Enigma Solution

Every day some outrageous events occur. The media starts a frenzy and the masses get begin to holler for blood. A sacrificial head is needed on the block or something has to be done. Politicians find it expedient to bow to public and media pressure and some knee jerk reaction is announced. The government administration swings into action drafting new laws and imposing curbs and the mobs are silenced. Then peace returns briefly to the land before the next uproar. The cycle repeats endlessly. There is a dangerous pattern. With each action our liberties, freedom are being taken away. Like killing the people with a thousand cuts, until one day all we have is a compliant, submissive and frightened people. It is becoming impossible to exist without breaking some law or the other or causing offense to      some individuals or groups. Trial by media is the new norm, and inquisitions are on the rise. In a travesty of justice people are now first judged guilty and must prove t...

Mary Smith earned sixpence a week shooting dried peas at sleeping workers windows. A Knocker-up (sometimes known as a knocker-upper) was a profession in England and Ireland that started during and lasted well into the Industrial Revolution and at least as late as the 1920s, before alarm clocks were affordable or reliable. A knocker-up’s job was to rouse sleeping people so they could get to work on time. The knocker-up used a truncheon or short, heavy stick to knock on the clients’ doors or a long and light stick, often made of bamboo, to reach windows on higher floors. Some of them used pea-shooters. In return, the knocker-up would be paid a few pence a week. The knocker-up would not leave a client’s window until sure that the client had been awoken. There were large numbers of people carrying out the job, especially in larger industrial towns such as Manchester. Generally the job was carried out by elderly men and women but sometimes police constables supplemented their...

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.  From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.” - Alexander Tyler. (1887)   Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, commenting on the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: __________________________ “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.  There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” - John Adams.   one of the U.S.  Founding Fathers and it's second President   _____________...

During the Wharton India Economic Forum held in Philadelphia on 22 March 2008, former President of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam ji was asked a question based on his own experience on how leaders should manage failure . Dr. Abdul Kalam responded:  "In 1973, I was appointed project director of India's satellite launch program. Our goal was to put the 'Rohini' satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given all the necessary funds and the talented people I needed." "Several thousand people were involved in this ambitious target and in 1979 we made the launch. Unfortunately the satellite plunged into the Bay of Bengal soon after launch. Professor Satish Dhawan the head of ISRO, (Indian Space Research Organisation) had called a press conference. Through the media he made known to  the world that the failure was his responsibility and by the next year they would have the problems solved." "The following year in July of 1980 the satell...

The class which has the power to rob on a large scale has also the power to control the government and legalize their robbery.                                                            -Eugene Debs

The people and the governments of the PIIGS countries ( Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) are preoccupied. They are extremely busy, not at work, but watching and enjoying football matches.   The rest of the world is busy scrambling to do something to prevent their financial exposure to the PIIGS countries from blowing up in their faces and lead to global meltdown. Now you have an idea about the difference between a lender and a borrower.... My thanks to Mr. Abhik Sengupta for this piece

Alexander of Macedonia conquered a large part of the known world during his life..  After one battle, Alexander ordered his soldiers to stop fighting hold their positions and do nothing to provoke the enemy. Yet a couple of courageous soldiers under cover of nightfall crept to the enemy side and killed several solders as they slept. The stunning news was conveyed to Alexander. He called the two soldiers in front of all his troops and praised them for their courage and then ordered that they to be beheaded immediately. He proclaimed to his troops, "They were praised for their bravery and killed for their indiscipline. Indiscipline can endanger lives of my forces and cost us a battle. This I cannot permit" ________________________ Discipline, a much used and rarely understood word, which means complying with realistic guidelines and laid down systems. A high profile example is road traffic discipline rather indiscipline in India where we have the highe...