know more of Taleban

The world first became aware of the Taleban in 1994 when they were appointed by Islamabad to protect a convoy trying to open up a trade route between Pakistan and Central Asia.
Now, Taleban is fomous all over the world.
But, how much do you know about Taleban?
The group - comprised of Afghans trained in religious schools in Pakistan along with former Islamic fighters or mujahedin - proved effective bodyguards, driving off other mujahedin groups who attacked and looted the convoy.
They went on to take the nearby city of Kandahar, beginning a remarkable advance which led to their capture of the capital, Kabul, in September 1996.
The Taleban's popularity with many Afghans initially surprised the country's warring mujahedin factions.
As ethnic Pashtuns, a large part of their support came from Afghanistan's Pashtun community, disillusioned with existing ethnic Tajik and Uzbek leaders.
But it was not purely a question of ethnicity. Ordinary Afghans, weary of the prevailing lawlessness in many parts of the country, were often delighted by Taleban successes in stamping out corruption, restoring peace and allowing commerce to flourish again.
Their refusal to deal with the existing warlords whose rivalries had caused so much killing and destruction also earned them respect.
The Taleban said their aim was to set up the world's most pure Islamic state, banning frivolities like television, music and cinema.
Their attempts to eradicate crime have been reinforced by the introduction of Islamic law including public executions and amputations.
A flurry of regulations forbidding girls from going to school and women from working quickly brought them into conflict with the international community.
Such issues, along with restrictions on women's access to health care, have also caused some resentment among ordinary Afghans.
The Taleban now control all but the far north of the country, which is the last stronghold of the ethnic Tajik commander Ahmed Shah Masood.
With 90% of the country under their control, the Taleban have continued to press claims for international recognition.
But the Afghan seat at the United Nations continues to be held by former President Burhanuddin Rabbani.
The UN sanctions which have now been imposed on the country make it even less likely that the Taleban will gain that recognition.
The sanctions are intended to force the Taleban to hand over the Saudi-born militant Osama Bin Laden, who is accused by the United States of plotting the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 250 people.
The Taleban say that Osama Bin Laden is a guest in their country, and they will not take action against him.
Afghanistan has suffered 20 years of war, and this year has brought the worst drought in decades.

锘縃ow big is Google's database?

In case you were wondering how much information Google stores, here is the answer.
Google search crawler uses 850 TB of information, so that's the amount of raw data from the web.
Google Analytics uses 220 TB stored in two tables: 200 TB for the raw data and 20 TB for the summaries.
Google Earth uses 70.5 TB: 70 TB for the raw imagery and 500 GB for the index data.
The second table "is relatively small (500 GB), but it must serve tens of thousands of queries per second per datacenter with low latency".
Personalized Search doesn't need too much data: only 4 TB.
Personalized Search stores each user's data in Bigtable.
Each user has a unique userid and is assigned a row named by that userid.
All user actions are stored in a table.
Google Base uses 2 TB and Orkut only 9 TB of data.
If we take into account that all this information is compressed. Ffor example, the crawled data has compression rate of 11%, so 800 TB become 88 TB, Google uses for all the services mentioned before 220 TB.
It's also interesting to note that the size of the raw imagery from Google Earth is almost equal to the size of the compressed web pages crawled by Google.

Linda Cardellini in ER

Linda Cardellini reprises the role of nurse Samantha Taggart on the hit medical drama, “ER” as the series begins its twelfth season.
ER is one of the best TV dramas I like very much.
In addition to her role on “ER,” Cardellini will be seen in three films this year; Aric Avelino’s drama “American Gun,” starring as part of an ensemble that includes Donald Sutherland and Forest Whitaker; Nick Goossen’s comedy “Nana’s Boy” with Shirley Jones, Shirley Knight, Doris Roberts and Nick Swardson and in “Brokeback Mountain” for director Ang Lee.
Linda is one of the pretty girls in ER.
She was most recently seen in the sequel to the hit live-action animated feature “Scooby Doo,” which also starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Matthew Lillard. Cardellini reprised her role as Velma Dinkley, the brains of Mystery, Inc., in “Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.”
Making her mark in the critically acclaimed series “Freaks and Geeks,” Cardellini starred as Lindsay Weir.
Her witty and biting portrayal of the teen still resonates among the shows cult following.
If you like Linda, check her shows ...
Among Cardellini's other film credits are “Legally Blonde,” “Good Burger,” “Dead Man on Campus” , the thriller “Strangeland,” and the independent feature “The Unsaid,” opposite Andy Garcia.
She also recently completed work on another independent project, “Welcome to LaLa Wood,” opposite Martin Short.
Cardellini’s other television work includes “The Lot,” “Guys Like Us” and “Bone Chillers.” Her guest appearances include “3rd Rock from the Sun,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Boy Meets World,” “Clueless” and “Pacific Palisades.”
A native of Mountain View, California, Cardellini always wanted to entertain and loves the art of bringing written characters to life. She currently lives in Los Angeles. Her birthday is June 25.

锘縇ucky Money

The man who matched five main numbers plus the bonus ball in the draw on Wednesday, 27 June, 2007 is still missing.
The winning numbers on that date were 7, 13, 23, 40, 41, 48, and the bonus number was 1.
are you the lucky guy?
The ticket-holder has until 1730 GMT on Christmas Eve to come forward and make their claim.
National Lottery operator Camelot say they cannot be more specific about where the winning ticket was purchased.
Camelot's Catherine Jordan said: "We're desperate to find the mystery ticket-holder and unite them with their winnings - this really is a life-enhancing amount of money.
I really want to tell him..I am the man he is looking for...
"Try checking in the pockets of clothing, in wallets, bags and down the back of the sofa - someone in County Londonderry could well be sitting on a small fortune.
"We have the champagne on ice and our fingers crossed that the lucky winner comes forward to claim the prize."
The county has a happy history of lottery wins.
May be I will be the winner next time.
..Yes ...

Harry Potter

In its first 24 hours on sale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, went on sale at 12:01 a.m.
8.3 million copies sold in the United States.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold 6.9 million copies in its first 24 hours on sale two years ago.
Even I dont like the books, I have to agree, the books are a great success.
Cash tills around the world rang to the tune of Harry Potter over the weekend, with the seventh and final book in the boy wizard series easily on course to become the fastest-selling book ever.

US Presidential Debate

Even Mr Clinton is not a good guy, but he was a successful president.
Monday night's CNN Democrat presidential debate for the first time used video questions submitted by the public via the Web site YouTube.
YouTube, another great internet business.
The result: A serious question on global warming asked by a snowman, another on gun control asked by a man cradling his "baby" --- an automatic rifle --- and some unique questions some candidates may have never heard before.
You can attend the debate even you are just a little kid.
CNN will host a YouTube debate for Republican presidential candidates on Sept. 17.
Despite the democratization of the format, some people online criticized CNN for screening the questions, instead of allowing people to vote for the questions they wanted asked.
Former Black Hawk County Democrats chairman E.J. Gallagher III, who watched the debate at Monica's Piano Bar at an event organized by the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, said he enjoyed the format and the serious questions asked.
Anyway, it is just a show.
Nick Powers of Waterloo was concerned that candidates outside the top-tier would be given the short shrift, but in the end, those at Monica's thought all the candidates were given nearly equal time.
Current county Democratic Party chairwoman Pat Sass agreed that organizers did a good job of including all the candidates.
USA, a big show state for all of us.
But she sees room for improvement: Sass thought CNN should have given all candidates the same questions and the same amount of time to answer, all the while switching up the order in which candidates answer.
In fact, she plans on implementing those rules for the presidential debate hosted at Waterloo West High School in October.
Of the 3,000 questions submitted, 39 made the cut, including one from a pair of Iowa brothers, Mark and Joel Strauss of Davenport.
They were beamed across the nation when they asked about Alzheimer's disease as part of a montage of questions about health care.

Japanese may buy much more oil

Japanese officials agreed to work with UN inspectors after a powerful earthquake shut down the country’s largest nuclear plant and raised fresh concerns about its nuclear sector.
I dont care about the safe of the plants. I care about the oil price.
The earthquake caused radioactive spills and other problems reportedly compounded by employee error.
All fifty-five Japanese nuclear plants have this kind of vulnerability,” a Kobe University seismologist told USA Today.
So, the 50 plants may be closed very soon.
The incident follows last year’s order from a judge to shut down Japan’s second-largest plant because it was not earthquake ready.
A series of other high-profile nuclear accidents, including in 1999 and 2004, create a growing quandary for Japan—the world’s third-largest consumer of nuclear power behind the United States and France.
Japanese are using a lot of nuclear power.
If japanese change to use oil instead ...
Environmental advocates were quick to assert that the latest incident means nuclear power is unsafe.
Japan is not the only country in the world that has built nuclear power plants on or near fault lines.
The Philippine government pays $155,000 a day in interest on a nuclear facility never put into operation because it was built near major fault lines.
Energy-starved Armenia continues to run its Metsamor nuclear plant despite a nearby fault line and the safety concerns of European Union and U.S. officials.
A 1988 quake in the region killed twenty-five thousand people.
Oil price will keep on going up...all over the wrold ..
In the United States, two watchdog groups want to close a Michigan nuclear plant, which they believe fails to adhere to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s earthquake safety regulations for waste handling.
Concerns about earthquakes also threaten U.S. plans to build a nuclear waste repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.
and, dont forget, China will use much more oil in the coming years.
Buy oil ....