Fallujah Story-- Must Read

I received this e-mail today from a friend . He forwarded it from Mark Manning, a California documentary film maker who was recently in Fallujah to talk with some of the Iraqis who managed to live through the U.S. "clean-up" (read "flattening") of that city

Read it and weep--literally.

Note to moderators-- this is an e-mail that is intended to be spread around.

Dear Friends,

I have been out of touch. I have been in Iraq and would like to
share a little of my story with you today.

I got back from Iraq a few weeks ago where I stayed inside the city of Falluja and lived with the refugees of that city for over two weeks. I decided to go there because it seems to be the heart of the trouble in Iraq and the place to see if any sense or peace can be found. I had also heard that the city had 250,000 citizens in it who
were told to leave when my government attacked, yet there had been no stories of their situation in our media. As an American, I felt responsible for this and decided to take a look myself.

On February 10th 2005 I flew into Iraq and drove to the city of Falluja. For over two weeks I was a resident and a refugee of Falluja and I am honored and privileged for that experience. They hosted me in their homes, and cared for me because they believed that I was there to listen to them and to honestly bring home their stories to the American people. I came to Falluja without military escort or armed protection in any way. I think because of this they thought I was crazy, but they honored what they thought was courage and they trusted me. Trust means everything there and they look deep into your eyes as they decide who you are. I lived with them and listened to their stories. They told me they do not trust American journalists to accurately tell the story of Iraq. They believe that the American public does not know what is really happening there, and that if they did they would feel differently about the war. They feel that the American people are their brothers and sisters and they are asking them for help. They wanted me to tell you their story.

The horrors of war have been brought to the people of Falluja. The people there say the city had 500,000 people in it, not the 250,000 quoted by our media. The refugees told me that they were given one week notice to leave the city. After three days, they were told they could no longer drive out, they had to walk. No camps were established for them and no refugee location was given. There was no planning by the American government for the people, no food, no shelter and no water. They were just told to leave or be killed. Anyone who stayed in the city after one week would be considered a terrorist and would be killed.

For five months these people have been living in any location they could find, nothing was established for them in the surrounding areas of the Falluja countryside. They are living in tents in the mud, schools, abandoned chicken coups, burned out buildings, cars and other buildings that people were not using or where others have
made room for them. The weather is bad, with much rain and it is very cold. When they were told to leave the city, it was summer and they were not dressed for this cold and many could not carry out their clothes. Some lucky children are going to school in tents and all the classes have been shortened to 2 hours per day. Food is
short and they are eating what the farmers grow and the surrounding community can spare. Again, even after five months they have received no outside aid from either the American government or the new Iraqi government.

The city itself has been devastated. Most houses have been seriously damaged, with about 65% of them totally destroyed. Evidence of depleted uranium (DU) shells is everywhere. This leaves radioactive contamination behind which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. (See note1). Unexploded ordinance is a common sight. Many residents who were there speak of chemical weapons, napalm, cluster bombs and
phosphorous used by the Americans. These are all illegal weapons and considered war crimes by the international community. Many of the houses were fired, meaning that the troops burned them down after searching them. Many houses with white flags and markings stating "Family Here" were destroyed.

Some families who had nowhere to go stayed in the city during the fighting and have paid dearly. I interviewed many people who were there and their stories will live forever in my mind. Here are some samples:

· A mother whose son was killed by DU shells. He was in his bed sleeping when the shells came through the walls.

· A father who at 65 years of age was shot during a raid of his house, whose son was arrested during that raid and has not been seen since (he states that his son was not a fighter.)

· A 17 year old girl who hid under her bed with her 13 year old brother during a raid of her house and witnessed her father, her cousin, and her two sisters 18 and 19 years old, all shot to death.
She hid for three more days with the dead bodies of her family and then they returned and shot her and her brother after finding them under the bed. Her brother died. She survived and told me her story.

· A Family of ten who lived through all the fighting. The kids were 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 12. They were a mess. These kids will never be ok. Their faces were marked with open and oozing sores and they were exhibiting serious signs of emotional damage.

There is presently very little medical aid available to the residents and refugees, and again, no aid has been provided to the refugees in the surrounding area. The medical centers in the city have been destroyed and have not been rebuilt. The main hospital has been reopened, but to get there you have to walk, as the ambulances are still being shot by the Americans and the Iraqi National Guard. The doctors have been beaten and their lives have been threatened by the Iraqi National Guard. These are the security forces that the Americans are training. The new government has warned them not to talk to any journalists about the conditions in Falluja. They
understand this threat to be very real and a direct threat on their lives and the lives of their families.

To walk to the hospital you must go through checkpoints, sometimes through fighting, and only at certain daylight hours. The checkpoints are manned by the Iraqi National Guards and they are very hostile to the residents of Falluja. When we were at the hospital, an old man died of a heart attack because he was not allowed through the checkpoint. A woman gave birth in the ambulance because they would not let the ambulance back to the hospital after 5 pm and instead turned it away with her in labor.

We delivered by hand the medical aid provided by some of you to the hospital in Falluja. Me and one Iraqi woman, WE were the international medical aid to Falluja. We carried these boxes one at a time through the checkpoints, across the bridge and into the hospital. They would not let us drive in, we had to walk these boxes in. We did it every day for a week, one box at a time.

All of the people I talked to had messages to the American people.
They said: "We did not attack you! We have done nothing to the Americans. Why have you done this to us?"

These are the people who hosted me, fed me, and worried about my safety. They took care of me and I will never forget their generosity, compassion and grace. They want peace with America and they want the fighting to stop. They feel they are the ones being attacked and that the Americans are the terrorists. They see absolutely no justification for this war and were constantly asking me to explain how the American people can support these acts against a civilian population. For the first time in my life, I was ashamed to be an American.

There are so many more stories to tell you and I will be making a film about it all. But for now, what I want you to know is that I spent two weeks in the heart of the beast. The place where our government and media said is the heart of the resistance, terrorists and Saddam Loyalists, and guess what; the place is full of people. People like you and me. Kids are everywhere. The average Fallujan family has 10 people in it. That means about 8 kids. 500,000 people in the city, you do the math. That is a lot of kids.

There are fighters in Falluja. That is a fact. But they are surrounded by some 490,000 innocent people. As a country, we have decided the damage to the innocents is worth the end result, whatever that may be. These people are being shattered by this very serious situation that they have no control over. They are the
innocent victims of this war.


I cannot tell you what to do. This is a story of just one area in Iraq. These stories are all over the area we call the Sunni Triangle. But I was there and lived with these people and they taught me about love, forgiveness, truth and compassion. They, after all that has happened to them, still have the ability to differentiate between the acts of an enemy and the people of a nation. They cry out to us to save them from the ignorance that has brought this destruction on them. They have suffered 33 times 9/11. Over 100, 000 Iraqis have died at the hands of the American invasion (note 2) and still they say that they have nothing against the American people. This is grace. I learned from these people how to find peace. By deeply listening to my "enemy" I have found that the real enemy is ignorance and fear and acting from that place ofweakness.

I will never forget the people of Falluja.

Thank you for listening to them.
Your Friend,

Mark Manning

I want you all read it, and think about it in neutral way.

There are more details from the same source here.

Thank you for your time

My Grandfather
This is a picture of a portrait of my grandfather in traditional arabic clothes, painted by the famous mosul's painter " Najeeb younis".

Fight for minds uses a TV show as battleground

I copied this article from a site in the internet, it contained more details about the confessions of the prisoners I already mentioned in my previous posts.
The title of the article is:

Confessions rivet Iraqis

Fight for minds uses a TV show as battleground

By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff | March 18, 2005

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's wildly popular new television hit features a nightly parade of men, most with bruised faces, confessing to all kinds of terrorist and criminal acts.

''Terrorism in the Hands of Justice" is the Iraqi government's slick new propaganda tool; its televised confessions, police say, aim to discredit the armed resistance and advertise the government's success at cracking down on gangs.

If it is meant to showcase a brave new Iraq, the television show is starkly reminiscent of the bad, old Iraq. Part ''Oprah Winfrey Show" and part ''Cops" -- with a strong flavor of Saddam Hussein-era strong-arming -- the show airs six nights a week on the state-run Iraqiya network.

Since its debut a month ago, ''Terrorism" has become a fixture in Iraq's cafes and living rooms. Iraqi government officials brag that the show has ruined the image of jihad, or holy war, in the country, exposing the resistance as a racket of street criminals and thugs who attack Americans and Iraqi security forces for pay.
It also raises a host of questions about Iraq's treatment of the suspects and the reliability of their confessions.

The bruised, swollen faces and hunched shoulders of many of the suspects suggest they have been beaten or tortured. The neat confessions of terrorist attacks at times fit together so seamlessly as to seem implausible. And the suspects are presented to the public without any legal process to protect them, presumed guilty, with no word about rule of law as a weapon in the arsenal against terrorism. US officials have sidestepped questions about the program airing on Iraqiya, a network still run by an American contractor hired by US occupation officials nearly a year ago.

There is no question, however, about the program's popularity and wide reach. Men at cafes debate the details of certain gang members from ''Terrorism." Others interrupt soliloquies about recently murdered relatives to declare: ''I expect to see his killers on TV." The show aims to change the minds of Iraqis who see insurgents as noble, patriotic Muslims.

Powerful politicians have blasted the show: Mohsen Abdul Hamid, head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni party that gets support from Arab nationalists, tribes, and the insurgency, called a press conference recently to accuse the show of airing lies, outraged not that a party member was presented as a terrorist, but that the man confessed that he drinks alcohol and does not pray.

Footage is provided by the Interior Ministry and edited by state-owned Iraqiya. After the US invasion, the Coalition Provisional Authority restarted the state-owned Iraqi television network as the Iraqi Media Network and renamed the main state channel ''Iraqiya."

Colonel Adnan Abdurahman, the Iraqi police official in charge of producing taped confessions for the show, dispatches a camera crew wherever police commandos make a lot of arrests. In the last week, his staff has filmed confessions in Mosul, Baqubah, and Baghdad

''Previously Iraqi people saw the resistance as fighting the occupation," Abdurahman said. ''But when people saw how they talk, and the details of their actions, they became despicable in the eyes of Iraqi society. They're not resistance. None of them say they are fighting Americans. They are killing Iraqi National Guard and Iraqi police, only Iraqis."

In the show's opening montage, the theme song from ''1492: Conquest of Paradise" by Vangelis plays over images of hooded members of Tawhid and Jihad about to execute an American hostage in an orange jumpsuit, a bloodied corpse, and finally two smiling Iraqi children holding paper signs that say ''No to Terrorism."
Then a police special forces trooper in camouflage uniform and a red beret extols the work of ''our brave, noble Iraqi law enforcement brothers."

Who are the perpetrators of the daily bombings and ambushes that have killed hundreds of civilians, Iraqi police, and soldiers?
According to the taped confessions, the answer is, essentially: lowlifes.

The fighters almost never describe themselves as patriots or holy warriors; they say they fight for pay. Many of the men admit to homosexual acts, considered particularly shameful in Iraqi culture. They frequently admit to rape and pedophilia, and clips often end with the unseen interrogator excoriating the detainee for having no honor.

On a recent episode, alleged members of an insurgent cell from Mahmoudiya -- a town south of Baghdad in the dangerous ''Triangle of Death" --admitted to murdering and raping several Iraqis.

A man who identified himself as Azawi Hassan Azawi said the leader of a criminal cell induced him to kidnap and kill a young boy by offering Azawi his sister in marriage.

Another man, identified as Hassan Mahdi Hassan al-Kafaji, said he used to fight in the Saddam Fedayeen militia. After the war he joined Tawhid and Jihad, the jihad group led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as a killer for hire; he said he pops pills before each mission. ''They pay me $100 or $150 for each person I slay," Kafaji said

Talal Ra'ad Ismail al-Abassi came next; he said he led an insurgent cell in Mosul.
According to the interrogator, Abassi had been imam of a mosque but was fired by religious authorities under Hussein for having sex with men inside his mosque.
Abassi said his group had killed a dozen Iraqi ''collaborators" -- once a leader can claim 10 kills, he becomes an ''emir," or prince -- to earn $1,500 a month from Saudi financiers of the insurgency. ''I do not believe in jihad in Iraq," Abassi told the camera. ''It was important for my group to kill enough people that I could become an emir and get the $1,500 salary."

On another episode, a group of men from Samarra took responsibility for a series of strikes that killed Iraqi police and interpreters for US forces. In quick succession, the men detailed how they were paid less than $200 to kill and mutilate five Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

Qahtan Khalid, the last man to appear before the camera, was skinny and hunched over, his face more bruised and sunken than the rest. He said he was a policeman who had collaborated with insurgents in 10 killings. ''I joined them so they would not slaughter me," he said.
Yesterday Khalid's father told the Agence France-Presse wire service that Interior Ministry police commandos delivered his son's corpse to him.
The Iraqi Human Rights Ministry has opened an investigation.

US and Iraqi officials said that airing confessions on television is completely legal.

The 2004 State Department's Human Rights report, which was released two weeks ago, noted that hundreds of cases of alleged torture are pending against the Iraqi government. ''Reportedly, coerced confessions and interrogation continued to be the favored method of investigation by police," the report said.

Mishan Jabouri, a Sunni tribal politician elected to the new national assembly on Jan. 31, said he had evidence that the confessions are bogus.
A constituent from Mosul wrote Jabouri last week to say that his brother appeared on the show on Feb. 22, and confessed to killing four men. But the names of the victims he listed were all relatives who are still living.
''All these deceased are alive and not dead. They are ready to stand in front of your excellency," Muthana Abdullah Khalil wrote. ''I don't know the reason that led my brother to these untrue confessions, but we are ready to bring the living dead in front of you to prove our allegations."

Abdurahman, the police colonel who provides the confession footage, dismisses such accusations. The judicial system will punish any police who torture suspects or elicit false confessions, he said, impatiently brushing aside questions about the treatment of detainees.
''Our work is being appreciated. That's the biggest objective," he said. ''People are demanding that the cruelest punishment be inflicted on those shown on TV."

We missed the spring

This month (March) is the first month of spring. Mosul was known as the city of two springs because in autumn the nature look like it is in spring.
But this spring is different. Citizens of Mosul used to go to the flat areas surrounding the city for picnics, every holiday, every Friday and even daily in the afternoon, you see families scattered at the green areas and the children playing football (soccer).

Those thing will not be seen any more, nobody dares to get out of his house unless for the utmost necessity. Today is Friday and we are all in the house, for two reasons:
First because of security purposes, and second because three member of the family have flu.

Those days, there is an outbreak of upper respiratory tract infection with high fever, running nose, cough and malaise. It is caused by viral infection and spreads from one patient to another by droplet infection, Sneezing, coughing and even respiration may spread the disease.

My two daughters Najma and NHK had the disease first, when they got better, their mother, Aya and her mother got it next, till now I am the only one who didn't get the illness.

So we all are house-prisoners, with no electricity (the neighborhood generator was exhausted and needs rebuilding, so they took it away to fix it), thank God the temperature is very moderate, there is no need for air conditioners, although we still use the small kerosene heaters because the patients feel cold.

BTW, the problem of fuel ended few days ago, especially for the gasoline. Kerosene is also available now but very expensive (more than 10 times of its original price).

Out of the hands of justice

Every day Nineveh TV show us a number of peoples arrested for the suspicion of being terrorists.
In the interview,most of whom confessed that they killed so and so, attacked the police centers and some even confessed that they rape many women.

Today in the news they show us that the police releases 118 arrested persons who were proved to be innocents.

Before I heard this news, I was talking to one of my patients, he lived in a village 20 km from Mosul, he told me this story:

"yesterday I visited one of my relative, who was arrested for suspicious of being terrorist, he appeared on the TV and confessed during the inreview that he killed so many people and did other offensive acts. When we asked him how did they released you and you did so and so, he answered that the police officers had tortured him and beat him almost to death, and dictated the answers for him befor asking them, and forced him to say that confession in the TV conversation."

This remind me in a note from one of the commenter to my post "In the hand of justice" who said "In the west it is believed better to release 10 suspected criminals than to mistakenly punish one innocent. Without indisputable evidence or testimony even the most evil and vile people are set free."

I want to ask him (the commenter) what he will say about 118 persons arrested and tortured and forced to confess of being did some things never happened?? . Are the people in the west differ from the people in the middle east??

BTW. I believed this story is true because, as I told you before, the assumed terrorists confessed killing some peoples who still alive, I know one of those who their names mentioned as being killed.
ps. We have a ministry called (Ministry of Human rights).!!!

Where are the human rights ??

A joke ( two cows tale)

This is a joke I read few moths ago under the name of (The Two Cows Tale),

GLOBAL ECONOMICS DE-MYSTIFIED


SOCIALISM:
You have two cows, and you give one to your neighbor.

COMMUNISM:
You have two cows, the Government takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM:
You have two cows, the Government takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM:
You have two cows, the Government takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM:
You have two cows, the Government takes both, shoots one, milks the otherand throws the milk away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM:
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, andthe economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow dropped dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.


A JAPANESE CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clevercow cartoon image called Cowkimon and market them worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eatonce a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION:
You have 5000 cows, none of which belongs to you. You charge others for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim fullemployment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION:
You have two cows. Both are mad.

A DUTCH CORPORATION
STOP: The cows are not ready yet

A unique personality or a Psychopath. ??

Hassan in his first post write about some strange structure of iraqi personality. It is hard to confess that he was write about most of what he said. I have to add that iraq personality is somehow differ from others.
Some called it double personality, not like schizophrenia, they did that intentionally, propably the causes is related to their cultural and educational as well as environmental backgrounds.

There is some thing unique to the Iraqi people, and that they like challenges and don't accept to loose, but they will not accept to win without opposition.
simple example; few days ago, there were a severe shortage of fuel, kerosine and gasoline, there is a long line on the gas stations , the cars arranged in 3-4 lines, only one line is enter the station, so at the enterance there were a mess, every one wants to enter first, some time they fight with guns for that, but if you were in line and stoped to let the one beside you to enter first, he will refuse and insist that you will enter first. This behaviour will be applied to different aspect of daily life. Between the good guys he is the best, between the bad he is the worst.
They do silly things and they know for sure that those things are wrong.

Other thing, is that the people here, accept any thing they heard, especially if this thing meets their wishes, or close to their believes.

I remember a funy story happened about fifty years ago,
at that time the peoples were very simple, there were no TV, even the radio set was new and only limited persons have radios in their houses, I was a child at that time and I remeber the story very clearly.

I was with my father in his place of wark in the downtown, we noticed a lot of peoples go in hurry toward the main police station (called at that time the general police center, because it contains all the divisions of police even the traffic police), some people are comming back with strange expression on their faces, a woman stopped near us and started to explain what happened, "there is a man changed to a donkey, the police took him (the donkey) to the general center, I saw him sitting on a chair there" the woman said in confidence !!.
off coarse no body beleive her but the people still going to that direction in waves.
My father asked me to go there and look what is the matter. I saw a hundreds of people in front of the general center, the police men pushing them back, there was an officer told the peoples that there were nothing, it is only a rumer. But they still there looking for mor news.
Later we heard the real story.
A police man trying to arrest a man who was guiding a donkey behind him, the man escaped leaving the donkey, the police man took the donkey to the police center, people in the way asked him " why you arrested this donkey" he answer joking with them "this is not a donkey, this a man changed into a donkey !"
The simple poor people believed him at once and started to distribute this news. Every body wanted to witness this miracle.

Now aday the people are more educated and by the virtue of TV and other media, they knew what is going o around them. but still some strange stories are believed by some peolples.

A Family from Mosul

Two days ago, we were sitting at the dining table, and as usual we were talking in different subjects. HNK, my daughter, asked her mother
- "Mom why don't you have a blog?".
- "I can't write frequently as I am busy with my lectures and the home" answered her mother.
- "Why don't you write in my blog?" I asked her.
Najma entered on the line and suggested to create a new blog for all the family. Her suggestion was accepted by all the family members.

we created a new blog "A Family from Mosul".
Anyone of the family who wants to write a post, at any time, can write at this blog.

At the start I, Najma, and HNK will write in both our blogs, and the family one, the same subject will be written twice, Then when their mother get used to blogging, they may let me and her only use this blog.

In the hands of justice

In the last few Weeks, I didn't write any think in politics, because I found that my point of view is annoying to some of you, and I was, and still very keen to conserve your friendship. But those days there is a lot of things that deserve to be written, so I have to rewrite again in politics!

In the last 2 weeks, and almost on daily bases, Nineveh TV shows us a group of people arrested by the Iraqi police (IP), Iraqi national guards (ING), or the Iraqi army. They classify those people as terrorists, they confessed on the TV that they killed so many people , beheaded some, kidnapped, and raped others. Their number was about 85 or more. But the terrorism actions are still going on. Yes I know.......There are more to be caught!.

Some of them confessed that they received 200$ for every person they killed, some have fixed salary of 1500$ a month, Just to do what they were asked to do. Who paid those money? It is a question who need an answer.

The thing that made me write this post is that; during a recorded interview on the TV, some of those terrorists give the names of the persons they had killed but some of the names were proved to be fallacious, they gave the names and addresses of living persons who have no relation to anything as being killed. (the names given were proved to be of some of their relatives).!!! Very strange, I think.

In addition, in the interview on TV, they looked if they have underwent a severe torture. The person who made the interview with them always hide himself, and insult them with offensive words. They always repeated what he want them to say, If they say something different or not allowed he either mute the sound, or asked the questions again till they get the desired answer.

Those things make the audience suspicious about the truth!

In another interview on the TV with the commander of the (Qowat al-Theeb), it means in Arabic (The wolf force), the reporter asked him if he did fabricate those interviews?. But he denied that and insisted that everything was real. In addition, he (the commander) asked those people whose names are mentioned as being killed to represent themself to the authorities.

From the interviews and the conversations, anybody can concluded that there were two types of prisoners. The terrorists and the Jihadis.

You can recognize between the two from the type of their missions.
The jihadis never kill policemen or the civilians.

The terrorist did what they did to frighten the people, or for their own interest, to gain money by the easiest way available in those days.

They blamed the Syrian Mukhabarat for assisting and paying the salary of those terrorist (I thing this a type of pressure is against Syrian government for some dirty political reasons.)

As the condition is not very clear for me, I promise to update the subject when I get more information.

BTW, the commander says: "They are the Iraqi forces who did this great job."
There were an old rumors that the Americans freed the prisoners who didn't attack them who had been caught by the Iraqi police. This is really happened when the police arresed some of the criminals, the Americans took those criminal and freed them the next day after interrogated them and be sure they didn't attacked them. The Americans claimed that they have no place to keep those criminals. So they let them free!!!!. they are only interested in the terrorists (those who attacked them!).

After they have been displayed on the TV, and confess on air everything is settled, nobody can free them or blame the Americans any more.

You remember how we divided those people into 4 groups. But now we can divide them into only two.
1-The jihadis. (group of men fight to free their country)
2-Tthe terrorists which includes the other three groups (the criminals, saddams men, and those who are paid by foriegn country to ruin Iraq!)

Men Rules

We always hear "the rules" from the female side. Now here are the rules from the male side.

These are our rules:
Please note... these are all numbered "1" ON PURPOSE!

1. Saturday = sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.
1. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!
1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
1. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.
1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 days.

1. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.
1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.
1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both._ If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
1. Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colours, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a colour. Pumpkin is also a fruit.
We have no idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.
1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," we will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.
1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.
1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine. Really.
1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as Sex, Sport, or Cars.

1. You have enough clothes.
1. You have too many shoes.
1. I am in shape. Round is a shape.
1. Thank you for reading this; Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight, but did you know men really don't mind that, it's like camping.

Pass this to as many men as you can - to give them a laugh.
Pass this to as many women as you can - to give them an education!!"