Random Chusses…

I though it would never happen but after a long wait I finally have a license to drive, in the holy country of Pakistan. It took me around 4 months to get it. I almost gave up but it happened and someone handed me a laminated color printout called the driving license. Although in Pakistan you don’t necessarily need a license to be able to drive but I wanted to follow the law of the land and be a model citizen and all that. Even though everyone told me to get some kind of a ’sifarish’ but I refuse and decided to give the official process a chance. I was hopeful, but unfortunately it resulted in a lot of wasted time and money. Soo at last I found someone on the inside and got my license in 3 days. I did had to treat him to a pizza but I guess it was worth it. So now I don’t need to travel on the bus anymore which is a huge relief.

Phil Haack has a pretty decent and clear article on the difference between good and average programmers. Check it out if you haven’t already.

Taleban

Source: Jang

For the first time King George II of the USA had the pleasure of meeting a non-dictator ruler from Pakistan. Earlier, US had been dealing directly with General Musharraf who took over Pakistan in a coup in 1999. He’s retired now, living peacefully in the President’s house in Islamabad chilling out with his buddies smoking cigars and playing poker. Yousuf Raza of the Gillani clan of Punjab is now Pakistan’s accidental Prime Minister. In yesterday’s meeting King George was mostly pleased with Pakistan’s efforts calling it a ’strong ally’ after a ‘constructive morning in the oval office’. They agreed that they needed to fight the extremists who were ‘very dangerous people’. America obviously likes to deal with dictators because they’re easier to influence and can also keep their people in check. Democratically elected governments are in principle dangerous for super powers like the US because they don’t like to see smaller countries standing up to them and dictators need external support to keep them in power.

Pakistan has a long and distinguished history of army supervision consisting of long periods of military rule followed by short bursts of ‘civilian’ rule. This time its a bit different because we have a retired army chief as president so its not strictly military rule as such. Although most believe that the PPP government is still getting orders from the President house. Anyway this ‘meeting’ was obviously very interesting for everyone. The item on agenda was of course the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The border that needs to be closed, and Pakistan needs to do more. Of course everyone knows the only way these tribes can be subdued is to kill them all and wipe out the entire area. God has once again given them a chance to do ‘Jihad’ against the ‘infidels’ by bringing them to Afghanistan. Its a God send oppurtunity for them. As long as there are US forces in Afghanistan they are not going to lay down their arms. US on the other hand wants to stay in Afghanistan and as some analysts say is fueling the Jihadis, so its a win-win situation for both parties. Regular US cross border missile strikes into Pakistan which kill civilians help produce more fighters for the Taleban type organisations operating in the tribal area. There aren’t any economic prospects or jobs there and these ‘local taleban’ pay a lot better. What better way to start a promising career than to make a name for yourself fighting the ‘infidels’.

But what is the opinion of the people of Pakistan regarding ways to deal with the other people of Pakistan. They may live the tribal lawless area without paying taxes or paying for the electricity but they are Pakistanis. A vast majority is in favour of negotiating with the tribals and to use military only as a last resort. But then there are some who believe military should join hands with these people against the US forces. This is such a huge and interesting topic I could rant on all day but I’m going to stop now. This ‘war on terror’ isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Lets just see what Gillani sahib can bring back from this tour and how it will affect his efforts to bring peace to Pakistan.

Launchy, the best application launcher out there is now available for Linux. I’ve been using it on windows to launch almost anything. With plugins it can be taken beyond application application launching. Linux had things line GNOME Do and Katapult but they were never as good as Launchy in Windows. I haven’t tested it out yet on my Ubuntu but according to latest reviews it works jut like the windows version which is a great thing. So if you’re still not using any application launchers and clicking on start menu to launch applications you should definitely try this out. It will save you a lot of time and money. With plugins it can be quite awesome. Download it here.

Zardari’s security chief,  shot dead in Karachi by ‘unknown’ gunmen as while taking a stroll. This guy was not only the person responsible for Benazir Bhutto’s security at the time she was killed but was also present in the car with her when she was ’shot/suicide bombed’. This incident has of course fueled further speculation into the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death. Since its still not clear whether she was killed by gunfire or by the suicide bomb (Although the Scotland Yard in February concluded the reason was the suicide bomb). But connecting the dots we can conclude that he probably knew some secret stuff that he might have threatened to reveal and the people behind the Bibi killing couldn’t let that happen and had him whacked. But I guess now that he’s dead we’ll never know the real deal (not that the general public ever get to find out such deep secrets).

As usual, people are pointing in different directions. There will be more to come as time wears on and more clues are discovered. A wave of intense paranoia will envelop the country and each side will hint at the enemy they most fear. Pakistan is so hounded by disorder that on any given day there are half a dozen credible candidates for pinning on the blame. Inevitably, there will also be outrageous allegations involving faraway powers “who don’t want to see an Islamic nuclear power survive”.

The IG Karachi seems to have some inside information. According to him these are the same people that carried out the July 7 bombings in Karachi. How did he reach this conclusion, nobody knows. We should probably let the police ‘investigate’. I’m sure they’ll catch the culprits soon. In the meantime feel free to create your own little conspiracy theories.

Jalsa Salana UK 2008 starts today in the UK. The special thing about this Jalsa is of course that its been 100 years since the inception of the second Khilafat in Islam (although many Muslims still deny this and consider Ahmadis to be non-Muslims). Also since the Khalifa of the Ahmadiyya community in Islam currently resides here its kind of the center of the Jamat right now. It used to be Pakistan but in the 1980s the Mullahs got rather angry so he had to leave. So anyway all the Ahmadis should hopefully gather around their TV sets to catch in on MTA or the web site. The Jalsa will continue for 3 days where many Ahmadis from around the world will gather in the UK.

As expected the ICC has upheld the decision to stage the trophy competition in Pakistan, at least for now anyway. They’ll be sending some king of ‘task force’ that will be monitoring the security situation in Pakistan before and during the tournament. As expected the decision was met with severe criticism and ‘disappointment’ from SA, England, Australian and NZ players.

“The South African team are very disappointed with today’s decision and remain extremely concerned about safety and security in Pakistan,” Tony Irish, chief executive of the South African Cricketers’ Association, told Reuters. “We hope Cricket South Africa (CSA) will sit down with us and talk to us about whether they are seriously considering sending a team to the Champions Trophy in Pakistan or not.”

Paul Marsh, the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) chief executive, was also disappointed with the decision. “The ACA continues to have serious concerns with our players touring Pakistan for the Champions Trophy and we are disappointed with the ICC’s decision,” he said.

“Based on the independent information and advice received, we maintain that the risks are simply too great for the ACA to recommend that our players tour Pakistan at this time. We would expect Cricket Australia to adopt the same position.”

Players from Australia and New Zealand, such as Andrew Symonds and Jacob Oram, have already stated their concern over touring Pakistan. Cricket Australia spokesperson Peter Young told the Age: “We’re not willing to send our players or team officials anywhere that is not safe. We will always reserve the right to put player welfare first.”

They believe it was an irresponsible decision by ICC by putting the lives of cricketers of the nations that are fighting the ‘war on terror’. I can see why Eng, Aus and NZ might consider themselves in danger but why do South Africans consider themselves targets. They’re Africans man. They haven’t invaded any countries. They could send an ‘all black’ team I guess.They already have something like a ‘half-black’ quota. They could make it a full black thing just to be safe.

In Australia Andrew Symonds has been the most scared of them cricketers and that dude isn’t even white. He’s an Afro-Caribbean for God’s sake. I mean what’s he scared of? Nobody’s gonna hurt him. He could blend in with those Caribbean cricketers.

Anyway until the ‘task force’ finds something new the champions trophy is still on in Pakistan.

ICC bosses meet today through teleconferencing technology to decide whether Pakistan is safe for the staging of the Champions trophy in September. Cricketing nations are divided into two blocks. The ‘white’ and the ‘non-white’ nations. England, Australia, New Zealand are obviously white or whitish enough anyway. Their players believe they can be potential targets for the terrorists in the ‘most dangerous place on earth for white people’. The ‘non-white’ nations of India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, West Indies have no fear of any attacks apparently and are expected to vote in favour of Pakistan (unless guided by other interests). South Africa is kind of in the middle it seems. Although their cricket boss has said supported Pakistan’s right to hold the tournament, the SA players(the white ones anyway) don’t seem too happy with the prospect of visiting Pakistan.

So I was out to the city of saints over the weekend with no Internet where I was met with more bad news. On Monday Pakistan government raised petrol and diesel prices by a record 14% percent. This is apparently the largest in Pakistan history. The petrol stations stopped selling petrol on Sunday night to sell more after the new prices had come into effect the following day. The move was not been welcomed by the ‘Awam’. It was met mostly by resignation and predictions of a ‘bloody revolution’ of some kind. Anyway its going to lead to a rise in all kinds of transportation fares which is generally going to disturb people.The problem with the increase in the fuel prices is that it also leads to general inflation. Everything becomes more expensive while people’s earnings remain pretty much the same. So that’s a problem I guess.

The PM Mr. Gillani was on a telly on Saturday evening ‘highlighting’ his government’s ‘achievements’. I only listened for about 4-5 minutes, then got bored. He looked confused and perplexed, stuttering every now and then. I’m sure he said that the government was doing its best to provide ‘relief’ to the people and we will the ‘results’ very soon with our own eyes. But nobody believes in unfulfilled promises anymore. The general consensus is that the government sucks etc. and are never going to do anything for the people and are only in power to ‘fill their pockets’.

Petrol – 86.77