After the victory of the makhzeno-khobzism back in 2007, Morocco is approaching yet another election date in June 09.

Besides the official elections site updated by the Ministry of interior to locate election offices on a map (certainly NOT the censored google maps!) there is no big buzz about this event online. I have tried some key words (in French or English) to google it but the results turned poor. There even seems to be a few bloggers subscribed to blogma aggrgator who are intersted by this event. The reason for this might be that more people are attracted to social networks these days like Fecebook to express themelves or simply that some people are stealing the show !!

Well let me allow a pragraph to those people who steal the show. You can all remmber the new face that emerged in the Moroccan political scene who had resigned in August to take part in the following September elections.  Si Fouad has created an association, then a party that has grown so strong to the point it s defying other ministries and shaking the government’s stability in case they try to apply the law against the new recruits. There isn’t a single day that I don’t read his name on the paper or see his face on the news.  The secons “show stealer” is si Chabat who is criticising not only living people but also the dead! 

All for Chabat and Chabat against all

 Source:  http://difad.wordpress.com

 Will the show stealers succeed in the elections? let’s wait and see!

Cardiff Online 09

For over 75 years IATEFL have been organising annual conferences in different countries for teachers of English around the world.  The two past years  the conference workshops and seminars were made available online for people who cannot attend the conference in person. I could virtually take part in both conferences organised in Aberdeen 07 and Exeter 08. The original links are by now dead but the people out there could make a nice compilation of the featured workshops and talks of the conferences  and put it for reference here.

This year the conference is organised in Cardiff on a different platform (earlier sessions were hosted on Moodle). The online Cardiff website address will be very soon announced on the official IATEFL blog promising an enhanced experience and a coverage of 40 sessions.

I will keep you posted.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the reasons I hate Myspace. In this post I’m going to list some of the reason that made me fall in love with Facebook:

1. Unlike MySpace, Facebook people have come up with a sleek simple design that looks quite clean evenfor busy social networkers with hundreds of friends and networks. I simply love the design and many people join me on that point.
2. FB is a social website that can be painlessly tweeked into a professional working place. You can think of the tools as an altenative to emails, phone calls, snail mail, blogging…  WWD have compiled a list of 12 to use face book professionally.
3. The news feed in fb help me get in touch instantly with my friends and colleagues without the fuss MSN creates. Of course twitter should get credit for that idea.
4. NGO’s and associations with limited financial  resources can have their word heard online professionally and reach their traget clientele though advertisng on given networks.
5. I can find anyone on fb ranging from my primary school friends to current work  colleagues, Kings, CEO’s and famous people. There are goup fans even for the dead. To stop abuse, fb have adopted an efficient privacy policy that helps people connect but at the same time dont get them overwhelmed.
6. I can sneak in anytime to learn about what the others are doing (alas, that’s human!)
7. People are referenced (most of the time) under their real names unless they mean to deceive the others.
8. Applications turn to be highly useful and entertaining. My favourites at this time are :  addicted to Boston Legal & Send Coffee
9. FB reminds me of my friends’ birthdays!
10. I can instantly promote my wordpress blogs!

Do you love facebook as well? Do you have any more reasons apart from the above mentioned? Or do you prefer anoter socialwebsite? Please share.

It’s always time to talk about love even when it is not the 14th Feb !

Some days ago Radawn left a comment on my post “Are you a Facebooker?“. In response let me make a short-list of the things I hate about MySpace:

1. My first 10 friends were girls with a sexy picture and a link to an adult website!
2. Design: I love to have a customisable page with the colours I like but MySapce design harms my eyes. It’s the world’s worst designed website.
3. The name: The website name reminds me of the days I wanted to create my own website back in the late 90’s, and that makes me feel old
4. The people there are not active: out of some 50 invites, no one replied to my friendship request!
5. No twitter-like feeds on MySpace while they promote stupid widgets like instant music players
6. I’m obliged to befriend a certain Tom Anderson to help me out!
7. Security issues: there’s a message on the homepage that may make anyone think twice before signing up:
   

   Always make sure you’re visiting the real myspace.com

8. Too much ad on my personal page
9. Pages get Exhaustingly long to browse
10. Why choose Myspace (591M hits on google) while there’s a much better one called Facebook (780M hits)!

There are more reasons that made me run away from that space, but I hink I should stop here.

Any comments on the points above? Do you have a favourite social website that beats MySpace? Do you manage to get qualitatively selected aquaintance?

Share!

Please if you care for what’s happening to civilians in Gaza, then go to this poll : http://www.israel-vs-palestine.com/gz/

You will have to chosse between the two following options:

• I support Israel
• I support Plestine

At the time of writing this post out of the 1063342 1064750 participants, 43,7 % support Israe while 56,3% support Plestine. There’s at least one voter every second!

Your call?

The website defines the project as follows:

About project

This project is created for people to express their free opinion about recent militaristic events in Gaza and Israel. It is not made to set at variance between Israel and Palestinian people. It is an open project just to find how people around the world feels about recent conflict.

The website is created in peacefull purpose, so we hope peacefull discussions in our Comments section. We show the country of origin of every commentator at every comment by flag, and commentor’s selected vote.

Who are we?

We are independent people, we do not belong to any Israel or Palestinian organizations, and we do not have any relationships with them.

Where do donated money go?

Your donations goes to improvement of this poll and servers expenses. Donated money do not support any Israeli or Palestinian organizations.

I have read so many articles lately about what is happening in Gaza.  Yesterday’s read was simply the best. The article is about Hugo Chàvez, Venezuela’s president and what he did in respnse to the massacre.

I thought about translating the article but that will not work as the text carries much arabic culture that’s difficult for me to convey. (hope a reader can do something about it!)

I can’t resist not blogging once more about the political scene in Morocco.  Since my last series of blog-posts about Moroccan politics, things have well changed.  The most important of which is Si Fouad’s outgoings: creating a mouvement, going on national tours, and lastly changing the movement to a party! The buzz has been spreading online through multiple websites, a neat bio on wikipedia, and so many groups on facebook. And of course, trouble may come at any time…

Si Abbas,  the Kingdom’s prime minister, has also been making the news. Regarded as the odd man out of the new era, he hasn’t yet made any substential change to the course of Moroccan politics.  His relation with the  press has not been so peaceful and he had to mend it at times as when HE called on “Jeune Afrique” to be interviewed. Some hours ago, Abbas got elected (a 3rd term in office) as the secretery general of his party. According to the party’s constitution, a SG can go only for two terms in office. That brings to mind other Arab world stories….

The next communal elections will be held on June 12th, 2009 as announced by the King. More than 16 million voters will choose some 24,000 counsellors. Candidates representing 30 political parties will run in the elections. But will these elections be any different for the previous one(s)? Will Si Fouad’s party make any change? Will people go to vote? Will the current economic crisis in Morocco and the world affect the way people think about politics?…

Well, there seem to be many questions to answer. So let see how things evolve.

To be continued…

I wonder how feasible is leelev’s way of saving money under the current financial crisis especially in the US.

The number of Moroccan people saving many in banks or throgh inssurance companies is significantly growing. This video helps understand the process:

Enjoy!

People take decisions each beginning of year. A simple search on google turns more than 100K results. Some resolutions are about daily life routine like going on diet, more blogging,  doing less housework or spending more time with family while other resolutions tend to be more utopic like hoping for a pieceful world, a greener planet or more prosperity to the world.

The one thing I have learnt from taking such resolutions is that there are some things that work and others that simply never do!

This year I have decided to make a wish list for everything that I want and then shortlist it to leave the three most important resolutions to keep.  This way, I will have sort of primary resolutions that constitute a priority and other secondary resolutions that might fill up the emty time slots in my life.

2008 Resolutions I’m proud of:

• Reading papers on a daily basis
• Spending the Sunday morning in a café. ( Oh yes, that’s manish!!)
• Responding to ALL emails timely
• Adopting GTD

The 2009 wish list goes like this:

• Get an opportunity to get an MA
• Workout regularly
• read at least a book each trimester
• Reach a satisfactory work balance
• Improve my presentation skills
• Travel more in Morocco and abroad to discover new things
• Publish some of my photos and get a nice pro camera
• Blog more regularly
• Make blogs by themes. One for techie, anothers for my travels with pics and reflections (no later said than done here)
• Get married!
• Seek a carreer change
• Get a car
• get a notebook (laptop)

….and the shortlist is:

To be editted shortly…