Three Bohras killed in Iraq, several wounded

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un

Among the victims was Shk Yahya, the father of Murtaza, one of my closest and dear friends.

In a shocking tragedy yesterday in Iraq 3 Mumineen from London were killed when the minibus they were travelling in was ambushed by gunmen at a checkpoint near Baghdad airport.

The 3 men, Shaikh Yahya bhai Ghulamali, Shaikh Saifuddin Qutbi (Makai) and Shaikh Husain Mohammedali were in a party of 4 Mumineen bhaiyo and 1 bahen who had set out on ziyarat of Karbala and Najaf with the niyyat of Huzurala's (tus) tuulul umr.

Shaikh Saifuddin bhai and Shaikh Husain bhai both died at the scene whilst Shaikh Yahya bhai succumbed to his injuries this morning following surgery. The other two members also suffered from gunshot wounds but are not in any danger.

Mumineen in London converged on Husaini Masjid to offer the families sympathy and support with Shahzada Ammar bhaisaheb Jamaluddin spending nearly an hour consoling them at the side of Al-Muqaddasah Busaheba's ziyarat.

Both Shaikh Saifuddin and Shaikh Husain bhai leave behind young families of 3 and 4 children repectively. Shaikh Yahya bhai also leaves a family and grandchildren with his son just recently married. The three men were dedicated servants of the community; sincere, honest and devoted. Their khidmat was performed from the heart, both physically and through their material wealth. No matter how small or large the khidmat they were on hand to do it, from arranging the parking of cars to organising the reception and ziyafat of Aqamola (tus) they were there in body and soul unfailingly. They will be sorely missed by the Mumineen of the UK and London in particular.

We offer our taaziyat, condolence and dua to the families of the deceased. They must bear with the tragedy and we wish them sabr by the Dua of Imam Husain (as) and Imam Husain's Dai (tus) in this devastating time.

The 3 men had the sharaf of ziyarat and daakhili of Imam Husain (as) in Karbala and now they are in his jiwaar for ever.

amin.

Reports from news media:
Two Britons killed in Iraq named (BBC)
Two Britons killed in Iraq ambush (Al Jazeera)
Third Briton Dies in Attack (Sky)

in memoriam: Egg the betta fish

On friday (jumo'a ni din) my daughter's first pet, a betta fish she named "Egg" (I think inspired by the opening scene of Finding Nemo) passed on to the great goldfish bowl in the sky. We performed Egg's dafan (burial) yesterday (technically his tiji-din, or third day as is customary).

Egg was cool. A bright blue betta fish, he and about three dozen of his brethren were handed out at a birthday party. Unlike most of his brethren, he actually survived :)

Egg's first home (apart from the plastic bag) was the small bowl that he came with. I added some nitrogen-absorbent rocks to the bottom. His next home was a relatively gargantuan (by betta fishkeeping standards) 5-gallon tank given to us by a friend who didn't want to lug that sucker with him while moving to Washington DC.

Egg survived Hurricane Rita. Or rather, he survived being taken out of his roomy tank, stuck back in his puny bowl, and then spending 9 hours in a hellish car ride for a total distance of 60 miles to our in-laws place (a trip that under non-evacuee conditions takes only 1 hour). While at my in-laws' place he also survived being dumped out of his bowl onto the carpet, then having to live in tap water with barely any water-treatment solution left. He then survived three days of living in progressively filthier water in that same puny bowl, exacerbated by the fact that I stopped feeding him to keep the filth down as much as possible. Call it the survival-starvation diet. It worked, because we got back home and he went back to his tank happily.

For the next two months, Egg did just fine. He seemed to have no emotional trauma from his Rita adventures. He developed some odd habits, like hanging out near the water heater in his tank all day, or slowly swimming backwards and downwards for no apparent reason, or chasing food particles around the tank. Sometimes he would just chill out all day in the fake grass. All in all, he had it pretty good. Especially given that most bettas are stuck in a half-gallon bowl, and I never got around to buying some cheap fish roommates to fill out the tank.

Last week, though, prior to Thanksgiving, he suddenly stopped eating. Since we were going to my in-laws' again for the long weekend, I transferred him to a new small travel tank I bought for cheap from WalMart and took him with us. Though he wasn't eating, I figured he might start up again and would definitely starve if we abandoned him to his tank at home for four days.

Unfortunately, in Katy he didn't want to eat either, and expired shortly the second day we were there. My father in law buried him in the backyard near the orange tree. Despite an attempt at distraction, Sakina noticed what was going on and started to wail about just WHAT did he think he was doing with Egg in the backyard?! There was some drama and a few tears shed, and then she announced she wanted a goldfish like Elmo's Dorothy. She asked one more time about Egg yesterday evening, but seemed pretty satisfied with the answer to her "Why did we put him in the backyard?" query with the truthful answer, "He's dead, gone to heaven." Which is true, in one sense.

So, to my daughter, reading this in ten years, your first fish had a decent life and lived longer than anyone expected for a birthday party trinket prize. You named him well, amma and I fed and housed him well, and you shed honest, if brief, tears for him. And next time you stop by Nanajan's house in Katy, pause by the orange tree and remember your first pet.

(I am not buying you a pony.)

hearts and minds

The insurgency in Iraq has two components. The "rebellion" against occupation, which is largely a home-grown guerilla movement against the US troops, and the "jihadist" one which is largely a foreign fighter-driven ideological movement. The latter, under command of Abu Musab al Zarqawi (LA), is the one that targets Iraqi civilians indiscriminately, like this:

on Thursday, a suicide bomber blew up his car outside a hospital south of Baghdad while U.S. troops handed out candy and food to children, killing 30 people and wounding about 40, including four Americans.

Three women and two children were among the dead in the attack outside the hospital in Mahmoudiya, a flashpoint town 20 miles south of Baghdad in the "triangle of death" notorious for attacks on Shiite Muslims, U.S. troops and foreign travelers.

Al Qaeda doesn't care about muslims. Killing children is a desperation tactic which reveals the emptiness of their rhetoric.

100 GB 7200 rpm

Such specs for hard drives are nothing new for desktop hard drives, but for notebook hard drives (2.5" form factor) they are state-of-the-art. Via Anandtech, Seagate and Hitachi released 100 GB / 7200 RPM drives a few weeks ago. According to reviews and head-to-head comparisons, it looks like the Hitachi drives have better performance, are cheaper, and are more robust. As the specs and capacity of 2.5" drives improve, I think that portable 2.5"-based RAID arrays for data backup are not too far off in the future. For reference, here's an article on notebook-drive-based RAID using 5400rpm drives a few months back from Tom's Hardware.

The drive in my new T42 thinkpad on order is a Hitachi 60GB/7200. I will be posting some comparative benchmarks between that drive and the one in my present T40 (an 80GB/4200) once i get the new machine. There's a comparison of 7200, 5400, and 4200 rpm drives at LaptopLogic that I can compare my results to.

Ariel Sharon to quit Likud

This is major news:

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has decided to quit his Likud Party and set up a new party for upcoming general elections, Army Radio reported late Sunday.

Earlier, the moderate Labor Party voted to leave Sharon's coalition, already weakened by an internal Likud rift over Israel's pullout from Gaza. Setting up a new party would scramble the political picture for the early election, set tentatively for March.

While I believe that Sharon will someday have to face justice for the war crimes of Sabra and Shatila, it is undeniably true that he has demonstrated true leadership since ascension to Prime Minister (though of course the circumstances of that ascensioin itself are another black mark).

It is astounding how this "Settler among Settlers" has been the one who withdrew from Gaza. The Wall between Israel and the West Bank has been largely a success and surprisingly responsive to outside oversight to ensure that it stays as fair as possible. And now, this resignation from Likud, which I think bodes potentially well indeed for a moderate center party in Israeli politics.

There is hope indeed. And Sharon deserves a lot of credit.

UPDATE: more details - Sharon's goal is to dissolve the present Parliament:

In a bold gamble, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Monday asked Israel's president to dissolve parliament, pushing for a quick March election just hours after deciding to leave his hardline Likud Party and form a new centrist party.

Sharon's decision to leave Likud sent shock waves through Israel, redrawing the political map, finalizing his transformation from hardliner to moderate and boosting prospects of progress in peacemaking with the Palestinians.

His confidants say Sharon felt Likud hardliners, who tried to block this summer's Gaza pullout, were imposing too many constraints and would prevent future peace moves. Palestinian officials expressed hope Monday that the political upheaval in Israel would bring them closer to a final peace deal.

The dramatic events began with Sharon's decision late Sunday, after a weekend of agonizing, to leave the party he helped found in 1973. On Monday morning, Sharon asked President Moshe Katsav to dissolve parliament, a step that would move the vote to the beginning of March, or eight months ahead of schedule. Katsav said he would weigh the request and decide quickly, after consulting with leaders of other parties.

Midday Monday, Sharon met at his office with 11 breakaway Likud legislators, expected to form the core of the new party, reportedly to be called "National Responsibility."

And, the tantalizing tidbit that the new party, tentatively called "National Responsibility", might even include Shimon Peres!

Among those expected to follow Sharon out of Likud are Vice Premier Ehud Olmert and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. Former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter, two top academics and even ousted Labor leader Shimon Peres were mentioned as possibilities. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was still undecided Monday.

Alas, Israeli parliamentary politics don't have much analogue to US politics. Here, independent candidates at best have neutral effect (Perot) or profoundly damaging (Nader).

Brass Crescent links roundup

It's been long overdue, and with the Brass Crescent Awards on the horizon, I think that it's about time to do another links roundup. No overarching theme like last time; this is more of a quick tour of a few blogs that I think should be on everyone's radar.

Abdusalaam al-Hindi blogs from Alabama, a Daari Desi in Dixie. He has always had an eye for the eclectic, such as an interesting theory that the design of the minbar/mehrab in many masjids worldwide may have been inspired by architectual features of ancient Jewish synagogues. Lately he has been talking about the French rioting, and also has been keeping an eye on Indian politics.

Islamicate is a group blog whose primary author goes by the delightful moniker, Islamoyankee. The blog is focused on commentary about the state of the modern Islamic world, and convergence between east and west. Islamoyankee's father recently passed away, so he has understandably had more important things than blogging on his mind recently.

Since I never have defined the Brass Crescent as exclusive to practitioners of Islam, but the broader intersection of Islamic culture which neccessarily includes other faiths, I'd like to next highlight the best-named-jewish blog ever, The Velveteen Rabbi. She had a very thoughtful piece on defining "Jewish Renewal" that I found very applicable to the muslim community as well. She has recently been attending the 68th Annual Union for Reform Judaism right here in Houston and been blogging the conference diligently. I just had to steal one of her photos from the conference!

Probably everyone has heard of Haron Moghul by now, given his total dominance of last year's Brass Crescent Awards. we should create a Haroon category where everyone can just nominate him and vote for him. I predict he will take that category with ease :) But the fact remains that he is one of the Crescent's most essential bloggers. His essay a month ago about the roots of Hindu rage was particularly important. As an American desi myself, I often have trouble even understanding Partition, yet it remains central to dialouges of identity between desi-Americans. Sepia Mutiny is perhaps the best place to see these dialouges in all their nuance unfold.

Abu Aardvark is another critical read. If there's one blog that everyone in the Brass Crescent doesn't have on their blogrolls yet but should have, it's his. He has a knack for applying Arab pop-tart music as social commentary. But he also has his somber moments, such as this insightful comment about the danger of liberalizers adopting takfir as a strategy. It is tempting to declare Osama bin Laden et ilk to be unbelievers, but doing so is a validation of the binary mindset which allows OBL's brand of hirabah to grow and sustain itself. The post Liberals and Takfir is essential reading.

Zachary Latif has been blogging for about as long as I have, but he went on a pretty extended hiatus a while back. He seems to hve picked up the baton again, so do pay him a visit. As a bonus, the orange seizure-inducing layout is gone. I found his comment about France essentially being too technocratic and meritocratic to be quite interesting; it gives some added dimension to the anger of the immigrant class, who are largely excluded from obtaining the requisite strings of certificates and exam scores. Part of teh reason for that exclusion is racism, the other economic, and combined they form a barrier to full participation in French society that most immigrants can never surmount. Plus, Zack has a pretty hilarious (and possibly auto-biographical?) story about math.

Finally, I'd like to welcome Hujefa V to the blogsphere. Hojo is a physician in Dallas, whose love of the Dallas Cowboys got him some unwanted attention last year. That incident gave him his first opportunity to write in the public domain, and the result was a masterpiece of reasoned and patriotic appeal. His new blog, Am In The ICU, promises to be just as compelling, since it will be about what he knows best. That is, medicine, and football. Or both :)

That wraps it up for now. Hopefully Shahed and I will get the Brass Crescent Awards rolling soon. Stay tuned :)

Thinkpad

I've been using an IBM Thinkpad T40 for the past couple of years for my research. It's a fine machine, ordered and paid for by my advisor. Now that I've graduated though, he needs his sizable investment back of course, so I began researching what I should replace the machine with.

My needs were 1. thin and light, given that it would be used for travel to conferences and on the bus, 2. fairly powerful given that I will be running IDL and MATLAB, and 3. rock-solid and dependable. These requirements, along with a lot of help from the forum at NoteBookReview.com, led me right back to IBM/Lenovo's T42. I chose the T42 instead of the T43 primarily because I could get a faster hard drive. I spent about a month and a half researching models from Fujitsu, Asus, Toshiba, and HP before finally deciding that the T42 was indeed the machine for me. I placed an order and the machine should be shipping next week at long last.

Here are some specs:

* Pentium M 1.86 GHz
* 14.1" SXGA screen
* 1 GB RAM
* 7200 RPM, 60 GB hard drive
* Bluetooth and Wireless 802.11b/g
* model part number 2373m3u

I plan to run some basic benchmarks on the old machine before I send it back to my advisor, and then compare them to the new one to get a good sense for how much performance I am gaining.

One of the major issues I faced was whether I should wait until the new Yonah (dual-core) Pentium-M chips are released in January. I decided to buy now, however, because new models with Yonah would be much more expensive anyway, and I also need a machine asap since my advisor needs the old one back and can't wait until January. Plus, it is not clear that dual-core will be supported in most of the software I use at the outset (though that will change over time, a horizon of a year or two IMHO). I got a very solid config at a very reasonable price, which I think will be more than sufficient for the next few years to handle whatever I need. I could have saved another $150 had I purchased from an ebay reseller, but I think that the peace of mind of buying direct from Lenovo was worth the markup.

The machine should be here after Thanksgiving. Can't wait :) As for multi-core, I will build myself a Yonah-based desktop next year.