Saw an interesting TED talk on happiness – says we work to achieve happiness – more pay, bigger house, etc etc – but research shows that the goal posts keep moving, so we never quite get there. The trick is to be happy first – and suddenly everything else gets better – including work – as you’re more productive, open to opportunities, and so on. The positive brain is more productive, smarter, creative, open to learning – the list goes on.

Some ways to apply this:
- Write down a positive experience every day in a journal. This allows your brain to relive it, and over time you learn to remember and and look for positive things every day – seems are brains are wired to remember mostly the negative things.
- Random acts of kindness – as simple as writing a nice email to someone
- meditation

“Bangladesh says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated 3 million people, raped about 200,000 women and forced millions to flee their homes. Pakistan has disputed the allegations.”

It is also interesting to note that members of Jamaat-e-Islaami, Pakistan’s largest Islamic party than and now, are behind bars for raping and killing their fellow citizens. Not surprising, because the Jamaat is still active in these areas, but still jarring to note that the Jamaat’s war against Pakistan dates back so long and is so consistent- from fighting against Jinnah, to using all the dirty tricks in the book to screw over East Pakistan, and nowadays supporting myriad terrorist organizations.

“According to my personal experience in Karachi, if, let’s say, it is said that 100 people have died in target killings, when I did the investigation, I found that there were only 30 target killings,” Malik said.

“Seventy per cent were those people who wanted to be rid of their wives and girlfriends or girlfriends who wanted to be rid of their boyfriends. All the figures are with me, they killed them,” he added. #

Senator Rehman Malik. The truth published in Pakistani newspapers is often far, stranger than fiction.

I suspect it’s something to do with Pakistani routers as turning on a VPN everything is blazing fast again. Of course, once the Pakistan Internet Ministry figures out how to slow down VPN links, they will do that too, until they decide to ban encrypted links all together!

Maybe VPN links are prioritized or ignored by the magical routers run by the wizards at the PTA as they solemnly inspect every internet packet for blasphemous or anti-state or anti-army or porn or anti-PTA or anti-Altaf bhai content? The list which they inspect is very long indeed.

It must be said, on behalf of the PTA, that they are doing an admirable job fending of the yobo’s at the high courts and supreme court who keep passing judgements to block ALL porn sites, facebook, and just about every other site on the internet where you might find blasphemous or anti-state content. Hence websites like rolling stone return this sad error message:

Access Denied

You don’t have permission to access “http://www.rollingstone.com/” on this server.

Reference #18.3a2a287c.1311324507.3b365b6c

It’s a fine line, blocking enough sites to keep the internet stone age morons at the courts and government happy, while not actually restricting internet usage. A happy fiction for all, though not for the rolling stone magazine, which I’m sure sells at least one copy a month at the Saeed book bank in Islamabad to the one music loving diplomat posted there.

In the future barter economy, who needs internet links anyways?

some blasts from the past on the same topic, which despite being old old pieces are still sadly valid today:

• Why VOIP doesn’t work in Pakistan
• Internet links in Pakistan
• An open letter to all Pakistani ISPs

Was he drunk? Is he a non-closest bigoted raciast? Does he suffer from delusions of grandeur? Has the PPP lost even the little control it had over it’s many stooges, most of whom suffer from delusions of not being stooges in the first place? Is Zulfiqar Mirza a lion to Zardari’s whimpering poodle hiding in a corner behind five rows of containers and concrete barriers, as well as about ten percent of Pakistan’s security forces?

I think the answers to all the above questions is yes.

What is clear is that the gentlemen in the video above has upstaged Rehman Malik, the gentlemen who searches for terrorists and miscreants using google maps on his ipad while calling them “characters from star wars”, all without a internet connection on his ipad or even an app to connect the many security camera’s around Karachi.

Midair, the flight hit some serious turbulence that panicked my wife and children. When she asked one of the male stewards how long the turbulence was expected to last, she was answered in a low tone ‘Not to worry… I’ll hold your hand throughout the journey if you like’.

From the comments on an article complaining once again about the Pakistan national airline wasting money.

The economics of overtime work a bit differently in PIA from the rest of the world:

I took a flight from Manchester, UK to Islamabad on 24th of Dec 2010. Flight arrived late by over 4 hours at Manchester. We boarded the plane at around 10.00pm the doors were locked and we had to sit in the plane for another four hours. It got so late that the passengers were given dinner on the tarmac before the plane flew. The return flight was on the 9th of Jan.from Islamabad. We boarded the plane on time but had to sit on the plane for another 5 hours before we took off. I informed the crew that I have a connecting flight from Manchester and by being late I will not be able to make the connection and as the connecting flight is the last flight out of Manchester it will cause me serious difficulties. The crew payed no heed to my request. Guess why were the delays? The PIA crew was going slow and also from pilot to air stewards were all after extra hours i.e.overtime.

“And thus I clothe my naked villany

With odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ,

And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.”

Shakespeare – King Richard III (I, iii, 336-338)

Nazi Germany started presecuting their Jewish citizens slowly, with many steps along the way like banning their employment in Government in 1933, than in 1935 banning them from the Army, in 1936 declaring them non-citizens of the state and banning them from all professional jobs. Only half the Jewish population of Germany had emigrated by the start of WWII…Than there was the holocaust during WWII…

Pakistan is well along the Nazi playbook for getting rid of the Ahmadi’s – they’re already for all practical intents banned from government and military service, and back in 1974 Pakistan passed a law declaring them a despised minority – heck it’s part of the Pakistani constitution. This not being enough, in 1984 even more draconian laws were passed, which in short make it a jailable offense for Ahmadi’s to live life as they would like to (some of the punishments carry the death penalty).

Things as trivial as calling their places of worship a masjid (which is what they call them) is a jailable offence!

Ordinance XX of 1984 for example makes it a crime for Ahmadis to even use the Islamic greeting of “Assalamualaikum” and other Islamic symbols and religious verses. This hits at the root of the Ahmadi mode of worship. It defeats the purpose of Article 20 of the constitution which gives citizens the right to practice and propagate their faiths and offends Article 2-A, which after the necessary correction by the 18th Amendment, promises all religious minorities can practice their faith freely. #

In a surprising display of tolerance, the government in it’s infinite wisdom a few decades ago decided to ban Ahmadi’s from going to mosques, but thought it was ok for groups preaching hatred and teaching terrorism to continue building madrassas all over the place. Heck, it’s even paid some of the more academic ones to come up with justifications for keeping anti-ahmadi laws on the books.

A Dawn editorial on the culture of intolerance that is Pakistan:

None of this is surprising in a country whose statute books are riddled with discriminatory laws, where jingoism is drummed into the heads of schoolchildren and where radio and television talk show participants can casually state that “we are all Muslims here in Pakistan”, which is patently not the case. This is a country where a non-Muslim cannot, by law, become president or prime minister. The blasphemy laws continue to be abused to settle personal scores, evade debts owed to non-Muslims and to grab their land by forcing them to flee in the face of violence. The state, meanwhile, remains largely unmoved by the plight of minorities—and that isn’t surprising either for it is a party to this persecution.

There is no Pakistani Hitler yet, but he could be lurking in any of the tens of thousands of Madrassas, born in the bloody chaos of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and further trained fighting the American invasion of AfPak. Revolutions happen, and given the complete lack of confidence in the present govt coupled with the govts sheer incompetence and ongoing support for various Taliban groups, it’s not a stretch to imagine a very different Pakistan ahead.

Anatol Lieven is one of the many people saying the Taliban don’t have much chance in taking over the country, and I recommend his book, and at least the podcast about the book (both linked below), but like so many other observers, he just looks at things as they are today and projects them forward. History doesn’t quite work like that – it’s unexpected events which end up shaping the world, not things continuing as they are. No one expected WWII, steam power, electricity, or so many other things which shape the world today.

Pakistan: A Hard Country
Speaker: Professor Anatol Lieven
Chair: Professor Athar Hussain
This event was recorded on 9 May 2011 in Old Theatre, Old Building
In this talk on the subject of his new book, Pakistan: A Hard Country, Professor Anatol Lieven will analyse the Pakistani state and political system, and explain how those factors which give the state its surprising resilience in the face of revolution also hold it back in terms of economic and social development.
Available as: mp3 (39 MB; approx 85 minutes)

Zaffar Abbas, editor of Dawn, Pakistan’s most respected paper, paid tribute to Shahzad as “a fine reporter, one of a breed of Pakistani journalists who really believe in investigative journalism”. In the light of the death, he is was looking at scaling back his own paper’s coverage.

“I am seriously considering the entire process of reporting, and to what extent I can put my own team at risk. It is becoming increasingly dangerous for people to openly report, whether militants or security agencies are involved.“

Sultan Kot Proposed Medical Center

Summary: No need to go there. For the long version, read on!

It’s a small hospital + maternity clinic, set up in 1936 by a english missionary lady. She ran it till 1976, at which point she left. The place was built by her, presumably on missionary funds. In those times it was the only hospital, so was much needed. The property belongs to the missionary, or to her church.

While it ran, it was the most english of institutions, with her wandering about a strict purdah town in her skirt and umbrella. She also taught english to the local notables, which means the Aghas, as they are the only notables in Sultan Kot.

Sultan Kot was founded by the orginal Agha who had run away from Afghanistan and given this area by the local bigshot at that time whose name I don’t remember any more. He had aspirations to be a Sultan, hence the name Sultan Kot, which is a new town he built. The Aghas own all the surrounding area – about 60,000 acres irrigated land and assorted non irrigated. The total population is about 15,000 people in all of this area spread over 20 villages.

After the english hospital shut down, the govt. at some point built a very large hospital 600 meters away – it has 20 beds in 3 rooms but has more than 20 rooms. The govt. hospital is spread over 3 acres and employs 4 female and 4 male doctors, plus assorted nurses, staff etc. It has ultrasound, xrays, dental stuff, and so on. Also a working, pretty new ambulance.

This being a govt. hospital the only actual people in this entire building was one lab assistant, though he was likely a lab chowkidar posing as a assistant. Agha S assured me that they get hold of doctors if and when needed.

Sultan Kot seems nicer in terms of poverty and need than most other towns, and acording to Agha Something whom I met there, there isn’t much need in the area. I offered to set up a medical camp but there wasn’t any real need, and he said the patients in that area end up getting medicines etc anyways as the Aghas pressurize the govt. to fix their people. I had arranged to send a mobile health unit there tmrw but cancelled that. Can still send later on if need arises.

Since all the people are Agha’s people there, they all end up getting fixed. The current MPA Agha Taimur is very busy making the govt. fix up the town, and the hospital is also undergoing renovation right now.

The only real reason I gathered why they want the maternity clinic fixed is becuase all the older generation of Agha’s were born there, (before rising crop prices and faster cars made it possible to shift to Karachi) or delivered by the english doctor in their homes. Hence there is a lot of nostalgia attached.

The minute the english left they left the place to fend for itself and now their servants live there. The whole building is falling apart, the sky is visible in some of the rooms, and the walls are literally crumbling. According to Agha S, it needs to be demolished and built anew. This is my assesment as well.

And that was Sultan Kot.

He asks why are Pakistani’s so against India when they watch Indian movies, every house watches Indian drama’s… so what’s the thing they’re against? He’s the most popular sports figure in Pakistan which everyone seems to like, so it’s good people like him are talking about such topics.

Interesting thing is that the reports covering him keep trying to divert him from this and back to we hate India!

Another theory which I read somewhere on the internet states something like: to shake your faith in humanity, go read youtube comments, and there is a gem on this video:

Hum sab nafart rakhtain hain….Aghar Afridi sahib Nafrat nahin rakhta tou jao indian team join karo jaa kaa.

Translation: We all hate India, if Afridi doesn’t than go join the Indian team.

The above youtube comment is actually a lot more intelligent than the level of discourse on many of Pakistan’s talk shows. Which begs the question how dumb are the anchors? Or how very calculated? What about the guys running the channels? What are the incentives guiding behavior at the level of Pakistani TV channel management?

A short while after this statement, Afridi went on to stuff his foot back in his mouth, claiming in short that Pakistani’s are a superior race with bigger hearts and god knows what else:

Shahid Afridi’s perceptions of Indians and India are now common knowledge. On the way out of the airport returning from Mohali, he said: “I can’t understand the approach of people, why we are against India? Why there is so much hate for India when we have Indian dramas played in every home, our marriage celebrations are done in Indian style, we watch all Indian movies then why to hate them?” A couple of days later, he said: “In my opinion, if I have to tell the truth, they will never have hearts like Muslims and Pakistanis. I don’t think they have the large and clean hearts that Allah has given us.”