MSNBC is sick, stupid – Making a mockery of the Virginia Tech Tragedy

What kind of sick minded, demented person would do something like this? (Edit: see my update below) A quiz about the Virginia Tech tragedy, “see how much you know about the events” What do you hope to achieve from the quiz?

How would you feel I came up with a quiz on the death anniversary of your father, mother, or even 9/11 ? MSNBC needs to pull down that quiz and apologize for doing something so stupid.

What happened to any journalistic ethics that you are supposed to have? MSNBC have gone to the top of my shitlist.

If you care, send MSNBC an email: at news@msnbc.com to voice your opinion.

Edit: It seems they have taken the quiz down. Looks like there is someone in those offices with half a brain. The linked page now says “Page not Found” – But a cached version of it can be found here.

We Are Virginia Tech

The deaths at Virginia Tech have hit all of us like a big sledgehammer on it’s way down. All over the internet prayers, thoughts and good wishes are pouring in. However, there are several people who also seem fit to point out that more than 100 people have been killed in Iraqi universities, African conflicts etc. Compared to those numbers, 33 deaths is minor, and all this is just fodder for news channels.

Here’s why it matters to us: Virginia Tech has long been known as a close knit university. Virginia Tech students and alumni are one of the most loyal and fanatical fans in the country. Fans for every sport, for every thing that is Virginia Tech. When a student joins Virginia Tech he joins the family of Hokies, after he graduates he is still a Hokie. It’s home away from home. For me Virginia Tech has been life and home for the past 5 years. That’s why it matters, 33 people killed at home. 33 family members are no more in this world. 26,000 students and even more alumni of Virginia Tech lost family members.

I didn’t know any one of those 33 people but still I grieve. Hokies are my family, family for a lifetime.

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech …
– Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor, poet, activist

Technorati Tags: Hokies, Virginia Tech

Indian Cricket : Painful to Watch

Another game and yet another dismal failure from the Indian Cricket Team. Indian batting has been disappointing over the past couple of months – correction: since Greg Chappell’s introduction as coach. Greg Chappell has over-experimented and screwed up the Indian team. Sure, he is responsible for the “growth” of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Irfan Pathan, but the overall team performance has done down the crapper. At this point it feels like the Indian batsmen are dizzy because they’ve been playing at so many different positions over the last couple of years. They’ve forgotten how to bat at position ‘X’. Greg: stop experimenting and get down to the basics. World Cup 2007 is a couple of months away and this is no way to enter the tournament. At this rate we will be a horrendous failure and we won’t even make it to the second stage.

Some classic examples of the selectors, coach and captain getting it wrong:

• Selecting Wasim Jaffer who didn’t have a good limited overs record and starting opening him in 2 matches.
• Not playing VVS Laxman after Dravid’s injury on a pitch offering a lot of bounce. Most of dismissals in today’s match were due to the extra bounce. Who has the best experience playing bounce? VVS Laxman. Picking Jaffer over Laxman, horrible move. 
• Keeping Suresh Raina in the squad – he hasn’t performed at all, in a long time.
• Raina, Kaif, Sehwag contribute to the long list of failures within the Indian team.

 The Indian selectors are convening today and tomorrow to pick the team for the test matches. Please, keep politics out of Indian cricket and select Sourav Ganguly. He can probably help us. I say probably because I am still not too confidant of his abilities. S Badrinath is another player up for recall. I am happy that Zaheer Khan is amongst the wickets. Welcome back Zack (no pun intended).

I’m praying for the Indian team and keeping my fingers crossed.

Technorati Tags: India, Cricket, Indian Cricket, Greg Chappell, VVS Laxman

The news these days…

Ever since I started work, I’ve been picking up the newspaper at the train station to read on my way to work. Going to and from work I usually finish reading the entire paper; reading every article. But nowadays I’m skipping a lot of the news. Every day in the news I spot some death or destruction which leaves me quite sad at times.

Let see today’s news:

• Six Palestinians dead in clashes with Israel
• Another day of suicide bombing in Iraq, 13 people dead. (Eid-ul-Fitr is probably the biggest holiday for a Muslim ever.)
• Iraq is in near chaos says Sen. Graham
• Sailor kills Marine over a fake rape charge.

These news take up atleast three pages on the newspaper I read. This is only today’s news, everyday it’s something or the other. People calling on Rumsfeld to resign, protests at Gallaudet University, other random murders.

Apart from this there is the usual mudslinging between politicians. Today its some Republican saying Hilary Clinton was ugly and she spent money to make herself beautiful (what’s wrong in making yourself look pretty?)

Seriously. What has the world come to when our daily news is filled with death, destruction, violence and third grade politics.

I Hate WordPress

It's got too many good themes (to be on the fair side, this one does have my fav colors, blue and green). I'm flip flopping over themes worse than John Kerry.

God Save Me

Lockdown in Sector 4!

Earlier today while I was composing an email, Gmail tells me i've logged out. Odd, because I didn't click on the 'signout' link since I was busy writing an email. So I refresh the page and it gives me this message

"Our system indicates unusual usage of your Gmail account. In order to protect Gmail users from potential harmful use of Gmail, this account has been disabled for 24hrs

If you are using third party software that interacts with your Gmail account, please disable it so that its use complies with the Gmail Terms of Use.
…"