Spellcheck

When you are talking about the Spelling Bee, atleast spell the headline correctly


I think the publishers at Rediff forgot to use spellcheck

What will we have to stop wearing next?

Dunkin donuts had to pull an online ad of celebrity chef Rachael Ray because a fringed black-and-white scarf that the celebrity chef wore in the ad offers symbolic support for Muslim extremism and terrorism, according to Michelle Malkin. I wonder whats next on the clothing hit list.

Should we really care about what narrow minded people like Michelle Malkin think.

Read more at Dunkin Donuts Pulls ad

Do we really care?

Amithab Bachchan walks bare feet for a few hours and that makes the mainstream news. There are millions of other people in India who have to walk barefeet everyday just to earn a livelihood. What about them?
I wonder when the news media will stop feeding us this irrelevent news about celebrities.
Whats next, Amitabh Bachchan catches cold and it will be news; oh wait that was already in the news. Check this out

Read more at Amithab Bachchan walks bare feet

Read more posts on Do we Really Care

Green movement goes mainstream

A recent article on MSNBC talks about how individual consumers are making informed choices to reduce the effect of climate change and Global Warming. To quote a famous line from a poem "Little drops of water make a might ocean". These small steps taken by individuals will go a long way in bulding an ocean in the fight against global warming.

As for me here are my two cents which are contributing to the cause
I have started using resuable bags for my groceries instead of the plastic bags
I have started recyclying waste
I turn off my computer monitor when I leave work
Changed some of the lights in my house to the more energy efficient lighting
Open the windows and let some fresh air in instead of using the A/C
And of-course I have a blog to spread the word around

Read my other posts on Global Warming

Why We Should Ignore Raj Thackery

After his political stunt earlier this year where Raj Thackeray attacked North Indians and Amitabh Bachchan in particular, Raj Thackeray is now directing his ire at students from North India who come to Pune for higher education.

From when did education become the hegemony of one individual, state or region. Leaving in a free and democratic country every Indian has the right to live anywhere in the country, work anywhere in the country and have an education anywhere in the country. The constitution of the country guarantees that.

As for Raj Thackeray, after his split from the Shiv Sena, he is just trying to appease the Marathi Manoos by playing these cheap tricks and trying to stay alive and relevant politically. Any good intentioned Marathi Manoos should see through this smoke screen and ignore these cheap and dirty tricks. They not only pull the country and state backward, but will add a bad rap on the Marathi Manoos himself.

Read more at Raj Thackery targets students

Read my other posts on the same topic

Why Congress Lost the Karnataka Assembly Election?

Why did Congress lose the current assembly elections in Karnataka? Read this excellent article on the same topic published by Krishna Prasad on Churmuri

100 Movies Countdown

This must have taken Alonzo Mosley some effort to compile this list. The video lists 100 movies, 100 movie quotes and 100 numbers complied in descending order of numbers. Pretty amazing stuff.

My favourite is No 18. And of-course how can I forget No 5 which is from The Godfather



And for those who are interested in the names of the movies that are in this video click 100 movie countdown

Link obtained from Churumuri

Olympic Commerical

Watch this excellent commercial on the Olympics from Visa. And by the way the voice in the background is that of Morgan Freeman

Do we Really Care?

Do we really care about who slapped whom? If you are really interested then read on and while you are there do not miss the comments at the bottom

Is Talking to Your Enemy Appeasment?

Is talking to you enemy Appeasement? If you believe Kevin James it is and should be. This all was in response to a speech that President Bush gave to the Israeli Knesset, where he drew, what many observers interpreted as a comparison between Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler before World War II with Obama's expressed willingness to meet with leaders of U.S. adversaries, particularly Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Watch this




Link obtained from Gaurav Sabnis

Kid Recites all US State Capitals

Check out this Indian kid reciting all the US state capitals. Though some of the conversation is in Tamil, you can figure out when he starts the saying the names of the capitals.



Link obtained via Uber Desi

News You Cannot Use

In the Albanian capital of Tirana, a cat chasing a mouse caused a 72 hour blackout.

Read more at Cat and Mouse

America's Self Inflicted Decline

In a recent commentary for Newsweek, Michael Hirsh argues that America's decline over the last several years has been mostly self inflicted due to bad strategic decisions in every aspect. Be it economic policy, foreign policy or domestic policy, everything has been so blatantly mismanaged that it is not a surprise that America's clout in the world has declined a considerable degree. A great example of this declining clout would be the Saudi's Rebuffing President Bush's request for increased oil production, to ease gas prices, twice within the last few months.

Read complete Michael Hirsh's commentary at America's Self Inflicted Decline

What is Globalization?

If you are interested in finding out more about Globalization, view the Part I and Part II of the two part presentation by Nayan Chand from the Yale Center for the Study on Globalization

Tit for Tat - Indians Bristle at U.S. Criticism on Food Prices

In response to recent comments, about India and China being responsible for higher food prices, by President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, politicians and economists in India have responded with scathing criticism highlighting the energy consumption and food habits of Americans.

Read more at Indians Bristle at US Criticism

Ken Lee Meju More!

Here is a You Tube video from the Bulgarian Idol.

The Malthus Principle - Importance in Todays World

Between 1798 and 1826, a British political economist and demographer by the name of Thomas Malthus wrote a six edition treatise, An Essay on the Principle of Population. According to his treatise, population grows at a geometric rate, while food supply grows at an arithmetic rate. A further simplified explanation of this would be, population tends to grow faster then the food supply, keeping most people on the verge of starvation.

According to Gregory Clark , an economist at UC Davis, for better part of our history (i.e. till year 1800), the world economy was trapped in some sort of a Malthusian Trap - any increase in production efficiency as a result of new technology resulted in a comparable population increase, which consumed the extra surplus of food, resources etc, pushing the average income back to the original levels. According to Dr Clark, The Industrial Revolution helped increase the efficiency of production at a greater rate then the overall population growth, allowing the economy to get out of this Malthusian Trap.

For better part of the last 200 years, the world witnessed an exponential growth in the population and an improved standard of living. According to the latest estimates, the United Nations predicts the world population to be at 8 billion by 2025 compared to 6.6 billion today. An average person is consuming more resources which is putting pressure on the environment and the world economy. This is evident today in the higher prices for food, energy and every other conceivable resource.

Some economists have suggested that we may be at a tipping point, where the improvements in efficiencies and the amount of resources we are consuming are not enough to sustain the exponential increase in population growth. In a recent article published in the Wall Street Journal economists and academicians talk about how these New Limits to Growth are reviving "Malthusian Fears".

Finding solutions to some of these problems may not be ease. It will require cooperations from Governments, Industry, Academics and above all the Consumers. In order to sustain the level economic growth to offset the exponential growth in population, investments in new technologies in the fields of agriculture and renewable energy are needed. This is the only way out to prevent the human race from entering into another Malthusian Trap .

Global Food Crisis

C Peter Timmer , a Senior Fellow at Center for Global Development provides a very insightful commentary on the cause for the global food crisis that we are facing today. According to him, the four main reasons for the current food crisis are Demand from India and China, Mandate for Biofuels in the United States and other Developed Countries, Depreciation of the Dollar and Speculation.

Read more at Global Food Crisis

Read other articles on World Food Crisis

$2.99 Gas for Next three Years - Just buy a Chrysler Gas Guzzler

Chrysler, as part of its effort to overcome its dismal car sales in the last year, is introducing a new incentive program called Let's Refuel America. If you buy a new Chrysler, Jeep or Dodge vehicle, you will receive a gas discount to fill gas for $3 dollars a gallon for the next three years, irrespective of increase in the gas prices. The difference in price will be paid by Chrysler.
I think it is a short sighted strategy which is aimed at boosting sales of its gas guzzling SUV's and large trucks which account for most of the vehicles sold by Chrysler. Instead of adding more fuel efficient vehicles to its lineup, which most of the other car companies are doing, Chrysler is providing discount on gasoline and hoping that consumers fall into the trap of cheaper gas prices and buy these gas guzzling vehicles.
I hope that consumers dont get lured into this incentive as it is a bad deal for the environment, a bad deal for the consumer and above all bad a deal for Chrysler itself.

Read more at $2.99 Gas for Next three Years

Reliance Industries Shuts Down Petrol Stations

According to The Times of India, Reliance Industries , the largest publicly traded company in India has shut down all of its petrol dispensing stations. The reason being, in this world of high energy prices, it cannot compete with the highly subsidized prices of petrol and diesel from the state run Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum.

Also according to the article, these state run companies sells petrol at a loss of Rs 13.97 a litre and diesel at a discount of Rs 20.97 per litre. This revenue loss is made up by the Government through issue of oil bonds and subsidy share from upstream firms like ONGC and GAIL.

So in essence the Government of India is borrowing money to keep the prices of Petrol and Diesel artificially low. Where is the business sense in this? I am sure that with the coming parliamentary elections next year, the current government is not going to hike the fuel prices as this will be hugely unpopular among the electorate. If at all there is a fuel price hike, then the opposition will use it as a leverage against the current government and manipulate it meet its own needs.

Alas, most of our fiscal policies are dictated by politics and desire to cling to power rather then sound economic judgement and doing what is right.

Read more at Reliance Shuts Petrol Dispensing Stations

Tom Friedman is Back and He is Better then Ever

After a brief hiatus of five months, Tom Friedman is back as an Op-Ed Columnist for The New York Times. In his most recent Op-Ed Tom talks about how America is falling behind Asia and Europe in Research and Development, how the infrastructure of this country which used to be the best is now outclassed by Europe and Asia and how we are borrowing beyond our means. But nothing sums up the column more then these these few sentences.
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Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.

We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no money down and no payments for two years.”

That’s why Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times: “You go to war with the army you have.” Hey, you march into the future with the country you have — not the one that you need, not the one you want, not the best you could have.
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Statement of The Day

This statement of the day was published in New York Times.
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“Morning Edition” is National Public Radio’s crown jewel. Nearing its 30th birthday, it draws 12.9 million listeners weekly, making it the third-highest-rated radio show in the country. (Rush Limbaugh’s is No. 1, in case you were wondering.)
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To be frank, I have listened to Rush Limbaugh once. It was the one which aired Operation Chaos. If Operation Chaos is what the number one radio show in the country advocates, then you have to wonder where this country is headed.


Read more about The New York Times Story on Morning Edition here

Cutting Federal Gas Tax a Wise Idea?

US Presidential hopefuls from both parties John McCain and Hillary Clinton have recently floated the idea of repealing the Federal Tax of 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline. Their reasoning being, since gasoline is almost $4 a gallon, repealing the tax during the summer months (which is a peak driving season in the US) would make it a little bit cheaper for the average American. But here is where their reasoning fails.

Recent reports have suggested that due to record high gas prices in the US, there are clear signs of decline in demand for gasoline. If you are an environmentalist who is worried about Global Warming this is a very good sign. But artificially reducing the gas prices would probably increase the demand, ultimately driving up the prices again. All of that extra money would go into the already bloated coffers of the oil companies. So eliminating the gas tax during the summer months would bring about a short term relief if at all.

What about the cost to the tax payers? According to the the recent editorial in The New York Times, this temporary relief in gasoline tax would add another $9 Billion to the already huge budget deficit. Not to mention the administrative difficulties of turning off the tax in May and turning it back on in September.

In this era of global warming, it makes more sense to reduce the consumption of fossil fuel rather then encourage it. But eliminating the gas tax would do just the opposite.

Read Thomas Friedmans Op Ed on this topic.
Also read News Stories on this same topic.

$130 Billion Economic Stimulus Package - Where is the Money Coming From?

This week the check from the economic stimulus package will start arriving in peoples bank accounts and mail. But have you ever wondered where is this money coming from and how is the government going to pay for this?
According to a recent published report this years federal budget deficit will be about $500 billion, the highest on record. And the majority contribution for the deficit is coming from the $130 billion economic stimulus package. And in order to cover this deficit, the government is going to start issuing One Year Treasury Notes for the first time in seven years. That means the government is going to borrow money to pay for this stimulus package.
In a nutshell, this is what the US government is doing "Borrowing money to give it to consumers so that they can spend it, and hope that this which will jump start the economy". It doesn't get any better then this.

Read more at Where is the Money
Also read my previous post IRS Rebate Checks about the same topic.