Speed Dating...

To be with a friend, I went speed-dating tonight. It was fun, I met lots of nice women, but none for me since I'm not a ladies man! I found speed-dating to be something new, but I wish I had more time to talk to some of the women whom I thought were quite interesting, including the two medical students, whose names I won't give up. I didn't bother getting numbers or e-mails but I wish I did now! I'm sure that I will bump into the two med students though because I'm gonna be around their domain, the medsci building! Overall, a lot of fun, met new people and I realized that speed-dating isn't what it's made out to be, at least from my perspective.

An edit: three women chose me and would like to meet up later...

UCLA Taser incident, as if you've heard enough!

Firstly, even though I'm Iranian, I am not biased against the UCPD, but I will say that their actions against this student was stupid, to say the least! Last week, an Iranian-American (Although I think where he was from is hardly a matter) student was tasered at 11:30 at a UCLA library. He believed he was being racially profiled so he was in the process of leaving. OK, he's leaving, get out!

As he was walking out the door, he was confronted by UCPD officers. What happened next, I'm not sure since I don't know the entire story, but he said some things, and then police handcuffed him. There is not a whole lot that you can do when you are handcuffed right? Well, apparently, the police wouldn't think that way and then attached electrodes to his chest. Let's get something clear here: they didn't shoot electrodes onto him like you would when you're trying to immobilise someone with a gun or a weapon, but you actually attach it onto him. If anything, this can be classified as torture, similar to that of Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib.

There is also where the police are threatening around by saying that if anybody comes close, they will also get tasered. That's ok for crowd control, but when you're also having the students demand a badge number for the officer and then getting threatened, that is classified as assault, and you don't need a grade 12 education to know this stuff! For an incident such as this, I would call their bluff and actually phone 911, since they're not real police officers, on this because what they were doing is considered criminal to such a high extent.

Overall, you don't taser someone because they yell obscenities at you and furthermore, you don't taser someone when they are consciously immobilised. The UCPD took such drastic measures against something that could have been very mild and insignificant and has reached this guy typing away at his computer in Toronto! I think that the officers involved should be reprimanded and called to explain their actions before the students and to a greater extent, the world that witnessed this. I also think that this student deserves an apology and some sort of compensation, financial (I don't recommend throwing money at this) or otherwise. This is a heinous crime and the ones who committed should explain for what they did.

Richard "Dick" Seaman, what a story!

I was watching the Discovery Channel this morning and I saw a documentary called "Nazi Grand Prix". It was about the story of Dick Seaman, a race car driver in the early 1930's who made a decision to race for the Mercedes Benz, which was being run by the Nazis at the time. He was a brilliant driver, with the cunning ability of Michael Schumacher today.

In the 1938 German Grand Prix, Mercedes Benz ordered that Seaman not win the race and let his teammate, a German, to win the race since it was the German race and the German people needed a hero, who was of the same nationality! The German went out of the race because of a fire during a pitstop, and Seaman won the race. He saluted Hitler on the top step of the podium not once, but twice! It is rumoured that Hitler stopped watching Grand Prix racing after this race.

I won't go into the specifics of his life, but Dick Seaman lived the life that would look good in a Hollywood biopic. He was good-looking, really fast (for his time!), married a beautiful girl (Erica Popp) when he was 25 and she was 18 (I think), all against the wishes of his mother, and died doing what he loved. I was riveted to the story of his life, and a movie of his life would be a beautiful thing, provided a big name Hollywood director didn't direct it. Back to working on my health presentation now!

Some people are very rude

This is by no means a rant, but there are very many people who are rude on the phone. I thought that it would only be for telemarketers and their like, me being one until almost 2 years ago, but there are people who are naturally just rude. I got home one night and had to get to my uncle, so I called 905-212-9779 thinking that it was my uncle's number, I heard the answering machine say that I called 905-282... and I hung up because it was obviously a wrong number. I called 905-212-9779 again, still thinking that it was my uncle, but all of a sudden, somebody picks it up and says nothing. I'm obviously very confused at this point, so I give a "hello" to see if maybe there was a problem in the communication thingy. An old and very rude woman says to me in a very demeaning voice "why are you calling a fax machine?". I'm obviously very taken aback by this and just slam the phone since I don't want to talk or associate myself with her crap.

I hope that if this woman reads this, which she probably won't because she knows nothing about technology or how to work a fax machine, that even though you may be old and very senile, it doesn't mean that you can just take your anger out on people who call a wrong number. This person who lives at 905-212-9779 is a very rude woman, and shouldn't even have a telephone so she won't be able to spread her verbal diarrhea to the world and make it a worse place to live.

Saddam's execution: Justice or revenge?

The verdict was read, he created a lot of hoopla, but Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq has been sentenced to death by hanging. Was it revenge? Was it justice? We shall never know. Being a Shia Muslim from a liberal family, I, personally, can say that the hanging of a tyrant is not the way to deliver justice. I've never been a fan of the death penalty, and that includes killing Saddam Hussein.

I also find that this is embarassing both for Iraq and for Saddam Hussein himself. It is embarassing for Iraq because through this ruling, of one of history's greatest tyrants, they still believe in the eye-for-an-eye rule. It is embarassing for Saddam Hussein simply because he has gone from feared leader to a simple criminal, albeit, a high profile criminal.

I find that there is US bias as well in this ruling. The judges were Shia Muslims. Saddam put the minority Sunnis in charge of almost everything and made the majority Shias suffer. Sunnis were given special privileges over the Shias. There's nothing bad about that other than the fact that both should be given equal status and nobody is above the law. If anything, the judgment should have been done by both Sunni and Shia judges and not someone that the US has trained in law and judging.

Saddam Hussein also held mock elections, which he considered real enough to run, was the only candidate running in the two elections before the war, and he won those both with 97% and 100% of the vote respectively. What gets me wondering is how does someone who is the only candidate running get 97% of the vote?

Finally, Saddam got the death penalty for one of the many massacres he committed against people. There is nothing about the Iran-Iraq war, where hundreds of thousands of young Iraqi and Iranian men were killed off. The gassing of the Kurds, that's a back issue. If anything, I believe that the leaders who gave Saddam weapons to commit atrocities against his, Iran's and Kuwait's people should be tried for criminal negligence. That list would include many notable names including Donald Rumsfeld and Ronald Reagan, who would be tried in absentia!

Hope you enjoyed reading this, keep on truckin'! I still don't know what the latter means!

Hi!

Nothing much to say other than the fact that my life was busy and now it's the calm and devastation after the storm. I saw the Borat movie last Wednesday in a special sneak preview (and Tink really wants to kill me) and I'm going to see it again simply because my Persian-Jew brethren requires his due! I'm really tired and really nervous, but that's life after test! I'm working on the 2007 Solar Car as part of the U of T team and I'm looking forward to the competition in Australia next year with a revolutionary two-seater and a long underwear system for the drivers to wear which will keep them comfortable in the intense Australian Outback heat. That's me, my life, and everything associated with it, toodles!