Alternate Seat of TYR

I have a curious problem with Python 2.5’s SQL support. OK, so we import sqlite3 and create a connection object to an existing sql file. It happens. Then we call the connection’s cursor method. OK.
Now, if you look up the sqlite documentation, the most important command is cursor.execute(), where your SQL command goes in the [...]

Great Britain 20 New Zealand 14!
Well, at least they didn’t schedule it to clash with whatever it was the union people were doing. What a match, though - like inhaling espresso compared to the ‘tothersiders. It had it all - tension! speed! spectacle! Sam Burgess, the 18-year old bolter, had a damn good game and [...]

What was a small British company doing importing vast quantities of arms from Bosnia? More importantly, what was it doing telling lies about their destination in order to clear Bosnian customs? What was it doing contracting with Tomislav Damjanovic, possibly Viktor Bout, and disgraced Iraqi minister Ziad Cattan to ship them to Iraq when the [...]

The International Herald-Tribune has an interesting article about a Serbian gun-runner and colleague of Viktor Bout’s, one Tomislav Damjanovic. For some reason it’s in the Style section; most photos of Viktor would seem to rule that out, but the one of Damjanovic they supply does have a certain Balkan sharpness.
Anyway, the report is based on [...]

So what’s in the server log? Shall we look?
82.205.254.45 [entrypoint #437] 2007/10/october-08-and-out.html Oct 22, 12:07:51 [0:00:00] views: 1 Yahoo ! (where to apply for the assistance to iraqi locally engaged staff)
Yes; you read it all right. That’s someone searching Yahoo! for instructions on what to do if you worked for the [...]

Says Iranian foreign minister Manoucher Mottaki:
“America, today, in the international system is facing a serious challenge … Americans are in a very, very difficult situation.
“The people of Afghanistan would not allow America to use Afghanistan against any country. This is our … belief,” he said.
Mottaki said Tehran’s findings from three rounds of talks with U.S. [...]

I is a linux lappeh…at least for the time being!
Am running Mandriva Linux on the Q45; off the live cd at the moment.
I can report that the boot is reasonably painless, although I had to put it in acpi=off mode. It detected the Intel wireless LAN card without difficulty and played nicely with my Linksys [...]

What to blog about? In the face of work like this or this?
Why not Pakistan? The fix is in, as they say - Musharraf safely re-elected by crook more than by hook, pesky corruption charges disposed of, Nawaz Sharif shouldered out of the way, time for the great heroine’s return. The enemy, of course, always [...]

I’ve recently been experimenting with various ways of automatically gathering information about Viktor Bout’s airlines; you’ve probably noticed the resumption of Pathetic Python Blogging. Anyway, though the project is far from ready, enough of itnow works to produce some useful results. For example, who the hell are “Asia Airways”, who regularly fly between Sharjah and [...]

The story that Israeli satellite TV viewers have been experiencing constant interference for several weeks is an interesting one. As has been pointed out, it can’t be the jamming presumably employed during the Deir ez-Zor raid, which would have been over weeks ago. According to the Israeli government it’s all the fault of the Germans! [...]