does this mean more good news in the near future?

Today, there have been several articles that have been stating that they have killed the No. 2 member of the Al Qaeda in Iraq, does this mean that they are closer with intelligence to being able to get the No. 1 man?? I suppose this should boost Bush's public ratings some, especially since the disasterous response to the Hurricanes this past month added to his dwindling ratings.

Observations driving thru Pennsylvania

So, I was on my long drive from Michigan to NY today and decided to take good ole I-80 down, and here are a few random observations
- Real scenic drive thru the Pocono mountains and the Penn forest.
- NOBODY follows the speed limits of 65 miles an hour even thru rain with not the greatest visibility
- They have BIG dots in the middle of parts of the highway, to apparently help people pace themselves and NOT "Tailgate" the guy in front of you. Apparently we are to keep a two dot distance between us and the car in front of us =S and this just randomly pops up in parts of the highway and disappears after about a 3-4 mile strech.
-so many truckers that they have signs posted telling cars to keep alert because of the heavy truck traffic!

Overall though, it was a pretty nice drive thru.

Nostalgia galore

This is a lil too familiar a time for my liking. Im sure the people in Southern Texas and Lousiana are not welcoming the situation. Less than 30 days later Rita is on its way to shore, I wonder if the government would have a much better resposne to this? Mayor White of Houston says that they have national guard and the military on the offensive so that they are "better prepared" this time around.... and the long lines of cars parked on the interstates... Im never going to complain about tornadoes again!

This situation is vaguely familiar to the one from last year when FL was hit by 3 hurricanes one after another in a couple months time!

3 year old marathoner for sale... Only Rs.800

I recieved an email with this article a lil while ago and thought it was another one of those random fwds, only to find out that its supposedly a true story after a lil digging around.
I can barely run-walk about 3 miles a day, this kid apparently does about 35 miles a DAY and that too at 7 hour streches :-\ gawd I feel so small

He runs seven hours at a stretch, sometimes as much as 48km (30 miles). On a daily basis. And Budhia Singh is just three and a half years old. When Budhia's father died a year ago, his mother, who washes dishes in Bhubaneswar, capital of the eastern Indian state of Orissa, was unable to provide for her four children. She sold Budhia to a man for 800 rupees ($20)...
...Mr Das said he noticed Budhia's talent when scolding him for being a bully. "Once, after he had done some mischief, I asked him to keep running till I came back," Mr Das told the BBC... more

*sigh* if only I had HALF the stamina!

Time for a change?

This was an article that my friend Adi sent me a few minutes ago. Im not quite sure what to think of it, should I consider it a failure of the Indian government that need to revise the Marriage laws that they have, which state that for people to marry, the groom must be 21 and the bride atleast 19; or should it be one for womens lib for her taking matters into her own hands to get things done the way she reckons is the right thing to do because of parental disapproval.

Minor knot: Girl marries lover’s brother for 2 yrs

AHMEDABAD, SEPT 12: For Sneha Patel, a 19-year-old college-going girl, everything is fair in love. Even if it means signing a contract marriage with her minor boyfriend’s elder brother for the time being, an arrangement that will ultimately allow her to marry the man she loves two years later...more

Granted such laws were in place to protect people from the age old tradition of child marriage in India. I think they need to be revised once again!

Thank you Vince Young!

Texas vs. OSU game was one of the best games I've seen so far! GO HORNS! heh apparently my hatred for OSU far surpasses the hatred for Texas =D

oh l'horreur... je déteste!!!

All excited that Michigan was going to play their second game of the season today, only to be disappointed to a bitter loss to Notredame! Im rather pissed at the way the defense couldn't hold up and that we got completely shut down the last drive of the game and they had to punt it back to them. *sigh* G'bye BCS championship! Unless ofcourse every other team in the nation were to loose one game too, but thats just too much to ask for.

Iowa got beat pretty bad against ISU, that was rather sad. Granted Im all for the Big 12 usually, they Big12 North jsut hasn't been up there lately.

I do hope that OSU looses to Texas tonight!

A change for the better?? .. a little to late?

After intense pressure the FEMA director has been stripped of his role as the head of the relief operation in the wake of Katrina. A lil too late I would say.. but I spsoe its a step in the right direction?

Director of FEMA Stripped of Role as Relief Leader
WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 - Under intense pressure to improve its response to Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration on Friday abruptly removed the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael D. Brown, from oversight of the post-storm relief effort, and replaced him with Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard... more

Its rather sad to see the role that the organization has been playing is not one that has yet made much of a difference to the lives of the victims.

Ophelia on the other hand has been raised to a hurricane again now that its wind speeds have picked up over 75mph.

Ophelia lingers in Atlantic, could threaten U.S. coast
FLAGLER BEACH, -- Ophelia regained hurricane strength Friday on a course that could take it into the U.S. coast, and forecasters urged residents of northern Florida and the Carolinas keep close watch on its path over the next few days.... more

As if Florida hasn't been plagues with enough in the last year. Makes me rather happy that I'm not in direct line for many natural disasters

Sentry duty

Heh... here is another pic from yesterday. I look like Im on sentry duty ... the royal palace guard with the Skeet thrower in hand.

Super soaker + me... ahh fun times!

Earlier this evening, we went shooting out on my friend Jeremy's farm. I was rather content with playing with my super soaker till I was handed a behemouth rifle by Jeremy and told to shoot skeet. I must say it was a rather enjoyable experience, albeit I only shot 2 of the 14 targets that I aimed for. Nevertheless, I must say none of them flinched at the idea of being around clutzy me with a LOADED weapon.

Here are a couple shots that Tara took. Heh, they all thought it was rather funny I was out shooting whilst wearing a "security T" on. =D

The sad thing is Jish was able to shoot more accurately at the targets even though she wasn't able to lift the gun half the time! C'est la vie!

Football madness!

Yaay!... football season is finally here!well, it started on thursday but its the first NCAA saturday today! Its gonna be on real exciting day!

Go CATS! Go BLUE!

Leap, Martha. and Nate

As if Kartina wasn't bad enough there are more tropical storms brewring out that are causing a lot of anxiety to the people down south. The next few storms, of which the first is already been named is being watch very closely to follow its path.

Not to mention Gas prices have been soaring like none other, and predicted to end up as high as $4/gallon in some places! I miss not being home where gas prices don't fluctuate on a daily basis. *sigh*

Americans open their homes and wallets to help Katrina victims
...The Chatmans popped the trunk on their aging Oldsmobile and pulled out garbage bags bursting with baby formula, clothes, shoes, sheets, and food. The Baton Rouge family didn't know anyone affected by hurricane Katrina. But when they heard a local television station was a designated donation drop-off location, they gathered up all they could and headed into town... more

Its sad that its only in the wake of disaster do we become more human. The rat-race that we go thru every day de-humanizes so much so that no one ever really cares for another.

Mall-rat fun

Trying to keeps our selves amused, Tara and I ventured out to Oak park mall, after a breeze thru of the Mens cologne section at Nordstroms we strolled our way slowly thru the rest of the mall trying to find interesting lil widgets and gidgets that were out of the ordinary, untill we made our way thru the Victoria Secret store. To my suprise I wasnt the only male presence in the store. After making fun of a half a dozen things we strolled on to find our selves lost at le gourmet Chef. Sufficed to say I proffessed my love for the store about dozen times whilst sampling each and every one of their tasty wares, and playing around with they nifty lil gadgets, complainging that they didn't have a store quite like this one up in Michigan (Although, I did find out there are two stores up at Birchrun and Howell at the outlet stores). I was like a kid in a candy store and the clutzy me even managed to spill some of their tasty Jack Daniels coffee in an aisle. The store even made Tara happy cause they had Pink Flamingo Pasta! Needless to say, once I get me a house Im definately going to be frequenting this store often!

Yikes!!

I suppose thats quite the appropriate response to whats happening out in the gulf coast. Its extremely disheartening to see the plight that New Orleans is in in the aftermath of Katrina. Several pronounced dead and still counting, and an estimated $16bn worth of damage in the area. At times like these I'm kinda glad that I live up north/ midwest. Granted we have the occasional tornado but nothing quite on the scale that the Gulf coast has had to endure this week.

The red cross and several other DMAT teams including MI-1 have been mobilized to help with the victims. If you can participate/ help either by volunteering time or making a donation to redcross, make sure you do.

a minority in a minority?

Hahah.. to paraphrase my friends Mark and Rob, apparently I could be best described as a minority with in a minority. Whilst hanging out with my them last night they just couldnt fathom that I was such a strong libertarian and it also struck many of them that Ive been a minority pretty much every where Ive been, not that it would have made a great deal of difference had I grown up on this side of the Atlantic.

Well I spose thats me... one very confused indian redneck libertarian and some!

IPOD woes!

Its seriously NOT been my lucky year. Today I find out that my car was broken into and the thief stole my ipod and my change out of the center console but yet strangely enough left my radar detector behind, as if to let me know they didn't want to screw me over COMPLETELY!

IT IS A CRUEL WORLD I tell you!!! *sigh* I want my ipod back =(. I wonder if my insurance will cover it.

Its amazing what playing dumb can do for you!

Sometimes I wonder, If it really helps knowing what one knows to get things done! For example, I was flying back into Detroit out of St. Louis yesterday, since I missed my flight the previous morning, I went upto the counter and told an rather grumpy looking man that I missed my flight and wanted to now if there was any way I could stand-by on a flight yesterday. He just huffed at me and clicked away at the computer sceeen only to tell me that the only option I had was to buy a new ticket for $200 for a flight at 7pm or for some $340 for the 3pm flight and that too flying standby on it! I just thanked him and left to see if there was any thing else I could do. About ten minutes later, deciding that there wasn't a whole lot I could do I went up to the counter with a blank expression and furiously keyed in stuff at the auto-checkin, when I looked completely lost another man came by to help out, he finally pulls up my reservation and lets me know that he can confirm me for the 3pm flight, but informs me I would need to pay a change fee of only $75 since Id missed my flight the previous day!

Kinda makes you wonder what one can get away with playing dumb! I wonder if I could have gotten out of my speeding ticked that way too!

I was rather happy that I made the 3pm flight but then had to endure all the extra delays on fhe flight because the stewardess apparently fell "injured" her self in some turbulence on an earlier segment of the flight. This meant that the flight didn't leave till about oh another two hours later, and to top it off we got into Detroit to sit on the Tarmack for about 30 minutes before they got us to the gate. I was gonna write in complaing about it but after what reading what happened to people stranded in London because of the British Airways fiasco, Id say I got of real lucky!!

another one for the miracles of modern medicine

Will wonders ever cease... I guess I should be glad they don't. Reading this article was definately inspiring on the marvels of technology that can make things happen.

Brain-dead woman gives birth to baby girl
A cancer-ravaged woman robbed of consciousness by a stroke has given birth after being kept on life support for three months to give her fetus extra time to develop...more

Although the mom is now dead I guess its a bitter-sweet deal for the family that gets a new addition to the family whilst loosing one as well. I wonder though what the general public has to say, and it would be especially intersting to hear the views of "creationists" that don't believe in darwinism and are generally pro-life, the birth of this baby was definately due to scientific intervention so would this counter they argument of scientific intervention in aborting an unwanted fetus.

No more atkins ... the new low carb =D

As many of you remember, I'm soo against excessive forms of dieting. Diet in of itself should include a good balance of everything, cutting one part of it results in an unhealthy diet and more medical problems to deal with.

The Atkins diet crashes
The craze for the controversial low-carb Atkins diet is officially over after the company filed for bankruptcy.
...Devotees were encouraged to eat little carbohydrate and as much fat and protein as they liked. And so people across the world turned to bacon and eggs for breakfast in place of the usual dieter's menu of fruit or cereal.... more

Good gawd! yeah cut out carbs but feast on more cholestrol, and grease!! Its sheer madness I tell you. Another fad that faded out once they got to know Dr. Atkins was found to be Overweight. There were many a warning that it would cause greater heart and kidney disease but that was never taken into account by most dieters.

I wonder whats next on the horizon for the dieter

BIIG day

Argh ... this is frustrating. I post a loooong rant about whats goin on in the world not 10-minutes ago and its disappeared :-S well here is a recreation.

There are a whole slew of random events goin on in the world, New Monarch, New Ambassador to the UN, Agassi takes the win on his 60th ATP tour, and ofcourse something thats really been interesting, the possibility of a new planet on the horizon.

A chunk of rock and ice that may be a planet has been discovered in the farthest reaches of the solar system, astronomers announced Friday. The object, currently called 2003 UB313, orbits the sun and is larger than Pluto, traditionally considered the ninth planet in the solar system...
...The discovery of UB313 is likely to reignite the debate over the definition of "planet"—and over how many objects in the solar system are deserving of the name..more

This would be an interesting debate to follow. Although, like most debates I'm sure its going to be a long while before there is a large general consensus regarding the issue.

Also in other news Microsoft could be facing some serious back lash from its consumers,

Microsoft peeks into your closet
To verify that you have a legitimate copy, all Microsoft has to do is glance around your computer's living room, so to speak. There is no need to go snooping through the drawers. By simply matching the "product key" stored on your computer with the product you have, Microsoft can tell whether it is genuine or not.
But under a new policy, Microsoft has decided to hunt through your computer for a lot more than a valid product key... more

Hell! after reading this article I feel extremely violated. Wanting to validate the legitimacy of the copy of software is one this but snooping around my computer for other information for their "statistical" purposes would come close to a violation of privacy I'd say, considering the exhorbandant prices that we pay for a copy of the software so that they can make up for the losses incurred by piracy *sigh*.
Wouldn't it really make more economic sense for them to subsidize the price of the software like they do for us broke college students. This in turn would make it more affordable and easily available to the masses and would therefore provide no incentive for piracy, there by generating more in profits from the increase in numbers? I mean after all they DOMINATE like 95+% of the pc market, wouldn't this provide them with greater good/ profits or the like?