Sumac is a a family of plants from the genus Rhus. In some Middle Eastern countries, the drupes of Sumac are crushed and dried to yield a reddish sour coarse powder. This is used to garnish salads and dips because of its color.

What is both funny and sad is when one Iraqi blogger back in November 2003 posted a
recipe for Sumac salad. One aggravated American emailed him to say:

Yet another resource shortage in the tech industry. Companies are having trouble filling tech jobs, and offer perks to try to attract talent. Builder.au has likened that to the dot com era culture.

This CBC article takes a Canadian view of the issue, with enrolment in tech courses being flat, while graduates have no trouble getting interviews and job offers.

At first glance, this page seems like yet another blog.

However, once you start reading the text, you will find that it is incoherent, and has a lot of links to terms often associated with spam in emails (e.g. Epson photo paper, Stress, Bloating).

Moreover, the links on the sidebar are all spammy, varying from cellulite removal, hair loss, to Omega watches.

Back in university in Alexandria, a long time ago, there were several Malaysian students on scholarships.

It seems that Egypt is still a touted destination for Malaysians looking for an overseas education.

This article from The Star, Malaysia seems like a propaganda piece by the cultural attache in the Egyptian embassy there, or Sami Omara, an "Egyptian education consultant".

The mummy of Hatshepsut, the most powerful female Pharoah of Egypt has been identified from her tooth.

chx is Karoly Negyesi, who brings us the new rewritten menu system in Drupal 6.

Everyone knows that chx cannot be distracted.

Maybe if we chip in and he gets his dream Toshiba R500 laptop, he will be distracted after all. This is because the screen is a tiny 12.1".

Last time I used that size was mid 1990s.

What really is "truth"?

Here is a nice quote:

Truth is whatever the crowd decides on the wiki -- Rob Cottingham.

Adil Charkaoui is an immigrant from Morocco who settled in Canada, studied, worked, started a family, then arrested and imprisoned for two years under a security certificate saying he posed a danger. Neither he or his lawyer are allowed to see the evidence against him.

Now, the CBC is reporting that some documents against Charkaoui have been leaked. Charkaoui insists that this is an intentional smear campaign against.

His lawyer Johanne Doyon agrees, saying:

Some time ago, I wrote about why Egypt speaks Arabic and not Egyptian. In it, I touched on why Arabic replaced other Semitic languages in West Asia and North America.

Why Arabic replaced other languages

The reason is that Syriac, Amazigh, Coptic and other Semitic languages were similar enough to Arabic to assimilate or be supplanted by it.

The story behind a book of poetry written by Guantanamo detainees could be as compelling as the poems themselves.

Prisoners, denied pens and paper, wrote some of the poems by scratching
verses onto foam cups with pebbles. Other poems were translated into
English by linguists with security clearances but no literary
credentials.

"It was a long and draining project," said Marc Falkoff, a law professor who represents 18 detainees.