today

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=18427

"Reporters Without Borders today condemned the sudden disappearance on 28 July of two blogs by leading Tibetan poet Woeser (also known as Oser and, in Chinese, Wei Se). They were shut down by the websites that hosted them - Tibetcul.net, a Tibetan cultural portal, and Daqi.com, a local blog platform - presumably on government orders amid a continuing wave of online censorship in China."

“We are appalled by the closure of Woeser’s blogs and we call for them to be reopened,” the press freedom organisation said. “As her poetry is banned in China, these blogs were the only way she had left to express herself. Their disappearance shows how the Chinese authorities go out of their way to limit Tibetan culture to folklore for tourists.”

This inappropriate behaviour by China is bad for China and bad for Tibet. India and others please do not follow suit. We remember Joe McCarthy and his U.S. censorships and persecution of great intellectuals like David Bohm and the admittedly rather nutty Feynmann - in the days when USA was a fine, great nation - and all who do remember, shudder. I heard the inside story about Bohm and whilst I won't repeat it again now I will say: Any intellectual in the USA at this time should worry like hell about being there now. Worse than the old days in Dublin for James Joyce, and a MUCH more corrupting atmosphere.

Possibly the URL is worth mentioning, but not as good as the "touristguy" versions IMO. Also, the joke is starting to wear thin. Lets face it, it is no "Donny Darko". The humour is getting too broad and "Snakes" will be no "Friends" either. Video clip (from Wiki) at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihAoSwQqo44

Additionally "How Hollywood really works"

youtube.com/watch?v=h59p9kOZkLI&search=snakes%20on%20a%20plane

perhaps so, and could be why it is
No 1 Chennai
No 2 Mumbai
No 3 Hollywood

and even Top Nations
No 1 China
No 2 USA (aka Jesusland)

But OTW I preferred "You'll never eat in this town again" though there are a few minor flaws in that too, e.g. the author perhaps did not 'see the (kiddie) point' about Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke himself certainly does not seem to have missed the point about some local Sri Lanka Buddhists being OTT as certainly attempts at Tamil genocide have been admitted by them. Still IMO genocide is not entertainment and I do not think the Indian film culture sees it as that either.

Times (UK), July 28, 2006 "Israel Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages..... In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special “megaphone” software"

IMO there has always been a great deal of totally worthless pro-zionist propaganda in the media and we have had to put up with it. Seemingly it is getting worse. All one can say, perhaps, is that Hezbollah propaganda efforts sound even less convincing and more annoying. If you listen carefully to that you will find that is so.

I am put in mind of the science fiction novel "Accelerando", (John Baez gave the free download address in sci.physics.research). In this novel, some Nigerians are accused of such incompetent spam that even a slug could do better. I would not like my pet slugs to be put to such an ordeal, but anyway the Nigerians kidnap a slug and with an improvised brain-computer-interface to an AI-computer, they force the slug to write their spam. The upshot of it is that the slug is soon intelligent enough to escape and starts its multi-level marketing scheme and then makes enough money to fabricate an interstellar spacecraft on which it clears off from the investors. I am sure there are many morals in all this but none have come to mind yet.

News of the World, Sunday :
"TERROR RAID BROTHER IN CHILD PORN SHOCK
ANTI-TERROR cops were stunned when their massive raid on suspect bombers in Forest Gate turned into a chilling child porn probe, we can reveal. Their week-long search of the house uncovered no explosives or chemical weapons—but officers unearthed a haul of vile kiddie sex pictures on the family's computer."

So, another non-white the police tried to shoot is this time 'found' to have kiddie porn. Some in the UK "Welfare State" say that such people should be jailed never to be released, as it is so antisocial.

Perhaps it would be best simply to shoot all the newsmen, as the Press frequently sounds so antisocial. Things would then be much easier for Tony B. Liar. Now Tony has gone on holidays, leaving John Prescott in charge. Need I say more ?....

To be fair, leaving aside current Press carping and the dodgy Dome, I had always thought of Prescott as sounding like what I would have expected a Labour Party Prime Minister to be like - seriously. Admittedly he has his faults and consorts with American criminals, but the Chinese love him (I can understand that) and China after all is the world's top nation nowadays. The greatest current American invention, some say, is the flying submarine, which speaks for itself I'm afraid.

www.techknowtimes.com/?p=66

Nilotpal Basu, July 16, 2006 states that S S Paul, a systems analyst at the National Security Council secretariat, was arrested, effectively for spying. Interesting article on it in the (Marxist) "People's Democracy", No 29. There seems to be an extensive mole network of the CIA which has penetrated the RAW, the IB and the entire National Security Council secretariat network.

Mukesh Saini has also been booked by Delhi police for alleged spying and took a job with Microsoft, presumably a useful haven for CIA operatives.

The article may provide interesting food for thought, URL below.
http://pd.cpim.org/2006/0716/07162006_nilotpal.htm

The matter is also briefly referred to in the (English) "Guardian" of July 18, who further state:
" "In A Call to Honour", published this week, soldier-statesmen Jaswant Singh claims one of India's top civil servants was in the pay of the CIA and leaked secrets to the United States about India's nuclear programme in the early 1990s. etc etc"

Menezes officers return to duty.

Mr Menezes was an electrician working in London. Two police firearms officers involved in the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes have been cleared to resume "full operational duties". Presumably so they can gun down more non whites.

The Justice4Jean campaign, which wants a public inquiry into the shooting, said the Menezes family was "very upset" at the reinstatement of the officers. You can certainly understand that.
Last week, relatives held a vigil to mark one year since his death.

Mumbai Mirror, Friday, July 28, 2006 says
"Dr Death cracks, admits 7/11 role

Dr Ansari says he wanted to plant bombs on Mumbai trains soon after the 2002 Gujarat riots; claims LeT module he led was involved in last year’s Delhi blasts too.

Both the ATS and Mumbai Police's Crime Branch are now pretty sure about Ansari's central role in the July 11 blasts that killed close to 200 people and injured around 800. Ansari's confessional statement, which details how terror groups identify and recruit people, how the recruits travel to Pakistan and their training regimen and deployment as sleeper cells across India, has been sent to the Intelligence Bureau."

Yahoo, Wed Jul 26, 8:15 AM ET:

"BEIJING (Reuters) - An official Chinese commentary accused the Dalai Lama on Wednesday of collaborating with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, rejecting the Tibetan leader's overtures and casting a shadow over fence-mending talks."

Is it true? I have no idea, but China with its massive transmigration to Tibet and new railway link to the area, has massive reasons for wanting to believe it.

IMO the wishes of the original Tibetans may not have been properly considered by anybody. And, one can surmise that if Chinese behaviour in Tibet is likely to be symptomatic of its long term behaviour in other areas like Africa, then such countries had better take heed.

In Africa, of course, whatever happens may simply be the choice between two bad things. And maybe the Lebanese are better having Saudi Arabia as an ally than China. China, for the moment, has the nuclear bomb and a cobalt-cased nuclear bomb dropped on Jerusalem could solve problems in that area in one way.

These creatures come into my home every night to nibble food and drink water. At 2:30 am at night, they are surely there. Though very small, it is a joy to see them. Their preference: Fresh iceberg lettuce, recently from the cold shelf of the supermarket. Ordinary lettuce comes as a very poor second choice, with coriander leaves and other green vegetables way behind. These creatures are very lucky and live very well. After their dinner they go for a stroll in the house. Before dawn, they disappear.

They make up to some extent for the fact that there are no cows around here, or little black pigs, which still IMO make life much more cheerful in some parts of Mumbai. There are still some left in Vasai. When I think of the cows of Mumbai I remember the Joni Michell song that has the line "They paved paradise And put up a parking lot". The cows of Mumbai are Gods, nobody should think any different. I can only hope that if they do, they will find out before too late. Simply sentiment ? With global warming on us, and the need for AC even in London, England ? I think not.

The October issue of Psychological Science shows that the stereotyping of groups as being sub-human can happen on an unconscious, neurological level, even when a person is not outwardly repulsed.

Brain imaging presents a new opportunity to study perceptions people may be uncomfortable admitting to researchers.

Neuroimaging research finds that people often consider drug addicts and homeless people to be sub-human.

What seems important here is that an attempts is being made to try to obtain objective estimates of 'something or other'. I am not sure what it is though. The authors claim: "We are interested in trying to get at it in a way that gets around issues of self-report and in ways that even people aren't aware of themselves."


http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/07/what_you_think_but_dont_
say.php?page=all

Earlier similar work: www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/ps/race_fear.pdf

Abu Graib
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resources_files/Why_Ordinarty_People_Torture_
Enemy_Prisoners_Fiske.pdf

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Recovery agents of a Mumbai branch of ABN Amro Bank harassed a man until he paid up for some debts he had incurred in Nagpur.

The police are quite astounded at the techniques used by recovery agents, who have already been pulled up by the courts.

“How can they threaten a senior central government employee who has the capacity to pay the amount with words like, ‘Paisa do nahin to taang tod denge (give us the money or we will break your legs)’.

If a senior official is treated like this, after assuring payment in a couple of days, imagine what happens to ordinary citizens.”

ABN Amro Bank is a world bank and it advertises widely, for example on UK TV.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1043621

This guy, Rappai, should have got a job working for McDonalds to advertise their extra large helpings. Since doctors say that anyone who eats at that rate will die soon, he could follow it up with a bottle of water from the Coca Cola Sidcup branch. (Unfortunately the latter will not be possible now since CocaCola had to close the plant to avoid arrests, i.e. their 'pure' water had more carcinogens than tap water).

I used to like Thums-Up, but to me it never tasted as good after it was taken over by some US firm. Too sweet or something, and it seemed to have lost the weedkiller-like bite it used to have. Now I prefer Mangola, but it is not as good as the 'old' Thums-Up.


http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1751463,000900020003.htm

Plant Underway Could Generate Plutonium for 40 to 50 Bombs a Year, Analysts Say Washington Post Monday, July 24, 2006

So they'll be able to sell them to Iran to nuke Los Angeles using North Korean rockets ? Ho-hum, they probably won't be able to nuke Texas yet.

In case you had not noticed, some of Einstein's personal chronicles have recently appeared and their Url is given by
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/23/albert_einstein_sexf.html

Obviously, I did not know him, but in the past I have met or encountered quite a few people who have. The newly presented chronicles seem to confirm that he was apparently a bit of a ladies man, etc etc. Boeing-boeing, in their post "Albert Einstein, sex-fiend" seem to sum it up, roughly about right, and how I heard it: "It turns out that Einstein talked a lot of trash about fellow scientists and slept around on his wives and mistresses. The letters reveal how Einstein lost most of his Nobel Prize money in bad bond investments on Wall Street ". All rather banal I'm afraid, he was clearly not the guy to go to for other than science.

More technically Palle Yourgrau's "Godel meets Einstein" is probably much more interesting to scientists and mathematicians and Yourgrau also certainly had the inside information.

There is, however, one interesting point overall and that is that whilst I have not seen it said that Einstein could be placed specifically in the common academic category of being a high-functioning Aspergers case, his profile does suggest that such people as Einstein have given science very many unfortunate breaks, and at best epitomise the C.P. Snow 'two cultures' syndrome, not so much because of such matters as religous persuasion, more a high level of banality and a low level of true empathy. But you would find that at the Groucho Club anyway, and artistic pose (with an almost autistic level of true empathy) is practically the name of the game in the culture world.

Briefly, my own hope is that science may even eventually recover from the Einsteins if the world keeps on existing long enough. The likelihood may be that the world will not continue to exist long enough due to global warming and similar factors.

The first one to is come up in 2 weeks. For 16 years, a proposal to set up permanent counselling cells to help disaster survivors in Mumbai has been gathering dust with the state government. Today, it's about to become a reality.

As a short-term measure, the cells will come up in two weeks, while the entire project will be stabilised in three months.

The need for Mumbai, which has the highest number of counsellors and psychiatrists in the state-600 and 230 respectively-to have permanent counselling cells is far more today.
''The distress levels make strong demands on people's coping mechanism. That's why we had terrorised people jumping out of running trains. This can be prevented with the counselling,'' Agashe, who is also famous for his celluloid exploits, added.

Some details in Indian Express Sunday July 23

Unwilling to adopt the changes suggested by President A P J Abdul Kalam in the controversial office of profit bill, the government on Saturday left it to MPs to reconsider it. (Mumbai Mirror, July 23rd.)

Kalam had returned the bill on May 30 for reconsideration so that "comprehensive and generic" criteria relating to offices of profit could be drawn up which were "fair and reasonable" and applicable in a "clear and transparent" manner across the states and Union territories.

Transparency sounds a jolly good idea to me, but most politicians do not seem to like it at all. I think many people will remember the problems of the BJP over the George Fernandes/Tehelka problem where a minister got himself videoed whilst allegedly accepting a bribe. After the Tamil wars and the Bofors gun matters, one would have hoped that the Gandhi family would have seen reason and opted for maximum transparency, but it seems not.

Be that as it may, with semi-obscene photographs of George Bush everywhere (and even referred to in a previous post of my own), one would have thought that people would have at least wanted to realise that we are in the 21st century now. Even in China, they are starting to realise that. (I'm thinking of the recent well-publicised embezzlement of at least $485 million from Bank of China's branch at Kaiping).

Possibly India is still ahead of China on transparency but it should stay ahead, which would surely be a harmless and profitable thing to do.

Acording to the admittedly partial Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/Roberts07202006.html

"US Secretary of State Condi Rice has announced that she will go to the Middle East to resolve “the crisis” when it is appropriate. Apparently, the appropriate time is not when people are dying and a country, which had only just recovered from the last Israeli invasion, is again being bombed into rubble.

How many more war crimes (says Counterpunch) must Israel commit before Bush and Condi Rice put aside their indifference?"

It does seem, however, that for Israel, the fight genuinely does appear to be for survival. Now Arab states gripe that Israel does not deserve to exist and this may be true, but the fact is that it does exists and its war with Hezbollah (not the poor Lebanon) is actually being lost by Israel according to Counterpunch itself. http://www.counterpunch.org/Lind07202006.html

Iran has had a problem with bad public relations before and it may well be that, despite itself, it is drawn into a confrontation with Israel. Iranian officials are believed by some to be considering purchases of missiles from North Korea (!???), and, leaving aside bias if any on the India/Pakistan matters, Pakistan has been openly hawking nukes around for years. Abdus Salam told me himself that the ridiculous nuclear tomfoolery of Pakistan was a very serious problem to him. To the man in the street, it looks now like a very simple move for Iran to obtain nukes from Pakistan and nuke Israel out of existence before the USA gets around to dealing with the matter. I am not taking sides on the issue. With no Israel, there will be no need for a peace intiative. Remember 9-11 ? George Bush's primary preoccupation then seems to have been to look after the Saudi Royal family. And remember New Orleans? Years ago I used to drive down the Chef Highway daily. It stank like a sewer and clearly New Orleans was a catastrophe waiting to happen and yes, the Bushies were well and adequately warned. These Bushies are not good Americans, they would stink up a clean sewer and they look after nobody but themselves and their cronies if any.

I, personally, see the whole situation as being folly. Now about Iraq. Saddam Hussein (doubtless a bad man) was conned by the Americans into invading Kuwait, and then some Bushies pocketed a lot of Saudi money for 'defense'. Poor Israel. Poor Iran. Dealing with USA is not always a good idea.

We have every reason to be both worried and annoyed nowadays when a world leader appears to be behaving inapropriately as this may relate to some undiagnosed or hidden psychiatric condition. Obviously the 'snappers' are there all the time but surely that is even better reason for such hijinks to be confined to places like Bohemia Grove, or more suitably not to be indulged in at all.

FWIW:
Bush 'inappropriately touching' Angela Merkel, and Merkel not at all pleased.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/18/bush_gropes_germanys.html
Bush's fly open (with Koizumi)
http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/scannerblog.aspx?id=96e5552#5552
Bush and Koizumi at it
http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/scannerblog.aspx?id=96e5555#5555

President A P J Abdul Kalam on Tuesday exhorted the youth to root out all forms of evil from the nation.

"Political parties ... should concentrate on making India a developed nation by 2020."

IMO this has got to include blogs, websites and email, which should be positive and constructive, and not simply propaganda. We know that India like every country in the world has problems, and the idea, I think, is to solve them as Indians are already trying to do magnificantly, often through blogs, website and emails.

When asked when he expected India to have better and more qualified politicians, Kalam said that it was in the hands of voters to choose the right people to be their public representatives.

And lets get the right people through blogs, website and emails.

Kiran Karnick, president of the National Association of Software and Services Companies, the country's main information technology trade group, said his organization would take up the matter with the government.

"It is neither desirable nor possible to impose censorship on the Net," Karnick said.

Angry Indian Internet users exchanged mails and flooded message boards with postings to report that blogs could not be opened.

Experts, however, said that users could still access many blogs by connecting to them through third-party Web sites that the government had not blocked.

Sarabjit Roy, a cyber law expert, said blocking Web sites was a mindless exercise.

"It shows that our bureaucrats don't understand technology at all," he said.

Consumer preferences for a brand can be increased over the competition by techniques used to manipulate memory, finds research published today in Applied Cognitive Psychology.

"It's the actual contrast between seeing the anagram in its initial, versus its solved form, that we believe creates this preference effect. That is because the anagram in its initial form appears to be non-fluent--participants have never seen anagrams such as GANECY before.

Once solved, however, the solution is processed with high fluency. Think of the "aha" experience one would feel when realizing the solution is AGENCY. We believe that this surprising fluency, arising from the disparity, gets misattributed to brand recognition and preference,"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060715104358.htm

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Just sent to http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/003568.html

I have a new blog which for personal reasons refers to 7-11 and also mentions your blog. I see that the Indian Government have presumably taken the advice of the villains and banned many blogs. URL and possible recourse for this given below but caution is advised as they may only want to stop typical internet cat-calling.

Still, India is supposed to be a free country, though concerning another 'Singh' note "Private Eye" No 1162, 7th July,'Letter from New Delhi'. That Singh is said to be "a weak leader who does what Madam tells him to do".
I just hope for the best.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/17/report_indian_gov_bl.html

The glider-like plane with a single-seat gondola and a 31 meter (102 feet) wingspan was powered by 160 AA "Oxyride" batteries which have been produced by Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. since April 2004.

The Oxyride battery is a long-lasting battery said to be 1.5 times as powerful as a regular alkaline battery.

http://www.physorg.com/news72285448.html

According to http://www.transparency.org.uk/TI_UK_Loans_for_Peerages_note.pdf the provision of loans for peerages is illegal, and even more so are gifts for peerages likely to be illegal.

e.g. by the offence of bribery. I quote "This offence may have been committed where the political party solicited, or the lender offered or gave, a loan in exchange for the political party agreeing to secure or influence. If there is difficulty in obtaining direct evidence of a corrupt bargain between the political party and the lenders/donors, such a bargain may need to be inferred from the circumstances, such as, where: (1) Nominations for peerages were made in cases where there was no real justification for such nomination and such nomination could be explained only by the provision of loans/donations to the party... and so on...'

Now Blair seems to be verbally contending that the gift or loan of money to Lord Levy or the Labor Party in itself constituted a reason for the honour, since it would benefit the Labour Party and thus entitle the donor to an honour. But this corrupt reasoning is explicitly outlawed as referred to above.

Blair should really go to the nick but if the Labour Party have any guts left they will literally frogmarch him out of the House of Commons right away.

The word on the street is that he has been offered a good job with his pal John Major at the warmongering corrupt US firm Carlyle Group, along with his mafia pal George Bush. So he has no worries of further work, unlike many honest UK people.

According to Ennis Singh Mutinywale, (http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/003568.html) bloggers are ignoring Mumbai 7-11. His blog comments may well have some substance and certainly bloggers seem to have neglected the topic. In fact, one reason I am starting this general blog is that my brother-in-law, a Hindu of Mudaliar Brahmin caste, who is hoping to further a career as a television anchor-man or host, has just missed death by 15 minutes because of 7-11 .

My brother-in-law does not feel very pleased about the bombings as you can imagine, and I further noted that had Western Railways been on time, the catastrophe could have been far worse as I estimate that the explosion which occurred at Mira Road would have occurred over Vasai Creek and the train would have gone into Vasai Creek. Anyone who knows Vasai Creek will realise that it is quite deep and all on that train could be likely to be dead. There would have been thousands dead. These are all ordinary people fighting for their bread and butter. Now it seems that they have to fight for their lives. Fortunately my brother-in-law was just a few minutes later at the station than the explosions anyway.

This is simply a trial first post