Web Ideas and Space Dimension

Below are two comments of two ?guys/gals of science.

That is the type of ideas I like to read and hear rather than politics, religion or stock market trends.

Current American Presidential campaign is pathetic, both are war mongers either in territorial disputes or economics

Web Ideas and Space Dimension

X Marks The Spot 3 hours ago

Another great picture from the Hubble. The vastness of the universe is amazing, and why I love astronomy and science, in general. Anything that helps put the universe, and our tiny speck of existence in time and space in perspective is good. There's no reason to be any less thankful for our existence, whether it be of divine, or fortuitous creation/evolution, just because our lucky little planet is, no doubt, one of billions, if not trillions, of such planets, and there are/have been/will be, countless species of life, including "intelligent life" (I'm going to give us the benefit of the doubt and include us in that group, although it remains to be seen...lol!), in the universe. 
Unless we want to be a brief flash of evolutionary luck/success, we need to stop wasting our resources and time worrying about, and even fighting wars over whose imaginary sky-god is the best. 

Why is the universe not abuzz with the chatter of other intelligent space-faring species? 
Three reasons: Time, the speed of light, and extinction. If we can't get our stuff together and become an interstellar (or just space-faring) race, we will eventually go extinct, either due to our actions, or through natural catastrophe. 
It is inevitable. How long can the average advanced intelligent society survive IF they do not spread beyond their home planet? 
A few thousand years, perhaps...if they're/we're really lucky. The universe is billions of years old, and really, really big. 5 billion light years away = 5 billion years ago. A few thousand years, across that kind of time and space is like a tiny drop of water in an ocean, and imagine the life of that tiny drop of water - from interstellar space to our planet, to vapor, ice, water, and all around. Take two droplets of water from opposite sides of the ocean. What are the odds of them meeting? Slim, but not zero, not over time. There could be huge populations of interstellar species interacting in the "deep sky" clusters of galaxies, right this very minute, but we won't get that signal for another 5 billion years, which is around the time our sun will have expanded and turned our planet into a toasty tater-tot. If humanity is to endure, we need to become a whole lot more advanced scientifically, and stop wasting what precious little time we have, as a species. 

Speaking of which, I'd better go back to writing programs, since I have limited time to make enough money to give my kids the educational chance to evolve into the best humans they can be, and perhaps make more of a difference in this world than I have.


Jack 2 hours ago
A billion years from now in some far away galaxy some astronomer will discover a pathetic little planet that is in their habitual zone for life similar to theirs. They will write about this planet called H221a in the habitual zone Then they will end the article by saying that H221a has long since gone extinct. They will discuss just how H221a met its doom. Some wise guy sitting in a wheel chair drooling over his laptop will say through his artificial voice device that H221a met its fate just as we are about to do unless we reduce our carbon based emissions. 

"You are in a world of sight and sound, that's the sign post ahead and you are about to enter the Twilight Zone."

Dhamma, Religion, Science and ME

Dhamma, Religion and Science

None of the above is infallible.

This word is often used to describe human capacity for error — no one is infallible.

In that context only science accept capacity to error.

Neither Dhamma nor religion accepts that they are prone to error.

It is easy to dispense orthodox Church's dogma that god is the creator and the essence of the beginning.

If God created the world, who created God is the next pertinent question in science.

This was the question I used to pose as a kid when not even 7 years old.

I have not found an answer to this question all my life.

So my mind worked itself to science without any hindrance.

I was good at asking the most demanding question, in the class and I was thrown out of the class by my Christian rather the Catholic teacher.

He did not realize that I made my fellow mates to ask even more probing questions in my absence.

The end result was that all the so called Buddhists by descent were thrown out eventually.

We enjoyed games while my fellow Christian mates were indoctrinated with the dogma or the current expression “God Delusion”.

I subsequently stopped going to this school (there were many other reason including not teaching elementary science) to my father's annoyance.

To my disgust I never found a good science teacher in the city school, I subsequently joined.

I was born with scientific thinking and that was not a problem, thanks to books from the British Council Library.

I was reading Scientific American very early in my life.

Coming to Dhamma, I never had a teacher who could make interesting introduction to its basics.

Jataka Katha was an antithesis to me.

I should relate a particular incident.

We had a Poya Dasa Sil program in my village school as an antidote to our rebelliousness in the Christian school.

One of my mates asked a simple question from the Buddhist monk.

His question was (based on merit and demerit principle or the good and the bad moral principle) related to Buddhist decorations with Buddha's image littered all over the streets soon after Wesak Poya.

Is it good or bad to litter the streets with Buddha images?

The monk did not answer that question to my satisfaction.

I do not know what my mate's gut feeling was and I never discussed it with him.

This had a remarkable impression on me.

It seeded the interest in environment at a very early age.
Live and let live principle and do not litter the mother earth.

Our capital city Colombo is a classic example of living every day with litter.

The recent floods had made the city fathers to wake up from slumber. 

Even the Colombo crows (cravens) decimated due to garbage menace and polythene (cause intestinal obstruction and death).

The crows did a better service than our city fathers and mothers.

I never liked any religion including Buddhism.

I never declared my inner feeling to anybody including my parents but pretended to be a very religious person (which was trues as far as good habits were concerned and I was a visible conformist from outside).

I probed into Dhamma well past my adulthood.

I found Dhamma very tricky especially the Rebirth. 

However, Kamma was not my bete noire, in the way of cause and effect.

Buddha deliberately avoided controversy.

He strictly forbade the inquiry into the universe and the world of science.

He said they were the deterrent and superfluous to the eightfold pathway he preached.

Kalama Sutta was the red herring which later scholars got hold of it by the wrong end or the tail of it, to say Dhamma is scientific.

He used his qualifications for systematic inquiry in Kalama Sutta to verify his basic teaching of Eightfold Pathway of life.

His Dhamma was a way of life and a mental culture in pristine form.

There is no science in Buddha's teaching.

Any rendering outside his teaching is a viscous dogma (science included) which he specifically forbade.

What he tried to convey is that “the universe is within you” and not from outside or any alien forces.

Nibbana or the four sublime forms were the goals to target and not scientific methodology.

The bottom line is I am yet to find a Buddhist monk or layperson who reached these goals.

In my case, I am not at all interested in those targets and in that sense I am not a Buddhist, at all.

I am very much happy with what I am and my goals are very simple and mundane like, good night sleep, good holiday, bit of wine, a piece of cupcake with some chocolate chips, a good science book to read or detective story to ponder and never a melodrama.

If one has not worked out who one is, it is simply a burden to the mother earth, which gives oxygen to breath, water to drink, fruits (food) to eat and gravity to pull oneself into an erect homo sapien who has not evolved to his full potential, yet.

Cancer and Cellphones

Dr Jonathan Samet (University of Southern California,

USA), overall Chairman of the Working Group, indicated that

"the evidence, while still accumulating, is strong enough to

support a conclusion and the 2B classification.

The conclusion means that there could be some risk, and

therefore we need to keep a close watch

for a link between cell phones and cancer

risk."

"Given the potential consequences

for public health

of this classification and findings,"

said

IARC Director Christopher Wild,

"it is important that additional research

be conducted into

the long term, heavy

use of mobile phones.

Pending the availability

of such information, it is

important to

take pragmatic measures

to reduce exposure such as hands free devices

or texting.

"The Working Group considered hundreds

of scientific articles; the complete list

will be published in the Monograph.

It is noteworthy to mention that several recent in press scientific articles resulting from the Interphone

study were made available to the working group shortly

before it was due to convene,

reflecting their acceptance for publication at

that time, and were included in the evaluation.

A concise report summarizing the main conclusions of

the IARC Working Group and the evaluations

of the carcinogenic hazard

from radiofrequency, electromagnetic fields (including the use

of mobile telephones)

will be published in

The Lancet Oncology

in its July Publication.

Elephant Myths

 In Sri-Lanka sitting judges and cunning monks steal baby elephants from their mothers in the wild.

They do not consider it asa crime!

Elephant that sparked petition dies in Japan zoo

Image caption Hanako was kept caged and alone for most of her life

An elephant that was the focus of an international campaign to improve its living conditions has died in a zoo in Japan.

Hanako, which means "Flower Child", was 69 and the oldest elephant in Japan.
The elephant was a gift from Thailand when it was two years old.
Last year a petition was launched to improve the animal's conditions, but Hanako was deemed too old to move back to Thailand.
A spokesman for Inokashira Park Zoo on the outskirts of Tokyo said Hanako was found lying on her side on Thursday morning and efforts to raise her were not successful. She died in the afternoon.

The war on elephants

Have we fallen out of love with elephant rides?

Image caption The zoo said Hanako was too old to be moved

Hanako was a popular attraction in the zoo, but the elephant, born in the wild, spent most of her life caged and alone in a concrete enclosure with little greenery.
Last year a Canadian blogger wrote an article about the elephant's enclosure, describing it as a "concrete prison".
That prompted the petition, which led the zoo to provide new toys and make other changes.
However, the zoo said she was too old to be moved and an independent US wildlife expert said staying in a sanctuary with other elephants would bewilder Hanako after living so many years alone.

Man Made Disaster and Floods

Current Floods in Colombo is a Man Made Disaster.
 Irregular land reclamation and filling up "Flood Plains or low lying areas that drains excess water (by political big wigs under Ma Ra) was the biggest reason.
I am very unhappy the parliament did not go under water (it is built on the flood plain by JRJ).
Rain gods are only unkind to the poor not to the legislators who use abusive language (Including CMs) as a gut reaction.
I only wish with the next cyclone the parliament should go under water six feet high and bury them alive.

 Reproduction
සැබවින්ම, අදාළ නාය යාම් සහ ගංවතුර තත්වය කාලයක් තිස්සේ රටේ පරිසරයට කළ විනාශයේ විපාක වේ. පරිසරය කළමනාකරණය කිරීම සඳහා රාජ්‍ය ප්‍රතිපත්තියක් අපට නැත. ඇත්තේ තම මඩිය තරකර ගැනීම සඳහා සැකස් කරගත් කොමිස් ප්‍රතිපත්තියකි. තනතුරේ හැටියට කොමිස් මුදලේ ප්‍රමාණය තීරණය කර ගනිමින් ගසා කෑමය. එක්තරා ගුවන් හමුදාපතිවරයෙක් තම බංගලාව තනා ගැනීම සඳහා සුන්දර වනයක් වැනසූ ආකාරය අපි දන්නෙමු. රටට අයත් මුහුදු සීමාවේ සිට පිදුරුතලාගල කන්දේ මුදුන දක්වා වූ රටේ සෑම තැනකම මේ ආකාරයෙන් සිදු වූ දෑ බොහෝය. සැබෑ ඉතිහාසය මෙයයි. වැදගත් වන්නේ මෙම ඉතිහාසය වෙනස් කිරීම සඳහා ප්‍රතිපත්තියක් මත පිහිටා කටයුතු කිරීමය. එකිනෙකාට අවංක වීමය.
කලෙක පයිනස් වවා එහි ඇති ජල උල්පත් විනාශ කළහ. තව කලෙක කඳුවල පාංශු ඛාදනය සිදුවීමට කිසිඳු ප්‍රතිකර්මයක් නොකොට මහා ජලාශ තැනූහ. ඒවා රොන්මඩින් සහ පෝෂ්‍යදායක පාංශු සම්පත්වලින් පිරී ගියේය. වැස්සට ජලය ආරක්ෂා කරගැනීමට ඇති ධාරිතාව ක්‍රමයෙන් අඩු වී ගියේය. මුල් ජාලාශයේ ඇති ගැටලුව විසඳිමකින් තොරව ඊට ඉහලින් තව ජලාශයක් තැනුවේය. මේ ප්‍රතිපත්තිය කෙලවර වන්නේ වලාකුළු උඩත් ජලාශ තැනීමට උතසහ කිරීමෙන් මිස, රටේ සැබෑ පාරසරික ගැටලුව විසඳීමෙන් නොවේ. මේ නිසා වැස්සට ගංවතුර සහ නායයෑම; නියගෙට බීමටවත් ජල පොඳක් නොමැති තත්වය උදාවීම සැබෑ “ඉරණම” වී තිබේ. මෙතරම් මනරම් පරිසරයක් ඇති දිවයිනක් ආලපලුවන්ගේ අපහරණයට ලක් වීමෙන් උදා වී ඇති තත්වය මෙයයි. සංවර්ධන ව්‍යපෘති ඉලක්ක කර ගත යුත්තේ මෙවැනි දෑය. මෙම මූලික ගැටලු නොවිසඳනතාක් දුරට තත්වය තව තවත් උග්‍රවීම හැරෙන්නට, කිසිඳු යහපතක් රටේ ජනතාවට සිදු වන්නේ නැත.
කෙසේ වෙතත්, මෙරට සාමන්‍යය ජනතාව රටේ විපතට පත් වූ තම සගයන්ට පිහිට වන ආකාරය දැකීම සැබවින්ම ආඩම්බරයට කාරණයකි. මෙවැනි විපත් වලදී දක්වන සහයෝගය, එකමුතුව, සහ ඉන් ලබන සංතෘප්තිය වූ කලී මෙරට ජනතාව අතර පවතින සැබෑ ගුණාංග වේ. මෙවැනි දෑ වලින් සෑම විටම වාසි ලබා ගැනීමට උත්සහ දරනු ලබන්නේ බලය වෙනුවෙන් පොරකන පිරිසය. ජෝර්ජ් ඕවල් විසින් රචනා කළ “ඇනිමල් ෆාම්” හී එන නැපෝලියන් වැනි ඌරන්ගේ භූමිකාව රඟපාන ඔවුහු, ඕනෑම කටයුත්තකදී සැබෑ ලෙස දුක් විඳින සහ කැපකිරීම කරන අයවලුන් අභිබාවා පෞද්ගලික වාසී සඳහා නිරන්තරයෙන් පෙනී සිටින්නන් වේ.

;

Space Sickness

My first article as a medical student on Medical Bulletin was on Space Sickness.

I have diversified my interests and rarely write on medical matters except atherosclerosis or cholesterol conspiracy.

It took almost 40 years for the astronauts to admit their plight.

That itself is a conspiracy.

It is strange my current obsession is SPACE and bought a book yesterday on Astronomy to browse.

It has few lines on Edwin Hubble (Hubble Telescope was named after him) who is for me the Father of Astronomy!

Reproduction

NASA's yearlong spaceman still is nursing sore feet, stiff legs and fatigue, even after nearly three months back on Earth.

Retired astronaut Scott Kelly gave his first major address to NASA employees Wednesday, confiding that while he may have looked good upon landing in Kazakhstan at the beginning of March, he didn't feel that well after returning from the International Space Station. His 340-day mission was the longest single U.S. spaceflight ever.

"When I got out of the Soyuz ... I didn't really look too bad," Kelly told a packed auditorium at NASA headquarters in Washington. "But that was only because I'm a very good actor. I think I should be nominated for an Academy Award.

"My goal here was not to look great. I just had to make sure I didn't look worse than the two guys I was with. My colleagues would never let me hear the end of it," he added with a smile.

Kelly was accompanied back to Earth by two Russians, one of whom shared his entire nearly yearlong flight.

Back home in Houston, Kelly said he had burning skin, rashes and flu-like symptoms. He said he felt so bad that if he hadn't just returned from space, he would have gone straight to the emergency room.

"But that's why we do this," he said. "We need to learn these things if we're going to go to Mars."

NASA wants to understand how the body copes with a year of weightlessness, as it gears up to send humans on much longer journeys to Mars beginning in the 2030s.

Kelly, 52, who retired from NASA shortly after his mission, is now on the speaker circuit and working on a book. He and identical twin brother Mark, a retired astronaut who took part in his brother's medical experiments as a ground subject, sometimes share center stage these days. Last week, they were honored at their elementary school in New Jersey, now named for them both.

During Wednesday's presentation, which was broadcast to NASA centers nationwide, Kelly joked that on the space station, "I changed positions so many times, you would have thought I was running for president." No longer a civil servant, "I can say that now."

Someone in the audience wanted to know if Kelly ever felt as though he had to get off the space station, at any point during his mission.

"I never felt quite like I was climbing the walls," he replied, although not even halfway through, "I'm thinking this is a really, really long time."

In fact, as his Russian Soyuz capsule approached the orbiting outpost in March 2015, Kelly said to himself, "Man, this is probably a really dumb idea to be spending a year on the space station." His previous station stay, five years earlier, had lasted barely five months.

"This flight was twice as long and I felt twice as bad," he said.

It took Kelly about six months to recover completely from his five-month station flight. This time, he said, "I suspect it's probably going to be much longer, especially considering how sore my feet still are after 2 ½ months. But the good news is I do feel better all the time."

Linux Gurus, Jon Hall and Peter Parfait

Reproduction
Jon Hall and Peter Parfait were my Linux Gurus.

I read a book by them called "Joy of Linux" in the same Style as "Joy of Sex".

Having read that I got rid of the "Fear Psychosis" I had on Linux.
I am reproducing on of his "Wisdom Thoughts" here.
I am using Linux utilities and figuring out to put his photo here.
Hope I will be successful.
The Raspberry Pi computer has rekindled interest in tinkering with hardware and created a market for products combining the tiny computer with customized software. 
By Jon "maddog" Hall

The format of the Photo was not accepted by Google, unfortunately.
 
Those of you who know me know that I designed electronics circuits in high school and then studied Electrical Engineering at Drexel University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). Unfortunately during that career I was almost electrocuted by 13,600 volts and 800 amps (twice!). Fortunately I found software as much fun and a lot safer, other than paper cuts from ripping printouts. Back in those days electronic components were very expensive (US$ 128,000 for 64KB of core memory), so I took the software route and let someone else pay for the hardware.
I continued to be interested in hardware, and I even assembled my own computer from chips and prototype digital circuits with the use of breadboards, sometimes with wire-wrapping. Soldering tens of thousands of pins perfected my soldering technique, and you really don't want to know about the wire-wrapping.
About two years ago, I became involved with the Arduino, which has been a lot of fun, but my time with it was limited, and to me it was not a "real" computer because it did not run GNU/Linux.
Then I heard about the Raspberry Pi (RPi). This was what I had been waiting for: a US$ 35 computer that ran a real operating system and allowed you to tinker with electronics just as you could with the Arduino.

 In fact, people were using the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino together, which was even cooler.
The founders of the Raspberry Pi Foundation are modest people who thought that only 1,000 very low priced computers would be enough for the world, and in doing so, they unfortunately created an imbalance between supply and demand. (Alas, many great visionaries underestimate their influence.) In fact, they took 100,000 orders before they shipped a single Raspberry Pi, and for many months, people who wanted them could only order one at a time with a 12-week delivery lead time.
Last September, just before Campus Party Europe in Berlin, I contacted the Raspberry Pi Foundation and asked if they would be willing to attend and perhaps give a talk or two about their wonderful machine. Not only did they send Alan Mycroft, one of the original founders, but they sent three enthusiastic graduate students and lots of RPis and bread boarding gear, and they even gave three hands-on workshops. I attended one of them and worked with a young "Campusero" from Spain who I thought was going to go berserk over the fact that his software could make an LED blink Morse code. Then, I taught him that pushing a button was not as simple as he thought when the button has key bounce.
Over the past several months, I have had the privilege to work closer with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, learning more about their history and dreams for the computer. I have seen people create the most interesting projects with it, and in some cases move beyond projects to selling actual products based on a Raspberry Pi with some customized software (e.g., a three-person ERP system for small companies).
At Campus Party Brazil, I also met another of the product's founders, Pete Lomas, whose tales of bringing the RPi to market reminded me a lot of my days back at Digital.
I also gave two talks at Campus Party Brazil on the RPi: one about the RPi in general and another about how to make a media center out of the RPi from really inexpensive components. Attaching an RPi to a VESA-equipped monitor could create a very powerful, low-cost thin client/media center for digital inclusion. It has no fan noise, uses very little electricity (3W when idle), and has no moving parts to wear out.
Most refreshing was the real desire to keep the price of the RPi as low as possible yet still deliver enough compute power to students who want to experiment. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has now shipped more than 1 million units, and they are set to deliver another million this year; however, I think they might need to manufacture 2 or 3 million.
Another thing I like about the RPi is the number of different Free and Open Source operating systems that have been ported to it (including Firefox OS) and the number of cottage industries that are building up around it – cases, an online magazine driven by the community, bread-boarding packages, and other add-ons.
Every once in a while there is a "step function in fun" for computing, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation has hit a home run. If you have not investigated it, particularly if you are part of a school or university, I suggest you visit their website.

Elephant Myths and Tragedy

The reporting below is a BIG LIE!

They were electrocuted by Electric Fence hit by Lighting.

It is the Electric Fence that killed them.

They have built electric fences to protect Hashish Growing farmers.

Please do not believe Sri-Lankan Media and politicians and Ganja Growers.

 

The figure 7000 is also a BOGUS Figure.

They are endangered, may be less than 2000.

Under previous government there was big Baby Elephant Trade, Buddhist Monks and Local mafia included.

There is even fisticuffs and cheating (in counting votes in debates) in our parliament.
We send politicians (mafia agents) without fifth standard education and they cannot even count the 10 fingers.

 Reporting
Four elephants, including two calves, were killed by lightning in northern Sri Lanka in one of the worst wildlife tragedies to hit the country in years, officials said Sunday.

A female elephant, aged about 25 years, and two of her calves, aged 10 months and two years, and an eight-year-old female were found dead Sunday just outside the Wilpattu wildlife sanctuary, an official said.
"Villagers from neighbouring areas alerted the authorities and we carried out autopsies," wildlife veterinary surgeon Chandana Jayasinghe said. "The deaths were caused by lightning."
Local villagers in Mahavilachchiya, 250 kilometres (156 miles) north of Colombo, had reported heavy rains accompanied by thunder and lightning in the shrub jungle area on Friday when the elephants were thought to have been struck.
It was the worst natural disaster involving elephants since February 2011 when four baby elephants drowned in a major flood in the north-east of the country.
Elephants are venerated in the mainly Buddhist country and they are a highly protected species. Elephant deaths must be investigated and death certificates issued before disposing of the carcasses.
Despite tough conservation laws and the elephant's association with Buddhism, nearly 200 jumbos are killed each year by villagers after accidentally straying onto farmland, while the animals themselves kill about 50 people each year.

Sri Lanka's elephant population has reduced to just over 7,000, according to a census five years ago, down from a population of over 12,000 at the start of the 20th century.

 Cheating in the parliament

Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, MP, yesterday said that it was the responsibility of party leaders to ensure the participation of their members in parliamentary proceedings.

Speaker Jayasuriya said that in case members skipped sessions it would be the responsibility of the respective leaders to take punitive action against them. The former UNP Deputy leader is on record as having said that a single day’s parliamentary sittings cost the Sri Lankan taxpayer Rs. 4.6 mn, and, therefore, MPs should bear in mind their responsibilities.

The Speaker was responding to a query by The Island whether he could take disciplinary action against those who hadn’t been present in parliament on Thursday (May 5) afternoon when a vote taken at the end of a debate to give approval for a supplementary estimate of Rs 55 mn for the government revealed only 62 members out of 225 were present.

The parliament was told 33 members voted for the supplementary estimate and 31 voted against. Both the Joint Opposition and the JVP strongly objected to the result. Alleging vote rigging, they demanded a recount. After several recounts, the Secretary General of Parliament and political party representatives agreed that there had been 31 votes each for and against the supplementary estimate.

Had members of the UNP-SLFP coalition been present on that day, the supplementary estimate could have been passed without any issue, Speaker Jayasuriya said.

The UNP parliamentary group comprises 106 members plus one SLMC MP.

The SLFP group backing the UNP comprises 46 members. The rebel SLFP-led UPFA group comprises 49 members, including former President and Kurunegala District MP Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The Speaker expressed serious concern over continuing low turnaround at parliamentary sessions. Parliament meets eight days a month. According to him, the situation at some Provincial Councils was worse for want of a system to ensure participation.

Asked whether the offending members could be dealt under the code of conduct for the members of parliament, Speaker Jayasuriya said the draft of the proposed code of conduct had been made available to all members of parliament. Once the members state their positions, the proposed code of conduct could be adopted, the Speaker said. In respect of attendance, the draft proposed: "Every member shall attend every sitting of the House and meeting of the committee of which he or she is a member, in accordance with practice of the House, except with reasonable excuse, or in the case of extended absence, if excused in accordance with the practice of the House."

Political sources pointed out that the TNA rescued the government by voting for the supplementary estimate.

Most of the Ministers, State Ministers and Deputy Ministers hadn’t been present at the time the vote was taken. At the end of the debate Chief Opposition Whip JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake called for a division.

Having campaigned against the previous administration, the UNP obviously didn’t expect JVP leader Dissanayake to cause an unnecessary crisis by calling for a division. Many an eyebrow was raised at the JVP backing the Joint Opposition against the government.

The Yahapalana government conducted various lessons for members as well as parliamentary staff recently to improve their participation in the process.
Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, MP, yesterday said that it was the responsibility of party leaders to ensure the participation of their members in parliamentary proceedings.

Speaker Jayasuriya said that in case members skipped sessions it would be the responsibility of the respective leaders to take punitive action against them. The former UNP Deputy leader is on record as having said that a single day’s parliamentary sittings cost the Sri Lankan taxpayer Rs. 4.6 mn, and, therefore, MPs should bear in mind their responsibilities.

The Speaker was responding to a query by The Island whether he could take disciplinary action against those who hadn’t been present in parliament on Thursday (May 5) afternoon when a vote taken at the end of a debate to give approval for a supplementary estimate of Rs 55 mn for the government revealed only 62 members out of 225 were present.

The parliament was told 33 members voted for the supplementary estimate and 31 voted against. Both the Joint Opposition and the JVP strongly objected to the result. Alleging vote rigging, they demanded a recount. After several recounts, the Secretary General of Parliament and political party representatives agreed that there had been 31 votes each for and against the supplementary estimate.

Had members of the UNP-SLFP coalition been present on that day, the supplementary estimate could have been passed without any issue, Speaker Jayasuriya said.

The UNP parliamentary group comprises 106 members plus one SLMC MP.

The SLFP group backing the UNP comprises 46 members. The rebel SLFP-led UPFA group comprises 49 members, including former President and Kurunegala District MP Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The Speaker expressed serious concern over continuing low turnaround at parliamentary sessions. Parliament meets eight days a month. According to him, the situation at some Provincial Councils was worse for want of a system to ensure participation.

Asked whether the offending members could be dealt under the code of conduct for the members of parliament, Speaker Jayasuriya said the draft of the proposed code of conduct had been made available to all members of parliament. Once the members state their positions, the proposed code of conduct could be adopted, the Speaker said. In respect of attendance, the draft proposed: "Every member shall attend every sitting of the House and meeting of the committee of which he or she is a member, in accordance with practice of the House, except with reasonable excuse, or in the case of extended absence, if excused in accordance with the practice of the House."

Political sources pointed out that the TNA rescued the government by voting for the supplementary estimate.

Most of the Ministers, State Ministers and Deputy Ministers hadn’t been present at the time the vote was taken. At the end of the debate Chief Opposition Whip JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake called for a division.

Having campaigned against the previous administration, the UNP obviously didn’t expect JVP leader Dissanayake to cause an unnecessary crisis by calling for a division. Many an eyebrow was raised at the JVP backing the Joint Opposition against the government.

The Yahapalana government conducted various lessons for members as well as parliamentary staff recently to improve their participation in the process.

Linux Magazine is FAB!

Newbee Guys and Gals

 

Below is how an Indian tried eavesdropped on my computer, many moons ago!

Culprit was early SimplyMepis, a hybrid with Microsoft.

I cannot remember, exactly.

I stopped using it, anyway.

NOW Microsoft 10 is cohabiting with Ubuntu bash shell and trying to find its "Lost World" or the Jurassic Park!

I NEWER USED Ubuntu only for TESTING its weaknesses.

Bottom line is even, Linux especially Android can be HACKED.

That is why F-Droid, derivative of FREE Software (Foundation) has come into being.

Current state is discussed in Linux Magazine which has many interesting articles.

Next one is on security features.

If you have enough saving or spare money SUBSCRIBE.

Blog Piece below (it is not here go and look for it) is related to Androids.

Android Kernel is vulnerable, that is why I do not cellphone for critical work.

Best bet for security is TOR in Linux (Linux Anonymous)