Egypt Day 2: Keep Islamists out to keep Tourism In, say hoteliers

Some juicy inside bits from the dramatic first Egyptian 'democratic' elections:

Vote Egyptian Bloc, Vote Tourism!

"Speaking about Luxor here is a copy for a fax sent from the Egyptian hotel association to hotels managers to urge their employees in tourism sector to vote for the Egyptian bloc because its parties support tourism unlike Islamist parties."

"And the popular committees , Muslim brotherhood and Salafists protected the polling stations all night long. According to the FJ Party aka MB party not less than 40,000 volunteers protected the polling stations across the country in 9 governorates last night."

Okay, so since we first moved to Jordan, I’ve wondered what’s up with people’s translations of their names to English. I know that in the US we’re old hats at coming up with odd spelling for common names (like that makes either the kid or the name unique), but Jordan has an even bigger problem. They misspell their names and don’t even know it. People seem befuddled when Westerners misread their Western names. But, most often this occurs because they have used an exact translation of each letter of the name. Guess what, it doesn’t work.

"Those who follow my @ArabicType account may have noticed that I am tweeting way more about politics and social issues than design these days. It’s not a coincidence and please bare with me. Today, I’m in Dubai on a business trip."

"In 1977, the General Assembly called for the annual observance of 29 November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (resolution 32/40 B). On that day, in 1947, the Assembly adopted the resolution on the partition of Palestine (resolution 181 (II))"