Who wants to play Dodge-shoe...

With reference to the shoe throwing incident on President Bush at Iraq, I was actually quite startled when I initially heard about it. The journalist's got guts to throw shoes at a country's President. What I'm wondering is, what were his bodyguards doing. I mean, the journalist had enough time to throw 1 shoe, reload, then throw another. And even after that, it took some time for ppl to react. Weren't the guards supposed to jump in front of even a bullet to save the President. And all they did was watch Mr.Bush play Dodge-shoe. Argh...

There were a lotta comments about this video which has had more than 5 million views. But i liked this the best: "The journalist had an opportunity of a lifetime. Its like running for gold and missing it in the last 5 meters".

An Iraq citizen spoke to the press stating that "Throwing a shoe at someone is a sign of insult in Iraq. It means that person is worse than the dust under the shoes", or something similar to this. Well, did they really think that Americans take that as an honor of some sort. Get a life...

On the other side, Mr. Bush actually has done something good to the economy. Mr. Baydan, the supposedly creator of the famous shoe, has had more than 100,000 orders from several countries after the incident and the firm has given employment to more than 100 ppl. Looks like Mr. Bush has done the good deed of his reign. Way to go... Moreover, he seems to be taking it pretty light-heartedly. "This shows freedom of speech. All I can say is it it size 10", was his jovial comment.

The incident became so popular that there's even a game online mocking it. Ppl sure r determined. Anyway, i just thot I'll giv u the link. So, hav fun...

-> Play Dodge-Shoe

The world just seems to be waiting for something interesting to happen eh.. After all, y els wud i even write this post..

49-O : A likely Solution for Vision 2020

Recently I came to know about this option called 49-O in our election system. So js thot i'll let u guyz know..

In India, an average of 45% of the entire population only register their votes. So, even when a political party does win, it isn't exactly what u'd call a win. Thats why the govt., insists on citizens exercising their right to vote. But ppl refuse to vote stating various reasons, the most common one being that he is not interested in any of the candidates (leave out d lazy ones).

Provision

In 1961, the govt. of India came up with a new option called 49-O, according to which if a voter does not wanna support any of the candidates, he can register with the officer in the booth for the same. Once u fill out the necessary forms, it is officially recorded. This wud not only prevent illegal votes, but also let the election commission be aware of your intentions. If majority of the votes frm a particular ward r for 49-O, then the entire election in that ward wud be cancelled and a re-election wid another set of candidates wud've to be conducted.

Flaw

The biggest problem in this system is that the 49-O option is not included in the EVMs(Electronic Voting Machines) and has to manually registered. Also, ur anonymity is not preserved while registering for a 49-O. Due to this hole, even ppl who know abt the system think twice to register for a 49-O.

Recently, a proposal has been made to include this option also into the EVMs. But discussions r still under progress(abt god knows wat).

So, if u feel the candidates in ur ward r unworthy, u know wat to do...

References

1. The Hindu

2. Election Commission of India

3. Wiki Link

4. Oh Podu