Cette traduction de l'article précédent a BEAUCOUP tardé, mais c'est pas ma faute, j'ai été très pris. Il a fallu que je mate un soulèvement insurrectionnel de fourmis infidèles et athées
qui ont tenté de proclamer le Califat Formique dans ma divine cuisine, ces sales formicatrices! Inspirées sans doute par le souk de tous ces Printemps Arabes, elles ont voulu semer un bazar style Homsiote dans mon autorité titanesque, je vous demande un peu!
Ya Rarab bi teq! J'ai même eu droit à de pitoyables attentats-kamikazes, ça faisait un son comme si quelqu'un avait marché sur du plastique à bulles.
Je ne sais plus si je vous l'ai déjà raconté, mais lorsqu'une fourmi mâle s'accouple, parfois elle explose. C'est d'un vicieux...
Intolérable! Un bon festin de fayots à l'ail accompagnés de chou farci suivi de lentilles à l'huile et aux petits oignons frits, puis les abondants gaz chimiques qui en ont résulté
, ont vite eu raison de ces téméraires outrancières.
Tant pis pour les piaillements indignés de l'ONU et de la frigide barjo. Je crois que les 1.500 cadavres empalés sur des cure-dents devant ma porte dissuaderont les vélléités futures de vol de mon sucre Pharaonique. Je me suis inspiré de l'autorité vachement efficace d'un ancien prince Valache, un certain Vladimir Tepesh Dracula, dont la sévère fermeté aurait fait passer le Dr Assad pour un Bisounours.
/
This translation of the previous post comes VERY late, but it's not my fault, I've been very busy. I've had to stifle an insurrectional uprising of infidel atheistic ants who attempted to proclaim the Formic Caliphate in my divine kitchen, those dirty formicators! Probably inspired by the souk of all those Arab Springs, they wanted to make a Homsi style bazaar in my titanic authority, how about that!Ya Rarab bi teq! I even got treated to some kamikaze bombings, sounding like someone had stepped on bubble wrap. I forget whether I already told you, but when a male ant mates, sometimes it explodes. So vicious...Intolerable! A good feast of kidney beans with garlic accompanied with stuffed cabbage followed by lentils in oil with fried onions, and then the abundant chemical gasses that ensued
, made short work of those brazen outragers. Who cares about the indignant squeals of the United Nations and Brigitte Bardot. I think the 1,500 corpses impaled on toothpicks at my doorstep should be dissuasive enough to all future theft intents of my Pharaonic sugar. I took the inspiration from the most efficient authority of an ancient Valachian prince, one Vladimir Tepesh Dracula, whose stern firmness made Dr Assad look like a Care Bear.
Yes, really, I assure you: the english translation of the previous post [update: the one before that, because of breaking news] was put online on the evening of December the 21st, I swear Your Horror.
I don't understand... It must've slipped through a crack in space-time until the Sofitel's cleaning lady found it while vacuuming, no doubt. Looks like space-time isn't so continuum after all. 
At quantum scale, it's like swiss cheese: the more cheese, the more holes and the more holes, well, the less cheese. [This paradox is called the Casimir Effect, a.k.a. the Gloubiboulga Principle, named after a Yughur sultan-astronomer-gastronomer from the 4th century B.M., Before Muhammad.]That's it: for the next End Of The World, I'll buy a new alarm clock so I don't miss the show. Or I could download the pirated movie!
Provided it's not produced by Lars Von Trier, I hear his ©opyright lawsuits are something fierce. Especially if you download, under the noses of SOPA, his very aptly named Antichrist. Then you might really see a planetary extinction court order drop over your Skullosaurus Necks!
Say, what are you doing after the End of Times? I'm asking, because I'm throwing a méchoui-kébab bachelor party. But I don't know when exactly, because I'm still missing the bride.
One for whom handling Apocalypses every day at work has practically become routine, is definitely Saint Seya... Seiya... Seyia... Seyar... Saint Something!!! In The Lost Canvas, it's no less than the most powerful semi-divine being in the Cosmos (the last one in a long list) who, driven by an insanity far more absurd than that of Saint Osama, plans on using his
And after THAT penultimate catastrophe, there's still the
by transforming our world so that it becomes as pretty and neat as his own. Yo, Beelzebub, buddy, we don't necessarily have the same tastes! Oscar Wilde already said it long ago, when he advised not to always wish unto others that which you'd like for yourself. Thanks, Oscar, you're the coolest homo I've ever known (on par with Freddie Mercury and Captain Pink Igloo). All the Galaxy's heteros thank you for your broadness of... erm, mind!
Another Prophet that was occasionally worrying, and at times amazing, at any rate always impressive, was our national Geha. A.k.a. Djoha, a.k.a. Nasreddine Hodja, a.k.a. the wise madman. More famous in the Middle East than the white wolf, or the white whale, because let's be honest, in our deserts there aren't that many snow wolves.
And barely more sperm whales! Geha, as he is called in Lebanon, is a larger than life character who really existed. Proof of that, is that you can visit this holy man's holey tomb in Iran (but I recommend you be quick about it). Same thing in Turkey. And likewise in Morocco, at least until the Al-Sardine zealots also demolish that mausoleum with their nitpicking picks and shameful shovels. I myself happen to have a direct descendant of Geha in my family, no kidding!
Geha the First did not herald the Apocalypse (it was likely too mundane for him), but he nevertheless predicted a lot of extraordinary things. Here, even his wife, Mrs Geha, she predicted the day when it rained
Geha has his own canonical statue where he is, of course, riding his ass. Not to be mistaken with the cannonade statue of Baron Münchhausen, riding a cannon ball. I'm talking about a donkey, not about a hatted dude's hot butt on a hit ball. (And let us leave the horsies to Don Quixote, who was even crazier, but less wise. ¡Viva Sancho and Zalata!)
"I'd rather have a donkey that carries me, than a horse that throws me to the ground." -- (Wisdom proverbs of Sachem Chippowok)
Hoppalong-Giddyup-Geha even has his statueS. But this is normal: he had several donkeys. Lots of 'em. (Allah rest their many
Some of these asses were very dumb, such as the one that contradicted his master when the latter told his neighbor: "No, I can't lend you my donkey, because it's not here.
- But," the neighbor objected, "I can hear it braying in your backyard.
- Neighbor, I am hurt! You call yourself a friend, and yet you would rather believe the donkey's word over mine?"
Another donkey, however, was truly brilliant. Geha thought one day, "I'll give it a little less hay to eat every day, it won't notice, and this way I'll save some money". And, indeed, that most cooperative nice donkey ate without complaining. So Geha pursued this good idea further on, and each day he gave the donkey a little less hay than the previous. Finally, came the day when the fine beastie's daily ration reached zero, and still it wasn't complaining. A week went by like that, most economical
, but one morning the hard-working ass was dead in its Poor Geha lamented loudly and abundantly: "Oh, Allah, what cruel drama! I had finally found a wonderful donkey that doesn't cost a thing in maintenance, but alas, what bad luck, it died!"
What I didn't know from the
[My thanks to Encyclopedic Marie for reminding me with certainty that they number 18, indeed she was right. My, I know so many interesting people!]
(**) I spared you the 0.1% hinduists, buddhists, monophysists, animists, Raelians, Sumerians, Akkadians, Hittites, Medes, orthodox Syldavs, unitarian Yughours, Taboul muslims... lost in the desert because they poorly followed the crisscrossing arrows that fly everywhere.(***)
(***) All right, I confess, in fact and according to some sources, there might be as many as 68 religions/confessions in Lebanon... a figure dating to before the Divine Pharaoh's worship!
But what can I say, that Alan Moore hasn't already said better? "Sexually progressive cultures gave us mathematics, literature, philosophy, civilization and the rest, while sexually restrictive cultures gave us the Dark Ages and the Holocaust. Not that I’m trying to load my argument, of course."
Pardon? "We were talking about the Lebanese political ancestry"? Okay, awright, hold on a microsecond, I'll explain how I made that major gehanetic discovery.
For the End of the World (Oriental Russian calendar, on January the 7th), we were treated with a rather monumental national snowstorm. For 7 days and 7 nights, I didn't know where my all-white Siberian panther had wandered off. When the snow finally melted, I realized she was right at the Mastaba's doorstep! (Impressive winter camouflage.) To the point, I couldn't see her at night either, in spite of the ambient pitch black. For one reason, because the entire country remained without electricity during all that time. We have the EDL workers strike to thank for that, it started precisely at the same moment as the snow.
And why, pray tell, didn't those worthless lazybones want to work anymore? Imagine the futility of their doleances: just, simply, nothing more, our fine Government's last budget had done away with their Social Security, and their illness-accident coverage. It was enough for them to decree, believe it or not, those scruffy ruffians, that they didn't want to keep climbing 10 or 40 metres high poles in the middle of the storm and gale to fix electrical cables (sometimes high tension live wires whipping the air in the wind) amidst the sumptuous showers of hollywoodian sparks. So much for granting lowly commoners the honor of working for free at the service of your prestigious person, without even asking them for a bakhchish, that's all the thanks you get! Can you believe that?... Poor people can be such jerks.
More stubborn than a jackass! And this, while our oh so wise Government, concerned about savings in these times of crisis where everyone must help, are trying their best to slow down the startospheric ascent of our national debt.
In fact, there are even rumors that the automatic yearly increase of our ministers' and deputies' salaries might be limited. By themselves. That's telling you how hard the times are for nasreddinian jackasses.In the end, made despondent by such ungratefulness, our beloved Government finally resigned, a few days ago.
There! Are you happy now?Another application of Geha's Asinine Theorem: in NORMAL times, we have power at best for 50% of the day, the rest of time it's rationed. Why give two daily hay bales to a donkey if he's clever enough to work with just one? Practical application: the Lebanese industrial sector.
We have the world's most brilliant politicians. The whole planet envies us.
They could come over and take some. We Lebanese are generous, we'd be glad to give them away.
Let's not forget to mention of course that the compliment applies samely to the Martian followers of the digit 8 ("the standing infinite") and to the Aresian worshipers of number 14 ("My Bloody Valentine + 1 month"). They all took turns at the head of the country, over the years. But they're all wise enough to know and leave well enough alone. Don't fix it if it still runs. Especially if it keeps running with less and less hay every day!
"We need anything politically important rationed out like Pez: small, sweet, and coming out of a funny, plastic head." -- (Dennis Miller, PR spokesman for Playmobil)
Furthermore, with the mess in Syria, we must share our daily hay with our neighbor brothers. And doubly at that: in the name of neutrality, Assad supporters as well as his opponents are rahat-welcome.
We're used to it: for many years, we very generously shared with them when their starved army had sought shelter in our lovely welcoming country of barely 4 million inhabitants.
Everybody is welcome here: Syrians [920.000 refugees by end February], Israelis, Palestinians, Iraqis, Iranians, Jordanians, Sudanese, Malians, North-Malians, Abnormalians, Somalians, Surmalians, Yemenites, Pakistanese, South-Parkistanese, Afghans, Assyrians, Akkadians, Sumerians, Hittites, Medes, Uyghurs, Yughours, Taboulistanese, Guantanamians, stateless Jihadists, Antarctiquese, Venusians, Betelgeusians, Bizarros, Futuramians... They all shall always find an open door to welcome them
... provided they like our Lebanese hay, it's an old ancestral recipe. 
Thank you who? Thank you Geha!
"Everything is for the best in the best possible world ever." -- (Master Pangloss Sensei, Optimistic Prophet)
[A tiny precision: this open invitation does not include housing in my Pyramid. To my deepest regret. But you see, thanks to the overwhelming success of our latest recruiting campaign based on fear and my handsome mug, my harem is now full, and samely the personnel's quarters (the last little wee lass arrived in the night of the 13th to the 14th, on month 13 of the year 2012).
I only have the vital minimum space left: for my future Queen, for the visiting family, and for close friends. Yes, including those who 
cigars. The others should forget about the Pharaoh or the Bethlehem stables , and instead try the George 5 Hotel
. He's a friend. A fellow ruler buddy... Just say the Pharaon of Lebanon sent you, and they'll immediately give you their most luxurious suite. It's also their most expensive one. And thanks to my name, they'll make you an 
By the way, do you know why the people living in the village of Bugarach
, Mount Rtanj
, Sirince (Turkey)
, the Fuji-Yama
and Chichen Itzá WERE NOT dead for 3 days?
Because their mountains have cosmo-mystico-energetic properties, thanks to their... pyramid shape. 
"Everything is for the best in the best possible world ever"...
No doubt about it, we got our miracle resurrection on the 3rd day, but it was a bumpy exit.
On December 22, I don't know what got into me, probably a stroke of insanity, on a sudden whim I went to the mall. After all, since we were all dead, what could possibly happen, right?
Well, something could happen allright. A month earlier, things were normal (for a county fair...).
But this time... BEDLAM. Complete, total, absolute madness.
Nearly the whole of Humankind seemed to have gathered there (except for the jihadists, jewish settlers, televangelists and opponents to gay marriage, who naturally had escaped our fate). People were stepping on each other, like sardines in a can (that would have sprouted legs, obviously). The air was unbreathable, mephitic, miasmous, noxious, saturated in carbon monoxyde, dioxyde and polyoxydes, not to mention the occasional whiffs of sulfur-scented human methane. The uproar, infernal, a thunderstorm
of decibels and hysterical children's cries. And above all that arkhamesque madness, a sadistic demon's voice that gloated like booming thunder shaking the walls: "Buy, consume, spend, let's celebrate, it is the day of the Golden Calf, Vodor and Gryshnak, yippee, tee-yi-yo, tra-la-la, sweet Mammon loves you, pa-ra-pa-pam-pam!" An abominable mercantile blasphemy inverting everything that makes the Holy Christmas celebration. Believe me, you should never, EVER, go to a shopping mall less than three days before Christmas. You'll end up steam-boiled or fried in hydrogenated palm oil enriched with E-666, inside a cauldron on exceptional fire sale, extra-extra, only 10 minutes left to seize this unique opportunity.
[Link on You Tube]
Eager to experiment to the bitter end this... exceptional extreme touristy experience (Mayan Apocalypses don't occur every
In spite of a noise level reminiscent of an underground dancing joint in the catacombs of Riyad, I managed to be heard by a fine damned lady who was stoically suffering right next to me: "I think they were right about that End of the World stuff. We're all dead, and this is Purgatory."
She replied with a smile of despair: "No, good sir, I think this here is Hell."
And then, a backwash of red demons (wearing scarlet shirts embedded with the store's logo) overwhelmed her in an uproar like that of a Fukushima atomic bomb. The final words of that lost soul washed adrift towards the jagged reefs were: "Is there a discount on this item with the store customer card?" Then her voice was drowned for all Eternity by the blaring decibels of a heavy metal techno version of "Jingle bells". 
[No, not THIS version of "Jingle bells":]
I can hear your interrogative perplexity all the way from here: how the devil(!) could curiosity possibly suffice to drive me thus into the tumultuous and styxian flow of the asphyxiating Ragnarok?
You're right: I had another motive.
But there comes a time when a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, Ma'am.
You see, I absolutely had to take advantage of the massive bargains on duds. I got nothing to wear!
That's right. Mister big shot Pharaoh me. Believe it, that's possible.Blame Lebanon. Or, more aptly, the Lebanese!
Our national sport, is political polarization. That incredible, uncanny, yet very possible and real propensity, to persuade oneself that only the politicians from one of the two sides are utterly lame, totally worthless, corrupt to the marrow of their spineless bones, stinking sell-outs, opportunistic jerks, and inept cretins. Even though this is the very definition of a Politician. Save for Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Che Guevara, those were genuinely dedicated people, but they were the martyr exception that just confirms the general rule. You want to know which politician I'm always the most wary of? The one I voted for. Because in politics, I never give my trust; I lend it. When a friendly politician gives you a warm handshake, nevertheless you had better count your fingers afterwards.A lady touristy is visiting Mexico in a travel tour. The guide takes them through an arena, and proudly announces:
- Bullfighting corrida is our first national sport.
- That's revolting!" the good woman indignates.
- Aah, no señorita. Revolt, it is only our SECOND national sport.
Anyhow, since we're talking about riots, I might as well come to the relation between politics and maso-suicidal holiday shopping. It so happens that a frankly worrying number of Lebanese are more than simply polarized: they're plain paranoid. "The world" (translate: the foreign countries that are backing the other side) "has no other care but to plot against me without respite, they'll do anything for that simply because they are mean, and petty, and jealous of my intelligence, my encyclopedic culture, my phoenician nobility, my uncompromising national pride." This translates into a nitpicking fanaticism, seeking out the hiding place of the devil lurking inside the details, thinking they're Sheikh Assir's infallible ear, in short thinking they're like Christ whom Satan's minions are relentlessly trying to nail on a cross. Those overexcited types (constantly in sales season) only ever have one conversation topic in their mouth: how "the others" are vile, albeit our brothers in eternal Libanity. At the slightest excuse, they're seeing red. Or orange. Or yellow. Or green. Or azure blue. Or indigo. Or purple. Or beige. Or magenta! (Even though magenta isn't even a color.)
Hello maze-like canvas! May Saint Geha have mercy on us.Let me give you just one example: every winter, the anti-Aounists from Temple #14 have a brush with scurvy, because "I'd sooner die than eat oranges!" Lemons aren't any less ill-perceived: yellow is the color of Hezbollah, who are allies of the "Geun'râl" (our national Charles DeGaulle).
A lot of people will do, believe, or listen to anything, as long as they dont have to think for themselves.
So, of course, you can imagine the amount of clothes in my wardrobe that are totally unwearable simply because their color... is any sort of color!
Even non-colors: white "is for faggots", our upstandingly hetero salafists would get upset at you (except those from Tripoli, a city whose socratic lifestyle is notorious, but I'm NOT Tripolitan. Nor gay.) As for black, if you don't have the good fortune(!?!) of being in mourning, it immediately reminds of "the plain-clothed people of the Hezb who appear in a frightening manner at crossroads certain days", or alternately, on the other side, the "Sadem ninjas from the Ouwét". Always sinister undertones anyway, and for once both polar poles are in agreement... which suits my business even less! (And doesn't suit my suits, either.)
But one thing that DOES suit them, however, is the fact that all those unberably grumpy polar bears commonly and synchronously despise the most non-color of colors, the one that's itself and at once its own opposite and complementary. [You beginning to guess my genialistic idea yet? No? Then hurry and read on, true believer!]
The result is, it did cost me a few million gold drachmas (ah well, I'll raise the taxes, everybody does it these days), but I emerged from sales hell with an entire ultra stylish grey wardrobe. Ash, anthracite, lead, steel, mist, smog, pollution, cumulo-nimbus, dusk, dark white, light black, salt-and-pepper, Prince of Wales Check... all the nuances of gray, a color in which I have become a world-class expert! Plus a few nice zebra- and panda-colored pieces, for the originality touch. I don't wear anything alse anymore, but I'm set with threads for life.
A sample of the zebra-colored fabric that turns you politically invisible.
What's more, I make a killing with the daltonian voters.
Don't laugh! Daltonians represent 13% of the male population! (Including some of my ministers: Joe, William, Jack, Averell... all born in Daltonia.)
Plus the 8 to 13% of citizens who are gay, and who had a good laugh when I called the Earth "off its axis" in the previous post [correction: the one before that].
Plus the many who are feeling weariness less and less slight from all those poles that poison our daily Lebanese life: the North pole, the South pole, the East pole, the West pole, the Up pole, the Down pole, the Strange pole, the Beauty pole, the Quark pole, the Top pole, the Bottom pole, the Dancing pole, the Sweet pole, the Salty pole, the Spicy pole.... and a bit of a favorite of mine, the Chocolate pole!
"Vote Chocolate!" So far, no party in Lebanon has taken the chocolate color for a symbol. They'd be too afraid of reminding of "something else"...
This precisely how I was able to celebrate, uhm, the celebrations, with ALL the family, without any arguments. Everybody loves chocolate. And everybody loves me.
Mind you, this wardrobe will soon be paid for, and the Royal Treasury be afloat again. With all the fans I have... Let's see. 13% of the 50% who are men. Plus the occasionnal achromate women. Plus the ultra-rare women who can see ultraviolet. Plus the square root of 8x13% who are LGBT. Plus the metrosexuals. Plus the hyposexuals and asexuals (
Eo!) Plus the erotomaniacs and their nymphomaniac sisters, who always receive sideways glances in our beautiful tolerant yet conservative country. Plus the friends to animals. Plus the myrmecologists, the formicophiles and the beekeepers. Plus those who work or fight directly for me. Plus the harem. Plus Facebook and Twitter. Minus those who are more than one thing at a time, according to a statistical ponderation algorithm. Lay down my box and hold attention... equals... erm... equals a significant number of citizens who listen to me and read my blog! The point? It's simple: in Lebanon, each voter's voice is routinely worth the amount of $100, and sometimes double. And the mentor is always the one pocketing the bounty.
And precisely, a new election law is in big discussions for the imminent upcoming poll (which will probably get postponed).In fact, I realize that with my popularity, I could easily get elected mayor, congressman, or even President of the Rape Public.
To bad for the waste, but I'm absolutely not interested in becoming a stinking no-good rotten politician scum. I'm very happy the way I am, just being a humble Pharaoh.
By the way, I had some new ID pictures made, "almost profile", you like them? I find that photo very... alive. Especially the eyes, they convey darnedly well my customary expression of modesty.
I still have a few comments on this winter's news, but you've earned a break. To be continued in next issue.
The apocalyptic Sign of the day: the horrible truth about the ABNORMAL
French bombings in
Why are the UN keeping silent? OK, I admit there are no hams, and the pious
boomerang croissants make up for the Beaujolais nouveau bombs, but still...
As for the month of March, and I say this with no political afterthought whatsoever, I doubt it'll live through the winter. Unless it's the other way round?...
