Massacre in Lebanon

I was under the impression that I wont be blogging for a long time to come. But today I just had to vent my frustration.

The fact is that atleast 56 people died out of which 34 were children and 12 were adult women. However look at the way the west has portrayed it.

The first culprit is the BBC. It says "Dozens killed in Air Raid". If some one reads just the headlines, does it reveal the full extent?

And try making a complaint in their BBC website. Dont know whether its a firefox related issue. But I have been going around in loops. Usability at its worst.

Now Kathy Gannon from Associated Press Writer has written a new article titled "34 youths among 56 dead in Israeli strike". This was gladly picked up by Yahoo, ABC etc. Can't they call spade a spade and term that as "34 children"?

There is another wonderful quote "All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah" by the Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon on July 27. Hasn't he used Orkut before? It can be shown that he is some way related to Hezbollah within six hops!!!

Look at this image of a girl. Can you associate the word "youth" with these tiny body bags?

Israel spokes person says that The building itself was not targeted So do they mean that the precision laser guided bombs dont have accuracy? After all a few days back they "accidentally" hit the UN mission killing 4 UN observers despite informing the israel about their location. May be they would have survived, if they had moved to another location and kept the location in dark from the Israel troops.

All that Annan can do is call for peace when Israel primeminister openly says that Israel needed 10 to 14 more days to complete its mission against Hezbollah militia. When the no of casualities of children in lebanon is more than the no of hezbollah members, is that a war? US Secretary of State, Rice says We want a cease-fire as soon as possible. Can some one care to explain as to what "as soon as possible" means.

I wish the reporting was a bit more balanced. I know its expecting too much but there are good ones like Al Jazeera

However the best bet is through decentralized blogs:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/live-from-lebanon.shtml
http://lebanonnewslive.com/
http://beirutlive.blogspot.com/

More statements at the emergency UN meet.

Now I understand as to what Winston Churchill meant by the quote - "History is written by the victors."

Cool Cool

I and my colleague were chatting with the owner of a restaurant here in London which we haunt regularly for desi food. Today he remarked that his refigerator is giving troubles because weather is hot. We were pretty perplexed bcoz this so called "hot" summer was just 15 degrees. And that is what we would have called as cold winter in most parts of India.

Its another matter that I dont think refigerators are required here except for the freezers. Though to be fair, 90% of the food stuff is frozen.

And I have neither found a tube light (they use either incadescent or the fashionable dim lit ones) nor a fan (except for the electric chimneys in the kitchen).

I was in that bus - Part II

On saturday, I got the sudden urge to goto chennai. On impulse, I took my black Pulsar and drove all the way to chennai. The 350km highway was beautiful - min 4 lane and it was different experience altogether. Though it took me 14 hours of rest to recupperate from the 7 hours of travel.

Taking my friends advice, I left the bike in chennai and decided to travel by bus since it was supposed to be safer. However as you can see from the snap - its not the case. We met with an accident at 5:30am. We escaped with minor injuries bcoz the driver was slow. In fact he was so slow that I wonder as to how he managed to cause an accident. He took 6 hours to travel just 300 kms in this smooth highway :(

They say that lightning never strikes twice but i guess they were wrong. Nearly a year back, I had a similar close shave on my way to Munnar.

I am still wondering whether I am lucky or lucky. I have met with two accidents in a span of a year or so. But I have managed to walk away from both of them with minor injuries.

Framed

After having been tied down for the past 6.5 days, I finally managed to squeeze in some time to upload the pics from the blogger's meet - Blogout.

The gang roll call is available at Arnab's blog post And for write ups about the trip, check out sumans writeups and also the compilation of entire list inthis article by AnitaBora.

Meanwhile let me share some pics (rest are reserved for my photoblog) down here.

Flagged off:

Thats the railway station in the background.

Toy Train:

Slow but an enjoyable ride.

Touch me not:

Its a living creature...

Royal Welcome:

Sathish, Adel and Kavitha being welcomed by the King and his knight

Should we trust this king?

That is the expression of Ganesh, Anuja, Anjana, Satheesh, Senthil and Venkat.

So what if you are the king?

Venkat, Anita, Adel, Rupa and Tulsi

Trying to stand in a straight single line circle:

Kripa, Chander, Nithya, Suman and Vasu.

Base camp:


View from the Base camp:


Honnemardu Lake:


Backbenchers?


Carocling:






The Knight:

He was with me and Ganesh in the same Carocle.

Food Court:

Never knew that I would enjoy Sambar rice so much.

Camp:


What?

Can you guess the conversation based on the facial expression of the subjects?

Partin memories:

Left with heavy hearts (soaked to the bone)

Talagapa:

While we were waiting for the connecting shuttle to Shimoga, I sneaked out for a breather. It was worth it.

The snap in this SudaSudaCoffee post was taken at Talagapa only.

Till I get some time to pen things down, let me sign off (literarily and literally)

- Dheepak Ra

Bloggers Meet

Ooh. What a weekend this has turned out to be!

I wish I had some time to blog about it. But I am putting in 20 hour shifts for a particular deadline. So bear with me till I upload all the picts, give more details and blog roll you all.

Few close up shots of this are available but then its better tocheck out Arnab's post for list of bloggers.

Catch you all in a day or two.

P.S: I have smudged the email ids for privacy reasons. After all, those who need to know the email id must be already knowing it......

Yet another tag

I am tagged yet again this time on books by Ansh.

Total Number of Books I Own: Got a decent collection stretching from classics like Pride and prejudice in the north, modern Robin cook's Shock in the south, Russian classics in the east to the Enidblyton of the west. But I am not able to quantify them.

Last Book I bought: The monk who sold his ferrari (First time I bought a book purely on my friends recommendation)

Last Book I was gifted: Abdul Kalams work

Last Book I read: Michael Crichton's TimeLine

I am currently reading: Planning to start on The Last Don (Better late than never)

Five Books that mean a lot to me:

Let me modify this tag as the "five non-fictional books"

1. The Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh
This book succeeded in rekindling my interest in Mathematics where 12 years of heavy books and lectures had failed.
2. The Code Book by Simon Singh
Well it taught me in two days the world of cryptography which would have normally taken me two semesters to acquire. Simon singh is perhaps the only non-fiction author whom I recommend for everyone. His works are not only inspiring, but the way he dissects and exposes the subject for the common man that makes me rank him higher.
3. The World's 100 Most Influential People:
Is it a beautiful book? May be not.
Did it influence me? May be yes.
This was the first book which I had recieved as a gift some 15 years back. It has left a subtle impression on me......
4 and 5 - cant recollect off hand. May be its bcoz I spend most of my time immersed in fictional stuff.

As usual let me leave it to the readers discretion whether they would like to continue this tag or not.

Tagged......

Folks,

It seems as if Ashish has caught me. So here it goes: "a list of things that i'd like to do for the earth"

As usual let me start with the cribs first, the requirement wasnt too clear. Was it what I would like to do (just idealistic), or what I can possibly do (more realistic) or what I will do. (more probablistic).

What I currently do:
(The first 5 things which pops into my head)
1. Switch off the lights/fans whenever it isnt essential (Hey not in home. In office too)
2. Use both sides of paper.
3. Close the taps. (Not all taps have been retrofitted with sensors. Atleast not yet)
4. Use public transport system (Let me admit, I dont have a car right now)
5. Buy fountain coke instead of PET bottled cokes.

What I can/would do:
1. Use solar power in my home.
2. Spread the goodness of OTEC (I should have written under previous 5 points but just now it struck me)
3. Reduce Alkaline battery consumption (I use too many) - Need to stick only to rechargable batteries.
4. Reduce the amount of water, I consume during hot shower. (I can learn this by spending a fortnight in Chennai)
5. Reduce the plastic bag consumption. Currently on average, I am using 1 per day :-(

What I would like to do: (but most probably wont)
Well its same as what everyone writes about. You dont want me to repeat it here.

BTW I am supposed to tag a five more. However let me leave it open ended. By reading this post, you are accepting that you are tagged (similar to EULA of software - by opening the package, you are accepting the terms and conditions. Though the terms and conditions are available only within the package). Do write about what you do or what you would like either yourself or somebody else(say govt) should do to improve the environment. Most importantly leave the link in the comments.......

- Dheepak Ra