This blog is back up and running. Thank you and apology to all those who kept coming back in the last 4 months.

Arms for alms

Its not all bloom and gloom in the aero industry, no matter if you are an Arab pilot or a Western flight mechanic. I will let the pictures do the talking, first:

Hopefully by now you probably know what this means. This was a flyer that I got at a recent Engineering Careers expo at our university. Companies like BAE Systems, Agusta Westland, Lockheed Martin and others of the like, were present. These are probably the biggest companies in Britain and deals with military arms(ranging from fighter jets to missiles) and their trade. The arms deal between the Saudis and BAE systems ended up being a huge controversy over corruption claims and it still fails to die.

To cut things short, they claim that these companies provide arms for Israel which in turn is used against Palestinians. Hence, we shouldn’t be working for them.

Please note: I am not judging anyone here, nor am I supporting any of the sides. Just wanted you all to taste the controversial world we live in today, no matter where/what/who we are.

Wi-Fi hotspots are ‘not secure’… no seriously!

I know you have been hearing this here, there and everywhere. But according to the motto of Homo sapiens, “Seeing is believing”, watch this video here and you will know what I mean.

We have been hearing about secure connections, ever since… err… you have been hearing them. But this video really blew up my mind. I, a person who totally makes use of hot-spots on the lappy or iTouch, use hot-spots to do simply everything ranging from Tweeting to transactions on my bank account!

The email in the video above, is Gmail and I believe it is valid to all email providers. But I do hope that the secure connections in Bank servers will prevent anything like that.

Stay safe!

Swine what?

As the number of swine flu affected patients in Saudi Arabia increases, people are panicking more and more. So what does the government do about it to calm the people down? It releases newspaper reports such as this and that telling us what measures they are taking to prevent its entry into the Kingdom and how all entry points into Saudi Arabia are being watched.

Well, guess what? I landed in King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah on Friday night on a flight that was full of passengers from UK and Switzerland and no one in the flight was even stopped by the Ministry of Health, let alone checked/given vaccines.

Swine flu doesn’t have any physical symptoms. So they cannot randomly choose someone from the crowd and be tested. Coming from UK where there is more than a 1000 cases of swine flu,  I was really amazed how everyone here is so concerned about it wheras I was least bothered about it during my stay over there.

Oops, did I just say that aloud? According to a fatwa issued by a Saudi Mufti, I and all other passengers were banned from traveling in/out of swine flu affected countries, in the first place!

Pictures/Cartoons: Saudi Gazette

FormulaOne to derive a new formula?

That sound of revving Red Bull Renault F1 engine that I experienced in Tahlia Street in Jeddah in March, 2008 still rings a bell in my mind.

The adrenaline that rushed inside me on that day, still flows within me and I have always thought about going to a race within the next 2 years.

And while I was out for my morning run today, I witnessed another one of my FormulaOne desires come true. The BrawnGP FormulaOne Car that won 6 out of 7 races this year was on display in Liverpool One (Formula One in Liverpool One, ). They were busy polishing it to the finest before the swarm of people flock-in to catch a glimpse of the car. I was lucky enough to capture a photo of that “electronic gadget”:

Earlier today, I woke up to the news that Formula One might be splitting up from next year over cost-cutting issues. It seems that the “big teams” like Ferrari, McLaren, BrawnGP, Toyota, Renault, BMW Sauber, Red Bull and Torro Rosso, yes, thats pretty much all the teams that we have this year except the smaller ones like Force India. It seems that the association of the eight teams, FOTA, mentioned above are planning to set up a rival championship for the 2010 season.

All this because these teams did not agree to the budget cap set up by the governing body, FIA. Its probably the only adrenaline-filling sport and to see such a sport shattered into pieces is equally disappointing.

Poli-tricks

 

• The “racist, violent and xenophobic” British National Party (BNP) has made it finally into the European Parliament with 2 MEPs. I have a bad feeling that they can build up their support as a purely fascist party from there.
• Labour party in the UK suffers its worst defeat in the post-war era. Thanks to the very infamous saga over MPs expenses revealed and still being revealed by the Daily Telegraph. At least the people were so fed up with their MPs use of their tax money that I think they ended up voting for the Conservatives, UKIP and the BNP.
• Another similar result in Netherlands, where Geert Wilders‘ anti-Islamic party won 4 out of 25 seats to the EU parliament.
• And the Pirate Party (supporters of The Pirate Bay) winning 1 out of 18 seats representing Sweden at the EU.

 

This year has witnessed a series of unexpected political changes in both, democratic and non-democratic countries. This includes the Indian Congress party continuing their reign for the next five years in spite of all the down-turns. In Lebanon, the Pro West-Saudi led coalition wins majority over Hezbollah and Syrian/Iranian coalition.

After all this, I wouldn’t be surprised if people expect POTUS Obama to straighten everything up.