Clippings, Announcements, RSS

I thought I might draw your attention to a hilarious discussion on the FPM comment boards about whom the Aounists should nominate to face the Young Turks of March 14’s Christian parties (also known as the Related-To-Martyrs List). I’m referring, of course, to Michel “Micho” Mouawad (son of slain prez René Mouawad), Sami Gemayel (brother of slain Minister Pierre Gemayel), Nadim Gemayel (son of slain prez Bachir Gemayel), and ridiculous hottie Nayla Tueni (daughter of slain MP and an-Nahar editor, Gebran Tueni). Here is one suggestion for an FPM list to face this formidable challenge.

Beneath the Aounist merriment, make no mistake, is a good deal of hand-wringing. After all, Micho could easily step into his mother’s shoes, denying Suleiman Frangieh a clean sweep in Zgharta. Nayla Tueni is a pretty good bet for a seat in Achrafieh, one of the three big swing districts by my estimation. As for the Gemayels… I suppose it depends on whose list they end up on.

In other news, a cop was pulled over in Dahiyeh last night by a bunch of armed men, stripped of his weapons and vehicle (which was sprayed with bullets) and made to leave the southern suburb on foot. What does this mean? At the very least, that it is going to be a very long week for Ibrahim al-Moussawi (who has apparently returned to his post as media relations director for the Hizb).

I have finally tracked down the source of the rumors concerning the connection between the MEA fiascoes and the Hariri tribunal. Jeha’s Nail and Blacksmiths of Lebanon were reporting that Joseph Sader (the kidnapped MEA official) “processed and prepared files related to the Hariri assassination case,” and that Ghassan Miqdad (the murdered MEA pilot) “had transported the Hariri files to the Hague on February 9.” The source of these delicious nuggets? The Kuwaiti National Enquirer, al-Seyassah. Oh well.

What else? It looks like Fouad Saniora may be running for parliament. The Daily Star urges him to consider running in Beirut as opposed to Saida (that is Bahia’ s turf, obviously). Can anyone explain to me why Saida only gets two parliament seats, compared to Beirut’s 19 and Tripoli’s 8? Meanwhile, its suburb Zahrani gets 3, chosen at Nabih Berri’s whim. Even by Lebanese standards, this level of gerrymandering seems quite egregious.

In other news,  as some of you may have noticed, I recently switched over to a new domain, qifanabki.com. (Hey, who said that anonymity precludes vanity?) I believe that any links to the old site (qifanabki.wordpress.com) will remain valid, but just to be on the safe side, you may consider updating any blogroll links and RSS feeds to the new site address. Speaking of RSS, let me take this opportunity to introduce you to it. (Old hands, please don’t snicker! Apparently only 5-10% of web users know what RSS is and how to use it).

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. If you’re like me, and have a bunch of blogs, newspapers, or magazines that you like to read on a regular basis, RSS makes your life a lot easier by bringing all of the text from those websites into one place for you to peruse, and then updating them whenever there is new content. It’s like having your own personal newspaper, dig? So, rather than having to go back to check on whether each of your thirty favorite blogs has been updated, you simply check your web-based news reader and it puts all the new content in front of you on a single page. (NB: if you have a life, just ignore this entire post).

All you have to do to make use of this resource is click the orange icon above, and then follow the simple instructions on the feed page. Here’s a hint: if you use an email address from Yahoo or AOL or Hotmail or Google, it probably makes most sense for you to use the “web-based news reader” that is associated with that address (i.e. My Yahoo, My AOL, My.Live.Com, or Google Reader) because when you check your email each day, all of your news feeds will be just a click away. Questions? Feel free to email me (qifablog |at| g m a i l . c o m).

Yet another alternative is to receive content from this blog via email, which you can do by clicking here and supplying your email address.

Either way, you won’t need to come here for trenchant, incisive, up-to-the-minute coverage on the state of your Phoenician homeland; the coverage will come to you, Beirut delivery style.