Happy New Year!

It’s midnight in Brisbane, so Happy 2008 to Michael! 

I hope everyone has a very safe New Year’s Eve celebration — designated drivers, people! — and a wonderful year to come. 

Time to lighten things up…

Okay, just a silly thread, for fun. (Hey, it’s almost NYE… we need some lightness!)

I already have a carved-in-stone opinion on this, but let’s see what y’all think: 

Who should play Michael in the movie version of Foreign Correspondent? (Assuming the book gets released on the current schedule!) Mavis, no fair revealing my answer yet! 

Terror Central

I was hoping to make a fun little post today; instead I woke to the news of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Another courageous leader who was openly fighting extremism killed, 22 of her supporters also killed. Where are the moderate Islamic clerics and leaders who should be standing up and condemning this murder? When are the imams going to show the kind of bravery that Mrs. Bhutto showed and rein in this insanity?

I admit that I don’t know a lot about Islam. I studied theology, but mostly the Judeo-Christian branch.  I have heard many people say that Islam is a religion of peace, that the vast majority of Muslims do not support the violence that has become the face of the religion. If that is so, many people should be standing up as she did, showing that their god is not one who raises up those who slaughter fellow Muslims, innocent civilians, even children. These fanatics have covered the names of Allah and Mohammed in blood. Where is the outrage? 

I will be re-reading Reza Aslan’s tremendous book, “No god but god” and I also will be reading the Koran. I am trying to understand why this hate has been unleashed on the world. Christianity has plenty of blood in its history — much of it Muslim — but in this day and age of instant communication, why do so many stay silent?

Rugby 101

I thought I would share some of my rugby bookmarks, for those of you intent on helping us conquer the world…

 
Queensland Rugby Union and the Queensland Reds — for obvious reasons!

The Wallabies — the green and gold we were rooting for at the RWC.

Australian Rugby — there are several different tournaments, and I am in no way qualified to explain who plays in what, but there are links to upcoming matches here. (Délie, save me!)

International Rugby Regulations — the rulebook. Not light reading, but if you want to know why someone got sent to the sin bin or which steroids are banned, this is where to find it.

The Official Site of the 2007 World Cup — the next one is in New Zealand in 2011, but that site isn’t up yet.

Here’s a great one from Délie: Scrum.com. 

And one other thing I would add is the State of Origin competition. It’s an annual 3-match series between New South Wales and Queensland where players represent the state they first played for. So it doesn’t matter who they play for NOW or where they were born, if their first team was based in NSW, they play for that side; same for QLD. It’s a bit of a grudge match, and Queensland has won the last two series. They play one game a month in May, June, and July. I suspect that Michael may attend the matches he is home for, which would have been the first two this year (both of which were won by Queensland.) I don’t think the 2008 dates have been announced yet, but the sites I use as the series is gearing up are this one (although right now it is mostly just the online store for merchandise), the QRL site, and the Wiki page. FYI, this is rugby League rather than Union; there is a difference, but I think this grudge match is sufficiently bragging-rights-worthy that everyone pays attention. Go Maroons!

If any of you have more sites to add, please feel free. Everything I know about rugby I learned from watching the RWC, so I’m a total neophyte here…

And if any of our Aussie readers have some old photos of Michael playing and wants to share them… oh, come on, I know there were newspaper photos, someone must have them! (E-mail me and just let me know if you want to stay anonymous. We wouldn’t there to be any repercussions!)

Pics of the Baghdad bureau

These are screengrabs of photos that Arwa showed when she was in New York last spring. Click to see full-size.

What’s Australian for “prolific”?

So I am doing some housekeeping on my XHD and video iPod… Currently I have the clips listed by year, then by month. Lots of albums. So I was debating gathering them into folders just by year. Time for a little math… 

2006: 287 clips (and keep in mind he joined CNN at the end of May!)

2007: 313 clips 

Month-by-month breakdown:
2006 

1. 3
2. 2
3. 6
4. 2
5. 0
6. 8
7. 17
8. 42
9. 59
10. 66
11. 76
12. 6

2007

1. 22
2. 61
3. 32
4. 31
5. 3
6. 8
7. 35
8. 24
9. 27
10. 54*
11. 9
12. 7**

*48 from the RWC

**…there’s still a tiny chance this will go up!

Pretty damn impressive, if you ask me!

TWAW: the civilian uprising

Michael was on to discuss the civilian uprising in Iraq and the missed opportunity with Muqtada al-Sadr. (Remember my Plan to Get Out? Muqtada was the key. Boy, did we miss that opportunity… but maybe it’s not too late…)

Shia citizens stand up

Michael had an amazing report this morning on International. Délie sent me as much of it as she was able to record, but Wolf just previewed it, so it will be on SitRoom today, probably in the second hour. I did upload the International version, and will post it if there is a different edit of the Domestic version. (Hopefully there will also be an interview on SitRoom, he would have been filming TWAW today anyway.)

Watch the Int version here. 

SecDef Gates in Iraq

Michael was on this morning, discussing the current visit to Iraq by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. I’ll have the clip up ASAP.

And he was just on SitRoom. Working on that one, too! 

And Bill Richardson disagrees with Michael?! Whatever!