Crow's Nest...

Stuffy Nose    People with persistent stuffy nose and nasal blockage may find relief f they do away with some of the additives used widely in foods these days. This is atleast the case with 20 of the 226 people who agreed to be used as subjects in an italian study. When these 20 men and women were kept on additive free diet the nastiness in their nares waned. Via [ Reuters Health ]

XP    Another system failure struck my PC today. Probably due to an unexpected power failure my registry got screwed. Had to use system restore console and an hour of typing in DOS to get rid of the trouble. These machines are so unreliable.

MY HELL IN CAMP X-RAY Mar 12 2004 WORLD EXCLUSIVE By Rosa Prince and Gary Jones A BRITISH captive freed from Guantanamo Bay today tells the world of its full horror - and reveals how prostitutes were taken into the camp to degrade Muslim inmates. Jamal al-Harith, 37, who arrived home three days ago after two years of confinement, is the first detainee to lift the lid on the US regime in Cuba's Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta. The father-of-three, from Manchester, told how he was assaulted with fists, feet and batons after refusing a mystery injection. FREEDOM: Jamal yesterday... but he will never forget camp horror He said detainees were shackled for up to 15 hours at a time in hand and leg cuffs with metal links which cut into the skin. Their "cells" were wire cages with concrete floors and open to the elements - giving no privacy or protection from the rats, snakes and scorpions loose around the American base. He claims punishment beatings were handed out by guards known as t...

Goethe Noble be man, Helpful and good! For that alone sets him apart From every other creature On earth. (from The Divine , 1783)     "What you don't feel, you will not grasp by art, Unless it wells out of your soul And with sheer pleasure takes control, Compelling every listener's heart. But sit and sit,and patch and knead, Cook a ragout, reheat your hashes, Blow at the sparks and try to breed A fire out of pile of ashes! Children and apes may think it great, If that should titillate your gum, But from heart to heart you will never create. If from your heart it doesn't come." (from Faust I )    Finally my ENT rotation has come to an end. As we had little to do in terms of patients on the last day in the clinic we all sat together and had a good chit chat with the coordinator of the rotation. He is one person in medical school who would care to talk about anything apart from medicine. Has a varied approach to life and philosophy of life; wouldn't say ex...

LOTR    Finally I am through watching the triology . The adventure of the hobbit with minimal instincts towards any adventure has finally come to an end. The third part of the triology is the best in terms of visual effects and action. One is engulfed in the make shift world of hobbits, elves and wizards for full 3 hours. the scenery is serene and cinimatography full of twists and turns. Although one might say that the end was a bit dragged but on a deeper look one feels that it was not so; keeping in mind the total length of the whole triology. After all it was the end of a long tale that spread over 10 long hours.    If you ask me how I compare the three parts I would sway my vote in favour of the second part, The Two Towers. The sole reason being that it was balanced in between emotional drama and swinging swords and flying, wizzing arrows. But again this can be countered in that the first part was bound to be slow and emotional because in that t...

XP    I have been running into troubles with my windows lately. Have installed and reinstalled them 3 times but the problem seems to be recurrent. All goes well for two days and then suddenly I turn on my system in the morning and the windows load after that the computer doesn't hang up but just the programs wouldn't open and all. Task manager wouldn't work either. and after sometime everything stops working but still the mouse is moving but the stubborn computer wouldn't obey any of my commands.    Pakistan played tremendous game today. Inzimam was at his career best. but luck wasn't on our side today. but anyways the crowed was disciplined and tolerant and the game was pure entertainment

Harvard for the poor.    It seems that getting into Ivy league even if your parents don't earn gazillions can become a real possibility. In the first move Harvard administration has decided not to charge students whose parents make less than $40,000 a year. This favour is not restricted to the group mentioned only rather Harvard also announced that students whose parents earn from $40,000 to $60,000 will receive a substantial increase in aid. Well I would say its a brave move.    Moving on to more pernicious topic; Reuter health reported the results of a survey by INH . It says US adolescents who pledge not to have sex fail to keep their promise more often than rationality would suggest and as a consequence have same rate of sexually transmitted diseases as other teenagers. The study was carried on 15,000 youths and showed 88% failed their pledge to remain virgin till they marry. Not only this on the rebound these youth were more likely to have unsafe ...