One woman to another: "My husband and I start to fight about money, we go to the mall until there's no more money left to fight about."
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A man is complaining to a friend, "I had at all, money, a beautiful house, a nice car, a great motorcycle, the love of a beautiful woman. Then it was at all gone!"
"What happened?" asks the friend.
"My wife found out!" replied the man.
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Fact of the matter...
The moon is 400 times smaller than the sun, but it is also 400 times closer to Earth – so from Earth, the moon and the sun look about the same size. A full day on the moon, from one sunrise to the next, lasts about 29 Earth days on average.
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From the world of science...
Why does my urine smell funny after I've eaten asparagus? Do I have a deadly disease?
The sulfurous amino acids in asparagus break down into smelly chemical components. Those components evaporate readily; they are detectable as soon as 15 minutes after eating asparagus.
(Me: The same scientific reason holds good for garlic consumption and the resultant body odour. The four smell of farting also originates from sulphur compounds in the food we eat)
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Drinking coffee halves suicide risk: study
A study has found that the risk of suicide for adults who drank two to four cups of caffeinated coffee per day was about half that of those who drank decaffeinated or little or no coffee. Caffeine stimulates the nervous system and is also a mild antidepressant, the researchers said.
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Green peas are an excellent source of several phytonutrients that offer powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits.
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US bans 'natural' diabetes drugs, Indian cos. on list…
Washington: The US Food and Drug Administration has cracked down on what is widely considered alternative or natural treatment for diabetes, including ayurvedic and homeopathic remedies. Fifteen companies in the US, including some that procure alternative diabetes medication from India, have been served warning letters by the FDA, asking them to stop the sale of products claiming to treat, cure and prevent diabetes in the US.
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US cracks down on pharma major Wockhardt for a range of violations, from manufacturing defects and poor training of personnel to inadequate toilet facilities. The other companies that came under the FDA scrutiny for similar violations were Ranbaxy, Sun Pharma and RPG Life Sciences.
(Me: Large pharma companies like Wockardt make life-saving drugs that can be produced only in squeaky clean environment and with properly trained staff, although we with our sab-chalta hai attitude may not see anything amiss there. One of the primary causes for recurring food-poisoning in the midday meal schemes in schools and elsewhere in the country is our lack of cleanliness and hygiene consciousness)
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Weird world…
British bride hitches fireman's lift after car goes up in flames.
London: A bride turned up for her wedding in a fire engine after her car burst into flames. Irini G. was on her way to her church in Plymouth Barracuda, when flames appeared under the bonnet. Fire crew extinguished the blaze and, after checking with their control room, rushed her and her father to Christ Church Little Health, in Hertfordshire, where groom Phillip C and 200 guests were waiting. The ceremony was delayed by just 30 minutes.
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Woman takes horse into fastfood joint.
A woman took a horse into a popular fastfood joint because animal wanted a drink. Christine M has defended her actions after she was fined for taking her equine into the restaurant in England. People were called to the scene when the pony pooped on the floor of the restaurant.
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Bihar teachers boycott mid-day meal duty.
Patna: Three lakh primary school teachers across Bihar on Thursday boycotted mid-day meal duties saying it interfered with their teaching, a decision slammed as 'irresponsible' by the statement which said it would inform the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, a tadpole was found in the mid-day meal served to students at a primary school in Moradabad Thursday.
(Me: Even as one can't find fault with the teachers' decision because their primary job is teaching and they are appointed for it and because they are held responsible in the event of food-poisoning, the fact has to be driven home that many school teacher in rural areas stealthily carry home the food articles meant for the school kids)
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Burka Avenger who fights for Pak Girls' education..
Wonder Woamn and Supergirl now hae a new Pakistani female super heroine – Burka Avenger. Burka Avenger is a teacher and has secret martial arts skills, and uses them to fight against people who want to shut down girls' school, where she works. According to Sky News, she uses a flowing black burka to hide her identity as she fights the local thugs. Action in the Burka Avenger cartoon series, which is due to begin on Geo TV in early August, is light-hearted.
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A heart-warming story of the day..
Plight of animals turns Assamese poacher into conservationist
A former poacher, who was forced into the trade at an early age to support his family in Assam, had a change of heart and ended up becoming a conservationist protecting wild animals and their environment!
Maheswar Basumatary joined poachers in the 90s when he was just 19. 'We were forced to quick school. I never managed to finish my studied, and given the state of affairs in Assam at the time, there weren't many alternatives left for me," said Basumatary, adding that his wife left him when she found about his source of income.
A single father, he soon realisied the risks involved in poaching. In 2005, he surrendered to the Forest Dept, and joined a Community-based Organisation to help revive the Manas National Park. Basumatary quickly adapted the skills he acquired as a poacher to his new job of conservation. The fact that he knew the Manas sanctuary inside out and his excellent tracking skills made him a vital part of the organization.
"Basumatary was a very disciplined person who knew the landscape, understood the project and was a team player who quickly learnt how to use a GPS or the nuances of a radio collar", says Dr. Bhaskar Choudhury, the head of the International Fund for Animal Welfare-Wild Trust of India.
"I love my work. Instead of hurting the animals, I'm actually helping in saving them now. I don't for a minute regret my decision to surrender and turn over a leaf. My son works with the same NGO I started volunteering with all those years ago", says Basumatary.
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Mindchow
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
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Line Maro
I wanna live in your socks so I can be with you every step of the way.
(Me: and she could sock you up as and when you take a single wrong step..)
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Thus spake a hypocrite…
"Mock fights over secularism make good television; in the real world, it is the economy, stupid" – Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief, IBN 18 Network, in an article in Hindustan Times.
(Me: By his own admission, the entire media in the country is stupid because day in and day out it keeps mock fighting over securalism. Though, one doesn't agree with his contentions, for, when they do vote, the huge illiterate, poor population doesn't care as much for economy as for their caste, religion, region and language, and the monetary incentives/largesses they get on the eve of elections).
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Driving the nail on the head…
Writes Raghu Dayal, a current affairs analyst and a former civil servant, in ToI, Thursday.
"Vanishing Dream of Growth – Indian needs an indigenous Margaret Thatcher or Deng Xiaoping..
"… What the economy needs is not MGNREGA, RTE or FSB, but GST and DTC, well-functioning schools and health care centres, efficient roads, railways and urban infrastructure (no, not his own prescription but that of Jim O'Neill a major proponent of the celebrated Octrober2003 Goldman Sachs Brics report). India is ranked in a Thomson Reuters Foundation poll as among the world's worst places to be a woman; second from the bottom in the 2010 PISA tests on school education quality; 94th in Transparency International Corruption Perception Index; 131th in the 2011 Human Development Index from fallen from 124th in 2004. How do people do business ina country, which the World Bank ranks 132nd in case of doing business, 173rd in sarting a business, overall 150th, almost at the bottom of the list. Once ahead of its compatriots in Brics, Brazil and South Africa, in the Global Competitive Index of the World Economic Forum, India now trails them by about 10 places and falls some 30 positions behind China.
(Me: Yesterday's papers were agog with reports that 65 MPs have petitioned Obama against issue of Visa to Modi and that many of them have denied signing the memo claiming that doing so – asking a foreign power to intervene in domestic affair - would be a national dishonor. One would say that things wouldn't have sunk so low if the Raj had remained. Their much-maligned divide n rule was much to the prince states or between two major communities.. Now the divisions are much deeper and sharper on caste, language, regional lines)
The Benjamin Disraeli quote "In politics nothing is contemptible" succinctly sums up our case..
Of course, if it is of some comfort, we may compare our fate with our immediate neighbours Nepal, Bhutan or the others…and congratulate ourselves)
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Elder Bush shaves head to support cancer patient.
Former US President George H.W. Bush shaved his head this week in solidarity with the young son of a member of his security detail who is suffering from leukemia. A smiling Bush sits in his wheelchair, now his primary mode of mobility, and the girl Patrick, sits on his lip in a photo released by his office.
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