Crow's Nest...

After a long wait we finally are going to get some kind of entertainment that is acceptable to all sections of our society.  We are going to have cricket played on our grounds.  We are going to have a few moments of fun and relaxation. Thank you team Sri Lanka for coming to Pakistan, to the rescue of millions of fans in this country.  If India can not be there for the fun and festivities due to political motives and gains we have at least some friends who we can look up to. Pakistan, Lanka first ODI today - GEO.tv

Madam, - The World Press Photo of the year award 2006 was given to photographer Spencer Platt, who captured an image of four stylishly dressed young women and their driver cruising through the rubble of war-torn Beirut in a convertible. The photograph, not surprisingly, caused controversy. Nikola Solic’s photograph in your edition of January 2nd is equally striking, and will surely be remembered as an iconic image of the tragedy that is Gaza 2009. The image is of a group of young, clearly well-off Israelis, five females and one male, surveying from a hilltop distance an Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip. One young woman is laughing heartily; another gazes languidly into the distance, and has a mobile phone glued to her ear; another, armed with binoculars, is looking, presumably, at a scene of devastation. An extraordinary photograph that narrates, even better than words can do, the attitudes of a nation. - Yours, etc, CIARAN COSGROVE, Glenageary, Co Dublin. ...

Economist in its print version tells us a story, that, I am sure, will make Tableeghi Jamat writhe in anguish and pain.  It is somewhat of a counter point to their claims that almost anywhere you look and everywhere you go Islam is spreading like wild fire.  It, infact, might not be true for the state of Kosovo where, Muslims are converting to Christianity and not in small numbers but in quite large numbers. I will however take this story with a pinch of salt.  Part of the reason is my primary faith and the hurt that I feel when I read this story but the other part is more to do with the quality of fact telling that Economist does.  To be very truthful Economist articles are more often than not factually misleading and stories in their own right.  I am mostly disappointed with the way facts are quoted without any care for the real picture.  Then again I read Economist for the quality of opinion more than the quality of its facts that I know by now are if ...

I never wanted to write about benazir bhutto on my blog once after she was dead and dusted.  I am not a very big fan of her being and also not a very big fan of her not being.  I really don't care if she lived or if she is dead.  It is interesting both ways.  Therefore this post is not to contemplate her course of action if she were to live and neither is it to lament the loss, which for me is no more than the loss of every other person that died that day and in the violence that ensued after her death. I must say that she was very lucky in that even her death turned her into something more and bigger than she really was.  She was a tactful politician and maybe this time around she was a changed politician.  But who cares she is dead and we have a nemesis to deal with that she left behind in the form of Zardari and her son and daughters. I mean to write this post to infuse some sanity in this benazir hysteria that seems to have over run our nation that ...

According to the BBC News, CIA is using erectile dysfunction drug Viagra to lure Afghan warlords into submission.  According to the news report they are meeting success with this tactic.  Afghan war lords seem to have insatiable sex drive that is only hindered by their inability to perform.

Monday was a high alert day for Pakistani air force and the airports.  For a while it looked like, from the media reports that we were on the verge of war with our neighbor.  There were all sorts of reports about PAF flights in various sectors around the border and in the cities.  Airports were put on red alert and flights were delayed.  But all this continued for a very short while and then things went back to high alert state. I personally think it is something blown a hundred times over by the media to sensationalize the situation.  PAF is battle ready all the time and most likely were conducting a quick response rehearsal.  During war time commercial airspace is also used for tactical and flying purposes.  Our war planes do not use these routes in times of peace.  It seems that what PAF did on Monday was to provide a short course to its planes on the less traveled routes in preparation for any adventurism from across the border and it was bl...

I was reading this interesting news item on wired today.  Scientists at UCLA have hacked simple camera cell phones to enable these to count blood cells.  If refined further this idea has great implications.  These cell phones can help replace in part the expensive laboratory setups required to do simple blood analysis.  Given the low cost and extreme portability of the instruments we can take disease detection to the very remote villages of the world.  This is amazing.  This is coming.  Read it here .