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Septuagenarian linguist and the most intelligent man on earth today according to some, Noam Chomsky would be thanking Hugo Chavez from bottom of his heart. Noam Chomsky’s book ‘Hegemony Or Survival’ shot up from dust of obscurity, when the Venezuelan prez, Chavez held the book near his heart at the UN summit and mentioned it in his speech while attacking Bush policies. The book had been on stands since 2004 but never enjoyed such a curiosity and success as it is doing after Chavez’s mention.
Noam Chomsky argues in the book that the US policy about Afghanistan and Iraq is not really a shift after 9/11. On the contrary, War On Terror, occupation of Iraq and control of Afghanistan are nothing but continuation of US foreign policy which is a policy of hegemony. USA maintains this hegemony through war, funding tyrants (USA funded even Saddam- see adjacent modified carricated picture of Rumsfeld holding hand with Saddam) .
It is not a secret how USA nurtured Taliban to counter the USSR control over Afghanistan. Nurturing monsters to fight monsters and then creating and nurturing new monsters to fight older ones has been the tale of US policy throughout after WW II. This is what Noam Chomsky tries to convey through his book. (I wonder why doesn’t somebody teach USA simple management lessons?)
Want to make your book bestseller? Bring in Chavez.
An interesting study on sharing bed for sleeping is doing rounds currently. Published originally in nytimes.com, this study points to an interesting aspect of sleep or more of a relationship, namely sharing bed during sleep.
Sharing bed for sleeping can be a very uncomfortable job – snatching for the sheet (it goes on for night), sleep breaks, feet on your face and all such things means that you can’t have a best sleep. You could have it if you sleep alone.
Interesting thing, however, is that those who share beds for sleeping prefer sleeping together rather than alone, howsoever uncomfortable that sleep is. This is seemingly obvious aspect but is interestingly unnoticed by many who share bed.
What can be reason? I would put intimacy at a much lower rank in the list of reasons. Because I would not sacrifice my sleep of 7 hours for an intimacy which is not much helpful after I sleep off.
Rather it may be feeling of security which we as a species inherited from our ancestors in the jungle. It is on the bed that I forget all other worries; I talk with my partner all my thoughts which I keep back in my mind for whole day. I kind of feel a support in it. If we look at other animals, we will notice the same thing. Sleeping (or sharing bed if that pleases Western minds. I wonder, why ‘Sleeping’ in English language would also mean having sex? Do they never ‘sleep’ – mean take a 7-8 hour nap?) (sleeping) in groups is the basic instinct of all gregarious animals, to which we human being also belong. Notice the dog in last frame of picture above. Funny.
It is nice observation (at the most). (I would hate to call it a study.)
After taking long (as usual) to gauge the success of Web 2.0 services, like Google Video, Yahoo Video and Youtube, Microsoft is at last coming up with their version of Youtube-MSN Soapbox. Soapbox will function on same lines as of Google Video, Yahoo Video and Youtube and will be thus meant to be a ‘Social’ Web service. Currently the test version is out for Invitees only and the MSN Soapbox Beta is supposed to be out in coming days.
Those who have tested it have opined it to be similar to Youtube with 100mb upload limit etc. Major curiosity was about the video format on Soapbox. Whether Soapbox is going to use Windows Media Player format or .flv- the flash movie format. It seems that .flv will not be an in thing for MSN Soapbox.
Late entry into the video hosting segment means that Microsoft will have to be content on a low customer base. This is mainly because we will have to wait for a while for other mashing applications to develop around MSN Soapbox. For instance you will find so many services like Kipvid which evolved around Youtube and Google Video. Somebody should tell the folks in Seattle that online audience hates to wait this much when so many equally able competitors are around.
Reality Is A Farce... 