Category: Random Draws

Comments on this blog and the Freedom of Expression

Recently someone posted a few comments to a post on this blog which were held in moderation. I decide which comments get approved as this my blog and I reserve the right to do so. The person was unhappy that his comments did not get approved and took his quarrel with me to another site which posted his comments. This matter touches on an issue that is broader than the trivial matter of comments on a blog. It’s the distinction between rights and freedoms, a distinction that appears to be lost on too many people, and indeed tragically on some people who make policies that affect millions of people. I address the trivial matter in this post and the important matter in the next post.
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What about that Higgs boson?

The last time I had mentioned the Higgs boson in connection with the naming of the particle. But what is the Higgs boson? Particle physics is hard to comprehend because it deals with the extremely small. We, middle-sized creatures, are not equipped to comprehend the infinitesimally small or the infinitely large. Moreover, them itty-bitty things lie in the domain of quantum mechanics — which according to Feynman, if you believe you understand QM then it means that you actually don’t. QM is useful but incomprehensible. Thus, human comprehension is not a precondition for human utility. Also, although there’s little utility in it, attempting to comprehend advances in high energy physics can be fun. So here’s something just for fun.
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On Morons and the Higgs Boson

The class of particles known as bosons is named after the Indian scientist Satyendra Nath Bose. The naming is done by some Western scientific institution. Had it been left to any of the Congress governments of India to name the class, no doubt the class would have been named “Gandhion” (take your pick from Mahatma, Indira, Rajiv, Sanjay, Sonia Maino or the rest of the clan) or perhaps “Nehruon”. Not that one needs any more proof, but the word morons must refer to the class of people who support the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi-Maino family.
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Mrs Gandhi’s Evil Move — 37 years ago

The majority of Indians today don’t know a heck of a lot about Mrs Indira Gandhi. Fact is that they were not even born when she ruled. Her descendants and her party, the Indian National Congress (how’s that for an oxymoron), continue her disastrous policies but Indians are mostly ignorant of how she ruthlessly set into motion India’s descent into serfdom. To reverse that slide, we have to start educating ourselves and our friends about what happened this week 37 years ago. Here are some sources for our edification.
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Visual Perception Lessons

Our brains create the what we observe the world to be. A pretty awesome set of lessons on visual perception from the Mind Lab. Start with “Lesson 1: Illusion of an Uninterrupted World” by clicking on the thumbnail picture. The second lesson is on “Constructing a 3-D World from 2-D Images.” The next lesson is “Visual Interpretation of the Physical World.” And finally, “Perception beyond Sensory Input.” The web is amazing. There’s so much out there to learn. Have a fun weekend.

Don’t they like freedom?

Everybody likes to be free. That’s evident not only from introspection (which only humans, as far as we can tell, are capable of) but from just looking around we can be certain that all other humans also want to be free. Not just humans, all sentient beings prefer being free. Even lower animals — dolphins, dogs, elephants, tigers, cats, birds, and what have you — have a definite preference for not being constrained. It must be genetically hard-coded in living beings since freedom is good for life. That much is clear. The question is why then is there so much lack of freedom.
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What I Learned from the Survey of Political Sentiments

The “Survey of Popular Political Sentiments” was interesting in it gave support to what I suspected. In this post, I attempt to summarize the main findings. But first, a great big thank you to all who retweeted the announcement of the survey and those who took the time to respond to the survey. I appreciate your help sincerely.
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Is the UPA Government a Criminal Enterprise?

Whether Congress, and by extension the UPA, is a criminal enterprise could be a matter of detail. But evidently the UPA rewards criminal behavior. Among scores of instances, let’s just talk about a recent one related to Teesta Setalvad. She gained notoriety by becoming, as Sandeep puts it, “both the CEO and Chief Legal Officer of the Gujarat Riots Cottage Industry Inc,” in his blog post “The Wages of Teesta’s Sins“. Her sins include, but are not limited to, perjury in the Supreme Court. Check out the blog “Evidence Against Teesta Setalvad” for details. Now Teesta is being rewarded by the UPA for her tireless efforts at subverting the rule of law, etc. Congress has a history of rewarding criminals as long as it profits the Congress. Here’s a bit of history that the Indian school textbooks will not highlight.
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Intermediate Results of the Survey

Here are the intermediate results of “A Survey of Popular Political Sentiments” which I posted yesterday. The number of respondents was limited to 100 by the free version of SurveyMonkey. The survey continues on “Google Forms.” I am learning how to consolidate the results from the Forms, and will update the results from it later. Below you will find the results of the first 100 responses.
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