Two recent cases of militants in Saudi Arabia and Egypt renouncing violence and urging others to do the same.

Ahmed Al-Shayea, Saudi Arabia

The first is Ahmed Al-Shayea أحمد الشايع who drove a truck bomb in Baghdad in Christmas of 2004. He now shows his amputated fingers and disfgured face on Saudi TV channels, deploring others not to take the path that left him with these scars.

We all know how sectarian violence between Shia and Sunnis was caused by the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq following the US invasion in 2003. Old prejudices became magnified, external influences meddled, and the power vacuum made things much worse.

In a strange move, the presence of US presence is causing at least some Shia and some Sunnis to unite against the USA, ignoring all the sectarian violence in other parts of the country.

A Pew Global Attitudes survey for 2007 has observed a sharp decline in support for suicide bombing since 2002.

Dwindling Muslim Support for Terrorism

Even as many people around the world express more positive views of their lives and countries than they did five years ago, opinions about regional issues and concerns are a mix of good and bad news.

Zogby International and Game Show Network (GSN) conducted a poll on prejudice in America.

The results are startling:

New Zogby/GSN Survey Reveals That:
- A Racist Lives Next Door - Most Americans believe they don't make decisions based on race... but think their neighbors do
- A gay President is OK, but most Americans wouldn't sanction his or her marriage

Another case of collateral damage in the global war against terror.

Dr Mohamed Haneef, an Indian Muslim physician working in Brisbane, Australia was arrested there in connection with the attempted bombings in London, England and Glasgow, Scotland, by Muslim medical workers.

Now, he has been cleared of any charges.

Can Drupal run on the iPhone?

Well, not yet, but perhaps soon.

A while back Karoly Negyesi (chx) posted on what is the smallest platform that can run Drupal. He ended up with the Nokia N800 internet tablet as a candidate for that, using maemo (a Linux distro for that platform, which includes PHP and lighttpd). SQLite will be the database.

A new phenomenon in dress, dubbed the Burkini (Burqa + Bikini) is making headlines around the world.

From
Australia, to Turkey to the USA, women (Muslim and non-Muslim alike)
are wearing the new swimsuit that covers most of the body.

One Mecca Laa Laa in Sydney, Australia is in a lifesaving beach patrol, wearning this new swimsuit. Ronza Othman swims in the ocean because of it.

Splashgear sells the outfits online.

Dries and Karlijn recently celebrated their first baby's six year birthday.

But, they are expecting their second baby, which is more special is many ways.

There is debate on whether the new baby will be named Druplicon Jr. or Druplette ...

The community would love to show Dries how much they care about him, and hence a collection pool has been setup.

Yet another poll about Muslims in the USA, with some postive and other disturbing results.

(32% believe American Muslims are less loyal to the U.S.) But close to half (46%) of Americans say this country allows too many immigrants to come here from Muslim countries.

A solid majority of Americans (63%) believe most Muslims in this country do not condone violence, and 40% tend to believe the Qur'an itself does not condone violence (28% feel it does). But 41% of Americans feel Muslim culture glorifies suicide.