But you now deep down an Islamists who can play the geopolitical three-dimentional chess game inside out will win any election fair and square.

An elected Islamists.

Originally posted by Cara: To call for the intimidation of medical personnel is ridiculous and childish. Even genocidal maniacs get medical treatment because doctors like to maintain they are above politicking in their profession. We Somalis operate under diff rules. Ahem! you are now a marked qallanjo How dare you? You gotta get in line and contribute ur load of habaar and yu'asho to prove u have the best interests of Somalis at heart.

Somalis, according to reports from ground zero, are neutral in all of this and hence escaped from the backlash. They are not attacking the Kikuyu too. Good news all around.

Been there, done that. I'm not complaining though. Boys need some discipline or they will go and play kaaljo in Carragaduuda all day long. Gotta have some1 who will frop the hammer down on them. Washamsi walluxaa ha! wash!!

This Tuesday is the night of reckoning.

Hall fo Fame: Ikhwaan movement, dervishes, SYL, SNL, USP Hall of Shame: Military junta and Somali rebel movements that crossed the border to topple them

Raggu badankii caqiibo ma leh, oo reer ma ciil tiro e, Ma gutaan xilkoodii cuslaa oo ceyn wareeg noqoye, Gar ciriiri, cuudkana badh qari, ceynta kula leexo! Marwo cadarsatay oo kuu fadhida, labo-canleyn raadi! Ciladahaana yaan legu garan care wir juuq ii dheh! Waa reerka cudur kala diliyo, caabuq aan harine, Ragga daacadnimadii Allahyoow noogu soo celi; This poet seems to understand the adverse impact khat has on family.

Brings back memories. What's happening in Kenya now has happened in Somalia -- 1991.

Kenya Kikuyus, Long Dominant, Are Now Routed By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN NAKURU, Kenya — Kenya’s privileged tribe is on the run. Over the past few days, tens of thousands of Kikuyus, the tribe of Kenya’s president, have packed into heavily guarded buses to flee the western part of the country because of ethnic violence. On Sunday, endless convoys of buses — some with their windshields smashed by rocks — crawled across a landscape of scorched homes and empty farms. It is nothing short of a mass exodus. The tribe that has dominated business and politics in Kenya since independence in 1963 is now being chased off its land by machete-wielding mobs made up of members of other tribes furious about the Dec. 27 election, which Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki, won under dubious circumstances. In some places, Kikuyus have been hunted down with bows and arrows. The hospital in Nakuru, a town in the Rift Valley, is full of Kikuyu men with deep ax wounds, fingers cut off and slash marks across their faces. “It was the Kalenjin,” said Samuel Mburu, a Kikuyu farmer with rows of stitches in his head, when asked who had nearly killed him. The Kalenjin are one of the bigger tribes in the Rift Valley, and they have fought fiercely with the Kikuyus before, mostly over land. Many Kalenjin are unapologetic. Robert Tutuny, a Kalenjin farmer, stood on a hillside on Sunday with an iron bar in his hands and looked down at the charred remains of a Kikuyu village that was razed a week ago. “We hate these people,” Mr. Tutuny said. The election — and the unresolved battle about who won — has ignited old tensions in Kenya, which in a week and a half has gone from being one of Africa’s most promising countries to another equatorial trouble zone. The political impasse continued Sunday, with Jendayi E. Frazer, the American assistant secretary of state for African affairs, meeting again with opposition leaders and government officials, but no resolution was in sight. The heavy fighting that claimed more than 300 lives last week has subsided and many people have gone back to work in the capital, Nairobi. There, people from different tribes live side by side and often work in the same office. They are aware of ethnic differences and sometimes joke about them, but it usually does not go further than that. But out here — where little towns rise from the veld like mirages and where there is so much wide-open space it seems incongruous to fight over land — these differences matter. A tribal war is shaping up between the Kalenjin, who mostly support Kenya’s opposition leaders, and the Kikuyus, who voted heavily — up to 98 percent in some areas — for the president. Tens of thousands of Kikuyus are camped out at police stations and churches for protection, waiting for buses guarded by military escorts to evacuate them to the central highlands, the traditional Kikuyu homeland. There, amid the lush tea fields and rolling green hills, they are safe because almost everyone who lives in the highlands is Kikuyu. Ethnic conflict is now threatening the decades of stability that has set Kenya apart from so many of its neighbors, like Congo, Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan. But Kenya has struggled with ethnic violence before. Its rare bursts usually come around election time. “You have to understand that these issues are much deeper than ethnic,” said Maina Kiai, chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. “They are political,” he said, and “they go back to land.” The last time the Rift Valley was this violent was in 1992, another election year in Kenya and a time of turbulent transition between dictatorship and democracy. Kalenjin militias, stirred up by politicians who told them that the valley was Kalenjin ancestral land, massacred hundreds of Kikuyus in a bid to steal their farms. Since then, Mr. Kiai said, “Emotions have been festering, resentments have been building and we sat around pretending ethnicity didn’t exist.” Kenya has more than 40 tribes, but the Kikuyus have almost always been on top. They run shops, restaurants, banks and factories across the country. One reason Mr. Kibaki has engendered so much resentment from other tribes is because many of the top officials in his government — including the ministers of defense, justice, finance and internal security — are Kikuyus. The Kikuyus are the biggest tribe in Kenya but far from a majority, at 22 percent of the population. The Kalenjins make up about 12 percent. In the Rift Valley, the anti-Kikuyu grudge goes back to independence, when the British government bought out Britons who owned huge, picturesque farms. But instead of redistributing that land to the impoverished people who had lived here for centuries, like the Kalenjin and Masai, the newly formed Kenyan government, led by Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, gave much of it to Kikuyus from other areas. Most of the Kikuyus here are hardly rich. The men lying on bloody sheets at the Nakuru hospital are emaciated farmers with threadbare clothes. The same goes for the Kikuyus who have been slaughtered by gangs of opposing tribes in Nairobi’s slums, causing an exodus from there, too. They lived in iron shanties just as their non-Kikuyu neighbors do. But in many cases, the Kikuyus own kiosks or small patches of land or they are related to someone who does, and that makes them a little better off by local standards. “Land is very important to us,” said Anthony Kirunga, a Kikuyu, who sells spare car parts in Nakuru. “It’s not our fault that other people are jealous.” This election stirred up anti-Kikuyu jealousies like never before. Raila Odinga, the top opposition candidate and a member of the Luo tribe, built his campaign on a promise to end Kikuyu favoritism and share the fruits of Kenya’s growing economy with all tribes. Early election results had him way ahead and his party winning the most seats in Parliament. But at the 11th hour of the vote-tallying process last Sunday, Mr. Kibaki surged. Election observers have said the president’s party rigged the results to stay in power. Millions of opposition supporters across Kenya were outraged. Not only did their candidate lose, but it also seemed to them that their system, which until the election had been celebrated as one of the most vibrant democracies in Africa, had cheated them. In western Kenya, where Kikuyus are vastly outnumbered, they became easy targets. In Kisumu, the third-largest city in the country, Luos went on a rampage, burning down Kikuyu shops and ransacking the downtown. In the Rift Valley, Kalenjin gangs stormed Kikuyu farms. Police officers seemed reluctant to intervene. Dozens of Kikuyus were massacred, including up to 50 women and children hiding in a church who were burned alive. What has kept the death toll from rising even higher is the fact that few people here have guns; most of the clashes have been fought with clubs, knives and stones. Jeremiah Mukuna, 75, a Kikuyu farmer, was attacked by a Kalenjin mob last Monday while he was sitting on the porch of his shack, his family said. His head was split open with an ax. On Sunday, he lay in a coma in the Nakuru hospital, taking short, shallow breaths. His wife, Grace, said she was leaving the Rift Valley. “I will never come back,” she said. New York Times

I wish you a New Year of health, happiness and prosperity.

Originally posted by -Serenity-: A referendum in these regions should solve the problem. Would the the likes of you accept SL's independence here-after, I wonder? Ah! now you are making sense! Absolutely. Referendum is what is needed. The trouble with that is what region would you wanna held the referendum in? In former British Protectorate territories? in Sool, Ceyn, and now Maakhir? In Somalia as a whole? Use your noodles and don't seek an escape goat in xaasidnimo lame line now. Convince me or the forum what region(s) should referendum be limited to and why?

UD, Enforcement is a job designated for the state organs such as law enforcement and criminal justice system. Marc as a citizen wants to convince the government to weigh in the social ills in his community. You as a user naturally see it differently. That puts you on the other side of the aisle. That's that. As to alchohol consumption well no action needed there as that is a regulated product. At this point it is activists vs. interest groups with vested interest in trying to preserve the status quo -- users, traders, etc. Luckily we live in states where process is open enough to wage full fledged campaign against khat and my man Marc intends to take full advantage of the right to petition his government to weigh in the social ills caused by khat -- drug of choice of my people.

Serenity awoowe do not be so naive to equate opposing secessionism with xaasidnimo. This lame line speaks volume of the strength of your argument. If stabilty and progress is the sole reason you support secessionist's agenda to dismember Somalia then what do you make of the mess that will follow the imposed recognition secessionists are seeking. As you may know there are parts of SL that oppose secession; places such as majority of Sool and the newly formed state of Maakhir -- both pro unionists provinces. As we speak parts of Sool are contested. Not much of stability there. Reason? Well it has to do with nomad politicking but the issue of secession/unity looms over the pressing issue of how the admins are staffed and controlled. Why support one the ones who want to secede and oppose the ones that want to stay with united Somalia. Your position on this issue is full of holes awoowe. Stability and progress is not unique to one recovery zone Serenity. There are other widely acknowledged recovery zone -- Puntland.

Originally posted by -Serenity-: why SL should be part of Somalia? What could it possibly gain from such a union? Perhaps amxaar at their doorsteps too? Secessionist enclave is part of Somalia as I write. The hardcore separatists want to secede but can't -- as no state want to recognize a recovery zone situated in a volatile region that pins its legal, moral case on past colonial narrative and grievances against military junta that is no longer in power -- a grievances they share with their fellow brethren. Why: 1. It is not practical. 2. It is difficult to create a precedent in the murky ethnic mess that spill over different sovereign states throughout Africa. 3. The world seems to ignore the secessionists requests. 4. Maakhir, Sool and Ceyn, and Puntland counter claims complicate the whole proceeding. 5. Somalia territorial integrity is a tall order to be reckon with. Not your cup of a tea as you can see. As to Amxaaro thing remember Ethiopia is what made present SL possible in the first place. As of today Tigre junta is pretty much involved in the SL -- the Tigre just don't have opposing forces and hence the calm and absence of their tanks at the doorsteps of Berbera port (strategic in every sense of the word).

Underdog, It is not readily available anymore in the states and the dealers have to take a suicidal risk to smuggle the damn thing. The average user have to hussle to get it. Ya know the waiting time is over eight weeks. The quality of the thing has been reduced to almost sticks. The khat eaters have been in decline pricesely because of the ban. Ther are hardly new users acquiring the taste. And the hard core folks are bleeding from where it matters the most -- bank account. It has worked. Hardcore addicted chewing sticks and paying a fortune working overtime in driving cab is what it came down to. There is the window of opportunity that exist where chewers can do the math and look themselves in the face and ask questions -- why hassle this much?. And that is the waiting period which they are sober. Awoowe it is all good. Khat addicts are what you referring to. Nothing short of rehab will deliver the result you are shooting for.

Awoowe you are missing the point by miles and changes.

My man Juje you are officially qualified to join the prestigious outlet Waxa-La-Yirri group. We need folks with your calibre. We have already rolled out another outlet by the name of Waa Siday Tahay. As you can imagine we are short of staff. Big ears to detect the chatters on the ground, folks who frequent to the marfishes, forensic team sniffing info in the internet xaafado -- we can use them all. The compensation is communserate with experience.

Originally posted by *Blessed: I hope, he uses this time to reflect on his actions, reconsider his position and repent to Allah. ..does he want to leave this world for aakhira and be remembered as the man who brought an enemy state into Somalia. Who helped kafirs kill innocent Muslims. May Allah guide him before his death. Maa shaa Allah. Some curse the man probably out of hate others do lil nasteexo. Stark difference. May Allah show him the rightoues path. May Allah make him realize that the way to end the conflict ravaging his nation -- a nation torn apart by conflict -- is to create conditions for sustainable peace.

Politics is what makes world round. Politicians have tremendous power over our lives. You do wanna know what is going on. Who is taking what side and why. One proble my people have in this regard is the herd effect -- group think if you will. You are from Kismaayo and whatever you say will find a receptive ear within reer kismayo. Terribel!. On the other hand no one will accuse Somalis of being ignorant about the issues that affcet their lives. Voter ignorance is a terrible clamity that put the levers of power on the hands of few. Imagine a world where few fat cats ponder upon whether you get health care, pay 30% of your taxes, serve 12 years of prison in violating some law that doesn't make any sense, and what not. Politics are very important awoowayaaal. I know it is a fashionable thang to diss politics in this forum. Still...

My man Marc ignore the naysayers. You are doing a fine job. Concerned people like you, folks who care about the well being of their community have always been in forefront of the movements that brought about social changes. Awoowe do your thing. Target the dealers and wheelers of the trade. It won''t be easy. Gather enough data that show how public treasure is wasted on the side effect of this drug. Join up with Ikhwaans. They share with your view on this drug and have the grass root organization that can help you in bringing awareness of the negative aspects of this drug -- which outweighs any percieved positive aspects associated with chewing the damn thing -- to the public, media, etc. They do care and will take it to another level if you cover the procedural side of things as far as lobbying is concerned. Apathy, inaction, selfishness, or indifference is not something one would want to preach. Khat is a drug. It is wreaking havoc in Somali community. It has contributed to the rise of dysfunctional families, single mothers, addiction, and what have you. In the states it costs about $50 bucks per killo and folks who chew are overwhelmingly blue color who make less than $350 bucks -- do the math. Terrible addiction. I advice you to make a distinction, in your campaign against this drug, between users and dealers. Hit the dealer (make the trade a felony offence) and you would have taken care of the user side of equation without ruining their criminal record. Again wonderful activism. Go for it buddy.

The ethics of "stealing" a WiFi connection By Eric Bangeman | Published: January 03, 2008 - 09:12PM CT Network security firm Sophos recently published a study on what it terms WiFi "piggybacking," or logging on to someone's open 802.11b/g/n network without their knowledge or permission. According to the company's study, which was carried out on behalf of The Times, 54 percent of the respondents have gone WiFi freeloading, or as Sophos put it, "admitted breaking the law [in the UK]." Amazingly, accessing an unsecured, wide-open WiFi network without permission is illegal in some places, and not just in the UK. An Illinois man was arrested and fined $250 in 2006 for using an open network without permission, while a Michigan man who parked his car in front of a café and snarfed its free WiFi was charged this past May with "Fraudulent access to computers, computer systems, and computer networks." On top of that, it's common to read stories about WiFi "stealing" in the mainstream media. It's time to put an end to this silliness. Using an open WiFi network is no more "stealing" than is listening to the radio or watching TV using the old rabbit ears. If the WiFi waves come to you and can be accessed without hacking, there should be no question that such access is legal and morally OK. If your neighbor runs his sprinkler and accidentally waters your yard, do you owe him money? Have you done something wrong? Have you ripped off the water company? Of course not. So why is it that when it comes to WiFi, people start talking about theft? The issue is going to come to a head soon because more and more consumer electronics devices are WiFi-enabled, and many of them, including Apple's iPhone and most Skype phones we've used, come ready out of the box to auto-connect to open WiFi networks. Furthermore, as laptop sales continue to grow even beyond desktops, the use of open WiFi is only going to grow along with it. Steal this WiFi connection! When you steal something, there's typically a victim. With WiFi, Sophos thinks the ISPs are the victims. "Stealing WiFi Internet access may feel like a victimless crime, but it deprives ISPs of revenue," according to Sophos' senior technology consultant Graham Cluley. Furthermore, "if you've hopped onto your next door neighbors' wireless broadband connection to illegally download movies and music from the 'Net, chances are that you are also slowing down their Internet access and impacting on their download limit." In Sophos' view, then, both ISPs and everyday subscribers can be victims. In one fell swoop, "stealing WiFi" gets mentioned in the same breath as "illegally" downloading movies and music. The fact is, people join open WiFis for all manner of reasons: to check e-mail, surf the web, look up directions to some place, etc. Those don't sound like nefarious activities, however, and certainly not activities which are likely to get someone in trouble. Of course if you run an open WAP (wireless access point) and it is heavily used for just e-mail, you could still hit your bandwidth cap (if you even have one), but that has to happen only once for that user to figure out what's up, and fix the problem. And let's be honest: it is their problem. No one forced that user to install a WAP or to leave it wide open. We'll get back to this in a minute. The argument that using open WiFi networks deprives ISPs of significant revenue is also a red herring. Take the case of public WiFi hotspots: official hotspots aren't that difficult to find in major cities—every public library in Chicago has open WiFi, for instance. Are the public libraries and the countless other free hotspot providers helping defraud ISPs? No, they're not. There's no law that using the Internet requires payment of a fee to an ISP, and the myriad public hotspots prove this. Really, there's only one time when you could argue that an ISP is being gypped, and that's when someone is repeatedly using his neighbor's open WiFi in lieu of paying for his own service. Is this really wrong? Let's consider some parallel examples. If the man in question were given a key and told that he could enter his neighbor's house whenever he wanted to use a PC to access the Internet, would this be wrong? Of course not. They key here (pun intended) is the "permission" given by the owner of the home. Our leeching friend would clearly be in the wrong if he were breaking into the house, of course, because he would be sidestepping something clearly set up to keep him out. If he has permission, I suppose one could argue that it's still not right, but you won't find a court that will punish such a person, nor will you find too many people thrilled at the idea that someone else can tell them who they can and can't allow into their homes for what purposes. Some people leave their wireless access points wide open deliberately. A friend of mine and recent seminary graduate lived in a campus-owned apartment building. In addition to being a man of the cloth, Peter is a longtime Linux user and open-source advocate. While living here in Chicago, he got his DSL from Speakeasy and shared the connection with others in his building... and anyone else who needed a quick Internet fix (Speakeasy even encouraged this). He even positioned his router so that anyone in the church across the street could pick up a signal. Obviously, not everyone is like Peter. But despite easy-to-read instructions and a plethora of warnings about the need to secure your WAP, some people just can't be bothered to enable the most basic security settings. To the person with a laptop and a sudden need to check e-mail or surf the web, it's not possible to tell who is leaving their access points open deliberately and who just plain doesn't care. The access point is there and the virtual doors are unlocked, so why not take advantage of it if you're in need? A couple of caveats: be familiar with the law of the land. As the examples at the beginning of this story show, it's illegal to access a WAP without permission—even if it's wide open—in some places. Also, you should never use an open point for anything illegal or even unneighborly. Don't log onto the first "linksys" WAP you see and fire up a torrent for your favorite, just-released Linux distro. And as always, don't leave your own 802.11b/g/n router wide open unless you're comfortable with random surfers using your 'Net access for their own purposes. Open WiFi is clearly here to stay. Source

^Don't insult the man Camel Boy. He is no Tony. This man is real. He is not conniving, calculating opportunist. Yes he is politician but better than the most. I hope he gets the low down of Middle East chess game right. New York Times weighs Democratic party's political lanscape. PS: The man looks good on my fathers dress :cool:

It is about time. He got what it takes: money, organization, huge following (young and white plus educated white color), and he is smart. Oprah delivered despite all the fuss media made about her ability to draw women to the polls. Over thousands of new voters -- talk about the power of celebrity. Nicely done yaa Huseeni. PS: his view on Palestine-Isreal conflict is troubling to say the least. He won't get my vote unless he changes his view on foreign policy toward Middle East.

My man Lander according to International law Ethiopia is indeed indivisible and no other state can unilaterally recognize parts of its territory. However Ethiopia can be divided through internal political process. In fact the system is open, theoretically speaking, for killins to secede provided they meet the required threshold. That being said again Somalia is not Ethiopia. The analogy is farfetched and ya know it. Not to mention the basis for secession for our secessionists rests on what colonial European power colonized what part of Somalia -- not a case for an intelligent young gun like you should be making. Awoowe I pity you. I understand your grievances. I know Britain once upon time illegally colonized parts of our country to farther its imperial interests. That shameful history is behind us. Britain’s protectorate is defunct today. Awoowe let's talk. Justice, practical and transparent political system with checks and balances, sharia-based Islamic government, condolences of lives lost during the dark days, compensation, what is it that you want short of dismembering this poor and forsaken barren land. The coffee mocha is on good ol' Baashi. What you say young gun