That's right! Paying the bills is a sport! And it should be in the Olympics. Because, if you are good at it, you surely deserve a medal!
Have a prosperous 2009!
-- ARK
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
MemChu
The beautiful mosaic on the front of the Stanford University Memorial Church (affectionately known as MemChu).
http://www.stanford.edu/group/religiouslife/memchu.html
Friday, December 5, 2008
Salaam Bombay!
Despite the fact that we have been sort of desensitized to violence over the years, the massacre in Mumbai shocked us all. Our hearts go out to the people of Mumbai who went through another terrible nightmare at the hand of terror that has become so frequent in the sub-continent.
We feel helpless. The trust that we have been trying so hard to rebuild is shredded to pieces by the terrorists' bullets along with the brave souls who had nothing to fight back with.
The feeling of helplessness was there when we suffered from bombings while growing up in Karachi. Now the violence has spread to the rest of the Pakistan and beyond and we all gasped in shock and horror when our very own Benazir was slain in Islamabad. No place is safe anymore. And no one is safe anymore. It will remain like this until we do something about the cancerous "terror" that is spreading fast inside of us.
Blogging surely does not count as any kind of action against the terror. See this for some real action taken by Pakistani men in uniform! But that old adage, "Pen is mightier than the sword", does indeed apply here. We need to make some noise. We just have to bring out our best "pen" to fight the level of weaponry and carnage that has ripped our society with such vengeance. We must expose the terrorists and their recruiters until they feel the might of our collective "pen". Our collective message to these coward terrorists is, "Pakistan will NOT let you get away with this heinous crime! "
Mumbai (Bombay) is my kind of town. How can I say that? Well Mumbai is a lot like Karachi and Karachi of course is my town. And for that matter, India is my kind of country. Someone once asked me, "Which part of India are you from?" - People often mix Indians and Pakistanis up over here - And who can blame them? We belong to the same people. I instinctively replied, "I come from Pakistan part of India!" It is not that I am being unpatriotic. I was playing with words. Pakistan once was part of India. So I could technically say "Pakistan part of India".
But beyond just the words, the people from the two countries share so much that they practically are the same people. Quite literally, half my family lives in India. They all support India with the passion that matches what I have for Pakistan.
So when I say "Salaam Bombay", it is as if I am saying, "Salaam Karachi". And to the terrorists I say, "When you mess with Mumbai, you mess with Karachi!"
-- ARK
We feel helpless. The trust that we have been trying so hard to rebuild is shredded to pieces by the terrorists' bullets along with the brave souls who had nothing to fight back with.
The feeling of helplessness was there when we suffered from bombings while growing up in Karachi. Now the violence has spread to the rest of the Pakistan and beyond and we all gasped in shock and horror when our very own Benazir was slain in Islamabad. No place is safe anymore. And no one is safe anymore. It will remain like this until we do something about the cancerous "terror" that is spreading fast inside of us.
Blogging surely does not count as any kind of action against the terror. See this for some real action taken by Pakistani men in uniform! But that old adage, "Pen is mightier than the sword", does indeed apply here. We need to make some noise. We just have to bring out our best "pen" to fight the level of weaponry and carnage that has ripped our society with such vengeance. We must expose the terrorists and their recruiters until they feel the might of our collective "pen". Our collective message to these coward terrorists is, "Pakistan will NOT let you get away with this heinous crime! "
Mumbai (Bombay) is my kind of town. How can I say that? Well Mumbai is a lot like Karachi and Karachi of course is my town. And for that matter, India is my kind of country. Someone once asked me, "Which part of India are you from?" - People often mix Indians and Pakistanis up over here - And who can blame them? We belong to the same people. I instinctively replied, "I come from Pakistan part of India!" It is not that I am being unpatriotic. I was playing with words. Pakistan once was part of India. So I could technically say "Pakistan part of India".
But beyond just the words, the people from the two countries share so much that they practically are the same people. Quite literally, half my family lives in India. They all support India with the passion that matches what I have for Pakistan.
So when I say "Salaam Bombay", it is as if I am saying, "Salaam Karachi". And to the terrorists I say, "When you mess with Mumbai, you mess with Karachi!"
-- ARK
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Cowards!
I'm mad as hell and won't take it anymore!
Not sure what these cowards, who have nothing better to do with their guns and munitions than to come out and commit such heinous murder against innocent civilians, want to accomplish. They just end up proving, yet again, that they are indeed cowards!
If they want to look for "westerners", I suggest they go on a proper battlefield and fight like real men. And stop, once and for all, killing innocent civilians.
Peace on Earth!
-- ARK
Not sure what these cowards, who have nothing better to do with their guns and munitions than to come out and commit such heinous murder against innocent civilians, want to accomplish. They just end up proving, yet again, that they are indeed cowards!
If they want to look for "westerners", I suggest they go on a proper battlefield and fight like real men. And stop, once and for all, killing innocent civilians.
Peace on Earth!
-- ARK
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Dow Jones Index should be renamed Rise! Index
They say the Wall Street does not like uncertainty, etc. I say, "What a crock!"
Back in October, the market was in an "uncertainty" due to the upcoming November presidential elections. Obama got elected and "analysts" started saying, "OK, we got the election out of the way... Now the Wall Street shall focus on the economy..." Great!
Well... How come the traders on the Street were NOT focusing on the economy BEFORE the election? I mean, if you have been going to work before the election, your boss expects you to focus on your work, doesn't he? Yeah sure you can take the morning off on the day of the election - to vote of course - but other than that you pretty much have to "go to work", right? Americans work hard and don't ever give excuses such as "Well I am uncertain these days... So I will just stop working hard", etc. No! We will be out of work if we start thinking like that. But, it seems the Wall Street, while working with our hard-earned retirement money seems to do just that: take days, weeks and months off just because they feel "uncertain" or "afraid".
Once the election was over, the folks on the Wall Street - now quite certain who the next President of the United States would be - still managed to slide to new lows in record speed! They started saying, "Well we are not certain who the treasury secretary will be! So we slide..."
What???! You are going to refuse to buy just because you can't figure out the name of the next treasury secretary? Even though you are absolutely sure it will NOT be "Paulson"?
What gives? I am not sure I understand these fellas. And I wonder if we should stop calling them Bulls and Bears (Bullish and Bearish) and start calling them Chickens and Turkeys: You know what I mean? So, we go like, "Ladies and gentlemen, the market was 'Turkish' today" (to indicate its was cold as a turkey and "gobbled" up our 401k savings) or "The market rallied in a Chicken Run fashion!", etc., etc..
Well if that is too far fetched, how about this: The word "Dow" seems to have "Down" connotations to it - esp. in the last few months. I suggest we change the name "Dow Jones Industrial Average" to something like "Rise Index".
May be, just may be, bearing a more positive-sounding name will cause a Chicken Run... err... a Bullish market!
-- ARK
Back in October, the market was in an "uncertainty" due to the upcoming November presidential elections. Obama got elected and "analysts" started saying, "OK, we got the election out of the way... Now the Wall Street shall focus on the economy..." Great!
Well... How come the traders on the Street were NOT focusing on the economy BEFORE the election? I mean, if you have been going to work before the election, your boss expects you to focus on your work, doesn't he? Yeah sure you can take the morning off on the day of the election - to vote of course - but other than that you pretty much have to "go to work", right? Americans work hard and don't ever give excuses such as "Well I am uncertain these days... So I will just stop working hard", etc. No! We will be out of work if we start thinking like that. But, it seems the Wall Street, while working with our hard-earned retirement money seems to do just that: take days, weeks and months off just because they feel "uncertain" or "afraid".
Once the election was over, the folks on the Wall Street - now quite certain who the next President of the United States would be - still managed to slide to new lows in record speed! They started saying, "Well we are not certain who the treasury secretary will be! So we slide..."
What???! You are going to refuse to buy just because you can't figure out the name of the next treasury secretary? Even though you are absolutely sure it will NOT be "Paulson"?
What gives? I am not sure I understand these fellas. And I wonder if we should stop calling them Bulls and Bears (Bullish and Bearish) and start calling them Chickens and Turkeys: You know what I mean? So, we go like, "Ladies and gentlemen, the market was 'Turkish' today" (to indicate its was cold as a turkey and "gobbled" up our 401k savings) or "The market rallied in a Chicken Run fashion!", etc., etc..
Well if that is too far fetched, how about this: The word "Dow" seems to have "Down" connotations to it - esp. in the last few months. I suggest we change the name "Dow Jones Industrial Average" to something like "Rise Index".
May be, just may be, bearing a more positive-sounding name will cause a Chicken Run... err... a Bullish market!
-- ARK
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