Fun with Photos
So, this is what a feminist’s dog looks like? Pffft!
(Image from rhsager)
This is what realwomens’ dogs look like ;)
Instead of fighting an exceedingly irritating and ultimately losing battle with comment spammers (rot in hell, spammers!), I have reluctantly enabled comment registration from now on. Sorry, folks - gotta do this till we get a blacklist version compatible with this MT version.
update: I disabled registration until I can get my templates ironed out. Unregistered comments do need to be approved by me to show up.
Are the Iraqi militants really this dumb? On The Third Hand : Send the Gurkhas in.
Don’t these guys know that the Gurkhas are best known for their valor and bravery in situations of war? Inviting their wrath upon their heads is like trying to catch the tail of a tiger - not fun at all! Here is to hoping that the gurkhas get their revenge on these subhuman a$$holes! Soon! Real soon!
So, this is what a feminist’s dog looks like? Pffft!
(Image from rhsager)
This is what realwomens’ dogs look like ;)
Vichaar has a very nice post called Do we have any military allies in the world ?, which discusses the various military allies India has in the current environment - unfortunately, not that many. While lesser countries like Pakistan haev been able to gamble on and latch onto strong allies like the US, India has traditionally been going after mirages in the Arab world that have never stood by us. Finally we got Israel to help us like in the Kargil war and guess what? Our self-destructive streak surfaces again, according to JK. Do these guys ever learn? Seriously, does Congress really think they are going to somehow benefit with these stupid plans or are they just doing the opposite of anything BJP did while in power?
I have 6 invites - email me if you want one…
update: I am out of the invites - will let you know when I get a few more :)
Via Niraj, comes to us this gem of a joke for the weekend - niraj: MUSHARRAF FOR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE?. I agree with Niraj on this - I cannot stop laughing…
Imagine a day in your life when morning starts too soon and the day cannot end quickly enough for you. Of course, this is the same day you are then required to work for long hours because a deadline is approaching. You get back home tired and aching and you get a phone call from a loved one that has troubling news and you are upset that someone you love so much is going through tough times.
Now you find out you are out of groceries and need to go get things right now so you can cook. You do all that while dodging the lonely 75-year-old woman who wants to talk to you about her drunk husband for 30 minutes. You get into the car and switch on the music. You are driving along…suddenly there are the opening bars of a beautiful song - you can feel the tension ooze away from your body - your body turns to jello and you sigh involuntarily - your breathing slows down as does your mind…have you ever melted into a melody like that? I would be an insane woman if not for the magic of music.
Check out the debate on this post - Sepia Mutiny: NRO Analyzes APA’s 80-20 plan. Here is my take on it - whatever is preached by pseudo-groups like 80-20 and other “APA” organizations, I am 100% against it. For the record, I get email alerts from 80-20 and here is my take on one fo the most famous APA victimologists of all time, Emil Guillermo. This guy writes a column in the SF-based weekly magazine called Asian Week. 90% of his columns are about how APAs are oh-so-victimized in the country all the time and how the “redneck Americans” are too dumb to see how nice we are and how they ill-treat us. Of course, the man is a tad too blind to see that he is sneering really hard at the same peolpe he says are acting unfriedly towards him…I wonder why!
I am not saying that probably some APAs are mistreated and are discriminated against, but it is really hard to complain when a majority of us are doing extremely well here by any standard. It is also really interesting to see the APA orgs backing the Democrats and Affirmative Action considering that AA hurts Asian- Americans as much as it hurts the white Americans and we are considered “over-represented” on the campus. Whose side are these orgs really on anyways?
I also think it is very disingenuous to try to bring under a single umbrella a group of people as varied as the Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Pakistanis, Middle-Easterners, Bangladeshis, etc. What do we really have in common? Our countries don’t have any common interests and neither do we. How are we supposed to work together?
Obligatory inflammatory comment - the only thing really all APAs have in common is that they are all mostly brown. Arguing for our coming together on such a basis…isn’t that racist?
Don’t get me wrong - I owe a lot to the early feminists. I remain in debt to those who made it possible for me to get a good education - study engineering - get a good job and do it - all without fear of ridicule. I drive around and pretty much do as I please, again all that made possible due to feminist activists. If I ever got divorced, no one is going to look at me like I were an untouchable and I could get married again if per chance I were widowed without worries.
I get to pump breastmilk for my son at work (I know there is such a thing as Too Much Information) in privacy in a New mothers’ room and am protected from harrassment as a woman before, during and after my pregnancy by various anti-discrimination laws. I cook and clean at home as much as (or less than…ummm…ok, very less than) my husband and he helps me out with the baby without feeling as though this is beneath him. I have full rights over my body and can choose to not have kids or even get rid of them while in my womb (not that I support that unconditionally). I have more rights on a child I give birth to than the child’s father most of the time.
According to studies I am too lazy to google up, women are now beating mens’ enrollment in colleges. Women can play pretty much any sport men can. I understand the world isn’t perfect yet, but here in the US atleast, I feel like we have caught up as much as possible with the men folk. In light of all this, is there still a need for an organized feminist movement? I am not being facetious here, so feel free to take this seriously and argue both sides. Tell me what part of the picture I am missing here.
p.s. I consider battered womens’ shelters as social services and not feminist services, so let us not include them in.
You know, you do learn something new everyday. I wouldn’t have known there was an actual internet domain for “Palestinian Territory, Occupied” (.ps) if it didn’t show up in my eXtreme Tracking stats - I got 3 hits from them overall :o
We were at a group lunch this afternoon at a Chaat place - 4 women and 5 men (all first-gen Indian immigrants). All the women had already got their food and started eating, so one of the men went and got water for all of us. Instead of saying “thank you” and letting it go (for my peace of mind), one of the women pipes up, “Oh, sorry we women are not being very lady-like”. Naturally, someone asked, “What do you mean, not lady-like?”. Then comes the reply…
“You know, we women should have been serving you all - not the other way around”!
I couldn’t respond immediately, as I needed to first pick my jaw up off the floor, check the nearest calendar to make sure we didn’t sit in a time machine that transported us way back in time and then count till 100 to make sure I wouldn’t rip her fucking head off.
I guess I wouldn’t have been that surprised if she were 62 instead of 26. I am just amazed that women want to bring back crap like that, because (in her words) “it is stuff like that, that makes our culture so rich and our tradition so glorious” - Excuse me, while I barf. Too many woman have fought too hard win equality for women without morons like this chomping at the bit to give them away.
p.s. For the record, let me add that just because this woman was desi, doesn’t mean all desi women think like this - she was an aberration. She herself always struck me as a very no-nonsense woman, which made the incident all the more surprising.
According to this study, I think it was a good thing I named my son “Neel” - it does rhyme with “Keith”…almost… ;)
via Dean Esmay
Here is an interesting conversation going on at Sandeep’s blog - Seriously Sandeep: Indebted to Dilip D’Souza - between Sandeep, his readers and the journalist, Dilip D’Souza.
Prafool, do you hear me? I am available for a “debate” with you anywhere, anytime - hellooo, anyone home?
I found the perfect companion piece to my rant about desi Indians the other day - Unhappy in America. My first instinct was to call the people quoted “morons”, but I decided to give them a chance and think it over a little more. I will post later on that…who knows, I might still end up calling them morons ;)
read on for more thoughts…
Here is the sob story of “Aparna” - she used to work and drive in Delhi, but here in the US, she cannot - she didn’t want to be here but fell in love with and married a man who brought her here.Most wounding to her was the loss of her independence: Her H4 visa robbed her of her identity - she was not allowed to work, and did not have a bank balance or credit card - and to even take a trip back home, she was dependent on her husband. She had been driving for years in India, but here she failed the crucial road test because she was used to driving on the left. She recalls the utter hopelessness she felt then: “When I come out of the car, I sit and cry and cry. I don’t believe this. I’ve been driving for years and now they tell me I can’t drive? I’m crying like a baby. I don’t want to live in this country. I mean, every day you’re struggling.”There you have it - she made a choice and married a man who was going to the US - she knew before she came in that she is not allowed to work - she failed a road test, so was refused a license - now the poor thing can just not stop whining. What do you call people like her? MORONS! Wait, there is more. There is “Vaishali Bhatia of Cleveland, Ohio” who moved here from Dubai due to marriage - hear her laments…
“Initially it was very depressing, because you miss your family and the whole culture is different. Like me, I have friends who had no choice - marriage brought them to the U.S. The cultural difference is the biggest thing. It’s tough to blend in with the people here. You may think you have a green card, you have citizenship, but you’re just not amongst them. They still look at you as different.” …Who exactly are teh “they” who look at you different, Vaishali? The same people that you try to avoid so they don’t “contaminate” you and your poor daughter? How can you bring your daughter up here as an American citizen between American people and not expect her be an American? Take her back to India [or Dubai] if that is how you want to bring your daughter up, MORON! And then she says…
“My daughter is growing up here and I worry about her - that she will pick up the culture here and that constantly depresses me…”
She acknowledges that Indian communities are growing in America, but she still does not find it the real thing: “Everything seems to be artificial and formal and people seem to be pretending. You feel as if everyone has a mask on their face. They are not the same any more.”I will not dignify that crap with a response - people like this are so smug in their self-righteousness, I feel like smacking them upside their heads to bring them back down to earth once in a while.
As she points out, even the weather in Cleveland makes you sad. It’s bitterly cold for six to seven months and you’re confined to your house with nothing to do. What one wouldn’t give for the warm blaze and sea breezes of Bombay!“warm blaze and sea breezes of Bombay”, or the stink of the streets when it rains, whatever.
“We are giving our future generations away to America. They are not going to be Indian anymore. So we are just giving away our heritage, our culture, and that scares me the most. Once our generation is gone, we’re done. Nobody will be following anything Indian.”Let us go over it once again…
I am so done with these idiots!
I am not kidding when I say I will go to war with Nowitzki, Dampier, Jason Terry, Devon Harris, Finley, Marquis, Josh Howard and Bradley - ESPN.com - NBA - Sources: Warriors to send Dampier to Dallas.
I cannot stop grinning and cannot wait for the season to start. We are going to kick some serious butt this season, dudes! There is not absolutely no reason for failure. Oh, and Steve Nash? Eat your freaking heart out when we make it farther into the playoffs than your new team!
The 30GB version of that and a belkin wireless FM transmitter - I am in heaven right now! :)
Sarah, of one starry night is in trouble. Lots of trouble. She has a baby to feed and bills to pay and she is out of work. She can design pretty sites, do beautiful logos and banners (see above for a banner she made for me) and also hosts websites - all at very reasonable prices. She will work around your budget, however small or big might be.
She is too young to be in such deep trouble. I suck at this sort of thing, so don’t let that stop you - go over to her site. Buy something from her - help her out.
Happy Independence Day, India!!!
Vandemataram!
Sujalam, Suphalam, Malayaja Sheetalam!
Sasyasyamalam, Mataram!
Vandemataram!
Guess which blog is missing from every single directory of Indian blogs linked on this site…The IndiBlog Awards…can someone pass me the cheese? I hear it goes real well with the whine :(
p.s. Doesn’t the title logo remind you guys of a certain “Dancing with Dogs” logo? Interesting!
First of all, I am now famous since I emailed a “Chef” and he answered my question (audience: Oooh!). Next, if you thought I was a ranter, go check out the rants I inspire from people - Shiok - Chef’s Notes: Cooking seafood properly - you will not be disappointed :) (audience:Yummy!)
N.J. Governor Resigns, Admits Gay Affair
You know why my blood boils when I hear stories like the one above? It is because I cannot even begin to imagine the amount of humiliation, the sense of betrayal and the total loss of self-esteem a wife must face when her husband who has had kids with her leaves her for a man - it is even worse in a sense than being dumped for a woman.
See, it is hard but understandable when a man leaves you for a younger, prettier thing - you know he used to love you at some point - he doesn’t anymore. It is easy to reconcile yourself to this and easy to forget if not forgive. When you are left for a man though, it means the man was gay and the whole marriage was a sham - there never was any sense of love between you. The man was simply denying his feelings and putting up with you for appearances sake.
The whole setup makes the woman feel used - what about the kids? How do you explain to them what happened? How can you forgive someone who screwed your life while he is trying to get his bearings straight? Y’know, I wish men like this didn’t marry at all. I wish they would first decide if they were gay or not and then choose their path - not marry first and decide they were gay later…for the children™!
I just went through my blogroll and cleaned up all the blogs that have not been updated in the last year or so. That has left my blogroll pretty puny, so give me a few good links that I can add. If you are a blogger who I haven’t linked to, go ahead and let me know - don’t feel shy.
Maybe they should be singing “Where is the fire?” instead…Black Eyed Peas Burn Down Recording Studio With Candles
Translated from the movie “Padamati Sandhyaragam” -I quote the above since it perfectly illustrates the way most first-generation Indian immigrants in the US think. They don’t like the white people since they think they are arrogant, immoral and racist (yes, all of them are racist - or so they think). They don’t like the black/Latino people since they are supposed to be dumb and not exactly upto “our class”.Father: Don’t trust these white people - they look down upon us because we are dark.
…later in the movie…
Father: Don’t trust these black people - they are jealous about us because we are whiter [than them].
Why am I ranting about this? Because I have had enough of this kind of mentality and irritating attitude from these people I know - I am in very close proximity with them daily and am sick of trying to tell them people are people no matter what color their skin is. These people have this idealised vision of India in their minds and as far as they are concerned, Americans don’t care about their families, have no morals and will not associate with us brown people except to make us do their work. While ranting away about how most programmers are Indian and most Project Managers are white, I wonder why these people don’t once admit that it might be because most Indians are NOT interested in management…
Any Indian being friendly with the white people is considered to possess “slave mentality” - of course, we cannot just click with their personality, can we! They don’t care about their children, these people say with their voices dripping with self-righteousness. How many families do these people know intimately enough to pass judgement on them? Oh, none - why do you ask…
These people think they have left behind a paradise in India and are suffering endlessly here because the poor things have no friends, family and are having to slog their butts off trying to make mortgage payments. Cry me a fricking river, but if those things were that important to their lives, they shouldn’t have come here in the first place. Why come here, bitch about everything in sight and then cry over something you couldn’t wait to get away from the minute you graduated from your Engineering college? Why?
Fine! You left your friends behind - make new friends here. Nope, we prefer to live our lives safely tucked away within the Indian community without ever venturing outside. There is no curiosity for other cultures, while we nod sagely at the wisdom of the Westerners who are “finally realizing how much superior our ancient culture is compared to theirs”. Culture is a give and take, morons! Someone is paying you a compliment trying to find out about you - it doesn’t behoove you to sit smugly and act superior. Show some appreciation to others once in a while - that will not “diminish” your culture in any way.
Does all this mean these people will actually leave here and go to India if given a chance? Who are you kidding! It is absolutely disgusting listening to this drivel day-in and day-out. Here is a clue, people! Be happy with what you have. Simple, isn’t it! You are not only making your lives a living hell with this crap, but you have kids whose minds you are poisoning with this kind of an attitude. Ever wonder why so many second-generation Indian kids have issues adjusting? This is why!
For Heaven’s sake, just shut up and deal with it, alright…for the children™!
I don’t know if it was the late night show we took in or the 7-hour shopping marathon I had been through before that, but I found the movie absolutely boring. Sleep-inducingly boring! The loud music was the only thing that kept me from falling asleep.
By now, everybody knows that Tom Cruise plays a hitman who hires Jamie Foxx’s cab to take him to all his victims through the night. You don’t need me to give away the ending to you or the last victim’s identity - you will figure it out five minutes into the movie - one, if you are not sleepy. I was hoping to atleast stay awake staring at Cruise’s normally gorgeous mug, but the grey hair didn’t do much for me. Dialogue? There is so much pseudo-cool philisophy in there you don’t even want to think about understanding it.
The only thing I liked about the movie was Jamie Foxx’s character - not his acting, but his character. Foxx spends the whole movie trying to look perplexed, worried or angry and you will not know one expression from the other. His character though, is very believably written - there are no super-human heroics - just a plain, old cabbie trying to do the best he can under the circumstances. All in all, this is a movie you wanna watch on DVD…not worth the movie ticket.
Update: Something that I kept mentioning to my husband as we were watching the movie was that the movie made me feel like I was driving on a long road-trip late at night. It had a very lonely, sleepy feel to it at moments that really made me feel like I was in the cab late at night ready to go home.
Here is an interesting story sent my way by MadMan (thanks!) - BAY AREA / Mom awarded $1 million over embryo mix-up. The story was interesting in itself - the whole wrong embryo being implanted in the womb thing - without the ethical implications it raises. There you have this woman who has used another man’s sperm to get herself a baby - she is the mom. But the baby’s dad and his wife have also been trying to have kids and they want the baby too - as dad, that man has some say in the situation too and he now wants full custody of the baby, which obviously is impossible. How would you guys resolve the situation?
Very Hindi moviesque, isn’t it!
A huge, big Ford Expedition sporting the bumper sticker - “W ‘04”.
Playing to the stereotypes much?!
This is for the ex-blogger/Harry Potter fan who I hope is still reading us :)
Scotsman.com News - Entertainment - Movies - Potter baddie is namedRALPH FIENNES, who has portrayed villains in Red Dragon and Schindler’s List, has signed on to play the wicked warlock Voldemort in the next Harry Potter movie.
Well, we are getting our hosting sponsored by the good folks from Spend On Life for the next three months, so show them some appreciation by clicking the link over to their site and checking them out. They don’t have any popups or stupid promotions. They seem to be a perfectly nice financial services site that provides info about Auto insurance, home loans, etc.
Who knows you guys might end up finding something useful from them :)
I am on the market to buy an MP3 player and a wireless transmitter, so that I can carry around my 13GB MP3 collection and play it all oevr the home and in the car. I am not too into the IPods since I think they are way too expensive compared to some of the other things in the market - any one use anything else?
Reviews anybody?
First they cut Chad Hutchinson and now Quincy? I hope Bill Parcells knows what he is doing after sending both our QBs from the last season packing…
SI.com - NFL - Cowboys cut QB Carter - Wednesday August 4, 2004 2:21PMOXNARD, Calif. (AP) — Quincy Carter was cut by the Dallas Cowboys on Wednesday, leaving the team with 40-year-old Vinny Testaverde and newcomer Drew Henson at quarterback less than six weeks until the season opener.
More baby pictuers here http://www.madhoo.com/photolog - He is 10-1/2 weeks-old in the photos.
<proud mommy mode>Isn’t he cuuuute! </proud mommy mode>
Riiight, Sharon! We believe ya! I bet it was that same conservative climate that brought in $100+ million to “Farenheit 911”. Why don’t you just go back to uncrossing your legs and leave political point-making to those who are good at it?
IOL: Stone wanted to kiss Berry in CatwomanSharon Stone blames US President George W Bush for the absence of a lesbian kissing scene in Catwoman - because of the current conservative climate in America.Basic Instinct star Stone, 46, was keen to enjoy an intimate moment with Oscar-winning co-star Halle Berry, but believes a puritanical streak running through the country put an end to any potential girl-on-girl action.
Stone says: “Halle’s so beautiful and I wanted to kiss her. I said, ‘How can you have us in the movie and not have us kiss? That’s such a waste.’
“That’s what you get for having George Bush as president.”
Gaza City - Palestinian militants attacking an Israeli armoured bulldozer inadvertently killed three other Palestinians Tuesday. The roadside bomb in the Rafah refugee camp went off a few metres from where the bulldozer - part of an Israeli operation to destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels from Egypt - was piling up dirt in a crowded residential area, Associated Press Television News said.But of course, what good is the Arabic News if they realize truth when it is staring them in the face? This is the spin put on the incident - Three Palestinians killed in an Israeli incursion in Rafah
Three Palestinians were killed and other 10 were injured by the fire of the Israeli occupation forces in Rafah camp for the Palestinian refugees to the south of Gaza, near the borders with Egypt. News reports said that these forces incurred in the area since at dawn backed by helicopters, tanks, and bulldozers and are carrying out vast breaking in operations, land levelling and demolishing of houses.Never miss a chance at dishonesty even after the whole world knows the truth, do we!
Boy, am I liking news these days! I wonder if the rule applies to red wine/ white wine or both…
Alcohol sharpens your brain, say researchersIt is news guaranteed to raise a cheer among those who enjoy a glass or two: drinking half a bottle of wine a day can make your brain work better, especially if you are a woman. Research to be published tomorrow by academics at University College London has found that those who even drink only one glass of wine a week have significantly sharper thought processes than teetotallers.
Or should I say fear me even more now ? :p
RELEASE: Study: Mothers turn fearless when peptide level dropsSTUDY: MOTHERS TURN FEARLESS WHEN PEPTIDE LEVEL DROPS(link via Dean’s World)MADISON - Everyone knows not to get between a mother and her offspring. What makes these females unafraid when it comes to protecting their young may be low levels of a peptide, or small piece of protein, released in the brain that normally activates fear and anxiety, according to new research published in the August issue of Behavioral Neuroscience.
“We see this fierce protection of offspring is so many animals,” says Stephen Gammie, a University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor of zoology and lead author of the recent paper. “There are stories of cats rescuing their kittens from burning buildings and birds swooping down at people when their chicks are on the ground.”
