At the Movies

All the King's Men: Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo & Anthony Hopkins (Steven Zaillian)

Jet Li's Fearless: Jet Li, Betty Sun, Dong Yong, Shido Nakamura & Collin Chou (Ronnie Yu)

Riding Along for Thousands of Miles: Ken Takakura, Qiu Lin, Li Jiamin, Shinobu Termaijma & Kiichi Nakai (Zhang Yimou)

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks. (NYT)

Ramadan begins, and no water in Jeddah (Arab News)

IT’S not just about torture. Even if there had never been an Abu Ghraib, a Guantánamo or an American president determined to rewrite the Geneva Conventions, America would still be losing the war for hearts and minds in the Arab world. Our first major defeat in that war happened at the dawn of the Iraq occupation, before “detainee abuse” entered our language: the “Stuff happens!” moment at theNational Museum of Baghdad.

Three and a half years later, have we learned anything? You have to wonder. As the looting of the museum was the first clear warning of disasters soon to come, so the stuff that’s happening at the museum today is a grim indicator of where we’re headed in Iraq: America is empowering the very Islamic radicals this war was supposed to smite. But even now we seem to be averting our eyes from reality on the ground in Baghdad.

Our blindness back in April 2003 seems ludicrous in retrospect. As the looting flared, an oblivious President Bush told the Iraqi people in a televised address that they were “the heirs of a great civilization that contributes to all humanity.” Our actions — or, more accurately, our inaction as the artifacts of that great civilization were carted away — spoke louder than those pretty words. As Fred Ikle, the Reagan administration Pentagon policy chief, puts it in Thomas Ricks’s “Fiasco,” “America lost most of its prestige and respect in that episode.”

That disaster might have been mitigated if our leaders had not dismissed the whole episode as a triviality. But Donald Rumsfeld likened the chaos to the aftermath of a soccer game and joked that television was exaggerating the story by recycling video of a a single looter with a vase. Gen. Richard Myers defended our failure to intervene as “a matter of priorities” (we had protected the oil ministry). Lt. Gen. William Wallace, countering a wildly inflated early claim by a former museum employee that 170,000 artifacts had been destroyed, put the number of objects still unaccounted for at “as few as 17.” (The actual number was closer to 14,000.)
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One of the first Westerners to warn strongly of the dangers of someone like Mr. Sadr was Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), the legendary archaeologist, explorer, author and British political officer who masterminded the unlikely cobbling together of the modern Iraq state after World War I. She warned that a Shiite theocracy in the new country would be “the very devil.” As it happened, it was also Bell who created the Iraqi National Museum in 1923.

The fortunes of her museum, once considered the finest in the Middle East, have been synonymous with the fate of Iraq ever since. That’s because, like any such national institution, it is not merely some building that houses art but a repository of a country’s heart and soul. That America has stood helplessly by as Mr. Sadr folds the museum into his orbit of power is as ominous a predictor of what lies ahead in this war as was our callous reaction to the looting of 2003. For all of America’s talk of stamping out a “murderous ideology” and promoting civilization and democracy in Iraq, we are now handing the very devil the keys.

From Frank Rich's Column "Stuff Happens Aain in Baghdad" in today's NYT

Interesting web-site "Truth Out" and especially its Multimedia Page

From "Countdown" with Keith Olbermann

09/18/06 - The President owes us an Apology (Link)

09/11/06 - The hole in the Ground (Link)

At the Movies

Factotum: Matt Dillon, Marisa Tomei, Lili Taylor & Didier Flamand (Bent Hamer)

Half Nelson: Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps & Anthony Mackie (Ryan Fleck)

Heading South: Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, Menothy Cesar & Lys Ambriose (Laurent Cantet)

The Last Kiss: (L' Ultimo bacio)Zach Braff, Jacinda Barrett, Rachel Bilson & Tom Wilkinson (Tony Goldwyn)

The War Tapes: (Deborah Scranton)

The Time is Now - لقد حان الوقت

فى أعقاب تصريحات البابا بندكت الأخيره و"أعتذاره" عن تصريحاته، أقول لو كان صادقا فأن الوقت قد حان للكنيسة الكاثوليكيه للأعتذار رسميا عن الحروب الصليبيه. ولن يكن هذا بالجديد بعد أن قدمت الكنيسه أعتذارات أخرى ذات طابع تاريخى

In the aftermath of the storm brought about by the Pope's remarks at Regensburg University, the time has come for an official apology from the Catholic Church for the Crusades. This will be in line with similar apologies for historical actions and/or inactions by the Church. This will be the test of his sincerity.

Muslims in America - Stories from NPR

Between Faith and Country (Link)

Convert Plays Leadership Role in Muslim Community. Story of Hamza Yusuf (Link)

Filmmakers Shatter Arab Stereotypes in Hollywood. Story of Director Hesham Issawi, and actor, writer and producer Sayed Badreya (Link)

Young Muslim Americans Struggle with Identity. Sisters Assia and Iman Boundaoui grew up outside Chicago, their lives straddling what it is to be Muslim and American. (Part 1) (Part 2)

And here is the link to the whole series (Link)

جعلكم الله من عواده

بعد أيام يهل هلال شهر الرحمة والمغفرة والعتق من النار. تقبل المولى صيامنا وقيامنا وأعده الله علينا جميعا بالخير والبركه. ورحم الله من لم يعد عليه رمضان. وأخر دعوانا أن الحمد والشكر للمولى عز وجل وصلى الله وسلم على سيد الخلق محمد نبينا وشفيعنا يوم الدين

يقولون ليلى فى العراق

وأنا أقول: ولكن ليلى فى مصر عندها عيد ميلاد وكل سنة وأنت طيبه

 

قال لى الفرعون فى رحلته الأخيره

فى طريقه الى ضفة النيل الغربيه شاهدنى وأشار لى بأن أقترب منه. قال "أتذكرك جيدا من أواخر الخمسينات حينما كنت تحضر الى هنا مع التؤم". وقال متنهدا متحسرا " ماذا حدث بمدينتكم؟ لقد كانت واعدة صاعده. جوها ممتلىْ بالأمل والتفائل. مدينة تنظر الى الأمام ماضية فى عزم على بناء مستقبل كريم لابنائها. والأن يمتلىْ جو مدينتكم بالضوضاء، والصخيب, والتلوث. ونسيج المجتمع قد تفكك. وتبدلت الأحلام بكوابيس". وأختتم الفرعون كلامه وقال "سوف أعطى هذه المدينة ظهرى وأذهب الى الضفة الغربية من النيل، فهذا مكان الأموات" وقلت له أعلم يافرعون فلى مع ضفة النيل الغربية موعد لايعلمه الا المولى عز وجل

At the Movies

Crossing the Bridge – The Sound of Istanbul: (Faith Akin)

Hollywoodland: Adrien Brody, Diana Lane, Ben Affleck & Bob Hoskins (Allen Coulter)

House of Sand (Case de Areia): Fernanda Montenegro, Fernanda Torres, Ruy Guerra, Seu Jorge & Luis Melodia (Andrucha Waddington)

Iraq for Sale – The War Profiteers: (Robert Greenwald)

Rocky Horror Picture Show: Tim Curry, Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon, Richard O'Brian and a few hundred Houston Fans (Jim Sharman)

When a reporter asked President Bush a couple of weeks ago what Iraq had to do with 9/11, he blurted out the truth: “Nothing.” But momentarily dismissing that fantasy isn’t about to dissuade him from others. “One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror,’’ President Bush told Katie Couric (the new CBS News Diva) this week. I bet. Making up is hard to do.

The administration’s shameless mau-mauing was undercut yesterday by a 376-page Senate Intelligence Committee report slapping Bush hawks for relying on the flawed information provided by Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress to help make the case for war. The report also reaffirmed that Saddam viewed Osama in a negative light, and unveiled a C.I.A. assessment rejecting the president’s continuing claims about prewar links between Saddam and the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The 2005 C.I.A. finding concluded that Saddam “did not have a relationship, harbor, or even turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates.”

W. is pulling out all the stops this week to try to make people forget he was in charge when the twin towers were hit, but if he’s doing so great, why is Osama releasing new tapes while Afghanistan crumbles while Pakistan stands ready to implode while Lebanon has already exploded while Iran goes nuclear and taunts us while Al Qaeda in Iraq calls on its followers to kill Americans “by a sniper bullet, spear, explosive or martyrdom car”?

From Maureen Dowd's Column "The Unslammed Phone" in today's NYT

الحلوه عندها 10 سنين بأسم الله

كل سنه وانت طيبه ياحاجه منال

See my Tabblo>

"Now, I know some of our country hear the terrorists’ words, and hope that they will not, or cannot, do what they say,’’ Mr. Bush said in a speech yesterday to a military group, which was the second story on the first evening news show anchored by the first solo female network anchor. “History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake.’’ Mr. Bush said that the world failed to heed Lenin and Hitler, and it was essential to pay attention to bin Laden.

Too bad the president didn’t take time out from clearing brush at the ranch long enough back in August of 2001 to pay attention to an intelligence paper headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.’’

From NYT Columnist Maureen Dowd column titled "New Themes for the Same Old Song"

A new counterterrorism strategy released yesterday by the White House (Link)

What do you call this?

In a speech today, President Bush said "the United States does not torture" (Link)

Earlier in the year the President signed a bill outlawing the torture of detainees. He quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

(After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

Some legal specialists said yesterday that the president's signing statement, which was posted on the White House website but had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law)(Link)

At the Movies

The Boynton Beach Club: Sally Kellerman, Joseph Bologna, Brenda Vaccaro & Dyan Cannon (Susan Seidelman )

Idelwild: Andre Benjamin, Antwan Patton, Faizon Love, Terrance Howard (Bryant Barber )

The Illusionist: Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell (Neil Burger)

Little Miss Sunshine: Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin & Paul Dano (Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton)

The Oh in Ohio: Parker Posey, Danny DeVito, Paul Rudd & Mischa Barton (Billy Kent)

The Quiet: Elisha Cuthbert, Edie Falco, Camilla Belle, Shawn Ashmore & Martin Donovan (Jamie Babbit)

Talladega Nights, the Ballad of Ricky Bobby: Will Farrell, John C. Reily, David Koechner & Sacha Baron Cohen (Adam McKay)

Trust the Man: Julian Moore, David Duchovny, Billy Crudup & Maggie Gyllenhaal (Bart Freundlich)

World trade Center: Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllemhaal, Maria Bello & Stephen Dorff (Oliver Stone)

From the mischievous to the ridiculous. The satirical Onion had an article about President Bush urging the nation to be quiet for a minute while he tries to think. (Link)

And the ridiculous comes from the English National Opera. At the ENO The curtain is due to come up this week on a musical version of Moamer Kadhafi's life in London's world-famous West End theatre district. (Link)

The number of terrorism cases brought by the Justice Department, which surged in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has dropped sharply since 2002, and prosecutors are turning down hundreds of cases because of weak evidence and other legal problems, according to a study released Sunday.

The study, conducted by a private research group at Syracuse University, found that federal prosecutors have declined to prosecute two of every three international terrorism cases brought to them by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies since 2001.
The rejection rate was even higher for the first eight months of the current fiscal year, with 91 percent of the referred cases turned down for prosecution, the research group said. Among the most frequent explanations cited by prosecutors, the study found, were a lack of evidence of criminal intent by the suspect and “weak or insufficient” evidence.

The numbers brought differing interpretations from legal analysts, prosecutors and government officials, many of whom said they were surprised by the findings, and are likely to add to the debate over the administration’s legal tactics in prosecuting the fight against terrorism. The Justice Department immediately took issue with the study’s methodology and its conclusions. (NYT)

موت نجم متلألئ

تحمل وفاة لاعب الكرة الراحل محمد عبدالوهاب وشواهدها ومشاهدها المتعاقبة، إلى العامة وإلى النجوم من كل نوع، مجموعة من الدلائل والدروس والحكم؛ لعل على رأسها إدراك قيمة أن يكون المرء "محترما" ، بذاته

وإذ تتوالى حلقات النقاش التليفزيوني حول الحادث الفجائي المفجع، لتعطي الانطباع بأنه كان بالإمكان منع ذلك الموت "بكذا وكذا من الوسائل"؛ علينا ألا ننسى بأن "لكل أجل كتاب"، وبالتالي فلن يمكن لأحد أن يمنع موت أحد حل أجله. وليس موت لاعب أثناء تدريب أو مباراة، على كل حال، بأغرب من موت لاعب أثناء نومه وقد دخل فراشه في كامل عافيته؛ ولدينا مثل معروف ليس ببعيد، في وفاة المرحوم أحمد إكرامي حارس مرمى شباب الأهلي والمنتخب الوطني للشباب الفائز ببطولة أفريقيا عام 1997

وعلى جانب آخر، فإن التقارير الإخبارية عن حياة محمد عبدالوهاب قد أغفلت، بغرابة؛ حقيقة أن الفقيد كان أيضا هداف المنتخب العسكري الذي فاز بآخر بطولة عسكرية لكرة القدم (ألمانيا 2005). ولعل هذا يوسع دائرة تكريمه؛ لكي تشمل تنظيم دورة ودية عسكرية تحمل اسمه

وفي كل الأحوال فإن استحالة منع موت حل موعده لا تلغي قيمة دراسة الأسباب؛ على أساس وجوب السعي إلى درء الأخطار مستقبلا. ومن هنا كانت قيمة النقاش الدائر حول اعتماد نظام فحوصات دورية كثيفة شاملة دقيقة في الرعاية الصحية الجيدة للرياضيين

وكان المسئولون بالنادي الأهلي قد أكدوا على خضوع الفقيد لمثل تلك الفحوص (التي كان أكفأها وأدقها فحوص المشاركة في بطولة العالم للأندية)، وقد أظهرت جميعا لياقته البدنية الكاملة؛ وبذا يصبح من المنطقي البحث عن عامل آخر للوفاة وراء توقف القلب، غير عطب هذا العضو. ولعل ما روي عن سهر اللاعب الفقيد ليلة وفاته حتى الرابعة صباحا، ثم المشاركة في التدريب بعد ذلك بساعات قليلة، يوحي بشيء ذي دلالة في هذا الاتجاه. فإذا لم يرهق هذا السهر المفرط اللاعب الراحل بدنيا بسبب لياقته العضلية العالية، فإنه من غير شك قد أرهقه ذهنيا بدرجة هائلة؛ أثبتت في النهاية أنها كانت بالفعل قاتلة. ولعل خبراء المخ والأعصاب يفسرون هذا بأن السهر المفرط قد يؤدي، أحيانا، إلى إحداث تشويش في دوائر التحكم المركزي؛ فترسل بإشارات مغلوطة، إلى القلب (السليم جدا) مثلا، بالتوقف الفوري عن الضخ. وربما كانت مثل تلك الإشارة تضخيما عنيفا لإشارة مقدمات الدخول في النوم؛ فصارت إشارة "موت" بدلا من إشارة "نوم" . ومثل هذا

الاحتمال يجعل من السهر المفرط العدو الأكبر لنجوم الرياضة؛ فلعلهم يحرصون على تجنبه؛ درءا لأخطار قاتلة محتملة

بقلم: د ف ع أ

Interesting Web sites that came to my attention:

How-to sites, WikiHow (found most useful) and eHow

And musical sites of two Indian brothers based in London. Pavan (aka Orifice Vulgatron's of the hip hop group Foreign Beggars) and Niki (Solenca) Mukhi.

New from Skype & Philips the first cordless phone that doesn’t need a PC to run the popular VoIP service (PC World)

For a British TV movie, a very real US President is shot, or the uproar over "Death of a President" (NYT)

Bush's shift of tone on Iraq (NYT)