Zoo Station

Ethan Zuckerman has a must-read post on Facebook's new privacy violation. So, if you're on Facebook often and actually do care about your privacy, please do read the post. Ethan also points to a very useful tool that lets you opt-out of ad-tracking networks, rather than quit Facebook altogether (I cannot comment yet on its efficacy). I do understand why Facebook has come up with this idea (tracking your commercial transactions), but I find it a serious violation of privacy and I would urge all of you to read Ethan's post in full. David Weinberger also has an excellent piece up on Huffington Post on the same issue.

Occasionally, one comes across a story so brilliant it needs to be blogged simply because noone would believe it otherwise. I remember a story about a dog named "Bullet" being married somewhere near Calcutta, but I obviously did not blog it. This dog is called "Selvi" and here's proof.

[pic courtesy BBC News]

An Indian man has married a female dog, believing the union will help him atone for stoning two other dogs to death. P Selvakumar, 33, said he had been cursed since the killings, suffering paralysis and a loss of hearing. The wedding took place at a Hindu temple in Tamil Nadu state. The "bride" wore an orange sari with a flower garland and was fed a bun to celebrate.
[...]
The "bride", who is called Selvi, was led to the temple in Manamudurai wearing a sari before vows were exchanged in a traditional Hindu ceremony.

A bun? WTF? That's all Selvi gets?

A relative of the groom who attended the wedding said he hoped Mr Selvakumar would now be cured. "Fifteen years back Selvakumar was physically fit. But, once he attacked a pair of dogs and thereafter Kumar could not move his limbs freely," the relative, Ramu, told the BBC. "He tried every cure for his ailment but could not be rid of his disability. "On the advice of an astrologer and others, he decided to marry a bitch to get cured. Then we arranged Selvakumar's marriage with a bitch."

Life's a bitch, and then you marry one, I guess?