It transmits on 107,7 FM in Baghdad, which really is at the end of the frequency range of most radios, some don’t even go that far. The station-breaks on it have people sounding like the Simpsons saying things like “I haven’t had so much fun since Afghanistan” – this is such bad taste, it’s hilarious. The DJ’s call each other Sergeant So-and-so, which freaks you out the first time you hear it, I thought I was listening to something I wasn’t supposed to.
But to give the people there credit, the music is much better than the seriously annoying pop stuff on SAWA. SAWA Iraq is different than SAWA in the rest of the arab world, yes we are special. In case you are wondering SAWA is the new American propaganda tool instead of [Voice of America]. They lured our young with music and then they started messing with their brains using Sawa. It is very pop-y la-di-da-life-is-ok type of station, the messages must be subliminal or something [note to self:start recording the broadcasts and then listen to them backwards, specially that britney/madonna thing because they play it so often]. I think it will spawn a TV station as well, there are already people with SAWA TV tags running around.

I have been tuning to AFN IRAQ much more often than the radio we Iraqis are supposed to be listening to. They played Rage Against the Machine’s testify:

Im empty please fill me
Mister anchor assure me
That Baghdad is burning
Your voice it is so soothing
That cunning mantra of killing
I need you my witness
To dress this up so bloodless
To numb me and purge me now
Of thoughts of blaming you

It is a bit scary to have a military radio that plays this song here in baghdad

Anyway, it is very interesting radio. It is so very American it gets disorienting. And the little public announcement things in between songs are almost Monty Python-esque if they weren’t meant to be dead serious. Example:

[Sound of vehicle, a humvee I guess, in the background]
Female voice: I am really tired I haven’t slept well last night. Ooh look…can you hold on to my [some weapon or other] while I take a picture of this.
[Sound of snoring]
Female voice: Is sergeant (so-and-so) still sleeping? He had a tough night.

Darth Vader voice: Being on military convoy is a serious situation, always wear your seat belts, maintain speed and distance. And always stay alert.

There are little Arabic lessons thrown in here and there to “learn the local language and be part of the world around you”. Today’s words were Hello, Good morning and Good bye. I would have thought that after a year here we would have moved to a bit more complex vocabulary.

And there are also reminders to military personnel to keep the classified information they have to themselves since “We *are* in a war here.” Sweet sounding DJ Courtney made sure we remember to remember by playing Nickelback’s “this is how you remind me”.

Now if there only was a way to convince them to stop playing all that Bruce Springsteen and AC/DC and play us some B.R.M.C. and Rapture.

Start your week with THE WACKY IRAQI. well it is the middle of the week for us here, it doesn't make a difference for him he is still wacky.

Long post alert, you will not be quizzed on it and there are no prizes for reading the whole thing. I just had to get all this off my chest

Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi

Don’t you just hate that title? To start with I would never use a word like clandestine, and what is wrong with [Salam Pax: The Baghdad Blog]? It gets worse, the German title is [Let’s Get Bombed; greetings from Baghdad]. We did have a talk about these things but being the novice I am and sitting so far away from where all that was happening left me with a title like [Let’s get bombed], dear oh dear.

So why does this come up? It is because Ihath found the latest costumer review on the Amazon site not fair [thanks Ihath, Raed showed me the email you wrote him. The Gibran quote really got to him]. What the reader/reviewer doesn’t like is the Ordinary Iraqi bit, he pins all the usual little flags people have always pinned on the little Salam Pax voodoo doll they have: “Salam Pax is not an ordinary Iraqi by any stretch of the imagination. He's gay, irreligious, western educated, and has spent half his life outside Iraq. This is an ordinary citizen of Iraq? I don’t think so.”

Since I don’t really have much to say today other than the weather is really horrible, we will have one of those flashback episodes TV shows always have when they run out of ideas.

Yes, let’s go back to the days when the blog really was, ahem, clandestine. Let’s dig deep into the archives and pull out part of a post dated 29th, October, 2002:

One more correction, neither I nor Raed are "regular joes". Actually most regular joes would look at us suspiciously. I have spent half of my life out of this country and had to be taught how to re-grow my roots by someone who isn't even Iraqi by nationality, he just loves the place (thank you Raed). We both have a distrust towards religion and have read the "Tao Te Ching" with more interest than the Quran. And we both have mouths which have gotten us into trouble. The regular joe would be more inclined to beat the shit out of us infidels, oh did I mention that I am a pervert as well?? The way I look at men makes them feel uncomfortable.

Just to prove that I have never said that I am your regular Joe.

The other little bit I would like to grab out of the archives is dated 21,December, 2002. It is from a longer letter written to Raed:

This mess I’m in really bothers me; with all my talk of anti-Americanism (is that a word?) I still reference their culture, their music, and their movies. I got whacked for saying “fuck you”. I should have said “inachat khawatkum” no one would have understood. Just as most Iraqis don’t understand most of what is being said by Americans. We would have smiled politely at each other and moved on. I feel like the embodiment of cultural betrayal. The total sell-out, and this is making me contradict myself all the time.
You remember the evening we spent at the Books@cafe in Amman when you laughed at me when I told you that I believe I am the product of a Muslim/Arabic culture. You reminded me that just two moments ago I was telling you how happy I was watching MTV Germany and shopping for English books at the Virgin Megastore in Beirut.
I am all the arguments we used to have about us being attachments to western culture rolled into one.
This is not the dialogue of equals we used to talk about; I keep referencing their everything because I am so swallowed up by it. Look; I have been sending you e-mails in English for the whole of last year, how sad is that.

Shame on me.

You used to anchor me down. All the magazines we used to read: Arabic horizons, Aqlam and the rest. Now I just browse thru them. I am back to Q, The Face and Wired: western trash. And don’t ask when was the last time I read a book in Arabic, I would be too ashamed to answer. Moreover I was getting all those scary questions from the people who read the blog. What do I think about the Kurdish situation? Open letters from Diane, which I was really at loss how to answer.

The whole [where are you standing] question did bother me a lot, hence the “shame on me”. Lately I have decided that there is no shame in this.
I’ve am reading Hanif Kuraeishi’s [The Black Album], there is a paragraph which rang all the bells

These days everyone was insisting on their identity, coming out as a man, woman, gay, black, Jew – brandishing whichever features they could claim, as if without a tag they wouldn’t be human. Shahid, too, wanted to belong to his people.

And Salam wanted that as well. When you get pushed into a corner because of a name and a place of birth you try to make the best out of the corner you have been pushed into. And believe me being pushed into the corner labeled [young male of Middle Eastern / Muslim origin] hasn’t been much fun lately. But since it is all you have you dig deeper into it and hold on to it. The current western world view has antagonized a huge number of people, the West wasn’t that interested in dialogue. We were simply labeled as Muslim terrorist.
One of the more amusing results of this has been my friend’s G arrest by American soldiers while he was on a job for an American Newspaper. He was given the head-sack and an angry soldier shouted at him “it was you [your type] who attacked the world trade center”. Now this is funny because G. is so pro-American it gets to me sometimes, he is Christian (but he hates it when you tell him that because he really is “agnostic”), so why did the soldier accuse him of attacking the World Trade Center? Because he had a Muslim looking beard and looked “of mid-eastern origin”.

That’s beside the point, what I want to say is that we seem to have lost the middle ground. When I met Ted Koppel the first time he said that he needed a cultural interpreter. And this is exactly what this blog and the rest of the blogs in the Iraqi Blogosphere, in all its variety, has been providing. The things the reviewer saw as negatives, “irreligious, western educated, and has spent half his life outside Iraq”, are really the basis for the common things between us. You and me, we have this dialogue because of them. In a world growing apart by the day it is absolutely wonderful to find that everybody can go on about the food they like on an Iraqi blog [check out the comments] and for a moment forget all the politics. This reminds us that we *do* have things in common and not everybody is out to cut the others throat.
I do not feel ashamed of standing in the middle anymore; actually I am proud of it. The Iraqi Bloggers show that we *can* talk. You think some of us are too ungrateful and critical? Habibi at least we are talking about it, you really have not met the people who are really truly unhappy with the whole situation here.

BUT… we are still playing the [dominant/subordinate culture] game. We write in English to communicate with you, we try to establish links and reference points very much relevant to you.
The respect I have for Persian Bloggers is immense; they were able to create a dialogue among themselves which they sometimes share with the rest of the world.
One of the aims of the whole war in Iraq thing was to create “a model democratic state in the area”, I tell you it will not be Iraq because it will only be skin deep, look towards Iran for a democracy that might not be exactly what the USA wants it to be but there will be a deeper understanding of it among the people.

OK, this post is way too long, would someone please wrap my hands in duct tape and burn the keyboard.

Just in case you are interested it took me the exact length of CD1 of the Deep Dish/Toronto mix to write this blog. They are Persian by the way; I told you they had potential.

Tell you a little secret: A lot of issues can be solved using the following ingredients:
- Chocolates (something nice, like a packet of maltesers)
- A little Poem (stolen from someone who can use words much better than you)
- Copy of Newsweek (latest issue)

well the last item is optional. Yes he is OK, and will go to Amman for a week with his brother he changed his mind, he will stay for another week before going.

So do I at least be the first on-blog break up?
No. it is not funny.
Raed?.........

Raaaaed?..................
I stood at your door for an hour, I knew you were inside, but you wouldn't open.
do we have t do this in public? answer my emails at least.

It was a special day.

Here I am, drinking vodka alone at 3 in the morning, in the house of my family. One year ago I was staying in Amman, waiting for my visa to go to Saudi Arabia to marry my first love and ex-fiancé, I was finishing my studies for Masters Degree, and I was working as an architect in a small engineering office.

I will not exaggerate and pretend this is my first jump between my parallel universes, because I had previous heroic hyper jumps in the past.

But this year witnessed two jumps.
Jump raed jump jump jump

The first was on the 19th of Feb. of last year, when I decided to leave my work, my house, and to leave heba and come to Iraq.
Why?
She didn’t answer my calls, so I pushed the disappear button.
This is when everyone starts to wonder “where is raed”

I came to Baghdad, I was completely destroyed, without energy, sleeping all the day and night waiting for war to happen, to conceder it the as the “reason” for my miserable life. The war started and explosions helped me forget the rest of my feelings towards heba.

War stopped, and statues were pulled in a dramatic way.

My national feelings pushed me to start something that can make the world see how bad this war was, so I started working on a massive scale survey on war casualties, for months, going on trips to the nine cites of the south weekly, and establishing a huge network of volunteers, monitor them, designing the survey forms and administrating the data input procedure.

More than 4000 injured, more than 2000 killed, just from civilians, all with full documentation and details about the time and place of incidents, and their addresses. My American partner was supposed to publish the results, but she didn’t.

After we finished the survey, I started establishing another network of volunteers .. Emaar .. in the nine cities of the south and Baghdad. 100 volunteers were the result of one month selection period that I met around 1500 persons in, around 30 of the 100 were girls, working all together in teams to identify small problems in the neighborhoods and implementing micro projects depending on the local people’s contribution, to give them more trust in themselves and to market the political idea of giving Iraqis the chance to rebuild their countries by themselves.

Meanwhile I had a romantic story that was getting more serious day by day, and making me a worse person day by day too.

After the UN explosion, fund raising started being impossible, and our only funding agency stopped to fund us for political reasons.

My private life was falling apart in parallel to Emaar, slowly and painfully.

Even working with salam, for the BBC, and writing stuff on this blog wasn’t making me comfortable. For many reasons.

Today was a special day
I stood in front of everyone in the NGOs meeting, and told them “I’m sorry to announce the death of Emaar in 9 of the 10 governorates that we used to work in” We still have work in the marshes of Nasrya.
I’m tired, and I cant knock more doors
The team of Nasrya are arranging themselves without needing me for support.
Good for them

Emotional wise.
I erased her phone number from my phonebook, preventing other stupid attempts of going back.
Why?
Because she cannot say good morning. I want her to say good morning when we wake up.
But she can’t.

Salam:
I’ll stop blogging here. Without swimming in the mud of details: you are not the best partner in the world, and I’m not the best blogger too.

I emailed the Jordanian University to tell them I’m not going to resume my masters degree studies. Its way too complicated for me now. I’ll take my diploma certificate and stop.

And I emailed a friend in London telling her about my great achievements of today.

I burned out myself. Wzzzzssssss……

Today was a special day, but this Russian vodka made it better.

Jump jump jump
:”)

Iraqia (the Iraqi Media Network TV) made a very strange decision tonight; it is right now showing the full state of the union speech. And they are going to have a panel discussion about it later on as well.

Does this make us the 51st state? Does it? Eh? Does it, does it?
Do we at least get effort marks for that?

Dear editors at Iraqia, the state of the union speech is a news ITEM, an important one for the future of Iraq but still an ITEM. Give us the highlights, I don’t need to watch the whole thing, unless we *are* the 51st state. Are we? Eh? Are we, are we?

There was one moment in the speech that made me smile; I was too busy eating my chicken kebabs to pay attention to the whole thing. But at the point where Mr. Pachechi stood up I could only think that I really wish you [the GC] more luck than Karazai.

Saddam's two older daughter are looking for a country other than Jordan to host them. link to article in al-sabah, Arabic.

ÇÈäÊÇ ÕÏÇã ÊÈÍËÇä Úä ãßÇä áÅíæÇÆåãÇ ÎÇÑÌ ÇáÃÑÏä

The article says that Jordan informed the two women that if they wanted to stay in the country they will have to respect the host country and not to get involved in politics. Oh shock horror! what politics, why can't they just keep their mouths shut and stay out of it. If they were planning to play hero they should have stayed with daddy. Their mother and younger sister Halla are in Syria and placed under house arrest of sorts apparently, Raghad and Rana don't want to go there. I bet the shopping experience in Damascus isn't as exciting as in Amman, with so much money in your bank accounts you would want to go somewhere to spend it, right?
My suggestion, go to Beirut shut up your mouths by stuffing them with drugs, ditch your phony Hijabs and become club-sluts at the BO-18 (scroll down for the pix).

On a related theme here is nice article about clubbing in beirut [For 15 years, Lebanon endured a brutal civil war. Now it's just learning how to party], I raelly can't wait for another 15 years, they should put this as a priority on the Iraqi reconstruction fund issues: Clubbing in Baghdad

Raed is out having lunch with someone form the other gender. I bet he doesn't know that The female of the species is more deadly than the male, his fault. My horoscope in al-sabah said that I should get someone to alphabetize my music CDs with.
The last three days I got stuck on Muse's [Apocalypse Please]

And it's time we saw a miracle
Come on it's time for something biblical
To pull us through
And pull us through

This is the end
Of the world

Yes I am bored, maybe I should alphabetize my CDs alone.

Where Is Raed and Baghdad Burning are Bloggie nominees. Best middle east or african Blog category.
Unfortunatly I will not be able to witness the glamour of Bloggie Awards Ceremony if I win, ahhh, to walk on that red carpet and to give my thank you speech.
You can still vote.

More on the Family Law issue.
The following link might be of interest to those of you who can read arabic. Az-Zamman has an article by Suhad Al-Khafaji who writes about the Family Law issued in 1959.

ÞÇäæä 88 ááÃÍæÇá ÇáÔÎÕíÉ æÖÚ ÞæÇÚÏ ãÊíäÉ áÊãÇÓß ÇáÚÇÆáÉ ÇáÚÑÇÞíÉ

Although Al-Khafaji is critical of the 1959 Family Law she also states the good reasons why we need to improve on that law and replace it with something that is even worse.
It is really worth taking a look at if you can read arabic, I do apologize to non-arabic readers, the article is quite long and tricky to translate.

UPDATE: Riverbend has posted about the issue at 5:48 in the morning! talk about issues not letting you get the sleep you need. My favorite bit from her post is the way she describes the GC

Seeing some of the GC members give press conferences these days, reminds me of the time I went to watch my cousin's daughter 'graduate' from kindergarten. They had about 20 kids up on this little stage with their teacher, Miss Basma, standing benevolently in their midst. As long as she was on the stage, they all stood correctly; simultaneously reciting a poem they had learned just for the occasion. The moment Miss Basma stepped down, there was a stampede- 20 students rushed for the only microphone on the stage all at once, grappling to see who could reach it first and drown out the other voices with their own.

Now we face a similar situation. Miss Basma- er, I mean Bremer- has been off the stage (in Washington and New York) and there has been a rush to grab the metaphorical microphone. For example, while the decision on family law seems almost definite, Talabani adamantly denies it… other members only reluctantly discuss it.

Yep, you just don't piss Riverbend off because she'll rip you apart.
and she found Sistani.org, have a look there is an english site.

And the Iraqi dinar is still being smuggled out of the country. Is it the smell of the fresh notes?
Today the Iraqia channel showed an egyptian caught smuggling 5 million Iraqi dinars and half a kilo of hash to Kuwait. Actually my first reaction was "Half a kilo? where can I get that?" but let's leave this out of the blog.
On a much grander scale Mr. Badran, our minister for interior affairs is now in the middle of trying to explain what 20 billion dinars are doing on a plain going to Beirut. Let us just hope that the Governing Council didn't suddenly get the Dinar Fever and wanted to get a piece of the pie for itself as well.

FunFact: what do 20 billion Iraqi Dinars weigh? One and a half tons. (according to Az-Zamman)

The Iraqi charge d'affairs in Beirut is trying very hard to make sure the Lebanese do not "politicize" the issue, the Lenbanese governmnet is worried that the money is to fund certain groups in Lebanon. My worry is that it was going to fund leisure trips for GC members, they are used to it, after getting all that money from the US and UK just to sit in an office having to work for your money must seem like a drag

Four Iraqi policemen were killed in the latest attack. This brings the number of Iraqi policemen killed since April to 600 (the link is to an arabic article in Az-zamman, from AFP).
One of those 600 lives around the corner from my parents house. He was threatened several times and a bomb was placed near his house once, which was luckily dismanteld before it could do any harm. He was shot six days ago while on duty.
These days one of the requierments to join the Iraqi Police is balls of steel.

I was in Karadat-Mariyam 4 hours after the explosion. Obviously couldn't get very near to where the actual explosion happened and to tell you the truth I didn't really want to.
An old man sitting in front of his shop told me, in a very matter-of-fact way that whoever did this could never be Muslim, Christian or Jewish "I doubt that he is even human". I think that sums up the general feeling about the attack.
Earlier today we had the fright of our lives trying to call my uncle's to find out whether Zainab went to work or not. She works in there and has told me on several occasions how worried the Iraqis who work in the "green zone" are about their lining up there daily, waiting to be searched to get to their workplaces. They joked about attacks.
What really got my goat was the taxi driver who was getting me back home, after all the images we saw on TV (the Iraqi Media Network for once did a very good job covering the attack) and the Press (this picture hurts, a mother looking for her daughter after the explosion, Farah Nosh for NY Times), after all that the idiot tells me "oh yes, it was the Americans shooting left and right killing all those people". Now why would anyone say something as stupid as that? He didn't like what I said in response to that statement, and I decided that I don't want him to know where I live. You never know these days. I walked home.

Actually, the explosion in front of the Presidential palace two days ago happened in the 13th anniversary of the 1991 war, the war that destroyed everything, but left the rest of Iraq and his neighbors to be milked slowly.

There was a boring 80s American movie about rodeo and bulls on mbc/channel 2 (my favorite movie channel). That clown who saves the hero every time reminded me of the UN in Iraq, every time Americans either need someone to justify some plan they attend to do, or someone to hand over a catastrophe they cannot handle, everyone will see the clown rushing to offer his services.

Today’s demonstrations in Baghdad were a bit huge, and people were shouting “Yes for elections, Yes for democracy”, “No for those who came from outside to rule us”

When the situation was building up slowly in the south, no one even noticed them. All the focus was on some attacks happening in the middle region of Iraq.

Me: Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the most irresponsible of them all?
Me: I mean .. why didn’t anyone notice what was happening in the south?
Myself: Because of the extremely pragmatic method of solving problems, the no-vision-plan is based on solving the everyday troubles and forgetting anything else happening without noise.

Me: Will the Americans give Shiaa their democratic elections in the south?
Myself: NO.

Me: What do u expect to happen now?
Myself, bush and bremer: WE DO NOT KNOW

Welcome back to Iraq, Mr. cloUN.

did u see the explosion of the day
god damn it!!

Today, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq reached to 500.
But no one even mentioned that, it was the “Bremer Dinar” scandals day
The Iraqi Dinar lost 50% of its value over a night (from 950 – 1400), after discovering that our CG is selling Billions of Dinars to the world under the brand new operation called “screw up your self, your neighbors, and your national currency”.
:”)

I would like to take this chance to thank our great GC for their great policies in giving more trust in the Iraqi Dinar and the Iraqi economy.

Salam will tell you more about the Dinar thing..

Topic of the day, [It’s-my-right-to-cover-my-head] demonstrations

Secular Muslim is my favorite way in describing me. When me and myself sit to discuss the issues of religion and culture, we never fight.
Islam is that huge heritage of architecture – my grandfather’s court yard house, music – um kalthum and fayrooz, food – doolma and yabsah, colors – green palm trees and brown bricks, language – my love letters and quraan, poems – Sayyab and motanabbi, books Jaaberi and kanafani, smell and taste– bakhoor and hareesa, chai – abo el heel and noomi al basra, quraan – mosques and harmony, and .. me :”)
Maybe that’s why we can’t drop that heritage or hand it over easily to other people with long beards just because they are religious and me and my self are anti-religious. I mean,, where is the point? I don’t believe in the Islamic religion, but I am a part of the Islamic culture and society. My ex-girlfriend told me once “rayyyd .. you try to treat me in a modern way, but from deep inside I can feel the Islamic system in you”
I’m sure Kilroy will feel happy to call her as a witness in his trial.
But anyway ... the point that I am a secular person, I belong to the big seculars family, and all this crap about religions doesn’t move a hair on my body (it’s an Arabic expression).
But unexpectedly, the thing that made most of the hair on my head stand .. like some one being shocked by the so-called electricity, was when I heard the news about France and Belgium taking these ultra-stupid-shallow-decisions of veil / hijab !!! what the hell!!
I mean .. I find myself forced to criticize my secular tribe!! What the hell are you doing there??? This is not supposed to be OUR part of the game
I lived in Saudi Arabia for four years, in a small city in the south called Abha. And there .. the medieval-stupid-shallow-corrupted-government used to send religious men called “mtawwe” to insure all women will cover their bodies and look like black tents, I remember my mother – the sophisticated feminist engineer – putting that black thing on her, covering her head and face, to the point that no one can tell in which direction was she standing, these are the people whom WE (me and my secular cousins) must teach how to live and understand life

Did french people decide to hate freedom after McDonald’s changed the name of French fries to freedom fries?
Is it envy then? Haa?

I mean .. how the *falafel* did you decided to go and run after women to take off the stupid piece of cloth on their heads!! Where is the point??
Isn’t a punk allowed to come to school with his/her red head? Isn’t a Goth allowed to come with his black eyes? I mean!! Why do you start another fake battle between cultures out of nothing??
Doesn’t the UN crap speak about freedom of beliefs?? Isn’t that what WE are trying to convince the rest of the world of?
Don’t words like discrimination pull any triggers here? Ding ding?

Shame on you ..
SHAME ON YOU..

It is saturday and you might have some time to spend reading blogs?

Why not go check out Faiza's latest post she turns all maternal and wise on us:

Today I want to explore a new topic for discussion. As a result of many questions I got by email and in order to alleviate the boredom that I feel and to alleviate the general feeling of depression in Iraq, I decided to talk about something personal, about our daily life.

Or you can read what Riverbend thinks of the desicion No. 137 concerning family law in Iraq:

During the sanctions and all the instability, we used to hear fantastic stories about certain Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, to name a few. We heard about their luxurious lifestyles- the high monthly wages, the elegant cars, sprawling homes and malls… and while I always wanted to visit, I never once remember yearning to live there or even feeling envy. When I analyzed my feelings, it always led back to the fact that I cherished the rights I had as an Iraqi Muslim woman. During the hard times, it was always a comfort that I could drive, learn, work for equal pay, dress the way I wanted and practice Islam according to my values and beliefs, without worrying whether I was too devout or not devout enough.

Healing Iraq also blogs about the same issue:

I'm so happy about this, now I can marry and divorce in any way I like. Yay! I'm at the moment gathering family members to go to the local cleric so I can divorce my fourth wife which I don't really like anymore, and get myself an 11 year-old virgin. All the other small details will be settled within the family and with the blessings of the Sayid.

and if you are just too sick of politics coming from this strange place called airak, may I suggest some fine, utterly surreal humor served by one of the people I stalk secretly:The Ugly Fat Kid ?

Late Thursday the governor of the Iraqi National Bank went on Iraqi TV to announce that the National Bank will be buying the dollar for 1350 dinars (250 dinars more than the market price) in an attempt to level the dinar and slow down its rise. All exchange shops adjusted their prices accordingly and on friday the exchange rate was between 1350 and 1380.
A reader sent me an email telling me that I shouldn't be too glad about a strong dinar since this has a negative effect on exports. The thing is that we are at the moment at a point where we import much more than we export and this trend should increase once the reconstruction phase starts and the monies from the donor conference in madrid are released. The only thing we export is Oil and, I am guessing here, that market has its own rules it won't be affected by the changes we are going thru now.
What is important is that the poeple feel that is worth something and believe me for somone who gets his paycheck in dinar this is improvement. What we need now is for the dinar to stay put at a price and stop moving, and I guess this is what the governer intended to do with his announcement on thursday. Today is the first working after the announcement and we'll see how the market reacts to his Bank's dollar price.

Did you see me on Nightline? a handsome devil, eh?

It seems the haircut Raed got did more than just clear the mess on his head, it also cleared the mess *in* his head and he was able to write an almost coherent blog. So in celebration of this glorious event today's pictures will have Raed's haircut as a theme.

It doesn't have a sign and the old man inside couldn't cut in a straight line if his life depended on it and he will mess up the goatee for sure, but raed still wouldn't go to any other.

The guy is ancient he still doesn't believe in normal tape recorders or color TVs.

and has the scariest looking chair I have seen.

but I go thru all this for two very good reasons, first Raed gets to look as bald as I am

and second the lunch Faiza promised to pay for if I get Raed to cut his hair. a huge meal of fried chicken at al-Sa'a in Mansour.This used to cost $10 but with the new exchange rate it is $15.
When was the last time you read Faiza's blog by the way?

now we have to start working on Raed's table manners i guess. -------------------------------------------------
And this is what Raed is talking about in the previous post: [Sistani upholds election demand] from [Iraq Today]:

"Sistani wants the transitional assembly to be directly elected, and is not backing down from his stance. If he does not back the U.S. roadmap, many of Iraq's majority Shi'ites may well refuse to accept the process."