The Good Guys in the Bush Administration

Saw a really great (though long) article on MSNBC that exposes the conflicts within the Bush Administration regarding the legality of torture and wiretapping. It's so easy to see the administration as one big evil entity but this article shows how there were guys who stood up for the law and paid the price for it. Sadly the Bush M.O. of getting rid of any dissenters continue.

[link to article]

Tree falls in a forest...

Haven't posted in a while so I thought I would finally raise a philosophical issue. I'm reading George Berkeley right now for a class and like every other philosopher he's addressing the problem of senses - more specifically how easily they can be deceived.

So here's the question in many forms: Does an object need to exist before it can be perceived? Or can it be said to exist only after it has been perceived?
What if all of mankind has died out- does the physical universe still exist? What about the concept of "odor"? Does it exist if no one with a nose is around?

Update: If a post gets no comments does it mean no one read it? It is so ironic that as I question whether something needs to be perceived to exist, seemingly no one has perceived my question. Well my question does exist on this server so lets say it's been answered and move on.

Arrested Development Is Dead

"It's highly unlikely the show is coming back, but no definitive final answer has been made on that". This is good. After the 2-hour finale on Feb 10, AD is gonna move on to greener pastures either at ABC or Showtime. No more of this Fox b.s. Showtime will totally be worth it, just for AD. [link]

I'm Back

Actually I've been back for almost a week now, but between jetlag and being sick I've been pretty out of it. It's become routine that when you leave India you leave with an illness. Don't worry, I did not come into contact with any birds; I just have a horrible cold that's been with me since New Year's Day.

The flight to India wasn't bad; the flight back however was pretty horrible. It seems the jet stream helps you when you go towards Europe but when you come back you're going against it. An eight and a half hour flight to Frankfurt takes eleven hours the other way. So after a ten hour flight from Bombay to Frankfurt the flight to Houston was pretty rough. Well, I guess there's one good thing about Global Warming : it's killing the jet stream.

By the way the Frankfurt airport really needs to upgrade some of its gates. When we landed on the way to India, we were told we were gonna have to get off the plane using the stairs and then get on a bus which would then take us to the central airport. This would be fine if it wasn't freezing. They had to give us a "watch out the ground is frozen so don't fall on your ass" warning.

The trip itself was more fun than expected. Met all my relatives in India and spent a lot of time with my U.S. cousins, got one married off. It's amazing how fast India is changing. My last visit was 2 years ago yet the place was very different. Before all of the vehicles on the road were either taxis or rickshaws; now there's all these cars like Toyota Qualis, Honda Citi... And there are huge malls that really impressed me. One of em had a very Galleria-like feel and it really brings to mind the amount of disposable income the people there have gotten overnight.

Anyway that's just some of the things that stuck in my head. Sorry I haven't said hey since coming back (last tuesday). I didn't really feel jet lag but I had a biological clock all of my own (independent of India and Houston). The first night back i slept at 6 pm and woke up at midnight. This weekend for the first time in years I woke up at 9 am on saturday (that's before noon!). Then I outdid myself by waking up at 6 am on sunday. I don't know what's wrong with me but needless to say, I'm afraid.

Of course UH did not fail to disappoint. The physics class I signed up for has been cancelled. I got a letter a couple of days ago. This is the third time UH has done this to me so I'm not surprised. For now I'm pushing it to next semester since the other sections don't fit into my schedule. I'm worried that since I'm going to be graduating next sememster maybe UH will outdo itself and say something like they are just cancelling the CS major. Wouldn't put it past them.