Recent wacky referrers
It is interesting to see what link leads to your webpage. Many times the search engines pick up words from different posts that are not related and puts the page on top of the list for hits because the search keywords appear in the page. Here are a couple of wacky searches that led to my blog:
- Yahoo! Search Results for bodybuilder matthew rush
- Yahoo! Search Results for i hate dante culpepper pictures
- Yahoo! Search Results for god hates ill people
- MSN Search Results for Jessica Lynch nude pictures (multiple times in different forms)
US Postal stamp on Diwali
I have just read and signed the online petition:
"Issuance of US Postal Service stamp on Diwali"
hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition service.
I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think many of you readers will, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider signing yourself.
122,000 miles
On the way to work today, my car turned over 122,000 miles. Way to go! I hope to see 150,000 on this gal.
The argument that marriages are sacred and hence, gays should not be allowed to be married is beyond ridiculous. Are people really that foolish not to realise that half the people take those sacred vows only to break them? Are they so blind to not notice all the broken marriages and families with children without their biological parents?
- If Elvis can marry a man and a woman in Las Vegas,
- if Dennis Rodman can marry Carmen Electra and get divorced in a week,
- if Elizabeth Taylor and Jennifer Lopez are allowed to go on their marrying spree,
- if Michael Jackson can marry,
---> then all the law-abiding, tax-paying gay couples should have the right to get married and enjoy all the benefits that come along with it. Marriage between two persons should be a basic civil right protected by the constitution.
Court Ordered Alabama chief justice to step down. They cited ehical breaches in his refusal to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of Alabama Supreme Court.
Lt. Gov. Kathleen B. Blanco, a Democrat, defeated Piyush Jindal, the Republican whiz kid, to become the first woman elected governor of Louisiana in a runoff on Saturday.
First woman governor. That is a good beginning fo Louisiana. Maybe a second generation immigrant like Jindal, next time around. When will US have a woman president? Is hillary planning to enter the fray this time or wait it out till 2008?
Deer Hunting
The gun deer hunting season starts in Michigan tomorrow. Our campus is starting to get empty already. People are leaving to get an early start to travel towards their favorite hunting sites. A couple of people I know, have already hunted their deer using a bow and arrow. But, they are still eager to get out tomorrow to use their guns. Maybe, next year I'll join some of my friends on a hunt. I don't eat meat so, it would be wasteful to kill a deer, but, it might be fun to just shoot some shotgun shells.
If I want to be safe and alive, I better stay indoors tomorrow and not stray in the woods behind the house. An old lady got shot a couple of years ago while working in her own backyard near Kalamazoo, MI. She was wearing white gloves and some drunk hunter, in desparation to get his deer in the evening light before it got dark, shot at her mistaking her white gloves for tail of a white-tail deer.
Find out where you stand
The Political Compass website has a quiz to figure out political leanings of a person and categorize in one of the 4 bins. Check it out. The answer may surprise you as it did me. Never thought that I'd be a left liberal. I knew about liberal but, not too happy about being on the left.
I would call myself liberal on social issues and conservative on economic issues. But, when you take an average of all the answers to some 30-40 questions in the quiz, I guess I fall on the left side of the center, although, some of my answers were clearly to the right. Anyway, it is an interesting quiz and a way to characterize people.
Check out the following link for some interesting information on this master drummer. And don't miss a chance to sway to the drumbeats of this group if they visit your area.
The Oral Tradition - Doudou N'Diaye Rose
Indian Ghettos
I was aware of Indian Ghettos (area with large concentrations of Indians) in Edison, New Jersey and New York. But, I was surprised to find out that similar ghettos exist in California also. A friend of mine lives in Cupertino. In his apartment complex with 120 units, 110 are occupied by people of Indian origin. There are 25-30 marathi-speaking families. It came as a huge surprise to me.
I thought people from all different countries came to US recently to work in the silicon valley. Maybe, they all have different ghettos. Do people really feel comfortable only when they are living amongst others of similar ethnic background? I can imagine this being true a 100 years ago. That is why one can find little Italies, French quarters, Greektowns and Chinatowns in various big US cities. But, all of these Indians I am talking about have been in US for less than 10 years. I don't think the discrimination of yesteryears is so prevalent that it would warrant such groupings.
Maybe, they want to be in a certain school district for their children. If anyone wondered about this, I would like to hear your thoughts.
Lunar Eclipse
Didn't get a chance to view the eclipse on Saturday, although there were no clouds in the sky. Was busy with something else. Here is a nice composite photograph of the eclipse from APOD.
An update:: Hustler magazine says it has topless photos of Jessica Lynch
Last night, on NBC, there was a 'made for TV' movie on Jessica Lynch's capture and heroic rescue. On CBS, '60 minutes' featured a segment about another Soldier (oh gosh, I forgot his name) who was the real hero of that day when Jessica Lynch was captured and didn't get any recognition. Nobody even knows his name. He singlehadedly fought with half a dozen of Iraqi soldiers and prevented the vehicle that contained Jessica and others from being bombed. A news story was published about this battle which reported in the end that this unidentified soldier died during the gunfight.
The Pentagon and the media were so enamored with the pretty young girl who fought till she ran out of bullets while she had suffered major wounds from gunshots. She was rescued from her Iraqi captors who were torturing and raping her and was brought back in a commando operation. This story just sounds so good that they couldn't resist running with it without confirming any facts. Now, all those facts are coming out and are haunting the administration and the media.
- Jessica got into this mess because her company lost their way into enemy territory. It was not their mission to be there and fight.
- Jessica never fired a bullet. Her gun had jammed.
- All her injuries resulted from the crash of her HumVee. There were no bullet wounds.
- She was treated for her injuries and not tortured.
- She was not raped, at least she doesn't remember of such incidence.
- There was no resistance during her rescue. Actually, there were no soldiers to fight off. The Iraqi doctors were very cooperative in the whole affair.
Jessica herself is quite saddened and sickened by the way her story was misused. Here is a nice article from BBC with some more links to other related articles.
BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Jessica Lynch condemns Pentagon
Search company Google has found a prime location on some Microsoft real estate. Google Deskbar is a free program that puts a search window at the bottom of Windows PC users' screens. It lets users search the Internet while working in any application and without opening a Web browser.
Download your own Deskbar here.
The BBC has sacked me for sounding posh. At the moment, the World Service is on a mission to sound classless - hence the proliferation of Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Australasian voices. My accent - received pronunciation - is associated with a white, middle-class demographic. Which is ironic, because I am a mixed-race South Londoner: half-Pakistani, half-English and from a very ordinary background.
Is this a real trend reversal or someone just making noise for getting fired from a job?
bravenet.com
