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May you live all the days of your life.
--Irish Blessing (Now that is a true blessing)

Intresting site....

Killing The Buddha via ALDaily

I olny read this (I broke up with Jesus) article and it seems intresting. I don't know what this whole site is about but will look through it in due time(as religion seems to be one of my fav topics :))

extract from the site about the site --

Killing the Buddha is a religion magazine for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the "spirituality" section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God. It is for people who somehow want to be religious, who want to know what it means to know the divine, but for good reasons are not and do not. If the religious have come to own religious discourse it is because they alone have had places where religious language could be spoken and understood. Now there is a forum for the supposedly non-religious to think and talk about what religion is, is not and might be. Killing the Buddha is it.

Quotes

Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.
-- John Ed Pearce

To change the system you have to be a part of the system.
-- Page 3(movie)

Dhoni #1......

Dhoni ranked top after India win from BBC

Believe it or not but it is Mahendra Dhoni in the top slot for ODI. I hope he lasts long.

I would stop watching TV....

Philips device could force TV viewers to watch ads from CNET

Viewers would be released from the freeze only after paying a fee to the broadcasr. The freeze would be implemented on a program-by-program basis, giving viewers a choice at the start of each one.

According to a recently published patent, the apparatus could work inside a set-top box. It would use the standard Multimedia Home Platform to receive a first control signal and then respond by taking control of the TV. The MHP would also be capable of sending the payment information that would lift the freeze, as it does when authorizing pay-per-view content.

If implemented, the invention would have a significant impact on television culture.

We get hiccup's because the brain gets confused what signal to send...

Why do we get hiccups? from MSN

Once in a while, often when you find yourself eating a bit too quickly, your brain sends conflicting signals to your diaphragm and epiglottis: "Close the esophagus and open the trachea--no, wait. I mean, pull the diaphragm and open the--hold it--I mean the food tube--no, the windpipe. Wait. Now, swallow and breathe. Yikes!" Once in a while your diaphragm contracts and forces air through your glottis, and you feel a bump and often hear that "heek" sound. That's when you have the hiccups.

Your nerve fibers have produced too many charged calcium ions near the muscles of your glottis and your diaphragm. They spasm; your brain triggers your nervous system to send a correcting signal, but it's too late or not quite of the right strength, and you hiccup again. Often there's an imbalance that is like a resonance. The signals build up and let go at regular intervals, like a sign flapping in a breeze.

The way to stop the hiccups seems to be to provide a new clear signal to your body--either a signal for swallowing or breathing. That's why for some people, it helps to hold a breath. For others, swallowing several sips of water in succession does the trick. You have to clear or overwhelm the confusing diaphragm-glottal-epiglottal noise. You can do it. Just swallow; I mean, hold your breath. Hiccup--I mean ...

Worth a read...

About the Indian youth from The Hindu

To Mr. Kumar, I would like to say: Sir, not all the members of my generation are money seeking hedonists. A friend of mine is currently touring remote villages in Maharashtra, working on health care projects. Another dissolved a consultancy he had set up with six years of hard work and effort, because he did not want to work for MNCs.

I know a person who after completing an architecture degree, forwent an opportunity to work on Gurgaon's shining malls, and chose to join the Institute of Rural Management. Another is in Sri Lanka — working in rehabilitation — under threat to her own life. For every batch of IIM that passes out, (some of them on salaries more than 1 lakh a month), there is a batch of social workers from TISS and IRMA (some of whom start their career on 1 lakh a year). And I could go on and on.

I concede that a majority of the youth today are extremely self-centred and detached from politics and society. But who is responsible for them? Can society wash its hands of its youth? All the young people mentioned in the earlier paragraph are engaged in socially relevant work, against all odds from society, and mostly against their parents' wishes. The key concern of Indian parents is that their children should `settle down' — which means getting a secure, well-paid job, or sometimes for girls, a rich husband. Parents coerce their kids to take up lucrative professions; I know quite a few who have refused to finance their children's education for anything other than stipulated courses.

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If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
-- John Louis von Neumann

Too Big to Put Behind

-- Rachel Naomi Remen

Disappointment and loss are a part of every life. Many times we can put them behind us and get on with the rest of our lives. But not everything is amenable to this approach. Some things are too big or too deep to do this, and we will have to leave important parts of ourselves behind if we treat them in this way. These are the places where wisdom begins to grow in us. It begins with suffering that we do not avoid or rationalize or put behind us. It starts with the realization that our loss, whatever it is, has become a part of us and has altered our lives so profoundly that we cannot go back to the way it was before.

The thing about the many strategies we use to shelter ourselves from feeling loss is that none of them leads to healing. Although denial, rationalization, substitution, avoidance, and the like may numb the pain of loss, every one of them hurts us in some far more fundamental ways. None is respectful toward life or toward process. None acknowledges our capacity for finding meaning or wisdom.

[Daily Dig from www.bruderhof.com]

For a while I thought India would succumb to US pressure

India won't accept no-test option from The Hindu

NEW DELHI: India has conveyed to the United States that it will not accept a provision in any civilian nuclear agreement with the U.S. that says cooperation would be discontinued if New Delhi were to conduct a nuclear test.

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God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages.
-- Jacques Deval

Mockrey of Caste System :)

Air India Now Offers Business Caste Seating from The Onion

MUMBAI—Air India, the subcontinent's largest airline, announced it will offer upgraded Business Caste seating on all flights starting in July. "More legroom, wider seats—and no need to associate with the manual laborers," a spokesman for the airline said Tuesday. "Our business travelers must have lived good past lives to deserve this." Air India still ranks at the bottom of the airline industry in customer satisfaction, with a high volume of complaints about cooking fires in the climate-uncontrolled cabins, wandering cows that flight attendants refuse to remove, and the "Untouchable" Coach Caste, which is towed behind Air India jetliners in a giant burlap sack.

Another article on Bush n Iraq

A Bad Leak from NYTimes

President Bush says he declassified portions of the prewar intelligence assessment on Iraq because he "wanted people to see the truth" about Iraq's weapons programs and to understand why he kept accusing Saddam Hussein of stockpiling weapons that turned out not to exist. This would be a noble sentiment if it actually bore any relationship to Mr. Bush's actions in this case, or his overall record.

Mr. Bush did not declassify the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq — in any accepted sense of that word — when he authorized I. Lewis Libby Jr., through Vice President Dick Cheney, to talk about it with reporters. He permitted a leak of cherry-picked portions of the report. The declassification came later.

And this president has never shown the slightest interest in disclosure, except when it suits his political purposes. He has run one of the most secretive administrations in American history, consistently withholding information and vital documents not just from the public, but also from Congress. Just the other day, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the House Judiciary Committee that the names of the lawyers who reviewed Mr. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program were a state secret.

Doesn't it sound ironic ....

Nitish has failed to check crime: Lalu from The Hindu

Samastipur: Announcing that the his party will launch a State-wide agitation against the "failure" of the Nitish Kumar Goverment to check crime, the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Sunday alleged that the NDA Government's performance in Bihar was lack-lustre on all fronts.

Addressing a meeting, organised to pay homage to the party leaders killed here a few days ago, Mr. Prasad alleged that his party colleagues were being attacked on ``selective basis.''

He accused the State Government of dancing to the tunes of criminal elements and alleged that its promises of providing good governance had vanished into thin air. — UNI

Narmada

Narmada project: clearing the confusion From The Hindu

Q: Why does the Narmada Bachao Andolan not confine itself to talking about rehabilitation? Why is it asking for stoppage of construction?

A: The answer is that in terms of the Narmada Tribunal's Award, the conditions of clearance of the Project, and the Supreme Court's judgments of October 2000 and March 2005, construction is not allowed to outpace rehabilitation work. That is the meaning of the pari passu principle. There is no question of proceeding beyond the height of 110 metres already reached until the failures and deficiencies in rehabilitation work with reference to that height have been remedied, and the prescribed advance steps have been completed with reference to the proposed further increase in height. The NBA is not asking for something new. It is merely asking for compliance with prescribed conditions, not imposing its own.

Q: Is the NBA anti-project, anti-development, as alleged by the Chief Minister of Gujarat?

A: Medha Patkar may have certain views about big dams and `destructive development,' and not everyone may agree with those views, but that is not the point at issue in the present case. The current protest is about failures in rehabilitation, non-compliance with conditions, denial of human rights, and infliction of injustice and suffering.

All things said and done what outrages me the most is that BJP workers destroyed the NBA office. Mr. Modi should have some sense of responsibility and try to prevent that after all he is the part of the govt. Just because there are some people who do not agree with him does not mean that he has the right to beat them up or threaten them in any way. Also I am surprised by lack of media coverage this is getting. Most TV channels are showing them destroying/burning Amir Khan's pictures... What good does that do. And happily Congress is letting BJP do the dirty work of bashing Amir where as their Govt in MP is responsible for major rehabilitation. My advise to Mr. Modi will be get after the people who haven't taken care of the rehabilitation and get the project moving. The way he is going maybe will keep him in the news but do people no good.
Also some of the comments from Narander Modi and even Arundathi Rai seem to be suggesting that the common man has no right to support the cause that he/she wants. Mr. Modi is asking why was Amir not there for people living on the streets of Kashmir and Ms. Arundathi is asking about his coke add.

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Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts.
-- Martin Buxbaum

thodu phodu

It looks like it is thod phod season here...

When the match was abadoned in Guwahati... what resulted?
When the mandal II came in the news... waht resulted?
When the govt didn't do it right in meerut... what resulted?
When Mr. Rajumar died... what resulted?
When India lost the 6th ODI... what resulted?

and there are many more such incidents..... I wonder if the public is taking the Thodu phodu add with Saif n Rani too seriously :)

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A single question can be more influential than a thousand statements.
-- Bo Bennett

Hmmm ... read it and make up ur own mind

Christ Among the Partisans from NYTimes

The Jesus of the Gospels is not a great ethical teacher like Socrates, our leading humanitarian. He is an apocalyptic figure who steps outside the boundaries of normal morality to signal that the Father's judgment is breaking into history. His miracles were not acts of charity but eschatological signs — accepting the unclean, promising heavenly rewards, making last things first.

He is more a higher Nietzsche, beyond good and evil, than a higher Socrates. No politician is going to tell the lustful that they must pluck out their right eye. We cannot do what Jesus would do because we are not divine.

It was blasphemous to say, as the deputy under secretary of defense, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, repeatedly did, that God made George Bush president in 2000, when a majority of Americans did not vote for him. It would not remove the blasphemy for Democrats to imply that God wants Bush not to be president. Jesus should not be recruited as a campaign aide. To trivialize the mystery of Jesus is not to serve the Gospels.

Surfing without connecting... Intresting

Surf the web without logging on to Internet from Indian Express

Ever thought of surfing the web when you are not connected? Well, that is the latest offering from Rakesh Mathur. Mathur, who co-founded Junglee — that was later taken over by Amazon — has developed a software ‘Webaroo’ that will make this possible.

Webaroo servers scour the web, analyse web pages and automatically select the subset of pages with the most content value in the least storage size. These pages are then assembled into topic specified ‘web packs’.

These webpacks can be downloaded on a laptop or a mobile phone. Once downloaded, the webpacks or web sites can be accessed anytime.

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Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.
--Emily Kimbrough

And ofcourse

How can I not mention that I have been enjoying my frist few days in india just trying to keep up with all the cricket :) 4-0 not bad isn't it!!! I would love to see 6-0 :)))

India is proud that you are an Indian

Paes to India's rescue again from The Hindu

MUMBAI: Leander Paes, two sets up in the fifth and decisive reverse singles against Aqeel Khan, turned around a script that had gone bizarre after an attack of cramps in the third.

The Indian captain played through pain, held his nerve and game together somehow for two more sets before riding a wave of public support to fashion a thrilling victory in the decider.

India won 3-2 after being stretched beyond the limit in the BNP-Paribas Asia/Oceania Group I play-offs at the Brabourne stadium on Sunday.

"I'm proud to be an Indian today," he said, wrapping the tricolour around the shoulders.

Prakash Amritraj, consumed by stage fright in the first reverse singles against a rampaging Aisam Qureshi, recovered a little of poise under extreme pressure but not enough to prevent Pakistan draw level 2-2.

Back on track :)