Crow's Nest...

I was away on vacation to NY for the past few days. The purpose of the trip, mainly was to acquire a new passport in face of the current one expiring soon. In any case I used Expedia to search for a place to stay and was directed to a place in Queens area. This was perfect since there is a lot of Pakistani community living in Queens and one can feel at home in such a place. I landed in NY and got to the hotel. To my amazement it was nothing close to the one in the pictures. Small cornered building and even smaller corridors and rooms. It reminded me of out dorms in the medical school. The room was smaller than out apartment bedroom and it was crowded with furniture. Flat screen TV had some channels that did not work and the channel line up was very limited. Towels were old and not very clean. I guess they were washed but still had some stains on them. The good thing about the hotel was that it was about 10 minute walk from the subway and the walk was safe even in late night ...

Ever since I changed the template for my blog I have been getting a lot of spam in my comments. I think by changing the template I somehow also changed the way comments are handled on the blog. This lead to spam spewing over the page. Spam is the bane of our existence on the internet. Emails are full of spam messages and there are whole folders dedicated to handling of spam. One of the reason I like Gmail is that it has really good customizable filters for filtering out spam.

Since I use the blogger service for the blog that I maintain I am a slave to the templates that blogger provides me with. I have changed the template once more to use the new features that blogger has provided me with. This one looks pleasing to the eye and I really like it. I had grown used to the previous template and this is a welcome change for me and for this blog.

Of late i have spent some time on the out look of this weblog.  I have made a few changes some of which are likely short lived.  I have managed to transfer my blog roll from blog rolling to blogger.  This was done in the hope that it will help the page load faster.  Although I am not completely clear if this has been the case.  Then i have been able to separate and un-clutter my blog roll from my links.  Now you can see a separate section for miscellaneous links.  At the same time I have changed the blog header and the colors of the template to go with the header.  I think this has not been a very successful change.  I plan to go back to my original theme in a few days.  I plan to make a few more changes soon.

Its late in the night and with every passing minute my eyes are getting heavier with sleep.  I am on call tomorrow and it is a tiring month that has drained all my energies out of me.  I used to think that if there is one thing that doesn’t tire me that is work.  But I think I was wrong.  It is not totally morale boosting when your patients start dying around you and you can’t seem to figure out the cause.  I do try hard and obviously do not want any one to be leaving this world earlier than they should.  But sometimes things happen that are not under my control and they happen fast.  The last week has been a demoralizing one for me. Anyways the reason I started to write today was to compliment a good article by one of my friends.  I think we the Pakistanis have to get some morale boosting going very soon.  We have to start thinking of ourselves as not the losers but as the ones who are important enough to matter in this world.  It is ...

As i was rounding yesterday i browsed through the news briefly.  It appears that Tamil Tigers have been finally defeated and destroyed in the north of Sri Lanka.  After quarter century of war and terrorism this front has cooled down.  One hopes that it stays cold for years and years to come.  I have little understanding of the internal political dynamics of the country but I think this is a landmark victory for the people of Sri Lanka.  It is not very often that civil wars come to a happy conclusion.  This is a rare instance in the history.  The Sri Lankan people must be congratulated whole heartedly for their perseverance in the face of all odds and against all evil that cluttered their beautiful island.  The Pakistani people, I am sure, are with their Sri Lankan fellows in the celebrations for their victory. I think of all the more important things that lead to this victory education was one of the more important and decisive ones.  In al...

Sri Lanka is on the verge of declaring victory over the separatist movement of the Tamil Tigers.  After years of struggle and constant state of war Sri Lanka has done what Pakistan would be able to achieve some day.  In our struggle against the elements that declare terror upon us we must learn our lessons from Sri Lanka.  Tamil Tigers were the first people in the modern history to utilize living humans as payload delivery systems.  So they are very much similar to the fanatic elements that we are coming across in our north west frontier province.  They fight a guerilla war and hide and attack.  And in all possibility they have been trained by the same agency that trained the Tami Tigers.  Therefore it would be a great idea to get some ideas from the Sri Lankan friends in helping us fight the resistance movement. If Sri Lanka can do it so can we. But as I was thinking about these lines i read about SSG being paratrooped behind enemy lines.  No...