*nochannel *femme *music *Livemusic *sexuality

Seriously? Islam and Politics? It's not like this sprung up overnight after America decided Democracy was best for the Middle East. Liveleak is full of idiots. Because singers and bellydancers like that have been part of Arabic culture for years.

Haifa Wehbe is like the Maddonna of the Middle East, all her lyrics are infused with sexual under tones, and she is incredibly popular all over the GCC. However she was denied a visa in Kuwait and several other GCC states because she is so sexually provocative.

But that is neither here or there because go to any sheesha place in Kuwait and you will see the raunchy sexually porn lite Arabic music videos of today being played.

Modern Arabic music is a trail of tears.

In reply to this comment by jonny:
It's certainly true that the U.S. economy has been shifting away from making stuff over the last 50 years, but it's still the case that most cities and towns in the U.S. are completely dependent on their local manufacturing base.

Oh yes that is true, that is a factor I forgot about, small scale suppliers providing for larger multinational firms. But I wonder how many of these jobs have started to be outsourced and will eventually be outsourced to places like China?

Do you think that eventually a manufacturing base in the US is sustainable in the long run?

But that doesn't change the fact that hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people in the U.S. are employed in the agricultural business. Again, I was just using it as an example of producing stuff. Perhaps this points out a fundamental flaw of using GDP as a measure of a country's economic strength.

I agree that yes you have a significant population in the agricultural business, I just simply disagree with subsidization of this industry by the government. I mean post 9/11 they wanted to enforce a renamed act called something like Food Security Act that would increase subsidization of the agricultural industry in certain key states. Since most of the voters are part of those, there is large political pressure to sustain them.

Really? I was under the impression it was more the other way around, i.e., the third world nations were begging the west to stop their subsidies and "level the growing field".

Yes third world nations beg but its the first world nations that have the larger political and legal expertise in WTO negotiations, its a form of bureaucracy, so you have nations that have litte understanding of the paths or argument points that need to be made. Not to mention that the first world is always more keen about its own objectives then the development of the third world to which they are more keen to send a few million dollars in USAID. Sorry I have this big thing against western nations, aid and Africa where I lived. But its a whole another topic.

That I just have to disagree with. It is only because of political realities and labor costs, not farming practices or technology (i.e., true efficiencies). There is no way that it is more efficient to grow corn in Zambia than it is in Iowa.

But do the cost benefit analysis, third world nations that are wholly dependent on agricultural industry, have larger real estate and much lower costs of production then America. Efficiencies in the US come from economies of scale and mechanization, something that is simply lacking in other nations. But you look into FDA rules, the lax rules towards food quality, the large penetration of manufactured foods, the chicken farms that stack chickens in cages one after the other. There is a seeming problem in this. Notice how its only the first world that so far has had problems with regards to food contamination problems.

The subsidization I talked about creates further ramifications further down the line, a certain supply level is reached but the subsidization increased keep going on, you have over supply, with over supply you start dumping this production into the global market. The reason that even in Kuwait we get US apples, bananas and other exotic fruit. It's hilarious.

Ultimately, that's how a company should be run, but how many companies do you know of that have that kind of long term vision. (This is really worthy of another conversation on the ethics and ultimate sustainability of commerce. Too much to handle here.)

Oh of course, you can never expect altruistic behavior from companies, but their profit motive is an easy to read incentive. But you have the IMF which already dictates nation policy to nations to allow for better free market behavior, and yes there is exploitative behavior, but there is enormous room for growth and market formation. The reason I pretty much am planning to come back to Kuwait eventually after University, its an untapped market.

I believe that with IMF, ILO and other NGOs giving good solid economic policy advice we could have FDI into developing nations without exploitative behavior taking place that is still cost efficient to foreign companies. We haven't had much of that mostly due to that fact that these NGOs sometimes expect market knowledge and legislation to magically pop out of thin air instead of being advised.

There is already trade exploitation when you can get EU and US products in the developing world, we got Kellogg and OMO and so on. The problem I see in the developing world is that its this no possible development outlook by both citizens and firms, while the reality is that there is not motivation for FDI in these nations. Africa is always seen as this war torn cess pit of corruption, but thats media for you.

It's a complicated issue, but I still believe that there is avenues for large growth, because the more nations that become developed the more benefit is there for world wide trade as a whole. When I was in Zambia it was a perverted picture, alot of companies and NGOs entered and provided highly technological solutions to very basic problems, shock growth I would say instead of embryonic growth. You don't give powered water pumps to a nation that has no electrical power grid. You don't lie down phone lines and so on. The development profile has to be totally different for example mobile market exploded in Africa because deploying mobile towers and phones is cheaper then laying land lines. I worked with a NGO called Engineers without borders that provided basic technological solutions to problems, real bronze age stuff that could be easily built and more importantly kept up by local populace. This transmission of information is very important. But am a idealist here as well. I want to see the developing world progress, especially Africa which has seen GDP decreases since colonization ended.

I have twice personally "bailed out" close friends. I doubt it was complete ignorance, but there was certainly a lack of understanding of just how much it would cost to run up large amounts of debt.

I agree. But there is alot of access to seemingly low credit and very little knowledge being passed on about controlling run away debt. Consumerism is pushed at the American public at far higher rates then anything else, sophisticated marketing and advertising is far more alluring then sensible financial behavior. It's this consumer pressure that I disagree with, the constant psychological pressure that buying something will make you feel good, the buying for the sake of buying not because its a good product that you need. But am an idealist like that.

Of course you're right that true and fair globalization (as opposed to exploitation) is the best solution. How much luck have you had convincing your neighbors? I haven't had much.

Almost none. Its a hard topic to explain because it requires a very wide macroeconomic viewpoint instead of a localized view. I mean would say 90% of the people I knew in University on one hand wanted development in the third world but were against the implications that developing the third world would mean a short term loss of certain industries locally. But its going to happen eventually. We can't all be growing bananas.

3 Republicans and 1 Democrat. 2 lunatics, 1 semi-sane person and 1 sane person.

Hilarious. I wish I still got Fox news in Kuwait.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'lessons of darkness, music, amnesiac, iraq war, kuwait' to 'lessons of darkness, music, amnesiac, iraq war, kuwait, oil, well, fire, smoke, german, uk' - edited by Eklek

Buying HDTVs is confusing especially since both commentators and people often throw marketing jargon and necessities at you that you really don't need. Most important is to see them set up in shop and compare and contrast, most places usually loop the same kind of content over all screens so you can quickly see what is good and what is not for your eye.

I would recommend a Plasma over and LCD, I own an LCD but I watch movies at my buddies place and he has a Viera Plasma that gives a much better picture and it looks less like a PC display which is what I feel with my LCD. Plasmas now offer the same brightness as LCDs, the Viera sits in a living room that has no curtains on the 6th floor in Kuwait. Sunlight has never been a problem. But this is neither here or there, anything you will buy will be good. Unless you buy something called Wansa or Chanachong or Leakwong (Lots of unheard of chinese brands in Kuwait).

Don't bother with Full HD or HD TV Ready, all that means is whether or not you will get 720p or 1080p. Now people will tell you that you MUST have 1080p, but that's really a false economy, as that increase in quality is marginal over increase in price. Almost 90% of HD content right now is 720p, and it's more then enough. P means progressive as in the whole picture is rendered at the same time, essentially.

Don't bother with 120Hz, it's all marketing jargon. It doesn't make that big of a difference unless you watch an ungodly amount of sports. But even then I will bet you hard cash to convince me there is a tangible difference from 10 meters away.

You must ideally look for a combo deal that will get you the TV and a home theater system at the same time, but be sure that the home theater has HDMI out (best TV quality), several RCA red/white audio inputs (connecting other audio) and a Optical In (future proof).

What you are trying to achieve is have all video separately to the TV via HDMI or composite connections and then route all the audio routed to your home theater. This will utilize both systems fully. I hate seeing systems when they have the DVD home theater but the satelliate audio is only from the TV, its just retarded.

For streaming content you should really look into the Xbox 360, mostly because it's idiot proof and every easy to setup. You plug it to your TV, then plug the Ethernet cable and you are pretty much set. If you want to watch Blu-rays you could get a PS3, as it is far cheaper then a standalone Bluray player. But its totally atrocious and much more fiddly feeling then the Xbox 360. Plus your son is bound to love the games on the 360 more then the PS3.

If you download alot of content from the Internet its fairly easy to set up a streaming TV server from a PC to PS3/Xbox360 using Tversity, and its also fairly easy to set up. I have done this several times, however it is also fiddly if something goes wrong and it won't really let you play MKV movies unless you do transcoding to a lower format that can be streamed from PC to TV, as real time conversion is a bitch.

Personally I have a Sony Bravia with the Sony home theater system, I use a Western Digital HD TV player to play all kinds of shit I download. Its a small unit that is really cheap, it plays almost all the current video formats as well as HD Blu-ray rips encoded in X264. You would need a separate USB drive that you hook up content to, but those are cheap and allow you to expand storage however much you want (think 500gb USB drive for family movies, 8Gb flash disk for kinky Cambodian sweat shop porn). It has HDMI, RCA and optical connections. It's only fault is that it doesn't do digital to stereo sound conversions, so you must have a optical in on your sound system to enjoy DTS streams, or your files will just have no sound.

I hope this helped.

>> ^smooman:
perspective? answer this one question: have you been there? The answer to that question will tell me all I need to know about your perspective


EPIC FAIL

>> ^Farhad2000:
I grew in a place called Uzbekistan. That's north of Afghanistan.
I live in Kuwait. That's south of Iraq.


EPIC WIN

I grew in a place called Uzbekistan. That's north of Afghanistan.

I live in Kuwait. That's south of Iraq.

1. I have lived through a coup attempt in Zambia, perpetuated by a military officer who called himself Captain Solo. Which was the name of a cheap straight to VHS movie that was shown on local TV just a week before.

2. I have lived through Gulf War 2 in March of 2003. Everyone assumed we would die in Kuwait because Iraq was going to use chemical, biological and possibly nuclear SCUD warheads. I felt sorry for all the troops forced to put on their MOPP suits every time there was an alarm. It was surreal.

3. I nearly got kidnapped in a car in Lusaka, a car thief was trying to break into our car while I was sleeping in the back. I stopped him by locking down the doors fully before his hanger wire could decouple it. He looked at me with accusing eyes like I just took candy from a child.

4. I learnt English entirely by sound and watching American movies. My entire grammar structure is based around what sounds right. As such I used to have a very American accent.

5. I was born Muslim but only ever practiced it culturally. I went to the mosque only once before realizing I could not be a servant to any god because am simply too lazy to give a shit either way.

6. I spent most of my early childhood on my uncle's farm, raising chickens, doing masonry work and harvesting potatoes. This experience has made me humble.

7. I cannot live in comfort in my country because I have severe life threatening allergies to its environment.

8. I nearly drowned as a child at a water park when I got sucked in the water intake for the slipping slide ride. I vividly remember how it felt looking up through the water up at big African man who was drying himself near the pool. He jumped in and saved me. I was so scared I never got to look at his face or thank him. I regret this.

9. Africa was the best place I have lived in. Its more beautiful then most people realize. The people are in desperate poverty but are gentle and kind. You will never see more beautiful clouds anywhere else.

10. I have a purple belt in Karate that I got as a kid. I think it's totally useless and has no baring on any combat ability I have.

11. I used to stay up late at night in high school watching MTV Europe, MTVChillout and MTVAlternative nation, back when it was good.

12. Kuwait proved to me that money does not buy happiness nor does wealth make people better individuals.

13. My favourite city will always be Montreal. I had the best and worst of times there.

14. I do alot of drugs. Most of the time I don't look for a high. I look for relief. Its quite healthy for my psyche. I like psychedelics and exploring the limits of my psyche. I like to disassociate.

15. I have a heart problem and in all likely hood will die prematurely. This doesn't bother me that much.

16. I have been arrested while being high on mushrooms, the experience was surreal and hilarious and depressing all at once. My arresting officer was the splitting image of Spud from Trainspotting.

17. Deja vus scare and confuse me.

18. I been to more countries then I care to mention. People are really all the same all over.

19. I love music, I have music collection I have maintaining since middle school. I will be very sad to lose it. I love only particular songs and moments, its hard for me to say I like any particular artist. The question what is your favourite genre of music always troubles me, its hard to pick one. Alot of my music I listen to in particular moods. I would be the first person to implant a music player into my brain.

20. I love cinema, I think cinema is humanity reflected, our dreams, desires, hopes, fears and experiences.

21. I wish I could stop being so cynical.

22. I don't know what to do with my life.

23. I used to go to the roof of my building in Africa and sleep under a full starry sky. Trying to pick out the satellites.

24. Life is hard to take seriously, I feel like I have been here before, and did all this before. I expect to wake up any minute now.

25. I feel like I shared too much.

Even though I will earn the ire of my friends in Kuwait, I must say I agree with Krupo, Wired is a shit magazine that is now more of a sales pamphlet for the latest gadgets more then anything else.

There is far more interesting stuff to be found in their website, especially the Defense and Security section.

By the way anyone can sumbit VS as a Video Aggregator though, I think someone should I mean it would only increase the traffic to this site.

That sucks. What about internet radio and pod casting? That's how I get by. Deepmix.ru and Bluemars are my foundation of internet radio.

At least you have good radio to listen to. In Kuwait we have AFN, VOA, Marina, RKFM, EasyFM and a shit load of Arabic radio stations that are essentially interchangeable as Arabic music is in a huge creative sink (90% of the songs start with HABIBI, which means my darling and is always orchestrated the same goddamn way).

AFN and VOA are really standard American corporate music fare, though its hilarious to hear a 40 plus announcer try to show enthusiasm for Soulja Boy's Superman song.

RKFM is the worst, its state owned so they really don't need to try at all. They had this woman announcer for donkeys years now that loves playing shitty country music all the goddamn time and keeps replaying songs that were considered new when I was learning to walk. They have the worst music selection and the worst announcers in every time slot. Oh and someone really fucking loves Sugar Ray over there because I know the entire lyrics to Every morning... argh.

Marina FM is okay but it tries to hard to be hip and comes off totally square. The over enthusiastic announcers talk to their audience wayyyy too much.

EasyFM is the most bearable as they simply play classical music, but sometimes someone fucks up and they play what sounds like Elevator muzak.

^ Will you be petitioning the government of Kuwait to take custody of everyone we have imprisoned in Guantanamo?

Will you welcome their release onto your streets?

Know of any country that would?

Much as I think what was done to them was wrong, and even if they were innocent before, I'd rather not have them released onto the streets of my city after what we've done to them.

If they weren't intent on harming America before, I'd be shocked if they won't all be now.

Here's a list of the military actions the US has been involved in since 1960.

I think he may have a point...

1959-60 -- The Caribbean.
1962 -- Thailand.
1962 -- Cuba.
1962-75 -- Laos.
1964 -- Congo (Zaire).
1959-75 -- Vietnam War.
1965 -- Invasion of Dominican Republic
1967 --Israel.
1967 -- Congo (Zaire).
1968 -- Laos & Cambodia.
1970 -- Cambodia Campaign.
1974 -- Evacuation from Cyprus.
1975 -- Evacuation from Vietnam.
1975 -- Evacuation from Cambodia.
1975 -- South Vietnam.
1975 -- Cambodia.
1976 -- Lebanon.
1976 -- Korea.
1978 -- Zaire (Congo).
1980 -- Iran.
1981 -- El Salvador.
1981 --Libya. in the Gulf of Sidra, claimed by Libya as territorial waters but considered international waters by the United States.[RL30172]
1982 -- Sinai.
1982 -- Lebanon.
1982-1983 -- Lebanon.
1983 -- Grenada.
1983-89 -- Honduras.
1983 -- Chad.
1984 -- Persian Gulf.
1986 -- Libya.
1986 -- Libya.
1986 -- Bolivia
1987-88 -- Persian Gulf.
1988 -- Honduras
1988 -- Panama.
1989 -- Libya.
1989 -- Panama.
1989 -- Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru.
1989 -- Philippines.
1989-90 -- Panama.
1990 -- Liberia.
1990 -- Saudi Arabia.
1991 -- Iraq.
1991 -- Zaire
1992 -- Sierra Leone.
1992 -- Kuwait.
1992-2003 -- Iraq. Iraqi No-Fly Zones
1993-Bosnia-Herzegovina.
1993 -- Macedonia.
1994-95 -- Haiti.
1994 -- Macedonia.
1995 -- Bosnia.
1996 -- Liberia.
1996 -- Central African Republic.
1997 -- Albania.
1997 -- Congo and Gabon.
1997 -- Sierra Leone.
1997 -- Cambodia.
1998 -- Iraq.
1998 -- Guinea-Bissau.
1998 - 1999 Kenya and Tanzania.
1998 -- Afghanistan and Sudan.
1998 -- Liberia.
1999 - 2001 East Timor.
1999 -- NATO's bombing of Serbia
2000 -- Sierra Leone.
2000 -- Yemen.
2000 -- East Timor.
2001 -- Afghanistan.
2002 -- Yemen.
2002 -- Philippines.
2002 -- Côte d'Ivoire.
2003 -- 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 -- Liberia.
2003 -- Georgia and Djibouti
2004 -- Haïti
2004 -- Georgia, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Eritrea.[7]
2006 -- Pakistan.
2006 -- Lebanon.
2007 -- Somalia.

>> ^Farhad2000:

Friends were telling you about Saudi Arabia. The UAE is one of the most liberal states in the GCC far more then Kuwait along with Bahrain.

Uh, the UAE is an authoritarian hellhole.

>> ^dannym3141:

Friends were telling you about Saudi Arabia. The UAE is one of the most liberal states in the GCC far more then Kuwait along with Bahrain. Men and women are allowed to mingle freely, there is alot of foreigners who are allowed to drink alcohol in complete contrast with even Kuwait. The most serious violations are import of drugs and scandalous behavour like fornicating in public and then disegarding and insulting the police when they tell you to stop.

The vice police you talk about is in Saudi Arabia who will beat women when they congregate with men who are not relatives, when without family man, and even convict women for crimes when they are raped by other men. Saudi Arabia's stance towards female rights and human rights in general are not addressed by any of the western states, even though strong relations are maintained between the USA and KSA.

I love how news organizations treat economic turn downs as apocalyptic events when it was predicted this was going to happen in the GCC for years.

Dubai is mostly invested from other oil rich states in the GCC like Kuwait. So this is not that bad as they make it out.

This is actually good as Dubai has been having unreasonable price bubbles in real estate for years now.