Crow's Nest...

Marijuana A new series of researches is pointing towards the adverse effects of long term marijuana use in the adolescent age group. Basically the studies focused on finding the long term psychological effects on those who used cannabis on regular basis. Few conclusions: 1-People who start smoking cannabis at adolescent age are at increased risk of developing mental problems. 2-Daily cannabis use is related with 5 times increased risk of depression at age 20. 3-There is dose dependent relationship between cannabis use and schizophrenia. 4-This suggests that people already at greater risk of later developing mental health problems are also more likely to smoke cannabis. via [new scientist]

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiorty in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-westerners never do." --Smual P. Huntington. I would say i don't agree to this fully and especially when we look at it in context with the following quote, "Powerlessness can corrupt as insistently as does power." Thus effectively we are talking about corruption that comes due to imbalance of power. This corruption can lead to violence and its use as a tool to defeat or subdue the opponent. The aggrieved can be a weterner or an easterner, as the case may be. It is only unfortunate that we are living in times where its east.

Medicine looks such a disappointing field to me today. No matter how much and hard we try we can never defeat the inevitable, the fate. We can't save lives. We can't stop death from happening. Then what is the use of all this mongering around for all these years pretending that we are the messiah who can turn coma into consciousness. In a very little while, from now, one of my classmate will loose his wealth when his father will be no more in this world-- and doctors can't do anything about it. In the end they are as useless as everybody else. WHy can't they give his father more time to live and cure his cancer ah because they feel helpless now. Anyhow all i can do is pray for the soul and his forgiveness and at the same time pray that Hassan and his family may find heart and courage to deal with this sad incident that is no less than nerve wrecking for us all. amen

Music To my taste One thing i am getting sure of during this time is that the music to my taste is neither western hip hop nor pseudo-western music, the form jutted out by singers from our young generation, rather it is the slow paced, soul relaxing, brain soothing utterances of the musicians commonly known as Qawal ! I must say i owe my new found attraction to this kind of music to Waheed paa more commonly known around here as one .

In'ernet Problems. I have been in the phase of transfering to my own pc here in the hostel and this has restricted me from filing my blog for quite sometime now. The networking here is giving troubles too. Couldn't connect to the in'ernet for the whole week because of some networking problems. Now that the problem seems to be solved, i intend to start paying more attention to my ramblings here at blogspot. By the way me uzer and mak played need for speed hot pursuit 2 on LAN and believe me it was so much fun. Those guys at EA Games are doing hell of a job. Zack is posting a series of blogs on Kashmir on his blog site which seem pretty informative and interesting. So his blog is a must read for anyone who wants to know about the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Zindagi Helpless fall a prey to the powerful. Big fish eat smaller ones. Fools provide for the riches of the rich. And similar principle applies both to the individual and national levels. Worldly justice requires weak to be enslaved by the developed nations. Smarter people take away every penny that a lay man lays his hands upon. If this world were to follow the ideslistic approach towards peace and justice then there would be no such thing as the rich and the poor. Both the terms ruler and his subjects would seize to exist, turning this same world into a heaven for all. Contrary to this you can see that at one extreme people die crying for food and at the other rich develop heart disease off over-eating. Well to do wear robes of silk and the needy cannot fit in their natural dress. Some are given all the respect worthy of a king and some known as the unlucky lot.---- Zindagi, Chauhdary Afzal Haq

9/11 Remembered. After watching ARY's hour long telecast about the mystery shrouding the 9/11 incident I am more convinced than ever that there is something fishy behind the story. The presenter is convinced that the incident was not a muslim act of terrorism but infact a well rehearsed plan carried out by someone not yet on the scene. He has facts to support the idea and I think they are quite convincing. It strikes me when he says that the 757 that hit the pentagon that day is no where to be seen in the whole coverage. The plane has a wing span of 140 meters and the damage was no more than 65 meters across. Similarly Bush while addressing a town hall meeting at Florida town hall says that he watched the first plane hitting the first tower on the TV. How the hell did he know that a plane was going to hit the WTC. A point is made when someone says that a similar plan was made by the CIA in 1960 to build premise for attacking Cuba. The link is available here . And here