America

That’s it. Enough of this shit. I’m not going to remain patient about it anymore. How much longer do I have to wait, lovely US State Department? Huh, HOW MUCH LONGER?!

For the first time ever, I am actually getting a taste of the nasty ordeals some friends have described to me in dealing with US Embassies or attempting to travel to America.

Given that I’ve only had the best experiences when traveling to the United States, and I’m used to receiving my visa within TWO WEEKS ONLY, I used to brush aside my friends’ complaints as isolated incidents.

Well, no more!

I applied on the 26th of January for my damn visa. 26th of JANUARY! Isn’t there like maximum waiting period of 60 days until you hear back or something? Apparently not.

Listen US State Department, I understand you have to do your security checks. Fine. I understand that sometimes the number of applications peaks and it takes time to sort things out. No problem. What I cannot and will not understand is how you keep people waiting indefinitely. That’s just complete and utter bullshit. At least give me a deadline damn it!

The meetings I had to go for. Delayed. The conference I was supposed to attend. Bye bye. Visiting my brother in Chicago. Whops, ain’t gonna happen. Traveling in California to meet friends who would have included some GlobalVoices folks. Sorry, forget it.

WORKING ON MY DAMN BOOK! Meh, too bad.

Seriously, WTF?

This needs to get resolved asap!

Like, resolved yesterday:

Since President Obama scolded the agencies for overlooking warning flags against Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian charged with trying to blow up an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight on Christmas Day, the checks have been reinforced and the lists have grown. With that comes a higher likelihood of “administrative processing” for visa applicants whose names may resemble those of terrorist suspects but who are “guilty” of nothing more than having Muslim parents.

… Said Mahrane, a French national born in Algeria and brought up in France, applied for a journalist’s visa to accompany President Nicolas Sarkozy to Washington this week as a correspondent for the weekly newsmagazine Le Point. His colleagues from other publications — with traditional French names — got their visas in a couple of days. But Mahrane’s never came through.

… Mami said at first he reasoned that the delay would not be a problem because orientation classes at Berkeley were to begin March 22. But when the visa had still not arrived by Feb. 15, he sent a registered letter to the embassy inquiring about the delay. The next day, a woman called and said such delays were common and could last weeks or even months, he said.

Muhammad, Jesus, Marry and Joseph! Weeks or even months? Are you freaking kidding me?

Read the whole thing here.

Thank you Washington Post for writing about this! Let’s hope somebody is listening, and is going to do something about it.

UPDATE: So, today, exactly one day after publishing this post, I received a call from the US Embassy informing me that I need to come and collect my visa. Coincidence?

Naaa, somebody in the White House probably read my post, asked the CIA to investigate my real identity, and then called up the US State Department and scolded them for keeping the one and only Drima waiting this long.

Blog Power baby! Right.

Pffffffffffft, okay, finally! At last, phew! I have my damn US visa. Next time if I have to travel, I am going to be sure to apply like two or three months in advance!

The honorable Drima looks forward to blessing the United States with his arrival soon. There better be red carpets waiting at the airport.

Let’s face it. Claiming that Jews control the US government is utter nonsense. They don’t. They do however have very significant influence through AIPAC in regard to matters related to the state of Israel, which brings me to the shift that I haven’t been alone in noticing lately. It started with this, but now it’s progressed into this: [click to continue...]

Bailing shit out in 2009 helped save the financial system from collapsing in the United States, and thanks to globalization, elsewhere in the world.

Good, but also bad.

The American auto industry lives on, even the big portions of it which should have been allowed to fail, because you see, if America has been pretty damn good at anything, then it’s failing.

Heavy government regulation prevents that, and contributes to propping up inefficient business operations that end up wasting resources and killing real entrepreneurship.

Still, if America is to survive and flourish economically in this increasingly competitive world, there needs to be a balance and it must fail.

It must continue failing.

Failing forward.

Meanwhile, I leave you with Ayo’s sexy reggae tunes: Help Is Coming!

This email from a new accidental reader made my day!

Subject: Thanks for giving me hope

Hi There,

I somehow stumbled onto your blog tonight.

As an ignorant American who travels a lot on business, I started researching Islam during the “cartoon riots” several years ago, and was really shocked at what I found. Reading “The Islamist” by Ed Husain helped make sense of some of it, but the rest - women arrested over naming a teddy bear, the wars over who is practicing the “right” or “most holy” form of Islam, silencing of 800-yr old church bells in Sweden - Well, I began siding with the Geert Wilders of the world - Maybe Islam really can’t exist within the confines of a diplomatic society.

Your blog gives me hope that reason can win out, and that there’s a lot more to Islam that what we read in the papers. Thanks.
Peace,

KLS.

Yay, this is cool, and really encourages me to keep moving forward.

I know blog updates have significantly lessened in recent months and this will probably continue for a few more.

But sometimes, (as much as it sucks), you just need to slow down so you can speed up again, and right now a lot is happening behind the scenes that will bear fruit soon.

Meanwhile, it would be really nice to know what kind of positive impact this blog has had on you, if any. Please share your thoughts below.

Finally, looks like the annoying divisions within the US State Deparment on what to do about Sudan are bye bye. There will be more internal arguing to come for sure but this is a pretty good step.

Here’s the new policy outlined here.

Call me a genius, but long time readers will know that I’ve been calling out for a more balanced approach for a long time, very similar to the one being espoused by the new policy.

Maybe Obama’s people have been secretly reading this blog.

The Save Darfur Coalition’s idiotic promotion of military intervention has been dumb from the start. Same goes for the more recent proposed La La Land appeasement approach of new key Obama people.

However, both combined have produced something in the middle that I believe is much better than anything we’ve ever had before. Tough action and credible real threats are needed, but so are some carrots.

Because, as we can see with terrorism-related stuff, the NCP has been very cooperative in recent years, but that still didn’t get Sudan removed from the US State Department’s list of terrorism-sponsoring countries, which up until now made a lot of people within the NCP reluctant in pursuing further cooperation to resolve things in Darfur.

Anyways, for now, this is all lovely and wonderful, but it’s still ink on paper.

Following up on this is what’s needed, while making sure the whole execrise doesn’t deginrate into mere lame naive appeasement. Don’t think the latter will happen though, with people like John Prendergast keeping a watchful idea.

Here’s to a fruitful new American Sudan policy.

Hate him, or love him, but this message is greatly appreciated by yours truly and very cleverly crafted by the Obama administration.

I know quite a number of staunch anti-US friends who softened down their stance significantly after Obama’s speech in Cairo.

It worked.

And this without a doubt will go even further in softening more Muslim peoples’ stubborn sentiments.

Here’s the full video:

And to all my Muslim readers, Ramadan Kareem.

Yes, even naughty heretics can appreciate this spiritual and introspective time of the year.

Have a good one!

The suspects in the murder of John Granville, who worked for USAID, have been found guilty and sentenced to death.

KHARTOUM (AFP) – A Khartoum court condemned four Islamists to death on Wednesday for the 2008 killing of a US diplomat and his Sudanese driver, as the US embassy warned of possible retaliation over the verdict.

Judge Said Ahmed al-Badri sentenced the four to be hanged for the murders.

A fifth man, who had provided the other defendants with the weapon but did not take part in the murder, was sentenced to two years in prison.

… Federal Bureau of Investigation officers from the United States had helped to investigate the killings which sent shockwaves through the sizeable Western community in Khartoum, a city usually considered one of the safest in Africa.

Again, I must stress that when this murder occured, the vast majority of Sudanese were vocal in their condemnation. Nobody wants crimes like this to be come a trend, except for the jihadists types of course who are a tiny minority.

Here’s to justice being served in elsewhere.

*Cough* Darfur *cough, cough* … Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

Yours truly will update this post shortly with his reaction to the speech. Let’s just say I was pleased it didn’t excessively venture into La La Land territory, which is nice. Plus, many parts of it were surprisingly candid and straight forward.

Anyways, me will be back with more.

Meanwhile, you can dive in and drop your reaction. Good thing Mr. President mentioned Darfur once.

UPDATE: Been crazy busy, but had time to drop a quick comment here. If you’re curious about where Obama got some of his ideas for the speech especially in regards to which Quranic veses to use, then find out here. Meanwhile, me is keeping track of the situation in Iran.

Virtually all my Iranian friends (at least those who are not apathetic and who voted, the majority), are pretty pissed off at what happened, and rightly so. If one word can describe their fight both online and offline at protests, then it’s this.

Inspiring.

According to them, this time it’s different, and unlike any unrest before since the revolution took place. So, let’s see what happens, and how Obama will respond.

Here’s to hoping that filthy bitch called Ahmadinejad gets kicked out. While the lovely Mullahs and supreme leader will remain, it will still be a positive outcome.

You don’t usually come across such loud and candid public debates about Israel within the United States. Or well, at least I myself haven’t. This is certainly a first.

Throughout the debate I found myself agreeing most of the time with Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli Knesset.

Michael Scheuer, a former unit director at the CIA, came across as a bit of an angry nut. Disloyal American fifth column?

Erm, okay.

As for Alan Dershowitz, and especially the former Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold… well, they certainly cracked me up with some of their ludicrous statements.

Here’s part 1 of 5.

Here’s the rest:

• Getting Tough on Israel - Part 2 of 5
• Getting Tough on Israel - Part 3 of 5
• Getting Tough on Israel - Part 4 of 5
• Getting Tough on Israel - Part 5 of 5

Given the results of the debate, can we predict the gradual downfall of the notorious AIPAC, and the eventual rise of the better J-Street as a replacement?

Looks like it.

However, with American public opinion on Israel seemingly shifting towards the left, we can only expect more friction between the US and Israel as Israeli internal politics tilt towards the right.

Hint: Lieberman.

Two articles. Two contradicting reports.

Alrighty, first article:

March 24, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese government today acknowledged news reports that US air force conducted airstrikes against arm smugglers last January killing scores of people.

The Egyptian Al-Shurooq newspaper reported this week that US planes destroyed a convoy heading towards the borders carrying arms believed to be on its way to Gaza strip.

The report said that the convoy consisted of 17 trucks carrying 39 passengers that were all destroyed in the operation. None of the people on board the trucks survived the attack.

… The attack is believed to have occurred in a desert area in Northwest of Port Sudan city, near the Mount Al-Sha’anoon.

Okay, so America gets the blame in this one. But then a day later, another article pops up.

March 25, 2009 (WASHINGTON) — An airstrike that targeted a convoy of arm smugglers inside Sudan last January was launched by Israeli planes and not American ones, according to a US television network.

Now, Israel gets the blame in this one. So, who’s responsible? America or Israel? Ah, or as we like to say in Sudan, they’re both one and the same, except America is the body of the snake, and Israel is the head.

Joking aside though, where the hell did the weapons on the truck originate from? How did the US or Israeli air force know about them? Which group were the people on the trucks affiliated to? Who paid them to drive such a long distance? Why did it take two months for this news to surface?

Lots of unanswered questions.

Well, well, what do we have here.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A top congressional Republican on Sunday criticized President Barack Obama’s expected decision to reverse the Bush administration’s limits on embryonic stem-cell research, calling it a distraction from the country’s economic slump.

Yada yada yada.

… Obama’s move, scheduled for Monday morning, is part of a broader effort to separate science and politics and “restore scientific integrity in governmental decision-making,” White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes said Sunday.

Awesome.

… Because stem cells have the potential to turn into any organ or tissue cell in the body, research advocates say they could yield cures to debilitating conditions such as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and spinal injuries. But because work on embryonic stem cells involves the destruction of human embryos, many conservatives supported the limits former President George Bush imposed by executive order in 2001.

Erm, okay. I’ll leave it for Sam Harris to articulate.

More reason. Less unexamined faith please.

Sweet?

It’s been seven months since news broke out about the ICC’s pursuit of an arrest warrant for Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, charging him with genocide and war crimes against humanity, a move that brought about entertaining Sudanese reactions.

Seven months, and it seems to me that there are some who can hardly wait for the issuance of this arrest warrant as if it’s some kind of magical solution that’s going to bring peace and stability to Darfur.

[click to continue...]

Americans are NOT stupid. That’s the sarcastic title of the video below. Well, after watching it, it seems to me that clearly a good deal are. Seriously, this is super hilarious. I guess too many of them are busy watching American Idol and the NFL instead of paying a little attention to CNN or something.

Phew! Thank goodness you’ve got many informed Americans engaged in the political process. Can’t be having those ignoramuses as the only voters. It would be a disaster. Can we unleash a Jihad for reason to enlighten those people, please?

Dear American readers, please don’t hate me for posting this. You know I love you guys!

Enjoy watching - and laughing - as I untangle myself from all the work I’m tied up in at the moment. Drima will be back soon.

I’m guessing he was recently watching Madagascar 2 or something.

“I like to move it, move it!”

Fast move, alright. Phew! That was pretty close huh? Hehe, sorry, can’t help it.