور وفد جماهيري كبير، بل إن بعض الأخبار تدل على أن المسؤولين الأوفياء –الكلاب لن تكون لها القدرة على مجابهة وفاء مسؤولينا طبعا- قدموا بتلاميذ المدارس من كل فج عميق في حافلات تزيد سرعتها عن سرعة البرق تعرج بهم من كل مكان إلى بلدتنا كي يهتف الكل باسم جلالته وحياته –ثم اختفت الحافلات بعد ذهاب السيد الرئيس ليعود الأطفال إلى منازلهم مشيا لأميال و أميال في حر الشمس اللاذع-، وأجزم في هذا الموقف، أنه لو كان هنالك شخص لا يعرف المكان جيدا لقال أن هؤلاء يوحدون الله حول كعبته الشريفة ولظن نفسه في مكة لاكتظاظ المهللين الداعين باسمه، و المتنافسين على الظفر بمكان في المقدمة لرؤية وجه جلالته الحسن، ولقال صاحبنا –الذي لا يعرف جيدا المكان- أنه قد جيء بيوسف نبي الله ليراه الناس في عصرنا –لجماله الذي تحلم كل النساء بتقطيع ثيابهن هياما فيه، في رئيسنا طبعا و ليس يوسف-، و لأصيب بالجنون لاختلاط المكان و الزمان عليه، فهنيئا لمن يصاب العاقلون بالجنون فقط للتفكير فيه والاعجاب بمعجزاته.

بعد كل هذا، أستغرب رأي أمي "المتشائم" حول مسألة الحكم و الرئاسة، وتمنيت لو كانت تجيد القراءة لتقرأ بعضا مما عرضتُه من مواقف هنا علها تجيز لي أن أكون حاكما.

البكالوريا في عهد الحكم الرشيد [OLD]

2010-07-05T18:39:00.002-07:00

نشرت جريدة الشرور الجزائرية بعض الأرقام المرعبة عقب إعلان نتائج شهادة البكالوريا حيث جاءت هذه الأرقام لتؤكد مساعي فخامته بحكمه الرشيد و حكمته اللامتناهية بمساعدة حاشيته المعصومة و على رأسهم السيد بن بوزيد حماه الله.

و حسب الشرور فالنسبة كانت ممتازة حيث قُدرت بـ 61,23 بالمائة، لتكون بذلك الرد الشافي لكل من سولت له نفسه التشكيك بإصلاحات نظام التربية و التعليم الجديدة، والتي عرفت أوج ازدهارها هذا العام وذلك إلى حد أن الاساتذة توقفوا عن العمل لشهور تأكيدا منهم على ان النظام الجديد و لسلاسته و مناهجه المتميزة يُمكّن للتلميذ فهمه حتى في غياب الاستاذ.

وقد أبدى بن بوزيد –أدامه الله عونا و ذخرا لأنظمة التعليم- بعض التحفظ على ثقة الأساتذة العمياء في كون النظام الجديد يُدرس من تلقاء نفسه و توقفهم عن التدريس كون وجودهم أو عدمه سيان، أدى هذا إلى مخاوف المرشد بن بوزيد إلى درجة تهديده كل أستاذ مضرب –أو متفائل للنظام الكامل- بالسجن، وهذا إن دل على شيء فهو يدل على قدرة جنابه على التفكير السوي واتخاذ القرارات السديدة و لو كانت تتسم بشيء من الشدة في التعامل.

و على الرغم من العُطل العديدة التي استمتع بها أبناءنا الأعزاء طوال العام الدراسي، حرصا من بن
بوزيد –حماه الله- على أن الراحة من أهم عوامل النجاح، جاءت تنبؤات حضرته صادقة سديدة –ولو لم أكن اؤمن بمحمد "صلى الله عليه و سلم" لاتخذته نبيا لصدق نبوءاته قُبَيْل كل امتحان-، فقد أكد أن الاستراحة التي كادت أن تمتد إلى شهور و شهور آتت أُكلها وجاءت النتائج لتُثبّت كل مشكك في إدارته النزيهة و معرفته الشاملة بالمجال و حكمته السديدة و التي لا يخص الله بها إلا كل مقرب من مراتب الأبرار و الشهداء، فحمى الله مولانا بن بوزيد و أدام عافيته لنفرح بمزيد من الأرقام –تسمى نجاحات بمصطلحاته أيضا-. قولوا آمين.

وتعود جريدة الشرور لتنشر المزيد من الانتصارات و المنن الالهية، حيث أشارت إلى أن هنالك 49 طالب بتقدير "ممتاز" –إيه، أين أنت يا أينشتاين لتستحي خجلا أمام هؤلاء؟- و 5172 بتقدير جيد جدا، فعلى غبطتنا و سعادتنا اللامتناهية بهذه الانتصارات التاريخية –والتي لا بد أن يكون الأعداء من الصهاينة يبكون حظهم لأنهم ليسوا شعب الله المختار بعد الآن بل الجزائريون هم من تبدوا عليهم علامات هذه النبوءات-، يبرُز مشكل صغير أود أن أنوه إليه كونه قد يخفى على بعض القرّاء لسعادتهم الغامرة.

على أيامي، كان رئيس الدولة، وحاميها وصاحب النعمة علينا جميعا حفظه الله، كان يستقبل كل من له تقدير جيد جدا و أكثر، فكان لي الشرف العظيم لأحضر ذاك الحفل المهيب الذي يكرم فيه الطلبة المتميزون من قبل فخامته العالية و حاشيته لهم كل الاحترام و التقدير، وكانت "الصالة" التي يستقبل فيها الطلبة واسعة كبيرة كأنها قطعة من قطع الجنة خص بها الله تعالى مولانا الرئيس لما بذله في خدمتنا و المضي بنا قدما في التطور و الارتقاء، ولكن على كبر هذه القاعة، كنا فقط بضع و مئتي فردا، أما أن يتجاوز العدد الخمسة آلاف فهذا سيشكل مشكلا عويصا يجب معالجته. لكني لا أبدي أي قلق لهذا السياق، ففخامته لديه الحكمة الشاملة في ~~سلب~~ كل ذي حق حقه، فتجاهل خمسة آلاف طالب لن يكون أصعب من شربة ماء تنسل على حلقه الطاهر.

أما ما سيكون مهمة عويصة لجلالته هو التعامل مع ما نشرته الشرور على لسان الفائزة الأولى على المستوى الوطني بأعلى معدل، وذلك بقولها انها ستناشد فخامته لمنحها منحة دراسية لمواصلة دراستها في الخارج. حيث يبدوا أنه قد خفي على طالبتنا العزيزة لصغر سنها و قلة رصانتها و علمها المنعدم بأمور السياسة، أن مثل هذا الطلب هو إهانة صريحة لسيادته و كل حاشيته الموقرة. فكيف يُطلب ممن حذا ببلده إلى أرقى المناصب - حتى عاد البلد لا يعرف أين يقع جغرافيا لولا سعدان الذي أعاد تذكير العالم بوجوده في كأس العالم-، و أرسى السلم و الأمان حتى إني لأجزم أن التاريخ سيكتب اسمه مع الفاروق عمر رضي الله عنه –ولو لم أكن مؤمنا بالله لجزمت أن سيادته أكثر فضلا من عمر-. فهو القائد للنهضة، فجامعاتنا تشهد التطور تلو الآخر، يوما بعد يوم، لتنافس كبريات مراكز البحوث في العالم، بينهما حضرتها –الطالبة صاحبة المرتبة الأولى- تستهين به و بعمله الرشيد و تطلب الدراسة في الخارج.

وفي النهاية هنيئا لبلدنا بهذا الانجاز، فلا يمكن أن يكون هذا الكم الهائل من أصحاب النجاح بتقدير إلا دليلا قاطعا على نبوغ شباب هذا الوطن وعلمهم الواسع والذي يُؤكد أن الجزائر ستبقى على أتم حال كما هي الآن بتطورها السابق لعصره، هنيئا لك سيدي بن بوزيد، و رعى الله خطوات الرئيس و حاشيته

The Infinite Learning Path to Knowledge [OLD]

2010-07-04T17:05:00.002-07:00

Bertrand Russell says in his book The Analysis of Mind :

“…and that there is no enemy to thinking so deadly as a false simplicity. Travelling, whether in the mental or the physical world, is a joy, and it is good to know that, in the mental world at least, there are vast countries still very imperfectly explored.”

These words stuck in my head while reading the book, and discovering some of the basic questions of philosophy shows how we accept things as they appear without doubting any questions about them, such as, does my body really exist :).

I am writing this post to raise the question of learning, or achieving knowledge, and what it needs to really reach such knowledge. Talking mainly about my case and difficulties I am having right now.
To start with, it seems that I am showing a very strong interest in philosophy, I’ve read : The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, and I am currently reading Mysticism and Logic and The Analysis of Mind for the same author, The Incoherence of the Incoherence by Ibn Rushd (Averroes) –تهافت التهافت من تأليف ابن رشد-, and planning to read (although I started some) : Le Discours de la méthode by René Descartes, Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell again and The Republic by Plato for the coming weeks (months/years if it takes).

Besides interest in philosophy, I am –if you don’t know already- a computer scientist too, which means that there is a lot of knowledge to gain in that domain specifically since that’s what my studies are about. So for this summer I am reading some of the ASP.NET MVC techniques, RootKits and security (as always), stretching my knowledge in functional programming and trying my best to stay up-to-date in my specific domain.

Besides, it seems while reading The Incoherence of the Incoherence, a very solid background in history is required, and I really have an interest to stretch my knowledge in history too, and last, languages, I wanted (dreams) to learn Hebrew, get used more to French and English and have a fluid attitude when talking Arabic!!!

That was the background that made me write this blog post after all, and here are the few problems I am facing:

I can’t stop myself from asking and asking, I read more and more and each book suggest reading other sources, in The Problems of Philosophy, it suggests to read books on philosophy from its beginning starting with the Greeks till the modern age.
Time, are 24 hours enough for this, without forgetting that there are LOTS of other stuff to do besides learning. Will anyone reach all knowledge he seeks for during his limited age?
Energy, I (all of us I guess) have a limited mind, I get tired quickly doing this, and life is full of other stuff (problems/fun/hate –love maybe- etc…). How can one provide all the energy he needs without getting health problems?
Language / Understanding, I read some books, but the only things I learnt is that I have to read them few more times (at least twice again), it’s not the words themselves (sometimes the words themselves even in my native language), but the expressions as used and composed to serve some specific topic, especially in philosophy.
And a lot of other issues including : work, money (the deadly point!), daily life distractions, family, friends, the world cup :p… I mean everything!

So my question is, how will I -or anyone- reach what I am looking for like this? Is anyone here actually trying to learn diverse stuff like this and how is he doing to get them in parallel? Am I walking in a wrong path by doing all this? How to stop then?

And what about humanity after a thousand years for example, how would anyone study philosophy from the Greeks to his days? Will humanity invent new ways of learning to get its way around this problem?

Thoughts About Women… and Beyond [OLD]

2010-06-27T16:39:00.002-07:00

According to Wikipedia :

A woman (irregular plural: women) is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. However, the term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age

So here, the word woman will be used exclusively to designate females.

Having ideas and values about some subjects doesn’t always fit with their counterparts in the real life, naïve thinking about the woman will reveal her role in the human civilization and just give hints of what she is really supposed to be and not what she is.

For example, for most of us (all?), women across history has been considered as an important part as men in the continuation of humanity, they give birth to new born children, they have families, they share decisions with men (queens/politicians/teachers…), and they have their rights (they still fight for their rights I’ve heard!) that ensure their freedom from a man dominated world.

So according to this, women seem to be what we actually call “women”, which basically is not a strange conclusion at all. But let’s think again, is the world actually dealing with women as we think it is? do women have any respect in such a world? or is that respect only a way for men to get what they want from women? ultimately, the question is, what are women used for in our days??
Reality has shown that to get into a man, you get his woman first (being it his mom, sister, wife or anyone else), then, is the women precious in this action or worthless because she is used and traded for men’s interests?

As a matter of fact, women are used blindly in any kind of advertisement (in one advertisement a woman is standing in front of a car with almost no clothes and with a big text saying “ride me!!!”), basically sexuality is the key of success of any advertisement, a lot of studies have already discussed this issue so we will not go through it here. There is also a brutal use of women in the so called *music* and no video clip can reach success unless having naked women dancing and sexually stimulating fans etc... Needless to mention the use of women as a pleasure-machine by men (prostitution…). Just to be clear, these things have been happening from the beginning of humanity, and they are not the result of our days.

Let’s disassemble these information more. We understand that women are used (in a good or a bad way) to show a product (in ads for example) so that others (men and women) would buy it. They are used to expose their sexuality in “music” so that others (men and women) would listen to/consume it. They are used to satisfy the needs of men so that the equilibrium of other women in that men’s life will be preserved. So as a conclusion women are being used to preserve a life continuation for other men and women on earth!

The question is, while we understand completely why men will be beneficial from all what those women are used to offer, after all, men are males, they do have a natural attraction to females (women), but where are the rest of women in the game? not all women are on ads or are modals in films/music clips, are they? So, you agree that the most notable part of women are not actually used to seduce man as we mentioned before.
now we are in front of two possibilities, whether women are also targeted by other women the same way men are, or they are completely neglected and have no value in humanity, since we don’t target them with seduction at all.

First case, women are targeted as men by other women, or simply, a woman seeing another woman in an ad or a video clip will have the same reaction (sexual/feelings) towards that woman, and the fact that it will be seduced by another woman will raise the question if a woman is a “female” after all? in other words, supposing that humanity is working perfectly well, by seducing anyone (male/female) with women, we will reach a point where we will doubt that “women” are the same “women” that we mentioned in the first paragraph and built our propositions upon?

Second case, if the women used over the time to seduce men and that other women have no interest in “women as a kind” (for example, I don’t think any man cares when he sees another man in an ad, it’s just nonsense), that leads to the fact that woman are totally neglected, and so far, the only will/desire is the one of men. For example, if an ad where there is a woman is not seducing to that woman, it means fist that she is not concerned by any ad where a woman appear (she doesn’t worth mathematically), and second, her men’s will is the only will that matters. Hence women are whether toys for men’s seduction or tools to continue the life cycle and giving birth to new children.

To recap, we have a question with two cases here, do women get seduced towards other women the same way men do? if yes, then we surely need to redefine what we mean by *a woman*, if no, that would be the proof that women are just worthless in such a world.
So which one is the answer?

Stupidity… The Shortest Path To Happiness

2010-06-12T16:51:00.002-07:00

According to Wikipedia, happiness is : a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. Before starting, it’s worth mentioning that the happiness we discuss here is the long term happiness not just the transitional instant feeling of happiness.

People look for happiness always, and most of them think that being smart is the key to success which brings happiness, of course this might be true (although I don’t believe it is), but is success really the key to happiness? if we suppose it is, can we ever achieve success?

Supposing that success is the key to happiness, achieving success is always doubted, because we never achieve the *ultimate* success when achieving success, I mean, a creative person will never stop at a point and say this is my ultimate success, I will stop, she will always seek to advance more, or simply, she will look for *success* once achieved success.

Take for example big thinkers, they never reached a point where they stopped looking for more answers, Einstein didn’t stop asking after his relativity, Dijkstra, Newton and a lot of others. Actually, recent studies even proved that creative minds are associated with an increased risk of depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and this is no where close to happiness, so the fact that we can’t reach success is a solid argument that we can’t reach happiness neither.

Some might argue that happiness doesn’t have to come after success, but at the same time of the way to success, this might be a valid argument which unfortunately I am not able to prove or deny for the moment (welcoming your creativity here).

In the contrary, stupidity offer a real great and simple approach to happiness, of course before going any further, let’s fix the meaning of stupidity here; we mean by stupid not the opposite of intelligent, but further more, the opposite of smart. A person can be intelligent and stupid at the same time of course, if she is ignorant, she has no idea what’s happening in the world around her, just don’t care about valuable issues over the globe etc… that’s stupidity.

For example people who live just for what they wear, what they eat, to have fun any and every time, ARE by all means stupid, and that’s exactly what I am dealing with in the article!

Stupidity makes a person without plans for the future, I mean, future that really matters, of course this person will have all the noise inside her brain about coming nonsense parties, what clothes she will wear/buy, and everything that doesn’t worth. Because everything is almost worthless in that person’s life, even happiness itself, it won’t be a big deal to reach it, because she is really succeeding at ignoring anything that has a value.

As stated, I think therefore I am, I believe that anyone who never said this -“never Thought before”- is a happy person. Never going deep inside your brain, entertaining ideas, letting it goes beyond its limits, is the key to happiness. A stupid person won’t even be able to tell if she is happy or not, because basically she don’t think, as thus, she can’t realize her state, even if instant feelings might come across her from time to time.

To clear things a little, we might be sad for a period of time but feel happiness, we might feel pain but feel satisfied at the same time, so it’s the same, stupid persons (we included) can tell they are sad, but ultimately, they can be nothing but happy, simply because nothing of a *big deal* is worrying their little brains, unlike creative minds who can never stop themselves from thinking more and more.

Of course any of us can make himself stupid for the period he wants, this gift is not just made for naturally-stupid people, but unfortunately, our minds seem to never be able to trick themselves, I for instance, can not stop myself from thinking, I believe that this is some sort of stupidity of course that is not allowing me to be stupid –and hence feel happy-!

As a conclusion, Be stupid and you are happy, try to be smart and you are undefined (unless proved otherwise).

Others’ Opinion About Us

2010-04-04T17:00:00.002-07:00

Few moments ago I was chatting with T_Zano about some issues, then we came into the idea of what people think and don’t think about you.

According to him, I should delete this picture because people will see that there is a beer besides me, and hence will think that I drink beers. And because I am a Muslim and an “Example” to other students (according to him always) I should keep my public reputation as clean as I can.

Obviously, you can see in the picture that it is a simple Ice Tea, but let’s suppose that you are from the ones who see it a *beer* for instance.

As far as I am concerned, I totally don’t care how people see it, and I am no way concerned by the WRONG way others see things, I didn’t do anything wrong so I just don’t care. But according to T_Zano, it is better to change the *right* things you do in order to to prevent others’ *wrong* ideas about you.

So generally, is it ok to do wrong things as far as others see it right?? and not to do right things whenever others see it wrong? What is your opinion?

Finally, T_Zano and me were discussing ideas, and my final decision was that, I don’t care, it’s people’s problem to see things right and not mine to make them see it right. So please answer about the idea generally and not about this specific case between me and him.

"حلال علي وحرام على غيري"

2010-03-30T15:45:00.002-07:00

اعتدت على كتابة مواضيع جدلية في مدونتي هذه حول مواضيع تخص الجزائر عامة لكنها قلما تلاقي اهتماما كونها باللغة الإنجليزية، فقررت أن اكتب هذا الموضوع باللغة التي نفهمها جميعاً.

كما اعتدت في تدويناتي بالإنجليزية أود أن انوه إلى التالي :
مناقشتي لمثل هذه الأفكار لا تعني بأي شكل من الأشكال انني أؤمن بها أو انني مع أو ضد أية وجهة نظر، فأرجو من كل من يريد أن يعلق ، أن يناقش الفكرة وليس ما أؤمن ولا أؤمن به.

لطالما كان العرب يتقمصون دور الضحايا في أبسط القضايا، ومن بينها الحرب (إن وجدت) التي تشن على المسلمين وكل ما هو مسلم في أوربا والغرب عامة. فتجد خبراً في جريدة يتحدث عن شاب جزائري سجن في ألمانيا كونه إرتكب جريمة أو حدث أن كان في أحد العصابات الخارجة عن القانون، فترى البلد أجمع يثور لهذه الحادثة كونه يرى في هذا تمييزاً بل ويعتبره استهدافا مباشرا لمجتمعنا *الكامل* والذي يهتز حتى عندما يحاسب مجرموه.

من بين المواضيع الأكثر جدلاً (ربما فقط في أفكاري) هو كيف يريد المسلمون أن تكون لهم كامل الحريات في ممارسة شعائرهم الدينية ، و يهاجمون أدنى حادثة يكون هدفها مسلم في الغرب (و الذي قد يكون لا يمد للإسلام بصلة) وهم لا يؤمنون بحرية الديانات بأي شكل من الأشكال في بلدانهم العربية.

فلنأخد الجزائر على سبيل المثال، نقرأ كل يوم في الجرائد المسماة بالوطنية إكتشاف جماعات للدعوة إلى الدين المسيحي وتصويرها على أنها الشر بعينه. أتساءل، لم نتوقع من الغرب أن يتيح للمسلمين بناء المساجد والمدارس بينما يعامل كل من يدعو لدين أخر في بلداننا على أنه سرطان يجب إستئصاله قبل أن يتسع في انتشاره، بينما مصانع الخمر مثلاً هي من انجح المصانع في بلادنا.

ألم يكن جار الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم يهودي؟ ألم يكن في الماضي القريب أجدادنا يعيشون مع جيرانهم من اليهود ويتزوجون من نسائهم؟ (اتحدث عن الجزائر، و إن لم تكن تعلم فالتسأل كبار السن)، وهل هذا يعني أن جيل الابراهيمي وعبد الحميد بن باديس كانوا أكثر تفتحاً على العالم أكثر منا في وقتنا هذا رغم كل وسائل الإتصال والتكنولوجيا؟ من ناحية أخرى، هل يسمى مسلماً من يشترى ب- 1000 دينار لكي لا يصلي الجمعة ويصبح مسيحي أو غير ذلك؟ ما نفع الإسلام به إن كان كذلك؟

أرى أنه حان الوقت للجلوس في نظرة تأمل لأخذ موقف جاد بخصوص هكذا مواضيع، فهل ترى أنه يجب السير بسياسة "حلال علي وحرام على غيري" أم أن تحكيم العقل والدعوة بالحسنى هي السبيل؟

أنا... يتكلم... عربي

2010-03-28T15:45:00.002-07:00

ما دفعني إلى كتابة هذه السطور هو عدم اتقاني للغة العربية كتابةً أو نطقاً، فعلى الرغم من كوني عربي فأنا اعترف بضعف لغتي وبأسلوبي الركيك في الكتابة، لا أتذكر انني كتبت في حياتي نصاً خارج ما كان مقررا علينا في المدرسة.

لقد كانت دروس العربية في المدرسة جوفاء لا تتعدى بضع جمل كنا نعيدها عاما تلو الأخر ، لا أذكر أن مدرسا علمني كيف أنطق العربية نطقاً صحيحا، ولا كيف أتكلمها بطلاقة كما أتكلم العامية. أما الامر من هذا كله هو أن الأستاذ نفسه كان يكلمنا بالعامية في درس الغة العربية الفصحى، مفارقات لا تجدها إلى عند اساتذة يضربون عن العمل أكثر مما يعملون .

تذكرت كل هذا بعد لقائي لأحد الأصدقاء، حيث كنا نناقش موضوع إضراب المدرسين في الجزائر، فقص علي كيف أنه تعلم تكلم العربية هنا في باريس من شاب سنغالي دارس للقرأن، وقد كانت علامات الحسرة بادية على وجهه بعد دراسته للغة العربية كما الكل لمدة 12 عاما لكن دون أن يجيد إسترسال جملتين دون تعتعة أو إرتكاب جرائم صرف ونحو في حقها. حينها قال لي أن الأستاذ الذي يدرسك لغة لا تستطيع أن تتكلمها بطلاقة ليس له الحق في المطالبة بأي شيء حتى يؤدي واجبه بإخلاص.

أعتقد أن العديد هم مثلي إن لم أقل كل من أعرفهم، كلنا نقرأ ونفهم النصوص العربية ، لكن هل نستطيع خوض مناظرة لا نتحدث فيها إلى العربية الفصحى بقواعدها الصحيحة؟ أنا شخصياً لا استطيع، فهيهات لو كنت فقط أجيد كتابة نص خال من الأخطاء.

لقد كنت دائماً شغوفاً بقراءة الشعر خاصة ديوان الشافعي الذي كنت أحفظه كاملاً مما جعل نطقي ومخارج الحروف عندي لا بأس بها، لكني دائماً أجد صعوبة حين التكلم إرتجالا من غير القراءة من نص معد مسبقاً. على كل فقد عزمت منذ وقت على اجادة الغة العربية والعديد من أشياء أخرى سآتي لذكرها في مواقف أخرى ان شاء الله.

في الأخير، أرجو أن تعذروا لغتي المتكلفة ، وإن كان هنالك أية أخطاء فلا تنسوا تنبيهي إليها كوني استعمل غوغل تعريب للكتابة.

The secret of existence [Final part]

2010-03-26T16:04:00.002-07:00

I’ve talked about this subject in part I and part II trying to reveal some of what I believe I understand and want many others to understand too about the secret of existence, or the secret beyond matter.
I found it really hard to express my ideas (which are not usual to believe or to be convinced of) about the existence, and I believe it is also too complicated to the reader to follow up and understand the idea and then to be convinced about it.
So as a result, I want to show this video that explains exactly the ideas I tried to express in these series, you can find an English, Arab, Deutsch, Chinese and Indonesian versions, and they are *free* to download.

Please let me know what you think after you watch the documentary… enjoy.

Al-Kindi and a Brief History of Cryptanalysis

2010-03-14T07:19:00.002-07:00

Today I was doing a quick recap of some cryptography methods in order to prepare my exam and I discovered an astonishing fact about the history of the frequency analysis method.

It turns out that the first inventor of cryptanalysis was Al-Kindi, an Arab Muslim scientist (c. 801–873 CE). According to Wikipedia he is :

Abū Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī (Arabic: أبو يوسف يعقوب إبن إسحاق الكندي‎) (c. 801–873 CE), also known to the West by the Latinized version of his name Alkindus, was an Arab Iraqi polymath:^[1] an Islamic philosopher, scientist, astrologer, astronomer, cosmologist, chemist, logician,mathematician, musician, physician, physicist, psychologist, and meteorologist.^[2] Al-Kindi was the first of the Muslim Peripatetic philosophers, and is known for his efforts to introduce Greek and Hellenistic philosophy to the Arab world,^[3] and as a pioneer in chemistry, cryptography,medicine, music theory, physics, psychology, and the philosophy of science.
Al-Kindi was a descendant of the Kinda tribe which is a well known Arabic tribe native of Najd (present day Saudi Arabia). He was born and educated in Kufa, before pursuing further studies in Baghdad. Al-Kindi became a prominent figure in the House of Wisdom, and a number ofAbbasid Caliphs appointed him to oversee the translation of Greek scientific and philosophical texts into the Arabic language. This contact with "the philosophy of the ancients" (as Greek and Hellenistic philosophy was often referred to by Muslim scholars) had a profound effect on his intellectual development, and led him to write original treatises on subjects ranging from Islamic ethics and metaphysics to Islamic mathematics and pharmacology.^[4]^[5]
In mathematics, al-Kindi played an important role in introducing Indian numerals to the Islamic and Christian world.^[6] He was a pioneer incryptanalysis and cryptology, and devised new methods of breaking ciphers, including the frequency analysis method.^[7] Using his mathematical and medical expertise, he developed a scale to allow doctors to quantify the potency of their medication.^[8] He also experimented with music therapy.^[9]

His invention was one of the most creative ever, because every monoalphabetic substitution cipher was vulnerable to his method, it was the most fundamental cryptanalytic advance until WWII.

He even described methods to break -cryptanalysis- some polyalphabetic ciphers;

The Arab mathematician, Al-Kindi, wrote a book on cryptography entitled Risalah fi Istikhraj al-Mu'amma (Manuscript for the Deciphering Cryptographic Messages), circa AD 800. He described the first cryptanalysis techniques, including some for polyalphabetic ciphers, cipher classification, Arabic Phonetics and Syntax, and, most importantly, described the use of several techniques for cryptanalysis, and gave the first descriptions on frequency analysis.^[4] He also covered methods of encipherments, cryptanalysis of certain encipherments, and statistical analysis of letters and letter combinations in Arabic.^[5]

al-Kindi wrote at least two hundred and sixty books, contributing heavily to geometry (thirty-two books), medicine and philosophy (twenty-two books each), logic (nine books), and physics (twelve books). His influence in the fields of physics, mathematics, medicine, philosophy and music were far-reaching and lasted for several centuries. He is considered one of the twelve greatest minds of the Middle Ages by the Italian Renaissance scholar Gerolamo Cardano (1501–1575).

I highly recommend that you read his biography and achievement as well as the history of the cryptography methods and techniques he invented :

-- This post is part of the series The Dark Ages or The Golden Ages?, Till When?

PICs from the Louvre museum

2010-03-07T16:03:00.002-08:00

Today I discovered a lot of the humanity aspects that I’ve never thought about before, and from what I discovered I can conclude that humanity didn’t progress that much after all.
Walking (almost lost in the time/history) in the Louvre museum today, it was a great opportunity to discover the ancient civilizations and especially: ancient Egypt.
For example, before 4000 years from now, the ancient Egyptians had games like dames and dices, the writing on the stones, paper etc etc.. I was not so impressed by the new pieces of art, the Mona Lisa for instance, as I was by the old ones, and by old I mean Thousands of years B.C.
Actually I touched some of the sarcophagus in there, I wanted to see how it feels to touch something which was made 4000 years from now (and actually touched by someone from that era), I can’t tell how it feels, but let’s hope no mummies will attack me tonight :).
Here are some shots I took while I was there:

The Dark Ages or The Golden Ages?

2010-02-27T12:22:00.002-08:00

In a previous post entitled Till When, I talked about how the Muslim civilization had a great impact on the the world and science as we know it today.
And because a picture is worth a thousand words, I invite you to watch the following video about few of the great Muslim savants who had a big impact on the modern science.

"Take a look... if you dare!"

I invite you also to check the 1001 Inventions website, it has priceless resources about the subject : http://www.1001inventions.com/ .
Thanks to @cyounes for mentioning the video first on his blog http://www.cyounes.com/.

Catastrophic Facts : the first Algerian university is ranked 4,116 and INI is 8,960

2009-12-24T17:08:00.002-08:00

As far as I hated that institute called INI (ESI) I never thought it will be that bad. Today after a small chat with a student from there, he was telling me that after 3 months (a whole trimester) they still DIDN’T DO any work practices on machines (TP), so I decided to check the ranking of Algerian universities maybe there still some hope.
If you do not agree that universities are the measure of evolution / retardation in a country please leave a comment explaining why is (1 – 1 = 6) too.
According the the ranking, the first Algerian university (Université Djillali Liabes) is at the 4116th position, followed by Université Abou Bekr Belkaid Tlemcen at the 4143th position then Université de Batna at the 5548th position.
Looking for my lovely Institute which I spent some time in, I was shocked that it was not even among the first 6000 universities worldwide! A little further search reveals its 8,960th position –YES 8960-, you can find it here http://www.webometrics.info/top100_continent.asp?cont=africa –the END of the page-.

So my question is, are our universities just a place for people to spend -waste- time? to occupy our youth generation 5 or 6 years before facing the fact that they won’t make any tiny difference in the world with what they studied? Shouldn’t we feel ashamed being ranked after the poorest countries in Africa with our millions of $$$ coming everyday from petroleum resources –and going directly to the pockets of our lovely thi*eves-? Is there an institute in the world for Computer Science without Internet for its students in the year 2010? –Maya’s are expecting the world to end after 2 years-
Finally I want to congratulate INI and all the Algerian universities out there for the highest ranking –the number of characters it occupied-, and congratulate their students also for not accepting the fact that they are not even among the first 4100 universities, also since we still fight for our right in the RESTO and such stuff, I’m pretty sure we are not going to move any further in the near future.
Happy new year, let’s pray that the ranking won’t get any worse in the new year.

The secret of existence [Part II: “Is the world inside me, or am I inside the world?”]

2009-11-15T09:31:00.002-08:00

If you missed part one of these series please refer here http://ithink.martani.net/2009/09/secret-of-existence-part-i-i-think.html to gain more clues about this adventure discovering the secret of existence.
In the last post, I talked about the quote “I think therefore I am” by Descartes, and I mentioned that seeing and touching things can’t be a proof of existence. In this post, you will see how the mind plays tricks on you to convince you that imaginary stuff is real.
First let me mention that the mind is 2 things, a conscious and unconscious entity, the conscious part, is the one that you are using now to read this text, or maybe the part which is using (you) your eyes to read this post –right?-, the unconscious part is the one we use when we dream, it doesn’t necessarily act only when we dream, but even when we are awake and thinking consciously. The important here, is to know that the unconscious part cannot tell the difference between reality and imaginary things.
Let’s do a small experiment, say you are touching your mouse to scroll down the page; you obviously touch the mouse and therefore you think it exists. Also, you see this text written on the screen, therefore the screen exists and so on, the same goes for the taste, hearing…
Let’s delve a little into the touch experiment, you touch the mouse, an electrical signal transports on your nerves from the fingers till arriving to the brain where it get processed, at that point the brain analyze the signal, understand it in some ways, then makes you feel the act of touching the mouse.
That’s obvious you say… so now what would happen if we cut the nerves between the fingers and the brain? obviously you won’t feel the mouse, even if your fingers touch it, this goes for all the other senses, vision works the same way, we cut the nerves and you won’t see things even if they exist in front of you.

We can conclude that the brain is the central part translating electrical signals to what we call reality that we touch, feel, taste… Now, what if we understand completely the format of the electrical signals that the nerves send to the brain when the hand touches the mouse? what if instead of the nerves connected to the brain, we connect a machine that generates the same signals the hand nerves generate when fingers touch the mouse?
Imagine your hand in cold water, but the nerves from your hand to the brain are being anesthetized (or cut), means their signals don’t reach the brain anymore, and instead we connect our machine to generate signals of a hand touching fire. Can you guess what would happen?
Here, you will feel that your hand is on fire and is burning, and you will also feel pain, although your hand is inside cold water; so what happened here? you felt fire despite there is no fire?
Once again, the brain is telling you your hand is on fire, although you know it’s not, in other words, reality or environment is the world as seen by the brain (precisely the mind), means, the world is inside your brain… you are not inside the world.
The same way, what I explained with touch could be simulated with sight, smell, taste and hearing, the same kind of signals will be sent to the brain and you will see yourself on the moon.
So, what if the source of touching the mouse was not the mouse itself? but another source sending signals to the mind showing it a mouse? or let’s say the mouse is really there, how can you prove the existence of that mouse when you know that you can perceive it only inside your mind?
It turns out that we can’t prove the existence of any material object outside our minds, even our hands, body and eyes, let me go further and say we can’t even prove the existence of the brain (the physical part).
I suppose you see clearly now why the quote “I think therefore I am” is highly precise.
I’m sure a quick pass through the text won’t convince you nor make you understand what was written to 100%. Give yourself time, imagine your mind getting provided by artificial signals of all the signals that your nerves could provide, you can easily program that machine to make you see yourself in Japan now, or having some holidays in Hawaii, and yes you won’t be able to discover you are not there. Because it is reality according to your mind.
This part was a little entry to understand what is real and what is not, and obviously, touching (feeling) things doesn’t prove in any means their existence. Also it shows how the world (environment, reality) happens inside our brains and not outside, even if it is outside, we can never prove it.
Next part will be about how when I slap someone he feels also the pain :) isn’t it only my mind playing tricks on me? or does it play tricks on others’ minds too?

The secret of existence [Part I: “I think therefore I am”]

2009-09-19T17:38:00.002-07:00

Today, you are going to boost your thinking, go beyond the limits of your mind, and see very far from what you used to see before.

The biggest question that makes me ask and never stop asking is : “What is life?”, maybe I didn’t find even 1% of the answer, but I know, what I found is amazing! It’s an ultimate truth that most, if not all people out there ignore totally, I believe I know now the secret of existence, or the secret behind matter.

The question is simple, does the screen that you are using now to read this words exist? there are two answers, a short and a long one, the short one might shock you, or just makes you leave this page already, the long answer will take you to a marvelous world, that exists in your life, that you touch everyday but you are not aware of.

Be sure that I’m am not talking about magical, or fantasy stories, I’m going to prove, logically and most of the times scientifically the secret of existence. Also this is not my original idea, it’s a theory that existed long before, but most of people don’t want to think deeply about it, whether because they can’t understand it, or because they are scared to know the fact that the world they live in does not exist, and this why why I’m going to explain this theory by simple, real world example to make it as friendly and simple as possible.

Q. Do I exist? Or precisely, do my body exist? Do this world exist?

Short answer. No:
Nothing exists, the screen you are looking at doesn’t exist, the keyboard you used to type this page’s URL does not exist neither, the mouse that you are about to use to leave this page does not exist too, and even your hand that you are moving the mouse with and your eyes you are using to read these words DO NOT EXIST.

Long answer. No too:
I am afraid that this subject can’t be expressed in few lines, in order for you to fully understand the secret of existing, you have to let your mind think freely along with the new ideas you will discover here, to boost your thinking to a high level so that you see a clearer picture of what I will introduce in the few posts to come.

In this first post about the topic I want to show a quote from a great philosopher, a mathematician and a physicist which most of you heard of : “I think, therefore I am”, I am taking about Rene Descartes.

“I think, therefore I am”, Rene Descartes:

Most of us know this quote very well, and most of us too just passed by without looking deeply inside the meaning. I have a small question to you in that case, why he didn’t say : I see my hands (of my body), therefore I am? Rene Descartes is too brilliant to understand the difference between the two, obviously the fact of saying I see something therefore it exists is not very accurate even if this something is your OWN hand.

Rene Descartes understood clearly that, just the fact of thinking, will prove his existence, and not the fact that he see his body. So what exist and what does not exist? I am sure that you will appreciate this quote a lot once you understand the secret of existence.

Simply, the matter does not exist at all, means; food, humans, air and even computers are not there where you think you see them, “so who the hell is that ‘you’, you talking to if it doesn’t exist”? you may ask. As I stated that will take some time to reveal, and a lot of introductions (real life examples) have to be given before.

As a result, and for some of you who decided to continue the journey discovering why nothing exists, maybe they will feel depression since they will discover they do not exist along with this world! but it’s fine since you will realize that knowing the secret of existence (matter) will make you more advanced than most of the people out there, which will bring you happiness again :).

Once again, this is a logical and a scientific subject that has proofs, not just some theories based on sane thinkers’ ideas.

If you are to follow these posts, then be sure to add this blog’s RSS to your list, also feel free to ask, throw a comment or start a discussion in the comments, the disqus’ commenting system is too advanced to handle forum like discussions.

Well, this is it! noting exists, or at least we can’t prove the existence of any matter in the universe. and always ask why is “I think, therefore I am” and not “I see my body, therefore I am”.

Ready for the adventure?

[iDebate] Ayy… Am Algerian

2009-09-05T16:23:00.002-07:00

[Read This First] : the text here doesn’t express necessarily my viewpoint (aka ideas I believe in), so if you are to comment, please comment the post not the fact that it’s ME who wrote the post!

Once again, an Algerian issue to discuss, but this time it’s an [iDebate] not an [iWonder], means is for debate, yes you get it, to try to convince the OTHER part.

As you can see from the title, we have two sides here, the ones who say “I am Algerian”, and the other who say “Ayy am Algeria”, let’s analyze both sides and dig into their thoughts!

First, starting with the “I am Algerian” people! (their problems first). just explain it to me, some one holding the Algerian national flag, running as a fool when people are celebrating the new year at 00:00 (12 am) in the Eiffel tower! I mean why all this ‘Algerian’ofobia? it’s like shouting what is the capital of Madagascar when people are discussing Rootkits! totally off topic.

In fact, if you never lived outside Algeria for sometime you won’t find this that interesting, but imagine an Algerian student, talking to a Mauritius (someone from the Maurice island), saying the world “vive l’Algerie” almost every 30 seconds!! I seriously has no explanation to this! although the discussion was about study and IT (no geographical nor historical talking at all). –yeah the Mauritius guy was completely shocked after the discussion-

The last situation outside the IT circle is on the football matches! do you remember what Algerians did in Tunisia? I mean why that! destroying, fighting and even stealing… is this because of football or because the blood inside is boiling with this “vive l’Algerie”-thingy till it makes the eyes blind, and hence everything after it is allowed in the name of “Algeria”.

“Who cares” you might say, “let’s talk IT”. Ok! let’s talk IT, did you see the noise out there in the Algerian blogs about Algerian bloggers? So far I didn’t find an Algerian blog that is not talking about “this will be a good addition for the Algerian -blogsphere-”! I’m not against the idea, and by the way I thank Amar Soft so much for his continuous work about this.

Why we don’t see elsewhere on the Web people that thanking each other for being from the same country? why we must see that “it’s a good post from Algerian blogger” or “thanks, that would be a great addition for the Algerian blogger’s community” comments? can’t we just cross the borders of that! this is why “internet” is here at first place, no? can’t we just focus on the benefit that we gain from those websites/blogs without having that complex of: “he is Algerian” that means this is a huge work!

On the other hand, isn’t this going to isolate us as a “IT” people or bloggers or whatever you call it from the whole world? isn’t this going to make us too introverted? living just inside the box, and ignoring/missing a lot of what is happening outside?

From the consequences of that is our separation as Arab nations, and I’m talking about the psychological separation before the political once, why do Algerian hate Moroccan by nature? explain it to me? although maybe most of them never talked to a Moroccan before! why people are eliminating borders in Europe, but we still have to get visa to go from a country to another? I think this is one among the consequences of this “I am Algerian” thinking after all.

Enough “Ayy… am Algerian” arguments, let’s see what the “I am Algerian” guys have to say.

Isn’t the fact that we are fools about Algeria a very strong gift! we can build it in a very short time with all this energy! we can do a revolution (in the good way, financial or cultural for example), we can influence the world! we can… we…

For people shouting “vive l’Algerie” even in Korea, where is the harm in that? they love their country (Ohh wait wait, -it’s me who is talking now- please explain how and why they love it), they have the right to express this anywhere. This is a sign of faith, a higher level of connection that is not easy to not express once you have such a feeling. –I bet this is not totally correct, since expressing their love doesn’t mean destroying other’s stadium and cars and… more more-

As for the IT community, this is the only way to make Algerian “geeks” as they are called to be known and to advance in their path –I so congratulate also the initiative of barcamps that are taking place lately :)-. and where is the harm if I thank a “Algerian” blogger for a work he did mentioning that he is making a “PLUS” to that community?

Lastly, what’s that stupid example of hating Moroccans that you are giving? (if you can’t follow my way of writing please don’t comment on something you can fully see it’s figure, here are “I love Algeria” guys talking to me XD ) who on earth said this, we represent a modest respectful part of the Algerian Community and these little off-topic issues never get in our way! “We work on building this union, but for now, the Algerian union first!!!!”

So, this is it, which side you are, what are your arguments? what are you answers for the other side’s arguments? and as Aristotle said :

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

So discuss the idea and try to be nice with each other!

Ah, I forgot, sorry for folks who speak “French”! this is one of the non-good things about it also, why does our society still a French one? why they speak French better than Arabic? I bet they don’t speak Arabic at all! just look at our ministers and of course it’s majesty also. Totally a good reason for the “Ayy … am Algerian” guys XD?

[iWonder] The life of the living dead

2009-08-28T17:42:00.002-07:00

What’s life? when it starts? when it ends? how to tell if someone is alive or dead? maybe those are some questions that we can answer whether spiritually or scientifically, but there are some specific parts of humanity who don’t obey to the rules of life. why? because they are dead when we apply the definition of “alive” on them.

Some nature rules don’t just fit with those people, they are just living (if this word has definition in their context) for almost everything and nothing that worth in general!

Obviously I’m talking about the /Algerian/ people, or people I belong to! I see a lot of miracles that make me wonder day after day how this could happen in a society!

First talking about youth people! according to what I saw (for no less that 10 years) maybe more than 60% of them are just not graduated! they pass their days in café (this is a sooooo strong word to be defined, be sure you don’t project it to be like cafeteria, or bar, or anything you might saw elsewhere, starbucks for example, there is no connection), can you imagine a 20 to 30 years old guy staying almost 13 hours a day in a café, ordering no more than 2 cups of café and talking about absolutely nothing, by nothing I mean sport, girls, what other people did, what they didn’t, why their neighbor is a terrific man, how is his (neighbor) wife a **** and so on…

For the rest 40%, 35% of them just go to university for obvious reasons! meet, KILLING time (a very strange word that you risk to never understand if you don’t live at least 37 days in /Algeria/) or running behind girls (that doesn’t means girls are not running behind boys too), of course study is not an option in our universities, since even if you want to study there is nothing worth to study for! a professor who gives marks according to faces (if he like you, you get a mark, otherwise you wont even if you work hardly), of course girls are almost always beautiful (in the vision of those professors) so they got marks easily.

Always with those 35% which represent students, all of them get their graduation without any knowledge of what they studied! you may feel like I’m going too fast and excluding your hard work from this circle, but think twice! the fact that you got a good mark means you understand what you did?

So for the last 5%, 3% of them are Dead-Nerd people (students if you want), they are clever, they know what they are doing, but wait! they have a very serious problem, the word doesn’t work without them. sounds weird? of course, they are the world! means, no one has the right to know but them, if you tell them about something new then you are obviously addressing them personally and saying “hey you don’t know this”, or that’s what they understand at least, they don’t want you to learn, they don’t want anybody to advance? why? who knows, maybe this somebody will be better than them! so their tactic is, destroy you before you start! and never help you, but just send you to the darkest point with their ugly smile!

At least we reached the 2%… these people are the ones who want to change the other 98%, those are people who have ideas (but which are already killed), they have hope (a dead one), they have imagination (it doesn't go far anymore), they are alive (among a living dead people).

What can they do? when they see a child of 8 years old, going to cyber-café and the first word in Google that he type is a ~~*porn*~~ word, when they see an absolutely extra happy 25 years old guy who spent 3 months doing the something exactly everyday (staying in café of course :D )!

Actually here I was targeting the 8 to 35 years old people and described their presence as 100%, since young children can’t just be counted (chances are very high that they will be like the more older examples they see in the real world) and the older that 40 years old who are almost fathers who run everyday to get some food for their children or some disgusting humans who passed this age and has no self respect till now.

So the question why all this is happening? Obviously we can’t call this a living people! I’m not going to answer that question! you answer it, I wan just to say that the hands that are closing our eyes, and making our brains running 1000000 times slower that what they are supposed to, are the ones who are responsible for all that!

If you feel you make a part of this society, or you are a living human from everywhere that want to give your opinion, feel free to speak in here, just be sure that any comment here doesn’t express my opinions in anyways!

If you think on the other hand that I went too far, and said things that doesn’t exist, or are not allowed to be told (according to our rules of 7ACHMA), then I guess it’s time for those DEAD-LIVING people to wake up. Am just telling what I see, and what is hidden is worse than that!

That was the 1st part speaking about a tiny part of what’s going out there! the next part I may continue digging deeper in a specific tragedy, or maybe I will talk about what is good in that society, everything has two faces! but sadly the other face is about to disappear soon!

OK, it’s for you now, defend the living dead, give more facts, or just ignore you read this someday!

Greek philosophers quotes

2009-08-05T07:10:00.002-07:00

My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.

Socrates

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

Aristotle

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

Aristotle

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

Aristotle

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Socrates

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

Socrates

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

Socrates

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

Socrates

Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

Socrates

....