Is America counting down to the next election?

When ever I watch Bush on T.V I always smile. I think he has that kind of look to him and when he talks he has a funny grin on his face all the time (even when he talks about serious issues).

Then I realise that HE IS THE MOST POWERFUL MAN ON THE PLANET!!

Then I get scared.

For anybody who wants to keep a tab on how long is left until the the next American election please look below

Here is a friendly countdown to 04 Nov 2008 -

Test

So many natural disasters...

Has anybody else been wondering why there have been so many natural disasters in the last 365 days (year).

2004

• Boxing Day 26th December 2004 - Asian Tsunami

2005

• 26th July 2005 - Mumbai / Bombay Floods
  
• 29th August 2005 - Hurricane Katrina [?]
  
• 8th October 2005 - South Asia Earthquake
  

It is only human to look for patterns and reasons for why so many disasters have occurred one after another.

Is it something to do with Global Warming?

Is nature trying to tell us something?

Is someone else trying to tell us something?

What ever it is, I can't remember a time when so many big natural disasters have happened so close together.

Bradford Bulls win the Super League Grand Final

Congratulations to the Bradford Bulls who beat Leeds, 15 - 6 in the Rugby League Grand Final.

It didn't look likely at the start of the season when they were being thrashed by every team but they went on a 12 match winning streak at the end of the season to win the title.

One of my claims to fame is that I went to school with one of Bradford Bulls players (Soon to be former player - Leon Pryce) and I had a training session on Bradfords ground, Odsal (The one and only time I played Rugby League!!).

This Gurdwara is under surveillance 24 hours a day

We have had a couple of incidents of donations being stolen from the golak in our local Gurdwara (No, not the Giani's ;-)))). So the committee has decided to fit CCTV in the main hall.

When I saw the signs up on the walls next to the SGGS Ji, it made me think that most of the time we forget that our lives are under surveillance 24 hours a day / 7 days a week. This is not done by the government through CCTV or any other organisation. This is being done by Waheguru Ji.

Waheguru Ji is keeping a record of all the good and bad deeds we do during our life time.

Waheguru Ji will replay a Video Tape or Recordable DVD of all the dodgy things that we have done in our life, when we meet Waheguru Ji.

Obviously there is time to get some of our dodgy deeds erased from from the tape of our life if we do good deeds!!!

My Dad and his Proverbs

My dad likes using Proverbs.

Here is one of his heaviest used saying / proverb

Why ask the way to a village to which you will never go!
Original Punjabi will go here...

He uses this mostly when I watch football or cricket because he says that there is no point watching and learning about something that you are never going to do or use.

My counter arguement is that no one knows when a peice of knowledge will be useful. So it makes sence to learn about as much as you can, when you can.

Read all your favorite blogs...

... all in one place.

Reading blogs is cool but the problem is that you have to remember the links to your favourite blogs and you are never sure when your fav blogs have been updated.

This is where RSS comes in. You can subscribe to the RSS feed of a blog so that you know when the blog has been updated. The way you subscribe to a feed is by using a program to collect links to all your favourite blogs. I haven't used any of the desktop based programs but I start using Google Reader yesterday. You probably think that I have started to work for google, with the posting that I have been doing, recently. I know Yahoo is working on a similar system and I am sure it will as good as googles version ;-)).

With Google Reader you can search for you favourite blogs and add them to the reader. When your favourite blogs are updated, the new posts are shown on screen in the order that they are posted. So you can go through all the new posts from your favourite blogs all from one page.

Get gmail (google mail)

I came across this site (http://www.bytetest.com/).

They collect gmail invites from people on gmail and let you have them.

You probably know this already but I will recap for those who don't know

GMail is googles web based email service. It is currently gives users about 2.5 Gb.

I think that a GMail account will become more and more important in the next few months and years because google uses gmail accounts as logins for many of it's other services like GoogleTalk and GoogleReader (more about this later).

Check it out and get one!

My dad's facts

My dad didn't have much formal education but he has deep knowledge of Indian history. You can ask him any question on Indian history and he will give you the answer with dates (usually)!!

Here is one of the facts he tells me.

Indira Gandhi is no relation to M D Gandhi. She got her surname because she wanted to get married to a Muslim man called something 'Khan'. Her father 'Nehru' didn't want to get her married to a Muslim man but she really wanted to get married to him. M D Gandhi stepped in and said that 'Nehru' should let Indira get married to Mr Khan but that he will give Indira his surname so that after married she would be known as 'Indira Gandhi' instead of having the perceived embarrassment of being called 'Indira Khan' after marriage. My dad calls her Indira Khan to this day.

More facts coming soon... hopefully!!

Countdown timer for memorable dates (javascript)

Countdown for Bandi Chhor Divas (1st Nov 2005)

Test

This is quite easy to do.

Here is how it is done.

[1] Place the following code in your template after the <head > tag near the top of the template.

<!-- START Javascript function for countdown -->

<script type="text/javascript">

var HOURS_IN_DAY = 24;

var MINS_IN_HOUR = 60;

var SECS_IN_MIN = 60;



var DAY_FROM_MSEC = 1000/60/60/24;

var HOUR_FROM_MSEC = 1000/60/60;

var MIN_FROM_MSEC = 1000/60;

var SEC_FROM_MSEC = 1000;

function countdown(yr, mn, dy, id)

{

if(document.getElementById(id))

{

// refer to the id

var div = document.getElementById(id);



var dtNow = new Date();

var dtFuture = new Date(yr, mn, dy);



var dtDiff = new Date();



dtDiff.setTime(dtFuture.getTime() - dtNow.getTime() );



var tmDay = Math.ceil(dtDiff/ 1000/60/60/24);



var tmHour = Math.ceil(dtDiff/ 1000/60/60);

tmHour1 = (HOURS_IN_DAY - 1) + (tmHour - tmDay * HOURS_IN_DAY);



var tmMin = Math.ceil(dtDiff/ 1000/60);

tmMin1 = (MINS_IN_HOUR - 1) + (tmMin - tmHour * MINS_IN_HOUR);



var tmSec = Math.ceil(dtDiff/ 1000);

tmSec1 = (SECS_IN_MIN - 1) + (tmSec - tmMin * SECS_IN_MIN);



div.innerHTML = tmDay + " day(s) " + tmHour1 + " hour(s) "
+ tmMin1 + " min(s) " + tmSec1 + " sec(s) ";

}

}

// Add the date that you want to countdown

// Remember months start at zero i.e. 8 = September NOT August
// Example = 30th September 2006
// 'coundown' refers to the name we give to the <div> tag that will contain the coundown
// You can add multiple countdowns by adding copies of the below line and changing 'countdown1' for another name i.e. 'countdown2'

setInterval("countdown('2006', '8', '30', 'countdown1');", SEC_FROM_MSEC);


</script>

<!-- END Javascript function for countdown -->

[2] In HTML view add the following text anywhere between the <body> and </body> tag

<div name="countdown1" id="countdown1">Test</div >

NOTE: you can add multiple countdowns by adding the above line again and then changing 'countdown1' to another name i.e. 'countdown2'.

Please try it

I hope this makes sense!!

Sikh Historical Paintings

I was browsing the web for pictures of gurus for my niece, Amar.

While browsing I found a website that has painting done by a Sikh painter. His name is Jarnail Singh.

He paints various subjects including:-

• Sikh History
• Portraits
• Punjabi Culture
• Landscapes

The painting are really nice. Definitely worth a look.

Sikh Youth Radio

Just thought I should let you know about a Sikh youth radio show that I try to listen to sometimes.
The show is called Sweet Sikhi (Sunday 6pm - 8pm) and is on Panjab Radio. It is mainly a discussion programme with Sikh students (I think) talking about a different Sikh topic every week. It is a nice program, with some thought provoking discussions.

There is also a programme on Amrit Bani that is a similar kind of programme but I am not sure of when it is on or what it is called, but it is also very good

Gender Ratio in Sikhs

I remember watching a feature on Star News.

Composition	Hindus	Muslims	Christians	Sikhs	Buddhists	Jains	Others
Sex ratio* (avg. 933)	931	936	1009	893	953	950

It went through all the religions in India and showed the gender ratio of each. I was shocked to see that Sikhs had the lowest gender ratio of all.

Its sad to see people who claim to be part of a religion that holds equality as one of its main pillars, are so influenced by a culture that prefers boys to girls.

Sikhs in the media

I have touched on this subject in an earlier post.

I feel that at the moment a large section of the media is mis representing Sikhs and the Sikh way of life.

I don't know if this is because they just don't know about Sikhism or if they have some false notions about Sikhi.

Anyway I think the Sikh community should get together, take a positive step and produce material that is true to Sikh values. Some examples could be Animation, Books, Films, Documentories and TV shows.

I am trying to do my bit of seva by starting a page where we can start to write the screenplay of a trilogy of Sikh Films. The page I have setup is located at sikhitrilogy.wikispaces.org/. Anybody can contribute to this page and expand it.

See what you think.

Sikhi Wallpapers

I have made some Sikhi based wallpapers in Photoshop.

Man jeete, Jagjeet


Sikh man praying (pic found here)

Elephants

I remember hearing this story when I was at school.

Many years ago elephants were not as they were now. There were white elephants and there were black elephants. The white elephants didn't like the black elephant because they were black and the black elephants didn't like the white elephants because they were white.

The two groups of elephants were always arguing with each other. They had many wars against each other becuase they hated each other so much but each time there would be no winner because both groups had similar strengths and weaknesses.

One day some high thinking elephants from the white group and some high thinking elephants from the black group decided to get together and talk about what they should do about the constant fighting between the two groups. The all decided that the best way to set up there own town away from the two groups, where they could live in peace.

The high thinking group went away and started to live a separate life away from the fighting.

Over time they began to mix with each other in their new town. Decades passed and new town started to thrive. A new type of elephant began to emerge. The grey elephant was more common than the black or white elephants. The elder elephants were very happy about the grey elephants because they thought that if all elephants were grey then there wouldn't be any reason for elephants to fight because all elephants would be grey.

The elder elephants of the town decided to organise a mega celebration to congratulate themselves on their acheivements.

It was the night of the celebration and all the elephants got ready to celebrate. As the night went on the elder elephants started to notice something.

There were two groups in the hall. One group stayed on one side of the hall and another group stayed on the other side of the hall.

After watching this for a few hours the elders decided to ask the two groups why they were standing away from each other.

One group shouted out "We hate elephants with BIG EARS!!!!"

The other group shouted out "We hate elephants with SMALL EARS!!!!"

It just goes to show that we will always find something to hate.

SikhiWiki.org

I have just noticed that my blog is on Sikhi Wiki.

Sikhi Wiki is a variation on the Wiki theme that allows users to be the editors of what is shown on a page. If you know something about Sikhi then share your knowledge on the site.

My blog is listed in the Sikh Bloggers section on SikhiWiki.

I think that I have Harpreet Singh Gill (OneMind.co.uk) to thank for this. cheers Harpreet:-))

Pics of India, October 2004

I thought that I should share some photos of my visit to India in Oct 2004

Starting off with Harmandir Sahib , Amritsar. Whenever I have been to Harmandir Sahib there is always a beautiful atmosphere about the place. No matter how many people are around or how busy it is you always get a feeling that you are privilaged to be there.


One more




Amritsar Traffic




Sheata Sahib




Mehteana Sahib


I will try to post more later.

Into the whirlwind

Found Valarie Kaur's blog Into the whirlwind while I was searching for sikh blogs (tip: put the words 'sikh site:blogspot.com' into google).

She has been going around USA making a film about the innocent people that were targeted after 11th September 2001 and how it affected them and their families.

She also has a website for the film that she is making

I think we need more Sikh film makers like her so that issues relating to Sikh's can be given a higher profile.

Freaky Coincidences

I am sure that everybody has freaky coincidences in everyday life.

I just though that I should document the things that happen to me

Here is what happened to me this week

My wife got an interview for a job at Fox's biscuits in Batley (Near Bradford). I knew that I would have to drop her off on the day of the interview but I didn't have time to find out where the factory was. So I left it for a while.

The very next day at work there was an employee who required support off site. She said that she would take me to the place where she was doing her presentation. She told me that the place was called 'Batley Bulldogs' (A Rugby League Club). I followed her to the place and found that the presentation was taking place right opposite the Fox's biscuit factory where I need to take my wife!!!!

Now, I have never even been to Batley before so I think I can class this as a Freaky Coincidence.

Lulu - The site for budding writers, photographers...

The BBC website had an article on Lulu.

This is a new website that allows people to get published as writers even if they have been rejected by mainstream publishers. Lulu prints books on demand so that there are no "books left on the shelf".

It is using the same model for music and photograhs

The royalties are much better aswell (80% of each book sold rather than 10%-20% from mainstream publishers)