Conflict timeline
The WSJ has a good resource page for all the wonderful happenings in the war zone. Might be worth you bookmarking it.
Hat tip: John B. Chilton
First Boot
First Boot, originally uploaded by malyousif.
I finally bought what I have coveted for a long time: the Apple Black MacBook! This is it just taken out of the box and switched on… This is the first booting of the new baby.
The config is quite sweet: 2GHz, Intel Core Duo, 2GB RAM, 80GB HDD, DVD and CD RW, 13-inch, and the sweeter thing is that I got it from iMachines who cut me a really good deal, actually cheaper than getting it from the States. So thanks guys, you rock!
I hooked it up to my old Dell laptop through firewire and copied over about 10GB of my data across, it took 4 hours, but hey, I was asleep so I didn’t have to wait for them to do their thing. I got it this morning and have already downloaded and installed both FireFox and Thunderbird. There are a few more apps I’ve got to get like OpenOffice and the configure it to connect to the network in the office, this shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.
So here I am typing this away using the most gorgeous keyboard I have ever used on a laptop, one that you just caress to make your words appear on the screen, rather than one you have to hammer away at like a hammer and chisel, and it’s bilingual too! I’m also connected to the internet through the Airport Express which I got a while ago and installed at the breakfast area so that I can both stream music to the music system through it and it acts like a wireless internet access point for this side of the house…
Anyway, I’m waiting for some workers to come and do some work in the house and then I’m off to the office.
Peace!
16 labourers perish in fire at labour camp
My deepest condolences go to the victims and their families and friends who perished or got injured in a labour camp file last night in Gudaybiyah. It is reported that up to 300 workers lived in a single multistory building and up to 15 people were crammed into a single room.
The workers are employed with Royal Tower Construction Company. I hope that the authorities will look very seriously at the condition of their domicile and correct the situation using any legal means necessary.
It is unfortunate that these migrant workers, the very ones who build the country through the past decades and continue to do so today, are not treated fairly. That situation should be corrected and should never be just swept under the carpet.
It is a sad day all around.
The tide turns
Some say that this war is much more than meets the eye, as it is in reality not more than a political game increasingly looking like being played by amateurs at the expense of the hapless Lebanese, caught in the middle, and are paying for it with their lives, property and a whole country’s infrastructure, all of which have just been repaired and were raring to go!
Alas, dumb conspirators think that they can force through their “New Middle East” child by allowing battles like these to continue unchecked, and allow more children to be slaughtered, and have the temerity to characterise what is happening now as nothing more than birth pangs!
If and when this “New Middle East” is ever born, it will be no more than an ill-formed aborted foetus.
To me Israel has already lost the war; while the winner is already determined regardless of military outcome. Joining Israel’s loss are its new and old friends: Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.
The winners in the world’s public opinion is Nasrallah and his Hizballah who have already achieved what the Muslim Nation could not throughout its more than 1400 years history. Could such an outcome be comparable to that other battle in which another son of the Prophet laid down his and his companions’ lives in a just stance for truth, against a vastly superior army?
That’s for history to decide.
Today; however, all Muslims are virtually a single sect, today all Muslims are Hizballah!
Where did Kimi come from?
Just looked at the starting grid for tomorrow’s German Grand F1 Prix and Kimi Räikkönen is on pole! Where the heck did the guy come from? Well I don’t particularly care as long as he bites into the fluke’s lead and shortens the gap between the kid and the Ace! 
And where is the kid in all this? 7th on the grid, where he bloody well belongs, but I’m sure the bastard is packing, and he’ll do a one stopper or go long in the first stint and surprise everyone. We’ll see how it pans out…
Don’t call me tomorrow afternoon while the race is on, unless Earth stops rotating that is, but I would notice that in any case because the race would be red flagged unfortunately!