Tuesday, January 29, 2008

If you believe in truth , fairness, balance, objectivity , there's nothing here for you, move on. Ms Coulter has written one long hysterical rant, for a set audience (rabid conservatives) and if you dont fall in that category , you wont like this book. According to Ms Coulter

1) The Republicans have all enacted successful policies, the Democrats have screwed up everything, and where they haven't its because they inherited the good work of the republicans and where the republicans screwed up is because of democratic policies previously enacted(e.g. 9/11 happened because Bill Clinton didn't act on the evidence he had).

2)Ms Coulter goes after the people the Democrats put up to state their case who cant be touched or criticized. e.g. The widows of the people who died in 9/11. The mothers of soldiers who have died in the war. She then proceeds to accuse these women of all sorts of things(like they did it for the publicity, they did it for the money, they took so much pleasure grieving for their husbands deaths) while repeating that nobody is allowed to criticise them. Leading to the obvious inference Ann Coulter = nobody.

3) Onwards to teachers who according to her are above criticism and nobody is allowed to criticise them or public schools either. So nobody i.e. Ms Coulter, than proceeds to do exactly that criticise public schools, bring out statistics to number of children abused by school teachers v/s number of children abused by priests. I'm not sure what she wanted to prove there.

4) Ms Coulter attacks evolution and brings up fact after fact that evolution cant explain. She evidently is of the school of thought that believes that attacking Evolution proves that Intelligent design or Creationism must be correct(a false dichotomy). She repeats her contradictory statement that Darwin made that shows that evolution can never be disapproved and how theories that cant be disapproved aren't science and then proceeds to write four chapters trying to disprove evolution. Which is it Ms Coulter?

The sad bit is , this book is a bestseller.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

A Bachelors Recipe

If Recipes were written by single (albeit committed) bachelors then I guess they would look like the following
Moong Curry
Ingredients
Sprouted Moong (Mandatory) as much as you feel you can eat * number of times you want to eat it, Coconut(optional), Dhania Jeera powder(optional), Red chilli powder (or green chillies or red chilly whole), Turmeric powder(optional), 1 small onion (optional), salt(mandatory), curry leaves (optional), mustard seeds(optional), hing(optional),oil(mandatory)
Also a mixer and othere cooking utensils

Steps
1. Confirm recipe from mom.
2. Cross check with recipe site(e.g. food.sify.com)
3. Add the moong and salt to pressure cooker, and add enough water. Hint If the salt is less you can add more later, if the salt is too much you have to order from Pizza Hut.
4. Cover and cook for 2 whistles (slight hard) or 3 whistles(mush)
5. Simultaneously grind to fine paste scraped coconut(or frozen and defrosted ) , chopped onion, dhania jeera, red chilli powder and turmeric powder.
5. If in hurry cool the cooker under water else wait till the steam goes away. Ignore mom's tip that the skin of the moong will now be floating as a. It isnt and b. It is too much work.
6. Now heat oil in a pan (use in inverse proportion to your health consciousness). Add the paste (the coconut , not the overdone moong) and heat till you run out of patience (or till it starts sticking to the pan and makes you spend half an hour cleaning it later). Add the tamarind water. Damn forgot the tamarind. Quickly heat water and tamarind microwave till warm, squeeze out the water and add the tamarind water to pan.
7. Now add the moong(with the water it was boiled in). Keep stirring sometime , taste.
8. Separately heat oil , add mustard till crackle, curry leaves and a pinch of hing
9 Add to the moong , stir.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Cricket

India lose a match that they could have drawn and should have drawn but it wasn't to be. Australia go on to equal the world record and its a pity because they didnt deserve it. The Indians have no one but themselves to blame. But But But Australia didnt deserve it. It wasn't only the umpire's aiding and abetting some really poor decisions , but Ganguly being declared out is the worst. Why did the umpire ask Ponting? And why did Ponting ask Clarke? He has to say he didn't see it not that my player says he caught it.
It ironical to see how the word monkey is thought racist in western culture though it is an everyday insult(and sometimes even a god) in Indian culture. Having said that if harbhajan did call Symonds that he was probably using it in the racist sense. But the time that he said it , India were doing well. Its far more likely that the Australians needled him (as they always do when a batsman actually does well against them) and he responded. And it is a sad state for cricket that Harbhajan could probably have called symonds a f***er or an A$$0 or said he sleeps with symonds wife or fathered symonds children and got away with it (which the Aussies do all the time and such comments are even treated as classics - hows your wife, hows my children) but he can't call symonds a monkey. But ultimately its a matter of evidence. Its Symond's word against Harbhajan and whether or not you believe Harbhajan guilty , you need to show proof. Otherwise what the match referee is saying is I believe Symonds over Harbhajan which isn't a fair decision. By all means ban Harbhajan if proven guilty but share the evidence please.
And even more hypocritical is Mike Proctor hasnt banned Ponting for claiming a dubious catch http://www.rediff.com/cricket/2008/jan/07prem.htm while doing the same for Rashid Latif. Heck here's racism.
Oh and bye bye Mr Bucknor.
The only problem is that australia will win test number 17 and test number 18. Justice demands that they not win the next one , but as we have seen from this test , Justice is blind - even when there is a third umpire.