The week in re(ar)view
Read, count to three and run for your life

November 21 the High Court fixed a date (November23) for hearing the corruption case filed against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the purchase of Mig 29 jet fighters. A few of these advanced fighters were bought at a supposed loss of 720 crore taka. Question is, what happens when a country actually invades us with several hundred much more advanced fighters? It is a simple answer, we offer them our fighters as a gift.

Beware the DENZAR
The youth of Bangladesh (that is, the two people writing this piece) always complain there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. What with all this fundamentalism and militancy going there is less to do unless you are a militant yourself. In that case you can spend your spare time bombing all kinds of things. If you are NOT a militant then you can spend your time complaining how there is no place to go. You see, we have decided to start a bulletin right here each week stating all the places you can't go to. The reason? Someone threatens to blow that place up.

Explosive reports
A news report on November 22 informed how the JMB informed everyone that they are going to blow up major government offices and war memorial. They warned people not to observe Victory Day. It makes a lot of sense as we don't feel we achieved anything victorious. Even if we did once right now it seems we have gone back to the medieval times.

Cause and effect
November 26, excessive coverage by media gives rise to militancy so says Jamat-e-Islami Amir Matiur Rahman Nizami. That's is a far out example of cause and effect. The press reports on fundamentalist militant crime, the crime goes up, the press reports on it, it goes up again and so on. Heck, it's a vicious circular circle of cause and effect. Hey, where is our Nobel prize?

A story of dudes
It seems JMB (dudes who love bombing places) also threatened to blow up (UNO) Upazilla Nirbahi Officer office in Kushtia on 24 November but the matter came to light a few days later in the paper on 27 November when the Shawdagar (dude in charge) of that office went to the police (dudes who don't do anything).

They hate journalists too
November 23 JMB threatened to blow up the press club. They should unite with Nizami who believes journalists feed militancy. Maybe they work for him. Or maybe “they IS him”. As RCT (resident Conspiracy Theorist) says, anything that can happen, will. And with that ominous line he goes back to scratching his synthetic beard that also acts as an antenna to catch secret government conversations.

By Gohkra and Mood Dude

Campus news

NSU celebrates ACE

ACE- Annual Cultural Evening of NSU; the most awaited cultural show in North South university was held on 26th November, 2005 at Osmani Memorial Hall. Throngs of NSU students lined up in front of the big hall, while the NSU Sangskritik Shangathan (NSUSS) was already fully prepared at the backstage. The show started sharp at 7:00 and continued till 9:30.

The show included various segments, including popular Bangla songs, Lalon geetis, a Bryan Adams English song, a beautiful dance number performed by two talented students and not to forget the hilarious jatra. The theme of the show was 'Utshab' or festivities in Bangladesh. A wide screen broadcast, showing the various Bangladeshi festivities truly made the students realise what it really means to be a Bangladeshi and enjoy the various festivities to the fullest! The most anticipated show in ACE was probably the NSU News reading section, where students dared to portray the NSU campus news in a comedic manner. The News section provided actual hilarious footage of what went on inside the campus, of course in an exaggerated manner. In the end, it was all worth the 50 bucks students had to pay as an entrance fee, although many Freshmen did not get a chance to see the show since tickets were sold out. Overall the show was a refreshing break from the hectic life the students and faculty members go through everyday.

Review by Shamma M. Raghib

The Dhakai makeover

It seems our good old Dhaka city has suddenly become very conscious about its looks. This apparent turnaround of attitude has been largely brought about by the SAARC summit. So with all the foreign dignitaries coming into the country, the authorities must have felt it was 'necessary' to make Dhaka look cleaner, greener, and glitzier.

If this youthful fancy of a century old city can be regarded as 'bhimroti' is debatable. But that's a different story. Let us now follow the proceedings of this fanciful cosmetic surgery…

Welcome to Bangla-Arabia
Most of the innovations have been focused on the Airport road, on top of the road and beside the road. Something I just noticed the other day was date-trees; scores of them planted on the stretch of green just adjacent to the road. I heard that those half-grown trees were actually transplanted here from someplace else, for there was not enough time to grow them. The view kind of reminds me of photos from Arab countries, with such trees in an oasis. I have no idea what they are doing here beside a highway, that too in an urban zone.

Another thing that I noticed in Farmgate were bright yellow spring flowers, sprouting out of lampposts. The 'metallic-floweric' combination was not aesthetic even in the most distant meaning of the word. Perhaps those plastic flowers could be put to better use in public meetings and other places, instead of plucking every last flower for our 'popular' leaders.

The latest landmarks
Our attention now focuses, once again, on the airport road. There's an imposing steel structure erected on the entrance to Zia Colony road, which looks somewhat like an enormous spider. With heavy screws studded all over its curvy legs, the whole thing looks quite cool, especially in the daytime. I never knew it was a fountain until one day I saw water coming out of the centre of the structure. Metallic spider gushing out water from its belly; how's that for beautification?

Just Dig it
Apparently the roads of Cantonment go through this never-ending process of repairing. Although cars sail way smoother here than any other place in Dhaka, it seems the authorities put on their 'perfectionist' glasses while considering this particular area. When most roads of Dhaka are still a complete mess of potholes and manholes, such efforts are a mockery, especially in an area where public vehicles are mostly restricted.

City of Ads
The whole beautification thing was carried out from different sectors, government and private. In a way explains why the planning is so incoherent. Although the effort of the private sector was somewhat commendable, they invariably had to put their names on everything they made, cleaned, or modified. In a city where billboards stare at you from every nook and corner, it is hardly soothing to see corporate logos on towers, dividers, and even on fountains. Well at least some street children get to take free showers.

Last words of wisdom
Isn't it apparent that everything that has been done is worthless? Certainly not! The idea of beautification was not bad in the first place, although the implementation hasn't gone the way it should have.

Perhaps I've been too cynical in my review: The spider fountain might seem like a flower to some with a 'better' imagination, some may even find flowery lampposts 'romantic'… But as for me, the years spent on traffic jams, the litres of carbon smoke inhaled, and the bruises from bumpy roads have proved enough. Enough to finally sit down and write this piece…
(direct your responses, criticisms, and comments to mirrorman_17@hotmail.com. The views expressed in this column are solely of the writer).

By Tausif Salim

RS Mailbox

What PC gaming machines should really be like
The article that Le Chupacabra wrote in the Rising Stars about the ultimate gaming PCs is somewhat misleading. I liked the way he approached the subject with all the suitable things needed to make a real and I am emphasising on the 'real' gaming machine. It is true that Intel Pentium 4 has reached processor speeds of 3.06 GHz which also has HT technology. Despite that but still then all the AMD Athlon 64 is the better choice in terms of cost and performance. The AMD Athlon 64 2 GHz processor gives the same performance as the Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz. What's more, the AMD processor is a 64-bit processor, so all of you game freaks out there can understand how much action you will get when playing games. And for those who are waiting to install the upcoming Windows Vista, this OS will only run in AMD Athlon 64. I think Microsoft is a bit tired of making their OSs work better with Intel Pentiums. If the above description does not persuade all those who are going to buy a new computer, tests have been carried out on the two processors and guess who won the AMD (by a huge margin).

Other than this, all of Le Chupacabra's choices on the parts for the ultimate gaming machine are perfectly normal. And another advice would be to equip your computer with PCI express card rather than an AGP because a PCI express card runs 4 times better than and AGP 8x. It is very cheap and readily available everywhere.

This may not seem important but your computer will produce a lot of heat, so be sure to equip your CPU with more than 1 fan. And for an extra Tk. 500 you can install a display on your CPU which shows you the temperature and which fans are currently working, so you will know if something is wrong before that
machine suddenly becomes just another burned out hunk o' junk.

By Riyadh Al Nu

Armageddon

Over the years, movies have presented many situations that endanger Earth and/or mankind. Most include hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes, earthquakes, asteroids and alien attacks…oh and (in The Day After Tomorrow) cold wind. Here're some, more sensible (ahem), life-threatening situations.

Bird flu
How sad would it be if the human race were killed from something it caught from the chicken? Humans didn't die because of dinosaurs. No, it was because of the sniffles we caught from T-Rex's eighth cousin thrice removed.

Boy band shock syndrome
Overexposure from pop boy bands. Just when you thought this pop culture phenomenon was history, they come back to haunt you again. If you thought it was all over, you were wrong because they were actually never gone.

Death by make-up
Slowly but surely, toxins in make-up and hair straightening chemicals seep into the blood of the females of the Indian subcontinent. The chemicals affect their DNA, their cells mutate, the defects are inherited for generations and slowly everyone dies. But rest assured that everyone will die looking very pretty, wrinkle free and with great hair.

Weapons of mass destruction
How dare you doubt Bush? Saddam is ruthless. He'll go to any lengths to destroy the free and democratic world. Here's what I think: Bush was always right. Saddam does have “nukileer” weapons. The only reason Bush didn't find 'em was because they're invisible.

Harry Potter withdrawal symptoms
Just think, in two years the last book in the HP series will have been published and a few years after that the last movie will be released. After that you can just imagine the HP fanatics hallucinating the resurrection of Dumbledore and etching lightning bolts into their foreheads while they cling to some hope of the release of an eighth book. Almost everyone in the post-70's generation becomes mentally incapacitated.

By Verity