Random chatter II

All in all it has been a busy week. Started the week by commemorating the death of our first Holy Imam, then had the amaals of Shab-e-Qadr and to top it all off, I've actually been busy at work! Yesterday I had a meeting with my educational supervisor and we went through a video consultation of myself. It is so weird seeing myself consult patients - almost cringe worthy, although I must add I am rather good - I can put on a good act for the camera.

Being the end of the week and also the last Friday of Ramadan, I don't have much time to blog today before Juma prayers which I have to get to shortly. Just enough time to reflect on the current affairs of the week. The week started with a great tragedy in Pakistan. The Marriot hotel in Islamabad was attacked by a suicide bomber carrying 600kg of explosives in a truck. The devastation caused can be seen here, and resulted in over 50 deaths and counting.

It seems that no week goes by without some report of a suicide attack somewhere in the Middle East or South Asia. It begs the question, how easy is it to recruit a suicide bomber? How are people being so brainwashed that they agree to kill themselves? How do agents of Al-Qaeda or the Taleban convince people it is all in the name of Islam? The people who do the recruiting are not stupid and yet they seem to think that such violent attacks and causing the death of innocent people will lead to reward in the hereafter. All I can say is that God clearly states in the Quran that "...whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men." (Surah 5, Verse 32).

Moving on from such tragic events, to something less traumatising. The Labour Party conference this week saw Gordon Brown attempt to stage a recovery for his premiership with a convincing speech discussing how he is going to deal with the various issues facing this country. At the end of the day it comes down to a simple question, who is the least worse option in running the country? Tony Blair won a 3rd successive term in power back in 2005, mainly because the quality of his opponents in the Tory and Lib Dem party were so poor and the same will apply again. This time, it appears that the public are turning against the Labour Party and the Tories will surely benefit. David Cameron must be loving it, he hasn't had to come up with any amazing policy breakthroughs or tax promises, he's just sat back and watch Labour implode. Too little, too late Mr. Brown.

Lastly, the credit crunch shows no signs of abating. This week, President Bush has been trying to convince Congress to cough up $700 billion in an attempt to save the banks who are at threat from going under in the US. A few years ago, when the banks were successful, making huge amounts of money, many chief executives, managers and whoever were making large bonuses on the back of it. At the time, do you remember receiving a letter from your bank, congratulating themselves for the success and rewarding you with a cash donation? I don't. So now that they are in trouble due to their own excesses, why are we, the taxpayers, being asked to foot the bill of recovery? They dug their own grave, now they should suffer the consequences. Obviously, I cannot claim to even begin to understand the complicated world that is the finance sector, but it just doesn't seem fair. If we didn't enjoy the bonuses, why are we being forced to help now. I await someone to explain it to me.

That concludes my brief discussion about the week just gone. The comments seemed to have dried up this week. No-one has yet commented on what personality type they are - c'mon readers leave a comment or two please!

Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?