Author: Mohamed Marwen Meddah

Mohamed Marwen Meddah is a Tunisian-Canadian, web aficionado, software engineering leader, blogger, and amateur photographer.

Everything Is Urgent At Work

Isn’t it so amazing how everything is always urgent at work?
Urgent is to the say the least, as it’s always preceded and followed with a bunch of superlative adjectives.

The alert levels are always up!

This is extra high priority and can’t wait because it’s extremely urgent.

That is so urgent the client is breathing down our necks, literally.

The other is even more urgent the boss is bordering on a heart attack.

You’d think we work in a nuclear facility that is about to melt down or that we have a really important and powerful job, but then you realize all that’s at stake is a website, a document, a product or some other thing that isn’t really that dangerous after all.

Sometimes it seems as if the world’s going to stop turning if something goes wrong in a certain project, or if this or that document is not sent on time; and that it’s our role to save the day and ensure that humanity goes on.

We’re superheroes facing the urgent demands of a mad world, taking them down one at a time, sliding through pointless urgent meetings, answering stupid urgent client phone calls, and somehow making the world a better place, although we don’t really see how.

Everything is urgent at work!

Well, this guy doesn’t buy it anymore, the only thing I find urgent in this life is getting back home to spend some quality time with my family.

So until someone walks in with solid proof that the world is about to blow up in flames or be sucked into a black hole, and I can do something about it, the word “urgent” will be heard as “blah blah” by me.

Astrology Is Not A Science!

Astrology chartI don’t believe in Astrology, not one tiny bit, I think it’s total crap and nonsense, but I don’t care if others around me do, and I don’t give them a hard time for it.
Everyone is free to believe whatever they want to believe, right?

But what does piss me off is when some of the people who believe in Astrology start talking like they’re so damn sure of it, analyzing and judging me, foreseeing my future, while claiming that it’s a well-founded science.
Well it’s not!

Astronomy is a science, but not Astrology; Astrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs in which knowledge of the relative positions of celestial bodies and related details is held to be useful in understanding, interpreting, and organizing information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial events.
Astrology, at best, can’t be considered more than a pseudoscience; a body of knowledge, methodology, belief, or practice that claims to be scientific but does not follow the scientific method.

So whatever Astrologers say or write is not based on any kind of scientific fact, it’s just a bunch of unfounded claims and ideas, that I personally find nonsensical.
Where is the sense of believing that a group of people who were born in the same month, week or even day are all going to turn out to share so many things in their personalities, lives and futures?!
And where is the sense in Saturn, Jupiter or some other dumb planet affecting world events?

If you want to believe in the crap Astrologers are selling, it’s fine by me, do as you wish and believe what you wish, that’s your choice; just keep it away from me, don’t apply it on me, and certainly don’t even think of telling me that it’s a science! The next person who does that risks getting his head bitten off!

Top Ten Myths About Iraq 2006

Juan Cole compiles a list of the top 10 myths about Iraq, which goes as follows:

1. The U.S. can still win in Iraq.
2. US military sweeps of neighborhoods can drive the guerrillas out.
3. The United States is best off throwing all its support behind the Iraqi Shiites.
4. Iraq is not in a civil war
5. The second Lancet study showing 600,000 excess deaths from political and criminal violence since the US invasion is somehow flawed.
6. Most deaths in Iraq are from bombings.
7. Baghdad and environs are especially violent but the death rate is lower in the rest of the country.
8. Iraq is the central front in the war on terror.
9. The Sunni Arab guerrillas in places like Ramadi will follow the US home to the American mainland and commit terrorism if we leave Iraq.
10. Setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq is a bad idea.

I couldn’t agree more…

For more details, check out the full blog by Juan Cole: Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2006

News Bytes From Tunisia

While doing my regular round of the news this morning, I came across a number of interesting news from Tunisia, so I thought I’d post a little round-up of these news, and who knows, I might start doing this regularly.

Starting January 1st, 2007; Tunisian mothers, with one child or more who wish to devote time to raising a family while retaining their job, will be able to work half time for two thirds of their salary.

The Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), one of Tunisia’s main opposition parties, has elected a woman, Maya El Jeribi, as its leader, making her the first woman to lead a political party in Tunisia.

Following a recent pilot experience led in Gammarth, the Tunisian Ministry of Transport aims at generalizing the use of natural gas in the whole network of the Tunisian “Transtu” bus company, as well as equipping some 3000 taxis in the capital.

Details are still shady about an exchange of fire between national security agents and a gang in Hammam-Chott, one of Tunis’ southern suburbs. The results: Two dead, four wounded and two arrested.
Various Tunisian press sources report different stories; from the gang being international drug trafickers, to them being known wanted criminals, to speculation about them being a terrorist cell planning attacks on New Year’s Eve. In the end, we’ll just have to wait for more details from the official sources.

A new Mauritanian Airline Company named “Mauritania Airways”, that will cover domestic, regional and international routes, was recently created based on a triangular partnership between Mauritania, Tunisia’s national airline company “Tunisair” and Mauritanian public and pivate participation. Tunisair holds 51% of the venture.

I guess that’s enough news from Tunisia for today…

R.I.P James Brown

James Brown

James Brown, the “Godfather of Soul”, the legendary R&B artist, the singer and songwriter who defined funk and inspired rap, died yesterday at Atlanta’s Emory Crawford Long Hospital of congestive heart failure at the age of 73.

Brown’s last words were to his manager Charles Bobbit, and they were: “I’m going away tonight.”

James Brown is one of the few music legends who will live on forever through their art and through the way they affected and revolutionized the music scene.
His influence was broad and deep, and so much of the music we hear nowadays has it’s roots in Brown’s music.

Brown began his professional music career in 1953 and skyrocketed to fame in the late 1950s and early 1960s on the strength of his thrilling live performances and a string of smash hits. In spite of various personal problems and setbacks, he continued to score hits in every decade through the 1980s.

I grew up listening to James Brown’s hits from “Sex Machine” to “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” to “I Got You (I Feel Good)” and countless other songs; My dad is very big fan of Brown’s music, and so his songs played a big role in my personal musical education and defining my taste of music.

Rest in peace James Brown, for you have achieved immortality through your music…

links for 2006-12-22

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Author JK Rowling has finally revealed the title of the seventh and final Harry Potter book. It will be called “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, she announced on her official website.

Speculation about the plot has surrounded the book after Rowling admitted two characters will die – some think it could be Harry Potter himself.

The book’s publication date is not known yet, but as usual, it is expected to be a really big seller, just like its predecessors.
Sales of all Harry Potter titles now total more than 52 million worldwide.

links for 2006-12-21

Barack Obama And Anti-Muslim Paranoia

In a December 18 blog post headlined “Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim“, right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel argued that because Sen. Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein, his late, estranged father was of Muslim descent, and he has shown interest in his father’s Kenyan heritage, Obama’s “loyalties” must be called into question as he emerges as a possible Democratic presidential candidate.

In the column, Schlussel asked: “So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian … is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father’s heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?”

This follows the lines of CNN host Glen Beck recently suggesting that incoming US congressman, Keith Ellison, might not be a loyal American because he’s a Muslim.

I think this is complete nonsense, insulting and even racist.

But before I get into anything, what’s that about “fighting the war of our lives against Islam?”
That is a very dangerous statement to make, and even though not all Americans believe in that (at least that’s what I like to believe), it is scary to think that there are people who still think that way in our world.

The fight we’re all in together is with extremism of all kinds, not with any certain religion or race.

Back to Barack Obama; The guy says he’s a Christian, why would he be lying? Supposedly, religion shouldn’t be an issue, so why would him being Christian, Muslim or Jew change anything at all?
Or does it make a difference?
If it does then the problem is much bigger than who becomes the next US president or not, it’s a problem that touches the fabric of the American society itself, an underlying reality of racism, bigotry and hypocrisy.

Remarks and attacks of this kind, that will continue to be made against Barack Obama are just ways to try and undermine a possible bid for the US presidency in the upcoming 2008 race. But, whether they have any effect at all on the people will be a serious indicator of how healthy the US society is, and whether the important values of equality and freedom still exist.