Snips

Some people do make it a habit of getting into problems, and try to make a virtue of it.

Harry Kakavas, a compulsive gambler, probably a compulsive loser, had been banned from every casino in Australia in 2007. Despite the ban, he was allowed to enter Crown Casino in Melbourne and over a period of 14 months, he lost A$37 million. He seems to have gone there prepared to lose, and sue. For he has carried a concealed camera with which he recorded the managers of the casino allegedly lure him back to its baccarat tables. Kakavas in the court documents has charged that the managers of Crown Casino sent out emails with detailed plans that would get Kakavas back on its tables after they came to know that he had lost millions of dollars in Las Vegas! Kakavas is suing the Casino for A$50 millions as damages.

If you have to go without for two weeks, would you choose internet or sex?

According to a Intel Corp survey in US, 46% of women and 30% of men are willing to give up sex and keep connected over the net. Other things that lose out to internet are watching TV, dining out, shopping for clothes and gym memberships.

You would have seen the journalist in Iraq throw his shoes at George Bush. He wouldn't have dared do that to Saddam Hussein, would he, whatever his grievances? It shows that democracy is making progress in Iraq, despite the body count. Bush showed great alertness in ducking under the shoes, and graciously made the comment, "All I can report is it is a size 10". 37 days to go, and here is our inspirational Bush quote:

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." --George W. Bush in an interview with CBS News' Katie Couric.

Beatles should be history now, but Paul McCartney manages to keep them in current news. He has this to say about their political stance on Vietnam war:

"For instance, Vietnam. Just when we were getting to be well known, someone said to me: "Bertrand Russell is living not far from here in Chelsea, why don't you go and see him?" and so I just took a taxi down there and knocked on the door. "He was fabulous. He told me about the Vietnam war- most of us didn't know about it, it wasn't yet in the papers- and also that it was a very bad war. "I remember going back to the studio either that evening or the next day and telling the guys, particularly John (Lennon), about this meetin and saying what a bad war this was."

Is it so easy to get convinced and get into political activism? No wonder most of these high profile activists show no sense of responsibilty.



This is hard to believe, but apparently it is supported by sound scientific research.

Researchers at Glasgow scanned the brains of nine Glasgow Rangers fans, and have concluded that watching your team score a goal feels as good as sex. They showed the fans video of their team netting goals, and found that the brain's anterior cingulate cortex, the area associated with sexual arousal and intense pleasure, buzzed with high activity. John McLean, the lead researcher comments, that the reverse is not easy to verify: "Whether it is as powerful a stimulus as sex, I don't know; perhaps for some people. It might be difficult, however, to do a study with people having sex in a scanner", he is quoted to have said.

I am sure they would find a way around it.

"This team is capable of doing something special... they can do anything" - Gary Kirsten.

In what is an astonishing turn around, India has done the impossible, winning this test match with reasonable comfort. It looks as if India is set to gain the number one ranking.



This is great news for democracy- we are still questioning the use of Electronic Voting Machines, but Estonia is leading the world in technical solutions to voter apathy-

Estonians voted by internet last year, and in 2011, will be voting through their mobile phones. The voters will receive free, authorized chips for their phones that would enable them to cast secure votes.

Scary stats:

In the US today, an average of 8200 people are laid of every day- this means, every ten seconds, someone loses a job. The Panamanian termite is the quickest to bite: its jaws snap shut at an incredible speed of 70 miles per second. They usually fight in a narrow tunnel with no room for manoeuvre, so the victim stands no chance.

And finally, something to mull about:

"The most difficult thing in this world is to adopt the warrior spirit and attitude. It does not help at all to be sad, to complain, to feel a victim of injustice and to believe that someone is doing something to harm us. No one is doing anything (and far less to a warrior) "It matters not how we were brought up. What determines our way of acting is the manner in which we administrate our will. A man is the sum of all his wishes, which determine his way of living and dying." - Carlos Castaneda, quoted by Paulo Coelho (as translated by James Mulholland)

Snips

"I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office." --George W. Bush, Washington, 26.6.2008.

While on the subject of Bush, there seems to be no end to the bizarre that is connected with him. See this: It seems that a small Internet company had bought www.georgewbushlibrary.com for less than $10 after it expired and then sold it back it to the library for $35,000!

And more on the subject of the bizarre: "I’m supposed to start off, and say that I’m very happy to be here, and I guess I am. But it’s 4:15 in the morning as far as I’m concerned, and I lost my wallet on the way here, It’s rather embarrassing when somebody steals my credit cards."... Know who said this? Joseph Saunders, Visa Inc Chief Executive - that's who!

Scott Adams can be bizarre, but never pointless: "The best plan now is to have as many bosses as possible. I call it boss diversity. If you work for a company and you have one boss and that boss doesn’t like you or wants to get rid of you, you’re in trouble. But if you work for yourself, you have lots of bosses, who are your customers, and if a few of them decide they don’t like you, that’s okay. You can get new ones. Boss diversity is the one kind companies don’t talk to you about, but it can save your career." This is his solution for us to survive economic slowdown! There is more in the Esquire interview,, for instance he also comes out with this amazing statement, "...our past successes were mostly due to luck, we just happened to invent something the world needed at the time. For example, the birth of the automobile, or the rise of the Internet - some specific technology that becomes the centerpiece of the economic world and lifts us out of the doldrums. I don't really see anything like that on the horizon right now. Everyone's looking at "green" technologies, which makes me think it's not going to be that, it's going to be something else entirely that no one expects. Or maybe it's going to be nothing and those past breakthroughs were just flukes." You can't charge Scott Adams of not being original...

And finally the mystic statement of St. Therese de Lisieux:"Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden to me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."

Arundhati Roy - Ghoul of Mean Things

This morning I received a message from Baskar, asking me to check A Roy's article in Guardian. I was wondering where was she? After all Mumbai terror gives her ample scope to nurture her pet topic. Usually she surfaces within a week in one of our leading magazines. However it took more than two weeks and a foreign daily to air her views. Quite understandable that none of our weeklies can risk an article of this kind, that too from a notorious person, given the current mood and climate.

I read it half way and dumped it. Whether you agree with the content or not, at least A Roy used to have a style and flow that keeps your interest alive in her writings. But this time nothing retained in my interest in her article. The article was hardly cohesive and far from a spontaneous response. She has just gobbled up all her pet hate topics like Modi, VHP, RSS, L K Advani, Hindu terrorism, Kashmir injustice, Islam's anger, Narmada dam, Singur,... etc and used them here and there along with Mumbai terror to make people see her point. What is her point? India deserve it. Yes, we deserve a writer and a pseudo-socialist like Arundhati Roy.

I think she was compelled to write as the Mumbai terror presented her a grand opportunity to put forth her vicious and venomous thoughts across to her readers and haters. Indian weeklies cold feet proved all the more good for her that now she has international audience via Guardian.

Every person has a right to air their views on the Mumbai terror and they need not agree with the popular opinion. However what the terrorists did to victims and at large to the psyche of Indian public is terribly condemnable. There can't be two opinions on that unless one is a terrorist. I did not come across a single sentence of condemnation of terror attacks and the perpetrators, by this over rated inetllectual (Please correct me if you find her condemning these acts in the article or if she had done it elsewhere).

What do you make of such people who use such an incident only to feed their ego and cast their aspersions on all and sundry. Baskar suggested that she is the Ghoul of mean things. She is a Ghoul (feeding on victims) of mean things (petty ego, mean mind and verbal diarrhoea).

Please read her article and post your views. Unfortunately there was no comments section under her article in Guardian. May be fortunately for Arundhati Roy. Arundhati Roy's article in Guardian

Snippets

We start with Bush: "There is some who say that perhaps freedom is not universal. Maybe it's only Western people that can self-govern. Maybe it's only, you know, white-guy Methodists who are capable of self-government. I reject that notion." -- George W. Bush, London.

Out from Pakistan comes the confirmation of what we alleged, and the Pakistan Government denied: "I don’t sell my sons" -Amir Kasab, father of Ajmal the captured Mumbai terrorist.This was his reply to a question whether he had received the 1.5 lakh rupees compensation promised to Ajmal by his handlers. Amir sells pakoras on a handcart, and seems to have more spunk than the intelligensia in Pakistan. He has also said, "I was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself it could not have been my son. Now, I hve accepted it"- this realisation has eluded the creators of public opinion and the Government of Pakistan so far.

But there would seem to be a glimmer of hope. "'In other words, our actions are making us look like criminals,' - Ayaz Amir, noted Pakistani political commentator, in The News. But too faint for comfort. He is doleful and plaintive, "There is nothing in Pakistan, not even the jihadi organisations like the Lashkar dedicated to vague causes, to compare with the courage and organisation of Hizbollah. And there is no leader in Pakistan, or indeed across the embattled world of Islam - a religion which we disgrace by our incompetence and cowardice - to match (Hizbollah chief) Hasan Nasrullah," He grieves not because he understands the futility of violence, but the compulsions of 'poor circumstances', empty coffers. So he is ready "to bid a final farewell to the diplomacy of jihad". We never knew that the Jihadis who attacked Mumbai were diplomats- the peace they seek to establish would be the silence of the graveyard.

Nearer home, we have more pressing matters. "Men are suffering in silence. It’s the only country where the father is not considered important for the child’’ Kamal Vikram, member, GHRS (Gender Human Rights Society). Making a case that men are suffering legal terrorism at the hands of women, GHRS cite the sad statistics that 57,593 married men have committed suicide compared to a mere 30,064 married women, and lament that all the deaths of women are ascribed to marriage problems, while the suicides of men are put down to financial problems.

And finally, a wonderful description of freedom as a state of being. It might be impossible for us to come by, but the words paint a brilliant picture of the natural state of independent self: "I awaken between three and five, meditate for one or two hours, go straight to my desk and work till one or two P.M. The type of meditation I do varies, but the basic form is "the practice of the morning." or "ultimate guru yoga," where the true nature of one's own mind is the ultimate guru. The practice is: Upon waking, or upon passing from dream state to the waking state, look directly into the mind, inquire directly into the source of consciousness itself--inquire "Who am I?" if you like, or practice looking directly into the looker. Upon inquiring into the self, the self disappears, dissolving back into radiant Emptiness, and consciousness rests as absolute Freedom and Fullness, unbounded and unlimited, unborn and undying, unseen and unknown." - Ken Wilber

Guilt is Rational, Punishment Emotional

You know how they put you under f-MRI and see what happens inside your brain as they do things to your head? I don't think the results of such tests are all that conclusive, but they sure are interestig.

News from News Scientist is that making use of  f-MRI, a team of researchers at Vanderbilt University have probed the brains of 16 volunteers and come to this conclusion that the sense of justice may be inborn in the human brain. Our brains respond to acts of injustice even when we are not directly affected,  as if we were personally wronged.

The researchers also state that we assess guilt rationally and give out punishment emotionally.

Activity in a small part of the prefrontal cortex seems to make the difference between the certainty of culpability and scenarios where the guilt was more uncertain, no matter the severity of the crime. When another team temporarily blocked the rDLPFC (the area that judges what is fair and what is not). with a magnet, participants playing a financial game that tests trust failed to punish unfair offers.

Now, this makes no difference to how we live, but I think, we will have to think twice before saying- you have your views and I have mine. It is possible that the other party has more information than you, he is certain who is guilty, and I, with lack of it, can't judge objectively.

Snippets

"There a huge trust. I see it all the time when people come up to me and say, 'I don't want you to let me down again.'" --George W. Bush, Boston, Oct. 3, 2000.

"Are non-state actors coming from heaven or are they coming from another planet? Non-state actors are operating from the territory of a particular country." - Pranab Mukherjee. Unfortunately, the problem is not where they are coming from, it is where they believe they are getting into.

"When people, ostensibly seeking justice, stoop to violence, peace can never prevail. Peace is always desirable for its own sake, and every other desirable state comes after peace, not along with it. So, the maxim to follow, when peace is the desired state, is, "Ignore the problems, and avail of the opportunities." - Maulana Wahiduddin Khan.

"This woman (Madonna) comes here and in an incredibly shameless manner, she provokes a crazy enthusiasm, an enthusiasm of lust, lustful thoughts, impure thoughts," - Roman Catholic Cardinal Jorge Medina, during his homily at a Mass in honor of the late dictator Augusto Pinochet, who oversaw the deaths of some 3,200 dissidents during his 1973-1990 rule. Cardinal Medina has also said that some of those who claim to seek justice forthe  violations of human rights under the dictator's reign are actually seeking revenge. When I got my first pay, it was for fourteen days, because I had joined my job on the sixteenth of the month. The pay was not much, still I wanted to give something to those close to me out of the income I had first earned. To a cousin, I bought and gave a large poster of Madonna (the Marilyn Monroe look). We were not sex-driven, she just looked so beautiful. I don't know what the world is getting to, mass murder is okay, but lust is bad.

Statistics is scary, you can't really trust them, but they are intriguing, aren't they? In a CBS Poll, it has been found that more than 48 percent of the Americans believe in ghosts... 56 percent of the women believe this, only 38 percent of men do. Though, in all, only 22 percent of Americans claim they have actually seen ghosts.

"Don't mark in red pen (which can be seen as aggressive)- use a different color." - Good Mental Health Rocks kit, distributed in Queensland state. Apparently they are concerned that 14 per cent of Australian children and adolescents suffer from some sort of illness, and would like to do something for them.

The ego is a barrier to receptivity. "There is this story about the son of Ved Vyas. He wanted to be trained by Raja Janak, a wise king. Ved Vyas requested Raja Janak to take his son, Sukh, under his tutelage. Raja Janak asked him to send his son over. Sukh arrived at the appointed hour outside Raja Janak’s study and knocked at his door. "Who is it?" Janak asked. Sukh replied, "Main Sukh (I am Sukh)." Janak didn’t open the door. Sukh knocked again. "Who is it?" Main Sukh. Janak didn’t open the door. This was repeated many times till Sukh was tired of knocking and waiting. Suddenly, a realisation dawned on him. He knocked again. Janak said, "Who is it?" This time Sukh replies, "Sukh." Janak opened the door. Sukh realised that as long as he had the "I", Janak did not wish to take him as his student. -Pavan Choudary

.Summary of Posts On 11.12.2008.

In snippets , we have Kevin Pieterson, who believes it is enough to turn up to win matches, four predictions which went wrong, among them two are by Bill Gates, Swami Anubhavananda who says it is always the case that while nobody is happy, somebody has to be unhappy, and then Pablo Picasso on his experimentations. There is also a Bushism, and a defence of Bush.

There is a post of Gavin Ewert , whose assisted suicide was telecast on Televisions, this thursday. He didn't cop out, but took a brave decision- "I am tired of the disease but I am not tired of living. I still enjoy life enough that I would like to continue but the thing is that I really cannot.

And finally a post on Shane Warne- the Musical , a show that has opened in Australia. This is sure to be filmed sometime soon. I like the sound of "Wbat an SMS I'm In"