A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused. Only one child played on the disused track, the  rest on the operational track.

The train is coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather let the train go its way?

Let’s take a pause to think what kind of decision we could make…………….

Most people might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. You might think the same way, I guess. Exactly, I thought the same way initially because to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally. But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place?

Nevertheless, he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was. This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday. In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are, and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority are. The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track was sidelined. And in the case he was sacrificed, no one would shed a tear for him.

The great critic Leo Velski Julian who told the story said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track should have known very well that track was still in use, and that they should have run away if they heard the train’s sirens. If the train was diverted, that lone child would definitely die because he never thought the train could come over to that track! Moreover, that track was not in use probably because it was not safe. If the train was diverted to the track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake! And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.

While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be   made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one.

“Remember that what’s right isn’t always popular… and what’s popular isn’t always right.”

Finally got a very nice tutorial on Python which I can quickly follow.

http://www.korokithakis.net/tutorials/python/

Now all I need is some time!

Under the "UN Strategy" most of these people would have been killed Source: SLRC

Of course I see all the liberals’ comments about the UN war crimes report. They seem pretty sensible when you look at them right? I mean who would support killing of thousands of civilians? The shelling of hospitals (Disputed) and such?

Well here is a dose of reality for you. The LTTE was not just a rebel organization which lived islanded in the north and northeast of Sri Lanka. It was a worldwide extortionist and murderous organization which had significant lobbyist support in USA, UK , Canada. It had floating arms storage, submarines, aircraft. And it could have garnered that support to get it’s top brass to escape. Think about this scenario in your heads, the military corners the LTTE and waits for them to surrender, Prabhakaran and his goons escape undercover. Meanwhile the civilians are deprived of food by the LTTE which uses food and medical supplies for it’s own fighting force. They barricade hospitals and schools and whatnot. In this scenario, there would have been more deaths than it actually was. Thousands of civilians would have died due to malnutrition, anyone trying to escape would have been killed anyway, the LTTE would have ensured that.  Most of the so called civilian casualties were probably carrying weapons themselves under LTTE pressure. How can you discern civilians from terrorists? They don’t wear uniforms. The people who criticize the Sri Lankan army have either lost touch with reality or have conveniently forgotten how dire the actual situation was.

Also I’d like to point out that many of the Tamil rebels who surrendered into Army controlled areas in the last stage are being rehabilitated and are joining civilian life right now. If the Army took the course of action that the UN panel suggests, most of them would have been dead by now. And for no reason because the real murderers would have escaped to safety.

As for the civilian targets, what is an army to do if the terrorists have setup their artillary inside a hospital? Once a military force is using a civilian building as a cover, it no longer is a civilian building. I don’t think any war in history has been carried out without committing war crimes if you characterize war crimes as such. I must reiterate I do think wars should be averted at every opportunity, just because of the fact that innocents will get killed. It is easy to go around leveling accusations at the Army.  It is one thing to talk and another to walk.

The UN panel report due today on Sri Lanka’s alleged war crimes has been postponed to another day. This has to be the second time it has been postponed. Just leaves the nagging question in my mind, if the UN is so susceptible to political pressure by the political superpowers, how can smaller countries fight for their sovereignity under such an organization. Of course in this case, the involvement of BRIC countries(Brazil, Russia, India, China) worked in favor of Sri Lanka. However it poses the question how skewed the UN policy is, of course it is evident that the UN has overlooked serious war crimes by NATO bloc in the past. Now it is acting as a proponent of Human rights in case of Sri Lanka.

Having said that, the UN has also acted in correct manner in some situations, like in Libya where it enacted the “Responsibility to protect” clause in it’s charter. Which is a mandate to act to prevent imminent large scale civilian casualties. However when it comes to Sri Lanka, the UN’s role is to enact “Responsibility to rebuild” whereas it has to help conflict affected communities to rebuild their lives.

UN secretary general however seems to have a different idea in mind. He will seek reelection to the post quite soon and for that he wants the support of the super powers. Hence he wants to show something to please his “masters”. This is why he is suddenly looking to meddle in Sri Lanka. which he seems to want to use as a scapegoat. The question in the minds of most people is, how bad a precedent this will be. How many more smaller countries will be victimized in future for internal politics of UN?

strange adventures,

midnight swims

and rambling conversations.”

“War is bad so we shouldn’t do do it. Wish it was as simple as that. Or is it?”

In Sri lanka, no one uses it cos it is too darn time consuming.

In USA, people don’t have enough free time to have fun.

In Sri Lanka, have lot’s of free time and still cannot have fun.

In USA, you starve cos you have too much food.

In Sri lanka, you starve cos you don’t have food.

In USA, your friends will leave you alone and that’s a problem.

In Sri Lanka, your friends wont leave you alone and that’s a problem.

In USA, you don’t know the neighbor so you sue them.

In Sri Lanka you know the neighbor too well so you sue them.

The eye is a remarkable organ, however if we look into the natural world we can observe the eye in many stages of evolution in different species. For example the single celled Euglena has a single light sensitive spot. These organisms can do photosynthesis( Capture sunlight and store in form of chemical energy). Which means it needs to propel itself towards light. Hence it has this primitive navigation aid, Which simply senses the ambient light and helps the organism to move towards sunlight.

However these primitive eyes were not sufficient to the rapidly evolving species of multicelled creatures that preceded these single celled ones. They required more information like from which direction the predators were coming (Or vice versa). Hence they evolved an eye cavity which helped to focus the light like in a pin hole camera. So this light sensitive spot turned into a structure capable of detecting direction and shape of objects. These steps have taken millions of years and millions of failed experiments by nature to finally become the sophisticated eyes that we have today.

Source: wikipedia