Even though I have been a computer programmer since the days of the dinosaurs, regular readers will not have seen much geek material in this blog. My theory, so far successful, was that if I avoided messing with the technical side of blogging, I would not be distracted from writing about current affairs, which is what I really wanted to do. I know myself, and I know that if I started messing with the technical details of blogging, my writing would suffer. I think I'll call that a good plan.
However, over the last months I have had a growing urge to blog about computer programming, and now I don't want to resist it anymore. I have created a new category for my programming postings, so the regular readers need not be disturbed by a new set of obscure three letter acronyms and language legalese bitfiddling.
I call the new category simply Visual Basic since that has been my favourite programming language and development tool for many years, but I also do related stuff like ASP, C#, IIS, SQL Server, Office VBA development and not-so-related stuff like Navision Financials (I know, I know, but everybody has to live, and it's actually a few years ago now).
I am very excited about .NET. That is probably going to be my primary subject. But who knows? Intent and outcome are rarely coincidental in the world of blogging.
"Are you Muslim or Christian? We don't want to kill Muslims. Show us where the Americans and Westerners live," Islamic militants told an Arab after launching a shooting spree on Westerners in Saudi Arabia.
The four gunmen, aged 18 to 25 and wearing military vests, grabbed Abu Hashem, an Iraqi with a U.S. passport, in front of his home in the Oasis compound in Khobar but let him go when he told them he was a Muslim.
"Don't be afraid. We won't kill Muslims even if you are an American," he quoted them as saying.
Another eyewitness:
Abu Hashem, the director of a Saudi firm who has been in Khobar for six months, said he wanted to move to Bahrain.
He said the four gunmen had been polite and calm.
"They gave me a lecture on Islam and said they were defending their country and ridding it of infidels," he told Reuters at Qusaibi hotel.
"The gunmen were so polite. I cannot comprehend this politeness they showed me because I am a Muslim and this cruelty to others," said Abu Hashem, who declined to give his first name.
He said that while talking to the gunmen he saw the bloodied body of a Swedish cook who worked in the compound. He had been shot dead.
This time we didn't use the "Keystone Cops", we used an elite commando unit. And while the operation was as successful as such operations can be, three terrorists still managed to escape from a single surrounded building. Not that that will be a surprise to anyone. There's a quota, you see.
Quota? Well, this seems to be a running joke among Saudis.
Speaking of whom, what do ordinary Saudis think about these terrorist acts? Sadly, my own cynical comments are matched by Alhamedi's:
I'd like to be able to say that the overwhelming majority of my fellow Saudis totally condemn this terrorism. Sadly, that is just not true. There is a substantial minority, if not verging on a majority, who applaud any action that discomfits a royal family whom they perceive to be "unreliable" in religious terms, and to be too friendly with the US. So they support any action against them, regardless of who dies. And I see this support for the terrorists all around me, both in furtive conversations and more overt celebrations, the smiling jokes among friends, the victory fist punched in the air.
So while it would be nice to see Madrid-style mass demonstrations in the streets of Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Makkah, Madinah, condemning this terrorism in all its manifestations, forget it, it's not going to happen. We have other priorities. Hitler was obsessed with the racial purity of Greater Germany. We are obsessed with the religious purity of the Arabian Peninsula.
I have seen it before, but have to link it again: The World as a Blog. A massively cool page, where you can see bloggers across the world pop up across the planet as they post.
