the egypt blog

UPDATE: GMail interface is now available in 13 different languages.

UPDATE (Apr 1, 2005): Google's GMail service now gives more than 2GB of free storage, and this number is constantly growing (see www.gmail.com and you'll know what I mean).

GMail is Google's new great email service, now with more than 2100 megabytes of free storage, along with many other great features. However, GMail is not yet open to the public and in order to be able to sign up for a free account, you need to receive an invitation from someone who uses GMail.

I have a big number of invitations and I can give them away to readers of The Egypt Blog. There are no catches whatsoever. Just hurry up because things never stay the way they are, the invites may simply vanish all of a sudden, or I may run out of them.

If you want to receive a totally free invitation to GMail, just send me a message (just an blank one, if you mind typing "hi" in the body :->) from the email address where you wish to receive your GMail invitation at. The subject must contain the words "Gmail invitation TEB", not for any reason other than being able to spot them.

Send the e-mail message to and you'll receive an invitation as soon as I receive your email. Remember the subject: "Gmail invitation TEB".

NOTE: Some email providers, like Hotmail and Yahoo!, count emails sent from @gmail.com addresses as SPAM. When you send me the above information please keep checking BOTH your inbox and spam / junkmail / bulkmail folder for the invitation. It is very possible that you'll find it in your spam folder.

Today, at my university, English 101 class, there was actually a short discussion going on about "how women are 'portrayed' in the media" and all that shit. And then I heard something about the "exploitation of women's bodies in music video clips", and something about how unfair it is that most of the time women are portrayed as "housewives". And the discussion went on in a very judgmental look at every aspect of it.

First of all, this discussion seemed too dull and unimportant to actually be taking place. There are always too many taboos that you don't really have a choice of what to discuss publicly.

Is the portrayal of women in media really the most important thing to discuss? Get real, for nature's sake! Women don't have as many problems in Egypt as do gays and people arrested and tortured in police stations throughout Egypt for no reason, for example. And they also don't suffer as much prejudice and discrimination as do Christians and other neglected religious minorities, for example. Egypt is on the brink of a lot of shit, and, guess what, those guys were talking about "housewives"!

What else can be so irritating and silly?

WAKE UP, EGYPTIANS!

Quoted from the ESG Website (click on post title, or here, to go to the site):

"Egypt Shadow Government has been founded by a group of liberal and progressive Egyptians to free Egypt and the rest of the Arab world from the existing brutal, fascist dictatorship and to save them from sinking into a quagmire from which would emerge an even more brutal, absolutist-Supremacist Caliphate regime, that would pose a constant threat to the security of its neighbors, and the entire world.

"The objectives of this shadow government are briefly listed as follows:

"1. Present to the world a model government that can be adopted by all Arab countries.

"2. Build a true parliamentarian democracy in Egypt and inspire the same in all Arab countries in place of the existing military dictatorships.

"3. Secularize Egypt and inspire the same across the Arab world through bettering the standard of living, stamping out corruption and nepotism, ending tyranny, changing and developing education and promoting and supporting exclusively through mass media novel religious views that cast doubt on, counter and prove wrong the doctrines of fatwa (religious ruling), tafseer (science of interpretation of Quran), fiquh (religious science), khilapha (Caliphate), hadith (Mohamed's sayings and doings) and jihad (holy war.)

"4. Prevent jihadis and fascists from monopolizing the mass media and halt all forms of anti-Western, anti-peace and anti-democracy propaganda.

"5. End persecution of and discrimination against Copts and other minority groups in Egypt and other Arab countries.

"6. Bring about peace and stability in the Middle East through normalization of relations with Israel, encouraging other Arab countries to do the same and urging the Palestinians, Saudis and Syrians to free themselves from their war mogul dictators.

"7. Establish friendly, transparent, straightforward and honest relations with all nations.

"8. Free and reform the economy, open up to the world and enter into free trade agreements with other nations.

"9. Tackle the problem of population explosion by banning child labor for being the main cause of this problem which is economic in nature. A large sector of Egyptian families get more children to earn more money by sending all their children to work in the cotton fields, workshops, factories and in rich people's home as servants. In effect, ESG will issue child protection act which makes education compulsory for children under 18 years of age and also makes it a felony that parents use their children as their own slaves or bread winners."

—Egypt Shadow Government, (link)

I was checking out the petitions on PetitionOnline.com and on the petition titled "Resignation of President Mubarak", someone had signed leaving a comment with a link to "The Free Egyptians" site (click on this post's title to go there, or click here).

I can only say that this site is really impressive. Check it out.