varnam

Romila Thapar's appointment to Library of Congress opposed

regards to India, she is an avowed antagonist of India's Hindu civilization as a well-known Marxist. She represents a completely Euro-centric worldview. I fail to see how she can be the correct choice to represent India's ancient history and civilization. She completely disavows that India ever had a history. The ongoing campaign by Romila Thapar and others to discredit Hindu civilization is a war of cultural genocide. By your unfortunate selection of Thapar, America is now aiding and abetting this effort.

Why would you want to oppose an eminent historian ? Take a look at Rajeev Srinivasan's article in Rediff, Historicide: Censoring the past... and the present

As more and more American Tax Dollars are being given to Musharraf for his support in the war against terrorism, we have more information coming out about the murder of Danny Pearl

US Congress probes Pakistan's role in aiding terrorism

After the vote, Rep. Faleomavaega stated that he harbored no ill-will against the people of Pakistan. 'It would be hypocritical for the United States to support a dictatorship despite a firm, long-standing policy against coup instigators. Today, Pakistan remains a dictatorship, while only a few years ago it was a democracy. By contrast, India has demonstrated that democracy can take root and prosper in non-Western cultures as well, even under the most difficult circumstances.'

Few days back we said that it is not in India's interest to accept Pakistan's offer to denuclearize. The Indian Prime Minister made that more clear.

I have always wondered why Arundhati Roy is against democracy and prefers dictators like Musharraf, Saddam Hussein etc. I got my answer in her speech at Centre for Economic and Social Rights in New York on May 13th

Democracy is the Free World's whore, says Arundhati Roy

"Democracy, the modern world's holy cow, is in crisis ... every kind of outrage is being committed in the name of democracy. It has become little more than a hollow word, a pretty shell, emptied of all content or meaning," she said. "Democracy is the Free World's whore, willing to dress up, dress down, willing to satisfy a whole range of tastes, available to be used and abused at will."

See that is the problem with democracy. Sometimes you have to accept the fact that there are people who do not agree with your point of view. In Saddam's land, you never had that problem. You could have a different point of view, so long as you were willing to spent rest of your life as a dead body.

She did not spare the judicary as well.

Free elections, a free press and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market means they are on sale to the highest bidder, she said.

Call the Judiciary stupid if you want, but they do not like it a bit when you violate the rules of the land and build houses in protected land.

Again, don't you see the irony here. You are able to come to United States and criticize it in public. Now go to Cuba, China, Iran or North Korea and say the same thing about their administration.

California, the world's fifth largest economy is having a $38 billion deficit and the blame is on Governor Gray Davis. He was re-elected to office only last year, but there is a serious campaign to recall him. But finally it is all about money.

California voters back governor recall: Still, being presented with considerations related to a recall effort appears to give voters pause. For instance, when informed that a recall effort could cost $25 million, the pro-recall majority evaporated.

USINPAC is an Indian Political Action Commitee representing India in Capitol Hill and the White House. Recently they met with the Democratic candidates for the 2004 Presidential elections and here are is what happened.

Senator Lieberman (D-CT) said that he is committed to having Indian Americans in his Administration.

Governor Dean stated that although General Musharraf's regime was not democratically elected, the alternative of a fundamentalist regime was much worse, which may be true. But praising Musharraf in an Indian crowd does not really go well among Indians.

The USINPAC also met Senator Orin Hatch and Senator Chuck Grassley and Senator Hatch said that he would like to charter a plane and take a group of Senators to India to get a better understanding of the country and how US and India can work better together.

California has a deficit of 34 billion and there is a recall campaign going on for the Governor Gray Davis who is a democrat. The White House has projected a deficit of 455b. So is this is a good reason to recall President Bush ?

There are 9 Democrats currently running in the primaries for the President of United States (Elections in 2004, Results in 2005, if Florida is still voting). Out of the nine many will drop out after the primaries. One of the top runners is John Kerry. He voted for the war against Iraq. On being asked if he had problem supporting the President, he said

"I have no question about the decision I made," he said. "Even Hans Blix said they weren't in compliance."

So he did not make his decision on those 16 words the President said. Nice to know.

Update: And what did Bill Clinton say about Saddam in 1998

Hussein would "go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal."

[from best of the web, Washington Post]

If the Democrats are looking for an issue in the next elections they should go big on the civil liberties that are being lost. It has reached ridiculous levels that even cartoonists are under suspicion. Pardon me, if this reminds me of the communist era. Los Angeles Times cartoonist Michael Ramirez had a cartoon this Sunday and he is now being investigated by the Secret Service.

The cartoon, based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from the Vietnam War, depicts Bush with his hands behind his back as a man labeled "Politics" prepares to shoot him in the head. The background of the drawing is a cityscape labeled "Iraq." "We're aware of the image and we're in the process of determining what action if any can be taken," John Gill, Secret Service spokesman, said.

and ironically, this is a pro-Bush cartoon.

As per the Patriot Act, FBI agents can now ask your local library for a list of books you have read.

So finally the votes have been counted and there will be a special election in couple of months to decide if Gray Davis will be recalled. Davis was re-elected Governor last year and this recall campaign is the gift of Republican Darrell Issa who put 1.7 million of his money to collect the signatures. But then here is the scary part

Schwarzenegger, a Republican who has never sought public office, has flirted with the idea of running against Davis for months. He also has organized a campaign team that would consist mostly of advisers to former two-term California governor Pete Wilson, whom Davis replaced in 1999.

There is no clue as to how the Republicans are going to reduce the 34 billion deficit we have. No one is talking about it. Steve Lopez of LA Times asked an important question, Just One Question for 'Recall Davis' Forces: Now What?

We all know that in theory, democracy is a good idea. But I find it peculiar that you can saunter up to a table on a gorgeous summer day and sign on to boot the state's top dog out of office in midterm, the whole transaction faster and simpler than if you were buying Girl Scout cookies.

I am no big fan of Gray Davis either. But I hope in the elections he wins so that rich people cannot hijack power.

[ref: Washington Post, LA Times ]

There is a story of sexual harassment coming from Oracle Headquarters in California. An Indian woman was sexually harassed by her boss, who also happens to be an Indian.

The lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by India-West, alleges the 33-year-old Indian woman, who had been working at the company's San Mateo offices under Anand's supervision since November 2000, was assaulted physically and verbally.

[source: Economic Times]

After 16, the new number is 28. The issue now is the 28 pages that have been blanked out from a Congressional investigation into the intelligence failure of 9/11

The tone was set early in the day when Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), a presidential candidate who chaired the Senate intelligence committee during the investigative phase of the report, told CBS' "Early Show" that the "censored" information showed that a "foreign government ... was providing a variety of assistance to these hijackers." He said he could not divulge the identity of the country but when asked he did not deny that the government was Saudi Arabia.

The other pages in the document which have been made public have criticized Saudi Arabia and a number of officials have complained about the lack of co-operation from the Saudis. But still why are these pages being blanked out ? What is wrong if American people know what was the Saudi involvement ?

Guess who wants those 28 pages to be made public --- the Saudis. And they rightly point out that

Asked whether the Saudis wanted the material declassified, this diplomatic source said, "That would be one way to stop some of the reckless things and one of the things to be discussed."

and even Republicans agree that there is nothing wrong with it.

Also Sunday, Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate banking committee, called for the release of the 28 pages, saying the Bush administration was withholding them because they "might be embarrassing to some international relations." Shelby, a former ranking member of the Senate intelligence committee, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he "went back and read every one of those pages thoroughly" and concluded that "95% of that information could be declassified."

If the Saudis are ok with declassification on material that pertains to them, why are we not releasing it ?

[Ref: CNN, LA Times]

There is a new study from UC Berkeley, located in a loony town which opposed the US war against the Afghanistan. According to the study common psychological factors associated with political conservatism include:

• Fear and aggression
• Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Need for cognitive closure
• Terror management

Shanti has a good rebuttal for this and says

As you can see if you care to read the gist of the study, any study that compares Hitler, Mussolini and Ronal Reagan and says they were basically the same, you should be able to smell a huge rat. When there are aberrations to the study of course, like Stalin and other commie dictators, the study glosses over it and say they were conservative too. How fun! I thought that the hard-left ties itself into knots trying to tell us all what a ?worker?s paradise? Cuba is and how good socialism and communism are for us, if we would only listen.

Oooh I am frightened and need some cognitive closure.

In 1911, California added three direct democracy actions to the constitution giving more power to the people

• initiative process: allows voters to pass laws directly
• referendum: allows voters to strike down laws passed by legislature
• recall: what we are seeing now.

Now we are seeing direct democracy at its best. Arnold Schwarzenegger may or may not run. Larry Flynt is running.

"California is the most progressive state in the union," said Flynt, 61. "I don't think anyone here will have a problem with a smut peddler as governor."

Currently about 300 people have filed their candidacy. All you need is $3500 and 65 signatures.

[Ref: Economist, KCRA]

After sending confusing signals, Arnold has finally announced that he will be running for Governor in California.

"The politicians are fiddling, fumbling and failing," he said. "The man that is failing the people more than anyone is Gray Davis. He is failing them terribly, and this is why he needs to be recalled and this is why I am going to run for governor."

Why not. I hope he wins too. Time to retire career politicians.

[via Arizona Central]

Recently one of my friends found that his identity was stolen The thief got store credit cards on his name, and bought goods worth about $10,000. And today I read this:

The California-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights said for $26 each it was able to purchase the Social Security numbers and home addresses for Tenet, Ashcroft and other top Bush administration officials, including Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser.

Update: CalPundit writes on the new Financial Privacy Bill, which LA Times calls "the nation's most far-reaching financial privacy legislation".

It's only a small step, but at least it's a step in the right direction. You see, it's not the unending collection of personal information that's really the main threat to privacy in the United States, it's the ability to amalgamate it all in one place and sell it to the highest bidder that's the real danger. This bill puts a few roadblocks in place to keep that from happening.

Now how about a bill, that will send anyone caught spamming into Afghanistan ?

[Source CNN]

"Today our nation remembers. We remember a sad and terrible day, September the 11th, 2001. We remember lives lost. We remember the heroic deeds. We remember the compassion and the decency of our fellow citizens on that terrible day,"

President of United States

There is going to be another debate among the candidates for the Governor in California on Sept 24th. This is the only one which Arnold Schwarzenegger has agreed to participate. This time it is an open book exam. The questions for the debate have been released. The candidates have been given one week to memorize the answers and enact as if they are speaking after considerable thought.

Hey, anything to provide entertainment.

Switching on the TV today morning, I felt happy I am living in Sunny California. Hurricane Isabel has hit the Carolina coast. But I am sure the hurricane will have to fight it out to enter the land. The coast from Florida to New York is filled with camera crews from all the media and there is no way a hurricane can break that human wall.

Some reporters, in their enthusiasm to report or maybe not finding space on the land, have started reporting from knee deep water. So people in inland states beware, soon you may find a reporter swinging past your roof as the intensity of Isabel increase.

Republican Darrel Issa, who spent his personal wealth to start the California Recall Circus has now asked people to vote no on the recall, if there are two Republicans in the race.

This show cannot get anymore ridiculous. Yesterday on Jay Leno, 90 candidates were present. It was on Jay Leno that Arnold announced his candidacy. So to be fair to all others, Jay invited everyone. According to election rules, he cannot show one candidate in close up. If so he has to show all 90. But there was a loop hole in this. If he insulted a person, he could show them for that amount of time, without having to show everyone else.

So Jay went around, insulting almost everyone at their face. The porn actress Cary was also present. Jay said that she was the only punched ballot in the crowd, and gave him the finger.

So please do not call our elections as a circus anymore, it has outgrown that word.

Yesterday we had another debate in California, this time including Arnold. Continuing with the circus theme, this debate was total entertainment, so much that the moderator had to say this, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is not Comedy Central". Really, that is the standard the debate had. Here are some samples

When she [Ariana Huffington] criticized GOP support for corporate tax loopholes, Schwarzenegger responded that he could "drive my Hummer" through the loopholes she used to pay negligible personal income tax during the last two years.

She retorted, "I was writing and researching a book, and I wasn't making $20 million violent movies."

At another point, when Schwarzenegger interrupted her, Huffington objected. "This is the way you treat women. We know that. But not now."

Allowed to rebut what Statham ruled was a personal attack, Schwarzenegger said, "I would just like to say that I just realized that I have a perfect part for you in 'Terminator 4.'" He also suggested that she might need "more decaf."

Meanwhile many other candidates got together for a show called Who wants to be Governor, which was a debating game to be aired on the Game Show channel.

Our California Recall Circus now has new poll numbers. 63% of the people polled said that they would replace Gov. Gray Davis. And guess who is leading the polls to replace him - Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold was the choice of 40% of the people.

There is another Republican candidate, Senator Tom McClintock in the fray and there is news that the Republican Administration wants him to withdraw. This was the same reason that Darrel Issa, the person who started the recall campaign asked people to vote No on the recall.

Arnold has been running ads against the Indians saying that they have not been paying taxes after making money in their casinos and if he becomes Governor all that is going to change. The Indians have been running their own ads against Arnold.

But leaving all this aside, one person who is benefitting from this recall is Adult Actress Book Review: PakistanCarey. Her videos are now selling well.

In my other home state, Kerala, the by elections, the official Congress candidate was defeated by the leftists. In Kerala, Congress party is made of two factions, Karunakaran and Antony. Antony is the Chief Minister and Karunakaran is acting as the opposition party. So when an Antony loyalist was given the ticket, the entire Karunakaran machinery worked against the official candidate.

Now Rediff is reporting that Karunakaran is planning to join hands with the Communists to topple the ministry. So this would be Congress and Communists joining hands to topple a Congress ministry.

We are all waiting to see what the "High Command" will say in this matter.

Is it me or why do the two states I live have such wierd politics ?

It is just 5 days before the elections here in California and the LA Times has come with some muck against Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the story, the LA Times managed to find the women whom Arnold had groped during his career.

This is one point Arinana Huffington has been stressing, Arnold does not treat women with respect

As we enter the final week of recall campaign in California, it is getting dirtier by the minute. Yesterday the LA Times ran an article on Arnold Schwarzenegger's past. Now ABC News has published some quotes from an unpublished book proposal in which he said that he admired Hitler for being a good public speaker and what he was able to do with it.

If you switch on the TV, you are bombarded with ads by Gray Davis, Bustemante, Arnold, and Native Indians. Often one follows the other, saying what the previous guy said is all wrong. The media has now discarded all major issues in the world like Iraq, Afghanistan, Al-Queda and is now concentrated on the recall. Anyways, the pain will be over in a few days.

The newsmakers last week in US were, believe it or not, Tigers.

First performer Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy was mauled by a tiger on stage.

He suffered a severe wound to his neck when the 7-year-old male tiger named Montecore attacked Friday night in front of hundreds of people. Officials said Sunday he had improved and could move his hands and feet.

And in New York, a man decided to have a Tiger as a pet in his apartment.

New York has been described as a concrete jungle, but one Harlem resident seems to have taken that literally as police were called in to remove a tiger and an alligator from his apartment. Tipped off by phone calls from neighbors, police on Saturday found the wildlife in the apartment of 31-year-old Antoine Yates, who faces charges of reckless endangerment.

This is the last chance for the tigers to be in the limelight. Tomorrow it is the polls in California and all the talking heads are here, Tom Brokaw, Chris Matthews, Petter Jennings..

Last week I was watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann and he kept saying that he thinks Hillary would run for the office. Hillary had made a statement saying that she would not run for office in 2004. According to his sources, Former President Clinton was advising her how to get over that statement.

But even though Hillary Clinton has not made a public announcement, it looks like she is running for the office of the President of United States. InstaPundit has the instructions on how to find that for yourself.

So it could be Clinton vs Bush again in 2004.

Update (From National Review link sent by SAS) The entry Insta�s reader found was an ID created when a draft Hillary committee registered. Dig further and you�ll find records for a draft committee in 2000, too, I believe. So, while I�m still betting the day is coming (a matter of months), when Hillary jumps in, it hasn�t happened yet. (I checked it out yesterday, after a few Corner readers emailed me the same link the cyperpunditman has up.)

Finally, Arnold is our Governor. As Jay Leno said while introducing Arnold last night, the state will from now be called "Cah-Le-Fawn-Ya" and groping would be legalized.

Gov. Davis had hiked the car tax 300%. One of the first acts the new Gov. would perform would be to repeal the car tax raise. Gov. Davis had signed a bill allowing illegal immigrants to get drivers licence (talk about appeasing a vote bank). The new Gov. would repeal that too. He had campaigned with many ads targetting Indian Gaming. According to Arnold the Indians were not paying their "fair share" of taxes.

He also was against the Lobbyists in Sacramento who were paying the politicians to get favors. He said that since he is rich, he would not have to pander to them.

So guess who all will be against him when he comes up for re-election.

Another job Arnold should do is find the 9716 people who voted for the Adult Actress Book Review: PakistanCarey and expel them to Las Vegas.

We come back after our vacation and find that it's fire all around us.

Since it began Tuesday, the fire in the foothills of San Bernardino County has damaged or destroyed seven homes, said Bill Peters, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry. About 1,700 people had been evacuated, according to county sheriff's spokeswoman Sandy Fatland.

We live about 40 miles away from San Bernadino and Rancho Cucumonga. The sky is filled with smoke and the sun was not visible during daytime yesterday. Actually while driving back from Las Vegas, we saw this fire on the mountains and did not think much about it. Forest fires are common here during summer. This one seems to be out of control now and houses are being destroyed.

Now there are more fires burning. Some fires have combined together and are causing massive destruction. Gray Davis has declared emergency in two counties. There have been atleast 11 deaths so far. Out of that two people died in the car trapped in flames. 500 homes have been destroyed.

We were out doing groceries and the sun was up, but it was burning through the smoke which has filled the sky. So the sun has an orange color, like during sunset.

All local channels are now providing round the clock coverage and that's the only thing we are watching.

Couple of weeks back, here in Los Angeles, we were surrounded by fire. Today it is flood.

Powerful thunderstorms rumbled across Southern California Wednesday evening, hammering central Los Angeles and surrounding communities with torrential downpours that flooded roads and buildings and with lightning strikes that knocked out electrical power.

The rain today reminded me of the monsoons. There was thunder and lightning and I got a free car wash.

And how is this job market going to pick up ? It is going to start with a trickle. People are so frustrated with their jobs now that if a better one comes, a lot of people are going to quit.

Consider, for example, that more than eight in 10 workers plan to look for a new job when the economy heats up, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Professionals. While there's a difference between looking for a new gig and actually jumping ship, that kind of number is "very, very high," says SHRP spokesman Frank Scanlon.

And why are so many people going to quit ?

Many employees are overworked, stressed out, fed up -- and eager to quit their jobs once the economy picks up. In fact, worker angst is so pronounced that it has surprised even the most tuned-in human resource professionals.

The threat of pink slips has prompted plenty of people to work scared and to give everything to their jobs. Overtime isn't that uncommon anymore. Nearly 40 percent of all workers spend at least 50 hours on the job per week.

As people quit, vacancies will be created. People will be moving around. Dow is now at 9,848.83 and Nasdaq at 1,973.11. Dow is soon going to go beyond 10,000 and Nasdaq above 2000. Since the American stock market is emotional, once these numbers are crossed, there will be some exhuberance, more spending and more hiring. Already, the job market is picking up.

Call this wishful thinking if you want. But don't forget to thank me for predicting this, if it all comes true.

The day after Thanksgiving is the craziest day in United States. That day stores offer crazy deals and the whole country goes bonkers

A mob of shoppers rushing for a sale on DVD players trampled the first woman in line and knocked her unconscious as they scrambled for the shelves at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Patricia VanLester had her eye on a $29 DVD player, but when the siren blared at 6 a.m. Friday announcing the start to the post-Thanksgiving sale, the 41-year-old was knocked to the ground by the frenzy of shoppers behind her.

My Thanksgiving shopping consisted of going to Best Buy in the morning, finding that the whole world is inside, walking out immediately and going back to sleep.

So I survived yet another earthquake. It happened at about 11 am today and I felt like I was feeling dizzy as the building was shaking. It lasted just a few seconds, but people lost lives.

So this year I have survived fire, flood and earthquake.

After working as an investigative reporter for 36 years William Gaines retired to teach jouranlism at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. One of the assignments he gave his students was to find the identity of Deep Throat of Watergate fame.

Many attempts had been made before to find the identity of this person. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have said that they will not reveal the identity of this person till his death. So it has been all speculation so far.

The strategy taken by Gaines' students was to search information to find out who all were present in Washington during the time Deep Throat met the jouranlists. Also from analysing the information, they concluded that only a member of FBI or White House would have access to the information which was revealed.

Finally, they narrowed it down to one person. Fred Fielding, an attorney and assistant to White House chief legal counsel John Dean.

As far as we could determine, Fielding shared Deep Throat?s taste for cigarettes and whisky. He had access to information that Deep Throat corroborated for Woodward and Bernstein. And as student Robert Breslin found in 2002, Fielding even fit a characterization of the mysterious source that Woodward and Bernstein deleted from that early, unpublished draft of their book. The reporters wrote that Deep Throat was "perhaps the only person in government in a position to possibly understand the whole scheme and not be a potential conspirator himself."

[via Smithsonian]

Few months back I wrote saying that Dow will cross 10,000 and Nasdaq, 2000 and soon the economy will change. Both the indices crossed these round figures in December. In 2003, the economy was improving, but it was a jobless recovery. But one of the forecasts is that soon jobs will be created

Still, the stronger growth will add about 1 million new jobs to the US economy, estimates Mark Zandi of Economy.com, an economic website. This will help to recoup some of the 2.4 million jobs that have been lost since February 2001, when unemployment started moving up. If things go well, "we'll get half those jobs back," says Mr. Zandi, who adds that there are still 8 million unemployed workers.

Already stock prices of many companies are going upto levels not seen in two years and I hope this will encourage the management to make more investments in product development.

Do workers strike in capitalist countries ? How do they end ? Do workers get what they want or do evil corporations get to run over them ?

For the past 4.5 months about 70,000 employees of grocery stores like Safeway, Albertsons and Kroger have been on strike, standing outside the stores with sign boards and requesting shoppers to shop elsewhere.

Under the terms of the three-year agreement, current union members will not have to make any contributions toward their health care plan premiums in the first two years and will only need to pay between $5 to $15 in the third year if health care contributions in reserves are not sufficient to cover the costs.

But the contract creates a second, lower tier of supermarket employees who will receive less pay and inferior benefits. New supermarket hires will have to pay about $9 a week for a basic health care plan and will make less than the average wages of $12 to $14. [via Forbes]

But now it seems like the offer that the employees are accepting is the same one they rejected when the strike started.

Morning radio will soon lose one of its most familiar news anchors. Bob Edwards, who for nearly 25 years has greeted millions of weekday listeners with the distinctive and richly toned opener "This is 'Morning Edition' from NPR News," is being replaced as host of that flagship morning program.

Edwards said he found out early this month that he was being reassigned. "I was called into an office, and they said, 'We're making a change,"' he said. "You get a line like that, and I guess you should come back with some snappy rejoinder. But of course I did not. I was very surprised." [via Seattle PI]

This is one voice I will miss. In American Media, where anchors try to hog the limelight, promote themselves and pay little attention to news, Bob was different. I liked his style of interviewing where he would be very brief with the question and let the other person tell the story. I cannot imagine the line "This is Morning Edition from NPR News" in a different voice.

Yesterday there was a public talk by Sri Sri Ravishankar at UCLA. He was talking about a visit he had from some 130 Naxalites. He had a talk with them, made them do meditation and after a few days they went back and made around 8000 of them surrender.He described Naxalites as "terrorists with communist ideology". Now they have have laid down arms and switched to agriculture. Now maybe Sri Sri should talk to the Resident Idiot.

One of the questions from the audience was: What was his advice to President Bush. He replied, "You should try all options before taking the stick. But there are some people in the world who only understand the stick."

Thomas Friedman had an article in New York Times expressed his concern that America is losing its competitive edge to countries like China and India.

First, one of America's greatest assets, its ability to skim the cream off the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world and bring them to our shores to innovate, will be diminished, and that in turn will shrink our talent pool. And second, we could lose a whole generation of foreigners who would normally come here to study, and then would take American ideas and American relationships back home. In a decade we will feel that loss in America's standing around the world.

But now American Universities too are alarmed by the reducing number of foreign students.

This year, foreign applications to graduate schools in the United States have fallen by 32 per cent with applications from China, India and western Europe showing a dramatic drop. The decline is raising concerns that the US could lose a longtime source of competitive advantage in research, science and engineering. The danger, some argue, is also that the US is forfeiting its successful tradition of educating and befriending the world's brightest students and probable future leaders.

Intel CEO Andy Grove is also expressing concerns on this and explains that people should not surprised outsourcing is happening

We have to fix our education system. We have to invest more in R&D. And we have to be more consistent about our infrastructure if we want to be competitive. If you have a worse education, a worse infrastructure, and you spend less of your gross domestic product on R&D, what makes you think you should be in a pre-eminent position?

In countries which are now offering competition to United States, education is considered very important. These countries also offer an economic advantage in terms of reduced expenses and the natural outcome of this is outsourcing of not just call centers and software development, but also of R&D. If United States has to address this issue, it has to look deeper and find the cause of the problem and not waste energy by blaming India.

The Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal is getting murkier

For one thing, the scandal is not just limited to six people - as House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter repeatedly insisted on Capital Report last night. His "six" doesn't seem to include the soldier who, according to the one report, had sex with a female prisoner. Nor does it seem to include the two people cited in General Taguba's report who work for two private companies - CACI and Titan - and apparently participated in interrogations.

Moreover, the whole issue of contractor involvement in interrogations has stirred up a hornet's nest on Capitol Hill. These contractors are not subject to the military justice system. They cannot be subject to court martial. So how exactly, some members of Congress want to know, will they be held accountable for their actions? [From CNBC Capitol Report Mailing List]

But will Donald Rumsfeld quit over this ? The answer is: No.

Tom Friedman in NY Times

Mr. Bush needs to invite to Camp David the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the heads of both NATO and the U.N., and the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. There, he needs to eat crow, apologize for his mistakes and make clear that he is turning a new page.

Followed by Little Green Footballs

Thomas Friedman demands that Donald Rumsfeld be fired, and maybe the entire Pentagon along with him. He says it?s the only way to restore our honor. After laying waste to our military command, Friedman proposes that President Bush invite to Camp David the UN Security Council, and the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, and grovel before them in abject shame, wearing sackcloth, rubbing ashes into his hair, and weeping.

but at the end of the day

President Bush said on Thursday that he was sorry for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, but vowed that the man in charge of the United States military, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, would remain in his job. Mr. Bush expressed his regrets in the White House Rose Garden at the side of King Abdullah II of Jordan after they met in the Oval Office. The president, who had deplored the abuse but stopped short of an apology in Arab television interviews on Wednesday, appeared to direct his words to the king as the leader of an Arab nation.

The former First Lady Nancy Reagan has come out in support of Stem Cell Research. This must be shocking to the Republican party.

Former first lady Nancy Reagan endorsed stem cell research Saturday night and made an impassioned call for taking the controversial procedure out of the political arena, saying it could help cure illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease, which afflicts her husband. Such research is generally opposed by political conservatives and many antiabortion groups, because it involves the destruction of days-old human embryos. President Bush signed an executive order in 2001 limiting research to existing embryonic stem cell lines.

When it affects someone you love so much, your ideology can take a "U" turn.

Scientists in United States are falling behind researchers in other countries as they cannot use Federal money to study certain stem cells. But states like California and New Jersey have passed laws encouraging stem-cell research.

In United States, if any state takes any money from the Federal Government for sex-education in schools, then they are supposed to teach only sexual abstinence (due to Catholic beliefs ?) and should not provide any information on contraception. California, the state everyone hates, refused to take federal money and started teaching about contraception.

In briefings Thursday for House offices and today for Senate staffers, the California Wellness Foundation, which runs a statewide teen pregnancy initiative, said the state's teen birth rate had dropped from 11th highest in the country in 1991 to 21st place in 2002.

Brindis, citing figures from the state Department of Health Services, said the teen birth rate fell from 73 to 41.1 per 1,000 youths between the ages of 15 and 19. That drop exceeded the 30 percent decline in the national rate between 1991 and 2002, and put the state slightly below the national teen birth rate of 43 per 1,000.

And interestingly, the shift to this comprehensive plan was started under the Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

Newsweek has a new poll in which John Kerry is leading ahead of George Bush by 7 points.

Coming out of the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Sen. John Kerry now holds a seven-point lead over President George W. Bush (49 percent to 42 percent) in a three-way race with independent Ralph Nader (3 percent), according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll The poll was taken over two nights, both before and after Kerry's acceptance speech. Respondents who were queried after Kerry's Thursday night speech gave the Democrat a ten-point lead over Bush. Three weeks ago, Kerry�??s lead was three points.

But then this was Kerry's week. If he did not make this much gain it would have been a shame. But then the President also stayed away from the limelight. But here is an interesting observation

For the first time in the NEWSWEEK poll, as many voters strongly back Kerry as strongly back Bush (31 percent to 30 percent). In an election expected to be decided by a small number of unaffiliated voters, independents now lean toward Kerry by a margin of 45 percent to 39 percent, with Nader pulling 7 percent. And voters are becoming more likely to predict a Kerry victory in November: Forty-four percent say Kerry will win vs. 43 percent who predict Bush.[via Newsweek]

One of President Bush's characterization of his opponent Senator John Kerry is as a flip flopper. The Republicans have been repeating it like a mantra in all occasions. So in a world of sound bytes, all that matters is words like "fuzzy math", or "flip flopper". Richard Cohen has an article in the Washington Post asking who is the real flip flopper ?

Bush also declared himself a determined unilateralist, kissing off treaties and understandings and even spurning NATO's help in Afghanistan. Now, though, the unilateralist of old is sending Colin Powell around the world, seeking alms and arms for Iraq. Flip-flop.
Bush would not negotiate with North Korea. He did. Flip-flop.
Bush told the United Nations to butt out of Iraq. Now he wants it in. Flip-flop. [Washington Post]

One of the areas where President Bush and Senator Kerry disagree entirely is on the funding for Stem Cell Reasearch. Like the ancient Church, which opposed new scientific discoveries because it did not go well with the religious laws, the President has been using his religious beliefs to stop Federal Funding for Stem Cell Research.

The problem with this is that other countries like Britain who are not tied by such rightwing thoughts are issuing licences to allow their researchers to use cloning techniques to produce stem cells.Soon other countries would be much ahead of United States in finding cures to diseases. The positions held by the President is not supported by members of the Republican Party. Few months back, former First Lady, Nancy Reagan had come out in support of Stem Cell Research

In an election year, it is no surprise that John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, has sought to take advantage. He says he will end the Bush administration�??s �??battle against science�?�, including its ban on federal funding for stem cells, and claims support from 48 Nobel laureates. He also has some cross-party support. Some 58 of America�??s 100 senators, including Mr Kerry and a number of prominent Republicans, signed a letter to Mr Bush urging him to reverse the funding ban. And at July�??s Democratic convention Ron Reagan, son of the former president and Republican hero Ronald Reagan (who died in June after a long battle with Alzheimer�??s), made a passionate speech in favour of stem-cell research: �??How�??d you like to have your own personal biological repair kit standing by at the hospital? Sound like magic? Welcome to the future of medicine.�?� His mother, Nancy Reagan, also supports stem-cell research.[Economist]

Mrs. Bush is surely right that some advocates of stem cell research leave the impression that cures may be just around the corner, whereas virtually all experts agree it will be a long, hard slog, with success by no means guaranteed. Yet there seems little doubt that the slog will be all the harder if the federal government, traditionally the main driving force in basic biomedical research, hangs back from the field. The president's policy limits federal funding to research on some 20 stem cell lines that existed three years ago. That makes it harder for scientists to do research on dozens of other stem cell lines that have since been created with private funds, including new lines that reflect genetic diseases not present in the Bush-approved lines. The Bush policy also rules out research on stem cells that are genetically matched to a patient, the avenue that will now be explored by the British while American researchers' hands are tied.[New York Times]

Discovery Times Channel had a program on the rising anti-American feeling in the world. The program was Thomas L. Friedman reporting from the Arab world, asking students and intellectuals why 19 young people decided to take the lives of 3000 innocent civilians in United States.

Most people said it was because of the US support for Israel and other dictators in the Arab world. According to one student, everyone was shocked when Sept 11 happened in America but it happens everyday in the Arab world. According to Friedman, Arab countries are suffering from the poverty of dignity and humiliation is a very powerful force in international relations.

Another student mentioned that Americans tend to view Arabs and Middle East with terrorism, for which Friedman replies that it was not 19 Norwegians who attacked us on Sept 11th. Also it is not as if the terrorists are illiterate and poor people. Mohammed Atta was an educated Arab, who wanted to be a town planner. He was a normal person, till he moved to Europe where he got radicalized in a mosque in Hamburg.

This brings to the question of understanding the relations of immigrants in European countries. Friedman travels to Belgium which has been in the middle of a stormy relation between Muslim immigrants and natives. The natives complain that the immigrants fail to assimilate to the society and the immigrants complain that they are humiliated by their hosts. The radical mosques in these countries take advantage of the desparation of the immigrants turn them into terrorists. It was the same way Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was released by India in Khandahar became a terrorist according to Bernard Henri Levy in Who Killed Daniel Pearl?

Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary:

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rusmfeld has said Iraq's scheduled January elections might not take place in areas of that country where violence remains rampant. Rumsfeld told a U.S. Senate committee yesterday that the elections might only extend to 75 to 80 percent of Iraq due to heavy violence in the rest of the country. But he said such an election, while imperfect, would still be better than nothing.

The No. 2 official at the State Department said Friday that the elections planned for January in Iraq must be "open to all citizens," contradicting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who has suggested that voting might not be possible in the more-violent areas.

"We're going to have an election that is free and open and that has to be open to all citizens. It's got to be our best effort to get it into troubled areas as well," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told a House committee Friday, after being asked about Rumsfeld's words.

Few days back, I had watched Outfoxed, a documentary about the absolutely pathetic Fox News Channel, which still maintains the slogan "Fair and Balanced". Joshua Micah Marshall caught Fox fabricating John Kerry quotes. Later Fox apologized for its mistake.

�??Carl [Cameron] made a stupid mistake which he regrets. And he has been reprimanded for his lapse in judgment. It was a poor attempt at humor.�?�

So the Fox reporter covering the Kerry campaign puts together this Kerry-bashing parody right out of the RNC playbook with phony quotes intended to peg him as girlish fool and somehow it found its way on the Fox website as a news item.

Imagine that.[Caught Red Handed]

President Bush in the first debate mentioned that United States would have an all volunteer army. Then I was watching an interview of Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont with Tim Russert where he told candidly that a draft is unavoidable given the current circumstances. Now the NY Times has an article about it.

More than one-third of nearly 3,900 former soldiers mobilized under a special wartime program have resisted their call-ups. The Army National Guard fell nearly 10 percent short of its 2004 recruiting goal of 56,000 enlistees. The Army, concerned about recruiting, has eased some standards. And there have been bipartisan calls in Congress to expand the Army by more than 20,000 soldiers.

Just months ago, Pentagon officials suggested that a new draft could be avoided if recruitment and retention numbers stayed high. But as fighting in Iraq escalates, signs are growing that those numbers may not be adequate in the coming years. Thus, the new talk about a draft. [The Option Nobody's Pushing. Yet]

Last night I attended a talk by Rajeev Srinivasan, Rediff Columnist, at Stanford University on India's competitive advantage.

First he talked about what a great past India had, when there were great accomplishments in Mathematics, Medicine, education etc. Even as near as 1750, before colonialism set in, India had 25% of world trade. There was a school in each village and India was enjoying the fruits of globalization.

But then after Independence, Rajeev says that India fell into the Nehruvian Growth Rate of less than 5% due to the policies of the Governments which did not make infrastructure investments and popularized the licence-raj. The bureaucrats were spending more time telling people what they could not do.

To make India prosperous, we have to promote the advantages India has and for that we have to promote what he calls "Brand India". As a case study he said, it is good to study how the Japanese entered the US Markets. Also there is a need to improve infrastructure and the legal framework.

There is lot of fear in India regarding multinations assuming that Indian companies would not be able to compete with them. But then he said that Indian companies can definitely adapt to the circumstances. He told the cases of Aravind Eye Clinic and the Japur Foot, both of whom are providing world class services at low rates. He also mentioned about the my home state of Kerala, where they have packaged Ayurveda and Tourism and created a industry which is providing employment to many people.

He then compared India against United States and China offering the pluses and minuses. One of the biggest problem with Indians is inferiority complex. But as the IT industry has shown, India can survive in a globalized world. In the past India has survived in a globalized world and it can again.

I have been reading Rajeev's columns for long time and this is the first time I saw him and heard him talk and I have to say, I like his columns better. But I appreciate the fact that he has taken time to put a comprehensive view of India from cultural, economic and historical angle. But to spread Brand India he will have to reach to a wider audience, especially non-Indians.

For those of you who wonder, how he looks like, here is a picture. For people in Bay Area, there is another talk on Oct 7th at the University of California, Berkeley.