So it seems Iraq has a draft constitution, and as part of that, the Shiite clerics got their wish that Iraqi law be based on Islamic law. In short that means they can enforce the Sharia law, meaning women lose the right to vote, have to wear burkas and can be stoned for not doing so.

Its interesting to note that women obviously had more rights than this even under Saddam. Also you're close to the slippery slope of having overthrown the Taliban in Afganistan only to have the same tight Islamic doctrine take hold in Iraq.

I have to assume that given that this consitution goes to referendum later in the year, that women will still have the option to vote at that point, and will wholeheartedly reject this consitution. But then where would that leave democracy in Iraq, and when will the US's military role be complete?

If I was a Republican running for re-election in 2006 I think I'd be quaking in my boots around about now. Even W seems to be on course to become the most unpopular President in US history.

---

---

So I've had these questions buzzing in my head for a few days, and wanted to put them out there, as I'm sure smarter people than me will know the answers ...

So, I'm reading the Da Vinci Code. At the risk of spoiling it for folks that haven't read it, I'm good with most of the core premise - one of the main reasons I don't like Christianity is that I've known for years about Emperor Constantine rewriting and constructing the Bible to cement his power base and unify the pagan community. I knew that was why Christmas was moved into December, close to the pagan Winter Solstice festivities etc.

The other main premise bothers me a little... That Jesus was married, and most of the gospels chose not to mention it, and that this fact was covered up by not including (and actively destroying) gospels that mentioned the union. While I wouldn't put anything past the Church, it does seem odd that the Jewish Bible doesn't mention it either. I don't know much about Judaism, but I know Jesus is viewed as "just another prophet" (which concurs with Constantine adding Jesus' divine status, and adding in the Magnificat and Jesus' resurrection to support it). Yet his marital status is not common knowledge amongst the Jews. Well, I guess we don't know the marital status of the other prophets either, so perhaps there is no answer to this one.

One last thing: On CNN a few nights back they were talking about the Da Vinci Code movie. A prominent Catholic was talking about how he wouldn't have a problem with the film if there was prominent notice at the beginning about how this was based on a work of fiction. This seemed ironic to me given what Constantine did when he composed the Bible and destroyed gospels that didn't match the message he wanted to put out ...

OK, this one may be silly, but its still a question.

I think I've decided that its a sexual marker. You develop pubic hair during puberty to tell the opposite sex that your body is ready, much like the way baboons butts turn red...

The hole in my theory is that women don't lose theirs after menopause... But then who wants to think of their granny with naked bits :-O

This one is less rhetorical, as I think I already know the answer, and that answer is: The same price it currently is in Europe.

For example, the price of gas in the UK is currently around $7.50 a gallon, or around 3x what it is in the US. And you never see pickup trucks there. Folks in Texas say that they need pickups, yet they just don't exist in the UK. You do see SUVs, but you'd not see anything with more than a 3.0 liter engine ... you just couldn't afford to run it.

---

I'm not sure how/why anyone would want to play any game for 50 hours non-stop. Even when I was hooked on EverQuest II, the most I could do was 8 hours or so at one sitting. At that point I was so tired I just kept dying...

No doubt the politically-correct ESRB will add some Surgeon's Warning deal to games after this...

S Korean dies after games session

---

There has been an almost non stop series of rumors about a possible upcoming "Video iPod" device. A few people at work have asked me what I think, so I thought I'd share.

My expectations are:

• The device will be little larger than the current iPod
• The front of it will be almost all screen, with no buttons on the front of it. Very clean, very elegant.
• To control it you will touch the screen. Single tap the middle of the screen to Play/Pause. Tap the left side of the screen to go back (i.e. the previous chapter of a movie), right side of the screen to go to the next chapter.
• The screen will let you scan (like fast-forward while the movie is playing) by dragging on the screen, much like you can pan using two fingers on the trackpads of the newer PowerBooks.
• My mate Rich suggested: they might also just display a partially transparent scroll wheel (kind of like you get in MacOS X when you use the volume controls or make a slideshow from a bunch of photos), and have that be touch sensitive so the device functions just like a regular iPod. The wheel would appear when you touch the screen and disappear after a short interval. That would be pretty elegant but the software to make that work is more complex that what I'm envisioning (thinking specifically about the handling when you are moving your fingers in a circular motion on the screen to change volume as you do on the iPod scroll wheel).
• The device will go beyond just movies. If you are a movie studio, you realize that people buy DVDs for more than just the movie – they want the extras: The "Making of..." documentary, the storyboards, alternate endings etc. What better way to win over the studios (and customers) than to give them something they can't get from a ripped of MPEG downloaded over BitTorrent – give them the whole "movie experience"

I found an image that came close on iPod Lounge and Photoshopped it about a bit to show the scroll wheel overlay and a DVD-style menu:


I could be wrong, but this is how I'd say Apple can make something that is the "obvious solution" to the end user. They didn't make the first MP3 player but they made it obvious. Prepare to be amazed.

---

Dell finally has a real CIO! in the form of Susan Sheskey. Susan was formerly the VP of the IT group I am in – Global Sales and Support Services (the group that includes the Dell.com dev teams).

Susan has great vision, and unlike our former CIO, she'll actually share her thoughts with the rest of us, instead of reserving them for carefully crafted statements in CIO Magazine.

Which reminds me ... I'm trying to think of a witty punchline to go with this:

Q. How many former Wal-Mart employees does it take to change a light bulb?

So far the best I can come up with is:

A. Give me a few minutes to pull those numbers from the Data Warehouse

... but I'm sure there are wittier punchlines than that...

---