The Future of Terrorism

The future of terror, just like its past, is in safe (or rather, unsafe) hands. It is not just in the hands of Al-Qaeda, the Taleban, LTTE, LET and the Maoists - groups known the world around as terrorists. These groups are actually the most incompetent; the visible tip of the iceberg. I call them incompetent because we know about them. They have failed in convincing the western masses that they are not terrorists. (But one must understand that my perspective is an Indo-American perspective. A Kashmiri / Iraninan / Iraqi perspective is probably the exact inverse).

The rest of the iceberg of terror is comprised of by (among others)

• CIA
• Funded Osama Bin Laden in the 80s. Look who came back to bite the US in the rear.
  
• Helped the Shah of Iran; indirectly brought about the islamic revolution. Look who's trying to bite the US in the rear now.
• Is always trying to assasinate Chavez. Trying to get him out of the office by financing a coup, at least.
  
• Supported Genocide in Chile: Pinochet.
• Supported modern day Hitler Pol Pot in Cambodia.
• Tortures people all around the world in its "secret" prisons
• Supports warlords in Somalia "fighting" islamic militia
• Dabbled in Opium Trade in Asia
  
• Tried to kill the leader of Panama
• Tried to kill the leader of Cuba (Commie Castro)
• Taught Nicaraguan Troops to encourage rioting on street
• A lot of other classified stuff.
  

• Mossad
• Systematically tries to kill "enemies of state" (like leaders of Hamas) by giving information of their whereabouts. Usually kills more civilians instead.
• Has Asassinated (along with a lot of civilians)
• Innocent Ahmed Bouchiki because he looked like someone else.
• Fathi Shqaqi
• Izz El-Deen Sheikh Khalil

• RAW
• Created Bangladesh by dividing Pakistan. While it is mind bogglingly obvious that Bangladesh is going to come back and bite India in the rear in the future, it is quite difficult to say the fault would be attributed to RAW.
• Created Bangladesh and Tried to assasinate the President.
• Tries to destabilize Balochistan and Waziristan.
  
• ISI (Pakistan)
• Encouraged Sikh militancy in India
• Parented Taliban
• Mumbai Bombs; inspired Dawood Ibrahim.
  
• Runs Terror Camps in Bangladesh. Also encourages North East India terrorism.
• Funds radical islamic groups.
  

I hereby propose that the Axis of Evil be expanded to include the aforementioned groups.

We're a sick planet. And the worst part of this is, that our history is filled with acts of terror that give these groups a Mother-Teresaesque feel. Hitler makes Ahemedinijad look like an angel; Aurangazeb makes Indira Gandhi look like a cuddly teddy bear; and Vlad the impaler makes George Bush look kind of good too.

Repressed Perverts, Religious Hypocrites

Religious extemism, Ahmedinijad-style, apparently, is just skin deep. Or just a lot of skin.

By day, Iranians pray to God a gazillion times, shove their women behind a "burqa" (lest the women expose their noses or feet), hear incessant propaganda of Ahmedinijad saying the holocaust did not occur and that Israel is a "wreteched state". And by night, well, they surf porn on the internet. As do the Pakistani Mujahideen; as do the devoutly islamic Egyptians. How can I say that with confidence? Google trends. Google trends has the amazing new "normalized" search feature, which compares the fraction searches matching the keywords to the total number of searches emanating from a particular region / city.

For some reason, I looked for "sex" in trends.google.com. I wanted to know what the most perverse city in the world actually is. I expected to find Amsterdam or Paris. Perhaps Tokyo, perhaps even, Bangkok. Maybe New York. It was a hilarious surprise to find Chennai, home to the stiffest upper lip the world, at Number one. Little did I know that the autowallas, the cooks in the mess, the shopkeepers at Pondy bazaar back at IIT were schizophrenic. Conservative "don't say a bad word" people during the day, and porn addicts by night. I knew the day-scholars back at IIT were upto something. I mean - something had to inspire them to do so well in all exams consistently.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex

And I then cliked on "regions". And guess which country came first? Pakistan! Ahmedinijadland was not far behind. Ah, won't the Ayatollah be proud? Egypt and Turkey were at the top too. Apparently, the more repressive a society, the more the chances that you search for "sex". India (a closed society in its own right), was in the top ten. I'm guessing the fact that Bollywood is showing more skin of late has reduced the libidinous urges that more religious nations seem to be subject to.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex&ctab=1&geo=all&date=all

Apparently, the Iranians like it dirty. The term "fuck" apparently is more dear to Iran than any other country in the world.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=Fuck&ctab=1&geo=all&date=all

However, the term "porn" does not seem to be an abbreviation familiar to the masses governed by the Ayatollah or Musharaff. Mandella-land seems to love porn. And even that island down under. India seems marginally more interested in porn than the US, but the UK has beaten them both by a long way.

Conspicuous by their absense are statistics from China. Apparently, the Chinese do not search for sex. Or maybe, their great firewall is so good that it does not allow any pornographic searches to percolate. Or maybe they call sex something else in Chinese.

One must be wary when one analyses this data. Since e-business has really caught on in the west, the people are very likely to search for other things like "chocolates" and "laptops" too. This does, in no way, tell us that Christianity has triumphed over perversity. If anybody is under any such impression, then they are advised to tune into MTV.

I reach the following conclusions:

• Human beings are human beings.
  
• Repression does not triumph over lust.
• I need to get a life. Why on earth would anyone be searching for sex on tends.google.com?
  

A Tribute to Steve Irwin

It was six or so years ago: I was in Vizag with my grandmother. I was hooked onto the TV (just like any adoloscent preparing for the JEE would be expected to be). There was this intrepid little Australian exploring the land down under fiddling with what he believed to be "the ten most poisonous snakes in the world". I can remember feeling a little tense when he was handling number one.

He had a unique (humane?) way of dealing with snakes. He would lift them up by the tail, and not behind their necks (as one would be tempted). He went on to explain that holding the snake by the tail hurts the snake lesser. Not information that I would ever be likely to use, but this little bit remained etched in my mind forever. I watched the whole episode barely lifting my eyes from the TV.

Whenever I would tune into discovery channel after that, I would remember the same episode on snakes. I desperately awaited reruns of that thing. But to no avail.

And a couple of years ago, I saw Eric Cartman, with that same exaggerated Australian drawl, try to put his thumb into certain private parts of other animals' anatomies. Of course, I remembered the snakes then,

It is heart-breaking to hear that Mr. Irwin is no more. My sincere condolences to his family and every other fan.