Life, Dreams and Reality -- Sohel's Blog

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2008/02/28/VI2008022802179.html?hpid=topnews Deepak Chopra on healing. Deepak Chopra on his new book "The Third Jesus"

Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight was released January of 2007. It is a must see documentary that painstakingly describes the "puzzling" decisions, actions, inactions, deceptions and overall fiasco that are being raging in Iraq from 2003. No End in Sight also got a deserved nomination in tonight's Oscar. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6182969183854471645

Who is smarter than a 5th grader? Most adults may find it increasingly difficult remembering facts, tidbits and skills acquired many years ago in school, college and university. The pervasive culture of infotainment where anti-intellectualism is on the rise, comment like "“too much learning can be a dangerous thing” and anti-rationalism comment like “the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion” taken only as face value. Religious fundamentalism's antipathy toward science is mostly masqueraded as benign questioning on the authenticity of scientific facts. Susan Jacoby points out in her recently published book that "Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters." Now this indeed is a scary observation. When citizenry overwhelmingly thinks that essential knowledge is the mere matter of neglect, subject to complete ignorance, progress of this pampered ...

Now how do we bring all these "oil" to earth? Saturn's Titan is far and far away for mere human mortals whose "modern" technologies still has constraints on traveling fast like the "warp speed" depicted in popular Star Trek series and movies. But as the words go around, necessity is the mother of all inventions, and it is the dire need of energy that is practically running the "wheel" of our world will eventually propel human ingenuity shatter all barriers and constraints. Exploring oil in Titans? No problem! Here comes the humans. Read the full article from here .

Look at the image above showing earth and its "neighbors", that slowly unravels the glaring insignificance of our world in cosmic reality.

I have reservations on the thesis of this article published in The New York Times that states that "Income statistics, however, don’t tell the whole story of Americans’ living standards. Looking at a far more direct measure of American families’ economic status — household consumption — indicates that the gap between rich and poor is far less than most assume, and that the abstract, income-based way in which we measure the so-called poverty rate no longer applies to our society." Here are a few examples the writer presents supporting his "consumption" hypothesis: "To understand why consumption is a better guideline of economic prosperity than income, it helps to consider how our lives have changed. Nearly all American families now have refrigerators, stoves, color TVs, telephones and radios. Air-conditioners, cars, VCRs or DVD players, microwave ovens, washing machines, clothes dryers and cellphones have reached more than 80 percent of households. At the avera...

Last week Time magazine published an article on recent arrests of ultra nationalist killers in Turkey that raises troublesome questions. Along with plot on prominent Nobel prize winning writer Orhan Pamuk, these Gladio like "destabilizers" and "killers" "are suspected of involvement in last year's string of nationalist-motivated murders, which cost the lives of prominent ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and three Christian missionaries, according to newspapers." Here are a few quotes from Time : "If they are true, it suggests there are two parallel universes in Turkey," says Hakan Altinay, director of the Open Society Institute, a think tank. "There are people who wake up every morning and plan murders of political opponents, plot coups and how to destabilize the country," he said. Most Turks have long suspected the existence of a covert web of elements within the security forces and bureaucracy who act outside the law to upho...

Anne Coulter prefers Hilary Clinton over John McCain? Why? See the surprising video below.

At least the "technical mistake" acknowledged by Afghan senate in stepping back from its previous atrocious death sentence decision for this student journalist Syed Pervez Kambaksh can be seen as the positive direction. However, this "positive direction" wouldn't be possible if not there fierce international protests and involvements were present. Read Indepndent's update on this case that needs constant scrutiny until the student journalist gets full reprieve and freedom of expression gets a boost in troubled Afghanistan.