blog ko revive karna ek kathin karya hai - par kuch toh kara hee ja sakta hai!

More from This is True.

HOW DO YOU DEFINE LOSER? Oregon state minimum-security prison inmate
Jason Hayes, 29, was doing his assigned job when he noticed the guards
were looking the other way. "He just walked," a prison spokeswoman
says, making an escape. After walking for half an hour he passed by the
state Department of Corrections headquarters building in Salem. As it
happened, a DoC employee was getting into her car and noticed his
prison uniform. Her job: chasing down escaped fugitives. She confronted
Hayes and he ran, jumping over a barbed-wire-topped fence -- landing in
the middle of a training exercise for the police SWAT team. He was
quickly arrested. (Portland Oregonian) ..."Genius may have its
limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." --Elbert Hubbard
(1856-1915), American author.

Once I wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no
holidays.
-- Henny Youngman

Bullfighting is the number-one sport in Latin America.
"'That's revolting!"
"No, that's the number-two sport."

Here's something interesting I found floating on the net, about the recent and much hyped visit of GWB to Iraq.

Purported Bush Tape Raises Fear of New Attacks
by Robert Jensen and Sam Husseini
Disassociated Press; November 28, 2003

A tape today surfaced in U.S. media outlets of someone purporting to be George W. Bush at a U.S. military base in Baghdad.

Intelligence analysts around the world are studying the videotapes. "It certainly looked and sounded like him, but we get so few glimpses at Bush in real-life situations that it is hard to tell," said one operative from a Western intelligence agency.

People who know Bush said it appeared to him. "That's him, all right," said one longtime associate.

The tape shows the man claiming to be Bush praising U.S. attacks in Iraq. "We will stay until the job is done," he threatened.

The videotape was delivered to the Baghdad bureau of FOX News by an intermediary courier who has brought material before from the U.S. military, according to the U.S. network.

There were calls for FOX to be banned from some Arabic countries for broadcasting American militaristic propaganda.

While the quality of the tape was not poor, the alleged Bush did appear tired in portions of it, prompting speculation that he is on the run.

The man claiming to be Bush said: "We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost in casualties, defeat a brutal dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins."

Analysts pointed out that given the ongoing nature of the Iraqi resistance since "the end of major combat operations," that comment could have been recorded anytime in the past six months.

"When the man identified as Bush tells U.S. troops, 'You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq so we don't have to face them in our own country,' well, it's a little hard to believe that even the Bush White House would try to spin that," said the operative from a Western intelligence agency.

"How could anyone believe, after all that has been disclosed about the lies and distortions used to manipulate the public into accepting this war, that U.S. troops are defending the American people in Iraq? No major world leader would be so obtuse or so low as to try to sell that to people at this stage."

Members of the Iraqi Governing Council who met with the man identified as Bush said they had met with a man identified as Bush and were delaying comment until Paul Bremer was available to tell them what their comments would be.

Omar Ali, an Iraqi in a poor area of Baghdad said: "I don't understand why he didn't stay. Just because the U.S. nearly starved us with the sanctions for 12 years, killed my cousin during the invasion, busted down my door last week and is trying to find a way to steal our oil - does he think that Iraqis would want to hurt him, our great liberator?"

Private Charles Sanders, who has been stationed in Iraq since the invasion said: "I was supposed to be back home by now. It was really getting depressing, but this is great. Sure, I don't get to look into the eyes of my little girl, or hold my wife tenderly in my arms, but the president served me turkey!"

Susan Jones in Pittsburgh, who this morning was driven to tears while watching "Dances with Wolves" on cable TV, said: "I was planning on talking over the Thanksgiving Day table with my family about how we slaughtered the Indians and enslaved the blacks, bullied Latin America and bombed Vietnam, and now were occupying Iraq. I don't know, is it just me, or do we just have this brutal aggressive side to us? But now I guess, well, just talk about Bush's visit instead."

When asked whether she was certain the president had gone to Iraq, Laura Bush said she hadn't noticed her husband had left the Crawford ranch. "I assumed he was out clearing brush," the First Lady said.

Correspondents Robert Jensen and Sam Husseini contributed to this report.
www.zmag.org

This is really heartening news about my favourite past time - quizzing !!

Indian Quizzers Crush British Team on British Topics in BBC Mastermind Quiz
&
Here's your starter for ten: Who was the hottest in Madras?

:-D

This is a nice quiz - Identify who's a software language developer and who's a serial killer!! As if there is much difference :-D

Killer Quiz

History interests me. Not wars and how many kings and queens ruled, but how people lived in olden times. You can say I am interested in Social Geography and Anthropology. There is an irrestible urge in my life to find what people in earlier times ate, wore, how they lived, grew grain and in general how on they carried on their business of living.

I keep reading lots of articles on archealogical studies in New Scientist, a magazine that is almost God-sent for a information-maniac like me. Today I chanced upon a nice site, Roman Britain, that is about how the Romans lived in Britain 2000 years ago. Quite interesting!

Check this out - Very funny!
Are you an E-Bore?

My score in June 2003 was 60 and in November 2003 has climbed upto 64. At this rate, I should be a complete E-bore (a score of 100 points) in August 2007 :-D

Samit - a dear friend - says and I quote:
If you were able to calculate the time to reach 100% then you are already beyond the 100% limit.
Ha Ha :-D

Back to the internet and back to blogging, would start again soon!!

I wonder if I should start Delhi's first flash mob ;-)

First Flash Mob happens in India at Mumbai

Here's one that cracked me up :-D

"I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."
--Robert McCloskey, State Department spokesman

Here's a neat one on Answering Machine Madness, the disease that plagues all Americans ;-)

Hi, this is John. If you are the phone company, I already sent the money. If you are my parents, please send money. If you are my financial aid institution, you didn't lend me enough money. If you are my friends, you owe me money. If you are a female, don't worry, I have plenty of money.

Was reading my new dictionary, reached the very last page to see what is the last word in the dictionary and say a word "Zyrian". As is my habit, googled for it immediatly.

Reached this page which is quite something! Some people have all the time in the world to do all sorts of interesting things ;-)

A not so new one, but worth a laugh all the time !

A professor of Linguistics was lecturing to an audience about similarities and dissimilarities found among languages. He pointed out that in Russian, the use of a double negative does not alter the intent of the statement but, in English the use of a double negative renders a statement positive. He then pointed out that never does the use of a double positive in English make a statement negative.

A voice from the back of the room shouted, "yeah, right!!!"

I have fallen in love with Google's News Alerts - check them out here

The best thing about them is the text around the keyword. That helps to understand the context and judge without clicking whether the article is relevant to my keyword or not. Less time spent on evaluation of email.

Have been teaching Verbal Ability and Personality Development to CAT aspirants for nearly two months now. Recently, I bought an Oxford English Dictionary for my English classes. The dictionary was a necessity since it contained Etymology. My work revolves around understanding words and their meanings, and knowing the origins helps a great deal!

Had a niece born on 25th September!!

There's mass indignation amongst Indian internet users. The Indian govt has asked through orders like these, all private ISPs to block access to a discussion group on yahoogroups. This group focusses on some anti-India activities, especially secessionist views. You may try to access this group here. You will be able to see it if you are outside India. If in India, you would get a gateway error or something similar. If you live in India and want to access this group, try Anonymizer which allows you to surf blocked websites. Or try typing the URL (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kynhun) in Google and click on the cached links to see it.

However, that is not the point. If the govt deems some website to be dangerous to the integrity and sovereignty of the Indian Union, and deems to block it, freedom of speech and information be damned, *AT LEAST DO IT PROPERLY*. Most ISPs, including the one that I use, have blocked the complete http://groups.yahoo.com site. Yahoo groups is a major website used by Indian users. I am personally a member of nearly 30 groups on the same, discussing issues as varied as Indian Business and Strategy, Pancham's music, Jainism and Search Engine Optimization. While thankfully we are not suffering from non-delivery of mails, the site's web access is blocked leading to administrative problems. Talk about cutting the hand to stop the accusing finger!

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Here's an interesting letter that is being forwarded to the Indian users. Please help the cause and send the same to the Minister!

Folks!

Due to bungling between GOI and ISPs, for many of us, it is not possible to access the yahoo groups site at all !!!

GOI had asked the ISPs to block access to a particular yahoogroup site, however, many ISPs have blocked access to entire yahoogroups site.
(It may not effect many yahoogroups members, but it does hinder moderators to do their job - and therefore, the effectiveness of the groups)

I am enlosing a copy of a copy of the government GO, which is also available at:

http://corporate.ddsl.net/images/sc1.gif
It is from the Ministry of Communications and IT - LR Cell, signed by Jayant Kumar, Director, LR II (tel # 011 23372601)

It tells ISPs to block http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/kynhun/ - and definitely not to block the whole of yahoogroups.

The only recourse is to send petition to the Hon'ble Minister of Communiation and IT, Mr Arun Shourie, to intervene.

I am pasting a message below, and request you to cut-copy-paste it, and send to his mailids (which are give below)

Please forward this message to as many yahoogroups as you can (and not listed in "To:" above)

thanks for your initiative and cooperation

ciao
madhukar
=================================
Dr Madhukar Shukla
Prof (OB & Strategic Management), XLRI, CH Area (East),
Jamshedpur India 831 001
email: madhukar@xlri.ac.in
webpage: http://www.madhukarshukla.com/
ph: 91 657 2225506 x 300(O)/ 603(R)
fax: 91 657 2227814

============================================================================
E-mail: ashourie@yojana.nic.in, minister@mit.gov.in
Mail Off: Electronic Niketan, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Fax Off: 24364484
Mail Res : A-31, Westend Enclave, New Delhi-110021
Fax Res: 24100012

______________________________________________________


Sh. Arun Shourie,
Hon'ble Minister for Communication and Information Technology
Government of India

Dear Sh. Shourie,

Sub: Protection of Right to freedom of speech & expression

Please refer to order No. 820-1/2003-LR(Vol.I) dated 10/09/2003 of Department of Telecommunication under your Ministry regarding
directions to block Internet website "groups.yahoo.com/groups/kynhu" .

We believe that the Ministry of Communication must be having necessary reasons to block the above website. Any such censoring in National Interest / National Security is welcome. However it is pointed out that certain ISP's have implemented the said order by blocking the entire domain groups.yahoo.com.

Consequently a number of citizens in the country are not able to access various yahoo groups across the country. It is brought to your notice that the citizens use the free services of yahoo to exchange ideas and remain connected with one another. However consequent to the above order the exchange of free flow of information has come to a halt.

Having known you as a former Editor and champion of Freedom of Speech , it was surprising to know that such an order can come through a Ministry headed by you.

The Intellectuals across the country feel that censoring of Internet may lead the citizens of the country far behind in the fast changing world. Time memorial have proved that no censorship has ever worked in the country. Despite all odds in the country it is this freedom to speech that makes Indian citizens feel proud of their nation. It is this freedom that makes India different from China.

We therefore request you to personally intervene and either ensure the proper implementation of the order whereby only "groups.yahoo.com/groups/kynhu" is blocked by ISP's or alternately withdraw the above order and ensure Right to freedom of speech & expression of all Citizens.

It is further requested that the rules under which the above order was passed may be re-looked and if possible a representative from amongst the Journalist world may be brought in the committee which examines such blockage of website. It should not happen that Bureaucrats/ Politicians use above tool to infringe the fundamental right to freedom of speech of citizens.

With a special appeal to the Journalist in you.

Best Regards,

A Concerned Citizen

Here are some miscellaneous ones.

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