It is a sad state of affairs if the terror plot at British airports doesn’t scare me anymore (pictures here). It seemed second nature after the recent train bombings in India, and the constant turmoil in the Middle East. People need to understand that the Butterfly Effect is real. What happens in the Middle East affects all of us, in some subtle and some in-your-face ways.

This should dip the paranoia effect back to full throttle, and make hatemongers rejoice as one.

I suppose we should congratulate the security forces in the UK to nip this possible catastrophe in the bud. I can’t imagine how big of a financial hit this is going to be for the airlines, and the ripple effect across the next few weeks. I’m just glad that I have a confirmed flight later in August..

The weird coincidence is that I was supposed to fly to the US through Heathrow today morning. I would have been caught in this mess. God does indeed work in mysterious ways.

Technorati Tags: Islam, Terrorism, Airports, Britain, USA, Planes, Security, Bombs

This group (flickr) is about supporting Lebanon and raising awareness about the war that is occurring there.

Pictures: Every member is required to take a picture of themselves with a red cloth tied around their wrist and tape being pulled away from their lips symbolizing their support for the people of Lebanon.

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The United States is still the dominant force in technology, innovation, productivity and profits. But Americans don’t quite realize how fast the rest of the world is catching up.

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Reactions to the latest measures that benefit the lower castes have been stormy as the population battles for coveted spots in universities.

I think we should do away with quota and let it be merit based.

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The headlines are about low-wage illegals, but Mexico is swiftly upgrading its workforce. Another reason that US needs to worry about the outsourcing issue..

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I’ve got one thing to say. You do NOT screw with other countries. You just don’t. I was so mad when I saw the US and Israelis plotting to destabilize the Hamas-backed government, and also squeeze Iran the same way. Just because they don’t have similar ideals doesn’t mean that you screw with them. Every past attempt to manipulate a government has lead to utter failure. It’s unethical! How would they react if the US government was screwed with?

This is plain wrong. And there ends my rant of the day.

There were a few bits about double standards and hypocracy which included Google and US foreign nuclear policy. Most of you must have heard about DoJ’s subpoena to Google for a one-month search records, and Google’s challenge to that. It’s obviously an user privacy issue on grass roots level. I know that the government doesn’t want specifics but rather trends from search history to battle paedophilia. But Big Brother society coming out in the open has to start somewhere. For those people who tell me that NSA and other agencies have already been doing that, they have been doing so with stealth. This is one of the first times I remember this kind of issue being public. On the flip side, we have Google’s censoring its Chinese portal to comply with the Chinese communist regime. It’s business. There are a ton of other businesses out there complying with the local laws. And from what I read, some of it is actually protecting the Chinese public from getting themselves into trouble. Did you hear about a Chinese blogger being arrested and detained after Yahoo! gave the Chinese authorities his information? Which would you rather have? Safety with censors or freedom with the chance of being arrested? I suppose you would like the choice, eh? And recently, with the introduction of Google Desktop 3’s new feature of searching across networks by sending the index to Google has sent the consumer privacy groups up in arms. This time I agree. I would not like to send personal private information anywhere online especially if I didn’t know for sure who had access to that information.

I guess this is good for now. Food for thought, or discussion.

I guess I decided it was about time that I finished all the chores that my mentor has requested to get done. So, I got the last of my samples synthesized, all of the AFM scans of the substrates done, updated the ecopy of the log book of the procedural parameters, and the holes for the target rotations. I must say, that was a very productive 8 hours of work! It was kind of exciting making holes because I’ve hardly ever used power tools. I was hoping that my mentor would be pleased that everything he has asked for was accomplised with minimal damage . I guess that was work.

While at work, I was still obsessing about the Kyoto Protocol and the India/China exemption. I talked to a few people about it and realized that it was a flawed treaty, as there was no equanimity amongst sacrifices to be made. That made me sad, but it fit in well with the economics of the present day world. This treaty favors developing nations, as it provides concessions of carbon dioxide output. I know world economics is not simple, however if China and India never had intentions to stand by the framework, they should have never ratified the treaty. I have to read up on the conclusions of the Montreal conference.

Our big group activity was at Cotton Eyed Joe’s which is a country bar with country dancing. We initially intended to take country lessons and we found out that the lessons were on Thursdays. I guess we missed out on that. However, it was a dollar fifty beer and mixed drinks night. So, we took full advantage of that. I tried out all the expensive drinks I never had before including chocolate martini, and a few drinks with Bailey’s in it. Jenn and I got to dance quite a bit, and we did swing to country which was hilarious. I learnt to do the barn dance, and a few country line dances. The barn dance is one of the most social dances around because we go in a big circle and dance with every girl. It’s great!

And that my friends was the one of the last big social outings in ORSS. Sigh..

Outsourcing outrage Indian call-center workers suffer abuse

I wonder what your views on outsourcing are. I wouldn’t mind a discussion on this topic.

U.S. reaches Net detente with U.N. | CNET News.com

A compromise has been acheived. Looks like US keeps hold of the internet with an international oversight committee. Lets see how this works.