Missing Mary Road

so i know a punk called sasha in england. she’ll be writing here once in a while. you can read her first post on gestalt here. she joins the other contributing author on this blog, superchode and you can hope to read some fun stuff from them soon.

Cricketing legend and Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan along with a large number of party’s workers left Lahore in a motorcade for Shahiwal for the opening salvo of a movement against Musharraf’s government.

According to media reports, the Shahiwal administration has refused permission to him for holding a public meeting or taking out a procession in the open ground fearing law and order situation. They have advised him to address the gathering anywhere within the boundary walls or at any of the marriage halls, but without the use of loudspeakers.

Prior to departing for Shahiwal, Imran Khan reportedly told media, “Our movement is peaceful, therefore, the government should not put hurdles in its way, otherwise, all the responsibility for the situation will lie on the administration.” Khan also said the other opposition parties should also resign from the assemblies, following MMA. Friday evening, an Indian TV channel aired a program in which Imran Khan discussed cricket, politics and personal life with the Indian audience.

In an NDTV program ‘India kare sawal’ (India ask question with Imran) the former cricket captain, Imran Ahmad Khan Niyazi, replying to a question was frank enough to say that he feared bowling to West Indian batsman Viv Richards. When asked about Brian Lara and Tendulkar, Imran told that bowling to a left hander was easiest for him and Lara is a left hander. Khan also said that Lara or Tendulkar never destroyed any pace attack – rather they milked the pace attack while Richards tore apart the best ever fast attack in the history of Cricket.

Talking about the role of coach, he supported those who have some experience of International cricket and he also said that it is better if a coach has been a captain.

Imran Khan wondered as what Bob Woolmer does with his laptop, what does he see in the laptop which cannot be seen otherwise. The cause of Pakistan defeat in the Champions trophy was the lack of aggressive approach from the Pakistan team, he said.

Imran Khan once again supported the inclusion of genuine fast bowler Mohammed Sami and criticized his exclusion from the team. He also said that Australians won the tournament because of their attacking cricketing style.

On the return of democracy in Pakistan Imran said that Pakistan is on the path of recovery and no power could now stop Pakistan from enjoying the fruits of democracy. He also said that democracy is the only way or government which is acceptable and successful throughout the world.

Replying to a question on veil (burqa) he said that one should be allowed to veil if one is allowed to unveil or strip off. He particularly emphasized over the freedom of choice. On Pakistan-India relation he said that when you cannot change your neighbors it is important to learn to live together and sort out all the problems politically.

In the end he said that cricket is a past for him and he never looks back to past but for one reason and that it is learn from the past. Imran Khan was hopeful of the younger generation of the subcontinent who will make the life better and nation happier, he said. Replying to a personal question he said that he wants his son Sulaiman to become a good human being.

via despardes

so for all you ali_g and borat fans out there, indextube has pretty much every clip of his floating around the internats.well most of them anyway. i just saw one of cohen’s appearances on the daily show, and i think it’s the first time i ever seen him give an interview as himself. must have been a really old clip.

weirdly enough, he’s got a cousin named simon baron-cohen who is one of the world’s leading voices of autism research. he is also one of the dozens of scientists who have forecasted science for the next fifty years in today’s edition of scientific american magazine.

eWEEK reports that Bill Gates told PBS talk show host Charlie Rose and a Stanford University audience at TechNet Wednesday that ‘We’re at the beginning of something important again’ in the development of technology — just as in the 1980s with the advent of the PC. He also discussed the growing Microsoft-Google competition, world health issues, how to give lots of money away to the benefit of mankind, and whether he’ll return to Harvard to finish his studies.” From the article: “On whether there’s another idea today that is as powerful as the idea of the personal computer in the 1970s: ‘If I knew medicine like I do computers, I would like to be able to control the [human] immune system, to fight against the onset of disease on a world level … but I think the idea of the PC still would have topped that.

via slashdot.

bob merkin of vleeptron fame reports his thoughts on lynndie england. england has just given her first interview to marie claire magazine since the abu ghraib photographs had leaked to the media. the interview and bob’s thought’s can both be found here. it is fascinating.

Frank Abagnale knew about identity theft before it had a name.

In fact, he practiced it with precision.

His legendary exploits as a con man were immortalized in the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie Catch Me If You Can, with Leonardo DiCaprio playing the role of Abagnale.

Between the ages of 19 and 21, Abagnale cashed $2.5 million in fraudulent checks in every state and 26 foreign countries. He posed as a Pan Am airline pilot, an attorney, a college professor and a pediatrician. He also served time in French, Swedish and U.S. prisons starting when he was 21.

”How could I say my life was glamorous?” he said. ”If I had been brilliant, if I had been a genius, I don’t know that I would have felt the need to break the law.” Now a consultant for the FBI and banks such as Morgan Stanley, he spoke earlier this month about his life and about the dangers of identity theft to an audience of around 150 people at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

keep reading you!

p.s. catch me if you can had one of the best intro’s to a movie i ever seen. it was awesome!

i’m totally ripping this off from 3qd. you should read that site. it’s brilliant.

In ZNet, Pervez Hoodbhoy looks at Pakistan, 7 years after Musharraf’s coup.

Some had feared – while others had hoped – that General Pervez Musharraf’s coup of October 12, 1999, would bring the revolution of Kemal Ataturk to a Pakistan and wrest the country from the iron grip of mullahs. But years later a definitive truth has emerged. Like the other insecure governments before it, both military and civilian, the present regime also has a single point agenda – to stay in power at all costs. It therefore does whatever it must and Pakistan falls further from any prospect of acquiring modern values, and of building and strengthening democratic institutions.

The requirements for survival of the present regime are clear: on the one hand the Army leadership knows that its critical dependence upon the West requires that it be perceived abroad as a liberal regime pitted against radical Islamists. But, on the other hand, in actual fact, to preserve and extend its grip on power, it must preserve the status quo.

The staged conflicts between General Musharraf and the mullahs are therefore a regular part of Pakistani politics. This September, nearly seven years later, the religious parties needed no demonstration of muscle power for winning two major victories in less than a fortnight; just a few noisy threats sufficed. From experience they knew that the Pakistan Army and its sagacious leader – of “enlightened moderation” fame – would stick to their predictable pattern of dealing with Islamists. In a nutshell: provoke a fight, get the excitement going, let diplomatic missions in Islamabad prepare their briefs and CNN and BBC get their clips – and then beat a retreat. At the end of it all the mullahs would get what they want, but so would the General.

And see also this piece by him on related issues.

[A]t the heart of Pakistan’s problems lies a truth – one etched in stone – that when a state proclaims a religious identity and mission, it is bound to privilege those who organize religious life and interpret religious text. Since there are many models and interpretations within every religion, there is bound to be conflict between religious forces over whose model shall prevail. There is also the larger confrontation between religious principles and practices and what we now consider to be ‘modern’ ideas of society, which have emerged over the past several hundred years. This truth, for all its simplicity, escaped the attention of several generations of soldiers, politicians, and citizens of Pakistan. It is true that there has been some learning – Musharraf’s call for “enlightened moderation” is a tacit (and welcome) admission that a theocratic Pakistan cannot work. But his call conflicts with his other, more important, responsibility as chief of the Pakistan Army.

so this is what the education budget may be headed towards. i can’t imagine what’s going through this guys head. this guy in oklahoma thinks it’s a good idea to have bulletproof textbooks in case you need to run away from some person who is shooting up the school.

A retired veteran and candidate for Oklahoma State School Superintendent says he wants to make schools safer by creating bulletproof textbooks.
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Bill Crozier says the books could give students and teachers a fighting chance if there’s a shooting at their school.

“Our experiment was as scientific as we could make it, just two or three people who had been in the military,” says Crozier.

Crozier, who is running for state superintendent, took to an open field near Minco to see if a text book could stop a bullet during a school shooting. He believes students could use the reading material while running away from an attacker.

“The reason we are doing this experiment,” he says, “is because there was a kid in Fort Gibson who was shot in the back but the bullet did not penetrate his textbook.”

Alternet has a writeup on the thirteen most scariest people in the United States. It’s a very interesting read. Before you click, let me give you a preview on some of the nominees.

Scariest Billionaire, Scariest Academic,  Scariest Drug Dealer, Scariest polluter,  Scariest Presidential Candidate.

Go through it. It’s fun to know what our future may hold.