August 29, 2006
Last night I witnessed a miracle... The miracle of life... And what a miracle it was... Last night, Monday 28/08/2006 at exactly 9:35PM, in Clinique Avicenne - El Manar, my lovely amazing wife gave birth to a beautiful healthy baby boy... The birth experience was so incredibly overwhelming for both of us; how we both felt when the baby was born and we got to see him for the very first time is a feeling that no words can describe and no other thing in life can duplicate; a feeling that can only be shared by people who have gone...
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August 25, 2006
A quick little meme I found via Kottke, on Rivers Are Damp: Go here and look through random quotes until you find five that you think reflect who you are or what you believe. Here are the five I found: - "The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do." (Walter Bagehot (1826 - 1877)) - "Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane." (Philip K. Dick (1928 - 1982), Valis) - "It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere." (Agnes Repplier (1855 -...
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August 24, 2006
2,500 Astronomers meeting in the Czech capital Prague for the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) general assembly have voted to strip Pluto of its status as a planet. The scientists rejected a proposal that would have retained Pluto as a planet and brought three other objects into the cosmic club. Pluto has been considered a planet since its discovery in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh. The ninth planet will now effectively be airbrushed out of school and university textbooks. The eight official planets are now Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The initial proposal put before the...
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Posted on August 24, 2006 11:01 AM under:
Tunisia
First, a little background about LPG (Liquified petroleum gas) or GPL as it's called in French and in Tunisia: Liquified petroleum gas is a mixture of hydrocarbon gases used as a fuel in heating appliances and vehicles, and increasingly replacing chlorofluorocarbons as an aerosol propellant and a refrigerant to reduce damage to the ozone layer. Varieties of LPG bought and sold include mixes that are primarily propane, mixes that are primarily butane, and mixes including both propane and butane. Propylene and butylenes are usually also present in small concentration. A powerful odorant, ethanethiol, is added so that leaks can be...
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August 22, 2006
Posted on August 22, 2006 03:28 PM under:
Cinema
After much anticipation, I got to watch "The Sentinel" last night, featuring Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Basinger and Eva Langoria. I had some high expectations for this movie after the reviews that I read and all, but even though this is a really good movie, it was just a bit below my expectations. The movie is basically a thriller about a plot to assassinate the president, with an insider from the secret service being part of the plan. The pace of the movie was quite fast and the plot an exciting one, but still the bad guy was easily...
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August 21, 2006
These past days I've been seeing a lot of advertising for an animated movie called "Viva Carthago - Les Naufragés de Carthage" (Viva Carthago - The Shipwrecked Men of Carthage) which will be released on September 18th. The animated feature begins in 146 BC when the city of Carthage is destroyed by Roman legionnaires. Ten-year-old Sedik and his co-adventurers escape, boarding a ship they call Carthago, and embark on a magical journey through Mediterranean antiquity. The movie takes a more or less educative approach to telling the history of the Mediterranean region through the adventures of Sedik and his four...
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August 20, 2006
Last night, I finished playing Tomb Raider: Legend on PlayStation 2. It's been nearly eight years since I last played a Tomb Raider game, back then it was Tomb Raider 2: Dagger Of Xian on my PC, and it was a really nice game that I truly enjoyed. Anyway, since then, even though I didn't play any of the other installments of the game series, I heard it was getting crappy and boring, until I came across some reviews saying that this one, the 7th installment, going by the name of "Tomb Raider: Legend" was actually a surprise, that it...
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August 17, 2006
More and more is coming out about how the US knew in advance about the Israeli plans to bomb Lebanon, even before the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers... "Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah, and shared it with Bush administration officials, well before 12 July", wrote Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, whose past work includes exposing the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and Vietnam's My Lai massacre. Israeli officials visited Washington to secure US support for its plans before Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on 12 July, the ostensible cause of the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. "Israel...
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August 16, 2006
Posted on August 16, 2006 05:49 PM under:
Music
These past two days I've been listening to, and greatly enjoying I must add, Paul Anka's latest album "Rock Swings". I first heard some bits from it at a friend's place and was hooked immediately. On this album Paul Anka has taken a number of the most famous rock songs of these past years, re-arranged them using some cool swinging jazz beats, and the result is pure magic. Some of the hits he's covered and that I loved on this cd are: Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana), Wonderwall (Oasis), Black Hole Sun (Soundgarden), It's My Life (Bon Jovi), Tears In...
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Just came across this... A new Gallup poll finds that many Americans -- what it calls "substantial minorities" -- harbor "negative feelings or prejudices against people of the Muslim faith". Nearly one in four Americans, 22%, say they would not like to have a Muslim as a neighbor. While Americans tend to disagree with the notion that Muslims living in the United States are sympathetic to al-Qaeda, a significant 34% believe they do back al-Qaeda. And fewer than half -- 49% -- believe U.S. Muslims are loyal to the United States. Almost four in ten, 39%, advocate that Muslims here...
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August 14, 2006
Posted on August 14, 2006 09:27 PM under:
Link Dump
A Different Kind Of Pain A great post about the sad reality we Arabs live in and how the commonness of conflicts in the region gives them a certain shelf life, after which we sort of grow numb to them, and wait for what will come next. (tags: sadness pain conflict arab world reality) New UK & US Hand Baggage Restrictions The new restrictions that apply to all passengers starting their journey from the UK or the United States of America and to those transferring between flights at a UK airport. (tags: us usa uk hand baggage restrictions rules...
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Microsoft is announcing new tools today that it says will allow people with little technical background to create video games for Windows and the Xbox 360 gaming system. Dubbed XNA Game Studio Express, the free software is expected to be available in beta form by the end of the month, with a final product available sometime this holiday season. With this release, the software giant is hoping to lay the groundwork for what one day will be a thriving network of enthusiasts developing for one another, something akin to a YouTube for games. The idea is to bring new blood...
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Posted on August 14, 2006 12:16 PM under:
Cinema
One of the movies I watched this weekend was Transamerica starring Felicity Huffman. The movie is about Bree/Stanley, a pre-operative male-to-female transexual awaiting gender-reassignment surgery who learns she has fathered a son named Toby, who is in jail. When her therapist strongarms Bree into facing her past, before getting to go through with the operation, she bails Toby out of jail and they end up on a road trip across the country. I don't know why I wasn't expecting much from this movie, maybe it's because I didn't know what to expect, but well, it turned out to be quite...
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August 12, 2006
You’ll recall that immediately after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. officials declared that the attacks had been motivated by the terrorists’ hatred for America’s “freedom and values.” That refrain produced the “war on terrorism” and, more recently, the “war on radical Islamo-fascism.” Nonsense, said libertarians. The anger and hatred that Arabs and Muslims have for the United States is rooted in decades of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Ending the U.S. government’s decades-old policy of empire and intervention would bring an end to the threat of terrorism (and radical Islamo-fascism) against the United States. The argument of the “freedom...
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August 11, 2006
Did you know the United States awards Israel over $5 billion in aid each year? Did you know that Israel receives its annual foreign aid appropriation during the first month of the fiscal year, instead of in quarterly installments as do other recipients? This enables Israel to invest the money in U.S. Treasury notes. That means that the U.S., which has to borrow the money it gives to Israel, pays interest on the money it has granted to Israel in advance, while at the same time Israel is collecting interest on the money. Did you know that US aid to...
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August 10, 2006
French company Violet has released a cool Wi-Fi Bunny by the name of Nabaztag, which means rabbit in Armenian. The plastic bunny, which stands 23 cm tall and has a white cone-like body that lights up when it speaks, with ears like TV antennae can read out e-mails, mobile phone text messages and news, tell children to go to bed, wake you up alert one to how the stock market is doing, provide weather reports, give traffic updates and tell you about air quality in your city by receiving Internet feeds via a wireless Wi-Fi network. Nabaztag costs 115 euros...
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August 09, 2006
For anyone who hasn't already seen this great interview with George Galloway on SkyNews about the Israel-Lebanon conflict, you have to see it, it's amazing. This guy is just awesome. A quote from the interview: "One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. You are totally wrong in saying that in most people’s eyes Hezbollah are terrorists. In most people’s eyes Israel is a terrorist state. It’s the fact that you cannot comprehend that fact that leads to bias that runs through all of your reporting and every question that you’ve asked me in this interview!" More about: George Galloway....
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First, a news bit from India... India's top court has asked the local subsidiaries of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo to disclose the ingredients in the soft drinks they sell, amid allegations that they contain high levels of pesticide. A New Delhi-based independent research body said it found pesticide residue in samples of Coke and Pepsi that was 24 times above the limits set by the Bureau of Indian Standards, and 30 to 36 times higher than European Union standards. A petition filed in the Supreme Court said that the drinks "contained highly toxic, acidic and addictive ingredients dangerous for human consumption,"...
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Boss Bitching is a simple, cool, user driven website that allows anonymous postings of stories about bosses. Posts can be made about a current boss or someone from a previous job. Complainers can categorize their bosses by archetype and visitors to the site get to read and rate the bosses, choosing between three responses. Users can receive updates of the most popular posts through RSS. Boss Bitching was conceived by someone who identifies himself as Unknown Tech Guy. It seems BossBitching is the first of a series of services that will be launched under the UberBitching brand. It's quite a...
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I just don't get what this whole craze surrounding MySpace is all about?! It has become one of the most popular websites on the internet, it has gobbled up 80% of the social networking market, it was sold to Murdoch for $600 millions dollars, Google just inked a $900 million advertising deal with them, ...etc. And yet, I can't see why??! To me all it looks like is a pile of crap thrown together on page after page of useless flashing unorganized garbage with shitty eye-unfriendly design. Even the social networking side of it sucks. I just don't get why...
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"It is finally time. After years of internal arguments, confusion, and dithering, the time has come for a full-fledged international boycott of Israel. Good cause for a boycott has, of course, been in place for decades, as a raft of initiatives already attests. But Israel's war crimes are now so shocking, its extremism so clear, the suffering so great, the UN so helpless, and the international community's need to contain Israel's behavior so urgent and compelling, that the time for global action has matured. A coordinated movement of divestment, sanctions, and boycotts against Israel must convene to contain not only...
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Swedish company Tobii is about to release its MyTobii P10, a PC that can be controlled by tracking your eye movements using its own proprietary hardware and software. Follow a calibrating dot on the screen with your eyes for 30 seconds, and then you'll be able to control this PC without touching it at all. What's even more remarkable tis that the company has figured out how to make this work in almost any lighting conditions, and even if you wear glasses. The ability to mount the pc to a desk, bed or wheelchair should prove very helpful for people...
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Sony has gone along and unveiled a new handheld gadget called "Mylo", which stands for "My Life Online", that combines instant messaging, Web browsing, e-mailing, VoIP capabilities via Skype, music playing and photo viewing. It features a slide-up 2.4-inch screen, 1GB flash, and a Memory Stick slot. The device looks a bit like the PSP (PlayStation Portable), but less slick and slightly uglier, still better looking than some other gadgets out there. The Mylo is aimed at the younger generation who spend a lot of their time on internet chat rooms or instant messaging their friends. A drawback of...
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August 08, 2006
Now this is cool... A young Dutch architect has created a floating bed which hovers above the ground through magnetic force and comes with a price tag of 1.2 million euros ($1.54 million). Janjaap Ruijssenaars took inspiration for the bed -- a sleek black platform, which took six years to develop and can double as a dining table or a plinth -- from the mysterious monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 cult film "2001: A Space Odyssey." Magnets built into the floor and into the bed itself repel each other, pushing the bed up into the air. Thin steel cables tether...
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August 07, 2006
Posted on August 7, 2006 12:45 PM under:
Cinema
Last night, I got to watch Suspect Zero, a crime thriller, featuring Ben Kingsley, Aaron Eckhart and Carrie-Anne Moss. The movie is about a mysterious serial killer, who belonged to a secret FBI program before he dropped out and started hunting down other serial killers, and one FBI agent who suspects there may be more to the vigilante than they imagine. The movie reminded me of Seven in its style and ideas, even though I think Seven remains a slightly better movie than this one. The name of the movie "Suspect Zero" is a reference to this theory that the...
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August 06, 2006
Posted on August 6, 2006 01:38 AM under:
Tunisia
After years of monopoly from the state-run TV and radio stations, Tunisia started opening up its media market just over a year ago. Mosaique FM became the first private radio station in Tunisia, followed by Hannibal TV the first private TV channel. Last year another private radio station Jawhara FM was launched in Sousse to cover the eastern coast region. It seems the media sector will get more new players soon with two new TV channels being planned as well as another radio station. Communication agency, Karoui & Karoui, are planning to launch a TV station under the name Nessma...
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August 05, 2006
Posted on August 5, 2006 11:20 PM under:
Link Dump
Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully Stephen King presents you with everything you need to know about writing successfully in ten minutes. (tags: writing tips success skills advice interesting tutorial) Footsteps to a Novel Margaret McGaffey Fisk on the steps to take your novel idea and make it into a completed work. (tags: productivity writing tips tutorial interesting) US Kids study Arabic at Minnesota summer camp Al-Waha, which translates to "oasis," is Concordia's 14th summer language camp on the shores of northwestern Minnesota's Leek Lake. (tags: arabic language culture summer camp) How To Create Your Own Hotspot...
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A man accused of sexually assaulting nine boys with physical or mental disabilities told a judge that having sex with children is a sacred ritual protected by civil rights laws. Phillip Distasio, who said he is the leader of a church called Arcadian Fields Ministries, represented himself at his pretrial hearing. He is charged with 74 counts including rape, pandering obscenity to minors and corrupting another with drugs. "I'm a pedophile. I've been a pedophile for 20 years," he said in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. "The only reason I'm charged with rape is that no one believes a child...
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August 04, 2006
Hotels at an Italian seaside resort are eager to act on the town's decision to authorize the creation of all-female beach sections for Muslim women. The city council of Riccione, a popular resort on Italy's Adriatic coast about 90 miles east of Florence, has said it is prepared to authorize requests to set up partitions on parts of the shoreline to satisfy requests from the town's growing numbers of Arab and Muslim tourists. Supporters of the idea say that the separate beaches would allow observant Muslim women to shed their headscarves and long robes and enjoy the sun in privacy;...
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday he has recalled his country's ambassador to Israel to show his "indignation" over the military offensive in Lebanon. "We have ordered the withdrawal of our ambassador in Israel," Chavez said in a televised speech, calling Israeli attacks in Lebanon "genocide." "It really causes indignation to see how the state of Israel continues bombing, killing ... with all of the power they have, with the support of the United States." So what do you think of that? Venezuela, which is basically continents and oceans away from Lebanon, have severed ties with Israel over what it's...
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August 03, 2006
So as some of you might have noticed, Subzero Blue was hacked today, both versions too, English and Arabic. Eman's blog AquaCool which is hosted as a subdomain of Subzero Blue was also hacked. Fortunately the damage wasn't that bad, the English version of the blog was basically restored as soon as I noticed. As for the Arabic blog, it was offline for hours until I got home and restored some files from my backups. Eman's blog was restored pretty quickly too but without it's design, which I had to get from my backups too when I got home. Anyway,...
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August 02, 2006
"On July 28, 1989, we kidnapped Sheikh Obeid, and on May 12, 1994, we kidnapped Mustafa Dirani, who had captured Ron Arad. Israel held these two people and another 20-odd Lebanese detainees without trial, as "negotiating chips." That which is permissible to us is, of course, forbidden to Hezbollah". Ze’ev Maoz - Haaretz Article [Via: AquaCool]...
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August 01, 2006
The Cuban president, Fidel Castro, facing surgery, turns over power temporarily to his brother Raul. Cuban President Fidel Castro handed power to his brother Raul late Monday ahead of undergoing surgery, the first time he had relinquished control since the victory of the leftist revolution he led nearly 48 years ago. In a letter read on state television by his personal secretary, Carlos Valenciaga, Castro said he had suffered intestinal bleeding brought on by the stress of recent travel. He visited Argentina last week for a regional summit and traveled to Cuba's southern coast for the July 26 holiday that...
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