I didn’t vote this time around – I don’t know why – figured the Conservatives were going to win. – and they did – the Liberals are too corrupt, NDP too idealistic and the Bloc too scary –

The best cartoon on TV, after the Simpson’s of course. Peter ‘Hey Brian, I haven’t brush’d my teeth in 3 days and no one has said a thing’ That is the funniest line – also when Peter hits the deer [driving a car] – and they’re exchanging insurance information. Also the famous Chicken Fightscene – which they brought back beginning of season 4.

Seems like an interesting read – I’ve only skimmed through the post – I shall read it. Ayn Rand fan, interesting.

Its been a wonderful year --- a lot of developments, and unfortunately I missed a lot of the good debates in the past couple of months --- I wish everyone the best on their breaks – happy new year

I vote for CASTRO, NGONGE AND NUR

Disappointed

Its really sad, we have pirates in the world ----- in the era, and they’re in Somalia. I was disgusted by this when I saw the headlines, especially on CNN --- somehow if they would have taken the ship, it would have gotten Somalia some attention politically, I’m guessing this is a form of terrorism. Washington might expand their war on terrorism onto Somalia --- good ol’ US intervention.

Castro our outspoken nomad, where have you been? Sure, you've championed a great deal of nonsense, and that is why we are at war with you. Isn’t that what a forum is for, to debate disagreements, welcome back, you’ve weathered through those hurricanes.

As a professional doctor for maryooley affairs, I think 15 is the perfect age to have a baby. That is my educated guess, but don't ask me about the legality for some places, because I don't care, and you know that. 15 --- isn’t that a little too young, when do people have time to develop personally, I measure at that age you weren’t thinking of having a child, you were merely a child yourself. Although I would agree with you that a 15 year old in Somalia possess the mental capacity of a 30 year old.

Can you get any more fresh than that?!?! (Slaughtered cow being delievered to resturants 6 in the morning). BlueEpocha I remember when I seen that pic this summer, truly amazing, would have loved to see when the cow was getting slaughtered --- I remember seeing these pics of a camel being slaughtered by the beach of Mogadishu, truly fascinating.

I actually caught it, it’s interesting in the beginning I thought they were talking about just AIDS, and it’s really sad how Africa is at great danger, especially the coverage on Botswana --- life expectancy is under 40, and soon it’ll be at 30 – really joking, how stigmatization is keeping people away from getting treatment. And here we are always complaining that the west doesn’t offer their drugs, it was interesting to see people rejecting treatment. In this is a country that is reasonably moderate, economically speaking as they mentioned it in the doc. And the person of interest, the lady with the girls, 2 of them born with AIDS, how her husbands abandons her, when prolly he gave it to her by sleeping with AIDS infected prostitutes.

whats with the glases? is she blinde?? She is in the public limelight, she has to protect her eyes from all those camera flashing. All jokes a side, I m inspired, I should have continued to memorize the Koran.

The article may be satirical, however, nowadays, animal rights activists are over stretching their cause and claims if you ask me --- I think the west is experiencing a rights inflation crisis at the moment, many of us believed that the story was true.

Murder Probes It’s been a violent weekend in the GTA with police in York Region making two arrests in two separate murders Sunday, one in Markham and one in Vaughan. A 21-year-old man is facing a second-degree murder charge after a fatal shooting at a Markham home. Police were called to the Markham Road and Denison Street area (pictured) around 1am Sunday morning where they found 23-year-old Abdirahman Mohamed in a vehicle suffering from a gunshot wound. He was rushed to Sunnybrook Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. Investigators believe the victim was shot in a home on Charles Alfred Crescent, in the McCowan and Steeles area, and that two other men were in the residence at the time. A witness apparently tried to drive Mohamed to the hospital, but got into an accident on the way there. Maurice Smith has been charged with second-degree murder and was scheduled to appear in court Sunday. No other injuries, or suspects have been reported in connection to this shooting. Less than an hour later, police were called to a home on Campbell Avenue in Vaughan. When they arrived they found Sunday’s second homicide victim. Authorities haven’t released the person’s name and are awaiting the results of a post-mortem examination to determine the cause of death. Forty-three-year-old Vaughan resident Rafik Demin was arrested at the scene and has been charged with second-degree murder. He was scheduled to appear in court Sunday. If you have any information about either of these incidents, call the York Regional Police Homicide Bureau at 1-866-287-5025 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.

**** THE WALRUS ANNOUNCES WRITING CONTEST WITH SUMMER LITERARY SEMINARS IN ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA **** The Walrus magazine, together with Summer Literary Seminars, Inc., is pleased to announce the 2006 Fiction and Poetry Contest. Fiction entries will be judged by Margaret Atwood. Poetry entries will be judged by Robert Hass. The winners will have their work published in The Walrus, and receive airfare, accommodation and free tuition at next year's Summer Literary Seminars program in St. Petersburg, Russia, a month-long program in the heart of St. Petersburg which offers writing workshops with the most important American, Canadian, Kenyan and international writers. The postmark deadline for submission is February 28, 2006. ________________________ SLS 2006 FACULTY INCLUDE Robert Allen Margaret Atwood Jason Camlot Jeff Clark Jonathan Dee Mikhail Epstein Tibor Fischer Jorie Graham Jim Grimsley Eli Horowitz (Managing Editor, McSweeney's) Fanny Howe Christine Hume Mikhail Iampolski Joshua Knelman (The Walrus Magazine) Ramona Koval Sam Lipsyte Josip Novakovich Gina Ochsner Robert Olmstead Eugene Ostashevsky Jayne Anne Phillips Padgett Powell Dawn Raffel Peter Sacks George Saunders Denise Shannon (Agent, Denise Shannon Agency) Thomas Swick Catherine Tice (Associate Publisher, =D4New York Review of Books=D5) Binyavanga Wainaina Noah Wardrip-Fruin Matvei Yankelevich =2E..and many others TBA ________________________ CONTEST GUIDELINES: * First place winners will receive airfare, accommodation and a full tuition waiver to the 2006 Summer Literary Seminars program in St. Petersburg. Second place winners will receive a full tuition waiver, and third place winners will receive a substantial tuition scholarship. * Only unpublished work can be submitted. * Entries must comprise one story or novel excerpt, or no more than three poems. * A $10 (US) reading fee is required for each entry. Checks or money orders must be in US dollars, and made out to Summer Literary Seminars, Inc. * Multiple entries are permissible as long as additional entry fees are included. * Complete contact information (address, telephone, e-mail address) must be included on the manuscript. Entries are not judged blind. * Previous First Place winners may not re-enter. * Do not include an SASE. Cover letters are not required. * Entries must be postmarked no later than February 28, 2006. All entrants will be notified of the winners by e-mail in Spring 2006. Entries should be sent to the following addresses: CANADA: Summer Literary Seminars Fiction/Poetry Contest English Department Concordia University 1455 de Maissonneuve Boulevard West Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8 US/INTERNATIONAL: Summer Literary Seminars Fiction/Poetry Contest PO Box 225 Northampton, MA 01061 For more information, email Summer Literary Seminars at info@sumlitsem.org or sls@sumlitsem.org, or visit their website, www.sumlitsem.org , where full guidelines are available.

We have this problem because we don’t have many Muslims venturing out into the media industry, I remember a lecture by this prominent scholar who gave a talk this summer at the Ottawa mosque. He argued that we needed an Islamic television, where people can lean more about the religion, for a global audience, and he gave statistics on how many people were converting to Islam. Clearly, this case illustrates cultural imperialism, we need to fix this by producing content geared towards Muslims on a global scale.

Good to hear… guess we should all start buying, one problem thou, where are the street lights, proper cabling, sanitation ---- we need city planner, need I say more --- lets start reading Jane Jacobs and Architectural Digest --- we need city planners, and better looking building – just hoped more Somalis would venture out into these areas of study. Clearly there’s money to be made there.

We rarely see news coverage about Christian’s who hold extreme opposition to the American way of life, they’re always portrayed as being supportive of the American way of life. Very interesting indeed, NGONGE you got 2222 posts, I think you win some sort of an award.

The lawless pic is amazing, nice picture... i have a lot pics from Somalia in my archive, but i have ask permission before i post them, very recent pics, you can check out work4change.blogspot.com has good pics.

In your honest opinion is peace possible in Somalia?

Great advice, I been biking to the mosque for the past couple of days, and its really messing with my work and academic schedule, but its worth it

Togan’s humour is intentional, but he is serious at the same time, he likes to point out the obvious in things that we like to complicate, such as Somali politics, society, and the future. In person, he is a unique character, hilarious, and the stories just keep coming. I been encouraging him to write non clannish poetry, so that he younger audiences can take in his work. He does not chew the green stuff, to my knowledge at least.

I think often the dominant reading in which feminists get in the mainstream media is that they’re all radical, there are practical feminists. Within feminism there are ideological divisions, for example, liberal feminists, conservative feminists, Marxist feminists, and so forth. So it depends on which reading we take of the term feminism, and it depends on the context in which the term is used. For example the objectification of women in advertising is clearly wrong, because it’s clearly wrong to see women half naked, when they should be covered up, hence, this is a conservative reading of feminist thought. Within this particular issue there are differing positions held by liberal and radical feminists. We have to be careful the way we label people into categories, the Nazi’s did it and we can see how that turned out. There’s nothing wrong with being a feminist, but rather what should matter is whether that person is deploying a particular perspective. If there is a sister who is against the depiction of women, or if she is advocates the basic rights of women to improve their social status, then there is nothing wrong with that. Even rappers, the arch nemeses of feminists occasionally support feminist issues. In the past they did when they became accomplished, like 2 Pac in his music, but when young artists such as Sunny advocate female issues, then I’d say feminists made progress. Sunny feat. Latif – Babygirl You should watch Killing Us Softly 3, I saw this movie today in my Digital Media Production Class, its funny, yet serious. The talks about the depiction of women in advertising, the video is kind of old, but still relevant. On thing that is unnerving about feminists is their ability to disregard men from other cultures, they have they this preconceived notions of other cultures, that they are womanizers, especially Muslim men, in that sense they are narrow-minded, and they often jump to conclusions. When women have more rights within the institution of marriage then men, and they often have a hard time believing this. PS Disregard my signature, it was just a little Lil Wayne freestyle quote, not mine.

I think the people who were surveyed agreed based on islamic reasoning, such as being stoned to death for adultery, and so fort.

Sol Culture? This is just a forum, people who read a lot of contemporary literature converge here to discuss issues, at least that’ my understanding of this culture. Again culture is a huge subject, I would say sol is a sub-Culture of the oral tradition of debating about topics, or just ranting about issues. When sol becomes a cult, we can safely agree then that all the members have identical principles and collective outlooks on issues, but at the moment, it remains to be just a forum to debate.