Abolishing the Post of Presidency in Ceylon

Abolishing the Post of Presidency in Ceylon
Time has come to review the need of a post of Presidency.
The framers of the current (even the past constitution left gaping holes) constitution have failed to see an epidemic of current level will make the holder of this post becoming a dictator rather than a facilitator.
In actual fact, a military dictatorship as opposed to police state.
Luckily the police has kept the army at bay (they are under civil service control in the past, under British) due to current necessities.
Healthy rivalry of the police and army is essential for a working democracy whereas the Army follows orders from higher up who can become somebody like Idi Amin or guys in Myanmar with ethnic cleansing.
This post was impotent in some sense and MS (previous holder)  showed the dissociation with consensual agreement albeit mildly.
Current one wants the parliament to be impotent till his cohort's (not in any way with consensus with the opposition parties) agenda is converted to practice.
The election Commission is dilly dallying with the constitution but the life of an average daily earner is in the balance (by holding the election on top of a economic crisis).
Money saved by delaying the election can be utilized for essential workers with protective gear (including civil servants conducting the election) that is in short supply already.
I think, a mature lawyer or a sensible citizen should go to courts and display that there is potential for disaster waiting to unfold and  an election catastrophe.
Current parliament has the validity well beyond, if consensus is reached by summoning the parliament.

The dictators have the affliction of listening to nobody or the opposing logic.

One stupid guy comparing the pandemic to Dengue (medical term is epidemic with rainfall)  is illogical and he has gone nuts by power hunger.
The coronavirus will become an endemic for few years if the lockdown is broken an election is held.

Example is what happened to navy guys who have a particular sexual orientation. 
It is endemic in camps.
Police personnel are  saved simply because police service is essentially decentralized.
But even they are not immune.
Even Prime Ministers (UK) and Speakers (Pakistan) are affected.
Any large gathering at Prime Ministers residence is a major risk.
I think the Prime Minister wants opposition members to get sick.
Why can't they hold a video conference.
If they do not have these facilities let the money saved (delaying election) be used to acquire them in double quick time.
I congratulate JVP for boycotting the invitation.
They should be very critical of the militarization.
They have suffered thrice under military suppression, and knows how bad it is. 
My gut feeling is by holding the election virus will get a foothold and our health service will be permanently paralyzed and we won't be able to run our basic immunization program for our mothers and children.

Is Coronavirus spread more prevalent among homosexuals?

Is Coronavirus spread more prevalent among homosexuals?

My question is pertinent, since a lot of guys/girls including teachers, principles, tuition masters, priests, monks and politicians prey on under age children.

One Prime Minister of England of my time was sleeping with a child while holding office and his cohorts on both parties and journalists hid this fact.

I was trained in UK to catch the culprits and my last case was a UK police officer and I sent his pubic hair for genetic confirmation.

They (including the consort) vouched that the hair belonged to the dog.

My consultant (an Indian) did (suffice is to say, he got into trouble) did not confirm my findings that night itself and that night I resigned from my post and returned home with the first available flight, never to return to UK.

Before I left a female Prime Minister made homosexuality of consenting adults, legal in UK.

I recorded every (I was trained in pathology in Ceylon before I started migrating to Paediatrics) detail in a tiny O.P.D card just, enough for courts requirements in a future date.

Back at home in private practice I collected ample evidence of paedophilia and traced them to a care home run by a Swedish guy.

I intimated (not the true records) this to a incredible female politician holding high office with two young kids.

She allowed this guy to go scot free and her explanation was that we would lose tourist income.

Now my concern here not only epidemiology buts its mode of spread.

The authorities are slow to accept that it is an enterovirus, just like hepatitis B virus (DNA virus) with a long incubation period.

It has respiratory mode of spread too.

Coming back to AIDS (retrovirus) virus, it was transmitted by German servicemen working on kidneys of a particular tree monkey.

These Germen servicemen were homosexuals (African kids) and I guess they were even sodomites and bastards.

It is interesting that a particular group of our servicemen spread this disease in tandem with militarization of our body politics.

Professional Responsibility

Professional Responsibility

Sweden’s approach is stupid to say the least (provided it did not take simple precautions, stated below) even disregarding the high death toll in Sweden.

One epidemiologist acting without data is shear madness and subtle medical dictatorship.

I need few basic data.

Is it an enteric virus?

Is it a respiratory virus?

Is the mode of transmission a combination of the two?

What is the gap period (I.C.P.) between the two?

 

In other words the total incubation period assuming the enteric phase was missed or callously disregard.

 

We haven’t got the data due to lying and conniving of China and WHO.

There are a lot to blame including guys and girls in Ceylon.

Simple sanitation methods (adapted in West Africa during Ebola virus endemic) like hand washing, wearing gloves, masks and gowns are neglected world wide especially in Indian subcontinent and Africa. 
 

Social distancing even though difficult to practice  in the East (assuming respiratory mode of transmission) was outstandingly successful in the West (associated with the level of education and social responsibility).

   

One can be smart after the fact and the moment I got the wind of it without telling anybody, I /we kept at home for two months (wife joined) long before WHO and Ceylon recommendations.

 

By the time warning bells were rung, the  horse had bolted from the stable.

 

Reproduction

  Friedman: 

Is Sweden getting it right with its…

President Donald Trump has often described this pandemic as our “war” with an “invisible enemy” — the coronavirus. 

That war metaphor is wrong and misleading.

Wars are fought and won by humans. 

But when you’re in a struggle with one of Mother Nature’s challenges — like a virus or a climate change — the goal is not to defeat her. 

No one can. 

She’s just chemistry, biology and physics. 

The goal is to adapt.

 

Mother Nature does not reward the strongest or the smartest. 

 

She rewards the species that are the most adaptive in evolving the chemistry, biology and physics that she has endowed them with to thrive — no matter what she throws at them.

And that’s why I believe one of the most important questions we need to answer, as these lockdowns end, is this: 

Are we going to adapt to the coronavirus —by design— the way Sweden is attempting to do — or are we going to go the same direction as Sweden —by messy default— or are we just going to say “the hell with lockdowns” and go 50 different ways?

In case you’ve missed it, Sweden has taken a radically different approach in dealing with the coronavirus. It has essentially opted for a strategy of “herd immunity” through exposure.

This strategy posits that most people under age 65 who get the coronavirus — if they do not have major preexisting medical conditions — will either experience it as a typical or tough flu, or completely asymptomatically, and the number who will get so sick that they require hospitalization or emergency care will reliably be less than the number of beds needed to care for them.

So, if you do your best to shelter and sequester all of those over 65 and those with serious preexisting conditions — notably heart and lung disease and diabetes — and let much of the rest of the population circulate and get exposed and become naturally immune, once about 60% of your population has gone through this you’ll have herd immunity and the viral transmission will be blocked. (This assumes that immunity for some period of time results from exposure, as most experts think it will.)

After all, herd immunity is our goal — either from vaccination or from enough people building natural immunity. Those are the only ways to achieve it.

The upside of Sweden’s strategy — if it works — is that your economy does not take such a deep hit from lockdowns.

 

Anders Tegnell, chief epidemiologist at Sweden’s Public Health Agency — the nation’s top infectious disease official and architect of Sweden’s coronavirus response — said in an interview published in USA Today on Tuesday: “We think that up to 25% people in Stockholm have been exposed to coronavirus and are possibly immune. A recent survey from one of our hospitals in Stockholm found that 27% of staff there are immune. We could reach herd immunity in Stockholm within a matter of weeks.”

It has come with a high cost, though. As USA Today noted: “As of April 28, (Sweden’s) COVID-19 death toll reached 2,274, about five times higher than in Denmark and 11 times higher than in Norway.”

Here’s the stone-cold truth: There are only different hellish ways to adapt to a pandemic and save both lives and livelihoods. I raise Sweden not because I think it has found the magic balance — it is way too soon to tell — but because I think we should be debating all the different ways and costs of acquiring immunity.

When I look across America, though, and see governors partly lifting lockdowns — because they feel their people just can’t take it anymore for economic or psychological reasons, even though their populations have little or no immunity — I worry we may end up developing more herd immunity but in a painful, deadly, costly, uncoordinated way that still leaves room for the coronavirus to strike hard again and overwhelm hospitals.

Herd immunity “has historically been nature’s way of ending pandemics,” added Dr. David Katz, the public health physician who helped kick off the debate in an essay he wrote in The New York Times on March 20 and in a follow-up interview we did together.

“We need to bend with her forces — even when we as a species are responsible for unleashing them,” Katz said. That means a designed strategy, based on risk profiles, of phasing back to work those least vulnerable, so we gradually cultivate the protection of herd immunity — “while concentrating our health services and social services on protecting those most vulnerable” until we can sound the all-clear.

Thomas L. Friedman is a New York Times columnist.

This is an extremely important (and also entertaining) book that should be mandatory reading not just for anybody interested in finding out about what data-driven medical studies really mean, but also for anybody engaged in any kind of empirical work. What Kendrick shows brilliantly is the extent to which the vast majority of medical recommendations and guidelines are based on data-driven studies that are fundamentally flawed and often corrupt.

He highlights how the resulting recommendations and guidelines have led (world-wide) to millions of unnecessarily early deaths, millions of people suffering unnecessary pain, and widespread use of drugs and treatments that do more harm than good (example: statins), as well as wasting billions of taxpayer dollars every year.

As researchers who have been involved in empirical studies in a very wide range of disciplines over many years we believe that much of what he says is also relevant to all of these disciplines (which include most branches of the physical, natural and environmental sciences, computer science, the social sciences, and law).

Apart from the cases of deliberate corruption and bias (of which Kendrick provides many medical examples) most of the flaws boil down to a basic misunderstanding of statistics, probability and the scientific method.

There are two notable quotes that Kendrick uses, which we believe sum up most of the problems he identifies:

1. “When a man finds a conclusion agreeable, he accepts it without argument, but when he finds it disagreeable, he will bring against it all the forces of logic and reason” Thucydides.
2. “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” Leo Tolstoy

The first sums up the extent to which results of empirical work are doctored to suit the pre-conceived biases and hopes of those undertaking it (a phenomenon also known as ‘confirmation bias’).

The second sums up the extent to which there are ideas that represent the ‘accepted orthodoxy’ in most disciplines that are impossible to challenge even when they are wrong. Those brave enough to challenge the accepted orthodoxy risk ruining their careers in their discipline.

Hence, most researchers and practitioners simply accept the orthodoxy without question and help perpetuate flawed or useless ideas in order to get funding and progress their careers. Kendrick describes how these problems lie at the heart of the fundamentally fraudulent peer review system in medicine – which applies to both submitting articles to journals and submitting research grant applications. Once again, we believe that all of the areas of research where we have worked (maths, computer science, forensics, law, and AI) suffer from the same flawed peer review system.

Kendrick is not afraid to challenge the leading figures in medicine, often exposing examples of hypocrisy and corruption. Of special interest to us, however, is that he also challenges the attitude of revered figures in our own discipline. For example, Kendrick highlights two quotes in a recent article by Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman, whose work in the psychology of decision theory and risk is held in the highest esteem.:

1. “The way scientists try to convince people is hopeless because they present evidence, figures, tables, arguments, and so on. But that’s not how to convince people. People aren’t convinced by arguments, they don’t believe conclusions because they believe in the arguments that they read in favour of them. They’re convinced because they read or hear the conclusions from people they trust.
   You trust someone and you believe what they say.
   That’s how ideas are communicated.
   The arguments come later.”
2. “Why do I believe global warming is happening?
   The answer isn’t that I have gone through all the arguments and analyzed the evidence – because I haven’t. I believe the experts from the Academy of Sciences. We all have to rely on experts.”

Kendrick notes the problem here:

“In one breath he states that people aren’t convinced by arguments; they’re convinced because they read or hear conclusions from people they trust. Then he says that we all have to rely on experts. But he does not link these two thoughts together to ask the obvious question.

Just how, exactly, did the experts come to their conclusions?”

Having presented the BBC documentary on Climate Change by Numbers we also got an insight into the extent to which problems exist there.

As good as the book is (and indeed because of how good it is), we feel the need to highlight some points where we believe Kendrick gets it wrong.

There are some statistical/probability errors and over-simplifications, which mostly seem to stem from a lack of awareness of Bayesian probability. For example, he says:

“… although association cannot prove causation, a lack of association does disprove causation”.

This is not true as can be proven by the simple counter example we provide below using a Bayesian network.

Next we believe Kendrick’s faith in randomized control trials (RCTs) as being the (only) reliable empirical basis for medical decision making is misplaced. Because of Simpson’s paradox and the impossibility of accounting for all confounding variables there is, in principle, no solid basis for believing that the result of any RCT is ‘correct’. As is shown in the article here it is possible, for example, that an RCT can find a drug to be effective compared to a placebo in every possible categorization of trial participants, yet the addition of a single confounding variable can result in an exact reversal of the results.

So, if we are saying that even RCTs cannot be accepted as valid empirical evidence, does that mean that we are even more pessimistic than Kendrick about the possibility of any useful empirical research?

No - and this brings us to our final major area of disagreement with Kendrick’s thesis. In contrast to what Kendrick proposes we believe there is an important role for expert judgment in critical decision-making.

In fact, we believe expert judgment is inevitable even if every attempt is made to remove it from an empirical study (it is, for example, impossible to remove expert judgment from the very problem of framing the study and choosing the variables and data to collect).

Given the inevitability of expert judgment, we feel it should be made obvious, transparent, and open to refutation by experiment. Any scientist should be as open and honest about their judgment as possible and be prepared to make predictions and be contradicted by data.

By combining expert judgment with data it is possible to get far more reliable empirical results with much less data and effort than required for an RCT. This is essentially what we proposed in our book and which is being further developed in the EU project Bayes Knowledge.

Refuting the assertion “If there is no association (correlation) then there cannot be causation”.

Consider the two hypotheses:

• H1: “If there is no association (correlation) then there cannot be causation”.
• H2: “If there is causation there must be association (correlation).

Kendrick’s assertion (H1) is, of course, equivalent to H2. We can disprove H2 with a simple counter-example using two Boolean variables a, and b, i.e. whose states are True or False. We do this by introducing a third, latent, unobserved Boolean variable c. Specifically we define the relationship between a,b, and c via the following Bayesian network :

Doctoring Data in Ceylon

Doctoring Data in Ceylon

Evidence Based Surveillance is only way forward.

Data Massaging and Doctoring Data have come into operation in Ceylon.

Our election commission has no teeth to avoid this sinister ploy by the tricksters in temporary power.

There is ample evidence now, slowly by surely the Army is operating its own political agenda for a TINY subset of politicians.

They are willing to sacrifice their career for Ceylon Corona Covid and Crumbs (C.C.C.C.C) Company and expecting posts abroad with early retirement by passing the veteran civil servants.

But all the countries are closing their doors for these guys especially because, they are the ones who would carry the virus by plane loads.

Their dreams will come empty.

Our Health Department guys and girls would become (already it is happening behind doors) victims.

They are doctoring data without doing adequate surveillance studies.

They pick and choose where to test.

It is not a randomized sample but a political sample.

I believe every corner of the country should by sampled.

That means service sector guys, including farmers, drivers and conductors of trains and buses.

Secularizing sectors not cohorts is they way of doctoring data.

Data massaging is done by the TV or Media guys without epidemiological understanding of the basic challenge.

Charts can Cheat!

Data can hoodwink!

Specificity and sensitivity less than 90% would help data mining guys to spin and our “Spin Doctors” by holding election we can stop the spread of the disease.

Our public servants taking part in the election process will end up becoming Corona Careers.

Conona Virus will hoodwink statistics and would bypass the selective numbers.

In my assessment every positive data there are 10 to 20 hidden or Sacrificed DATA and Data Points.

We are playing with fire.

Early Election will add fuels to the fire.

The Election Commission should not hide behind statutory requirements but act with Common Sense and Gut Feelings.

How come three bothers of the Local Mafia Clan is spearheading the economic wind mills, just like “Helping Hambantota Scam” but by a wider margin.

Events in Evolution

Events in Evolution
In its 4.6 billion years circling the sun, the Earth has harbored an increasing diversity of life forms:

• for the last 3.6 billion years, simple cells (prokaryotes);
• for the last 3.4 billion years, cyanobacteria performing photosynthesis;
• for the last 2 billion years, complex cells (eukaryotes);
• for the last 1 billion years, multicellular life;
• for the last 600 million years, simple animals;
• for the last 550 million years, bilaterians, animals with a front and a back; 
  
  
• for the last 500 million years, fish and proto-amphibians; 
  
  
• for the last 475 million years, land plants;
• for the last 400 million years, insects and seeds; 
  
  
• for the last 360 million years, amphibians;
   
• for the last 300 million years, reptiles; 
  
  
• for the last 200 million years, mammals; 
   
• for the last 150 million years, birds;
• for the last 130 million years, flowers; 
  
  
• for the last 60 million years, the primates, 
  
  
• for the last 20 million years, the family Hominidae (great apes);
• 
  
  for the last 2.5 million years, the genus Homo (human predecessors);
• 
  for the last 200,000 years, anatomically modern humans.
  

Periodic extinctions have temporarily reduced diversity, eliminating:

• 2.4 billion years ago, many obligate anaerobes, in the oxygen catastrophe; 
  
  
• 252 million years ago, the trilobites, in the Permian–Triassic extinction event; 
  
  
• 66 million years ago, the pterosaurs and nonavian dinosaurs, in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.
  

Dates are approximate.

Palm Trees

Palm Trees
Torrential rains and inclement weather spared me some plant watching activity. 
This time of course palm variety. 
Looking outside from an advantage, a bird's eye view, I could see only one coconut tree about ten feet tall and probably of the same age with no signs of flowering. 
Looking down the precipice a few out of the twenty odd palm trees that survived the dry spell has sprung into activity. 
After a year long vigil and watering (when I had time) their survival was a bit of a miracle. 
The soil not conducive and the water logging not possible (due to the incline) their survival may have been contributed by my vigil, perhaps. 
Palms unlike the coconut (which loves the salty soil) are plants that love hot humid and muddy conditions, which support their roots with fungal symbiosis. 
The torrential rain was the most conducive and for nearly a decade we did not have similar weather conditions. 

I have tried all varieties including arecanut with no success over ten year period so my mind wondered the last time there was a spill over at Victoria Dam. 
Incidentally this was after the elections and the change over from the previous regime to the present. 
The saying prevalent at that time was “to wash the sins of the previous regime”. 
This time whose sins I would not wonder or ponder!

Coming back to palm trees there are over 1000 ornamental varieties and they are very expensive and home delivered for the wealthy in United States. 

In Sri-Lanka context, the “Cap Rukha”, the gifted plant is vandalized by the rich developers. Very soon they will be exported to US polythene wrapped. This is quite an irony. 
I am not sure where the coconut, the arecanut and the Kithul tree's position in the merit order on the1000 palm trees of the gardener's guide to tropical trees.
 
I guess the Americans who are likely to be categorized very tall in the merit list of democracy do not like tall trees in their neighborhood. 

Also their democratic nuts are not as hard as a coconut and they do not like the impact of coconut falling on their heads. 
This is why the oil industry in America had a vicious campaign against coconut oil for nearly fifty years.  
The real reason though is that they have lost their evolutionary talent like that of the monkeys in climbing trees and swinging from one tree to another. 
Going from country to country and looking for ecological trouble spots is only a pastime.

This is where our politicians who have a coconut size head and arecanut (some of them peanut sized- the American variety) sized brains should explore the possibility of exporting the coconut trees to America. 

The justification is that when the next tsunami hits our shores they can re-export them back as aid for the Sri-Lankans (tourists included) to climb and save their lives. 
The coconut trunks well preserved would be a new form of life support system developed in America. 
Few of the tourists of course saved their life hanging on to them a year ago. They could share the experience with the few tree climbers left in this country. We can promote this as a new millennium sport. 
Since most of the tree climbers (party climbers) have joined the parliament over the past half a century they can act as trainers and referees in this sport of tree climbing.

One a lighter note and in a scientific sense the real reason for declining interest in coconut, arecanut and Kithul tree is that all three of them are labour intensive like the tea industry. 
Only way to revive these flagging industries is to promote selective breeding of high yielding variety with short trunks so that harvesting is not labour intensive. 
For some unknown genetic reasons the short plants and animals have the ability to withstand adverse environmental conditions and it is not a challenge to go for such a variety. One of the reasons that the tall trees and dinosaurs disappeared from this planet is their enormous size.  They could not withstand the adversity. 

One area we are far behind is the palm oil industry and our Asian giant in hibernation, Malaysia, pioneered the research in this. 
They have gone for palm oils even destroying their rain forest. We have to learn a lot from them. Biodiesel is going to be an area we should explore instead of drilling for gas /oil in limited resources offshore. 
For me looking down the plane and seeing the coconut trees spanning the landing site is a fascinating scene. 
Sadly this scenery is not going to be there in another ten years. 
The developers are eying every peace of land to plunder. 

In the process they are developing social and economic disasters in the so-called palaces they are building. The coconut triangle is going to be zigzag in no time. 
We have so many ministers and ministries in this country a Palm Ministry would not be a burden to the country. In any case some of the parliamentarians are coming from that back ground both in oiling the palms (heads included) and climbing the trees and this is a one sure way to climb the political hierarchy.
 
For the super market chains and range for this Christmas should include the imported artificial palm trees from India, which do not need any watering, plant care or plant watching. 
For a change we could have Santa on a palm tree. 
How about that?


21st December 2005

Lemons

Lemons
The lemon flower is very beautiful but nobody seems to take any notice of it because of its thorns. 
But come to roses people are fascinated by the flower in spite of the many thorns. 
To me lemon is one of the most neglected trees of our soil. 
It loves the tropical sunny weather and grows very slowly and we have many neglected varieties in our country. 
Unfortunately, we only love oranges that are also the imported varieties.  
It is said we love anything foreign including bird's flu.  
 
History
The versatility of lemon has been recognized since its discovery in India more than 4,000 years ago. Egyptians painted lemons on tomb walls. 
In the late 1700s, the British navy made lemons part of sailors' rations to combat scurvy. 
In the 1850s, a scurvy epidemic during California's Gold Rush created a demand for lemons and soon it became a household plant in the state. 
Today, California's arid, coastal climate makes it one of the world's leading lemon producers.
Several countries pay homage to the fruit with lemon festivals, as does Menton, France, a small town on the French Riviera where lemons grow year round. During the Fete du Citron, a two-week celebration held every February, townspeople create murals, sculptures, and parade floats from lemons.
The lemon tree is one of the oldest cultivated fruit and today lemon trees grow all over the world and like pepper and spices all good things originate in the tropics.
The citrus smell of a lemon is refreshing and invigorating. 
For many people a lemon smell has come to symbolize cleanliness. Most major cleaners on the market today have a lemon or a citrus scented version for consumers to enjoy. 
But in this country the lemon is conveniently forgotten for artificial scents are abundant and imported for a princely sum.
Though the fruit has a sour taste the lemon is actually a mild buffer that can reduce hyperacidity in the stomach. 
Lemon juice and peels have an antiseptic effect and the leaves are used as a skin and hair treatment. Lemons are rich in vitamin C and strengthen natural healing power. 
By acting as an antioxidant lemon protects the cells from free radical damage.
Cleaning kitchen Utensils
Lemon juice is ideal to clean pots and pans. 
Copper utensils can benefit from a lemon juice cleaning.
Worktops
Worktop stains can be removed by allowing lemon juice to sit on the stain for a few minutes. Scrub the area with baking soda and watch the stains disappear. But don't leave the lemon juice sitting for too long it can easily overshoot the intended activity.
Drains
Hot water with a little lemon juice poured down a drain will also freshen the drain.
Bleaching
Lemon juice acts as a natural bleaching agent. 
Put lemon juice onto white linens and clothing and allow them to dry in the sun. 
Stains will be bleached away.
Add to Vinegar
Vinegar can be a great cleaning ingredient, but many people dislike the vinegar smell. Adding lemon juice to vinegar when cleaning can help neutralize the vinegar smell.
Common sense
Lemon juice, vinegar and baking soda are the commonest ingredients (naturally occurring cleansing products) in one's own home but often the most neglected in their use except in cooking and flavouring. The lack of common sense has made us to neglect them. Most importantly none of these products is poisonous (cooking ingredients) and lack of understanding of chemistry and biochemistry is the main reason. What our students learn in the class in science (chemistry to be precise) is open to question without common sense practicality.
Forgetting the Roots
Forgetting our roots and losing common sense is a manifestation of the modern age. 
This is true in my home too. Only when everybody was on holiday in India our pantry had a lemon treatment.
Glancing through the web pages, I have noticed the Westerners have missed an important link of this marvelous fruit has to the miracle drink, the alcohol. 
We Sri-Lankan use it as an antidote for the excess consumption of alcohol. 
The citrate salt of alcohol that is formed in the stomach retards the absorption of alcohol. So our housewives are adept at using this lemon treatment when looking after their inebriated living souls. 
This is something probably the BBC missed in its recent broadcast.
24th of February 2006
Edited on the 26th of April

Lemon Treatment
I have not heard
Any lover saying to
To a lover
My lemon
But of course
Sweet heart

But when the sweetness
Takes a ride
And the bitterness
Take it ascends
I have heard loving souls
Calling each other
"You pumpkins"
Or Potatoes
Years later

But in general
To be successful
In life with endurance
The culinary skills
In the home front
Is not the special ingredient?

The lemon treatment
Is not the extraordinary ingredient?
For the inebriated
Soul mate
For
Bringing back
The reality
Both
The sweetness
The bitterness
And the life in general

26th of April 2006

Food Handling, Food, Quality of Food (Nutritional Value)

Food Handling, Food, Quality of Food (Nutritional Value)

Food Handling

Nobody practices proper food handling in this country.

The number of PHII are not enough to cover the country and most of them takes bribes, especially under Chinthanaya regime. 

 
When police is involved in murder and crime cover up this has become a done thing and decades of retraining is necessary.

There is no facility for hand washing in most of the eating houses except in five star hotels.

I once treated a guy with GIT problems and he was handling food in a leading market chain.

I new the manager of the local shop and got him out of the food chain for the greater good of the public and the shop itself.

This was many moons ago.

Now in hospitals including private sector doctors do not practice basic hand washing technique.

Food Quality

With the price of food items going up, the quality of junk food has gone down from wade, to patty to bread.

The hopper which was three rupees 1n 2005 is now ten rupees.

The wade has become smaller and more expensive.

The type of dhal (not Mysoor) is inferior. The taste is horrible, the oil used is not coconut oil but some substitute.

My discovery of egg patty is relevant here. 
 

I used to give an egg patty to my young dog.

Then there was a full egg.

It become half an egg.

Then quarter of an egg.

The one I fed my dog today was less than a quarter.

In a dinner bun with fish there was a full ring of onion a week ago and with onion going up in prices it was only a quarter of a ring.

I eat the onion ring before I feed my dog the portion of fish since one should not feed a dog with onions.

He is my food taster par excellence. 
 

He refuses to eat the bread portion which I throw into the bin.

My dog only eat the fish portion which is 40 rupees a piece.

I eat the quarter of an onion ring.

The rest of the dinner bun lands on the dustbin.

Rupees 20 down the garbage and even the stray dog won't eat.

Food

So the average man (woman especially the pregnant excluded) eat lot of chillies and liberal intake of Kassippu.

That is why the Kassippu Mudalalie or the Pradashiya Sabha member is very plump when seen on TV.

He drinks imported whiskey not Kassupu like some of our national paper editors.

That is why down to earth (except Ravaya) reporting was not seen under Chinthanaya regime (they were eating hoppers for rupees 200 -two hundred at Hilton, probably- for ten years except racial hatred.

1. Personal Experience

Mind you I used to go to Elephant House Fountain Cafe (see the reproduction below) for regular ice cream with jaggary sauce on working days and full board liqueur when off duty with a full bird (not a lady but chicken).

This was the time in Colombo when dogs' and cats' food were substituted for chicken down Dehiwala and Ratmalana after the first drink (when the customer is half drunk).

This practice was going on even in Kandy when we (including late Dr. Godamunne) got activated to save the stray dogs.

I do not eat rice (not rice products like, Hoppers, rice noodles) for the last three years due to putative food allergy to some chemical contamination!

 

I celebrated 10 years without rice alone due to coronavirus pandemic.

My gut feeling is, it is probably glyphosate.

Suffice is to say my personal suffering over three years immediately stopped when I stopped eating rice.

The added benefit was I eat all the junk food now (except chocolates) and my comment here is related mostly to junk food.

In spite of eating junk food, I have not put on weight.

The corollary is that if you stop eating rice, you start losing weight without any exercise regime.

Chemical Name: Ammonium Salt of Glyphosate 71% S.G.

Glyphos is a broad-spectrum, systemic herbicide, with contact action translocated and non-residual. Absorbed by the foliage, with rapid translocation throughout the plant. Inactivated on contact with soil.
Inhibition of lycopene cyclase.

Glyphos controls a wide range of annual and perennial grasses and broad leaved weeds by application as pre-emergence, post emergence and pre-harvest in cereals, tea and oil seeds.

Also used as industrial weed control and aquatic herbicide.

Dose: 100 gm per spray pump of 15 ltr water
Mode of Action:
"Effective against Annual, Perennial and broad Leaf / Grassy weeds.
"Gyprom is a broad spectrum, Non-Systemic, Post Emergence herbicides.
"Eisily Biodegradeble & non volatile in nature.
"It is used in plantation crop like Tea, Coffee, Coconut, Rubber, Graps, Mango etc crops.
Packing: 100 gm pouch in 8 kg Box.


Reproductions
 

2. Food Poisoning

At least 20 people fell ill, after a five-star hotel dinner on Friday night to celebrate the 87th birthday of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, officials said yesterday.

They said the affected invitees were rushed to private hospitals and 15 of them were in intensive care.

The dinner organized by the Sri Lanka United Kingdom Society took place at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel with some 400 guests in attendance.

3. Quality of Food

Fountain Café was famous for short eats - rolls, cutlets and patties – and of course their sauce, which was something else. No sauce today can match it. The Elephant House hot dog served with that sauce was much sought after and a favourite of many.

Their rice and curry was also very reasonable.

There was no proper rice and curry like in the old days. No gravy; no dhal; but some dry chicken, rice and curry were what the young waiter served. I tried. The food was terrible. Then came my next order; iced tea – a tea full of sugar. It was really a sugar tea. I looked around to see if any of those old waiters from Elephant House, Fountain Cafe were looking from some corner. 
 

There wasn’t even one.

The new waiters were not even dressed like them.

Gambit Political Wise

Gambit Political Wise

 

Gambit meaning an act or remark that is calculated to gain an advantage, especially at the outset of a situation i.e; early election in Ceylon.

 

I have been advised by one of my professor friends to cry foul of the current administration’s militarily motivated hidden agenda.

 

In Sinhala it is turning the “Wasangathaya” into political sunshine or “Wasanthaya” of the bootleggers paradise.

 

In other words we are now a military administration remniscent of Myanmar where unknown number of 

 Muslims were killed or persecuted.

 

It is obvious Ceylonese Muslims who are not “Wahabis” are persecuted in the name of quarantine (it means erasing them from the political map).

 

A subtle human right violation.

 

In my opinion “Whahabis” are as bad or worse than LTTE.

 

In defense of LTTE (not their ground level action which even alienated moderate Tamils) it was a political uprising.

 

But “Whahabies” are religious crazies without scientific basis.