Saigon Execution

Edward Adams, The Associated Press

Jan. 30, 1968: North Vietnam's Tet offensive brought fighting into the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Thirty-six hours later, AP photographer Eddie Adams and an NBC crew came upon two South Vietnamese soldiers and a prisoner.

"And out of nowhere came this guy who we didn't know." Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of South Vietnam's national police, walked up and shot the prisoner in the head. His reason: The prisoner, a Viet Cong lieutenant, had just murdered a South Vietnamese colonel, his wife and their six children.

The peace movement adopted the photo as a symbol of war's brutality. But Adams, who stayed in touch with Loan, said the photo wrongly stereotyped the man: "If you're this general and you just caught this guy after he killed some of your people … how do you know you wouldn't have pulled that trigger yourself? You have to put yourself in that situation … It's a war."

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Walking trees?

Recently I visited this nature trial of Seychelles near the Babarons beach; trail was not long about 800m from the main road. It reminded me of Sinharaja Forest in Sri Lanka, a primary forest like Amazon. The water was so cold that I thought of not having a bath, I regret that decision now. There were these peculiar looking trees which looked like giant Arthropods with so many legs like roots. Some one told me that these are called Walking trees because the tree actually moves on the ground with time. Roots on one side of thee tree grows over each other while the roots on the other side dies, so literally speaking the tree move on the ground with time. Not a bad idea, it must be using this to move towards more fertile soil. These are some of the pictures I took.

Among Strang looking Trees, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Mangrove Forest, originally uploaded by poojitha.

real bath, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Stream, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Did light refract before god made the rainbow?

The best form of defense for those who believe in god is to show the complexity of this universe and say “It must be a work of GOD”. But those who say that will have hard time answering “Why Did He create us” or “What was he doing before he created universe”, Playing hide & seek with angles? Considering the fact that “Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day” I have a hard time believing god is really there. I asked this question from a firm believer of god once and he told me that it has happened because we betrayed god once, so he has given freedom to us or something. What a freedom, more than half of the world’s population is hungry today because one guy betrayed god, thank you very much, don’t know what to say when I meet you up in heaven.

Are we like a shrimp on gods hand, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Once I heard of this group which tried to save a sick Childs life by praying and failing miserably, crated a big row in the country, the whole group ended up in court for murder. Have you ever seen a healed amputee? I bet no, you know why, because it can’t be done. If you look at any religion, you’ll find healing. I once watched this guy who was interviewed by a TV channel. He claimed that his cancer was cured by praying. Anybody who gets a cancer will start praying, most of them will die, and one guy will be cured naturally to end up in a TV show to brag about importance of praying to cure illnesses. Luckily those who prayed & died never appear in TV shows to say it didn’t work.

Recently some religions started connecting stuff in their books with stuff in science, simply because science is such a threat and they needed to convince their followers with something. Funny thing is that they only choose the theories which support their theories. If you ask about Evolution, ‘oh no, it’s not being proved yet’. Religions are created by some people believing in something. It doesn’t need to be entirely true or convincing because when the number of devotees grow they’ll do anything to protect what they believe , like Incas who believed that sacrificing infants to sun GOD would bring them good luck and those idiots who killed themselves after claiming Hale-Bopp comet as a signal for their mass cult suicide.

I think all religions were born because humans always looked for a way to explain natural phenomenon’s and to believe some one with utmost powers is there to help them, to believe one day they will be happy, to believe death is actually not the end. In the movie Matrix people live in a world believing they live in a normal world, but actually they live in a computer model, their brains are attached to a giant computer which give them the feelings that they live ,work ,have kids……etc [You must see this movie].Are we like that? Are we just robots created by some intelligent being? Even if it does there lays the same question, who created them?

How to Rape a girl Twice

I found this story in BBC about a raped Sri Lankan girl being denied entry to a school by the principal who claimed “she was a disgrace and a bad example to other students”. How can some thing like this could happen, did she want to be raped and videoed? Is it her fault that some one raped her? Most of all, how could a raped victim be a bad example. When she needs her friends and family most, our great culture managed to push her to a dark corner of our society. Is this the way Sri Lankans thinks? We should change this culture of, expecting perfection from women while men could do any filthy thing and be normal in the society. Sri Lankan men are always ready to call women a bitch or whore at the slightest mistake but I have never seen a bad men were called like that, we don’t even have a word for them, do we?

I can foresee this girls future. Not being able to go to school she will loose the only way to over come her mental turmoil , people will call her “bitch” in public, only thing she would be able do is to hide her face in shame. She will have a big problem finding a person to marry her. Those who come close to her will only be expecting pleasure; soon she’ll be a toy among men, which could force her to be a prostitute. Is that what they want? To define the future of a girl aged 15 years to be a prostitute. Some times women are raped many times by the society .The mental torment given by the society will be more than what she experienced being raped.

I have seen girls aged 14, 15 getting pregnant in this country but they were never being discriminated like that, schools are being very supportive towards them. Government helps them to raise the kids .Nobody calls them bad Girls, because they are not, they never worry about it because it’s not a black mark on their future. Instead, they learn to be more careful. Sri Lanka has a great culture and traditions but some times I feel that it’s not perfect.

Size could be Daunting

I took this picture when I was in the bird island. It was dawn, birds was starting its day. If you haven’t noticed, look closely at the beach, you’ll see some interesting buildings. Those buildings are built by male crabs; well you might think that the sand piles are created when the crab builds its hole. Actually there is a different story. The biggest sand pile attracts the most females. Simple logic, bigger car attracts more beautiful girls. Some mounds were even close to one foot, not an easy task for a small crab like that. The funny thing was that even new born crabs were building mounds; some were merely 2 centimeter high. They were like guys with push bicycles.

crabs, originally uploaded by poojitha.

This man can Play GOD?-A Synthetic Life

This is no fiction,Dr Craig Venter, the scientist who led the private sector to sequence human genome is back with a new idea. He wants to build a living organism from scratch, a life, truly man made life which could grow and replicate , mind boggling idea ,well he thinks he can do it ,so he has already applied for the patents as well.This could be the turning point of mankind ,like the day we invented fire or wheel.Some groups are beginning to oppose the idea, called on patent offices to reject applications on synthetic life forms. Religious groups will join them very soon, like they did to stop stem cell research in America which could have been used to do scientific wonders like growing an eye for some one who lost it. Luckily, people like them were not there to stop it saying "its gods creation" when we invented fire, so we are eating cooked food now.

The scientist says that these life forms could be designed to make fuels and absorb greenhouse gases. Well i think we can even use them to change atmosphere of planet Mars to allow human settlements or to create special plants to survive that hostile environment, to fight diseases ,to improve human cells and increase human life span, options are endless. This is truly a science fiction come true, I want to read Jurassic park again. Your comments are welcome.

Tired Of Googling? Use Mahalo

I found about this fantastic search engine called Mahalo ,I was impressed after doing a single search,something you should try.This is a human powered search engine,meaning every search result is carefully reviewed by humans to select the best search results. It could be useful since its guaranteed to give the best results.But there is a downside as well ,because It may have difficulties accessing most newly updated web pages.But its a search engine with true human touch.

I would like to add something about Google ,Google has introduced a new tool to its collection.Its called Google Gears.It is an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run off line.Recently Google has acquired a company called Panoramio a web service which you could use to place your photos on a world map,now Google is using this technology in combination with Google earth,fantastic.Soon we would be needing another search to find services offered by Google itself.Sometimes i wonder if Google is trying to do so many things at once? I remember this Zen saying "A hunter who chases two rabbits catches none",google is after so many.

The Most Unique Picture

I really like to take pictures of sky,clouds & sunsets,Like this one.Because every picture is unique,nobody ever will be able to capture the same combination of light,clouds & colors again,and that makes this picture some thing that belongs only to me.

sunset in seychelles, originally uploaded by poojitha.

A Real Hogzilla-Biggest Wild Pig?

I read this story in Sydney Morning Herald in Australia about a boy killing a wild pig weighing a staggering 476 kilograms (2.74 meters) ,using a revolver.I couldn't believe it until i saw the picture. If this pig wanted to attack back the boy could have been in big trouble.Read this story about the biggest grizzly bear killed few years ago,amazing isn't it?

Its Not About Winning

Past 6 months I trained hard, determined to get my next belt in Karate. I always tried my best since Kyokushine Karate is all about being the best fighter. Past month was announced as the grading month, We were excited, I really wanted my blue belt, so I trained 3 times a week, some times 4.Today was the grading day, I was excited, if I get the katas and techniques right, I’ll be called to fight 7 black belts, I have to fight all of them to get my belt. So I got my katas and techniques well enough to please Shihan (Chief Instructor) & Sensei only fighting was left.

All the other gathered in a circle to watch us fight, we were called in as “The unlucky guys”, so we were, so to say “I was”. It was hard to fight because we were already exhausted by doing exercises, to add up to the fact, I had a very light breakfast (fool of me).I could fight up to five black belts with no major trouble, I think I did well, disaster strike when Sensei got me to fight the last round, I was totally exhausted, I could barely punch, most of the time I was busy catching breath, and he showed me what happens when you get the wrong guy at the wrong time. His punches were well measured and unbelievably powerful, each punch made me throw out all the air in my lungs.”If you don’t hit me I’m gonna hit you” he said, well I wished I could, let me get some breaths first, Thud, Bam (air out, time slows down, shit),’I’m not gonna give up and loose my belt, no way, hit me no problem, I’ll stand’ I thought, I heard this girl encouraging me ‘Don’t give up, this is your last fight, don’t loose you belt, hit him, hit him’, that gave me some strength, I really like that girl, thank you. I have never been exhausted up to this level, another one minute I would have been lying on the ground, thank god time was up, I could barely walk.

We all gathered to hear the results; master called one by one and announced the results. ’Poojitha gets the blue stripe (better than blue), being a small guy he showed lots of courage, he fought very well’ he said. I couldn’t believe my ears, i almost cried. Its painful when I walk, chest pains when I cough, but I’m proud of what I have achieved, not because I beat someone (I didn’t), because I didn’t give up, I was standing after fighting 7 professional black belts, not everyone could do it.