Hypocrisy

I came across this article in the Economic Times which talks about the Vatican slamming the Anti-Conversion Law to be introduced in Rajasthan.

"The disturbing signs of religious intolerance which have troubled some regions of the nation, including the reprehensible attempt to legislate clearly discriminatory restrictions on the fundamental right of religious freedom must be firmly rejected”

The Pope told India’s ambassador Amitava Tripathi.

I strongly feel the Vatican and the Pope should restrict its influence to the Roman Catholics and not interfere in the sovereignty of any nation. India being a secular state, has given constitutional rights to freely practise any religion and has also provided for the redressals in case of the violation of these rights.
I am not trying defend the proposed law. But the important question that crops up is if religion is mightier than the nation. There are many nations which are firmly rooted in the idea of the religion. How powerful can the Vatican consider itself, at least as far exercising its influence over Roman Catholics is concerned?
When faced with a common threat perception facing all the Catholics across the world, which transcends the barriers of nationality, it makes sense even at the level of minimum diplomacy protocol to follow the right channels of seeking intervention. The Vatican and the Pope, being the spiritual head of the Roman Catholics worldwide should remain concerned with the issues which can be communicated in a more diplomatically acceptable manner.
I cannot help but mention the persecution that the Church carried out in Middle Ages in the name of propagation of religion. Though the comparison may be anachronistic, but it nevertheless makes sense for the Vatican to project a more liberal and pro-modern outlook to religion, in this day and age, where religion is only used as a tool for gaining political mileage and for seeking to uplift the ignorant masses.

Legacy Apple Ad

Thanks again to Supreet for getting me to dig out that Apple Macintosh ad featuring Bill Gates.
You can see it here.

Dat Whimsy Code !!!

For all those who wonder about the managed and the native code released by Microsoft through MSDN, will find this blog by Tom Archer, the Program Manager and the Content Strategist at Microsoft MSDN Online team, rather enlightening.

There is also this interesting snippet by Kate Gregory about the First OO example.

"Today at C++ Connections I have attended two Bjarne Stroustrup talks. And yes, I learned something from both talks and took plenty of notes. Bjarne used what he called Ye Olde Shape Example in a discussion of the brittle base class problem. He mentioned that this is an ancient and yet still useful example that he got from the Simula folks way back when. After the talk I asked if he knew when it dated to, since I use it as an example of polymorphism in the OO/UML course I teach at Trent. He thinks it's about 1971. I was disappointed that it wasn't older than me, and he offered "well, there's always the cars and vehicles, stop, go, turn kind of thing. That's from about 1967 or so." I burst out laughing since I use that example too! It doesn't quite make the "older than me" bar, but it's certainly got a history."

I love C++!!!

Credit: Thanks to Supreet for telling me that quote-unquote thing, never saw it on the editor.

Bon Voyage

17.10 hrs:
I have never seen an airport as cramped and overwhelmingly crowded as Kolkata airport yesterday. There were queues everywhere. From baggage X ray to Check-in to Security to Boarding gate, was one long seamless queue. People from six different airlines were jostling for space.

18.25 hrs:
I have been standing for the past 75 minutes- moving from one queue to another. There was no place to sit. The queue had people with genuine "waiting-to-board" passengers and also the people who could not find a place to sit. IA arranged to send passengers to Mumbai and Chennai through the same boarding gate. There was a scramble to catch the bus to take you to the aircraft. In the end, hopping onto the Indian Airlines flight was like climbing an RTC bus.

19.20 hrs:
A big fat man is pulling out his luggage inside the aircraft at Bhubaneswar airport. He appeared a Scandinavian to me, seeing his "sweat" quotient! A concerned Indian gentleman told him that the aircraft was not yet at Chennai. ( Gosh, what was that... the big, fat guy thought he was on a Concorde?? 30 minutes from Cal to Chennai!!!)

20.00 hrs:
The plane took off after depositing 10 guys and picking up none at Bhubaneswar. Waste of ATF. Apparently, the flight to Bhubaneswar was cancelled the day before, so the adjustment had to be made. The guy next to me complained. It seems he has a meeting at 2200 hrs and he is delayed badly. (What crap!! Meeting on a Sunday night at 10..whom are you kidding mate)

21.15 hrs:
An old man to the guy next to me, "That thing is nice-your mobile. You can hear songs on that too, right?"
The guy next to me to the old man, "No, its an iPod"
Old man,"Oh..which brand?"
(Why God why, Why only me!!!)

21.45 hrs:
Took my baggage. Thankfully not damaged this time.

22.00 hrs:
A small girl looked at my T-shirt and smiled. I looked down and read it.
"Today is not your day. Tomorrow does not look any better either"

Oops I did it again…..

The Hiltons have lots of name, fame, beauty, money and the oomph factor. Add to that they have also acquired quite a bit of the “oops” factor over the years. You can be assured of the Hilton sisters to show off their foolishness absolutely anywhere. A couple of days ago, at the Electronics Entertainment Expo in LA, Paris reportedly mentioned the name of the video game named after her, the Jewel Jam as..... Diamond Quest!!!! Oh God, what on earth was she thinking!!
Of all the things that Hilton family has, one thing there is a severe dearth of in their household is SHAME.
Same holds for the Bush family also!
Lets smoke ‘em out!!

Gold

The price of gold has been rising like never before. It is at historically the highest levels currently. Actually it is very interesting to see the reasons for the steep prices. The prices seem to betray the common logic of demand and supply. One of the many factors contributing to the high prices of gold is the rising demand for crude oil and the consequent high prices for the crude. The high crude oil prices have caused inflationary pressures in many oil dependent economies and also in currencies worldwide, especially the dollar.

Traditionally, currencies and gold have been on the two pans of the investment balance. When currencies fall or weaken, the money is pumped into gold because next to the currency, it’s the gold that is tangible and liquid. Rising inflation has caused depreciation in the dollar, and so, many investors have parked their money in gold, instead of T-bills and the US bonds.

The investment issue has two angles to it - the large private equity and hedge funds and the institutional investors on the one hand and the general public on the other. The general public has been helped in their quest to invest in gold by the emergence of two major Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), the StreetTrack and the Comex, which deal in gold investments. As a result, the layman also is able to put money into gold even without possessing the equivalent quantity of gold in physical terms. As far as the hedge funds and private equity players are concerned, they have pumped in monies in the whole commodities market. The phenomenal demand for steel, aluminum and copper in China’s construction sector has led the price rally in the commodities market. Now, the hedge funds, funds of funds and the private equity players have included the gold also in this commodities bracket. This has resulted in an artificial demand for the yellow metal. But no private equity player or hedge fund is ready to accept that. According to them it’s those who are in the dark forest between the private equity and the hedging business who are responsible.

Another important factor to be noted is the fact that the prices of gold have been rising in spite of low demand in India, which consumes 70% of the gold. No Indian in sane mind is buying gold at the retail level at such high prices.

The rising fiscal deficit in the US economy vis-à-vis the burgeoning China’s exports to the US have led to the fall in the dollar value. As a result, the pressure on the Chinese to revalue the renminbi (Yuan) is also increasing. As and when that happens, not only will the US breathe easy, but it is quite likely that worldwide commodities’ prices may come down. But, as is widely believed that the days of $30 per barrel of crude is over, the gold prices are also on a very tricky and volatile ground. Like the proverbial cat on the wall – you never know which way it will jump!!