July 2007

Please accept my apologies if you’re experiencing any problems with loading the blog, the posts or the comments section and you keep getting a blank page. Apparently there is a new bug that I need to resolve. I’m working on it right now and I’ll update this post once I’m done. If you’re still facing technical difficulties, please let me know. All these repeated headaches will come in handy in the future since I’m committed to being a blogger and I need to learn to rely on myself. Drima is becoming a nerd who’s increasingly acquiring more “techie skills”.

UPDATE: how is it now?

UPDATE: Grrrr… this is such a pain!

UPDATE: After Googling for some helpful info, I discovered many bloggers who experienced the same exact problem in the past and managed to fix it. I know what’s causing it now and I hope to settle it asap. Thanks for your patience. I’ll update this post again once I’m done.

UPDATE: Bloody hell, yes, finally! You shouldn’t have any problems with loading anymore. Phew! That was one “lovely” headache. Now I can get back to business. I’ve got so many posts I want to write.

It’s a good day for Iraqis and I am very happy for them. It’s nice to see them celebrating on the streets of Baghdad and feeling some rare joy.

Sunday’s dramatic win capped a three-week campaign by Iraqi team, nicknamed “The Lions of the Two Rivers.” Iraqis were captivated and spoke of hope, even as years of violence and sectarian strife have many asking if ethnically and religiously divided Iraq can survive as one nation.

The team’s players do not live in Iraq and earn their wages playing for teams across the Middle East. Because of tenuous security at home, wars and U.N. sanctions, the team had not played a home game in 17 years and must train and practice abroad.

“We are celebrating because this team represents all Iraqi sects,” said Awas Khalid, one of the thousands of Kurds who celebrated the win in the city of Sulaimaniyah in the Kurdish north, where secessionist sentiment has been on the rise.

“This team is for everyone,” Khalid said, as revelers around him waved Iraqi and Kurdish flags and chanted “Baghdad is victorious” in Arabic instead of their native Kurdish language.

The mixed makeup of the winning national team was interpreted by many Iraqis as proof that politicians are more concerned with their narrow sectarian agendas than national interest, thus preventing reconciliation among rival factions.

Awwww, aren’t they cute?

By the way since when has homosexuality stopped being a crime in Saudi Arabia? Oh but wait, it’s not in the United States. Hmmm, now it makes sense.

A new cool blog by a Southern Sudanese named Sudanese Returnee has sprung up. She (he?) has written an interesting post that you should check out:

Technically speaking, Sudan is in a state of war with Israel! Sudanese passports are stamped “all countries except Israel” and they risk execution if the government learns that they have visited Israel in one form or another.

In the mid 90’s two southern Sudanese were executed after Israel deported them from Israel through Jordon.

Continue reading here. If Israelis want to screw up big time, they might as well start deporting Sudanese refugees.

On another note, it’s nice to see the Sudanese blogosphere growing and becoming more active. The following are 2 new Sudanese blogs I discovered today.

1- Konyokonyo Clinic
2- Muhanned: Life in Sudan

For a complete list of Sudanese bloggers, check the side bar.

This post is right on spot! Be sure to read it. And in case you didn’t know, last time I checked, Sudan was number one in the Arab world in terms of HIV/AIDS infections and third in terms of drug use and addiction. Yaaaay to my country. Let’s dance baby.

Meanwhile the condom debate still wages. I said it previously and I’ll say it again. Muslim and Christian religious leaders in Sudan should chill out. Advocating condom use is not the equivalent of promoting premarital sex. The UN may intervene and help through creative means. I suggested the following before:

I think the UN should air drop hundreds of thousands of condoms on Sudan.

Make that millions of condoms. XXL please! After all, we’re Sudanese.

PS: Condoms aren’t enough. They’re useless when it comes to oral sex.

I took the test, the results are in, and they are. Not. Good.

85%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Besides reading dozens of sociopolitical blogs almost daily, I also read many entrepreneurship related blogs which you can find in this list here. On top of that I also read some blogs about blogging and others about Web 2.0.

How do I manage that? Well to give you a good idea, it’s the weekend already. I stayed up late on Friday night and ended up sleeping at about 5am on Saturday only to wake up later during the afternoon at 2pm. I was reading blogs all night. After waking up, it was naturally time for round 2. It’s now Sunday morning and the time is exactly 3.29am. I’ve been in front of my computer the entire day, interrupted only by a few short food and bathroom breaks.

I do have a pretty good reason though (besides being so addicted to blogging obviously). This is my final year in university and for my final year project, I’m doing something focused on… yes, that’s right. You guessed it, blogging!

Ah, whatever. Anybody knows a cheap decent rehab? I’m so screwed!

As you can see, the old look is now bye bye. This is the new clean and simple look as of now. Well, sort of… I still need to re-decorate the theme and organize the side bars. The blogroll needs to be shortened and organized too. And don’t worry the banner will be back soon. Oh and yes that annoying bug in the comments section is now gone so you don’t have to slit your wrists anymore. Hurray!

I’m still busy and I can’t manage to fix the bug in the comments section yet. I guess I might just get a new theme and modify it. It’s time for a new look anyway. But before that, here are some linkies for today:

1- Sudan ordered to pay $8 million to Cole victims’ families - fair enough, but the US government might as well pay for Bill Clinton’s mistake of bombing al-Shifa which was supposedly producing dangerous “chemical weapons”.

2- Sudan’s president declares 2007 as year for peace in Darfur - yeah, sure thing. We might actually get celebrate, I repeat might… in December 2007 being the earliest.

3- Celebrating Sudan, With Songs of Peace and Protest (Sudanese Concert in New York) - Rara Avis, who is a Sudanese girl living in NY, blogged about it after attending it. For cool pictures of the event you can click here and scroll down.

4- Anti-Zionism Vs Anti-Semitism - an excellent comment.

5- Israel’s mob wars: Hit men, drugs and recycling - looks like Israel is also having its own mini version of “Hamas Vs Fatah” issues to deal with.

6- Land For Sale…to Jews - Israel’s racist land policies.

7- I hate Israel - if you reverse the terminology (for example “Muslims” instead of “Jews”), what this loony nut is saying would be no different than many of the comments you see on LGF or JihadWatch. How ironic.

8- Apostate - She’s a Pakistani ex-Muslim. I just discovered her blog a few days ago. Even though I disagree with her points of view, I enjoy reading it. She’s a gifted writer. Moreover the fact that she blogs openly with a revealed identity is simply fascinating and interesting. The same can be said about Umar Lee, a white American Muslim convert.

Don’t you just love the blogosphere?

Yes it is!

Yup and currently busy getting settled down again which means less blogging activity within this week. I’ll also fix the annoying bug in the comments section soon. Peace!

There won’t be a complete withdrawal.

Apparently he did:

July 19, 2007 (NASHVILLE, Tennessee) — US President George W. Bush said Thursday that he had considered, and discarded, the idea of sending US troops unilaterally to Sudan’s Darfur province to halt what he calls “genocide” there

“I made the decision not to send US troops unilaterally into Darfur,” he said. “I made the decision in consultations with allies, as well as consultations with members of Congress and activists.”

Excellent choice dude. Good. Please don’t send them. More children, both Darfurian and American will be orphaned if you do.

Omar Barsawad wrote this on his blog:

For me, Sudan is an enigma. Of all the Arab countries, Sudan could easily have been one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest. It has all the necessary resources to achieve that: an educated and hard working people, abundant arable land, abundant water and many minerals. And plenty of sunshine. And now: oil. Not only that - Sudan is the only Arab country that, honestly and truly, tried to take a real democratic path. And failed. Why? What went wrong? Why didn’t it continue with that democratic process?

Sudan, not only has plenty of oil now; but it too, has one of the world’s largest sugarcane plantations: the Kenana Sugar Company. Sugar cane, which ethanol is derived from. Ethanol which seems, now, to be the fuel of the future. Even though Sudan has oil: why doesn’t it start an ethanol programme similar to Brazil’s? And become an ethanol power? And: like all Arab countries, Sudan has abundant sunshine, which too - Sudan can use to its advantage. Like the U.A.E’s wise decision to tap Solar power, though it has huge oil reserves - Sudan too, can exploit its other most important energy resources: sugarcane and the Sun. Imagine what would be of Sudan if it can use all these resources wisely and constructively. But first, Sudan has to get its house in order and in peace.

Gee, thanks for reminding me. I feel better already. Sigh!

My dad was talking about this yesterday. It happened 2 months ago. I was not aware of it. Were you?

In May the Amir of Qatar sacked the entire management board, including Wadah Khanfar, its director. In the turbulent politics of the Middle East this would not be considered unusual, except that the new chief is none other than Hamad Abdul Aziz al-Kuwari, a former Qatari ambassador to Washington, who is known for his close links with both Republican and Democratic politicians in the US. His appointment is seen as a sop to US sensitivities because the Americans had been exerting pressure on the Qatari government to rein in Al-Jazeera, claiming that its coverage of American crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq was undermining its policies. Other appointees include Mahmood Shamam, another pro-US figure, and the new managing director, Ahmad Kholeifi. Insiders at the station say that Kholeifi has instituted sweeping changes that will affect news coverage drastically, undermining what little independence the station enjoyed.

I’m not sure if the coverage now is any different now than it was previously. Two months is still a short period though to spot a real change. Anyways, just letting you know.