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Showing posts from 2008

The Terrorist within

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What makes a terrorist? Are they a different species of human beings created by some mutation in the gene pool. [Click on image to Enlarge it] Courtesy: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/ Many explanations have been given to try and understand it. Quite a few voices (most prominent being that of William Tucker ) have raised stating that Polygamy in Islam is one of the leading causes for suicide attacks. The argument goes something like this. In a monogamous society, every man is more or less guaranteed a woman and he goes on to build a family and have dependents. This makes him value his life. However in a polygamous society, most of the women are concentrated with the rich and successful and hence there is a whole lot of men who not having any possibility of finding a mate, don't value their life anymore (Darwinian thinking at best, stating that reproduction is one of the primary purposes of any creature). Also there is the promise of 72 virgins in heaven if one where do die

The Comfortably Unabashed

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Trillian: "Can we drop your ego for a moment. This is important." Zaphod: "If there is anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now." Immortal lines from " The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy ", by Douglas Adams What makes people like Zaphod and Calvin so lovable by the neutral distant observer (with a stress on distant[:D]) is the fact that they speak their mind. They are not corrupted by the social definition of correctness. They are self centered to the helm and care a paisa for what the world thinks of them. In the words of Bill Watterson , " Calvin is pretty easy to do because he is outgoing and rambunctious and there's not much of a filter between his brain and his mouth. " [Click on image to Enlarge it] Courtesy: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/ So why is the average humble person so, well, humble? Does he really feel that all men are equal in the eye of the divine and hence it makes no sense to

About RSS (no not the Saffron Brigade)

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Putt's Law states that " Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand. " Having always posed as the former, I suddenly had the realisation that I am the latter when trying to put a email subscription option for this blog. Yet another instance of nature showing the mirror, I guess. Of course nature here has to be seen in a more expansive context including the virtual world. (Not that the real world is any less virtual. Guess, I am going way beyond scope of this post here) In the right top corner of this blog, you now find a "Enter Your Email Address" link followed by a subscribe to... drop box. Though once completed it seems to be the easiest thing on the world to actually get it done, it took me over 2 weeks. The major problem I had here was the fact that the side bar links in feedburner (about this shortly) appeared to be Google Ads to the defective ad blocker ins

The Eternally Amused

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There was a time when I used to go after Self- Help books like a dog chasing cars. Just as the dog does not know what to do if it caught one , I did not know what to do once I am done reading one. (I did not copy this line from the Joker. It has been in use since way before. Americans may patent the turmeric but they dare not copyright the wise cracks ;) ) But still it made you feel good. As though by the act of having read the book, you have improved your life already. Well may be not. But at least by having endured the book, you have burned away some Karma. Anything that is bitter is medicine. Right? But when life decides to give you the wealth of wisdom, it does not always wrap it up in a treasure chest or an elegant jewellery case. This one came wrapped in plastic. ' Bheja Fry '. Now that is what I call a life changer. It was a low budget movie hosting no stars and taken almost entirely in a house. The movie is probably the second best gift of France to India after Demo

Agents of Chaos

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In the famous words of George Bernard Shaw, “ Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people. ” The first person who comes to our mind in this regard is the Celestial Saint Narada. Having received the blessing that all chaos he generates will ultimately lead only to good, he embarks with a free conscience to spread disorder around the world. Yet, such is the end result of his actions that people eventually have to end up loving him in return. The fact that this king of trouble makers is in turn bedeviled on more than one occasion by Lord Vishnu goes on to show who is the fundamental agent of chaos. However let me not elaborate on that for that goes far beyond the scope of this post ;) On the other extreme, is The Joker. His is the kind of chaos which makes the society understand its own shortcomings, inequities and immoralities which it had taken for granted and learn

Indulgence of a Birthday boy

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Courtesy: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/ One is normally allotted a certain amount of indulgence on his birthday. I thought I will carry it all the way by throwing on all of you, a blog. Every person no matter how mundane his existence feels occasional spurts of grandeur arise forth in him. He takes on a different personality at those times. Becomes a leader of men (Note: Only one gender specified), a philosopher, a saint and maybe even GOD. This normally dies down after a while when reality after giving the person a nice smile, politely shows the mirror. The world then goes on and all was well. Unfortunately with the coming of the world of blogging, these moments of grandeur got translated into words and published into eternity on the internet. Though this usually creates only a nuisance, it has surprisingly, some advantages. It is said that there is nothing more powerful than an IDEA whose TIME has come. (No wonder both terms are registered and copyrighted). Unf