My wife was traveling to Europe on a Schengen visa, it is usual for the airport staff to check the visa before anyone boards the plane. Well the sad thing is the IDIOTS at the Katunayake International airport who check the Schengen visa at the Gate to the flight don't know the different types of visas. They simply did not know that if the stay is longer than 3 months the visa issued by the Schengen states is a temporary residency permit and not a tourist visa.
May be the airport authorities need to check this and not put donkeys to do a humans job. These donkeys had taken 45 minutes to just verify this facts. Ultimately a blasting from my wife had got the thing done. Trust me if you ever travel, be firm, treat these buggers like s**t and assert yourself, that will get the thing done, that's the trick I use (sadly I forgot to tell her this).
This is the most likely situation to occur when one gets political boot lickers' joining the service showing a letter from ministers. Just because they "hosh posh" a little in English they think they are I.T. it, they fellows don't have the brain of a jellyfish. This is the reason why Sri Lanka stagnates if not deteriorates day by day. Wrong person in the wrong job, these buggers should be put to clean the toilets in the airport.
Friday 28 December 2007
Thursday 27 December 2007
Long Live the Free Media Movement!
I was reading the loud "Jing Bang" created in the local media and specially by our most beloved Free Media Movement about the arrest of the two France 24 journalist filming a "road block" (a.k.a the Boosa detention camp - LOL!) for allegedly 5 seconds (a photograph can give a lot of information, 5 seconds of video may give even more info).
Well any way I watch France 24 on MyEasyTV but to my amusement they did not care to mention this and make a big "Jing Bang" like our FMM NGO. I also did a couple of searches for it on the France 24 website but zipp about the arrest or release of these journalist (btw their web search is pretty accurate).
So WTF is the agenda of the FMM? What is in it for them? More money? Pleasing their foreign Masters? Or simply pacifying the Tiger Pussy?
"Long live the FMM" is probably what Prabakaran is chanting!
Well any way I watch France 24 on MyEasyTV but to my amusement they did not care to mention this and make a big "Jing Bang" like our FMM NGO. I also did a couple of searches for it on the France 24 website but zipp about the arrest or release of these journalist (btw their web search is pretty accurate).
So WTF is the agenda of the FMM? What is in it for them? More money? Pleasing their foreign Masters? Or simply pacifying the Tiger Pussy?
"Long live the FMM" is probably what Prabakaran is chanting!
Friday 21 December 2007
Sinhala, English and Tiger Terrorists?
It is a sad situation we have to face today with the Web 2.0 bringing to forefront the issue of accuracy of information. With anyone being able to put up anything on the web, there are more lies than truths out there today. Even worse is the fact that people still lack the skills of judging truth from fiction. Blogs have become one of those sources of misinformation and are being increasingly misused. It is not something ethical for one blogger to write against another, but once in a while you have to break the rules for the sake of the "better good".
Terrorist not only exit bearing kalashnikovs or a belt of explosives strapped on to their chest, but they exist bearing pens (now keyboards), peace doves, and humanitarian and human rights symbols. They conduct their propaganda war, while their brothers in arms blow up building and kill innocent civilians. Each mutually supporting the other for survival. One could not exist and profit without the other, a good "business model" with plenty of money involved no doubt and as the saying goes, I scratch your back - you scratch mine.
I have been reading some so called "bloggs", one of them started in English and then branched out into Sinhala and Tamil, all blowing the trumpet of the Tiger terrorists and their supporting power-hungry puppet politicians. I think the Sri lankan blogosphere are not that stupid as these terrorist think we are. Just because they right in Sinhala or Englis it does not mean they are not terrorist supporters (What about the Sinhala Terrorists and some SL politicians - they are Sinhala speaking right, and the Canadian and British parliamentarians who attend LTTE rallies - they are English speaking right - so language, race or religion does not in anyway give a new face to terrorists). Let me ask you, if Tamilnet starts a site in Sinhala or Tamil we know that they are still the mouthpiece of the LTTE, right? So I'm not going to beat around the bush anymore, and the winner in the terrorist blog category is... "grounviews" and its sibling Sinhala terror sites "vikalpa" and their Tamil site "Marru wali" (sorry but I have forgotten my Tamil - read it as best as I could). Everybody know what "groundviews" agenda is and what terrorist group they support - and how they published a disagreeing commenter's IP info and bocked and moderated comments from others who had different opinions (they promote human rights and support free speech?). And now "vikalpa" meaning "alternate" and we all know who's alternative policies they are and who makes money through that NGO and which terror group they say "Ai Ai Captain" to.
The runners-up in the terrorist blog category is.... "transcurrants". If that bloke post something it is a fabricated piece of rubbish. I was wondering why famous defense analyst like B.Ramana and other eminent people only write to this website. These specific articles on "transcurrents" were never published anywhere else on the web not in any other news or defense site. Could it be because they are not the actual writers? Likely that some joker is impersonating these experts to give a moral boost so that the Tiger Terrorist may pump out more money from the Tamil diaspora and pacify the power hungry SL politicians and peacenics? B Ramanan publishes all his material on Rediff but where are these articles that praise the LTTE and rundown the SL government? The most horrifying thing was when I read one of these fabricated articles on the Island of the 25th of October 2007. They had simply done a "copy and paste" without verifying facts. One must say, now that is a dangerous trend, because we still believe that the Paper bought at the local boutique is a little bit more valid than what we might find on the Internet (because of the process that it SHOULD go through)!
So please keep your eyes and ears and most importantly your minds open, since this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many other blogs, youtube videos etc. etc. wait in line to do the bidding of the Tiger Terrorist to achieve their "virtual" Eelam (it just occurred to me that may be the Tiger Terrorist and their entourage could actually buy some space on SecondLife and create their own virtual Eelam and Prabahakaran can be their king LOL!).
Wish you all PEACE, LOVE AND HARMONY this Christmas and the New Year to come.
Terrorist not only exit bearing kalashnikovs or a belt of explosives strapped on to their chest, but they exist bearing pens (now keyboards), peace doves, and humanitarian and human rights symbols. They conduct their propaganda war, while their brothers in arms blow up building and kill innocent civilians. Each mutually supporting the other for survival. One could not exist and profit without the other, a good "business model" with plenty of money involved no doubt and as the saying goes, I scratch your back - you scratch mine.
I have been reading some so called "bloggs", one of them started in English and then branched out into Sinhala and Tamil, all blowing the trumpet of the Tiger terrorists and their supporting power-hungry puppet politicians. I think the Sri lankan blogosphere are not that stupid as these terrorist think we are. Just because they right in Sinhala or Englis it does not mean they are not terrorist supporters (What about the Sinhala Terrorists and some SL politicians - they are Sinhala speaking right, and the Canadian and British parliamentarians who attend LTTE rallies - they are English speaking right - so language, race or religion does not in anyway give a new face to terrorists). Let me ask you, if Tamilnet starts a site in Sinhala or Tamil we know that they are still the mouthpiece of the LTTE, right? So I'm not going to beat around the bush anymore, and the winner in the terrorist blog category is... "grounviews" and its sibling Sinhala terror sites "vikalpa" and their Tamil site "Marru wali" (sorry but I have forgotten my Tamil - read it as best as I could). Everybody know what "groundviews" agenda is and what terrorist group they support - and how they published a disagreeing commenter's IP info and bocked and moderated comments from others who had different opinions (they promote human rights and support free speech?). And now "vikalpa" meaning "alternate" and we all know who's alternative policies they are and who makes money through that NGO and which terror group they say "Ai Ai Captain" to.
The runners-up in the terrorist blog category is.... "transcurrants". If that bloke post something it is a fabricated piece of rubbish. I was wondering why famous defense analyst like B.Ramana and other eminent people only write to this website. These specific articles on "transcurrents" were never published anywhere else on the web not in any other news or defense site. Could it be because they are not the actual writers? Likely that some joker is impersonating these experts to give a moral boost so that the Tiger Terrorist may pump out more money from the Tamil diaspora and pacify the power hungry SL politicians and peacenics? B Ramanan publishes all his material on Rediff but where are these articles that praise the LTTE and rundown the SL government? The most horrifying thing was when I read one of these fabricated articles on the Island of the 25th of October 2007. They had simply done a "copy and paste" without verifying facts. One must say, now that is a dangerous trend, because we still believe that the Paper bought at the local boutique is a little bit more valid than what we might find on the Internet (because of the process that it SHOULD go through)!
So please keep your eyes and ears and most importantly your minds open, since this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many other blogs, youtube videos etc. etc. wait in line to do the bidding of the Tiger Terrorist to achieve their "virtual" Eelam (it just occurred to me that may be the Tiger Terrorist and their entourage could actually buy some space on SecondLife and create their own virtual Eelam and Prabahakaran can be their king LOL!).
Wish you all PEACE, LOVE AND HARMONY this Christmas and the New Year to come.
Wednesday 19 December 2007
Little help for our little VBloggers
VBloggers, as I like to call our little Village Bolg community.
I have been receiving essays numbering in the tens, for corrections and feedback before they are posted on them web. I was reading through them and saw that some of the shortcomings were very common or were across the board. So I just thought I'd make up a list and have these little check boxes that they could go through before they are posted, and may be that will help them to improve their writing. May be you could suggest some tips too.
One of the most disturbing things I found when going through these essays was that many were using the spell checker and the grammar correction option, but they were simply doing it in a blind fashion. What ever the word or phrase that was suggested first was used to replace the mistake. I remembered what one of my colleagues said when asked about the "One laptop per child program", he said "If I give my son a calculator he will learn to use it to add and subtract and multiply, but will he learn adding, subtracting or multiplying? I don't think so. It is not about giving a laptop to a child, but how it is used to learn". Similarly these little bloggers and many others don't use the spell checker and the grammar correction option as a learning too, they simply use it to correct mistakes and they keep on repeating the same mistake over and over again. In an instance when they do not have access to a computer and need to write something, they are going to be in deep trouble.
So hope that the people who donate computers and conduct programs also point out the importance of using them as tools of learning rather than just tools for doing tasks.
Click to view
I have been receiving essays numbering in the tens, for corrections and feedback before they are posted on them web. I was reading through them and saw that some of the shortcomings were very common or were across the board. So I just thought I'd make up a list and have these little check boxes that they could go through before they are posted, and may be that will help them to improve their writing. May be you could suggest some tips too.
One of the most disturbing things I found when going through these essays was that many were using the spell checker and the grammar correction option, but they were simply doing it in a blind fashion. What ever the word or phrase that was suggested first was used to replace the mistake. I remembered what one of my colleagues said when asked about the "One laptop per child program", he said "If I give my son a calculator he will learn to use it to add and subtract and multiply, but will he learn adding, subtracting or multiplying? I don't think so. It is not about giving a laptop to a child, but how it is used to learn". Similarly these little bloggers and many others don't use the spell checker and the grammar correction option as a learning too, they simply use it to correct mistakes and they keep on repeating the same mistake over and over again. In an instance when they do not have access to a computer and need to write something, they are going to be in deep trouble.
So hope that the people who donate computers and conduct programs also point out the importance of using them as tools of learning rather than just tools for doing tasks.
Click to view
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