A good job by UNDP.
These people , for no fault of theirs ,but of LTTE and self seeking Tamil politicians of Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu rhetoric and megalomaniac few of Sri Lanka are undergoing unspeakable misery.Only option for them will be to move out of Sri Lanka, leaving aside sentimental bravado, for life and future of children are precious.Those Sri Lankans settled abroad may initiate action as Tamils can no longer live peacefully in Sri Lanka ,not withstanding Govt.assurance.Or They should follow Isralei route to carve a Nation for themselves away from Sri Lanka
Ramanan
Free,Frank,Fearless,Factual
Displaced Sri Lankan Tamils,Move away from Sri Lanka.
February 9, 2010 — ramanan50Should you be held responsible for actions of your family?
February 9, 2010 — ramanan50
Theorists may disagree but the actions of Family affect the individual and they are judged by Family’s action.As head of the family and also as a member of the family each one is responsible for the other.
Values such as these make Family a great institution in supporting individual in times of crisis,offer emotional succor and lend stability to society.
Often concern for family members and taking responsibility for them is mistaken for interference.
One must remember the most horrible thing in the world is to have none to care for you or question you.You shall appreciate it only when you miss it.
Story:
New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, is in the eye of a ‘mini-blog storm’ as this blogger has put it.
His 20 year old son has signed up to the Israeli Defence Force, and this has led to some people calling for Bronner to be reassigned.
Bronner – who is Jewish and whose son has Israeli nationality – is widely regarded as a respected journalist.
He has served as the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the past two years.
But bloggers, like Mondoweiss.com and Israelitybites are asking whether his journalism will be compromised.
Some of the voices who are calling for some sort of move are even coming from his own paper.
Blogger Electronic Intifada wonders how the paper would respond if one of their reporters had a son in Beirut whose son joined Hezbollah?
On the other side of the argument, some people are wondering why this has suddenly become an issue. yourish.com says he’s puzzled as to why people are suddenly critical.
Bronner is married to an Israeli citizen and people ’don’t seem to think that his being married to an Israeli caused a conflict of interest. So why the sudden attack on Bronner?’
‘Mr. Bronner’s son is a young adult who makes his own decisions,’ writes blogger Richard Silverstein, so why should Bronner have to pay for his son’s actions?
This blog agrees:
‘I don’t mean to be melodramatic, but transferring Bronner from Jerusalem for his son’s decisions borrows from the same grotesque epistemology with which people were transferred to the Gulag for their son’s decisions.’
How much do you want to know about the people who bring you the news? Is Ethan Bronner responsible for the actions of his own family?
‘After threatening war, they want talks’
February 9, 2010 — ramanan50Better if media ignores the ravings of an embittered man from a failed State.
Story:
Pakistan on Monday (February 
indulged in a potentially damaging rhetoric yet again for the second time in a span of 48 hours. In an apparent reference to India, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the same forces that were threatening to attack Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai attacks were now issuing invitations for peace talks.
Without naming India, Qureshi told a gathering at a village near his hometown of Multan, “They were preparing for an attack on Pakistan. Today, after one year, those who were making threats about attacking Pakistan following the Mumbai incident, those same forces are sending Pakistan an invitation for talks.”
This turnaround had occurred due to national solidarity and a pledge to “keep moving forward with the same spirit for development” of Pakistan, he said.
vhttp://www.timesnow.t/After-threatening-war-they-want-talks/articleshow/4338084.cms
Government says ‘No’ to Bt Brinjal
February 9, 2010 — ramanan50Good move.Can we expect a Tweet from Sashi Tharoor?
Please read my blog on BT-brinjal dtd 8//1/10,under Health.
Story:
The government on Tuesday (February 9) announced its crucial decision on BT Brinjal. Union Envirornment Minister Jairam Ramesh announced the government’s decision to say ‘No’ to the introduction of the genetically modified vegetable in the country.
http://www.timesnow.tv/Cautious-Ramesh-puts-Bt-Brinjal-on-hold/articleshow/4338132.cms
Life at the Bottom: The Prolific Afterlife of Whales.r
February 9, 2010 — ramanan50
HumpBack Whale.
Story:
* A single dead whale can nourish a specialized ecosystem that lasts for decades.
* Some signs suggest that whale-fall ecosystems have exchanges with other deep-seafloor communities, such as hydrothermal vents.
* Species similar to those at whale falls may have depended on dead marine reptiles for hundreds of millions of years.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-prolific-afterlife-of-whales&sc=CAT_EVO_20100208
TIME-Non-Linear Theory
August 21, 2009 — ramanan50TIME- A Perspective.
Is Time Cyclic or Linear?
Time is non linear. It is Cyclic. Cyclic theory of Time in Hinduism.
________________________________________
Indian Philosophy recognizes the limitations of human mind and abilities. It knows that one is restricted by space and time, which does not afford him the luxury of understanding things as they are. Any perception or understanding is conditioned by the twin spectacles of Space and Time (Immanuel Kant in Critique of Pure Reason.)To understand things as they are is beyond human ability. Let us say that we want to know whether there are any particles that travel at a higher velocity than light. (It has been proved theoretically that they exist).If we want to prove them by direct experience rather than inference, we need to be in motion in tune with the particle traveling faster than the velocity of light (Einstein circumvented this problem by theorizing that if an object were to travel at a higher velocity than that of light, it would no longer remain matter. (Theory of Relativity.)
But this not the correct answer. Imagine, we travel at a higher velocity than the velocity of light, not withstanding the fact that we may no longer remain as matter, what happens?
We may be able to observe the particle traveling at a higher velocity than light. But, in the process of observing this phenomenon, we no longer remain in our normal original state. That is to say we have changed our plane of existence to that of the object traveling at a higher velocity.
This means to understand, in the realms of Higher Physics, if one needs to observe things of a different coordinates, one needs to move to the same level of existence.
That is to say our existence coordinates or parameters vary. This leads to different level of Time as this involves motion at a higher velocity than the one we are in. This admits the differentiation of time, determined by two factors-the point from which one observes and the point at which the observable exists. In short to understand higher velocities one needs to be at the same velocity to observe in real time.
Again time zones differ. Let us leave the explanation or justification for the change in Time zones. The fact is, one in a particular Time zone can only visualize or imagine the reality of the other time zone, nothing more. From the individual stand point the time zone in which he is placed is the Reality and the other time zones are not experienced by him directly at the given point of Time. We go with the statement of others that other time zones exist because people who live in the other zones vouch for it. But we do not perceive it by ourselves.
From the explanation of Big Bang theory, we know the universe was formed at the time of Big Bang and started moving forward or started evolving. What of the moment just before Big Bang? Stephen Hawkins states that it is irrelevant as it has no bearing on our Time frame. (Brief History of Time) Is it logical to say that when we can not comprehend or explain concept, the concept is irrelevant? What if it has a frame of reference of time than the one understood by us?
We can see clearly that we link Time with Motion. Displacement is observed due to change in Time Frame. Time is understood by displacement. It means that we perceive Time because of a displacement of object, be it the universe or the hands of a clock. This Circular Reasoning is a logical fallacy. (As we say commonly. egg came from the Hen and Hen came from the egg. We can not arrive at a conclusion).
To quote another famous example; if we travel in a train traveling at a particular speed and observe a train moving at the same speed in the same direction, you will observe that you are stationary as the other train. But you will have covered some distance. In this case motion seems to be at rest while space has been observed. By this example we can say space may exist independently of Time.
But when we follow the concept of Big bang, time is intricately connected with Space and in fact is concomitant with Time.
Another example from Xeno’s Paradoxes:
1. Let us keep the distance from Bangalore to Chennai at 300 miles (for calculation purposes.)
If we travel at the rate of 300 miles per hour, we will reach Chennai in an hour; at 600 miles per hour, 30 minutes; at 1200 miles per hour in 15 minutes; at 2400 miles per hour, in 7.5 minutes; at 3600 miles per hour, in 3.75 minutes, at 7200 miles, in 1.8 minutes; at 14400 miles, in .9 minutes. At this rate, we would have reached Chennai before we left Bangalore!
2. Let an object X travel between A and B.X has to cover half the distance of AB before reaching B, we may call this as C;
X before reaching C, should cover half the distance of AC, say D; to reach D, X has to cover half the distance of AD, say E.
We know that Space is infinitely divisible. That means X will be traveling infinitely, that is motion is impossible
When we speak of Pole star being 400 light years away, we can only say that it existed 400 years ago, because the light left Pole star 400 years ago! We can not say it is there now because we see in the sky today
The long and short of it is that defining Time is very difficult and is in fact impossible.
Latest findings on Black hole suggest that if you go through a black hole, time runs backwards. If by chance, we were to be in Black hole, will we perceive our present universe as flowing forwards in Time?
The reason for this situation is the assumption that Time is Linear. Time flows in one direction that is forward.
What if Time is Cyclic? That is, it flows around and depending on where you are, Time moves both forwards and backwards .Time is a stream; so is Space. Per se they are Absolute. They are Relative to the observer. To put it in simpler words ,things exist in Space and Time at all times irrespective of your positioning and what we say to day has happened ,is right now happening at another level for an observer positioned to observe it. For them, our Universe is Past. Similarly for another observer, what we see as future, may be Present.
Hinduism advocates Cyclic Theory of Time.
TIME- Calculation in Hindu Philosophy.
(3.2 seconds- 1 Kaashtai.
30 Kaashtais or 1.6 minutes or 96 seconds -1 Kalai
30 kalais or 48 minutes – 1Muhurtham
30 Muhurthams or 1440minutes one day.24 hrs of western time)
15 Days -one Paksha
2 Pakshas – one Month
6 Months -one Ayanam
2 Ayanams -one Year)
There are Four AEONS (yugas).-In terms of Man-Years.
I. Kali Yugam 4, 32,000 years.
II. Dwapara Yugam 8, 64,000years. (Kali x 2)
III. Tretha Yugam 12, 96,000 years. (Kali x 3)
IV. Krutha Yugam 17, 28,000 years. (Kali x 4)
V. Total 43, 32,000 years
For Devas, in the next plane of existence, one year by human calculation is one day. On this basis they have 43, 32,000 years as one chathur yuga or Aeon (By their account 12033 years approximately).They live for 12033 years. At the end of the day Brahma effects Dissolution.
Next Level. Brahma, the Creator
30917370000000 one Life of hundred years).
*43, 32,000 human years is one day for Brahma. During the day, 14 Manus reign, under the orders of Brahma.
Each Manu reigns for 30, 67, 20,000 Human Years.
30, 67, 20,000 multiplied by 14, is *42 940 80 000 human years is Brahma’s one day. (The difference is due to Sandhyaa and Sandhyaamsa calculated for Deva years)The universe is dissolved at the end of each day. Creation begins the next day. Brahma reigns for 100 Brahma years or 30917370000000 of human years (For the Creator, there shall be Dissolution at the end of each of his day. At Night there shall be withdrawal .Next Day starts.)
That is 0 .53 light years. This is for Universe of Matter of one fourteenth of the Universe of matter (14 Lokaas). Matter occupies only 0.1% of entire Universe. Balance of 99.9 % of Universe consists of Anti matter (named now as dark Energy).The Universe of Antimatter has corresponding Time scale .It contains anti matter. At the time of Final Dissolution, matter and antimatter collide and Entire Universe becomes dormant to become dynamic again. Matter and Antimatter forming the Universe is said to be contained in the SriChakra of Devi.The Gods mentioned so far are nominees assigned for a specific purpose and they undergo evolution and dissolution. The individual Gods are embodiment of Principles of Creation, Sustenance and Dissolution. They are Principles and are given Name and Form to help one to realize the Ultimate Reality.
This Cycle is for fourteen known levels of existence and all of them exist simultaneously. That means all activities happen simultaneously. That is to say, Ramayana happened some where and is also happening and will happen in future. (With reference to us).
We can see Time is Nonlinear and is Cyclic.
Time as we have seen is relative. Time in Indian philosophy is an Attribute of Reality, so is Space.
The Cyclic Theory of Time overcomes the Non Linear Theory of Time in that there is no seeming contradiction in comprehending different time scales. to illustrate,; you take a snap of an action, say a cricket match with two different cameras, one with a higher speed and another with ultra slow speed. If a catch has been under dispute, the ultra slow motion camera will show the exact action, that is, whether the catch has been taken cleanly by the fielder. The same information will not be available in a High speed camera. One camera shows an action and another does not show it. Which is True in relation to Time? That is to say, one instrument recording the event for the same period does not show it, though it should have passed the time at which the event has taken place and the other shows the same event, which it has passed. Recordings provide us with two projections. If it is due to the quality of instrument, then can we not say each one of them is correct or both of them are wrong? So when we talk about Perception, Time factor is one of the coordinates we do not know much about, if we accept Linear Theory. If we accept Cyclic Theory, we can say the event has happened and also not happened. The difference is the relative positioning.
Again, an event is a form of energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. If we accept the Theory of Linear Time, we have to say the event is no more or is destroyed. Under Cyclic Theory, this does not happen as everything happens, happened and will happen at the same time.
Recent researches on Human Brain have shown that the Brain anticipates action yet to take place and keeps the senses like eyes to receive the message and in fact receives (ref. TOI Aug 08) the message ahead of the event.
ws around and depending on where you are, Time moves both forwards and backwards .Time is a stream; so is Space. Per se they are Absolute. They are Relative to the observer. To put it in simpler words ,things exist in Space and Time at all times irrespective of your positioning and what we say to day has happened ,is right now happening at another level for an observer positioned to observe it. For them, our Universe is Past. Similarly for another observer, what we see as future, may be Present.
Hinduism advocates Cyclic Theory of Time.
TIME-Calculation by Hindu Philosophy.
(3.2 seconds- 1 Kaashtai.
30 Kaashtais or 1.6 minutes or 96 seconds -1 Kalai
30 kalais or 48 minutes – 1Muhurtham
30 Muhurthams or 1440minutes one day.24 hrs of western time)
15 Days -one Paksha
2 Pakshas – one Month
6 Months -one Ayanam
2 Ayanams -one Year )
There are Four AEONS (yugas).-In terms of Man-Years.
(I. Kali Yugam 4, 32,000 years.
II. Dwapara Yugam 8, 64,000years. (Kali x 2)
III. Tretha Yugam 12, 96,000 years. (Kali x 3)
IV. Krutha Yugam 17, 28,000 years. (Kali x 4)
V. Total 43, 32,000 years)
For Devas, in the next plane of existence, one year by human calculation is one day. On this basis they have 43, 32,000 human years as one chatur Yuga or Aeon. (By their account 12033 years approximately) .They live for 12033 years. At the end of the day Brahma effects Dissolution.
Next Level. Brahma, the Creator
30917370000000 one Life of hundred years).
*43, 32,000 human years is one day for Brahma. During the day, 14 Manus reign, under the orders of Brahma.
Each Manu reigns for 30, 67, 20,000 Human Years.
30, 67, 20,000 multiplied by 14, is *42 940 80 000 human years is Brahma’s one day… (The difference is due to Sandhya and Sandhyaamsa at the beginning and end of each Yuga or aeon of human reckoning, which is not taken into account in human years calculations for Devas time frame) The universe is dissolved at the end of each day. Creation begins the next day. Brahma reigns for 100 Brahma years or 30917370000000 of human years (For the Creator, there shall be Dissolution at the end of each of his day. At Night there shall be withdrawal .Next Day starts.)
That is 0 .53 light years. This is for Universe of Matter of one fourteenth of the Universe of matter (14 Lokaas). Matter occupies only 0.1% of entire Universe. Balance of 99.9 % of Universe consists of Anti matter (named now as dark Energy).The Universe of Antimatter has corresponding Time scale .It contains anti matter. At the time of Final Dissolution, matter and antimatter collide and Entire Universe becomes dormant to become dynamic again. Matter and Antimatter forming the Universe is said to be contained in the SriChakra of Devi.The Gods mentioned so far are nominees assigned for a specific purpose and they undergo evolution and dissolution. The individual Gods are embodiment of Principles of Creation, Sustenance and Dissolution. They are Principles and are given Name and Form to help one to realize the Ultimate Reality.
This Cycle is for fourteen known levels of existence and all of them exist simultaneously. That means all activities happen simultaneously. That is to say, Ramayana happened some where and is also happening and will happen in future. (With reference to us).
We can see Time is Nonlinear and is Cyclic.
Time as we have seen is relative. Time in Indian philosophy is an Attribute of Reality, so is Space.
The Cyclic Theory of Time overcomes the Non Linear Theory of Time in that there is no seeming contradiction in comprehending different time scales. to illustrate,; you take a snap of an action, say a cricket match with two different cameras, one with a higher speed and another with ultra slow speed. If a catch has been under dispute, the ultra slow motion camera will show the exact action, that is, whether the catch has been taken cleanly by the fielder. The same information will not be available in a High speed camera. One camera shows an action and another does not show it. Which is True in relation to Time? That is to say, one instrument recording the event for the same period does not show it, though it should have passed the time at which the event has taken place and the other shows the same event, which it has passed. Recordings provide us with two projections. If it is due to the quality of instrument, then can we not say each one of them is correct or both of them are wrong? So when we talk about Perception, Time factor is one of the coordinates we do not know much about, if we accept Linear Theory. If we accept Cyclic Theory, we can say the event has happened and also not happened. The difference is the relative positioning.
Again, an event is a form of energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. If we accept the Theory of Linear Time, we have to say the event is no more or is destroyed. Under Cyclic Theory, this does not happen as everything happens, happened and will happen at the same time.
Recent researches on Human Brain have shown that the Brain anticipates action yet to take place and keeps the senses like eyes to receive the message and in fact receives (ref. TOI Aug 08) the message ahead of the event.
If we accept the Linear Theory of Time, we can not account for the time factor.
(This leaves an interesting question. Do we really see what we see?
Do we prove the existence of eyes because the scenes are seen or do we see things because we have eyes?)
We will be able to realize Self when we transcend Space and Time.
Enviornment.
September 28, 2009 — ramanan50Instead talking about carbon emissions at world level, let us first set right what is directly visible and very harmful to children.“>
Obama,in the footsteps of Brown?
September 29, 2009 — ramanan50Shameful.Brown led the way for a deal by releasing a killer.Is there any deal behind the present move by US?
http://thepoliticalmemo.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/400000-of-your-money-going-to-libyan-despots-son-and-daughter/#comments
Conditioning Children?
September 29, 2009 — ramanan50Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?NYT 28/09/09
Please read the article in NYT. Link;
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27tools-t.html?pagewanted=2&em
It was really funny and astounding that such an approach is being made to bringing up children.I was ,for a moment taken into believing that they are talking about Adults or worse criminals.Let the children be. Allow them to enjoy child hood.Disciplined upbringing by Scientific metods have brought world to what it is to day.Let the children express.Do not condition the child.More pertinent is to teach adults good behavior,responsibility and advise them to do what is good for the family instead of talking about freedom for themselves. Let parents set an example.Society and children will take care of themselves.
Caste System (India) needs Reform?
September 29, 2009 — ramanan50Caste system has worked for India for centuries,excepting during British Rule.British used the Division of labor ,promoted by Caste System to Divide and Rule.Contrary to what people think, mistreatment of lower castes had not been in vogue prior to their regime. The Gods ,Krishna, Rama, are not Brahmins.Rama is a Kshatriya and Krishna is a cowherd.Disposition and conduct determine caste and nothing else.
As of today Caste in India exists for Politicians to garner votes .Ordinary Indian to day does not think of Caste any more,especially the educated.
Mistreatment of some castes are still on in India .It is practiced by some communities,like Kshatriyas(never by a Brahmin) because of old habits.This is also mending.
So called lower castes are also moving up the social order and they are well integrated into the main stream.
However still some way to go.This will happen by literacy alone and not by enacting laws.This will increase the divide into a chasm.
Unlike Race or other Divisions in Society,caste system is not based on Race or creed or language.It was based initially on the Disposition of the individual to perform a task.To day we find Doctors children becoming Doctors,Lawyers offspring as Lawyers( at least in India).Similarly,based on the skillset of the individual,caste system was formed.This has no bearing on birth.Unfortunately many of the systems founded by Hindus were not not understood properly, have been practiced by rote with out reading the texts.
It is a fact that differences between individuals can not be wished away nor one’s feeling of Superiority.This is the Nature of Man.Casteless., people say.But is it feasible or possible?Inequality/divisions will be there in the world;only thing is it shall be known by a different name, like poor and the rich,Party members and common man in Communist countries,Nation Vs Nation,Language Vs Language,Region vs Region, profession Vs profession.
When an individual has a particular disposition or Aptitude and if he is raised in the environment which nurtures it, he/she will realize his/her potential..This is exactly what Caste is all about.
http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/should-india-be-left-to-reform-at-its-own-pace/#comment-167690
Feminist-on cleaning the toilet?!
September 29, 2009 — ramanan50Women, among other things do maintain home.No body does it better.If you want your spouse to help out it is purely a personal problem and not a social one.If you feel your spouse is not doing what you expect him to do, then end the relation ship.Is it what you you want? If relation ship is based on mathematical calculation of division of labor, then Love ceases to have meaning and Family-nothing.Men are good at some things, women are better at some things.Best way for two adults to behave is to understand each other and lead a life, not quibble over cleaning a toilet at home. Hope you do not ask men to conceive and deliver for in a marriage both are equal partners.
http://www.alternet.org/sex/142876/i’m_a_feminist_but_i_do_all_the_housework:_what’s_up_with_that/?cID=1333011#c1333011
Executive Privilege again!
September 29, 2009 — ramanan50“One of the ways that the Bush administration tried to avoid accountability for its serious misconduct in the name of fighting terrorism was the misuse of an evidentiary rule called the state secrets privilege. The Obama administration has essentially embraced the Bush approach in existing cases, trying to toss out important lawsuits alleging kidnapping, torture and unlawful wiretapping without any evidence being presented.”
NYT 28/09/09
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/opinion/29tue1.html
comment;
Cosmetic changes do nor change the scenario.It is only weak Governments that invoke National Security.In these days of instant communication and diligent and burrowing Press and information divulged in official web sites will more than compensate loss of information under security cover.If the government wants to have the illusion that their secrets are safe, despite all this, let them have it.Recall Nixon? More he tried to conceal, more he was entangled.Human Rights excesses under cover of Security must be watched by Press.
Relationships.
September 29, 2009 — ramanan50We find disharmony in relationships.Conflicts between husband and wife,chidren with parents and between friends, at a personal level.
Cause: We expect them to behave the way we want them to behave. When they do not comply, we get upset.
This assumes two premises.1.That the standard of behaviour I have in my mind is Absolute.But, I forget that the Absolute Standard I have in my mind need not neceessrrily be correct.
2.That the Standard I have in mind is acceptable to those around me. I forget that they may have their own standards which may be at variance with ours.Such being the case expecting behaviour acceptable to me is illogical
Again, my behaviour is not perfect or acceptable to those around me,is a fact.
As I do, they also have the privilege to expect a Standard of behaviour from me.That standard is set by them .Do I live upto it? No.
Hence to accept people as they are is the correct approach to avoid discord.Remember,we have been without them at some point of time/we have acquired the relationships only at a certain point of Time.When we have been without them/when they are out of sight, what has been our position?We simply do not bother.
The correct approach is to remember these facts and accept people as they are.
Breast Feeding-Excessive Lactation.
September 30, 2009 — ramanan50Recently my daughter delivered a male child.She has been suffering from excessive lactation and Mastitis,an infection in the breast with soreness,a red patch and feeling of feverishness.
Modern Medicine could not offer her a solution despite various Diet recommendations.Mastitis was treated with antibiotic and it was cured, not excessive lactation.
Home Therapy of applying Jasmine Flowers on the Breast and applying Cabbage Leaves(well cleaned) has brought immediate relief and she is okay now. Jasmine has to be applied separately and so is Cabbage leaves.
I have checked medicine sites through Google on Excessive lactation.Doctors agree to this method.
Corporate Spiritual Gurus INC.
September 30, 2009 — ramanan50It is sickening to find many self styled Gurus who offer you right from Health,Wealth,Self Realisation,Yoga Mukti,Solution for World Problems.These gentlemen offer all this, with a fee ,of course.An International Company is coming ONLINE with Spiritual Solutions!
Some of them say they Teach Art of Living as if the Vedas teach the Science of Death.Hobnobbing with industrial bigwigs, politicians,addressing international forums who probably may not know what it is all about.They comment on Politics , international relations!
The concept of Guru is very high and very noble and He/She is held in high esteem.
There are vaious levels.
Upadhyayay is one who teaches the scriptures and performs regular rituals.
Acharya is one who initiates you in a particular Chapter,Shaka of Veads.
Guru is one who knows your spiritual needs and guides you through out.
A Guru never advertises for Shisyas(Disciples/followers)
They get attracted to him.If a seeker wants a Guru desperately, he will find him.Similarly a Guru shall find a disciple.
Guru does not charge.Vidya/Knowledge must not be sold , according to Scriptures .( so are Medicine, Food and Water)
He shall gladly accept what disciple offers him as a token of love as it were from his son.Even in cases where the Guru asked for Dakshina or fees, it is to demonstrate to the world the Greatness of his disciple.
Do the present Gurus hold a candle to this definition?
Ramana Maharishi, A realized Soul , when asked to initiate a disciple, replied”I can not eat for you;if you want to realize, you have to strive for it”
Bhagwan Sri Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita ‘You( Atman) is your only fiend and He is your only enemy’
Realization must be attained by individual effort, not by book knowledge or by paying Gurus.It calls for Practice(Sadhana) and Vairagya(determination)- Bhagavad Gita.
Guru is essential to your Spiritual need, but not these type of peddlers(imagine if Vedas and Yoga were to have been patented these guys would have been paupers long ago!).Vedas declare ‘If you sincerely seek a Guru, He shall come to you”
An example is Sir Arthur Osboune,who revered Ramana Maharishi as his Guru( though Ramana did not say so)
after desperate search for Guru in India.He even contacted Paramachaya of Kanchi.He told him” I am not your Guru;your Guru is Ramana,you will see him now, but you will not approve of him and go back; you shall return and accept him as your GURU’.It was so.
Where are these Great Souls and where are these jet setting charlatans?
Standardised Tests
October 2, 2009 — ramanan50“LAST week, Education Secretary Arne Duncan acknowledged standardized tests are flawed measures of student progress. But the problem is not so much the tests themselves — it’s the people scoring them.’NYT 27/09/09-TODD FARLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opinion/28farley.html
Comment:
Disagree.All the so called tests are based on general standardized tests arrived at by designing on the basis of general ability of testees for a group with certain parameters like education,parental background,social status, economic back ground, age etc.Based on common points tests are designed and presented to people.They are evaluated.
The issue here is these parameters themselves are interdependent-say economic position on cultural behavior,behavior on economic position,these two on genes or environment;environment is constituted by society and parents and they are dependent on environment, thus forming a vicious cycle. So these tests are at the very best indicative and do not really reflect the the individual for what he is.
In fact ,for example , Personality,Intelligence Perception, Attitudes are not exactly defined.They are open for discussion and no final word has been heard.
Interpretation has a subjective element as well,despite precautions as it can not be wholly eliminated.
On both counts tests are at best only indicative and nothing can replace individual’s evaluation by another matured person(even Maturity has to be defined).Period
Funny words.
September 30, 2009 — ramanan50What about House wife to describe a married woman who is not employed?
Is there an Office wife?(I am not talking about the the office wife).
Only now, in India Home maker is being used instead.Are there Home breakers as well?
Bonus-G 20 aftermath.
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50“A divide has already emerged between Europe and the US over how to implement new Group of 20 rules on bankers’ bonuses, with British banks facing a stricter regime than is likely to apply in the US.” Financial Times 1//10/09
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9c43aaf4-ae01-11de-87e7-00144feabdc0.html
Leaving aside the point of differences between the countries ,the concept of bonus needs rethinking.
Bonus Definition. Additional compensation that is paid as a reward for achieving specific goals or providing above-average performance”.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/business/bonus
As is evident , bonus can not be claimed as a matter of right.Unfortunately fait accompli,it has become a part of standard pay package.If your performance is above average, you get bonus.Else, NO.
What is there to discuss?
Life ,career and money.
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50“WORRIES about job security and the cost of raising children are the primary reasons Australian women are now putting off having a child”-Courier mail
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26033922-5016679,00.html
Saddening.Life is meant to lived.What is the point of making money and building up career, if you can not lead a happy married life with children?One must remember our parents have been able to manage with less.Why not us?Reason is we have unnecessary wants and convince ourselves it is essential.Money is essential.but not at the cost of normal family life.Better people realize it before they grow old.
Medically giving birth after 25 yrs by a woman is not easy for her.
IMF says world economy is recovering!?
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50“A recovery in the world economy is now under way, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday, but it warned there were many obstacles to sustained rapid growth.”
“The IMF is no more optimistic about the medium-term outlook, insisting that growth prospects depend on resolving two difficult challenges: the weaknesses in the global banking system; and the persistent unwillingness of countries with large trade surpluses to boost domestic demand and become motors of world growth.” Financial Times-1/10/09
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ceeff158-ade6-11de-87e7-00144feabdc0.html
Economy is recovering? Unemployment is soaring industries in US and Europe are showing negative growth,there is less demand:still economy is recovering?
Note the two reasons;Weakness in banking is a remark made in passing , though it is a very serious affair.Note no remedial measures are suggested.
Secondly which Nation is not trading surpluses, when all the Nations are crying that there is no demand?
What sort of funny analysis is this?
Pakistan-On withdrawal of US from Afghanistan.
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50“In an interview at the Journal’s offices this week in New York, Pakistan Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi minced no words about the impact of a U.S. withdrawal before the Taliban is defeated. “This will be disastrous,” he said. “You will lose credibility. . . . Who is going to trust you again?” As for Washington’s latest public bout of ambivalence about the war, he added that “the fact that this is being debated—whether to stay or not stay—what sort of signal is that sending?”
-WSJ 1/10/09
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574443352072071822.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
Comment:
Excellent.Pakistan ,on the one hand says not to interfere in Pakistan’s affairs,but would like US to do so in Afghanistan..Pakistan will be affected if US withdraws from Afghanistan?It should be concerned more with home grown terrorists.Again Pakistan created Taliban and Al Qaeda indirectly with US through CIA,It is reaping the consequences.If you can not manage your country,even God can not help yo
“Kids Are a Pain in the Ass”:
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50“People who don’t have kids have more sex, more career success and a far smaller environment footprint than people who do.”- Alternet.
http://www.alternet.org/sex/141798/?cID=1284695#c1284695
Comments:
Even animals tend to nurture their offspring.
Everything in the world is a pain.Living itself is a pain.Shall we commit suicide?
You need people to live with, that is the basic instinct of gregariousness;also desire to propagate one’s own is a basic instinct, granted by Nature, notwthstanding pseudo scientific researches.I can tell you of n number of my friends who happened to be girls, who ,in youth declared that marriage is a pain in the ass and children still worse, now, 30 years later admit they have money, had sex but yearn now for companionship and children.They can’t get it now.Don’t regret later.That is what Life is all about-face challenges and be happy,do not run away from responsibilities..
http://www.alternet.org/sex/141798/?cID=1284695#c1284695
Why US supports Pakistan?
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50Reason for US persisting with the relationship of Pakistan Military is the fear of China.As things stand , China is very close to Pakistan,which is becoming a failed state.Failure of Pak shall give strategic importance to China.India, a stable Democracy and closer to Russia,not always receptive to US’s designs, is not considered as a loyal ally.Pak is being used as a bulwark against China.
Plastic money.
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50“For Americans, Plastic Buys Less”
-NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/travel/04pracchip.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
comment:
Good for Americans and America.You shall spend less money on non essentials.When you use a card, it is merely a signature;when you have cash, you become apprehensive about cash balance and pause before spending.Spending beyond means is the reason for US’s economic woes.
On Extremism.
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50“Recently I was reading a book called “Moral Minds” by Marc Hauser of Harvard. The book is about the underlying grammar of our moral judgments, but in the middle of it, he has a section on honor killings. He describes a killing that took place in Jerusalem in 2001. A guy named Mr. Asasah stood in front of his 32-year-old daughter. She was single and pregnant. Asasah had a noose and an ax and a group of about 30 men and women behind him. He asked his daughter to choose the means of her death. She chose the noose.
He then began strangling his daughter and she did not resist. As he killed her, the audience chanted, “Stronger, stronger, you hero, you have proven that you are not despicable.” After the woman was dead, her mother and sister served coffee to their guests.”
http://theconversation.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/going-to-extremism/?apage=3#comments
Comment:
Extremism is not confined to Islam alone.Christianity, Judaism practiced it.It is born of a feeling of insecurity.It shall pass.
India in Champions Trophy 2009
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50‘It hurts to admit it, but India could learn a lot from Pakistan’Guardian 1/10/09
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/oct/01/india-champions-trophy-pakistan?commentpage=1&commentposted=1
Comment:
Disagree on one point.Despite the margin,the game against Pakistan could have gone either way.Even against Australia,our batting could have matched Australia up to 320 runs.These things do happen.If statistics alone determine matches along with pundits’ opinion, no game is necessary.Beauty is one team may have a day off. That’s all.
Having said that,India lacks Fast bowlers and seamers of international quality.Ishant seems to have run out of steam;RP is a pale shadow of himself,Praveen Kumar ,at best , is a lottery;Nehra is good for first change, but he is susceptible to injuries.Time we unearthed fast/seam bowlers.
Fielding is not up to international standards.These areas need a look into.
Jurassic nest in Tamil Nadu,India.
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50OIMBATORE: Geologists in Tamil Nadu have stumbled upon a Jurassic treasure trove buried in the sands of a river bed. Sheer luck led them to
Geologists in Tamil Nadu discover Dinosaur eggs. hundreds of fossilized dinosaur eggs,
perhaps 65 million years old, underneath a stream in a tiny village in Ariyalur district.-Times of India 1/10/09
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/Indias-Jurassic-nest-dug-up-in-Tamil-Nadu/articleshow/5073985.cms
Comment:
South of Vindhyas, a Great civilization flourished, which is perhaps as old ,if not older than civilization that flourished in north of Vindhyas.This civilization was called Dravida, by Vedic people,,Dravida, meaning South.
Sage Viswamitra, condemned his sons to this area because they objected to him teaching Vedas to a man of lower birth, saying birth does not determine one’s caste.Thase sons reached South; to their astonishment they found a culture equal, if not superior to their own.They were also worshipping Muruga, called Skanda in Veda,Krishna an Maayon,Indra, and Parvati, as Kotravai and most of their customs were every rational.They adopted their culture.Their descendent,Aapasthamba , integrated the best of Vedas and Vedic culture and that of Dravidas and formulated the Apasthamba Sutra, which is practiced more in South India.Interesting to note that mangal Sutra otr Thaali is a concept of Dravidas and not Vedic.Vedic marriages are complete with Panigrahana or handing over the bride symbolically to the groom by handing over the hands of the bride to that of the groom.
Again, special way of wearing Saree , called madisaar, like Brahmain male wearing a dhoti is a Dravidian Concept.
Interaction between people of both culture had been excellent.Chera,Chola and Pandya Kings participated in the Mahabharata War.In fact, a king Prunchotru uduyan Nedun Cheralathan performed Tenth day ceremonies of Duryodhana.
Not surprising to note old fossils are found in Tamil Nadu.We must intensify search in Tamil Nadu to unearth more details of our heritage.
Afghan war won’t be winnable forever.
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50“The conflict in Afghanistan is deteriorating in some ways and will “not remain winnable indefinitely,” the top US military commander in the country warned Thursday.
General Stanley McChrystal added that forces would be in a much stronger position once US President Barack Obama decides on troop levels in Afghanistan, while saying that it would be wrong to rush to make a decision.
“The situation is serious and I choose that word very, very carefully … neither success nor failure can be taken for granted,” said McChrystal, who has asked for up to 40,000 more troops to fight the Taliban.
“The situation is in some ways deteriorating but not in all ways,” he told the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think-tank in London.”
AFP 1/10/09
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hbFZwFB4efpRNLxaa6IT3UdlfLLg
” Not winnable infinitely”
“neither success nor failure can be taken for granted,”
Comment:
Exactly what he is trying to say?
Win or lose?
These gentlemen seem to have a knack of handling English.
What he needs is to send in more troops and he can not guarantee a win-that is what he means.
Nobel Prize-Rethink Necessary.
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50“The Nobel Prize system is dated and in desperate need of an overhaul, a group of top scientists and engineers said today (September 30) in a letter to the Nobel Foundation.” The Scientist-30/09/09
http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56029/#comments
Comments:
Economics seems to be as accurate as weather forecast.This category may be eliminated.
It seems only National Languages seem to be in the reckoning for Literature prize.Why not introduce for all Languages(translated, of course) say Indian Languages, like Telugu,Hindi,Tamil etc? Or is the category already in place?If so it is the best kept secret.
It is also pertinent to announce the practical or theoretical utility of prize winners’ contribution to their field, subsequent to their winning the prize
Bio Technology-Raw Deal..
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50“
But the sheikh, part of the ruling family in Abu Dhabi (capital of The United Arab Emirates), could certainly have done better things with the money. For instance, with the (close to) $1 billion he has spent on Man City he could have bought a decent slice of the biotechnology industry, and it would have been a real steal.”
Scientist.
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/56000/
Bio technology is getting a raw deal.Investment in this sector is vital.Has any one checked the figures for development for Bio tech, vis a vis other Sciences?Awareness is to be created and this is in the hands of Bio tech Professionals.
UK to help Pakistan on Security Body!?
October 2, 2009 — ramanan50“Britain is helping to set up a national security authority in Pakistan to combat terrorism and promote political stability, the BBC has learned.
It will be modelled on terrorism units run by the Home Office and MI5.”-BBC 2.10.09
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8286217.stm
Comment:
Very cute.If your house is burgled, go and stay in the house the robber!
Plight of Immigrant workers-AbuDhabi
October 2, 2009 — ramanan50Abu Dhabi: Sad Island of Happiness-Time
More bad news from Abu Dhabi, the ultra oil-rich sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates.
“Human Rights Watch released a scathing report yesterday accusing the government and authorities responsible for land development of exploiting and abusing migrant workers from South Asia in construction on the Island of Happiness–specifically in the building of imported prestigious institutions that Abu Dhabi intends to showcase there. These include branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums as well as a Middle East campus of New York University. HRW called on the museums and NYU “to show that they will not tolerate or benefit from the gross exploitation.”
http://mideast.blogs.time.com/2009/05/20/abu-dhabi-sad-island-of-happiness/#add-your-comment
Comment:
Why AbuDhabi alone?Dubai and Sharjah is no better.”Open to constructive criticism”-you don’t allow free Speech-where is the question of constructive criticism?
Fact is immigrant workers are treated worse than animals.They can not even freely talk in public,let alone air their sufferings in public.Any complaint brought to the notice of the police draws a threat that you will be charged with’possessing narcotics”-which carries a heavy penalty.Two solutions-people should stop migrating there(those over there can not do any thing by themselves);the other to boycott their products.
Rape and Law.
October 2, 2009 — ramanan50“How often do women falsely cry rape? Because of the 18-year-old Hofstra student who recanted after telling police that five men had tricked her into a bathroom and then gang raped her two weeks ago, that question has been flying around the Internet. As Cathy Young notes in Newsday, the answers often fall into one of two camps. “Many feminists argue that the problem of false accusations is so minuscule that to discuss it extensively is a harmful distraction from the far more serious problem of rape. On the other side are men’s-rights activists, claiming that false accusations are as much of a scourge as rape itself.”www.slate.com
http://www.slate.com/id/2231012/
It is a matter of serious concern charges of rape are increasing and also false rape charges.
Crux of the issue is defining Rape.
Legal definitions vary widely from fondling,mere obscene gesture(attempt to molest), penetration, ejaculation by male etc…
Even in the case of penetration, it can not be definitely ascertained whether it was consensual or not.A woman may change her mind after the act and declare it is not consensual with an ulterior motive.l.How do we know the Truth?
Punishment meted out,in civil societies is harsh not to speak of Fundamentalist countries.
“Legal scholars used to be routinely suspicious of rape victims. “Surely the simplest, and perhaps the most important, reason not to permit conviction for rape on the uncorroborated word of the prosecutrix is that the word is very often false,”( same article)
Being a very sensitive subject, this view is most sensible ;still better would be for men to behave like decent human beings and for women to be less provocative in matters of dress and behavior and be honest while pressing rape charges.Value system of the society in terms family and attachment shall bring in the necessary change.
Racism in Australia.
October 9, 2009 — ramanan50‘JULIA Gillard has defended the Hey Hey It’s Saturday blackface skit, saying it was done with good intent.
The deputy Prime Minister, who is in the United States at the moment, said Hey Hey skits had always been done in the right spirit.’
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/comments/0,,26186302-952,00.html
“I think Hey Hey It’s Saturday in its heyday was known for a sense of humour, obviously I think whatever happened was meant to be humourous and would be taken in that spirit by most Australians,” Ms Gillard said.
Comment:
Well intentioned or not,it definitely hurts.Freedom of expression does nor mean licence to hurt others and apologizing later.Rightly or wrongly Australia is branded as racist(remember,Muttiah Muralidharan and other coloreds’ treatment in the cricket matches in Australia?).Combine this with attacks on Indians in Australia.What message does it convey?Some lumpen elements or some individuals , for the sake of money should never indulge in things that affects the name of the Nation.One must also recall the hue and cry raised over Andrew Symonds ‘monkey episode’?Why was a hue and cry then-people could have taken it as a joke.
Posted by: S.V.Ramanan of Bangalore 1:17pm today
N(obel) Obama
October 9, 2009 — ramanan50For the first time the Nobel Committee redeemed itself by awarding the Nobel to Obama,who demonstrates that to be engaged in peace and consensus is to prevent war rather than to be prepared for war is to ensure peace.
His firm, yet non dogmatic approach to North Korea ,Iran ;his slow and steady march to unentangle US from the quagmire of Iraq,not easily committing to troop increase in Afghanistan,his firm, yet reconciliatory message to Pakistan,firm approach to China,attempting to build bridges with Russia,respecting EU, not treating UK as a vassal state of the US,not trying to promote tin pot dictatorship through out the world,not engaging Hugo Chavez in unnecessary war of words,treating French President’s childish out bursts with good humor, promoting ties with India, the largest democracy of the world, reaching to non Muslims and Muslims with equal candor ,not flexing US muscle at the drop of a hat,sacking US diplomat for unseemly intrusion into Afghan affairs-all this display the skill and dexterity of a statesman who believes in what he thinks as best for the world.
May God Bless his efforts and thank you, Nobel.
Funding Opportunities and Advice-Science Funding.
October 10, 2009 — ramanan50The House Subcommittee on Research and Science Education held a meeting today (Thursday, Oct. 8th) to discuss investing in more high-risk, high-reward research. The NIH wasn’t at the meeting, but Neal Lane from Rice University, representing the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, James Collins from NSF, Richard McCullough from Carnegie Mellon University, and Gerald Rubin from HHMI were there to tell members of Congress about why the US needs to invest more money in high-risk, high-reward research and how to go about distributing it. When I listened in on the hearing, one thing especially surprised me: needed to push their proposals Congressman Vern Ehlers (Mich-R) asked how agencies could increase grants to young scientists under these new funding initiatives since they often lack the experience and credibility through the application process. To me, this suggests that young researchers are by definition high-risk high-reward.
It all left me wondering: this term is thrown around a lot, but what exactly does “high-risk, high-reward” mean? In the hearing they defined it as the National Science Board does – “unique ideas and sometimes unconventional approaches that have the potential to create new models or fields within science and engineering or radically change our understanding of a current concept.” But that’s a bit broad, no?
Do you think funding bodies — and Congress — need a better definition of “high-risk, high-reward” research? Where do young researchers fit into that definition?’
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/0/692.page#3602
-The Scientist.
Comment:
What is this -High Risk ,High Rewards? Are we thinking in terms of running a business corporation?In Science, especially in Theory aspect of it, it needs time to collate facts after a general Premise, find individual cases, ,create conditions,conduct experiments and provide proof.You can not, at one shot, form a theory and prove it instantly.
This is not a joke and jokers a.k.a politicians are not qualified to decide on this issue.Panel of eminent academics may examine the soundness of the theory, on case to case basis( as new theories may not be in consonance with existing theories) and recommend what to choose and proceed.
Age has no relevance in Science.
Healthy Diet.
October 12, 2009 — ramanan501. Drink eight glasses of water a day.
2. Include two vegetables and one fruit in every meal.
3. Begin each meal with a raw vegetable salad.
4. Make a light snack of assorted sprouts.
5. Start the day with a glass of warm water and a dash of lime..
6. Use only fresh vegetables.
7. Once a week have only fresh fruits until noon, make lunch the first meal of the day.
8. Eat only freshly cooked meals, not refrigerated leftovers.
9. Include one green vegetable and one yellow vegetable in every meal.
10. Go on a juice fast for a day. Start with vegetable juice, and sip fruit for lunch and dinner.
11. Kick the old coffee habit. Have a glass of fresh fruit juice instead.
12. Cut out all deep-fried foods from your diet.
13. Cut down on high sugar products like soft drinks, ice-cream, candy and cookies in your diet.
14. Never skip a meal, even if you’re on a diet. Eat a fresh fruit or have vegetable juice instead.
15. Avoid beverages like soda, coffee, colas and so on.
16. Include high fiber foods and plenty of fruits, vegetables and grains – in planning your diet.
17. Use salt in moderation
18. Wash vegetables thoroughly in clean water before chopping.
19. Stream or boil vegetables (rather than fry or saute).
20. Retain peels of potato, cucumber, carrot and tomato while cooking.
21. Do take a moment off to mentally list out the nutritional value of the food you’re about to eat.
22. Don’t rush through your meals. Set aside enough time to appreciate, enjoy and digest your food.
23. Make every meal an enjoyable experience. Set dishes out attractively and chew slowly to appreciate the full flavor of the foods you eat.
24. Choose to be radiantly healthy. Keep yourself informed about the nutritive value of every food you buy.
25. Shop for groceries yourself. Notice the look, feel and smell of fresh fruit and vegetables and enjoy their intrinsic goodness.
26. Watch out for eating habits paired with emotional states, like reaching for a chocolate when you are depressed. Resist the urge and eat fruit instead.
27. Eat popcorn (rather than chips) while watching a movie.
28. Sit at the table at meal times. Don’t read the paper or review bills while eating.
29. Make it a point to have dinner with the entire family at the table, and not in front of the TV.
30. Eat just to the point of the fullness. Don’t stuff yourself!
31. Stop smoking.
32. Restrict alcohol consumption.
33. Get a good night’s sleep, every night.
4. Enroll today in an exercise programme.
35. Take a brisk, 20 minute invigorating walk each morning.
36. Spend 10 minutes every morning and evening doing basic stretches.
37. Do not use elevators when you can climb the stairs.
38. Focus on your breathing. Take a deep breath, then exhale slowly. Repeat a couple of times a day.
40. Learn to relax. Spend 20 minutes consciously relaxing each muscle of your body.
41. Spend 20 minutes a day in silent meditation, prayer or contemplation.
42. Learn the healing power of laughter. Watch a crazy movie, recall a joke or read a funny book and laugh out loud.
43. Tap the powers of your sub-conscious. Relax your body for 20 minutes and project the Perfect You’re on your mind screen.
44. Balance your lifestyle. Devote equal time each week to work and fun.
45. Join kids in a sports activity and rediscover the joys of childhood.
46. Do keep in touch with friends. Call up or visit them and be at peace with the world.
47. Enroll in an activity (like dancing, swimming or roller skating…) you never indulged in because you were afraid of what people might say.
48. Forgive someone who you think has done you wrong and cleanse your spirit of rancor.
9. Do a nice turn to someone you don’t know too well, but who could do with a friend.
50. Spend a quiet half-hour chatting with your family.
51. Listen to soothing music for 15 minutes at least each day.
52. Read a great book once a week.
International Force in Pakistan?
October 12, 2009 — ramanan50Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said the attack on the base in Rawalpindi – close to the capital Islamabad – offered “another reminder that extremists . . . are increasingly threatening the authority of the state”. But she added: “We see no evidence they are going to take over.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c31b842-b692-11de-8a28-00144feab49a.html
Comment:
Notwithstanding semantics,the bottom line is Pakistan is a failed state,which can not run its affairs.Too many power centers,ISI,Army,Civilian Government(?),Taliban,Al Qaeda; it does not know who to take orders from.Under the circumstances, it is in the interest of the world, an international force may be kept in Pakistan and help what is left of Civil Government ,save Pakistan and the world.
Jewish Hitlers!
October 12, 2009 — ramanan50‘Following intense U.S. and Israeli pressure, the PA withdrew its hitherto strong support for the report at the beginning of the week. The UN Security Council vote has now been postponed until March next year.’
Israel had repeatedly warned the PA that if it continued to support Goldstone’s report it would withdraw permission for a second cellular telephone company to be established in the West Bank, an issue of critical economic importance to the PA leadership and to the civilian infrastructure of the West Bank.
Shalom Kital, an aide to Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak, said that Israel would not release a share of the radio frequency it had promised the PA unless the latter dropped its efforts to put Israeli soldiers and officers in the dock over the Gaza attacks.
“It’s a condition. We are saying to the Palestinians that if you want a normal life and are trying to embark on a new way, you must stop your incitement,” said Kital.
“We are helping the Palestinian economy but one thing we ask them is to stop with these embarrassing charges,” Kital added, referring to the UN war crime charges.
Israeli Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi also conditioned his support for the establishment of Wataniya, the second telephone company, on PA withdrawal of support for the Goldstone report and a possible UN resolution
Comment:
If this is not suppression of Human what else is?People who harp on Holocaust should remember that it it was precisely the same type of action Hitler started with,calling for Lebensraum Strom(living space) that led to hounding of Jews.Do Jews want to do this to the Palestinians?
If so, they forfeit the World’s sympathy for them and they have no moral right to moan over Final Solution.In what way the present action of Israel is different from Hitler’s?Because you control US, this audacity and arrogance!.One must remember to respect other human beings, especially those who have suffered the same indignity.
Afghanistan-Middle Way?
October 13, 2009 — ramanan50“While the two obvious options – to back General McChrystal’s Iraq-like surge with its nation-building goals, or to scale back to a small counter-terrorism force that adopts a policing stance aimed at protecting American interests – are dominating the debate, Mr Obama and some of his advisers are searching for a middle way, which could involve strategic military support for fighting the twin enemies of the Taliban and al-Qa’ida, conditional support to the government of Hamid Karzai – who is reeling from well-documented allegations of systemic rorting of the recent presidential elections – and significantly boosting aid for neighbouring Pakistan.
-Courier Mail Australia-13 Oct 2009
“
Comment:
Middle way is no solution.War on terrorism can not be fought on in another country short of taking over the country.Correct option would be to supply materials , both military and economic, provided there is a civilian Govt. with its heart in wiping terrorism.And shore up your Nation’s security.
Eating Meat May Cause Sickness, Paralysis and Death.
October 16, 2009 — ramanan50Published in AlertNet
By Tom Laskawy, Grist.org. Posted October 12, 2009.
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/143136/warning:_eating_meat_may_cause_sickness,_paralysis_and_death/?page=entire
This year almost half a million pounds of E. coli infected beef have been recalled and sadly the government is far more concerned with protecting companies than public health.
It’s hard to draw any other conclusion from Michael Moss’s New York Times blockbuster investigative piece on E. coli in industrial beef, which is centered on the plight of Stephanie Smith, a young dance instructor left comatose, near death and now paralyzed from eating a single Cargill hamburger. Of course, a “single hamburger” can include meat from hundreds, some would say thousands, of animals. As Moss puts it:
Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen.
This is why a food safety expert who helped develop tracking systems for E. coli in meat can declare that, “Ground beef is not a completely safe product.” No kidding. The problem, however, is not with E. coli in general. The problem is that the particular strain of E. coli which infected Smith — known as E. coli O157:H7 — is virulent, deadly, persistent and endemic in industrial beef. How virulent, deadly and persistent? This much:
Food scientists have registered increasing concern about the virulence of this pathogen since only a few stray cells can make someone sick, and they warn that federal guidance to cook meat thoroughly and to wash up afterward is not sufficient. A test by The Times found that the safe handling instructions are not enough to prevent the bacteria from spreading in the kitchen.
In other words, if a piece of infected meat ends up in your kitchen, you are almost guaranteed exposure to it no matter how carefully you handle it. And how endemic? This year alone almost half a million pounds of E. coli infected ground beef have been recalled nationwide (and that doesn’t include the 800,000 pounds of Cargill beef recalled for contamination with antibiotic-resistant salmonella). Indeed, if Moss’s work proves anything, it’s that the safety systems in industrial beef processing are both barely functioning and almost fully opaque. And while the government is able to peek behind the curtain at these massive slaughterhouses and processing facilities, it seems far more concerned with protecting companies’ intellectual property than with the public health:
The meat industry treats much of its practices and the ingredients in ground beef as trade secrets. While the Department of Agriculture has inspectors posted in plants and has access to production records, it also guards those secrets. Federal records released by the department through the Freedom of Information Act blacked out details of Cargill’s grinding operation that could be learned only through copies of the documents obtained from other sources. Those documents illustrate the restrained approach to enforcement by a department whose missions include ensuring meat safety and promoting agriculture markets.
In one of the most chilling, and I thought devastating, quotes in the entire piece, a top official at the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service observed that his options were somewhat limited since he had to “look at the entire industry, not just what is best for public health.” Note the fact that his phrasing sets the meat industry’s needs at odds with ours — the two can’t be reconciled in his eyes. What does that say about the government’s ability to ensure a safe food supply? No matter how you structure it, the industry now appears too big and too powerful to be regulated. What other explanation is there for the fact that the top food safety job at the USDA remains unfilled if not regulatory paralysis — the meat industry seems to have veto power over its regulators and hasn’t found a federal overseer to its liking.
One area that Moss does not cover is how E. coli O157 got into industrial beef in the first place. In fact it’s there because of the meat industry’s insistence on feeding cows corn — something they cannot easily digest — instead of grass. Among other things, corn feeding requires cows to be fed a steady dose of antibiotics, which has led to the rise of antibiotic resistance among various pathogens. But more importantly, it has caused very real changes in the cow’s gut which has allowed this toxic strain of E. coli to take hold, a strain that research suggests cannot survive in the gut of cows that eat only grass.
In short, E. coli didn’t just “happen” to the meat industry — it’s a consequence of industrial practices. But nowhere in the article (or in the halls of the USDA or the largescale beef producers for that matter) is the possibility of moving away from this corn-based system raised as a solution for the industrial system. Surprisingly, the article includes virtually no proposed solutions for this crisis — just vague assurances that the USDA isn’t “standing still” on the issue. In reality, the industry focuses exclusively on “managing” the ongoing presence of E. coli O157 though the development of an E. coli vaccine for cows, and irradiation or chemical washes for the meat. All of which are attempts to mask the risks of a failed system and represent an institutionalizing of the underlying failures. And none of which make me ever want to touch industrial meat again.
Indeed, if there ever was a powerful argument for eating only grass-fed beef from small producers, this article is it. The only conclusion worth drawing from this expose is that industrial ground beef simply isn’t worth the risk. And without wholesale industry and regulatory reform — neither of which appears likely or even possible, it may never be.
Comment:
When one eats nen vegetarian food,the animal proteins are converted into vegetable proteins and only then is ingested by human system.Why then go for non veg. food?
Remember, animal’s meat ,which we eat, gain their nourishment from vegetables and grass.
Why don’t we go to the source as animals do?
Also meat has a chance of being infected as is evidenced in this case.
Feminism and Happiness-funny study.
October 15, 2009 — ramanan50‘Much-discussed study claims that women are more depressed relative to men in recent decades, when it actually suggests that neither marriage nor children make women happy.’
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/143260/ridiculous_study_blames_feminism_for_non-existent_’happiness_gap’_between_men_and_women_/?page=2
Comment:
1.What is the age of the Groups selected for study?If they are in before in early thirties, then your results are skewed.You need to take age group of 40+ to assess what their feminism has brought them.It will be a revelation.
2.Happiness is subjective and can , by no stretch of imagination can be measured qualitatively.Any qualified Psychologist will tell you that.
3.Drop in suicide rates need not necessarily indicate feminism as the cause.
4. Finally if marriage and children do not give them happiness , what gives them Happiness?Career,Money? excellent!? When your bones become weak, you will know for certain.
Pseudo studies like this are harmful to individual and society.
Maureen Dowd!-Stick to plagiarism.Or is this also some body’s view.?
GOD PARTICLE.
October 15, 2009 — ramanan50‘The great quantum physicist Niels Bohr once said a colleague’s new theory was crazy, but perhaps not crazy enough to be correct. Two scientists seem to have taken that approach to heart when they speculated that God may have shut down the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva to keep it from discovering the elusive “God particle.”’
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/
Comments.
Even based on Theory of Relativity, if one has to observe particles traveling at a higher velocity than the velocity of light the plane of the observer changes;else he can not notice the change.He has to change his plane.This is also borne out of Quantum theory which postulates simultaneous existence of multi verses , which means an event that we see/perceive is happening Right now and also has happened and shall happen in the future(with reference to our time Frame).
As such any attempt to observe velocities of particles at speeds which we are not equipped to observe because of our limitations of Space and time,either the experiment shall not fructify or we can not understand the results.First stated has now happened.
This has been explained in Hindu philosophy in detail( Please refer my Blog on Time -Non -Linear theory).
Senate Committee Approves Health Reform Bill
October 15, 2009 — ramanan50‘Negotiations on what elements to include in the merged version of the Senate bill will be hammered out by members of the HELP and Finance committees and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sources say.’
http://hrnewsnow.com/?p=612&cpage=1#comment-240
Comment:
Only cause for concern is how a new governmental agency shall handle the whole operation.In India , though the intentions are good, Govt operations are notoriously corrupt and time wasting.
Secondly,clauses must be incorporated to fix a ceiling/review of charges by Doctors , Hospitals and cost of drugs.Possible a cap may be put , subject to review once in five years.
Leave the Child Be.
October 16, 2009 — ramanan50‘Children should not start formal learning until they are six, a review of primary education in England says.
Instead they should continue the kind of play-based learning that features in nursery schools and reception classes, the Cambridge Primary Review says.
There is no evidence that an early introduction to formal learning has any benefit, the review says, but there are suggestions it can do some harm.’BBC 15 Oct 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8309153.stm
Comment:
True.Children , who are placed in scholl,when thwy should be enjoying themselves and exploring what they like arenot best served by admitting themto school early.
Much of this has to do is parents’ unwillingness to shoulder responsibility while they they chase money for their comforts.
Let the child be.
US banks’ profits beat forecasts.-Cooking Books?
October 16, 2009 — ramanan50‘
Two major Wall Street banks have reported better-than-expected profits between July and September.
Goldman Sachs’ profits for the period were $3.19bn (£1.96bn), a four-fold increase from the same period in 2008.
It has set aside $5.35bn to cover pay and bonuses for the quarter, an average payout of $172,581 per worker.’ BBC 15 Oct 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8309153.stm
Have thse Banks been projecting losses to get bail out earlier or are they cooking books now?
Uganda MP urges death for gay sex .
October 16, 2009 — ramanan50“A Ugandan MP has proposed creating an offence of “aggravated homosexuality” to be punishable by death.
Ruling party MP David Bahati wants the death penalty for those having gay sex with disabled people, under-18s or when the accused is HIV-positive.
Homosexual acts are already illegal, but the Anti-Homosexuality Bill proposes new offences and urges the toughening of existing penalties.”
“Members of parliament are overwhelmingly supporting this bill because homosexuality is illegal “-John Otekat Emile
Independent MP-BBC 15 Oct 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8308912.stm?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Comment:
Totally inhuman.Homosexuals need understanding and medical and psychiatric help.
The Art of Defying Death.
October 16, 2009 — ramanan50‘On a misty spring night in 2005, I approached my apartment, on a tony block on the Upper West Side facing the Hudson. I felt relaxed and calm. Earlier that day I had attended a yoga workshop with a guru from India, then completed a writing assignment for a health and spirituality magazine about, as it happened, instinct — or antar-jñana, inner knowledge. I opened the outer door to my vestibule, then crossed through its inner door and into my lobby, leaving my back to the entrance. I got a prickly feeling, I don’t know why. I turned. There I saw, pushing open the inner door, an ink-black, gloved hand, exaggeratedly large, controlled and deliberate. It charged toward me. It was trailed by a body, the picture of death.’ NYT 14 Oct 2009
http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/the-art-of-defying-death/#comment-23701
Comment:
We do not think of Death normally as we are afraid to face its inevitability.Once we know that it is inevitable, our life, our ambitions and plans are fragile and shall end in a micro second ,we shall learn to be humble and more humane.We shall be thankful for what we have and not whine over what we imagine we do not have.
Purpose of Yoga is to possess equanimity both under pleasant and unpleasant circumstances,not conquering the fear of Death, for it is inevitable.
Bank of America reports $1bn loss.
October 16, 2009 — ramanan50May be Bankof America doesnot know how to cook books!they should learn from Goldman Sachs.
Story:
‘Bank of America, the largest US bank by deposits, on Friday said it had lost $1bn in the third quarter as weakened consumers continued to translate into credit losses.’
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/263220e0-ba43-11de-9dd7-00144feab49a.html
China Surrounds India.
October 16, 2009 — ramanan50China has been quietly building a pressure area in the NorthEastern part of India,While encouraging Myanmar in its dictatorial ways,it is masterminding naxal/maoist activity in India, which extends from the North Eastern corridor of India, starting from Nagaland,Manipur,West Bengal,Assam,parts of Orissa,Chattisgarh,parts of Bihar,MP,UP,DANDAKAKARANYA,COASTAL BELT OF ANDHRA,EXTENDING TO NORTHERN PART OF TAMIL NADU( DHARMAPURI)Parts of Maharashtra and North Karnatka are also in the ring.
It is also laying claims to Arunachal pradesh ,which has no link what so ever with China,either geographically or culturally,stating that it does not recognise Mac Mohan Line.And now it is building a bridge across Brahmaputra.It is also controlling Maoists in Nepal.Its anti India rhetoric is shrill now.
India is being slowly surrounded.
The Govt. of India has not understood to the gravity of the situation and is pussyfooting with China.The insurgency of Maoists is far more serious and much more difficult to contain than Taliban.This shall become a festering flashpoint in the world map shortly, unless India and world powers wake up.
STORY.
While increasingly distrustful of China’s intentions, the government here on Thursday refrained from questioning Beijing’s denial that it
was engaged in constructing a dam on Brahmaputra which could impact ecology in the northeastern states.
Story;
‘Reacting to a fresh report questioning China’s denial, the MEA here said, “India and China agreed in November 2006 to establish an Expert Level Mechanism to discuss trans-border river issues in an institutional way. Three meetings have been held so far…. The Chinese side has categorically denied that there is a plan to build any such large scale diversion project on the Brahmaputra river.”
However, it said the government would “ascertain whether there are recent developments that suggest any change in the position conveyed to us by the government of China”.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-to-check-if-China-is-building-Brahmaputra-dam/articleshow/5129067.cms
Stop Guzzling Water.
October 17, 2009 — ramanan50Water scarcity looms large.Future wars will be fought for water.Are we justified in guzzling water like this?
Story;
Set in the desert of Dubai, the Tiger Woods Golf Course uses 4 million gallons of water every day to maintain its lush appearance.
Since 1950, water usage in the United States has risen 127 percent.
Even though each person only requires 48 liters of water on a daily basis, individuals in the United States use an average of 500 liters, those in Canada an average of 300 liters and those in England an average of 200 liters.
Of all the water that enters each household, about 95% of it ends up down the drain.
With access to just 5 liters of water each day, more than a billion people in water poor regions around the globe survive on the same amount used to flush a toilet or take a 5-minute shower.
If you shorten your showers by just a single minute, you can save approximately 700 gallons of water in a month.
Letting the tap run when you brush your teeth wastes up to 4 gallons of water every time.
It takes an average of 300 gallons to water your lawn. During the summer, this can account for almost half of your water usage.
Every time you throw your clothes in the washer, you use about 50 gallons of water.
Another wasteful desert endeavor, the proposed Waveyards water park in Mesa, Arizona will require up to 100 million gallons of groundwater every year in an area that receives a mere 8 inches of rainfall in that time.
http://www.alternet.org/water/143275/10_amazing_facts_about_worldwide_water_use/
Control your Weight-Tips.
October 17, 2009 — ramanan501. Substitute Water. Our bodies are about 65-70% water. It follows that water would be not only essential, but the best possibly choice of liquids to ingest. In fact, our bodies will sometimes simulate a hunger response, when in reality the body is craving hydration. When hungry, drink a glass or two of water to check if it suppresses your hunger.
2. Chew Your Food. Chewing our food very slowly and deliberately has several benefits that are often overlooked. It gives us the ability to relax, and enjoy our meal. Slow chewing is the first, and highly important, step in a complex system of digestion. Besides, if we eat slowly, we might feel full before finishing the whole meal, and can leave the rest for the next meal.
3. Exercise daily. How silly of me to include something as obvious as exercise. I did a 30 day trial with waking up, and walking for 30 minutes first thing in the morning. My journal records that I was feeling amazing during the period of time that I was following this habit.
4. Publicize your intentions. Start a blog, join a forum, and have other people keep you accountable to help. Tell other people your plan, it would help you get the motivation to go with it!
5. Create a food schedule. Plan your day so that you’re eating at approximately the same time each day. This scheduling will incorporate itself into your circadian rhythm, and aid in digestion.
6. Do not over eat. Know your limit and stop eating when you are full. I have often been a victim of wanting to finish a meal so that it doesn’t go to waste. This has left me with many a stomach ache. Next time, doggy bag it for later, and don’t hurt yourself!
7. Choose your snacks wisely. Put down the Lays® and cheese puffs. Pick up the apple and baby carrots. Make the right decision, I know you can do it.
8. Lifestyle. Remember, it’s not about special diets, or special exercise programs. The real secret is in turning your health into a lifestyle, and focusing on this healthy lifestyle with every choice you make.
Meghan McCain: ‘Don’t call me a slut’
October 17, 2009 — ramanan50Family, the Fundamental Unit, if not nurtured properly, with proper value systems of what is Right and Wrong,especially by women,shall lead to Social Decay, the symptoms of which are high rates of divorce,single parents,increased number of orphanages,old age homes,Gay/Lesbian marriages,broken homes and listless children with none to guide them,all in ther name of Individual Freedom.
What is being questioned with derision as moral uprightness is the bulwark of a sound Society and the saviour of individual emotional well being
What is most painful is the assertion of a young woman of 24,declaring ‘what is wrong/I have not even exposed my nipple”
Hope the woman has the guts to show the photo to her grown up son/or daughter( if she chooses to have one) and be not be embarassed.
Well,if she feels she will not be embarassed,then May God save the Society.
Story.(CNN political Ticker)
“The 24-year old daughter of Arizona Sen. John McCain didn’t address the matter in more detail on her twitter account Thursday, but in a new column on the Web Site The Daily Beast — entitled Don’t Call Me a Slut — she lashes out at the national media’s scrutiny of the whole flap.
Earlier: Meghan McCain runs into backlash over photograph
“I spent most of the next day thinking about what exactly was so shocking about the picture, why there was such an immediate and nasty overreaction,” McCain writes. “After all, it’s not like I was caught making a sex tape. I certainly didn’t pose nude for Playboy. And I hadn’t even exposed a nipple.”
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/16/meghan-mccain-dont-call-me-a-slut/#comments
Obama-Has he brought Racism to the fore?
October 17, 2009 — ramanan50Racism issue has surfaced in US, subsequent to the election of Obama as President of US.
The truth is that Racism has not been eradicated from the minds of people.While trying to wish away the issue,let us not forget to question ourselves honestly-has it left US? Definitely not from the mind, not for at least a section of US population.There is nothing to worry about this for what has been in existence for quite a long period of time can not be undone in a few decades.Scars remain both on the Whites and the Blacks; as a simmering agony for the latter and as an embarassment for the other.It takes time to heal ,provided US goes about the way it has been so far.One has to be patient.The present generation does not and shall not distinquish between races(always there are some fanatic elements)That is a good sign.
Carter’s statement on this issue has sparked a serious debate.’Conspiracy of silence’ on the racial issue may sound nice for short term benefit but in the long run is not good.By speaking out Carter has expressed what others have been afraid of speaking out.This will result in a catharisis for the better.
Blacks , must alo let begones be begones and integrate with the white and whites must not feel guilty for what their forefathers did, for recriminations on either side, shall bleed open the wounds.
Lumpen elements who misuse the occasion, both white and Black, should be dealt by Law to the letter.
Story.
… in Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, “Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,” and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he’s white. Newsweek magazine told us this. We know that white students are destroying civility on buses, white students destroying civility in classrooms all over America, white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives. — Rush Limbaugh,
Sept. 15, 2009
Ever the statesman, and often candid to a political fault, former President Jimmy Carter said recently that much of the animosity directed toward President Barack Obama is “based on the fact that he is a black man.”
http://www.alternet.org/story/143153/why_conservatives_are_really_afraid_of_a_black_president_
Pakistan launches Taliban assault !!!
October 18, 2009 — ramanan50This country, Pakistan, can not contorl insurgengy on its own soil-is this country bragging that it can take on India?-Also is this going to be a bulwark against China (in US peception).Sans US and China,Pakistan is Zero as a state both economically and militarily.
They keep on fighting Taliban forever!
Story:
”Fierce fighting has broken out as Pakistan’s army launched an air and ground offensive against Taliban militants in the South Waziristan area.’ BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8311927.stm
Universal Prayer.
October 18, 2009 — ramanan50All of us,including the plants,animals and inanimate beings(we think they are inanimate), are from God/Nature/Holy FatherAllah.
Praying for the welfare of all these is the proper Prayer.
“God is all encompassing and is full.The Universe is full,having come from Him.Having come from the Full,Full Remains.Even if after taking full(Universe) the Full( God) remains full.Let there be Peace , Peace ,Peace.
(Santhi Mantra of Isa and Brhadaranyaka Upanishad)
* For those who feelthat how full can remain fulll after taking full out of it-if you share your knowledge,after having done so,your Knowledge remains the same( full) and the one to whom you have imparted also has the Knowledge in full.
US- Ideal Brand.
October 18, 2009 — ramanan50<em>Realistic assessment, not only of Obama , but US as well.US,many of its citizens may not know, is looked upon as a modelof Democracy and Freedom,not with standing the corruption and shenanigans of Politicians.Its ideals are noble.Its execution had a few aberrations, not because the people nor because of lack of ideals or humaneness, but because of self seeking selfish politicians and double guessing the perceived opponents in the world, by seeing them through the prism of US’s ideology.Though well meaning and good at heart the way US goes about helping other Nations,has angered the people world over,even to the extent of hating US, overlooking the help it has rendered to the world.At the same time bull dozing its way with out consensus, treating other Nations as less than equals,though unintentional, has produced anti americanism.
Comes Obama, with his candour,probably after JFK,speaking from the heart and reaching out to people of the world,without preaching,seeking consensus and not confrontation.
A dream called America, can still light the world, that is what we, Non-Americans, hope.Obama seems to be the the one to light .
Story.
‘The millennium goals, for those of you who don’t know, are a persistent nag of a noble, global compact. They’re a set of commitments we all made nine years ago whose goal is to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Barack Obama wasn’t there in 2000, but he’s there now. Indeed he’s gone further — all the way, in fact. Halve it, he says, then end it.
Many have spoken about the need for a rebranding of America. Rebrand, restart, reboot. In my view these 36 words, alongside the administration’s approach to fighting nuclear proliferation and climate change, improving relations in the Middle East and, by the way, creating jobs and providing health care at home, are rebranding in action.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/opinion/18bono.html
I had a car.
October 18, 2009 — ramanan50I had been dreaming about buying a car for quite some time.Wanted to have the latest model, with State of the art music system,Radial Dial,air -conditioned , automatic gear et al.I slogged, saved ,borrowed and bought one.
The joy of owning a car and showing it off to others was a thrilling experiece.
Time went by.
Every day I had to attend to the car to maintain it;ihad to crawl in the rush hour; find parking space, often the parts needed replacements;needed to renew insurance; has to plan loan repayment,had to avoid parking tickets.
It was too much.
I appointed a driver.
I was not sure as to when he shall report sick;nor could I anticipate when he will involve the car in an accident;nor how he would gyp me on gas.
I had to worry about loan repayments .
One fine day I decided to do away with the car.
No longer I needed to worry about the car, its maintanence, gas bills, loan repayment,no worries on finding a parking space,no fear of Police on Parking tickests,no question of managing a driver.
I am free.
Kerry: Obama would be ‘irresponsible’ to send more troops to Afghanistan now.
October 18, 2009 — ramanan50McChrystal stated earlier that’the war is not unwinnable’-euphemism for CAN NOT WIN and wanted additional forces.
Fact is ,you can not win a war in a country, which itself, as they are mingled with the local civilains, can not identify who the adverseries are,whose politics is in a turmoil,authority is eroded,in whose history no foreign forces have tasted vicory and in some cases,like the erstwhile USSR, had to face internal turmoil.
Statesmanshipis about doing what is Right for the country.
Quit before it is too late.
Story.
WASHINGTON (CNN)– Sen. John Kerry cautioned President Obama Saturday against raising troop levels in Afghanistan, saying it would be “entirely irresponsible” to do so while the Afghan government remains in turmoil following national elections.
“It would be entirely irresponsible for the president of the United States to commit more troops to this country, when we don’t even have an election finished and know who the president is and what kind of government we’re working in, with,” Kerry told CNN’s John King in an interview set to air Sunday at 9 a.m. on State of The Union.
Speaking from Afghanistan, Kerry, who is Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the U.S. should listen to the advice of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in that country.
“When our own, you know, commanding general tells us that a critical component of achieving our mission here is, in fact, good governance, and we’re living with a government that we know has to change and provide it, how could the president responsibly say, oh, they asked for more, sure, here they are?,” Kerry said.,
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/17/kerry-obama-would-be-irresponsible-to-send-more-troops-to-afghanistan-now/
The Reality Moment-US Economy.
October 18, 2009 — ramanan50US economy has been built on spending beyond means at the individual level.Normally people save for the future; in US people spend for the future;they pile debts in anticipation of income.Prudence calls for savings, not increase in wants.Why blame the Government?It is National Character.Unless people in US start spending on essentilas,reduce consumerism, stop collecting junk as possessions,stop using plastic money,they can be sure that the worse is yet to come.
Story.
‘That which can’t continue doesn’t. A nation can spend and spend, pile debt upon debt, but eventually there comes a reality moment when some leader emerges to say enough is enough and when decent people, looking around at themselves and their own best nature, respond by demanding a return to responsibility’.-NYT 16 Oct
2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/opinion/16brooks.html?bl
Use of Mercenaries in National Duty-Shameful.
October 18, 2009 — ramanan50Reprehensible.There is a limit to outsourcing.Pakistan went to the extent of declaring that China shall negotiate on its behalf with India!
It is one thing to hire mercenaries by CIA to fight Taliban and it is totally different to engage them in War oprerations in any capacity.Does this not reflect on the ability to govern or the patriotism and competence of the Americans, or is it simple greedy corporation lobby at work?
Story.
,A little-publicized U.S. Naval Academy conference named after Senator John McCain and bankrolled by his wealthy wife, Cindy, issued a call earlier this year for the U.S. government to ban the use of armed private security contractors like Blackwater in U.S. war zones, stating bluntly, “contractors should not be deployed as security guards, sentries, or even prison guards within combat areas.”
“[T]he use of deadly force must be entrusted only to those whose training, character and accountability are most worthy of the nation’s trust: the military,” reads the executive summary of the U.S. Naval Academy’s 9th Annual McCain Conference on Ethics and Military Leadership, which was held in April at the Annapolis Naval Station. “The military profession carefully cultivates an ethic of ’selfless service,’ and develops the virtues that can best withstand combat pressures and thus achieve the nation’s objectives in an honorable way. By contrast, most corporate ethical standards and available regulatory schemes are ill-suited for this environment.”
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/
Credit losses on consumer loans-BOA.
October 18, 2009 — ramanan50When unemployment is on the increase and the economy is limping, why promote consumer loans with out analysing repaying capacity?Loan promotion is backed by powerful market promotion.
Unless the banks know that loans are tricky affairs, they should be prudent in selecting whom they lend to..
Bailed out companies must be more careful as they are spending public money.
Story.
CHARLOTTE, N.C./NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bank of America Corp posted a $1 billion quarterly loss on Friday as consumer credit woes eclipsed investment banking earnings, underlining why the bank remains on a government respirator.
The nation’s largest bank received two taxpayer bailouts totaling $45 billion after acquiring broker Merrill Lynch & Co and mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp at the height of the financial crisis last year. It says it wants to start repaying the money but has not yet done so.’
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE59F1TJ20091016?feedType=nl&feedName=ustopnewsearly
October 18, 2009 — ramanan50
Government run option is ideal, provided red tape and sluggishness in execution that is the trade mark of any Govt. run operation, is not allowed to creep in.Sure, insurance companies lure people by misleading ads and also inserting classes in fine print, which would allow them to wiggle out of claims settlement.By efficient marketing and operations the Govt. may challenge the private companies in premiums and service for the betterment of the people.
Story.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama isn’t demanding that health care legislation include a government-run insurance option even though he believes it would best meet his reform goals, White House advisers said Sunday.
The White House and lawmakers are trying to blend five House and Senate committee versions of health care legislation into a bill that will pass both houses, where near unanimous Republican opposition was expected.
House Democrats are insisting that there be a public option in competition with the private insurance industry to drive down the cost of coverage. In the Senate, Republicans and some Democrats oppose the measure, meaning inclusion of the public option would foreclose winning the 60 votes needed to advance a bill.
Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said Obama believes the public plan is still the “best possible choice,” but she said he’s not demanding it. David Axelrod, Obama’s top adviser, said Senate opposition in both parties means “we have to work through these issues.”-AP-18/10/09
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hITfom2rwHxvzXH9fMrN4pOUGrqQD9BDKT480
Iran Joins the party!?
October 18, 2009 — ramanan50First India,then Afghanistan,US, now Iran.Pakistan is proving to be a menace.Time that the State ,which is anarchist,is booked.It deserves stronger action than North Korea.
Story.
‘Iran summoned Islamabad’s envoy to Tehran over Sunday’s deadly bombing against the nation’s Revolutionary Guards, claiming those behind the attack had used Pakistani soil as a springboard, the ISNA news agency said.
It said the foreign ministry had called Pakistan’s charge d’affairs and “expressed Tehran’s regret to Pakistan’s envoy (that) members of the terrorist group involved in the incident entered Iran through Pakistan.”
The ministry also “protested against the use of Pakistani territory by the terrorists and rebels against the Islamic Republic of Iran and urged Pakistani authorities to act firmly to prevent the movement of those terrorists and rebels in their country.”
http://www.ndtv.com/news/world/iran_bombing_tehran_summons_pakistan_envoy.php
Yeah,Gandhiji inspired Osama as well!
October 18, 2009 — ramanan50What a revelation?If any one has any doubts whether Scotland has integrated with England fully, this double talk, which is the privilege of England, confirms they have truly become British.
At this rate,some joker may say Osama, Gadafi are all inspired by Gandhi and Pakistan, take a cue -Gandhi inspired your terror outfits.
Political Nobel shall be in order.
Story.
The recent release of the alleged Lockerbie bomber was in line with Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of compassion and non-violence, Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond has said.
Speaking during a conference of his Scottish National Party, in Inverness, Salmond said that the Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill was right in deciding to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds in August.
Salmond recalled the recent visit of Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Arun Gandhi to Scotland and said, “One of the things he told me is that his grandfather’s philosophy is much misunderstood. His resistance was not passive, but active. His dedication to non-violence a strength, not a weakness”.
http://www.ndtv.com/news/world/gandhis_ideas_influenced_lockerbie_bombers_release.php
Communism-Needed,a more Humane one.
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50Communism stood for certain principles,namely equality,eradcation of the difference between the Have’s and Have nots;distribution of wealth;work accoding to capacity and be provided for what you need;classlesssociety.
The collapse of Communism is mainly due to the fact that it assumed work and needs can be quantified.They can never be for needs are subjective, and ‘work according to capacity ‘ can not be defined-who defines capacity?-
Secondly it assumes human beings are mere numbers.No doubt man needs material comforts the most;however that is not the Summum Bonum of His existence.He has his feelings,emotions and ambitiuons and a constant desire to to move up.
Thirdly,the premise that ‘That all are born equal’ is a wrong one.Human beings are similar, not identical.No two individuals are equal in that their predispositions,drives, level of competency,and their definitions of needs and happiness.This, communism has failed to make allowance for.
Fourthly,too much of academic discussion on the means to achieve their ends,socialism;democracy,revolution etc;while achieving, the goal should have been accorded priority by sticking to one process, say Socialism and not dithering beacuse of impatience, and switching over to Arms.
Fifthly,Distribution of wealth without creating it.
Sixthly, confusion as to which comes first,their Nation or their ideologies.This led to international friction among the practitioners of the same system
Seventhly, dogmatic adherence , bordering on Religious fervour that anything other than communism is evil.
Eighthly, systematic destruction of the fundamental units of Society, Family,Religion,Philosphy,free thought and criticism.
While creating classless society ,they have created elite in the form of members of the party ,politburo Members and the common man.
Yet the principle of communism is sound and is needed even today-especially to day-as Keynesian Economics is not delivering the goods and the divide between the Rich and the Poor is widening.
What is needed now is the elimination of the mistakes mentioned above and provide Communism with a more Human face ;fight for injustice ,in a democratic way, with out being impatiennt.
Lastly what was the quip about’oriental despotism”-Typical Occidental reaction;if things go right,it is due to them;if wrong,orientals.USSR, oriental?
Story.
‘Few occasions are more propitious for forgetting the past than moments of historical commemoration. Amidst fond recollections of the fall of the Berlin wall, and in a time of, at least temporary, improvement in relations between Russia and the west, few may spare a thought for what it was that ended two decades ago. On two issues history has given its ultimate verdict: the cold war, the third and longest of the three chapters that made up the great global civil war of 1914-91, will not return; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), as a multinational state and as a global ideological and strategic challenge to the west, is indeed dead. However, on a third component of this story – the worldwide communist movement – the verdict is, as yet, less clear.
Fred Halliday is ICREA research professor at IBEI, the Barcelona Institute for International Studies. He was formerly professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. He is a widely known and authoritative analyst of middle-eastern affairs who appears regularly on the BBC, ABC, al-Jazeera television, CBC and Irish radio. Among his many books are Revolution and World Politics: the Rise and Fall of the Sixth Great Power (Palgrave, 1999), The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics and Ideology (2005) and 100 Myths about the Middle East (2005)
This article is based on a more extended essay, “The Cold War: Lessons and Legacies”, to be published in Government and Opposition (December 2009-January 2010)Communism, embodying the ideology and the social aspirations underlying the Soviet challenge, and the worldwide echo that challenge evoked remains to be interred. But to bury communism can only be done on the basis of recognising what it represented, why millions of people struggled for, and believed in, this ideal and what it was they were struggling against. It can also only be done when the legacy of this ideology and movement is assessed and not simply forgotten, or conveniently, and in violation of all historical evidence, dismissed as an “illusion”.
Judging from the politics and intellectual debates of today, neither those who celebrate the end of communism, nor those who are now articulating a radical alternative, have carried out such an assessment: between (on one side) the still resilient complacency of market capitalism and an increasingly uncertain world of liberal democracy, and (on the other) the vacuous radicalisms that pose as a global alternative, the lessons of the communist past remain largely ignored. And so, as they say, they will be repeated. ‘
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/what-was-communism
In Koran contest kid winner takes home AK-47 and grenades in Somalia
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50Very dangerous trend.A portion of terror fighting Budget must be allocated to to study Koran in detail and propogate ,if Islam does not breed violence, among the people of that faith.
If it does(which I know it does),-no pussy footing, declare it as such and bring it to the fore among the public, feigned ignorance of Muslims or convoluted intrepretation of Islam notwithstanding.
Story.
Sunday, October 18th 2009, 4:00 AM
Wilson/Getty It was not a gold-plated AK-47 the winner of the Koran recital contest took home, but a 17-year-old did take a gun home for his work. Related NewsObama’s Nobel Peace Prize win ignites mixed reactionsRanking Dem gives push to Afghan troop increaseNorth Korea fires 5 short-range missiles off coast, despite earlier signs of cooperation Russia won’t rule out nukes for preemptive strikes, Kremlin big warnsEditorial: Human wrongs at the UNThe 17-year-old winner of a Koran recital and quiz organized by rebels in southern Somalia got an AK-47 gun, two hand grenades, a computer and an anti-tank mine as prizes.
The runnerup in the month-long competition by the al Shabaab group – for contestants age 10 to 25 – received an AK-47 and ammunition at the ceremony.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/10/18/2009-10-18_kids_win_guns_ammo_from_rebels.html#ixzz0ULnarcIU
Pakistan!-Explain.
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50How many armymen have been killed by the militants,a.k.a jihadis?
How many army men were along side the jihadis?
Story.
MIR ALI, Pakistan – ‘Pakistan’s army claimed Sunday to have killed 60 militants on the first day of an operation against an Al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary close to the Afghan border that residents said was meeting stiff resistance from insurgents.’
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/10/18/2009-10-18_operation_against_al_qaeda_taliban_kills_more_than_60__pakistan_army.html#ixzz0ULqGFuJk
India, a case of reverse imperialism: Forbes
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50For a change nice to hear about India.Unfortunately,unlike China,does not know how to flex its economic muscle in the Diplomatic arena.
Story:
India is still labelled an emerging market, but the Forbes magazine has argued that the country’s economy has already emerged. And as the economy spreads its wings, its companies are turning to new international markets, perhaps beginning a reverse imperialism.
For proof, the US business magazine lists not only the recent high profile acquisitions by Indian firms, but also facts such as four of the top 10 billionaires in the world are Indian, and that with an annualised five-year total return of 42.2 per cent, India comes second after Brazil in terms of the growth of the world’s largest public companies.
In comparison, the growth percentage in Britain and the US are 17.1 per cent and 11.1 per cent respectively, indicating that the balance of economic power in the world is starting to shift, the magazine said in a commentary piece in its latest issue on Friday.
-”The reason for this reversal of fortunes is that for established companies in the US and Britain it is difficult to grow as quickly as those expanding from nothing, as is the case for start-ups in India.
During the 18th century, when the British colonised India and started exploiting the subcontinent’s vast natural resources and to expand trade, tea became an important commodity and came to symbolise British colonial rule.
In a case of reverse imperialism, Tata Tea, part of the diversified Tata Group, bought Tetley, Britain’s largest tea company, in 2000. Tata Tea has since become the second largest tea manufacturer in the world by volume, surpassed only by Unilever, based in London and Rotterdam.
This March, in another example of British brands being picked up by an old colony, Tata Motors acquired Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford for $2.3 billion. Tata Motors hopes the acquisitions will boost its ability to be a “meaningful player” in the global market.
India’s monetary muscle is strengthened by a cheap domestic labour market and its companies’ high price-to-earnings ratios, the magazine quoted Tarun Khanna, a professor at Harvard Business School’
http://www.hindustantimes.com/News/chunk-ht-ui-worldsectionpage-focusindia/India-a-case-of-reverse-imperialism/Article1-315907.aspx
IBM, McKinsey in the footsteps of Price Waterhouse.
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50 Highly overrated,self righteous Blue Collar criminals all.
By the way a scamster on the same scale by the same name from Chennai,TamilNadu was reported absconding . ???????
Story:
New York: It isn’t often that big blue gets a black eye. But on Friday IBM, the leading US technology firm known for its conservative management, found itself entangled in the largest ever hedge fund insider-trading scheme involving Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam.
Robert Moffat, senior vice president and head of IBM’s systems and technology group was named as a defendant. Executives at leading chipmaker Intel Corp and management consulting firm McKinsey & Co were also implicated.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/scandal-hits-corporate-role-models-ibm-mckinsey/103515-7.html?from=tn
Some strong yearnings for good earnings.
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50Surge in market might be due to Cartel trading to force the Govt. to believe that every thing is allright and no market regulations are needed.After all market is controlled by big corporations, for that matter power centers as well.!
Story.
CNN) — A diverse collection of earnings and government reports will again put the economy at center stage this week, as investors wonder whether the Dow will remain comfortably above the 10,000 mark.
Consider the mix of companies due to add to the debate about whether a recovery is taking root: Apple, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, Pfizer, United Health, Yahoo!, AT&T, Delta Air Lines and Merck.
And from the government: the Labor Department’s Producer Price Index (inflation), the Commerce Department’s new housing starts report and the Fed’s Beige Book — its summary of economic conditions region by region.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/18/john.king.monday.memo/index.html
Doctor, Qualifications and Fame alone will not do.
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50I admitted my daughter for delivery in a Premier, first corporate Hospital in India, now at Bangalore(Branch Office?)
The ChieF Doctor for Gyn,is looked upon with awe by the other Doctors and support staff of the Hospital,not to speak of the patients.
This gentleman,who is around 50, exudes arrogance to the point of irritating patitents;never allows patients to express their complaints/symptoms;in fact he does not allow patients to sit even;he dismisses them in a few minutes, with routine instructions;if you interrupt for clarification, God save you;in every breath, he shall say’ let Natutre take care’, but prescribe ‘n’ scans;if you ask him whether it is safe to avoid lying on the back in advanced stages of pregnancy(as elders say it may be harmful for the mother, the answer is’shut up,you better listen to these old women’I wonder how his mother deliverd him,definitely not in a speciality Hotel, sorry, Hospital.Derisive to the core of Indian thoughts on Delivery, some of which are accepted by medical science, he dismisses other supporting Doctors/staff’s view, as in when an elderly, experienced Scan Department Head suggested not to scan the baby after birth often, he ridicules him.
He demanded the scan to be done immediately, for he wanted close the file!(We did not do the scan.)
Support staff are afraid to air their views on any subject, including the weather, if you are his patient.
What A Doctor!
As comic relief, one should see the Plaque in the Hospital, which after listing major advancements in Gyn.in the History of Medicine, states,after Caesarian Section, the achievement in the world is”…..Hospital offers world class Prenatal and post natal care in India”
Can you beat it for sheer effrontery?
Short Changing by Banks-India.
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50HDFC Bank, a leading bank in India is charging the customer for remitting cash into one’s own account in the same bank’s branch in another city.
What logic is this?
I went to withdraw from HDFC ATM.The machine could not dispense it,stating it could not .On complaining to my bankers,ICICI,they have taken the complaint and informed that it would take 12 days to intimate the status, citing technical problems in accessing information from HDFC.
What non sense is this? For their mistakes I can not draw my money for minimum 12 days;till then I do not know its fate.
What is the point in Banking if you can not take your money when you need it?
I withdrew money from another bank’s ATM ,couple of minutes later.
What if I had only the minimum balance and my money is blocked?
Any body listening?
Another funny episode.
My daughter invested in HDFC and was given temporarary receipt and was informed original receipt will follow.
Later when we went to collect it, we also wanted a declaration that we have invested money for filing Tax Returns.
A letter was issued stating that ’so and so has left money with us;we can not vouchsafe the transaction nor can we declare as to the authenticity of the signature of the person.
How about that!
I took it up with their Vice President in Bangalore and another proper letter was issued.
Pakistan ‘push into Taliban area’
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50Couple of points.
1.What exactly is the stand of the Army?
Barring some non descript spokesman,no senior Army officer, including Gen.Kayani does not seem to have uttered a word.
2.Where does ISI stand on this issue?
3.Why no statement from the highly visible PM or Zardari,Nawaz Sharief on this issue?
4.Where does Saudi Arabia stand on this issue.?
5.The civilian people,especially lawyers who made a hue and cry about the sacking of Chudhury are abnormally quiet.Why?
In my view answers to these questions shall decide who will run Pakistan.
Story.
‘The Pakistani army has said it has pushed deeper into South Waziristan as it battles to wrestle control of the region from the Taliban and al-Qaeda.’
BBC-19 Oct 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8313699.stm
From-Syed Shoaib Hasan, BBC News, Dera Ismail Khan
At the moment, the situation is a stalemate as the army tries to use ground troops backed by heavy weapons and air power to push back the Taliban.
The militants have entrenched themselves in fortified positions in the areas where the military is marching in. But they are likely to resort to traditional guerrilla tactics once the army is firmly inside territory controlled by the Mehsud tribe.
This is the heartland of the resistance, and it is here that the fate of the campaign will be decided.
Authorities: ‘Balloon boy’ incident was a hoax-CNN
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50Looks more like stage managed by media as well.
Reality shows have gone to ridiculous lengths in making people crazy for publicity and money and rating by TV producers.
In India, a Programme was ( is is still?) on, where for a few pieces of silver ,individuals were being asked in front of their spouses who they have slept with with out the spouse’s knowledge and other highly sensitive personal details.
Another programme in Tamil, a regional language, women are made to do dangerous acts like walkiing on a very high platform where wind is howling,lying with snakesetc. with very crude safety precautions.
Though abhorrent , these types of shows make one wish for censorship.
Better media regulates itself.
Are we becoming obsessed with soft news?-BBC
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50While Iran and Pakistan news is a tragedy that is likely to affect every one , Ballon boy seeks to satisfy gossipping nature of man.
News that is not promoted is not read.
Promoting a news is in the hands of the Publisher,Editor, in that order.
If these gentlemen decide what has to be promoted , it stays promoted and well read.
People per se are not specific news oriented excepting in general terms like Sports, politics etc.What the content is in this area is in the hands of the media.
I am reminded of a book by Geoffery Archer or is it Sydney Sheldon, where a media Tycoon creates news, by recruiting terrorists and getting ‘exclisives’
News is what media is.
Karzai ’stripped of outright win’-BBC
October 19, 2009 — ramanan50Another chaotic slide a la Pakistan?Story.
A panel probing Afghan election fraud finds Hamid Karzai did not gain enough valid votes for an outright win, the BBC learns.
Science adviser warns of fee rise-BBC
October 20, 2009 — ramanan50Education involves Knowledge transfer and as such Teachers and infrastructure need to be accorded priority by allocating more funds.
I have been trying to find % of expenses spent by Varsities on this head on total budget;it seems to be a closely guarded secret.Will any body throw light on this? Any Varsity/school will do.
As for as India is concerned ,as an Educational Consutant to Private institutions,I have found that the salary content of Teachers is hardly 2 % of total Budget,while in business enterprises overhead expenses are at 5%.
Major chunk of budget goes to frills in institutions on so called promotions of the instituions and and non productive, non revenue yielding expenses,at the cost of Academics’ salary and infra structure.
When education enters private Sector,profit is the motive and ways to increase income are of primary importance and money is spent on raising the profit..
Education by State may be short of frills but qualitty of Teaching is excellent(India) ,though infra structure needs upgradation.Media may not agree on this;they rate private institutions, as they do for a product,based on infra structure and image of the Institions.How do you rate quality of Education? Only by students who come out,which you can not do by surveys at the time of rating.
Private institutions may well reduce cost on frills and concentrate on Academic salaries and infra structure and stop whining on increased cost.
So called Advisers,what do they do?
Train Teachers or do they teach?
What is their salary ?
Unwanted frills needed to be wiped out.
Teaching needs good teachers, followed by care, commitment and reasonable infra structure.
Nothing more.
One needs to examine the concept of University funding andi f this trend continues, Varsities must be subjected to Central audit to determine where the money from students and Govt.is going.
Story;
Universities in England will need to be allowed to charge higher fees if they are to maintain standards, says a government science adviser.
John Holman, director of the National Science Learning Centre, said: “It is difficult to see how excellence is sustainable without it”.
Professor Holman was speaking at the launch of a report on improving science teaching in schools.
The government is soon to begin a review of tuition fees in England.
“It’s very difficult to see how a future of excellence throughout the university system can be maintained unless at some point there’s a more economic approach to university fees,” said Prof Holman.
“I think at some point we need to question whether the cap on fees is lifted.” -BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8315148.stm
Corporation Mobsters.-The Insider Trading Arrests -WSJ.
October 20, 2009 — ramanan50Yes, They are mobsters, pure and simple,on par with Vito Corleone and Tom Hagen of God Father and deserve to be treated as such.
Story.
This is not a garden-variety insider trading case,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara on Friday about his arrest of five men and a woman for insider trading. Yet that is precisely what it appears to be, albeit involving more money and more prominent executives than is usually the case. The evidence released so far most closely resembles the Ivan Boesky scam of two decades ago, in which the model for Gordon Gekko profited from insider information. This is not another Madoff fraud perpetrated on innocent and unsuspecting investors.
<a href="http://“>
Financial Giants Donating Little to Obama Party-NYT
October 20, 2009 — ramanan50May be they feel the bail out money is not enough, or apprehensive about tougher Financial reforms, which could affect them adversely.
Good-now Obama knows nothing is going to come from them he can press for tougher reforms with out qualms,if any.
Story:
WASHINGTON — The Wall Street giants that received a financial lifeline from Washington may have no compunction about paying big bonuses to their dealmakers and traders. But their willingness to deliver “thank you” gifts to President Obama and the Democrats is another question altogether.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/us/politics/20donate.html
Medicare Premiums to Rise 15 Percent-( as Costs Jump?)
October 20, 2009 — ramanan50The companies’s balance sheet is to be gone through with a fine tooth comb and determine their profit margins,, details of claims not settled, partly settled.
I suspect this a cartel reaction to browbeat the adminstration to drop bringing in new authority to run insurance reforms.They might force the Govt.to come to negotiating table stating that the premiums won’t rise, if the govt. drops the Public Authority proposal.
Story:
WASHINGTON — The basic Medicare premium will shoot up next year by 15 percent, to $110.50 a month, federal officials said Monday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/health/policy/20health.html?hp
Where the Wild Things Are- On Character.
October 20, 2009 — ramanan50Predominant and repeatedly performed actions which are individual specific may be defined as Character. (Psychological Definition)
This does not mean the individual shall behave exactly in tune with his character at all times, is correct, as he is torn between what his character or predominant inclination tells him to do and the exigencies of the situation.
One who has principles or will shall do what is ethically right and that is what differentiates man from animals.
Character, like traits, can not be quantified. That is the reason for this dichotomy of views.
Human beings are not machines to perform within specified parameters.
Well, to describe Character to a Psychologist is,-as William McKenzie observed on ‘Goodness’-'you can not describe what yellow is to a man who is born blind”
Certain things in life are felt; can not be analyzed.
Time that psychologists first define, Feelings, Emotions, Will, Traits, Personality, I; then they can start doing experiments and studies. These concepts, at best are described by them, not defined.
Story:
In Homer’s poetry, every hero has a trait. Achilles is angry. Odysseus is cunning. And so was born one picture of character and conduct.
In this view, what you might call the philosopher’s view, each of us has certain ingrained character traits. An honest person will be honest most of the time. A compassionate person will be compassionate.
These traits, as they say, go all the way down. They shape who we are, what we choose to do and whom we befriend. Our job is to find out what traits of character we need to become virtuous.
But, as Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Princeton philosopher, notes in his book “Experiments in Ethics,” this philosopher’s view of morality is now being challenged by a psychologist’s view. According to the psychologist’s view, individuals don’t have one thing called character.
The psychologists say this because a century’s worth of experiments suggests that people’s actual behavior is not driven by permanent traits that apply from one context to another. Students who are routinely dishonest at home are not routinely dishonest at school. People who are courageous at work can be cowardly at church. People who behave kindly on a sunny day may behave callously the next day when it is cloudy and they are feeling glum. Behavior does not exhibit what the psychologists call “cross-situational stability.”
The psychologists thus tend to gravitate toward a different view of conduct. In this view, people don’t have one permanent thing called character.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20brooks.html
Is NATO relevant?
October 20, 2009 — ramanan50
‘International War on Terror’ seems to be more in the rhetoric of US and UK.Other countries of the NATO are routinely sending troops, as a Govt.clerk shall forward files. Every Nation is strengthening its defenses and ,most of them seem to realize, rightly so, that war on this front can be fought only in their respective countries and not by going into a country of which they know very little.
Again,in an Unipolar World,what role NATO has to play?There is no USSR,you are scared of North Korea, shiver about China, and do not know what to do with Pakistan.
You can not deploy NATO in any of these areas as there is no consensus and even if you decide to do so,member countries are reluctant to participate.
In short,NATO is a white elephant which accommadates Generals who have to be kicked up,Other than that it has no purpose at all
Story:
There is almost no sense anywhere that the war in Afghanistan is an international operation, or that the stakes and goals are international, or that the soldiers on the ground represent anything other than their own national flags and national armed forces: Most of the war’s European critics want to know why their boys are fighting “for the Americans,” not for NATO. Most of the American critics dismiss the European contribution as useless or ignore it altogether. As Jackson Diehl pointed out Monday, the central debate about future Afghanistan policy is taking place in Washington without any obvious contributions from anybody else. I’m not going to blame the U.S. administration alone for this: It’s not as if Europe has put forward a different plan — and there was certainly a moment, back at the beginning of this administration, when that would have been very welcome.
The fact is that the idea of “the West” has been fading for a long time on both sides of the Atlantic, as countless “whither-the-Alliance” seminars have been ritually observing for the past decade. But the consequences are now with us: NATO, though fighting its first war since its foundation, inspires nobody. The members of NATO feel no allegiance to the alliance, or to one another. On its home continent, NATO does precious little military contingency planning, preferring to hold summits. Above all, there is no recognizable alliance leader who is willing or able to engage in the national debates of the various member countries, to argue in favor of the Afghan mission or any other. President Obama could in theory do this, but I’m guessing the idea doesn’t fill him with inspiration.
None of this might matter much in Afghanistan, since the outcome of current deliberations may well be some version of the status quo. But the next time NATO is needed, I doubt whether it will be there at all.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101902510.html
CNN Poll: Half the country disagrees with Obama on issues
October 20, 2009 — ramanan50Why don’t you say Half the country agrees with him?
Obama notes ‘transition’ in U.S.-Iraqi bilateral ties
October 21, 2009 — ramanan50Whatever might have been the motive in inavading Iraq,including contol of Black gold,it is well past.
While focussing on maintaining Security in Iraq ,by slowly transfering the management of Iraq’s affairs to them,it is imperative that the main cause of discontent among Iraqis, namely occupation by US,conduct of elections and massive investments to kick start the economy shall be in order.
All said and and done it is economic prosperity that keeps a Nation satisfied and makes people comfortable.
High time international community stops harping on terrorisml litany with regard to Iraq and start developing it ,with out fleecing it.
Story:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Obama said U.S.-Iraqi ties are entering a new period, a change marked by a decreased emphasis on security and an increased focus on the Iraqi economy.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, left, and President Obama pose for a picture in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
1 of 2 Appearing before reporters Tuesday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Obama said the men discussed a wide-range of issues and didn’t fixate on security or the military. Al-Maliki was in Washington to attend the two-day Iraq Investment and Business Conference and meet with American officials.
“What is wonderful about this trip is that it represents a transition in our bilateral relationship, so that we are moving now to issues beyond security and we are beginning to talk about economy, trade, commerce,” the president said.
Obama cited Iraq’s “continuing progress,” strides on investment, and “a commitment to democratic politics.” He also cited the election legislation delayed in Iraq’s parliament because of disagreement on several issues. The scheduled January 16 parliamentary elections might not be held if legislation isn’t passed soon.
U.S. and Iraqi officials are concerned that a delay in the voting, or a resurgence of violence ahead of the election, could unravel the country’s growing stability and its “increasingly attractive” environment.
“We are very interested, both of us, in making sure that Iraq has an election law that is completed on time so that elections can take place on time in January,” Obama said.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/20/us.iraq.trade/index.html
Vatican welcomes Anglicans into Catholic Church
October 21, 2009 — ramanan50Issue is not whether Pope is welcoming Anglicans into Catholic Church.
Fundamental questions :Is Christianity all about incresing numbers?
While Vatican and Christians have been vociferous in declaring that they are not proslytising, by this act of trying to lure away Anglicans,Christianity has confirmed its messianic zeal in conversion,even of their own sub divisions.
Is it what Jesus would have wanted?
Is it the message of the Bible to increase numbers?Pope is a temporal
authority invented by Constantine and he can not assume the role of Saviour by granting political asylum as it were,to people because of his whims and fancies.
Married ,Gay or not,when people seek salvation, they should be in the faith.Who is Pope to determinethis?
If papacy feels it has been right in denying these rights to people of this nature,what has happened now to change their tune now?
Answer is -increase numbers.
Jesus will be the last person to recognise Christianity as the system of thought he has propounded, if he were alive to day.
Please do not insult Jesus, because of your petty attitudes like increasing numbers.
If Christianity has survived it is not because of these guys, but despite them,for Truth needs no promotion by jokers.
J
Story:
ROME, Italy (CNN) — The Vatican said Tuesday it has worked out a way for groups of Anglicans who are dissatisfied with their faith to join the Catholic Church.
The Vatican says more Anglicans have expressed an interest in joining the Catholic Church.
The process will enable groups of Anglicans to become Catholic and recognize the pope as their leader, yet have parishes that retain Anglican rites, Vatican officials said. The move comes some 450 years after King Henry VIII broke from Rome and created the Church of England, forerunner of the Anglican Communion.
The parishes would be led by former Anglican clergy — including those who are married — who would be ordained as Catholic priests, said the Rev. James Massa, ecumenical director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“This sets up a process for whole groups of Anglicans — clergy and laity — to enter in to the Catholic Church while retaining their forms of worship and other Anglican traditions,” Massa said.
The number of Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church has increased in recent years as the Anglican Church has welcomed the ordination of women and openly gay clergy and blessed homosexual partnerships, said Cardinal William Joseph Levada, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/20/vatican.anglican.church/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
No jail request for French ex-PM
October 21, 2009 — ramanan50Liberty,Equality,Fraternity-not for select few. Viva la France.
Story:
French prosecutors have demanded an 18-month suspended sentence for former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in his smear trial, but no jail time.
Mr de Villepin stands accused of plotting to hurt President Nicolas Sarkozy’s chances of winning the 2007 presidential election, which he deniesBBC 20 Oct 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8317205.stm
Doctor says near-death experiences are in the mind -Really?
October 21, 2009 — ramanan50Doctors and Psychologists seem to think what they declare as gospel truth is final.Evidence collected by them alone is correct,not description by those who underwent the experience.
By the way , have these gentlemen defined ‘Mind”?
Is it the Brain or the activity of the Brain?
Are you aware of Brain because of its activity or the activity because of brain?
Indian Philosophy classifies Mind as an organ just like other sense organs like eyes,nose,ear,mouth,body.
These are the organs endowed with the functions(functions are different from organs-you may have organs, but no function,as in a deaf),seeing,smelling,hearing,tasting,and tactile sensations.
Activity of the brain is Mind;activity of mind is intellect;intellect is guided by Chiththa(modifications of the mind)
Brain is like a CPU,collects information,mind sifts them category wise,intellect discerns action to be taken and chiththa watches all
In near Death experiences, Chiththa cuts through brain,mind and intellect and experiences directly.
Straight perception by Chiththa is grasping knowledge unfetterd by prejudices.
It is experience, pure and simple.
Near Death experiences can not be wished away by offering high sounding pseudo scientific non sense.
Those interested in the subject may refer Rev.Leadbeaters book on this and also works published by Theosophical Society of India.These works contain proofs as well as photographs taken at the time of life or soul leaving the body.
Story:
For Laura Geraghty, April 1, 2009, started out just as any other day. It was sunny but cool, she remembers.
Laura Geraghty was shocked 21 times before she came back from cardiac arrest with tales of the afterlife.
The mother of two, also a grandmother, was at her job, driving a school bus for the Newton Public School District in suburban Boston, Massachusetts.
Her passengers, special-needs children, were wheelchair-bound.
Seemingly in good health and in good spirits, Geraghty was finishing up her late-morning run, transporting a student and teacher back to Newton South High School, when she realized she was in trouble.
As she was pulling into the school parking lot, she began having sharp stomach pains. She was able to park her bus, but she kept feeling worse.
The pain “went right up my arm and into my chest, and I said, ‘Uh-oh, I’m having a heart attack,’ ” she said.
The teacher ran from the bus to get help. Newton South’s nurse, Gail Kramer, and CPR instructor Michelle Coppola arrived moments later with the school’s new automated external defibrillator.
Geraghty, barely conscious, was fading fast. She was weak and having trouble breathing. And then she went into full cardiac arrest.
“Her eyes were wide, and all of a sudden she stopped talking to us,” Coppola said. “I grabbed the two pads, stuck them on her, started it up, and I’d say within 20 seconds, she had her first shock.”
Coppola and Kramer performed CPR while they waited for paramedics. See an expert give a quick lesson in CPR »
At that point, Geraghty says, her body died. She remembers watching the scene unfold — as if from above.
“I floated right out of my body. My body was here, and I just floated away. I looked back at it once, and it was there.”
Geraghty says she saw deceased loved ones, her mother and her ex-husband.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/16/cheating.near.death/index.html
MPs’ expenses: pay rise for MPs to stop rebellion.
October 21, 2009 — ramanan50These gentlemen who demand a pay hike,may check the job market, what their worth is , with their qualifications(?) and experience.They will be in for a shock.
Fact that they demand money officially is indicative of their desire to make money out of ’serving the Public(?)’ ;proves the Samaritan’s social commitment is hollow.
Thank them for acknowledging it at last.
Will there be a ceiling or atleast a minimum guaranteed amount that can be earned by them through corruption and nepotism?
Story:
The Prime Minister is desperate to avoid a Commons mutiny over next month’s report by Sir Christopher Kelly, which is expected to sweep away many of the MPs’ allowances.
Under Mr Brown’s plan, any rise in an MP’s basic salary of £64,766 would be paid for by a reduction in ministers’ wages. Currently, 98 MPs serve as members of the Government, earning between £96,000 and £197,000. If they took a £20,000 pay cut, it would save almost £2 million and mean all 646 MPs could be paid around £3,000 more without further cost to the taxpayer.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/6391262/MPs-expenses-pay-rise-for-MPs-to-stop-rebellion.html#
Free speech in parliament is precious.
October 21, 2009 — ramanan50Pertinent observation.Most of the injunctions are sought for by crooks and fraudsters and corporates, and not by ordinary law abiding citizens.Because of their connections to powers that be and money power they gag every authority.
Yes,contempt proceedings shall be in order even if the comments are made on judicial pronouncements through internet social networks. Client and lawyer, both should be hauled up.
At the same time judiciary should alsoi ensure the parliamentarians do not use their privileges to make irresponsible,unsubstantiated statements.
Story.
‘Britain’s most senior judge has warned his fellow judges that he cannot envisage any circumstances in which it would be “constitutionally possible or proper” for a court to make an order that gagged debate in parliament. His warning follows the Guardian’s free speech victory last week when lawyers for the oil trading company Trafigura gave up their attempt to gag parliament over its dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast.
Lord Judge’s remarks – which included a warning against the free use of “super-injunctions – come before a Commons debate on the affair tomorrow moved by the Liberal Democrat Evan Harris at which MPs are expected to voice continuing concerns at attempts by lawyers Carter-Ruck to use the courts to gag parliament.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/20/free-speech-in-parliament-precious
U.S. eases stance on medical marijuana
October 21, 2009 — ramanan50Though a welcome step, it has to be carefully exercised as the law may be misused by Drug Addicts with the help of crooked Doctors.
As a matter of academic interest, are there no alternative to marijuana in treatiing specific cases?
I am sure there are;Can somebody enlighten me on this?
Story:
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. directed federal prosecutors Monday to back away from pursuing cases against medical marijuana patients, signaling a broad policy shift that drug reform advocates interpret as the first step toward legalization of the drug.
The government’s top lawyer said that in 14 states with some provisions for medical marijuana use, federal prosecutors should focus only on cases involving higher-level drug traffickers, money launderers or people who use the state laws as a cover.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101903638.html?nav=hcmoduletmv
Probe Nutrition claims on Food/Health packages.
October 21, 2009 — ramanan50Long over due action.
In India, companies are going all out in misleading/fraudulent advertising.A Food Drink major says drinking its product makes one grow twice as taller;health drink manufacturer solemnly assures that consuming their product for two weeks shall reduce weight by 2 1/2 kgs.;tooth paste mfr declaring that those who use it will not lie; toilet soap mfr asserting that those who use it have 40% risk free from infections. Yet another says they reduce weight by 10 kgs.in three weeks!
Indian HEALTH MINISTRY IS SNORING.
Story:
U.S. regulators are examining the growing number of nutrition claims found on the front of food packages after complaints that they give a misleading picture of their health benefits, officials said in a warning to food companies on Tuesday.
The Food and Drug Administration is trying to determine if any claims violate federal food labeling rules and “will take enforcement action against any egregious examples,” FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg told reporters.
FDA officials also are developing a proposed regulation to define nutritional criteria for claims made on the front of food packages, Hamburg said.
The FDA is acting as companies increasingly add nutrition claims to the front of packages to catch the attention of hurried shoppers who might not read the detailed facts about a food’s content on the back, she added.
“Some nutritionists have questioned whether this information is more marketing-oriented than health-oriented, and judging from some of the labels that we have seen, we think this is a valid concern,” Hamburg
said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE59J5Z620091020
Pak judge hearing 26/11 Mumbai case wants to quit.-No surprise!
October 21, 2009 — ramanan50‘Unavoidable reasons’ Read as Army/Govt pressure.
Excellent country , an indispensable ally on War on Terror!
Story:
In a possible setback to the trial of seven suspects arrested by Pakistani police for their involvement in the Mumbai terror
attacks, the judge hearing the case has said he can no longer continue with the proceedings
Citing “unavoidable reasons”, Judge Baqir Ali Rana of the anti-terrorism court, who has been conducting the trial within the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, has asked the Lahore High Court to be excused from hearing the case.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Pak-judge-hearing-26/11-Mumbai-case-wants-to-quit-proceedings/articleshow/5144737.cms
Steep Pay Cuts at Firms That Got Most Aid
October 21, 2009 — ramanan50Commendable action.On reading the head line I felt that the pay cut was very drastic,but in real compensation one would receive including compensation , stiil, in my opinion,is high.
Can these organisatrions not think any thing less than millions as compensation?
Compare themwith earnings of ,say a scientist,a teacher, a judge or a policeman.Still very high.These categories mentioned serve society more than thse fat cats, who need health club memberships,(which , had they been in other professions I mentioned at their salaries), would not have even dreamed of.Compensation must also specify that it shall be linked to performance and must comprise of long term performance rewards :short term performance in the ratio of 70:30.
Story:
Responding to the growing furor over the paychecks of executives at companies that received billions of dollars in federal bailouts, the Obama administration will order the companies that received the most aid to deeply slash the compensation to their highest paid executives, an official involved in the decision said on Wednesday.
Under the plan, which will be announced in the next few days by the Treasury Department, the seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the cash payouts to their 25 best-paid executives by an average of about 90 percent from last year. For many of the executives, the cash they would have received will be replaced by stock that they will be restricted from selling immediately.
Man robs shop on way to interrogation: German police-Hilarious!
October 21, 2009 — ramanan50‘A 41-year-old man in Germany due to face questioning over theft got himself in even more trouble by squeezing in another robbery on the way to the police station, police said.
“It was a case of ‘just nipping out to do a bit of thieving before being interrogated for shoplifting’,” police in the western region of Lippe said Tuesday.
Officers were following up a supermarket robbery in the town of Blomberg with detailed descriptions of two thieves and their getaway car when they had to return to the police station.
To their amazement, they said they discovered a man at the reception waiting to be interrogated for shoplifting who looked suspiciously like one of the pair wanted for the morning raid.
Outside, they said they found his accomplice sitting with the stolen goods in a car with the matching number plate.
Now the man faces a second set of charges, police said.’
Pedophile Dennis Ferguson welcome in residents’ homes!! Australia?
October 22, 2009 — ramanan50Story:
CONVICTED pedophile Dennis Ferguson has vowed to make Sydney’s Ryde his home again after being offered share accommodation by three separate local residents.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26244406-953,00.html
Freedom to Disagree.
October 22, 2009 — ramanan50People should be allowed to express their views, unless proscribed by the State on grounds of National security.Fight ideas with ideas ,do not gag and make him a hero.
Freedom iof speech is about allowing peopleto air their views and rebutting them.
“>Story:
Protesters are expected to picket BBC Television Centre in London later ahead of the appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin on Question Time.
Cabinet minister Peter Hain’s appeal to the BBC Trust to stop Mr Griffin appearing was rejected on Wednesday.
The trust said it was a “question of editorial judgement” whether it was appropriate for the BNP to appear.
But BBC head Mark Thompson said the case against having the BNP on Question Time is “a case for censorship”.
Writing in Thursday’s Guardian newspaper, Mr Thompson added only governments could decide which organisations should be banned from the airwaves.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8319596.stm
<a href="http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8319596.stm
Rep. calls for English-only consumer protection
October 22, 2009 — ramanan50Story:
Financial reform just wandered into the culture wars.
Democrats erupted over an amendment offered by New York Republican Rep. Chris Lee Wednesday night that would bar the proposed consumer financial protection agency from mandating financial firms provide disclosures in any language other than English.
“In America we are all equal, and we should not allow ourselves to be divided by this notion that one language is better than another,” declared Rep. Al Green (D-Texas
http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=1&subcatid=1&threadid=3188966&start=1¤tPage=1
Comment.
In a multi-lingual society,all languages must be given equal 1mportance.
Again purpose of any communication is to be understood by those who read,especially if it is law/amendments.
It is inorder that notifications be published in all languages which has relevance to US .
Lucid Interview-Hats off.
October 22, 2009 — ramanan50Exquiiste logic by Venkiah Naidu.
There is no crisis in BJP;only divergent views between Advani,Rajnath Singh,Arun Shourie;one man proposes ,many disagree, the decision is called unanimous;Advani did not say any thing about Jaswant’s expulsion, but did say he need not be sacked;Advani has his views but he agreed to others views;there is no crisis in BJP;we discuss many issues;Advani is not depressed;he is very much acitve;ho does not talk,because he has nothing to say;he may quit;may not; BJP shall have no problem in finding a successor,we will decide in party meet;Vasundara has been asked to resign;not resigned;she may or may not;party may ask her again,again may not;Arun Shourie should not have spoken/written;but no issues.;Advani’s image is in tact;it suffered because of some news.
Can anybody tie himself in knots better than this?
Venky,Keep it up,Delhi is yours.
You are in competition with Karunanidhi in expressing your views, which even God can not unravel!
Story:
Is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or its leadership in crisis? That’s the key issue Karan Thapar explored with the former president of the party and a man that many believe could be the future president as well – Venkaiah Naidu.
Karan Thapar: Mr Naidu, let’s start with LK Advani. He has been unaccustomedly quiet and withdrawn since the elections, he is hardly seen or heard these days, is he depressed?
M Venkaiah Naidu: Who said it? He is very much active. He will be there in Maharashtra for the election campaign. He is guiding us on every matter. Should he go on speaking without any need unless there is a reason?
Karan Thapar: Is LK Advani going through a personal political crisis?
M Venkaiah Naidu: Not at all. Where is the crisis? He is the man who is responsible for building the party and guiding the party upto this level. Winning and losing happens in elections. Do you mean to say that once you lose elections, there is a crisis?
Karan Thapar: Many believe that LK Advani is constantly caught up in controversies one after another. For instance, do you believe as he now claims that at the parliamentary board meeting on August 19 in Shimla, he was against the decision to expel Jaswant Singh?
M Venkaiah Naidu: My point is do we need these issues to be discussed time and again? People have other important works also. That has been clarified by himself.
Karan Thapar: When you say he ‘clarified it,’ I am quoting what he said, “These reports are correct that I was not in an agreement with the decision to expel Jaswant Singh.”
M Venkaiah Naidu: My point is why are you trying to rake up another controversy. It’s a known fact that in a democratic party everybody has the right to express their views. Views were expressed and a unanimous decision was taken. We heard his view, which he has said.
Karan Thapar: Then it wasn’t a unanimous decision?
M Venkaiah Naidu: Why?
Karan Thapar:Because he was opposed to the decision to expel Jaswant Singh.
M Venkaiah Naidu: You mean to say that one man purposes and everybody agrees is a unanimous decision? In the BJP, we discuss issues, we listen to various views and finally we come to a conclusion, we call it the unanimous decision. There was no dissenting voice in the Shimla meeting.
Karan Thapar: Do you confirm that LK Advani expressed an opinion stating that expelling Jaswant Singh was not the right thing to do?
M Venkaiah Naidu: Yes.
Karan Thapar:Because the reason I ask you is this. Rajnath Singh went on record after the expulsion to say that it was unanimous decision and there was no dissent. Rajnath had gone further and said that no one had spoken against it. You are now clarifying that Mr Advani had expressed an opinion against it?
M Venkaiah Naidu: Expelling a colleague who had been in the party for over 25-35 years is a painful thing but there is no other way and the party colleagues have discussed it and then Advaniji heard everybody and finally it was a unanimous decision.
Karan Thapar: But Advaniji’s first position was against the expulsion?
M Venkaiah Naidu: My point is let us not go back to each and every issue which are not relevant today. Yes, I say that initially his views were different. He had said whether there was a need for expulsion and were there no other alternatives. This sort of discussion took place. Members felt that Jaswant Singhji’s book contained many objectionable references. The view in the meeting was that in no way we could keep quiet on this book and we had to take action. And everybody agreed, Advaniji also agreed.
Karan Thapar: Was Mr Advani persuaded to change his mind or did he simply agree to go ahead with the consensus of everyone else?
M Venkaiah Naidu: Advaniji is a democratic person. He may have his own views but once the colleagues discuss and he understands the mood of the people and the general consensus, he goes by it. That day also the same thing happened.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/devils-advocate-naidu-on-advani-bjp-crisis/103069-37-single.html
Cops’ Tips on Your Safety-in home and away from Home
October 22, 2009 — ramanan50This is for you, and for you to share with your wife, your children, everyone you know
.
It never hurts to be carefulin this crazy world we live in
1. Tip from Tae Kwon Do :
The elbow is the strongest point on your body.
If you are close enough to use it, do!
2. Learned this from a tourist guide.
If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse,
DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM.
Toss it away from you….
Chances are that he is more interested
in your wallet and/or purse than you,
and he will go for the wallet/purse.
RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!
3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car,
kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole
and start waving like crazy..
The driver won’t see you, but everybody else will.
This has saved lives.
4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars
after shopping, eating, working, etc., and just sit
(doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc.
DON’T DO THIS!)
The predator will be watching you, and this
is the perfect opportunity for him to get in
on the passenger side, put a gun to your head,
and tell you where to go.
AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR ,
LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE..
If someone
is in the car
with a gun
to your head
DO NOT DRIVE OFF,
Repeat:
DO NOT DRIVE OFF!
Instead gun the engine
and speed into anything, wrecking the car.
Your Air Bag will save you.
If the person is in the back seat
they will get the worst of it.
As soon as the car crashes
bail out and run.
It is better
than having them find your body
in a remote location.
5. A few notes about getting
into your car in a parking lot,
or parking garage:
A.) Be aware:
look around you, look into your car,
at the passenger side floor ,
and in the back seat
B.) If you are parked next to a big van,
enter your car from the passenger door.
Most serial killers attack their victims
by pulling them into their vans while the women
are attempting to get into their cars.
C.) Look at the car parked on the driver’s side of your vehicle,
and the passenger side… If a male is sitting alone
in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back
into the mall, or work, and get a
guard/policeman to walk you back out.
IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY.
(And better paranoid than dead.)
6. ALWAYS take the elevator
instead of the stairs.
Stairwells are horrible places to be alone
and the perfect crime spot.
(This is especially true at NIGHT!)
7. If the predator has a gun
and you are not under his control,
ALWAYS RUN!
The predator will only hit you (a running target)
4 in 100 times; and even then,
it most likely WILL NOT be a vital organ.
RUN, Preferably in a zigzag pattern!
8. As women, we are always trying
to be sympathetic:
STOP
It may get you raped, or killed.
Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking,
well educated man, who ALWAYS played
on the sympathies of unsuspecting women.
He walked with a cane, or a limp, and often
asked ‘for help’ into his vehicle or with his vehicle,
which is when he abducted
his next victim.
9. Another Safety Point:
Someone just told me that her friend heard
a crying baby on her porch the night before last,
and she called the police because it was late
and she thought it was weird.. The police told her
‘Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.’
The lady then said that it sounded like the baby
had crawled near a window, and she was worried
that it would crawl to the street and get run over.
The policeman said, ‘We already have a unit on the way,
whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.’
He told her that they think a serial killer
has a baby’s cry recorded and uses it to coax
women out of their homes thinking that someone
dropped off a baby. He said they have not verified it,
but have had several calls by women saying that
they hear baby’s cries outside their doors
when they’re home alone at night.
10. Water scam!
If you wake up in the middle
of the night to hear all your taps outside running or what you think is a
burst pipe, DO NOT GO OUT TO INVESTIGATE! These people turn on all your
outside taps full ball so that you will go out to investigate and
then attack.
Stay alert, keep safe, and look out for your neighbors!
Please pass this on.
An Eye Opener on Ovarian Cancer.
October 22, 2009 — ramanan50
Pls read this & share with your families..
An Eye Opener on Ovarian Cancer-This has been sent to me by my friend Sri.Srinivasan, renowned cardiologist.I thought I should share with you all.
I hope you all take the time to read this and pass it on to all you can. Send this to the women in your life that you care about.
A few years ago, Gilda Radner died of ovarian cancer. Her symptoms were inconclusive, and she was treated for everything under the sun until it was too late. This blood test finally identified her illness but alas, too late. She wrote a book to heighten awareness. Gene Wilder is her widower.
KATHY’S STORY: this is the story of Kathy West
As all of you know, I have Primary Peritoneal Cancer. This cancer has only recently been identified as its OWN type of cancer, but it is essentially Ovarian Cancer.
Both types of cancer are diagnosed in the same way, with the “tumor marker” CA-125 BLOOD TEST, and they are treated in the same way – surgery to remove the primary tumor and then chemotherapy with Taxol and Carboplatin.
Having gone through this ordeal, I want to save others from the same fate. That is why I am sending this message to you and hope you will print it and give it or send it via E-mail to everybody you know.
One thing I have learned is that each of us must take TOTAL responsibility for our own health care. I thought I had done that because I always had an annual physical and PAP smear, did a monthly Self-Breast Exam, went to the dentist at least twice a year, etc. I even insisted on a sigmoidoscopy and a bone density test last year. When I had a total hysterectomy in 1993, I thought that I did not have to worry about getting any of the female reproductive organ cancers.
LITTLE DID I KNOW. I don’t have ovaries (and they were HEALTHY when they were removed), but I have what is essentially ovarian cancer. Strange, isn’t it?
These are just SOME of the things our Doctors never tell us: ONE out of every 55 women will get OVARIAN or PRIMARY PERITONEAL CANCER.
The “CLASSIC” symptoms are an ABDOMEN that rather SUDDENLY ENLARGES and CONSTIPATION and/or DIARRHEA.
I had these classic symptoms and went to the doctor. Because these symptoms seemed to be “abdominal”, I went to a gastroenterologist. He ran tests that were designed to determine whether there was a bacteria infection; these tests were negative, and I was diagnosed with “Irritable Bowel Syndrome”. I guess I would have accepted this diagnosis had it not been for my enlarged abdomen. I swear to you, it looked like I was 4-5 months pregnant! I therefore insisted on more tests.
They took an X-ray of my abdomen; it was negative. I was again assured that I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome and was encouraged to go on my scheduled month-long trip to Europe. I couldn’t wear any of my slacks or shorts because I couldn’t get them buttoned, and I KNEW something was radically wrong. I INSISTED on more tests, and they reluctantly) scheduled me for a CT-Scan (just to shut me up, I think).
This is what I mean by “taking charge of our own health care.”
The CT-Scan showed a lot of fluid in my abdomen (NOT normal). Needless to say, I had to cancel my trip and have FIVE POUNDS of fluid drawn off at the hospital (not a pleasant experience I assure you), but NOTHING compared to what was ahead of me.
Tests revealed cancer cells in the fluid. Finally, finally, finally, the doctor ran a CA-125 blood test, and I was properly diagnosed.
I HAD THE CLASSIC SYMPTOMS FOR OVARIAN CANCER, AND YET THIS SIMPLE CA-125 BLOOD TEST HAD NEVER BEEN RUN ON ME, not as part of my annual physical exam and not when I was symptomatic. This is an inexpensive and simple blood test!
PLEASE, PLEASE TELL ALL YOUR FEMALE FRIENDS AND RELATIVES TO INSIST ON A CA-125 BLOOD TEST EVERY YEAR AS PART OF THEIR ANNUAL PHYSICAL EXAMS.
Be forewarned that their doctors might try to talk them out of it, saying, “IT ISN’T NECESSARY.” Believe me, had I known then what I know now, we would have caught my cancer much earlier (before it was a stage 3 cancer). Insist on the CA-125 BLOOD TEST; DO NOT take “NO” for an answer!
The normal range for a CA-125 BLOOD TEST is between zero and 35. MINE WAS 754. (That’s right, 754!). If the number is slightly above 35, you can have another done in three or six months and keep a close eye on it, just as women do when they have fibroid tumors or when men have a slightly elevated PSA test (Prostatic Specific Antigens) that helps diagnose prostate cancer.
Having the CA-125 test done annually can alert you early, and that’s the goal in diagnosing any type of cancer – catching it early..
Do you know 55 women? If so, at least one of them will have this VERY AGGRESSIVE cancer. Please, go to your doctor and insist on a CA-125 test and have one EVERY YEAR for the rest of your life..
And forward this message to every woman you know, and tell all of your female family members and friends. Though the median age for this cancer is 56, (and, guess what, I’m exactly 56), women as young as 22 have it. Age is no factor.
A NOTE FROM AN RN:
Well, after reading this, I made some calls. I found that the CA-125 test is an ovarian screening test equivalent to a man’s PSA test prostate screen (which my husband’s doctor automatically gives him in his physical each year and insurance pays for it). I called the general practitioner’s office about having the test done. The nurse had never heard of it. She told me that she doubted that insurance would pay for it. So I called Prudential Insurance Co, and got the same response. Never heard of it – it won’t be covered.
I explained that it was the same as the PSA test they had paid for my husband for years. After conferring with whomever they confer with, she told me that the CA-125 would be covered.
It is $75 in a GP’s office and $125 at the GYN’s. This is a screening test that should be required just like a PAP smear
(a PAP smear cannot detect problems with your ovaries).
And you must insist that your insurance company pay for it.
Gene Wilder and Pierce Brosnan (his wife had it, too) are lobbying for women’s health issues, saying that this test
should be required in our physicals, just like the PAP and the mammogram. PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO SEND THIS OUT TO ALL THOSE YOU CAN. BE IT MALE OR FEMALE, IT SHOULD NOT MATTER, AS THEY CAN FORWARD IT ALSO TO THOSE LOVED ONES THEY KNOW.
IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH FORWARDING SOMETHING
AS IMPORTANT AS THIS, HERE’S A LITTLE HINT THAT MAY ASSIST YOU WITH YOUR DECISION ~ JUST PRETEND THAT THIS IS A JOKE, WHICH IT CERTAINLY IS NOT, AND SEND IT OUT TO ALL THE FOLKS YOU WOULD IF IT WAS.
A Daughter’s letter to Father.
October 22, 2009 — ramanan50
A father passing by his teenage daughter’s bedroom was astonished to see the
bed was nicely made and everything was neat and tidy.
Then he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the centre of the pillow..
It was addressed “Dad”. With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope
and read the letter with trembling hands:-
Dear Dad,
It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you, but I’m leaving
home. I had to elope with my new boyfriend Randy because I wanted to avoid a
scene with Mom and you.
I’ve been finding real passion with Randy and he is so nice to me. I know
when you meet him you’ll like him too – even with all his piercing, tattoos,
and motorcycle clothes. But it’s not only the passion Dad, I’m pregnant and
Randy said that he wants me to have the kid and that we can be very happy
together.
Even though Randy is much older than me (anyway, 42 isn’t so old these days
is it? ), and has no money, really these things shouldn’t stand in the way
of our relationship, don’t you agree?
Randy has a great CD collection; he already owns a trailer in the woods and
has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. It’s true he has other
girlfriends as well but I know he’ll be faithful to me in his own way. He
wants to have many more children with me and that’s now one of my dreams
too..
Randy taught me that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone and he’ll be
growing it for us and we’ll trade it with our friends for all the cocaine
and ecstasy we want. In the meantime, we’ll pray that science will find a
cure for AIDS so Randy can get better; he sure deserves it!!
Don’t worry Dad, I’m 15 years old now and I know how to take care of myself.
Someday I’m sure we’ll be back to visit so you can get to know your
grandchildren.
Your loving daughter,
Rosie.
At the bottom of the page were the letters ” PTO”.
Hands still trembling, her father turned the sheet, and read:
PS:
Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at the neighbour’s house. I just
wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than my report card
that’s in my desk centre drawer. Please sign it and call when it is safe for
me to come home.
I love you!
Americans see economy as struggling but stable, poll finds-CNN
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50Like Doctor declaring ‘Patient’s condition is critical,but stable.
Story:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The number of Americans who think the country’s economy is currently in very poor shape is on the rise, according to a new national poll. But the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday also indicates that a growing number of Americans think the worst of the recession is over.
<a “>href=”http://http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/22/recession.poll/index.htmlhttp://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/22/recession.poll/index.html”>
Theory of Relativity visualized.
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50Please visit the linked site.
Also read my blog on this’Time-non-linear Theory’
http://www.spacetimetravel.org/Story:
Relativity visualized
The theory of relativity holds a certain fascination for many people. At the same time it is often regarded as very abstract and difficult to understand.
Part of the difficulties in understanding relativity are due to the fact that relativistic effects contradict everyday experience. Motion, for example, is a familiar process and everybody “knows from experience” that it entails neither time dilation nor length contraction. A flight with half the speed of light could correct this misjudgement but is not on offer.
A possible alternative are simulations. Images, films and virtual reality let us in a sense experience relativistic flights, gravitational collapse, compact objects and other extreme conditions
FBI Profiling of Muslims on the Rise- Can’t help it.
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50It is a fact that members of a particular race/community have been involving in Terrorist activities.
It is inescapable that authorities tend to profile;otherwise how do they go about their job?.
No doubt, particular community may be peeved at the authorities,but it is better their ire is directed at the members of the community who preach and practice violence.
At the same time the authorities must ensure that there is no arbitrary victimisation and harassment of the innocents.
Story:
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Muslim Americans are being increasingly targeted for unwarranted house searches and questioning, said Veena Dubal, staff attorney of the Asian Law Caucus, during a brown-bag seminar at the organization’s headquarters here Aug. 5.
Last October — in the waning days of the Bush administration — FBI director Robert Mueller signed new guidelines allowing broader FBI authority in pursuing potential threats to national security. The new guidelines allow agents to consider race or ethnicity in determining whether someone is a suspect.
These guidelines – which became effective Dec. 1, 2008 — allow the FBI to launch a criminal investigation against someone without any factual predicate and without approval from FBI headquarters, said Dubal. “Under the current guidelines, FBI agents are allowed to racially profile an individual if it is determined to be in the nation’s national interests,” she said, adding that the guidelines may also be used ambiguously to “prevent conduct.”
“A really negative shift has occurred,” said Dubal, who received the Northern California South Asian Bar Association’s Public Interest Attorney of the Year award in 2009
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=11a699af1441226d96c0b7d4f9d59330
Is the internet making us stupid?
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50Unless one concentrates one will not be in a position to surf the inernet.
Definitely one reads and by reading, learning.
What is sacrosanct about books?
We were using cuneiform and Tablets before Gutenberg.
CONTENT is impotant than the medium.
Access to information is great and internet is economical.
Whether the information thus accessed transforms into Knowledge ,depends on the individual.
Can a teacher be trained in six months?
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50No.
Teaching can not be taught in even in one year, let alone in six months.
Teaching, unlike other Professions, calls for cent percent commitment,no expectation of high monetary rewards,personal involvement and interest in each student,enormous patience,studiouness,art of conveying thoughts at different levels and unimpeachable character.
Lifting of the stem cell ban? Is it correct?
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50All new streams of thoughts begin as heresies.The Universe has been, is and shall be despite our efforts.
Universe is teleological.Nature shall take care to balance.
As has been said’None can stop the idea whose time has come’.
Nothing wrong in going ahead with this.If Religious representatives object,they should remember their Religions have gone through this phase and if they had been blocked as they want to block this move, some Religions would not be here atall.
Is democracy over-rated?
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50As for as Democracy is concerned,though it has its share of warts, it is , at present, the best working/workable system, where human values are recognised and it does not treat people as Statistics.
Message for God.
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50.”Lead us from Untruth to Truth;Lead us from Darkness to Light;Lead us from Death to Immortality.Lead us to be good human beings.Lead us to be worthy of you.”
8 Foods You Think Are Healthy … But Aren’t.
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50They may be lean and green, but they pack quite a salty punch.
When you think of high sodium foods, what do you see? I envision salt bombs like the Big Mac (1040 mg per serving) and Campbell’s Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup (890 mg per serving). But the shocking fact is that many “healthy,” organic and vegetarian foods are high in sodium, too.
The USDA estimates that 77% of the sodium in an average American’s diet comes from packaged and processed foods (while only 5-6% of sodium is added while cooking or eating), so if you’re into convenience – even the organic, natural kind – you might want to look a little closer at the label.
How do your favorite green convenience foods add up?
1. Amy’s Curried Lentil Soup sounds like a quick and tasty treat, but packs 680 mg sodium per serving.
2. Annie’s Organic Alfredo Shells and Cheddar is one of my all-time comfort foods, but with 670 mg sodium per serving I should reconsider my definition of comfort!
3. GardenBurger’s Flame Grilled Soy Burger, though vegan, contains 500 mg sodium per serving.
4. Yves Classic Veggie Brats pack a whopping 840 mg per weiner! And ask yourself, will you honestly eat just one?
5. Quorn Garlic & Herb Chik’n Cutlets may be meatless, high in fiber and made from pretty natural ingredients but they still contain 570 mg of sodium per serving.
6. Boca Meatless Italian Sausage has significantly less fat than its meaty cousin, but it is definitely not low on sodium: 650 mg per serving.
7. Annie’s Naturals Goddess Dressing is such a delicious, creamy delight on garden fresh greens, but with 390 mg of sodiumper serving, it makes for a pretty salty salad.
8. The profits from Newman’s Own Organic Marinana Sauce might go to help good a cause, but consider what it might do to your own body’s cause with 550 mg of sodium per serving.
The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for sodium is 2400 mg, but for optimum health you should not exceed 1500-2000 mg per day, and the USDA standard for “healthy” food is that it must not contain more than 480 mg of sodium per serving.
What’s the real lesson here? Processed foods, even organic and vegetarian ones, don’t provide the optimal health for our bodies. Sure, you may grab “˜em once in awhile when you don’t have time to cook a meal from scratch. While these organic and vegetarian meals are better than stopping at the drive-thru, nothing beats creating your own meals from whole foods, which will always be the cornerstone of a truly healthy diet.
http://www.alternet.org/story/143344/8_foods_you_think_are_healthy_…_but_aren%27t?page=entire
Nick Griffin uses BBC appearance to attack Muslims and gays.
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50One need not agree with Mr.Griffin;but certain points are to be noted.
The language he used ,may be incorrect.
1.Islam is not only incompatible with British Society of today,but of most societies in the world of today as well.Many of us are scared to voice this opinion because it does not seem to be the right thing to say.
2.Homosexuals are definitely an aberration;accept it;they are abnormal and sick;do not justify them,but treat them.
His remarks on coloreds are not appropriate.
If people were to retaliate they can say that ,in fact Britain was colonising the world till yesterday.May be, sins of fathers are visiting sons!
More over, Britain today depends on coloreds for their survival, Brown in paritcular.If they decide to leave,you shall be in a bleak island, a US surrogate.
3.His remarks on Holocaust is totally abhorrent.Totally inhumane.
4.However ,BBC has done a good job of interviewing him.Democracy is all about discussion and clarification and no gagging.
Story:
Mr Griffin said Islam was not compatible with life in Britain, while describing homosexuals as “creepy”.
The remarks provoked indignation from other members of the BBC panel and hostile parts of the audience, some of whom booed, calling him “a disgrace”.
The BNP leader could not explain why he had previously sought to play down the Holocaust and defended his use of Sir Winston Churchill on BNP literature on the basis that his father had fought in the Second World War.
He claimed that Churchill would have been a member of the BNP and was “Islamaphobic” by “today’s standard”.
Asked whether he denied that millions of Jews and other minorities had been killed by the Nazis, Mr Griffin would only reply: “I do not have a conviction for Holocaust denial.”
He was then chastised by David Dimbleby, the host of the programme, for smiling.
The controversial statements were made in response to intense questioning by members of the audience from ethnic minorities.
BBC Television Centre in west London came under siege as filming took place, with MPs joining hundreds of protesters behind lines of police. There were six arrests as dozens of protesters attempted to storm the studio.
BBC studios in Hull, Scotland and Wales were also targeted by demonstrators. The cost of the police operation was estimated to be more than £100,000.
The BBC was certain to be questioned over why it allowed Mr Griffin to air such controversial views but executives were hoping that the intensive questioning that he faced would justify their decision to invite him on the Question Time panel for the first time.
The BBC, which Mr Griffin denounced on the programme as “ultra-Leftist”, had claimed that impartiality rules meant that it had little choice but to invite him on to the programme after the BNP won seats in the European Parliament in elections earlier this year.
He was joined on the panel by Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, Baroness Warsi, the Tory spokesman on community cohesion, Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman, and Bonnie Greer, a black American playwright.
Mr Griffin was seated next to Miss Greer.
One of the most controversial moments came when Mr Dimbleby asked the BNP leader why he had been pictured with David Duke, the former leader of the Klan. Mr Griffin claimed that parts of the racist group, officially classed as a “hate organisation” in America, were “non-violent”.
However, he insisted: “I’m not a Nazi and never have been.”
He claimed that he was “the most loathed man in Britain” among British fascists.
He was questioned over his views on Islam and said it had “good points” but “does not fit in with the fundamental values of British society”. He was also attacked for describing white Britons as the “indigenous” population who faced “genocide”. We are the Aborigines here, he said.
Amid angry scenes, one Asian member of the audience asked Mr Griffin where he would like him to be sent and then suggested that he himself might find the South Pole a good destination because it was “a colourless landscape”.
Mr Griffin boasted to BNP supporters before the programme that he was “relishing” the prospect of “political blood sport”. “I will, no doubt, be interrupted, shouted down, slandered, put on the spot, and subjected to a scrutiny that would be a thousand times more intense than anything directed at other panellists,” he said. “It will, in other words, be political blood sport. But I am relishing this opportunity.”
Speaking after filming had finished, Mr Griffin claimed that he had been able to “land some punches”.
About one million people voted for the BNP at the European elections, leading to Mr Griffin taking up one of its two seats in the European Parliament. As a result, BBC executives said strict impartiality rules effectively forced them to include the party in Question Time.
Mark Thompson, the director-general of the BBC, said the Government should ban the BNP if it felt that Mr Griffin should not have been allowed to take part in the broadcast.
“If there is a case for censorship, it should be debated and decided in Parliament,” he said. “Political censorship cannot be outsourced to the BBC or anyone else.”
He said the BNP had “demonstrated a level of support that would normally lead to an occasional invitation to join the panel on Question Time”.
Politicians from minor parties, including George Galloway, the Respect MP, and Caroline Lucas, the leader of the Green party, regularly appeared on Question Time.
Mr Thompson insisted that Mr Griffin had been invited so that the public could challenge his views, rather than any “misguided desire to be controversial”.
Speaking before the programme, Gordon Brown said the BNP’s appearance was a matter for the BBC and that he was confident that Mr Griffin would be exposed for his “unacceptable” views.
“I hope that the exposure of the BNP will make people see what they are really like,” the Prime Minister said.
However, there were fears that Mr Griffin’s appearance would lead to an increase in support.
He had said he was hopeful his party would be propelled into “the big time” as a result of the broadcast and described his appearance on the show as “a milestone in the indomitable march of the British National Party towards saving our country”.
Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London and the chairman of Unite Against Fascism, claimed that the broadcast could lead to an increase in racist attacks and views.
“For the angry racist it’s a trigger that turns into an attack,” he said.
“We first saw this when Enoch Powell made his Rivers of Blood speech. There was a huge surge of attacks on black conductors on our buses, and that is why I think you apply a different standard to the BNP to those parties that do not legitimise this sort of violence against minorities.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6410764/BNP-on-Question-Time-Nick-Griffin-uses-BBC-appearance-to-attack-Muslims-and-gays.html#
15 Horrifying Reasons to Never Let Anyone You Love Near a McDonald’s.
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50No Comments.
Story.
The Golden Arches: the ultimate American icon. Super Size Me taught us that fast food culture brings obesity, heart disease, hypertension and a whole slew of other problems. How bad do you really want that Big Mac? Here are 15 reasons you’ll never let anyone you love get near those Golden Arches.
1. Real food is perishable. With time, it begins to decay. It’s a natural process, it just happens. Beef will rot, bread will mold. But what about a McDonald’s burger? Karen Hanrahan saved a McDonald’s burger from 1996 and, oddly enough, it looks just as “appetizing” and “fresh” as a burger you might buy today. Is this real food?
2. You would have to walk 7 hours straight to burn off a Super Sized Coke, fries and Big Mac. Even indulging in fast food as an occasional treat is a recipe for weight gain…unless you’re planning to hit each treadmill in the treadmill bay afterwards.
3. Containing less fat, salt and sugar, your pet’s food may be healthier than what they serve at McDonald’s.
4. In 2007, the employees of an Orlando-area McDonald’s were caught on camera pouring milk into the milkshake machine out of a bucket labeled “Soiled Towels Only.” That particular restaurant had already been cited for 12 different sanitary violations. Though McDonald’s proudly stands by its safety standards, and not every restaurant has such notorious incidents, the setting of a fast food restaurant staffed with low-paid employees at a high turnover rate arguably encourages bending the rules. (McDonald’s isn’t alone in this, of course – Burger King is actually ranked as the dirtiest of all the fast food chains.)
5. McDonald’s supports the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Much of the soy-based animal feed used to fatten fast-food chickens is grown in the Amazon. Are those chicken nuggets really worth acres of irreplaceable trees? (Especially considering how important carbon sinks like the rainforest are to halt global warming!) Fast food supports a completely unsustainable system of agriculture. It’s cruel to animals, unhealthy for humans, and bad for the planet.
6. Even Prince Charles, while touring a diabetes center in the United Arab Emirates, commented that banning McDonald’s is key to health and nutrition. Don’t let the salads and chicken breasts fool you. The “chicken” at McDonald’s, by the way, comes with a whole lot more than chicken.
7. As if feeding children high-fat, high-sodium, low-nutrition “food” weren’t bad enough, some Happy Meals in 2006 contained toy Hummers. It’s as if McDonald’s was encouraging a whole generation of kids not only to guzzle food, but to guzzle gas as well. Would you like a few barrels of petroleum with that?
8. The processed fat in McDonald’s food (and other fast food) promotes endothelial dysfunction for up to 5 hours after eating the meal. Endothelial tissue is what lines the inside of blood vessels.
9. For those who enjoy sex, take note: erectile dysfunction is connected to endothelial dysfunction. Morgan Spurlock of Super Size Me commented that his normally healthy sexual function deteriorated in just one month when he ate only food from McDonald’s. Even his girlfriend commented on camera that “he’s having a hard time, you know, getting it up.”
10. How many cows does it take to keep the world loaded with Big Macs? I had to do a some research and a little math, but according to a brief video inside one of McDonald’s 6 meat processing plants, about 500,000 pounds of beef is processed per day, per plant. If an average beef cow weighs 1,150 pounds, that means 2609 cows a day are turned into burgers. That’s 952,285 cows per year. And that’s just in the United States. Eating a hamburger may not be worse than driving a Hummer, but it’s bad. One hamburger patty does not necessarily come from one cow. Think about that. You’re eating bits of hundreds of cows.
11. Maybe you just pop in for an inexpensive latte. Watch out for the caramel syrup (Sugar, water, fructose, natural (plant source) and artificial flavor, salt, caramel color (with sulfites), potassium sorbate (preservative), citric acid, malic acid) or the chocolate drizzle (Corn syrup, water, hydrogenated coconut oil, high fructose corn syrup, glycerin, nonfat milk, cocoa, cocoa (processed with alkali), food starch-modified, disodium phosphate, potassium sorbate (preservative), xanthan gum, artificial flavor (vanillin), salt, soy lecithin). Please don’t put that stuff into your body. Eat healthy cheap food instead – you can be well and still save cash.
12. Are you a vegetarian with a French fry craving? You better skip McDonald’s because their fries actually contain milk (and wheat) and though they’re fried in vegetable oil, the oil is flavored with beef extract. (McDonald’s famously misled customers for years.)
13. Do you want high blood pressure? Hit the drive-through. Eating a McDonald’s chicken sandwich (any of “˜em, take your pick) will give you about 2/3 of the recommended daily amount of sodium. And if you actually do have high blood pressure, that’s way more than you really need.
14. Finally unveiled: the secret of the Big Mac’s “secret sauce.”
Soybean oil, pickle relish [diced pickles, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, vinegar, corn syrup, salt, calcium chloride, xanthan gum, potassium sorbate (preservative), spice extractives, polysorbate 80], distilled vinegar, water, egg yolks, high fructose corn syrup, onion powder, mustard seed, salt, spices, propylene glycol alginate, sodium benzoate (preservative), mustard bran, sugar, garlic powder, vegetable protein (hydrolyzed corn, soy and wheat), caramel color, extractives of paprika, soy lecithin, turmeric (color), calcium disodium EDTA (protect flavor).
Yum. Cheap oil and cheap syrup. Many people depend upon cheap food such as the sort offered at McDonald’s, whether due to the economic conditions we currently face or low incomes. So shouldn’t we be examining regulations that subsidize corn syrup but consider fruits and vegetables – the building blocks of a healthy body and green planet – to be “speciality” crops? Shouldn’t we be promoting urban gardening, community gardens and spreading information about low-cost farmers’ markets and CSAs? And focusing on the abundant choices of cheap food that are tasty and green?
15. Still not convinced? Maybe this 1970s trip through McDonaldland will give you enough nightmares to keep your loved ones away forever.
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141959/15_horrifying_reasons_to_never_let_anyone_you_love_near_a_mcdonald’s/?page=entire
What Equality Women Want?
October 23, 2009 — ramanan50Happiness is subjective, relative and keeps on changing along with the growth of the individual and change of life style.It is by no means Absolute.Hence efforts to measure and quantify Happiness is absurd, not with standing Psychologists’ objections,as Happiness can not be defined.
Having said that what exactly women want?
They want lower insurance premiums?;do not want to maintain home?
In the case of the former, because of the fact Nature has made them differently, they have unique functions,like pregnancy and delivery as well as the complications that may arise out of it.Fortunately or unfortunately Men are not endowed by Nature thus in this regard.Insurance companies collect more premium because of cost ot flow and not because of gender discrimination.Conversely do you expect Men to pay higher premium on par with Women because only then Gender equality is ensured?At this rate ,you might even demand Men deliver babies!
On taking care of Home,it is purely personal and optional;if you do not want to do it,don’t;if your spouse objects to it, better leave him to assert equality.
Coming to wages, how many women are paid equally or more than Men in MNCs.?In factan Indian Lady was Pepsi CEO.
Women have gone to space, been Prime Ministers and in fact India is controlled right now by a lady.
Recognition and monetary rewards are related to performance and not gender,especially in Business and politics.
People keep on harping equality.What exactly is needed?Obviously men can not deliver babies nor can they feed them. Short of this men will do every thing they can and are doing and shall do so.
Please be clear about what you want;individual maladjustments can not be made a social issue.
All said and done life is about getting along with people and in the process one may have to compromise,no gender, for Life is nothing but full of compromises.
You never realise and enjoy happiness when you have it and you keep on chasing mirages.In life, expect less, especially of relationships, and give more-that is the secret of Happiness.
Story:
When We’re Equal, We’ll Be Happy
Barbara Ehrenreich is now the latest to weigh in on the Female Happiness Conundrum — the whole cultural brouhaha caused by the news from Wharton School professors Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers earlier this year that despite all the objective improvements to their lives over the past four decades, women today appear to be less happy than they were in 1972.
It’s been a hot-button issue, this most recent iteration of Freud’s too-often-repeated question about what women want. The whole declining happiness thing has been spun into an indictment of feminism (the “triumphant: I told you so” as Ehrenreich puts it), sparking an angry response that those who claim women are unhappy post-feminism are nothing more than agents of an anti-woman backlash.
That accusation is often correct. But not necessarily in Stevenson and Wolfers’s case.
Wolfers defended himself in The New York Times’ Freakonomics blog last week, arguing that his and Stevenson’s study isn’t the only one to show declining female happiness since the 1970s. He and Stevenson further admit, in the course of their paper, that their numbers really don’t tell us anything clear about why women now report being more unhappy, only that they do. And whether that increased reporting of lesser happiness actually corresponds to a decline in lived happiness is another question that Stevenson and Wolfers are very open in admitting they can’t answer.
I appreciate this. I tend to have a problem with studies that measure nebulous emotional states and then compare them back to other nebulous states experienced at different moments in time. You learn a lot from them about how people answer surveys, but not so much about how they objectively felt. Happiness, after all, is hard to quantify; you can’t measure it in a blood test, or map it in a mathematical equation corresponding to patterns of neuronal activity in the brain. It also tends to be relative; we judge our happiness, at least in part, against our expectations of how we are supposed to feel and how good we think life is supposed to be.
These inner “supposed”s may well have changed for women since the early 1970s, as Stevenson and Wolfers more or less say, in fancier language. They suggest that the opening up, diversifying and expanding of women’s sphere of existence may have given them more things to potentially be unhappy about: “… the increased opportunities available to women may have increased what women require to declare themselves happy.” Entering the world of men may very well have raised the bar of expectations: “If happiness is assessed relative to outcomes for one’s reference group,” they write, “then greater equality may have led more women to compare their outcomes to those of the men around them. In turn, women might find their relative position lower than when their reference group included only women.”
In other words: if you expect less for yourself, you’re easier to please.
The early 1970s was a limiting time for women, but it was also, perhaps, a hopeful time. There was definitely a feeling in the air that women’s lives were changing in a positive way. There was a sense that everything was possible, that life for women was getting better, that if things hadn’t yet come together as well as they should have, they inevitably would. Down the line. Like, today.
Life for women has not come together. That, at least, is the very clear conclusion you have to draw after reading the essays contained in “A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything,” a book-length report released this week by the Center for American Progress. Despite its cheery-sounding title, the report conveys a bleak portrait of women’s non-progress in our day. The wage gap persists, particularly for mothers, who now earn 73 cents for every man’s dollar. Our workforce and education system is still sex-segregated, operating along generations-old stereotypes that steer most women into low-paid, low-status, low-security professions. Women pay more for health insurance than men, have more extensive health needs than men, and suffer unique forms of discrimination in their coverage. (Women may be denied coverage because they had a Caesarean delivery or were victims of domestic violence — both “preexisting conditions.”) Regardless of the number of hours they work, they continue to do far more caretaking and housekeeping work at home than do their husbands. And discrimination against mothers (but not fathers) in the workplace is all but ubiquitous.
http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/when-were-equal-well-be-happy/?apage=3#comments
Dalai Lama an honoured guest, Manmohan tells China
October 25, 2009 — ramanan50When the PM meets Chinese supremo, he avoids raising Arunachal Pradesh and declares both countries shall cooperate with out touching the Arunachal issue.
Now he states that Dalai Lama is an honoured guest and he is free to go anywhere.
He should have stated atleast now that the Dalai Lama can go anywhere especially to Arunachal Pradesh which is a part India.
I can’t understand the abnormal fear of China .
Story:
NEW DELHI: In a significant development, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh snubbed China on Sunday after he reiterated that the exiled spiritual leader
Dalai Lama is an honoured guest of India and is free to travel anywhere he wishes to.
The PM issued this statement right after his meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao.
China had raised strong objections to the Dalai Lama’s proposed visit to the monastery town of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh earlier.
China had also gone on to object to the Prime Minister’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh during campaigning for the recently held assembly elections in the state.
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UN inspectors inspecting Iran’s Nuclear facilities.
October 25, 2009 — ramanan50Yes.Iran has Nuclear capabilities on the sly as well.So, what are you going to do about it?
Do a North Korea?
Story.
TEHRAN, Iran — A team of U.N. inspectors prepared Sunday for their first look inside a formerly secret — though still unfinished — uranium enrichment facility that has raised Western suspicions about the extent of Iran’s nuclear program. The inspection tour will provide the world’s first independent details of the heavily protected site, carved into a mountainside near the holy city of Qom south of Tehran. It also coincides with the countdown to Iran’s expected decision on whether to accept a U.N.-brokered plan to process its nuclear fuel abroad.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g8-DEMtAE9q4i4ySQ0eV_qZefmRQD9BI26K81
Need genuine fast bowlers and medium pacers-IndiaVs.Aus.ODI 2009
October 26, 2009 — ramanan50The narrow loss to Australia must not lull India into thinking all is ok with the team.If at all, it has exposed the brittle middle order, sans Yuvraj and less than meioccre pace attack.Only bowler who was impressive was Nehra.
Ishant seems to be a hopeless case after showing great promise.Praveen Kumar at best is unpredictable.Zaheer’s absence is keenly felt.Even among spinners, Harbhajan is yet to come to his rhythm.Support part time Ravindu Jadeja just about manages.
Of real concern is the pace department.Unless new talent is unearthed and nurtured,India is not going to remain at No 2 in ODI rankings.
Story:
If the best way to spark interest in a seven-match ODI series is to stage a brilliantly tense opener, then Australia and India achieved their goal in Vadodara. Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey set up what looked like being a comfortable Australian win until a lively, crowd-lifting partnership from Harbhajan Singh and Praveen Kumar threatened to snatch victory for India.
In the end, nine were required from the final over and Peter Siddle held his nerve to confirm a four-run margin in Australia’s favour. The key moment came when Harbhajan (49) was bowled from the second ball of the 50th, trying to launch a boundary off Siddle. Six from the last ball was too much for Ashish Nehra to produce.
http://www.cricinfo.com/indvaus2009/content/story/431045.html?CMP=NLC-DLY
Food that can beat depression.
October 26, 2009 — ramanan50Food is the most important factor in shaping one’s attitudes and health,both physical and mental.
Right food, cooked correctly,eaten at the proper time ensures good physical,mental and spiritual health.
Attitudes determine your mental states.If you observe closely, when you eat food that is spicy,too hot,too cold,remnant foods, reheated foods(including that which is kept in Refrigerator),stale food shall make you fidgety, anxious,tense,low in spirits and make you depressed.
Every human being has three Attitudonal Categories., which is the result of Nature..
1.Contented , peacefull,and Knowledgeable.Under this category are people who are cheerful,not too aggressive, sober, not anxious, not irritated, patient,problem solvers without being tense and not too much worried about things they can not control.They shall do their best without bothering to know whether they have done their best and also are not unduly worried about the out come of their actions,once they complete the action.They are moderate in habits, in food and behavior.
2.Aggressive, ambitious and restless.These people are restless, self driven to the extent of being obsessed with what they do;continuously self evaluating,seeking other’s approval;they set themselves goals without evaluating their aptitude,learn the specific skills and keep on working hard;once they realise their goals they remain dissatisfied ,set other goals and go after it and continue thus throughout their life; they are fidgety,nervous, anxious,arrogant,and always try to bull doze their way in what ever they do.They are of the conviction that the world or a specific task can be done only by them and constantly find faults with others.
Their habits will be extreme whether food or hobbies or relation ships.
3.Indolent and sluggish.These people are defeatist, do not aspire to do or become any thing in lfe;they just drift along;their hunger for knowledge will be nil;they follow things of which they are not sure.
They are indifferent and and eat or do whatever they like.
These three tendencies are present in each individual at the same time.They keep on changing minute by minute.Depending on the preponderence of one tendency actions will be performed by the individual and one’s mental state also shall change.
These tendenceis can be balanced and the self satisfied, contented peaceful tendency that shall beat depression can be made permanent by food habits.
So what food one should take?
Food that-
-ensures longevity,health,strength
-contains the essence the food we eat
-that which stays in the body, after digetion ,that is ingested properly and that which ensures health
-that which we like naturally.
Food to avoid-
That which is excessively sweet,bitter,spicy,salty,tangy
-that which causes anxiety and dullness(onion,chillies,fast foods of any kind,sour curd,cheese,butter)
-that which is half cooked,not fully cooked
-that which is not cooked directly by fire-gas,oven, -you can directly use a barbecue)
-that which is a left over, even if it be ours/family
-that which is not clean
-that which emanates bad smell/-that which is rancid
-that which is recooked
-that which is very hot or very cold
-thatt which is bought from unclean place.
Generally, avoid excess oil or too dry.
Minimise onion,garlic,cheese,butter,ghee,butter.
Wash the vegetables wholly, not after cutting or chopping.
Do not cut the vegetables in too small pieces
Boil vegetables withwith out water;if you have to use water ,drink that water(for vegetables only)
Drink minimum one liter water in the morning, after washing teeth, in empty stomach
Take a full breakfast, not later than 9 am.
Take leafy vegetables more
Minimise Potatoes or any other roots
Do nor drink water while eating
Drink water only after finishing breakfast/lunch /dinner
Take three meals a day-breakfast,lunch(between 1 and 2 pm) and Dinner,not later than 10 pm
Take maximum two cups of coffee or tea per day
Eschew Alcohol,cigarettes non vegetarian foods.
Eat half somach full,drink one fourth stomach watetr leave balance stomach empty.
Based on these parameters, you can choose your food and beat not only Stress but develop a Healthy Mind and body.
(Source.The Bhagavad Gita-Chapter 17. and Smritis)</em>
Kids as young as 9 to receive career advice
October 26, 2009 — ramanan50Why not when they are in the womb?
This is the surest way to make children hate studies.
Have a heart.Let the child enjoy child hood.
Story.
LONDON (Reuters) – Children in British primary schools as young as nine are to receive advice via internet sites such as YouTube on their future career paths under a new scheme, the government said on Monday.
Under the program designed to help children of all socio-economic backgrounds realize their goals, students will be given mentors, have the chance to visit universities, and be given counseling on what subjects to study via social networking sites like Facebook.
A recent study showed that 75 percent of 11-year-olds wanted to attend university, the government said.
Cancer curable?
October 26, 2009 — ramanan50It is not only these tests that are found to be a sham.As far as my knowledge goes, no body seems to have been cured of cancer.only the postponement of death, that too after painful repurcussions.Recurring cancer is called euphemistically ‘Remission’, meaning it has resurfaced.
Why not say in English that we do not have a cure?
Story:
EDITOR’S NOTE: Since AlterNet edited this piece, a new study was released by The Journal of the American Medical Association that also raises concerns about the efficacy of screenings to definitively detect breast cancer. The study, taken together with those cited here in Naomi Freundlich’s analysis, prompted a stunning shift in thinking at the American Cancer Society. According to the New York Times, “The American Cancer Society, which has long been a staunch defender of most cancer screening, is now saying that the benefits of detecting many cancers, especially breast and prostate, have been overstated.”
Food,Hunger and Biotechnology.
October 27, 2009 — ramanan50We need to use all the available land fit for cultivation;provide adequate water resources.Do not build buildings in agricultual lands.
Too much shift by Agriculturists to other professions must be checked by offering good remuneration for produce and urbanisisation be reduced to help peolpe take to or continue Agriculture.
Distribution of produce has to be stream lined with out allowing for corporations’s speculative trading.
Genetically modified foods/seeds have to be tested thoroughly before being released to the market.Seeds marketed by Monsanto in India have not increased yieds, but in fact made the land barren.
Till these steps are taken, along with a detailed study of GMF(genetically modified foods) on health, Biotech has a limited role to play.
Long and short of it,use available resources to the optimum right now.
Story:
The debate over genetically modified crops and food has been contaminated by political and aesthetic prejudices: hostility to U.S. corporations, fear of big science and romanticism about local, organic production.
Refusing genetic modification makes a difficult problem more daunting.
Food supply is too important to be the plaything of these prejudices. If there is not enough food we know who will go hungry.
Genetic modification is analogous to nuclear power: nobody loves it, but climate change has made its adoption imperative. As Africa’s climate deteriorates, it will need to accelerate crop adaptation. As population grows it will need to raise yields. Genetic modification offers both faster crop adaptation and a biological, rather than chemical, approach to yield increases
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/can-biotech-food-cure-world-hunger/?hp#bozoanchor
Maternal Mortality.
October 27, 2009 — ramanan50Be that as it may for death due to non availabilty of prenatal care,What about complications arising out of Ceasarian Operations?Though it offers relatively less painful delivery, many complications arise during later years, especially during meno pause.Doctors,at least in India recommend C section to enable them to charge more, patients opt for this to effect delivery less painfully.
Would be mothers are better advised to go in for Natural Delivery to avoid problems later in their life.
Story:
Health ministers from around the world have agreed that swift action must be taken to reduce the number of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth.
At the UN Population Fund meeting in Addis Ababa the ministers said the number of women dying in this way was actually increasing in some nations.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8327144.stm
Roadside doctors with no degrees thrive in India. ‘Lame walk’
October 27, 2009 — ramanan50There is another menace.These people conduct self paid programmes in television with prepaid,tutotored audience before the camera,vouchsafing the products.At least media should refrain from airing these programmes.
Another type of Charlatanry is run by Christian organisations,which show live “instances”of ‘lame walking and blind seeing’by hystericall crying and yelling, calling it prayer.Most of these ‘cured’ are tutored and paid poor people.The people who run it have been running this as a business for three generations including a child from 3 years.Insult to Christianity and Jesus.
At least the Church should take action.These programmes demean Jesus and Christianity.
Government will take no action, hiding behind Secularism
Story;
New Delhi, India (CNN) — Sitting on an iron bench along a busy street, Chaman Lal sticks his fingers into a mug full of a greasy concoction and then applies the dark-red brew to areas where his patients complain of pain.
Lal — who does not have a license to practice medicine, but claims to be a successful bone doctor and traditional healer — says this potion of 18 herbs is a cure-all. His large signboard, placed along the roadside, claims he can even treat paralysis.
“I have a special potion for polio as well. Although I don’t get polio cases these days, but it can be cured with that potion and oil massage,” Lal said as he rubbed the broken ankle of a young man with the potion.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/27/india.doctors.roadside/index.html
“Do starving Africans a favour. Don’t feed them”
October 27, 2009 — ramanan50Keeping on feeding develops dependency.People of the Nation must get rid of self seeking corrupt leaders and usher in new government.Though difficult and time consuming,it is the only way from the morass they have sunk into.
Story:
As well as being demeaning to our dignity, my education has taught me that constantly shipping food is costly, uneconomic, and can encourage dependency.”
http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/do-starving-africans-a-favour-don%e2%80%99t-feed-them/#comment-174353
Indians feel attacks not due to race, but financial conditions
October 27, 2009 — ramanan50True.With such financial difficulties why go to a foreign Country,especially Australia?Indian courses are much more respected around the world than that of Australia.
Story:
Talking to many families I found all most everyone felt that Indians were to be blamed for inviting problems. They refuse to integrate in Australian society that sorts of annoy the localites,” he said.
While Australia still tops as a safest destination by many Indian students, for many of them things are not as rosy as painted by their agents back home and interestingly, there has been a pattern noticed in such incidents.
Most of the students in vocational courses hail from rural parts of India. With little or no financial support they pick odd jobs like in security, cleaner, at petrol stations or drive a cab late at night.
To add to the problem, they rent out in cheap and crime prone areas and use public transport at odd hours which make them highly prone to such attacks.
“We have many Indian students who work odd hours and do not sleep properly for days as they work odd hours,” said Elizabeth Drozd, Victorian multiculturalism commissioner and a university teacher.
“They attend their classes in the morning and work late nights to meet out their living,” Drozd said, adding many of these students feel so tired and they sleep anywhere.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/indians-abroad/Indians-feel-attacks-not-due-to-race-but-financial-conditions/articleshow/5168310.cms
Smart grocery shopping: Check! No, wait
October 27, 2009 — ramanan50So long as people eat pakaged foods , you will neither be happy nor merry.Stop this obsession with packaged food business.You live to enjoy lfe.For that you make money.With that you do not find time to have home cooked food from natural food grains like wheat,oats etc; of what sense is your earning?Earmark some time amidst your quest for money for cooking at home and eat healthy food.Instead of paying the doctor pay for Natural food.Our ancestors did not go for Pacaged food with details of Nutrion content table to live and it is a fact they were healthier.In fact my father never even had a headache or fever, let alone other illnesses.He lived to be 78!
Story:
The Smart Choices Program, launched in August, deemed Froot Loops nutritious enough to sport a big checkmark on the front of boxes signifying that choosing the cereal was indeed smart. The news media and consumer advocacy groups had a field day with that one, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration vowed to protect the public against any misconceptions caused by the labeling system.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102602178.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Credit Card Companies-Mal practices.
October 27, 2009 — ramanan50Very good, though a belated move.Credit card companies fleece customers by-
-Offering Credit card for free for a fixed period,usually for a year, with out a fee, but charge under some other head much higher fee.
-increase credit limit with out your asking and debit charges for the same.
-keep a minimum balance payable and keep quiet for some time and one fine day over due payments include higher minimum payable per month
-hide the fact establishments charge 2 and a half percent extra for credit card purchase.( India)
-provide add on card and charge later.
-call for balance transfer to some other banks saying no charge will be levied, but charge later
-the interest rate will work out to be more than 36 percent per annum at the minimum if you know how to calculate correctly.
Time some body reins them.
Story;
The Government is considering rules which would mean the most expensive debt is paid off first, as well as raising minimum monthly repayments from their current low level to avoid customers taking decades to clear borrowings.
Kevin Brennan, the Consumer Minister, said: ”Card companies have to get their act together and do more for consumers.
”My opinion is clear, the current relationship between card companies and consumers cannot go unchallenged. We need to put the customer back in the driving seat.”
Other moves being considered by ministers are a ban on increasing credit limits without prior consent – possibly by forcing consumers to opt-in – and restrictions on rate hikes on existing debts without proper explanation.
”It is not acceptable for card companies to impose complex and confusing terms and conditions that can leave people baffled, or to increase interest rates without a proper explanation,” Mr Brennan added.
”Consumers have a real responsibility to manage their finances properly, but they also have a right to clear information to enable them to do that. Consumers should not feel each month as if they’ve been exploited or disadvantaged.”
The Government said in July’s Consumer White Paper that it would tackle the way credit card repayment policies could lead to bigger than expected interest charges. It is already legislating to ban unsolicited credit card cheques in November. The current consultation will run until January 19.
Fiona Hoyle, head of consumer finance at the Finance and Leasing Association, said: ”Many of the measures proposed today by the Government have been under discussion with the industry for some time and reflect rapidly-changing market conditions.
”The industry’s commitment to helping consumers is shown by the many measures already taken in recent months.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/creditcards/6443566/Credit-card-companies-told-to-get-their-act-together.html
French court convicts Church of Scientology of fraud
October 27, 2009 — ramanan50Well thought out judgement.People should also know to distort Christianity by conducting so called Gospel meetings,especially in India,where people scream hysterically and some guy ‘cures’ them,lame walk’, is vile.These people run it as a family business in India ;in one case for three generations.The chap who was curing lame was operated for Knee /joint pain in a multi speciality hospital in Chennai,India.
If Jesus were to be alive today He shall condemn these people to Hell out right.Time that action is taken on these fraudsters who abound through out the world, with Church’s sanction.
Story;
Paris, France (CNN) — A French court’s verdict against the Church of Scientology amounts to a “modern Inquisition” and threatens freedom of religion in France, a senior Scientologist said Tuesday.
Eric Roux, a spokesman for the group and an official representative of the organization’s Celebrity Center, also said the church would appeal Tuesday’s verdict
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/27/france.scientology.fraud/index.html
Governor-General Quentin Bryce spends $700k on Africa visit-Australia.
October 28, 2009 — ramanan50WellThough highly oblectionable and reprehensible, for us in India,this is fleabite. We have politicians who openly swallow millions of public money.We with draw cases against a man who funneled crores into past Prime Minister’s account(Bofors); we have Chief Ministers who openly amass wealth, demanding 10-25% on every government contract;we have a Chief Minister who keeps on building statues for her through the state ,despite Supreme Court’s ruling; and the beauty is we keep electing them again and again.
Probably the price we have to pay for Democracy!People talk of ending caste system and class system.What about Political class?
Mute spectators like us are left holding the tab.
Story:
TAXPAYERS have been left with a $700,000 bill from Governor-General Quentin Bryce’s controversial 18-day trek to 10 African countries earlier this year.
Ms Bryce visited the countries in March and April as part of a campaign to win Australia a seat on the UN Security Council.
Heavily criticised for lobbying on behalf of the Rudd Government, she faces fresh attacks over the extraordinary cost.
Osteo Arthritis( joint pain/knee pain)-Cure through Food.
October 28, 2009 — ramanan50I was suffering from joint and knee pain for about three months to such an extent, when I got up from toilet seat I used to hear my knee joints creaking as if I was opening a door which was old and not oiled.I could not sit,walk or lie down with out excruciating pain.
I consulted Osteo specialist;he had my knees xrayed and informed me that my joints have worn out and that I could undergo surgey, when they would fix a steelplate and even then my movement will not be smooth as before.
I referred to natural medicines being used for ages in our homes.
-Eliminated all root vegetables,like potatoes,sweet potatoes,beet root .
-among green vegetables,brinjal,plantain,beans,string beans,
-completey avoided oil butter, ghee,cheese of any kind in cooking
-ate greens,lettuces and leaves of vegetables every day(cooked with salt added to taste).
-stopped drinking
-drank 5 litres of water a day including one litre early morning in empty stomach
-walked a kilo meter a day in the morning
-went to bed after light food,not later than 10 pm.
The suggested period of treatment was three months.
I was allright in one month.
I am perfectly fit now and in fact I have climbed hills of 1500 -1750 feet with out any discomfort or pain unaided.(I am 60)
Those who have similar problem ,please try.
Court hears Radovan Karadzic’s threats of Muslim slaughter.What about Rajapakshe?
October 28, 2009 — ramanan50International conscience is working to punish Radovan.Very noble indeed!
Where is the same conscience of the world on Tamils’ Genocide in Sri Lanka:
Why is Rajapakshe spared?
There is ample evidence.
World needs Sri Lanka for strategic reasons.
Perhaps, India , China factor is working overtime?
Story:
They have to know that there are 20,000 armed Serbs around Sarajevo . . . it will be a black cauldron where 300,000 Muslims will die,” Dr Karadzic was recorded as saying.
“They will disappear. That people will disappear from the face of the Earth.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6892144.ece?&EMC-Bltn=BFNAOB
No 10 to lobby for Blair EU job-Why not for Bush,Gorbachove as well?
October 28, 2009 — ramanan50We can create jobs for Bush(Sr and,Junior) Gorbachove,DeveGowda, ex.PM of India, as well, somewhere.Poor guys.
Story:
Gordon Brown is to actively lobby for his predecessor Tony Blair to be named the first president of the European Council, No 10 sources have said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8328979.stm
Continuously Interfering Asses-CIA.
October 28, 2009 — ramanan50First Juanita Carlos,now this.Like ISI of Pakistan ,there seems to be a parallel power centre in US as well in the form of Continuously Interfering Asses(CIA).
Story:
KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html?_r=1&hp
A Win for Internet Speech?
October 28, 2009 — ramanan50What logic is this?If you can not control what is being published,why do you run an operation?
Shall we apply the same logic to news papers as well stating that Editors have have no time because of sheer volume?
Don’t you have soft ware to block objectionable material?
They are not ‘liable for speech they did not help to create’?
Is this not abetting?
Shall we also say in a muder case,only the actual murderer is to be punished , not the accessory as he ‘did not help create murder’?.Story;
The sheriff of Cook County, Ill., grabbed headlines earlier this year when he sued Craigslist, the online classified advertising forum, for allowing posts that he said promoted prostitution. A federal judge in Chicago wisely threw out the suit last week. As Congress has recognized, if an Internet proprietor had to police every posting that a third party put up, the cost would be enormous — and it would likely stifle communications.
CraigslistCraigslist warns users that offers or solicitations of prostitution are prohibited. Sheriff Thomas Dart argued that its “erotic services” section still included numerous listings for paid sexual services, including some using code words. The company made voluntary changes after the suit was filed, including conducting a manual review of the listings. Late last year, before the suit was filed, it started charging for those ads in an effort to appease critics.
Even without these changes, Craigslist was operating entirely within the law. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects “interactive computer services” — ranging from small bloggers to giant Internet service providers — from liability, in most cases, for speech they did not help create.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/opinion/27tue3.html?ref=global
Gender Equality-A Myth.
October 29, 2009 — ramanan50Gender equality is an Utopian dream.Men and women have different functions as they have been endowed differently , both physically and mentally.
Basic question is what is special about equality with men?To attempt something for which you are not meant for is foolish just as men can not have the unique status of motherhood.If by equality is meant equal opportunities with men in terms of profession,emoluments it is allright.But to demand equality in whatevr men do is self defeating.
Pakistan: Now or Never?
October 30, 2009 — ramanan50Problem is;Who shall you talk to?
Story:
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has held out an olive branch to Pakistan by renewing an offer to talk, while also calling on it to take action against militants operating from its territory. India’s Press and Information Bureau has the excerpts of a speech delivered in Kashmir. in which Singh held out “a hand of friendship” to Pakistan. It’s worth reading in detail because it was clearly carefully prepared, endorsed politically by Congress president Sonia Gandhi who accompanied the prime minister, and according to The Hindu newspaper. an attempt to advance the peace process with Pakistan.
http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2009/10/29/indias-olive-branch-to-pakistan/
Post Delivery Behavior.-Mother’sBehavior,Baby Feeding,Bowel Movement,
October 31, 2009 — ramanan50My daughter deivered a baby about 45 days back.It was a Natural Delivery, no drips even.She with stood it gamely with out even a whimper.
Certain behavioral changes were noticed.This is about this and how we over came them.
1.She became highly irritable , at times hysterical, blaming the child ,her father!-Baby’sGrand father!(me)
2.Sleep pattern was disturbed.
3.At the drop of a hat she will consult various Specialists,Gyn,Dieticians,Lactation Expert,Paediatricians et all;all offering conflicting opinions.
4.She was constantly worried about the baby.
5.Food timings were irregular and she was not eating regularly..
For 1-The reason is that she has been able to make people adjust to her till the baby came along.All around her adjust to her ,father, Mother, brother ,husband.She is near perfect in organising herself, both professional and personal life.Baby is different.It can not understand and acts instinctively and demands milk when it needs it;doesn’t matter what time it is.
It cries for no reasons known to us.It needs cuddling well into the night.you can not talk to him for he does not know what the fuss is all about.He wants things ,period.In short, she could not make him adjust to her.At the same time she feels that she feels bad when she finds irritating when she could not meet his demands immediately on demand.This has created conflict in her mind.She lost sleep,that led to tiredness and irritation;this in turn made her more irritable and the cycle continud.Hence the tantrums.The solution was to deal with her firmly, saying that she ought to do it and her comforts ,for the time being should take a back seat, at least till the baby is 90 days old.If he wants to be cuddled, no matter what time it is and fed when he wants.You can not apply discipline and time management to him.This was done by her Husband as she was my favorite and I could not talk to her that way;I was more concerned about her health.Result was evident in a couple of days.When she slleeps, me and her mother shall take care him.She will have the milk expressed; we will keep it in the fridge and take it out hallf an hour before the approximate feed time in the night(around 1am and another at 3 am),warm the milk in bottle in warm water and feed him and cuddle him in my bed.My daughter got about 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep and she is now perrfectly all right and has become radiant as before.
-Child will not follow,at this stage, fixed time frame for feeding nor will consistent in milk intake.Feed it as it demands.Specialists say ,at times, to feed once in two hours.By blindly following this, a friend of my daughter had landed her child in Hospital for Deydration.Reason;when she found the child asleep even after 2 hours of feeding him she kept quiet with out feeding.When people say feed him once in every two hours and also feed him as he demands means, it means you feed him once in 2 hours and even after 2 hrs, even if he is sleeping ,wake him and see if he wants a feed.Child will never take more than what it needs;it will spit it out.( Do not keep the Expressed Milk for more than 4 hours , even in a fridge)
Another prolbem is is child’s bowel movement.it is all right for the child with out moving bowels for 48 hours.
Give the baby well boiled and cooled water at least three times a day,three tea spoons a time.
If the problem persists,take the Stem of the leaf( the betel leaf is from the betel pepper, or pan plant (Piper betle), family Piperaceae) which Indians use it for Pan which they eat after food,wash it,slighly heat the leaf in open fire,say a candle) it should not be burnt) , cut the top small stem protruding at the top ,dip it in pure castor oil and insert it in the anus of the baby and keep it there for about ten minutes; the child shall relieve it self.You can remove the stem.This is very safe.Inserting tablets Doctors prescribe induce colic pain and you can see it in the face of the child when it passes motion.
Do not run to Doctors/specialists for every small thing.If the child takes mother’s milk, it will be perfectly ok.Nothing to worry about.
Do not try to analyse the child too much and its behavior.It is behaving on reflex and be relaxed-Enjoy Motherhood.
What I have expressed here are born out of experience and practices followed in India for ages.For excessive lactation, see my blog on Excessive lactation/Breast feeding.
If some of the points are useful even to one mother, I shall be happy.Decision to follow is yours.
Note;This is applicable to babies being fed Mother’s Milk;others please seek doctor’s opinion.
Breast cancer.
October 31, 2009 — ramanan50Apart from what has been menti0ned in the article,following points may be noted.
1.Wearing tight fitting Bras and dress.
2.Over exposure to Sun in the name of ‘tanning’
3.Breast Enhancing steps.
4.Silicon Surgery.
5.Application of lotions and body spray.
Avoid all the above.
If you find /feel a small lump in the breast,consult an Oncologist and have a Mammography done immediately
Story;
(CNN) — Hannah Powell-Auslam of La Mirada, California, had surgery this month to check her lymph nodes, just in case the breast cancer had spread.
Taylor Thompson of Little Rock, Arkansas, also had an aggressive form of breast cancer, one that has a 98 percent chance of returning. It required surgery in June.
They’re two young women fighting breast cancer. Or rather, two girls: Hannah is 11. Taylor is 13.
While Taylor and Hannah’s cases are rare, they’re extreme examples of a troubling trend emerging with breast cancer, medical experts say. Younger women are getting a disease that usually strikes around menopause — and no one knows why.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/26/tweens.breast.cancer/index.html
Clinton ends tough Pakistan trip-BBC
November 1, 2009 — ramanan50She has, at last, called a spade a spade;that Pakistan is behaving like an ostritch as for as AlQeda is concerned;Pak has received more from US than what Pak has done for US;their military and intelligence agencies are in cahoots with terrorists;that they have to plan for their country and not totally dependent on foreign aid for their economic growth by investing their own money.
Any self respecting Pakistani has to accept all these points .
Are there people out there to worry about their country?
Story:
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been meeting tribal leaders in north-west Pakistan on the last day of a testing visit to the country.
During her three-day trip Mrs Clinton hoped to strengthen ties between the US and Pakistan and tried to address a rising tide of anti-American feeling.
In an interview with the BBC she urged Pakistanis to “realise the connection” between al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
But her arrival was overshadowed by a deadly bombing in the city of Peshawar.
More than 100 people died when a car bomb exploded in a busy market on Wednesday.
The BBC’s Jill McGivering says that a great deal of anger in Pakistan is focused on the US – widely seen as interfering and destabilising Pakistan for its own ends.
Libya talks over IRA compensation -BBC.Accepting Blood Money?
November 1, 2009 — ramanan50Accepting Blood Money from Libya?Is this an offshoot of the deal of releasing Lockerbie Bomber? What message are you sending out?-that if you have money you can kill people and pay compensation later, when the bereaved come abegging?Where is your National pride,Ireland?Forget Britain,if they can get a few pounds , they shall compromise any thing.
Look at Iarael and learn to deal with terrorists.Story:
Libya will come under renewed pressure to compensate victims of IRA violence later when Northern Ireland politicians arrive in Tripoli for talks.
Colonel Gaddafi’s regime secretly supplied the IRA with weapons and explosives in the 1980s.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8335199.stm
Maoist Rebels Widen Deadly Reach Across India NYT
November 1, 2009 — ramanan50World in general, and India in particular, has been guilty of this deadly menace.With their obsession with terrorism and Pakistan and Afganistan,they have not paid the attention this deserves.Maoists have infiltrated eastern coast from Myanmar upto Northern TamilNadu,the southern tip and there is evidence they have links with LTTE,Jihadi groups.Unless the world wakes up and India stops molly coddling Communists of any hue,this problem will prove to be much more daunting than terrorism.China is also involved.Story:
BARSUR, India — At the edge of the Indravati River, hundreds of miles from the nearest international border, India effectively ends. Indian paramilitary officers point machine guns across the water. The dense jungles and mountains on the other side belong to Maoist rebels dedicated to overthrowing the government.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/world/asia/01maoist.html?hp
Chronicle of a Death We Can’t Accept -NYT
November 1, 2009 — ramanan50To day, respecting the dead has become a formality and the services for the dead have become inane, with people hardly feeling for the event.May be this has to do with too much materialism,refusing to think about Death,for it reminds us of our mortality.When social values have been eroded,love and affection for parents, children and spouse has become a social contract; when inwardly we have become weak sans our pretensions of owning everything, this is the result.Remember, to day somebody,to morrrow it can be any body.
Story:
AT a funeral directors’ convention recently, I wandered around an exhibition floor crowded with the usual accouterments of the trade — coffins, catafalques, cemetery tents, cremation furnaces and the like. Scattered among these traditional goods were also many new baubles and gewgaws of the funeral business — coffins emblazoned with sports logos; cremation urns in the shape of bowling pins, golf bags and motorcycle gas tanks; “virtual cemeteries” with video clips and eerie recorded messages from the dead; pendants, bracelets, lamps and table sculptures into which ashes of the deceased can be swirled and molded.
It is hard to know what to make of this wild blossoming of unconventional mortuary merchandise. Perhaps it is the creative expression of a society grown weary of the extravagant hearse-and-limousine funerals of the past and ready to experiment with less costly and more personal ways to memorialize the dead. Some funeral directors seem to think so and are responding like dazed Blockbuster managers outmaneuvered in a Netflix age, scrambling to stay afloat in the wake of new technology and cultural improvisation.
But there is another, more accurate way to understand current funeral fashions. They illustrate the sad truth that, as a society, Americans are no longer sure what to do with our dead.
Rituals of death rest on the basic need, recognized by all societies, to remove the bodies of the dead from among the living. A corpse must be taken fairly quickly from here, the place of death, to somewhere else. But no healthy society has ever treated this as a perfunctory task, a matter of mere disposal. Indeed, from the beginning, humans have used poetry, song and prayer to describe the journey of the dead from “here” to “there” in symbolic, even sacred, terms. The dead are not simply being carted to the pit, the fire or the river; they are traveling toward the next world or the Mystery or the Great Beyond or heaven or the communion of the saints.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/opinion/01long.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
Any more terror attacks from Pak will be retaliated: Chidambaram-TOI
November 1, 2009 — ramanan50Are you keepng count of your warnings? Waiting for Pak to commit more than 100 attacks ( I think they have crossed that too),like Sri Krishna waited for Sisubala,before killing him?
Story:
MADURAI: Taking a tough stance, home minister P Chidambaram has warned Pakistan against meddling in India’s affairs and said any more terror attack from that country will be retaliated “very strongly”.
He said he has been warning Pakistan not to play with India and that the Mumbai attacks should be the “last game”.
“We have been gaining strength day by day to counter terrorism from across the border. I have been warning Pakistan not to play games with us. (I have told them that) the last game should be Mumbai attacks. Stop it there,” he told a public meeting here last night.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Any-more-terror-attack-from-Pak-will-be-retaliated-Chidambaram/articleshow/5185506.cms
Israel putting forth ‘unprecedented’ concessions, Clinton says
November 1, 2009 — ramanan50What concessions? Don’tmakeone laugh!It again proves Might is Right and US is run by Israel.
Story:
JERUSALEM — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had offered “unprecedented” concessions on West Bank settlement construction in an effort to restart peace talks, a departure from the administration’s earlier criticism of Israel and a possible signal of impatience with the refusal of Palestinian leaders to join negotiations.
At the start of a day of diplomacy that stretched from Abu Dhabi to Jerusalem, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas rejected Israel’s latest offer, relayed by Clinton, to curb most West Bank construction.
The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said the plan would have excluded about 3,000 Israeli housing units under construction and would not have applied to East Jerusalem — thus falling well short of what has become a firm Palestinian demand for resuming direct talks with Israel.
“The U.S. said that is the best they can get” from Netanyahu, even though the Obama administration considers settlements ‘illegal and illegitimate,’ ” Erekat said. The Palestinians will not accept a resumption of talks on that basis, he said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/31/AR2009103102460.html
6 Marriage Myths Shattered: How Barack and Michelle Shun Fairy Tale Romance
November 1, 2009 — ramanan50Please read on.Really a good one.
Marriage is a social institution as well as an emotional necessity for individual.Feelings like love, though true ,are transitory and are related one’s mental make up at a given point of time and also the expectation level of the individual.This keeps on varying.
The feeling of love is a Natural urge impelled by the process of propagating the species.Instincts express them selves as desire,;desire mulled over and reimposed becomes emotion;This varies according to person’s age and cultural back ground.Hence the feeling of Love and expression of Love differs from age group to age group and from one cultural back ground to another.
Determinig factors in Love are age and cultural back ground.
Another factor is the acceptability level of one to another in terms being comfortable with another.Here the core issue is self comfort and not Altruism as glorified by Literarture the world over.There need be no guilt feeling about being selfish as it is the way nature has meant us to be, for only then species will grow.My father used to say’I show affection to you;but you will show affection to your child more than to me,for it is Natural’.I agree.
So feelings of Love are true in so far us they exist and give us satisfaction.That does not mean people need to go around all the time’I love you’-It is pure humbug and every one knows it, but still want hearing it for it makes them happy. and by making your spouse happy , you are also happy.
Essentially, as has been said in the article, living for other,total compatibilty etc are 100% unadulterated lies.
Fact is we get the feeling of love, get married, for the better or worse and should march on.Divorce is no solution for you can still grumble and again divorce and there is no end.Happiness is a state of mind.Do not analyse too much on Relationships;if you do , you shall know it is empty.May be cynical, but true.
Love for others with out any expectation also gives us joy which can not be expected of any other relationship.As far as I know this is a mystery.I have stopped analysing.
I am 60 , married for 32 years with grand children ,would not know whether I am happy or unhappy .All I can say I am comfortable,I do not know what my wife thinks of.
As a tail piece,I have also loved and lost ,even at this age it pains me and I can not understand why, knowing well it is not rational.
Story:
How much romance did early American farmers expect? After they’d milked the cows and tilled the fields and put the kids to bed, did they hope to exchange a few pleasant words from time to time, have sex once in a while, and occasionally stay up to watch the embers fade to black before falling asleep? Did they expect much more than a colleague with benefits?
Or did they believe, that “Love is a magical journey,” and that getting married meant they were “about to embark on a wonderful voyage,” as Disney promises on its wedding site.
Did they expect that love would fulfill their every need, that they would never again be lonely, that if they found someone who was compatible that their every dream would come true, effort-free?
http://www.alternet.org/story/143639/6_marriage_myths_shattered%3A_how_barack_and_michelle_shun_fairy_tale_romance?page=1
Junk food makes you depressed, doctors warn
November 3, 2009 — ramanan50Please prepare and eat at home.It is not only junk food that causes health problems, but unhygienic conditions ( in a high tech-eatery, this will not be visible),adulteration,passing one non veg.item as another,say dog/cat’s meat for mutton,using same oil repeatedly(which is carcinogic),old and stale food reheated ,Agino moto,Rock Salt-all these shall cause serious health hazards.
Story:
PEOPLE who regularly eat high-fat foods, processed meals, desserts and sweets are almost 60 per cent more likely to suffer depression than healthy eaters.
Researchers claim their study is the first to investigate the link between overall diet and mental health, rather than the effects of individual foods.
“There seem to be various aspects of lifestyle such as taking exercise which also matter, but it appears that diet is playing an independent role,” said Dr Eric Brunner, one of the researchers from University College London.
The study, in the British Journal of Psychiatry, used data on 3486 male and female civil servants aged about 55. Each completed a questionnaire about their eating habits and a self-report assessment for depression five years later.
The researchers found that those with the highest consumption of processed food were 58 per cent more likely to be depressed five years later than those eating the least amount.
The researchers suggest several reasons for the protective effect of a healthy diet. They believe that high levels of antioxidants in fruits and vegetables protect against depression, as does the folate found in broccoli, cabbage, spinach, lentils and chickpeas. Eating more fish may be protective due to high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26296083-5003426,00.html
Humane Communism-Need of the hour.
November 3, 2009 — ramanan50In terms of ideology and commitment to common people, Communism was good.Where it erred was the treatment of individuals as numbers, totalitarianism, blind following of of ideology with out reference to changing social conditions, antidiluvian arguments on Thesis and Antithesis jumbo,destruction of fundamental structure of society like Family, Religion and trans Nationalism even when it was not in National interest,suppression of individual freedom,including speech,corruption,stifling of dissent,believing in self propaganda,hearing only what it wants to hear.
Sans this, Communism with a Humane Face is needed now, as with out the world being aware of it, great divide is slowly emerging between the have’s and havenot’s-the new name is stock market, corporations Vs those who are not a part of the same.Failure to heed this warning symptoms shall result in a sort of Revolution the world has not seen yet;one thing is sure,it will be devastating.
Story:
The end and the beginning: lessons of 1989
Vladimir Tismaneanu, 2 – 11 – 2009
The epic upheaval of 1989 was a time when east Europeans lost their fear, overcame their moral frustration and political impotence, and regained a central role in the<a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-end-and-the-beginning-lessons-from-1989" political sphere. The heart of this series of profound events survives across twenty years, says Vladimir Tismaneanu.
www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-end-and-the-beginning-lessons-from-1989
The 10 Weirdest, Grossest Ingredients in Processed Food
November 3, 2009 — ramanan50Self explanatory..Read the article.
Story:
Everyone now knows that processed and fast foods are not the bastions of nutrition, but that shouldn’t make these ingredients found inside them any less revolting. This list sends a clear message: when a packaged food contains more than five ingredients and includes some that are difficult to pronounce, stay away. Make a b-line straight to the organics aisle and go for vegan meals or vegetarian recipes instead.
1. Fertilizer in Subway Sandwich Rolls
While chemical fertilizers inevitably make it into our produce in trace amounts, you would not expect it to be a common food additive. However, ammonium sulfate can be found inside many brands of bread, including Subway’s. The chemical provides nitrogen for the yeast, creating a more consistent product.
2. Beaver Anal Glands in Raspberry Candy
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/143560/the_10_weirdest%2C_grossest_ingredients_in_processed_food/
Pregnancy,Anti Biotics and Birth Defects.
November 3, 2009 — ramanan50Antibiotics are to be used sparingly under the guidance of a Doctor.Anti biotic is prescribed based on the severity of infection and weight of the patient.If consumed more, the bacteria will become immune to te particular antibiotic;then dosage has to be increased or drug may have to be changed.Better to be careful.
Side effects of Anti Biotics.
Side effects range from slight headache to a major allergic reaction. One of the more common side effects is diarrhea, which results from the antibiotic disrupting the balance of intestinal flora, the “good bacteria” that dwell inside the human digestive system. Other side effects can result from interaction between the antibiotic and other drugs, such as elevated risk of tendon damage from administration of a quinolone antibiotic with a systemic corticosteroid.
Antibiotic misuse
Common forms of antibiotic misuse include taking an inappropriate antibiotic, in particular the use of antibacterials for viral infections like the common cold, and failure to take the entire prescribed course of the antibiotic, usually because the patient feels better before the infecting organism is completely eradicated. In addition to treatment failure, these practices can result in antibiotic resistance.
In the United States, a vast quantity of antibiotics is routinely included as low doses in the diet of healthy farm animals, as this practice has been proved to make animals grow faster. Opponents of this practice, however, point out the likelihood that it also leads to antibiotic resistance, frequently in bacteria that are known to also infect humans, although there has been little or no evidence as yet of such transfer of antibiotic resistance actually occurring.
http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-definition/Antibiotic/
Story:
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Some of the antibiotics used to treat urinary tract infections during pregnancy may increase the risk of several birth defects if a woman uses them early in pregnancy, a new study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine shows.
Researchers found an increased risk for two classes of antibiotics: sulfonamide (example: Bactrim) and nitrofurantoins (example: Macrobid). But the antibiotics pregnant women are most likely to be prescribed, the penicillins and erythromycins, appeared to be safe.
“Most of the commonly used antibiotics do not seem to be associated with most of the birth defects we studied,” study co-author Dr. Krista S. Crider, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, told Reuters Health. “This should be helpful for pregnant women and their health care provider as they’re trying to make decisions on treatment of infections during pregnancy.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5A153120091103?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100
Sri Lanka opposition forms alliance.
November 4, 2009 — ramanan50The X factor is Fonseka ,till recently Commander of Armed forces ,which has successfully(?)eliminated LTTE(?).News from Srilanka indicate rift between Rajapakse and Fonseka;he has been kicked upstairs,his photographs removed from website of the government.Reason seems to be the apprehension of Rajapakse brothers-Rajapakse and Gothabaya Rajapakse , that Fonseka may effect a coup as he is very popular, not only among the Sinhal but Armed forces as well.Fonseka’s recent utterences also indicate his intention to enter the political arena.His plank has been that Army-read Sinhala, casualities could have been less had the President been little more patient and heeded to his advice;this to consolidate Sinhalese support.;at the same time he is of the opinion that the Tamil casualities could have been minimal if his advice were to have been followed;his intention is to ,if he comes to power, to declare Rajapakse as a War criminal in the Genocide of Tamils-this to ensure Tamil support and satisfy international concern on the Genocide.Opposition parties also seem to be thinking in terms of fielding him as common Candiadate .
It has also come to the notice of Rajapakse & co and fearing for his life Fonseka is now in US.
Let us watch the drama unfold.
Story:
Opposition parties in Sri Lanka have formed an alliance to fight presidential and parliamentary elections due by next April.
They hope to dislodge a governing coalition still riding high on a tide of popularity among majority Sinhalas after the Tamil Tigers’ defeat in May.
The new alliance is led by former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, and includes Muslim and Tamil parties.
Its main rallying cry is to abolish the presidential system of government.
Plastic bag charges by May 2011-BBC
November 4, 2009 — ramanan50Why not close down the copmanies that manufacture these items,give them incentives to venture into eco friendly products and assure them Business from Govt for a period of 5 years .?
Story:
Compulsory charges for plastic carrier bags will be introduced in Wales before May 2011, it has been announced.
The charge for single-use bags has not yet been decided, but it is expected to be between 5p and 15p.
Wales will become the first nation in the UK to introduce charging for one-trip carrier bags to curb their use.
Environment Minister Jane Davidson said she would seek voluntary agreements with large retailers to direct the proceeds to environmental causes.
The charge will be introduced before the next assembly election.
An estimated 480m carrier bags are used in Wales each year and it takes 500 to 1,000 years for them to degrade
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/8339049.stm
Global financial crisis breeds money-savvy Generation Z
November 4, 2009 — ramanan50True nature of spending may understood only if spending pattern of age group 22-25. is studied;they spend more than they earn and they go into depression mode immediately if they do not have sufficient cash on hand or a credit card or for that matter if they can not recharge their cell phones.Their ability to face the vicissitudes of life, especially finance, is very minimal and they need toughness to handle crises of life which they lack now, because of higher wages and easy recognition.
Story.
AFTER the spend-like-there’s-no-tomorrow Generation Y, the economic crisis is breeding a new generation of financially savvy kids, a Queensland banker says.
Unlike spendthrift Gen Ys, the next generation has watched and learnt as their parents coped with the economic downturn, according to Suncorp’s general manager of banking Terry Wasmund.
“The general population has tightened their belts up over the last couple of years and there’s some anecdotal evidence that that attitude is being passed on to the children,” he said.
“We’re seeing them be a bit more wise about savings.”
With more children opening their own savings accounts, Mr Wasmund said it appeared the global financial crisis had delivered one positive outcome – teaching children the value of money.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26290048-5016679,00.html#submit-feedback
Ed Balls’s insane education policies make school gate cheats of us all
November 4, 2009 — ramanan50True.Choice of schools is not in Government’s domain., nor can they dictate people or penalize them for admitting their wards where they want them to study.
Real problem lies in Education system itself,not only in UK, but the world over.Children are made to read(not study)well beyond their capacity, with career alone as the objective with no thought of life skills and character.Parents are as much to blame as the system.Many send children to prestigious schools,for the simple reason to boast that they have sent their children to the best school.
A bright student will be bright irrespective of where he/she studies,provided they have a studious atmosphere at home as well and understanding parents- if parents guide them and not censor them.
Again it is important to note that information is not knowledge;sadly to day we have more information.
Dedicated teachers,involved parents will do the trick.if government enters in education, education is gone.
In India,top ranking students come from so called ‘poor schools’,run by Government’(despite the government’s interference) and even the last President of India,Mr.Abdul Kalam, studied in a very small school in an impoverished city.Parents must know schools,when run by private management, their aim is to make money and not to educate .Do not be fooled by advertisements and facilities provided by them, nor by the percentage of pass or ranks obtained by their students(if your admission criteria is admitting only those who score above 80% or or above ,there is nothing to boast about your hundred percet reults).
In short send the child where the teachers are dedicated and of good character and do not expect too much from the child.The child will become brilliant.
Story:
I once had the misfortune to be seated next to the Schools Secretary Ed Balls at a wedding. When he discovered that I wrote for The Daily Telegraph he took charmlessness to new heights, by turning his back on me for the duration of the meal.
Back then, I was still childless, and he was still chief economics adviser to the Treasury, so apart from concluding that he was a singularly rude, rather truculent man, I had no reason to harbour him any ill will. These days, I fear the incident might end in carnage over the monkfish – assuming I could fight my way through the mob of similarly exercised parents, berating him for a raft of insane education policies that are set to criminalise them.
Did I say “parents”? I actually meant “thieves, brigands and liars”. For this, effectively, is what we have been branded as we scramble to educate our children in a state sector where two in five pupils leave primary school unable to read and write properly.
Middle-class families are accused of theft, because they are taking up places at good schools. How dare we! Anyone would think we paid taxes specifically to fund state education and had as much right to school places for our children as anyone else. Hang on a minute, we do – so how, exactly, can it be theft?
Yet this is the finding of the chief schools adjudicator, Ian Craig, who has declared that tougher sanctions are needed to deter wicked mothers and fathers who “played the system” to get their offspring a place at a school where they might have a fighting chance of emerging literate enough to campaign for their parents to be released from Wormwood Scrubs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/6496152/Ed-Ballss-insane-education-policies-make-school-gate-cheats-of-us-all.html?state=error#postacomment
Impressive(?) Australia draw level.
November 4, 2009 — ramanan50Thanks to umpire,who declared Sachin lbw,when the ball was moving away from the leg stump.Why not use technology when it is available?
Story:
It was India’s game to lose after they restricted Australia to a par total of 250 on a good batting pitch, especially after the fiery start provided by Virender Sehwag. However, Australia won the vital moments during the chase to level the series in Mohali. Like in Vadodara, Harbhajan Singh and Praveen Kumar threatened to pull off a heist; like in Vadodara they failed.
It was a roller-coaster of a chase and whenever India appeared to be getting ahead, Australia fought back with a vengeance. It wasn’t necessarily great bowling that did the trick but it was disciplined enough to force mistakes from under-pressure batsmen.
http://www.cricinfo.com/indvaus2009/content/story/432511.html?CMP=NLC-DLY
No resolution against Vande Mataram passed before me, says Chidambaram
November 4, 2009 — ramanan50Strange that Home Minister of a country does not even have the details of the function and resolutions ,if any, are likely to be passed,especially while attending a function being organised by a controversial sect!Saying he was not present is a lame excuse.Does it mean that a terrorist may also invite him,have him address the meeting ‘On Unity and integrity of India’ and pass a resolution to divide India , after he leaves the function?
What is his reaction to not singing Vande Matharam by these people?They have the cheek to say that they will not because of their faith! If your faith is more important then why do not you live in a place where your faith is being practiced?
Even saluting National Flag or saluting others ,as per this definition of their faith is irreligious.Do all the heads of State of Islamic countries follow this precept?
If a Religion has such faith that disrupts society it has no place in an open society.they can have a closed society for themselves and live happily.
Story:
NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday contended that he was not present when the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind adopted a resolution at its
30th general session in Deoband on Tuesday asking Muslims not to recite ‘Vande Mataram’.
“Home Minister P Chidambaram was at the JUH conference at Deoband on November 3 between 10 am and 12 noon. No resolution was passed during that period. When he spoke, he was not aware of any resolution relating to Vande Mataram or women’s reservation and television,” a statement issued by his aide said.
Besides, the Home Minister was reading from a prepared text and there was no occasion to depart from that text, the statement said reacting to a statement of BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/No-resolution-against-Vande-Mataram-passed-before-me-says-Chidambaram/articleshow/5195794.cms
Low cholesterol may be sign of undiagnosed cancer
November 4, 2009 — ramanan50Yet another finding.At this rate we will not know which causes cancer.That which is said to cause, may, turn out to be a cure, let’s hope-so much for medicine.Any way let us read and file in memory until another study comes along.
Story:
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters Life!) – Low total cholesterol may be a sign of cancer rather than a cause, as some researchers have suggested, and men who have low cholesterol actually have a lower risk of developing high-risk prostate cancer, two teams reported on Tuesday.
Both studies, reported in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, shed new light on the role of cholesterol and cancer.
For years, researchers had noticed that people who have lower total cholesterol — a combination of both low-density lipoprotein or LDL, the “bad” kind, and high-density lipoprotein or HDL, the “good” kind — appeared more likely to have certain types of cancers than other people.
That was worrisome because having low cholesterol, and particularly low levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol, has been shown to protect against heart attacks and strokes.
“Our study affirms that lower total cholesterol may be caused by undiagnosed cancer,” Dr. Demetrius Albanes, a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, said in a statement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5A256I20091103?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100
Is too much sleep making you tired?
November 4, 2009 — ramanan50Too much sleeping causes not only tiredness,but it makes one duller,reduces the power of concentration,discrimination,inattentiveness,anxiety prone.(Hindu Smritis).One also becomes emotionally unstable.Sleep on the other hand has no standard time duration for all individuals.Some may do with six hours ,others may need 8 hours.In excess of eight hours is generally not good excepting for those who are convalescing and women who arepregnant(in this case not at a stretch, but taken at different times as cat naps)Incidentally cat naps of about 15 minutes a day is very refreshing.
Ideally one should go to bed not later than 3 hours after sundown and get up at the crack of dawn.Sleeping during day time is to be strictly avoided.Sleeping on the left side is good for the heart, so is taking a warm drink(not liquor,not coffee/tea).One should not sleep naked-minimum clothing which is not tight is to be worn; nor in open air,in an open building, in a place with out roof or a under a tree.(Source-Smriti)
Tailpiece :If you want to wake up at a particular time during night,no alarm is needed,take a glass of water reminding yourself the time you want to wake up.Most effective.Try.Story:
(CNN) — Instead of feeling crisp and refreshed, Jesse Wu wakes up sluggish after 12 hours of sleep.
“If I sleep the right amount, I feel really good,” said the 25-year-old who lives in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. “If I sleep too long, I feel groggy throughout the whole day.”
Like Wu, some feel exhausted after long hours of rest.
“Many people will tell you, they sleep a little worse when they sleep a long time on weekends,” said Dr. Daniel Kripke, co-director of Scripps Clinic Sleep Center in La Jolla, California. “Too much long sleep on weekends does not seem to make people feel better.” But he acknowledged that the reasons haven’t been determined
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/30/oversleeping.health.effects/index.html
The Battle Over Raw Milk: Let’s Ditch the Hysterics and Give People a Choice.
November 4, 2009 — ramanan50No comments.
Mention raw milk to some people, and you’ll have to wait for them to stop yelling before you can have a conversation about it. Few foods provoke such strong reactions (for and against it) as raw milk.
Some people credit it with beneficial health effects, but others believe it’s so risky it ought to be banned. The issue of raw milk — milk that has not been pasteurized — also raises a number of questions about our government’s role in regulating foods when that is in conflict with individuals’ freedom to choose foods that they consider important to their diets.
Those who drink raw milk go to great lengths to obtain it — paying $5 to $10 per gallon for it — sometimes even buying a share of a cow or regularly driving several hours to pick it up from a dairy.
They don’t do this just because it tastes good. For some, it is a desire for natural, unprocessed foods. For others, it is part of a larger interest in sustainable agriculture and supporting farmers who use methods that help the environment.
For many, it is about the health benefits derived from probiotics, enzymes and nutrients that are destroyed during pasteurization. Few studies have been done in the U.S. on the health benefits of raw milk, either to prove or disprove them. However, the health benefits of breast milk are well known, as Scientific American reported, and breast milk is raw milk. Recently, European studies have shown that raw milk provides a protective effect against children developing asthma or allergies.
Aside from scientific evidence, raw-milk drinkers point to numerous anecdotal benefits. In a survey of milk drinkers in the state of Michigan, over 80 percent of those advised by a health care professional that they were lactose intolerant were able to consume raw milk without problem. Individuals have written testimonials crediting raw milk with alleviating their allergies, asthma, Crohn’s disease, other digestive problems, osteopenia, failure to thrive in infants and boosting their immune systems so that they do not suffer from colds and the flu as they did before consuming raw milk.
There are even reports of improvement in autistic children, such as one mother who attributes to raw milk her son’s ability to attend regular school instead of special education. The boy lived in his own world up until the age of 7, when his mother changed his diet, including the addition of raw milk. A high-schooler today, he can drive, and he plans to attend college.
Ultimately, the scientific evidence is not conclusive, and the anecdotal stories are just that — individual reports that may be attributed to other factors.
The benefits of raw milk have not been scientifically proved or disproved. In order to understand all of the facts, scientific studies should be conducted to verify which of the reported health benefits of raw milk are accurate.
If raw milk might be an overlooked superfood, then why is there such controversy?
Regulators point to the risk of consuming a raw animal product. The basic facts about raw-milk safety are the same as any other food. If raw milk is not contaminated by microbial pathogens, it is safe to drink. If it is contaminated, then the microbe can sicken anyone who drinks the milk. Contamination can come from bovine diseases, or manure or dirt that is brought into contact with the milk by insects or humans.
Most raw-milk drinkers take care in choosing the sources of their milk and choose farmers who take steps to reduce the risks (for example, by careful sanitation of their equipment). In contrast, milk that is intended for pasteurization is typically produced in large, confinement dairies that can fall back on the knowledge that any bugs in the milk will be killed during pasteurization.
The question is: Which is more significant, raw milk’s health benefits over and above pasteurized milk, or its health risks? And the answer to that question depends on who you ask.
Regulators point to statistics on food-poisoning outbreaks and cases attributed to raw milk compared to the number attributed to pasteurized milk. According to the CDC’s numbers, there were 74 outbreaks due to raw milk in the U.S. from 1993 to 2006. These outbreaks led to 1,600 individual food-poisoning cases, including 202 hospitalizations and two deaths. During the same time period, there were 48 outbreaks due to pasteurized milk, leading to 1,223 cases, 30 hospitalizations and one death. These numbers look roughly equivalent until you consider that many more people drink pasteurized milk than the number of those who drink raw milk. Regulators estimate that less than 0.5 percent of U.S. milk is consumed unpasteurized. If that’s the case, assuming the above statistics are accurate, then raw milk is much riskier than pasteurized milk.
Raw-milk drinkers question the “official” statistics for a number of reasons. First, raw milk is not legal in all U.S. states, and about one-fifth of the raw-dairy outbreaks (and one-third of cases) are due to raw milk sold illegally, with the higher risks that typically accompany black-market products. Some of this was milk intended for the pasteurized market, where producers presumed that contamination would be addressed by pasteurization and therefore did not take the appropriate management and sanitation measures for milk to be consumed raw.
Second, raw-milk drinkers feel that when regulators learn that a food-poisoning victim consumed raw milk, they stop looking for the cause of the food poisoning — even if raw milk is actually innocent.
David Gumpert documents two such cases in his book, The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights. In one case, a family of four all drank raw milk, but only the 4-year-old boy became ill from campylobacter. The family suspects the boy became ill by eating snow contaminated with animal droppings a few days before he got sick.
In another case, a family of four bought raw milk but only three family members drank it — the father did not. The father bought pasteurized milk, and he and the two children drank it. The father and the two children who drank pasteurized milk became sick, and the mother (who had consumed only the raw milk) did not. In both cases, officials investigating the cases attributed them to raw milk. The true risks of raw milk remain a hotly debated topic.
Recognizing the health benefits raw-milk drinkers attribute to raw milk is essential in understanding their ferociousness in working to make raw milk legally accessible. Where the government sees a regulatory nightmare, they see a wholesome, healthy superfood that the government wishes to deny to them. They want to be allowed to choose the risks they take in their own diets, and many feel that the risk of raw milk — a food — is outweighed by the benefits of a healthy diet and are far less than the risks of using pharmaceutical drugs.
And that raises another question: Is it the government’s job to protect Americans by forbidding them to take risks of their own choosing?
The debate between regulators and raw-milk drinkers has escalated to hysterical levels, often devoid of logic on both sides. A small segment of raw-milk drinkers refuses to admit that raw milk has ever sickened anybody. Some see any attempt to regulate raw milk as a slippery slope to outlawing it entirely (and thus, unacceptable).
Regulators, on the other hand, see only the risks and dismiss the alleged benefits. Unfortunately, the escalation of the fight (particularly by the fringier elements on either side) harms all involved, as it moves everyone further away from a safe and healthy compromise.
Individuals such as Mark McAfee, owner of the largest raw dairy in America, have the ability to single-handedly alter the debate for the worse. McAfee engages in several practices making him unique among raw-dairy farmers. He sells his products in retail locations like Whole Foods (within California only), and he outsources some of his production as his demand outstrips his supply. However, that means that he does not have direct control over all of the dairy products sold under his label, and it also means that his customers have relatively little information about where their raw dairy products come from.
McAfee’s herd is the largest of all U.S. raw dairies — 300 cows — which means he lacks the ability to pay as much attention to each cow as a raw dairy farmer who has, say, 30 cows. McAfee wields a significant amount of political power within California due to his colorful personality and his many high-profile Hollywood clients. McAfee’s unique practices (like outsourcing), combined with his combative nature, tend to inflame regulators and bring the debate over the larger issue of raw milk one step further away from calm, rational negotiation.
In a California State Senate hearing on raw milk, Dr. Michael Allen Payne made several recommendations to make raw milk safer, targeting McAfee specifically. He called for criminal penalties for outsourcing from nonlicensed dairies, regulating colostrums as a dairy product (not a nutritional supplement with no sanitary standards, as it is now), and ending the interstate shipping of raw-milk products labeled as pet food to avoid the laws against interstate shipment.
He also particularly objected to the marketing of raw milk as a drug (which is not allowed for any food) and marketing it to mothers with small children. An adult can make an educated decision to take a risk, he and other regulators say, whereas a child cannot. Payne recommends requiring point-of-sale warnings for at-risk populations and making warnings for at-risk populations on product containers more visible and understandable.
He also calls for raw-milk manufacturers to be held to the same standard of review and approval of health-and-safety claims made in promotional materials as applied to other foods, nutritional supplements and pharmaceuticals. That would require that all health claims for raw milk promotional materials be pre-approved by the government.
On the other hand, parents are always in the position of making decisions about their children’s diets. And many adults make poor choices for their children: one study found that on any given day, one-third of the nation’s children eat fast food and that fast food was the main food source for 29 to 38 percent of all children studied.
Feeding children fast food — particularly as their main food source — is more than just a risk. It’s 100 percent guaranteed to harm a child’s health even though it is perfectly legal. And unlike milk, no one has provided even anecdotal reports of health benefits from fast food. Rather than interfere with family decisions, regulators’ best strategy may be to set high standards for farmers producing raw milk so that parents have the option to choose raw milk that is as safe as possible.
Last, Payne calls for several safety standards to ensure that raw milk is as safe as possible. He wants to require recording devices for equipment cleaning of raw dairies, require the development of an HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) plan for each raw dairy (this is a common food-safety strategy, first developed to ensure the safety of food given to astronauts in space) and increase regulatory pathogen testing of raw-milk products.
While raw-milk advocates might not agree with all aspects of Payne’s plan, he is coming to the table with reason instead of rhetoric. He provides a starting point from which the raw milk advocates and regulators could begin negotiating. In contrast, regulators in some other states have sought to ban raw milk or to impose extremely burdensome requirements on consumers, such as having to drive out to the farm each and every time they want to buy raw milk.
Food-safety laws are put in place to prevent those who grow, process and sell the food from poisoning their customers, not to limit consumers’ choice in foods. Other risky foods are legal, even though they sicken many people. The Center for Science in the Public Interest recently found that oysters are the fourth leading cause of food poisoning of all of the foods regulated by the FDA. Fluid milk — raw or pasteurized — did not even rank in the top 10.
If consumers can take their chances eating raw oysters, then why shouldn’t they be allowed to drink raw milk?
Both foods should be regulated to ensure that producers sell the safest possible product and that consumers are aware of the risk. In that way, the government could do its job to protect consumers from harm while allowing them to take risks of their choosing.
Whatever the outcome of the raw milk fight may be, ditching the hysterics and working toward compromise is the best path forward.
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/143572/the_battle_over_raw_milk%3A_let%27s_ditch_the_hysterics_and_give_people_a_choice/
Breaking up ‘too big to fail’ firms-Politico.com
November 5, 2009 — ramanan50Good move.In addition, a company which has committed malpractices should be reconstituted at the Directors level and broken up into smaller units.
Pattern of holding of companies,especially ’shell companies,needs to be looked into and and IRS may be given sweeping powersto rein them in.
For failed companies ‘Limited liabilty’ must be scrapped and assets of spouse,if found possessing wealth disproportionate to their known sources of income, must be confiscated
Story:
Just when Wall Street thought it couldn’t get worse for them on Capitol Hill – it did.
Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Penn.), a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, has proposed the most explosive provision so far in the debate over financial reform, seeking to empower federal regulators to preemptively break up financial firms deemed “too big to fail.”
The powers Kanjorski is proposing are sweeping – he wants to hand the federal government a measuring stick to figure out which companies are a threat to the larger financial system, then give the feds the authority to break them up regardless of their financial health.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29153.html
Italy Convicts 23 Americans for C.I.A. Renditions -NYT
November 5, 2009 — ramanan50When terrorism is trans national,there is nothing wrong in law enforcing agencies to be trans national.If you wait for official redtape to clear,the terrorists would have committed more crimes in the country where they have been apprehended.
Were the US,if they had hands on Red Brigade, let them off in US, what would Italy have done?Same applies to Italian Mafia.
Story:
In a landmark ruling, an Italian judge on Wednesday convicted a base chief for the Central Intelligence Agency and 22 other Americans, almost all C.I.A. operatives, of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003.
Extraordinary RenditionThe case was a huge symbolic victory for Italian prosecutors, who drew the first convictions involving the American practice of rendition, in which terrorism suspects are captured in one country and taken for questioning in another, often one more open to coercive interrogation techniques.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/europe/05italy.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a1
Curry spice found to kill off cancer cells
November 5, 2009 — ramanan50Turmeric ,like neem, is the best antibiotic.It is used in daily in cooking in India.It is applied for cuts and wounds, by making it as a paste and mixing it with warmed Gingelly oil.
Neem is used as a pest controller by keeping a few leaves in the provisions we have at home.For stomach disorders and infections of the stomach,tender neemleaves are cleaned and eaten raw.A paste of turmeric and tender neeml eaves will fight infection in any open wound.
Story:
SCIENTISTS have discovered that an extract found in the bright yellow curry spice known as turmeric can kill off cancer cells within 24 hours.
The chemical – curcumin – has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.
Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre in Ireland show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.
For more go to news.bbc.co.uk
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26275625-5003426,00.html
Woman Is Allergic to Her Husband’s Sperm-ABC news
November 5, 2009 — ramanan50Important and useful.
Story:
The only thing newlyweds Julie and Mike Boyde wanted was a baby. The couple had already begun planning for a family and started to build a nursery in their Ambridge, Pa., home.
Shortly after marriage, sex became painful because of an allergy.But a painful diagnosis shattered their dream of parenthood. They learned that Julie Boyde was allergic to her husband’s semen.
So the Boydes tried a revolutionary new treatment they hoped would allow them to have a baby. And although it proved unsuccessful for them, doctors hope it can help other women who have a similar problem.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/woman-allergic-husbands-sperm/story?id=8987231
Study: Least Healthy Cereals Most Marketed to Children
November 5, 2009 — ramanan50This reinforces my belief that packaged/processed foods are harmful and nothing is as good as homemade food from provisions purchased from the farmer.For further information see my blogs underHealth category.
Story:
Six hundred and forty-two times a year. That is how often the average American preschooler sees an advertisement for cereal, according to a new study by Yale University.
Share
New study accuses food industry of pushing the least nutritious cereals on kids.So it puts things in perspective when the same study says that cereals with the biggest marketing push also happen to be among the least nutritious, when analyzed using a nutrient profiling system developed at Oxford University.
“If one looks at the rank order list of the worst nutrition cereals it’s stunning how the worst cereals are marketed so aggressively to children,” Kelly Brownell, a co-author of the study, said.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/study-healthy-cereals-marketed-children/story?id=8913808
Tippling through the ages
November 5, 2009 — ramanan50Long Live Bacchus!
Story:
Among the few cultural traditions shared by human populations across time and geography is the abiding urge to make and consume alcoholic beverages. Alcohol was also one of the first medicines as well as a component of many early religious practices. But modern humans’ choices are limited to a few alcoholic staples — beer, wine, and “hard” liquor. Many of the beverages enjoyed by cultures past have been lost to the historical record.
Patrick McGovern, a University of Pennsylvania researcher who describes himself as a biomolecular archeologist, and Sam Calagione, founder and president of Delaware-based Dogfish Head Brewery, aim to rescue some of these forgotten brews using a mixture of science and craftsmanship
The story of their collaboration began, McGovern said at a recent lecture at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, with the discovery of a burial mound — called a tumulus — marking the eternal resting place of one of history’s most famous kings. “Right upstairs, the debris from the Midas tumulus was waiting for me in small paper bags,” he said. Fifty years ago University of Pennsylvania archaeologists had excavated the tumulus, located in eastern Turkey, and stored debris from vessels upstairs at the Philadelphia museum.
“[I was interested in analyzing] the intense yellowish residue in a sort of reverse engineering to try and resurrect old ingredients,” McGovern explained. Using mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography, he determined that the ancient residue was a mixture of barley, honey and grapes. Since the subject of ancient beverages is dear to his heart and his palate, he explained, the next step was obvious — “Why not try to recreate some of these ancient beverages?” For help, he turned to Calagione, who used equal proportions of the ingredients with saffron as the bittering agent to brew Midas Touch, which approximates the drink that likely flowed at celebrations or funerals during the time of the ancient king. McGovern suggested the use of saffron because hops would not have been used in Midas’ time, and he thought the spice might account for the intense yellow in the residue. Midas Touch is an ale beautiful to behold and with a complex set of flavors; King Midas would have found it more than acceptable.
This first success merely whetted McGovern’s thirst for reconstructing ancient fermented beverages. “The story of early mankind is humans figuring out how to chew all kinds of carbohydrates: stems, grains, roots, fruit, [looking for] what’s fermentable, and that’s led to a whole slew of beverages around the world,” he noted. Specifically, it led McGovern to chicha — a corn beer that’s been consumed in South America for centuries — which Calagione has also recreated at Dogfish Head. Chicha is brewed with corn that’s first been chewed, human saliva acting as a fermenting agent in the brewing process. (The brewing process destroys harmful bacteria.)
McGovern and Calagione have also recreated a 3,200-year-old cacao-based ale called Theobroma, the recipe for which McGovern unearthed in Honduras. It does not taste chocolatey; rather it has an earthy flavor, a good fall brew that would pair nicely with stews or soups.
Napoleon’s Dynamite-US ?
November 5, 2009 — ramanan50True,US is not an Imperial builder, nor does it wage war for territory.Where is the nececessity for wars when you can overrun Natives with your military?Why should you wage a war when you can control countries by Dollars?
US does not wage war-it just entered Vietnam, to help people out.
It helped Kuwait by moving in Iraq .It is helping Afganistan right now.
It is trying to help Pakistan as well.
Yes, it does not wage a war directly unless attacked directly as in Pearl Harbour.It just acts as a catalyst when local conditions are conducive to US’s economic benefit,by aiding both parties against each other, some times helping one,sometimes another and many a times both at the same time.
Story:
PARIS — He’s in there somewhere, under the gilded dome of Les Invalides in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. The Emperor of the French, Napoleon Bonaparte, is entombed by six coffins in what has to be the most spectacular sarcophagus in all the City of Light.
I stared at this extravagance of marble and mortality not long ago, thought about Napoleon’s campaigns in Russia, Italy and Prussia, the wars that briefly remade Europe, and realized that I owed a considerable part of my heritage as a citizen of the American West to the Little Corporal in the coffin.
Distracted as he was in trying to build an empire, Napoleon looked across the Atlantic and decided he had little use for the mid-section of a distant continent. Needing cash for conquest, he then sold the French holdings for a pittance to the fledgling United States.
Putting aside the fact that these lands had Native Americans living on them, with deep attachments and rights of sovereignty of their own, the United States got one of the greatest real estate deals of all time from the French.
For barely 5 cents an acre, the U.S. picked up more than 800,000 square miles in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. With the stroke of a pen at Thomas Jefferson’s behest, and without the loss of a single life, America doubled in size.
We were wary, following the advice of Jefferson and others, of ceaseless and senseless overseas wars. Wars for territory. Wars for defense. Wars for revenge. Wars because one religion was better than another. This was not our way. We didn’t meddle. We fought “good wars,” against imperial occupiers like Great Britain and, much later, the Nazis.
And we were slow to rouse, intervening only when called to the rescue. That was — perhaps still is — our narrative as a people.
From that peaceful triumph with France, you pivot to the present day, and wonder how we will fit what are likely to be our two longest wars into this story. The United States has been in Afghanistan coming up on a decade. Iraq is not far behind.
http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/napoleons-dynamite/?8ty&emc=ty
Regions angered by EU budget proposals-Financial Times
November 6, 2009 — ramanan50EU is an Utopian concept.When you seriously analyse Nationalism , you will find it petering out to Regions,then to States within the Region,then districts,to cities.At a critical point like resoruce crunch, we will find the lowest ranked constituent(in fact it is the basic unit),will try to assert and it is justified.
Such being the case,EU shall find the going tough.
Interesting to observe that the much touted one global entity,borderless world in terms of communications and the squabble for resources fighting it out.
Story:
The European Commission is pressing for a “root-and-branch reform” of the European Union’s €140bn-a-year budget in a proposal that is stirring outrage among Europe’s regions, which risk losing their grip on vast sums of financial aid.
A Commission document obtained by the Financial Times says the EU should impose tighter national controls on funds that at present are passed directly to Europe’s regions and extend recent cuts in agricultural subsidies. It says the EU should concentrate its regional aid budget, worth almost €50bn a year, on individual member states rather than poor regions within them.
The proposal has angered representatives of rich regions in western Europe, some of which still receive aid, as well as those in poorer central and eastern Europe. All fear a renationalisation of EU aid policy that will lead to a loss of funds and influence over how money is spent.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e789fcb0-ca54-11de-a3a3-00144feabdc0.html
Claims of sex abuse by women grow-BBC News
November 9, 2009 — ramanan50Repulsive and shocking.As has been observed in the story, many do not complain because of the stigma attached to the family as well.It would be of interest to have a study carried out on abuse of Husbands and in laws by women, as I am sure would reveal more shocking news.
Where are feminists and civil rights organisations?
Had males have been reported as offenders, we would have had these selfstyled saviours screaming.
Story:
A huge rise in the number of children calling to report sexual abuse by women has been revealed by ChildLine.
Over the past five years, the charity says the number of such calls has risen five times faster than youngsters reporting abuse by a man.
Of 16,094 children who called ChildLine about sex abuse last year, 2,142 told of abuse by a woman, up 132% on 2004-5.
Men still account for the majority of child abuse claims, but the NSPCC said female sex abuse was under-reported.
This is because there is a reluctance or unwillingness on the part of professionals to acknowledge or identify sexual abuse by females, the charity suggested.
Many would find it shocking that any woman – let alone a mother – can sexually assault a child
Sue MintoNSPCCThe ChildLine research said nearly two-thirds (1,311) of the claims it received about sex abuse by a female involved the child’s mother.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8347589.stm
Jane Kennedy says no to comfort food-Courier mail.
November 9, 2009 — ramanan50Self explanatory.
Story:
LAST year comedian and mother of five Jane Kennedy was working long hours on the television show The Hollowmen and she stacked on 7kg with unhealthy eating and little exercise.
Then at 10pm one day in July last year Kennedy had an epiphany. She realised she needed a dramatic change to her approach to food. She had come home tired and hungry and gave in to her craving for a rich, creamy risotto with garlic bread.
“Then I felt full and terrible,” she says. “It was then I thought comfort food should be called discomfort food. The term comfort food should be banned.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26259002-5003426,00.html
Can cloud ships and space sun shades fix the planet? CNN
November 9, 2009 — ramanan50Well thought out ,may be, would it not be better if we cut down felling of trees,use less of chemicals and plant more trees and ban toxic industries?
Again for making these products, we are going to cost the environment dear.
Story:
CNN) — In order to stop dangerous climate change we may be forced to construct giant solar shades and cover great swathes of land with artificial trees that suck up carbon dioxide.
These are the conclusions of a year-long scientific survey of “geo-engineering” technologies by the UK’s Royal Academy published earlier this year. From fake trees to cloud making ships, the ideas are designed to provide planet-scale alterations to our climate if efforts to cut emissions fail.
But while the Royal Society believes some of the technologies show promise, such as firing tiny reflective particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight, the report sounds a strong note of caution about the potential unintended consequences of geo-engineering.
Its authors are concerned that excitement about new technology might distract from efforts to cut emissions.
“Geo-engineering is not a magic bullet and nothing we now know about any of these technologies suggests that they will be able to cancel out emissions in the near future,” Professor John Shepherd, an oceanographer at Southampton University, and chair of the Royal Society working group, told CNN.
“We are not arguing for the development of these technologies, but for research that will enable us to make a sensible decision about them in the future.
“We were concerned that, particularly in the run up to Copenhagen in December, some of the hype about geo-engineering could have a negative effect on efforts to reduce emissions, which is still absolutely critical.”
Bold solutions but with a high price?
But while the Royal Society argues for research rather than action, there is a growing interest in geo-engineering technology and others are much more forthright in their endorsement, even arguing that it offers an alternative to cutting emissions.
We need to end our fixation on cutting carbon, because experience shows us that it just isn’t working
–Bjorn Lomborg
“We need to end our fixation on cutting carbon through deals like Kyoto and Copenhagen, because experience shows us that those just aren’t working,” Bjorn Lomborg, director of the think-tank the Copenhagen Consensus Center and author of “Cool It” and “The Skeptical Environmentalist”, told CNN.
Research by Lomborg’s own Copenhagen Consensus Center has suggested that spending $9 billion developing cloud whitening technology to reflect solar radiation might be able to cancel out this century’s global warming in a relatively short timeframe, while in contrast, he argues, the shift to a low-carbon economy based on green energy could take much longer.
“Consider that electrification of the global economy is still incomplete after more than a century of effort,” said Lomborg.
Any attempt at geo-engineering the Earth’s climate would require massive industrial projects, and professional engineering institutions point to the potential economic, as well as environmental, benefits.
“We estimate that up to two million new jobs will be created in this sector by 2050,” said Dr Tim Fox, Head of Environment and Climate Change at the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which recently issued a report arguing that geo-engineering technology could pave the way to a greener future.
“At the moment no-one is taking greenhouses gases out of the air and no-one is trying to reflect back solar radiation. If we were to do either of these they would develop into billions of tonnes of gases per year or thousands of square miles of reflective devices. That equates to probably millions not thousands of jobs worldwide.”
The Institution is calling for the British Government funding of up to £20 million ($33 million) to help establish a new research center for geo-engineering, and believes both the UK and USA would be well-placed to take advantage of the new industries.
“[Geo-engineering] could operate tomorrow, but it is a double question of scale and cost. We have not done this before, and whilst we don’t need any technological inventions to help us succeed, we do need to go up a learning curve,” said Fox.
Russian roulette with the future of the planet
But in sharp contrast to this enthusiasm many environmental groups are strongly opposed to geo-engineering,. They argue that it is a dangerous distraction from what they see as the key issue: reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“Geo-engineering is not a plan B for the climate,” Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, Dr Doug Parr, said in a press statement.
Geo-engineering is not a plan B for the climate
–Doug Parr, Greenpeace
“It should be used only in desperation, [could have] widespread undesirable impacts, and raises major ethical and political issues of its own. It may be very expensive, and it may well never work.
“Many of these proposals still have risks – there is no simple global thermostat that can be turned up and down and proposals that reflect sunlight can still… have impacts on weather and precipitation leading to exactly the sorts of problems we are trying to avoid by averting climate change.
“Geo-engineering is now being investigated because we have collectively, as a society, failed to take on the fossil fuel interests.”
Mike Childs, Head of Climate at Friends of the Earth also remains wary of the impact of many geo-engineering concepts.
“The benefits of geo-engineering are unproven,” he told CNN.
“We haven’t got time to play Russian roulette with the future of the planet. Science tells us we need to make quick and substantial cuts in global carbon emissions if we have any hope of avoiding runaway climate change.”
There is even the risk that even if some geo-engineering projects work, they may draw humanity into further difficulties that we will struggle to manage over the long-term.
“We are not sure that some of the solar technologies are at all sustainable,” said Shepherd.
“They are based on balancing one human intervention against another, and we would have to keep maintaining that balance as long as the greenhouse gasses are in the atmosphere, and that could be hundreds of years.
“We shouldn’t begin something like that without understanding our exit strategy.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/11/05/eco.geoengineering/index.html
Obesity responsible for 100,000 cancer cases annually-CNN
November 9, 2009 — ramanan50And fast/junk/convenience/comfort foods are the main reasons for obesity.
Avoidence of irregular eating habits, eating snacks whenver one feels like are other major causes of obesity.
Why can’t we avoid it?
Story:
CNN) — More than 100,000 cases of cancer each year are caused by excess body fat, according to a report released Thursday in Washington.
Researchers with the American Institute for Cancer Research looked at seven cancers with known links to obesity and calculated actual case counts that were likely to have been caused by obesity.
Specifically, the report says that 49 percent of endometrial cancers are caused by excess body fat. That number is followed by 35 percent of esophageal cancer cases; 28 percent of pancreatic cancer cases; 24 percent of kidney cancer cases; 21 percent of gallbladder cancer cases; 17 percent of breast cancer cases; and 9 percent of colorectal cancer cases.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/05/obesity.cancer.link/index.html
Have we fallen out of love with capitalism BBC World Service.
November 9, 2009 — ramanan50Honey moon with Capitalism is turning sour.
Reason is that Keynesian Economic Theory is not working in terms controlling Inflation and deflation.
Secondly the assumption that material benefits alone can guarantee security is taking a beating as security of future is not guaranteed even by Capitalism.
The divide between the have’s and Have nots have widened to the point of being unbridgeable, recalling to one’s mind the conditions obtaining in France prior to 1789;here the nobles have been substituted by Corporations and the obscenely rich.
Fourthly,financial scams by corporates have disillusioned the common man.
However, Communism is no solution as capitalism with more controls and distribution of wealth is the solution.
http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/have-we-fallen-out-of-love-with-capitalism/#comment-177228
Fort Hood suspect contacted Islamist: sources-Reuters:CIA,NSA,HS,FBI?!
November 10, 2009 — ramanan501.What is the point in having world’s best listening post,NSA, when Elint is not used properly?
2.Typical governmental apathy in not letting the right hand know what the left does, and starting the blame game!
3.Once the information about the suspect has been received action should have been taken ,not withstanding his records and early back ground check.
4.Yet another instance of faith transcending National loyalty!What the apologists for Muslims are going to say who have been saying fingerprinting or profiling Muslims by Homeland Security/FBI is racist, on this issue?
Story:
By Jeremy Pelofsky and Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. intelligence agencies learned an Army psychiatrist contacted an Islamist sympathetic to al Qaeda and they relayed the information to authorities before the man allegedly went on a shooting spree that killed 13 people in Texas last week, U.S. officials said on Monday.
While the agencies were monitoring contacts by Anwar al-Awlaki, a fiery, anti-American cleric in Yemen who sympathized with al Qaeda, they came across some communications late last year with the shooting suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, U.S. government officials said.
They said the information was given to federal authorities who determined that Hasan’s writings were largely consistent with his academic work, offering no hint that he was planning an attack or was following orders from anyone
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5A85DK20091110?feedType=nl&feedName=usmorningdigest
Man provides photo for his own wanted poster-Reuters
November 10, 2009 — ramanan50It takes all kinds to make up this world!
Story:
LONDON (Reuters) – A British man on the run from police sent a picture of himself to his local paper because he disliked the mugshot they had printed of him as part of a public appeal to track him down.
South Wales Police had issued media with the photo of Matthew Maynard, wanted by officers investigating a house burglary, as part of a crackdown on crime in Swansea.
When it appeared in the South Wales Evening Post, the 23-year-old sent the newspaper a replacement photo of himself standing in front of a police van. They obligingly printed it on the front page.
The police thanked him for helping them in their appeal, saying: “Everyone in Swansea will know what he looks like now.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE5A831720091109
Failing the troops at Fort Hood.Washinton Post
November 10, 2009 — ramanan50What one is supposed to say?-that muslims are good citizens,they place Nation before Faith,they will sing a song dedicated to mother land ,(this is happening in India-Fatwa issued against singing of Vande Mataram),Islamic countries allow other Faith to survive,terrorists happen to be Muslims,they issue fatwas for the welfare of the world,they grant equal rights to women!
Story:
There’s a difference between sensitivity and stupidity. If there were indeed signs that Maj. Nidal Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood mass murderer, was becoming radicalized in his opposition to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army had a duty to act — before he did.
Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, said Sunday that he was concerned “this increased speculation” about Hasan’s evolving political and religious views “could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers.” Casey is right to worry about the lunatics and bigots who now will think of all Muslims in the military as potential enemies. But it only feeds such paranoia to ignore alarm bells that an unstable individual, Muslim or not, is about to blow.
Army officials surely were aware that Muslims in the service have complained of taunts and harassment from their fellow soldiers. For moral and practical reasons, the Army must eliminate such discrimination. I’ve had issues with the way former president George W. Bush did his job, to say the least, but one good thing he did was emphasize that his “war on terrorism” was not a war against Islam, one of the world’s great faiths. That disclaimer rings hollow if Muslims serving in the armed forces are blamed for the crimes of Islamic terrorists and treated as potential traitors to the American cause.
But fairness is one thing, foolishness another. Any soldier who seemed as if he might be falling apart — and it seems that Hasan gave a lot of people that impression — should have been given more scrutiny. In Hasan’s case, a closer look would have revealed his growing religiosity and his feeling that his faith was under assault. That Hasan had worshiped at a Virginia mosque whose spiritual leader was a radical named Anwar al-Aulaqi might also have come to light. The Post reported Monday that Aulaqi, who now lives in Yemen, has posted a message on his Web site calling Hasan a “hero” for what he allegedly did at Fort Hood.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/09/AR2009110902601.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
Left Front routed in Bengal-
November 10, 2009 — ramanan50Communists are paying for their unprincipled alliances and their dichotomy in opposing liberalisation at the centre, promoting it in the states ruled by them and their mulish approach to Nanoproject in West Bengal.
Story:
Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress-Congress combine won five of 10 West Bengal Assembly seats and was ahead in three others, delivering a crushing blow to the ruling Left Front in by-elections held on Saturday.
As the votes were counted, the Left Front, which had won three of the 10 seats in 2006, led only in Goalpokhar, with the Forward Bloc’s Ali Imran Ramoz ahead of his closest rival by about 4,000 votes.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/left-front-routed-in-west-bengal-tmccong-lead/104925-37.html?utm_source=IBNdaily_IbnOptIn_101109&utm_medium=mailer
Crescent and Cross -Can they co exist?BBC Whys.
November 10, 2009 — ramanan50Though all religions are different paths that lead to GOD(for believers),looking at the History of Cross and Crescent ,right now it seems it might not be possible for them to coexist,however cynical this may sound.
So long as Christianity believes and practices proslytisation and Islam in intolerance and violence co existence seems to be a mirage.
Unless people of both Religions understand the percepts of their religions in its true meaning with out being mislead by Clerics and Clergy,and practise what is taught rather than what is fed to them – it is far removed from what they have been led to believe by these jokers,who thrive on Religion as a business.All sacred books are avaoilable now;read and learn what these great souls have to say;discard what has been said for the society of their times and follow what is applicable to present society and we shall see a changed society.And Remember,Religion is intensely personal;if I may so, as personal as sex is.
Story:
LISTEN TO OWEN’S PROGRAMME HERE.
The BBC is running a major documentary series called “The Crescent and the Cross”.
Here, the presenter, Owen Bennett Jones, (who will co-host WHYS tonight) starts a conversation about some of the things he discovered while making the programmes.
“ Perhaps Samuel Huntington was right. 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan all suggest a clash between two great civilisations.
http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/the-crescent-and-the-cross/#comment-177497
Blackwater Said to Approve Iraqi Payoffs After Shootings-NYT
November 11, 2009 — ramanan50What is being done by Obama to change world’s perception of US as a well meaning power will be undone by these corporates.
By the way, is US short of people to serve the army so as to outsource security on foreign soil?
Or is it that private employee’s life is cheaper than th Govt. employee?Story:
WASHINGTON — Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/world/middleeast/11blackwater.html?_r=1&emc=na
Father drops court battle to keep baby alive-CNN
November 11, 2009 — ramanan50Cases like this makes one believe that our lives are not controlled by us.
Story:
London, England (CNN) — The father of a baby with a severe birth defect has agreed to let the child die, ending a British court battle against the baby’s mother, the judge in the case announced Tuesday.
The baby’s father had been fighting the mother and the hospital in London’s High Court.
The child — identified only as Baby RB — is 13 months old and suffers from congenital myasthenic syndrome, a rare genetic condition which means he cannot breathe on his own.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/10/uk.baby.life.support/index.html
Gold soars to record high
November 11, 2009 — ramanan50Price goes up if Dollar is weak,economy is tottering;up when economy is performing well for because economy is doing well people go in for gold;if oil prices are high, gold price increases;if oil prices are low,gold price increases.
Will some one tell me what exactly is happening?
May be that the Gold Cartel that fixes prices needs a look into.
Scam has gone too far unnoticed.
Story:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Gold continued its rally and set a record high Tuesday as the dollar remained weak despite rising from a 15-month low hit in the previous session.
December gold rose $1.10 to settle at a record $1,102.50 an ounce.
“Investors are still interested in gold because of a weak dollar, weak economic conditions and concerns over the financial markets,” said Carlos Sanchez, precious metals analyst at CPM Group.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/10/markets/gold/index.htm?postversion=2009111018
Antibiotic overuse threatens modern medicine: experts-Reuters
November 11, 2009 — ramanan50Despite repeated warnings people still pop up anti-biotics at the drop of a hat.
Doctors who prescribe them immediately as soon as the patients come to them(this is a fact, at least in India),drug shops which issue them with out prescriptions and sales promotion by way of heavy advertising by Pharma companies are also equally responsible.
Story:
LONDON (Reuters) – Overuse of antibiotics in Europe is building widespread resistance and threatening to halt vital medical treatments such as hip replacements, intensive care for premature babies and cancer therapies, health experts say.
Dominique Monnet of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control’s (ECDC) scientific advice unit said the “whole span of modern medicine” is under threat because bugs are become resistant to antibiotics, rendering the drugs useless.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5A927820091110?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100
America Leaves Itself Behind-WSJ
November 11, 2009 — ramanan50Reasons are – US is undergoing recession; other countries’ economies are picking up along with technical expertise;EU is gaining acceptance the world over;EU is more united economically now than before;unfair trade/restrictive practices of US corporations and their propensity in interfering in local affairs;US’s obstructionist tactics at WTO .It is of interest to note only one agreement has been signed with an Islamic country,Oman.
Story:
President Obama heads for Asia this week to talk about U.S. economic recovery and reform, and one theme that we expect he’ll hear from Asian leaders is this: America is leaving itself behind as the rest of the world tries to liberalize trade.
The numbers tell the story. At least 266 bilateral or regional trade deals are in force, according to the World Trade Organization, and there are roughly 100 more of which the WTO has not yet been formally informed. The U.S. is a party to only five of the 64 trade pacts that have taken effect since 2005—with Australia, Morocco, Bahrain, Oman and Peru.
In contrast, eight of those 64 deals involve the European Union (plus a round of EU expansion) and Japan has signed nine. Overall the U.S. has trade deals with only 17 countries including Canada and Mexico under Nafta. The EU has struck 29 deals on trade ranging from customs unions to larger free-trade agreements with 40 economies.
Of the deals the WTO knows about, an average of seven took effect each year in the five years after the WTO’s founding in 1995. For 2004-2008, the annual average rose to 15. Another 12 have kicked in this year. New Zealand and Malaysia signed a pact last week, for instance, and China and India are in talks. Oh, and there’s also the newly signed EU-Korea trade deal, and the one signed last year between Canada and Colombia.
These deals are proliferating for many reasons. Some countries are losing patience with the Doha round of global trade talks that has dragged on for eight years. Others view bilateral deals as a way of liberalizing beyond what Doha would accomplish—including areas like intellectual-property protection. These deals can also firm up alliances or build political influence, which is one reason China is aggressively pursuing trade deals with its neighbors.
The danger is that U.S. companies could find themselves on the wrong side of deals negotiated among other countries. The EU-South Korea pact, for example, will tear down almost all remaining tariff barriers between the two sides. It will also address such technical barriers as the excessive safety standards that Seoul has long used to block imports, and it will open Korea to European services. The U.S. has long tried to address these hurdles so American companies could gain better access to the world’s 13th-largest economy. The EU is now beating Washington to the punch—largely by copying the trade deal the Bush Administration negotiated with Seoul but that Congress refuses to ratify.
The same holds for Canada’s deal with Colombia. That deal eliminates Colombia’s average 12% tariffs on nonagricultural goods from Canada; U.S. exporters will still have to pay those tariffs even as Colombians keep tariff-free access to the U.S. under an earlier agreement. Over time Canadian farmers will gain tariff-free access to Colombia for most of their agricultural exports while farmers in Iowa or Nebraska will be stuck with tariffs of between 5% and 80%
Bilateral trade deals are far from ideal as a way to promote global growth. Far better for governments to lower their own trade barriers unilaterally to all comers, or for all governments to sign a multilateral deal like the Doha round. A complex web of bilateral and regional trade deals can saddle businesses with the costs of complying with multiple sets of rules. This “spaghetti bowl” approach also distorts economies to the extent that businesses make trade and investment decisions based more on where they can get trade preferences than on the highest return on capital.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703574604574500372712162380.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
Flow of H1N1 vaccines picking up in U.S., CDC says-This is what Pharma Corp.wanted.
November 11, 2009 — ramanan50The systematic scare that is being created makes one wonder whether these scares are a ploy to promote sales of these vaccines by the pharma companies, whether it be swine Flu,Avian Flu.Story:
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The flow of swine flu vaccines to the U.S. market is picking up, health and corporate officials said on Tuesday, and now the challenge will be to get the drugs to people.
Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 41.1 million doses of H1N1 vaccines are either available or have been delivered but that state and local health officials still face logistical problems.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5A557920091110?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100
Wrong Predictions-Scientists to be blamed?
November 11, 2009 — ramanan50Predictions are often the result of pressure and sensalisation by the media.Normally a Scientist is reluctant to predict as he knows the imponderables always exist and he is extra cautious.
Claims of immediate results and break throgh sre often made by adminstrators of a research facility where the Scientist in charge,who is more of an adminstrator than a scientist;he does so to ensure funds, with out realising he is hurting the scientific community in the long run.This does not mean scientists are above board.
Barring few exceptions ,people take scientific research as a profession not as a vocation.
Few have the passion of a Newton,Einstein.
When your future hinges on immediate results,which is not possible in research,professional scientists engage in fabricating resutls to save their career.
Another reason for immediate results not coming forth as before is too much of formal education has dulled intutive perception, which underlies great findings like Clarke’s Table,Relativity,Laws of motion.
Story:
A South Korean postage stamp issued in 2005 depicts a scene that is reminiscent of the iconic human evolution cartoon in which a stooping ape evolves, in six or so steps, into an upright, bipedal Homo sapiens. It shows a paraplegic man climbing slowly out of his wheelchair, standing up straight, and then performing a giant leap of celebration. Placed next to an image of an ovum undergoing the technique of nuclear transfer, the message was clear: Thanks to the groundbreaking publications of Hwang Woo-Suk, therapeutic cloning was a medical miracle that had as good as happened. The trouble is, it hadn’t happened. And nearly 4 years on, it still hasn’t.
South Korea was understandably proud of Hwang’s achievements and, like the rest of the world, excited by his claims and those of researchers worldwide that his human embryonic stem cell (hESC) techniques were set to provide therapies for not only spinal injuries, but Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and a host of other degenerative diseases. The rest is history. By January 2006, it was clear that Hwang’s pioneering papers had been fabricated and that the eleven individualized human stem cell lines he claimed to have established did not exist. Hwang left Seoul National University and was subject to criminal investigation, the stamp was withdrawn from circulation, and the world still awaits approval for the first hESC therapeutic application.
It can sometimes feel as if cures for diseases are forever 10 years off, while nuclear fusion seems to have been 50 years away from practical reality for about half a century now. It doesn’t take anything so extreme as scientific fraud to scupper what may have seemed, at the time, to be a well-grounded scientific prediction. At its most enthusiastic, science has always been prone to promise rather more, and sooner, than it has managed to deliver. It can sometimes feel as if cures for diseases are forever 10 years off, while nuclear fusion seems to have been 50 years away from practical reality for about half a century now. It might be easy to look back and laugh at claims that eugenics would spell the end for not only heritable diseases, but also of social problems such as vagrancy and crime, but a 1989 Science editorial’s claim during the run-up to the human genome project that the new genetics could help reduce homelessness by tackling mental illness1 is perhaps fresh enough to make biologists’ toes curl with embarrassment.
Meanwhile, in bleaker moments, scientific authorities have predicted the end of the world and civilization as we know them at the hand of pandemics or environmental catastrophe. And yet we are still here, in defiance of Thomas Malthus’s eighteenth-century warnings about overpopulation and ecologist Paul Ehrlich’s prophesy in his 1968 book The Population Bomb that “In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”
Related ArticlesAuthors of Our Own Misfortune
The Future of Public Engagement
The Scientist as Politician
Of course, scientists have a strong incentive to make bold predictions—namely, to obtain funding, influence, and high-profile publications. But while few will be disappointed when worst-case forecasts fail to materialize, unfulfilled predictions—of which we’re seeing more and more—can be a blow for patients, policy makers, and for the reputation of science itself.
In 1995, for example, an expert panel on gene therapy convened by the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s then-director Harold Varmus2 concluded: “Expectations of current gene therapy protocols have been oversold. Overzealous representation of clinical gene therapy has obscured the exploratory nature of the initial studies, colored the manner in which findings are portrayed to the scientific press and public, and led to the widely held, but mistaken, perception that clinical gene therapy is already highly successful. Such misrepresentation threatens confidence in the field and will inevitably lead to disappointment in both medical and lay communities.”
cientists have been making predictions for as long as there have been scientists. Indeed, without speculating about the future, it would be impossible to make decisions about how best to proceed. But there is reason to believe that promises are becoming more central to the scientific process.
Sir Ian Wilmut, leader of the Roslin Institute team that cloned Dolly the sheep, says that a “soundbite” media culture that demands uncomplicated, definitive, and sensational statements plays a significant role. “It’s [the media] who put the most pressure on scientists to make predictions,” he says. And in a radio or TV interview that allows perhaps only 10 or 20 seconds for an answer, “it’s very easy then to inadvertently mislead.”
But it might also pay scientists—financially and politically—to go along with such demands, and to indulge in what Joan Haran, Cesagen Research Fellow at Cardiff University, UK, diplomatically calls “discursive overbidding,” whereby they talk up the potential value of work for which they seek the support of funds, changes in legislation or public approval.
“Since the late 20th century, scientists no longer quite have that quality that we used to speak of as scientists being disinterested. They are now very interested,” says Hilary Rose, professor emerita of the sociology of science at the University of Bradford, UK and Gresham College London. “Many clearly manage to rise above this, but the basic culture of science has changed.”
Various developments such as the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act in the United States, and the rise of the spin-out companies from universities, mean that research has become more intrinsically bound up with the commercial world. Many biotech companies are now led by financial directors rather than scientific directors, says Nik Brown, co-director of the Science and Technology Studies Unit, University of York, UK. The past decade has seen a rise in the number of financial experts appointed to influential positions in biotech companies, for instance. And since the end of the Cold War, he says, the central role of science has become less about security and more about economy, with science and technology becoming central to many nations’ economic strategy.
Some famous (and infamous) predictions YEAR PREDICTION RIGHT OR WRONG?
1869 Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table left spaces for elements that he predicted would be discovered. Three of these (gallium, scandium, and germanium) were subsequently discovered within his lifetime. RIGHT
1964 Physicists predict the existence of the Higgs Boson. If CERN’s Large Hadron Collider finds no evidence for the existence of this massive fundamental particle, working models of the material universe might require a fundamental rethink. PENDING
1965 Intel cofounder Gordon E. Moore predicts that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double every two years. The industry has so far managed to keep up (despite many predictions over the years about the law’s imminent demise). RIGHT
1968 Entomologist Paul Ehrlich predicts that hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in the next two decades. WRONG
2002 At the website longbets.org, astronomer Sir Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, predicts that “By 2020, bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event.” Also at Long Bets, entrepreneurial engineer Ray Kurzweil bets $10,000 that by 2029 a computer will have passed the Turing Test for machine intelligence. PENDING
2003 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory sponsored GeneSweep, a sweepstakes on the number of human genes. While bids averaged around 60,000 genes, it was eventually won by a bid of 25,947—the lowest of the hundreds received. WRONG
2007 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 4th Assessment Report projects that global surface air temperatures will increase by between 1.1 and 6.4°C over preindustrial levels by the end of the century. PENDING
http://www.the-scientist.com/2009/11/1/28/1/
November 11, 2009 — ramanan50
Encouraging news.
Story:
In a photo I often use in presentation slides of my work, I’m standing in nothing but my swim trunks and sunglasses, covered in mud up to my ears. Next to me is my long-time colleague Joe Trapani, in much the same state, with a raccoon-like pattern on his face where he has smeared the mud away. We’d just spent an hour lounging in the Israeli side of the Dead Sea, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world, full of rich mineral mud that attracted visitors for thousands of years. I explain to my audience that we’re grinning like fools in the photo in part because of the way we looked but also, perhaps, because we were feeling so clever for coming up with a new way to answer an old, nagging research question: Do cells of the immune system detect and kill cancerous cells?
We had just come from the 1993 EMBO Cell-Mediated Cytotoxicity meeting in Jerusalem where a Swiss group, led by Hans Hengartner, reported the phenotype of a knockout mouse lacking the ability to produce the pore-forming molecule, perforin. Released by the killer cells of the immune system, perforin damages target cells or pathogens by punching holes in their plasma membranes. I had worked on the transcriptional control of perforin during my postdoctoral studies at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Frederick, Md., in the late 1980s. Joe, then at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, had studied the perforin gene and attempted to make his own perforin knockout mouse. The two of us listened to the presentation with rapt attention, with the same thought: might this model system reveal a role for perforin in early cancer elimination by immune cells?
http://www.the-scientist.com/2009/11/1/36/1/
November 11, 2009 — ramanan50
New discovery and it might alter the views on their habits and as well as their extinction.
Story:
Many dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded just like mammals or birds, potentially explaining their extraordinary success before their extinction.
For decades, scientists assumed that because dinosaurs resembled lizards, they were cold-blooded as well, their internal temperature rising and falling with the outside world. However, birds are warm-blooded, and the fact that birds seem to be descended from dinosaurs raises the question of whether their ancestors were as well.
If dinosaurs were warm-blooded, they would have possessed the potential for athletic abilities rivaling those of mammals and birds. They could have survived in colder habitats that would kill cold-blooded creatures, such as high mountain ranges and polar regions, enabling them to cover the entire landscape. Such advantages do carry a price — warm-blooded animals need much more food than their cold-blooded counterparts because their rapid metabolisms fatally malfunction if they cool down too much from lack of fuel.
Japan to Beam Solar Power from Space on Lasers
November 11, 2009 — ramanan50Hope this does not warm the earth further.
Story:
Japan is aiming to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth using laser beams or microwaves. The government has picked companies and researchers to turn the multi-billion pound dream of unlimited clean energy into reality by 2030.
Japan has few energy resources of its own and is heavily reliant on oil imports. The predicament has forced the country to become a leader in solar and other renewable energies. This year it set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets, but its boldest plan to date is the Space Solar Power System.
It involves an array of photovoltaic dishes, reaching across several square miles, that hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming,” Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of the project participants, said. “The sun’s rays abound in space.”
The solar cells would capture the sun’s energy, which is at least five times stronger in space than on Earth, and beam it down to the ground through clusters of lasers or microwaves. These would be collected by huge parabolic antennae, likely to be located in restricted areas at sea or on dam reservoirs, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) said.
The researchers are trying for a 1-gigawatt system, equivalent to a medium-sized atomic power plant. It would produce electricity at 8 yen (about 9 cents) per kilowatt-hour – six times cheaper than its current cost in Japan.
Jaxa said the technology would be safe but conceded it might have to dispel fears of laser beams from above roasting birds or slicing up aircraft in mid-air. The government-selected consortium, called the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer, includes Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Fujitsu and Sharp.
http://green.foxnews.com/2009/11/09/japan-to-beam-solar-power-from-space-on-lasers/
Babies with an accent,cry with mother’s accent!
November 11, 2009 — ramanan50Marvel of Nature!
Story:
Newborns cry differently depending on their mother tongue
In the first days of their lives, French infants already cry in a different way to German babies. This was the result of a study by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, the Centre for Pre-language Development and Developmental Disorders (ZVES) at the University Clinic Würzburg, and the Laboratory of Cognitive Sciences and Linguistics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. In this study, the scientists compared recordings of 30 French and 30 German infants aged between two and five days old. While the French newborns more frequently produced rising crying tones, German babies cried with falling intonation. The reason for this is presumably the differing intonation patterns in the two languages, which are already perceived in the uterus and are later reproduced. (Current Biology, November 5th, 2009)
Fig.: The cry melody of french (left) and german (right) babies differs considerably with respect to the accentuation.
Image: MPI für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften
In the last trimester of the pregnancy, human fetuses become active listeners. “The sense of hearing is the first sensory system that develops”, says Angela Friederici, one of the Directors at the Max Planck Institute. “The mother’s voice, in particular, is sensed early on.” However, the fetus’ hearing in the uterus is restricted due to the amniotic fluid. “What gets through are primarily the melodies and intonation of the respective language”. In previous work, Professor Friederici’s research team found evidence that the intonation patterns of the respective mother tongue are already ingrained in the brains of four-month-old babies.
Especially large differences exist between spoken German and French. “In French, a lot of words have stress at the end, so that the intonation rises, while in German, it is mostly the opposite”, Friederici explains. The word “papa” is pronounced “papa” in French and “papa” in German, for example. Until now it was believed unlikely that this had an influence on newborns’ cries as it was assumed that their “crying melody” was influenced by the building up and falling of breath pressure, as in baby chimpanzees, and not by mental representations in the brain. A misassumption, as the analysis of more than 20 hours of babies’ crying from German and French maternity wards shows. The analysis of crying conducted under the supervision of the psychologist Kathleen Wermke from the ZWES showed that the newborns tended to produce the intonation pattern most typical for their respective mother tongue. The crying patterns of the German infants mostly began loud and high and followed a falling curve while the French infants more often cried with a rising tone. This early sensitivity to features of intonation may later help the infants learn their mother tongue, the researchers say. “When they begin to form their first sounds, they can build on melodic patterns that are already familiar and, in this way, don’t have to start from scratch”, says the neuropsychologist. The evolutionary roots of this behaviour are older than the emergence of spoken language, the researchers believe. “The imitation of melodic patterns developed over millions of years and contributes to the mother-child bond” says Friederici.
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2009/pressRelease20091105/index.html
New drug target for cancer
November 12, 2009 — ramanan50Hope for cancer patients.
Story:
Scientists have developed a new drug that blocks a transcription factor — previously thought to be un-blockable — that has been causally linked to leukemia and several other cancers of the lungs, ovaries, pancreas, and gastrointestinal tract, they report in Nature this this week.
The Notch transcription factor regulates cell-cell communication in the Notch signaling pathway, a system governing cell growth and development. Mutations in the transcription factor can result in uncontrolled cell growth, often causing cells to turn cancerous. But transcription factors are notoriously hard for medicinal chemists to target because they work by forming complexes with multiple proteins, leaving no open binding sites for small molecules to fit into.
http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56143/
“It’s exciting research,” said Andrew Weng, a molecular biologist at the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Canada, who was not involved in the study. “A lot of people have been asking for a way to inhibit transcription factors, but efforts have been unsuccessful for so long. This new study holds a lot of therapeutic potential.”
10 Job Hunting Strategies Guaranteed to Get You Arrested
November 12, 2009 — ramanan50Funny tips;it might work.Read the entire story.
Story:
The unemployment rate in the U.S. crested 10 percent last week, a milestone which underlines the hurt last year’s economic distress has placed upon the country. Including people who are involuntarily working part time, and those who’ve stopped looking for work entirely, experts say that a whole lot of people are now becoming uneasily familiar with the Drew Carey era on The Price is Right. Grim news indeed.
Signs of desperation amongst job-seekers have been hitting the front pages with increasing regularity. Last week a man made headlines when he attempted to apply for a job while robbing a Taco Bell at gunpoint. One wonders if he thought this was the ideal way to demonstrate he possessed the rock-stupidness all Taco Bell employees are expected to have? He wasn’t even given an application though, just turned aside by a restaurant manager who was apparently in possession of some pretty serious stones. “Beat me with your bare fists, or get the fuck out,” is one hardass hiring policy.
This incident did get me to thinking though. With so many job-seekers applying for so few jobs, there’s bound to be other ways to “think outside the box” like this when applying for jobs. And if not, then surely I could do something about it, using the prestige and influence that comes with being an Internet comedy writer. Frankly, I’d be delinquent if I didn’t use my position to encourage people to rock into Taco Bells without any clothes, “weapon” in hand.
After examining the existing literature, I observed that almost everyone offering advice for interviewees was saying the exact same thing. From this, I posited that as everyone out there is receiving the same advice for job seeking, ignoring that advice entirely would be a sure way for a job-seeker to demonstrate how they were an iconoclastic young firebrand; an asset to any organization. Or get people waving their dicks around Taco Bell. For me there is no difference.
So, I compiled a list of the most common pieces of advice out there, and then using the secret powers of four cups of coffee, I flipped them on their heads to come up with a list of advice sure to land anyone a job, even losers.
_______
Conventional Advice: Research the company beforehand
Unconventional Advice: Research the fuck out of the company beforehand
http://www.cracked.com/blog/10-
-job-seeking-tips/
November 12, 2009 — ramanan50
Ineresting and intriguing.
Story:
We like to feel superior to the people who lived centuries ago, what with their shitty mud huts and curing colds by drilling a hole in their skulls. But we have to give them credit: They left behind some artifacts that have left the smartest of modern scientists scratching their heads.
For instance, you have the following enigmas that we believe were created for no other purpose than to fuck with future generations.
http://www.cracked.com/article/157_5-myths-that-people-dont-realize-are-admitted-hoaxes/
5 Myths That People Don’t Realize Are Admitted Hoaxes
November 12, 2009 — ramanan50Self explanatory.
Story:
It’s no surprise that the world gets taken in by hoaxers and con men. They’re really good at what they do and most of us are bored enough to believe anything as long as it takes our mind off the cubicle for a while.
And even when the hoaxers get accused of fakery, we may still take their side. After all, those negative doubting types try to shoot down everything! Who cares what they say! What is harder to explain, though, is the times when the perpetrators of a hoax come out themselves and confess to the fakery… and people still go right on believing.
Scientists seed clouds, Beijingers reap a blizzard
November 12, 2009 — ramanan50Meddling with Nature may result in unheard of consequences.Japan is about to use lasers to generate power(see my my blog on this)
Story:
BEIJING: Chinese scientists artificially induced the second major snowstorm to wreak havoc in Beijing this season, state media said, reigniting
debate over the practice of tinkering with Mother Nature.
After the earliest snow to hit the capital in 22 years fell on November 1, the capital was again shrouded in white on Tuesday with more snow expected in the coming three days, the National Meteorological Centre said.
The China Daily, citing an unnamed official, said the Beijing Weather Modification Office had artificially induced both storms by seeding clouds with chemicals.
On Tuesday, an official had said the storm was “natural”. City weather officials have previously said that such methods are aimed at alleviating a drought over much of north China
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/Scientists-seed-clouds-Beijingers-reap-a-blizzard/articleshow/5221238.cms
Nut left in man’s heart didn’t kill him: doctors-Japan Times.
November 12, 2009 — ramanan50So much for Doctor’s care.”Nature cures,Doctor collects fees’
Story:
UTSUNOMIYA, Tochigi Pref. (Kyodo) Ashikaga Red Cross Hospital in Tochigi Prefecture said Friday that doctors accidentally left a metal nut inside the heart of a patient who underwent surgery last month, but denied any linkage to the man’s death soon after the operation.
“A nut was left by our mistake, but there is no causal linkage to the death,” a hospital official claimed.
The patient, whose name is being withheld, underwent the operation to attach an artificial valve to the heart on Oct. 5, the hospital said.
However, doctors accidentally dropped a 1.5-cm nut, part of a medical device for the operation, in the left atrium of his heart.
The hospital found the nut right after the surgery when it took X-rays, and conducted another operation to remove it. The man died Oct. 8.
Police are investigating.
Have money, buy parole: Rich India gets away
November 12, 2009 — ramanan50Rich are always above the Law.
Story:
The controversy surrounding murder convict Manu Sharma’s parole ended with his dramatic surrender on Tuesday. The 34-year-old businessman, who is convicted of murdering former model Jessica Lal, was granted a two-month parole on September 22 on the grounds that his mother was seriously ill. However, Manu and his friends were found partying and allegedly misbehaving with girls at clubs in the Capital.
Manu’s misuse of his parole has reopened the debate over whether the rich and powerful can fool the system and get away with violating laws. The question that was being asked on CNN-IBN’s Face The Nation was: Manu Sharma case: Are India’s rich accountable to no one?
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/have-money-buy-parole-rich-india-gets-away/105080-3.html?from=tn?from=rssfeed
Cancer: The facts-BBC News
November 12, 2009 — ramanan50Facts worth knowing.
Story:
One in three of us will be diagnosed with cancer during our life.
The disease tends to affect older people – but can strike at any time.
Excluding certain skin cancers, there were almost 290,000 new cases of the disease in 2005.
Some cancer, such as breast, are becoming more common, while new cases of lung cancer are expected to fall away due to the drop in the number of smokers.
However, while the overall number of new cancers is not falling, the good news is that successful treatment rates for many of the most common types are improving rapidly.
BBC News has produced, in conjunction with Cancer Research UK, a guide to some of the most common forms of cancer and the treatments used to tackle them.
Cervical and uterine cancers
November 12, 2009 — ramanan50Useful.
Story:
Source: Cancer Research/NHS
Completely different types of cancer affect different areas of the womb, or uterus.
The best known, perhaps as a result of a nationwide screening programme, is cervical cancer, which affects the cervix, or neck, of the womb.
Many women, thanks to early detection, find they have abnormal cell changes in their wombs which cannot be classed as fully cancerous.
These “pre-cancerous changes” are far easier to treat, and the number of women presenting with the symptoms of cervical cancer has fallen over recent years.
However, more common is uterine cancer, in its more usual form also called endometrial cancer – which affects the lining of the womb that grows, is shed, and regrows as part of a woman’s monthly cycle.
Professor Hilary Thomas, from the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford, said that the key to successfully treating both cervical and uterine cancer was early detection.
Anybody who is sexually active should be having regular smears,
Professor Hilary Thomas, Royal Surrey County Hospital
She said: “Anybody who is sexually active should be having regular smears, and if they have a history of abnormal smears, they may need to go for more frequent smears.
“Cancer of the uterus, or the womb, is actually cancer of the body of the womb, which has a different kind of tissue in it from the neck of the womb.
“This is a disease which tends to affect elderly patients who have passed the menopause.
“Usually they will be advised to have a hysterectomy.”
Another, far less common cancer of the womb is uterine sarcoma, which affects the powerful muscles of the womb.
This is far more similar to other cancers which affect muscles than to either uterine or cervical cancer.
SYMPTOMS
Many cervical cancers are detected by the national screening programme.
Samples of cells from different areas around the womb neck are taken and looked at under a microscope for signs of abnormality.
If a smear is abnormal, the woman may be asked to take a repeat smear, or, particularly if there has been more than one abnormal smear, be sent to a specialist for further checks.
Once cancer is established however, the most common symptom is abnormal (ie non-menstrual) bleeding. This is a sign that the cancer has spread to surrounding tissue.
Menstrual bleeding may be heavier and last longer.
Abnormal bleeding, particularly after the menopause, can also be a sign of uterine cancer.
Women with certain symptoms should always consult a doctor. They are:
any sort of unusual vaginal discharge
pain in the pelvic area
painful or difficult urination
Once there is a suspicion of problems, there are various techniques used by doctors to try and locate the cause.
The first is a pelvic examination, which can be carried out by a family doctor, who will check the vagina, womb, ovaries, bladder and rectum for unusual lumps or changes.
Doctors may carry out another smear test, or Pap test, to gather cells to check for cervical cancer.
A technique called colposcopy, which uses a probe to look in more detail at the cervix, is sometimes used.
The extent of any cancer discovered may be confirmed by taking a deeper slice of tissue in a biopsy.
However, if uterine cancer is suspected, either a “pipelle biopsy”, in which a thin tube is used to take a small sample of tissue, or a dilation and curettage (D and C) may be undertaken. The latter, involves scraping tissue from the lining of the womb for examination.
CAUSES
Scientists have identified a virus which they believe may have some role in the development of cervical cancer.
The human papillomavirus (HPV), is found in most women who have developed cervical cancer.
However, most women who have the virus never go on to develop cervical cancer.
Smoking, as in so many other cancers, appears to increase the risk.
And women with HIV, the virus which causes Aids and weakens the immune system appear to be more prone.
The risk factors for uterine cancer are slightly more clearly understood.
In particular, those taking oestrogen-only hormone replacement therapies to alleviate menopausal symptoms are at higher risk. Most HRT formulations include other hormones such as progestin which appear to reduce that risk.
Overweight or obese women are thought to have more natural oestrogen in their bodies – another reason why they are more vulnerable.
Women who suffer from a condition known as benign endometrial hyperplasia, in which the lining of the womb is naturally thicker, also are more likely to develop endometrial cancer.
TREATMENTS
If caught at their earliest pre-cancerous stage, abnormal cervical cells can be dealt with simply, using either freezing or heat to scour the cells from the cervix.
The action of the deep biopsy, called a cone biopsy, can remove a cervical cancer if it has not spread.
Depending on the spread of the disease, and the age of the woman, a number of options are available, including surgery to remove abnormal tissue or the entire womb, including the cervix.
If there is evidence of spread, then the ovaries and nearby lymph nodes are sometimes removed as well.
If the cancer has spread beyond the wall of the womb, then radiotherapy and chemotherapy may be required to try to clear the disease.
In the case of uterine cancer, it is far more likely that a hysterectomy will have to be carried out, and the ovaries may also be taken out.
If it has not spread beyond the endometrium, then surgery will probably be enough, although other treatments may follow if there is evidence of spread.
It may be possible for the woman to take HRT following the operation, although this is only likely if the cancer has been caught early.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3244379.stm
Blaming Muslims For the Fort Hood Massacre Will Only Create More Victims
November 12, 2009 — ramanan50So..? We shall forget 26.11;forget suicide bombings;Taliban;AlQeda et al.
They are innocents.Muslims shall point finger at every body other than themselves;they will not take ostracise these radical elements;they can if they want.They will not because they do not want to.
Black mail such as ‘pointing fingers at Muslims shall make Muslim terrorists more virulent’ -what sort of perverted logic is this?
Fact is Terrorists are muslims.Why should the community be upset if the fact is stated?
Taking umbrage under the pretext that all terrorists are not muslims makes one wonder whether they want all terrorists to be muslims!
If a terrorist is Hindu, he is a terrorist and the community should correct this tendency or disown him publicly.Same applies to Christians or whatever be the Faith.
Guys who issue Fatwas-why have you not issued one against Osama,Taliban?
If a faith breeds violence it has to be met with force and no kid glove treatment.
Niceties are not for killers and abettors.
Story:
Whatever was in the mind of alleged shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan is no reason to question the loyalty of Muslim Americans.
After an American soldier’s tragic outburst of violence at Fort Hood, Texas — the army’s largest U.S. post, with some 40,000 troops — dominates the headlines, a fear-mongering hysteria concerning his supposed religious motivations is taking priority over questions regarding his mental health.
Although the facts, and clues about motive, are still being uncovered, we know that the alleged shooter, 39-year-old Major Nidal Malik Hasan, is an American-born medical doctor and licensed psychiatrist, who also happens to be a Muslim born to Palestinian immigrant parents.
When Hasan’s Arabic name was revealed as the alleged shooter, the blogosphere and message boards lit up with the predictable assortment of anonymous bigoted bile vilifying Islam and questioning the loyalty of American Muslims.
Thankfully, most mainstream voices, such as Republican senator John Cornyn of Texas, urged caution and moderation, stating: “It is imperative that we take the time to gather all the facts, as it would be irresponsible to be the source of rumours or inaccurate information regarding such a horrific event.”
But some, such as Republican U.S. representative Michael McCaul of Austin, Texas, alarmingly responded with inflammatory histrionics: “Whether it was domestic or foreign, clearly when a U.S. military base is attacked in this fashion, that is an act of terror in my book.”
If it is discovered that this lethal rampage was motivated by an inexcusable and misplaced sense of religiosity, it would provide ammunition to those extreme rightwing, minority voices in America who are convinced their Muslim neighbours are stealth jihadists ready to commit suicide bombings at a moment’s notice. These proponents of modern day McCarthyism find their allies in members of the “Birther movement,” who remain convinced President Obama is not an American citizen. Their esteemed colleagues include those who pontificate about Obama being a closet Muslim and an agent of socialism.
Reports of an image taken hours before the killings showing Hasan in a prayer cap seem to insinuate that a common article of clothing worn by many Muslims before they are about to pray somehow conclusively proves an religious intent behind the violence. A blog note attributed (though this is unconfirmed) to Hasan — comparing terrorist suicide bombings to suicidal acts during war to protect fellow soldiers and inflict damage upon the enemy, such as Japanese kamikaze missions — is being pointed to on the net as his potential justification for the alleged shootings.
It should comfort most Americans that mainstream Muslim American organizations, which often espouse a sense of victimhood and unnecessary rationalisations, unequivocally denounced Hasan’s alleged actions as “heinous” and incompatible with Islam. The Council of American Islamic Relations issued a statement saying: “No political or religious ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence.”
Ultimately, this use — or misuse — of fear and rumor over Hasan’s Islamic faith should be moot in light of the record of the thousands of Muslim American soldiers who have served and made sacrifice – such as Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, awarded the prestigious Purple Heart and Bronze Star and praised by Colin Powell, who now rests in Arlington cemetery after giving his life to protect and serve his country in Iraq. There are currently 20,000 Muslims serving with honor in the U.S. military, according to the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council. If Hasan’s faith is ultimately proven to be the misguided inspiration for his violence, then the brave and patriotic service of thousands of Muslim American soldiers renders him an isolated and aberrant exception.
Sadly, although the violent outburst against fellow soldiers was the most deadly in U.S. history, it was not the first of its kind. In May this year, five soldiers were shot dead at Camp Liberty in Baghdad by Sergeant John Russell. In February 2008, an Air Force sergeant diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) upon returning from Iraq fatally shot his son and daughter after a domestic argument with his ex-wife. Religion was not the common link between these soldiers; it was mental instability. Even if such individuals purported to be religious, their wanton acts of barbarism reflect rather their tenuous grasp on sanity.
A cousin of Hasan, interviewed by reporters, has suggested an alternative motivation, not necessarily influenced by religious conviction. “He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” said Nader Hasan. “He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there [in Iraq and Afghanistan].”
From the evidence thus far, it seems tragic and ironic that Hasan, a psychiatrist who helped heal soldiers suffering from PTSD, would allegedly turn against them upon learning of his deployment to Iraq. In the interview with Fox News, his cousin described going to Iraq as Hasan’s “worst nightmare.” He went on: “[Hasan] was doing everything he could to avoid that … He wanted to do whatever he could within the rules to make sure he wouldn’t go over.” Hasan’s aunt told the Washington Post that her nephew had consulted an attorney to see if he could leave the army before his contract expired due to harassment he had received from colleagues because he was Muslim.
Whatever the FBI investigation and any subsequent prosecution following the terrible shootings at Fort Hood may finally reveal, incidents such as these warrant a re-examination of how to treat and discharge or excuse those soldiers who are troubled or conflicted psychologically, politically or religiously over our foreign policy and, in particular, the current war in Afghanistan and occupation of Iraq.
No mere factual, evidential explanation could ever justify or excuse in any way Hasan’s alleged actions. But it ought to broaden the horizon of those in the media who seem infatuated with the need to pin the blame for this perverse tragedy solely on a man’s religious faith and Arabic last name, rather than exploring the possibility of a more complicated truth involving some combination of mental state, divided loyalty or conscientious objection.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/143823/blaming_muslims_for_the_fort_hood_massacre_will_only_create_more_victims
Is Blind Faith in God and the Bible a Modern Invention?
November 12, 2009 — ramanan50There is no such thing as Blind Faith.There is nothing like Rational Faith and Blind Faith.
Faith is what you experience and not what you think.
You feel the presence of Love,God, not think of them.
Faith is of the heart not of the Head.
Couple of points.
1.Before trying to dissect the concept of GOD and trying to rationalise either to prove or disprove,first define ‘Mind’-then define thoughts.So far no body has defined mind but still use the term frequently as if it is the highest authority.
Mind is not seen ,heard,smelt,felt,or tasted( the five senses);yet you say it exists.One might say it is because of the results,namely coordination of sense organs.This again is an assumption and not proven.
You may also map the brain ,scan it, but still you can not say what the mind is.Can you declare that mind is not operative when brain is in coma?You do no know,that is the answer.
2.How does one explain consciousness?Psychologists have a funny term’Unconscious’.If you are not conscious how come you know it?Again the result of consciousness is seen in day to day life.That is, you infer.
Are all inferences correct?
In logic, you take a particular instance,refer it to general statement,then arrive at a final statement.To explain;
All men are mortal.
X is a Man.
Therefore X is mortal.
Seems correct-Is it ?
Before saying all men are mortal you should have verified all men living,dead and those who are yet to be born, know that those who are born die and then say all are mortal.
Is this the case?
We have not verified each case and also it is impossible to check each case.
We do what we call an inductive leap and say and all are mortal.
When your basic assumption itself is open to question/is wrong ,what about your conclusions?
Nor are the senses reliable.
You dip your hand in warm water and then keep it in cold water.Is the water cold
immediately?
If I am going to believe only what I am going to perceive by myself I will be a doodering idiot.I have not been to moon.I have heard of it.I believe it.What if people have have lied?
Testimony is also open to question.
If I were to follow what others tell me , then who has informed the first person on earth a thing is what it is?For example,I call rose a rose because it has been named thus.Who has informed the first human being thus?
Again what is a thing we see or hear?
I call rose a rose,because of certain qualities.say clolor,smell.If any thing smeels like rose shal I call it a rose.No.It may be a perfume.If it is because of color, there are many roses of the same color, but still we call a rose a rose.You strip a thing of its qualities;what does remain?
Take a Man.Can you tell me what is common between yourself at 3 yrs and you at present and in between?
I am totally different from what I was at various stages of my life when compared my present state.My physical details have changed,out look has changed.Yet I call myself the same.
What is it by which I call ‘I’?
These things call for introspection by the individual and no amount of writing shall solve the issue.
Introspect and you shall know what you are.
Both Theism and Atheism are set of principles that appeal to different groups.Let each believe what they want.
What you want is not in Books;it is within you.
Find it, for when you are about to die all this dissertations will be of no use, for that matter when you lie naked on the surgeon’s table for a procedure, these things will not help.
Find the Truth in you.
(By writing some controversial books ,people make money, Period.
Story:
A new book points out that the ancient Christians — and even early Americans — did not share the blind faith of today’s fundamentalists.
If you open Karen Armstrong’s new book, The Case for God, expecting to find a list of mysterious cures, scientific curiosities, or certified miracles all pointing toward the physical presence of a divine influence in the world, you will be sorely disappointed. Armstrong has no interest in, and is in fact completely antithetical to, trying to prove God’s existence. Despite this, her book is positioned — both in marketing and from its opening pages — as a direct challenge to books like Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation, and Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. How can you make a defense of God if you’ve no interest in the existence of God? Quite well, actually, and if you do it as sharply as Armstrong, you can make hundreds of pages of what is basically theological analysis both entertaining and informative.
Armstrong argues for an idea very similar to the “non-overlapping magisteria” that were put forward by evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould (and in fact, Gould gets several nice mentions in The Case for God). She refers frequently to the idea that, in the past, people tended to break arguments into two groups for which she uses the Greek terms logos and mythos. Logos reflects practical, immediate reasoning — how do we build that aqueduct, what can we make from this wood, which crop would grow best in that field? Mythos is more aimed at the why — what does it mean that my friend has died, how can I recapture the joy I felt in a moment of pure experience, how can I find meaning and peace among the world’s noise and violence? This sort of approach could easily fall into a gooey cheer for “being spiritual,” but Armstrong is not talking about having a nice little breathing session now and then. She focuses on the 3000 year history of monotheism and the great effort that was put into building flexible, thoughtful religions, on how those religions continue to have a meaningful role in the life of millions, and how the recent history of those religions has led to unfortunate developments that are unique over those three millennia.
Heart Diaease/Strokes-Risk factors and prevention -BBC
November 13, 2009 — ramanan50Useful Information.
Story:
Heart disease and stroke may be inherited, but often they are the result of lifestyle. Changing eating, exercise and smoking habits can play a significant part in prevention.
Risk Factors
Age
Four out of five people who die from coronary heart disease are aged 65 or older. The risk of stroke doubles with each decade after the age of 55.
Sex
Men are more at risk than women and have attacks earlier in life. But death rates from heart disease and stroke for women are twice as high as those for all forms of cancer.
The risk for women increases as they approach menopause and continues to rise a they get older, possibly because of the loss of the natural hormone oestrogen.
Family history (heredity)
Children of parents with heart disease are more likely to suffer from the disease. Some races, such as Afro-Caribbeans, are more prone to coronary heart disease and stroke than others.
Smoking
Smokers are twice as likely to suffer heart attacks as non-smokers, and they are more likely to die as a result. Smoking is also linked to increased risk of stroke.
The nicotine and carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke damages the cardiovascular system. Passive smoking may also be a danger.
Women who smoke and take the oral contraceptive pill are at high risk of heart disease and stroke.
Alcohol
Drinking an average of more than one drink a day for women or more than two drinks a day for men increases the risk of heart disease and stroke because of the effect on blood pressure, weight and levels of triglycerides – a type of fat carried in the blood.
Binge drinking is particularly dangerous.
Drug abuse
The use of certain drugs, particularly cocaine and those taken intravenously, has been linked to heart disease and stroke.
Cocaine can cause abnormal heartbeat, which can be fatal, while heroin and opiates can cause lung failure. Injecting drugs can cause an infection of the heart or blood vessels.
Cholesterol
The higher the blood cholesterol level, the higher the risk of coronary heart disease, particularly if it is combined with any of the other risk factors. Diet is one cause of high cholesterol – others are age, sex and family history.
High levels of LDL (low-density lipoprotein), or “bad cholesterol”, are dangerous, while high levels of HDL (high-density lipoprotein), or “good cholesterol” lower the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Blood pressure
High blood pressure increases the heart’s workload, causing it to enlarge and weaken over time. When combined with obesity, smoking, high cholesterol or diabetes, the risk increases several times.
High blood pressure can be a problem in women who are pregnant or are taking high-dose types of oral contraceptive pill.
Physical inactivity
Failure to exercise is a cause of coronary heart disease as physical activity helps control cholesterol levels, diabetes and, in some cases, can help lower blood pressure.
Obesity
People who are overweight are more likely to develop heart disease and stroke, even if they have none of the other risk factors.
Excess weight causes extra strain on the heart, influences blood pressure, cholesterol and levels of other blood fats – including triglycerides – and increases the risk of developing diabetes.
Diabetes
The condition seriously increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, even if glucose levels are under control. More than 80% of diabetes sufferers die of some form of heart or blood vessel disease.
Previous medical history
People who have had a previous heart attack or stroke are more likely than others to suffer further events.
Stress
Some links have been made between stress and coronary artery disease. This could be because it encourages people to eat more, start smoking or smoke more than they would otherwise have done.
Prevention
Education
Educating people about the risk factors of heart disease and stroke and attempting to persuade them to adopt a healthier lifestyle can have an impact on the number of people dying from heart disease and stroke.
Encouraging people to stop smoking, drink less, eat better and exercise regularly are particularly important.
Doctors can help by asking about smoking habits and encouraging patients to use nicotine replacement treatment, such as nicotine patches.
Regular monitoring
People should also have regular blood pressure readings, height and weight monitoring, and tests for cholesterol levels.
Those with high levels should be encouraged to improve their diet and can be treated for poor cholesterol levels with drugs – usually, statins or niacins.
The American Heart Association recommends that blood pressure should be no more than 140 over 90 Hg.
The association recommends a series of diets, with no more than 30% of calories coming in the form of fats, and limiting calories in the form of saturated fats to between 7 and 10%.
People at risk should have less than 200mg dietary cholesterol per day.
Sodium intake, most commonly found in salt, should also be controlled.
Exercise
Between three and four sessions of moderate intensity exercise, lasting around 30 minutes a time, are recommended as the minimum for physical activity each week.
Ideal body mass index (BMI) – calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by the square of height in metres – is between 21 and 25, and the preferable waist circumference is no more than 88cm (35 inches) for women, 102cm (40 inches) for men.
For people already suffering from cardiovascular disease, the use of aspirin or warfarin, both of which prevent blood clotting, is recommended.
Other drugs, including ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors to manage blood pressure, beta-blockers to control angina, heart rhythm or blood pressure, and oestrogen replacement in post-menopausal women, may also be used to prevent repeat incidents.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/medical_notes/g-i/764037.stm
Dementia drug use ‘killing many’-BBC.
November 13, 2009 — ramanan50Anti depressants,mood elevators and sleeping tablets also affect the Brain,Heart and kidney.
Beware.
Story:
Needless use of anti-psychotic drugs is widespread in dementia care and contributes to the death of many patients, an official review suggests.
About 180,000 patients a year are given the drugs in care homes, hospitals and their own homes to manage aggression.
But the expert review – commissioned by ministers – said the treatment was unnecessary in nearly 150,000 cases and was linked to 1,800 deaths.
The government in England has agreed to take steps to reduce use of the drugs.
These include:
Improving access to other types of therapy, such as counselling
Better monitoring of prescribing practices
Guidance for families explaining what they can do if they are worried about drug use
Specialist training in dementia for health and social care staff
Appointment of a new national director for dementia to oversee the measures
The review – and the government pledge to take action – comes after long-running concerns about the use of anti-psychotic drugs.
Over the past 30 years, the NHS has increasingly turned to the treatment, which was originally aimed at people with schizophrenia, as it has struggled to cope with the rise in people with dementia.
‘Different mindset’
There are currently 700,000 people in the UK with the condition, but this is expected to rise to one million in the next 10 years because of the ageing population.
The review, led by King’s College London expert Professor Sube Banerjee, accepted that for some people anti-psychotic drugs would be necessary.
But it said they should be used only for a maximum of three months and when the person represented a risk to themselves or others.
Professor Banerjee estimated that of the 180,000 people given the drugs each year, only 36,000 benefited.
He said health and social care services needed to develop a “different mindset”.
Allan Trueman’s father “became a totally different person”
He believes if the steps the government has agreed to are followed, anti-psychotic drug use could be reduced by two-thirds within three years.
Care services minister Phil Hope agreed action was needed.
“We know there are situations where anti-psychotic drug use is necessary – we’re not calling for a ban, but we do want to see a significant reduction in use.”
Neil Hunt, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society, said the long-awaited review was a welcome recognition of the scale of the problem.
He added: “This goes beyond quality of care. It is a fundamental rights issue.
“Our members tell us of enormous worry and distress over what is happening to their loved ones.”
The Royal College of GPs – in most cases the drugs are prescribed by family doctors – admitted the situation was “unacceptable”.
President Dr Steve Field said: “People deserve much better.”
While the review was commissioned by the government in England, ministers elsewhere in the UK have agreed to study the recommendations.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8356423.stm
Deadliest Drugs.Beware.
November 13, 2009 — ramanan50Follow the link.
Story:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/11/c.html
Exposure to chemical in plastic linked to sexual dysfunction.
November 13, 2009 — ramanan50When shall we learn to respect Nature?
By using all these products which are basically unnecessary,if yu think deeply,we spilur Health and Nature.
Story:
Exposure to high levels of Bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical compound found in baby bottles and plastic containers, increases the risk of
male sexual dysfunction, according to a new study.
Previous animal studies had shown that BPA had a negative impact on mice and rats, but the study published Wednesday in the journal Human Reproduction was the first to examine its effects on male reproductive systems in humans.
The study examined 634 workers in factories in China over a five year period, comparing workers in facilities that produced BPA with those in facilities where the chemical compound was not present.
“The study found that the workers in the BPA facilities had quadruple the risk of erectile dysfunction, and seven times more risk of ejaculation difficulty,” the study said.
The levels of BPA in the Chinese facilities were 50 times higher than what an American male faces in US factories, and it was not known what the effect of lower levels of exposure might be.
“This study raises the question: Is there a safe level for BPA exposure, and what is that level?” said De-Kun Li, an epidemiologist with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif, and a lead author of the study.
“More studies like this, which examine the effect of BPA on humans, are critically needed to help establish prevention strategies and regulatory policies,” he said.
BPA is used in the production of polycarbonated plastics and epoxy resins found in baby bottles, plastic containers, the lining of cans used for food and beverages, and in dental sealants.
A 2008 study by toxicologists at the National Institutes for Health found that the substance could affect the development of the brains of fetuses and newborns.
In March, the six biggest US manufacturers of baby bottles decided to stop selling products containing BPA in the United States, and US lawmakers introduced legislation to ban food containers with BPA.
French health minister Roselyne Bachelot, nevertheless, said in March that reliable studies had concluded that baby bottles made with BPA were harmless.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/pollution/Exposure-to-chemical-in-plastic-linked-to-sexual-dysfunction/articleshow/5223375.cms
5 Horrific Ways Your Brain Can Turn On You Without Warning.
November 13, 2009 — ramanan50Horrible.Please read on.
Story:
We hate for you to find out this way, but you should know that your brain hates you. Even if you’re perfectly healthy and have never had a mental illness or dropped acid, it can mess with you in a terrifying variety of ways.
And some of them are downright diabolical
What Is It?
It’s a typical night. You’ve just set aside your glass of scotch and are reclining in bed next to yet another nameless groupie you’ve just had acrobatic sex with. You click off the lamp and are drifting off to sleep…
And a fucking bomb goes off in your head. There’s a horrendous noise, like someone is firing a handgun from somewhere inside your skull and then a flash of light …
http://www.cracked.com/article/199_5-horrific-ways-your-brain-can-turn-you-without-warning/
China’s control over price of dollar
November 13, 2009 — ramanan50Reverse swing US Vs World?
Story;
China has “far more control over the price of the dollar than the US”, says Leigh Skene, an associate at Lombard Street Research.
Although some of the US currency’s weakness since March can be attributed to greater risk appetite and “carry trades”, there is a better explanation for the drop in the dollar, he says.
“Changes in the dollar correlate far more closely to changes in international reserves than any other variable since 1999.”
Skene notes that dollar loans from non-US banks to overseas borrowers to pay for anything other than imports from the US are completely separate from American trade and investment flows, yet affect both international reserves and the supply of dollars in international markets.
“The proceeds of such loans will inevitably be converted into another currency and so end up in the foreign exchange reserves of a central bank,” he says, adding that growth in these dollar loans partly accounts for the increase in China’s foreign exchange reserves.
Skene says America’s abrogation of its responsibilities as host to the world’s reserve currency has made its fiscal and monetary policies and its trade and investment transactions subservient to foreign influences. He believes the dollar will remain weak as long as China’s economic locomotive ensures robust global growth – but will strengthen once the global economy weakens
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/chinas-control-over-pricedollar_424670.html
The anti-swine flu holy water dispenser-Reuters.
November 13, 2009 — ramanan50What a way to insult Faith?
Story:
ROME (Reuters) – An Italian inventor has combined faith and ingenuity to come up with a way to keep church traditions alive for the faithful without the fear of contracting swine flu — an electronic holy water dispenser.
The terracotta dispenser, used in the northern town of Fornaci di Briosco, functions like an automatic soap dispenser in public washrooms — a churchgoer waves his or her hand under a sensor and the machine spurts out holy water.
“It has been a bit of a novelty. People initially were a bit shocked by this technological innovation but then they welcomed it with great enthusiasm and joy. The members of this parish have got used to it,” said Father Pierangelo Motta.
Catholics entering and leaving churches usually dip their hands into fonts full of holy water — which has been blessed by a priest — and make the sign of the cross.
But fear of contracting the H1N1 virus has led many in Italy — where some 15 people have died of swine flu — not to dip their hands in the communal water font.
“It’s great,” said worshipper Marta Caimm as she entered the church. “Thanks to this we are not worried about catching swine flu. It is the right thing for the times,” she said.
Luciano Marabese, who invented the dispenser, said he did so out of concern that fear of swine flu was eroding traditions.
And he is now blessing himself all the way to the bank.
“After all the news that some churches, like Milan’s cathedral, were suspending the use of holy water fonts as a measure against swine flu, demands for my invention shot to the stars. I have received orders from all over the world,” he said.
(Reporting by Eleanor Biles; Writing by Philip Pullella; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Mouse study points to treatment for Down syndrome-Reuters.
November 19, 2009 — ramanan50A ray of hope for people with Children afflicted with Downs Syndrome.
Story:
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Increasing the levels of a message-carrying chemical in the brain may help prevent some of the memory deficits in Down syndrome that hinder learning and make it hard for the brain to develop normally, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
They said mice with a rodent version of Down syndrome that were injected with drugs to increase levels of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine — which nerve cells use to communicate — showed improvements in their thinking ability.
The finding points to a new way of trying to improve some of the deficits seen in Down syndrome, which affects 5,000 newborns in the United States each year.
“If you intervene early enough, you will be able to help kids with Down syndrome to collect and modulate information,” said Dr Ahmad Salehi of the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, whose study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
“Theoretically, that could lead to an improvement in cognitive functions in these kids,” Salehi, who worked on the study while at Stanford University School of Medicine, said in a statement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5AI0EJ20091119?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100
Obama’s Soft Approach on Human Rights-Totally Wrong.
November 19, 2009 — ramanan50China is a Law unto itself.It will not pay heed to anyone.
It knows its strength, especially economic strength and knows how to extract maiximum mileage out of it and when it comes to the question of its internal affairs it will care for nobody’s opinion.Obama is mistaken in his approach to China, especially Human Rights.it also exposes the double standatrds of US when dealing with a power which has market potential whether it be hegemonism, nuclear proliferation or Human Rights violations.
Story:
Even before his trip to China, President Obama showed deference to China’s leaders by postponing a meeting with the Dalai Lama until after his trip. During his visit, he did not meet with Chinese political activists and chose not to confront the Beijing government on human rights and its treatment of dissidents.
What effect will this muted approach have? Will it be more, or less, productive for getting the Chinese government to engage in a dialogue about human rights, or will it make any difference at all?
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/obamas-soft-approach-on-human-rights/?8ty&emc=ty
Sachin- Man among men.
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50Genius and a humble human being without pretenses.
Story.
“Nothing bad can happen to us if we’re on a plane in India with Sachin Tendulkar on it.”
- Hashim Amla, the South African batsman, reassures himself as he boards a flight.
“Sometimes you get so engrossed in watching batsmen like Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar that you lose focus on your job.”
- Yaseer Hameed in pakistani newspaper.
“To Sachin, the man we all want to be”
- Andrew Symonds wrote on an aussie t-shirt he autographed specially for Sachin.
“Beneath the helmet, under that unruly curly hair, inside the cranium, there is something we don’t know, something beyond scientific measure. Something that allows him to soar, to roam a territory of sport that, forget us, even those who are gifted enough to play alongside him cannot even fathom. When he goes out to bat, people switch on their TV sets and switch off their lives.”
- BBC on Sachin
“Tuzhe pata hai tune kiska catch chhoda hai?”
- Wasim Akram to Abdul Razzaq when the latter dropped Sachin’s catch in 2003 WC.
Sachin is a genius. I’m a mere mortal.
- Brian Charles Lara
“We did not lose to a team called India…we lost to a man called Sachin.”
- Mark Taylor, during the test match in Chennai (1997)
“The more I see of him the more confused I’m getting to which is his best knock.”
- M. L. Jaisimha
“The joy he brings to the millions of his countrymen, the grace with which he handles all the adulation and the expectations and his innate humility – all make for a one-in-a-billion individual,”
- Glen McGrath
“I can be hundred per cent sure that Sachin will not play for a minute longer when he is not enjoying himself. He is still so eager to go out there and play. He will play as long as he feels he can play,”
- Anjali Tendulkar
Question: Who do you think as most important celebrity ?
Shah Rukh Khan: There was a big party where stars from bollywood and cricket were invited. Suddenly, there was a big noise, all wanted to see approaching Amitabh Bachhan. Then Sachin entered the hall and Amitabh was leading the queue to get a grab of the GENIUS!!
- Shah Rukh Khan in an interview.
“India me aap PrimeMinister ko ek Baar Katghare me khada kar sakte hain..Par Sachin Tendulkar par Ungli nahi utha Sakte.. “
– Navjot Singh Sidhu on TV
He can play that leg glance with a walking stick also.
- Waqar Younis
Sachin Tendulkar has often reminded me of a veteran army colonel who has many medals on his chest to show how he has conquered bowlers all over the world. I was bowling to Sachin and he hit me for two fours in a row. One from point and the other in between point and gully. That was the last two balls of the over and the over after that we (SA) took a wicket and during the group meeting i told Jonty (Rhodes) to be alert and i know a way to pin Sachin. And i delivered the first ball of my next over and it was a fuller length delevery outside offstump. And i shouted catch. To my astonishment the ball was hit to the cover boundary. Such was the brilliance of Sachin. His reflex time is the best i have ever seen. Its like 1/20th of a sec. To get his wicket better not prepare. Atleast u wont regret if he hits you for boundaries.
- Allan Donald
On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt in one of the stations. The train stopped by for few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century. This Genius can stop time in India!!
- Peter Rebouck – Aussie journalist
“Sachin cannot cheat. He is to cricket what (Mahatma) Gandhiji was to politics. It’s clear discrimination. “
- NKP Salve, former Union Minister when Sachin was accused of ball tempering
There are 2 kind of batsmen in the world. One Sachin Tendulkar. Two all the others.
- Andy Flower
“I have seen god, he bats at no.4 for India”
- Mathew Hayden
“Commit all your sins when Sachin is batting. They will go unnoticed coz even the GOD is watching”
- A hoarding in England
NOW THIS ONE IS PROBABLY THE BEST AND MOST CUTEST OF THE LOT
“Even my father’s name is Sachin Tendulkar.”
- Tendulkar’s daughter, Sara, tells her class her father’s name after the teacher informs them of a restaurant of the same name in Mumbai.
Lost man drives nine hours to get newspaper-Reuters.
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50I am reminded of of H.D.Thoreau’s of observation.
‘What is the purpose of reading news papers?To know what is happening in the world?better to know what is happening inside you-that is more important;your knowing what is happening in the world is not going to change the world.’
Story:
CANBERRA (Reuters) – An elderly man who went out to fetch a morning newspaper ended up driving nearly 400 miles after getting lost and taking a wrong turn onto a major Australian highway, police said on Wednesday. The man, 81-year-old Eric Steward, eventually stopped and asked for directions after driving for nine hours, from the New South Wales country town of Yass to Geelong in the southern Victoria state.
Steward, who did not know where he was, eventually approached a policeman at a petrol station and asked for help late Wednesday.
“This little old man came up to me saying he was lost. He handed me his mobile and asked if I could speak to his wife,” said Victorian Police Senior Constable Clayton Smith.
Steward, who was reunited with his family on Wednesday, said he took the wrong turn and just kept on going.
“I just went out on the road to have a drive, a nice peaceful drive,” he told reporters, adding he did not need a satellite navigation device as he’d only been lost once.
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE5AH48D20091118?feedType=nl&feedName=usoddlyenough
A Breast Cancer Preview.Dispense with mammography?
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50Shameful.The Government seems to evaluate results of medical tests on the basis of the confirmation of the disease.Extending the same logic shall we dispense with Doctors if disease diagnosis comes down or when people become healthy?
Story:
A government panel’s decision to toss out long-time guidelines for breast cancer screening is causing an uproar, and well it should. This episode is an all-too-instructive preview of the coming political decisions about cost-control and medical treatment that are at the heart of ObamaCare.
As recently as 2002, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force affirmed its recommendation that women 40 and older undergo annual mammograms to check for breast cancer. Since regular mammography became standard practice in the early 1990s, mortality from breast cancer—the second leading cause of cancer death among American women—has dropped by about 30%, after remaining constant for the prior half-century. But this week the 16-member task force ruled that patients under 50 or over 75 without special risk factors no longer need screening.
So what changed? Nothing substantial in the clinical evidence. But the panel—which includes no oncologists and radiologists, who best know the medical literature—did decide to re-analyze the data with health-care spending as a core concern.
The task force concedes that the benefits of early detection are the same for all women. But according to its review, because there are fewer cases of breast cancer in younger women, it takes 1,904 screenings of women in their 40s to save one life and only 1,339 screenings to do the same among women in their 50s. It therefore concludes that the tests for the first group aren’t valuable, while also noting that screening younger women results in more false positives that lead to unnecessary (but only in retrospect) follow-up tests or biopsies.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704204304574543721253688720.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
6 Products Designed Solely to Make You a Worse Person.
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50Must Read.
Story:
The beauty of the free market is that it doesn’t judge you. In most American cities you can–in one shopping trip–buy a shotgun, shells, a children’s swimming pool and enough tacos to fill it up, and nobody will raise an eyebrow as long as your card doesn’t reject the charges.
But even the rational self-interest of the market takes the encouragement of our bad habits a bit too far. These are the products that seem specifically intended to turn us into a grave hazard to ourselves and others.
The beauty of the free market is that it doesn’t judge you. In most American cities you can–in one shopping trip–buy a shotgun, shells, a children’s swimming pool and enough tacos to fill it up, and nobody will raise an eyebrow as long as your card doesn’t reject the charges.
But even the rational self-interest of the market takes the encouragement of our bad habits a bit too far. These are the products that seem specifically intended to turn us into a grave hazard to ourselves and others.
ShareThe beauty of the free market is that it doesn’t judge you. In most American cities you can–in one shopping trip–buy a shotgun, shells, a children’s swimming pool and enough tacos to fill it up, and nobody will raise an eyebrow as long as your card doesn’t reject the charges.
But even the rational self-interest of the market takes the encouragement of our bad habits a bit too far. These are the products that seem specifically intended to turn us into a grave hazard to ourselves and others.
#6.Antipoleez Mints
The next time an officer of the law pulls you over after a long night knocking ‘em back at T.J. McHooligans, or some nosy cop wants to know why you’re carrying a naked mannequin down main street at 4AM, ditch the vodka vapors with these hobo-breath-eliminating mints.
Ah, hold on. We spoke too soon. The website plainly says “never drink and drive” at the top. So these aren’t intended to aid illegal activity at all! What were we thinking? They’re probably just so you can hide your drinking from your wife, or employer, or your fellow astronauts on board the space shuttle. “Antipoleez” is probably just “breath mint” in some other language. And it has a picture of a police officer on the label because… uh…
Anyway, the makers of the coyly named Antipoleez breath mints tout them as having a “unique combination of components (which) work to increase the consumption of breath producing molecules by the epithelium of the mucous coat of the upper respiratory passages resulting in clean, fresh breath.” Which we think is just techno babble for “black magic and bull semen.” And we’re damned sure it won’t help you pass a breathalyzer test.
http://www.cracked.com/article/200_6-products-designed-solely-to-make-you-worse-person/
Computer consoles ‘no better’ than books for learning-BBC.
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50People tend to forget that computer is a tool and can not substitute human skills,may be it may compute faster.
I have read that higher percentage of people(including adults) in the west, especially in the UK are unable to do basic addition ,subtraction ,multiplication and division with out the aid of a calculator
Excessive dependence on machines shall, in fact,reduces human efficiency and creativity.
Story:
The claim that computer games consoles can improve pupils’ maths ability has been dismissed by an Edinburgh University brain scientist.
Prof Sergio Della Sala said pupils’ performance was just as good when using traditional textbooks.
Use of the consoles has been supported by government body Learning and Teaching Scotland, (LTS) and has spread beyond Scotland and around the world.
Derek Robertson of LTS said he has had support from both teachers and parents.
The criticism from Professor Della Sala came in a speech to Scotland’s headteachers at their annual conference.
He said: “This research shows that when pupils in a school use a games console after ten weeks they become a bit better in performing maths but the same applies to the students who did not use the console
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8368940.stm
To eat or not to eat? Mental budgets help winning diet battles.
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50Mental budget helps.Coupled with a strong will, diet can be controlled..
Story:
Ever felt like you are losing the battle with a triple-chocolate cake, don’t worry just set a “mental budget” as a new study claimed that it helps in controlling consumption.
According to researchers Parthasarathy Krishnamurthy from University of Houston and Sonja Prokopec from ESSEC Business School, France, one can rein in overeating by setting a mental budget, Journal of Consumer Research reported.
“For those who wish to cut out those desserts, our research suggests some simple tips. First, it is important to have a mental budget. At the very least, it allows you to keep track of how you are doing with respect to your goal,” they said.
They added, “Second, make sure the budget works as a limit rather than a licence for the consumption behavior. To do this, it is important to have an active goal of controlling the consumption.”
Krishnamurthy said, “There are some behaviors that people try to limit but have trouble doing so. Even as one aims to curtail consumption of sugars and fat, one ends up consuming the tiramisu or the triple-chocolate cake. Such discrepancies between one’s goals and actual behaviors represent instances of self-control failure”.
The authors conducted several studies where they encouraged some participants to set mental budgets and compared them to people who did not set budgets. They examined their consumption of sweet treats, and they discovered that they controlled over-eating.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/health/To-eat-or-not-to-eat-Mental-budgets-help-winning-diet-battles/Article1-477950.aspx
Low-carb, high-carb diet both help keep weight off-Reuters.
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50Agreed.Low carbohydrates intake may reduce energy levels to perform tasks efficiently,especially in tropical countries where the heat is severe.
Again it is not yet proven that food habits alone determine obesity.
Story:
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Low-carb and high-carb diets work equally well for maintaining weight loss, Australian researchers report.
People had the same success in keeping off the weight they’d lost after sharply cutting their calorie intake for 3 months if they followed a low-carb (also called high-protein) diet or a high-carbohydrate regimen for the following year, Dr. Elizabeth A. Delbridge of the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital in Victoria and her colleagues found.
Some studies have suggested that high protein diets may be a more effective way to lose weight short-term than high carbohydrate diets, Delbridge and her team note in their report. But there’s less evidence on which approach might be better for helping people to keep off weight they’ve lost, and whether the two diets have different effects on heart health.
To investigate, Delbridge and her team assigned 141 men and women who’d completed the weight-loss phase of the diet to a year on a diet in which 30 percent of their calories came from protein, or one consisting of 15 percent protein. Both groups also were instructed to keep their fat intake below 30 percent of total calories, and to focus on reducing saturated fat.
The study participants had lost 16.5 kilograms (36.4 pounds), on average, and only regained 2 kilograms, or about four pounds, over the following year.
While all the study participants saw their blood pressure go down as they lost weight, average blood pressure went up in the high-carbohydrate group during the weight maintenance phase, but the high-protein dieters were able to sustain their blood pressure reduction.
While people found it easy to stick to the high protein diet, Delbridge and her team say, the low-protein dieters “struggled to consume the recommended amount of carbohydrate (55%) and to limit their protein intake to 15%.”
But the low protein group still managed to keep their protein intake at about 22 percent of their calories, significantly below the 30 percent maintained by the high-protein dieters. And there was no significant difference between the two groups in the amount of weight they kept off.
The findings show, the researchers conclude, that “free-living overweight and obese people” (as opposed to those studied in an inpatient clinic, for example) were able to stick with recommended diet and keep off the weight they had lost for 12 months.
SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, November 2009.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5AI4ZT20091119?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100
Cancer Cure in Amazon?
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50Nature, in its bounty, has cures for all illnesses. Diligence is required along with greater understanding of indigenous medicines and respect for age old cures practiced the world over.
Story:
SAO SEBASTIAO DE CUIEIRAS, Brazil (Reuters) – The task of harvesting the secrets of Brazil’s vast Amazon rain forest that could help in the battle against cancer largely falls to Osmar Barbosa Ferreira and a big pair of clippers.
In jungle so dense it all but blocks out the sun, the lithe 46-year-old shimmies up a thin tree helped by a harness, a strap between his feet, and the expertise gained from a lifetime laboring in the forest.
A few well-placed snips later, branches cascade to a small band of researchers and a doctor who faithfully make a long monthly trip to the Cuieiras river in Amazonas state in the belief that the forest’s staggeringly rich plant life can unlock new treatments for cancer.
They may be right.
About 70 percent of current cancer drugs are either natural products or derived from natural compounds, and the world’s largest rain forest is a great cauldron of biodiversity that has already produced medicine for diseases such as malaria.
But finding the right material is no easy task in a forest that can have up to 400 species of trees and many more plants in a 2.5-acre (1-hectare) area, and in a country where suspicion of outside involvement in the Amazon runs strong.
“If we had very clear rules, we could attract scientists from all over the world,” said the doctor, Drauzio Varella, with a mix of enthusiasm and frustration. “We could transform a big part of the Amazon into an enormous laboratory.”
As it stands, though, foreigners are barred from helping oncologist Varella and the researchers from Sao Paulo’s Paulista University, who are among a tiny handful of Brazilian groups licensed to study samples from the Amazon.
Varella, 66, believes his high profile has helped. He is a well-known writer and television personality who shot to fame in 1999 with a book and subsequent hit movie based on his work as a doctor in a brutal Sao Paulo prison called Carandiru.
But a move by his team in the 1990s to partner with the U.S. National Cancer Institute produced a storm of accusations of “bio-piracy” and for years it has been blocked from the international cooperation and funding that could increase the chances of finding the Holy Grail of a cancer cure.
Their work has also been regularly delayed by bureaucratic demands, once stopping their collections for two years.
In more than a decade of searching, the group has brought back 2,200 samples from this tributary of the mighty, tea-dark Rio Negro (Black River) to its laboratory in Sao Paulo, of which about 70 have shown some effect against tumors. Just those samples have given the team enough analysis work for 20 years, said Varella, a lanky marathon runner whose younger brother died of cancer.
“If we can find 70, imagine what a big university with international resources could do — they could screen for an absurd amount of diseases,” said Varella, who still spends part of his time treating prisoners in Sao Paulo.
“As well as the impact this could have on human health, it could bring resources for preservation and to improve the quality of life of people who live here.”
Ironically, it was a foreigner who inspired Varella to begin his search. Robert Gallo, a U.S. researcher and leading AIDS expert who co-discovered the HIV virus, asked Varella during a trip to the Amazon in the early 1990s if anyone was researching the medical potential of the forest.
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE5AG00V20091117
Students arrested after 32% tuition hike sparks protests-CNN.
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50Hindu scriptures declare that the following are the Greatest Sins:
-Selling Water,Medicines,food and Education.
Sad that we have come to a stage that all these are sacrificed at the altar of Money.
Story:
(CNN) — Authorities arrested dozens of angry students at the University of California, Davis, campus late Thursday after they refused to vacate the school’s administration building in protest of a 32-percent tuition hike.
The 52 students were taken into custody by the Davis Police Department and deputies from the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department, according to Claudia Morain, a UC Davis spokeswoman.
The arrests at the Mrak Administration building came about four hours after the normal 5 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET) closing time. At one point, as many as 150 students were at the building protesting the tuition increase, Morain said.
CNN affiliate KCRA captured footage of students outside the building shouting, “Who’s university? Our university!”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/20/california.tuition.protests/index.html
Man Kills wife while dreaming, Freed.
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50I do not know whether to feel sorry or laugh at the silly act.
Probably because of high pressure Life style?
Story:
London, England (CNN) — A British man who strangled his wife in his sleep while dreaming that she was an intruder walked free from court Friday after the case against him was withdrawn, prosecutors said.
The UK’s Crown Prosecution Service requested that the case against Brian Thomas, who killed wife Christine while they were on vacation in 2008, be dropped due to a “unique set of circumstances.”
Thomas, 59, of Neath, South Wales, had been on trial for murder at Swansea Crown Court, with prosecutors seeking a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity that would have resulted in psychiatric custody.
But they said a closer study of evidence led them to believe the defendant should be released without further action.
“We have duty to keep cases under continuous review, and following expert evidence from a psychiatrist it was suggested no useful purpose would be served by Mr Thomas being detained and treated in a psychiatric hospital,” prosecutor Iwan Jenkins said in a statement.
Jenkins said that there had never been any doubt that Thomas caused his wife’s death, but the prosecution accepted evidence from experts on sleep disorders that indicated he should not be convicted of murder or manslaughter.
“We therefore have offered no further evidence and asked the jury to return a simple verdict of not guilty.”
The court erupted in shouts of “yes” as family members greeted the outcome with jubilation, according to the UK Press Association.
“The death of Christine Thomas was thoroughly investigated by Dyfed Powys Police. Investigations continued after Mr Thomas was charged and involved the instruction of experts in several fields,” Jenkins said.
“I must emphasize that the circumstances of this case are almost unique in the UK and there have been fewer than 50 instances recorded worldwide. It is only because of highly sophisticated tests carried out by sleep experts that Mr Thomas’s condition could be confirmed.
“Our thoughts remain with the family of Brian and Christine Thomas, who have remained dignified throughout this difficult time.”
The brief trial, which opened Tuesday, heard that Thomas killed his wife while the pair were taking a camper van vacation in western Wales, PA reported.
One night, Thomas — who experts said may have been suffering worsening dreams due to withdrawal from anti-depressants — experienced a violent nightmare in which he attacked and fought an intruder and got him in a headlock, only to wake and find he had strangled his wife.
Dismissing the charges, High Court Judge Justice Davis described Thomas as a “decent man and devoted husband” who bore no responsibility for his wife’s death, PA reported.
Thomas’s brother Raymond Thomas said the family were “delighted” by the outcome, the news agency said.
“He has always been a loving husband and a family man,” he said. ” This was a tragic, tragic episode and we are all very emotional.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/11/20/uk.crime.strangle/index.html
Move your phantom limbs Mentally!-Fox News.
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50Indian philosophy recognizes mind as an organ like other organs, but ranked Superior.Sri Krishna declares in the Bhagavad Gita-”I am Mind among organs”
Activity of the brain is mind;activity of the mind is intellect and Chitta is on a higher plane.
By controlling and channelizing Chitta any thing is possible(incidentally, nothing is Super natural according to Indian Philosophy,everything is Natural).
Yoga is built around this concept.We are what we think;we think because of what we eat.
Story:
“Phantom” pain is like a ghost in the body — but it’s anything but imaginary. People who have had an arm or leg amputated can often still feel sensations of the missing limb, even though it’s no longer there. These sensations can be painful, and scientists are always looking for new ways to help relieve this phantom pain for amputees. Treatment often involves using mirrors to visually trick the person’s brain. The thinking is that, if a person can “see” his own body in a new way, his brain may stop sending pain messages.
In a new study, a team of neuroscientists have made another surprising discovery about amputees: They can be taught to mentally move their missing limbs in ways that are impossible in the real, physical world. It’s impossible for a person to bend his wrist down and then twist his hand around in a full circle.
Seven people who had had their arms amputated above the elbow participated in the experiment. After extensive mental training, four of the seven were able to feel the sensation of this impossible act, and describe it in detail.
“It is very surprising that anybody — amputees or not — can learn impossible movements just by thinking about it,” Henrik Ehrsson of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, told Science News. Ehrsson is a neuroscientist, which is a scientist who studies the brain and nervous system.
Although the study itself is interesting, it may be able to help people with other kinds of mental disorders. A person with anorexia nervosa, for example, loses her appetite and/or stops eating, sometimes with fatal results. People with anorexia are usually believed to have a distorted self-image and often see themselves in an extremely negative way. But people suffering from this condition may benefit from this new research, Lorimer Moseley of the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute in Randwick, Australia, told to Science News. Just as amputees imagined their phantom limbs could move in impossible ways, a person with anorexia may be able to change self-image by concentrating on a change to the body.
V.S. Ramachandran is a neuroscientist and the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego. In his research, Ramachandran has shown that phantom pain can be reduced with the help of a mirror. The mirror is placed so that when the amputee looks in the mirror, it looks like he has both hands. As he looks at the reflection, he clenches and unclenches his one hand while—and it appears as though both hands and are clenching and unclenching. At the same time, he mentally clenches and unclenches his phantom hand. When he sees both hands unclenching, he feels pain lessen.
Ramachandran says his mirror therapy, as well as the new research, show that much is left to learn about how the brain perceives the body. “Body image turns out to be extraordinarily plastic,” Ramachandran told Science News. “We think of ourselves as stable people with a stable body image — but we can inhabit a body that cannot exist in the physical world.”
http://sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/49687/title/FOR_KIDS_New_twists_for_phantom_limbs
Funny One Liners.
November 20, 2009 — ramanan50Thanks, Vani.
Regular naps prevent old age, especially if you take them
while driving.
Having one child makes you a parent; having two you are a
referee.
Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always
right and the other is the husband!
I believe we should all pay our tax with a smile. I tried -
but they wanted cash.
A child’s greatest period of growth is the month after
you’ve purchased new school uniforms.
Don’t feel bad. A lot of people have no talent.
Don’t marry the person you want to live with, marry the
one you cannot live without, but whatever you do, you’ll
regret it later.
You can’t buy love, but you pay heavily for it.
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.
Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before
you get tired.
Marriage is give and take. You’d better give it to her or
she’ll take it anyway.
My wife and I always compromise. I admit I’m wrong and
she agrees with me.
Those who can’t laugh at themselves leave the job to
others.
Ladies first. Pretty ladies sooner.
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times,
always with the same person.
You’re getting old when you enjoy remembering things
more than doing them.
It doesn’t matter how often a married man changes his
job, he still ends up with the same boss.
Real friends are the ones who survive transitions between
address books.
Saving is the best thing. Especially when your parents
have done it for you.
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools
talk because they have to say something
They call our language the mother tongue because the
father seldom gets to speak!
Man: Is there any way for long life?
Dr: Get married.
Man: Will it help?
Dr: No, but then the thought of long life will never come.
Why do couples hold hands during their wedding? It’s a
formality just like two boxers shaking hands before the
fight begins!
Wife: Darling today is our anniversary, what should we
do?
Husband: Let us stand in silence for 2 minutes.
It’s funny when people discuss Love Marriage vs
Arranged. It’s like asking someone, if suicide is better
than being murdered.
There is only one perfect child in the world and every
mother has it.
There is only one perfect wife in the world and every
neighbour has it.
Karzai ‘would fall in weeks’ if Nato pulls out-Guardian UK.
November 21, 2009 — ramanan50First shore up your government.Il
Life.take it as it is.
October 1, 2009 — ramanan50‘In hindsight, that time of my life was filled with excitement, fear, laughter, tears, and a lot of uncertainty’
NYT. 30/09/09
http://homefires.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/freedom-and-uncertainty/?ref=opinion
Comments:
Refreshing read. It shows two contrasting angles of Life;one amidst war,high living and tensions;another so called mundane chores of running a family.
“I realize that my optimism is not going to change the state of the job market, or the economy. I am not blind to the message that unemployment is at a record high and it will be a challenge finding a new job. All forms of media are sending the message loud and clear. Rather than feeling helpless, however, I choose to feel empowered to focus on myself, my family, and finding a new direction in which to take all of us. I feel like I am on the open road again — only this time with a back seat full of kids’ car seats”
What a perspective.Family is not dead!Good news at last.
Life has its uncertainties,mysteries, pain,Laughter; be amidst war or ordinary life.It is up to us to enjoy what we have and love what we have right now.