Archive | August, 2006

22nd Bahrain Bloggers’ Gathering

The next meeting is almost upon us, note the 7th of September in your diaries please and don’t forget to take out two hours of your time for this get-together. More than ever, it’s going to be worth it for you all as we will have some special visitors joining us, pioneers of blogging from another Gulf state is all I can tell you at the moment as final plans have not been finalised yet, but should be early next week.

I know that a lot of you have spoken to me about your unhappiness with the current venue we use, in the Diplomatic area, and some suggested that we revert back to the Country Club. Some even suggested a day change from Thursday.

Could you please take some time to jot down your thoughts on not only the timing and location of our meet-ups, but most importantly on how to make the event more successful and how you would organise it.

Let us know your suggestions on all of these issues, please.

Our living room is back!

Our living room is back!

Our living room is back!, originally uploaded by malyousif.



After about 5 weeks of having the house in turmoil due to a water leak from the master bathroom, we finally have our living room fixed tonight.

We just finished cleaning and moving the furniture back into their usual places, my dad’s paintings are up, so I feel that we are at home now… it’ll take another week for them to finish the bathroom, but that’s another story.

Nasrallah: I screwed up

Shaikh Hassan NasrallahOne facet of a leader in any stream of life is the capability of foretelling what an action or inaction could produce to a reasonable degree of certainty. Another is the capability of weighing risks to rewards.

Nasrallah, by his own admission last night on the Lebanese NewTV, and as I have written before, has suffered a huge lapse of judgement at best; at worst, he has declared his incapacity to continue to run a militia organization or even culpability in killing over one thousand human beings, and causing various injuries to thousands more, the destitution of over a million, and the destruction of a country already limping into what would have been a rosy future.

To me listening to him stating categorically that he “would not have done it” if he thought kidnapping a couple of soldiers would have resulted in such an overwhelming response by the Israelis left me in shock and bewilderment…

“We did not think that there was a 1% chance that the kidnapping would lead to a war of this scale and magnitude,” Sheikh Nasrallah said.

“Now you ask me if this was 11 July and there was a 1% chance that the kidnapping would lead to a war like the one that has taken place, would you go ahead with the kidnapping?

“I would say no, definitely not, for humanitarian, moral, social, security, military and political reasons.”
BBC News

Is this person worth being called a leader? One that cannot even envisage the possible scale of retaliation of a strong enemy in response to an act of war by kidnapping combatants? That means that one more of Nasrallah’s failing is the complete collapse of his intelligence apparatus, or at least wrongly listening to unworthy advisers.

All in all, he would have been served much better should he have kept his mouth shut. At least then, the Arabs and Muslims will have continued to sanctify him and continue to believe that he is the defender of the faith and the champion of the Arabs and Palestinians, the upholder of the Arab dignity and all the other nomenclatures he has been given.

The truth of the matter is he screwed up, but in doing so also demonstrated that his militia could stand up to the Israeli onslaught; and with his charisma and the already boiling passions in the Arab world against Israel, he has created a political victory none of his Arab compatriots have ever done before.

Even with that political victory, and in light of this interview, I contend that he should step aside and concentrate on his religious research and fatwas and let the government to decide how best to defend its country’s territories.

A personal cult does not a country make, and most certainly winning a battle does not a war victor make.

Or does he truly believe that Israel will not attack again when threatened?

Lantana and the lawn

Lantana and the lawn

Lantana and the lawn, originally uploaded by malyousif.



I love these shrubs. They say that the south americans use its crushed leaves as ointments against snake bites!

Apart from that, the bulbuls love them and their berries and their minty smell is quite nice too.

Have a wonderful Friday my friends…

Vlog: Cleaning the garden shed

I decided that I have had enough with the mess in the garden shed and it is high time that it got re-organised again, especially that the growing season is fast approaching and I need the space. So my son Arif and I attacked it this morning, and for a complete mess and no space left in it at all before we started, to a huge amount of space left afterwards tells you that keeping things organised pays in the end!

Have a wonderful Friday…