"And they say: "The Most Gracious (Allah) has begotten a son.'' Indeed you have said a terrible evil thing."

"And they say: "The Most Gracious (Allah) has begotten a son.'' Indeed you have said a terrible evil thing. Whereby the heavens are almost torn, and the earth is split asunder, and the mountains fall in ruins. That they ascribe a son to the Most Gracious. But it is not suitable for (the majesty of) the Most Gracious that He should beget a son. There is none in the heavens and the earth but comes unto the Most Gracious (Allah) as a servant" (Quran: 19:88-95)

﴿وَقَالُواْ اتَّخَذَ الرَّحْمَـنُ وَلَداً - لَقَدْ جِئْتُمْ شَيْئاً إِدّاً - تَكَادُ السَّمَـوَتُ يَتَفَطَّرْنَ مِنْهُ وَتَنشَقُّ الاٌّرْضُ وَتَخِرُّ الْجِبَالُ هَدّاً - أَن دَعَوْا لِلرَّحْمَـنِ وَلَداً - وَمَا يَنبَغِى لِلرَّحْمَـنِ أَن يَتَّخِذَ وَلَداً - إِن كُلُّ مَن فِى السَّمَـوَتِ وَالاٌّرْضِ إِلاَّ آتِى الرَّحْمَـنِ عَبْداً - لَّقَدْ أَحْصَـهُمْ وَعَدَّهُمْ عَدّاً - وَكُلُّهُمْ ءَاتِيهِ يَوْمَ الْقِيَـمَةِ فَرْداً ﴾ (سورة مريم)

http://www.albetaqa.com/cards/img4219.htm

Customers queuing to withdraw their Gulf Bank money despite CBK assurances

UPDATE: 27-OCT-08

Excellent analysis: http://chartsandnumbers.com/2008/10/26/gulf-bank-of-kuwait-gbk-possible-collapse/

UPDATE: 7:44PM:
Frankom posted a photo: http://www.frankom.com/?p=3996
Also, DA has more details ("rumors"?):
http://www.chillnite.com/gulf-bank-rumors

* Gulf Bank ATM machines are down
* Police in place for any emergency
* Gulf Bank has major losses on its sheets
* People are rushing to pull money out of Gulf Bank

===
It seems Gulf Bank customers are rushing to withdraw their money after today's news. This is despite the Central Bank of Kuwait's governor appearing on tv to assure and calm the fears. As in other places, the assrances appear to backfire?
who would have thought this would happen in Kuwait!

Any one took photos of queues?

is this another sign of things to come?
Buy gold people... buy gold.

Wall Street leads stockmarkets' crash- وول ستريت تقود إنهيار بورصات العالم

يا أيها الذين امنوا اتقوا الله وذروا ما بقي من الربا إن كنتم مؤمنين فَإِنْ لَمْ تَفْعَلُوا فَأْذَنُوا بِحَرْبٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ وَإِنْ تُبْتُمْ فَلَكُمْ رُءُوسُ أَمْوَالِكُمْ لَا تَظْلِمُونَ وَلَا تُظْلَمُونَ (البقرة 278-279)

[278] O ye who believe! Fear Allah, and give up what remains of your demand for usury, if ye are indeed believers.
[279] If ye do it not, take notice of war from Allah and His Messenger: but if ye turn back, ye shall have your capital sums; deal not unjustly, and ye shall not be dealt with unjustly.

Wallstreet Bailout plan rejected by politicians; Markets down; economies @ risk; Oil soon falling into our livers? lool prepare for famine

Wallstreet Bailout plan rejected by politicians; Markets down; economies @ risk; Oil soon falling into our livers? lool prepare for famine

"U.S. lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Monday voted against the biggest proposed government intervention in the U.S. economy since the Great Depression of 1929."

Getting closer to the prophecized famine (http://www.islaam.com/Article.aspx?id=402) ? Economies/ Petro Chemicals will be affected; Oil might soon fall into our livers (Kuwaiti expressions: يطيح بجبودنا lool). Markets respond badly; DOW down by 700 points!
Economies at risk; money will be worthless, your safe heaven: replace worthless papermoney with something of intrinsic value:buy gold... too late! it was less than $400 back in 2000/2001, now gold is at ~$950 (http://www.kitco.com/; darn, I only bought two tiny pieces back in 2004/2005 for a total of about KD900, now should be worth over KD 1800)!!! loool.

On the economical side of things: that's capitalism for you... the culture of spending and spending to buy what you don't really need (satisfying too much of your needs so much beyond the essentials: women's fashion and brand name handbags... you can tell I'm married, lol) and when that drives prices up you just borrow and borrow (loans, credit cards, etc...) to keep spending which drives prices up more since they know you can borrow to keep spending!!!

"Capitalism and Islam: what's the difference?
Is there any real difference between the Capitalist and the Islamic economic system? Both systems allow you to make money, but they are completely different in how money is accumulated and spent. The reasons for such great differences is the source and hence, the ultimate goal of each system." (full article: http://www.sa.niu.edu/msa/articles/capitalism.htm)

UPDATE: Obama says: "Revised bill may pass". Still, confidence in this system is already shaken...lost... all that financial risk-analysis and risk mitigation fell on the face of human greed.

Finest Iranian pickled "bogger"! Now in Jam3iya!

A few days back, I was shopping at Jabriya co-op and I noticed a large compilation of Iranian food products that apparently they just imported.
There's one brand called "Sun Seven", what caught my attention is the arabic letter transliteration of the brand name: سن سون!!! looool; you just can't make things like this up!! :p
I wonder how will this brand fare here!

P.S.: For non arabic speakers: the word Seven was transliterated as "Soon" for some reason making the arabic pronunciation: "San Soon" which in Kuwaiti slang the term referes to the stuff that comes out of a runny-nose, what ever that is called.

A little windy, then whaaam دعاء الريح

Well, I was working away no my comptuer at work, glanced over the window, a little dusty outside. Then back to my computer; Suddenly my collegue exclaims "What the! look outside", I glance over and woaaaaah! I leave you with the photos below (some from 18th floor overlooking the city!).

But first, supplication to say when it is windy like that:

دعاء هبوب الريح

اللهم إني أسألك خيرها وخير ما فيها وخير ما أرسلت به، وأعوذ بك من شرها وشر ما فيها وشر ما أرسلت به.

Kuwait Elections & Blogs on Alrai TV right now!

The program Umma2008 on al-Rai TV is dedicating tonight's episode to what effect Blogs have on the elections decisions! The two guests right now are two Kuwaiti bloggers...

lol... the presenter just asked them, complaining, describing what he is seeing often on the blogs:
"When I check your blogs, I find the posts and replies like this:
1: Jazak Allah Khair
2: Waiakaum
3: loooool
4: Wow, great post
Your friends are your friends and it is like you have to commend each other; nothing new"

Loooooool.

Dust or Fog?

Well, I guess everyone is going to say something about the surprise weather this morning, so I might as well.


Big surprise this morning. As I headed out the house tagging the twins along to drop to school, visibility was low.


You couldn't tell just by looking at it whether it is fog or dust! Only after you choke on the dust do you confirm :)


I'll leave leave with picture I've taken, the last one is from the 18th floor where you usually get a nice view of the city; not today...

Traffic Disputes + Disrespect -> Murder

Well, it finally happened:

http://www.alraimedia.com/Templates/frNewsPaperArticleDetail.aspx?npaId=41155

I don't mean the murder itself, but the reason leading to it; dispute over a parking space!

Poster Girls & Kuwait Traffic

About three weeks ago at The Avenues, I sat at a coffee shop while the wife shopped around, and I picked up a copy of Kuwait (Friday) Times. I don't usually read the English newspapers, but for some reason I picked that one up that day.

Perhaps the reason is for me to read this article in it:
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTM2MDIxNjg5OQ==

As I read through the article, at first I was confused then I got furious; but as I tried to understand the writer's point of view and where he was coming from, I calmed down and started looking at the points he raised. Immediately after that I felt an urge to comment on the article on the news papers site; but the site doesn't seem to allow comments on articles, so instead that drove me to something that I always wanted to do: start a blog :)

Sure, I posted before on sites here and there (even a spaces/live.com blog) and I am more or less active on Facebook, but those were focused posts and not a general open blog about anything :)

So, anyway, here we go. My first general ramblings blog.
As for the Post Girls article, I reserve the right to reply to it covering the points raised by the author one by one. Some of them are just down right preposterous and so out of context!

As for this post, I'll just mention something about Kuwait traffic! I know I know, it is almost a cliche now to blog about traffic in Kuwait; "Traffic" is becoming a synonym of Kuwait these days. Still, I want to describe what I went through tonight.

I don't usualy go out on Thursday nights; the family visits some relatives and I usually hit the gym straight from work or stay home working or reading (and now: blogging! yeaay!). But today, my 6 year old son fell at home causing a huge bump above his left eye. So, insted of my wife taking him along for the family visit, I took him to the doctor (no serious damage; see photo).

Then we stopped by the coop to buy some fruits and vegs; then he complained of being hungry; so was I. So, I decided I'd take him out for dinner just the two of us (he only has two sisters, and you can tell he could use some time away from them! lol).

So anyway, given that I live in Jabriya (I know I know... I shouldn't be complaining about traffic since it is the norm there!), instead of thinking which restaurant to go to, I was thinking which road is best to get me out of here!! So, my restaurant choice was pretty much dictated by the traffic! lol.

So, I first tried heading out the 5th ring road... the traffic was backed up all the way to Hadi hospital! Bad idea. And I figured, all other exists towards the city or Salmiya will be worse. So I decided to take Fahaheel road and see where that takes me! As soon as I got passed the intersection with the 5th ring road, it was a pretty much smooth ride all the way to the 6th ring road. I took the exit and just drove all the way until I approaced the exit leading to the airport; so I figured, what the heck, let's go to the airport; it can't be much worse.

Well, it was bad, but I'm sure not as bad as city/Salmiya.

So, here we are, at Pizza Express at the airport. Our main course just arrived, yumm :)



Later.