These days, we tend to communicate via the keyboard as much as we do verbally. Often, we're in a hurry, quickly dashing
off e-mails with typos, grammatical shortcuts (I'm being kind here), and that breezy, e.e. cummings, no-caps look. It's
expected. It's no big deal. But other times, we try to invest a little care, avoiding mistakes so that there's no confusion
about what we're saying and so that we look professional and reasonably bright.
In general, we can slip up in a verbal conversation and get away with it. A colleague may be thinking, Did she just say
"irregardless"?, but the words flow on, and our worst transgressions are carried away and with luck, forgotten.
That's not the case with written communications. When we commit a grammatical crime in e-mails, discussion posts,
reports, memos, and other professional documents, there's no going back. We've just officially gone on record as being
careless or clueless. And here's the worst thing. It's not necessary to be an editor or a language whiz or a spelling bee
triathlete to spot such mistakes. They have a way of doing a little wiggle dance on the screen and then reaching out to
grab the reader by the throat.
So here we are in the era of Word's red-underline "wrong spelling, dumb ass" feature and Outlook's Always Check
Spelling Before Sending option, and still the mistakes proliferate. Catching typos is easy (although not everyone does it).
It's the other stuff -- correctly spelled but incorrectly wielded -- that sneaks through and makes us look stupid. Here's a
quick review of some of the big ones.
1. Loose for lose
No: I always loose the product key.
Yes: I always lose the product key.
2. It's for its (or god forbid, its')
No: Download the HTA, along with it's readme file.
Yes: Download the HTA, along with its readme file.
No: The laptop is overheating and its making that funny noise again.
Yes: The laptop is overheating and it's making that funny noise again.
3. They're for their for there
No: The managers are in they're weekly planning meeting.
Yes: The managers are in their weekly planning meeting.
No: The techs have to check there cell phones at the door, and their not happy about it.
Yes: The techs have to check their cell phones at the door, and they're not happy about it.
4. i.e. for e.g.
No: Use an anti-spyware program (i.e., AdAware).
Yes: Use an anti-spyware program (e.g., AdAware).
Note: The term i.e. means "that is"; e.g. means "for example." And a comma follows both of them.
5. Effect for affect
No: The outage shouldn't effect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn't affect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn't have any effect on users.
Yes: We will effect several changes during the downtime.
Note: Impact is not a verb. Purists, at least, beg you to use affect instead:
No: The outage shouldn't impact any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn't affect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage should have no impact on users during work hours.
6. You're for your
No: Remember to defrag you're machine on a regular basis.
Yes: Remember to defrag your machine on a regular basis.
No: Your right about the changes.
Yes: You're right about the changes.
7. Different than for different from
No: This setup is different than the one at the main office.
Yes: This setup is different from the one at the main office.
Yes: This setup is better than the one at the main office.
8. Lay for lie
No: I got dizzy and had to lay down.
Yes: I got dizzy and had to lie down.
Yes: Just lay those books over there.
9. Then for than
No: The accounting department had more problems then we did.
Yes: The accounting department had more problems than we did.
Note: Here's a sub-peeve. When a sentence construction begins with If, you don't need a then. Then is implicit, so it's
superfluous and wordy:
No: If you can't get Windows to boot, then you'll need to call Ted.
Yes: If you can't get Windows to boot, you'll need to call Ted.
10. Could of, would of for could have, would have
No: I could of installed that app by mistake.
Copyright ©2005 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Top 5 Myths About America
MYTH 1: The US was founded on Christian principles.
TRUTH:
This is incorrect.
The Constitution never once mentions a deity, because the Founding Fathers wanted to keep their new country "religion-neutral." Our Founding Fathers were an eclectic collection of Atheists, Deists, Christians, Freemasons and Agnostics.
George Washington, the Father of our country, and John Adams (Second President of the USA) CLEARLY stated in the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli: "The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion.”
G.W. rarely attended church and instead followed a popular 18th century philosophy called Deism—a Star Wars-esque philosophy that believed in a cosmic energy or big-ass universal "Force." The dictionary says that Deism is "a system of thought advocating natural religion based on human reason rather than revelation," that had nothing to do with Christian principles.
James Madison, original mastermind of our Constitution, was an Atheist to the core who loved skewering Christianity. In 1785 he wrote, "What have been [Christianity’s] fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
Thomas Jefferson, who sat down and authored The Declaration of Independence, rarely missed an opportunity to laugh at Christianity. In a letter to John Adams in 1823, he wrote: "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus…will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
More ammo: In 1814, Tommy J. wrote about the Bible's Old and New Testaments, "The whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful -- evidence that parts have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds.”
In fact, it was President Jefferson himself who first wrote (to a Baptist church group in 1802), "The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between Church and State." Therefore, when Jefferson talked about “Nature’s God,” the “Creator” and “divine Providence ” in the Declaration that he wrote, he was being a hippie and referring to a general cosmic energy-- not the Christian God.
America is not a Christian nation. Period. Our Constitution derived from the post-Christian Enlightenment values of reason and truth...never from the paranoid yammerings of that otherwise compassionate cult leader who fucking died in the Middle Eastern desert 3000 years ago.
MYTH 2: US Conservatives tend to be patriotic, ethical Americans; liberals tend to hate America and are immoral.
TRUTH:
Liberals aren't the traitors to America. In fact, conservatives who insist on sending American troops into the Iraqi slaughterhouse to watch some blood-n'-guts "towelhead" ass-kickin' are the traitors. Most of them could care less about our troops, no more than Mao or Stalin cared about the safety of their own soldiers. In the neocons' view, these young boys and girls are expendable test dummies. They're dying for virtually nothing, so that the hicks in the Bush Admin can make good on their campaign promises to their buddies from the petroleum and infrastructure-rebuilding industries. By revving up the Arab threat, these MFs can scream "national security" and "freedom" as smokescreens, while getting their hands on a diminishing resource: Middle Eastern fossil fuels, which power everything from your lightbulbs and computer that you leave on all night, to your stupid gas-guzzler pickup truck.
Pro-war conservatives are the traitors to America. With only 29% of the public approving of Bush's policies now, it took a full 5 years for America to finally wake up in bed next to this disgusting fact.
Do liberals hate America? No, in fact they care so much about the USA that they fight so aggressively to make it better. They're not anti-American; they're just anti-stupidity. Do liberals hate American policies? Sometimes, but only the self-destructive ones that threaten human rights, liberty, democracy, justice, inquiry, excellence and reason-- the values that our country was founded upon.
As for conservative moral superiority? Frauds. Think of the child-molesting priests, money-scamming televangelist preachers, Jack Abramoff's friends in the Bush Admin, gay-hating Jesus lovers, the Christians who beat up the professor who opposed intelligent design, human rights violators like Lynndie England and her Abu Ghraib hick officer pals, Tommy "Scandal-icious" Delay, Scooter "Leaky" Libby, the entire K Street Project meant to hire only Republicans, FEMA's Michael "Yer doin' a heckuva job" Brownie, and so on.
Oh and by the way, conservative Red states have a divorce rate 27% higher than the liberal Blue states, the per capita rate of violent crime in Red states is 49 per 100,000 higher than in Blue states, the top 5 states with the highest rates of alcohol abuse are Red states, and the per capita rate of gonorrhea in Red states was 41 per 100,000 higher than in the Blue states. Time to unshelf the antibiotics for our "ethical," "God-fearing" conservative friends with their "traditional family values."
MYTH 3. The US has a liberal media.
TRUTH:
This is a paranoid Republican myth.
Reality check: the US media is a mix of liberal, centrist and conservative voices. Also, the US media is largely owned by 10 corporations who frequently push pro-conservative agendas to the American public. Evidence:
1. Even Republican Pat Buchanan confessed, "For heaven sakes, we kid about the liberal media, but every Republican on earth does that." Neo-conservative pundit Bill Kristol also said, "I admit it: the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."
2. A 2005 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that "coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media." Why? Partly because only four major corporate networks control American TV news-- up to 75% of the audience share. The "Big 10" media conglomerates who control the bulk of the entire US media are: AOL Time Warner, Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, Sony, Bertelsmann, AT&T and Liberty Media. Yes, we have National Public Radio, but compare its public reach to that of Canada's CBC and the United Kingdom's BBC.
3. Eighty percent of all US newspapers are owned by corporate chains.
4. Liberals are virtually non-existent on talk radio stations nationwide. Rush and Dr. Laura, eat your hearts out.
5. Conservatives are very well accomodated for across FOX News, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the New York Post, the American Spectator, the Weekly Standard, the Drudge Report, the National Review, etc. Even so-called "bastions of liberalism," e.g. the NY Times, MSNBC, WashPost and NPR make a concerted effort to be "fair and balanced" by bringing in right-wing views like those of David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, Charles Krauthammer and Cokie Roberts to have their say in these forums, respectively. This is in stark contrast to FOX News' claims to unbiased objectivity, which were easily demolished by Robert Greenwald in 2004.
6. Contrary to what some paranoid Republicans claim, most journalists are centrists, not liberals. A representative sample of 141 US journalists and bureau chiefs were asked in 1998, "On social issues, how would you characterize your political orientation?" Answers: Left 30%, Center 57%, Right 9%, Other 5% . Next question, same sample: "On economic issues, how would you characterize your political orientation? " Answers: Left 11%, Center 64%, Right 19%, Other 5%. Also, look at the total number of think tank citations in major newspapers, radio and TV transcripts: Conservative TTs: 7792, Centrist TTs: 6361, Liberal TTs: 1152.
7. Eric Alterman summarizes a 1999 research study from the academic journal Communications Research: "Four scholars examined the use of the 'liberal media' argument and discovered a fourfold increase in the number of Americans telling pollsters that they discerned a liberal bias in their news. But a review of the media's actual ideological content, collected and coded over a twelve-year period, offered no corroboration whatever for this view."
MYTH 4. The US doesn’t need improvement compared to other countries; it is the greatest country in the world.
TRUTH:
Wrong again. I'll only cite the statistics here.
USA Ranking on Adult Literacy Scale: #9
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- OECD
USA Ranking on Healthcare Quality Index: #37
(#1 France and #2 Italy)- World Health Organization 2003
USA Ranking of Student Reading Ability: #12
(#1 Finland and #2 South Korea)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking of Student Problem Solving Ability: #26
(#1 South Korea and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking on Student Mathematics Ability: # 24
(#1 Hong Kong and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking of Student Science Ability: #19
(#1 Finland and #2 Japan)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking on Women's Rights Scale: #17
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- World Economic Forum Report
USA Position on Timeline of Gay Rights Progress: # 6 (1997)
(#1 Sweden 1987 and #2 Norway 1993)- Vexen
USA Ranking on Life Expectancy: #29
(#1 Japan and #2 Hong Kong)- UN Human Development Report 2005
USA Ranking on Journalistic Press Freedom Index: #32
(#1 Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands tied)- Reporters Without Borders 2005
USA Ranking on Political Corruption Index: #17
(#1 Iceland and #2 Finland)- Transparency International 2005
USA Ranking on Quality of Life Survey: #13
(#1 Ireland and #2 Switzerland)- The Economist Magazine ...Wikipedia "Celtic Tiger" if you still have your doubts.
USA Ranking on Environmental Sustainability Index: #45
(#1 Finland and #2 Norway)- Yale University ESI 2005
USA Ranking on Overall Currency Strength: #3 (US Dollar)
(#1 UK pound sterling and #2 European Union euro)- FTSE 2006....the dollar is now a liability, so many banks worldwide have planned to switch to euro
USA Ranking on Infant Mortality Rate: #32
(#1 Sweden and #2 Finland)- Save the Children Report 2006
USA Ranking on Human Development Index (GDP, education, etc.): #10
(#1 Norway and #2 Iceland)- UN Human Development Report 2005
So much for those "socialist" Europeans and those "backward" Asians, hm?
We can do better than this.
Miscellany:
*Only 18% of Americans own passports and bother to travel outside of the US.
* 85% of US soldiers in Iraq believe that they are there to get revenge for 9/11.
* New international student enrollment in US grad schools has decreased by 6%, because of xenophobic post-9/11 US visa restrictions, jacked-up tuition fees and better educational opportunities in the EU and Asia. So no, not everyone wants to come here anymore, because it's become a land of incredibly limited opportunity, and we've lowered our educational standards.
MYTH 5: The US government loves to help other countries.
TRUTH:
This is a myth. The US government tends to be motivated by interests, not humanitarian principles.
Denmark gives the most amount of its GDP (1.01%) to developing countries; Norway gives 0.91%; the Netherlands give 0.79% and so on until the end of list, where the USA sits. Yes, America ranks DEAD LAST in foreign aid at a pathetic 0.1% of its GDP, compared to the other 21 nations listed as developed nations. The idea that the US government is a heroic bunch that runs around the world helping the poor and the disempowered is not backed up by the evidence. We have one of the stingiest governments on earth.
Most Americans believe the US spends 24% of its budget on aid to poor countries; the actual amount is well under a quarter of 1%. Our country also ranks #5 on asylum-seeker acceptance rates (#1 is Denmark and #2 is Canada).
For you self-congratulatory, redneck-inspired conservative fuckwads who will start to say, "B-b-b-but you're anti-American! M-m-m-moonbat! G-g-g-god bless the USA!" I answer, "Go fuck yourself. We can do better." Stop blindly believing everything your president tells you. Come back to us only when you start realizing that the $400 billion your president has allocated to his Roman Empire-style military overstretch could be better spent on correcting the sociopolitical and economic problems in the arenas that I've listed above.
For you liberal shit-heels who will start to say, "Yeah! Right on!" I answer, "Grow some fucking balls." That goes for women and the LGBT community too, and don't call me a sexist either: I'm more than comfortable with being a female, but I believe balls can be useful in situations like these. Instead, stop apologizing for being the "liberal elite," and start championing un-abashed excellence in everything, not mediocrity. Help your reps and senators take back Congress, and stop dithering while the political tides are turning in your favor right now. The conservatives are terrified now; TAKE advantage of that. And don't waste time trying to explain rational things to any homophobic Christians, or hyper-patriotic losers who wave and cheapen our American flag only for a self-esteem buzz, or those testosterone-filled, gullible, culturally-ignorant military recruiter robots who lack even a basic intelligence. THEY CANNOT BE REASONED WITH. They don't understand statistics, elaborate charts, legislative proposals or complicated scientific explanations. Just let them go. Let them go.
In the meantime, stop being SHEEP and get up and do something before some bright and ambitious Chinese, Indian and the European students grow up to be international leaders and make your lazy, self-absorbed kids irrelevant on the world stage.
If this is a reasonable manifesto, click "best of," upper right-hand corner.
Athena
TRUTH:
This is incorrect.
The Constitution never once mentions a deity, because the Founding Fathers wanted to keep their new country "religion-neutral." Our Founding Fathers were an eclectic collection of Atheists, Deists, Christians, Freemasons and Agnostics.
George Washington, the Father of our country, and John Adams (Second President of the USA) CLEARLY stated in the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli: "The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion.”
G.W. rarely attended church and instead followed a popular 18th century philosophy called Deism—a Star Wars-esque philosophy that believed in a cosmic energy or big-ass universal "Force." The dictionary says that Deism is "a system of thought advocating natural religion based on human reason rather than revelation," that had nothing to do with Christian principles.
James Madison, original mastermind of our Constitution, was an Atheist to the core who loved skewering Christianity. In 1785 he wrote, "What have been [Christianity’s] fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
Thomas Jefferson, who sat down and authored The Declaration of Independence, rarely missed an opportunity to laugh at Christianity. In a letter to John Adams in 1823, he wrote: "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus…will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
More ammo: In 1814, Tommy J. wrote about the Bible's Old and New Testaments, "The whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful -- evidence that parts have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds.”
In fact, it was President Jefferson himself who first wrote (to a Baptist church group in 1802), "The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between Church and State." Therefore, when Jefferson talked about “Nature’s God,” the “Creator” and “divine Providence ” in the Declaration that he wrote, he was being a hippie and referring to a general cosmic energy-- not the Christian God.
America is not a Christian nation. Period. Our Constitution derived from the post-Christian Enlightenment values of reason and truth...never from the paranoid yammerings of that otherwise compassionate cult leader who fucking died in the Middle Eastern desert 3000 years ago.
MYTH 2: US Conservatives tend to be patriotic, ethical Americans; liberals tend to hate America and are immoral.
TRUTH:
Liberals aren't the traitors to America. In fact, conservatives who insist on sending American troops into the Iraqi slaughterhouse to watch some blood-n'-guts "towelhead" ass-kickin' are the traitors. Most of them could care less about our troops, no more than Mao or Stalin cared about the safety of their own soldiers. In the neocons' view, these young boys and girls are expendable test dummies. They're dying for virtually nothing, so that the hicks in the Bush Admin can make good on their campaign promises to their buddies from the petroleum and infrastructure-rebuilding industries. By revving up the Arab threat, these MFs can scream "national security" and "freedom" as smokescreens, while getting their hands on a diminishing resource: Middle Eastern fossil fuels, which power everything from your lightbulbs and computer that you leave on all night, to your stupid gas-guzzler pickup truck.
Pro-war conservatives are the traitors to America. With only 29% of the public approving of Bush's policies now, it took a full 5 years for America to finally wake up in bed next to this disgusting fact.
Do liberals hate America? No, in fact they care so much about the USA that they fight so aggressively to make it better. They're not anti-American; they're just anti-stupidity. Do liberals hate American policies? Sometimes, but only the self-destructive ones that threaten human rights, liberty, democracy, justice, inquiry, excellence and reason-- the values that our country was founded upon.
As for conservative moral superiority? Frauds. Think of the child-molesting priests, money-scamming televangelist preachers, Jack Abramoff's friends in the Bush Admin, gay-hating Jesus lovers, the Christians who beat up the professor who opposed intelligent design, human rights violators like Lynndie England and her Abu Ghraib hick officer pals, Tommy "Scandal-icious" Delay, Scooter "Leaky" Libby, the entire K Street Project meant to hire only Republicans, FEMA's Michael "Yer doin' a heckuva job" Brownie, and so on.
Oh and by the way, conservative Red states have a divorce rate 27% higher than the liberal Blue states, the per capita rate of violent crime in Red states is 49 per 100,000 higher than in Blue states, the top 5 states with the highest rates of alcohol abuse are Red states, and the per capita rate of gonorrhea in Red states was 41 per 100,000 higher than in the Blue states. Time to unshelf the antibiotics for our "ethical," "God-fearing" conservative friends with their "traditional family values."
MYTH 3. The US has a liberal media.
TRUTH:
This is a paranoid Republican myth.
Reality check: the US media is a mix of liberal, centrist and conservative voices. Also, the US media is largely owned by 10 corporations who frequently push pro-conservative agendas to the American public. Evidence:
1. Even Republican Pat Buchanan confessed, "For heaven sakes, we kid about the liberal media, but every Republican on earth does that." Neo-conservative pundit Bill Kristol also said, "I admit it: the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."
2. A 2005 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that "coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media." Why? Partly because only four major corporate networks control American TV news-- up to 75% of the audience share. The "Big 10" media conglomerates who control the bulk of the entire US media are: AOL Time Warner, Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, Sony, Bertelsmann, AT&T and Liberty Media. Yes, we have National Public Radio, but compare its public reach to that of Canada's CBC and the United Kingdom's BBC.
3. Eighty percent of all US newspapers are owned by corporate chains.
4. Liberals are virtually non-existent on talk radio stations nationwide. Rush and Dr. Laura, eat your hearts out.
5. Conservatives are very well accomodated for across FOX News, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the New York Post, the American Spectator, the Weekly Standard, the Drudge Report, the National Review, etc. Even so-called "bastions of liberalism," e.g. the NY Times, MSNBC, WashPost and NPR make a concerted effort to be "fair and balanced" by bringing in right-wing views like those of David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, Charles Krauthammer and Cokie Roberts to have their say in these forums, respectively. This is in stark contrast to FOX News' claims to unbiased objectivity, which were easily demolished by Robert Greenwald in 2004.
6. Contrary to what some paranoid Republicans claim, most journalists are centrists, not liberals. A representative sample of 141 US journalists and bureau chiefs were asked in 1998, "On social issues, how would you characterize your political orientation?" Answers: Left 30%, Center 57%, Right 9%, Other 5% . Next question, same sample: "On economic issues, how would you characterize your political orientation? " Answers: Left 11%, Center 64%, Right 19%, Other 5%. Also, look at the total number of think tank citations in major newspapers, radio and TV transcripts: Conservative TTs: 7792, Centrist TTs: 6361, Liberal TTs: 1152.
7. Eric Alterman summarizes a 1999 research study from the academic journal Communications Research: "Four scholars examined the use of the 'liberal media' argument and discovered a fourfold increase in the number of Americans telling pollsters that they discerned a liberal bias in their news. But a review of the media's actual ideological content, collected and coded over a twelve-year period, offered no corroboration whatever for this view."
MYTH 4. The US doesn’t need improvement compared to other countries; it is the greatest country in the world.
TRUTH:
Wrong again. I'll only cite the statistics here.
USA Ranking on Adult Literacy Scale: #9
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- OECD
USA Ranking on Healthcare Quality Index: #37
(#1 France and #2 Italy)- World Health Organization 2003
USA Ranking of Student Reading Ability: #12
(#1 Finland and #2 South Korea)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking of Student Problem Solving Ability: #26
(#1 South Korea and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking on Student Mathematics Ability: # 24
(#1 Hong Kong and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking of Student Science Ability: #19
(#1 Finland and #2 Japan)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking on Women's Rights Scale: #17
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- World Economic Forum Report
USA Position on Timeline of Gay Rights Progress: # 6 (1997)
(#1 Sweden 1987 and #2 Norway 1993)- Vexen
USA Ranking on Life Expectancy: #29
(#1 Japan and #2 Hong Kong)- UN Human Development Report 2005
USA Ranking on Journalistic Press Freedom Index: #32
(#1 Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands tied)- Reporters Without Borders 2005
USA Ranking on Political Corruption Index: #17
(#1 Iceland and #2 Finland)- Transparency International 2005
USA Ranking on Quality of Life Survey: #13
(#1 Ireland and #2 Switzerland)- The Economist Magazine ...Wikipedia "Celtic Tiger" if you still have your doubts.
USA Ranking on Environmental Sustainability Index: #45
(#1 Finland and #2 Norway)- Yale University ESI 2005
USA Ranking on Overall Currency Strength: #3 (US Dollar)
(#1 UK pound sterling and #2 European Union euro)- FTSE 2006....the dollar is now a liability, so many banks worldwide have planned to switch to euro
USA Ranking on Infant Mortality Rate: #32
(#1 Sweden and #2 Finland)- Save the Children Report 2006
USA Ranking on Human Development Index (GDP, education, etc.): #10
(#1 Norway and #2 Iceland)- UN Human Development Report 2005
So much for those "socialist" Europeans and those "backward" Asians, hm?
We can do better than this.
Miscellany:
*Only 18% of Americans own passports and bother to travel outside of the US.
* 85% of US soldiers in Iraq believe that they are there to get revenge for 9/11.
* New international student enrollment in US grad schools has decreased by 6%, because of xenophobic post-9/11 US visa restrictions, jacked-up tuition fees and better educational opportunities in the EU and Asia. So no, not everyone wants to come here anymore, because it's become a land of incredibly limited opportunity, and we've lowered our educational standards.
MYTH 5: The US government loves to help other countries.
TRUTH:
This is a myth. The US government tends to be motivated by interests, not humanitarian principles.
Denmark gives the most amount of its GDP (1.01%) to developing countries; Norway gives 0.91%; the Netherlands give 0.79% and so on until the end of list, where the USA sits. Yes, America ranks DEAD LAST in foreign aid at a pathetic 0.1% of its GDP, compared to the other 21 nations listed as developed nations. The idea that the US government is a heroic bunch that runs around the world helping the poor and the disempowered is not backed up by the evidence. We have one of the stingiest governments on earth.
Most Americans believe the US spends 24% of its budget on aid to poor countries; the actual amount is well under a quarter of 1%. Our country also ranks #5 on asylum-seeker acceptance rates (#1 is Denmark and #2 is Canada).
For you self-congratulatory, redneck-inspired conservative fuckwads who will start to say, "B-b-b-but you're anti-American! M-m-m-moonbat! G-g-g-god bless the USA!" I answer, "Go fuck yourself. We can do better." Stop blindly believing everything your president tells you. Come back to us only when you start realizing that the $400 billion your president has allocated to his Roman Empire-style military overstretch could be better spent on correcting the sociopolitical and economic problems in the arenas that I've listed above.
For you liberal shit-heels who will start to say, "Yeah! Right on!" I answer, "Grow some fucking balls." That goes for women and the LGBT community too, and don't call me a sexist either: I'm more than comfortable with being a female, but I believe balls can be useful in situations like these. Instead, stop apologizing for being the "liberal elite," and start championing un-abashed excellence in everything, not mediocrity. Help your reps and senators take back Congress, and stop dithering while the political tides are turning in your favor right now. The conservatives are terrified now; TAKE advantage of that. And don't waste time trying to explain rational things to any homophobic Christians, or hyper-patriotic losers who wave and cheapen our American flag only for a self-esteem buzz, or those testosterone-filled, gullible, culturally-ignorant military recruiter robots who lack even a basic intelligence. THEY CANNOT BE REASONED WITH. They don't understand statistics, elaborate charts, legislative proposals or complicated scientific explanations. Just let them go. Let them go.
In the meantime, stop being SHEEP and get up and do something before some bright and ambitious Chinese, Indian and the European students grow up to be international leaders and make your lazy, self-absorbed kids irrelevant on the world stage.
If this is a reasonable manifesto, click "best of," upper right-hand corner.
Athena
Friday, September 21, 2007
Biman A310
A "Biman" (The National Airline of Bangladesh) Airbus 310 is takingoff from London Heathrow
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Bangladesh v West Indies, Group A, ICC World Twenty20
Bangladesh send West Indies packing
September 13, 2007
Bangladesh 165 for 4 (Ashraful 61, Aftab 62*) beat West Indies 164 for 8 (Devon Smith 51, Shakib 4-34) by 6 wickets
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An enthralling display of power hitting by Mohammad Ashraful and Aftab Ahmed helped Bangladesh stroll to a six-wicket win against West Indies in Johannesburg. After eliminating India from the first round of the World Cup, Bangladesh inflicted the same on West Indies today as the target of 165 turned out to be a walk in the park for a team armed with batsmen ideally suited for this format of the game.
It was a sweet revenge for Ashraful, who after conceding over 50 runs with his legbreaks, bludgeoned the West Indies bowlers to record the fastest fifty in Twenty20 internationals, off just 20 balls. The early wickets of Tamim Iqbal and Nazimuddin - both falling to miscued pulls - did absolutely nothing to deter Aftab and Ashraful as the chase went into overdrive.
The most impressive aspect of the stand was that it was studded with genuine strokes and not ugly slogs or swipes. Aftab in particular used his bottom hand to good effect, picking deliveries from outside the off stump and swinging across the line to square leg. The fielding was mostly shoddy and there was hardly anything the West Indians could take heart from as boundary after boundary was leaked to all corners.
Ashraful set the tone after blasting Daren Powell for four consecutive fours. In the same vein, he took on Ravi Rampaul and the shot which stood out was the drag-flick over fine leg for six. To make matters worse for West Indies, Fidel Edwards dropped Ashraful on 29 and they were made to pay dearly for that lapse. Ashraful then took on Dwayne Bravo and his slower balls were despatched straight, over midwicket and square leg.
The fielders at the boundary could do little to stop the flurry of boundaries as all length deliveries were scooped over the infield. Ashraful's knock came to an end in the fag end of the chase, caught at cover off Ramnaresh Sarwan but it was a little too late for West Indies. Aftab added the finishing touches to take his side home with the luxury of two overs to spare.
Earlier, West Indies were propped by a second-wicket stand of 94 between Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Devon Smith and then some late fireworks by Marlon Samuels and Dwayne Smith.
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A disciplined opening spell by Syed Rasel kept West Indies on a tight leash as he conceded just 10 runs off his four overs. Following his blistering ton against South Africa at the same venue on Tuesday, Chris Gayle's fortunes took an about-turn as he was sent packing by Rasel without scoring off the third ball of the match. With wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim standing up to the stumps, Rasel kept the batsmen in check with his tight line, aimed at the stumps, giving Chanderpaul and Devon Smith very little room to cut or pull.
He however didn't quite get enough support at the other end as Ashraful kept rotating his bowlers. Chanderpaul and Devon Smith grew in confidence once the third seamer Farhad Reza came on. Length deliveries were given the right treatment as Chanderpaul walked across his stumps and executed the pick-up stroke, scooping deliveries from outside the off stump over deep square leg. Devon Smith then executed a front-foot thump past Reza which nearly cleaned up the umpire. The intent of that stroke was indicative of West Indies' recovery after Gayle departed.
However, the re-introduction of Razzak pegged West Indies back as he sent back Devon Smith and Chanderpaul in quick succession. Samuels, batting with an injured ankle, hardly needed any assistance from his runner as he treated himself to a slog fest when Ashraful brought himself on. A six over deep midwicket was followed by another one over the bowler's head and then a four over deep extra cover. A full-blooded cover drive was taken by Shakib Al Hasan but that didn't bring any respite for Bangladesh as it brought Dwayne Smith to the crease.
Dwayne Smith then launched into Ashraful, smashing three consecutive sixes and a four. The over was worth a whopping 24. Shakib picked up three easy wickets in the final over as West Indies went for the runs. Despite the late flurry, West Indies fell around 40 runs short and walked out of the tournament without a win.
Kanishkaa Balachandran is an editorial assistant on Cricinfo
© Cricinfo
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
I saw aliens at Roswell, claims dead PR man
Who to believe?
Published Monday 2nd July 2007 14:58 GMT
URL: http://www.theregister.com/2007/07/02/dead_pr_alien_claim/
URL: http://www.theregister.com/2007/07/02/dead_pr_alien_claim/
The public relations officer at the Roswell air base in 1947 has released claims that he saw a crashed spacecraft and the bodies of aliens at the site, despite a lifetime spent denying any such things.
In the affidavit, Lieutenant Walter Haut says the weather balloon was a cover story, and that the real crashed object had been stored by the military. He also claims to have handled the material from which the crashed craft had been constructed.
Haut died last year, but left instructions that his statement should be opened after his death.
In it, Haut described a meeting he attended on the morning of the crash:
Samples of wreckage were passed around the table. It was unlike any material I had or have ever seen in my life. Pieces which resembled metal foil, paper thin yet extremely strong, and pieces with unusual markings along their length were handled from man to man, each voicing their opinion. No one was able to identify the crash debris.
He said that for months after the crash, military personnel would periodically search the wider area for debris.
At the same meeting the decision was taken to put out a press announcement. Locals were already aware that something had crashed, Haut said, and the release was intended to divert attention from a second crash site.
Haut also claimed to have been given a quick tour of the hanger where the wreckage was being kept. He describes an egg-shaped craft with no windows or landing gear, and "a couple of bodies under canvas" that appeared to be the size of a ten year old child but with disproportionately large heads.
A temporary morgue had been set up to deal with the bodies.
"I am convinced that what I personally observed was some type of craft and its crew from outer space," he says.
The full text of the affidavit appears in the book Witness to Roswell by Tom Carey and Donald Schmitt, and has been helpfully reproduced online here. You'll have to scroll down a bit to get to it. ®
Monday, July 02, 2007
মাটির ময়না - বাংলাদেশের প্রথম সিনেমা যা অস্কার পুরষ্কারে (Academy Award) 'সেরা বিদেশী ভাষার ছবি' বিভাগে মনোয়ন পায়।
'মাটির ময়না'-র DVD ভার্সন বের হয়েছে ১৬ই এপ্রিল, ২০০৫-এ। এটা বাংলাদেশে প্রথম রিলিজ পেয়েছিল ২০০৩ সালে। কিন্তু মজার ব্যাপার হল ‘মাটির ময়না’, “Cannas Film Festival, FIPRESCI International Critics' Prize for Best Film” পুরষ্কার জেতে ২০০২ সালে। এর কারণ আমাদের মহামতি 'সেন্সর বোর্ড'। তেনারা ইহাকে সেন্সর সার্টিফিকেট দেন নাই। কারণ হিসাবে বলা হয়, "ধর্মীয় স্পর্শকাতরতা"। পরে এ নিয়ে পিটিশন হয় এবং আদালতের অনুকূল রায় পেয়ে ‘মাটির ময়না’ মুক্তি পায়? (link: Petition- Romeve ban on Matir moina.)
মাটির ময়না - বাংলাদেশের প্রথম সিনেমা যা অস্কার পুরষ্কারে (Academy Award) 'সেরা বিদেশী ভাষার ছবি' বিভাগে মনোয়ন পায়।
'মাটির ময়না'- এক মাদ্রাসা ছাত্র 'আনুর' কাহিনী। বাবা তাকে পাঠিয়ে দিলেন মাদ্রাসায় যেখানে কড়া কড়া সব নিয়ম-কানুন আর কথায় কথায় শাস্তি। যেখানে মানুষ পরাধীন সেখানে কল্পনাও শৃঙ্খলিত। এর বিরুদ্ধে আনুর সহপাঠী এতিম 'রোকনের' প্রতিবাদ। এরই মাঝে একসময় পূর্ব আর পশ্চিম পাকিস্তানের মধ্যে শুরু হল টানাপোড়েন। আনুর মায়ের উপর বাবার অত্যাচার যেন পুবের ওপর পশ্চিমের শোষণের প্রতীক। পুরো ছবিতে পরিচালক তারেক মাসুদ তার ছোটবেলার মাদ্রাসার ছাত্রজীবনের ঘটনাগুলোই নতুন করে ফ্রেমবন্দি করেছেন 'মাটির ময়না'-য়।
একনজরে-
নাম: মাটির ময়না (The Clay Bird)
দৈর্ঘ্য: ৯৮ মিনিট
মাধ্যম: 35 mm color
পরিচালক: তারেক মাসুদ
প্রযোজক: ক্যাথেরিন মাসুদ
চিত্রনাট্য: তারেক ও ক্যাথেরিন মাসুদ
পুরষ্কার:
2002 Cannes Film Festival, FIPRESCI International Critics' Prize for Best Film
2002 Edinburgh International Film Festival
2002 Montreal International Film Festival
2002 Marrakech Film Festival (Morocco), Best Screen Play Award
2002 Cairo International Film Festival
2003 Palm Springs International Film Festival
2003 New Directors/New Films Festival
2003 Karafilm Festival, Best Film
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Why I support 10% import Tax on computers in Bangladesh budget 2007-08
Let us read what Mr. Sayeed Rahman from [BANGLA-IT] yahoo group is saying in support of the above:
Zero duty on Computer Should Go in Bangladesh budget 2007-08
As I said before in Jun 30, 2002 again repeating the same questions to our Media and Bangladeshi Hardware vendors:
Zero duty on Computer Should Go in Bangladesh budget 2007-08
As I said before in Jun 30, 2002 again repeating the same questions to our Media and Bangladeshi Hardware vendors:
Refer: Jun 30, 2002 Postings in BANGLA IT
Since 2002 PC Price went down and Bangladesh Per Capita Income went up (presently $530/yr), present Bangladesh Government should not listen to these Hardware Vendors, for excuse that ICT will not grow, if you impose Tax 10% on computers, that's BS talk.
As 10 per cent duty proposed in present budget following the smuggling of computers to a neighbouring country(INDIA) where a 15 per cent import duty is effective.
We Bangladesh should not import Computer Hardware with our valuable foreign currency and smuggle to a neighbouring country(INDIA) where a 15 per cent import duty is effective.
- How India is exporting software with PC prices 15% higher than Bangladesh and projecting $60 billion in IT exports by 2010?
I strongly support Bangladesh Government decision in new budget to impose 10% duty on computers that will prevent smuggling and also impose duty on SIM card for cellular phone.
Recommendations :
- Add 10% tax on Computer, Telecom equipment, ISP, Mobile (This will prevent smuggling)
- Make mandatory to use Open Source Software as operating systems for PC's in Govt offices and schools. (that way price of PC will go down)
- Make Mandatory Choice for OSS product before Govt buys any software or at least evaluate the OSS product.
- Impose tax on SIM card and don't listen to Cell phone vendors, ask all cell phone operators to reduce there call rate in half and see the difference in growth rate.(they already made enough money by sucking blood of Bangladeshi poor people)
- Please implement the Hi Tech Park near Dhaka ASAP
Comments are always welcome but think of Bangladesh not on behalf of Bangladesh Computer Hardware vendors or Cell operators. Think what good for Bangladesh!
================================================
From BANGLAIT postings June 30, 2002:
Saifur Rahman said the 7.5 per cent duty was proposed following the smuggling of computers to a neighbouring country(INDIA) where a 15 per cent import duty is effective.
"I listened to your plea, now it's your turn to show me software
export of Tk 100 billion (10,000 crore) as you said." Moyeen Khan
looked up to the Finance Minister and gave a smile. Prime Minister
Khaleda Zia, who earlier requested for withdrawal of the duty on
computer, also looked at Moyeen Khan on the second bench and smiled.
Now we have some questions to ICT Minister and BASIS:
- Surprisingly, the government has a vision to earn US$4 billion from the country's ICT sector by the year 2006, and BASIS has a vison Domestic IT Industry will have an Export Target of US $ 2 (Two) Billions by June 2005.Source: http://www.sdnbd.org/sdi/issues/IT-computer/Information%20Technology%20Policy.htm How we are going to reach that target?
- How India is exporting software $7.5 billion last year with PC prices 15% higher than Bangladesh and projecting $57 billion in IT exports by 2008?
- Why Bangladesh software export is only $25 million (Source:BASIS) last year but the figure is not verified by Bangladesh Government with 15% lesser price on PC compare to India.
- Is that 0% duty on PC will help us to reach the software export $2 billion by 2005 as projected by BASIS? and $4 billion as projected by government?
We need to focus other things as priority for our ICT development:
- Government should develop first ICT infrastructure
- The proposed High Tech park near Dhaka need to be implemented ASAP.
- We need to develop a software export base in Bangladesh. One is IT Consulting/subcontracting like India. But to get into this industry you need a big very highly skilled workforce who are specialized in the latest technological advancements such as SOAP, Microsoft's .Net technologies, J2EE etc. Most Bangladeshi companies can't match that. The IT courses being offered in Bangladesh are obsolete. Develop world class IT industry and work force in Bangladesh.
- At the same time the universities in Bangladesh need to focus on software research and development. Instead of ACM competitions which only focus on analytical skills, we should introduce inter-university competitions for developing innovative products suitable for Bangladesh.
- Gain access to the Silicon Valley/USA High Tech market to export software, provide services (software/hardware) and human resources.
- Provide opportunities to the high tech companies in USA to establish development center in Bangladesh.
- Establish entrepreneur, business and marketing network for Bangladeshi IT industries.
Immune to cancer -- for life
Researchers Zheng Cui and Mark Willingham, and a team of eight others, have discovered a strain of mice that are immune to cancer. When cancer cells are injected into the mice, they are destroyed. But even better, mice that have established tumors are completely cured by injections of white blood cells from the cancer resistant strain.
Highly aggressive cancers and very large tumors were eradicated when the white blood cells from the mutant mice were injected into normal mice. And the normal mice were then protected from future cancers, even normally lethal doses of injected cancer cells.
The immunity is inherited in the mutant strain, and the pattern of inheritance indicates that it is caused by a single mutation, as if a switch had been thrown to make the white blood cells super effective at killing cancers. This gives the researchers hope that a drug can be made to target that switch in humans.
The mechanism does not involve T-cells, the cells that have to be exposed to a pathogen in order to kill it. Instead, the effect is based on the innate response of macrophages, neutrophils, and natural killer cells -- cells that do not need pre-exposure to the disease.
The mutation appears to have no side-effects, and does not harm the organism.
While the trait has only been seen in mice at this point, humans have an even stronger immune response than mice, because they must live longer before they can reproduce. So the effect in humans may be correspondingly higher.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Bangladesh's Achievement in the World Cup Cricket 2007
Bangladesh vs South Africa, Super Eights, Guyana
Bangladesh bring the Super Eights to life
April 8, 2007
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Rankings? Tear them up, throw them away. That's what Bangladesh can say now, with some justification, after South Africa, the world's No 1 side, was comfortably dispensed with by the a team ranked ninth.
The two teams are relatively new to each other, and their previous mutual history is the story of Bangladesh's helpless capitulation. In seven previous matches, only once had Bangladesh crossed 200; their best performance saw them lose by 83 runs. South Africa had acquired the status of a spectre; on Saturday, the tables were effectively turned.
Saturday's match, the Guyana Epic, may well be considered Bangladesh's best-ever one-day performance. Not just because it was their first-ever win over South Africa; not because South Africa are the world's top-ranked team; nor even because this result has thrown open the Super Eights, and brought this tournament to life. This was Bangladesh's best-ever result because they reduced South Africa to the same shambolic mess that they would usually find themselves in.
Over the past three years Bangladesh have acquired the reputation of being giant-killers; Australia, India, Sri Lanka - and India again during the World Cup - but in none of these matches was victory so emphatic. In none of these matches was the conclusion just a ceremony, as it was on Saturday.
Bangladesh has stunned this World Cup - stunned the world. Maybe even itself. Yes, Bangladesh had threatened a couple of upsets soon after ascending to the Super Eights. But the first two matches against Australia and New Zealand had caused some of the confidence to evaporate.
Before the South Africa match, though, Bangladesh was singing its familiar tune. At the press conference on Friday, Habibul Bashar, the captain, was asked directly: What did he expect from the match, a win or a fight? Habibul had said he wanted to fight. There wasn't much of a fight yesterday - but Bashar wouldn't have been complaining. Bangladesh are now a dangerous side; predictions involve playing with fire.
Graeme Smith, the South Africa captain, wrote on the eve of this match in his column for Prothom Alo that his team would not repeat India's mistakes. But it wasn't enough for South Africa not to want to make mistakes. Bangladesh compelled them to go wrong. The opening pair scoring 42 runs in 13.4 overs; losing three wickets by the 20th over with 69 on board; just 92 runs in 25 overs - Smith could not have imagined this match would be the biggest embarrassment of his captaincy.
It goes without saying that the credit for bundling out South Africa - who have successfully chased 400 - for 184 goes to the bowlers. Yet the edifice for the win was built by the batsmen. Instead of batsmen, we can say Mohammed Ashraful. His 87 off 83 balls is a reminder that on Ashraful's day, no team is safe. Not Australia, and now, not South Africa.
Utpal Shuvro is sports editor of Prothom Alo, a Dhaka-based daily
© Cricinfo
Bangladesh's Achievement in the World Cup Cricket 2007
South Africa v Bangladesh, Super Eights, Guyana
Mauled by the Tigers
April 7, 2007
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How many times in your life will you watch the No. 1 side in the world comprehensively outclassed by one ranked eight places lower? This match, three weeks on from that epic triumph against India at Port-of-Spain, will linger long in the memory for the manner in which a young and vibrant side embarrassed one that appeared to rest on its laurels. Had the South African cricket board not changed their crest to the Protea, the headline-writers would have had a field day with variations on "Tigers maul Springboks".
And it really was a mauling, with South Africa never even remotely in the game once Jacques Kallis' attempt to heave the super-slow Syed Rasel fell safely into the hands of mid-on. When the spinners came on, each left-arm and each so very different in their methods, the old gremlins against slow bowling resurfaced. The third Powerplay produced three wickets and just five runs, with Justin Kemp and Mark Boucher swishing and wafting at thin air.
It was the sort of performance that vindicated those who insist that South Africa are still not on the same ball park as Australia. The Australians work the slow bowlers around far better - it helps to have one or two of your own to practice against - and they certainly wouldn't have succumbed without a semblance of a fight. Between them, Abdul Razzaq, Saqibul Hasan and Mohammad Rafique bowled 29.4 overs for combined figures of 6 for 96, even better than what they managed to push the Indians on to skid row.
"I guess that conclusion has been around a while," a dejected Graeme Smith said, when asked if the result highlighted South African frailty on slow pitches against slow bowlers. "But we played pretty well to beat Sri Lanka on this surface. Compared to the way we played against Sri Lanka, it's like chalk and cheese."
The same three spinners had routed India, but according to Smith, the 67-run defeat was the result of an overall meltdown. "There's no right thing to say," he said. "We just have to take our pain. It's a big loss for us and we are hugely disappointed. We couldn't give it our best shot and didn't get the basics right. We didn't play the kind of cricket we are capable of, and it's hard to take any positive from any facet of the game today."
In hindsight, the key moments came in the 36th over, with Bangladesh's run rate still stuck below four an over. Kemp had bowled just seven overs in five previous games, but with Andrew Hall apparently having a quadriceps problem, he was pressed into action. The consequences were disastrous, with Aftab Ahmed teeing off and the momentum shifting.
"I don't want to take the credit away from Bangladesh," Smith said. "They played superbly. We gave them the opportunity and they grabbed it with both hands. We let ourselves down very, very badly."
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With Ashraful having played himself in and wickets in hand, the charge came in the final ten overs. When it did, South Africa had no answers, with Charl Langeveldt and Makhaya Ntini coming in for especially harsh treatment from Ashraful and the swashbuckling Mashrafe Mortaza.
"His innings changed things," Smith said, when asked about Ashraful, who eased to 51 from 64 balls before driving and paddle-sweeping a further 36 from just 19 balls. "He set them up, worked the field well, and kept us under pressure right from when he came in to bat."
With no Hall to bowl cutters at the death, and no Robin Peterson to provide the notional spin option, there was a sameness to the attack that both batsmen pounced on. Smith defended his team selection, but changes are certain when they play West Indies, with Andre Nel having bowled himself into the XI with a splendid spell of 5 for 45.
The fall guy could well be Kemp, whose batting isn't really suited for these sluggish pitches. AB de Villiers might also come under the scanner. After a superb 92 against Australia, he has done nothing of note, and South Africa do have the hit-and-miss talent of Loots Bosman to call upon. The reluctance to juggle the batting order may also have been costly. With Gibbs unable to bat till the fall of the fifth wicket after the time he spent off the field with a calf strain, it might have made sense to promote Shaun Pollock, another accomplished player of spin.
Smith didn't think so. "Kempy's the type of guy who needs time, and he was the one we promoted today," he said. Kemp's return was 7 from 29, and his hard-handed approach to the turning ball never looked like succeeding.
All is not yet lost for South Africa. Tuesday's game against West Indies now assumes knockout proportions, and England will also be scrapping for a place in the final four. "We need to regroup and there's still an opportunity with three big games coming up," Smith said. "Our focus will be on winning all three matches. We don't really want to be relying on other people to get us through."
A few days ago, the talk was of avoiding Australia in the semi-final. Right now, even scaling such a height is far from certain. Being No. 1 is never easy, and being knocked off the perch hurts. Even more so when the knockout blow is delivered by a team that was given less of a chance than James 'Buster' Douglas against 'Iron' Mike Tyson in Tokyo 17 years ago.
Dileep Premachandran is associate editor of Cricinfo
© Cricinfo
Monday, May 07, 2007
Bangladesh's Achievement in the World Cup Cricket 2007
Bangladesh played to their potential and fought the good fight
Tigers 1, Lambs 0
The Verdict by Anand Vasu
March 17, 2007
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There are moments in sport that you don't bargain for, when the euphoria of a great win and the agony of defeat collide, and a large well of emotion implodes. When Bangladesh beat India in spectacular fashion, deflating the high and the hype of the months preceding the World Cup, it was time to cast parochialism aside.
Indian players' houses may be attacked, the knives that have been sharpened for Greg Chappell and Rahul Dravid will be driven in and twisted, a feeding frenzy will begin in bloodthirsty quarters. That's the dark side. There is, fortunately a pleasant one. In Bangladesh, all those passionate believers, and even people directly involved in the game, will say, "I told you so", and it would be churlish to deny them that at this time.
What is significant about this day, however, is that it is not quite like February 29, 1996, when West Indies were stunned by Kenya in Poona. It's very different from June 18, 2005, when Australia had the rug pulled out from under them by Bangladesh in Cardiff. Those were very much flashes in the pan, lightning striking. This was no David slaying Goliath, simply a case of a weaker team playing to its potential and a strong team failing to keep to its standards.
Bangladesh have slowly, steadily, doggedly worked at their cricket to the best of their ability for years now, and the fruit of that is this win. But, they have won matches like this so many times now, prompting people to say they have finally arrived. The point is that they have been around for a while now, it's just that not too many have taken note.
Dravid's decision to bat, with the world's best batting line-up - on paper at least - and with Bangladesh lacking a [Michael] Holding or a [Jeff] Thomson, was a fair call. Yet what Bangladesh did have was a sprightly Mashrafe Mortaza running in with superb rhythm and sticking to a plan. They had a Syed Rasel who bowled textbook left-arm seam - bending the ball back in to the right-handed batsmen and having enough control to angle the ball away at will. They had two spinners of genuine quality - a wily veteran of many beatings in Mohammad Rafique and a fearless youngster in Abdur Razzak who dared not merely to toss the ball up but to send down an overspinning arm ball that beat a batsman of Sachin Tendulkar's quality in the air and off the pitch.
 Where the inadequacy of one team ended, the beauty of the other came to the fore, making this a game of two halves 
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What India did not have was respect - for the opposition, for the conditions, or for the game. "Anything can happen", goes the saying. "And sometimes it does." Some batsmen, when out of form, find a variety of ways to be dismissed. Virender Sehwag is the opposite - no matter whom he is facing, in whatever conditions, he gets out in similar fashion. Robin Uthappa, who should have taken the chance to cement his place in the side, whacked a wide one into point's hands as though this was a Sunday afternoon club game. Those dismissals were symptomatic of the Indian team that took the field on the day.
Where the inadequacy of one team ended, the beauty of the other came to the fore, making this a game of two halves. We'd only barely heard of a 17-year-old called Tamim Iqbal; they said he was the hardest hitter of a cricket ball in Bangladesh. Often, that isn't saying much; on the day, it said everything. He walked out to bat without the thought that chasing middling totals is often tricky. He walked out to hit the ball that was hurled at him.
With poise, balance and hand-speed reminiscent of a young Saeed Anwar, Tamim drove on the up with panache and precision, but it was one ball that symbolised what a young talent from a small country brought to the table. After an early assault, Zaheer, unsure what to do, clearly flustered, went round the stumps. Tamim waltzed down the pitch, saw Zaheer adjust his length, cleared his mind, and without the slightest doubt, dispatched - no, launched, or was it arrogantly dismissed - the ball into the stands over long-on.
If Tamim was Bangladesh's belief, Mushfiqur Rahim was the wise old boy of 18, calming the nerves, not looking at the scoreboard and thinking of celebrations, instead playing one ball at a time, the perfect way to approach batting, something very few batsmen manage very few times in an entire career.
India fought, for sure, making Bangladesh work for their win. But it was the erstwhile minnows, Bangladesh, who fought the good fight.
Anand Vasu is assistant editor of Cricinfo
© Cricinfo
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