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29. august 2007
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The joy of mass murder:
The editor of an Arabic daily newspaper published in London said in an interview on Lebanese television that he would dance in Trafalgar Square if Iranian missiles hit Israel.
Talking about Iran's nuclear capability on ANB Lebanese television on June 27, Abd Al-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, said, "If the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight."
Abdul Bari Atwan has been a guest commentator on Middle East issues for CNN, BBC and Sky News. Hopefully, no more.
9:29:56 PM 
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Has Al Gore secretly been visiting Sweden?
The lowest August temperatures for more than sixty years have been recorded in southern Sweden, as August comes to a chilly conclusion across the country.
Damn cold here in western Norway as well.
9:11:16 PM
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The first service pack for Windows Vista is expected to be out in the first quarter of 2008.
In the next few weeks, Microsoft will start private testing of a beta of Service Pack 1 for Vista as well as a third service pack for Windows XP. The company plans initially to release the beta only to 10,000 pre-selected testers, though it may expand that release later. A small group of testers are already working with a "beta preview" version.
As for what's in the Vista update, it's mostly a collection of existing fixes and tweaks aimed at improving stability and reliability of the operating system, which went on sale to consumers in January.
"It is not a delivery vehicle for lots of features," said Shanen Boettcher, a general manager in the Windows unit.
There are a few minor enhancements, most notably the ability to encrypt multiple hard drive partitions using Vista's BitLocker feature.
I've been using Vista for my new system (a maxed out Dell XPS M1710, my first ever laptop), and I've very happy with it. I still have XP SP2 on my home system, and I miss some things about the new interface there.
8:47:15 PM
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Al-Sadr orders his militia to halt attacks.
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force, and it will no longer attack U.S. and coalition troops, aides said Wednesday.
The aide, Sheik Hazim al-Araji, said on Iraqi state television that the goal was to "rehabilitate" the organization, which has reportedly broken into factions, some of which the U.S. maintains are trained and supplied by Iran.
"We declare the freezing of the Mahdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological image within a maximum period of six months starting from the day this statement is issued," al-Araji said, reading from a statement by al-Sadr.
In Najaf, al-Sadr's spokesman said the order also means the Mahdi Army will no longer launch attacks against U.S. and other coalition forces.
Interesting development. One can wonder what is the reason for this decision. One possibility may be that the Shia realise that as the strongest group in Iraq, they would benefit from a coalition withdrawal, and the easiest way to accomplish this is to create an improved situation that allows the US to find a face-saving way out.
5:43:02 PM
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© Copyright 2007 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.09.2007; 12:37:15.
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