Thoppigala.. Jungle or LTTE Strong Hold

Yesterday saw the fall of Thoppigala or Barron's Cap. Firstly our hats out to those who fought bravely and also a moment to mourn those who fell, for their motherland.

Now we have to deal with the comments after the big win.

1. Is Thoppigala just a Forrest like Opposition Leader Ranil W. says?
2. Are we going to spend more defending Thoppigala?
3. Was this all a put on show by Mahinda and Prabhakaran?

To start with the last question first, my political knowledge is not enough to comprehend the buy-outs and sell-outs between the two parties. However LankaWhistleBlower has the details of the Mahinda-Prabhakaran deal.

With regard to the Second Question, only time would tell, how many of our soldiers will fall keeping those FDL's.

Now to the first and most important question in my opinion. What is Thoppigala to us? And what is it's worth?

The Govt. implies it's one of the security fortresses of the LTTE, and all their equipping of Suicide-Bomb Trucks are carried out there. There was also some indication that the cannabis that the LTTE use to trade for their weapons are grown in those jungles, thereby cutting some of there cash flow.

For the people living around Thoppigala, you'd have to ask them who'd they prefer as a Neighbour.

As a firm believer of "This War Cannot be Won", I believe this is going to play a bigger role in pushing/pressurizing the LTTE into Peace Talks. Which in turn is the right track to settling this conflict.



UPDATE : A detailed account on the mission to free the east, and the Thoppigala victory can be found here.

"Charrmax" on LakbimaNews courtesy of Rajpal

Well the newest heat on the Blogsphere is courtesy of Rajpal. So I don't need to get into the minor details, if your an avid reader of the Kottu community, you'd know. If not here are some places you could start.

1. Rhythmic Diaspora
2. Cerno
3. Pissu-Perera
4. Sanjana
   

So hoping you didn't get lost in the blogs above, I've been silent all along coz, the article they ripped from me didn't make it to their website - www.lakbimanews.lk, but was copied word for word, picture to picture.

You can be the judge of it.... The Original Post - "What to Shout at Rugger Matches"













Not only have they copied everything but they have copied my "Bonus"... which any Editor in their right mind would have a problem stating in their news papers. Wonder what Mr. Brian Thomas has to say abt it.

So now that you know how unprofessional these folks (Mr. Rajpal specially) are, here are my issues to a certain reply he (assuming it's him/them) have posted on another blog.

Anonymous said... Hi Mr Rhythmic etc., (others)
Greetings!
First thing, we tried to contact you, but it’s not possible in most of the blogs. We did contact some of the others though, who left contact e mails.
You bloggers know that you are anonymous.
We'd like to publish the stuff you write, of course, more of it! Profuse apologies, but the reason was that we here were unable to contact you guys was your anonymity.
Maybe a post would have helped; but didn't think about the exact efficacy of that. because we did post at some sites, with our contactsw, and nobody bothered to reply!
But then, it would have been difficult to give our contacts to you that way..
Anyway we like the comment that this is a tribute to Sri Lankan bloggers. If your stuff is good we’d like to publish -- it’s in the public domain too. So I think you should have a positive take on it.
It’s not as if any stuff was published without credits.
Anyway, we’d like to publish more of your stuff; and as you may have noticed, 90 per cent of our still is NOT from blogsites, so its just that we'd like to use SOME good stuff that comes from blogs that are of relevance to Sri Lanka..
We'd also like to pay you -- for anything published in the future, as well as what was published. We don't pay enormously, but we pay reasonable rates.
So please write to us at sumathienglish@gmail.com, and we would like to get the payment across to you, if you furnish an address.
In the meanwhile, we'd like to use some more of the blogs -- and we hope you can send some of your other material on the e mail so that we can publish it..
Many of the boggers we published -- including some such as Mr Fazli Sameer have got on board, and we hope you do that too. They write EXCELLENT stuff, and were not so harried. We don’t expect the same reaction from everyone, but then we are trying to set the record straight here.
We would have liked to get you on board at the very outset, except that your contacts were not available. At least, they were not available at our scrutiny; maybe they were available somewhere.

Thanks then, and so here is to the blogosphre -- and here is to the mainstream!! We'd publish more, I hope you can write to us at our e mail and we'll use more of yours, and pay you as well.
Thanks and no offence,

‘Mr Lakbima’
alias
those at Lakbimanews.

My reply :

Well Dear Mr. Lakbima,

This is with regard to the word-for-word copy and picture-to-picture copy of my post “What to shout at Rugger Matches” which was published on your paper under “Local Rugby Lingo” page 28 - July 8th 2007.

http://chaarmax.blogspot.com/2006/09/what-to-shout-at-rugger-matches.html

I would like to bring your attention to a few points, you mentioned that contradict certainly in my case.

1. ///First thing, we tried to contact you, but it’s not possible in most of the blogs. We did contact some of the others though, who left contact e mails.
You bloggers know that you are anonymous.///

Well all you had to do was leave a comment. Just like the one you left here.

2. ///If your stuff is good we’d like to publish — it’s in the public domain too.///

Just because it’s in the Public Domain it doesn’t give you the right to publish, without proper citation and stating the sources. Just mentioning the Blog Author’s name in the “by XXX” is not enough. That would give the impression that the Blog Author is writing for your paper, and indeed getting paid for it as well.

What you need to do is, state the source, as “Source - www.abc.com” or “Courtesy of www.abc.com“.

As in my case, I wish to bring your attention to the Creative Commons License that I have, I certainly hope you are aware of it, and that your are committing an illegal act. Also you had incorrectly spelt my name as “Charrmax”.

3. Are you going to take responsibility for the statement “Brian Homa”, as for I did not write it, with the idea of my publishing’s to get into the mainstream print media. I certainly hope you guys do a better job as editors, than blindly copy content without going through them properly, checking for what might cause an offense to others.

Lastly, it’s not that we (atleast myself) aren’t glad to get our writings published but, with proper attribution to Us and our Blog web sites.

I certainly hope you would be more careful, since this is not the first time that this has happened.

Yours,

Chaar~Max
Contact Email - chaarmax-at-gmail-dot-com

I got one of my friends Confab to call the newspapers and this is what happened :

Over the last 24 hours I've been acknowledged, abused by and apologised to by Rajpal. The reason for this post? Just to make sure the blog sphere (and the ever intrusive and secretive Lakbima Reporter) is kept abreast of what went down. (more)

What I, and I am sure most of the other Bloggers will want is :

1. An apology to be published in the papers.

2. Proper Attribution (Proper spelling of the Bloggers name/pseudonym and Link to the Bloggers site)

3. Approval from Blogger before publishing his/her post.

This may seem to be blown out of proportion, but it was aggregated by Rajpal and Co. them selves. If they responded in an appropriate manner when contacted and owned upto their actions and apologized I would have let it go.

They may buy some of the Bloggers with their notes and "get on board" crap, but not me. I didn't start my blog to make money. If I want I'll set up google ads.

Mind you it's not like I'm NOT flattered that my rants and ramblings our worthy enough to be published in the main-stream media, it's just the case of not wanting to be a part of an Institution that does NOT honour the rights of others.

After all it's not the first time. I believe Sach will agree with me.

So Rajpal try and ignore the CC license a second time and see what happens. Interestingly enough I wonder how many Bloggers have been featured on this weeks Lakbima. All those who got left out, are bound to get included this week. I think the "Mag" should be called "Local Blogsphere".

How to tell what the Referee is Signalling at Rugger Matches

Well it's been almost a year since I guided you in "What to Shout at Rugger Matches". So I'm thinking you bookmarked the post, took a print out of it and stuck it up on your wall, and take a glance before every match. If everything has gone to plan, you still have all your limbs, and no bruisers after any of the matches. Chicks dig that your on "top" of the game, maybe you landed one even... (if so you owe me a Drink). If you have a GF, she's mighty proud of you, and her friends think your cool too. :)

Untill she or one of her friends ask, "Hey what happened?" and you see the Ref, doing a number with his Hands... bomber... Ok so you say "you didn't see it", it's gonna work maybe a couple of times if your on the 200 buck Concrete Tier being shoved and pushed, but if your in the Grand Stand.... hmmmm.... I've got just what you want..

Objective :

Give you the ability to connect the with top man of the game, the Ref, who gets to call all the shots on the field (Off field feel free to throw a Flower Pot at him). If you thought you were on top of the game before, you'll feel like you grew an extra 6 inches... vertically ;)

In the end.. upgrade you from Cool Dude to "Rugby Jock", just in time for the 2nd Leg of the Bradby, tomorrow! Go Royal!

Assumptions :

You have already read and followed My Previous Guideline, and it's a fair assumption that you have made the upgrade from "Geek" to "Cool Dude". :)




So a few tips before you get behind the wheel, Ref's unlike our parents do not reward us for good behavior (don't expect an XBOX or a PS3 for being a Good Sport), so when you know he's signaling something that means somebody gonna get a hurt.. (oops sorry that was Russel) basically your only chance is that, your opponents committed the crime and maybe it's Christmas for you after all.


Here goes --> IRB Ref Signal Guide!!! (PDF 1.2MB)

NOTE :

If you want to upgrade to "Rugby Guru" try going through the entire IRB Rule Book (PDF 15MB). If your found murdered in your Hotel Room the next day, only to be later realized that you died of natural causes, you know it WORKED!!

As usual, my disclaimer as follows :

"If you Score.. I'm your Man... If you Screw Up... There's always another Rugger Match next week" :)

Another Year - Same Result

Well they say, it's all water under the bridge, but then would Blogs exist, if people just let it go, and not stop to bitch about it, and then maybe let it go?

So it's this thing that comes around every year around this time, that get all those who have a liking for the stage excited, 4 weeks (sometimes more.. sometimes less) of tiring practices, and getting the set, costumes organized for the Big Day. Actually 2 Big Days, if your lucky enough to get passed the 1st one.

The goal is to put up a good show, and in the meantime knock the socks off 3 individuals seated some where in the middle of the audience, in whose lap sits the scrap of paper that your fate is decided on.

In all this my experience is slightly different being the old geezer I am, still find my self roped into this whole experience. So obviously I'm not the schoolboy who's on stage, but come the time of announcing the verdict my heart beats equally to the tempo of the school boy. I share the same sorrow, but I know the feeling of winning is worth all the sorrows, and in time they will too. But 3 years in a row is enough waiting and I hope the light shines upon them next year.

As I hit the "Publish Post" button I cant help but think whether it would have been different if we had gone ahead with the original plan, specially with the judges routing for the comedy against the tragedy.

The Bard would say.. (from the Play itself) "What's done cannot be undone!"....

No More Invites!

Hello... ppl.. so I finally found some time.. amidst the bombs the road blocks and the million dollar corruptions. So what do I decide to empart on you lovely folk today? The simple answer to all those of you who haven't switched and still stagnating in your archaic web mail providers.. Yes.. the answer to Why use Gmail?

The good news is, it's no longer limited to Invitations.. so YOU don't need to feel LEFT OUT anymore!

What can be Better than Gmail you ask? That's Gmail on Firefox coupled with the following Extensions :

1. Gmail Manager
2. Better Gmail