Discovery Times Channel had a documentary investigating the the roots of 9/11 and as part of that project they visited a madrassa in Indonesia. The children in the school, thought that Jews were behind 9/11 and America was out to destroy Islam. But when asked if they would like to study in United States, they said yes.
Now if a madrassa educated Islamic student comes to Kansas, he will find that they teach the same stuff he wanted to avoid. Kansas Education Board wants to teach Bible as science and creationism instead of evolution. Kansas has been desparately trying to go back to Biblical times since 1999 and now Darwin’s theory is not being challenged in scientific papers, but in a Kansas court. This is a time when scientists and engineers from India and China are competing with Americans for their jobs and Bill Gates is complaining about American Education.
Now if you think this is bad, Pharmacists around the country are not giving certain medication to people, because of their religious beliefs.
Links
Indranil’s parents went to Kashmir recently and he has some pictures on flickr.
Srijith taught me that, the reason they ask you to switch off cell phones on aircrafts is not because they interfere with the plane’s communication equipment, but because it interferes with mobile networks on the ground.
Ratheesh Krishna Vadyar finds people yelling em pee three, em pee three (April 29th entry) in Palakkad Railway Station. Along with chaaaya and kaaapi, you also get MP3 film songs.
Twenty Onwards has the review of the new Tom Friedman book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century.
Does the future belong to China ? Fareed Zakaria’s cover story in Newsweek.
Not in transit
Whenever Western diplomats and leaders want to visit India, they book a ticket to Islamabad with a stopover in New Delhi. They spend a day in Delhi and visit their cherished destination and then make some statements insulting India. Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Kofi Annan, all have done that. But there are some people who are now visiting India, whose final destination is not Pakistan.
The international president of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, is scheduled to visit India next week amid signs the government may soon lift a ban on foreign investment in the retail industry.
Menzer’s visit comes on the heels of another visit by a U.S. company eyeing opportunities in India: Walt Disney Co. (Research) officials met with the Indian president and prime minister just a few weeks ago.
Local media reports said Disney’s top officials — Chief Executive Michael Eisner and CEO-elect Robert Iger — had lobbied for land for a theme park. But Disney denied the reports, saying in a statement the meetings were to “explore and discuss future opportunities for Disney in the burgeoning market of India.” [Wal-Mart paying visit to India]
What we need is visits by such people whose final destination is India.
Appease everyone
Once my father called up on Good Friday and I was at work and he wondered why it was not a holiday in United States which is a Christian majority country. I explained the absence of religious holidays here.
There was something puzzling about the Indian government’s decision to declare a three-day state mourning for Pope John Paul II, Karol Jozef Wojtyla. Did it try to appear more Christian than Christians, or more “secular” than the rest? I am all for showing respect to the dead, irrespective of their creed, faith or colour. However, the Indian government’s decision raises some interesting questions. Did it declare a state mourning because the Pope was a head of state?
Does the death of a sovereign of an artificial state of less than 1,000 people deserve it? Vatican is a “state” whose head, the Pope, is elected by an electoral college consisting of 117 voting cardinals
Sorry, no voting rights for you
It was too early to cheer on the topic of women’s voting rights in Kuwait. The Prime Minister as well as the chief of state wanted women to vote and stand for elections. But the conservatives did not agree and voted down the proposal
Women’s participation in politics has been a divisive issue in Kuwait for years, and in recent months has grown heated as advocates for women, backed by international pressure, appeared to make strides. Bahrain, Qatar and Oman have all held elections in recent years, and all have allowed women to vote.
Kuwait’s elected Parliament exercises a great deal of control over the government. But while the Kuwaiti Constitution gives equal rights to men and women, the country’s election law bars women, along with men in the police and military, from voting. That limits the voting base to only 15 percent of the total population of 950,000 Kuwaitis.
Women would essentially double that base, and redraw the country’s political map in the process. But conservative and tribally backed members of Parliament say Islam and Kuwaiti custom bar women from holding that much power.
“The parliaments of most other Muslim countries don’t have as much power as we do,” said Waleed al-Tabtabae, head of Parliament’s human rights committee and a fervent opponent of the measure. “We have no problem with women voting, but we do have a problem with women standing for elections. Islam dictates that the head of the nation must be a man, and we are technically the head of the nation here.” [Lawmakers Block Women From Voting in Kuwait]
If Islam dictates that the head of the nation must be a man, then did Pakistan and Bangladesh commit un-Islamic acts ?
One more reason to outsource
Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria is a new program on PBS which aims to bring serious foreign affairs discussion on TV. Fareed Zakaria is a writer and does not have the noise making capability of Chris Matthews, which is required for American TV. As a result the program though strong in content, is painful to watch.
In the last program he mentioned that Detroit is no longer the No.1 car manufacturing joint in North America. That position goes to Ontario, Canada. The reason for this is the rising health costs for workers in United States and GM mentioned this as one of the reasons for the loss they suffered this quarter. The other reason is that GM is still making gas guzzlers, while people are looking for high mileage cars.
Richard Wagoner, GM chairman and chief executive officer, said during a speech in Detroit last week that, when it comes to healthcare, Americans spend more and get less than any other industrialized nation.
“In the U.S., healthcare costs are rising at an annual rate of 14 percent to 18 percent and already account for 15 percent of our gross domestic product – 50 percent higher than the next most expensive country,” Wagoner said during a speech at the annual Auto Tech conference in Detroit.
“The worst part of all this is that these very high costs don’t necessarily buy the best healthcare,” Wagoner added. “If our cars performed at the same quality levels as our medical system, nobody would buy our cars,” he said.[Bush, Kerry: Where Do They See Cars? ]
United States has so many companies offering healthcare and if there is competition the prices should reduce. But Canada with its National Healthcare system is able to provide healthcare for all its citizens for a much cheaper price and so American companies are forced to outsource to reduce the costs.
She is not dumb
Associated Press interviews Paris Hilton
AP: Do you read blogs?
Hilton: What’s that?
AP: Um, they’re these things on the Internet where people write about news and stuff.
Hilton: No, I don’t really read anything on the Internet except my AOL mail. I don’t like people who sit on computers all day long and write about people they don’t know anything about.
AP: Paris, you just described my job.[Paris Hilton Yearning for Simpler Life]
That pretty much describes this blog too!
Need more geeks
One of America’s most important entrepreneurs recently gave a remarkable speech at a summit meeting of our nation’s governors. Bill Gates minced no words. “American high schools are obsolete,” he told the governors. “By obsolete, I don’t just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed and underfunded. … By obsolete, I mean that our high schools – even when they are working exactly as designed – cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.
“Training the work force of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today’s computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. … Our high schools were designed 50 years ago to meet the needs of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st century, we will keep limiting – even ruining – the lives of millions of Americans every year.” [‘What, Me Worry?’]
Bill Gates thinks a cap on H1-B is a bad thing for United States, as more smart people is needed here and the American education system is not able to produce enough of them. With sufficient lobbying H1-B cap can always be increased and more and more engineers can be imported, even though many of them now prefer to stay back. This will solve the problem for now in hi-tech field.
Many defence contractors are now facing the problem of baby boomers retiring and not being able to find their replacements. To work in defence companies you need to be an American Citizen with clearance. H1-B’s do not qualify for that and such jobs cannot be outsourced. So the solution in the long run for the security of America as a nation is to strengthen its education system and get to a point where being a geek is considered “cool”.
Not for the family
Mammotty is one of the finest actors of Malayalam Cinema. He has been around for a quarter of a century and is still acting in movies which are superhits. He is also a Communist and the chairman of the Communist Party of India Marxist-backed Kairali television channel. Once he was to act in a Coke commercial for a renumeration of Rs. 20 million, but backed off at the last moment, because the Communists were against Coke at that time. (The Communists were with Coke before that).
Where do you think the kids of such a staunch supporter of the party are living ? His daughter is in United Kingdom and the son is in United States – both symbols of imperialism according to the Communist party. But then Communism is always for the masses, and not for the family.
AQ Khan's India Connection
Terry Gross had an interview with David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, D.C on the topic of nuclear proliferation and AQ Khan in particular. In the interview (click on the listen button), he makes a statement that India was one of the beneficiaries of the Khan network.
Now pause for a second and understand that the seriousness of that statement. a) Khan worked on the nuclear program for Pakistan to defend itself against India and now the same Khan has sold technology to India and b) India bought things in the black market for its nuclear program. Albright says, it was a Khan associate in South Africa, who sold some items to India’s gas centrifuge program and probably Khan was not aware of this, but somehow Albright seems to be aware of it. The justification was, Khan’s associates were motivated by money and not ideology.
But then Khan too was not motivated much by ideology, for he was willing to sell to anyone willing to pay. The customers did not even have to be Islamic states (North Korea), but Islamic states and organizations got preferential treatment. Terry asked him if the Pakistani Govt was involved in all this and why Khan was given such a lenient punishment. Albright replies that Khan stuck a deal with Musharraf and said he would not implicate anyone above him, and in return he and his associates would not be harmed. The claim of Pakistani Govt. not knowing about Khan’s activities is a lie as the deal with North Korea was between the two Governments.
Albright also thinks that North Korea is a “logical” country.