Ron Wayne left Apple after just twelve days and sold his stake which would now have been worth an estimated $35 billion. Incredibly, the guy never regretted the decision. Why? In his own words, Wayne realized he was “standing in the shadow of a couple of really brilliant guys” and that his “level of creativity couldn’t possibly match theirs”. Figuring out he “would have wound up doing rather mundane work”, Wayne pulled out.
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Filed under Blogging
Joining other reactions on the web to Steve Jobs’ sudden resignation as the CEO of Apple yesterday, Google’s vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra recalled on Google+ a particular Sunday in January 2008 when Apple’s boss asked him to call his home. The reason? The Google logo on the iPhone:
So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I’ve already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow. I’ve been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I’m not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn’t have the right yellow gradient. It’s just wrong and I’m going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?
Filed under apple, Google, Steve Jobs
Disclaimer: The above and below texts are an expression of my right of free speech
What MNS has today achieved is divide India based on ethnicity. This is altogather new approach by a political party to get into limelight. We have heard parties dividing Indians based on caste , relegion . But is something new.
Whenever i see an “activist” of our political parties , who is cheerfully grabbing any excuse to commit mayhem. I say to myself “There goes my vote”. What this does is also makes me a firm believer in “Amount of tax one pays should be directly proportional to the number of Votes he/she gets to cast” Philosophy. What this means is that if you pay Rs 10,000 as tax , you should be able to cast 10,000 votes. Though this makes people like TATA’s , Birla’s , Ambani’s omnipotent, it also assures these so called “leaders” from MNS are not catapulted into power by playing such cheap politics.
Though some would argue that it is unfair to the guy who is not paying any tax , i would only say that these politicians have never cared about the guy on the street and they never will.
Filed under Politics
“Today, President Bush announced a new national goal to stop the growth in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025″ - Source Whitehouse.gov
Does that mean, we can abuse our environment for 16 more years? I dont think so.
There are opinions on the significance of global warming and if, in fact, it even exists. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and for every message published by some scientific institute , there is a counter view given by someone else. All UN does is submit report after report on the effects of global warming. United States is the only developed country that has not ratified the treaty and is one of the significant greenhouse gas emitters. China and India have no obligation beyond monitoring and reporting emissions.
No matter what path our goverment chooses , we must understand that this is a global issue. No single person can reverse the effects of global warming but togather we can solve it. By using energy-efficient products at home and at work, we can significantly reduce our greenhouse gas .
Join wecansolveit.org. We are already a million strong .
While scientists around the globe were busy with the LHC experiment, i was doing my own research on the “Puranas”. Thought to have been written 2000 years ago, they are the religious texts which talk about the creation of the universe (and much more).
One thing in particular grabbed my attention
“In the beginning the Brahm pervaded the entire universe. When it was time for creation, the Brahm manifested itself as the three supreme gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.” Then water was created and out of the water arose a huge many-headed serpent known as Seshnag. Vishnu took this serpent as his resting place. Next from the waters came a golden egg shining with the brilliance of a thousand suns. Brahma, the Creator, entered the egg and for a thousand years carried on the work of creation within the egg. After a thousand years the egg hatched into two parts. The upper part was made the heaven and the lower part the earth. The sun emerged from the egg and took its ordained place in the heaven. Since it was the first to emerge it is known as Aditya. The various landforms, rivers, oceans and mountains then followed.”
It is interesting to note that now we know that during the big bang there were 4 fundamental forces at work (electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force and gravitation) . Could this be Brahm, Brahmma, Vishnu and Shiva?
Also could the “golden egg shining with the brilliance of a thousand suns” be the universe at initial stage?
The Vedas never talk about any explosion but simply say that Brahma entered the egg and for thousand years carried on the work of creation of egg. Interestingly scientists say that “ there was no explosion; there was (and continues to be) an expansion. Rather than imagining a balloon popping and releasing its contents, imagine a balloon expanding: an infinitesimally small balloon expanding to the size of our current universe. “(Source: Big Bang Theory website).
Were our ancestors explaining the Big Bang theory 2000 years ago?
G.W Bush famous quotes:
1. “The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country”
2. “If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure”
3. “We have a firm commitment to NATO and we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe; we are a part of Europe“
4. ” A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls”
5. “It’s time for human race to enter the solar system”
6. “Human being and fish can co exist peacefully”
7. “You teach a child to read and he/she will be able to pass literacy test
Filed under Funny
GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was interviewed by Charles Gibson the other day. Here is an excerpt of her comments on how to deal with Russia in the future:
GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn’t we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?
PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.
But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to — especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.
We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.
GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.
PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.
And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.
Is she seriouslly thinking of going to war with Russia over Georgia? Would’nt going to war with Russia would make the world a more dangerous place? Which country was a larger power and which country was a smaller power when Iraq was invaded (on the pretext of finding WMD’s).
If the statement was made to gain political mileage then it is OK , but if she is seriously considering a conflict with Russia , then God help us all
Filed under Politics, Sarah Palin
T Mobile could launch the first Android based smartphone this October. The “Dream” is expected to be announced Sept. 23 and in stores sometime late October. HTC will manufacture the device and will combine the best features available in Iphone and Blackberry. Analysts at WSJ are already predicting sales estimates of around 300,000 to 500,000 this year.
Sources such as Forbes and Infoworld have leaked some of the features like :
Will ” Dream” be the iphone Killer or is it a big hype?
Filed under Android, Business, Iphone, News, Technology
If a Karachi(Pakistan) police surgeon is to be believed, on an average 100 rapes take place in the port city of Karachi alone, and mostly working women are the victims.
He said because of the “lengthy medical process and delayed justice system in Pakistan”, only 0.5% of rape cases are reported to the police.
“On average, 100 women are raped every 24 hours in Karachi city alone, and a majority of them are working women. I am saying with full authority that such a large number of rape cases happen in the city. But very few rape survivors have the courage to come forward in search of justice,” Additional Police Surgeon Zulfiqar Siyal said on Monday.He added that a majority of the victims working as domestic help.
Source: TOI
If something like this is happening in a caity like karachi (which is the largest city in pakistan) , then think what is happening in other smaller cities.
Here is how
1. Common man pays tax
2. Tax is collected by IRS
3. IRS deposits the money into US Treasury.
4. US Treasury issues securities against that money which is utilized by Federal reserve
5. Federal Reserve has issued a loan of $85 billion to AIG and in return AIG would (hopefully) return the principal and the interest. Thus benefiting from the loan.
But the question is is that is this how a capitalist economy should work?
Filed under AIG, Business, Capitalism, US
Believe it or not , you wont find a single women in Athos (a 40 mile stretch of land located near Greece). It is ruled by a group of monks who represent the 20 monasteries in Athos. Since 1045, the monks have forbidden women to set foot on their land!. It isn’t only human women who are not permitted in Athos, but females of all animal species. Monks feel that the presence of women alters the social dynamics of the community and therefore slows the path towards spiritual enlightenment
A monk who lived in Athos was probably the only man in history who never laid eyes on a single female throughout his life. The monk, Mihailo Tolotos, lost his mother the day he was born, and was taken to the monastery the next day.He spent the rest of his life in Athos, without ever seeing a female of any species!
Only recently have exceptions been made — in the case of hens and female cats!
Probably Yes.
CNN’s poll of polls had earlier shown that Palin was the driving factor behind John McCain’s lead over Obama. (McCain leading 47 to 45 on 8th September). But it seems the Palin effect is over and Obama is back in the lead (47 to 44 18th of September). Palin’s favorable rating is at 40 percent, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll. That’s down 4 points from last week. Her unfavorable rating is at 30 percent, rising eight points in a week.
Economy is the fundamental reason behind this change . McCain said Monday that “the fundamentals of the American economy are strong. Probably not a smart thing to say on the day of financial meltdown. Most Americans see Obama as more capable than John McCain when it comes to handling the economy, polls show.
Also ”Thanks but no thanks to bridge to Nowhere” comment has angered many Alaskans and people are learning that she had earlier supported the bridge .
Former Bush adviser Karl Rove predicted Wednesday that Palin’s star power would wear off.
“Nothing lasts for 60-some-odd days,” Rove told The Associated Press. “Will she be the center of attention in the remaining 48 days? No, but she came on in a very powerful way and has given a sense of urgency to the McCain campaign that’s pretty remarkable.”
Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican, is questioning whether Palin has enough foreign-policy experience to serve as the country’s second-in-command. “She doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials,” Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald. “You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don’t know what you can say. You can’t say anything.”
“I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, ‘I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,” he added. “That kind of thing is insulting to the American people.”
Is the govenment doing anything for the common man whos on the street because of the financial crisis? Is the governemnt here to bail out big companies only and not the common man who is on the street? Why are profits privatized and tax payer money is being used to bail out companies which no other private comapny wants to buy?
Between the $29 billion the Fed pledged to swing the Bear Stearns sale to JPMorgan in March, $100 billion apiece to rescue mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, up to $300 billion for the Federal Housing Authority, Tuesday’s $85 billion loan to insurer AIG and various other rescue deals and loans, taxpayers are potentially on the hook for more than $900 billion.
Why is that no one is punishing heads of these organization who are responsible for this crisis?
Earlier this year, Fuld, a 30-year veteran of the once-venerable Wall Street investment bank that filed for bankruptcy protection this past weekend, was awarded $22 million in retirement pay. Merrill Lynch chief E. Stanley O’Neal picked up $161 million from the Wall Street brokerage when he left last October after $40 billion of subprime-related write-downs. Former Citigroup head Chuck Prince stepped down with a $68 million package. Even former Bear Stearns chairman Jimmy Cayne picked up a reported $60 million after selling some of his Bear stock in the aftermath of that firm’s fire sale to J.P. Morgan earlier this year- Forbes
Filed under AIG, Business, Capitalism, Democrats, Economy, Election, Election 2008, Fact, John Mccain, Mccain, News, Palin, Politics, Republican, Sarah Palin, US, US Government, Wallstreet
Finally Microsoft has released a new ad. The guy in the end actually says “I am a PC go FISH” or do they mean something else???
We will have to wait and see what Apple has to say next.
Watch this old ad from Apple as well (Featuring Gisele)
Filed under Advertisment, Bill Gates, Business, Computer, Funny, Humor, Iphone, News, PC, Steve Jobs
A true story based around Cidade de Deus (City of God) , a housing project which becomes the most dangerous place in Rio De Janerio.The movie tells story of many characters (All through the eyes of a single narrator). This is a must watch movie (though in Portuguese language , with subtitles in English). The tag line of the the movie is ”Fight and you’ll never survive , Run and you’ll never escape.”
A definite 9/10
Filed under Brazil, culture, Entertainment, Life, Media, movie, Random, Rio De Janerio, Video
Read On…..
NEW YORK: Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has slept with 35,000 women in his 82 years of life, according to an upcoming documentary.
“He slept with at least two women a day for more than four decades – one for lunch and one for supper,” The New York Post quoted an ex-Castro official named “Ramon” as telling filmmaker Ian Halperin. “Sometimes he even ordered one for breakfast,” the official said.
“I don”t think he would have stayed on as long as he did if not for all the incredible women he had access to as president,” the official added.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz or Fidel Castro led his country from December 1959 until his resignation in February this year. Castro came to power as a result of the Cuban revolution that overthrew the dictator Fulgencio Batista, and shortly thereafter became Prime Minister of Cuba.
Although the US has tried hard to get rid of him, Castro outlasted no fewer than nine American presidents since he took power.
Since Pakistan’s independence in 1947, a central goal of Pakistani governments has been bringing an end to India’s political control of the Muslim-dominated Kashmir region of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state . To achieve this they had gone to the extent of training terrorists , spread hatred . Has this strategy worked? Definitely No.
Inflation has hit a 30 year high(25.33%) and Zardari was recently looking for cash lifeline from the US . Foreign exchange reserves fell to $8.89 billion as of September 3, down from $9.13 billion on August 30. The central bank’s reserves shrunk to $5.5 billion from $5.76 billion . With missile strikes from the outside and terrorist’s bombing from the inside , Pakistan is in a mess.
Perhaps this is one option US should consider in its fight against terrorism.
Vassundra Raje (Rajasthan Chief Minister) today announced that if re-elected she will provide free education for all in government schools till class 12th. Congress on the other hand implemented the reservation system in India (which i personally believe is against growth).
The DMK promised a free television set to every family (state population of more than 62 million) . They also promised “quality rice” at two rupees (less than a cent) a KG. Things became even more crazier when they promised free gas stoves, computer training and electricity (to farmers and weavers). The landless are being promised two acres of land.
On the other hand Chandra Babu Naidu (a politician from Andhra Pradesh)promised 13-hour-free electricity supply to farmers, against the supply of seven hours now. He promised free Mangal Sutra for prospective brides , free LPG cylinders and for unemployed youth Rs 1000. For boys and girls studying in high school, he promised to revive the free cycle scheme.
Will all this be sufficiant to get people out of poverty? Rather than promising TV they should promise electricity.
Where do we draw the line between pragmatism and populism? In the next elections , our politicians might promise free house , car or even GOLD.
September 17, 2008—Meet Wilma—named for the redheaded Flintstones character—the first model of a Neanderthal based in part on ancient DNA evidence.
Artists and scientists created Wilma (shown in a photo released yesterday) using analysis of DNA from 43,000-year-old bones that had been cannibalized. Announced in October 2007, the findings had suggested that at least some Neanderthals would have had red hair, pale skin, and possibly freckles.
Created for an October 2008 National Geographic magazine article, Wilma has a skeleton made from replicas of pelvis and skull bones from Neanderthal females. Copies of male Neanderthal bones—resized to female dimensions—filled in the gaps.
(The National Geographic Society owns both National Geographic News and National Geographic magazine.)
“For the first time, anthropologists can go beyond fossils and peer into the actual genes of an extinct species of human,” said National Geographic’s senior science editor, Jamie Shreeve, who oversaw the project.
“We saw an opportunity to literally embody this new science in a full-size Neanderthal female, reconstructed using the latest information from genetics, fossil evidence, and archaeology.”
For more on Neanderthals, watch Neanderthal Code, airing Sunday, September 21, on the National Geographic Channel.
—David Braun
Reconstruction by Kennis & Kennis, photograph by Joe McNally/NGS
Filed under Advertisment, Fact, Life, Media, National Geographic, Neanderthal Code, News
Frank Caliendo at his best
Also watch this one where Bush makes fun of himself (really)
Filed under Entertainment, Funny, Humor, Media, movie, News, People, Politics, Random, Republican, US, US Government, Video
We asked you what you had to say about the bailout, and we heard you loud and clear: ‘No way!’
By David Goldman, CNNMoney.com staff writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — “NO NO NO. Not just no, but HELL NO,” writes Richard, a reader from Anchorage, Alaska.
“This is robbery pure and simple,” Anna from Denver posted on CNNMoney.com’s TalkBack blog this weekend.
“It’s our money! Let these companies die,” added Claudio from Plainville, Conn.
After President Bush petitioned Congress Saturday for the authority to spend up to $700 billion to to bail out a financial industry on the verge of collapse, he said the high price tag was not only justified, but essential.
“It is a big package because it’s a big problem,” Bush told reporters at a news conference. “The risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package.”
But when asked what they thought of the government’s proposal, most readers gave an overwhelming thumbs down.
“I’m tired of rewarding institutions and people for the bad decisions they have made,” said Dean from Madison, Wis. “Sure, it will hurt tax payers if/when some of these institutions fail, but perhaps we need to let that happen. We do not need more big government involved in our lives. Enough is enough.”
Don’t hand me the tabReaders focused most of their indignation on having to foot the bill for irresponsible lenders and borrowers.
“Companies, like individuals, should be held responsible for their decisions,” wrote Jorge from El Paso, Texas. “This buyout does not address the other problems in the pipeline such as personal credit default and market slowdowns in most industries. No new jobs will be created.”
Paul from Portsmouth, N.H., said banks are getting the soft treatment when taxpayers are suffering.
“It is time for the financial institutions of this country to be called to the mat. We should be expecting and demanding responsible and ethical business practice, not rewarding it at the expense of taxpayers.”
And John from Springfield, Va., said the government action actually hurts the people it is intended to help.
“The government does not have $700 billion dollars. WE have $700 billion, and it is being taken from us. If this is passed then the next administration and the next will be extracting this one from the people who are supposedly being protected by this bailout.”
Where’s my bailout?Other readers wanted to know why the government didn’t spend the $700 billion investment on the majority of responsible Americans who are suffering because of the bad bets of the few.
“Why not take the billions and … make funds available to home owners stuck in the loans these idiots created, marketed and sold,” asked Don from Coarsegold, Calif. “It will put the money where it should be with the little guy who made a mistake, instead of the big guy who created the problem.”
Jordan from Charlestown, Ind., asked why different rules applied to big banks and ordinary investors.
“Once I invested in something and lost money. Maybe I could just change the rules of investing so that my loss turns into a gain? Oh, I forgot only banks can do that!”
Vote these jerks outSome readers said it was time for the politicians who support the bailout to get the heave-ho come November.
“I will be watching to see which of our representatives vote for this bailout,” said R. Kidd in Troy, N.C. “Let the American people see how many we can fire come election time.”
And many readers, including Danny from Texas said we should stop typing and start dialing the lawmakers who are prepared to give the OK to the bailout.
“Call your Congressman. Stop blogging, posting comments, and call your congressman. This is the patriotic thing to do. Let them hear your opinion, show them this is still America and that you will not stand for this!!”
A necessary sacrificeBut not all readers agreed. Some thought the bailout was an unfortunate but necessary move to rescue our financial system from collapse.
For instance, Bill from St. Louis said he changed his mind about the bailout when he realized the consequences of doing nothing.
“I was opposed to the bailout at first, but realized that the scope of this thing is global and so massive that the entire global economy could collapse if nothing was done. …The priority has to be resolving the present crisis of confidence in our economy. Remember, if Wall Street collapses, Main Street will go with it.”
Andy from Chicago said the cost to the taxpayer will not be what the headline number makes it seem.
“This money is not a handout to companies. It’s simply giving banks and mortgage companies loans, since the banking system itself is too unstable to raise this kind of capital. And no, the government cannot just use the $700 billion to pay back all the citizens that will be hurt by this. If the companies like AIG fail, the cost will be far far greater than $700 billion. Wake up!!”
And Surfta from Brooklyn, N.Y., says the government action is really not a bailout at all.
“It’s NOT a bailout. The government is not handing out cash, they actually stand to make a great deal of money out of this, which will trickle down to YOU. First priority should be to try to control and fix the problem, then regulate sufficiently to make sure this NEVER happens again.”
Filed under AIG, Business, Democrats, Economy, Election, Election 2008, Media, News, Politics, Republican, US, US Government, Wallstreet
After the password recovery was reenabled, it took seriously 45 mins on wikipedia and google to find the info, Birthday? 15 seconds on wikipedia, zip code? well she had always been from wasilla, and it only has 2 zip codes (thanks online postal service!)
The second was somewhat harder, the question was “where did you meet your spouse?” did some research, and apparently she had eloped with mister palin after college, if youll look on some of the screen[shots] that I took and other fellow anon have so graciously put on photobucket you will see the google search for “palin eloped” or some such in one of the tabs.
I found out later though more research that they met at high school, so I did variations of that, high, high school, eventually hit on “Wasilla high” I promptly changed the password to popcorn and took a cold shower…”
Interesting isn’t it. It just takes 45 minutes for a person to hack into your account using the security question feature used by all email service providers.
During signup even if you choose a strong password there comes point where the strength of your password becomes irrelevant i.e security question . Because people know what your mother’s maiden name was, the name of your pet, where you met your spouse , your first car etc. However only google does something different here and provides you with the option of writing your own question.
It is time these multi billion dollar companies come up with something other than asking users their favorite color during signup.
An ingenious example of speech and politics occurred recently in the United Nations Assembly that made the world community smile. A representative from India began:
’Before beginning my talk I want to tell you something about Rishi(sage) Kashyap of Kashmir, after whom Kashmir is named. When Rishi Kashyap struck a rock and it brought forth water, he thought,’What a good opportunity to have a bath.’ He took off his clothes, put them aside on the rock and entered the water. When he got out and wanted to dress, his clothes had vanished. A Pakistani had stolen them.
The Pakistani representative jumped up furiously and in support of Pakistan, he shouted, ‘What are you talking about? The Pakistanis weren’t there then.’
The Indian representative smiled and said, ‘And now that we have made that clear, I will begin my speech saying that Kashmir has been an integral part of India all along.’
A brief history of Kashmir – Way before 1947
Legends have it that Rishi Kashyapa, reclaimed the land of the Kashmir valley from a vast lake, known as “Satisar”, after goddess Sati, the consort of Lord Shiva. In ancient times, this land was called “Kashyapamar” (after Kashyapa) that later became Kashmir. The ancient Greeks called it “Kasperia,” and the Chinese pilgrim Hiun-Tsang who visited the valley in the 7th century AD, called it “Kashi -mi -lo.”
Kashmir was always ruled by Hindu’s until 1346, the year of the advent of muslim invaders.The Mughals ruled Kashmir from 1587 to 1752 — a period of peace and order. This was followed by a dark period (1752-1819), when Afghan despots ruled Kashmir. The Muslim period, which lasted for about 500 years, came to an end with the annexation of Kashmir to the Sikh kingdom of Punjab in 1819. The Kashmir region, in its present form, became a part of the Hindu Dogra kingdom at the end of the First Sikh War in 1846, when, by the treaties of Lahore and Amritsar, Maharaja Gulab Singh, the Dogra ruler of Jammu, was made the ruler of Kashmir “to the eastward of the River Indus and westward of the River Ravi.” The Dogra rulers — Maharaja Gulab Singh (1846 to 1857), Maharaja Ranbir Singh (1857 to 1885), Maharaja Pratap Singh (1885 to 1925), and Maharaja Hari Singh (1925 to 1950) — laid the foundations of the modern Jammu & Kashmir state.
- (Source: About.com)
IANS published this report on September 17th regarding the recent bomb blasts in Delhi.
Terming the Indian Mujahideen, which has claimed responsibility for the serial blasts in Ahmedabad and New Delhi, as fictitious, several Muslim organisations and clerics have demanded investigations into the possible role of the Hindu right wing in the terror attacks.In a statement issued here Wednesday evening, 21 Muslim organisations challenged Indian Mujahideen leaders to come out in the open and prove their actions.
We hereby challenge the so-called IM to come out in the open and prove that they are representatives and spokesmen for the Ummah, and justify their actions point by point, or else it will be eventually surmised that they are non-persons and nothing but a figment of the Sangh Parivar’s unscrupulous imagination, brought into the collective psyche of all Indians by the grand alliance of Mossad and their protagonists in the country,” the statement said.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak sangh (RSS) and organisations ideologically affiliated with it are collectively known as the Sangh Parivar. Justifying the contention, Sarfaraz Arzoo, member of the All India Milli Council and prominent Urdu media personality, said: “We have to look into the issue as to who gains political mileage out of it (the blasts). Definitely, it is the Sangh Parivar which is getting mileage and hence the needle of suspicion points towards Sangh Parivar.”
Muslim cleric Maulana Hafiz Syed Athar Ali argued that there is nothing like the Indian Mujahideen. He said that the Muslims were blamed earlier for terror attacks in the name of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and now a new name has come up.
“The joint statement added that the serial blasts have resulted in “progressive polarization” of Indian society and hastened the speed of marginalisation of the Muslim community which eventually will result in rich dividends for the Sangh Parivar, the “sole beneficiaries”. “This is something they (Sangh Parivar) have always dreamt of but never successfully achieved. With Indian Mujahideen in their kitty, their tough job is getting easier by the day,” according to the statement. “The Muslims in India cannot continue to be silent spectators and are ready to play a historic role in the rejuvenation and revitalization of Indian ethos. The recent flow of events cannot succeed in forcing us to abdicate our responsibilities,” it said.
They say there is nothing like IM and SIMI is just a student organization. Here are some of the facts regarding SIMI:
1. Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi, now a professor of mass communication at Western Illinois University in the US, founded the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) at Aligarh in April 1977, with a mission to ‘liberate India’ from western cultural influence and convert it into an Islamic society . Mr Siddiqi has since then resigned from this organization and said “the organisation was drifting from its stated objectives” (Read Here)
2. SIMI believes in Deobandhi ideology . One of the main priciple’s of Deobandi ideology is “Jihad”.
3. SIMI has been tagged with over 15 terrorist activities instead of blaming SIMI and IM , these people are blaming RSS .
Filed under culture, Delhi, Fact, India, Indian Politics, News, Pakistan, Politics, Religion, Uncategorized
Recently an artice was published which claims that “India RAW did it: Taliban deny all involvement in Marriott attack”. (Read Here). Was this article written just because someone wanted to write?
Pakistan Ledger reported that it was the Indian agents of RAW that attacked the Marriott Hotel. Now the Taliban, never shy about accepting responsibility has denied any responsibility in the Islamabad attack. So if the Taliban did not do it, who did? The answer to this :Whodunnit” is obvious. There are external hands in this carnage. Which external hand gets the maximum advantage out of the killings.
1) India has infiltrated many movements and has adopted the TTP. It provides the TTP with arms, equipment and training.
2) By discrediting the Taliban and the FATA militants India feels more secure in Kashmir.
3) By destabilizing Pakistan and demoralizing the populace India may feel that it can dictate policy in Afghanistan and also Pakistan
4) By attacking Pakistan from Afghanistan India can have plausible deniability and say to the world that its not her attacking Pakistan. Nothing could be farther than the truth. Indian RAW with the KGB and Khad rained more terror on Pakistan than any other country in the world. In fact during the 80s Pakistan received more than 70% of the terror in the world. All of that was made in India.
5) The sophistication of the operation against the Marriott, the material used, the amount of the incendiary material used, and the type of RDX used shows a very clever and costly operation which requires state machinery to execute.
6) India has the motive, the opportunity and the inclination to run this operation.
Here are some of the points which needs to be clarified -
1. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is an umbrella organization of Pakistani Taliban groups and is no where related to RAW
2. Why would India destabalize an already de stabalized country . It is not in India’s interest to have a nuclear powered destabalized state as it’s neighbour
3. In the 80′s Pakisstan received 70% of the terror in the world because they themselves were diverting millions of dollars from the US to help afghan fighters against soviets.
Dawn ( A leading news paper of Pakistan) has blamed another terrorist outfit (Fedayeen-i-Islam) for this attack (Read Here).
Filed under India, Indian Politics, News, Pakistan, Politics, Terrorism, Uncategorized
Now that we’ve had a taste of what the T-Mobile G1 offers, CNET compares it with other phones on the market and see if it brings anything different to the table.
1. Design - The combination of a touch screen and a keyboard isn’t new of course, but I thought it would be good to remind people that others exist. The HTC Touch Pro is a Windows Mobile device that has both a touch screen and a keyboard, while the LG Voyager is a non-smartphone with both a touch screen and a keyboard as well. That said, the addition of a QWERTY keyboard does make it a little more easy to use than touch-screen-only devices like the Apple iPhone or the Samsung Instinct. Also note that so far, it seems that the G1 has a removable battery while the iPhone does not.
2. Interface - Of course, we won’t be able to really tell the difference between the G1 and that of other touch-screen phones until we get one in our hands, but from the demo, it appears that you use the touch screen just like you would with the others. You swipe the touch screen to switch pages and scroll down menus, and you tap an application to open it. However, you can also hold down something (or a long press) to open up options. Just like the LG Dare, the T-Mobile G1 lets you drag and drop any application to the home screen as a convenient shortcut.
See more here
Since the G1 runs an operating system made by Google, it only makes sense that it has excellent search capabilities. Just like that on the Helio Ocean, the G1 has something called one-click contextual search, which lets you search your contacts as well as the Web just by typing in a few letters and hitting Enter. We’ll know more about the G1′s interface once we try it out for ourselves.
Another important factor: The G1 has copy and paste.
3. Connectivity - The G1 is one of the first devices to work on T-Mobile’s 3G network. It also works on both Wi-Fi and 3G, and has quad-band GSM plus dual-band UMTS, which means it will work abroad as well. The iPhone has both Wi-Fi and 3G, but only has tri-band GSM, while both the Instinct and the Dare are CDMA with EV-DO and don’t have Wi-Fi. The HTC Touch Pro has Wi-Fi, 3G, and a quad-band GSM version, but is not yet available in the U.S. The G1 has Bluetooth but not stereo Bluetooth, similar to the iPhone. Other devices like the Instinct and Dare do have stereo Bluetooth. Also, the G1 does not allow tethering as a modem, which most Windows Mobile smartphones allow.
4. Messaging - Like most other phones, the G1 has e-mail and instant messaging with special preference given to Gmail and Google Talk. It doesn’t have Exchange support out of the box, which both the iPhone and the Instinct do (and of course every Windows Mobile smartphone out there). But if you’re a Gmail fan, you’ll love the push Gmail on the G1. Also unlike the iPhone, the G1 does have multimedia messaging, plus you can multitask applications while chatting. There’s a “windowshade” that you can pull down on the G1 to retrieve an ongoing instant message conversation.
5. Browser - The G1 has a full HTML browser present on most touch-screen phones as well as most Windows Mobile smartphones, so there’s nothing new there. It has onscreen controls to zoom in and out, which is a different than the pinching method of the iPhone, but quite similar to other devices. You can open multiple pages and share Web pages as well. The one difference is that it uses Webkit, an open-source browser built to be lean and fast.
6. Location-based services - Here’s where the G1 really makes a difference. It comes with Google Maps Street View built-in, providing you with a street view of any location covered with Google Maps. It also comes with compass mode with the scene on the screen moving as you do. No other phone supports this Street View application just yet. It doesn’t have applications like Where or Buddy Beacon built-in, but with the Android Market application store, I can’t imagine it’ll take too long for more location-based applications to be available.
7. Media - One of the big news of the day is that the G1 is the first phone to offer a mobile version of Amazon’s MP3 store, providing a viable alternative to the iTunes store on the iPhone. This is major news and the implications of it are far larger than can be covered here. Suffice to say that Apple better watch its back. As for the music player, I’m not sure if it’ll provide podcasting support yet, but even if it doesn’t, I’m sure a third-party application will be available for it. The G1 also comes with a 3-megapixel camera, which is better than the iPhone’s, but otherwise not too groundbreaking. I liked that you can trim and crop the image directly on the phone and then drag and drop the image to the home screen, which is similar to the LG Dare.
PS: It also appears that the G1 has voice dialing.
Filed under Android, apple, Business, Google, Iphone, Technology, TMobile, Uncategorized, Video
The Arctic sea ice melt is a disaster for the polar bears,” according to Kassie Siegel, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “They are dependent on the Arctic sea ice for all of their essential behaviors, and as the ice melts and global warming transforms the Arctic, polar bears are starving, drowning, even resorting to cannibalism because they don’t have access to their usual food sources.”
Scientists have noticed increasing reports of starving Arctic polar bears attacking and feeding on one another in recent years. In one documented 2004 incident in northern Alaska, a male bear broke into a female’s den and killed her.
In May, the U.S. Department of Interior listed the polar bear as a “threatened” species under the Endangered Species Act. In a news release, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne stated, “loss of sea ice threatens and will likely continue to threaten polar bear habitat. This loss of habitat puts polar bears at risk of becoming endangered in the foreseeable future, the standard established by the ESA for designating a threatened species.
Click here for complete article
Filed under Animals, Climate, Environment, Fact, global warming, News, Polar Bear, Random
Filed under Business, Capitalism, Fact, John Mccain, Mccain, News, Politics, Republican, Sarah Palin, US, US Government, Wallstreet
G7 (also known as the G-7 or Group of Seven) is the meeting of the finance ministers from a group of seven industrialized nations. The finance ministers of these countries meet several times a year to discuss economic policies.
Now here is some data as of 2006
1. France - Public Debt: 64.7% of GDP
2. Italy - Public Debt: 107.8% of GDP
3. Germany - Public Debt: 66.8% of GDP
4. United Kingdom - Public Debt: 42.2% of GDP
5. United States - Public Debt: 64.7% of GDP (Change that to 71%)
6. Japan – Public Debt: 176.2% of GDP
7. Canada - Public Debt: 65.4% of GDP
If high debt is considered a bad indicator of economy , then how come these countries are part of G7 that meet ”several times a year to discuss economic policies.” Maybe an economist can help me understand that.
Countries which are not part of G7
India – Public Debt 52.7 % of GDP
Brazil - Public Debt: 50% of GDP
China - Public Debt: 22.1% of GDP
Mr Zardari described Republican vice presedential candidate Palin as “Gorgeous” . “You look so gorgeous. Now, I know why the whole of America is crazy about you,” Zardari said, while receiving Palin, also the Governor of Alaska, at the Millenium Hotel in New York.”You are so nice,” 44-year-old Palin, a former Miss Wasilla runner up in Alaska beauty pageant, told Zardari, husband of slain former Pakistani Premier Benazir Bhutto.An aide of Zardari then told the two to keep shaking hands for the cameras.”I’m supposed to pose again,” said Palin, who has energised the Republican Presidential nominee John McCain’s camp.”If he’s (aide) insisting, I might hug,” 53-year-old Zardari replied, for which Palin smiled politely in response.
Robert Collier (don’t know who he is) once said “A single idea / the sudden flash of a thought / may be worth a million dollars.” Well , Google has just proved this to be true . Infact Google is offering 10 Million Dollars for that “Single Idea” which can change the world by helping as many people as possible.
Google has recently launched project 10100 (pronounced “Project 10 to the 100th”). Here is how it works
1. Send in your idea before October 20th
2. Selection of one hundred ideas will be put forward with, the public, to choose twenty semi-finalists. Then an advisory board will select up to five final ideas.
3. Google will bring those ideas to life.
Criteria:
Click here for more details
When:
Seeds were sown way back in 1977. Known as Community Reinvestment Act , is a United States federal law that requires banks and thrifts to offer credit throughout their entire market area and prohibits them from targeting only wealthier neighborhoods with their services. The bill encouraged the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fannie Mae, to enable mortgage companies, savings and loans, commercial banks, credit unions, and state and local housing finance agencies to lend to home buyers.
Why
National grassroots pressure for affordable housing. Though there was considerable opposition from the mainstream banking community. Only one banker from ShoreBank in Chicago, testified in favor of the act.
Subprime Explained
Mr A seeks a housing loan to give shape to his dream home. But he doesn’t have good credit rating. This means that he is unable to clear all the stringent conditions that a bank imposes on an individual before it sanctions a loan. Since his credit is not good enough, no bank will give him a home loan as there is a fear that the chances of a default by him are high. Here enters , Mr B (a robust financial institution)who has good credit rating and is willing to take on some amount of risk and make profit.
Given his good credit rating, the bank is willing to give Mr B a loan. The bank gives the loan at a certain rate of interest.Mr B then divides this loan into a lot of small portions and gives them out as home loans to lots of others like Mr A who do not have a great credit rating and to whom the bank would not have given a home loan in the first place.
Mr B gives out these loans at a rate of interest that is much higher rate than the rate at which he borrowed money from the bank. This higher rate is referred to as the sub-prime rate and this home loan market is referred to as the sub-prime home loan market.
By giving loan to many Mr A’s , Mr B is expecting to make lot of profit. Mr B does not wait for the principal and the interest on the sub-prime home loans to be repaid, so that it can repay its loan to the bank (the prime lender), which has given it the loan.
So what does Mr B do? He goes ahead and securitises’ these loans. Securitisation means converting these home loans into financial securities, which promise to pay a certain rate of interest. These financial securities are then sold to Mr C (Institutional Investors)
And how is Mr C repaid? The interest and the principal that is repaid by Mr A through equated monthly installments (EMIs) is passed onto Mr C.
This looks so simple so what went wrong
The sub-prime home loans were given out as floating rate home loans. A floating rate home loan as the name suggests is not fixed. As interest rates go up, the interest rate on floating rate home loans also go up. As interest rates to be paid on floating rate home loans go up, the EMIs that need to be paid to service these loans go up as well.
What happened next is that people started defaulting on their obligations. Once more and more sub-prime borrowers started defaulting, payments to the institutional investors who had bought the financial securities stopped, leading to huge losses. The housing bubble collapsed and mortgage-backed securities (bought by Mr C) were almost worthless . As defaults kept rising, Mr B could not service their loans that they had taken from banks. So they turned to other financial firms to help them out, but after a while these firms too stopped extending credit realizing that the collateral backing this credit would soon lose value in the falling real estate market.
Now burdened with tons of debt and no money to pay it back, the back of these financial entities broke, leading to the current meltdown.
Ok this is an American problem , so why are markets around the world crashing
Mr C who had invested in securitised paper from the sub-prime home loan market in the US, saw his investments turning into losses. Most big investors have a certain fixed proportion of their total investments invested in various parts of the world. Once investments in the US turned bad, more money had to be invested in the US, to maintain that fixed proportion. In order to invest more money in the US, money had to come in from somewhere. To make up their losses in the sub-prime market in the United States, they went out to sell their investments in emerging markets like India where their investments have been doing well. So these big institutional investors, to make good of their losses in the sub-prime market, began to sell their investments in India and other markets around the world.
Filed under AIG, bailout, Business, Capitalism, Credit Crisis, Economy, Election, Election 2008, Fact, India, News, Random, Uncategorized, US, Wallstreet
Katie Couric asked Sarah Palin which sources she relies on for her news consumption. Caught off guard, Palin could not name a single news source:
COURIC: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?
PALIN: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —
COURIC: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.
PALIN: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.
COURIC: Can you name any of them?
PALIN: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.
Filed under Delhi, Democrats, Election 2008, Entertainment, Fact, Funny, Humor, Indian Politics, Interview, John Mccain, Katie Couric, Mccain, Media, News, Palin, People, Politics, Republican, Sarah Palin, US, US Government, Women
Auto Industry is feeling the heat from the credit crunch in the US market and is heading south
General Motors reported that sales of cars and light trucks dropped 16% compared to September a year ago. Sales at Ford tumbled 35% from last year and Toyota says September sales down 32.3%. Chrysler LLC sales are forecast to drop by 37%.
Auto industry is starting to look like the Real Estate market (though there have been no bubble , like we saw for housing ) , but analyst predict that as many as 3,800 U.S. car dealerships could fail this fall and into 2009 — nearly one in five — because of weak sales, increased operational costs and the credit crunch.
If on an average a car dealer employs around 50-60 employees , we are looking at a minimum 200,000 job losses. And if these auto giants start to go bankrupt the amount of job loss is unimaginable.
Filed under AIG, bailout, Business, Capitalism, Cars, Credit Crisis, Delhi, Democrats, Economy, Election, Election 2008, Ford, GM, Media, News, Politics, Toyota, Uncategorized, US, US Government
Rather than catching terrorists, Mr. Health Minister now wants to catch smokers (who smoke in public places) and fine them Rs 200 ( $ 4 approx). There are around 100 million beedi smokers in India. Is the government now expecting that person to cough up $ 4 whose daily wage is not even $ 2?
He is not considering a ban on cigarette manufacturers, but is considering a ban on the consumers. Why not, because the party these politicians represent is funded by these organizations. Mr. Health Minister, would you dare imposing a ban on the organizations who manufacture cigarettes?
According to the new smoking law even if one cigarette stub is found in an office complex then the owner is supposed to pay a fine equivalent to the total number of people working in the office multiplied by Rs 200. So if a cigarette bud is found inside a company like Infosys, the company needs to pay Rs 200 * 50,000 = Rs 10,000,000. This is ridiculous
If the youngster’s minds are getting corrupted by watching their favorite actors smoking in public, then they are also getting corrupted by watching cash for vote scams and numerous other scams which involves the same politicians.
They are citing examples from other countries, but do they even know that other countries provide dedicated smoking area. Well other countries also provide free Medicare. Is our government doing that? No .
I smoked for 10 years and believe me, the hardest thing I ever did in my life was to leave smoking (and I did the right thing by quitting). This ban would do nothing but corrupt the system even further.
People don’t leave cigarette by force, they leave it by choice.
Pakistans president Asif Ali Zaradari has finally acknowladged the fact that “terrorists” and not “freedom fighters” are operating in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. ”What kind of a joke is this that I cannot pay my security personnel more than the Talibs are paying?” he asks. “Those terrorists are paying their soldiers 10,000 rupees; I’m paying seven or six thousand rupees.”
It is interesting to note that the statement comes at a time when Pakistan’s economy is in deep trouble. A few days ago the Mr Zardari has said ”Insha Allah, we will have some good news” on Kashmir before the general elections in India.
The State Bank of Pakistan’s net foreign reserves fell to around 8.1 billion dollars against 8.8 billion . Out of the 8.1 billion dollars around 4.68 billion dollars are the central bank’s own reserves while the rest are deposits of private financial institution. That is about two months’ worth of foreign currency reserves left to pay for the country’s imports of oil and food.
President Asif Ali Zardari has asked the international community to give Pakistan $100 billion in grant to ensure the country’s survival. “I need your help, if we fall, if we can’t do it, you can’t do it,” Mr Zardari repeatedly said during an interview with Wall Street Journal’s columnist Brent Stephens, published on Saturday.
Traders stunned as Russian stocks go into tailspin, lose nearly 20 percent
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s leading stock markets suffered their biggest-ever one-day losses as shares went into free fall on the back of falling oil prices and deepening fears about the global economy despite the passage of a $700 billion U.S. bank bailout.
Trading on MICEX — the country’s largest index– was shut down three times, closing down 18.6 percent to 752 points. The benchmark RTS — where trading was halted twice — crashed to its lowest point since August 2005, falling by 19.1 percent to 866.4 points.
“The mood is kind of disbelief. You’d think we would have gotten used to it by now,” said Ron Smith, strategist at Moscow-based Alfa Bank. “Traders are just sitting there staring at the screens and going, ‘Wow.’”
“In this environment, nobody wants to step up to the table and buy a stock,” he added.
In September, growing financial turmoil in the United States and a wave of margin calls sent the Russian stock markets into their biggest downward spiral since 1998. The MICEX lost 25 percent in just three days, and prompted regulators to shut down the markets to stem the decline. They have since used that tool on several occasions when falls have become severe — to lesser effect.
Russia’s stock market has boomed in recent years amid high prices for oil and natural gas. But the market began falling sharply in midsummer amid concerns about government interference with businesses, and the drop accelerated as the global economic crisis intensified. Oil prices, the backbone of Russia’s economy, have been sharply down in recent days — dropping to under $90 a barrel — and investors have also been spooked by August’s five-day war between Russia and Georgia. The RTS is now down by 64 percent from its May peak.
Banking stocks were among the worst hit on Monday in Russia. State-controlled Sberbank, the country’s largest lender, shed 16.6 percent on MICEX, while the state-backed VTB banking concern shed 24.5 percent. Mining firm Norilsk Nickel plunged by 30.1 percent on the RTS on weak financials and plummeting nickel prices. State-controlled oil major Rosneft was 24 percent lower.
Russia’s shares tanked against a worsening global backdrop.
After trading closed for the weekend in Russia, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $700 billion bailout plan at the second attempt. But it provided little relief to investors, who are focused on deepening financial woes in Europe that threaten to derail global growth.
Concerns have mounted in Europe amid a wave of state-backed bank bailouts, and a growing sense of dislocation of European-wide efforts to tackle the financial crisis — despite pledges from EU leaders to secure the stability of the financial system in a coordinated manner.
All major indexes in Europe suffered heavy falls in afternoon trading: The FTSE 100 closed the day down 7.9 percent, Germany’s DAX was down 7.1 percent and France’s CAC-40 closed 9 percent lower.
“When it’s cracking up that badly there, you are going to see extremely high data come in for a market like Russia,” said Smith. “The valuations (in Russia) haven’t mattered for two months now, and they certainly don’t at this point.”
Filed under AIG, bailout, Bill Gates, Business, Capitalism, Democrats, Economy, Election, Election 2008, Fact, India, Media, News, Politics, Russia, Stock Market, US, US Government, Wallstreet
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Tuesday said being a front line state in the war against terror; Pakistan has sacrificed more than any other country.
Here’s why : -
1. Pakistan is the only country in the world which harbors terrorists and calls them freedom fighters.
2. Pakistan is the only country in the world which is accused of sheltering terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Omar, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Sipah-e-Sahaba.
3. Abdul Qadeer Khan , a Pakistani scientist widely regarded as the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear program who has confessed to having been involved in a clandestine international network of nuclear weapons technology proliferation from Pakistan to Libya, Iran and North Korea is supposedly under house arrest . He recently changed his statement and said that “President Pervez Musharraf forced him to be a “scapegoat” for the “national interest.” He denies ever traveling to Iran or Libya and claims that North Korea’s nuclear program was well advanced before his visit”.
4. Pakistani President recently acknowledged his country’s inability in combating terrorism. He said that terrorists are getting paid Rs 10000 whereas his government is only paying Rs 7000 to his soldiers.
The Pakistani economy is in shambles , inflation crossing 25% and forex reserves of less than 3 billion dollars .Mr Zardari told The Wall Street Journal that Pakistan needed a bail-out worth $US100 billion. Maybe this time the world provides money with a rider and makes Pakistan walk the talk.
Filed under asif ali zardari, bailout, Business, Delhi, Democrats, Economy, Election, Election 2008, India, Indian Politics, Islamabad, Karachi, Mumbai, News, Pakistan, Politics, Republican, Terrorism, Terrorists, Uncategorized, US
After the bailout of AIG last month, the United States government effectively bought an 80% share in the company. That should have caused a fundamental change, you would think, in how the company was spending funds on compensation, bonuses and benefits.
But it doesn’t look like that’s what happened. The committee learned that shortly after the bailout went through, executives from AIG’s major U.S. life insurance subsidiary, AIG American General, held a week-long conference at an exclusive resort in California.
The resort is called the St. Regis Monarch Beach. … It’s very impressive. This is an exclusive resort. The rooms start, gentlemen, at $425 a night. Some are more than $1,200 a night. AIG spent nearly $500,000 in a single week at the at this hotel. Now, this was right after the bailout.Some of the charges shareholders who are now U.S. taxpayers had to pay. Check this out.
AIG spent $200,000 for hotel rooms, and almost $150,000 for catered banquets. AIG spent $23,000 at the hotel spa and another $1,400 at the salon. They were getting their manicures, their facials, their pedicures and their massages while the American people were were footing the bill. And they spent another $10,000 for leisure dining.
Filed under Advertisment, AIG, bailout, Business, Capitalism, Democrats, Economy, Election, Election 2008, Entertainment, Fact, John Mccain, Mccain, Media, Mumbai, News, Palin, People, Politics, Republican, Sarah Palin, Stock Market, Uncategorized, US, US Government, Wallstreet
Filed under Delhi, Democrats, Election, Election 2008, Entertainment, Funny, India, Indian Politics, Interview, Media, News, Palin, Politics, Technology
General Motors Corp. said Friday that bankruptcy is not an option being considered despite the “unprecedented challenges” posed by a weakening economy.“Bankruptcy would not be in the interests of our employees, stockholders, suppliers or customers, and we believe speculation about a possible filing is exaggerated and nonconstructive,” a GM spokesman said.
Instead GM is in talks with Chrysler for a possible merger. General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC and Cerberus Capital Management LP have held preliminary talks about a merger or an acquisition of Chrysler by GM.
Ford sold Jaguar and Land Rover earlier this year to Tata Motors for 1.15 billion , and according to sources Tata Motors might also be buying a stake in Mazda Motor Corp.
The auto industry has been hit hard in recent weeks by the effects of the credit crisis, prompting GM and Ford to issue statements Friday to dispel the notion that they might be headed for bankruptcy. GM and Ford shares were battered with the rest of the stock market this week, falling to lows not seen in decades.
Ford shares have plunged to a 26-year low at $1.99 and its U.S. rival General Motors Corp to a nearly 60-year low to $4.89
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT’s) are a group of fourteen autonomous engineering and technology-oriented institutes of higher education established and declared as Institutes of National Importance by the Parliament of India. These are the same organizations which produce excellent engineers who are running the global business around the world.
Recently TOI published a report which said that a score of 15% in mathematics was enough to make it to IIT-Kanpur. Also In 2008, students could join IIT-Kharagpur despite scoring no more than 5% in physics. Thanks to reservation system it looks like in the near future the same guy (who scored 6%) would be working on projects of national importance.
Reservations are intended to increase the social diversity in campuses and workplaces by lowering the entry criteria for certain identifiable groups that are grossly under-represented in proportion to their numbers in the general population. But at what cost?
A nation’s level of competitiveness reflects the extent to which it is able to provide rising prosperity to its citizens. You provide prosperity by providing infrastructure, health care, effective mode of transport, quality roads, railroads, ports, and air transport. Reservation does not generate prosperity and will definitely affect India’s competitiveness.
Innovation , Institutions , Infrastructure , Health and primary education, Quality higher education and training are pillars based upon which a country’s global competitiveness Index(GCI) rank is evaluated . Indian currently ranks 50. By implementing the quota system I would be happy if India is able to retain that spot
We need a strong policy to prevent the young generation from getting addicted to alcohol. We have initiated talks with various agencies to come out with a national-level policy to regulate the sales of alcohol in the country and it will be made into an Act after considerable deliberation,” Ramadoss told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar on “Alcohol Control Policy” on Saturday (Oct 11). Terming alcohol as mother of many health problems, Ramadoss said a total prohibition was needed for the welfare of the people. “I request the Tamil Nadu government to introduce total prohibition for the welfare of the people as alcohol is known as mother of many health problems , he said.
I as a citizen who voted for this government would also like to discuss on the following:
1. In 1991 there were approximately ten hospital beds per 10,000 individuals , probably we start discussing how many hospital beds has our beloved health minister provided during his tenure.
2. Its time we start discussing why India spends only 5% of GDP on health care whereas other countries like Australia spends 8 % , France – 11.2% and Germany 10.7%
3. More than 70% of its population lives in rural areas, where only 20% of the total hospital beds are located.
4. As per Unicef why only 33% of the population has access to adequate sanitation facilities .
5. Why only 19% of the population prefers public health care whereas 56% prefer private health care.
Mr health minister you are most welcome to ban Driving under the influence (as it involves lives of others as well), but you have no right to tell me what i may or may not drink . It becomes an issue when someone tells me how to live my life.
On Thursday evening Jet airways chief announced that he would be hiring all those employees again , who were fired only two days ago by his management .
So who turns out to be a looser in this :
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed — for lack of a better word — is good.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind.
And greed — you mark my words — will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA
That has become a mantra of sorts on Wall Street, thanks to Oliver Stone and Stanley Weiser. Twenty-one years ago, the two paired up to make the film Wall Street, starring Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen.
Now , 20th Century Fox is moving forward with a sequel (called Money Never Sleeps) to 1987’s Wall Street. The modern-day story will again center on Gordon Gekko, who has recently been sprung from prison and re-emerges into a much more tumultuous financial world than the one he once lorded over. The Bud Fox character, played by Charlie Sheen in the original, will not appear in the latest incarnation.
Seems like it is the perfect time for sequel to movie Wall Street when the economy is in crisis and the markets are in freefall.
Filed under Business, Capitalism, Delhi, Economy, India, Media, movie, Mumbai, News, Politics, Random, Stock Market, US, US Government, Video, Wallstreet
He is a leader of a regional political party operating in Maharashtra, India. It was founded on the 9th of March 2006 in Mumbai after splitting of the parent party Shiv Sena. He and his party recently attacked north Indian aspirants for railway jobs demanding that only Maharashtrians be recruited to fill vacancies in Central and Western Railway.
He dared Maharashtra government to arrest him and warned the state will have to “regret” the consequences in the event of that.” Arrest me and be ready to bear the consequences…. you will have to regret,” Thackeray, who was attending a ceremony at Bahadursheikh Naka in Chiplun, said. “If Raj is arrested, entire Maharashtra will be set on fire,” .
If Raj Thakre is Pro Mumbai then why the hell does he wants Maharashtra to burn? In a seperate incident a school on Maharashtra Bhawan premises in kanpur was on Monday vandalised by Dalit Panther activists who were protesting against attacks by Raj Thakeray-led MNS members. Will Raj Thackeray and his supporters help Maharashtrians if they are thrown out of other states?
- I’m From Goa. And would like to say that if we go by Mr. Raj Thackeray’s logic then I guess we should be sending back truckloads of Maharashtra’s who come here in droves and thus depriving the Goan Youth the opportunities.
- Shoot the bas****. The Government needs to show that it’s got a spine to protect the constitutional rights of every citizen.
- Arrest and throw this guy in Kashmir Valley. Let this idiot and his followers fight for something which is good.
- One guy challenging the entire police force of a state “arrest me if you can” is a shame on Maharashtra govt.
It is disturbing to see that employees of Jet Airways sought the help of the MNS when they were given the pink slip. It is as if they were contracting the mafia to serve their private needs.
The party has taken a cue from the Shiv Sena which built its political base in Maharashtra in the 1960s and 1970s by promoting an aggressive agenda . It worked then , but it won’t now.
MNS is noting but a threat to national unity.
Albert Einstein once said ” Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius-and a lot of courage-to move in the opposite direction.” I hope our government makes the right move this time
Filed under Congress, Delhi, India, Indian Politics, MNS, Mumbai, News, People, Politics, Raj Thackrey, Random, Uncategorized
Sudheera Kulkarni had written an open letter to Raj Thackeray in Lok Satta. Here is a part of his response( Read the entire response here)
Gujaratis celebrate Garba in Maharashtra with a bang. We also enjoy it. Bengalis celebrate Navratri. We too participate in it. South Indians perform Ayyappa’s rituals and Marathis pray there. But chhatpooja is not just a religious festival. At least it is not celebrated as one in Mumbai. It is an akhada (wrestling ring) erected on Mumbai’s chest by Bihari leaders to show their strength. There lies the root of our opposition. Sudheendraji, are you aware of any widespread chhatpooja being celebrated by Biharis living in Mauritius, Dubai or any country close to the sea?
Seems like what is bothering Raj Thackeray is Chhath Pooja. Well Chhath is a festival dedicated to the Sun God, considered to be a means to thank the sun for bestowing the bounties of life in earth and fulfilling particular wishes. This festival is also celebrated in the northeast region of India, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and some parts of Chhattisgarh.
He and his party has done nothing but spread hatred , and divide this nation . He once said that “Hitler had everything. The one thing he did not have was the ambition to conquer the world,” Raj said, adding, “you can draw whatever conclusions you want from my remarks.”
He has criticized Amitabh Bachchan who is one of the most prominent figures in the history of Indian cinema of (listen to this) being ”more inclined” towards his native state than Maharashtra. Amitabh Bachchan is one person who has inspired people the way you may never understand. Mr Raj Thackeray I would like to ask what have you done for Maharashtra? Have you done anything for drought-hit Maharashtra farmers who are left to fend for themselves. How can people from Maharashtra trust you ,when you yourself wants to burn Maharashtra.
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” , probably true in the case of Raj Thackeray. Raj Thackeray has drawn a lot of attention over the past few days . Simply due to the stand taken by him and his party on the North Indians living in Mumbai and Maharashtra. In fact Raj Thacekray has been a struggling politician and his party only won 7 seats in 2007 municipal elections.
Filed under Congress, Delhi, Election, India, Indian Politics, MNS, Mumbai, News, Politics, Raj Thackrey, Random, Religion, Terrorism, Uncategorized
Filed under ChandraYaan, Chandrayaan-1, chandrayaan-1-countdown, Delhi, India, Mumbai, News
Pakistan has sought an emergency bail-out from the IMF, a humiliating step forced on Islamabad after allies refused to come up with cash .
Pakistan’s finance minister, Shaukat Tareen, said recently that going to the IMF was his “plan C”, but Islamabad has been stung by rebuffs from its closest international partners – China, the US and Saudi Arabia – leaving it with few choices.
Hungary, Iceland, the Ukraine and Belarus are also seeking assistance from the IMF to help weather the global financial crisis. Belarus has applied for a $2 billion loan, Interfax reported Oct. 22, and the Ukraine said this week it may sign a loan worth as much as $15 billion.
Try searching Google for Hinduism and you will get 1,180,000 results. Try the same for “Hindu Terrorism” you will get 2,450,000 results.
Well you can thank the media and our politicians for that.
I would like to ask what do you really mean by “Hindu terrorism” or ”Hindu terror”, “Hindu bomb”, “Saffron terrorism”. Well you do not say “Islamic terrorism” because then seculars cry out loud. But it is “OK” to call a hindu by such names, because they know Hinduism has always been a tolerant religion. In spite of having no evidence of their involvement in violent activities or working against the Indian State, they are still being termed as “Hindu Terrorist” .For the sake of Muslim vote-bank, Hindu organizations needed to be shown as being involved in anti-national activities.
News channel and Politicians never stood up for the Kashmiri pundits who were butchered in Kashmir .Syed Ali Shah Geelani who favors the condition accession of Kashmir to Pakistan is treated at government expense.
The secular hate-mongers are pushing Hindus into a difficult corner without a space to be heard. Not a single ‘mainline’ newspaper publishes their views, though any number of assaults on them is a matter of routine. This is creating a grave situation and it’s a warning signal that can be ignored only at the peril of the nation’s great legacy of plurality”[10], writes Tarun Vijay.
Dr Saurav Basu writes , Within 24 hrs of her arrest, the Sadhvi has become Hindu’s terror feminine face! Everything associated with her is claimed to be untouchable including her religious identity. Dare they render the same [dis]service to the hundreds of Islamic terrorists who have been apprehended by the police! Recall, the Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati conspiracy case in which the ‘secular’ media played such an egregious role in defaming both him, and the Math that the Andhra High Court was compelled to intervene and issue a stern warning to all these agencies of secular terror, for “the amount of disrepute and sacrilege inflicted upon Sri Jayendra Saraswati, as of now, is so enormous that it has hardly any comparables” The learned judge had also regrettably noted, “sad and sorrowful that an institution of such glory that withstood foreign invasions and social revolutions” over the past 2500 years “is virtually targeted and persecuted in an organized manner in an independent country…Not only individuals, but also a section of the institutions, such as the State and the Press, appears to be determined to belittle and besmirch the Peetam…The proponents of human rights, fair play and dignity to the individuals and institutions have maintained stoic silence”
Filed under Congress, Delhi, India, Indian Politics, Media, Mumbai, News, People, Politics, Religion, Terrorists, Uncategorized
Diya
Celebration
Red Dog
Two Women
High Tech Offering
Lights
Fireworks
Filed under Delhi, India, Media, Mumbai, National Geographic, Photography
Filed under apple, Business, microsoft, News, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP
Filed under Democrats, Election 2008, Entertainment, Media, News, Sarah Palin
Killing of a 25 year old laborer is infact is a matter of shame for all Maharashtrians . A state which has produced such great leaders has also produced goonda’s like the Thackerays. A society that cannot gaurantee security to its citizens in my view has failed.
Maharastrian civil society is scared of speaking against Raj Thackeray. How can educated Maharastrians not stand up against this goondaraaj?
A friend of mine asks on his blog
What does the term citizenship refer to?
What does the term Nation mean?
Will I have to specify the State Nativity whenever I introduce myself?
Will I need a visa to travel from one state to another, in my own nation?
I am going through an identity crisis. Who am I?
Not only has the local government failed , even the central government has failed . They cannot even guarantee safety of north indians in this state.
And for Raj Thackeray who is “supposedly” fighting for marathi honor must remember that honour does not have to be defended.
And to Congress for being a spineless government , you just lost my vote.
Filed under Delhi, India, Indian Politics, MNS, Mumbai, News, People, Politics, Raj Thackrey
Filed under Election, Election 2008, Entertainment, Funny, Humor, John Mccain, Media, People, Politics
Angels and Demons Trailer
Release date 15th May 09
“What can I do? I have sent a strong letter to the Chief Minister.”
This is what our honorable prime minister said when allies and party leaders cornered him on MNS issue.
Sir , What should we do when
1. MNS workers kill a shopkeeper when he simply refused to down shutters.
2. When a UP youth was killed just a fight over window seat.
3. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena attacks north Indian candidates appearing for a railway recruitment examination citing inadequate representation to locals in the exam.
4. When a citizens fundamental right is challenged by MNS.
5. A senior journalist from Uttar Pradesh is brutally beaten by supporters of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena just because he wanted to report on MNS workers abusing and attacking a settlement of people from north India.
Should we also send strong letters to the Chief Minister?
Filed under Delhi, India, Indian Politics, MNS, Mumbai, News, Raj Thackrey
This post is in response to What should have I done
- Do you want to talk about Shiv Sena leaders who were named by the by the Srikrishna commission accused in the Mumbai riots of 93?
- Bal Thackeray who was accused of inciting communal violence with his writings?
- Or should we talk about the Telgi case which originated in Maharashtra (with the help of a few ministers from maharashtra) which cost the Indian economy 32000 Cr
- Why would a person so passionate about his home state make a statement “If Raj is arrested, entire Maharashtra be set on fire”
- Should we talk about the brutal rape and murder of a Dalit family in Maharashtra?
- Your so called “Hindi Based Bollywood” is the sole reason why non Hindi speaking Maharastrain’s are getting jobs which they wont get in “Marathi Speaking Film Industry”
This can go on and on without ever stopping. The point is MNS actions cannot be justified. If you believe killing of people in Maharashtra is the right solution then I have nothing to say to you
Put Country First
Filed under Bihar, Delhi, India, Indian Politics, Maharashtra, MNS, Mumbai, News, Politics, Raj Thackrey
The Terrain Mapping camera (TMC) on board Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was successfully operated on October 29, 2008 through a series of commands issued from the Spacecraft Control Centre of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore
The first imagery (Chandrayaan 1) taken at 8:00 am IST from a height of 9,000 km shows the Northern coast of Australia while the other (Chandrayaan 2) taken at 12:30 pm from a height of 70,000 km shows Australia’s Southern Coast.
Filed under ChandraYaan, Chandrayaan pictures, Chandrayaan-1, Delhi, India, Media, Mumbai, News
My Dear Raj,
My apologies for having to communicate through the editorial pages of a newspaper, but frankly am left with little choice since you seem to have decided to stay away from the so-called ‘national’ non-Marathi media. Let me at the very outset say that I am impressed with the manner you have carved a niche on the political landscape of Maharashtra. I distinctly remember meeting you in February last year soon after the Mumbai municipal corporation elections. It wasn’t the best of times: your party, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena had been marginalized while your cousin Udhav Thackeray and the Shiv Sena had captured power in the city. With many of your supporters deserting you, you appeared down, if not quite out. Twenty months later, I see you’ve bounced back: every local and national daily has you on the front page, you are the subject of television debates and your politics has even united Bihar’s warring netas.
And yet, my friend, there is a thin line between fame and notoriety, more so in the fickle world of politics. Bashing north Indian students may grab the headlines, getting arrested may even get you sympathy and strident rhetoric will always have a constituency, but will it be enough to secure your ultimate dream of succeeding your uncle Bal Thackeray as the flagbearer of Marathi asmita (pride)?
If Balasaheb in the 1960s rose to prominence by targeting the south Indian “lungiwala”, you have made the north Indian “bhaiyaa” the new ‘enemy’. In the 1960s, the Maharashtrian middle class in Mumbai was feeling the pressure of job competition for white collar clerical jobs. Today, it seems that there is a similar sense of frustration at losing out economically and culturally to other social groups in Mumbai’s endless battle for scarce resources. With the Congress and the NCP having become the real estate agents of the state’s rural-urban bourgeoise and the Shiv Sena a pale shadow of its original avatar, the space has been created for a charismatic leader to emerge as a rabble-rouser espousing the sons of the soil platform.
But Raj, I must remind you that electoral politics is very different from street agitations. Sure, round the clock coverage of taxis being stoned and buses being burnt will get you instant recognition. Yes, your name may inspire fear like your uncle’s once did. And perhaps there will always be a core group of lumpen youth who will be ready to do your bidding. But how much of this will translate into votes? Identity politics based on hatred and violence is subject to the law of diminishing returns, especially in a city like Mumbai, the ultimate melting pot of commerce. Your cousin Udhav tried a “Mee Mumbaikar” campaign a few years ago that was far more inclusive, but yet was interpreted as being anti-migrant. The result was that the Shiv Sena lost the 2004 elections – Lok Sabha and assembly – in its original citadel of Mumbai. Some statistics suggest that nearly one in every four Mumbaikars is now a migrant from UP or Bihar. Can any political party afford to alienate such a large constituency in highly competitive elections?
Maybe, your not even looking at winning seats at the moment, but simply staking claim to the Sena legacy in a post Bal Thackeray scenario. Perhaps, thats exactly what the ruling Congress-NCP combine in Maharashtra wants: like a market leader who gets competing brands to crush each other, the Congress-NCP leadership seems to be practicing divide and rule politics once again. They did it with Balasaheb and the communists in the 1960s, with Bhindranwale and the Akalis in the 1980s, even with the Kashmir valley politicians in the 1990s. A larger-than-life Raj Thackeray suits the ruling arrangement in Maharashtra because it could erode its principal rival, the Shiv Sena’s voter support. It’s a dangerous game, but often when politicians run out of ideas, they prefer to play with fire. It’s a fire that could leave Mumbai’s cosmopolitanism scarred for life.
Now, before you see my writings as the outpourings of an anglicized non-resident Maharashtrian, let me just say that, like you, I too am proud of my roots. I too, would like to see the cultural identity of Maharashtrians preserved and the economic well-being of our community assured. Where we differ is that I am a citizen of the Republic of India first, a proud Goan Maharashtrian only later. Fourteen years ago, I left Mumbai for Delhi to seek professional growth and was distinctly fortunate to be readily embraced by the national capital. Like millions of Indians, I too am a migrant and a beneficiary of a nation whose borders don’t stop at state checkpoints.
Moreover, I cannot accept that ‘goondaism’ is the way forward to forging a robust Maharashtrian identity. By vandalizing a shop or stoning a taxi, what kind of mindless regional chauvinism are we promoting? Taking away the livelihood of a poor taxi driver or beating up some defenceless students from Bihar reflects a fake machismo that is no answer to what ails Maharashtrian society today. The Maharashtra I once knew was inspired by the progressive ideals of the bhakti movement, by a Shahu-Phule-Ambedkar legacy of social reform. Are we going to dismantle that legacy under the weight of hate politics?
When you started your party a few years ago, it had been pitched as a party committed to a “modern” Maharashtra. If that vision still stands, why don’t you take it forward in real terms? Why don’t you, for example, set up vocational courses and technical institutes for young Maharashtrians to make them competitive in the job market? Why not, for that matter, start English-speaking classes for Maharashtrian students to equip them for the demands of the new economy? If cultural identity is such a concern, why not launch a statewide campaign to promote Marathi art, theatre and cinema by financially supporting such ventures? If Mumbai’s collapsing infrastructure worries you, then target the politician-builder nexus first. And isn’t it also time we realized that Mumbai is not Maharashtra, that the long suffering Vidarbha and Marathwada farmer needs urgent attention? Why not use your political and financial muscle to start projects in rural Maharashtra instead of focusing your energies on Mumbai’s bright lights alone? An employment generation scheme in a Jalna or a Gadchiroli may not make the front pages, but it will have far greater value for securing Maharashtra’s future.
Jai Hind, Jai Maharashtra!
I have been receiving a lot of comments these days from people who support Raj Thackeray and his way of handling the migrant issue.
Let be clear on one thing that unemployment is just not limited to Maharashtra .
Since 1995 the proportion of people below poverty line stands at 25% (As per Mr. V. Ranganathan, Chief Secretary, Government of Maharashtra). As of 2007 unemployment rate stands at 7.2% in India.
Unemployment across major States, 1999/00
| State | Rural | Urban |
| Andhra Pradesh | 12.81 | 11.88 |
| Bihar | 9.09 | 8.58 |
| Maharashtra | 10.27 | 11.46 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 08.58 | 07.91 |
| Kerela | 26.30 | 25.74 |
Given that Maharastrian youth is facing unemployment , but Is MNS handling this issue in the correct fashion?
Rather than pointing fingers at North Indians and Maharashtrians , I would rather like to hear possible solutions.
All possible and plausible solutions are welcome
Filed under Bihar, Blogging, Delhi, India, Indian Politics, Maharashtra, MNS, News, People, Politics, Raj Thackrey, Uncategorized
Google opened Gmail to further user modification by allowing users to integrate Google Gadgets in Gmail’s navigation bar. Some gadgets I found useful/addictive are listed below
1. Quicklinks – Adds a box to the left column that gives you 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail.
2. Old Snakey - Kick it old school with Old Snakey! Enable keyboard shortcuts and hit ‘&’ from the main page to play a game of snake.
3. Default ‘Reply to all’ – Make ‘Reply to all’ your default option for responding to emails.
4. Mail Goggles - Google strives to make the world’s information useful. Mail you send late night on the weekends may be useful but you may regret it the next morning. Solve some simple math problems and you’re good to go. Otherwise, get a good night’s sleep and try again in the morning. After enabling this feature, you can adjust the schedule in the “General” settings page
5. Forgotten Attachment Detector - Prevents you from accidentally sending messages without the relevant attachments. Prompts you if you mention attaching a file, but forgot to do so.
6. Google Docs gadget – dds a box in the left column which displays your Google Docs. Shows recent docs, starred docs, and has fast search
6. Add any gadget by URL - Adds a “Gadgets” tab to Settings, where you’ll be able to specify the URL of any gadget. This gadget will show in a box in the left column.
In order to enable mentioned features , click on settings>labs.
Filed under Business, Gmail, Gmail labs, Google, Internet, News, Technology
Popular Hindi TV soap opera produced by Balaji Telefilms, that revolves around the lives of the fictitious Virani family will go off air finally. For the past 8 years the entire serial has only focused on the battle between the mothers-in-law and Daughter -in-law.
The Bombay High Court declined to grant relief to Balaji Telefilms for its show ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’. Star TV took this step because of the falling TRP’s.
Believe it or not Balaji Telefilms gets Rs 27 lakhs(per episode).
The fifth and final orbit raising manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was successfully carried out today (November 4, 2008) morning at 04:56 am IST. During this manoeuvre, the spacecraft’s 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for about two and a half minutes.With this, Chandrayaan-1 entered the Lunar Transfer Trajectory with an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of about 380,000 km (three lakh eighty thousand km).
The health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennas at Byalalu. Since its launch on October 22 by PSLV-C11, all systems onboard Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft are performing normally. Chandrayaan-1 will approach the Moon on November 8, 2008 and the spacecraft’s liquid engine will be fired again to insert the spacecraft into lunar orbit.
CNN’s Jessica Yellin goes holographic to chat with Wolf Blitzer from Chicago.
Filed under Business, Delhi, Election 2008, India, Media, Mumbai, News, Politics, Technology, US
Singer will.i.am talks with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about his impact on Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign. [ VIA HOLOGRAM]
Filed under Business, Delhi, Election 2008, Media, News, Politics, Technology
Hologram Secrets Revealed [CNN Link]
Filed under CNN Hologram, Delhi, Election 2008, Hologram, hologram reporter, hologram technology, India, Media, News, Politics, Technology, US
“What’s the difference between north Indians and Indians. All of us are Indians,” Justice B N Agrawal and Justice G S Singhvi
I have been writing about Raj Thackeray and MNS for a while now. His admirers call him a savior who has brought out what common Maharashtrian is feeling. Some also want him to become the next CM of Maharashtra. On the other hand his critics call him a murderer, a politician who wants to divide India based on “regionalism”.
Lets first look at what our constitution states:
WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, have solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST, SECULAR, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:
JUSTICE, social, economic and political; LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
Two things really caught my attention
1. Socialist – Which means everyone has equal right and opportunity. And
2. FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
Here is what our directive principals states:
The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of undeserved want.
Why is it wrong for someone from Bihar, UP to come to a better city for a better opportunity? Why would someone beat him just because he is trying to create a future for himself?
Is Maharashtra the only state facing mass migration of Bihari workers, and middle class professionals? People from Bihar have also migrated to Punjab, Delhi . Why is a Bihari In his own country being treated with the kind of disdain with which the British treated Indians when we went to England to find employment in the 1950s.
As for the language issue , As per CHAPTER I.—LANGUAGE OF THE UNION
343. (1) The official language of the Union shall be Hindi.
Get me a law that states
1. “Beating people is OK when a job was not advertised in local newspaper” . or
2. “It is OK to terrorize prominent people (Read Bachchan Family) based on the language they speak”.
3. “Start beating up people just because they are migrating from one state to another “in their own country”.
M.A. Jinnah had also raised a similar issue back, when he demanded a separate state due to inadequate representation of Muslims in India. India made a mistake back then by giving in to his demands. Though till now MNS has not demanded a separate state but it is working on similar lines.
I always thought that the term “Indian” was a single race, but now we are hearing other races like, north Indian, South Indians. Where did this come from?
We should accept the fact that it is not possible to have full employment. Most economists believe 3-4 % unemployment is about the best an economy can achieve . We as Indians should consider:
1. Creating more cooperative financial institutions which provide credit at reasonable rates to the unemployed youths and promote self employment
2. Creating institutions which provide high level skills to the unemployed that would make them competitive.
3. Creating a state funded unemployment welfare assistance program. Unemployed youth should be encouraged to take up community work in order to receive benefits from the state. Trust me if our government can come up with money to write off farmers loans, then it can very well come up with money to fund such a program.
4. Joining the Army. Fight terrorist rather than fighting your own countrymen.
“At times we find that people say that we speak a particular kind of language, we are born in a particular state and so we should be given preference over others. That approach is really a narrow minded approach,”- Shivraj Patil
Filed under Bihar, Delhi, India, Indian Politics, MNS, Mumbai, Raj Thackrey, Uncategorized
Filed under News, Palin, Politics, Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin 2012, Uncategorized, US
Sarah Palin told local reporters in Alaska that unhappiness with the Bush administration’s Iraq war policy and spending record were responsible for the GOP ticket’s defeat this year.
“I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo, too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a $10 trillion debt in a Republican administration?” Palin told the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska’s KTUU Channel 2.
“How have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration? If we’re talking change, we want to get far away from what it was that the present administration represented and that is to a great degree what the Republican Party at the time had been representing. So people desiring change I think went as far from the administration that is presently seated as they could. It’s amazing that we did as well as we did.
Filed under Media, News, Palin, Politics, Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin 2012
Moon as viewed by Chandrayaan-1 on 4 Nov. 2008 , Distance ~ 311200 Km. from Moon
The first orbit reduction manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft which is orbiting the moon, was successfully performed on November 9, 2008 , night. As part of that manoeuvre which began at 20:03 IST, the 440 Newton liquid engine of the spacecraft was fired for about 57 seconds. With this, the nearest point of Chandrayaan-1’s orbit (periselene) from the moon’s surface was reduced from 504 km to 200 km while the farthest point (aposelene) remained unchanged at 7,502 km. In this elliptical orbit, Chandrayaan-1 takes about ten and a half hours to circle the moon once.
- Government will loose around $150 Billion in revenue
- Part Makers will Shut down and will be out of business.
- Sales would plummet as consumers will loose interest
- Rental car companies, purchasers of about 15% of GM’s volume, would get nervous, too. They often sell their used models back to the auto maker. They’re worried they would have to liquidate the cars themselves if GM went bankrupt, says Maryann N. Keller, a longtime GM watcher who sits on the board of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc.
- If GM went belly-up, retirees, workers, could all take a hit
- GM’s creditors would also stand to suffer. The company has $31 billion in long-term debt, most of it due in 2023 and beyond.
GM and Ford reported they spent a combined $14.6 billion more than they took in last quarter. GM said it could run out of money by the end of the year. Ford said it could last through 2009, but only because it arranged a hefty credit line last year.Next week, Congress plans to consider giving the auto industry part of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout during a lame-duck session.
On the other hand ”Bankruptcy could do great things for GM,” says William J. Rochelle III, a bankruptcy attorney with Fulbright & Jaworski LLP. But, of course, Chapter 11 is no sure bet. History is full of examples of companies that have emerged from bankruptcy simply to return in a few years.
As airlines and steelmakers have done, GM could use Chapter 11 to rewrite union contracts, potentially enabling it to slash retiree benefits and close plants without having to pay furloughed workers. The auto maker could even dump tarnished brands and get bankruptcy court protection from dealer lawsuits.
Filed under Blog, Blogging, Business, General Motors, GM, News, Uncategorized, US, US Government
Artist’s concept of the star Fomalhaut and the Jupiter-type planet that the Hubble Space Telescope observed. A ring of debris appears to surround Fomalhaut as well. The planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the 200-million-year-old star every 872 years. Credit: ESA, NASA, and L. Calcada (ESO for STScI)
Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter’s mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis, or the “Southern Fish.”
This visible-light image from the Hubble shows the newly discovered planet, Fomalhaut b, orbiting its parent star.
The planet is brighter than expected for an object of three Jupiter masses. One possibility is that it has a Saturn-like ring of ice and dust reflecting starlight. The ring might eventually coalesce to form moons. The ring’s estimated size is comparable to the region around Jupiter and its four largest orbiting satellites.
Future observations will attempt to see the planet in infrared light and will look for evidence of water vapor clouds in the atmosphere. This would yield clues to the evolution of a comparatively newborn 100-million-year-old planet. Astrometric measurements of the planet’s orbit will provide enough precision to yield an accurate mass.
Raj allegedly cut a cake bearing the word Bhaiyya in Hindi on his birthday on June 14 in Mumbai – a video clip of which was leaked out Friday. he video clip shows him making two diagonal slashes across the cake, instead of gently cutting it in the traditional fashion.
What is more surprising is his party vice president came up with this explanation
The word Bhaiyya on the cake probably meant that Raj Thackeray was like the elder brother of the person who presented the cake to him, and “it should not be construed that we are against North Indians.
What a Wus
Filed under Bihar, Delhi, India, Maharashtra, MNS, Mumbai, Politics, Raj Thackrey
India on Friday became the fourth nation to have its flag flying on the Moon’s surface when Chandrayaan-1′s Moon Impact Probe device, – which has the Indian Tricolour painted on it – touched down. The 35-kilo payload crash-landed on the lunar surface at around 2030 hrs IST. The MIP has started sending its first signals to the satellite.
It also contains equipment which will help scientists design a lunar lander or rover for the upcoming Chandrayaan-2 mission.
There’s a lot tucked away inside the MIP. There’s a device to constantly check it’s height as it falls, another to check what the air on the moon is made of and even a video camera to photograph the moon from close range. Those photographs will help ISRO decide where to land India’s first moon rover, a few years from now. The MIP also has the Indian flag painted on its sides a Sanskrit shloka as well.
These two are close up pictures of the moon’s surface taken by Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on November 14, 2008 as it approached it after separating from Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Please note that these pictures are reproduced as received.
These two are close up pictures of the moon’s surface taken by Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on November 14, 2008 as it approached it after separating from Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Please note that these pictures are reproduced as received.
This is the picture of moon’s surface taken from lunar orbit by Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on November 13, 2008. Taken over the equatorial region of the moon, the picture shows the uneven surface of the moon with numerous craters. On the lower left, part of the Torricelli crater is seen.
is is the picture of moon’s surface taken from lunar orbit by Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on November 15, 2008. Taken over the polar region of the moon, the picture shows many large and numerous small craters. The bright terrain on the lower left is the rim of 117 km wide Moretus crater.
A short movie made from the images taken by Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) of Chandrayaan-1 as the spacecraft flew over the area near the South polar region of moon. The Terrain Mapping Camera,built by ISRO’s Space Applications Centre(SAC) of Ahmedabad, is taking excellent pictures of Moon’s surface from Chandrayaan-1′s 100 km high orbit from the Lunar surface.
According to the Maharashtra government’s own records, there are about 1.6 lakh units across micro, small and medium industries which together employ 10.86 lakh people. Of these, 91% of the non-supervisory jobs and 97% of the supervisory posts are held by locals.
Atleast this data should be enough for Raj Thackeray and his “Gang” members to drop their bogus claims that north indians are taking jobs away from Marathi Manoos.
Filed under Bihar, Delhi, India, Indian Politics, Maharashtra, MNS, Mumbai, News, Raj Thackrey, Uncategorized
www.bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in
Indian Space Research Organization will roll-out a rival to Google Earth, the hugely popular online satellite imagery service,
The project, Bhuvan (Sanskrit for Earth), will allow users to zoom into areas as small as 10 metres wide. Now compare that to the 200 metre wide zoom limit on Google Earth. Bhuvan will use a network of satellites to create a high-resolution, bird’s-eye view of India that will be accessible at no cost online and will compete with Google Earth.
In the hope of stimulating local technological, industrial and economic development, France in 2006 announced a 2 billion euro (about $2.5 billion) plan to back a series of projects including one on a Franco-German search engine intended to rival Google. This fizzled out without a trace. Undeterred, a year later France unveiled Géoportail, its own answer to Google Earth.
Filed under Bhuvan, Delhi, Google, India, ISRO, Mumbai, News, Technology, Uncategorized
Bush walks across a line of world leaders without shaking or being asked to shake any of their hands. Whether the President is being rejected by the world leaders or he is rejecting them, CNN’s Rick Sanchez aptly says that Bush looks like “the most unpopular kid in high school that nobody liked.”
The map above was first circulated as a theoretical exercise in some American circles . It has fueled a belief among Pakistanis, including members of the armed forces, that what the United States really wants is the breakup of Pakistan. They also fear that Afghanistan and India togather want to destroy Pakistan. The viewpoint reflects not only Pakistan’s insecurities about its borders, but also its distrust of the perceived American tilt towards India
“I don’t feel threatened by India and India shouldn’t feel threatened by us,” Zardari said in a videoconference at the Hindustan Times LeadershipSummit in New Delhi.
(Source: NYTimes)
Mr. Hari Chereddi, Managing Director, SUNLED Technologies was invited to present at the prestigious 3rd Renewable Energy Finance Forum organized by Euromoney – Held at Mumbai on 20th & 21st November 2008. He was speaking on ‘Applying Energy Efficiency business models to Solar Technology.
India’s accelerated economic growth has in turn generated an ever increasing demand for energy, and opportunities in the domestic market for renewable energy generation are plentiful. The 3rd REFF-India was a unique forum for discussions between technologists, decision makers, investors and financiers. The diverse speaker faculty featured high-level government officials, leading technology manufacturers and project developers, and key financial institutions operating in the Indian renewable energy sector.
Key topics that were discussed:
· The latest policy developments impacting the Indian renewable energy sector
· Present and future outlook on finance and project structures
· Attractive investment opportunities in wind, solar and bio-energy
· Finance and project structures for demand-side sustainability
· Opportunities in scaling up technology manufacturing for export purposes
· Carbon finance and CDM project investment opportunities
Vistit Sunledtech here
Steve Jobs has started cutting price on Macs.
15.4″ MacBook Pro Glossy Screen – Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz, 2GB Memory, 120GB Hard Drive Notebook is selling at $1299 , when the list price is $1999. (See here). Where as Macbook Air is selling for $1,149.99 (Reg $1794). Apple store managers, meanwhile, are offering to match any advertised price — a policy they quietly followed in the past but now openly acknowledge.
Apple has posted a teaser for a one-day Black Friday shopping event that promises unspecified bargains for shoppers.
Come back to the Apple Online Store the day after Thanksgiving for a special one-day-only holiday shopping event. You’ll find dozens of great iPod, iPhone, and Mac gift ideas.
Filed under Advertisment, apple, News, Technology
“Terrorists take over Mumbai” “Attacks in Mumbai” – Breaking news headlines flaring throughout the day.
Aww… tell me something new. We all got used to this. The common man is going to wake up and go to work the next day as if nothing happened.
But then something caught my eye, as I fleeted through the news. These guys attacked Taj & Oberoi hotels, and were asking for folks with American and British passports.
Now that’s something different. These guys finally found a way to get to the media, so much so that CNN & MSNBC have decided to stop guessing about Obama’s next man in the transition cabinet. Imagine pictures of Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, & Ashok Kamte (the men from the Indian Anti-terrorist Squad, who lost their lives in this attack) being flashed across American channels.
That is media attention. And how did these terrorist manage to get that – simple, Stop focusing on cheap Indian lives.
I bet this is going to get much more attention than the serial blasts that happened over the last 6 months.
Jaipur, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Guwahati – These are not the list of developing Indian cities. This is just the list of cities which saw serial blasts rip through their busiest areas killing the common Indian man – bad strategy I would say. Com’on who cares for a cheap Indian life?
(A, B, D, G, H, J… see, these poor guys missed out a city that starts with C, then E, F… )
Awww… and after this, I loved the way, our ‘honorable’ politicians, dressed for the cameras, came out and said –
“This is a tragic moment for our Nation. My prayers go out to the people who have been injured and killed. We shall initiate a CBI inquiry into these attacks and the intelligence failure. The govt. will provide 5 lakh rupees to the next of kin of the deceased”
Did you happen to notice the cream colored bandhgala, and the green one a few minutes later, which the home minister, Shivraj Patil wore for the press briefing? And yeah… 5,00,000 rupees for one Indian life – see, that was indeed cheap. Who cares?
And now, the creative terrorist has done something different. Why focus on those many cheap Indian lives, when few Americans and Britons can give a better coverage? Paradigm shift, Hmmm. The news also said that around 100 people lost their lives in this attack. Now that is like collateral damage. Com’on, They will anyway get 5,00,000 rupees. Don’t worry about that.
Shocking, gruesome, horrible, carnage, massacre – these are few of the adjectives used to describe the event. Analysts are surprised at the incredible planning.
I am surprised; They don’t get the basic fact – This happened in India.
What does the Indian government do after each terror attack? Vote bank politics take over, with an eye on the next general elections. The victims and perpetrators of terror are classified based on religion, race, and ethnicity. Statements are issued accordingly. The motive – get the maximum number of votes. It is important that the future is secure – the future of the politician, the minister, the government.
After all, who cares for a few hundred cheap lives in a billion plus population with a birth rate of 22 per 1000? And yes, the common man – who cares? He is going to pay the taxes to sustain the privileges of the bureaucracy. He is going to go back to work the next day, irrespective of what happened.
Sad and depressing – that is the truth. The life of a common Indian man is cheap and dispensable. It is not me, but the politicians and government who say so…
Last heard:
Shivraj Patil – “Damn those guys, why did they have to ask for British and American passports? Now that America is watching, I need a new Armani.”
Manmohan Singh – “Thank goodness, they didn’t ask for Italian passports. Madam will be happy. Now what do I wear, blue turban, green turban, or… black, that will go well with the black suit”
LK Advani – “yaaaaay… now let them talk about Hindu terrorists. Hello… CNN … I am giving a press briefing”
RR Patil – “Female reporters at my press briefing should be wearing sarees only. Indian culture…”
Raj Thackeray – “First we have to find out if these terrorists were originally from UP and Bihar”
(This post can also be viewed at http://ns360.wordpress.com)
Helplines:
+44 2070080000 (UK),
011-2419228 (Delhi),
Taj: 00800 4588 1825 (rest of the world),
US & Canada: 1866 969 1825
Images Boston.com/GettyImages
Filed under Delhi, India, India Moon Mission, Moon Impact Probe, News
I recently came across an article written by a demented blogger from the terrorist sate of Pakistan. He writes
There are several gains Indian will get from this act:
1- Election of Radical Hindu Nationalist Party.
2- Passage of an Indian version of Patriot Act (against Muslims).
3- A Possible Indian attack on Pakistan [although the Indians don’t have the guts to go that far] .
4- Possibility of Indian lobby forcing United States to put sanctions on Pakistan by fabricating false evidence involving Pakistanis in this.
Why would India force US to put sanctions on a country which is surviving on loans provided by the international community?
As for the false evidences , you may want to go through these articles published on the web by the GLOBAL MEDIA and not INDIAN MEDIA. All you need to do is google “TERRORIST PAKISTAN” .
Al Qaeda continues to grow its network and expand its capabilities in northwestern Pakistan, US military and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. The peace agreements have given the Taliban and al Qaeda time and space to re-establish their networks, which pose a threat not only to Pakistan, but the West as well.
Dozens of white Europeans have trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan’s tribal regions in recent months, U.S. intelligence sources tell ABC News, in what officials fear may be the beginnings of a new breed of al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorism.
U.S. intelligence agencies have evidence that al Qaeda and the Taliban are becoming more organized inside Pakistan and are boldly planning more attacks on U.S. interests, The Post has learned – NY Post
Sharmila Thackeray , Wife of Raj Thackeray is busy forwarding an SMS these days. It reads like this:
“All those who had lost their lives while saving this city are Marathis. MNS workers are busy donating blood, helping police for rescue operations and lifting bodies.”
Pathetic.
Shame on all those who call Raj Thackeray a Leader.
Click here to read original post
Listen to this Joker . He claims the terrorist were Hindu’s , because they look like Hindu’s
Author: Neh
Don’t blame Pakistan or the terrorist. They had the courage and pride to inflict damage to a country they believe is there enemy. We have to blame so called Indians like the Thackeray’s and the people who follow them (Marathi Manoos) who are making our society weak. These people unlike the rest of India have never had to struggle and have lived off the wealth created by outsiders. They have negligible contribution towards the growth of Mumbai which was created by outsiders who believed in national pride, hope, hard work and continuous struggle for progress. Mumbai was created by British, Gujaratis, Marwadis, Parsis and companies like TATA’s whose wealth came from their flagship company “Tata Steel” in Bihar. In fact most of these people don’t know or care about Indian History, have never stepped outside Maharastra and are not aware that Mumbai wasn’t even a part of Maharashtra. It was part of Gujarat before and the population of marathis in Mumbai was negligible before independence (http://www.mumbaispace.com/cityinfo/history.htm).
Lack of enterprise, ethics, courage and hard work has resulted in a society which demonstrates incompetence in every area and has the potential to adversely effect the Nations growth and prosperity. Some of these examples amply demonstrate this:-
1.) WEAK & CORRUPT POLICE:- 14 maharastrian policeman died without killing a single terrorist !!! This is because it is more of political force then a law enforcer. Why do they have fancy names likes ATS when they can’t protect themselves, leave alone protecting others, thier jeeps get hijacked by terrorist!! In fact at CST when a brave photographer (Anil Singh – who shot the photographs of the terrorists) informed armed policemen about the terrorists , they ran away. Inspite of all this we make these people National heroes and people like Sharmila the wife of Raj Thackeray sends SMSs glamorizing the non existent contribution of marathis in saving the city by stating that all policemen killed in Mumbai were Marathis.
2) WEAK & CORRUPT POLITICIANS:- Pratibha patil – our president Mrs. Pratibha Patil – the cosmetic head of state? So much has happened. Mumbai and India was attacked and at war and Mrs. Patil was not to be seen anywhere? Why? Shivraj Patil – The worst home minister ever seen , he was more bothered about his dressing then the terrorist attacks on India. RR Patil – Mr Patil spoke and behaved as if he was featuring in a pulp Bollywood movie, during the 60-hour-long terror attack and its aftermath, with irresponsible sound-bytes serving as dialogues,” Clown, what happened to your statement “goli ka jawab goli se doongi”? Vilasrao Deshmukh , and the list goes on
3) LACK OF ENTERPRISE:- Inspite of all the opputunities available you sont have a single Industralist from the state who has been able to create jobs at a mass level. There are many parts in Maharastra where shop keepers close from 12 noon to 4 in the evening and treat customers as if they are doing a favour by selling to them, when outsiders are more successful in competing with these incapable people they are beaten up. In most organisations in Maharastra the most incompetent people are generally the Marathi Manoos who were hired because they were easily available and are able to retain there jobs because of the support from local politicians.
This is not a simple problem. A weak society influenced by paranoid cowards, completely detached from reality, confused and megalomaniacs like Raj Thackeray has the potential to completely destroy the country to take india to fragmented pre-1947 india , which was a period of intense repression from foreign forces where we saw large scale genocides, large scale destruction of hindu temples and blatant conversion of temples into mosques.
It talks about ‘Gurriella Warfare’, ‘Attack on Indian Parliament’, ‘Understanding Jihad.
Visit this blog and click on BlogInfo>Report Spam.
Dear Mr. Prime minister
I am a typical mouse from Mumbai. In the local train compartment which has capacity of 100 persons, I travel with 500 more mouse. Mouse at least squeak but we don’t even do that.
Today I heard your speech. In which you said ‘NO BODY WOULD BE SPARED’. I would like to remind you that fourteen years has passed since serial bomb blast in Mumbai took place. Dawood was the main conspirator. Till today he is not caught. All our bolywood actors, our builders, our Gutka king meets him but your Government can not catch him. Reason is simple; all your ministers are hand in glove with him. If any attempt is made to catch him everybody will be exposed. Your statement ‘NOBODY WOULD BE SPARED’ is nothing but a cruel joke on this unfortunate people of India .
Enough is enough. As such after seeing terrorist attack carried out by about a dozen young boys I realize that if same thing continues days are not away when terrorist will attack by air, destroy our nuclear reactor and there will be one more Hiroshima .
We the people are left with only one mantra. Womb to Bomb to Tomb. You promised Mumbaikar Shanghai what you have given us is Jalianwala Baug.
Today only your home minister resigned. What took you so long to kick out this joker? Only reason was that he was loyal to Gandhi family. Loyalty to Gandhi family is more important than blood of innocent people, isn’t it?
I am born and bought up in Mumbai for last fifty eight years. Believe me corruption in Maharashtra is worse than that in Bihar . Look at all the politician, Sharad Pawar, Chagan Bhujbal, Narayan Rane, Bal Thackray , Gopinath Munde, Raj Thackray, Vilasrao Deshmukh all are rolling in money. Vilasrao Deshmukh is one of the worst Chief minister I have seen. His only business is to increase the FSI every other day, make money and send it to Delhi so Congress can fight next election. Now the clown has found new way and will increase FSI for fisherman so they can build concrete house right on sea shore. Next time terrorist can comfortably live in those house , enjoy the beauty of sea and then attack the Mumbai at their will.
Recently I had to purchase house in Mumbai. I met about two dozen builders. Everybody wanted about 30% in black. A common person like me knows this and with all your intelligent agency & CBI you and your finance minister are not aware of it.. Where all the black money goes? To the underworld isn’t it? Our politicians take help of these goondas to vacate people by force. I myself was victim of it. If you have time please come to me, I will tell you everything.
If this has been land of fools, idiots then I would not have ever cared to write you this letter. Just see the tragedy, on one side we are reaching moon, people are so intelligent and on other side you politician has converted nectar into deadly poison. I am everything Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Schedule caste, OBC, Muslim OBC, Christian Schedule caste, Creamy Schedule caste only what I am not is INDIAN. You politician have raped every part of mother India by your policy of divide and rule.
Take example of former president Abdul Kalam. Such a intelligent person, such a fine human being. You politician didn’t even spare him. Your party along with opposition joined the hands, because politician feels they are supreme and there is no place for good person.
Dear Mr Prime minister you are one of the most intelligent person, most learned person. Just wake up, be a real SARDAR. First and foremost expose all selfish politician. Ask Swiss bank to give name of all Indian account holder. Give reins of CBI to independent agency. Let them find wolf among us.. There will be political upheaval but that will better than dance of death which we are witnessing every day. Just give us ambient where we can work honestly and without fear. Let there be rule of law. Everything else will be taken care of.
Choice is yours Mr. Prime Minister. Do you want to be lead by one person or you want to lead the nation of 100 Crore people?
Prakash B. Bajaj
Chandralok ‘A” Wing, Flat No 104
97 Nepean Sea Road
Mumbai 400 036
Phone 98210-71194
[splashcast c ARDE1277KU]
Zaid Hamid ( A leading Pakistani defence analyst) had earlier claimed that the arrested terrorist was a Hindu.
It would be interesting to see what this joker can come up with now.
Kasab’s home ‘located’ in Faridkot – Pakistan Daily
* The Observer says gunman’s parents on electoral roll in Depalpur
WASHINGTON: A correspondent claims to have established that the lone surviving Mumbai gunman, named Ajmal Amir Kasab, comes from Faridkot, a village in the Okara district, who is the son of Muhammad Amir and Noor.
The correspondent, Saeed Shah, who visited the village, writes in The Observer, London, that he has obtained electoral lists for Faridkot showing 478 registered voters, including a Muhammad Amir, married to one Noor Elahi. Amir’s and Noor’s national identity card numbers are also said to have been obtained. At the house where the family is said to live, a man calling himself Sultan said he was Muhammad Amir’s father-in-law.
One villager told the correspondent that Faridkot was an active recruiting ground for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. “We know that boy is from Faridkot. We knew from the first night. They brainwash our youth about jihad, there are people who do it in this village. It is so wrong.”
Kasab, interrogated in custody after the attacks, reportedly told Indian security officials that he came from a place called Faridkot in the Punjab province. His father was named as Muhammad Amir, married to a woman named Noor.
“The Observer has managed to obtain an electoral roll for Faridkot, which falls under union council number 5, tehsil (area) Depalpur, district Okara,” the report said. “The list of 478 registered voters shows a Muhammad Amir, married to Noor Elahi, living in Faridkot. Amir’s national identity card number is given as 3530121767339, and Noor’s is 3530157035058.”
The reporter could not meet Amir, the father, but said: “Villagers eventually told us that he and his wife, Noor, had been mysteriously spirited away earlier in the week.”
Ajmal had little education, according to locals. “If he did indeed speak fluent English, as claimed in Indian press reports, he would have had to have learnt that after he left the village,” the report said. khalid hasan/daily times monitor
Blogmantra has offered me to become a contributing author here, so I took no time in accepting it given the vast viewership of this blog.
In the near future I will keep posting my own thoughts, articles, musings–really random stuff which I feel needs a shout out.
and what better place to do it than here!
@BlogMantra – Ill do my best not to drive away traffic 
Give me a visit at Randomly Organized.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I like writing it!
“The story of Jamal Malik (Patel), an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika (Pinto), the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show’s questions. Each chapter of Jamal’s increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show’s seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really doing on the game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out. At the heart of its exuberant storytelling lies the intriguing question of how anyone comes to know the things they know about life and love.”
Source: IMDB
Filed under Hollywood, movie, Movie Trailer
It is the largest extant manuscript Codex Gigas also known as Devils Bible (Known only due to a large illustration of the devil on the inside and the legend surrounding its creation)
Contents
The Codex includes the entire Latin version of the Bible
Legend (Source Wikipedia)
According to legend the scribe was a monk who breached his monastic code and was sentenced to be walled up alive. In order to forbear this harsh penalty he promised to create in one single night a book to glorify the monastery forever, including all human knowledge. Near midnight he became sure that he could not complete this task alone, so he sold his soul to the devil for help. The devil completed the manuscript and the monk added the devil’s picture out of gratitude for his aid.
You can also browse the manuscript here
Pakistanis’s are fooling no one but themselves , when they say they are awiting concrete proof.
A committee of the United Nations Security Council has placed sanctions against Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a front organisation for Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), declaring it a terrorist organisation.
The committee has added Jamaat and four Lashkar leaders to a list of firms and people facing sanctions for ties to al-Qaeda or the Taliban the UN said.
The terrorists added to the sanctions list include Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, which the UN statement described as the leader of the group.
The others are Pakistan-born Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the chief of operations, Haji Muhammad Ashraf, the chief of finance, and India-born Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq, described as a financier for the group who served as its chief in Saudi Arabia.
However, it remains to be seen whether Pakistan upholds the UNSC sanctions.
Source Reuters
Bernard Madoff, a quiet force on Wall Streetfor decades, was arrested and charged on Thursday with allegedly running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme in what may rank among the biggest frauds ever.
The former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market is best known as the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, the closely-held market-making firm he launched in 1960. But he also ran a hedge fund that U.S. prosecutors said racked up $50 billion of fraudulent losses.
Madoff told senior employees of his firm on Wednesday that “it’s all just one big lie” and that it was “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme,” with estimated investor losses of about $50 billion, according to the U.S. Attorney’s criminal complaint against him. A Ponzi scheme is a swindle where early investors are paid off with money from later investors.
The $50 billion allegedly lost to investors would make Madoff’s fund one of the biggest frauds in history. When Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001, one of the largest at the time, it had $63.4 billion in assets.
U.S. prosecutors charged Madoff, 70, with a single count of securities fraud. They said he faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $5 million.
“Madoff stated that the business was insolvent, and that it had been for years,” Lev Dassin, acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed separate civil charges against Madoff.
Authorities said that, according to a document filed by Madoff with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on January 7, 2008, Madoff’s investment advisory business served between 11 and 25 clients and had a total of about $17.1 billion in assets under management. Those clients may have included other funds that in turn had many investors.
The SEC said it appeared that virtually all of the assets of his hedge fund business were missing.
CONSISTENT RETURNS
An investor in the hedge fund said it generated consistent returns, which was part of the attraction. Since 2004, annual returns averaged around 8 percent and ranged from 7.3 percent to 9 percent, but last decade returns were typically in the low-double digits, the investor said.
The fund told investors it followed a “split strike conversion” strategy, which entailed owning stock and buying and selling options to limit downside risk, said the investor, who requested anonymity.
Jon Najarian, an acquaintance of Madoff who has traded options for decades, said … “Many of us questioned how that strategy could generate those kinds of returns so consistently.”
Najarian, co-founder of optionmonster.com, once tried to buy what was then the Cincinnati Stock Exchangewhen Madoff was a major seatholder on the exchange. Najarian met with Madoff, who rejected his bid.
“He always seemed to be a straight shooter. I was shocked by this news,” Najarian said.
‘UNFORTUNATE SET OF EVENTS’
“Bernard Madoff is a longstanding leader in the financial services industry,” his lawyer Dan Horwitz told reporters outside a downtown Manhattan courtroom where he was charged. “We will fight to get through this unfortunate set of events.”
A shaken Madoff stared at the ground as reporters peppered him with questions. He was released after posting a $10 million bond secured by his Manhattan apartment.
“Our complaint alleges a stunning fraud — both in terms of scope and duration,” said Scott Friestad, the SEC’s deputy enforcer. “We are moving quickly and decisively to stop the scheme and protect the remaining assets for investors.”
Madoff had long kept the financial statements for his hedge fund business under “lock and key,” according to prosecutors, and was “cryptic” about the firm. The hedge fund business was located on a separate floor from the market making business.
Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities has more than $700 million in capital, according to its website. It is a market maker for about 350 Nasdaq stocks, including Apple, EBay and Dell, according to the website.
The website also states that Madoff himself has “a personal interest in maintaining the unblemished record of value, fair-dealing, and high ethical standards that has always been the firm’s hallmark.”
The company’s web site may be found here: http://www.madoff.com/
Pakistan’s foreign ministry has released a statement that seems to suggest that Islamabad might want consular access to Kasab, even if it is informally and in the presence of Indian officials.
The statement reads thus,” Our own investigations cannot proceed beyond a certain point without provision of credible information and evidence pertaining to Mumbai attacks. Despite our requests, no evidence or information has been shared with the Government by India so far. Any criminal investigation proceeds from the scene of crime to the criminal. This is standard investigation procedure”.
Pakistan’s representative to the United Nations, Abdullah Haroon Hussain said that Pakistan must be given access to Kasab. When asked that asking for consular access would mean an admission that Kasab is Pakistani, Hussain said Islamabad wants access to make sure this is established.
“It is in the benefit of India to allow consular access to this person to the Pak authorities. The sooner that happens the better it would be for both countries. We should both walk towards each other and no one should be seen standing at one spot. If in your presence we access him that’s a good gesture of working together, even if he is not a Pakistani national. If he’s not found a Pakistani, then he s not a Pakistani. But if he is, we’ll all find out, won’t we? But until then, we don’t know for a fact and can’t identify the person as a Pakistani. We will say these are your (India’s) allegations,
GEO Pakistan
| Ajmal Qasab is Pakistan resident? |
| Updated at: 2136 PST, Friday, December 12, 2008
ARID KOT: Ajmal Qasab, allegedly involved in Mumbai attacks and presently in Indian custody, is a resident of Farid Kot, Pakistan. Geo News team that arrived in Farid Kot to investigate this, started inquiring the local people about Ajmal Qasab. Most of the people seemed unwilling to speak. However, a man or two confirmed that Ajmal Qasab’s father Amir Azam Qasab used to sell ‘Pakora’ in the area while his son Ajmal Qasab worked in the crop fields. It was investigated that Ajmal Qasab ran away from home four years ago because his father failed to provide him new clothes on Eid as his son desired. |
Baghdad, Iraq — A man threw his shoes at President George W. Bush and was dragged away by security officials during the president’s farewell trip to Iraq.
The incident occurred as Bush was appearing Sunday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Bush ducked and wasn’t hit by either shoe. Bush joked, saying that all he can report was that it was a size 10 shoe. then calmly took questions.
President Bush says the work in Iraq has been hard, but is necessary for U.S. security and world peace. He says he’s grateful he had the chance to return to Iraq a final time before his presidency ends.
The president is celebrating a recent U.S.-Iraq security agreement that calls for U.S. troops to withdraw by the end of 2011.
Stay Tuned for Video
Source – A Prominent Pakistan Based News Channel
As if the Mumbai attacks last month were not headache enough for the Pakistan Government and its military, a British Sunday paper has claimed that Major-General (R) Faisal Alavi, a former head of Pakistan’s special forces knew he would be killed by his own comrades because he “threatened to expose Pakistani generals who made deals with Taliban militants”.
Writing in a damning report for the daily, Carey Schofield, a British author said that Faisal Alavi was murdered last month after he threatened to “furnish all relevant proof” about the two Pakistan army generals, in a letter to a senior most general of the army. The letter can be seen on the newspaper’s website but the names of the concerned generals have been blackened to conceal the identity. The author claimed that the deceased general had given her a copy of the letter once he was sure that the military leadership was not going to respond positively to it. “Aware that he was risking his life, he gave a copy to me and asked me to publish it if he was killed,” the author wrote. She said that Alavi told her in their last meeting at an Islamabad restaurant that his letter was a waste and he feared for his life. “It hasn’t worked,” he said. “They’ll shoot me.” He was killed within four days of the meeting when he was driving through Islamabad, the report said.
Ms Schofield, whose book on the Pakistan Army is due next year, said that Alavi – the brother-in-law of VS Naipaul, the British novelist and Nobel laureate – believed his sacking from the army for “conduct unbecoming” was a “mischievous and deceitful plot” and his letter was a final attempt to have his honour restored.
“Alavi believed he had been forced out because he was openly critical of deals that senior generals had done with the Taliban. He disparaged them for their failure to fight the war on terror wholeheartedly and for allowing Taliban forces based in Pakistan to operate with impunity against the British and other Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan,” the report said. “The entire purpose of this plot by these general officers was to hide their own involvement in a matter they knew I was privy to,” he wrote in the letter. He wanted an inquiry, at which “I will furnish all relevant proof/information, which is readily available with me”.
Chrysler LLC announced late Wednesday that it is stopping all vehicle production in the United States for at least a month.
All 30 of the carmaker’s plants will close after the last shift on Friday, and employees will not be asked to return to work before Jan. 19.
Chrysler blamed the “continued lack of consumer credit for the American car buyer” for the slow-down in sales that forced the move.
Chrysler ordinarily shuts down operations between Dec. 24 and Jan. 5 for the holidays. This closure would add roughly two weeks to that shut-down.
Chrysler would not say how many fewer vehicles would be produced because this shut-down. A total of 46,000 employees will be effected by the shut down. Those employees will be paid during the shutdown through a combination of state unemployment benefits and Chrysler contributions, but they will not receive the full amount of their working pay, a Chrysler spokesman said.
Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh termed as “speculative” news reports that he had donated USD one million to the Clinton Foundation. “I do not have the amount mentioned to donate”
However his name appears clearly on the list.
Interesting
Is this a Joke. Pakistan is asking the world to ask India to close its “terror” cells.
A strongly-worded resolution passed unanimously by the National Assembly urged the global community to press India to “close terror hubs and stop anti-Pakistan propaganda” through the media and at international forums.
The resolution, presented by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Malik Amad Khan, stated that Pakistan wants peace and stability in the region and end of tension with India.
Remember this guy
He had said that the Americans “are going to surrender or be burned in their tanks. They will surrender, it is they who will surrender”. Al-Sahhaf claimed that there were no American troops in Baghdad, and that the Americans were committing suicide by the hundreds at the city’s gates.
He gained something of a cult following in the west, appearing on T-shirts, cartoons, and from internet phenomena came satirical websites. One such site featured sound bites of the minister, as well as photoshopped pictures of him on the Star Wars Death Star, at The Battle of Waterloo and at the D-Day landings, in all cases maintaining that “everything is just fine.”
He reminds us of 
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi , who has been constantly reminding his citizen that “Pakistan is capable of defending itself”. He added, “I want to give a message to India that we are the torch-bearers of peace and remain committed to our desire for peace…Contrary to our reasonable, cooperative and non-aggressive attitude, some elements from India are issuing provocative statements.”
Maybe it is time his people start asking him regarding the drone attacks by US as “innocent” Pakistani’s are being killed everyday (As he maintains that there are no trerrorists in Pakistan)
We dont see the capable pakistani army defending Pakistan in that case.
Filed under News
A previously-unknown pro-Taliban group, Ansar Wa Mohajir, has claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s bomb explosion in Lahore and the earlier rocket attacks on Dera Ismail Khan.
Toofan Wazir, identifying himself as a commander and spokesman of the group, phoned The News from somewhere in North Waziristan to claim responsibility for the two attacks. He threatened more attacks against the security forces and the government installations to avenge the two recent US missile strikes in North Waziristan in which several militants belonging to the Punjab were killed.
According to Toofan Wazir, the US drones fired the missiles at Pakistani targets with the agreement and cooperation of the government of Pakistan. He said revenge would be taken from both the Americans and the Pakistan government. In Pakistan, he warned, suicide bombings would be carried out and bombs would be planted and exploded at important government installations.
Toofan Wazir, which doesn’t appear to be his real name, claimed his men were “Ansar” who hosted the “Mohajir” or refugees who had come from different countries and also from places in Pakistan to find refuge in Waziristan. He said the group was committed to protect the foreigners who were the guests of local tribesmen.
Interestingly other news channel from pakistan were earlier blaming India for these blasts.
The screenshot shows the contents of the next quarterly update kit for those are part of the Microsoft Action Pack Subscription.
Hopefully Microsoft will release it by Jan 5 considering the fact that the version is already out
Windows 7 Beta, will only be available via download.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani investigators have unearthed substantive links between the gunmen who attacked Mumbai in November and a banned militant group, a foreign journal reported on Wednesday. It said in an online report that at least one top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) leader, Zarar Shah, captured in a raid early this month had confessed to the group’s involvement in the attack.“He is singing,” an unidentified Pakistani security official told the newspaper, referring to Shah. Shah’s admission was backed up by the US intercepts of a telephone call between Shah and one of the attackers during the assault, the Pakistani security official told the newspaper.
“These guys showed no remorse,” said the Pakistani official. “They were bragging. They didn’t need to be pushed, tortured or waterboarded” into making their statements.
One Lashkar fighter who left the group several years ago said in an interview that the agency (ISI) was directly involved in planning operations in the disputed Kashmir region. The agency’s officers were “at the table” as missions were being sketched out, the former Lashkar fighter said. However, an active member of Lashkar said in an interview that relations with Pakistani security forces had grown cold. “We always had to hide from the Indian military, but now we have to hide from the Pakistani military as well,” he said.
The ISI has always been a powerful and semiautonomous agency, and its top officers have maintained strong links to Islamist militants. There is some hope that the appointment three months ago of a new spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who previously oversaw military operations against militants in Pakistan’s lawless western districts, signaled a move away from sympathies with the Islamist fighters who control much of the region bordering Afghanistan.
Filed under Uncategorized
Its ridiculous. Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) has delayed the release of the first public beta of Windows 7 due to heavy traffic, and is working on putting more networkinfrastructure in place to support demand, according to a Friday afternoon postto The Windows Blog.
What the hell were they doing all this while?
Brandon LeBlanc, a communications manager on the Windows ClientCommunications Team, said Microsoft is delighted by the overwhelming interest and will post an update to the blog once the additional capacity has been added and Windows 7 Beta 1 is ready for public downloads.
Scotch Tape on Live Search QnA suggests “I think we should all sue microsoft for health problems from staring at the screen and pressing F5″.
Lifehacker posted links earlier Friday for your 32- and 64-bit PCs, with a few cursory instructions for installing the ISO files.
Filed under Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP
How did property dealers manage to fake identities and get Delhi Development Authority (DDA) flats in the lottery of 5000 flats held three weeks ago?
That’s what the police and the DDA are now investigating.
Speaking to NDTV, Deepak Kumar, a small Delhi entrepreneur admits that he started out at the centre of the DDA scam but then switched sides to help expose it.
In May 2008, Deepak claims that two property dealers asked him to partner with them in a scheme that was clearly illegal.
The plan was that Deepak would introduce the property dealers to a chartered accountant who had been hired by ICICI bank to review loan applications of anyone applying for DDA flats.
“His role was to scrutinise the forms properly, to check the original documents and to see that the applicant was present in person. But he did not check the documents,” said Deepak.
The fake applications were filed under the Scheduled Tribe quota for two reasons. Firstly, the odds of getting a flat were much higher in that quota. Also, one of the property dealers was from Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan, an area dominated by the Meena community, a Scheduled Tribe.
Deepak claims he was told that villagers in Jhunjhunu for Rajasthan had agreed to let their identities be misused.
“They made false promises and took the relevant documents from them,” said Deepak.
Deepak says a few months later he realized that the villagers had never agreed to participate in the scheme. In fact, they didn’t even know applications were being filed on their behalf.
“They would fill up the forms in the evening and these forms would return with signatures in the morning. It was impossible to visit 50 houses in the night to take signatures of the applicants. That’s when I realised that it was a huge scam,” said Deepak.
At that point Deepak spoke to Udit Raj, a former Revenue Service officer and a politician.
“Though he admitted that he had been working with them yet he could not overlook this irregularity. Deepak informed me about the scam,” said Udit Raj, president, Indian Justice Party.
The two men filed an official complaint with both the police and with the DDA in October. That complaint was ignored and the lottery took place as scheduled in December.
The DDA says that’s not a serious lapse. It points out that documents are checked only after the lottery has taken place. Deepak’s own role is also being examined by the police
Original Post: NDTV
Filed under Uncategorized
Follow this link
Note: Use IE…Chrome wont work
Filed under Uncategorized
CNN IBN (a leading Indian news channel) recently posted on its website whereabouts of Ajmal Kasab (Mumbai 26/11 Terrorist)
The news channel has even posted a Google Earth view of Arthur Road jail and the cell where Kasab will be kept.
Why would any one want to know the exact location of a terrorist? Perhaps Toral Varia (The Reporter) could answer this.
Filed under Blog, Blogging, cnn ibn, irresponsible journalism
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday said, in his remarks in National Assembly’s ongoing session summoned after Mumbai evidences were declared not proofs but mere information by the government of Pakistan, political wisdom and maturity is the need of the time to tackle all the present issues instead of power. Situation after Mumbai attacks, has changed a great deal and world is now backing Pakistan
Meanwhile on Tuesday Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Tariq Majid has said that the world must stop criticizing Pakistan.
This surely is one confused leadership
Filed under Uncategorized
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The final week of January began with a bloodbath for the job market, as over 71,400 more cuts were announced on Monday alone.
At least six companies from manufacturing and service industries announced cost-cutting initiatives that included slashing thousands of jobs.
More than 200,000 job cuts have been announced so far this year, according to company reports. Nearly 2.6 million jobs were lost over 2008, the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945.
“It’s all about the consumer, and the consumer’s been hit hard,” said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics. “It’s a vicious circle as weakness begets layoffs, which beget more spending weakness.”
Construction machinery manufacturer Caterpillar (CAT,Fortune 500) said Monday it will cut 20,000 jobs amid a “very challenging global business environment.” The company had already planned to cut 15,000 workers since the fourth quarter of 2008, but added another 5,000, bringing the total to 20,000.
Pfizer (PFE, Fortune 500) said in an earnings report it would cut 10% of its staff of 81,900 and close five of its manufacturing plants. And a second round of cuts will shed about 15% of employees from the combined Pfizer/Wyeth staff of 120,000. That makes a total of 26,000 jobs lost. The company already cut 4,700 jobs in 2008.
Sprint Nextel Corp. (S, Fortune 500) will cut a total of about8,000 jobs by March 31, the company said in a release. The telecommunications company’s plan is to reduce internal and external labor costs by about $1.2 billion on an annual basis.
Home Depot (HD, Fortune 500), the world’s largest home improvement retailer, announced Monday it will eliminate its EXPO design center business and cut 7,000 associates, or approximately 2% of the company’s total workforce. The company blamed a lack of demand for big ticket design and decor projects.
Texas Instruments (TXN, Fortune 500) said it will slash its workforce by 3,400 employees to cope with weak demand and the slowing economy. More than half of those cuts will be layoffs while “voluntary retirements and departures” will make up the rest.
Dutch financial group ING said Monday it will take a 2008 loss of $1.3 billion and cut 7,000 jobs. The company could not comment on where the cuts would take place. ING employs around 130,000 people across 50 countries.
Deere& Co. (DE, Fortune 500) , the world’s top farm-equipment maker, said it would cut nearly 700 jobs between factories in Brazil and Iowa.
The job cuts across sectors didn’t surprise Brusca, as nearly all are weak, he said.
“The services sector is shedding jobs at a horrific pace, because that’s where most of the jobs are,” Brusca said. “When the consumer is in tough shape it’s hard for business to do well, because it all depends on consumption or investments.”
The cuts mark a horrific start to the week, and a brutal start to 2009. In the previous week, around 40,000 cuts were announced across multiple industries.
Wednesday, in particular, was littered with a slew of job cuts: BHP Billiton, Clear Channel Communications, Intel, Rohm and Haas Co., UAL Corp. and Williams-Sonoma all announced job cuts totaling over 27,000 positions.
Schlumberger said Friday that it will cut 5,000 jobs worldwide, with 1,000 of the cuts taking place in North America.
Also last week, Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. Entertainment said it would cut about 800 jobs, or 10% of its worldwide staff in the upcoming weeks, while Microsoft unveiled its plan to cut up to 5,000 jobs – 5.5% of its global workforce.
Brusca said he agreed with many economists’ predictions that the recession will end after the second quarter of 2009. Americans might feel the job market start to bounce back a bit sooner than expected, he said.
“These recessions are like geometry,” Brusca said. “It looks like we’ll have a V-shaped cycle, in that we’re going into this with very sharp losses. This intense-phase recession will probably recover fairly quickly, with the job market coming out it at the same angle it came in.”
In the short term, the economy and the job market are in trouble, Brusca said. But “it doesn’t look like the bottom is falling out of the economy,” he said.
And there’s a silver lining to the gloomy clouds over America’s economy.
“The good news is it’s so bad right now that we will have a definite, noticeable recovery when it comes,” Brusca said. “We’re getting a lot of adjustment out of the way early.” 
Original Post - CNN
Filed under Uncategorized
Sherm Stick is a cigarette dipped in the fluid,called formaldahyde.According to people familiar,with this,it feels like,”being totally drunk on acid and meth at once.” The effects of this drug usually last several hours. Formaldahyde is used as a disinfectant , in urea etc.
Why the hell is everyone so curious about it. Its currently # 1 on google’ hot trends list.
Never smoke a Sherm Stick. Its a matter of life and death
Filed under Uncategorized
Help Gaurav - http://www.helpgaurav.com/index.asp
Gaurav Tandon is a 34 year old professional working with Datacraft Asia (a private IT firm) in Mumbai, India. His small family comprises wife, a 6 year old son. He has two elder sisters both are happily married and a brother who is serving as Captain in the Indian Army.
aurav was detected with AML (a type of Blood Cancer) in November 2008. He has responded well to chemotherapy, but must get a Bone Marrow Transplant as the only possibility for a cure. Unfortunately the HLA typing test of his siblings is negative. Doctors have therefore strongly recommemded a Non-Related Allogenic transplant. Since such transplantations are rarely performed in India, there is a high chance that we have to take him to places like Singapore, UK or the USA.
The estimated cost of the treatment in Singapore and UK is around 1.5 Crore Indian Rupees (around US$ 333,000), whereas in the US is around of 2 Crore Indian Rupees (around US$ 444,000).
In order to meet the steep cost of the said operation, Gaurav and his family have decided to sell their solitary flat at Thakur Village Complex, Kandivili, Mumbai. However, this is not going to be enough, since the amount required for the treatment is huge and time is less.
Let us all come togeather to help Gaurav. Togeather we can reach out to our communities and remind them that we – members of Gaurav’s family, community and country have a responsibility to help. Let us all remember that Gaurav is also a son, a brother, a father and a husband. We should all see ourselves in Gaurav and realize that he deserves the same support we would wish for member of our own family or even ourselves.
A JOURNEY OF THOUSAND MILES MUST BEGIN WITH A SINGLE STEP.
NO AMOUNT IS TOO SMALL – EVERY RUPEE COUNTS.
Please mail us at reply_gt@yahoo.com after contributing towards Gaurav’s treatment.
Let us all pray for his health and speedy recovery.
Filed under Uncategorized
DUBLIN — Is a bathroom an optional extra when you’re at 30,000 feet? Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary seems to think so — and says his no-frills airline might charge customers to use its aircrafts’ toilets.
O’Leary whipped up a frenzy of indignation and potty humor Friday as he suggested that future Ryanair passengers might be obliged to insert a British pound coin (U.S. $1.40) before they gain access to in-flight relief.
As always when introducing new charges, O’Leary suggested a separate toilet fee would lower ticket costs and make flying, somehow, easier for all. Nobody, even his own aides, seemed to be sure if he was serious or pursuing his well-documented penchant for making brazen declarations to win free advertising.
“One thing we have looked at in the past, and are looking at again, is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door, so that people might have to actually spend a pound to `spend a penny’ in future,” O’Leary said, using a local euphemism for relieving one’s self.
When asked, during an interview on BBC Television, what would happen if a customer really had to go, but didn’t have the correct change, O’Leary dismissed the scenario as implausible. This even though Ireland and most of Europe uses euros, not the British currency, and even on-board attendants often find themselves without the correct change.
“I don’t think there’s anybody in history (who has) gone on board a Ryanair aircraft with less than a pound,” he said.
Politicians and analysts agreed that the man who pioneered charging airline customers to check bags, to use a check-in desk, and even to use a credit or debit card to make an on-line booking just might be serious about mile-high toilet extortion, too.
Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at BGC Partners in London, cautioned consumers that O’Leary might be attempting two for the price of one: Free publicity backed by cut-throat reality.
“This begs a simple question retort of: Is there absolutely nothing that this airline won’t do? Not really, so if you are thinking about flying cattle-class Ryanair in future, beware,” he said.
O’Leary’s own chief spokesman, Stephen McNamara, said his boss often spoke tongue in cheek — but then defended the idea of charging for a toilet as part of a logical trend.
“Michael makes a lot of this stuff up as he goes along and, while this has been discussed internally, there are no immediate plans to introduce it,” McNamara said, adding, “Passengers using train and bus stations are already accustomed to paying to use the toilet, so why not on airplanes? Not everyone uses the toilet on board one of our flights, but those that do could help to reduce airfares for all passengers.”
Rochelle Turner, head of research at British consumer rights magazine Which? Holiday, said Ryanair had a well-documented practice of “putting profit before the comfort of its customers” — but this one could backfire.
“Charging people to go to the toilet might result in fewer people buying overpriced drinks on board. That would serve Ryanair right,” she said.
Tommy Broughan, transport spokesman for Ireland’s Labour Party, said the toilet-charge idea had to be taken seriously.
He noted that Ryanair last month began threatening customers with fines if they tried to carry on board a second bag regardless of size — even one filled with a just-purchased item from the airport’s duty-free shops.
“When Ryanair introduced this euro30 extra duty-free charge, many passengers joked that next they would be charged for using the toilet — not realizing that this indeed seems to be the newest extra charge on Ryanair’s agenda,” Broughan said.
On the recession-hit streets of Dublin, Ryanair-bound people waiting for the airport shuttle bus seemed resigned to the idea of paying for an O’Leary-provided potty.
“Your only choice with Ryanair, really, is not to fly Ryanair. Your dignity goes out the window. If you have a complaint, they’re not programmed to care,” said Samantha Jones, a 30-year-old Welsh woman who has been using the airline to commute between her weekday Irish job and weekend boyfriend back home near Liverpool.
Jones discounted the practicality of a restroom rebellion. “If you are given a choice between wetting your knickers or not wetting your knickers, you will pay whatever fee they make you pay, and Mr. O’Leary knows this well,” she said. “Frankly, I’m surprised he’s talking about letting us have a wee for a pound, not more!”
Pakistani police hunted on Wednesday for gunmen who mounted a bold attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team in Lahore as officials tried to figure out who was behind it. It would be intersting to know what so called Pakistani think tank Zaid Hamid has to say , who had said that people behind Mumbai attack were Indians . Why?
“The orange thread wristbands on one of the terrorists – a sign of belonging to the Hindu extremists of the RSS” – Zaid Hamid.
As per reuters , here is a list of possible suspects.
ISLAMIST MILITANTS
Pakistan has been struck by a wave of suicide attacks and bomb blasts by al Qaeda, Taliban and militant groups linked to them.
The attack in Lahore was carried out by around a dozen gunmen, and many observers, including Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, noted similarities with the attack on the Indian city of Mumbai in November.
India and the United States blamed Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a jihadi group fighting Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region.
Pakistan has arrested a few LeT members suspected of being behind the Mumbai plot, even though the group, according to analysts, has had ties with Pakistani intelligence in the past.
Many past attacks have been attributed to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Movement of Taliban, Pakistan), a loose umbrella group of factions based in northwest Pakistan on the Afghan border. It is led by Baitullah Mehsud, an al Qaeda cohort. He is suspected of organising the assassination of Zardari’s wife and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, in December 2007.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a Sunni Muslim militant group, is regarded as one of al Qaeda’s principal cat’s paws in Pakistan. LeJ, made up of cadres largely drawn from Punjab, specialises in targeting minority Shi’ite Muslims, but graduated to high-profile attacks like the suicide truck bombing of Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel in September last year which killed at least 55 people.
Jaish-e-Mohammad is another Punjab-based militant group that has focused on fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, but there are signs its members have broadened their remit. A Jaish connection was made to one of the assassination attempts on former President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003, and there was a Jaish presence at the Red Mosque uprising in Islamabad in 2007. Jaish members have also surfaced in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
Harkat-ul Jihad-e-Islami (HUJI), is another Islamist militant group fighting in Kashmir that forged al Qaeda links. HUJI carried the suicide attack that killed 11 Frenchmen and two Pakistanis outside Karachi’s Sheraton Hotel. The New Zealand cricket team was staying at the same hotel, and promptly aborted its tour.
BALUCH GROUPS
Several guerrilla groups are waging a low-key insurgency in gas-rich Baluchistan province on the border with Afghanistan. Some have taken responsibility for small attacks in Lahore in the past. A group calling itself the Baluchistan Liberation United Front (BLUF) claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of an American working for the United Nations a month ago. The attack on the Sri Lankan team is on a vastly different scale to anything carried out by any Baluch group.
OUTSIDE PAKISTAN — SRI LANKA’S TAMIL TIGERS
In Sri Lanka, official suspicion will fall on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a rebel group close to military defeat in northern Sri Lanka and which has a long history of carrying out deadly guerrilla attacks. There has been no clear evidence the Tigers have operations or links to Pakistan.
Pakistan has good relations with Sri Lanka and has given training and supplied arms to the Sri Lankan military fighting the Tamil Tiger rebels.
Filed under India, Karachi, Pakistan, Terrorism, Terrorists
If there is deal anywhere, you will always be the first one to know from this site. Deals are updated hourly every day, including weekends and holidays.
Click Here
Filed under India, Indian Elections, Indian Elections 2009
“It lies in the [life-supporting] habitable zone, and it could have an ocean at its surface,” Michel Mayor said during the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science conference.
First discovered in 2007, Gliese 581d was originally calculated to be too far away from its host star—and therefore too cold—to support an ocean.
But Mayor and colleagues now show that the extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, orbits its host in 66.8 days, putting it just inside the cool star’s habitable zone.
At the same time, Mayor and colleagues announced that they have spotted a fourth planet orbiting in the Gliese 581 star system—and it’s the lightest exoplanet found so far.
The planet, dubbed Gliese 581e, is only about twice the mass of Earth and is the closest planet to the star, completing its orbit in about 3.15 days.
Science behind discovering planets
There are an estimated 10 billion planetary systems in our galaxy alone, yet to-date, only a few hundred have been discovered. Exoplanets are very difficult to detect because they don’t emit any light of their own and are completely obscured by their extremely bright parent stars. Normal telescope observation techniques cannot be used. Instead of trying to image/detect exoplanets directly we look for the physical effects they have on their parent star such as shifts in position or changes in brightness.
The SuperWASP(Wide Area Search for Planets) technique involves two sets of cameras to watch for events known as transits, where a planet passes directly in front of a star and blocks out some of the star’s light. From the Earth the star temporarily appears a little fainter. The SuperWASP cameras work as robots, surveying a large area of the sky at once. Each night astronomers receive data from millions of stars. They can then check for transits and hence planets. The transit technique also allows scientists to deduce the size and mass of each planet.
Taliban militants from Swat took control of Buner on Tuesday and started patrolling bazaars, villages and towns in the district.The Buner Valley lies on the Peshawar valley border of the North-West Frontier Province of modern day Pakistan. It is a small mountain valley, dotted with villages and divided into seven sub-divisions.
The Taliban have extended their control to almost all tehsils of the district and law-enforcement personnel remained confined to police stations and camps.
The Taliban, equipped with advanced weapons, were reported to be advancing towards border areas of Swabi,
Malakand and Mardan, the hometown of NWFP Chief Minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti.
According to reports reaching here, the militants have set up checkposts and camp bases in Kangar Gali village, along the Malakand border; Naway Dhand village, along the Mardan border; and Tootalai village, along the Swabi border.
The sources said officials of the FC camp in Jorh had asked people to vacate their homes in view of threats of an attack.
The militants have started digging trenches and setting up bunkers on heights in strategic towns of Gadezi, Salarzai, Osherai and other tehsils.
After occupying the Buner district and setting up their headquarters in the bungalow of businessman Syed Ahmed Khan (alias Fateh Khan) in Sultanwas, the militants started patrolling the streets and roads with no signs of law-enforcement personnel.
Led by Fateh Mohammad, the militants were asking local people, particularly youngsters, to join them in their campaign to enforce Sharia.
They have established checkposts on roads and are searching all passing vehicles. They have virtually established their writ in Buner region, once a stronghold of the Awami National Party.
A Taliban commander said they would set up strict Islamic sharia courts in Buner as they have already done in Swat, but would not interfere with police work.
‘The Taliban who have arrived from Swat have increased patrolling, banned music in public transport and rampaged (through the) offices of NGOs and taken their vehicles,’ local government official Rashid Khan said.
‘Taliban militants armed with rocket launchers were manning the checkpoints and operating from local mosques,’ he said, adding that a report had been filed at the local police station against ‘unknown militants.’
‘We will soon establish our radio station. Our Qazis (Islamic judges) will also start holding courts in Buner soon,’ Taliban commander Mohammad Khalil told AFP.
‘We will not interfere in the police work, they can continue their job,’ he said, adding their purpose was to end a ‘sense of deprivation’ and to provide speedy justice.
‘People in their dozens have come to invite us’ to extend sharia.
Muslim Khan, a Taliban spokesman, told AFP from Swat that ‘the government writ is not being challenged in Buner and Taliban are not creating any hurdle in the administration’s work.’
‘The Taliban will leave Buner after enforcement of Islamic justice system,’ he said.
However, several residents said they felt ‘scared’ and planned to leave the Buner area, fearing similar violence to that in Swat.
On Tuesday, armed groups entered the Rural Health Centre at Jure in Salarzai area and took away a Land-Cruiser being used by the Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI), Buner.
On April 17, they raided a basic health unit in tehsil Chamla and looted 480 cans of edible oil. They took away from the house of a lady health visitor a large number of food and nutrition packets supplied by USAID and sewing machines from an Action Aid-sponsored vocational centre in the Korea village of tehsil Chamla.
On April 18, they looted a huge quantity of medicine from a health facility at the Afghan refugee camp in Koga in the same tehsil and 640 cans of edible oil from a godown of the World Food Programme in Nawagai.
On April 19, armed men took away a Suzuki Potohar Jeep from a rural health centre in Nagrai. A group of 20 militants took away a Suzuki Ravi car and 400 cans of edible oil from a basic health unit in Garga.
Another armed group snatched an ambulance, a pick-up provided by Gavi for EPI cell, a Suzuki Ravi from a health centre in Swari.
They also broke into the offices of Paiman (Save the Children) EPI, Jica offices and took away several computers, printers, two generators, fax machines, UPS and other appliances.
The armed men stopped near Ambela a double-cabin vehicle of Paiman going to Buner from Peshawar and took it along with the driver to a nearby camp. Later, they released the driver and escaped with the vehicle.
Source: Dawn
Swoopo
transitive verb: to gain or carry off in .
How it works
This is one website where the bidders have to pay for credits that they use to bid on items. You start off by registering and then you will have to buy bid packs which cost $0.75. You have to purchase a minimum of 30($22.50), 50($37.50), 100($75), 300($225) or 700($525). (Note that bids used in an auction are not eligible for a refund.)
So you place a bid yourself or by using a bidbutler, every time you place a bid you will have to pay Swoopo $0.75 .Most “auctions” begin at $0.15 , and increase by the same amount with each “bid”. Each bid also increases the auction’s end time by 10–20 seconds.
I was curious to see how the bidding goes , so followed bid for a Nikon D90 DSLR camera (Retail Price $1200). This particular auction was a penny auction where the price of an item increases by 1 cent, each time a person bids .75 cents. The time however increases by 10-20 seconds. The item was eventually sold for $286.58 .
In order for the price to reach this far, Swoopo must have made 286.58/0.1 bids placed = 2865 bids . Each bid is worth .75 cents . The price of the item becomes a staggering $2148 . And it doesn’t end there, the winning bidder will still have to pay the winning price which was$ 286 and the delivery cost which is $15-$20, so that totals to$2454.
So is it a Scam ? Maybe, but it definitely is Unethical
Photo 1 : Austofocus feature of new Iphone
Photo 2: Compass
Photo 3 : Built in Voice Recording
Photo 4: Video recording capability
The blurry photos posted Saturday at 3 a.m. local time by a Chinese website called UMPC Fever, translated here,
“It’s already 3am, and I totally cannot sleep,” writes the anonymous poster. “I just came home after meeting a friend from the U.S. This friend brought me something, and it’s not H1N1. Instead, it is a item that will be under the world’s spotlights — a third generation iPhone prototype. This friend is a mysterious person. Even this 3rd Gen iPhone is also very mysterious. He said one can only take fuzzy snapshots of it, and not clear shots. ‘Cuz it’s still not officially released. So, in regards to the fuzzy photos below, I apologize!”
Filed under Iphone, iphone leaked photos
Click Here (Viewer Discretion Advised)
Filed under Uncategorized
Though apple has released its 3.0 update for the Iphone , still users are experiencing problems installing the update. This is likely due to server overload; keep checking throughout the day to see if the update is available.
3.0 Update is available now.
The update is free for owners of the original iPhone as well as the current iPhone 3G; iPod Touch users must pay $10. Users wishing to upgrade must plug their device into their computer with the USB dock connector and then load iTunes 8.2, where they can download and install iPhone 3.0.
Filed under Uncategorized
President Asif Ali Zardari congratulated the national cricket team on Sunday for winning the T20 World Cup in London and announced an award of Rs1 million each for Captain Younus Khan and Man of the Match Shahid Afridi and Rs500,000 each for other players.
Well Mr President your country has over 2 million people displaced because of your so called war on terror. Do the refuges need to win a world cup to get awarded ?
Filed under Pakistan
The video, posted online by Argentine news site Infobae.com, shows Maria Belen Chapur delivering a report from New York City on the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks for a TV news show called “Despues de hora” on the Spanish-language America network.
Filed under Maria Belen Chapur, Mark Sanford
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary wants passengers to stand on the budget airline’s flights, in a bid to pack in more people and boost profits.
Passengers would pay less to huddle next to what have been described as “bar stools”, with seatbelts around their waists. He is now hoping to get the go-ahead from the Irish Aviation Authority before ordering a new fleet. A Ryanair spokesman said: “If they approve it, we’ll be doing it.”
This is the same airline which is planning to make customers pay for using their toliet.
Comment written by “The Voice” says ”Next he will suggest peddles so the passengers can help power the plane and save him the cost of fuel.”
Read the original story here
Filed under Cheap Airline, Michael O’Leary, RyanAir
At the G8 summit in Italy, he was snapped apparently checking out the perfect curves of a young lady.
And French President Nicolas Sarkozy (54) was looking on in amusement… Oh là là, Monsieur le Président!
So who was the lady in red who caught the eye of Obama – or should that be O-BUM-a?
Her name is Mayora Tavares, she is 16 and she comes from Brazil.
If you would like BlogMantra to review a particular application for you , then please send an email to mantrablog@gmail.com
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Must have for a true goddess durga devotee . All you need to do is open the app and chant along. Slokas and its meaning in Hindi and English provide a wholesum religious and spiritual experience. (Click here for the app)
The chalisa (prayer) is presented in pictorial form and includes durga chalisa audio. Swipe gestures allows forward and rewind .
Another part of this Application , “Durga Aarti” lets the devotee perform Puja starting with touching the bell. It lets the devotee light lamp , shower flower on goddess , apply tilak and offer fruits. “Aarti Guide” offers step by step instructions on how to perform aarti.
Perhaps the developer can add additional language support in Bengali , Oriya.
Click here for AppStore Link
Filed under iphone application, robosoft, shri durga prarthana
Sound healing is an effective and proven modality that uses vibrational sound to help reduce stress and create a deep sense of peace.In Buddhist practice, singing bowls are used as a support for meditation, trance induction and prayer.
This app by ocean house media is the next best thing to the real singing bowl.
There are seven pages , each consisting a bowl , gong and a bell. Just swirl your finger around the edges to create excellent tone. I was impressed by the sound clarity.
Just like the real singing bowl , the app produces multiple harmonic overtones at the same time.
8. Book of Eli
7. Prince Of Persia
6. The Green Hornet
5. NightMare on Elm Street
4. The last Airbender
3. Iron Man 2
2. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows
1. Alice In Wonderland
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By rating the video, Sprint will donate to Blog Mantra’s charity.
SocialVibe is the easiest way to help the causes you care about, without having to spend any money.
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Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan was detained for as long as two hours early on Saturday at the Newark airport in the US, thanks to his surname ‘Khan’ that features on the alert list of US airport officials since the 9/11 attacks.
According to reports, the actor was detained after his surname name”Khan” flashed on the computer.
Probably Indian authorities should start frisking every American celebrity traveling to India, rather than giving them a red carpet welcome.
Filed under Uncategorized
“What do I need to make on my remaining tests and assignments in order to get a certain percentage in this class, given the marks that I’ve already made so far?”
This application lets you do that. iIGradeSim is a grade simulator which helps students to prepare for their course by letting them know how each small grades affect their final course grade. The app supports up to 30 courses. Each course is subdivided into items such as Labs,Homeworks,Midterm and Finals. Additional item can be added .
For more information visit developer website
This game is so simple, but so fun! It comes with very clean interface that displays your score , lives left , level and points you need to make it to the next level. The rules are simple , tapping positive blocks increases your score , and tapping negative blocks reduces your score. The game also includes special blocks. Color swap block for example swaps the color of +ve blocks with negative blocks. The game also comes with a pause functionality .
Its time to get out your tapping fingers , but watch out the game is very addictive.
Fun Factor : We rate this game a 9. Perfect for the casual gamer
Visuals: Aesthetically pleasing
Controls: Are simple to figure out. Only that sometimes we had to double tap in order to score points
Value: For .99 cents the game is worth it
Addictive : Hell Yeah
– Bedlam’s twitter account [@bedlamgame] automatically tweets when a new top highscore is set globally.
– The twitter account is also regularly updated with statistics such as number of players worldwide and a count of games played.
– The website, http://www.bedlamgame.com is available in more than 40 languages. It also invites those who speak more than one language to correct the translations by submitting ‘translation error reports’.
Google has just announced the first official beta versions of Google Chrome, its browser, for Mac and Linux.As of now, these versions are only available in the developer channel, and not for the public.
However you can download a copy here.
Google Chrome for Mac sports substantial speed boost , but do not install chrome if you are not ready for it.
Filed under google chrome mac, google chrome mac download
An angry, humiliated, and wounded A.Q.Khan has finally made public and official what has long been suspected: his nuclear proliferation activities that included exchanging and passing blue-prints and equipment to China, Iran, North Korea, and Libya was done at the behest of the Pakistani government and military, and he was forced to take the rap for it.
”The bastards first used us and are now playing dirty games with us,” Khan writes about the Pakistani leadership in a December 2003 letter to his wife Henny that has finally been made public by an interlocutor. ”Darling, if the government plays any mischief with me take a tough stand,” he tells his wife, adding, ”They might try to get rid of me to cover up all the things they got done by me.”
But Henny was unable to play hardball because Khan had also sent copies of that letter to his daughter Dina in London, and to his niece Kausar Khan in Amsterdam through his brother, a Pakistan Airlines executive. Pakistani intelligence agencies got wind of it and threatened the well-being of the family, forcing him to recant and publicly take the blame for the proliferation activities in a humiliating television spectacle engineered by then military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
However, a copy of the four-page letter reached Khan’s long-time journalistic contact Simon Henderson in 2007. In fact, in the letter, Khan tells his wife, ”Get in touch with Simon Henderson and give him all the details.” Henderson says when he acquired the copy of the letter, he was shocked. His acquaintance with Khan goes back to the late 1970s, but it was never intimate, and consisted of an occasional interviews and conversations, and seasonal greetings.
Describing the four-page letter as ”extraordinary,” Henderson says in numbered paragraphs, it outlines Pakistan’s nuclear co-operation with China, Iran and North Korea, and also mentions Libya. Some of the disclosures are stunning , and in one para that is bound to embarrass Beijing, besides implicating it, Khan writes about how Pakistan helped China in enrichment technology in return for bomb blueprints.
”We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong (250km southwest of Xian),” Khan writes. “The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us 50kg of enriched uranium, gave us 10 tons of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%).” UF6 is uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous feedstock for an enrichment plan.
On Iran, the letter says: ”Probably with the blessings of BB [Benazir Bhutto]…General Imtiaz [Benazir’s defence adviser, now dead] asked me to give a set of drawings and some components to the Iranians. The names and addresses of suppliers were also given to the Iranians.”
On North Korea: ”[A now-retired general] took $3million through me from the N. Koreans and asked me to give some drawings and machines.”
Henderson does not explain why he waited nearly two years since he got hold of the letter to make it public. But he writes sympathetically about Khan’s travails in Pakistan, where he is held largely incommunicado under house arrest. The Pakistani government and the military have repeatedly rejected and challenged court orders to free him, and an episode last month, where Khan was freed just for a day on court orders before Islamabad locked him up again under pressure from Washington, appears to have precipitated the leak of the explosive letter.
Henderson’s Sunday Times expose also implicates the U.S and other western powers, who he says, basically shoved Islamabad’s rampant proliferation (while blaming it solely on Khan) under the carpet in order to get Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terror. The move also saved Washington from huge embarrassment since it was basically asleep on the watch when Pakistan began its nuclear proliferation and then winked at it when it was discovered, all the while lavishing billions in military supplies on its unstable client state.
PAK GOVT RESCUED BROKE A.Q.KHAN WITH $ 2500 PER MONTH PENSION
Henderson also implicitly defends Khan from charges that he profited from proliferation activities, as alleged by deposed military ruler Pervez Musharraf. Khan, he says, is adamant that he never sold nuclear secrets for personal gain. So what about the millions of dollars he reportedly made?
”Nothing was confiscated from him and no reported investigation turned up hidden accounts. Having planted rumours about Khan’s greed, Pakistani officials were curiously indifferent to following them through,” Henderson writes.
According to Henderson, much was made of a ”hotel”, named after Khan’s wife, Henny, built by a local tour guide with the help of money from Khan and a group of friends in Timbuktu. But it is a modest structure at best, more of a guesthouse, he says. A weekend home at Bani Gala, outside Islamabad, where Khan went to relax, is hardly the palace that some reports have made it.
In fact, says Henderson, Khan was close to being broke by the summer 2007, when he was finding it difficult to make ends meet on his pension of 12,200 (Pakistani) rupees per month. After pleading with General Khalid Kidwai, the officer supervising both Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and Khan, the pension was increased to $2,500 per month and there was a one-off lump-sum payment of the equivalent of $50,000. Hendersen says he has copies of the agreement and cheques.
Henderson’s 3000-word expose also reveals a couple of intriguing tid-bits that should interest the world’s strategic community, including New Delhi. Besides details of the Pakistan-China nexus, he says Pakistan tested only two devices in its 1998 tit-for-tat nuclear tests that followed India.
While Pakistan claims it conducted six tests to be one-up on India’s five tests, Western experts and seismologists have long said they recorded only two signals for devices that measured between two and four kilotons. Khan also states clearly that China gave Pakistan designs for the nuclear bombs.
In fact, in one colorful passage in his article, Henderson describes how Khan was warned by a Chinese counterpart about the Pakistani Army. On a visit to Kahuta, Li Chew, the senior minister who ran China’s nuclear-weapons programme, tells Khan, ”As long as they need the bomb, they will lick your balls. As soon as you have delivered the bomb, they will kick your balls.”
Henderson himself seems deeply conscious of any perception that he is close to Khan or that he is a cat’s paw for any country. ”Any relationship with a source is fraught with potential difficulties. One doesn’t want to be blind to the chance of being used. Government officials and politicians in any country are seldom interested in the simple truth. They all have their particular story to tell. In this context, I am frankly amazed that Khan has chosen me to be his interlocutor with the world,” he writes.
But Pakistani authorities were clearly aware that he and Khan had been in touch and Khan may have managed to smuggle a copy of the letter implicating Islamabad to him. Henderson says in a court document that Khan was asked to sign when he was promised freedom, there is a line that read “That in case Mr Simon Henderson or anyone else proceeds with the publication of any information or material anywhere in the world, I affirm that it would not be based on any input from me and I disown it.” That line was eventually deleted and replaced with a more general prohibition about unnamed ”specific media personnel.”
As reported in TOI
Filed under Pakistan
A simple game where the goal is to shoot all the clay pigeons which are thrown . You can aim by simply dragging the shotgun and then shoot by tapping on the screen. The game sells for 99 cents on the Apps Store. The developer mentions that the game utilizes physics engine (developed by NVIDIA) for calculating projectile trajectory. The first game to utilize this engine was big fun racing.
Rating: 3/5
The game is available for Iphone and Ipod Touch. For more information visit developers website
The human foot has two important functions: weight bearing and propulsion. These functions require a high degree of stability and a perfect running shoe provides that stability. This is an excellent application for finding the best running shoes. This application not even helps you find the best running shoe , but it also lets you find it in a store in your area.
Runners world shoe shop review falls into 5 categories :
1. Motion Control: For people with low flexible arches.
2. Stability: Normal arche
3. Performance Training: For frequent runners
4. Neutral Cushioned: High rigid arches
5. Trail: Off road running
Once you select either one of the categories , the application displays available shoe under that category. Simply click on the shoe that you like , and the application will display the price and a link to find it in a store near you.
The application also provides an option to search by price or brand. The best part : Its FREE
Rating: 5/5
Indian lawmakers walked out of parliament on Wednesday protesting against inflation, as the opposition piled up pressure on the government to curb rising prices and threatened to carry out street protests.The speaker adjourned proceedings for the day after lawmakers from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition, as well as from other parties walked out of parliament with many shouting: “The government needs to be changed.”
Let us take a look at what these so called law makers pay for at the parliament food canteen.
Parliament House Canteen Food Rates (TOI)
Tea Re. 1
Soup Rs.5.50
Dal, considered to be the poor man’s food in India and which is now getting too expensive to even fit his bowl, costs just Rs.1.50 for a katori. For the common man , the price has shot up by 64% since march of this year.
Veg thali (dal, subzi,4 chapatis, rice/pulao, curd and salad) Rs.12.50
Non-veg thali Rs.22
Curd rice Rs.11
Veg pulao Rs.8
Chicken biryani Rs.34
Fish curry and rice Rs.13
Rajma rice Rs.7
Tomato rice Rs.7
Fish fry Rs.17
Chicken curry Rs.20.50
Chicken masala Rs.24.50
Butter chicken Rs.27
Chapati Re.1 a piece
One plate rice Rs.2
Dosa Rs.4
Kheer – one katori Rs.5.50
Fruit cake Rs.9.50
Fruit salad Rs.7
All I can say is “Mera Bharat Mahaan”.
Filed under India, Indian Politics
This app from Nearby Now Inc is best for those looking to upgrade their look with style tips and videos from GQ style correspondent . GQ (originally Gentlemen’s Quarterly) is a monthly men’s magazine focusing upon fashion, style, and culture for men.
When the app was reviewed , it featured over 100 style tips categorized into Accessories , Entertaining , Footwear , Outerwear , Shirts , Suits , Ties, Trouser and Travel .
Style Pick section featured over 52 products which can be sorted based on brand , price .
You can also Tap ‘Find It Near Me’ to find the store nearest you (within 50 miles). Simply provide your contact information and their concierge team will place a call to the store during normal business hours and make an appointment for you to try on the item.
Features Include:
- GQ Style Tips and Videos (please note that videos are downloaded, and thus require a 3G or WiFi connection)
- GQ’s Style Picks (items are searchable by category, brand, or price)
- Expanded descriptions
- Zoom capabilities to see products in greater detail
- Location awareness to find nearby stores within 50 miles
- Concierge stock check (during store business hours) and e-mail (or text) confirmation
- Store maps to nearby locations carrying the products
Download the App here
Rating 3.5/5
An application that lets you send MMS with suitable images. Image categories include birthday , children , haloween , holiday , house warming , new year , shopping etc. Simply tap on the image and it will let you send it via MMS or email. You can also add text to your email / mms.
Rating 3.5/5
Visit developers website here
And in another news, Balasaheb visited the Matheran Echo Point to scream his heart out. See what happened next. Pigtale’s 1st attempt at cartoon .
About Pigtale : Pigtale is a blogger from India who in his own words is “just a shadow of his past”. His interests include writing short stories and articles , theater , Painting and art. You can also visit his blog at http://www.pigtaleblogs.com
Filed under bal thackery, Maharashtra, MNS, Shiv Sena
Escalating sovereign debt problems in Europe (mainly Greece , Portugal and Spain) and an unexpected rise in jobless claims put investors on the defensive just ahead of Friday’s crucial payrolls report.
ecoThe DOW briefly fell below the 10,000 mark as stocks suffered their worst losses in more than nine months. NIKKEI was down 2.6% at 1.30 PM. The euro sank to the lowest level in more than eight months against the dollar and headed for a fourth-straight weekly drop versus the greenback and yen. The European currency dropped to $1.3670, the lowest level since May 20, before trading at $1.3719 at 12:43 p.m. in Tokyo compared with $1.3723 in New York.
Countries on the fringe, including Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland, are having trouble paying for years of debt-driven expansion.
Filed under Uncategorized
Getting into North Korea was one of the hardest and weirdest processes VBS has ever dealt with. After we went back and forth with their representatives for months, they finally said they were going to allow 16 journalists into the country to cover the Arirang Mass Games in Pyongyang. Then, ten days before we were supposed to go, they said, “No, nobody can come.” Then they said, “OK, OK, you can come. But only as tourists.” We had no idea what that was supposed to mean. They already knew we were journalists, and over there if you get caught being a journalist when you’re supposed to be a tourist you go to jail. We don’t like jail. And we’re willing to bet we’d hate jail in North Korea. But we went for it. The first leg of the trip was a flight into northern China. At the airport, the North Korean consulate took our passports and all of our money, then brought us to a restaurant. We were sitting there with our tour group, and suddenly all the other diners left and these women came out and started singing North Korean nationalist songs. We were thinking, “Look, we were just on a plane for 20 hours. We’re jet-lagged. Can we just go to bed?” but this guy with our group who was from the LA Times told us, “Everyone in here besides us is secret police. If you don’t act excited then you’re not going to get your visa. So we got drunk and jumped up onstage and sang songs with the girls. The next day we got our visas. A lot of people we had gone with didn’t get theirs. That was our first hint at just what a freaky, freaky trip we were embarking on…
— VBS Founder Shane Smith
Watch this excellent 3 part documentary here.
Filed under Documentary, North Korea
Dear Udhavjee,
At the very outset, my compliments for the manner in which you’ve literally ‘stolen’ the headlines from your cousin Raj in the last fortnight. After the Assembly election defeat last October, there were many who had written you off as a weak, namby-pamby politician, who would be better off doing photography. But now, it seems that the ‘fire’ which burns inside Bal Thackeray is alive in the son too. After years of struggling to establish yourself, you have finally discovered the mantra for success as a Shiv Sena leader: find an ‘enemy’, threaten and intimidate them, commit the odd violent act, and, eureka!, you are anointed the true heir to the original ‘T’ company supremo.
Your cousin has chosen to bash faceless taxi drivers and students from North India, soft targets who are totally unprotected. You’ve been much braver. You’ve actually chosen to target national icons: Sachin Tendulkar, Mukesh Ambani, Shah Rukh Khan, powerful figures who most Indians venerate. Shah Rukh is no surprise since the Sena has always been uncomfortable with the Indian Muslim identity. Forty years ago, your father had questioned Dilip Kumar’s patriotism for accepting an award from the Pakistani government. You’ve called Shah Rukh a traitor for wishing to choose Pakistani cricketers in the IPL. That your father invited Javed Miandad, the former Pakistani captain and a close relation of Dawood Ibrahim, to your house is a matter of record that we shall not go into today.
I am a little surprised that you chose to question Ambani and Tendulkar though. The Sena has always enjoyed an excellent relationship with corporate India. Why then criticise India’s biggest businessman for suggesting that Mumbai belongs to all? After all, no one can deny that Mumbai’s entrepreneurial energy has been driven by communities from across India. The diatribe against Sachin is even more strange. He is, alongwith Lata Mangeshkar, Maharashtra’s most admired and recognised face. Surely, you will agree that Sachin symbolizes Maharashtrian pride in a manner that renaming shops and streets in Marathi never can.
Of course, in-between some of your local thugs also attacked the IBN Lokmat office. I must confess that initially the attack did leave me outraged. Why would a political outfit that claims to protect Maharashtrian culture attack a leading Marathi news channel? But on reflection I realized that we hadn’t been singled out: over the last four decades, the Shiv Sena has targeted some of Maharashtra’s finest literary figures and journalistic institutions. That you continue to live in a colony of artists while attacking artistic freedom remains one of the many tragic ironies in the evolution of the Sena.
Just before the Assembly elections, you had told me in an interview that you were determined to shake off the Shiv Sena’s legacy of violence. You spoke of the need for welfarist politics, of how you were saddened that rural Maharashtra was being left behind. I was impressed by the farmer rallies you had organized, by the fact that you had documented farmer suicides in the state. I thought that Uddhav Thackeray was serious about effecting a change in Maharashtra’s political landscape.
I was obviously mistaken. Farmer suicides still continue, the after-effects of drought are still being faced in several districts, but the focus is now squarely on finding high profile hate figures. You claim to have a vision for Mumbai. Yet, on the day the Sena-controlled city’s municipal corporation’s annual budget revealed an alarming financial crisis, your party mouthpiece, Saamna, was running banner headlines seeking an apology from Shah Rukh Khan. You asked your Shiv Sainiks to agitate against Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Mumbai, but why have you not asked them to wage a war against the water cuts that have made life so difficult for millions in the city? At one level, I can understand the reasons for your frustration. The Congress-NCP government in the state has been thoroughly incompetent: the last decade has seen Maharashtra decline on most social and economic parameters. Yet, the Shiv Sena has been unable to capture power in the state. Your war with cousin Raj has proved to be self-destructive. The Assembly election results showed that a united Sena may have offered a real challenge to the ruling alliance. In fact, the Sena and the MNS together garnered around 43 per cent of the popular vote in Mumbai-Thane, almost seven per cent more than what was obtained by the Congress-NCP combine. Yet, because your vote was split, you won just nine of the 60 seats in the region, a result which proved decisive in the overall state tally.
Your defeat seems to have convinced you that the only way forward is to outdo your cousin in parochial politics. It’s a strategy which has undoubtedly made you a headline-grabber once again. Unfortunately, television rating points don’t get you votes or goodwill. There is space in Maharashtra’s politics for a regional force, but it needs to be based on a constructive, inclusive identity.
Tragically, the Shiv Sena has never offered a serious social or economic agenda for the future. Setting up the odd wada pav stall in Mumbai is hardly a recipe for addressing the job crisis . Why hasn’t the Sena, for example, started training projects to make Maharashtrian youth face upto the challenges of a competitive job market? Why doesn’t the Sena give regional culture a boost by supporting Marathi theatre, literature or cinema? The wonderful Marathi film, “Harishchandrachee Factory”, nominated for the Oscars, has been co-produced by Ronnie Screwvala, a Parsi, who like millions of other ‘outsiders’ has made Mumbai his home. Maybe, I ask for too much. Tigers, used to bullying others for years, will never change their stripes.
Post-script: Your charming son, Aditya, who is studying English Literature in St Xaviers College, had sent me a collection of his poems. I was most impressed with his writing skills. Let’s hope the next generation of the T company will finally realize that there is more to life than rabble-rousing!
Jai Hind, Jai Maharashtra!
About Rajdeep Sardesai
Rajdeep Sardesai comes with 20 years of journalistic experience during which he has covered the biggest political stories in India. Prior to setting up his own channels, he was the Managing Editor of both NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India and was responsible for overseeing the news policy for both the channels. He has also worked with The Times of India for over five years and was the city editor of its Mumbai edition at the age of 26. During the last 20 years, he has covered major national and international stories, specialising in national politics. He has won numerous other awards for journalistic excellence, including the prestigious Padma Shri for journalism in 2008, the International Broadcasters Award for coverage of the 2002 Gujarat riots and the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for 2007. He has won the Asian Television Award for talk show presentation and has been News Anchor of the year at the Indian Television Academy for six of the last seven years. He is presently the President of the Editors Guild of India. He has done his Masters and LLB from Oxford University and has also played cricket for the Oxford University team.
The original letter can be found here
Filed under MNS, Raj Thackeray, Shiv Sena, Uddhav Thackeray
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission unanimously backed Google’s application for what’s known as market-based rate authority. The Commission grants market-based rate authorization for wholesale sales of electric energy, capacity and ancillary services by public utility sellers that can demonstrate that they and their affiliates lack or have adequately mitigated horizontal and vertical market power. Google on the other hand does not own generation facilities or transmission lines to deliver power, and is not planning to use the new authority for retail purposes.
In a letter to PC world Google spokeswomen said that “We made this filing so we can have more flexibility in procuring power for own operations. , including our data centers.
Google does offer an online tool (Google Power Meter) that allows you to view your home’s energy consumption from your personalized iGoogle homepage. Using information from utility smart meters and in-home energy management devices, Google PowerMeter helps you to save money and use less electricity.
AT&T announced that it will release the Motorola Backflip, the telecom’s first smart phone running Google’s Android operating system, on March 7. The Backflip, in addition to Android, includes Motorola’s Motoblur user interface, which emphasizes social-networking features. It has a 5-megapixel camera and will cost $100 with a rebate and two-year contract.
Filed under Uncategorized
I recently received an email from googgleaccount@gmail-account.com.
————————————————-
Dear Member
We are shutting down some email accounts and your account was automatically chosen to be deleted. If you are still interested in using our email service please fill in the space below for verification purpose by clicking the reply button. Learn more
Account:
Password:
Birth date:
Country:
Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.
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Please note that google will never ask for you password and do not give away the details. You can report phishing attempt here or
Filed under Uncategorized
This blogger continues to impress me. His style is witty, bodering on sarcasm without offending sensibilities (or so he thinks). Here is is Pigtale’s latest creation
Click to Enlarge
About Pigtale : Pigtale is a blogger from India who in his own words is “just a shadow of his past”. His interests include writing short stories and articles , theater , Painting and art. You can also visit his blog at http://www.pigtaleblogs.com
Filed under Hindu Swami, Nithyananda Paramahamsa
Just hours after Apple revealed the Ipad commercial , HP came back with its own commercial for Slate.Like the Ipad commercial , HP’s demo shows a pair of hands hand pressing and swiping the screen
At the same time Adobe took a shot at Ipad’s shortcoming , i.e. Ipad’s lack of support for flash
Feverishly awaiting the release of the Apple iPad and all the goodies that go along with it? Well, now you can take a virtual tour of the iPad App Store, via a video that purports to depict the storied place.
Filed under apple, ipad, Ipad Store
The idea of the game is simple i.e. to kick the ball and keep it in the air for as long as possible. Tap the football with your finger to kick it. The number of kickups serves as the score. The game also has the option to connect with facebook.
Filed under Uncategorized
If you’re looking to pre-order an iPad today, you’ll notice that shipping dates have been pushed back to April 12. Apple simply can’t supply the demand for the first week of iPads, suggesting high demand for the device. Only time will tell how many Ipad’s will Apple sell on Day 1 , though some estimate close to half a million. Apple’s tablet currently outpaces the original demand for its iPhone. MacRumors first reported on the story.
Image Courtesy of Apple
Bush seen wiping hand on Clinton’s shirt in Haiti
Filed under Funny, George W Bush
A new report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that Apple will reveal not one, but two new iPhones this year.
One would be based on GSM/UMTS standard that powers AT&T’s network, while another would be compatible with CDMA, the standard used by Verizon. The announcement would come in June or July, when Apple normally announces new iPhone models.
According to the WSJ, two different manufacturers will make the two different iPhones. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. will develop the GSM model, as it has done for the previous three versions, while Pegatron Technology Corp. (a subsidiary of ASUSTeK) will build the CDMA version. Production of the CDMA version is scheduled to start in September.
Engadget has received reports that the next generation iPhone will be called the iPhone HD.
Namely that:
It will be based on the A4-family CPU system (meaning it would be part of the same CPU family as the iPad).
The resolution would be doubled to 960×640.
It would sport a second front-facing camera.
It would support third-party multitasking.
Source- Mashable
Five webcasts will be available from CERN on 30 March. The main webcast will include live footage from the control rooms for the LHC accelerator and all four LHC experiments and coverage of the press conference to announce the first collisions. Webcasts will also be available from the control rooms of the four LHC experiments: ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb. The webcasts will be primarily in English.
Live Webcast – http://webcast.cern.ch/lhcfirstphysics
Filed under Large Hadron Collider, live webcast
WSJ reported that China’s government appeared to block almost all searches by Chinese users on Google Inc. sites Tuesday.
Users in cities across China starting late Tuesday afternoon reported that all searches—even of terms as mundane as “happy”—on Google’s Hong Kong site produced an error message saying the results page couldn’t be opened. Google stopped operating its self-censored Chinese search site on March 22 and began routing Chinese users to the Hong Kong site, which Google doesn’t censor. Searches by Chinese users on Google’s main global site, Google.com, also returned error messages Tuesday.
Filed under Blogging
Link
Packer is an Apple enthusiast — he still has the first generation iPhone — who has decided to nab the iPad in lieu of a laptop. He’s been at the Apple StoreApple Store since Tuesday. Dude even slept in Penn Station. That, my friends, is dedication.
Mashable caught up with Packer at the Apple store this morning. Take a look at the video below and keep it here this weekend for more iPad madness.
Filed under apple, ipad, Ipad Store
Somalia, which has been without a functioning government for almost two decades, serves as a warning for what could happen to other failed states. Rival Islamic militias battle for control of the capital, where the president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, is in constant danger of his life. A visit to the worst place on the planet. Read On
In Mali, West Africa, lives a tribe of people called the Dogon. The Dogon are believed to be of Egyptian decent and their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to 3200 BC. According to their traditions, the star Sirius has a companion star which is invisible to the human eye. This companion star has a 50 year elliptical orbit around the visible Sirius and is extremely heavy. It also rotates on its axis.
This legend might be of little interest to anybody but the two French anthropologists, Marcel Griaule and Germain Dieterlen, who recorded it from four Dogon priests in the 1930′s. Of little interest except that it is exactly true. How did a people who lacked any kind of astronomical devices know so much about an invisible star? The star, which scientists call Sirius B, wasn’t even photographed until it was done by a large telescope in 1970.
The Dogon stories explain that also. According to their oral traditions, a race people from the Sirius system called the Nommos visited Earth thousands of years ago. The Nommos were ugly, amphibious beings that resembled mermen and mermaids. They also appear in Babylonian, Accadian, and Sumerian myths. The Egyptian Goddess Isis, who is sometimes depicted as a mermaid, is also linked with the star Sirius.
The Nommos, according to the Dogon legend, lived on a planet that orbits another star in the Sirius system. They landed on Earth in an “ark” that made a spinning decent to the ground with great noise and wind. It was the Nommos that gave the Dogon the knowledge about Sirius B.
The legend goes on to say the Nommos also furnished the Dogon’s with some interesting information about our own solar system: That the planet Jupiter has four major moons, that Saturn has rings and that the planets orbit the sun. These were all facts discovered by Westerners only after Galileo invented the telescope.
The story of the Dogon and their legend was first brought to popular attention byRobert K.G. Temple in a book published in 1977 called The Sirius Mystery. Science writer Ian Ridpath and astronomer Carl Sagan made a reply to Temple’s book, suggesting that this modern knowledge about Sirius must have come from Westerners who discussed astronomy with the Dogon priests. The priests then included this new information into the older traditions. This, in turn, mislead the anthropologists.
This is a possibility considering Sirius B’s existence was suspected as early as 1844 and seen was through a telescope in 1862. It doesn’t seem to explain a 400-year old Dogon artifact that apparently depicts the Sirius configuration nor the ceremonies held by the Dogon since the 13th century to celebrate the cycle of Sirius A and B. It also doesn’t explain how the Dogons knew about the super-density of Sirius B, a fact only discovered a few years before the anthropologists recorded the Dogon stories.
It is also important to remember that although many parts of the Dogon legends seem to ring true, other portions are clearly mistaken. One of the Dogon’s beliefs is that Sirius B occupied the place where our Sun is now. Physics clearly prohibits this. Also, if the Dogon believe that Sirius B orbits Sirius A every 50 years, why do they hold their celebrations every 60 years?
Sirius A is the brightest star in our sky and can easily be seen in the winter months in the northern hemisphere. Look for the constellation Orion. Orion’s belt are the three bright stars in a row. Follow an imaginary line through the three stars to Sirius which is just above the horizon. It is bluish in color.
Sirius is only 8.6 light years from Earth. Astronomer W.Bessel was the first to suspect that Sirius had an invisible companion when he observed that the path of the star wobbled. In the 1920′s it was determined that Sirius B, the companion of Sirius, was a “white dwarf” star. The pull of its gravity caused Sirius’s wavy movement.
White dwarfs are small, dense stars that burn dimly. Sirius B is, in fact, smaller than the planet Earth. One teaspoon of Sirius B is so dense that it weighs 5 tons.
So did alien fish-men pay a visit to ancient Earth and give the Dogon their knowledge? Or was the Dogon’s culture contaminated by western visitors? Or could the Dogon’s have had ancient technical or non-technical means to find this information out? Or is the whole thing just a matter of coincidence?
The question maybe settled as larger and more powerful telescopes take a look at the Sirius system. According to the legend there is a third star: Sirius C, and it is around Sirius C that the home planet of the Nommos orbits. Most scientists do not consider any part of the Sirius system a prime candidate for life, though.
When Temple first issued his book in the 1970′s there was no solid evidence of a Sirius C. In 1995, however, two French researchers, Daniel Benest and J.L. Duvent, authored an article in the prestigious journal Astronomy and Astrophysics with the title Is Sirius a Triple Star? and suggested (based on observations of motions in the Sirius system) there is a small third star there. They thought the star was probably of a type known as a “red dwarf” and only had about .05 the mass of Sirius B.
So has the home star of the Nommos been discovered? Or is this just another strange coincidence?
Source - http://www.unmuseum.org/siriusb.htm
Filed under 2012, Ancient Aliens, Supernatural
Everyone following the iPad 2 announcement is aware of the new Smart Covers for the iPad 2. These flap-like covers attach to the iPad using a magnet and have an accordion-style look. The covers, amusingly enough, also resemble a style of Japanese bath tub lids! Read on
Filed under ipad
ONE lone voice has emerged from the group of heroic workers at Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), which runs the quake-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, where workers are scrambling to cool the nuclear plant and avoid a meltdown.
Michiko Otsuki – a female worker at Tepco – has written on her blog, speaking up for her ‘silent’ colleagues who remained behind at the plant.
She had been quoted a little in some overseas English reports but The Straits Times Online tracked and translated her blog to find out her full story when she first posted on popular Japanese social networking site Mixi.
By Thursday however, her post had been taken down, but the entry had already been reproduced by several online blogs and in Japanese language forums.
Ms Otsuki is one of the 800 employees evacuated from the plant on Monday, leaving 50 workers behind to battle the nuclear crisis.
On Tuesday, she addressed the growing criticisms levelled at Tepco.
‘People have been flaming Tepco,’ she said. ‘But the staff of Tepco have refused to flee, and continue to work even at the peril of their own lives. Please stop attacking us.’
Tepco, which powers Japan’s capital and largest city Tokyo, is one of the main players in the world of Japanese nuclear power, with a history of safety violations.
Even Prime Minister Naoto Kan, frustrated that an explosion featured in the news had not been reported to the Prime Minister’s office, is reported to have burst into an executive meeting at the company and demanded what was going on.
However, Ms Otsuki’s blog post gives the world a glimpse of the tireless, faceless crew – now dubbed the Fukushima 50 – who are working on the frontline to stop the nuclear crisis from escalating, risking the effects of radiation. In the most severe cases, radiation can lead to higher chances of developing cancer, or even death.
‘As a worker at Tepco and a member of the Fukushima No. 2 reactor team, I was dealing with the crisis at the scene until yesterday (Monday).’
‘In the midst of the tsunami alarm (last Friday), at 3am in the night when we couldn’t even see where we going, we carried on working to restore the reactors from where we were, right by the sea, with the realisation that this could be certain death,’ she said.
‘The machine that cools the reactor is just by the ocean, and it was wrecked by the tsunami. Everyone worked desperately to try and restore it. Fighting fatigue and empty stomachs, we dragged ourselves back to work.
‘There are many who haven’t gotten in touch with their family members, but are facing the present situation and working hard.’
Battling On
‘Please remember that. I want this message to reach even just one more person. Everyone at the power plant is battling on, without running away.
‘To all the residents (around the plant) who have been alarmed and worried, I am truly, deeply sorry.
‘I am writing my name down, knowing I will be abused and hurt because of this. There are people working to protect all of you, even in exchange for their own lives.
‘Watching my co-workers putting their lives on the line without a second thought in this situation, I’m proud to be a member of Tepco, and a member of the team behind Fukushima No. 2 reactor.
‘I hope to return to the plant and work on the restoration of the reactor.’
But her pleas seem to have gone unheard. The original post has now been taken down and she has instead posted an apology: ‘I am very sorry, but I have locked the post as it was being used in a way I had not intended it to be.
‘Having seen what’s happening on the ground, my message to all of you remains the same. But others have changed the contents of the post and used it for the wrong reasons, like fanning fear amongst others, and I have therefore decided to lock my post.
‘I am praying from the bottom of my heart for the safety of your loved ones. I am sorry it (the blog post) has turned out this way.’
Originally Published in Strait Times by Hannah Koh
I SET out from my home in the port city of Yokohama early in the afternoon last Friday, and shortly before 3 p.m. I checked into my hotel in the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo. I usually spend three or four days a week there to write, gather material and take care of other business.
Filed under Earthquake, Fukushima, Japan
Helicopter video of Japan’s troubled Fukushima Nuclear plant from yesterday indicates how extensive the damage at the plant is from the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent explosions.
Original article posted here by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Filed under Fukushima, Iodine Pills, Japan
Saturday’s full moon will be a supermoon.
A supermoon is a new or full moon that happens to coincide with a close approach of the moon to the earth. Saturday’s full moon will be the closest it has been to Earth in 18 years, according toSpaceweather.com.
The distance between the Earth and the moon during the event will be about 221,567 miles, as compared to the average distance of 238,000 miles, according to Space.com.
That may not seem like much of a difference (and compared to the distance it’s not), but the diameter of the moon is only 2,159 miles. That means the moon will be over 7.5 diameters closer to Earth than average.
While many believe the ‘supermoon’ can be linked to natural disasters (namely the Japan earthquake), Space.com says that’s not the case. Lynn Hayes of beliefnet believes something else
Originally published here
Filed under Blogging
NATO’s leaders met on Friday to work out the details of a flight ban over Libya after the U.N. Security Council gave the international community a mandate to protect civilians under attack by government forces. Although it is a complex military operation, but the United States and its allies have accomplished similar feats more than once in recent history.
Iraq
In 1991, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Turkey and other states intervened in Kurdish-Iraqi dispute in northern Iraq by establishing a no-fly zone in which Iraqi aircraft were prevented from flying. The intent of the no-fly zone was to prevent possible bombing and chemical attacks against the Kurdish people by the Iraqi regime.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Operation Sky Monitor was a NATO mission to monitor unauthorized flights in the airspace of Bosnia-Herzegovina during theBosnian War.During Operation Sky Monitor, aircraft operated in two “orbits”, one over the Adriatic established on October 16, and a second one over Hungary, established with the permission of the Hungarian government on October 31.[6] Both of these orbits operated 24 hours a day, providing constant surveillance of Bosnian airspace.
Libya
Alliance military planners said they could deploy dozens of fighter-bombers, AWACS, fuel tankers, and unmanned drones to a string of air bases along Europe’s southern perimeter from which to send patrols over Libya.
Huffington post reports
Maintaining the zone will require aerial refueling tankers, as well as radar-monitoring AWACS(Airborne Warning and Control System) command aircraft, to manage the complex choreography of inbound and outbound aircraft, and JSTARS (Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System) jets. The latter craft are modified Boeing 707 airliners packed with electronics that enable onboard analysts to find, identify, track and target individual tanks and other armored vehicles. That target data is passed on to the precision-guided weapons that are launched from strike aircraft.
It is likely that the United States will provide AWACS and JSTARS as well as aerial refueling tankers, while the British and French contribute strike fighters, although U.S. Air Force and Navy jets are positioned to fly missions as well.
An initial strike package of jets designed to jam and destroy enemy radar would precede the establishment of a no-fly zone. But the JSTARS can provide surveillance and targeting from outside Libyan missile range — and unmanned drone aircraft could be used as well to avoid the remote possibility of having pilots shot down over Libya.
These operations could cost between $100 million and $300 million per week, depending on the number of aircraft involved, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank.
If Gaddafi refuses to obey a cease-fire order, the international coalition could agree on a hard strike against airfields and armored columns, troop barracks, military headquarters and other military facilities that already have been identified and targeted. A full-out strike might cost between $500 million and $1 billion, according to the CSBA analysis.
Some of that tab might be picked up by Arab states in the Persian Gulf, which have promised to help.
Video added ….
Whoopi Goldberg got into a furious argument with Donald Trump about President Obama’s birth certificate on Wednesday’s “The View.”
Trump, who has been talking about running for president, has been drawing attention for his comments about Obama’s citizenship. He repeated some of them on “The View.”
“Why doesn’t he show his birth certificate?” Trump said. “Why should he have to?” Whoopi cut in.
“Because I have to and everybody else has to, Whoopi,” Trump said. He continued that he believed Obama has a birth certificate, but that he should show it to clear the “pall” hanging over him. Then, he said that it was odd that “nobody from [Obama's] early years remembers him,” and that there was “something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like.” This last comment seemed to be the final straw for Whoopi—and for Barbara Walters.
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” she said, as Whoopi exclaimed, “oh my God…that’s the biggest pile of dog mess I’ve heard in ages.” She continued, “it’s not ’cause he’s black, is it?” Trump said it had “nothing to do with that.”
“Because I’ve never heard any white President asked to be shown the birth certificate,” Whoopi said heatedly, pounding her fist into her hand. “When you become the President of the United States of America, you know that he’s American. I’m sorry. That’s B.S.”
Filed under the view, whoopi goldberg
Lake of Zug, Switzerland
Photograph by Ingo Meckmann, My Shot
A snow-covered dock at the Lake of Zug in central Switzerland right before sunrise
National geographic
Filed under Blogging
Image courtesy Caltech/NASA
There’s a party in our galaxy’s “city center,” and thousands of stars have gathered to light up the scene.
In visible light this region of the Milky Way is so bright that it’s almost impossible to see what’s happening. But new infrared pictures from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope—such as the one above released March 18—can reveal the raucous activity.
In the new shot, tendrils of warm gas (yellow-red) and carbon-rich dust (green) drape across the galactic center, where bright white star clusters are orbiting an unseen supermassive black hole.
Filed under Blogging
When FIFA decided to award the 2022 World Cup to the State of Qatar there was a lot of surprise from the other competing countries. Not only was this a big bet from FIFA that a country so small could provide a memorable football tournament, but the temperatures experienced during the summer months when the tournament is played are extreme to say the least.
Come 2022, footballers from around the world will be heading to Doha, in a country where temperatues commonly reach 46 degrees Celsius, and don’t often fall below 29 degrees Celsius. FIFA knew this when it awarded the tournament to the country, so it also stipulated that the open stadiums must be air conditioned in some way.
How do you air condition an open stadium? Qatar University believes it has the answer, and it doesn’t involve lots of air conditioning units pumping out freezing cold air.
Qatar is a very rich country due to the massive amounts of oil and natural gas it has. Therefore they can think outside of the box for problems like this and not have to worry too much about cost. Dr. Saud Abdul Ghani, who runs the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering department at the Univeristy, has come up with a very green and nature-inspired way of solving this problem: artificial solar clouds.
If you’ve ever been outside on a very hot day then you know that standing in a shaded area can result in a temperature drop of several degrees. Dr. Ghani’s idea is to create an artificial cloud that would float above the stadiums covering a large area of the playing field in shadow. As the sun in blazing down on the cloud while it is doing this, all power can be generated through solar panels.
The cloud will be constructed of carbonic materials and have four solar engines allowing it to be moved by remote control as well as hover in place. We assume at night they will be landed near the stadiums. As for cost, the first one is thought to be in the region of $500,000, but Dr. Ghana believes that will fall and the usefulness of the clouds will extend well beyond the World Cup.
While a novel idea, we can’t help but think a strong gust of wind may cause major problems for the cloud. We’re also unsure how safe the players will feel with these clouds floating above them.
Originally published here – http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/qatar-developing-solar-clouds-to-cool-2022-world-cup-stadiums-20110327/
Filed under Blogging
Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars
Credit: Viking Project, USGS, NASA
The largest canyon in the Solar System cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars. Named Valles Marineris, the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as 600 kilometers across, and delves as much as 8 kilometers deep. By comparison, the Earth’s Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA is 800 kilometers long, 30 kilometers across, and 1.8 kilometers deep. The origin of the Valles Marineris remains unknown, although a leading hypothesis holds that it started as a crack billions of years ago as the planet cooled. Several geologic processes have been identified in the canyon. The above mosaic was created from over 100 images of Mars taken by Viking Orbiters in the 1970s.
Filed under Photography
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