Saturday, 8 February

IF WE COULD PUT TIME IN A BOTTLE . . . Wasn't that a line in a contempory song several years ago? I seem to recall it was. 'Salam Pax' is blogging again today and has been posting some photos.

There is a children's song about a bridge that would run away with every flood and kids running after it asking it to come back; this was during the 20's before the British built the first bridge (maud bridge after general maud who led the British invasion of Iraq. now it is called the bridge of martyrs. maybe tommy franks will get his bridge as well, who knows.).

If you can't get straight through to the Baghdad Blogger via his URL, try entering it into Google first.

Friday, 7 February

AL-RA'I...WAL RA'I AL-AKHR: That's 'Point-Counterpoint' in Arabic, a feature once so successfully satirized on the old Saturday Night Live TV series. The Al-Jazeera version sounds pretty wild itself according to Brian Whitaker's description:

For 75 minutes, Qassem sits at a table strewn with papers, while his two guests argue. But it is not what the BBC would call a studio discussion. The protagonists shout, gesticulate and try to drown each other out. On occasions, they have even stormed out. In the control room above the studio, it takes five people, working frenetically, to keep the flailing arms in shot.



Viewers join in with phone calls and emails. The calls are not filtered and there is no time-delay to protect against abusive language. It's all live, anything can happen-- and it frequently does.

Whitaker is reporting from Al Jazeera HQ in Doha, Qatar, with this dispatch Battle Station.

Thurdsay, 6 February

MILLION-DOLLAR BABE: Iraqi president Saddam Hussain invited Lebanese singer Nawal Al Zoughbi to Iraq to hold a concert late last month. Saddam offered the singer 1,300,00 US dollars to come to Iraq and perform despite the critical situation in the country. From a report in Al Bawaba.

Thursday, 6 February

INTERCEPTED LINK: Using a satellite phone, a senior al-Qa'ida operative called two associates and congratulated them on their assassination of an American diplomat. [snip] The name of the man who made the telephone call as he drove through northern Iraq towards the borders with Syria and Turkey has not been revealed. But his alleged position was made clear: he is the deputy of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of an Iraqi-based al-Qa'ida cell.

Thursday, 6 February

LOCKDOWN: Colby Cosh gives a harrowing description of Daniel Pipes delivering a speech at York University in Toronto. Arab-American Nonie Darwish left a comment on the Pipes message board: 'On our campuses, the insane are running the asylum.'

Thursday, 6 February

SHORT CLIPS AROUND THE NET: The odds of war presented in a visual format at the 'SaddamMeter' via the Yourish weblog's 'Short stacks' entry.

And from the Desi (East Indian) community is a new weekly selection of weblog entry clips called Blog Mela.

Thursday, 6 February

IRAQI TRUCKING TALES: The Turkish truckers are among the few outsiders who are allowed to enter Iraq regularly.

I know the Iraqi people very well - I spend a lot of time there - and they're scared of Saddam. They speak against him, but only to the drivers and always very secretly.

The truckers say many Iraqis are anxious and fearful - anxious about a war, fearful of their leader. From a report by Mark McDonald datelined Habur Gate, Turkey.

Wednesday, 5 February

CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES #20: I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this week's collection of writers' choices is posted at Plum Crazy for your enjoyment.

Wednesday, 5 February

DREAMING OF PALESTINE: Italian teenager Randa Ghazy's alternate world fantasy novel is making its debut in an Arabic language edition with an official launch in Egypt planned for Tuesday, February 5 [today], it has been reported. Evidently, the book's launch was intended to coincide with this year's round of the Cairo International Book Fair (CIBF), the 35th in its history, which opened its doors last Thursday. There is a lot of information about the book fair in Al Ahram, but no mention of whether the publishers are planning an English language edition.

Tuesday, 4 February

IT IS A COMMON FACT OF KNOWLEDGE . . . that when a dog has once acquired the habit of egg-sucking there is no available way by which he may be broken of it . . . Rita on the case of The Egg-Suckin' Dog.

Tuesday, 4 February

THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN? One fourth of the EU Parliament has signed a request to investigate the use of aid given to the Arafat gang. Hmmm . . . from the Merde in France Blog.

Monday, 3 February

SADDAM HUSSEIN LIES AGAIN: While the Iraqi President was busy kissing up Tony Benn from London and making nice-nice for the TV cameras with one hand over the weekend (see previous item), he was busy with the other hand denying the Iraqi public access to at least a million web sites. And all the while, he was deliberating lying to the Gulf Sheikhs and the GCC citizens about the whole thing.

Over the weekend, Shakir Al Taee was in Baghdad interviewing Iraqi Government officials. He’s a correspondent from the Gulf News. Here’s what he reports he was told:



***The Iraqi government has annulled many emergency security measures that had been imposed in the country around 20 days ago.



The Iraqi cabinet passed a resolution abolishing 14 articles of an emergency law, in addition to several other governmental directives that were introduced under emergency conditions three weeks back.



Officials told Gulf News that the measures cancelled were meant to "facilitate things for citizens amidst the serious American threats against Iraq and war draws closer."***

Did you catch that word "facilitate?" And don’t you get the impression from the foregoing that the Iraqi public was being freed from recently imposed restrictions? If so, you guess wrong.

In reality, the sledge hammer came down hard on the Iraqi public over the past weekend. Iraqi internet surfers logged online only to discover that the door to the outside world had been slammed shut in their faces. Iraqi Government officials had just cut them off from at least a million outside web sites that are on the Blog*Spot hosting servers.

Here’s what the Iraqi surfers saw on their computer screens:



YOUR ACCESS HAS BEEN DENIED



Your website request has been denied in accordance with your organization's Internet Usage Policy.



Does this look like facilitating to you?

Not only did the Iraqi Government cut the Iraqi surfers off, but they deliberately lied about it to the Gulf News and all the people in the Gulf who read the news.

But does anyone believe anything Saddam Hussein says anymore?

The Super Geeks have been busy over the weekend, too. And they are not about to surrender to Saddam Hussein.

Sunday, 2 February

TETE-TETE: The UK's Tony Benn from Labor has snagged an interview with Iraq's Saddam Hussein which will be broadcast within the next few days. It was filmed by an Iraqi tv crew. Benn said he paid for the trip himself. He's trying to avert the military campaign to attain control over Iraq in order to implement a regime change. Benn is a very well known figure in the UK. From Yahoo! News today.