2nd Law of Ecology

"Nothing ever goes away"
-- Commoner's Second Law of Ecology

Reach the Truth

The more you think about it, the further from the truth you'll be
--Windows Live Horroscope

TD Certified Professional Exam

Cleared the TD Exam 3 (Physical Implementation) on Saturday Feb , 2008.
YUPPEEEE !!!! :)

Power of Love

The whispers in the morning of
lovers sleeping tight
Are rolling by like thunder now
as I look in your eyes.
I hold on to your body and feel each move you make.
Your voice is warm and tender

a love that I could not forsake.
'Cause I am your lady and you are my man.
Whenever you reach for me I'll do all that I can.

Even though there may be times
it seems I'm far away
But never wonder where I am 'cause I
am always by your side.
'Cause I am your lady and you are my man.
Whenever you reach for me I'll do all that I can.
We're heading for something
somewhere I've never been

Sometimes I am frightened
but I'm ready to learn 'bout the power of love !
The sound of your heart beating
made it clear suddenly.
The feeling that I can't go on is light-years away.
'Cause I am your lady and you are my man. . . .
We're heading for something
somewhere I've never been

Sometimes I am frightened
but I'm ready to learn 'bout the power of love!
Ooh
the power of love
the power of love.
Sometimes I am frightened
but I'm ready to learn 'bout the power of love !

-- Power of Love : Performed by Celine Dion

Do Not Be Afraid

Do not be afraid to shine,
This world needs what you have to give.

Open up the areas of your being;
Expose them to yourself - to others.

You are valuable. You are unique.

You have much to give.
Do not be afraid to give it

-- PRAVS

Sharing & Getting Passed Around

Don't share things that you wouldn't want getting passed around.
--MSN Horrocope

How to get Peace of Mind...

1. Do Not Interfere In Others' Business Unless Asked:

Most of us create our own problems by interfering too often in others' affairs. We do so because somehow we have convinced ourselves that our way is the best way, our logic is the perfect logic and those who do not conform to our thinking must be criticized and steered to the right direction, our direction. This thinking denies the existence of individuality and consequently the existence of God. God has created each one of us in a unique way. No two human beings can think or act in exactly the same way.

All men or women act the way they do because God within them prompts them that way. There is God to look after everything. Why are youbothered? Mind your own business and you will keep your peace.

2. Forgive And Forget

This is the most powerful aid to peace of mind. We often develop ill feelings inside our heart for the person who insults us or harms us. We nurture grievances. This, in turn, results in loss of sleep, development of stomach ulcers, and high blood pressure. This insult or injury was done once, but nourishing of grievance goes on forever by constantly remembering it. Get over this bad habit. Believe in the justice of God and the doctrine of Destiny. Let Him judge the act of the one who insulted you. Life is too short to waste in such trifles. Forgive, Forget, and march on. Love flourishes in giving and forgiving.

3. Do Not Crave For Recognition

This world is full of selfish people. They seldom praise anybody without selfish motives. They may praise you today because you are in power, but no sooner than you are powerless; they will forget your achievement and will start finding faults in you. Why do you wish to kill yourself in striving for their recognition? Their recognition is not worth the aggravation. Do your duties ethically and sincerely and leave the rest to God, which is Tawakkal.

4. Do Not Be Jealous

We all have experienced how jealousy can disturb our peace of mind. You know that you work harder than your colleagues in the office, but sometimes they get promotions; you do not. You started a business several years ago, but you are not as successful as your neighbor whose business is only one year old. There are several examples like these in everyday life. Should you be jealous? No. Remember everybody's life is shaped by his or her previous Destiny. If you are
predestined to be Rich, nothing in the world can stop you. If you are not so destined, no one can help you either. Nothing will be gained by blaming others for your misfortune. Jealousy will not get you anywhere; it will only take away your peace of mind.

5. Change Yourself According To the Environment

If you try to change the environment single-handedly, the chances are you will fail. Instead, change yourself to suit your environment. As you do this, even the environment, which has been unfriendly to you, will mysteriously change and seem congenial and harmonious.

6. Endure What Cannot Be Cured

This is the best way to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Every day we face numerous inconveniences, ailments, irritations, and accidents that are beyond our control. If we cannot control them or change them, we must learn to put up with these things. We must learn to endure them cheerfully, thinking, "God wills it so, so be it." God's plans are beyond our comprehension. Believe in it and you will gain in terms of patience, inner strength and will power.

7. Do Not Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

This maxim needs to be remembered constantly. We often tend to take more responsibilities than we are capable of carrying out. This is done to satisfy our ego. Know your limitations. Why take on additional loads that may create more worries? You cannot gain peace of mind by expanding your external activities. Reduce your material engagements and spend time in prayers, introspection and meditation. This will reduce those thoughts in your mind that make you restless. Uncluttered mind will produce greater peace of mind.

8. Meditate Regularly

Meditation calms the mind and gets rid of disturbing thoughts. This is the highest state of peace of mind. Try and experience it yourself. If you meditate earnestly for half an hour everyday, your mind will tend to become peaceful during the remaining twenty-three and half-hours. Your mind will not be easily disturbed as it was before. You would benefit by gradually increasing the period of daily mediation. You may think that this will interfere with your daily work. On the contrary, this will increase your efficiency and you will be able to produce better results in less time.

9. Never Leave the Mind Vacant

An empty mind is the devil's workshop. All evil actions start in the vacant mind. Keep your mind occupied in something positive, something worthwhile. Actively follow a hobby. Do something that holds your interest. You must decide what you value more: money or peace of mind. Your hobby, like social and charitable work , may not always earn you more money, but you will have a sense of fulfillment and achievement. Even when you are resting physically, occupy yourself in healthy reading or mental reciting of God's name.

10. Do Not Procrastinate and Never Regret

Do not waste time in protracted wondering " Should I or shouldn't I?" Days, weeks, months, and years may be wasted in that futile mental debating. You can never plan enough because you can never anticipate all future happenings. Always remember, God has His own plan, too for you. Value you time and do the things that need to be done. It does not matter if you fail the first time. You can learn from your mistakes and succeed the next time.

Sitting back and worrying will lead to nothing. Learn from your mistakes, but do not brood over the past. DO NOT REGRET. Whatever happened was destined to happen only that way. Take it as the Will of God. You do not have the power to alter the course of God's Will. Why cry over spilt milk?



"May God grant you the serenity to accept what you cannot change? Courage to change what you can, And the wisdom to understand the difference".

Why stop tears?

Only someone who has cried a great deal understands why someone else wants to stop the tears
--V.C.Andrews

Bugs Bunny - A history revisited

Here is the link to one of the well researched BUGS history. A must read link.
<http://bugshardaway.blogspot.com/>

Great work Chris and thanks for allowing me to put this on my blog. :)

Look at the photographs :)

A Must watch site. Its basically flash based but one of the best works Ive seen. More over the camera work done is exceptional if not the best. 3 cheers for the designers and cameramen.

<http://www.cake-factory.com/#/>

A Lone Rider

I say something and than I look at people and I know that they are not understanding me at all. I don't know if people don't understand me or if they don't want to understand me at all. What people fail to see or appreciate at least is the seriousness that lies within a person in his heart and soul. What hurts more is that when they laugh at things and hurts most when even I laugh with them but than at least it is easy for them.

I than ponder at myself what I do and why I do and why all this? Maybe I complicate my own life trying to reason everything. Maybe my failure to go with my instincts is the biggest hurdle. But than i think I am happy the way I am. Its alone but its good. The road is long and journey will continue.

Love of the Life...

Bhai, me and Baaji..... The happy family :x

Hollywood Walk of Fame

The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California which is embedded with more than 2,000 five-pointed stars featuring the names of not only human celebrities but fictional characters honored by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce for their contributions to the entertainment industry. The Walk of Fame is maintained by the self-financing Hollywood Historic Trust. The first star, awarded on February 9, 1960, went to Joanne Woodward.

The Walk of Fame runs east to west on Hollywood Boulevard from Gower Street to La Brea Avenue and north to south on Vine Street between Yucca Street and Sunset Boulevard. The Walk of Fame is nearly a three and a half (3 1/2) mile round trip walk. Locations of specific stars are permanent, except when occasionally relocated for nearby construction or other reasons. To be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of fame is considered to be as sought after as the Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, BAFTA and Golden Globe awards.

Each star consists of a pink five-pointed star rimmed with bronze and inlaid into a charcoal square. Inside the pink star is the name of the honoree inlaid in bronze, below which is a round bronze emblem indicating the category for which the honoree received the star. The emblems are:

• Motion picture camera for contribution to the film industry
• Television set for contribution to the broadcast television industry
• Phonograph record for contribution to the recording industry
• Radio microphone for contribution to the broadcast radio industry
• Twin comedy/tragedy masks for contribution to live theater

There are a few exceptions. Disneyland's star has an emblem of a building, and honorary mayor Johnny Grant's star depicts the Great Seal of Hollywood. Also, the crew of the Apollo XI mission are named in four identical moons at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine.

Nominations are submitted annually by May 31, and the Walk of Fame committee meets the following month to pick the next year's group of honorees. Star ceremonies are open to the public and previously were led by honorary Hollywood mayor Johnny Grant.

Frank Sinatra star for music on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The Walk of Fame was created in 1958. Many honorees received multiple stars during the initial phase of installation for contributions to separate categories; however, the practice in recent decades has been to honor individuals not yet represented, with only a handful of previous honorees being awarded additional stars. In 1978, the City of Los Angeles designated the Walk of Fame as a Cultural/Historic Landmark.

The Walk of Fame began with 2,500 blank stars. A total of 1,558 stars were awarded during its first sixteen months. Since then, about two stars have been added per month. By 1994, more than 2,000 of the original stars were filled, and additional stars extended the Walk west past Sycamore to La Brea Avenue, where it now ends at the Silver Four Ladies of Hollywood Gazebo (with stars honoring The Beatles and Elvis Presley).

Link to Source Site:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_walk_of_fame>

Bugs Bunny - A history

When most people think of rabbits, they think of the legendary cartoon character, Bugs Bunny. For those that don’t know who Bugs Bunny is, he’s the gray rabbit from Looney Tunes and Merrie’s Melodies. According to his fictional biography, Bugs Bunny was born 1940 in Brooklyn, NY. His accent is a cross between a Brooklyn accent and a Bronx accent.

The character Bugs Bunny was influenced by an early Disney character, Max Hare. Hare starred in many Disney cartoons and even won a Academy Award for Animated Short film in 1934. Bugs Bunny appeared in his first short cartoon in 1938, entitled Porky’s Hare Hunt. The cartoon short was directed by Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton. Ben Hardaway’s nickname was “bugs”. The introduction cartoon of Bugs Bunny was very similar to a 1937 cartoon called Porky’s Duck Hunt, which introduced the soon to be famous Daffy Duck.

Porky’s Hare Hunt followed the general plot of the 1937 cartoon, Porky’s Duck Hunt , in which Porky pig was a hunter against a prey (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck) which was more interested in driving Porky crazy rather than run away from him.

Prototype Bugs Bunny made his debut in Porky's Hare Hunt (1938)

Bugs Bunny made his second cartoon appearance 1939, in a cartoon entitled Prest-O-Change-O, in which he plays the rabbit of a magician who is never seen on camera.

Bugs Bunny’s fourth and probably most memorable appearance was in the 1940 short cartoon entitled Elmer’s Candid Camera, in which both characters would meet and start a long war that is still very much alive today. The personality in which Bugs Bunny is famous for emerged in 1940 on Tex Avery’s Wild Hare.

It was in this episode that for the first time, Bugs Bunny would come up out of his rabbit hole and utter the now famous quote “what’s up, Doc?” to Elmer Fudd. According to many cartoon historians this short cartoon was the first time Bugs Bunny was shown in full character, because most of the other short cartoons he appeared in didn’t fully resemble Bugs Bunny in looks or personality. On Bugs Bunny’s seventh television appearance, he finally got the name Bugs Bunny.

In 1941 Bugs Bunny became enormously popular in mainstream American culture and he would also go on to become the most popular characters of the Looney Tunes cast. In 1942 Bugs Bunny became the star of Merrie’s Melodies, which was a cartoon show that featured one shot cartoon shorts. Also in 1942 Bugs Bunny would undergo a few redesigns to his front teeth to make them stand out more, his head was also redesigned to look more round.

Bugs Bunny was also very popular during World War II, appearing in a two minute U.S war bonds commercial called Any Bonds Today. In 1944 Bugs Bunny was at odds with a group of Japanese soldiers, Bugs was praised for this during World War II, but the cartoon has since been pulled from distribution due to its stereotypes.

Today Bugs Bunny is still a very hardworking show biz man, being the mascot for Warner Brothers, having a star on the Hollywood walk of fame, being featured on a postage stamp and appearing in countless commercials.

Source Site :
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/52404/the_history_of_bugs_bunny_the_complete.html?page=1>
More Links:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugs_Bunny>

Why Democracy?

The Democracy allows a group of people to dominate the concept of right and good. Its like an over ride on the true definitions. How good is it than? Why do we need democracy? Just because that there is no real definition of right and wrong OR because we need to the flexibility to change the criterion according to our wishes and desires ???

The Closest Thing to Crazy

How can I think I'm standing strong,
Yet feel the air beneath my feet?
How can happiness feel so wrong?
How can misery feel so sweet?
How can you let me watch you sleep,
Then break my dreams the way you do?
How can I have got in so deep?
Why did I fall in love with you?

This is the closest thing to crazy I have ever been
Feeling twenty-two, acting seventeen,
This is the nearest thing to crazy I have ever known,
I was never crazy on my own...
And now I know that there's a link between the two,
Being close to craziness and being close to you.

How can you make me fall apart
Then break my fall with loving lies?
It's so easy to break a heart;
It's so easy to close your eyes.
How can you treat me like a child
Yet like a child I yearn from you?
How can anyone feel so wild?
How can anyone feel so blue?

-- A Song by Katie Melua

Use of children in War - An overview

The Use of Child Soldiers in Africa: An Overview

Child Participation in Armed Conflict in Africa

The Scope of the Problem:

Based on the information contained in this report, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers believes that more than 120,000 children under 18 years of age are currently participating in armed conflicts across Africa. Some of these children are no more than 7 or 8 years of age. The countries most affected by this problem are: Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda. Furthermore, Ethiopian government forces engaged in an armed conflict against Eritrea, and the clans in Somalia, have both included an unknown, though probably not substantial, number of under-18s in their ranks. In internal armed conflicts in the Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal, on the other hand, there has been little or no recorded use of under-18s by government or armed opposition forces, and there are almost certainly no under-15s participating in hostilities in these three situations.¹

The Risks to Children of Participation in Armed Conflict:

In addition to the obvious risks to children of participation in armed conflict — which apply equally to adults — children are often at an added disadvantage as combatants. Their immaturity may lead them to take excessive risks — according to one rebel commander in the Democratic Republic of Congo, "[children] make good fighters because they’re young and want to show off. They think it’s all a game, so they’re fearless." Moreover, and as a result of being widely perceived to be dispensable commodities, they tend to receive little or no training before being thrust into the front line. Reports from Burundi and Congo-Brazzaville suggest that they are often massacred in combat as a result.

Children may begin participating in conflict from as young as the age of seven. Some start as porters (carrying food or ammunition) or messengers, others as spies. One rebel commander declared that: "They’re very good at getting information. You can send them across enemy lines and nobody suspects them [because] they’re so young." And as soon as they are strong enough to handle an assault rifle or a semi-automatic weapon (normally at 10 years of age), children are used as soldiers. One former child soldier from Burundi stated that: "We spent sleepless nights watching for the enemy. My first role was to carry a torch for grown-up rebels. Later I was shown how to use hand grenades. Barely within a month or so, I was carrying an AK-47 rifle or even a G3."

When they are not actively engaged in combat, they can often be seen manning checkpoints; adult soldiers can normally be seen standing a further 15 metres behind the barrier so that if bullets start flying, it is the children who are the first victims. And in any given conflict when even a few children are involved as soldiers, all children, civilian or combatant, come under suspicion. A recent military sweep in Congo-Brazzaville, for instance, killed all "rebels who had attained the ‘age of bearing arms’."

Girls too are used as soldiers, though generally in much smaller numbers than boys. In Liberia, "[a]bout one per cent of the demobilised child soldiers [in 1996-7] were girls or young women. But many more took part in one form or another in the war. Like many males, females joined one of the factions for their own protection. (Un)willingly, they became the girlfriends or wives of rebel leaders or members: ‘wartime women’ is the term they themselves use."

Concy A., a 14-year old girl, was abducted from Kitgum in Uganda and taken to Sudan by the LRA. "In Sudan we were distributed to men and I was given to a man who had just killed his woman. I was not given a gun, but I helped in the abductions and grabbing of food from villagers. Girls who refused to become LRA wives were killed in front of us to serve as a warning to the rest of us." The risks to these girls of sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies are enormous. Grace A. gave birth on open ground to a girl fathered by one of her [LRA] rebel abductors. Then she was forced to continue fighting. "I picked up a gun and strapped the baby on my back," the emaciated, now adult, 18-year-old recalled while nursing her scrawny baby. "But we were defeated by government forces, and I found a way to escape."

Girls are also the victims of child soldiers. In Algeria, a young woman from one of the villages where massacres had taken place said that all of the killers were boys under 17. Some boys who looked to be around 12 decapitated a 15-year-old girl and played ‘catch’ with the head.

The Consequences for Society:

Atrocities have all too frequently been committed by child soldiers, sometimes under the influence of drugs or alcohol which they may be forced to take. In Sierra Leone, for example, a journalist from the French newspaper Le Figaro claimed that most of the rebels are children not older than 14, who are under the effect of drugs and alcohol. He reported what one of them told him about torture they inflict on their victims: "at 2 p.m., they gouge out two eyes, at 3 p.m., they cut off one hand, at 4 p.m., they cut off two hands, at 5 p.m., they cut off one foot and ... at 7 p.m. it is the death which falls down."

But drugs alone do not account for the atrocities committed by children. It is their systematic abuse by adults, combined with a pervasive culture of violence that is ultimately responsible. In March 1998, at the trial of a 13-year-old DRC soldier who had shot and killed a local Red Cross volunteer in Kinshasa after a dispute on a football pitch, even the prosecution declared that the lack of control of boy soldiers was as much the fault of their older commanders and constituted extenuating circumstances. The boy was nonetheless condemned to death, although President Kabila later commuted the sentence to life imprisonment.

Child Participation in Armed Conflict in Africa

The Recruitment of Children by Governmental Armed Forces:

The overwhelming majority of African States set 18 as the minimum age for recruitment, whether voluntary or through conscription. Indeed South Africa is in the process of increasing its minimum age for voluntary recruitment to 18 (conscription has already been abolished) and Mauritania may also be raising its minimum age from 16 to 18. In Angola, however, a country severely affected by the phenomenon of child soldiers, the government recently reduced the age of conscription to 17 years. Given the lack of systematic birth registration, even younger children are inevitably recruited even if the will to prevent underage recruitment existed. Moreover, reducing the minimum age of conscription to 17 is currently lawful since international law sets 15 as the international minimum age.

Burundi and Rwanda have the lowest legal recruitment ages on the African continent, seemingly 15 or 16 years for volunteers, although Uganda has formerly claimed to accept children with the apparent age of 13 to be enrolled with parental consent. In Chad, parental consent appears to allow the minimum age of 18 to be effectively reduced. Concerns also exist as to legislation in Botswana, Kenya, and Zambia where children with the ‘apparent age of 18’ can lawfully be recruited. Libya appears to accept volunteers at 17 years, if not younger. In South Africa, in a state of emergency, children of 15 years of age or above can be used directly in armed conflict by virtue of the Constitution. Finally, legislation in Mozambique, a country whose past has seen widespread use of child soldiers, specifically allows the armed forces to change the minimum conscription age — 18 — in time of war.

National Practice:

If only domestic legislation were always respected in practice, the problem of child soldiers in Africa would be significantly reduced. Many African States — Benin, Cameroon, Mali and Tunisia to name but a few — appear to follow appropriate recruitment procedures that prevent underage troops being recruited into the army. However, in Angola, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and Uganda, children, some no more than seven or eight years of age, are recruited by government armed forces almost as a matter of course. Some children do volunteer to join the armed forces (though the true number will vary depending on how one interprets the word volunteer). In the DRC, for example, between 4,000 and 5,000 adolescents responded to a radio broadcast calling (in clear violation of international law) for 12-20 year olds to enrol to defend their country; most were street children.

Yet tens of thousands of children are forced to join up, sometimes at gunpoint. In Angola, forced recruitment of youth (‘Rusgas’) continues in some of the suburbs around the capital and throughout the country, especially in rural areas. It has been claimed that military commanders have paid police officers to find new recruits and Namibia has collaborated with Angola in catching Angolans who have fled to Namibia to avoid conscription. In Eritrea, a 17-year-old Ethiopian prisoner of war, Dowit Admas, interviewed by a British journalist claimed that he was playing football in Gondar High School when Ethiopian government soldiers rounded up 60 boys and sent them to a military training camp. In Uganda, there have been persistent reports that street children in Kampala have been approached by soldiers and forced to join the army in order to be sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in November 1998, parents protested against the forced recruitment by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces of 500 youths in Hoima.

Government-supported Militia Forces:

In Sudan, although the minimum legal age of recruitment is 18 years, recruitment into the Popular defense Forces can start lawfully at 16 years. Even in armed forces that otherwise appear to respect recruitment procedure, the creation of government-sponsored militia forces tends to open the floodgates to child recruitment. In Algeria, for instance, so-called ‘Legitimate Defence Groups’ and ‘communal guards’ seem to operate beyond the law, without effective regulation or control.

In Burundi, in addition to widespread recruitment into regular armed forces, Tutsi armed groups, made up of youth aged from 12 to 25, have been formed with the encouragement of government authorities in order to defend the Tutsi minority. These groups recruited people from sport and school groups and were armed by politicians, businessmen and serving and retired members of the armed forces. Meanwhile, government militia in Congo-Brazzaville, which have been widely credited with egregious human rights abuses, include many teenage children among their ranks.

Military Schools:

In a number of African countries military schools serve to give children an education, not just as a back door form of underage recruitment. In Benin, for example, the Centre National d’Instruction des Forces Armées educates children from the age of 13 and the Prytanée militaire of Bembereke selects children of high ability from the 6th grade. Children in these schools are not members of the armed forces and they are encouraged, but not forced, to pursue a military career after graduation, which usually occurs when they are about 19 or 20 years of age. In other countries, such as Burundi and Rwanda, military schools appear to serve as back door recruitment into the armed forces of tens of thousands of children.

Armed Opposition Groups:

In situations of armed conflict, wherever governments have recruited and used children as soldiers, so have armed opposition groups, and just as certain African governments have chosen to violate national laws, so opposition groups have flouted public declarations and pledges not to recruit and use children in combat.² For instance, UNITA’s draft 1990 Constitution sets 18 as the minimum age for recruitment, yet, in 1998, the Inter-African Network for Human Rights and Development (Afronet) and Human Rights Watch alleged that UNITA was abducting children and young men and women between 13 years of age and their early 30s living in border towns of Cazombo and Lumbala Nguimbo.

More often, however, no such declaration has been made. The Hutu opposition in Burundi has systematically recruited boys and girls under 15 years of age into its armed groups; and a number of different sources have stated that the Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave (FLEC-FAC) in Angola also recruited children into their forces. The FLEC-FAC was reported to have children as young as eight years of age among its ranks and an estimated 30-40 per cent of them were girls. In Sierra Leone, reports have clearly detailed the fact that rebel forces recruit children below 18 years of age and demonstrate that children as young as five are enrolled.

In Uganda, the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) systematically abducts children from their schools, communities and homes. Children who attempt to escape, resist, cannot keep up, or become ill are killed. Generally, the rebels take their captives across the border to an LRA camp in Sudan. There, these children are tortured, threatened and sexually abused. Latest reports suggest that the LRA has now turned to selling abducted children into slavery in exchange for arms.

Children enrolled by force into armed opposition groups often have little choice but to remain and fight. In Uganda, for example, if children abducted by the LRA do manage to escape or surrender, they may face the wrath of the Government. Despite claims made on Ugandan television by the armed forces that they are "rescuing these children daily", and "handing them to charity organizations for care", in January 1999, the Ugandan army executed, in circumstances to be clarified, five teenage boys between the ages of 14 and 17 suspected of being rebel soldiers. Moreover, in April 1998, 25 boys were charged with treason and are still awaiting trial. All these boys face the death sentence even though they were abducted by rebels and used as child soldiers by them. The children are charged with failing to release information about rebel soldiers or are said to have fought with the rebels. If the death penalty were carried out against these youths, this would be a manifest violation of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols and of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These international treaties, to which Uganda is a party, clearly prohibit capital punishment for those under 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the offense.

But even some of those armed opposition groups who use children as soldiers recognize the dangers. "It’s true they can hold a gun and fight, but you spoil the education of a child," Songolo [a rebel commander in the Democratic Republic of Congo] said, adding that he is against the practice but has seen many child soldiers in the country. "Their minds go bad...they become criminals if they leave". (This of course applies as much to volunteers as it does to conscripts.) Indeed there are reports that the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which have used many thousands of children in their struggle against the regime in Khartoum, is finally realizing that they have created a generation of children who cannot read or write and know only the respect that is earned by the barrel of a gun. It remains to be seen whether they are truly willing to stop recruiting children and to demobilize those that are currently serving in their ranks.

Concluding remarks

Many African countries effectively protect children against military recruitment and use as soldiers. Sadly, others do not, failing to meet the standards they themselves have set. It is hoped that the abuses and violations that are identified in this report will be acted upon positively: the use of children as soldiers is the result of deliberate action, or at least in some cases, deliberate inaction. Even armed opposition groups are not always beyond the reach of the law, and many are sustained by governments.

In a statement to the United Nations Security Council on 12 February 1999, Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF, declared that "[W]e would be derelict if we did not reiterate, in the strongest possible terms, that until the minimum age of recruitment is universally set at 18, the ruthless exploitation of children as soldiers will continue." The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers wholeheartedly endorses this statement and would only add that African countries can play a leading role in ensuring this standard is adopted; of even more importance, they can help to ensure that this standard is respected in practice.

For detailed article click the link below
<http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/chilsold.htm>

Life vs Disappointment

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
--Mark Twain

Disappointment

And there is no Season 2 for "Painkiller Jane" .... Big time disappointment. Wonder if the original comic is as interesting as the series. HELL F%@KKKK !!!!!!

The True Scope

You won't understand the true scope of things until you ask.
-- Windows Live Horroscope

My way of Life

And people ask me why I am the way I am. Where the simplest of answers is that its a natural process where I am bestowed with my share of good and evil, I can't acknowledge it. I feel a different reason.

I am like this because I can't give up on life. I can't give up on my beliefs. I can't give up on what I am blessed with. I don't believe myself as a materialistic person but at the same time, I know as a fact that this life is too small and it needs a purpose to live. Even in the game of blocks, kids think of something and every piece is in place of a reason. and if it is so, than how come I am not in place in this whole big universe. God has put me here for a purpose and I'm trying to fulfill it. I believe that this reason is whole lot bigger than just recognizing the good and evil. Its about putting in the effort and making our way through both of them. Life is about struggle. Its only after-life that promises non struggle. For this world, I have to act, learn, do the right deeds and never give up. And It doesn't matter how bad we have done. Whatever we have done or anybody has done, we have the second chance, everybody has the second chance. I don't know but maybe i haven't learn to give up.

And I absolutely in bliss. For all my life when i searched for this thing, now I know that it resides inside me and nowhere else. The greatest happiness in life is to share it and feel the joy and pride of what we are.

I don't know about my afterlife but I know that my current life is a smooth sail. I pray to God that this life of mine leads me and my beloved ones to the better of the after life if not the best :)

Picture of the Month - February 2008

Life is like a game of chess. Sides play. You can take opposition pieces and lose yours, you can win or lose but the game ends. It ends and makes all that was gone and all that is present meaningless.