Khansack: Big news this week was surely the SRK hold up in a US airport for some detailed inspection. He stopped short of making a ruckus abt it or calling it racial profiling (that one was already used by Harvard Prof Gates), but probably did enough to be invited over to the White House for a beer or a whiskey alongside the Immigration officer and President Obama. Now, which Indian actor in history would have had that distinction?

[UPDATE: Wow! Things do change quickly, looks like Obama and the officer have to fly to India to have the patchup beer-fest!]

No Fee For You: President Obama and the first family visited the Old Faithful Geyser in the Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon. Why he chose to do so on a no-fee weekend is obvious! The President is as broke as anyone else in the nation, having spent so much of our money on useless clunkers, failing banks, educating seniors, demoralized policemen and of course on beer for special "historic" gatherings. There's just no room for even a dime on good old faithful geyser. It just has to spring up some other time.

Hi Speed Dilbert Principle: Have you read this Dilbert strip? A manager decides to centralize operations and is rewarded handsomely for his brilliance. Just a year later the same guy decides to de-centralize and is rewarded yet again! We can see a live instance of this, only fast forwarded 130x: Tr.im, the URL shortening service announced it was going out of service. Twitter and Facebook published countless obituaries and eulogies and debated about the future and reliability of URL shortening. Just couple of days later, the company beamed, "Nope, we were just kidding, we and our shortened URLs will live forever"! Ironically, the parent company is known as Nambu (meaning believe in Tamil)... yeah we believe you! As of this writing Tr.im still exists, but I can't guarantee anything beyond.. neither I guess can Nambu!

Health Hazards: The FDA released a couple of warnings in the past weeks. The first was about those Mercury amalgam fillings you may have on several of your teeth and the other is on Tanning beds, now listed as a top source for cancer. But it also says, "Not to Worry". Why? The level has not yet bee raised to its highest? So don't worry until it does so in a couple of years, if you live until then past your shock at the news! Not much you can do to undo your tan or your filling, eh?

In Lottery We Trust: A Michigan church saw its donations dwindle over the recession hitting its auto-dominated economy much harder than elsewhere. The number of people coming to Church also started falling. But a pastor decided to see if God was still on his side, purchased a lottery ticket just in case. And... hey! He just won $70K! That's a smart way of proving that God exists and to survive the recession!
(bitter)Sweet for Diabetics: Diabetics in India have a rare occassion to celebrate! They will not be amongst those millions of people hit hard by soaring sugar prices in India! It has come at a hard time, the time of the year when there are so many festivals leading up to the King of Hindu festivals, Diwali. Heard that Sree Krishna Sweets is bumping up prices on its famed Mysurpa for the first time in several years!

On the Run! Philadelphia decided to help its homeless folkore to get on "track" by instituting a running program so that the homeless people could run even faster if someone were to chase them if they happened to trespass, of course by accident.

Pot full of Money: If you friend or co-worker seems a little dizzy today, don't be surprised. It's official, there is plenty of cocaine in the US dollar bill. Do I see the Dollar index shooting up sending the Euro to multi-yearly lows? Do I hear retailers complaining of excessively wet bills hitting their cash machines? Are you still reading this? (or are you chewing what's left out in your wallet?) Hello?? ....

..........................Until next time...