^Heheheheehehe...What do you want know?

^You've got your xadhigs crossed dear but I do know something that you don't. Muwahaahaahahahaha.

^I believe him. As for the topic men are men be they on or offline. You'd get the same attitude, good, bad, decent or ugly. With the net, you only have their word and can't the all important CRB / ECR.

I've cousins who live in a remote town in Holland. My father is forever lecturing my adeero about excluding them from the Somali / Muslim community. He's like ma gaal baad ladamacdey. This would work for them but I've a strong feeling they'd double dutch me, if I suggest it.

Originally posted by roobleh: Come on dear, almost everything you and I have ever done was based on imitation. That is the way humans learn from each other. You just need to figure out which one is worth to imitate. I am sorry to say this, but the whole muslim world is lagging behind the Western countries in science and technology because we do not want to imitate the West. What we lacking is the good old common sense. By ‘west’ you mean America and the few rich European countries, right? I'm sorry, but I find your defeatist mentality disappointing. Not that it surprises me as it seems to be common amongst Arab youth iyo kuwa la kora. As for technological advancement, the Far East seems to be on a league of it's own. Maybe, you should search their religious scriptures for wedding pointers.

^Masha Allah Aaliyah. That's sweet of you, Ilahay hakaa aqbalo ducada. Ameen.

Originally posted by -Nomadique-: Garaad, did it ever occur to you that one could have been a supporter of the SNM without being a secessionist? ..or a secessionist without being an snm supporter?

Allow sahal amuuraha. By Lutfi Mohammad, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service Mogadishu: Somalis who fled the worst fighting this city has seen since the early 1990s have been warily returning, but few here said they believed the transitional government had defeated Islamist militias. Mogadishu residents on Sunday recounted horrific stories of civilian casualties and massive structural damage during recent shelling by government and allied Ethiopian forces attempting to drive militants from the capital. Prime Minister Ali Mohammad Gedi said government and allied Ethiopian troops were searching former strongholds of the Islamic Courts Union and supporting militias of dominant ****** clan. He called on people to disarm. Gedi claimed victory over the Islamists on Thursday, and the capital has been calm since Friday. "Mogadishu is full of weapons, and the teenagers never knew the last government in 1991, so they won't obey any administration, only their clan elders," said Dahir Olad Gesey, 43, a teacher. "I am afraid that Somalia will be like a second Iraq.'' Cold blooded killing Since the overthrow of dictator Mohammad Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia has endured almost continual anarchy as warlords fought for dominance. Islamist militants filled the void, taking over much of southern Somalia and the capital last year, while the divided transitional government led by Prime Minister Gedi languished in Baidoa, 140 miles northwest of Mogadishu. On the streets of Mogadishu, Ethiopian troops opened fire on civilians, residents said. Yasin Ebrahim Jesow said he watched as Ethiopian soldiers beckoned a friend of his to approach them, then shot him dead. "They killed my friend, who obeyed their order," Jesow said Sunday outside his house. "I ran and they opened fire and I fell to the ground with the bodies of other people who had been killed in the front-line fighting. I was lying with the dead all night. In the early morning I rolled down quietly along the street until I could hide in a nearby alley and escape." Halima Gulus, 27, said she fled the city with her six children and husband two weeks ago, but her husband and oldest daughter were killed in the street as they ran. With no food, she walked 19 miles to Afgoye with her surviving five children, she said. Conditions were harsh for refugees, with no shelter and little food or water. She said some refugees were squabbling over the shade of trees. Hassan said few people trust the transitional government but added, "A bad government is better than no government at all." web page

^It's actually a hoax. Wiki search it.

There you have it. :cool: As Leaders, Women Rule New studies find that female managers outshine their male counterparts in almost every measure Twenty-five years after women first started pouring into the labor force--and trying to be more like men in every way, from wearing power suits to picking up golf clubs--new research is showing that men ought to be the ones doing more of the imitating. In fact, after years of analyzing what makes leaders most effective and figuring out who's got the Right Stuff, management gurus now know how to boost the odds of getting a great executive: Hire a female. That's the essential finding of a growing number of comprehensive management studies conducted by consultants across the country for companies ranging from high-tech to manufacturing to consumer services. By and large, the studies show that women executives, when rated by their peers, underlings, and bosses, score higher than their male counterparts on a wide variety of measures--from producing high-quality work to goal-setting to mentoring employees. Using elaborate performance evaluations of execs, researchers found that women got higher ratings than men on almost every skill measured. Ironically, the researchers weren't looking to ferret out gender differences. They accidentally stumbled on the findings when they were compiling hundreds of routine performance evaluations and then analyzing the results. The gender differences were often small, and men sometimes earned higher marks in some critical areas, such as strategic ability and technical analysis. But overall, female executives were judged more effective than their male counterparts. ''Women are scoring higher on almost everything we look at,'' says Shirley Ross, an industrial psychologist who helped oversee a study performed by Hagberg Consulting Group in Foster City, Calif. Hagberg conducts in-depth performance evaluations of senior managers for its diverse clients, including technology, health care, financial-service, and consumer-goods companies. Of the 425 high-level executives evaluated, each by about 25 people, women execs won higher ratings on 42 of the 52 skills measured. Bias of Experience: "I know I'm going to get a certain quality of work," says Shukla, who recently sold her Web software company for $390 million The growing body of new research comes at a time when talent-hungry recruiters are scrambling to find execs who can retain workers and who can excel in the smaller bureaucracies of New Economy companies. Women think through decisions better than men, are more collaborative, and seek less personal glory, says the head of IBM's Global Services Div., Douglas Elix, who hired two managers within this year--both women. Instead of being motivated by self-interest, women are more driven by ''what they can do for the company,'' Elix says. Adds Harvard Business School Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, author of the 20-year-old management classic, Men and Women of the Corporation: ''Women get high ratings on exactly those skills needed to succeed in the global Information Age, where teamwork and partnering are so important.'' It's no surprise, then, that some executives say they're beginning to develop a new hiring bias. If forced to choose between equally qualified male and female candidates for a top-level job, they say they often pick the woman--not because of affirmative action or any particular desire to give the female a chance but because they believe she will do a better job. ''I would rather hire a woman,'' says Anu Shukla, who sold her Internet marketing-software company Rubric Inc. earlier this year for $390 million. ''I know I'm going to get a certain quality of work, I know I'm going to get a certain dedication,'' she says, quickly adding that she's fully aware that not all women execs excel. Similarly, Brent Clark, CEO of Grand Rapids-based Pell Inc., the nation's largest foot-care chain, says he would choose a woman over a man, too. Women are more stable, he says, less turf-conscious, and better at ''all sorts of intangibles that can help an organization.'' But if women are so great, why aren't more of them running the big companies? Thousands of talented women now graduate from business schools and hold substantive middle-management jobs at major corporations--45% of all managerial posts are held by females, according to the Labor Dept. Yet only two of the nation's 500 biggest companies have female CEOs: Hewlett-Packard Co.'s ( HWP) Carly Fiorina and Avon Products' ( AVP) Andrea Jung. And of the 1,000 largest corporations, only six are run by women. UNREWARDED. For one thing, there's still a pipeline problem: Most women get stuck in jobs that involve human resources or public relations--posts that rarely lead to the top. At the same time, female managers' strengths have long been undervalued, and their contributions in the workplace have gone largely unnoticed and unrewarded. Companies are now saying they want the skills women typically bring to the job, but such rhetoric doesn't always translate into reality. Some businesses view women only as workhorses, well-suited for demanding careers in middle management but not for prime jobs. These undercurrents of bias in Corporate America infuriate many women, who then bail out rather than navigate unsupportive terrain. ''They're doing the work, but they don't make it to the top,'' says Lyn Andrews, president of WebMD Health, a consumer unit of WebMD Corp. ( HLTH) in New York. Many start their own companies, while others seek a different work/family balance than many corporations offer. There are now more than 9 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., double the number 12 years ago. Old-School Advice: One of managing director Kiely's ex-bosses told her: "You should be looking out for yourself, not your people" The new studies offer some clues about why the cultural mismatch between women and large companies persists and why it's so critical to keep women on board. What makes the new research more compelling than other such data is that it is based on results culled from executives' actual performance evaluations rather than on opinion surveys or experiments that simulate business situations. Because the participants had no idea that their evaluations would end up as part of a study on gender, the data are untainted, says Janet Irwin, a California management consultant who conducted one of the studies. ''We were startled by the results,'' she says. Irwin and her colleagues discovered that women ranked higher than men on 28 of 31 measures. Irwin was stunned by women's consistently high ratings and how the scores defied conventional wisdom. Contrary to stereotypes, women outperformed men in all kinds of intellectual areas, such as producing high-quality work, recognizing trends, and generating new ideas and acting on them. ''Women's strengths are stronger than men's,'' says Irwin, ''and their weaknesses are not as pronounced.'' Several other studies showed similar patterns. Personnel Decisions International, a consulting firm in Minneapolis, looked at a huge sample--58,000 managers--and found that women outranked men in 20 of 23 areas. Larry Pfaff, a Michigan management consultant, examined evaluations from 2,482 executives from a variety of companies and found that women outperformed men on 17 of 20 measures. Some of the researchers draw different conclusions, though, arguing that the research shows that women executives are equally effective as their male counterparts but not necessarily superior. While women score better, and the scores are statistically significant, says Susan Gebelein, executive vice-president of Personnel Decisions, those differences don't mean much in the real world. Why? Because the consulting firm has tested so many thousands of people, which can make minor differences appear more important than they really are. Women have always outscored men in such evaluations, says Gebelein, whose company began looking at gender differences in 1984. And they score highest at the most male-dominated companies because, she surmises, of the type of woman who succeeds in such environments--someone who must be superior in every way. Robert Kabacoff, a vice-president at Management Research Group in Portland, Me., also wondered if women were getting higher test scores in these studies for reasons other than gender. They might have rated higher because they weren't being compared with men holding similar jobs, he suggests. Managers of human-resources departments often get rated higher on people skills than other supervisors, for instance. If the majority of female managers in a study work in human resources, vs. only a minority of males, the results may have more to do with job than gender. MISUNDERSTOOD. To eliminate such potential distortions, Kabacoff conducted a differently designed study in 1998. He compared male and female managers who worked at the same companies, held similar jobs, were at the same management level, and had the same amount of supervisory experience. When he examined 1,800 supervisors in 22 management skills, he found that women outranked men on about half of the measures. Female managers were graded more effective by peers and subordinates, but bosses still judged men and women equally competent as leaders. ''Men and women seem to be doing roughly equally effective jobs, but they approach their jobs differently,'' says Kabacoff. Certainly, many women managers are keenly aware that they inhabit a different reality at the office than men. Nancy Hawthorne, former chief financial officer at Continental Cablevision Inc., who is now a consultant, says she often felt her bosses ''wondered what the heck I was doing.'' At meetings, she often allowed subordinates to explain the details of ongoing projects. She felt her role was to delegate tasks to people around her to help them be more effective. ''I was being traffic cop and coach and facilitator,'' she said. ''I was always into building a department that hummed.'' And sometimes, women say, they were badgered about using the very skills the research found so valuable. Sandra Kiely, managing director and chief administrative officer at National City Investment Management Co. in Cleveland, recalls that one of her bosses at National City Bank warned that her management style would hurt her career. ''You should be looking out for yourself, not your people,'' he advised her. Everyone knows that women have long excelled at teamwork, but getting results was one of the categories in which women earned their highest marks in these studies. Jackie Streeter, Apple Computer Inc.'s ( AAPL) vice-president for engineering, says she has repeatedly volunteered to shift dozens of employees out of her division because she felt they would better fit into a different department--a move that she says ''startled'' her male colleagues. ''It's not the size of your organization that counts but the size of the results you get,'' says Streeter, who has 350 people working for her. New Business Model: Companies assume people skills aren't business skills, says management professor Fletcher, when in fact, they're inextrictable Women are also more likely to disregard as a useless power trip another long-held management bugaboo: keeping information tightly controlled. ''It's better to overcommunicate,'' says Shukla, whose Web startup, Rubric, made 65 of her 85 employees millionaires. Rather than dispensing information on a need-to-know basis, she made sure information was shared with all of her employees. She also created the CEO lunch, inviting six to eight employees at a time to discuss the business with her. CARING WORKS. Companies can also undercut women's strengths in another, often inadvertent way: by assuming that people skills are not business skills. In fact, they are inextricable, argues Joyce Fletcher, a professor at Simmons Graduate School of Management in Boston and author of Disappearing Acts: Gender, Power, and Relational Practice at Work. Employees who feel cared about by their bosses or are inspired by them often produce higher-quality work, consultants say. And supervisors who know how to deal with conflict get better results. Women have been doing this kind of work for years, but their behavior is often devalued because their intentions are misunderstood, says Fletcher. A woman who takes the time to talk to an employee about a meeting he has missed, for instance, might simply be considered a nice person--not someone trying to make sure that the staff has enough information to make an important decision. Her business actions become invisible, since the staff attributes her behavior to just being kind. Similarly, duties such as coaching and keeping people informed are often taken as a given. But these tasks can actually be the invisible glue that holds a company together, which, until the 360-degree feedback evaluation came along, rarely got examined. ''It's like somebody doing your laundry,'' says Hawthorne, the former Continental Cablevision exec. ''You rely on them to have clean clothes,'' but the work is ''invisible when it's done well.'' Because ''the guys are into glamour,'' says National City's Kiely, women often end up in charge of difficult and unglamorous tasks such as performance reviews. Kiely bristles at some research that concluded that women aren't perceived as strategic or vision-oriented. Her strategy, she says, is to make people think something is their idea so she can get them to buy into a plan. Another potential trap: Women's biggest strengths can also become their biggest weaknesses, says Vivian Eyre, a New York management consultant. By working so hard to get great results, they often take away time from building critical business alliances. ''Given the opportunity to stay in their offices and make sure their report is perfect or going out of their office and talking to Joe about his business, women are more likely to do their own work,'' says Eyre. What's more, she adds, women still suffer from a lack of mentoring and being kept outside informal networks of communication. Many women admit that because they spend so much time focusing on getting results, they don't think enough about strategy and vision--qualities that Harvard's Kanter says are still the most important in a top executive. ''If women are seen as only glorified office facilitators but not as tough-minded risk-takers,'' says Kanter, ''they will be held back from the CEO jobs.'' In the end, it takes a lot more than competence to make it to the top. Getting the best performance evaluations in the company's history may not be nearly enough. ''When you actually sit down in a selection committee to choose the CEO, lots of subtle assumptions come into play,'' said Deborah Merrill Sands, co-director of Simmons' Center on Gender & Organization. Companies may say they want collaborative leaders, but they still hold deep-seated beliefs that top managers need to be heroic figures. Interpersonal skills may be recognized as important, she said, but they aren't explicitly seen as corner-office skills. ''We are in the process of changing our concepts of leadership,'' she says. ''But organizations haven't evolved that much yet.'' In fact, Kabacoff has just finished a new study showing how CEOs and corporate boards view upper management, and he found a clear double standard. Male CEOs and senior vice-presidents got high marks from their bosses when they were forceful and assertive and lower scores if they were cooperative and empathic. The opposite was true for women: Female CEOs got downgraded for being assertive and got better scores when they were cooperative. Kabacoff's conclusion? ''At the highest levels, bosses are still evaluating people in the most stereotypical ways.'' That means that even though women have proven their readiness to lead companies into the future, they're not likely to get a shot until their bosses are ready to stop living in the past. By Rochelle Sharpe in Boston http://www.businessweek.com

^ . Here's the sugar free edition. Govt troops patrol Mogadishu, search for arms Sat Apr 28, 2007 7:49AM EDT (Updates with Yusuf quotes, peacekeepers) By Sahal Abdulle MOGADISHU, April 28 (Reuters) - Allied Somali-Ethiopian troops patrolled Mogadishu on Saturday, hunting for weapons after claiming significant gains in battles with insurgents that have killed at least 1,300 people since February. "The big war finished the day before yesterday," President Abdullahi Yusuf told reporters at the hilltop presidential palace, which rebels attacked several times in recent weeks. "The government was fighting the remnants of the Islamic Courts. The government was not at war with the Somali public." Interim government forces were deployed on Saturday in the city's Bakara Market, a former stronghold of rebels frustrating the administration's efforts to restore central rule in the Horn of Africa nation for the first time in 16 years. "We are ready to collaborate with the government soldiers and we also welcome their arrival in the area," Abas Ahmed Duale, spokesman for a committee representing the market's businessmen, told independent Somali broadcaster Shabelle. Some homes and commercial properties, including a Coca Cola plant, were looted on Friday as relative calm returned after nine-days of Mogadishu's heaviest fighting for years. On Saturday, government troops were posted at strategic junctions in the city, searching cars and passengers for arms. "DISASTER FOR AFRICA" The African Union (AU) has called for more peacekeepers to be sent urgently to Mogadishu. Some 1,500 Ugandan soldiers already there have been pinned down by the clashes, restricted to guarding the presidential palace and air and sea ports. "If we do not deploy troops soon, it will be disaster and a tragedy for Africa," Alpha Omar Konare, the chairman of the AU Commission, told reporters in Uganda on Friday. Captain Paddy Ankunda, spokesman for the Ugandan peacekeepers in Mogadishu, called on international aid organisations to help them treat hundreds of injured civilians. "Every day the wounded keep coming to our medical unit. We are overwhelmed," he said in comments published by Uganda's state-owned New Vision newspaper on Saturday. "We are appealing to the international community and especially the humanitarian agencies to come and do their work. Those making noise in Nairobi should come here and actually assist the people," Ankunda said. "Protecting the delivery of humanitarian aid is part of our mandate, but no humanitarian agency has called upon us." The United Nations has accused both sides in the conflict of breaking humanitarian law by indiscriminately firing on civilian areas, and says the rate of displacement in Somalia over the past three months has been worse than Iraq in the same period. Some 350,000 people have fled the city since February, more than a third of its one million population. Thousands have sought shelter in surrounding town and villages, sleeping under trees or out in the open, vulnerable to disease and robbers. http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSL28214434._CH_.2400 And this.

UAE members can send donations via Red Crecent UAE... UAE launches relief operation in Somalia The Red Crescent Authority (RCA) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched a relief operation in the war-torn African country of Somalia, Emirates News Agency reported on Wednesday. "The RCA will deliver food and medical aid to the tune of 11 million dirhams (about 3 million U.S. dollars) to displaced people in Somalia," RCA Chairman Khalifa Nasser Al Suweidi was quoted as saying. The assistance was ordered by the UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Al Suweidi added. "The RCA is intensifying its relief operations in Somalia to fend off the potential risks that most poor and underprivileged sectors might face," he said. The UAE humanitarian group is "working to meet the basic needs of displaced population from food, medicines to shelter," he added. The devastating warfare in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, began late last year when the country's transitional government called for Ethiopian troops to help drive away the Supreme Council Islamic Courts (SCIC). According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 320,000 people have fled Mogadishu since February. Since Somalia's civil war broke out in 1991, militia loyal to clan and sub-clan-based factions have controlled different parts of the country, with no central authority to provide law and order or basic services to the population. (1 U.S. dollar= 3.67 dirhams)

Rooble I'm in the happy ever after stage of life. I don't wear a ring though it's considered imitation [islamically] and jewelry generally suffocates me. Dhucdhuc....has made a good most western wedding practices stem mainly from paganism and Christianity to a lesser degree. However, like JusticeI think a honeymoon is a good way to get away from all the stress of the wedding, the move and family. It’s a nice way end one chapter of your life and starts a new one. I doubt you’ll ever get to spend quality time with your wife/husband. The rest is really for the family.

Laailaaha Illaallah! Bal waxaasbaa dowlad sheeganaya oo ummad dhan uhadlaya. Ilaahow na astur.

That's the one. Somalis call it Faadumo. I don't know why. There's a sweet but silly myth that a vein from this finger reaches the heart..hence the wedding ring. Edit Waa goorma aroosku. Are we invited

Okay, which finger does the wedding ring go on? Faadumada bidixda fadhida.

Ethiopia yesterday accused arch-foe Eritrea of supporting the rebels behind an attack on a remote Chinese-run oil field that killed 74 people, including nine Chinese workers. Eritrea immediately denied the claim - the latest in a string of accusations and counter-accusations between the rival neighbours. “The perpetrator of the terrorist attack is the self-styled ****** National Liberation Front (ONLF), a terrorist wing which is part of the front of destruction led by the Eritrean government,” the Ethiopian Information Ministry said. Up to seven Chinese workers were kidnapped in Tuesday’s dawn raid on the oil field in Ethiopia’s eastern ****** region, where the rebel group is fighting for the independence of ethnic Somalis. “Hand-in-glove with the Eritrean Government, which hates to see Ethiopia’s development, the terrorist forces in the region have acted out this horrendous act of terror,” the statement said. Eritrea rejected the claims. “The accusations are baseless,” Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu said. “They want to create a pretext to take belligerent measures against Eritrea.” Ali said the ONLF was the result of a “failed Ethiopian racial policy” that had splintered Ethiopia into more than 30 rival ethnic groups. “It is becoming clear that these kind of statements are intended to divert attention from Ethiopia’s own domestic crisis,” he said. Addis Ababa often accuses Eritrea of backing separatist groups that have carried out a series of bombs attacks in Addis Ababa, and of attacking civilian positions in southern and eastern Ethiopia. Source

^LOL. Waxbaa kaa si ah. This is crass crazy. I don't know how it relates to appraisal. :confused:

Tarikhdu wax bey rartaa

OMG! Yous lot are mad! I've once read about this mother who after being asked this question went into a long awkward talk about when a man and a woman love each other.....wax kasta. When she finished her confused child said...'No, the red hospital or the gray one by school?'

^What if he asks to see? Lol. One advantage of C-section birth. I tell, ya. I agree to a point but at five birthing canal or vagina are abstract concepts. LOL! You'd have to get into a alot of other things. *I've asked because I thought it interesting that Serenity crossed out her comment.

Much ado about nothing, ayaayo. The rest of your post says that you're not entirely convinced. The reason becomes pretty obvious in the 5th para. I'm still intrigued by the 'nice' baranbaro, does he have a bunchline? p.s Iman is beautiful. She is also an adult model who got paid to strut her stuff. Lets not get it twisted.

Flat, flats are not good for you and anything above 1 and 1/2 is a no, no! These need to be banned.. Yuck!

Lily Thanks. I was waiting since last summer for this style to hit the shops. Think, I'm going to be stuck on this trend for a few decades at least. Xalimopatra Regular gals don't fare any better. I say, if you can afford it, find a good taylor and get made for you garments.

^Ditto again! Lois Lane I think instead of pointing fingers, we as a community internationally or locally need to acknowledge the problem. That our young men degrade women so easily, that young women seem to not only lack confidence but try to emulate this western culture to the fullest. I say we gotta a problem Absolutely. Originally posted by rudy: Originally posted by Kimiya: [qb] faraax is your lest worry there sweetie. when u put anything on the net, its a public domain. only way to get it back, is to get a lawyer and sue the site. but then again, 99% of these pics are provided by the owners! so dont blame faaraxs for your missups. You don't get the point 'sweetie'. If I was to post my photo on here. It stays here. It doesn't become public property. Unless, I say so. Bob You are right dearest. Faaraxs are not all the same. That was aimed at the loosers. And, PT is evil. That SOl phase has ruined my last PC. :mad: