Arab Foreign Ministers

Politics 1/6/2008 1:28:00 PM

CAIRO, Jan 16 (KUNA) -- Israel's settlement policy, the implications on peaceful settlement and the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians based on the Annapolis peace conference topped the agenda of a closed session for the Arab Foreign Ministers on Sunday.
Up to 17 Arab Foreign Ministers together with representatives of five Arab countries are taking part in an extraordinary ministerial meeting that kicked off today at the Arab League in Cairo.
The closed meeting was devoted to the settlement issue and how the Arabs would respond to that obstacle that constitutes a menace to a peaceful settlement in the region. The forthcoming Middle East tour by the US President George W Bush featured high on the meeting agenda, an informed source that attended told KUNA.

Bedouin

"The nomadic Bedouin does not dote on scenery, paint landscapes, or compile a nonutilitarian natural history... His life is so profoundly in transaction with nature that there is no place for abstraction or aesthetics or a "nature philosophy" which can be separated from the rest of his life... Nature and his relationship to it are a deadly-serious matter, prescribed by convention, muystery and danger. His personal leisure is aimed away from idle amusement or detached tampering with nature's processes. But built into his life is awareness of that presence, of the terrain, of the unpredictable weather, of the narrow margin by which he is sustained."

Paul Shepard (cultural ecologist)

Who Googles What?

Ambient Findability is a great book by Peter Morville which I just read a few weeks ago. When I read the below article about who Googles what I especially remembered the tag line for the book; "What We Find Changes Who We Become"

Sex, Nazi, burrito and Viagra: Who Googles what?
Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:17am EDT

BERLIN, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Internet users in Egypt, India and Turkey are the world's most frequent searchers for Web sites using the keyword "sex" on Google search engines, according to statistics provided by Google Inc.
Germany, Mexico and Austria were world's top three searchers of the word "Hitler" while "Nazi" scored the most hits in Chile, Australia and the United Kingdom, data from 2004 to the present retrievable on the "Google Trends" Web site showed.
Chile also came in first place searching for the word "gay", followed by Mexico and Colombia.
The top searchers for other keywords were as follows (in order from first to third place):
"Jihad" - Morocco, Indonesia, Pakistan
"Terrorism" - Pakistan, Philippines, Australia
"Hangover" - Ireland, United Kingdom, United States
"Burrito" - United States, Argentina, Canada
"Iraq" - United States, Australia, Canada
"Taliban" - Pakistan, Australia, Canada
"Tom Cruise" - Canada, United States, Australia
"Britney Spears" - Mexico, Venezuela, Canada
"Homosexual" - Philippines, Chile, Venezuela
"Love" - Philippines, Australia, United States
"Botox" - Australia, United States, United Kingdom
"Viagra" - Italy, United Kingdom, Germany
"David Beckham" - Venezuela, United Kingdom, Mexico
"Kate Moss" - Ireland, United Kingdom, Sweden
"Dolly Buster" - Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia
"Car bomb" - Australia, United States, Canada
"Marijuana" - Canada, United States, Australia
"IAEA" - Austria, Pakistan, Iran
© Reuters2007All rights reserved

Keep an eye on North Africa

So now the jihadist are surging in north Africa from Egypt to Morocco. Keep an eye on this area as more and more sucide bombers practice their trade.

I returned back to Kuwait from a six week trip to America today. I'll try to get back into a routine again with my blog.

NPR : Sayyid Qutb's America

This is a must read article NPR : Sayyid Qutb's America

"Qutb's writings would later become the theoretical basis for many radical Islamic groups of today -- including al Qaeda. Qutb increasingly saw the redemption of Egypt in the application of Islamic law."