In which I awake from a slumber

Long hiatuses are no rarity in the blogosphere. In the end, what matters is not why there was break but what made one return to writing. The last few days have given me a lot to feel happy about.

For starters, I go from holding the cell-phone to my ear till the sweat begins to block the speaker, to speaking to a real live face in one particular case. It’s quite a relief if you know what I mean

Next, comes the legalisation of homosexuality in India. Straight as I may be I do believe that people should not be slapped with charges for expressing their love for someone. Regardless of sexual orientation. And especially if it is mutual. A big win not only for India’s LGBT crowd but also for the fight against AIDS for same sex couples can now approach health officers and doctors without fear of censure or even worse legal action. Kudos to Mr. Ramadoss for setting things in motion during his tenure and to those incumbent for seeing the bill through.

The third news, surprisingly, comes from the Times of India website. A railway travel ticket examiner has made it to IIM-C. Although there may have been such cases in the past it makes me happy to see that people are leaving behind the conventional Indian mindset of “sticking to a line”. The TTE may return to the railways at the end of his course, but if even 100 people get inspired by him and leave the comfort of their familiar field to pursue something, it will be a great achievement for modern India. With the education reforms in the frying pan at the moment, this would be a good precedent for Kapil Sibal to convince his colleagues.

Mr. Prime Minister. Time to visit the RayBan showroom. For if things keep improving this fast, the future looks so bright, you gonna need shades!

That’s the spirit …

’nuff said.

Two sides of a coin

Saudi’s 84-year old monarch has appointed Noura Fayez to the post of Deputy Minister for Women’s Education. She is the first woman to make it to such a big office in the islamic state. On the other hand Taliban has gained control over Pakistan’s Swat province and established the Sharia law there. Although Sharia doesn’t mean a throw back to the draconian legal machinery Taliban ran in Afghanistan, I wonder how two countries with similar ethos can be poles apart in their implementation of social order.

Excuse me, could you spare some sense?

I recently came across an article about Nadya Suleman, a welfare assisted, unemployed mother of 14 (yes, you read that right) who has set up a website for people to donate money to her. Now anyone with their heart in the right place would whip out a credit card and send money to Nadya. But something didn’t seem right about this allegedly helpless woman. So I did a little research about this chick.

The story goes somewhat like this. Nadya wanted a large family since when she was playing “House” with her imaginary friend. But we all know that a make believe hump can’t lead to a bump on her tummy. So she waited till she grew up and marched right into a clinic and got herself knocked up. So far the story is alright. After all, what is wrong with a woman deciding to be a single mother? So she had a total of 6 babies initially. And just when the kids thought they could take on Momzilla at ice hockey, she decides to up the ante. This time she drafted 8  more formula guzzlers to the platoon.  This time all of them decided to bust the bunker together and she had octuplets. And then just like the banks, decided that she had lied to herself way too much about her ability to buy clothes and nappies for 14 babies and declared bankruptcy.

Now she went out and found herself a publicist who put up heart-warming pictures of her kids on a website full of pastel shades and pictures with fuzzy edges making it look “awww cho cute”. Hell the vulture even managed to wrestle out the adjective “Jolie-lipped” for her client, so that people will see her in the same light as the multi-millionaire actress who can basically run a small country. And then among all the gay color and props on the homepage is a DONATE link. The woman is actually asking people to help her feed her family 14 + 1.

I just want to know what made the bitch have 14 kids in the first place if she couldn’t support even 1? She has no job, no money and 14 + 1 mouths to feed. How in fuck’s name did the doctor even go ahead with the IV? And twice? At the same clinic? And the same donor? Plus, if she had the money for the artificial insemination, why does she need money from other people now?

This woman is a drain on society and a horrible, horrible role model for young women. What kind of an example is she setting by being so irresponsible as to giving birth to 14 children without even having the necessary means to support herself? Why should someone else pick up the tab for this woman’s stupidity and most of all selfishness?

And here’s something that takes the cake. Nadya Suleman wants to be a counselor. You’re kidding me, right?

Applications taking too long to launch in Ubuntu?

If you use Ubuntu on your laptop (and why not?) you maybe facing or may have faced this problem. But fikar not, here’s the solution.

Scenario:

You user wireless/wired network to conenct to your company network. Suddenly one day you are asked to travel and you take the laptop with you. While traveling you find that any application you open takes at least 1 or 2 minutes to spawn. You are stumped. You log on to the network and find that nobody has had this problem. You disable Compiz and desktop effects but still no improvement.

Solution:

Open /etc/hosts in your favorite editor.

sudo vim /etc/hosts

The 1st two lines read

127.0.0.1 <hostname>

127.0.0.1 <hostname>.<domainname>

Change the second line to

127.0.0.1 <hostname>

And voila you’re good to go

And what’s better, unlike, Winblows you don’t have to restart

Reason:

The way Ubuntu is built I think it tries to reach the network to check the existance of your username everytime a command is executed. Even if you’re running some application from the GUI it means a command is spawning the application in the background console. To verify this, even before you make the above changes, fire up a terminal and try spawning an application. After some time you’ll notice a “username not found” kind of error and then the application starts. This means the OS tried to search for the username on the network and upon failing finally launches the app. But this removal of domainname should fix the problem.

Republicans and the Penguins from Madagascar

I was watching the US Presidential debate a couple of nights back. Although a lot of people say that both parties were evenly poised, I think Obama pummeled the shit out of McCain. Unfortunately for the Republicans, the entire economy got a diarrhea earlier that day and McCain really had nothing to say about the whole deal.

Although McCain claims, and Obama humbly accepts, that the latter knows nothing about foreign policy, who would have given 2 flying fucks about it at Tuesday’s debate? People wanted hard questions answered about how America would get back on its feet and how soon. They wanted to know why McCain was talking about canceling welfare. Instead he kept pointing at Obama and telling people, “This is the guy who supported tax increases and never spoke about the promised tax holidays once he reached the senate”. People wanted to hear exactly that. They needed to be told that the big earners will be made to pay more taxes and those at the bottom of the economic pyramid will get tax reliefs. Obama just had to speak into the mic and tell people that he intended to do the same.

But McCain failed, miserably, to deliver. I should not even touch upon the topic of the Biden-Palin debate. Too many choice expletives have already been uttered about the dumb-as-fuck Governer of Alaska for me to reiterate them here. I think anyone who votes for the Republicans based on his/her liking for Palin should  get his/her IQ checked. His/her spouse should probably consider buying a tee shirt that reads “I’m with stupid”. Better still get the phrase tattooed on the most visible part of their anatomy.

The fact that the Republicans are getting constantly punched in the gut but continue to make comebacks with broad smiles plastered on, reminds me of the penguins in the movie Madagascar. “Just smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave!” How fucking disillusioned can someone be?

Tata picks Gujrat after Singur debacle

Although it’s unfortunate that Maharashtra didn’t get a chance to host the Nano plant, I’m happy that the opportunity went to the friendly state of Gujrat. Ties between Maharashtra and Gujrat are not just because of the geographical proximity but also due to the large number of people who’ve crossed state borders to make the other state their workplace and home.

It’s good news for Maharashtra since this will definitely benefit a lot of suppliers in the state. Gujrat would be more helpful and lucrative from Maharashtra’s point of view compared with states like AP or Karnataka since the latter two tend to keep business within state boundaries or use suppliers from Tamil Nadu.

I think Modi acted more professionally and rapidly in response to Tata’s moving out of Singur. And Mamata Banerjee will probably be lynched by her own people after they see the way Tata will invest back into Gujrat. This was clearly an opportunity for West Bengal to shed its tag of “impoverished state” but now because  of some emotional fools the state has missed the train. Those Singur farmers could take a leaf out of this Gujrati farmer’s book.

All I can say is “Jay Modi” and let the cash registers start chiming.

Must watch for history buffs

Just finished watching Mongol, the movie. It tells the story of Genghis Khan’s rise to power as the man who was once the most powerful ruler in Asia. It has to be one of the best non- big ticket movies I have seen all year. Excellent direction, great screenplay, beautiful cinematography and a fitting cast. No wonder it’s got so many votes on iMDB. This movie is a must watch for people who appreciate good cinema.

Stay away if your idea of a movie is abercrombie/victoria’s secret models getting the impossible done during 5-minute foot tapping musical montages and stereotypes with an accent blessed with impeccable comic timing. Or … if you threw up during any of Kill Bill’s fight sequences.

The jolly green sweet leaf

I’ve lived among conservative bigots all my life. Men around me think that giving someone a good listen emasculates them while women … err … umm … err … I’d rather not go there? When I tell them I support the legalization of marijuana, they look at me askance. “What?”, they say, “you support legalization of drugs?” I say “No. Just marijuana.” Today, I would like to explain why I lend my support.

Marijuana is much safer than alcohol. While alcohol causes sever motor skill deficiency making one unable to drive, marijuana only slows these processes down. I’ve never known anyone to cause accidents after smoking marijuana. Withdrawal is one of the biggest reasons it is hard to stop drinking. Marijuana however, has no physical withdrawal symptoms. Alcohol tolerance increases substantially with abuse. While with marijuana, there is close to no difference between a pothead and first time smoker. It is very difficult for Alcoholics to put the bottle down for good. In case of marijuana only 1% of its users smoke regularly. Marijuana has almost no potential for physical addiction but can be psychologically addicting. Many marijuana users get used to the lifestyle and quitting the substance isn’t the problem.

In fact marijuana helps patients suffering from debilitating conditions live a normal life. It helps ease the nausea caused by chemotherapy in cancer patients. It increases appetite to help gain weight after recovery from long term illness or operative surgery.

And most importantly, no one has ever died from an overdose of marijuana. So tell me, bigots, why should it be illegal. Just because you’ve heard people saying that pot is bad for you? Just because of the social stigma attached to it? Just because the dumb Reps said that it’ll make you melt into the sofa? Bah, get a brain of your own. Sure THC is a major part of marijuana and it does give you acidity and may make you too relaxed in life. But then again, moderated use of marijuana is known to be perfectly safe.

Remember. A conservative is someone who is afraid that someone else maybe having more fun and that is why s/he goes around passing laws that make little sense.

Juno in real life

Remember the movie Juno. In the end, the teenage single mother is confronted with a dilemma about going through with the adoption of her baby when the couple on the other side of the adoption contract gets divorced. India is not far behind in bringing this story to life. Indian women are fast turning the opportunity to be a surrogate mother into lucrative business. After all what else pays north of $15,000 for 9 months of no work and no job skills. If it’s good for both parties I say just do it.

But now a baby’s life hangs in the balance because of a serious shortcoming of the oh-so-draconian Indian judicial machinery. A Japanese baby girl born to a surrogate Indian mother remains without a parent in a Jaipur hospital because her parents-to-be got a divorce before claiming custody. The Indian mother wants nothing to do with the daughter born to her less than a month ago. So does the mother-to-be. Ikufumi Yamada, the Japanese father wants custody but Indian law prohibits adoption by single men.

Can someone prove to me that women are better parents sans the natural gift of motherhood? Especially if they have denied any interest in parenting. I think the government should set a precedent by amending the rule to allow adoption by single men. It is time men were treated without the social bias of being drunken misanthropes. Isn’t it undemocratic?