Oil has been the main source of fuel for machinery in the 20th century. We can argue that it is one of the pillars of contemporary human civilization, powering everything from cars, factories, airplanes, to war tanks, house heating and barbeques. In short, we take it for granted.

Years ago, I recall reading a Scientific American article, The End of Cheap Oil, in March 1998 by Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere. In that article, the authors predicted a sharp rise in prices due to many factors, the most important of which is producing countries overestimating their reserves to get long term credit from banks. They predict that the shortage is not 50 years away, but rather as near as 10 years away (approx. 2010 or so).

Here is another Drupal PHP snippet that provides a nicely formatted list of nodes in a category by Year and month/day. This is suitable for company press releases, back issues of articles, ...etc.

Here is a simple Drupal PHP snippet that would provide a block with "recent updates".

A while back, Dr. Saadeddin Ibrahim, a political and social activist in Egypt, wrote a New York Times article on May 23, 2005, titled: Islam can vote, if we let it. In it, he raises several valid points about democracy in Egypt and other parts of the Arab region eventually bringing Islamic factions to power. In general, he says that this should not be feared, as it is not the disaster that some in the West think it is.

He draws parallels between how Islamist parties in Turkey have proven to be moderate, and the possibility of similar parties in Egypt turning out to be the same.

Geneive Abdo is a long time journalist and academic who has worked and studied Egypt's political and social changes for 20 years. She has a telling article in the Washington Post titled: Is the US ready for Egyptian democracy?In the article she rebukes the Bush administration for always casting failues as success, whether in the mess that is post invasion Iraq, or hailing the recent flawed re-election of Mubarak, while ignoring the real opposition there: the elephant in the room, the Islamic minded Muslim Brotherhood.

Every now and then, I come across someone named "Omar" in the Western hemisphere. Having a brother called Omar, as well as my family claiming descent from another famous Omar, I am intrigued.

The name Omar عمر is a pre-Islamic male proper name. Several of the Prophet's companions were called Omar, the most prominent of which is the second successor to him, Omar Ibn Al Khattab.

Shukri Mustafa (1942-1987) was an agricultural engineer who became the leader and ideologue for a radical Islamic splinter group: Al Takfir wa Al Hijra التكفير و الهجرة.The name literally means "Declaring Apostacy and Immigration", and was not the official name, but rather a derogatory name derived from them attributing apostacy to all other Muslims, and them urging members to immigrate out of non-Islamic lands. The group adopted the name "Jama'at Al Muslimin جماعة المسلمين"  meaning "[The] Group of Muslims", emphasising that they are the only true Muslims.

Ayman El Zawahri: Long time militant and Al-Qaeda ideologue.Coming soon.

Sayyed Qutb سيد قطب is the ideological father of modern militant movements in the Arab and Islamic world.

His first name could be transliterated in English as Syed, Sayyid, Sayed.

Born in 1906, he was not a radical ideologue at first, but rather someone with a social reform agenda.  He visited Colorado, USA on a government program in 1949, and wrote a book titled: The America I Have Seen. Upon his return to Egypt he joined the Muslim Brotherhood before the 1952 overthrow of the monarchy in a coup d'etat by the Free Officers.

His writing focused on social reform from an Islamic perspective, as well as a literary analysis of the Artistic Representation in the Quran. It is ironic to see that modern Salafis do not approve of this latest work.

Here is an article by Waleed Ziad, in the New York Times, titled Jihad's Fresh Face. In it, he traces back violent militancy, in which current terrorist movements are grounded. The root cause is post-colonial chaos created in the Arab world that lead to the rise of absolute dictatorship. When these dictatorships are challenged, they ruthlessly and brutally suppress the opposition. This suppression did not stop at banning and imprisonement or those who opposed, but more heinous measures such as torture, continued persecution, harassment, ...etc.