Iraq is the new Vietnam

Seems like the USA is going to continue their illegal occupation of Iraq for the forseeable future....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4484330.stm

President George W Bush has said he will not accept "anything less than complete victory" in Iraq. In a major policy speech, Mr Bush refused to set an "artificial deadline" to withdraw US troops, saying it was "not a plan for victory".

It comes after the release of the first Iraq strategy document, which rejects widespread calls for a timetable. Mr Bush has come under growing pressure from Democrats on Iraq. Polls give him the lowest approval of his presidency.

They also suggest that six out of 10 Americans think the war in Iraq is not worth the cost. As such, this was a speech from a president in deep trouble, says the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington.

Genetic basis for caste ?

What do you think ? The evidence is anecdotal and subjective, but I've always seem to notice a physical similarity in people of the same caste. I'm thinking that hundreds and possibly thousands of years of strict marriage within caste has resulted in subtle DNA differences.

If you have the time, read the following academic research paper entitled "Genetic Evidence on Origins of Indian Caste Populations" (pdf file).

http://jorde-lab.genetics.utah.edu/elibrary/Bamshad_2001a.pdf

How interesting.... :)

Matilda is truly spinning....

Congratulations to Australia in beating Uruguay in the play-offs, and qualifying for the 2006 World Cup for the first time since 1974. As perennial winners of the Oceania qualifying group, they've always come up against the juggernaut of competing with South American teams in a play-off to grab the last spot in the World Cup.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/internationals/4435400.stm

Is time passing you by ?

Do you ever feel that the relentless march of time is a little too relentless ? Ever wish you could slow time down ? Does continually procrastinating and delaying a task until next week eventually aggregate into next month and then next year ?

It's quite remarkable how one year seamlessly rolls into another, and you get that constant feeling of deja vu (eg. this Xmas is just like last Xmas, or this summer might as well been last summer etc).

I'm guessing there are a lot more people in the same boat than would care to admit. After all, go-getting types get much more adulation and peer respect than those whose lives seem to be perenially set on auto-pilot - no matter how close those mountain peaks appear to be...

Today is Remembrance Day

Remembering the sacrifices of all soldiers, including the 5 million troops from United India who fought in both World Wars.






Check out this British Ministry of Defence link below which highlights the sacrifices made by soldiers from the Commonwealth nations:
http://www.mod.uk/wewerethere/intro.html

How do you punish yourself ?

In the 'Da Vinci Code' a member of the Opus Dei sect punishes himself for personal transgressions by use of a cilice - a barbed chain worn around his leg. That is an extreme example, but have you ever felt remorse or regret for something you did and if so, how did you atone for it ? In such circumstances do you deny yourself some worldly pleasure, go into temporary social exile, or subject yourself to some self-imposed onerous task ? Did it make you feel better afterwards ?

Article reference:
http://www.rickross.com/reference/opus/opus56.html

The best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code" pays hostile attention to the zealously conservative Roman Catholic order Opus Dei and its use of "corporal mortification" - voluntarily punishing one's own body as a spiritual discipline.

This practice may seem odd if not odious to many nowadays but it was used by such revered Catholic saints as Francis of Assisi, England's Thomas More, Jesuit founder Ignatius Loyola and Jerome, translator of the Latin Bible.

In modern times, mortification is associated with some Catholic and Eastern Orthodox monks, but Opus Dei advocates it for lay members in everyday life.

The Rev. Michael Giesler, an Opus Dei priest in St. Louis, defends mortification in the current issue of Crisis, a Catholic magazine. He describes two methods: the cilice, a sharp chain worn around the leg, and "the discipline" or flagellum, a small whip of knotted cords applied to one's back.

One of his arguments is that the practice "dates back to biblical times."

Giesler finds biblical precedent for self-whipping in the scourging of Jesus before his crucifixion. The intent is for the believer to identify with the savior's sufferings. However, Jesus himself provided no example for self-abuse of the body; his punishments were inflicted upon him by others.

The cilice, Giesler says, is a version of the ancient hairshirt, a rough garment of animal hair worn next to the skin for penance. In turn, the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1914 says the hairshirt "was probably the same thing" as sackcloth, an Old Testament garment usually made from goat's hair. Giesler also sees sackcloth as a biblical precedent.

But others disagree. Perhaps with Catholic practices in mind, a Protestant work, "The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible," says "there is no indication that the coarseness of the (sackcloth) produced physical discomfort when worn or that it was used for the purpose of self-punishment, but it was put on as a sign of mental anguish at times of personal loss and national calamity."

Sorrow was indeed the stated motive when Old Testament figures wore sackcloth. However, three verses specify extreme circumstances where sackcloth was worn next to the skin, possibly providing background for the hairshirt: Job 16:15, 1 Kings 21:27 and 2 Kings 6:30. The third passage seems to indicate the garment was worn beneath outer clothing to keep it secret, not necessarily for physical punishment.

From the New Testament, Giesler quotes Paul's statement, "I pommel my body and subdue it" (1 Corinthians 9:27), translated in Catholicism's New American Bible as "I drive my body and train it." This passage compares athletic training with spiritual discipline and modern Catholic commentaries do not apply it to mortification.

Other New Testament teachings cited by Opus Dei are generalized admonitions of self-denial or overcoming of bodily temptations, for instance Jesus' statement, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23).

In another passage cited by Opus Dei, Paul spiritualizes punishments others inflicted upon him: "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church" (Colossians 1:24).

There are ample and unambiguous examples from Jesus and other biblical figures for one form of physical denial: fasting (going without food for the purpose of spiritual cleansing and concentration).

Biblical materials aside, it's certain that physical mortification began to be practiced by the hermits and monks during Christianity's early centuries. Giesler acknowledges that things got out of hand with the fanatical "flagellants" in certain 14th-century sects that were repeatedly condemned by Catholic authorities.

Opus Dei notes modern support for its practice in writings by the recent popes John XXIII and Paul VI and by Wisconsin's Bishop Robert Morlino, in a 2003 article criticizing "The Da Vinci Code." Also, Giesler says, Opus Dei founder Josemaria Escriva, who died in 1975 and was named a saint 27 years later, "performed heroic mortifications."

Escape Velocity & Survival of Life

I was thinking the other day about the applicability of maths to real world problems, and it occurred to me that the formula for Escape Velocity is arguably one of the most important mathematical discoveries in humankind. Without it, we would not be able to launch ourselves from the prison of gravity and enter space and discover new worlds. And if you believe some of the science journals and sci-fi novel plots, eventually our Sun will die (many millions of years hence), and Man may settle somewhere else in the galaxy. Our future literally depends on this formula.

Technical description can be found on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity

In physics, for a given gravitational field and a given position, the escape velocity is the minimum speed an object without propulsion, at that position, needs to have to move away indefinitely from the source of the field, as opposed to falling back or staying in an orbit within a bounded distance from the source. The object is assumed to be influenced by no forces except the gravitational field; in particular there is no propulsion, as by a rocket, there is no friction, as between the object and the Earth's atmosphere (these conditions correspond to freefall) and there is no gravitational radiation. This definition may need modification for the practical problem of two or more sources in some cases. In any case, the object is assumed to be a point with a mass that is negligible compared with that of the source of the field, usually an excellent approximation. It is commonly described as the speed needed to "break free" from a gravitational field.

In the simple case of the escape velocity from a single body, it can be calculated by setting the kinetic energy equal to minus the gravitational potential energy. This is because the positive kinetic energy is needed to increase the negative gravitational potential energy to zero, which applies when the object is at an infinite distance.



where ve is the escape velocity, G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the body being escaped from, m is the mass of the escaping body (factors out), and r is the distance between the centre of the body and the point at which escape velocity is being calculated, and μ is the standard gravitational parameter.

Two moans and you're out !

Interesting article about how to stop negativity in workplace...

**********************************************
A German businesswoman has launched a campaign to stop her fellow countrymen whining, threatening her employees with the sack if they complain.

Ramona Wonneberger, 42, head of a Leipzig IT company, said she introduced a "two moans and you're out" policy to clamp down on "negative energy" stunting its growth.

She has since launched a website called "Be happy" to spread her message across the country.

"Unfortunately, Germans are the world's most inveterate whingers and bellyachers, particularly concerning things they cannot change like the weather or a late train," she said.

"I thought 'I have to do something to change this mentality'."

After a particularly bad bout of complaining at Nutzwerk, her company, "about everything from the traffic to the fact that a husband had forgotten a wedding anniversary", she decided to act, and took her employees to a comedy show.

"After a serious evening of constant laughter which did us a lot of good, I put it to them that we should ban moaning in the company from then on," said Mrs Wonneberger.

Employees now have a clause in their contracts which states: "moaning and whingeing is forbidden... except when accompanied with a constructive suggestion as to how to improve the situation".

So far three employees - two of whom had been given warnings, one of whom chose to go voluntarily, claiming she was being "censored" and had nothing to talk about any more - have been dismissed.

Mrs Wonneberger, whose motto is: "Those who moan rob others of energy and time", says that the company's turnover has doubled to £2 million thanks to the policy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/03/wmoan03.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/03/ixworld.html