Critical Thinking

Critical thinking and ridiculing - Are these the same? The first time I landed in America, i was taken aback with the fascination/dependence of america on paper. I was ridiculing the consumption of paper in this society. Forgetting the restroom, paper flyers/coupons, records, paper trail, packaging etc etc. Over time carnivorous animals were taking center stage and no matter what mr T-rex did, he was always the villian. A lion was only on the prowl, and would kill every thing in sight. Alligators, crocodiles, snakes all were out there ready to pounce on you and so on. Then came deluge of videos that wanted to make me thin. Frankly if i became any thinner, I should invest in some wings. There is not a single video out there that helps you gain weight to a reasonable level to make me healthier. Why is it that only all the fat people of this world should become healthier? Ok the word 'fat' may not be diplomatically correct, but since i am not taking names that should be fine. Gee, i am sure that each of you reading the blog thinks that i am calling you fat. :D!!!

Ok I forgot the part of critical thinking in all the side topics. Laters when I recall that.

BTW Wrestle Mania this week :)

guess what?!!?

Through the course of the week, my last post somehow got plagiarized and appears on BK's blog as the latest post - no harm done and I will go back to one of the current debates.

the British came to India, and started to instigate one kingdom against another. Soon no kingdom had a right to govern themselves and in the following wars nearly all of India was taken over. Then indians were recruited into the army to serve the British. Then there was a period where Hindus and Muslims (supposedly) did not trust each other. Indians were rising against the british and were labeled terrorists and were sentenced to be hanged.

Ask any 7th or 8th standard student and he will tell you the rest.

Substitute british with american forces, india with iraq, the local communities etc etc , and suddenly history is not old anymore!! And they are reporting that a civil war is raging. Isnt this just feeding off american history where Americans from the north were in war with the americans from the south - and the entire battle was limited only to a small portion of the usa. go figure!!

Halal Lamb at Outback

Good day!  Here is some information about our Halal lamb:

Good Day,

Lamb served in all of the domestic Outback locations in the United States is
imported from New Zealand. The lamb has received its Certification of Halal
Accreditation from The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand.

Customers who desire Halal preparation should ask that the lamb be prepared in
separate sauté pan instead of on the grill in order to make sure there is in
cross contamination from other products. Please understand that the
preparation time for the lamb in the sauté pan will be longer than if it were
prepared on the grill. Also, please ask that the steamed vegetables be
prepared without the "seasoned butter", which contains a bit of bacon in the
seasoning.

The steaks and chicken used at Outback are not Halal.

Please remember to order your lamb WITHOUT the cabernet sauce.

We have gotten a number of emails on Halal lamb in the past weeks, and are
trying to get this information out to our field ASAP.

Thank you
Michelle Robinson
Outback Steakhouse Inc.
Purchasing/ R & D/ Communications

Passion and Possessive

Passion is when your love for something is infectious and brings more people to love the same. Possessiveness is when your love prevents people for loving the same.

So for example my lego modules were free for anyone to try and play with them. I would love to give more information about, history, etc etc and could see someone else get inspired and try that for himself. Possessiveness is where everyone else could see them, but if they crossed the line and asked me about where i got those unique parts from, that was it!!!. Ok this is an imaginary example - my bhanjaa has perused my collection sufficiently well that I cannot find some things. A better example would be - Br. Thomas in general is quite passionate about Shareeah, Islam, Dawah and that radiance is evident in his talk.

Back on this topic, passion and possessiveness are two aspects that are very evident in a persons speech. The words and emotions match perfectly for each quality. With passion, there will be hope that the world is big enough for all of us and more is merrier. With possessiveness, customer service is lacking.

Now passion and possessiveness are not limted to individuals but are equally applied to groups. These groups can be managing groups aka the organising committee aka the 'elders'. In passion the managing group takes responsibility for carrying out the main event but at the same time encourages others (sometimes forcefully) to be a part of the event. With passion comes the understanding to include more people at all points of the program, but to be ready to fall back on the core managing group if things do not work out right. Under possessiveness the same group does not even look out for external assistance. The assistance may be lying under their noses but they refuse to sniff it.

This post started off with one method to address a coterie that develops over time, that is not flexible enough to extend its outreach, with the problem lying in the substitution of passion for possessiveness.

Is possessiveness bad? No, it is needed at many times where the job/situation demands that.

Mappila Songs

Courtesy Sandgroper and his in-house mallu expert!!! Thanks

Mappila Songs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Mappilapaattu)

Mappila Paattukal or Mappila Songs are folklore Muslim devotional songs in the Malayalam language. These are sung by Muslims (Mappilas) of Malabar.
The first Gramaphone record in Malayalam Language was a Mappila song. In 1925, Gul Mohammed, father of celebrity artist KG Sathar recorded his voice in Gramaphone. Even though millions of Mappila songs were released thereafter on records, only few of them are considered as authentic Mappila Songs.
Mappila songs are composed in colloquial Malayalam and are sung in a distinctive tune. They are composed in a mixture of Malayalam and Arabic and have a special charm of their own. They deal with diverse themes such as religion, love, satire, heroism, etc.
Prominent Mappila Singers:
Azeez Thayineri
Moyinkutty Vaidyar
Eranholi Moosa
Kannur Sharif
MA Gafoor
Rehna

Gist of the story - Nasheeds Mappila bhai bhai

Silly musings of an overworked mind

The last injury I received was a deep gash across my palm. In traditional palmistry, the parabolic line circling the thumb is supposed to indicate the life span for that individual. So the wound got me wondering about the effects it may have on my life span, had it cut the same. Since astrology is haraam in Islam, I gave palmistry an innocent until proven guilty treatment. To make palmistry innocent, I dropped in the assumption that the very pointed end was my last day, i.e. today. So now solving for the wonderful y=ax^2, you could find the point of intersection of that gash with your lifeline. Only problem then is that you died at that point - so what am I doing now??? Seems to remind me awfully of the heisenberg uncertainity principle, where you did not know whether the electron was inside or outside the container. I never understood that principle at all, and had studied raman effect (as the option question). So that killed further progress on this interesting problem.

Why did I remember the equation of the parabola - blame the ASU student I had coached last semester.

N.B to add theoretical physics to my list of after-retirement-activities?

A link from slashdot.

http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=309

 

I know there are tons of other stuff that was invented and discovered in different regions of our lovely planet, but currently I need to help everyone into looking at positives.

 

bandarwaah!!

Good movie, too bad he had to die in the end due to the inherent destructive nature of humans (and the inability of humans to understand sign language.. reminds me of the quote from Ice Age where humans did not speak..).

And all those creatures on that island, it was like a big hotch potch from jurassic park, eight legged freaks, etc etc.

Best of all- it is never too cold up there on the empire state bldg.

But good entertainment value!!!

Paani Paani re

Finally rain is here!!!! Alhamdulillah

baadalon ka roop lekar, barse halke halke

dhagala lagli ..... , paani themb themb...

Anyhow slippery streets so take care.

M&Ms

Shockingly all the vending machines at my office do not carry any normal M&Ms any more. boo hoo hoo. They have replaced it with Hersheys little kisses !!! eeek hersheys chocoloates for m&ms - no way. Went one storey up and down to check all the available vending machines - same result everywhere.


I miss cadbury gems...

bandarwa

What a movie!! The option was between a big monkey or a small monkey. Small monkey sort of got selected. guess that "G" rating had to do something with it. Picture all sub 7 year olds with parents and guardians watching this movie. Head nodding along. Surprisingly only one kid let out his wailing siren but others did not follow. oh and the movie - extremely ideal for kids.

What was I doing there? No it was not a glorified version of baby sitting just a man to man time with mama-bhanjaa, while parents had some house-cleaning to complete.

MIx and SS and lots of biryani completed the weekend bash. Bechaara waiter - MIx had him cornered for sometime before we stepped in to help him out. Also read some random newspaper at Basha (NewTimes I think) while waiting for those two to arrive. SubhanAllah Sr Deedra was on the cover and her story had lots to learn from.

No work over the weekend!!! yes just did not feel like it and was just craving for some peaceful time in solitude. SubhanAllah. dont worry this wont be the normal trend and am just waiting for Monday madness to start.

Ek minute mein seedha karde gi

C i believe you will not tell this to D......