Pakistan: Blog-o-detention · Global Voices
Omer Alvie

I must begin this post by extending my sincere apologies to the readers of GV for my disappearance of the GV radar for the past several months.. Unfortunately, for me I do not have valid excuse for this prolonged absence except to tell you the truth. I was abducted by aliens. No, not the extraterrestrial kind but illegal kind and it turned out to be only a few degrees worse than watching Fox News. They demanded ransom but my family refused to pay. Months went by and my family even stopped answering their phone calls. Just last week I was released after a final negotiation effort in which the abductors agreed to pay a million dollars (in 20 easy installments) to my family just so they could get rid of me. They, apparently, had had enough.
Now to the business of highlighting some interesting posts from the Pakistani bloggers, Sabahat, who happens to be one of my favourite bloggers, writes about the voice of the confused and the politically unsavvy.
Musharraf may not exactly be as charismatic as Bhutto but in his initial days he too captured a lot of people's imagination and as the foregone conclusion to today's elections was announced i was hit with a strong sense of dejavu. Shades of not Bhutto but Zia-ul-Haq's sham referendum and Musharraf's own a few years back. What kind of ‘election’ is this that took place today? Another 5 years for Musharraf? What exactly do I feel about it.
Anwaar Hussain, pens another impeccable piece, this time he give us a detailed insight into that notorious US government contractor, Blackwater USA.
Blackwater is currently the largest of the U.S. State Department’s three private security contractors deployed in Iraq. At least 90% of its revenue comes from government contracts, two-thirds of which are no-bid contracts. The cost for each Blackwater guard, a foot soldier, in Iraq is estimated to be around $445,000 per year, more than twice that of a U.S. General’s salary with 26 years of service.
Windmill of my mind has posted some interesting interviews with several (Karachi) bloggers discussing the flaws and dangers of the proposed CyberCrime Bill.
During my recent captivity, courtesy the illegal aliens, I passed my time in solitary confinement by launching yet another site, with my blogger friend Awab and my brother (who doesn't blog for religious reasons or so he says). The site is called Quinge, and it has exclusive podcast interviews with some very prominent personalities, such as Dr. Arma Barlas, Professor Ziauddin Sardar, Musicians Sajid and Zeeshan and more. You will get to hear discussion on religion (Islam), politics, art and music in a way that you have not heard it before, especially in the mainstream media. In addition we've got some original essays and short stories that are exclusive to quinge.com. I hope you all will take the time to check this site out.
Finally, I'd like to highlight my own recent blog post, which I should warn, should not be viewed by anyone under the age of 18. It has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.
That's me done for this post. I hope to return again with another post in the future but without such a prolonged break. Neha‘s made sure of that as she has just promised to ship 2 cans of solid ‘whoop-ass’ for me in case I procrastinate again.