Friday, February 29, 2008

Leap Day


Magic Fountain, originally uploaded by chughtai.



We're gonna break the monster's back
Yes we are...
Lay down your treasure
Lay it down now brother

As you enter this life
I pray you depart
With a wrinkled face
And a brand new heart

And I wonder where is the love?
Where is the love?
Love and Peace

We need
Love and peace
Love and peace
-- U2

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Dummies Guide to US Elections - Part 7


decision-making for dummies, originally uploaded by petit hiboux.

Following up on previous post in the series, Part 6.

Great work by "Petit Hiboux" on flickr; saw this one on flickr blog recently and reminded me of US elections for dummies again.

Enjoy!!

And yeah, things are heating up between hillary n obama. Actually to me, it has sorta reached a level of annoying-ness, hence I am not following the drama that much these days. Also I have been busy with work. No more Sky news.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Dummies Guide to US Elections - Part 6

Following up on previous post in the series, Part 5.

A good documentary about Barack Obama, his life, his past, his journey and fight, discovery to find himself, merging inside n outside etc.



Excerpt: When he called himself "a skinny kid with a funny name" at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, his political star was already on the ... all » rise. By the time he decimated the competition in 2004 race for the Illinois Senate, he was the bona fide golden child of a Democratic party desperately in need of a winner. In many ways, the story of Barack Obama is a uniquely American tale of the 21st century, where racial lines are blurry and the most interesting chapter is just beginning.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Another Killing Spree

Whats wrong with all these shooting and killings at the US universities and schools. In news an hour ago, 18 shot, gunman dead at Northern Illinois University.

Last weekend we were talking about something similar (over a game of Spades), about guns and whether one should have them or not (not that I want one, they are a menace to society and should be banned in my opinion). While discussing, a canadian friend of ours said, they always had gun in family but mostly pass on thru' family sort, even in mine, some uncles of mine had guns in their farms, but thats doesn't mean, we go killing like this. What makes these students, people, even teenagers .. to go on killing spree's. Is it just becoz that guns are so much widely accessible in US and somehow your don't think your life is the best you have (think of people living in worse conditions than we are and still fighting hard to live their lives, its a shame) or how does one makes that jump from having an access to gun to killing spree. Are we lacking in teaching the kids about it, is it so stressful for them, not sure and hard to pin point the reasoning behind it.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Pink Google

looks like "Google Docs" team is headed by a very romantic person (chances: male 49% or female 51%)I was not impressed by it, keep it bit more professional guys and not change the whole feck*** page. Anyways!!

Futuristic - London


6766, originally uploaded by magnus*.

Conversation on flickr:

me: cool framing m .. n finally in London :D .. have a nice time
m: yeah... finally! too bad my time was so limited!

b: Great futuristic shot.

m: it was quite daring to place such an futuristic looking building in close proximity to some of london's famous historic landmarks, but it works well!

me: well said M., rarely cities with such historical sites would dare to do that.. and london has done it number of times..

m: unlike berlin, they really did a good job!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Dummies Guide to US Elections - Part 5

Following up on previous post in the series, Part 4.

A lot has happened in the race to select the Presidential candidates since I last posted, where I mentioned that Obama and Hillary are pretty much neck to neck. We are not worried about the Republicans, Bush will find them a suitable candidate to lose or win or lose?

Obama has cleaned sweeped all the smaller states which held the primaries & caucus's during last week or so, Wisconsin, Washington, Maine, Nebraska n some other unknown states. I was reading about it on washington post and they had detailed review of which states matter and which don't. Lot of them which matter in terms of selection, like California, NY, NJ are won by Clinton. But there has a been a lot of new additions and first timer's, never-before voters which are playing big role for Obama campaign. Some other old runners like Michigan, Florida have been ruled out for voting, no need for going into details of that.

So, what does all this mean for Mrs Clinton, the scripts are saying that Texas and Ohio should be won by her, if she wants to remain in the race, and that we won't know until next month.

A candidate need 2,025 delegates to win the nomination. Both are still pretty much equal in terms of numbers right now and some extra "Super" delegates which can make a difference are still unsure who they might support and might be sweeped by Obama if he continues on its roll.

An interesting bit I read was that as Obama is exposed more n more to people in the race, people are liking him even more and interest in his candidacy is growing, which is def. good for him.

And yeah, another interesting bit from Fox News offcourse: one of the best lines -
Republicans are worried that if Barack Obama gets the nomination, it is like running against hope. How do you attack hope?
Its sort of bit boring right now, small states, big states sleeping, counted or not, matter or doesn't, useless pre-conditions, etc.; lets leave it here and wait for something exciting to come up.

--
Update: almost forgot this, between all this drama, Obama also won a Grammy Award over the weekend for Best Spoken Word (for the audio version of his book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream)

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Happy Chinese New Year :2008 人喜盛世 鼠兆丰年 2008 戊子年 新年快乐

Wishing everyone and esp my Chinese friends a very prosperous Chinese New Year. Best Wishes.

PS: I don't what's written in Chinese in the header of this post :-/ .. I'm guessing "Happy New Year"

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Dummies Guide to US Elections - Part 4

Following up on my previous post, here, which seems to have become sort of a series of posts about US Elections. Whats new now!

Super Tuesday (its just like Super Size Burgers, Super Size fries, Super Coca Cola, everything is supposed to be "Super" in US :D) CAME & WENT and the climax still remains in our US Elections Soap Opera.

Clinton and Obama are pretty much neck to neck. She took all the big states like California, New York etc and he took more of the small states like Delaware, Colorado (valley citizens), etc., doesn't really matter now as we don't have a winner yet. Its looks to me like in the end, both candidates will go for closed door meetings or something of that sort to decide who will run and other might run for Vice President. Warning: don't take my word for it, I have no clue of how the democratic process of selecting the candidates works. It came to my mind just now, but somehow it feels right, no, both of them together will do quite good. But as we are just outside viewers, we need more drama in the series to keep our interests alive.

And offcourse, we don't care about the Republicans. Do We?

Better late than never

Following up on my previous post, First American Football Game.

If you still haven't heard about it, because you don't care about American Football, its totally cool :D, am myself a very recent fan (or just) only. But few days back, New York Giants won a thrilling final against Patriots.
via - NYTimes

The picture above is pretty much the winning catch of the game for Giants and it happened at like 2 mintues before the finish. And the last 30 seconds of the game were absolutely thrilling. It was a good sport game and very enjoyable. Hopefully I see more of it (Am Fo) next time.