One of many construction sites with the standard concrete delivery basket and operator.

This is a zoom in on the basket.

From Kuwait Times, Monday June 5, 2006

From the Kuwait Times, Sunday June 25, 2006
By Dr. Sami Alrabaa

Where on earth would you find a country where its citizens, rich and less rich, have the following benefits and more?

• Free medical care.
• Free housing.
• Citizens refuse to pay electricity and water bills.
• Debts are waived once in a while.
• Parents receive monthly child and wife allowance,
• Over 90% of the citizens are employed by state-controlled institutions.
• The country lacks accountability and citizens cannot be fired for laziness and wrongdoing,
• Citizens can retire after “working” for only 15 years.
• Newly wed citizens get a gift from the state of around $1000.
• Citizens do not pay taxes.
• Citizens are provided with cheap domestic workers,
• Laws are made to be ignored by citizens.
• Most citizens get away with violations of the law,
• Wasta (connections) and nepotism are a way of life.
• Expatriate workers have rights only on paper.
• Petrol is the cheapest in the world.
• The country is filthy rich, yet it cannot provide its citizens with enough running water in the summer.
• The county practices democracy whereby money and bribes, not programmes, play a major role in wooing voters.

Read more »

Went diving on Friday. Hot of course, and a longer boat ride, but much less crowded than Kubbar. Well the dive buddy had a camera and was snapping away lots. So here they are. It was quite nice diving, good visibility and the third dive was a drift dive (though no current). That was probably the best dive ever in Kuwait. We even saw a couple of fish getting cleaned by some smaller cleaner fish. That is cool, to see a fish cleaning station.

A drift dive is where you head out with the current if there is any and then at the end of the dive, from below the water you inflate a surface marker which you have on a line and send it to the surface so the boat or other boats see where you are and don’t run you over and your boat will come get you. That is why in the photos I am carrying Inspector Gadget stuff on my waist, spools for the marker buoy.

Here I am looking cool. There was no flash used and as the water absorbs red that is why it is so blue.

Go to the next page to see more photos. But I’m warning you, it is hard to always look cook with a regulator in your mouth and a SCUBA mask on.

Read more »

I subscribe to many podcasts plus download the CBC at night and listen to the World At 6 on the way to and from work. It is a one hour drive and this keeps me awake You can only listen to the same songs so many times and the radio programs are usually not much. There is Voice of America, but it plays lousy music and the news programs are too short.

Interesting specific Podcasts are:

From NPR: Don’t Miss: The Story of the 12th Imam and Iran’s President Renews Interest in ‘Hidden Imam’

On another topic is: Sufis in Syria Reach Out to the West

And to start you might want to listen to this one, School or Iraq, about the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims. There are more excellent Podcasts on this site, War News Radio.

And there is another intersting Podcast from Engines of Our Ingenuity, Cradle of Civiliaztion (it is only 4 minutes long)

A very interesting take on things.

Bill Gates announced yesterday he is progressively going to disengage himself from day-to-day participation in Microsoft over the next two years, to concentrate exclusively on his foundation. His charitable work has been remarkable — unlike the Carnegies or the Rockefellers before him, his money, dubiously acquired as it may have been, is comforting the truly afflicted of this world, not in endowing institutions for the already comfortable.

Read it all here: Gates opening new Vistas

We went on an evening shopping excursion mostly to go to a tailor to get some clothes made and while there did some exploring.

Diver remove its breathing apparatus and perform gid bubbles or rather big ring.. amazing.

Turn the speakers down first.